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201. International Issues & Slovak Foreign Policy Affairs Contents

Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Issues: Slovak Foreign Policy Affairs
Institution:
Slovak Foreign Policy Association
Abstract:
The decade of 2000–2010 was the warmest decade in recent history. It was also a decade of climate extremes such as the 2003 heat wave in western Europe and 2010 heat wave in Russia, frequent major floods in Europe, Pakistan in 2010 or Australia in early 2011, devastating cyclones, or major cold snaps and snow blizzards as in the US, UK and China. Despite this reality, there persists a deep gap between the scientific evidence about the changing climate of the Earth, and political awareness about the reasons and consequences of global warming. Such a gap between physical reality and political thinking will be extremely costly. Recent scientific evidence suggests that measures considered to tackle global warming are gravely inadequate. It appears that the average global temperature by 2100 will increase by at least 3°C to 4°C. Such increase will have devastating effects on agricultural production and survival of hundreds of millions people. The purpose of this paper is to improve understanding of climate change science among policy makers and diplomats.
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Russia, United States, China, United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia

202. FDI stocks are a biased measure of foreign affiliate activity

Author:
Sjoerd Beugelsdijk, Jean-François Hennart, Arjen Slangen, and Roger Smeets
Publication Date:
08-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
Researchers often call the value added (VA) in a host country by firms based in another country foreign direct investment (FDI) and use FDI stocks and flows from a country's balance of payments to measure it. What FDI stocks and flows actually measure, however, is narrower, since they record long term financial transactions by which domestic firms exert control over foreign firms. French FDI stocks in Australia, for example, measure the value of shares and reinvested earnings of Australian firms owned by French firms and the net indebtedness of these Australian firms to their French parents.
Topic:
Economics, Markets, Foreign Direct Investment, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
France and Australia

203. Antarctica: assessing and protecting Australia's national interests

Author:
Ellie Fogarty
Publication Date:
08-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
International interest in Antarctica is rising. Major powers such as China and Russia have voiced their interest in the continent's resource potential, strongly suggesting the current prohibition of resource exploitation will be revisited after 2048. These developments pose a potential threat to the longevity of the Antarctic Treaty System as well as Australia's dormant claim to 42 per cent of the continent. Australia has limited Antarctic presence and capability, and posits its policy in terms of science and environmental management rather than national security. This raises questions about its ability to preserve its sovereignty claim.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Territorial Disputes
Political Geography:
Russia, China, and Australia

204. Turning the tide: improving access to climate financing in the Pacific Islands

Author:
Nic Maclellan
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) commits developed countries to provide assistance to 'developing country parties that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change to meet the costs of adaptation.' Despite recent commitments of 'fast-start' climate funding from donors, Pacific Island governments face significant obstacles in accessing sufficient resources to address the adverse effects of climate change on food security, water supply, coastal management and public health. Greater international coordination is required to increase access to climate finance for small island states. Without this coordination, efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 could be set back, due to the diversion of long - term development funding to disaster response and rebuilding.
Topic:
Security, Health, and Food
Political Geography:
United Nations, Australia, and Island

205. Living with the dragon: why Australia needs a China strategy

Author:
Alan Dupont
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
If, metaphorically, Australia rode to prosperity on the back of a sheep in the last century, our skill in riding the Chinese dragon will determine our prosperity in this century. Yet despite its obvious importance, Australia has failed to grasp the full implications of China's meteoric rise or the risk of conflict in the Western Pacific. Our approach to China is fragmented, superficial, overly focused on raw - material exports, conflicted, ambivalent and under - resourced. Getting China wrong will have seriously detrimental consequences for our future security and growth.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Foreign Policy, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
China and Australia

206. Australia-US Alliance Enhanced as Economies Decouple

Author:
Graeme Dobell
Publication Date:
09-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Comparative Connections
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Australia has a close alliance with the US and deep emotional and cultural ties, but the new reality is that the two economies have decoupled. Twice in the past decade the US has gone into recession, but Australia has kept growing; that is a huge change from the 20th-century experience when Australia's fortunes were closely tied to the health of the US economy. Asia now sets Australia's economic temperature, even as the Australian military draws closer to the US through parallel reviews of the posture of their defense forces.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
United States, Asia, and Australia

207. The G20: Engine of Asian Regionalism?

Author:
Hugo Dobson
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
As a result of the emergence of the G20 as the self‐appointed “premier forum for international economic cooperation”, Asia's expanded participation in G‐summitry has attracted considerable attention. As original G7 member Japan is joined by Australia, China, Indonesia, India and South Korea, this has given rise to another alphanumeric configuration of the Asian 6 (A6). Resulting expectations are that membership in the G20 will impact Asian regionalism as the A6 are forced into coordination and cooperation in response to the G20's agenda and commitments. However, by highlighting the concrete behaviours and motivations of the individual A6 in the G20 summits so far, this paper stands in contrast to the majority of the predominantly normative extant literature. It highlights divergent agendas amongst the A6 as regards the future of the G20 and discusses the high degree of competition over their identities and roles therein. This divergence and competition can be seen across a range of other behaviours including responding to the norm of internationalism in promoting global governance and maintaining the status quo and national interest, in addition to claiming a regional leadership role and managing bilateral relationships with the US.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, and Governance
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, Indonesia, India, Asia, South Korea, and Australia

208. The new resource politics: Can Australia and South Africa accommodate China?

Author:
Mark Beeson, Mills Soko, and Wang Yong
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
The material transformation of the Chinese economy is forcing a concomitant process of political adjustment—and not just in China. Other states are being forced to accommodate the 'rise of China'. In this context, this article first presents a comparative analysis of China's impact on two countries, Australia and South Africa, which have little in common other than a wealth of natural resources and a possible status as middle powers; this is a particularly useful exercise because these states are geographically distant and have very different political structures and general developmental histories. Second, the authors consider how China's bilateral ties look from a Chinese perspective in these two very different relationships. Such an analysis serves as a reminder that resource dependency is a two-way street. The article argues that underlying material realities are constraining and to some extent determining the domestic and foreign policies of three very different states that otherwise have little in common
Political Geography:
China, South Africa, and Australia

209. The Sick Man of Asia

Author:
Yanzhong Huang
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Although China has made remarkable economic progress over the past few decades, its citizens' health has not improved as much. Since 1980, the country has achieved an average economic growth rate of ten percent and lifted 400–500 million people out of poverty. Yet Chinese official data suggest that average life expectancy in China rose by only about five years between 1981 and 2009, from roughly 68 years to 73 years. (It had increased by almost 33 years between 1949 and 1980.) In countries that had similar life expectancy levels in 1981 but had slower economic growth thereafter -- Colombia, Malaysia, Mexico, and South Korea, for example -- by 2009 life expectancy had increased by 7–14 years. According to the World Bank, even in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore, which had much higher life expectancy figures than China in 1981, those figures rose by 7–10 years during the same period.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Malaysia, Asia, South Korea, Colombia, Australia, Mexico, and Hong Kong

210. Nation-building Interventions and National Security: An Australian Perspective

Author:
Michael Smith and Rebecca Shrimpton
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
In their compelling book Fixing Failed States, Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart offer a sobering prognosis for global stability and human security. They assert that "[f]orty to sixty states, home to nearly two billion people, are either sliding backward and teetering on the brink of implosion, or have already collapsed." This reality has profound implications for the future of foreign interventions for the purpose of nation-building. What might this entail for Australia? And what is involved in nation-building in failed or failing states? According to Ghani and Lockhart, the situation "is at the heart of a worldwide systemic crisis that constitutes the most serious challenge to global stability in the new millennium."
Political Geography:
Australia