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21. The South China Sea: Oil, Maritime Claims, and U.S.-China Strategic Rivalry

Author:
Leszek Buszynski
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
The risk of conflict escalating from relatively minor events has increased in the South China Sea over the past two years with disputes now less open to negotiation or resolution. Originally, the disputes arose after World War II when the littoral states—China and three countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, as well as Vietnam which joined later—scrambled to occupy the islands there. Had the issue remained strictly a territorial one, it could have been resolved through Chinese efforts to reach out to ASEAN and forge stronger ties with the region.
Political Geography:
United States, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Island

22. China's Geostrategic Search for Oil

Author:
John Lee
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
In 2000, Asia analyst Robert A. Manning presciently argued that the likelihood of future conflict over energy resources would increase as rising Asian giants such as China shifted away from an economic toward a strategic approach to energy security.Since then, as China's energy consumption has expanded and its rise has become the dominant geopolitical issue of our time, Beijing's energy security policy has become one of the major discussion topics.
Political Geography:
China, Beijing, and Asia

23. The Battle for China's Top Nine Leadership Posts

Author:
Cheng Li
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
There is no better vantage point for understanding Chinese leadership politics than to analyze the nine individuals who make up the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC). Despite the highly diverse and divergent assessments of elite politics which populate the overseas China - watching communities, the last decade has witnessed a surprisingly strong consensus emerge on the pivotal importance of the PSC. The top Chinese leader, General Secretary of the Party and President Hu Jintao, is now understood to be no more than the ''first among equals'' in this supreme decisionmaking body. Within the People's Republic of China (PRC), a new Chinese term, jiuchangwei , was recently created to refer exclusively to these nine political heavyweights. In line with this development, the Chinese authorities have placed increas - ing emphasis on ''collective leadership,'' which the 2007 Party Congress Communique ́ defines as ''a system with division of responsibilities among individual leaders in an effort to prevent arbitrary decision - making by a single top leader.'
Political Geography:
China

24. Why China Will Democratize

Author:
Yu Lin and Dingding Chen
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Behind the political stagnation on the surface, signs abound that a fundamental political transformation is taking place in China. In the fall of 2011, an unusually large group of independent citizens launched very vocal campaigns to compete for seats in various local congresses. Around the same time, groups of ''netizens'' went to a small village in Shandong province to try to visit Chen Guangcheng, a human right activist under house arrest, despite repeated reports about visitors being beaten. In July 2011, a train crash near the city of Wenzhou caused a storm of criticism against the government on ''weibo,'' micro-blog sites in China that claim nearly 200 million readers. Although these are just three pieces of evidence, they represent a rising independent civil society and illustrate that China's political regime is increasingly being challenged.
Political Geography:
China

25. The Pakistan Thorn in China-India-U.S. Relations

Author:
Harsh V. Pant
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
At a time when Pakistan is under intense scrutiny about its role in fighting extremism and terrorism, the world has been watching to see how Beijing decides to deal with Islamabad. Despite Pakistan's growing diplomatic isolation in recent months, China's support has been steadfast, at least publicly. Two weeks after the May 2011 U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani went to China on a four-day visit to celebrate the 60th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries. Of course, there is much to celebrate in a bilateral relationship that Pakistan's ambassador to Beijing has described as “higher than the mountains, deeper than the oceans, stronger than steel, dearer than eyesight, sweeter than honey, and so on.”
Political Geography:
Pakistan, United States, China, and India

26. The Influence and Illusion of China's New Left

Author:
Wen Jin Yuan and Charles W. Freeman
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
The 2008 global financial crisis was a wake-up call for China's leadership about the potential limits of the free market system to achieve optimum development policy outcomes. The 30-year consensus among China's leadership has been that economic policy should be primarily market-centric and efficiency-first. However, there is now a growing divergence of opinion among Chinese intellectuals on whether China should continue this fundamental course.
Political Geography:
China

27. Coping with a Conflicted China

Author:
David Shambaugh
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
2009—2010 will be remembered as the years in which China became difficult for the world to deal with, as Beijing exhibited increasingly tough and truculent behavior toward many of its neighbors in Asia, as well as the United States and the European Union. Even its ties in Africa and Latin America became somewhat strained, adding to its declining global image since 2007.1 Beijing's disturbing behavior has many observers wondering how long its new toughness will last. Is it a temporary or secular trend? If it is a longer-term and qualitative shift toward greater assertiveness and arrogance, how should other nations respond?
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, China, Europe, and Latin America

28. The Emergent Security Threats Reshaping China's Rise

Author:
Ely Ratner
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Asteady stream of research and analysis over the last two decades has flowed from the near consensus in the U.S. foreign policy community that, in the words of the U.S. National Intelligence Council, ''few countries are poised to have more impact on the world over the next 15-20 years than China.'' Yet many of these efforts to foretell China's future behavior have paid disproportionate attention to divining Beijing's ''strategic intentions.'' This approach offers only limited insight into the factors that will ultimately determine how China pursues its interests and exerts global influence. It profoundly overestimates the importance of present intentions as a guide to future behavior, and severely underestimates the constraints that China's security environment will place upon Beijing's decisionmakers.
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Beijing

29. Is China Playing a Dual Game in Iran?

Author:
John W. Garver
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
One aspect of China's Iran policy suggests a sincere effort to uphold the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime in cooperation with the United States. Another suggests that Beijing believes a nuclear-armed or nuclear-armed-capable Iran would serve China's geopolitical interests in the Persian Gulf region.1 Is China playing a dual game toward Iran? This question cannot be answered with certainty, but given its importance, a tentative and necessarily somewhat speculative effort to think through the matter is in order.
Political Geography:
United States, China, Iran, and Persia

30. Why America No Longer Gets Asia

Author:
Evan A. Feigenbaum
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
In the fall of 2006, as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Central Asia, I wandered through a bazaar in Kara-suu on the Kyrgyz—Uzbek border. The bazaar is one of Central Asia's largest and a crossroads for traders from across the volatile Ferghana Valley Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Tajiks, and many others. But most remarkably, it has become home to nearly a thousand Chinese traders from Fujian, a coastal province some 3,000 miles away, lapped by the waters of the Taiwan Strait.
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, China, Taiwan, and Asia