This chapter explores the impact of conflict on the issue of statelessness in Asia using a case study centred on the Kuomingtang (KMT) soldiers and their descendants in northern Thailand. The case study examines the historical background of the KMT Secret Army and conducts legal and policy analysis on relevant countries including the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Republic of China (RoC) and Thailand. These analyses shed light on how the group became stateless. The chapter scrutinizes the nationality laws of each country linked to the case study and the practical implementation of these laws and offers observations on the statelessness phenomenon. The case study demonstrates that violent conflicts may lead to de jure statelessness or place people at risk of statelessness due to the loss of a sense of national belonging and legal identity documents as by-products of violent conflict; that (re)gaining citizenship of a country might not be easy as relevant laws change and the operation of laws become too difficult for vulnerable groups to manage; and that the long-lasting political consequences of conflict continue to influence state practice in the case of both PRC and RoC, regardless of the group’s rights under their respective nationality laws.

This chapter explores Schopenhauer’s views of the political systems in North America, Europe, and China. Schopenhauer understood the United States as a modern republic geared toward maximum individual freedom. He also took note of its high levels of interpersonal violence. Importantly, he repeatedly returned to US slavery as the most egregious example of institutionalized exploitation and brutality. In his treatment of the United States, he then connected republicanism to slavery and concluded that they were tightly associated. Schopenhauer’s argument against American republicanism does not, however, suggest that he endorsed traditional European monarchies. Against both North America and Europe, Schopenhauer instead held up the example of China as an advanced state that was hierarchical and imperial and yet resolutely nontheist. For Schopenhauer, China combined political stability and peacefulness with a philosophically sound atheism and thus demonstrated the realization of his political and his philosophical ideals.

Homeowner self-governance constitutes a form of basic democracy, which means collective self-government without committing to conventional liberal values, and poses a tricky dilemma for the party-state. On the one hand, it can relieve the party-state of the burden of trying to govern hundreds of thousands of complex neighborhood problems that, if badly handled, could undermine the party’s legitimacy simply through incompetence. On the other hand, independent civic organizations may threaten the party leadership both within and beyond residential neighborhoods.

This chapter turns to the accounts of the campaigns of the Spring and Autumn Period (771–476 BC), followed by those of the Warring States Period (475–221 BC) that ended with the creation of the first imperial state in China in 221 BCE, and finally the campaigns that created, maintained, lost, restored and then permanently lost the Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220). War for rulers, generals and statesmen required them to devise and execute strategies that were not ideal, often failed, and seldom accommodated higher moral values. This reality was portrayed clearly in most of the histories, even in the stylised and moralised anecdotes that are often all that is left to us.

The strategy of the Mongol Empire underwent four basic phases. The first centered on the rise and creation of the Yeke Monggol Ulus (Great Mongol State/Nation) by Chinggis Khan and the Mongols’ irruption from the steppes. The second phase was the formulation of a coherent strategy of conquest during the reign of Ögödei Qa’an. While this was derived from the campaigns of Chinggis Khan, it sought to maximise the deployment of the empire’s military on multiple fronts while simultaneously not overextending the resources of the empire. This further evolved into a third phase during the reign of Möngke Qa’an, who, through a series of reforms, allowed the Mongols to marshal more resources. In doing so, the Mongol strategy altered as they no longer had concerns of overextending themselves. During Möngke’s reign, the Mongols truly became a juggernaut. The final phase of strategy came into formulation with the dissolution of the Mongol Empire after Möngke’s death in late 1259. As the empire split into rival states often embroiled in internecine conflict, each new state had to develop its own coherent strategy, but without the massive resources of a united empire. The Mongols conceived of pragmatic grand strategy that was viable, if not always successful, rather than simply theoretical plans.

The extant literature on the liberal commons takes as granted secure property rights, freedom of association, and the rule of law, all of which have been the exception rather than the rule throughout human history, and therefore fails to explore the origin of the liberal commons (from an illiberal regime). Authoritarianism poses a fundamental challenge to, but also an opportunity to explore the origin of, the liberal commons. This chapter defines the authoritarian commons by examining the tension between authoritarianism and the liberal commons both theoretically and in the specific context of neighborhood governance in urban China.

This chapter argues that if anti-sweatshop activists want to help workers they should specifically target and boycott slave labor sweatshops such as those in China with forced Uyghur labor; advocate and monitor “ethical branding”; buy goods made in the Third World; pay children to go to school to reduce child labor; promote the process of development; and advocate for relaxing immigration restrictions.

Chapter 17 discusses China’s Criminal Procedure Law, which provides a general cooperation obligation for all relevant entities, including service providers. As collecting data from service providers has become increasingly important in criminal investigations, the past decade has witnessed a certain number of laws, regulations and explanatory documents adopted to specify service providers’ cooperation obligations. This chapter systematically studies these provisions and summarizes the rich content of service providers’ cooperation obligations relating to collection of historical and real-time data in criminal investigations as well as in their daily operation. It also discusses future improvements to the current legislations, namely more protection of sensitive data, due process in evidence collection and criminal liability for service providers when cooperation obligations cannot be fulfilled. Based on China’s position of respecting data sovereignty, China requires data to be stored locally. Foreign LEAs can obtain data from Chinese service providers only via mutual legal assistance, and service providers in China are prohibited from providing data directly to foreign LEAs.

Most discussions of Chinese military history and Chinese strategy rely heavily, sometimes exclusively, on Sunzi’s Art of War, with the occasional inclusion of a few other works of strategy. There is, however, no evidence that Sunzi or any other abstract strategist, mythical or real, influenced the actual course of campaigns or battles. The Warring States Period (475–221 BC) was brought to a close by the success of the Qin state’s relentless campaigns to create a unified empire. This not only required a new strategic goal – the complete destruction of any subsidiary political authority – but also created a new strategic reality in the form of an empire. Neither Sunzi nor any of the other Warring States strategist had anything to say about these problems. In fact, events like the Qin massacre of a reported 450,000 men after the Battle of Changping in 260 BC, which followed a prolonged siege, seems to have run counter to strategic writing, but was tremendously effective.

This chapter will turn to the actual campaigns of the Spring and Autumn period (771–476 BC), followed by those that created the first imperial state in China in 221 BC, and finally the campaigns that created, maintained, lost, restored and then permanently lost the Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220). War required rulers, generals and statesmen to devise and execute strategies that were not ideal, often failed and seldom accommodated higher moral values. This reality was portrayed clearly in most of the histories, even in the stylised and moralised anecdotes that are often all that is left to us.

By delving into China–South Africa and China–Italy relations in the ICTs, this chapter compares two of Huawei’s smart city projects – the Open Lab launched in 2017 in Johannesburg, South Africa, and the Joint Innovation Center (JIC) launched in 2019 in Cagliari, Italy. The study assesses the extent to which these Huawei-led initiatives and their digital governance models do empower indigenous actors – that is, South African and Italian – in terms of production, access to and (re)use of data, or rather take the form of a new data-driven colonization. Findings show that while Huawei’s Open Lab tends to exclude African actors, either public or private, by favoring collaboration among foreign ICT partners, the JIC sees the collaboration between Huawei and Italian public and private actors. Huawei’s approach is modulated and adaptive to extend its corporate digital sovereignty and arrange the local communities’ digital infrastructures. Further field research should be conducted to: (1) obtain a more transparent picture of how data stemming from these initiatives is handled, by whom, and for which purposes and (2) assess the impact of the deployed smart city solutions on local citizens by foreign tech firms, including those from China.

While China’s approach of re-territorializing the cyberspace is well known, this chapter argues that there is an emerging tendency of China expanding its regulatory power beyond territorial borders, which indicates a more spatially expansive notion of China’s digital sovereignty. This chapter examines this shift from territoriality to extraterritoriality in the conception and practice of China’s digital sovereignty by focusing on three recent regulatory initiatives, that is, the Personal Information Protection Law, the Data Security Law, and the order by the Ministry of Commerce on blocking unjustified extraterritorial application of foreign legislation and measures. From these initiatives, the chapter identifies two main approaches of broadening the spatial dimension of China’s digital sovereignty and argues that they reflect how the notion of digital sovereignty is developed to incorporate China’s changing geostrategic interests. This adaptation of China’s digital sovereignty can be compared to practices of the EU and the US to observe both contrasting trends and important regulatory emulations. The trend toward extraterritoriality, while conditioned by multiple internal and external factors, is likely to face important conceptual and practical challenges.

This chapter lays the theoretical foundation for the book by disentangling the myriad discourses and interpretations of digital sovereignty from the perspective of the Global South and emerging power alliances. It argues that BRICS countries symbolize the “rise of the rest” in an increasingly multipolar world, their digital policies critical to the future shape of global internet, and digital governance. In this book, the idea of digital sovereignty itself is viewed as a site of power contestation and knowledge production. Specifically, the chapter identify seven major perspectives on digital sovereignty in a complex discursive field: state digital sovereignty, supranational digital sovereignty, network digital sovereignty, corporate digital sovereignty, personal digital sovereignty, postcolonial digital sovereignty, and commons digital sovereignty. The chapter highlights the affinities and overlaps as well as tensions and contradictions between these perspectives on digital sovereignty with brief illustrative examples from BRICS countries and beyond. While a state-centric perspective on digital sovereignty is traditionally more salient especially in BRICS contexts, increasing public concern over user privacy, state surveillance, corporate abuse, and digital colonialism has given ascendance to an array of alternative perspectives on digital sovereignty that emphasize individual autonomy, indigenous rights, community well-being, and sustainability.

The Conclusion revisits the takeaway messages of the book’s research strategy and empirical inquiry. Lawyering Imperial Encounters tells the story of the relentless hangover of the past in the present. Law remains the vernacular of Africa’s uneven and unequal relationship with the world economy precisely because it is imprinted by the past Scrambles into the continent. Foremost, law’s position as the cutting edge of Africa’s relationship with capitalism reflects legal imperialism as a core variable in the deployment of power. This is illustrated by the conversion of Hong Kong as a gateway for the expansion of Chinese business interests abroad, which builds, itself, on the globalisation of the Wall Street model of the corporate law firm.

This chapter examines Kenya's use of debt-based financial statecraft, revealing an uneven track record. It first describes how the Kenyan government diversified its portfolio of external finance with both international bonds and Chinese loans. Drawing on interviews with government and donor officials, the chapter then shows Kenya's mixed success in extracting bargaining leverage from its new sources of finance. While the Kenyan government achieved increased flexibility from donors on governance issues, it encountered greater resistance on financial management practices. The chapter highlights that donors' strategic interests in their relationship with Kenya encouraged them to be more flexible when Kenya diversified its portfolio of external finance, but that their concerns about accountability and use of funds led them to be more stringent on issues of financial management.