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91. South Korea: Responding to the North Korean threat

Author:
Bruce E. Bechtol
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
South Korea is in a unique position. It is an economic powerhouse and a thriving democracy that faces the most ­ominous and imminent threat on its borders of any democracy in the world. Moreover, this is a threat that continues to evolve, with increasing missile, cyber, special operations, and nuclear capabilities and a new leader who shows no signs that he will be any less ruthless or belligerent than his father. To meet this threat, Seoul has undertaken a number of efforts to better deter and defend against North Korean capabilities and provocations, including increasing the defense budget, upping training with US forces, creating new command elements, and establishing plans for preemptive strikes against imminent North Korean missile launches. However, in part because of administration changes in Seoul, the South Korean effort has been uneven. And decisions remain to be made in the areas of missile defense, tactical fighter aircraft, and command-and-control arrangements that will be significant for not only South Korea but all states that have an interest in Northeast Asia's peace and stability.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Democratization, Development, Emerging Markets, Nuclear Weapons, Bilateral Relations, and Territorial Disputes
Political Geography:
United States, East Asia, South Korea, and North Korea

92. Orville Schell: 'A Dream for a Strong and Respected China'

Author:
Orville Schell and John Delury
Publication Date:
07-2013
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Asia Society
Abstract:
New York, July 16, 2013 - China scholars Orville Schell and John Delury discuss how the "Chinese Dream" has evolved to encompass facets of the American Dream while still retaining a traditional, communal character as regards acquiring wealth. (1 min., 45 sec.)
Topic:
Communism, Development, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
China, New York, East Asia, and Asia

93. Searching for Peace with North Korea

Author:
Bill Richardson and Donald P. Gregg
Publication Date:
07-2013
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Asia Society
Abstract:
New York, July 11, 2013 — Former Governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson and Ambassador Donald P. Gregg, former U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea, analyze the present North Korea threat and discuss how it might be resolved. ABC News International Editor Jon Williams moderates the discussion. (1 hr., 18 min.)
Topic:
Communism and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
East Asia, North Korea, and Mexico

94. Does Internationalizing the RMB Make Sense for China?

Author:
Yukong Huang and Clare Lynch
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The last time a Chinese currency was used as an international medium of exchange was four centuries ago, when China's share of global GDP in PPP terms was nearly 30 percent (about twice its current level), the country was a major global trading power, and Chinese copper coins circulated throughout East Asia to India and even beyond (Horesh 2011). In the following centuries, silver dollars and paper bills replaced copper coins and China's share of external trade declined. Now, with China's return to the position of largest global trader and second-largest economy in the world, it is not surprising that discussion of internationalizing China's currency has resumed.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
China and East Asia

95. Australia-East Asia/US Relations: Election plus Marines, Joint Facilities and the Asian Century

Author:
Graeme Dobell
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Comparative Connections
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
The 12 months under review saw the unfolding of the withdrawal timetable from Afghanistan, the second rotation of US Marines to northern Australia, the first “Full Knowledge and Concurrence” statement on US facilities on Australian soil in six years, and the end of Australia's long-term military deployments in Timor Leste and Solomon Islands. The Gillard government produced a trio of major policy statements built on an understanding that Asia's “extraordinary ascent” means Australia is entering “a truly transformative period in our history.” In the words of the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper: “In managing the intersections of Australia's ties with the United States and China, we will need a clear sense of our national interests, a strong voice in both relationships and effective diplomacy.” Meanwhile, Australian politics experienced a bit of turmoil. The Labor government discarded Australia's first female prime minister in an attempt to appease the voters, but instead the voters discarded the Labor government. So it was that in the national election on Sept. 7, Australia got its third prime minister in the same calendar year. After six years of Labor rule, the LiberalNational Coalition led by Tony Abbott is back in power. Plummeting opinion polls had caused the Labor Parliamentary Caucus to vote out Julia Gillard as leader in June and elect Kevin Rudd as prime minister. Thus, Labor returned to the man it had thrown out of the prime ministership in 2010, afraid he could not win the looming 2010 election. Facing the prospect of another federal election, the Caucus this time dispensed with Gillard and gave Rudd a second chance as prime minister. Rudd, though, carried the weight of Labor's six years in office and the wounds of his bitter three-year leadership wrangle with Gillard, a struggle that had eaten at the government's standing and morale. Abbott's simple message was a Coalition alternative to the disunity, drama, and spectacular hatreds of the Labor years, allowing the Liberal leader to run a campaign that was singularly light on policy commitments. In the end, not being Julia Gillard or Kevin Rudd was enough for an Abbott triumph.
Topic:
Security and Government
Political Geography:
East Asia and Australia

96. Globalizing the Household in East Asia

Author:
Michael Douglass
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations
Institution:
School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University
Abstract:
Aquarter of a century ago, Smith, Wallerstein, and Evers put forth the thesis that the household is not merely a unit of consumption dependent upon a larger economy, but is instead the foundation of society and economy reaching from local to global scales. In being charged with the physical and daily reproduction of society and economy, the household carries out its tasks through pooling of unpaid and paid labor and resources, among its members. It also serves as a base to organize and socialize individuals for the rigors of employment outside of the household. Their thesis goes even further to state that without the household playing its assigned roles, “any economy would collapse.”
Political Geography:
East Asia

97. China, the Interdependent Giant, and the Global Economic Crisis

Author:
Thomas G. Moore
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
The global economic crisis revealed China to be an interdependent giant, one whose 'rise' was undeniable but also one whose deepening participation in transnational production sharing and network trade made it highly susceptible to an external shock. China weathered the storm relatively well - avoiding a recession, in particular - not because it had 'decoupled' from the G7 economies but because its stimulus measures were unusually swift and powerful. One cost, however, has been a worsening domestic imbalance between investment and consumption that carries a heightened risk of asset price inflation, non-performing loans and destabilising levels of local government debt. Meanwhile, China's ties to the world economy have not fundamentally changed since the crisis began. Despite stirring leader rhetoric and summit declarations, the BRICS have made only modest progress in meeting their goals. East Asia, North America and Europe remain China's principal trade partners, and cross-border production chains connecting these regions remain the dominant mode of China's incorporation into the world economy.
Political Geography:
China, Europe, East Asia, and North America

98. Security sector reconstruction in a post-conflict country: Lessons from Timor-Leste

Author:
Deniz Kocak
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 700
Abstract:
Post-conflict missions by the United Nations are increasingly mandated to reform the security sector and to establish viable security governance organs in, often, collapsed states. UN missions in Timor-Leste, tasked with the build-up of local security institutions and forces from 1999 to 2005, were regarded by some as successful examples of externally-led security sector transformation in so far as they managed to establish a local police force and local security governance institutions. Yet, the breakdown of the Timorese security sector during violent clashes between newly created security forces in 2006 hinted at weaknesses in the externally driven implementation of SSR. The UN mission subsequently mandated to assist in rebuilding the dysfunctional security sector, was however openly challenged by growing local resistance towards external meddling into the highly sensitive domain of security, and simultaneously, by assertive local approaches to security governance. By tracing the UN mission's steps in performing SSR before and after the security breakdown of 2006, the paper explains inherent flaws in the UN's approach and expounds the Timorese' alternative approach. It will be argued that the UN failed to enforce its security governance model in Timor-Leste creating the way for an evolving local approach to security governance.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Governance, and Reconstruction
Political Geography:
East Asia, United Nations, and Timor-Leste

99. Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World Before It Is Too Late

Author:
Joseph Cirincione
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
There is a high risk that someone will use, by accident or design, one or more of the 17,000 nuclear weapons in the world today. Many thought such threats ended with the Cold War or that current policies can prevent or contain nuclear disaster. They are dead wrong--these weapons, possessed by states large and small, stable and unstable, remain an ongoing nightmare. Joseph Cirincione surveys the best thinking and worst fears of experts specializing in nuclear warfare and assesses the efforts to reduce or eliminate these nuclear dangers. His book offers hope: in the 1960s, twenty-three states had nuclear weapons and research programs; today, only nine states have weapons. More countries have abandoned nuclear weapon programs than have developed them, and global arsenals are just one-quarter of what they were during the Cold War. Yet can these trends continue, or are we on the brink of a new arms race--or worse, nuclear war? A former member of Senator Obama's nuclear policy team, Cirincione helped shape the policies unveiled in Prague in 2009, and, as president of an organization intent on reducing nuclear threats, he operates at the center of debates on nuclear terrorism, new nuclear nations, and the risks of existing arsenals.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Terrorism, War, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Middle East, and East Asia
Publication Identifier:
9780231164054
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN

100. Security and Profit in China's Energy Policy: Hedging Against Risk

Author:
Øystein Tunsjø
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
China has developed sophisticated hedging strategies to insure against risks in the international petroleum market. It has managed a growing net oil import gap and supply disruptions by maintaining a favorable energy mix, pursuing overseas equity oil production, building a state-owned tanker fleet and strategic petroleum reserve, establishing cross-border pipelines, and diversifying its energy resources and routes. Though it cannot be "secured," China's energy security can be "insured" by marrying government concern with commercial initiatives. This book comprehensively analyzes China's domestic, global, maritime, and continental petroleum strategies and policies, establishing a new theoretical framework that captures the interrelationship between security and profit. Arguing that hedging is central to China's energy-security policy, this volume links government concerns about security of supply to energy companies' search for profits, and by drawing important distinctions between threats and risks, peacetime and wartime contingencies, and pipeline and seaborne energy-supply routes, the study shifts scholarly focus away from securing and toward insuring an adequate oil supply and from controlling toward managing any disruptions to the sea lines of communication. The book is the most detailed and accurate look to date at how China has hedged its energy bets and how its behavior fits a hedging pattern.
Topic:
Security, Energy Policy, International Trade and Finance, Oil, and Maritime Commerce
Political Geography:
China and East Asia
Publication Identifier:
9780231165082
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN