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Begin New Search Political Geography Asia Publishing Institution Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University

11. Securing China's Nuclear Future

Author:
Hui Zhang and Tuosheng Zhang
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the threat of nuclear terrorism has become one of the most significant challenges to international security. China has worked to meet this challenge, but a continuing effort is needed. The 2010 and 2012 Nuclear Security Summits raised the issues of nuclear security to a higher political level and enhanced international consensus on the danger of nuclear terrorism. China actively participated in the first two summits, and President Xi Jinping will participate in the Nuclear Security Summit in the Netherlands in March 2014. China's commitment to nuclear security is now well established. Former president Hu Jintao emphasized in 2012 that, "the threat of nuclear terrorism cannot be overlooked." Meeting that threat, as President Hu recognized, "is a long and arduous task."
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Terrorism, and Border Control
Political Geography:
China and Asia

12. Why China Needs New Institutions to Cope with Looming Water Scarcity

Author:
Scott Moore
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Few places in the world are facing such acute scarcity of water as is northern China, the region surrounding the nation's capital in Beijing. Over the past three decades, rapid economic development and population growth have caused a dramatic water shortage in the region. Groundwater tables have dropped so precipitously that in some places wells cannot be dug deep enough to reach water. Climate change is making rainfall more unpredictable, further darkening the picture for a region that is vital to both the Chinese and world economies. This brief looks at the so-far inadequate responses of the Chinese government and makes the case that new institutions are needed to allow China to meet this growing challenge.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Science and Technology, and Water
Political Geography:
China and Asia

13. The Geopolitics of Natural Gas

Author:
Amy Myers Jaffe and Meghan L. O'Sullivan
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Some of the most dramatic energy developments of recent years have been in the realm of natural gas. Huge quantities of unconventional US shale gas are now commercially viable, changing the strategic picture for the United States by making it self-sufficient in natural gas for the foreseeable future. This development alone has reverberated around the globe, causing shifts in patterns of trade and leading other countries in Europe and Asia to explore their own shale gas potential. Such developments are putting pressure on longstanding arrangements, such as oil-linked gas contracts and the separate nature of North American, European, and Asian gas markets, and may lead to strategic shifts, such as the weakening of Russia's dominance in the European gas market.
Topic:
Climate Change, Economics, Energy Policy, and Natural Resources
Political Geography:
Europe and Asia

14. To Stay Ahead of China, Stay Engaged in Asia

Author:
Michael Beckley
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Despite the hype about the rise of China, current power trends favor continued U.S. dominance. National power has three main material components: wealth, innovation, and military power. Over the last twenty years, China has fallen further behind the United States in all of these areas.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Asia

15. Organizing Insurgency: Networks,Resources, and Rebellion in South Asia

Author:
Paul Staniland
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
How do material resources influence the behavior of insurgent groups? Do diamonds, drugs, state sponsors, and diasporas turn insurgents into fractious, loot-seeking thugs? Or do they help insurgents build disciplined and cohesive organizations? These questions have occupied a central focus in recent research, but no consensus has emerged on the answers to any of them. Some cases suggest that resource wealth encourages the degeneration of armed groups into greed and criminality. For instance, right-wing paramilitaries in Colombia, the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone are clear examples of large-scale resources being associated with indiscipline or civilian victimization. Other evidence, however, shows that external sponsorship and criminal activity can help leaders build organizations in the face of state repression. The Taliban in Afghanistan, the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) forged, and indeed improved, their organizational effectiveness while relying heavily on external support and illicit economic gain.
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, South Asia, Sudan, Asia, Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone, and Angola

16. Iranian Youth in Times of Economic Crisis

Author:
Djavad Salehi-Isfahani
Publication Date:
08-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Young people in Iran have emerged as important players on the country's political scene but remain marginal on its economic scene. They were a vital part of President Khatami's political base and contributed to his landslide victories at the polls, in 1997 and 2001. In June 2009 they again played a key role, this time in challenging President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's controversial reelection, which led to massive anti-government protests in the nation's largest cities. A year later the political crisis appears to have subsided, but the economic crisis that has engulfed the country since early 2008 has deepened, and with it the crisis facing Iran's youth. Youth unemployment is at record high levels and, for the majority of youth, marriage and family formation are increasingly becoming challenges to overcome rather than celebrations of reaching adulthood.
Topic:
Islam, Labor Issues, and Youth Culture
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, and Asia

17. Powerplay: Origins of the U.S. Alliance System in Asia

Author:
Victor D. Cha
Publication Date:
01-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
In East Asia the United States cultivated a "hub and spokes" system of discrete, exclusive alliances with the Republic of Korea, the Republic of China, and Japan, a system that was distinct from the multilateral security alliances it preferred in Europe. Bilateralism emerged in East Asia as the dominant security structure because of the "powerplay" rationale behind U.S. postwar planning in the region. "Powerplay" refers to the construction of an asymmetric alliance designed to exert maximum control over the smaller ally's actions. The United States created a series of bilateral alliances in East Asia to contain the Soviet threat, but a congruent rationale was to constrain "rogue allies"- that is, rabidly anticommunist dictators who might start wars for reasons of domestic legitimacy and entrap the United States in an unwanted larger war. Underscoring the U.S. desire to avoid such an outcome was a belief in the domino theory, which held that the fall of one small country in Asia could trigger a chain of countries falling to communism. The administrations of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower calculated that they could best restrain East Asia's pro-West dictators through tight bilateral alliances rather than through a regionwide multilateral mechanism. East Asia's security bilateralism today is therefore a historical artifact of this choice.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, Europe, and Asia

18. Pakistan's Nuclear Posture: Implications for South Asian Stability

Author:
Vipin Narang
Publication Date:
01-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Terrorists from Lashkar-e-Taiba—a group historically supported by Pakistan—laid siege to Mumbai in November 2008, crippling the city for three days and taking at least 163 lives. But India's response was restrained; it did not mobilize its military forces to retaliate against either Pakistan or Lashkar camps operating there. A former Indian chief of Army Staff, Gen. Shankar Roychowdhury, bluntly stated that Pakistan's threat of nuclear use deterred India from seriously considering conventional military strikes.
Topic:
Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
Pakistan, India, and Asia

19. The Waning of U.S. Hegemony—Myth or Reality? A Review Essay

Author:
Christopher Layne
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Over the next two decades, international politics will be shaped by whether the international system remains unipolar or is transformed into a multipolar system. Can the United States sustain its primacy? Or will the emergence of new great powers reorder the distribution of power in the international system? If U.S. power is waning, will power transition dynamics result in security competitions and an increased possibility of war? In particular, what are the implications of China's rapid ascent to great power status? If the United States is unable to preserve its hegemonic role, what will happen to the security and economic frameworks that it took the lead in creating after the end of World War II and that have provided the foundation for the international order ever since? In a world no longer defined by U.S. hegemony, what would become of globalization and the open international economic system that the United established after World War II and expanded after the Cold War ended? This essay reviews five publications that grapple with these questions: Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, World Out of Balance: International Relations and the Challenge of American Primacy; Parag Khanna, The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order; Kishore Mahbubani, The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East; National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World; and Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World.
Topic:
Economics and War
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Asia

20. Keeping an Eye on an Unruly Neighbor: Chinese Views of Economic Reform and Stability in North Korea

Author:
Scott Snyder, Bonnie Glaser, and John Park
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Beijing viewed North Korea's explosion of a nuclear device in October 2006 as not only an act of defiance to the international community and a threat to regional stability, but also an act of defiance toward China. Chinese officials admit that their toolbox for managing the North Korean nuclear weapons challenge must now include a combination of pressure and inducements. Three considerations underpin Beijing's aid policy toward North Korea: 1) protecting China's military-strategic environment; 2) maintaining security and stability along the Sino-DPRK border; and 3) sustaining economic development and political stability in the three Chinese northeastern provinces that border North Korea. There are intense debates among Chinese analysts over: 1) whether North Korea will give up its nuclear weapons; 2) the strategic value of the DPRK to China; 3) whether the Sino-DPRK treaty should be revised, abandoned, retained and its ambiguity stressed to enhance deterrence; and 4) the likelihood of a rapid improvement in U.S.-DPRK relations and how such a development would affect Chinese interests. Chinese analysts are generally less concerned with North Korea's immediate economic prospects than they were last year, reporting severe but stable conditions. Inflation has subsided and market mechanisms have largely replaced government rations as the primary means for securing a livelihood. In contrast to last year, when Chinese analysts were consumed by the seeming zero-sum choice between stability and reform facing the North Korean leadership, North Korea's slightly improved economic situation seems to have allayed the immediacy of Chinese concerns about North Korea's economic stability. Chinese experts report no fundamental change in North Korea's economic policies following the 2002 reforms. Chinese analysts provide conflicting assessments of whether government attempts to prohibit selling of grain in markets are succeeding and the extent to which the grain rationing system is working. Chinese DPRK specialists are encouraged that the DPRK has haltingly adopted some agricultural and market reforms and allowed greater autonomy to individual factories and enterprises. But they acknowledge that North Korea has not yet allowed farmers to act independently of their work teams, a step China took as early as the late 1970s that raised productivity sharply. Chinese analysts anticipate that reforms will continue as long as they do not threaten central government control. Chinese analysts widely assert that the North Korean system remains stable and they are confident that it will remain so for at least several years absent the sudden death of Kim Jong Il or external interference aimed at destabilizing the regime. In the long run, however, sustainable development through economic reform remains an essential prerequisite for stability, and North Korea's ability to move down that path is not yet assured. There are numerous indicators that the Chinese examine to assess stability trends in North Korea. These indicators are grouped in the following manner: 1) factionalism in the regime and potential challenges to Kim Jong Il's leadership; 2) political controls and ideological education; 3) influences from the outside; 4) the general public's loyalty to the Kim family; 5) crimes and illicit activities; 6) the economy, food supply, and economic reform; and 7) Kim Jong Il's health and the leadership succession. Chinese analysts see few signs of immediate instability in any of these areas at present, but they worry that the potential for instability may grow. In the event of instability in North Korea, China's priority will be to prevent refugees from flooding across the border. If deemed necessary, PLA troops would be dispatched into North Korea. China's strong preference is to receive formal authorization and coordinate closely with the United Nations (UN) in such an endeavor. However, if the international community did not react in a timely manner as internal order in North Korea deteriorated rapidly, China would seek to take the initiative in restoring stability. Contingency plans are in place for the PLA to perform at least three possible missions in the DPRK: 1) humanitarian missions such as assisting refugees or providing help after a natural disaster; 2) peacekeeping or “order keeping” missions such as serving as civil police; and 3) “environmental control” missions to clean up nuclear contamination resulting from a strike on North Korean nuclear facilities near the Sino-DPRK border and secure “loose nukes” and fissile material. There is apparent new willingness among Chinese institute analysts and PLA researchers to discuss the warning signs of instability in North Korea and how China might respond if the situation gets out of control and threatens Chinese security. Some Chinese experts say explicitly that they favor holding a discussion on stability in North Korea in official channels with the United States, including possible joint responses in support of common objectives such as securing nuclear weapons and fissile material. Other analysts maintain that such discussions are premature.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Regional Cooperation, and United Nations
Political Geography:
United States, China, Beijing, Asia, South Korea, and North Korea