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Begin New Search Topic Bilateral Relations Author Brian Harding

1. The U.S.-Japan Alliance in an Age of Elevated U.S.-China Relations

Author:
Brian Harding
Publication Date:
03-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for American Progress - CAP
Abstract:
The U.S.-Japan alliance has been an extraordinary public good for more than half a century. Since the beginning of the Cold War, it has provided stability in a potentially volatile region and enabled Japan and its neighbors to forge the most dynamic regional economy in the world. Today, the alliance remains rooted in shared values and interests and continues to make the region and the world more secure and prosperous, with cooperation ranging from countering North Korean missile threats to development coordination in Africa.1 But the U.S.-Japan alliance is now far from the only relationship of substance for the United States in the Asia-Pacific region. Most notably, relations with China have become an enormous focus for U.S. policymakers in recent years and will continue to be a high priority for the foreseeable future.2 While fundamentally different from the U.S.-Japan relationship, the elevation of U.S.-China relations as a major focal point for U.S. foreign policy raises a critical question: How can policymakers ensure that the rise of U.S.-China relations does not come at the expense of the U.S.-Japan relationship?
Topic:
Diplomacy, Military Strategy, Bilateral Relations, and Alliance
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

2. Recalibrating U.S.-China Relations in Southeast Asia

Author:
Vikram Singh, Yuan Peng, Melanie Hart, Brian Harding, Zhang Xuegang, Chen Wenxin, and Zhang Fan
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for American Progress - CAP
Abstract:
The Center for American Progress and the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, or CICIR, have partnered often over the years, working regularly on areas of cooperation between China and the United States and on options for managing areas of competition and tension. Together, CAP and CICIR have held or participated in many conferences, workshops, and symposiums that bring together Chinese and U.S. officials and scholars; we have worked on joint publications; and we believe that we have helped enable substantial cooperation between the United States and China. Mistrust complicates U.S.-China relations and can obscure areas where cooperation might be possible and beneficial. Negative dynamics also obscure from others the depth of U.S.-China cooperation in a wide range of areas. In this report, we try to cut through these dynamics and offer new options. In 2014, CAP and CICIR began to discuss how U.S.-China tensions might be obscuring areas of mutual interest in Southeast Asia, a region of tremendous importance strategically and economically to the entire region and the world. Prior to this project, in our respective organizations, the people who work on Southeast Asia did not work closely with colleagues working on U.S.-China bilateral relations. In most cases, our bilateral experts had spent little or no time in Southeast Asia, yet the tensions at play in the region featured prominently in their day-to-day work. Both the United States and China, meanwhile, were making investments and building new partnerships with Southeast Asian countries. Was Southeast Asia to be an arena of competition for China and the United States, or could there be areas of cooperation with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, that brought benefit to all? The potential for research by our teams with Southeast Asian counterparts was clear. It was our friend and colleague Nina Hachigian who proposed the concept that would make this a groundbreaking project. Now the U.S. ambassador to ASEAN, Hachigian is a diplomat and scholar of rare skill and creativity. She noted that CAP and CICIR could only do productive work in this area by doing two things: First, the organizations needed to join their stovepiped research teams into a single group with expertise on both Southeast Asia and U.S.-China relations. Second, CAP and CICIR had to partner with scholars in the region who study the United States, China, and ASEAN. And rather than holding a conference, why not travel through the region with local hosts?
Topic:
Diplomacy, International Cooperation, Bilateral Relations, and Economic Cooperation
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, Southeast Asia, and United States of America