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Begin New Search Political Geography China Publication Year within 25 Years

2931. Free Movement of People, Goods, Services and Capital in View of the Context of Stability Pact

Author:
Mladen Stanicic
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Austrian National Defence Academy
Abstract:
The Stability Pact is a strategic concept whose aim is to warrant long- term peace and stability in South-Eastern Europe. It is becoming an indispensable element of the global security structure which is currently being constructed in relations between the big powers, the USA, Russia and China, with the active participation of the United Nations, the European Union, international financial institutions and individual countries. As one of the sponsors of the pact, the European Union is keenly interested in stability and peace among its next-door neighbours, some of whom are covered by the pending eastern enlargement. This enlargement is intended to transcend centuries of civilisational and religious divisions in Europe, the causes of many political and armed conflicts in the past. The vision of Europe in the 21st century, reaching all the way to the borders of the former Soviet Union, is that of a multicultural community encompassing states with diverse civilisational, religious, ethnic and cultural characteristics.
Topic:
Security, Globalization, International Cooperation, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, Europe, and Eastern Europe

2932. The Bush Administration's Nuclear Strategy and Its Implications for China's Security

Author:
Tian Jingmei
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
Since the Bush administration took office, and especially since excerpts of the Nuclear Posture Review were released, there have appeared in America some heated arguments about the Bush administration's changes to the Clinton administration's nuclear strategy, what consequences these changes would produce, and what influences they would exert on international and regional security. Different people have different views. The purpose of this working paper is to find solutions to these key issues. The effects of the Bush administration's nuclear strategy on China's security are also discussed.
Topic:
Security, Nuclear Weapons, and Politics
Political Geography:
China, America, and Asia

2933. CERI: Developing Border Cooperation between China and Russia

Author:
Sébastien Colin
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
Since the resumption of talks between China and Russia – still the Soviet Union when this occurred in the mid-1980s, relations between the two countries have been particularly dynamic. On the international level, the two countries in fact share the same viewpoint on a number of issues. These mutual concerns led to the signing of a strategic partnership in 1997, then a new treaty of friendship in 2001. The complementarity between the two countries in the energy and arms sectors also stimulates cooperation. However, this alliance is not without its limits. The United States, its primary target, can easily short-circuit it, as it did just after the September 11, 2001 attacks. In the field of cooperation, the intensity and structure of trade between the two countries are both inadequate. The rise in trade during the 1990s was very uneven and marked by a drop between 1994 and 1996. The main causes of this are situated at the local echelon along the Chinese-Russian border. After the dynamism characteristic of the 1988-1993 period, the opening of the border triggered new problems, such as illegal Chinese immigration in the little-inhabited border zones of Russia. Although this trend caused friction among the local Russian population, it was mainly the retrocession of certain Russian territories to China when the border was demarcated between 1993 and 1997 that radicalized the inhabitants, paralyzing border cooperation. The Russian and Chinese government played an active role in attempting to resolve most of these disputes, as the Tumen program illustrated. Since then, the various authorities in the two countries have tried to revitalize border cooperation, but a number of problems remain that are mainly economic in nature and vary depending on the border region.
Topic:
Development and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, Europe, and Asia

2934. International Trade, Location and Wage Inequality in China

Author:
Songhua Lin
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Models of economic geography predict that transportation costs directly affect demand for goods and the supply of intermediate inputs. One of the reasons that international trade is concentrated in the coastal provinces of China is that they have lower transportation costs in transporting goods to other countries than do provinces in the interior. This paper examines the relationship between the provincial wage rate and each province's access to international markets, and to suppliers of intermediate inputs. A gravity equation is first estimated to construct these 'market access' and 'supplier access' variables. In the second stage, the effect of market access and supplier access on the wage rate is estimated. It is found that about one quarter of the provincial wage differences in the coastal provinces and 15 per cent of the wage differences in the interior provinces can be explained by these economic geography variables.
Topic:
Industrial Policy and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
China, Israel, and East Asia

2935. Externalities in Rural Development: Evidence for China

Author:
Martin Ravallion
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The paper tests for external effects of local economic activity on consumption and income growth at the farm household level using panel data from four provinces of post-reform rural China. The tests allow for nonstationary fixed effects in the consumption growth process. Evidence is found of geographic externalities, stemming from spillover effects of the level and composition of local economic activity and private returns to local human and physical infrastructure endowments. The results suggest an explanation for rural underdevelopment arising from underinvestment in certain externality-generating activities, of which agricultural development emerges as the most important.
Topic:
Development and Economics
Political Geography:
China and Asia

2936. Trade Liberalization, Agriculture, and Poverty in Low-income Countries

Author:
Kym Anderson
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper offers an economic assessment of the opportunities and challenges provided by the WTO's Doha Development Agenda, particularly through agricultural trade liberalization, for low-income countries seeking to trade their way out of poverty. After discussing links between poverty, economic growth and trade, it reports modelling results showing that farm product markets remain the most costly of all goods market distortions in world trade. It focuses on what such reform might mean for countries of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa in particular, both without and with their involvement in the MTN reform process. What becomes clear is that if those countries want to maximize their benefits from the Doha round, they need also to free up their own domestic product and factor markets so their farmers are better able to take advantage of new market-opening opportunities abroad. Other concerns of low-income countries about farm trade reform also are addressed: whether there would be losses associated with tariff preference erosion, whether food-importing countries would suffer from higher food prices in international markets, whether China's WTO accession will provide an example of trade reform aggravating poverty via cuts to prices received by Chinese farmers, and the impact on food security and poverty alleviation. The paper concludes with lessons of relevance for low-income countries for their own domestic and trade policies.
Topic:
Agriculture, Economics, Emerging Markets, International Trade and Finance, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Africa and China

2937. When Wen Comes To Washington . . .

Author:
Yu Bin
Publication Date:
12-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
In the Chinese language, the character "wen" means moderation and modesty. This happens to capture the personality and policies of China's new premier, Wen Jiabao. In his first trip to the United States as premier, Wen will try to present the image of a rising China that is liberalizing at home, is confident abroad, and willing and able to work with the world's sole superpower. The U.S. side will also have a closeup look at the man who may well administer China for the next 10 years.
Political Geography:
United States, China, Israel, and Asia

2938. Taiwan Referendum: Waving a Red Flag

Author:
Ralph A. Cossa
Publication Date:
12-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
TAIPEI – Is President Chen Shui-bian trying to provoke a crisis with the PRC in the run up to the March 2004 presidential elections in Taiwan? Taiwan government spokesmen say no, but there is a growing perception among cross-Strait watchers that Taipei is purposefully baiting Beijing in hopes of provoking a hostile response (a la the 1996 missile “tests”) that will cause the island's public to rally around the flag (and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party) in the name of Taiwanese nationalism.
Political Geography:
China, Israel, and Asia

2939. Six-Party Talks Prospects

Author:
Ralph A. Cossa
Publication Date:
11-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
President Bush's recent offer to provide Pyongyang with written assurances that the U.S. does not intend to attack North Korea and the North's willingness “to consider” this offer provide the basis, however tentative and contentious, for a negotiated solution to the current nuclear stand-off on the Korean Peninsula. But even if the North really does return to the bargaining table – and this is by no means assured – a long and difficult road lies ahead in the search for common ground between the two primary antagonists in this six-party drama. The key to a successful outcome remains the willingness of the other four actors – China, Japan, Russia, and especially South Korea – to stand firmly behind Washington's central demand: that Pyongyang “fully, verifiably, and irreversibly” abandon its nuclear weapons programs.
Political Geography:
Russia, Japan, China, Israel, and Asia

2940. A Bittersweet Win For Mr. Koizumi

Author:
Brad Glosserman
Publication Date:
11-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Tokyo – In the end, the weather just wasn't bad enough. Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has dominated politics since 1955, claimed victory in Sunday's national election as it and its coalition partners took a comfortable majority in the Diet. Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro's celebrations have been muted, however: The LDP's failure to win an outright majority in the lower house will embolden obstructionists within his own party who oppose his reform agenda.
Political Geography:
China, Israel, and Asia