Abstract
This paper analyzes South Korea’s China policy since the Korean War and discusses the implications of evolving Sino–ROK relations for East Asian security. South Korea’s engagement policy toward China since their diplomatic normalization in 1992 has been so successful that the Chinese government now describes the two countries’ relationship as “a matured strategic cooperative partnership,” which is the second highest in the pecking order of China’s diplomatic relations. China has quickly become South Korea’s largest trading partner, replacing the United States. Sino–ROK political and social ties have also deepened following their robust economic ties. However, growing Sino–ROK ties have significant implications for East Asian security, as South Korea is a key US ally, whereas China is North Korea’s main ally and patron. This paper contends that South Korea’s relations with the United States and China should not be viewed as a zero-sum game. Seoul will not sever its close security ties with Washington due to its strategic partnership with Beijing, just as Beijing would not abandon Pyongyang because of its strong economic ties with Seoul. Given Beijing’s persistent support for the survival of Pyongyang’s regime and North Korea’s increasing nuclear threat, Seoul’s leadership is well aware that its most reliable security partner is the United States. As long as the US–ROK alliance remains strong, therefore, Seoul is likely to keep pursuing the deepening of the strategic partnership with Beijing, as it is necessary not only for South Korea’s future economic prosperity but also for coping with North Korea’s growing threats and provocations.
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Country or Region: China
Kim, Euikon
Abstract
The emerging new order in Northeast Asia in the 21st century is attributable to a few factors. First, the relative decline of the United States as the hegemonic power contributes to it. Second, the rise of China is also responsible. Buttressed by remarkable economic growth over the past 20 plus years, China is eager to regain its traditional influence and status as the regional hegemon. Third, the relative decline of Japan leads to Northeast Asian power restructuring. Fourth, North Korea is another major factor leading to instability in Northeast Asia. Finally, the rise of South Korea is also responsible for Northeast Asian power restructuring. In the intermediate and long-run, the US policy toward Northeast Asia will be centered on China, and its China policy will be characterized by engagement and/or hard balancing. To pursue the goal, the United States should further develop close ties with its allies, such as South Korea and Japan, and pursue improved relations with Vietnam and the Philippines. At the same time, the United States should persuade China that cooperating with its neighboring countries would be in its intermediate and long-term interests. In other words, the United States should firmly and persistently pursue the policy of the “Asianization of China.”
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Khan, Zafar
Abstract
As competing strategies between China and India are being played out in the Asia–Pacific region, competition, cooperation, and containment have become the common practices between these regional powers. However, the possibility of conflict, which may not be in the interest of any regional or extra-regional powers, cannot be ignored. In this context, it needs to be observed closely as to what strategic approaches are prioritized and played out by these competing powers. If both China and India tend to keep their deterrent forces limited and stay within their legitimate continental and maritime domains without necessarily threatening or decreasing the security of other states – that is, to stay defensive rather than aggressive and escalatory – the prospect for conflict diminishes. However, if both India and China strategically pose more assertions and expand their strategic imperatives, then this could have certain strategic repercussions that might invite conflict in the region. This article addresses the competing strategies played out between China and India. It discusses the strategic aspirations, force modernization and the possibility of conflict between these two regional powers in the Asia–Pacific region. It also discusses the strategic imperatives of cooperation, containment, and competition between the regional powers, as well as how and under what hypothetical scenario the possibility of conflict between the two states might be increased.
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Karim, Mohd Aminul
Abstract
The aim of this article is to explore the challenges and opportunities of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road – presumably a gigantic economic project launched by China – for better connectivity and economic cooperation in Asia. The article examines the variables that may either limit or bolster its implementation. The project, once implemented, is likely to give rise to both economic and strategic upshots. Economically, it is likely to be win–win for both China and other powers in Asia who are willing to participate. On the other hand, it may get trapped because of the presence of geopolitical issues and great powers rivalry, specifically in the Bay of Bengal region. The article, in the final analysis, attempts to provide certain policy prescriptions, mainly for China, for maximum optimization.
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Hung, Ho-fung
Summary
Many thought China’s rise would fundamentally remake the global order. Yet, much like other developing nations, the Chinese state now finds itself in a status quo characterized by free trade and American domination. Through a cutting-edge historical, sociological, and political analysis, Ho-fung Hung details the competing interests and economic realities that temper the dream of Chinese supremacy—forces that are stymieing growth throughout the global South.
Hung focuses on four common misconceptions: that China could undermine orthodoxy by offering an alternative model of growth; that China is radically altering power relations between the East and the West; that China is capable of diminishing the global power of the United States; and that the Chinese economy would restore the world’s wealth after the 2008 financial crisis. His work reveals how much China depends on the existing order and how the interests of the Chinese elites maintain these ties. Through its perpetuation of the dollar standard and its addiction to U.S. Treasury bonds, China remains bound to the terms of its own prosperity, and its economic practices of exploiting debt bubbles are destined to fail. Hung ultimately warns of a postmiracle China that will grow increasingly assertive in attitude while remaining constrained in capability.
Green, Michael J
Summary
Soon after the American Revolution, certain of the founders began to recognize the strategic significance of Asia and the Pacific and the vast material and cultural resources at stake there. Over the coming generations, the United States continued to ask how best to expand trade with the region and whether to partner with China, at the center of the continent, or Japan, looking toward the Pacific. Where should the United States draw its defensive line, and how should it export democratic principles? In a history that spans the eighteenth century to the present, Michael J. Green follows the development of U.S. strategic thinking toward East Asia, identifying recurring themes in American statecraft that reflect the nation’s political philosophy and material realities.
Drawing on archives, interviews, and his own experience in the Pentagon and White House, Green finds one overarching concern driving U.S. policy toward East Asia: a fear that a rival power might use the Pacific to isolate and threaten the United States and prevent the ocean from becoming a conduit for the westward free flow of trade, values, and forward defense. By More Than Providence works through these problems from the perspective of history’s major strategists and statesmen, from Thomas Jefferson to Alfred Thayer Mahan and Henry Kissinger. It records the fate of their ideas as they collided with the realities of the Far East and adds clarity to America’s stakes in the region, especially when compared with those of Europe and the Middle East.
Gewirtz, Julian B
Summary
Unlikely Partners recounts the story of how Chinese politicians and intellectuals looked beyond their country’s borders for economic guidance at a key crossroads in the nation’s tumultuous twentieth century. Julian Gewirtz offers a dramatic tale of competition for influence between reformers and hardline conservatives during the Deng Xiaoping era, bringing to light China’s productive exchanges with the West.
When Mao Zedong died in 1976, his successors seized the opportunity to reassess the wisdom of China’s rigid commitment to Marxist doctrine. With Deng Xiaoping’s blessing, China’s economic gurus scoured the globe for fresh ideas that would put China on the path to domestic prosperity and ultimately global economic power. Leading foreign economists accepted invitations to visit China to share their expertise, while Chinese delegations traveled to the United States, Hungary, Great Britain, West Germany, Brazil, and other countries to examine new ideas. Chinese economists partnered with an array of brilliant thinkers, including Nobel Prize winners, World Bank officials, battle-scarred veterans of Eastern Europe’s economic struggles, and blunt-speaking free-market fundamentalists.
Nevertheless, the push from China’s senior leadership to implement economic reforms did not go unchallenged, nor has the Chinese government been eager to publicize its engagement with Western-style innovations. Even today, Chinese Communists decry dangerous Western influences and officially maintain that China’s economic reinvention was the Party’s achievement alone. Unlikely Partners sets forth the truer story, which has continuing relevance for China’s complex and far-reaching relationship with the West.
De Castro, Renato Cruz
Abstract
How does a small power respond and adjust to a fluid and potentially dangerous strategic balancing by major powers generated by a territorial dispute? This paper observes that notwithstanding the major powers’ mistrust, suspicion, and rivalry, such precarious stability in the South China Sea dispute is sustained by a balance-of-power system. This system is an offshoot of the small littoral states’ (in this case, the Philippines’) policy of engaging the external maritime powers (the United States and Japan) to counter China’s heavy-handedness in dealing with this territorial row. Apprehensive of China’s claim of sovereignty over the South China Sea, the United States and Japan are increasing their strategic involvement in the maritime territorial row. These developments have transformed the dispute into a case of conflict irresolution. To cope with China’s heavy-handedness, the Philippines builds up the deterrence capability of its armed forces and forges security partnerships with the United States and Japan. The Philippines hopes that this move will ensure the maintenance of the status quo in the regional balance of power. In conclusion, the paper considers the Philippines’ policy as myopic, since it overlooks the fact that the volatile balance of power situation in the South China Sea might be the proverbial “calm before the storm.” It is crucial that the Philippines puts its house in order, economically keeps pace with its more dynamic Southeast Asian neighbors, increases its defense spending, formulates a coherent national security strategy, and concentrates on building a credible armed forces to avoid free-riding on its allies, and more importantly, to enable the country to weather the approaching storm.
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Clifford, Mark L
Summary
One of Asia’s best-respected writers on business and economy, Hong Kong-based author Mark L. Clifford provides a behind-the-scenes look at what companies in China, India, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand are doing to build businesses that will lessen the environmental impact of Asia’s extraordinary economic growth. Dirty air, foul water, and hellishly overcrowded cities are threatening to choke the region’s impressive prosperity. Recognizing a business opportunity in solving social problems, Asian businesses have developed innovative responses to the region’s environmental crises.
From solar and wind power technologies to green buildings, electric cars, water services, and sustainable tropical forestry, Asian corporations are upending old business models in their home countries and throughout the world. Companies have the money, the technology, and the people to act—yet, as Clifford emphasizes, support from the government (in the form of more effective, market-friendly policies) and the engagement of civil society are crucial for a region-wide shift to greener business practices. Clifford paints detailed profiles of what some of these companies are doing and includes a unique appendix that encapsulates the environmental business practices of more than fifty companies mentioned in the book.
Cho, Hyun Joo, and Ajin Choi
Abstract
Why has the Senkaku/Diaoyu territorial dispute escalated recurrently? This study examines the sources of the 2010 and 2012 escalations in territorial disputes over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. We review existing explanations and their limitations and introduce new hypotheses based on the effect of political leaders’ interests in the escalation of territorial disputes. We argue that when competition among leaders intensifies or leaders’ political vulnerability increases, it is more likely that leaders who are seeking to retain or take office will behave more assertively in claiming rights over territories; therefore, a territorial dispute is more likely to escalate. We find that when Japanese leaders have needed to strengthen their political position during elections, they have adopted aggressive strategies in the dispute to avoid criticism from both the public and political oppositions about their weak postures against China. In China, the succession process has intensified political struggles and has led leaders to pursue a hardline policy with respect to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute. The Chinese government and the media have also fueled anti-Japanese protests to increase internal cohesion for successful leadership transition. This study not only provides a domestic political explanation for the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute, but also serves as supporting evidence or process tracing for the theoretical proposition that leadership change is associated with the escalation of territorial disputes.
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Chen, Lung-chu
Summary
This book describes the central issues animating the dynamics U.S.-Taiwan-China relationship and the international and domestic legal issues shaping U.S. policy in the Asia-Pacific region. Two of these issues receive particular attention: Taiwan’s status under international law and the role of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) in the formulation of U.S. policy toward Taiwan. Taiwan meets the requirements for statehood under international law, but it lacks the stature of a normalized state in the international community. This book endorses the central purpose of the TRA- maintaining peaceful cross-strait relations- while offering policy alternatives that will empower Taiwan to participate more actively in the international arena. The book follows in the tradition of the New Have School of international law. As such, it defines the common interests of the work community, which include demands for human dignity and human security and the protection of human rights in accordance with bedrock norms such as the right to self-determination by the people of Taiwan through a plebiscite under the supervision of the international community. Should the Taiwanese vote to continue down the path of democracy and normalized statehood, their wish would be in accordance with international law, historical trends, and contemporary political conditions. Most of all, the people of Taiwan will continue to live freely and democratically- a state of affairs made possible by the support of the United States.
Brazinsky, Gregg
Publication Year: 2017
Winning the Third World: Sino-American Rivalry during the Cold War
Summary
Winning the Third World examines afresh the intense and enduring rivalry between the United States and China during the Cold War. Gregg A. Brazinsky shows how both nations fought vigorously to establish their influence in newly independent African and Asian countries. By playing a leadership role in Asia and Africa, China hoped to regain its status in world affairs, but Americans feared that China’s history as a nonwhite, anticolonial nation would make it an even more dangerous threat in the postcolonial world than the Soviet Union. Drawing on a broad array of new archival materials from China and the United States, Brazinsky demonstrates that disrupting China’s efforts to elevate its stature became an important motive behind Washington’s use of both hard and soft power in the “Global South.”
Presenting a detailed narrative of the diplomatic, economic, and cultural competition between Beijing and Washington, Brazinsky offers an important new window for understanding the impact of the Cold War on the Third World. With China’s growing involvement in Asia and Africa in the twenty-first century, this impressive new work of international history has an undeniable relevance to contemporary world affairs and policy making.
Brady, Anne-Marie
Summary
China has emerged as a member of the elite club of nations who are powerful at both global poles. Polar states are global giants, strong in military, scientific, and economic terms. The concept of a polar great power is relatively unknown in international relations studies; yet China, a rising power globally, is now widely using this term to categorize its aspirations and emphasize the significance of the polar regions to their national interests. China’s focus on becoming a polar great power represents a fundamental re-orientation – a completely new way of imagining the world. China’s push into these regions encompasses maritime and nuclear security, the frontlines of climate change research, and the possibility of a resources bonanza. As shown in this book, China’s growing strength at the poles will be a game-changer for a number of strategic vulnerabilities that could shift the global balance of power in significant and unexpected ways.
Bickers, Robert
Summary
Nationalism matters in China, and what matters in China matters to everyone. China’s new nationalism, Robert Bickers shows, is rooted not in its present power but in shameful memories of its former weaknesses. Invaded, humiliated, and looted in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by foreign powers, China looks out at the twenty-first century through the lens of the past. History matters deeply to Beijing’s current rulers, and Out of China explains why.
Schweller, Randall
Introduction
The dramatic rise of China and India among others has set the stage for a fundamental rethinking of world politics in an age of the waning dominance of US power as a force for remaking the world in its own image. While Pax Americana is not yet teetering on the edge of collapse, the consensus opinion is that the relative decline of the United States is probably irreversible and its unipolar moment will soon give way to something new. A “return to multi-polarity” is one way of describing this shift. It tells us that several great powers will emerge to challenge US primacy. That is all. The more important question is: What sort of global order will emerge on the other side of the transition from unipolarity to multipolarity? Will it be one of peace and plenty or conflict and scarcity? On this issue, experts are divided into two camps, pessimists and optimists.
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