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212. Russian policy towards Central Asia 30 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union: Sphere of influence shrinking?
- Author:
- Kristiina Silvan
- Publication Date:
- 11-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Finnish Institute of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- Russia views Central Asia as its sphere of influence and attempts to keep the five post-Soviet countries, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, in its geopolitical orbit. Central Asian countries’ dependency on Russia is decreasing, albeit at a different pace in different policy spheres and geographical areas. This variation depends upon factors ranging from Moscow’s priorities, the presence and capability of Russia and other actors, and Central Asian domestic issues. Russia’s policy in Central Asia is rooted in bilateral relations, but from the early 2000s onwards, Moscow has sought to integrate the region’s states into multilateral organizations that it leads, primarily in the spheres of economy and security. Russian influence in the region is greatest in the security sphere and, due to the rise of China, smallest in the economic sector. People-to-people contacts remain strong as a result of the common Soviet past and current migration flows. Central Asian countries share Russia’s authoritarian outlook on politics. Russia remains a powerful player in Central Asia, but Moscow’s lack of a forward-looking strategy and its current great-power posturing threaten its dominance in the future.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Hegemony, Post-Soviet Space, and Influence
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Central Asia, and Asia
213. Mapping China’s Participation in Multilateral Development Institutions and Funds
- Author:
- Scott Morris, Rowan Rockafellow, and Sarah Rose
- Publication Date:
- 11-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- China has emerged as a leading participant in multilateral development organizations. In many ways, this is a welcome development. Today’s global challenges, including COVID-19 and climate change, require an international response and have prompted renewed calls for increased multilateral engagement by the major economy countries. This, combined with the recognition of multilateral institutions’ high standards for transparency and environmental safeguards, have led the United States at times to encourage China to step up its multilateral contributions. At the same time, countervailing voices focused on strategic competition increasingly view China’s multilateral participation with skepticism. When the People’s Republic of China joined the World Bank in 1980, it was allocated 12,000 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) shares, becoming the Bank’s sixth largest shareholder with 3.47 percent of the of the voting power. By 2013, decades of rapid economic growth had propelled China to its current position as the IBRD’s third largest shareholder, eclipsing France, Germany, and the United Kingdom with 5.03 percent of IBRD voting power. In many ways, China’s rise in stature at the IBRD mirrors its growth in influence across the multilateral development system. This is certainly true of China’s increasing voting share in the World Bank, IMF, and UN system, all of which tie financial contributions to economic size (see Figure 1). But China’s growing importance in the multilateral system is also the product of distinct policy choices made by the Chinese government. These policy choices go beyond the wealth-based financial contributions that dictate IBRD shareholding to include voluntary financing, borrowing, and commercial contracting. In concert, they make China a unique player in the multilateral system by virtue of to its simultaneous roles as a multilateral organization donor, shareholder, aid recipient, and commercial partner.
- Topic:
- Development, International Cooperation, Multilateralism, and Participation
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
214. The pandemic’s long reach: South Korea’s fiscal and fertility outlook
- Author:
- Jacob Funk Kirkegaard
- Publication Date:
- 06-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Peterson Institute for International Economics
- Abstract:
- South Korea was one of the first countries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. A combination of high societal discipline and competent and prompt government actions on mass testing capacity and technologically enabled tracing and quarantines enabled South Korea to quickly control the pandemic. Consequently, South Korea did not need to enter into full economic lockdown in early 2020 and needed only much smaller fiscal stimulus than most other advanced economies. The limited fiscal impact of COVID-19 is fortuitous for South Korea, as the pandemic coincided with the country’s dramatic demographic transition to a future of rapidly shrinking working-age population and accelerating overall aging. South Korea recorded the lowest total fertility rate of any advanced economy in 2020. Unless fertility rates rise, the country will not escape large and negative economic effects from what will be a rapidly declining total and working-age population. Kirkegaard proposes several policy reforms for South Korea, while arguing that the direct role of government action in increasing the South Korean fertility levels is likely to be modest.
- Topic:
- Demographics, Economy, Fiscal Policy, COVID-19, and Fertility
- Political Geography:
- Asia and South Korea
215. RCEP Is Not Enough: South Korea Also Needs to Join the CPTPP
- Author:
- Jeffrey J. Schott
- Publication Date:
- 07-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Peterson Institute for International Economics
- Abstract:
- The benefits of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) for South Korea are limited and need to be supplemented by more comprehensive agreements that deepen Korea’s ties to strategic allies in the Asia-Pacific region. RCEP's most important achievement is its new regional content rule that will encourage deeper integration of supply chains across the 15 markets, a key benefit for Korean industries invested in the region. But Schott notes that the pact also has significant limitations. To complement RCEP, he recommends that South Korea move forward with two other trade negotiating priorities, membership in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and upgrading the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KORUS), the latter aimed at encouraging US reengagement in the Asia-Pacific integration pact.
- Topic:
- Markets, Treaties and Agreements, Partnerships, Regional Integration, and Economic Policy
- Political Geography:
- Asia and South Korea
216. Collateral benefits? South Korean exports to the United States and the US-China trade war
- Author:
- Mary Lovely, David Xu, and Yinhan Zhang
- Publication Date:
- 07-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Peterson Institute for International Economics
- Abstract:
- This Policy Brief assesses the extent to which the United States increased its imports from South Korea after the US imposition of tariffs on Chinese exports. Korea benefited from this shift in US imports, although the increase was relatively small in most sectors. The authors use highly disaggregated US import and tariff data to examine adjustments in US purchases of manufactured goods from its trade partners. Their analysis indicates that Korea made a small gain in the US market following the levying of US tariffs on Chinese exports, with Korea’s share of overall US manufacturing imports rising 0.9 percent and its share of US manufacturing imports subject to trade war tariffs rising 1.0 percent. Gains were spread across a variety of manufacturing sectors—such as wood products, textiles and apparel, and machinery—reflecting both the choices made by US officials regarding which Chinese exports to tax and the nature of preexisting trade relationships between South Korea and the United States.
- Topic:
- Markets, Economy, Trade Wars, and Exports
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, South Korea, and United States of America
217. How the rest of the world responds to the US-China split
- Author:
- Hung Tran
- Publication Date:
- 01-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Atlantic Council
- Abstract:
- The election of Joe Biden as the forty-sixth US president is not expected to change the list of substantive issues dividing the United States and China, such as trade, investment, technology, geopolitical competition, national security, and human rights—except that the priority among them may change, with human rights concerns moving more to the forefront. However, the tone and modality of the unfolding of the US-China competition will change from Donald Trump’s unilateralism to Biden’s efforts to build alliances with “likeminded” countries in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere to deal with the challenges China has posed. In a way, Biden’s alliance-building approach may intensify pressure on the rest of the world to take sides. How countries respond to this challenge, unwelcome by most, depends on whether they see themselves as competitors to China, or as “price takers” in the international economic system.
- Topic:
- Global Markets, Regulation, Finance, Economy, Trade, and Digital Policy
- Political Geography:
- China, Europe, Asia, North America, United States of America, and Indo-Pacific
218. A strategic framework for countering China’s human-rights violations in Xinjiang
- Author:
- Jeffrey Cimmino
- Publication Date:
- 07-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Atlantic Council
- Abstract:
- China is engaged in a systematic campaign of repression against predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in northwest China. Through a combination of detention camps, mass surveillance, birth suppression, and other means, China is responsible for gross human-rights violations. In recent years, the international community has devoted an increasing amount of attention to China’s actions in Xinjiang. Earlier this year, the United States declared that Beijing’s behavior constituted genocide. More recently, the United States and several key partners announced multilateral sanctions on Chinese officials facilitating repression in the region. To build on these developments, the United States and its allies and partners should adopt a more strategic approach to addressing China’s human-rights abuses. This Issue Brief proposes a framework for such a strategy, articulating a multilateral approach for dealing with China’s repressive actions in Xinjiang. This Issue Brief argues that addressing China’s abuses in Xinjiang is of strategic importance. Ultimately, the goal of this strategy is to achieve an end state in which China has ceased its repressive activities; however, even if achieving this objective proves elusive, imposing costs on Beijing’s actions in Xinjiang can still serve broader strategic ends vis-a-vis China. China has chosen an assertive path to attaining global power and influence, and decades of economic growth and incorporation in the global economic system have not been enough to transform Beijing into a responsible stakeholder in a rules-based international system. The United States and its allies and partners will need to impose costs on Chinese behavior that violates international norms. Imposing costs on China’s human-rights violations in Xinjiang is a critical element of a broader strategy to dissuade Chinese Communist Party (CCP) behavior that undermines international norms and to push Beijing toward becoming a cooperative member of a rules-based international system.
- Topic:
- Human Rights, International Organization, Politics, Sanctions, Economy, and Uyghurs
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, and Xinjiang
219. Trusted connectivity: A framework for a free, open, and connected world
- Author:
- Kaush Arha
- Publication Date:
- 08-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Atlantic Council
- Abstract:
- Global affairs are increasingly shaped by three important and overlapping trends: 1) the unprecedented and growing demand for trillions of dollars’ worth of global digital and physical infrastructure; 2) the ideological battle between democracy and autocracy for the best path forward to achieve peace and prosperity; and 3) the world’s response to changing climate. As democracies address the global demand for a free, open, and connected world while ensuring that local and global emissions targets are met, they need an organizing framework: the concept of “trusted connectivity.” Democratic governments and institutions function with intricate checks and balances to ensure public trust. Unchallenged aggregation of power is antithetical to democracies and instinctively distrusted by their citizens. While holding unimaginable promise, today’s advancements in digital and physical infrastructure also embody new opportunities for malign actors in general, and authoritarian governments in particular, to accumulate and wield this power. Malign influence or control over data, communications, trade routes, energy, and transportation, all of which becomes possible when countries accept infrastructure investments from authoritarian states, could open potential vectors for coercion, disruption, or attack in times of crisis or conflict. In order to deny malign actors this influence over other countries’ infrastructure, democracies need to work together to ensure that the benefits and terms for the host country in building a bridge, port, rail, road, or telecommunications network are equitable and transparent, thereby leading to greater trust and security in addition to economic prosperity. US President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., rallied the world’s leading democracies behind this cause at the Group of Seven (G7) summit in June 2021 in Cornwall, England. The G7 nations, comprising the world’s leading free economies and free societies, proclaimed that, as they aim to meet global infrastructure demand, among other goals, their efforts will be guided by shared democratic values. For China, the standard-bearer of an alternate, illiberal model, infrastructure investment serves a different purpose: to increase China’s global economic leverage for its political gain. To prevail in this competition, advance their values, and develop much-needed digital and physical infrastructure, the world’s leading democracies should adopt the principle of trusted connectivity.
- Topic:
- National Security, Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, and Connectivity
- Political Geography:
- China, Europe, Asia, and United States of America
220. The Special Role of US Nuclear Weapons
- Author:
- Matthew Kroenig
- Publication Date:
- 09-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Atlantic Council
- Abstract:
- This issue brief is based on Dr. Matthew Kroenig’s written testimony at a hearing on “Nuclear Deterrence Policy and Strategy” before the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee of the United States Senate, conducted on June 16, 2021. US nuclear weapons play a special role in underpinning international peace, global security, and the US-led, rules-based international system. The nuclear threat to the United States and its democratic allies is growing: nuclear-armed, revisionist, autocratic powers (Russia, China, and North Korea) are relying more on nuclear weapons in their strategies, and they are modernizing and expanding their arsenals. In this new issue brief, the Scowcroft Center’s Matthew Kroenig explains why the United States needs to retain a robust, flexible, and modernized nuclear force to meet its national security objectives.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, Science and Technology, Missile Defense, and Deterrence
- Political Geography:
- Russia, China, Iran, Asia, Korea, and United States of America