China-Australia Relations and China's Policy Choices toward Australia: A Chinese Perspective

Since 2016, Australia's attitude toward China has taken a turn for the worse, and Sino-Australian relations have seen a significant decline. With regard to the change in Australia's attitude toward China, Chinese scholars initially analyzed it mainly from the perspective of the U.S.Australia alliance and the China-U.S.-Australia triangle, viewing U.S. influence as the key reason for the change in Australia's policy toward China. Later, Chinese scholars have become increasingly aware of the significant policy autonomy in Australia's China policy and the inadequacy of viewing Australia's China policy from the U.S. perspective. On the one hand, Australia's unique threat perception and interest perception have shaped the characteristics of its China policy;on the other hand, how to effectively balance security interests and economic interests is a long-standing dilemma faced by Australia under the strategic competition between China and the U.S. The Australian government has shown a degree of policy flexibility in its approach. The limited coercive economic measures taken by China against Australia have sent clear policy signals to Australia and have become a factor influencing its policy towards China. In the coming period, although no obvious opportunity for improvement in China-Australia relations is in sight, both sides may be more prudent and pragmatic strategically, and China-Australia relations can be expected to remain basically stable at a low level.

Vitalizing Partnerships: Moving Forward to a Sustainable Future

Addressing these issues requires concerted efforts and collaboration from stakeholders across countries, disciplines, and institutions. [...]the UN 2030 Agenda asked for transformation of global economies in line with social and environmental demands expressed in the Agenda's 17 goals and sub-goals (https://sdgs.un.org/goals). [...]the SANORD 2021 conference endeavoured to engage participants innovatively and positively in rethinking their roles and contributions towards sustainable development. According to Nietzsche (1966), people always act out of their self-interest in every field;he posited that each individual action is driven by people's vested interests in the game of life because they have a will to power.

RE-CONFIGURING SOUTH AFRICAN PATENT LAWS IN SEARCH OF AN AFROCENTRIC APPROACH FOR EXPANDING ACCESS TO ESSENTIAL PATENTED MEDICINES IN THE COVID-19 ERA

In an effort to fight the epidemiological health crisis precipitated by COVID-19, South Africa has declared a state of national disaster under the Disaster Management Act 52 of 2002 enabling the government to lawfully impose lockdowns and take other necessary measures. This article argues that for South Africa to succeed in overcoming the said crisis as well as the other pandemics facing the country, there is a need to re-configure the country 's patent laws based on an Afrocentric approach to expanding access to essential medicines. It contends that South Africa's current patent laws are based on problematic theories of intellectual property law largely steeped in a Eurocentric regulatory construct which advances neo-colonial economic interests contrary to the country's desperate need to ensure access to essential medicines. The article argues for acceptance of justificatory indigenous and communalistic theories that enable the enactment of intellectual property rights anchored on the philosophy of Ubuntu as supplementary to some of the extant western individualistic notions currently underpinning patents on essential medicines. Such a humanising approach, together with other complimentary measures, has the potential to re-orient and re-engineer the concept of patents on essential medicines and the concomitant regulatory framework thereby promoting access to medicines in the COVID-19 era and beyond.