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1911. Make Japan Great Again? The Rise of Trump and Significance of the US-Japan Alliance

Author:
Fuad Olajuwon
Publication Date:
03-2017
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Council on International Policy (CIP)
Abstract:
Japan is in a unique position. With the rise of Trump and the changing of the American political landscape, the world faces a new challenge. That challenge is uncertainty. If you’re from a realist background, that raises concern. The shifting of the global narrative is one to look out for, as countries across Europe and the Western world are shifting away from the “liberal world order” and more into an ideologist that puts the concerns of the host over that of the guest. With Brexit and “#AmericaFirst” rhetoric gaining momentum, what is the fate of East Asia? One thing is sure: this is a unique time as ever for Japan to stand on its own two feet.
Topic:
International Cooperation and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Japan and America

1912. The Plutonium Disposition Management Agreement: Russia’s Withdrawal and the Possible Consequences

Author:
Debalina Ghoshal
Publication Date:
04-2017
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Council on International Policy (CIP)
Abstract:
InOctober2016,RussianPresidentVladmirPutin suspendedthePlutoniumDispositionManagementAgreement (PDMA) that mandated both the United States and Russia to eliminate a sufficient quantity of weapons grade plutonium. The suspension of the PDMA represents a step away toward achieving nuclear disarmament, a crucial component of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) under Article VI.
Topic:
International Security and Nuclear Power
Political Geography:
Russia and Global Focus

1913. Deciphering China’s Coal Ban from North Korea:

Author:
Debalina Ghoshal
Publication Date:
03-2017
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Council on International Policy (CIP)
Abstract:
For years, the Chinese have remained soft towards North Korea when it came to imposing sanctions on them for their nuclear and ballistic missile tests. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has prohibited Pyongyang from testing nuclear and ballistic missiles but yet Pyongyang has continued to do develop and conduct nuclear and ballistic missile tests. In February 2017, North Korea test fired a ballistic missile which was reported to be a modified version of their Musudan missile with range of 2500-4000km. At present, North Korea’s missile arsenal consists Scud-D, Nodong, Taepo Dong-1 and 2 and Musudan ballistic missiles. In addition, North Korea is also working on submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM).
Topic:
Energy Policy and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
China and North Korea

1914. Cost of Aging

Author:
Ronald Lee and Andrew Mason
Publication Date:
03-2017
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
In advanced economies around the world, population growth is slowing down and populations are growing older. Economic growth is also slowing, at least in part because of the slow growth of the labor force and of populations as a whole—despite immigration. Many empirical studies have found that gross domestic product (GDP) growth slows roughly one to one with declines in labor-force and population growth—a disquieting prospect for the United States and for advanced economies in Asia and Europe. If there are fewer workers to support a growing elderly population and worker productivity remains the same, either consumption must be reduced or labor supply increased—for example, through later retirement. By 2050, the projected slowdown in growth of the labor supply could lead to a drop in consumption of 25 percent in China, 9 percent in the United States, and 13 percent in other high-income countries. The situation could be improved, however, by a rise in labor-force productivity. In fact, standard growth models predict that slower population growth will lead to rising output and wages per worker. The underlying question is whether this higher output per worker will be sufficient to offset the rise in the number of dependents per worker as the population ages. To help answer this question, this article looks more closely at how economic activity varies by age, drawing on national transfer accounts, which measure how people at various ages produce, consume, and save resources. This analysis shows that GDP and national income growth will most certainly slow down as populations age, but the effect on individuals—as measured by per capita income and consumption—may be quite different.
Topic:
International Relations and Global Political Economy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1915. Counting Women’s Work: Measuring the gendered economy in the market and at home

Author:
Sidney B. Westley
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
Through the ages, women have specialized in the unpaid work of raising children, maintaining households, and caring for others, while men have been more likely to earn wages in the market (Watkins et al. 1987). As fertility rates have declined, however, women have joined the labor force outside the home in growing numbers. Understanding how women’s economic roles are changing and how and why they may change in the future is crucial for understanding the economic effects of changes in population age structure. It is also vital for improving gender equality, ensuring the wellbeing of children and other family members, and maintaining a healthy rate of economic growth.
Topic:
Gender Issues and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1916. North Korea Policy: Failure is the Only Option

Author:
Denny Roy
Publication Date:
04-2017
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
As many analysts have pointed out, US policy towards North Korea is “failing.” It is true that Pyongyang has declined the US/South Korean offer to give up its nuclear weapons in exchange for economic opportuni es and upgraded poli cal rela ons. Instead, the North Korean government remains intensely hos le towards Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo, and con nues making progress towards deploying a nuclear‐ pped intercon nental ballis c missile — a frightening prospect.
Topic:
International Relations, International Security, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
North Korea

1917. Policy Response to Low Fertility in China: Too Little, Too Late?

Author:
Wang Feng
Publication Date:
04-2017
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
In 1970, Chinese women were having an average of nearly six children each. Only nine years later, this gure had dropped to an average of 2.7 children per woman. This steep fertility decline was achieved before the Chinese government introduced the infamous one-child policy. Today, at 1.5 children per woman, the fertility rate in China is one of the lowest in the world. Such a low fertility level leads to extreme population aging— expansion of the proportion of the elderly in a population, with relatively few children to grow up and care for their aging parents and few workers to pay for social services or drive economic growth. China’s birth-control policies are now largely relaxed, but new programs are needed to provide healthcare and support for the growing elderly population and to encourage young people to have children. It will be increasingly di cult to fund such programs, however, as China’s unprecedented pace of economic growth inevitably slows down.
Topic:
Population, Health Care Policy, and Political and institutional effectiveness
Political Geography:
China

1918. Tolerating the “Intolerable Partner:” Once Shunned, Bulgaria’s United Patriots Joins the Governing Coalition

Author:
John R. Haines
Publication Date:
05-2017
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
Abstract:
Several weeks after winning a plurality in Bulgaria’s late March parliamentary election, Prime Minister Boyko Borissov did something unprecedented: he brought the nationalist United Patriots (Obedineni Patrioti) into his coalition government. The United Patriots is an electoral alliance of three parties, the IMRO[2]-Bulgarian National Movement (VMRO-Bulgarsko Natsionalno Dvizhenie), the National Front for the Salvation of Bulgaria (Natzionalen Front za Spasenie na Bulgaria), and Attack (Attaka). Their inclusion in the coalition government has given rise to concern among Bulgaria’s NATO allies (and many Bulgarian themselves) about what the Bulgarian Socialist Party’s Korneliya Ninova called Mr. Borissov’s “floating majority, his unprincipled alliance”[3] (plavashti mnozinstva, bezprintsipni sŭyuzi). That concern is well placed for several reasons. Only a few years ago, even the nationalist IMRO-BND and NFSB excluded the radical Ataka[4] from their electoral alliance dubbed the “Patriotic Front” (Patriotichen front) because of Ataka’s positions on Russia and NATO. Even then, however, the Patriotic Front’s “nationalist profile” (natsionalisticheskiyat profil) was so far to Bulgaria’s political right to cause Mr. Borissov to exclude the Patriotic Front from his coalition government. He did so with the active encouragement of his center-right European People’s Party allies across the European Union. “Nothing against the PF, but unfortunately the things Valeri Simeonov [a PF leader, more about whom anon] proposes do not correspond to our Euro-Atlantic orientation,” said Mr. Borissov at the time.[5]
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Nationalism
Political Geography:
Russia and Bulgaria

1919. President Macron’s France: Between Internal Turmoil and External Crossroads

Author:
Hajnalka Vincze
Publication Date:
05-2017
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
Abstract:
“One only comes out of ambiguity to their own detriment,” this maxim often repeated by former President François Mitterrand sounds like a premonitory warning in the aftermath of Emmanuel Macron’s election in France. Indeed, for the new president whose figure of speech, “but at the same time,” has practically become his trademark during the campaign, the inevitable clarifications are likely to entail hurdles. In the economic and social policy field, Macron’s “right and left” positioning enabled him to capture a wide audience, but at the cost of sometimes contradictory statements that might prove to be difficult to reconcile between two very different camps. In foreign policy, who Macron appoints to key position should lift part of the mystery as to the actual preferences of the new president. While claiming to want to perpetuate the voluntarist Gaullo-Mitterrandian tradition, Emmanuel Macron has so far given no indication that he would break with the policy carried out over the past ten years, a policy that resulted precisely in the noticeable vanishing of what used to
Topic:
International Affairs, Elections, and Democracy
Political Geography:
France

1920. The Future of Mexico, Part II: As Mexico City Turns

Author:
David Danelo
Publication Date:
05-2017
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
Abstract:
On January 29, 2016, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto signed a law changing the official name of Mexico’s capital region from Distrito Federal, or D.F., to Ciudad de Mexico. Beyond altering nearly two centuries of dialectical urban description—the region had been called D.F. since 1824 when Mexico’s first constitution was written—the adjustment grants Ciudad de Mexico a level of autonomous governance similar to the country’s other 31 states. The name change devolved power from Mexico’s federal government “to the citizens of Mexico City” and was presented with great public fanfare. Much of Ciudad de Mexico’s new constitution, which was signed in February 2017 and will become law in September 2018, was crowd-sourced from online petitions and community advocates. With articles enshrining green space and LGBT protections, the document has been hailed by liberal advocates as the most progressive in the Western Hemisphere.
Topic:
International Relations and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Mexico