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191. Ethno-Diplomacy: The Uyghur Hitch in Sino-Turkish Relations

Author:
Yitzhak Shichor
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
Beginning in 1949, China considered, and dealt with, so-called Uyghur separatism and the quest for Eastern Turkestan (Xinjiang) independence as a domestic problem. Since the early 1990s, however, Beijing has begun to recognize the international aspects of this problem and to deal with its external manifestations. This new policy has affected China's relations with Turkey, which has ideologically inspired Uyghur nationalism, offered sanctuary to Uyghur refugees, and provided moral and material support to Eastern Turkestan movements, organizations, and activities.
Topic:
International Relations, Diplomacy, Ethnic Conflict, and Minorities
Political Geography:
China, Central Asia, and Turkey

192. The Dalit Movement and Democratization in Andhra Pradesh

Author:
K.Y. Ratnam
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
This study argues that the democratic state in India is an historical product of very specific circumstances; as such the broader idea of democracy is not consistent with the specific Caste system. Therefore, there is serious juxtaposition between the institutional promise of democracy and the real practice of democracy in relation to the victims of the caste system, the Dalits. However, the caste based hierarchical relations of dominance and subordination have provided sufficient conditions for the rise of Dalit consciousness and these objective conditions have transformed into the sites of democratic struggles when the Dalits are affronted with the real operation of liberal democratic principles of, equality, freedom, fraternity, and social justice. Caste conflict, thus, lies at the structural dimensions of Indian society in the form of exclusion, discrimination, and economic inequality. Inequalities based on the caste divisions are intrinsically anti democratic, and the caste system as an oppressive ideological system represents the scheme of power, domination, privilege, and hierarchy. Its very foundation remains acentral obstacle in the path of democratic redistribution of power.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

193. State of the States: Mapping India's Northeast

Author:
Bhagat Oinam
Publication Date:
11-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
On June 18, 2001, a huge mass agitation took place in the state of Manipur against the extension of ceasefire between the Government of India and the Isaak Muivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland to all the Naga inhabited areas in the region. The agitation was triggered by the subclause in the agreement which read that the ceasefire between the two parties would no longer be confined to the state of Nagaland but would be extended "without territorial limits."
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Political Violence, Peace Studies, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

194. Oil in Asia and the Pacific: Production, Consumption, Imports, and Policy Options

Author:
Kang Wu, Fereidun Fesharaki, Sidney B. Westley, and Widhyawan Prawiraatmadja
Publication Date:
08-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
Concerns about energy security affect economic performance and political stability all over the world, but nowhere are these issues more critical than in Asia and the Pacific. Oil is at the heart of the region's energy challenge. Oil consumption is increasing nearly twice as fast in the region as in the world as a whole, while options for increasing production are severely limited. The result is a steadily growing dependence on imported oil, largely from the volatile Middle East. Apart from efforts to increase domestic production and slow consumption growth, recommendations for policymakers include initiating joint ventures with oil producers, improving the efficiency of domestic markets, building up strategic stocks, strengthening regional cooperation, reducing transportation bottlenecks, and establishing a regional market for oil futures. In the long run, policymakers need to devise new strategies for economic growth based on more efficient use of oil and natural gas, continuing dependence on coal, and ultimately, the development of alternative sources of energy.
Topic:
Security, Energy Policy, and Oil
Political Geography:
Asia

195. Multitrack Integration in East Asian Trade: Noodle Bowl or Matrix?

Author:
Peter A. Petri
Publication Date:
10-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
East Asian trade agreements are often described as a complicated "noodle bowl," which shows links in the region as a snarled, overlapping and intertwined mass. But this is a misleading representation--Asia's regional agreements may in fact be creating an order of a different sort, building the foundations for a stronger regional trading system. Asian trade arrangements can be more constructively seen in terms of a trade agreements matrix, in which multiple negotiations produce an orderly progression of agreements to liberalize all potential bilateral relationships and move the region toward a coherent system of freer trade. The various approaches to deeper economic integration--regional arrangements, trans-Pacific agreements, and global engagement--are complementary paths that should eventually lead to an open global trading system. East Asia is of growing importance in the global marketplace, and adopting an aggressive multitrack strategy--as the region appears to be doing--may be the fastest route toward a new global framework.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Israel and Asia

196. Entrepreneurship and Political Guanxi Networks in China's Private Sector

Author:
Christopher A. McNally, Hong Guo, and Guangwei Hu
Publication Date:
08-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
Since the mid-1990s the Chinese government has rapidly liberalized the environment facing domestic private firms. As a consequence, many private firms have clarified their ownership relations and acquired stronger organizational boundaries. However, despite this formalization of private sector institutions, informal guanxi networks remain a key component in firm success. Most significant among these guanxi networks are political networks that connect private entrepreneurs with actors in China's political sphere.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
Political Geography:
China and Israel

197. The State of the Pro-Democracy Movement in Authoritarian Burma

Author:
Kyaw Yin Hlaing
Publication Date:
12-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
When Burma gained independence in 1948, its regime was a part of the phenomenon, which Samuel Huntington called the second wave of democracies. Although Burma's parliamentary democracy was by no means perfect, opposition parties were allowed to exist and elections were held regularly. The coup staged by the Revolutionary Council, which was led by the military on March 2, 1962, brought an end to this brief period of electoral democracy in Burma.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Democratization, Development, and Politics
Political Geography:
Asia and Burma

198. Insurgencies in India's Northeast: Conflict, Co-option Change

Author:
Subir Bhaumik
Publication Date:
07-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
Ever since the British withdrawal from South Asia in 1947, India's Northeast has been scarred by sustained separatist insurgencies, mass agitations, ethnic riots and heavy-handed state response resulting in continuous bloodletting. The land-locked region, which is linked to the India mainland by the 22 km wide Siliguri corridor in northern Bengal, borders on Bhutan, Bangladesh Myanmar and China's Tibet Autonomous Region and Nepal is not too far away.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Political Violence, and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

199. Origins of the United States-India Nuclear Agreement

Author:
Itty Abraham
Publication Date:
05-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
Relations between the world's largest democracy, India, and the oldest, the United States, have never been better. The preeminent sign of this improved state of relations is, of course, the recent concord between the governments of both countries that proposes bilateral cooperation on a variety of fronts, from space to agriculture, but especially in relation to civilian nuclear cooperation. Bilateral agreements signed in July 2005 in Washington, D.C., and following President Bush's visit to India in March 2006,1 were hailed as historic, seemingly marking the end of “estrangement,” to borrow Ambassador Dennis Kux's characterization of relations between the two countries. But for all its claims to be “historic,” the agreements were not greeted equally, or with equal acclaim, in both capitals.
Topic:
Nuclear Weapons, Treaties and Agreements, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
United States, South Asia, and India

200. Internal Displacement, Migration, and Policy in Northeastern India

Author:
Uddipana Goswami
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
The paper is divided into four sections: Migration; Illegal Migration and Policy Lacunae; Ethnic Politics and Internal Displacement; and State Responses to Internal Displacement. In the first section I discuss the colonial policy environment, altered administrative boundaries and concepts and how all this aided/abetted large-scale migrations into the Northeast. Demographic patterns were fast changing under the colonial administration's policy of importing more migrants to people a frontier region, and this approach did not lapse when a post-colonial government was ushered in.
Topic:
Ethnic Conflict and Migration
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and Asia