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1621. Playing Our Game: Why China's Rise Doesn't Threaten the West

Author:
Scott Kennedy
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
As Chinaʼs economy grows larger and the country more powerful, most scholars are focused on the distinctive nature of the Chinese state and the depth of its intervention in the economy. China is often identified as an East Asian developmental state, or as representing a new model of development distinct from the West. Edward Steinfeld of MIT asserts that these interpretations over- look the fundamental transformation that Chinese society writ large has under- gone during the past two decades to become much more Western than most observers recognize.
Political Geography:
China and East Asia

1622. By Invitation, Mostly: the International Politics of the US Security Presence, China, and the South China Sea

Author:
Christopher Freise
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
Much attention has been devoted to the Obama Administration's “Pacific Pivot” and the vocal reassertion of an upgraded security, economic, and diplomatic presence in East Asia by the United States. Commentators have ascribed various rationales to these efforts, including speculation that this is part of a “containment” strategy towards China, a reaction to the US presidential election cycle, or, more benignly, an effort to forestall concerns of American withdrawal from the region. These explanations have some elements of truth, but also fall short of fully describing or understanding the strategic rationale behind these moves.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Economics
Political Geography:
United States, China, Israel, and Asia

1623. Into Africa: Emerging opportunities for business

Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Ten years ago, The Economist ran a cover with the title “Africa: The Hopeless Continent”. Today, this has been replaced by “Africa Rising” (last December's issue)—a reflection of the changes that the continent has experienced over a decade. What has engineered Africa's rise through difficult times? It is predominantly the emergence of the BRICs, particularly India and China, that has helped to put Africa back on the map of development and investor interests.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
Africa, China, and India

1624. BRICS: The new Syndicate

Author:
Gateway House
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations
Abstract:
This bi-annual report includes features written exclusively (unless mentioned otherwise) for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations by various contributors, and Gateway House staff, from January-July 2012.
Topic:
Global Political Economy
Political Geography:
Russia, China, India, and Brazil

1625. Can NATO Find a Role for Itself vis-À -vis China?

Author:
James Boutilier
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
NATO is at a crossroads. This is not the first time that Brussels has been faced with critical decisions about the direction, character and raison d'être of this unique and remarkable organization. But this time the stakes are even higher. The major centers of global power are all weak simultaneously for individual and inter-connected reasons. The greatest power on earth and NATO's banker, the United States, is confronting almost insurmountable levels of debt and talk about the end of the American empire has become commonplace. The European community is reeling from the cumulative effect of debt crises. And China, the 21st century's "workshop of the world" (and in the eyes of some a potential savor of ailing economies in Europe) has begun to see its economy slow disturbingly. At the same time, two other phenomena are unfolding; the rapid and profound shift in the global centre of economic gravity from the Euro-Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific region and the winding down of NATO's involvement in Afghanistan. The latter, of course, raises the inevitable question: "What next?" The former raises a related question: "Does NATO's future lie in Asia?"
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, NATO, and Hegemony
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, China, Europe, and Asia

1626. Reshaping the Security Order in Asia-Pacific

Author:
Alain Guidetti
Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The international strategic landscape is evolving at an unprecedented pace. The widespread assumption is that the global balance of power is shifting from the West to the East (and the South), as a consequence of the convergence of two variables: the sustained economic growth of China and Asia over recent decades, and the Western economic downturn since the 2008 global financial crisis. Though interpretations differ on the meaning and magnitude of this power shift, the prevailing assumption is that it reflects the weakness, and for some the relative decline, of the US and the West against Asia's and primarily China's strong rise. The implications of these developments across the Asia-Pacific are deep and have already led to growing strategic competition between Beijing and Washington for preeminence over the Asia-Pacific and new uncertainties over global and regional governance.
Topic:
Economics, Human Rights, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
United States, China, Washington, Beijing, Asia, Australia, and Asia-Pacific

1627. CHINA SPOOKING ALLIES WITH THE SEE-SAW BETWEEN SOFT AND HARD POWER

Author:
Richard Rousseau
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Diplomatic Courier
Abstract:
Chinese leaders spend considerable time and energy in assuring the international community that they have no reason to be afraid of China’s “peaceful rise” and rapid emergence as one of the most important economic and diplomatic players on the international stage. Many countries, however, equate China’s growing economic might with greater political influence and are less accepting of the benign image that Beijing now wants to portray to the world. Although China’s current policy may appear at first impression to be a rather soft variety of imperialism, it is still perceived by many as “hard” imperialism. There are now mounting signs that other countries, especially China’s neighbors, are not totally convinced of Beijing’s proclaimed benevolent intent. Those countries are presently taking measures to protect themselves in case China’s “soft” imperialism eventually turns out to be more aggressive or of the “hard power” variety.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Imperialism, International Cooperation, and ASEAN
Political Geography:
China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Asia, South Korea, Philippines, Cambodia, Australia, and Myanmar

1628. Storm Clouds on the Horizon: A Possible New Cold War With China

Author:
Paul Nash
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Diplomatic Courier
Abstract:
“Red China’s sub fleet can prove a major threat to American ships,” wrote Albert Ravenholt for the Chicago Daily News Service in 1964, referring to Mao’s underwater menace to American naval forces assembling in the South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam. The communist submarines, supplied by the Russians, were stationed on Hainan Island, at the southernmost tip of the Chinese mainland, across the Gulf of Tonkin. At the time, China was estimated to have between 30 and 40 in operation, the fourth largest fleet after the U.S.S.R, the United States and Great Britain. Nearly 48 years on, much has changed and yet much continues on the same trajectory. When Ravenholt, who set about becoming a reporter in Shanghai in the 1940s during the Second Sino-Japanese war, died at the age of 90 in 2010, China remained Red, even though its ideological hue had turned arguably more nationalistic after three decades of rising prosperity. China has modernized its military in tandem with its economic growth. It has committed itself to significant military spending, endeavouring to catch up to the West’s technological prowess by building advanced precision-guided munitions, anti-satellite and cyber-warfare capabilities. Last year, it unveiled the Chengdu J-20 stealth fighter jet, which is expected to go into service in 2017-19. It has also set up a land-based anti-ship missile system to limit the ability of other nations to navigate freely in regional waters, including those around the disputed Paracel and Spratly Islands, which it estimates may contain the world’s fourth largest reserve of oil and natural gas.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Science and Technology, Military Strategy, and Conflict
Political Geography:
United States, China, Asia, and North America

1629. China's Communist Youth League 90 Years On

Author:
Paul Nash
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Diplomatic Courier
Abstract:
fter 90 years, China’s Communist Youth League is still going strong. Much has happened in that time. The nation has experienced political revolution, foreign invasion and a bloody civil war. It has experimented on a large scale with its economy, and its social structure, with devastating results. Then it reintegrated into global capitalism with astonishing success. And all along the Youth League has grown bigger and better organized. It seems to thrive on change, and always manages to find a curiously subtle way of militating against the pernicious influences thought to be imperilling the nation’s young people. Today, however, its members face something of a moral dilemma: what to make of Apple’s iPad. The Xinhua news agency and People’s Daily, the two principal media outlets representing the views of the Communist Party, have run a series of editorials assailing the American company’s practices in China. They have uncovered the “Five Sins of Apple.” The top three would sound agreeably familiar to an American Christian if they were not joined to an ideology perceived to spurn religion: hypocrisy, indifference, and impurity. According to these articles, the “bright Apple Inc.” flouts the copyrights of Chinese authors even as the United States condemns China for not protecting foreign intellectual property; Apple is indifferent to the pollution its local manufacturers produce; and the company allows erotic content to be propagated on its devices in flagrant violation of China’s strict anti-pornography laws. The Youth League jury, it seems, is still out—but not because it is torn between the iPad’s desirability and the evidence against Apple. Its members have become wary of such media campaigns sponsored by the government, recognizing their potential, or their intent, to divert public attention from more pressing domestic problems. If they approve their moral thrust, they also feel obliged to consider their message in full context, which includes the motives of their origination. After all, the league encourages it members to “seek the truth from all the facts.”
Topic:
Communism, Youth Culture, Youth, and Morality
Political Geography:
China and Asia

1630. The New U.S. Defense Strategic Guidance and Its Implications for South Korean Security

Author:
Young Ho Kim
Publication Date:
02-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East Asia Institute (EAI)
Abstract:
On January 5, 2012, U.S. President Barack Obama paid a rare visit to the Pentagon and unveiled his guidelines for the Department of Defense to set the goals and priorities of its defense strategy for the next ten years. The resulting eight-page-long guidelines, entitled Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense (hereafter DSG), contain the administration’s assessment of changing global security conditions and propose the roles and shape of the U.S. armed forces for the coming decade. Prepared through “unprecedentedly” close consultations between the President himself and senior leaders in the U.S. defense department and military including both service chiefs and combatant commanders, the DSG defines the present as a historic “inflection point” and envisions the future U.S. military as “smaller and leaner, but agile, flexible, ready and technologically advanced.” Moreover, in accordance with the DSG the U.S. defense budget will be cut by $487 billion and the sizes of the Army and Marine Corps will shrink by 80,000 and 14,000 respectively over the next ten years. While a more detailed picture will be revealed next month with the administration’s FY2013 budget request to Congress, the DSG reflects the Obama administration’s arduous effort to rebalance and redirect its defense priorities and spending under severe fiscal austerity. Because of the unusual timing of its publication and the magnitude of the reduction in defense spending, the DSG has generated controversy and concern domestically in the United States as well as internationally. In the United States, particularly people in the conservative wing of the Republican Party have been prompted to criticize the guidelines for putting the nation’s security in danger, whereas some people on the liberal side have advocated seeking deeper and bolder cuts in defense spending. Internationally, China was understandably the first to respond negatively to the DSG. For example, rebutting the DSG’s portrayal of Beijing’s military policy as lacking transparency as “groundless and untrustworthy,” Liu Weimin, a spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, stressed that Beijing was committed to peaceful development and “defensive” policy. What then are the implications of the DSG for South Korean security? Will there be any changes in U.S. defense policy or posture in the region under the DSG that may affect security conditions in South Korea significantly and, if so, require new measures or scrutiny by the South Korean government or the military? In fact, there have been largely four issues raised by the news media in South Korea. I will examine these four issues, and then discuss more challenging concerns that will require closer attention by South Korean foreign and security policy-makers.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, International Cooperation, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:
China, Asia, South Korea, North Korea, North America, and United States of America