Study of Political Science in different cultures

Politics is largely influenced by cultural values,the culture basically decides the political affiliation for a country as a whole. For example, United States and China have fundamentally different belief and ideology when it comes to politics. What Americans sees as essential part in a political system, might not be valued as much in China. It is exactly because of that cultural differences which caused our political ideological difference, we may not be able to agree with each other on anything political and create the root of conflict. In addition, political culture and background also largely affect researchers judgement and can produce different academic result.

When it comes to political cultural difference, one of the most obvious one would be China and America. America is a country with the political culture of putting freedom and democracy first, and believe that liberty is the most important factor for politics as a whole and that individual rights are sacred. China and the Chinese people also believe that freedom and democracy is important, as this country was fighting for freedom since the end of 19th century. But, China does not see freedom and democracy as important as the Americans would see it. China as a collective society, constantly put the group as priority. If something needs to be done for the greater goods, individuals can be sacrificed. Its not the people think it's the right thing to do, but simply a necessary step for the innovation as an entire society. Now, there is the root of conflict. A lot of the Americans sees the Chinese political culture as cold-blooded and even inhuman, as the Chinese are willing to exploit the individuals necessary for the benefit of another group of people. But the Chinese also sees the American belief as naive and greedy. The American people enjoys so much freedom that it even disrupt the efficiency of the government, and sometimes because of some selfish individuals, projects that benefit the collective group need to be given up. This is the clash of the individual and collective political culture, and it largely affect how researchers conduct research.

America, because its believes in individualism, the academic environment is more tolerable compare with the one in China. However, because of the political cultural difference, the people would emotionally reject with the point of view they do not agree with, not matter how logic or how convincing it is. The work can be published, but it probably won't be popular. For example, if I write a paper on how Communist ideal and Socialist would prevail in America in 20 years. People might publish my work because the high quality of the paper, but the majority of the readers would label me as a "Commie" and simply emotionally reject why arguments in the paper. This would be same in China, the Chinese approach in politics has always been historical materialism. Basically the history tells us what is right and wrong, and there is only one solution to a problem. Which means when it comes to academic research, social science and natural science is similar in many way. When a political research is conducted, the socialist way should always be the right approach and you need to find evidence to prove it. Now, any result that is not the socialist way would be emotionally rejected not only by the people, but would also receive very limited recognition even within the professional academic sphere.

In conclusion, the cultural aspect largely influence our view on political issues. For a professional researcher, this should be avoided, but it is not always easy as sometimes it is hard to identify if we are being biased or not.

Nigeria-China Economic Relations Under the South-South Cooperation

Udeala, Samuel. "Nigeria-China Economic Relations Under the South-South Cooperation." African Journal of International Affairs 13 (2013): 71-77. African Journals Online. 2013. Web. 1 Oct. 2014. <http://www.ajol.info/>.

Udeala's source reveals one Marxist perspective of the current Sino-African relations. The author argues the exploitative nature of the Chinese presence not only in Nigeria and in all Sub-Saharan Africa. Udeala also stated China's international status and its significance in the developing world, and how China is using its status to build connections with Africa. He also provided possible solutions to strengthen a mutually beneficial relationship between China and Africa, instead of the current exploitative relationship.

In the research paper, the author first pointed out that as China adopted the capitalist ideology, it also adopted other economic concept such as unequal exchange and imperialism. The current factors that motivates the China to be involved in Africa are resource security, new market and investment opportunities, development assistance and cooperation, and forging strategic partnerships The author do not believe that China is in Africa to help the African economic but simply for its own benefit. Thus the author pointed out a Marxist economic belief which is the dependency theories. The dependency theory believe that when trade is conducted between a more developed country and a less developed country, that nature of the trade would be exploitative. The current developed world is the core and the developing world is the periphery. The core would extract resources from the periphery, so the core would always be benefited more in this trade. When a economic crisis hits, as the periphery would be in this case assumed as mostly resources based countries, would be more devastated compared to the core.  The author also provided some hard data using the example of Nigeria-China Economic relations. For example, the export of crude oil takes 90% of Nigeria's income and most of that export goes to China. More importantly, conducting international trade should help with the domestic economy, Nigeria should simply have more budget to spend. However, Nigeria always has a trade deficit by trading with China. That is mainly because Nigeria's economy is too underdeveloped, not because of resources concentrated export. Nigeria's non-oil export to China has increased throughout years but the deficit kept increasing. In another word, Nigeria has to use crude oil as the main export to sustain its economy. Other sectors might slowly grow larger, but it is still ineffective at the current stage. Other evidence provided by the author also shows that Nigeria is not benefiting much from trade with China. Some of the examples are the railroad program from China, all of the employed workers are Chinese so it does not help with the unemployment problem. The Nig-ComSat-1, which is a Communication Satellite for Nigeria built by a Chinese company has proven to have serious quality issue. The solar panel of the satellite is designed to sustain for 15 years, but it shut down itself after about 13 months, a huge waste of money.

The author provided plenty of evidence to show some of the problems of the Sino-African relations using the example of Nigeria-China economic relations. It really helps us to see the nature and essence of Sino-African relations and what might be the future of this relationship.

Dr.Hazel McFerson

Dr.Hazel McFerson is currently a professor of the School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs in George Mason University. Her expertise is focused on International law and politics, racial issues and conflict, and social problems.

Professor McFerson's scholarly work has concentrated on the relationship of different races in a community and how they interact with each other. More importantly, the role of the state in different racial conflict, either within a nation or internationally. She also focuses on gender conflict and provide in depth insight of the problems and possible solutions under different social issues or conflicts about genders in different societies.

The work of Professor McFerson does not limit just on the analysis of different issues of gender, racial, or ethnic scale but she also lay out the possible solutions to it by pointing out the root of the problems. For example, in her work of "Blacks and Asians" she talked about some of the issues between minority races in America and she cleared out a lot of the misconception on the relationship between Asians and African-Americans in United States. She indicated that it is only the media that fill us with the information of the hatred between African-Americans and the Asians. By emphasizing the conflict between different races, the media can gain more popularity and viewing rates. But we are the people that has been filled up with misinformed information. She provided another aspect of the cooperation between those two races and explained the problem with overemphasizing the issue of racial problems. She believe that overemphasize racial conflict is a inappropriate approach to examine racial relations and must analyze through scientific facts. Her analysis pointed out the root of the problem of Asian and African Americans relations, with solid facts and reasoning.

Professor McFerson also focuses on International Politics, especially on Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. She analyze some of the key social and political problems of countries in these regions in a way that does not only focus on specific events in a specific period of time, but also focus on a specific group of people and examine the influence and interaction of the two. For example, Professor McFerson's work on "Women and Post-Conflict Society in Sierra Leone" talked about how women were treated and their rights during the post conflict period of time in Sierra Leone. Her research attains a very high academic standard, social issues usually change radically after certain social and political turmoil. Her analysis successfully pointed out the significance of the conflict in Sierra Leone and clearly indicated and explained the issues of women during the post-conflict period. Not only Professor McFerson can theoretically analyze the issues, she does have plenty of field experiences. As Professor McFerson did her research relating to issues of economic recovery in the Sub-Saharan area, she observed the massive amount of co-venture between China and African nations, especially in Angola. Angola is rich in resources and eager for economic and defense assistance after the end of its civil war in 2003, and China provided those assistance in the most efficient way possible to win influence in the area. Therefore, he research do include first hand sources which is extremely valuable as a professional researcher.

Africa is Standing still but going backwards

We have probably heard a lot in the news today saying that the African economy is on the right track and has dramatically improved for the past few decades. Certainly, the coordination of the African economy did improve mainly because of less social disputes or political turmoil and of course the effort from regional and international organizations such as African Union or the United Nations to improve the economic situation of the area. However, as recent studies shown that the poverty rate in Africa today has got a lot worse compare with its poverty rate back in 1993. This is a clear sign that the past effort to stimulate African economies have failed. But China, as a new rising superpower that just start to systematically making its entry to the African economies, might actually have a solution to the problem.

When it comes to stimulating an economy, we all understand that investment is the key factor. Without investment and trade, it is very hard to boost up the economic capacity. One of the example would be China, during Chairman Mao's time, the economy was never sufficient enough to provide what they people needed. But after China opened up its economy, with its affordable labor and subsidizing policy, the economy has drastically improved. However, that method does not seem to work in Africa. Africa certain has some obvious advantages for investment, such as cheap labor and abundant resources. But Africa also has its fatal disadvantages such as lack of political and social stability and lack of reliable infrastructure. Therefore because of that, it is hard for Africa to draw enough foreign investment. This is the part where state to state interaction is very important. China comes into Africa with the intention of investment that are quite different from the West. It is important to know that the United States is still currently the largest investor in Africa, and China only came up as second last year. The United States would simply buy the oil and other natural resources and bring them home. China, on the other hand, would have large economic pact with African nations. Normally on agreement that China would be allowed to extract natural resources from a certain area, in exchange for a number of money spent on the development of a specific field in Africa, usually infrastructure. The Chinese economy has a large public sector and composes many State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) under the disposal of the Chinese government. So that gives China the advantage that the government does not need to please the private business owners and beg them to invest in Africa individually. But the government can simply give orders to its SOEs and with the collaborations between the SOEs, the Chinese government can offer a very competitive infrastructure package to the African nations that none of the Western countries can do.

In conclusion, the African nations should continue to expand its economy to avoid further economic downfall, and China is the perfect partner for Africa. Not only because China is committed in investing the natural resources in Africa, but also it can provide economic packages in the most efficient way that no Western nations seem to be able to deliver.

People's Republic of China today is the largest natural resources consumer of the world. With large consumption of the resources, the country can sustain its massive economic and ensure the rapid growth of it. Africa, with rich resources that has not been completely explored, has become the new target for China's needs of resources. China has been rapidly expanding its interest and ties with the continent of Africa recently. Many current scholars and diplomats are very suspicious of the Chinese intention in the region. The Chinese has increased its cooperation with the Africans on many levels and the most significant one is the Chinese oil interest in the area.

It is important to point out that China import about 47% of its oil from the Middles East and about 30% from Africa. But unlike Africa, Middle East is a region constantly involves in conflict. More importantly, there are too many other superpowers involved in the region that are also seeking natural resources, and many of them have already built a strategic relationship with the nations in the area before China. Africa, on the other hand, is a region that is in need of economic development. But the Western developed nations can always provide the most efficient support to these countries. China, however, can always provide the most immediate and mostly positive response to the needs of the African nations. Thus, the African nations prefer to do business with the Chinese, providing the opportunity for further economic interaction between China and Africa.

The significance of the expanding China-Africa oil ties is that oil as a strategic resources, can provide China an increased military strength. Moreover, China is using is oil ties to increase its investment in Africa. Africa, at the same time, has a very positive attitude for the investment from China. With increased business and economic interaction, there will also be more interaction at political level to generate more economic opportunities. If China and Africa is getting closer and closer internationally, would it actually form a new powerful political entity? Today, we have United States, the EU, the Russians, the Arabic world, and other superpowers. If China and Africa build up a stable alliance to face any international difficulties or opponents, its power can hardly be matched with any other current superpowers as the Sino-African alliance would have a dominant power in numbers. For example, without the support from the African nations, China would not be able to replace Taiwan to become one of the five permanent member of the UN Security Council. The number generate huge power for both China and Africa and the essential thing that might form this alliance would be the oil. Oil means further investment, further investment means more economic interaction, more economic interaction means increased political interaction, and the more political interaction generates the possibility of a Sino-African alliance. Therefore, to predict the possible future of the international politics, the Chinese oil interest in Africa is a very significant factor that cannot be overlooked.