Reasons for Regions

• Author: Jizeng Fan
• Position: Associate Professor, Law School of Shandong Institute of Business and Technology
• Pages: 17-34

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Unit 2: Reasons for Regions1

Moderator: Jizeng Fan (Associate Professor, Law School of Shandong Institute of

Business and Technology)

Ladies and gentlemen!

We have four speakers and one commentator in this panel. Professor Xiuyan Fei, the

professor from East China University of Political Science and Law, is the first speaker. She

would bring us one of her recent research findings, which initially starts from the

perspective of historical development of the Monroe Doctrine, followed by deep research

on how the former Donald Trump administration and the current Joseph Biden

administration would impact on World Trade Organization policies. In my view, it is

necessary to make a distinction between the Monroe Doctrine, unilateralism, and the Grand

Old Party’s non-interventionism from each other. The reason is that the Donald Trump

administration was significantly colored by populism. Donald Trump, as the United States

president, was bound to put the interests of the United States as its main priority. However,

Joseph Biden, a successor but a political opponent to Donald Trump, was nominated by the

Democratic Party. This is a distinguishing label that President Joseph Biden has and he

would return to Barack Obama’s policy – advocating free and multilateral trade. This may

explain why Joseph Biden cannot set aside international treaties.

The second speaker is Kuangyi Luo, a Ph.D. candidate from Wuhan University School

of Law. Her talk mainly concerns the interactions between theory and conception. It would

be useful to adopt an empirical lens as an alternative to the macro approach. The empirical

approach may be relied on as a method to consider (i) what kind of regionalism can be

achieved, (ii) will it usefully lead to globalism, or (iii) will it be affected by the global

process reversely. In my opinion, some of these questions are in a conflict with each other.

The Kadi judgment delivered by the Court of Justice of the European Union was an

apparent example in which the deficiency of the United Nations legal system was perceived

and supplemented (or fixed) by the EU Court of Justice (i.e., fundamental rights protection).

International law is recognized to be opposed to terrorism and freezes assets of the alleged

suspect, while failing to give them access to a fair trial.

The judgment indicates that the antagonism was born from the EU law being superior

to the United Nations Charter. The antagonistic scene is common with regard to the

relationship between EU law and national law. For example, the Italian Constitutional

Court would object to the application of EU law in a circumstance that the EU rules

provisions are not in line with the Italian constitution, especially those rules protecting

basic rights. A recent German constitutional judgment has confirmed that it would review

the compliance of the EU central bank’s decision with this principle.

Tong Zhang, a Ph.D. candidate from China University of Political Science and Law,

is the third speaker in this panel. At first, I thought her presentation would focus on certain

part of transnational regions, such as trans-Europe or Latin America. She actually proposes

a notion that international law shall be considered as a close-ended system, which has a

similarity to the territory in the sense of identity. Miss Zhang tries to illustrate her

1 This Unit is translated by Tingwen Yao (East China University of Political Science and Law) and Xiaofu Li

(Associate Editor of FLIA Review). Associate Professor Jizeng Fan translated his own speech. The translation

has been modified and confirmed by the speakers.

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innovative idea from the aspects of the distinguishing features of both legislative structure

and linguistic perspective of international law. She continues to demonstrate how the

subjects of international law would affect international law development in the manners of

legal interpretation and value shaping.

The last speaker is Yida Guo, a Ph.D. candidate from Renmin University of China.

Her presentation on the Monroe Doctrine’s historical influence on the Latin American is

quite interesting. Her talk also has a high moral ground for us to rethink this part of history.

“Political struggle” is one of the inextricable key words in her presentation. She argues that

we should identify the hypocritical cordiality of the Western bloc. Here, at present, I cannot

wait to share some of my personal views: the Monroe Doctrine reflects a diplomatic idea

of the United States attempting to become the dominant power in part of the region.

Consequently, the United States government conceived that the whole of Latin America

should stand with the United States. We cannot intuitively conclude that it demonstrated

the United States hegemony in the early days. because it may ignore the Monroe Doctrine

impacts on the anti-colonial effect. The United States gained its political dominance in

Latin American thanks to the Monroe Doctrine. On the other hand, the US was unlikely to

claim that it was practicing new colonization. Rather, the Monroe Doctrine may help bring

the Latin American people’s colonialization to an end. In this perspective, is the Monroe

Doctrine a civilization or a retrogression of civilization? It seems that Miss Guo’s argument

may possibly give a blind eye on its positive effect to the Latin American regions, which

as least the Monroe Doctrine did help Latinos to get rid of European colonizers, form a

sense of community, and spread liberal ideology - freedom, democracy, and human rights.

I am sure the United States and EU institutions in our age would strongly reject the

restoration of the earlier colonial rules which are incompatible with contemporary human

rights rules and contemporary human dignity. If Miss Guo calls for fighting against Western

values, shall we still be hostile to these liberal fundamental values - human dignity and

human autonomy – in our time?

Apart from this, there is one more question. I notice that Miss Guo made an

introduction to the territorial Monroe Doctrine at first, then she argues that it is the Monroe

Doctrine that generates the Schmittian theory on geo-politics and the Japanese doctrine of

“China can be preserved.” But the fact is that both the Schimittian and Japanese doctrines

were based on racism. Then Miss Guo argues that the idea of provincial autonomy may get

inspired by the Monroe Doctrine. However, the regional autonomy in the constitutional

sense, makes up a unique model of power separation between the central and peripheral

(local) government, even though regional autonomy may decline to separatism. In this

sense, the regional autonomy has a great difference from the practice of the Monroe

Doctrine. Could we conclude that the Monroe doctrine, racism, and regional autonomy are

the same thing? I am looking forward to Miss Guo’s response.

Xiuyan Fei (Assistant Professor, East China University of Political Science and Law

Scientific Research Think Tank Institute of Social Sciences)

Topic: The “Monroe Doctrine” and US Trade Practice in the Post-WTO Era

Ladies and gentlemen!

Inspired by Professor Zhang’s book - Shifting Boundaries, I would like to discuss the

US’s recent trade practices in the context of the Monroe Doctrine. The “Post-WTO Period”