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1771. Street, Shrine, Square and Soccer Pitch: Comparative Protest Spaces in Asia and the Middle East

Author:
Teresita Cruz-del Rosario and James M. Dorsey
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
Shrines, squares and soccer stadiums have provided the settings for anti-government protests and people power in Southeast Asia and the Middle East in recent decades. At times used for mass detentions and torture of regime opponents by the security forces in the Middle East and North Africa, soccer stadiums became battlefields of resistance by soccer fans against autocratic rulers as the fans became politicized, clashing with security forces and increasingly using matches to shout anti-government slogans. The authors project those spaces as venues of political entitlement. They enabled protestors to overcome fear in confronting the regime in Cairo's Tahrir Square, Benghazi and elsewhere. They also generated a sense of entitlement and demands for far-reaching reforms in post-revolution Egypt and other North African and Middle Eastern countries.
Topic:
Human Rights, Torture, and Regime Change
Political Geography:
Middle East, Asia, North Africa, and Egypt

1772. Feeding Asia in the 21st Century: Building Urban – Rural Alliances

Publication Date:
08-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS)
Abstract:
The International Conference on Asian Food Security (ICAFS) took place on 10–12 August 2011 at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel in Singapore. ICAFS 2011, themed 'Feeding Asia in the 21st Century: Building Urban- Rural Alliances', was convened in the context of complex and multifaceted challenges throughout food systems in Asia. The conference sought to address timely questions relating to these challenges, and foster discussions among a range of stakeholders from Asia's food sectors.
Topic:
Security, Agriculture, Poverty, and Food
Political Geography:
Asia

1773. China and global oil: Vulnerability and opportunity

Author:
Roland Dannreuther
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
China has grown increasingly dependent on imports of oil and, as a consequence, has become a major and very visible player in the international energy markets. For a country which has traditionally been strongly committed to the principle of self-reliance, this dependence on foreign oil has been a source of vulnerability and anxiety. But it has also been a strategic opportunity for China to chart its own ambitions and objectives as a global economic and political actor. This article addresses the various ways in which China has incorporated its energy import needs within its foreign policy. There are, it is argued, three dimensions to this. There is, first, integration and cooperation with the West and other large oil-importing countries and a shift away from neo-mercantilism to a growing reliance on international markets. Second, there is a complementary strategy of balancing, which seeks to develop the energy resources close to its borders, in Russia and Central Abstracts Asia, which are not so vulnerable to western intervention. And third, there is the construction, though preliminary and nascent at the moment, of a hegemonic order which challenges the US and the West in the critical maritime routes from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean and through to the Persian Gulf region
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, India, and Asia

1774. Maritime Territorial Disputes in East Asia: A Comparative Analysis of the South China Sea and the East China Sea

Author:
Andy Yee
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
This article systematically compares maritime territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas. It draws on the bargaining model of war and hegemonic stability theory to track the record of conflicts and shifts in the relative power balances of the claimants, leading to the conclusion that certainty and stability have improved in the South China Sea, with the converse happening in the East China Sea. To enrich the models, this article also considers social factors (constructivism) and arrives at the same conclusion. This calls for a differentiated methodological approach if we are to devise strategies to mediate and resolve these disputes.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
China and Asia

1775. Chinese Lessons from Other Peoples' Wars

Author:
Andrew Scobell (ed.), David Lai (ed.), and Roy Kamphausen (ed.)
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
The annual Conference on the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) took place at the U.S. Army War College (USAWC), in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on October 22-24, 2010. The topic for this year's conference was the “PLA's lessons from Other People's Wars.” Participants at the conference sought to discern what lessons the PLA has been learning from the strategic and operational experiences of the armed forces of other countries during the past 3 decades.
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Globalization, and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Australia/Pacific

1776. The Sick Man of Asia

Author:
Yanzhong Huang
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Although China has made remarkable economic progress over the past few decades, its citizens' health has not improved as much. Since 1980, the country has achieved an average economic growth rate of ten percent and lifted 400–500 million people out of poverty. Yet Chinese official data suggest that average life expectancy in China rose by only about five years between 1981 and 2009, from roughly 68 years to 73 years. (It had increased by almost 33 years between 1949 and 1980.) In countries that had similar life expectancy levels in 1981 but had slower economic growth thereafter -- Colombia, Malaysia, Mexico, and South Korea, for example -- by 2009 life expectancy had increased by 7–14 years. According to the World Bank, even in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore, which had much higher life expectancy figures than China in 1981, those figures rose by 7–10 years during the same period.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Malaysia, Asia, South Korea, Colombia, Australia, Mexico, and Hong Kong

1777. Africa Unleashed

Author:
Edward Miguel
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Steven Radelet's accessible new book argues that much of the credit for Africa's recent economic boom goes to its increasingly open political systems. But Radelet fails to answer the deeper question: why some countries have managed to develop successful democracies while others have tried but failed.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, Asia, and Liberia

1778. Holding Libya Together: Security Challenges After Qadhafi

Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
As the recent upsurge of violence dramatically illustrates, the militias that were decisive in ousting Qadhafi's regime are becoming a significant problem now that it is gone. Their number is a mystery: 100 according to some; three times that others say. Over 125,000 Libyans are said to be armed. The groups do not see themselves as serving a central authority; they have separate procedures to register members and weapons, arrest and detain suspects; they repeatedly have clashed. Rebuilding Libya requires addressing their fate, yet haste would be as perilous as apathy. The uprising was highly decentralised; although they recognise it, the local military and civilian councils are sceptical of the National Transitional Council (NTC), the largely self-appointed body leading the transition. They feel they need weapons to defend their interests and address their security fears. A top-down disarmament and demobilisation effort by an executive lacking legitimacy would backfire. For now the NTC should work with local authorities and militias – and encourage them to work with each other – to agree on operational standards and pave the way for restructured police, military and civilian institutions. Qadhafi centralised power without building a central state. His successors must do the reverse.
Topic:
Security, Political Violence, Regime Change, and Popular Revolt
Political Geography:
Asia and North Africa

1779. Policy Concerns of Low Fertility for Military Planning in South Korea

Author:
Elizabeth Hervey Stephen
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
The South Korean military currently is the sixth-largest in the world. But years of low birth rates have resulted in declining numbers of young men available for military service, and the country now faces the pressing question of how to ensure national security in the face of inevitable troop reductions. Some options for offsetting this shrinking recruit pool (such as increasing fertility, increasing immigration, and increasing the number of women in the military) might seem obvious, but the complex economic, social, and cultural reality of South Korea make them unlikely to be embraced. The best focus for immediate action is to stabilize or increase service terms and to encourage development and implementation of high-tech security systems. While the recruit pool appears nearly adequate at present, South Korea must act quickly to develop the leaner, more diverse, and more technologically based military necessary for the country to maintain a viable military force.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
Israel, Asia, and South Korea

1780. The Trans-Pacific Partnership and Asia-Pacific Integration: A Quantitative Assessment

Author:
Peter A. Petri, Michael G. Plummer, and Fan Zhai
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
Two emerging tracks of trade agreements in the Asia-Pacific—one based on the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement and an Asian track—could consolidate the “noodle bowl” of current smaller agreements and provide pathways to a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP). We examine the benefits and strategic incentives generated by these tracks over 2010-2025. The effects on the world economy would be small initially but by 2025 the annual welfare gains would rise to $104 billion on the TPP track, $303 billion on both tracks, and $862 billion with an FTAAP. The tracks will be competitive but their strategic implications are constructive: each would generate incentives for enlargement. Over time, strong economic incentives would emerge for the United States and China to consolidate the tracks into a region-wide agreement. Each track would bring a different template to such consolidation and can be viewed as defining a “disagreement point” in the Asia-Pacific bargaining game. The study is based on an analysis of 48 actual and proposed Asia-Pacific trade agreements and models impacts on variables including sectoral trade, output, employment and job shifts in 24 world regions.
Topic:
Economics and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, China, Israel, Asia, Australia/Pacific, and Asia-Pacific