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211. East Asian Environmental Co-operation: Central Pessimism, Local Optimism

Author:
Sangbum Shin
Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
University of British Columbia
Abstract:
This paper examines the regional environmental co-operation in East Asia at the local government level, focusing on the intercity environmental co-operation between the two cities in Japan and China—Kitakyushu and Dalian—as a case. Theoretically, this case demonstrates the dynamic nature of local government level environmental co-operation in the sense that all the three levels—government, local government, and private—are closely interconnected, and the major actors—the firms—play a role in shaping the outcome of intercity co-operation. Also, in terms of policy implication, this case is important not just for East Asian but also global environmental politics because it is the co-operation between cities in China and Japan—the two most important countries in East Asia that affect regional and global environmental protections efforts seriously. In order to investigate the reasons of success, and the dynamic nature of intercity environmental co-operation, this paper suggests a framework for analysis on the relationship between multiple dimensions of regional environmental co-operation, and then, examines the historical process and the details of the case and explains why this case has been remarkably successful and produced significant outcome. Finally, it draws some theoretical as well as policy implications of this case in terms of possibilities for and limitations of East Asian regional environmental co-operation in the future.
Topic:
Environment and Government
Political Geography:
Japan, China, and East Asia

212. Understanding East Asian Cross-Regionalism: An Analytical Framework

Author:
Mireya Solís and Saori N. Katada
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
University of British Columbia
Abstract:
A key feature of East Asian FTA diplomacy remains unacknowledged and, therefore, unaccounted for: the activism displayed in seeking preferential trading relations with countries outside the region. While European and North American countries have also pursued cross-regional trade agreements (CRTAs), East Asia is unique in pursuing extra-regional partnerships before consolidating the regional trade integration process. This framework article identifies the common patterns and fundamental factors behind the East Asian governments' moves towards establishing CRTAs. After laying out the conventional arguments—ranging from the extra-regional market dependence, the region's security arrangements, and economic and political motives behind East Asia's extra-regional interests—the article introduces the novel concept of "leverage." This notion highlights how cross-regional and intra-regional FTA initiatives are intimately linked: East Asian countries frequently choose an extraregional FTA partner in order to break regional inertias that hinder integration, to win domestic battles, and to appropriate extra-regional negotiation modalities that they can use in their subsequent intra-regional FTA negotiations. The article concludes with a summary of the findings from the country cases, and the policy implications of East Asia's porous regionalism, with its heavy doses of cross-regional trade initiatives.
Topic:
Diplomacy
Political Geography:
East Asia and North America

213. The Strategic Benefits of Turkey's Admission into the East Asia Summit

Author:
Phar Kim Beng
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
To fulfill Turkey's mission as a "civilizational connector" between Europe and Asia, Turkey must be a full member of the East Asian Summit. The path towards this goal, among others, requires Turkey to be a Dialogue Partner of ASEAN. Once ASEAN sponsors Turkey's membership in East Asian Summit, Turkey would then be strategically positioned to be a key member with some of the world's most monumental economic and political powers in its midst. Indeed, if Turkey is a member of East Asian Summit, ideally by 2010, Turkey would be in a better position to realize its strategic, civilizational, and historical depth.
Political Geography:
Turkey and East Asia

214. The Strategic Benefits of Turkey's Admission Into East Asian Summit

Author:
Kim Beng Phar
Publication Date:
11-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
To fulfill Turkey's mission as a ʺcivilizational connectorʺ between Europe and Asia, Turkey must be a full member of the East Asian Summit. The path towards this goal, among others, requires Turkey to be a Dialogue Partner of ASEAN. Once ASEAN sponsors Turkey's membership in East Asian Summit, Turkey would then be strategically positioned to be a key member with some of the world's most monumental economic and political powers in its midst. Indeed, if Turkey is a member of East Asian Summit, ideally by 2010, Turkey would be in a better position to realize its strategic, civilizational, and historical depth.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, Middle East, Israel, and East Asia

215. The International Politics of the Chinese Arms Embargo Issue

Author:
Nicola Casarini
Publication Date:
09-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
The Chinese arms embargo issue has gone beyond Sino-European bilateral relations to become a matter of significance - and concern - for East Asian and US policymakers. Thus, an eventual solution depends not only on the interplay between EU and Chinese policymakers' interests and considerations, but is now interconnected with China's domestic developments and regional posture, the security concerns of China's neighbours (especially Japan and Taiwan), the evolution of US-China relations and transatlantic relations.
Topic:
Development
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Europe, Taiwan, and East Asia

216. Re-Aligning the Military and Political Dimensions of the ROK-US Alliance: The Possibilities

Author:
Patrick M. Morgan
Publication Date:
09-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
In a nutshell, the ROK-US alliance faces the following problem: for some time the military and political dimensions of the alliance have been out of alignment on adjusting to the international and national security issues that concern the alliance. In many ways the alliance should be doing well. After all, over time North Korea has become steadily weaker as an international actor, while those who explicitly oppose many elements of its foreign and domestic policies have grown in number, including all its immediate neighbors. The promising opening to the outside world that the North undertook after signing the Agreed Framework has been sharply devalued and it is back to being quite isolated. The economic recovery the North had begun earlier in this decade seems to have slowed. It is difficult to see how the North has benefited in any serious way from its missile tests or its test of a nuclear device. The alliance's goal of containing and deterring North Korea is well in hand – the DPRK has made no great breakout politically from containment and is militarily even weaker relative to the alliance than before, despite its missile and nuclear weapons programs. In addition, the alliance partners have been doing reasonably well in the East Asian system: flourishing economically, modernizing militarily. Despite all this the alliance has been under great strain in this decade, with much recrimination between the allies, so numerous analysts have suggested that it is not at all healthy. In this case, at least, success has been breeding decay.
Political Geography:
East Asia and North Korea

217. A Changing Paradigm of U.S.-East Asian Relations: Strategic and Economic Perspectives

Author:
Terence Roehrig
Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
There is little doubt that portions of the strategic and economic paradigm in East Asia and for U.S.-East Asia relations have in general been changing in dramatic ways for the past ten to fifteen years. Several contributing factors are well known: China's economic rise along with the potential strategic and political role it is likely to play in the future; the possibility of a more assertive Japan that may revise its constitution in an effort to become a “normal” country; and South Korea, in possession of greater economic, military and political power accompanied by the confidence to be a more significant player in the region. Moreover, even the notion of “East Asia” may be less and less relevant as economic integration is no longer bound by old geographic delineations, particularly with the region's growing economic and political ties with Southeast Asia and India, ties that are breaking down some of these regional distinctions. Finally, the United States is facing a more confident and multipolar Asia that is organizing to play a greater role in controlling its future and increasingly will require a different approach than in the past.
Political Geography:
United States, India, East Asia, Asia, Angola, and Southeast Asia

218. Leadership for Nation Building: the Case of Korean Presidents

Author:
Choong Nam Kim
Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
South Korea (Korea hereafter) has represented one of the most successful cases in the history of nation building. The country, known as “an East Asian model of economic prosperity and political democracy,” emerged as a modern nation in a single generation and under the most trying circumstances—the legacy of colonial rule, national division, the Korean War and continual confrontation with the Communist North. Its success in nation building is extraordinary, not only in the history of this country, but also in comparison with other third world countries.
Political Geography:
East Asia, South Korea, and Korea

219. Will India Emerge as an Eastern or Western Power?

Author:
Kishore Mahbubani
Publication Date:
02-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for the Advanced Study of India
Abstract:
Founded in 1992, the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania is the only research institution in the United States dedicated to the study of contemporary India. A national resource, it fills an urgent need for objective knowledge of India's rapidly changing society, politics and economy, and the processes of transformation underway in an ancient civilization emerging as a major power.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
United States, India, East Asia, and Asia

220. Sovereignties, the World Conference against Racism 2001 and the Formation of a Dalit Human Rights Campaign

Author:
Dag Erik Berg
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
This paper examines how the World Conference against Racism in Durban 2001 intensified an old debate in India about caste and race. The controversy arose after the 'National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights' wanted to present caste discrimination in Durban as equivalent to racial discrimination. The Indian government protested, and distinguished sociologists entered the fray by claiming that race is a western concept which cannot be compared to caste, strengthening the official position. Conceptual logic became central to the debate. First, the position represents conventional knowledge, which reflects the anti-colonial attempt to define race as being irrelevant to India. But, secondly, the scholarly discourse acted to exclude oppression from the debate in clear contrast to the Durban agenda on racism and intolerance. The debate showed, broadly, how Durban represented a transformative potential by connecting global racism discourse to the moral status of an embedded postcolonial state. Further, the paper argues that the dominating conceptual focus reflects a paradigmatic individualism, which informs the scholarly approach to modern caste formations. While individualist approaches exclude Dalit rhetoric as subjective, they do not sufficiently acknowledge that the exclusionary logics inflicted on Dalits in modern bureaucratic institutions is a racial dynamic. To shed light on the Durban controversy, the paper outlines the larger background to caste in India and provides examples of Dalit discourse. It also presents the formation of the hum an rights network and controversial issues regarding the way they define themselves as NGOs, Dalits and Christians. These attributed properties were fundamental for the debate(s). Durban cannot be seen as an episode with tangible empirical impact. Rather, the debate was an intense moment in an ongoing historical argument about hierarchical practices and equality in India as well as about its moral status in the global community. In December 2006, however, at an international conference in New Delhi, the Prime Minister of India compared the Dalit situation to apartheid.
Topic:
Human Rights, Poverty, and Race
Political Geography:
India, East Asia, Asia, New Delhi, Kurdistan, and Durban