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2921. Are We Taking China's Future for Granted?

Author:
Joseph C. Folio
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Abstract:
During Fall 2003 the Schlesinger Working Group held two meetings (September 25th and November 3rd) to explore China's estimated political/ economic outlook and to determine what potential challenges might affect its projected future. The purpose of these meetings was not to predict a Chinese stumble or even collapse, but rather to examine events that could trigger a disruption of China's current, impressively successful economic trajectory, and to analyze what form that disruption could take. During the first meeting, participants identified potential disruption scenarios to which China remains vulnerable. The second meeting considered the implications of disruption for both China and the United States, and how these scenarios might affect U.S. policy. Working Group members did not attempt to assign probabilities for the identified potential disruptions or “failures.” Rather, they focused on the hurdles or challenges posed by these disruption scenarios, which the Chinese leadership would need to confront successfully in order to avoid losing control or endangering national cohesion. Participants generally agreed that any major disruption would most likely derive from an external shock that might negatively affect China's economic situation and possibly ignite collateral internal disruption via domestic unrest or leadership division. The group concurred that the Chinese leadership has sufficient strength and cohesion to manage most forms of internal disruption, or at least to adapt quickly and effectively to those that arise.
Topic:
International Relations, Diplomacy, and Economics
Political Geography:
United States and China

2922. Development of the civil realm in Shanghai environmental politics

Author:
Seungho Lee
Publication Date:
05-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
This chapter analyses the development in the civil realm of environmental politics in Shanghai. This study is an effort to identify environmental communities based on Mary Douglas's grid/group theory and an attempt to comprehend the nature of the dynamic interaction of the private and the public spheres, particularly within the public sphere between the state (the Shanghai government) and ethical social entities (environmental NGOs and other social groups). The contribution of the study lies in its revelation of how the civil realm in Shanghai has developed with a self - capacity to redress environmentally unfriendly policies over the last decade. Fieldwork carried out in 2002 identified a number of environmental Non Governmental Organisations, NGOs, and other social groups in Shanghai. It proved to be possible to highlight the recent emergence of environmental NGOs, including university students based organisations. The study evaluates how these groups have evolved and have survived in the transitional period in alliance with Government Organised NGOs, GONGOs, local communities (shequ), the media, international NGOs and the government. Although these environmental groups now commit themselves to various environmental issues, Shanghai does not have any particular NGO mainly engaged in freshwater issues. It is concluded that a collaboration of GONGOs, NGOs, and various environmental groups alongside international NGOs has led to the formation of a civil force that impacts Shanghai's environmental policy - making.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Environment
Political Geography:
China and Shanghai

2923. Ten Years Since Oslo: The PLO's "People's War" Strategy and Israel's Inadequate Response

Author:
Joel S. Fishman
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
Israel and the PLO have been confronting each other according to completely different paradigms of conflict. Since the late 1960s, the PLO has adopted a "people's war" paradigm that continued to guide its policies even after the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords. According to the "people's war" paradigm, borrowed from Marxist-Leninist traditions in China and Vietnam, conflict is waged on both the political and military levels, but for militarily weaker guerilla groups, political conflict is more important, especially the delegitimization of an adversary and the division of his society. Prior to 1993, Israel largely responded to the PLO militarily as a terrorist threat, but not politically. After 1993, with the PLO "renouncing" terrorism, Israel embraced the PLO leadership and ignored the signs that the PLO was still engaged in political warfare against it (incitement, reluctance to alter PLO Covenant, UN votes, textbooks). Israeli governments later complained about these symptoms of political warfare, without identifying the cause. Established Israeli traditions place undue emphasis on the narrowly-framed military approach to the detriment of the political, which leaves Israel particularly vulnerable to broad-based strategic deception. Israeli policy-makers must reexamine the assumptions upon which they have based political and military policy over the last decade.
Topic:
Security, Religion, and War
Political Geography:
China, Middle East, Israel, Vietnam, Arab Countries, and Oslo

2924. Chinese-North Korean Relations at a Crossroads

Author:
Samuel S. Kim
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
At the locus of the "last glacier of the Cold War," there is a double paradox at work on the Korean peninsula, structured and symbolized by two competing alliances forged during the heyday of the Cold War: North Korea with China (1961) and South Korea with the United States (1954). The peninsula is currently experiencing an unprecedented crisis of alliance maintenance, even survival. For better or worse, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), or North Korea, is the only country with which the People's Republic of China (PRC) "maintains"—whether in name or in practice—its 1961 Cold-War pact. Yet amidst Chinese worries that the U.S.-DPRK nuclear confrontation may spiral out of control, in March 2003 Beijing established a leading Group on the North Korean Crisis (LGNKC), headed by President Hu Jintao. The LGNKC's mission is to improve assessment of the intelligence "black hole" over Pyongyang's nuclear capabilities and intentions and to formulate a cost-effective conflict management strategy.
Political Geography:
United States, China, Beijing, North Korea, and Korea

2925. When Will Russia Really Enter Northeast Asia?

Author:
Gilbert Rozman
Publication Date:
08-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination, Princeton University
Abstract:
Russia needs to open the Russian Far East for regional integration and make use of its dynamism and vast natural resources. Initiatives of the past decade have demonstrated great sensitivity to the dangers of foreign presence, but little forward thinking on their positive contributions. Putin has advanced beyond Yeltsin, but there is still no vision of regionalism. A reorientation of Sino-Russian relations from strategic goals associated with multipolarity to economic cooperation in a multilateral context offers hope that a new approach is coming. Under the umbrella of globalization including closer relations with the U.S., Putin can more easily pursue regional integration as well. In 2002-03, the nuclear standoff between North Korea and the U.S. put regionalism on hold, while energy security achieved a new profile that gave Putin the opportunity to weigh offers from China, Japan, and the U.S., while asserting control over oligarch Mikhail Khodorovsky and his oil behemoth Yukos. Clearly, Putin planned to take firm charge of managing all dimensions of regionalism, but it was less clear if he would encourage market forces.
Topic:
Civil Society and Politics
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Japan, China, Asia, and North Korea

2926. Attracting Investment to China

Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Abstract:
Foreign investment has played an important role in China's economic development for almost a quarter of a century and is vital for that development to continue. But while China has been highly successful in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) so far, and has made significant progress in improving its FDI policy framework, it has not fully exploited its potential to attract investment from OECD countries. To make the most of the potential benefits of joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) and to increase FDI inflows while enhancing their contribution to domestic development China will need to persevere with efforts to bring its laws and regulations into harmony with internationally recognised standards and to ensure they are fully and consistently implemented at local level.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Economics, International Organization, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
China

2927. The United States, China, and Taiwan: A Future With Hope

Author:
James Lilley
Publication Date:
10-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Public International Law Policy Group
Abstract:
You have clearly worked over the complicated relationship between Taiwan and China. I can only try to build on what Dr. Lin Chong--pin and Mr. Rostow have already described so lucidly. I would like to point out first that China chooses, for both tactical and emotional reasons, to place a special heavy emphasis on its relationship with Taiwan and to its point that Taiwan is part of China. Emotional, because this stirs up nationalism among a skeptical Chinese elite who have lost ideology. Tactical, because driving home the unity and sovereignty themes forces the U.S. on the defensive, i.e., the U.S. interferes in China's internal affairs, a cardinal sin in China's own lexicon. In reality, however, China has been practical. For almost fifty years Chinese propaganda has focused on Taiwan as a pure target, but objective circumstances have changed and so has China's strategy. China took over the Ta Chen Islands peacefully in 1954, its last significant territorial acquisition in the Taiwan Strait. Its later more militaristic approach against a well--defended Quemoy (Chin men) failed in 1958, and China retreated with much bluster and firing of cannons, many of them empty.
Topic:
Politics and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
United States, China, Taiwan, and Asia

2928. What is Sovereignty? The Cases of Taiwan and Micronesia

Author:
Peter R. Rosenblatt
Publication Date:
10-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Public International Law Policy Group
Abstract:
The title of my contribution to this discussion raises a point that is easy to overlook in discussions relating to the legal status of the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan. The range of options across the Strait is not confined, as the title of this conference suggests, to the reunification of China or Taiwan's independence, although either of these is obviously a possibility. A more likely option, in my judgment, is some future status for the ROC which involves neither incorporation into the People's Republic of China nor the challenging step of a declaration of “independence” as the Republic of Taiwan. This third option embraces a multiplicity of status shadings involving a continuing evolution of the ROC's current status of de facto independence. It is this option that I would like to address.
Topic:
Politics and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
China, Taiwan, and Asia

2929. China and Emerging Asia: Comrades or Competitors?

Author:
John W. Schindler, John G. Fernald, Prakash Loungani, and Alan J. Ahearne
Publication Date:
12-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
Do increases in China's exports reduce exports of other emerging Asian economies? We find that correlations between Chinese export growth and that of other emerging Asian economies are actually positive (though usually not significant), even after controlling for trading-partner income growth and real effective exchange rates. We also present results from a VAR estimation of aggregate trade equations on the relative importance of foreign income and exchange rates in determining Asian export growth. Although exchange rates do matter for export performance, the income growth of trading partners matters even more. In addition, we examine specific products and find evidence that a considerable shifting of trade patterns is taking place, consistent with a 'flying geese' pattern in which China and ASEAN-4 move into the product space vacated by the NIEs. Our results suggest that China and emerging Asia are both comrades (overall) and competitors (in specific products).
Topic:
Economics and Emerging Markets
Political Geography:
China and Asia

2930. Clean Air for Asia - China - India - Japan - United States Cooperation to Reduce Air Pollution in China and India

Author:
Richard L. Lawson, John R. Lyman, Donald L. Guertin, Tarun Das, Shinji Fukukawa, and Yang Jike
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
For China and India, rapid economic growth is imperative to alleviate poverty, raise income levels and improve their citizens' quality of life. In 2000, China and India's combined populations of 2.3 billion represented over 38 percent of the world's population. With both countries determined to grow their economies rapidly, there will be an associated rapid rise in energy demand. One of the most significant problems facing the two countries is the existing and increasing level of air pollution that will accompany growing energy consumption. This report focuses on the challenge of developing economic, energy, and environmental policies that will complement existing policies designed to reconcile the drive for economic growth with the need for greater environmental protection of air quality.
Topic:
Economics and Environment
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, India, and Asia