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91. China Brief, Understanding Chinaís North Korea Policy

Author:
Frank Ching, You Ji, Willy Lam, and Eric Teo
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
The two rounds of six-party talks in Beijing on the Korean nuclear standoff have demonstrated China.s unusual support for a multilateral solution to the conflict. This is symbolic of the country.s new diplomacy under Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabo. As is typical, Beijing is seeking to maximize its diplomatic gains for reasons related to national prestige and regional stability. What is new, however, is that the two leaders are trying to achieve these goals by having China act as a status quo power rather than through revisionist behavior. This change is vividly reflected in the fact that China has proven more willing to cooperate with the United States and is more determined to pressure North Korea. This brief article attempts to evaluate some of the domestic and international factors that are driving China to sponsor the six-party talks. conflicts on the Peninsula.with severe security implications for China. In the last few years two schools of thought have emerged in Beijing with respect to Chinese policy toward the DPRK. The first of these is the .buffer zone. school. It argues that, Pyongyang.s ill intentions and unpredictable adventurism notwithstanding, North Korea.s very existence remains of great strategic value to a China whose worst security nightmare is that of another Korean war. Moreover, any regime change that might occur in the DPRK as a result of war could bring the deployment of U.S. troops to positions close to the Sino-Korean borders. And taking into consideration a possible showdown between China and the United States in the Taiwan Strait, this could result in a hostile military presence right on China.s doorstep. Indeed, it was precisely this worst case scenario that China fought a war fifty-four years ago to prevent.
Topic:
International Relations, Government, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States, China, Israel, Taiwan, Beijing, North Korea, Korea, and Pyongyang

92. Fifty Years of Regional Inequality in China: A Journey through Central Planning, Reform, and Openness

Author:
Ravi Kanbur and Xiaobo Zhang
Publication Date:
08-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper constructs and analyses a long-run time-series for regional inequality in China from the Communist Revolution to the present. There have been three peaks of inequality in the last fifty years, coinciding with the Great Famine of the late 1950s, the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s, and finally the period of openness and global integration in the late 1990s. Econometric analysis establishes that regional inequality is explained in the different phases by three key policy variables; the ratio of heavy industry to gross output value, the degree of decentralization, and the degree of openness.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Industrial Policy, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
China and Asia

93. America Demands; China Supplies

Author:
John H. Makin
Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Say's Law, named after French economist Jean- Baptiste Say (1767–1832), was promulgated at the time of the Industrial Revolution when some feared that purchasing power would be insufficient to absorb the ever-growing output of the newly mechanized economy. It states simply and reassuringly that supply creates its own demand. More specifically, the production of output tends to generate purchasing power equal to the value of that output.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
China, America, and Asia

94. Whither Europe?

Author:
Barry Eichengreen
Publication Date:
05-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies (IES), UC Berkeley
Abstract:
Where I live, on the West Coast of the United States, and teach, at the University of California, Europe seems far away. Geographically we are closer to Latin America and Asia. Ethnically, Californians of Hispanic and Asian-American descent are increasingly numerous. Within 20 years, residents of European origin will be a minority; already they are a minority of the undergraduates enrolling at Berkeley. Economically as well, we look to Asia. It is in California where the largest number of container ships arriving from Asia are unloaded, and it is across the Pacific, and in China in particular, that most of those containers originate.
Topic:
Economics and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States, China, Europe, Asia, California, and Latin America

95. China Brief, Sars: Spreading Unrest

Author:
Willy Lam, William R. Hawkins, Harvey Stockwin, and Li Thian-hok
Publication Date:
05-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
The spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome—the SARS virus—throughout China is a phenomenon that had previously been denied by authorities and had gone unreported. But the penetration of the disease is now being admitted publicly, and efforts to combat it have begun. While the immediate epidemic in Beijing appears to be in decline, the fear remains that the spread of SARS within China will still be difficult—and maybe impossible—to control, let alone to eliminate. World Health Organization (WHO) officials admit that what happens in China will “make or break” the course of the epidemic. China's neighbors, and particularly Hong Kong, worry that a failure to curtail the virus will inevitably result in a fresh round of crossborder infection, further intensifying the already grave economic impact of SARS on the region. At worst, a sustained epidemic could bring China's opening-up to the outside world to a screeching halt.
Topic:
International Relations, Government, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
China, Israel, Beijing, and Hong Kong

96. China Brief, Taiwan's presidential countdown: what does it mean for the united states?

Author:
Willy Lam, Arnold Zeitlin, John Tkacik, and Jonathan Mirsky
Publication Date:
05-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Could Taiwan's voters elect a pro-unification candidate in 2004? Can the challenger, Kuomintang chairman Lien Chan, put together an electoral consensus of ethnic mainlanders, Hakkas and ethnic Taiwanese investors in China that will begin the process of moving Taiwan into the embrace of the People's Republic of China? The polls indicate it could be a fifty-fifty proposition, especially if the campaign's focus is the economy—not national identity. Washington should begin to consider its substantial strategic stake in Taiwan, and rethink the message that its diplomats in Taipei are sending Taiwan's public.
Topic:
International Relations, Government, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
China and Israel

97. China Brief, New Disease, New Leaders, Same Old Regime

Author:
Willy Lam, Harvey Stockwin, Gordon G. Chang, and Richard D. Fisher
Publication Date:
04-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
An epidemic, spread by official deception and indifference, is afflicting the Chinese people. What does this disease mean for the People's Republic of China?
Topic:
International Relations, Government, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
China and Israel

98. China Brief, Beijing studies the U.S. war in Iraq

Author:
Willy Lam, Gordon G. Chang, Richard D. Fisher, and Wangchuk Meston
Publication Date:
04-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Chinese strategic and military experts are scrutinizing the U.S. war in Iraq, and for several reasons. First, if American and British forces become bogged down in their effort to liquidate the regime of Saddam Hussein, then it is much less likely that Washington will soon target other rogue regimes with weapons of mass destruction, such as North Korea, a Chinese ally.
Topic:
International Relations, Government, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
China, Iraq, America, Washington, Israel, and North Korea

99. China Brief, National People's Congress: Popularity and power

Author:
Willy Lam, Harvey Stockwin, Gordon G. Chang, and M. D. Nalapat
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Newly elected President Hu Jintao and his allies should take heart from the results of the recently concluded First Session of the Tenth National People's Congress (NPC).
Topic:
International Relations, Government, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
China and Israel

100. China Brief, Osama bin Laden in China

Author:
Willy Lam, Ahmad Lutfi, Gordon G. Chang, and Richard D. Jr. Fisher
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Beijing often downplays the size of its Xinjiang problem for fear of exposing the difficulties it faces containing the “cancer of terrorism.” Since September 11, 2001, Beijing has been forced to reverse this policy due to repeated terrorist attacks. The most recent of these took place on February 25, 2003, when two bombs ripped through two of Beijing's most prestigious universities. The blasts shattered Beijing's long-held claim that it has been winning its war on terror.
Topic:
International Relations, Government, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
China, Israel, and Beijing