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292. Rethinking alliance and the economy: American hegemony, path dependence, and the South Korean political economy
- Author:
- Chung-in Moon and Sang-Young Rhyu
- Publication Date:
- 09-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
- Institution:
- Japan Association of International Relations
- Abstract:
- The alliance with the United States has not only provided South Korea with a credible military deterrence against North Korea, but also helped normalize its economy through extensive military and economic assistance and assertive policy intervention for macroeconomic stabilization and export drive. South Korea was also one of major beneficiaries of the American-built liberal international economic order. No matter how strong the alliance tie would be, however, major external economic crises or subsequent critical junctures (e.g. the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and the global financial crisis of 2008) tempted South Korea to seek an alternative arrangement by attempting to depart from the USled economic and financial architecture. Nevertheless, such moves were fundamentally constrained because of the preference of continuing stability in international economic and financial institutions and its renewed emphasis on the alliance in face of North Korea's nuclear threats. South Korea is likely to adhere to the American-led currency regime for the time being.
- Political Geography:
- United States, America, Asia, South Korea, and North Korea
293. Regions in the world: The EU and East Asia as foreign policy actors
- Author:
- Cesar de Prado
- Publication Date:
- 05-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Politics
- Institution:
- Palgrave Macmillan
- Abstract:
- This article argues that multidimensional regional processes have an external projection that may be explained by their semi-liberal governance structures. It analyses the European Union (EU) and the East Asian grouping of countries, focussing on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the active participation of Japan, South Korea and the People's Republic of China within ASEAN Plus Three. Both regional processes have a multi-level external projection as seen in their links with key states (especially the United States), other regional processes, and global regimes like the UN and the G20. In both cases, one finds that public actors have to collaborate with private actors, although they do so in a restricted fashion and often using think tanks and elite public-private intellectual (track-2) actors. The comparative analysis concludes with some hypotheses regarding the consolidation of regional processes in the world.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy and United Nations
- Political Geography:
- Russia, China, Taiwan, East Asia, South Korea, and Southeast Asia
294. Status, Identity, and Rising Powers
- Author:
- Deborah Welch Larson and Alexei Shevchenko
- Publication Date:
- 10-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for International Peace and Security Studies
- Abstract:
- In the current era, the most striking development is the appearance of rising powers. These include Brazil, Russia, India, and China but also South Africa, Mexico, and South Korea. No longer can a small group of advanced states, the Group of Seven (G-7), manage the world economy. The G-7 has for all practical purposes been replaced by the G-20, which includes China, India, South Korea, Indonesia, and Australia. The emerging powers in Asia account for a growing share of the world's global domestic product. These powers are spending more on their military—India already has an aircraft carrier and plans to procure two more. China's growing navy is a major concern to the United States military.
- Topic:
- Emerging Markets, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, and Power Politics
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, China, India, South Korea, South Africa, Brazil, and Mexico
295. KORUS FTA 2.0: Assessing the Changes
- Author:
- Jeffrey J. Schott
- Publication Date:
- 12-2010
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Peterson Institute for International Economics
- Abstract:
- On December 3, 2010, the United States and South Korea agreed to incremental changes to the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) that was signed in June 2007 but not ratified by the US Congress or the Korean National Assembly. Most of the changes affect bilateral trade in autos and light trucks; other minor changes involve pharmaceutical patents, US pork exports, and US visas.
- Topic:
- International Trade and Finance, Treaties and Agreements, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- United States and South Korea
296. The Effect of Coresidence with an Adult Child on Depressive Symptoms among Older Widowed Women in South Korea: An Instrumental Variable Estimation
- Author:
- Young Kyung Do and Chetna Malhotra
- Publication Date:
- 11-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- The objective of this paper is to estimate the causal effect of coresidence with an adult child on depressive symptoms among older widowed women in South Korea. Data from the first and second waves of the Korea Longitudinal Study of Aging were used. Analysis was restricted to widowed women aged ? 65 years with at least one living child (N=2,449). We use an instrumental variable approach that exploits the cultural setting where number of sons predicts the probability of an elderly woman's coresidence with an adult child but is not directly correlated with the mother's depressive symptoms. Our models adjust for age, education, total assets, residence, functional limitations, self-rated health, and various illnesses. Our robust estimation results indicate that, among older widowed women, coresidence with an adult child has a significant protective effect on depressive symptoms, but that this effect does not necessarily benefit those with clinically relevant depressive symptoms. Future demographic and social transitions in South Korea portend that older women's increasing vulnerability to poor mental health is an important though less visible public health challenge.
- Topic:
- Demographics, Gender Issues, and Health
- Political Geography:
- Israel and South Korea
297. The United States-Japan Security Treaty at 50 Still a Grand Bargain?
- Author:
- George R. Packard
- Publication Date:
- 03-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- On January 19, 1960, Japanese Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi and U.S. Secretary of State Christian Herter signed a historic treaty. It committed the United States to help defend Japan if Japan came under attack, and it provided bases and ports for U.S. armed forces in Japan. The agreement has endured through half a century of dramatic changes in world politics -- the Vietnam War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the spread of nuclear weapons to North Korea, the rise of China -- and in spite of fierce trade disputes, exchanges of insults, and deep cultural and historical differences between the United States and Japan. This treaty has lasted longer than any other alliance between two great powers since the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. Given its obvious success in keeping Japan safe and the United States strong in East Asia, one might conclude that the agreement has a bright future. And one would be wrong. The landslide electoral victory of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) last August, after nearly 54 years of uninterrupted rule by the Liberal Democratic Party, has raised new questions in Japan about whether the treaty's benefits still outweigh its costs. LABOR PAINS Back in 1952, when an earlier security treaty (which provided the basis for the 1960 treaty) entered into force, both sides thought it was a grand bargain. Japan would recover its independence, gain security at a low cost from the most powerful nation in the region, and win access to the U.S. market for its products. Without the need to build a large military force, Japan would be able to devote itself to economic recovery. The United States, for its part, could project power into the western Pacific, and having troops and bases in Japan made credible both its treaty commitments to defend South Korea and Taiwan and its policy of containment of the Soviet Union and communist China.
- Political Geography:
- United States, Japan, China, South Korea, and Vietnam
298. Top of the Class
- Author:
- Richard C. Levin
- Publication Date:
- 05-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- The rapid economic development of Asia since World War II -- starting with Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, then extending to Hong Kong and Singapore, and finally taking hold powerfully in India and mainland China -- has forever altered the global balance of power. These countries recognize the importance of an educated work force to economic growth, and they understand that investing in research makes their economies more innovative and competitive. Beginning in the 1960s, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan sought to provide their populations with greater access to postsecondary education, and they achieved impressive results. Today, China and India have an even more ambitious agenda. Both seek to expand their higher-education systems, and since the late 1990s, China has done so dramatically. They are also aspiring to create a limited number of world-class universities. In China, the nine universities that receive the most supplemental government funding recently self-identified as the C9 -- China's Ivy League. In India, the Ministry of Human Resource Development recently announced its intention to build 14 new comprehensive universities of "world-class" stature. Other Asian powers are eager not to be left behind: Singapore is planning a new public university of technology and design, in addition to a new American-style liberal arts college affiliated with the National University. Such initiatives suggest that governments in Asia understand that overhauling their higher-education systems is required to sustain economic growth in a postindustrial, knowledge-based global economy. They are making progress by investing in research, reforming traditional approaches to curricula and pedagogy, and beginning to attract outstanding faculty from abroad. Many challenges remain, but it is more likely than not that by midcentury the top Asian universities will stand among the best universities in the world.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, and War
- Political Geography:
- Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea
299. Attitudes and Perceptions of Prospective International Students from Vietnam
- Publication Date:
- 01-2010
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Institute of International Education
- Abstract:
- Vietnam is currently the fastest-growing market of international students coming to U.S. colleges and universities to study. Over the past decade, the number of Vietnamese students in U.S. higher education has increased more than sixfold, from just over 1,200 students in 1997/98 to almost 13,000 in 2008/09 (fig. 1). A large part of this increase has occurred in the past three years, with fall 2008 showing an increase of 45 percent, following increases of 45 percent and 31 percent the previous two years. These continuous, large increases have placed Vietnam among the top ten places of origin of international students in the U.S., moving from 20 th place in 2006/07 to 13 th place in 2007/08 to 9th place in 2008/09. At community colleges, Vietnam is now the third most popular place of origin, after South Korea and Japan, and ahead of China and Mexico.
- Topic:
- Education
- Political Geography:
- United States, Japan, China, South Korea, Vietnam, and Mexico
300. The Israeli Exception
- Author:
- John Feffer
- Publication Date:
- 05-2010
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy In Focus
- Abstract:
- North Korea and Israel have a lot in common. Neither is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and both employ their nuclear weapons in elaborate games of peek-a-boo with the international community. Israel and North Korea are equally paranoid about outsiders conspiring to destroy their states, and this paranoia isn't without some justification. Partly as a result of these suspicions, both countries engage in reckless and destabilizing foreign policies. In recent years, Israel has launched preemptive strikes and invaded other countries, while North Korea has abducted foreign citizens and blown up South Korean targets (including, possibly, a South Korean ship in late March in the Yellow Sea).
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, and International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Israel, South Korea, and North Korea