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21. China's frail historical claims to the South China and East China Seas

Author:
J. Bruce Jacobs
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
China has recently attempted to use military force to back up alleged historical claims to the South China Sea and East China Sea; however, upon closer examination, the claims do not hold up. China's belligerent attempts to enforce its claims in the South and East China Seas endanger peace in Asia. China appears unlikely to accept any reasonable proposals that respect history and geography. Southeast Asian nations and other interested countries, like the United States and Australia, must maintain a military presence to deter Chinese aggression while attempting to negotiate a peaceful settlement with China.
Topic:
International Law, Sovereignty, History, Territorial Disputes, and Governance
Political Geography:
United States, China, Asia, Australia, East China, and South China

22. Australian defense in the era of austerity: Mind the expectation gap

Author:
Andrew Shearer
Publication Date:
08-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Like many other Western states, following the Cold War, Australia cut its defense budget, resulting in significant shortfalls in key military capabilities. Since the mid-1990s, successive Australian governments have outlined plans intended to boost the capabilities of Australia's armed forces. However, these strategic ambitions have in recent years been undercut by changes in government spending priorities and shortfalls in the national budget, jeopardizing the long-standing technological advantage Australian forces have enjoyed over other states in the region. As major Asian states such as China continue to grow their economies and modernize their armed forces, Australia must commit sufficient resources to its modernization agenda or risk losing its ability to help shape the Asia-Pacific ­security environment and risk fulfilling its role as a key US partner in America's pivot to Asia.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Cold War, Economics, and Armed Forces
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, China, Asia, and Australia

23. Are Drugs Made in Emerging Markets Good Quality? A Preliminary Assessment of Product Consistency by Use of Raman Spectra

Author:
Roger Bate
Publication Date:
02-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Increasing competition generally decreases product prices. But in the case of pharmaceuticals, this is only beneficial if competitor products are therapeutically equivalent (bioequivalent). One measure of quality control is a consistently made product, examined in detail in this paper. A comprehensive study of drug samples in African and Asian countries--assessed for variability by spectrometer--suggests that registered products perform notably better than unregistered products. As all of the sampled drugs are used to treat potentially lethal infections, this product variability (particularly of unregistered drugs) could prove detrimental to public health. Future analysis will assess how significant these spectral differences are in terms of drug quality and hence how important changes in policy should be to limit quality variability.
Topic:
Emerging Markets, Health, Human Welfare, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Africa, China, and Asia

24. Deter and Assure: Charting a Course for America's Asian Alliances in a New Nuclear Age

Author:
Tim Sullivan
Publication Date:
11-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
As home to a number of the world's most dynamic economies, two rising powers, and six nuclear states, Asia is a region of enormous strategic importance to the United States. For over six decades, America has functioned as the preeminent power in Asia, playing a vital role in providing security and ensuring a stable balance of power that has allowed the region's states to flourish politically and economically. The U.S. security framework in the region has rested historically upon a series of bilateral alliances and strategic partnerships. The arrangement has impressively stood the test of time despite concerns that the lack of an overarching, multilateral security architecture would lead to inefficiencies in the United States' pursuit of regional stability.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Emerging Markets, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
United States and Asia

25. Village-by-Village Democracy in China

Author:
Robert T. Gannett Jr.
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Despite the aftershocks of a natural disaster, the economy of the region's most populous nation still manages to produce unprecedented prosperity for its citizens. Its government is omnipresent, fueling this growth by building roads, canals, and new manufacturing plants, while seeking to eradicate collective constraints of a bygone era. Individuals respond to the new economic opportunities by becoming more industrious, more inventive, more acquisitive, more bourgeois, more capitalist. In the midst of such sudden economic transformation, the government struggles to maintain political stability. When protests erupt in the countryside, it suppresses them or co-opts their leaders. In an effort to reduce political tension, it allows a measure of personal liberty and speaks frequently of the need for reforms. It recognizes the importance of public opinion, doing everything it can to cultivate, manage, and control its expanding influence, especially in times of crisis and when the nation finds itself on the world stage. It frequently remodels administrative rules and habits applying to the whole nation, issuing edicts from the center that are routinely ignored in the provinces. And to the surprise of all, it launches a new system for the whole nation of local assemblies chosen by local voters, while inviting all residents to express and address local grievances in each of even its tiniest far-flung villages.
Topic:
Communism and Democratization
Political Geography:
China and Asia

26. Deter, Defend, Repel, and Partner: A Defense Strategy for Taiwan

Author:
Dan Blumenthal, Gary J. Schmitt, Michael Mazza, Randall Schriver, and Mark Stokes
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Taiwan is a great success story. It is a prosperous, thriving democracy living at peace—and it wants to remain at peace. A recent poll shows that more than 90 percent of Taiwanese support maintaining the “status quo,” meaning principally that an overwhelming majority of the island's citizens wants to avoid a conflict with the mainland if at all possible while retaining their de facto sovereignty.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Diplomacy, Peace Studies, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Israel, Taiwan, and Asia

27. Economic Integration and Incipient Democracy

Author:
Philip I. Levy
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Contrary to the common approach in the literature, the economic and other forces that push countries toward democratization are continuous rather than discrete. This paper argues that failure to account for the latent variable of "incipient democracy" can bias estimates of democracy's determinants. The paper presents a new avenue by which economic integration can foster democracy, one that focuses on the means for democratization rather than the motive. This strengthening of civil society is identified as a necessary component of economic integration with modern distributed production, though we would not expect to see it in autocracies dependent on natural resource trade. The arguments are applied to the case of China.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, Economics, and Emerging Markets
Political Geography:
China and Asia

28. Japan's Lost Decade: Lessons for the United States in 2008

Author:
John H. Makin
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Japan experienced a disastrous decade of economic stagnation and deflation from 1991 to 2001 after bubbles in its stock market and land market collapsed. While some economic pain was unavoidable—given a 60 percent plunge in equity prices between late 1989 and August 1992, accompanied by the onset of what ultimately became a 70 percent drop in land values by 2001—the "lost decade" was not an inevitable outcome. It required a series of persistently wrong economic policy decisions that ignored the lessons learned in America's Great Depression of the 1930s and the subsequent research on the causes of that painful period.
Topic:
Economics, Human Rights, Human Welfare, Humanitarian Aid, and Markets
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, America, and Asia

29. Putin-3

Author:
Leon Aron
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
In the past nine years, Russian foreign policy has been examined several times in these pages. At no other time, however, has its direction been as troubling as it is today. To understand the causes of this disturbing evolution and to gauge its future course, the changes have to be examined in the context of the regime's ideological and political transformation since 2000, when Vladimir Putin was elected president.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, International Relations, Security, and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

30. Putinism

Author:
Leon Aron
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Throughout Russia's history, the weakness of institutions and laws has ensured that the successor regimes rarely, if ever, turn out as intended by the previous ruler. Instead of continuity, the national tradition of highly personalized government often produces a very different political organism ostensibly from the same institutional framework. Yet with former president Vladimir Putin's staying on as a kind of regent–prime minister to the dauphin-president Dmitri Medvedev, at least for the next few years, the ideology, priorities, and policies of the Putin Kremlin—what might be called Putinism—are almost certain to inform and guide the Medvedev administration. Part I of this Outlook discusses the components of the new Russian authoritarianism, and parts II and III examine the elements of “Russia, Inc.”—the corporatist state that Putin has built—and the factors that may affect Russia's economic performance, stability, and foreign policy in the future.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia