Romanian-Chinese Cooperation in a Post-Pandemic World: The Case of ‘Youhao Chengshi’
Radu Sava
This paper intends to analyse the dimension of Romanian-Chinese local cooperation through the sister-cities network (‘înfrățiri’ or ‘youhao chengshi’) in a post- SARS-CoV-2 context. It aims to produce a standardisation of the network that could be framed within traditional theory-inflicted mechanisms and entangled with a series of structured questionnaires. In other words, the purpose of this is (1) to compile a collection of data regarding the existing sister-cities network, (2) to describe Romanian-Chinese local partnerships throughout the transformative pandemic years, and (3) to present a series of tendencies that could have an impact at the level of centralised Romanian- Chinese relations in a post-SARS-CoV-2 context.
Nonetheless, based on approximately 30 structured questionnaires with China- preoccupied Romanian academics that carry out research in the fields of political sciences and economics or Romanian public civil servants that are engaged with China at the level of public administration, this paper formulates research queries by employing grounded theory in order to test a hypothesis that revolves around the potential of local cooperation between Romania and China in a post-pandemic context.
Keywords
Romania; China; local cooperation; sister-cities network; post-SARS-CoV-2 cooperation.