Sold Down The Yangtze

In Sold Down the Yangtze, investment treaty expert Gus Van Harten offers a searing critique of Canada's 31-year investment deal with China, which could end up costing taxpayers billions of dollars. The Harper Government finalized the controversial Canada--China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement in September 2014. As a warning to Canadians, Gus Van Harten describes how the agreement favours China and puts public money and democratic institutions at risk. He debunks the error-ridden claims of the agreement's promoters--from big-time media commentators to foreign investment lawyers to federal trade officials--who helped rush Canada into a long-term, lopsided deal.Van Harten also points to other massive "foreign investment" deals slated for Canada and beyond, and to the ominous power lying at the heart of them all. The thoroughly researched, rigorous argument of Sold Down the Yangtze broadcasts a troubling global trend, while offering hope and practical steps for a better, more informed future.

When legal experts finally saw the terms of the investment deal Canada had signed with China, they could hardly believe what their eyes. The deal was unprecedented -- Canada had never given so much away to a trading partner. But Ottawa did not allow a full public review, and ultimately ratified the deal in 2014 with no changes. And the government moved forward with other trade deals that contain many of the same flaws. In this book, investment treaty expert Gus Van Harten offers the first-ever independent take on the details of the China-Canada investment deal and what it means for Canadians. Many of the deal's provisions are so extreme that readers may find it almost impossible to believe that the Canadian government agreed to them. He explains how this agreement, and others like it, give multinational corporations and rich investors superpowers over governments. Secretive courts staffed by private lawyers, not judges, are able to order governments to pay these investors billions for policies and decisions they object to. In simple language and easy to follow analysis, Van Harten offers a window into this secretive and obscure world. He documents the many ways Canadians lose out in the China-Canada deal, and how taxpayers may find themselves footing the bill for billions of dollars to Chinese investors who object to the actions of democratically-elected municipal, provincial and federal governments. This deal -- in place for a minimum 15 years -- includes terms that may well turn up in other trade and investment agreements. Gus Van Harten offers practical steps for a better, more informed public debate on this vital topic.

When legal experts finally saw the terms of the investment deal Canada had signed with China, they could hardly believe what their eyes. The deal was unprecedented -- Canada had never given so much away to a trading partner. But Ottawa did not allow a full public review, and ultimately ratified the deal in 2014 with no changes. And the government moved forward with other trade deals that contain many of the same flaws. In this book, investment treaty expert Gus Van Harten offers the first-ever independent take on the details of the China-Canada investment deal and what it means for Canadians. Many of the deal's provisions are so extreme that readers may find it almost impossible to believe that the Canadian government agreed to them. He explains how this agreement, and others like it, give multinational corporations and rich investors superpowers over governments. Secretive courts staffed by private lawyers, not judges, are able to order governments to pay these investors billions for policies and decisions they object to. In simple language and easy to follow analysis, Van Harten offers a window into this secretive and obscure world. He documents the many ways Canadians lose out in the China-Canada deal, and how taxpayers may find themselves footing the bill for billions of dollars to Chinese investors who object to the actions of democratically-elected municipal, provincial and federal governments. This deal -- in place for a minimum 15 years -- includes terms that may well turn up in other trade and investment agreements. Gus Van Harten offers practical steps for a better, more informed public debate on this vital topic.

This book considers the impact of the Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP] on intellectual property and trade. The book focuses upon the debate over copyright law, intermediary liability, and technological protection measures. The text examines the negotiations over trade mark law, cybersquatting, geographical indications and the plain packaging of tobacco products. It explores the debate over patent law and access to essential medicines, data protection and biologics, and the protection of trade secrets. In addition, the book investigates the treatment of Indigenous intellectual property, access to genetic resources, and plant breeders’ rights.

A New York Times Notable Book Winner of the Kiriyama Book Prize In the heart of China's Sichuan province, amid the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, lies the remote town of Fuling. Like many other small cities in this ever-evolving country, Fuling is heading down a new path of change and growth, which came into remarkably sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident. Hessler taught English and American literature at the local college, but it was his students who taught him about the complex processes of understanding that take place when one is immersed in a radically different society. Poignant, thoughtful, funny, and enormously compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a city that is seeking to understand both what it was and what it someday will be.

The New York Times bestseller that inspired the documentary Shanghai 1937: Where World War II Began on Public Television. At its height, the Battle of Shanghai involved nearly a million Chinese and Japanese soldiers while sucking in three million civilians as unwilling spectators—and often victims. It turned what had been a Japanese imperialist adventure in China into a general war between the two oldest and proudest civilizations of the Far East. Ultimately, it led to Pearl Harbor and to seven decades of tumultuous history in Asia. The Battle of Shanghai was a pivotal event that helped define and shape the modern world. In its sheer scale, the struggle for China’s largest city was a sinister forewarning of what was in store only a few years later in theaters around the world. It demonstrated how technology had given rise to new forms of warfare and had made old forms even more lethal. Amphibious landings, tank assaults, aerial dogfights, and—most important—urban combat all happened in Shanghai in 1937. It was a dress rehearsal for World War II—or, perhaps more correctly, it was the inaugural act in the war, the first major battle in the global conflict. Actors from a variety of nations were present in Shanghai during the three fateful autumn months when the battle raged. The rich cast included China’s ascetic Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his Japanese adversary, General Matsui Iwane, who wanted Asia to rise from disunity, but ultimately pushed the continent toward its deadliest conflict ever. Claire Chennault, later of “Flying Tiger” fame, was among the figures emerging in the course of the campaign, as was First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. In an ironic twist, Alexander von Falkenhausen, a stern German veteran of the Great War, abandoned his role as a mere advisor to the Chinese army and led it into battle against the Japanese invaders. Shanghai 1937 fills a gaping chasm in our understanding of the War of Resistance and the Second World War.

It is based on the inspiring "definitions" of the word "introduction" (1651): My actions of "bringing in" a "newly" weapon (since August 1945) "brought into" the world and to its "process" of the application in "war" and with an in-depth "initiation in the knowledge" of "elementary instruction" regarding "Deterrents" and "Deterrence" thereof, which "leads to the knowledge or understanding of " the impact of both fission and fusion "nuclear weapons" on war/politics/foreign policy/strategy and the fate of the Earth/Gaia/God's Creation, thanks to my insights gained "personally" at Grove City College, the University of Chicago, U.S. Navy (Air Intelligence Officer) and State Department (Foreign Service Officer) and herewith presented as my "introduction" to the formal introduction of my halting, but determined attempts to deter a thermonuclear World War III and Armageddon too (1945-2012). Modified from "Introduction" (Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Third Edition, 1959, p. 1036)

This edited volume provides critical reflections on the interplay between politics and law in an increasingly transnationalized global political economy. It focuses specifically on the emergence and operation of new forms of governance that are developing through a variety of transnational contractual practices, institutions, and laws in multiple sectors and areas of economic activity. Interdisciplinary in nature, the volume includes contributions from law, political science, sociology, and international politics, with the focus on the political foundations of transnational contract being both original and path-breaking. Placing power at the center of the analysis, the volume reveals the heterogeneous landscape of contemporary law-making and the different kinds of politics giving rise to this form of global ordering. As the contributors note, this new form of governance requires a different type of political theory and legal theory, with the volume advancing understanding of the analytical, theoretical and normative dimensions of private transnational governance by contract, making a valuable contribution to new theory in law and politics. It will be of great interest to students and academics in law, political science, international relations, international political economy and sociology, as well as international commercial arbitration lawyers, trade and investment lawyers, and legal firms.