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61. Advancing Myanmar's Transition: A Way Forward for U.S. Policy

Author:
Priscilla Clapp and Suzanne DiMaggio
Publication Date:
02-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Asia Society
Abstract:
In January 2012, an Asia Society delegation visited Burma/Myanmar to engage in a Track II dialogue with the Myanmar Development Resources Institute (MDRI), a newly created, independent think tank based in Yangon. The MDRI participants in the dialogue include advisors with a mandate to provide policy advice in the areas of political, economic, and legal affairs to President Thein Sein and his government. The goal of this informal dialogue is to establish an ongoing channel of communication between experts from both countries and to explore opportunities to advance U.S.–Myanmar relations during a particularly fluid and fragile period of transition in Myanmar.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Democratization, Development, and Diplomacy
Political Geography:
United States, Asia, Southeast Asia, and Myanmar

62. China's regional security relations and interaction with the U.S.: trends, challenges and possible scenarios

Author:
Frans-Paul van der Putten
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
Abstract:
This paper provides a brief overview of current developments relevant to Sino-U.S. security relations, and to China's involvement in regional security issues, in East and South-East Asia. The most fundamental challenge with regard to regional stability is how the roles of China and the United States in the Asia Pacific can be reconciled. While the U.S. is concerned that a rising China will eventually push American influence out of East and South-East Asia, China in turn fears that the U.S. will try to retain its leadership role by exploiting and amplifying tensions between the Chinese and their neighbours. Currently the Sino-U.S. rivalry is threatening unity within ASEAN, which poses an immediate risk for regional stability. A substantial improvement in regional stability – whether in South-East or in East Asia – is unlikely unless the U.S. and China manage to stabilise their bilateral relationship. It is important for all interested parties, inside Asia but also outside (including in Europe), to contribute to a move away from a scenario in which regional stability continues to deteriorate, and in the direction of a scenario that involves a cooperative arrangement between China and the U.S. in a stable multilateral setting.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, International Trade and Finance, Bilateral Relations, and Hegemony
Political Geography:
United States, China, Israel, East Asia, Australia/Pacific, and Southeast Asia

63. Reluctant India, Rising China and Alliance Politics in the Asia-Pacific

Author:
Yogesh Joshi
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
US President Barack Obama used his 2012 State of the Union speech to explain that evolving geopolitical realities continue to make the United States indispensable in global politics. In the Asia-Pacific this indispensability emanates, in part, from the waves caused by the rise of China. Consequently, demands for an increased US presence echo around the region. In response, the United States has renewed its commitments to Japan, South Korea and Australia, stepped up its relations with Southeast Asia, and reasserted itself as an important player in multilateral institutions including the East Asia Summit, APEC, and ASEAN. Clearly, in the 21st century, US strategic focus has shifted from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, International Security, and Power Politics
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, India, South Korea, Australia, and Southeast Asia

64. Rising Power… To Do What? Evaluating China's Power in Southeast Asia

Author:
Evelyn Goh
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
Drawing on China's relations with its relatively weak neighbours in Southeast Asia where we ought to find evidence of China getting other states to do what they otherwise would not have done, this paper asks how and how effectively China has converted its growing resources into influence over other states, their strategic choices and the outcomes of events. First, it adopts the framework of structural and relational power, further disaggregating the latter into persuasion, inducement and coercion as modes of exercising power. Second, it accounts for the reception to power by offering an analytical framework based on variations in the alignment of the extant preferences of the subjects and wielders of power, which determine the degree to which alterations are necessary as part of an exercise of power. The analysis identifies key cases particularly demonstrating three categories of Chinese power: its power as 'multiplier' when extent preferences are aligned; its power to persuade when pre-existing preferences are debated; and its power to prevail in instances of conflicting preferences. It finds that the first two categories of power have been most prevalent, while there have been very few instances where Southeast Asian states have done what they would otherwise not have done as a result of Chinese behaviour. These findings suggest that even though China's power resources have increased significantly, the way in which it has managed to convert these resources into control over outcomes is uneven.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Power Politics
Political Geography:
China and Southeast Asia

65. Indonesia and Australia: time for a step change

Author:
Fergus Hanson
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
The relationship with Indonesia is one of Australia's most important but it is still not on a firm footing. Government-to-government ties have been strengthening but relations are focused around a mostly negative set of security-related issues. Business-to-business links are underdone and mutual public perceptions are poor. Without significant incentives to drive closer ties, one of Australia's most important relationships will continue to stagnate.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, International Trade and Finance, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Asia, Australia/Pacific, and Southeast Asia

66. Do Regional Organizations Travel? European Integration, Diffusion and the Case of ASEAN

Author:
Anja Jetschke
Publication Date:
10-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
Why do regional organizations share a number of key institutions and policies? Why do regional organizations like the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) or the Carribean Community (CARICOM) look like the European Union? And why do we find the norms of the Helsinki Final Act in treaties of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)? The simple answer is that policy solutions developed in the context of regional integration diffuse. The paper contends that regional integration efforts in Europe have had a decisive but often unacknowledged influence on regional cooperation outside of Europe. The influence of European integration on regional organizations beyond Europe will be illustrated with a case that is unsuspicious of having emulated the European integration experience: The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Since 1957, Southeast Asian states have selectively taken over policies and institutions from the European context. The most recent adoption, it will be argued, is the ASEAN Charter, in effect since November 2008. In accounting for this adoption, the paper argues that ASEAN members' decision is only partially driven by genuine regional or functional demands. Members borrowed from “abroad” expecting the Charter to provide a policy solution to the cooperation problems members faced. Thus, the paper makes an original general contribution to the existing literature on regional integration: It argues that a full account of regional integration processes needs to take diffusion processes into consideration.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, and Southeast Asia

67. 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

68. US-Vietnam: New Strategic Partners Begin Tough Trade Talks

Author:
Raymond Burghardt
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
Vietnamese and Americans joined together in Hanoi last December for a happy celebration, commemorating the tenth anniversary of the entrance into force of the US-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement signed in December, 2001. The gathering of current and former trade negotiators, diplomats, and business leaders exchanged witty anecdotes about who had been the toughest negotiator. However, the main focus for both American and Vietnamese participants was on the positive prospects for future US-Vietnam relations across the spectrum of trade and strategic common interests.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Cold War, International Trade and Finance, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
United States, America, Vietnam, and Southeast Asia

69. The Williamsburg Conference

Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Asia Society
Abstract:
Coming in the midst of a very heated U.S. presidential election campaign, where the U.S. is faced with numerous foreign policy challenges in the Asia-Pacific region and at a critical juncture in Islam's relationship with the rest of the world, the Asia Society convened over 50 Asian and American leaders at a very opportune time in Bali, Indonesia from April 3-6, 2008. Delegates discussed the characteristics of Islam in Asian countries with multiethnic or multireligious populations like India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. They also suggested ways of tackling radicalism and extremism by alleviating poverty, improving education, and reforming prisons and rehabilitation Centres, to name a few. During the second half of the conference, delegates engaged in a conversation about the evolving U.S. role in Asia. Contemporary affairs like the protests in Myanmar and Tibet, engagement with North Korea, and the impact of the Iraq war on U.S. foreign policy towards Asia were analyzed in light of the coming presidential election. Asian leaders were invited to give advice to the new U.S. president. Finally, young leaders from the Asia Pacific region shared their thoughts on what kinds of leadership and values are needed in the future.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, International Trade and Finance, Islam, Post Colonialism, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States, South Asia, Indonesia, India, Israel, Asia, and Southeast Asia

70. China's Charm: Implications of Chinese Soft Power

Author:
Josh Kurlantzick
Publication Date:
06-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Over the past decade China has downplayed its hard power in Southeast Asia, instead creating a strategy to build its soft power. For the first time in post-WWII history, the United States may be facing a situation in which another country's appeal outstrips its own in an important region, a change sure to shock the United States. Before China's appeal spreads to other parts of the developing world, U.S. policy makers need to understand how China exerts soft power, if China's soft power could be dangerous to developing nations, and whether elements of China's charm could threaten U.S. interests.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, China, Asia, and Southeast Asia