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2212. Not Quite that Close: Israel’s Policy towards China
- Author:
- Eran Lerman
- Publication Date:
- 11-2018
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS)
- Abstract:
- Israel’s strategy toward China doesn’t conflict with American interests; rather, it serves and reinforces them. Partnering with Beijing can help stabilize the Middle East. Partnering with Asian nations threatened by Beijing can help build a counterbalance to Chinese power.
- Topic:
- International Cooperation, Hegemony, Economic Cooperation, and Regional Power
- Political Geography:
- China, Middle East, Israel, Asia, North America, and United States of America
2213. The Future of Latin America and the Caribbean in the Context of the Rise of China
- Author:
- Dr. R. Evan Ellis
- Publication Date:
- 11-2018
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- There are numerous analyses about China and its future, as well as about Chinese engagement with Latin America. This report examines, in detail, how the growth of China, with its power and role in the global economy, is likely to transform Latin America and the Caribbean through economic, political, and other forms of engagement with the region. The report considers multiple scenarios regarding the future of China, the resolution of its security challenges, and possible departures from its current trajectory. It focuses primarily on the question of what Latin America and the Caribbean will look like if China succeeds in its ongoing economic and political engagement in the region. Compared to scenario-oriented analyses, this report does not attempt to predict the detailed political ebbs and flows of the region. Instead, it examines economic sectors to understand how the region will be transformed through its intimate economic relationship with China and its part in a global process in which Chinese companies continue to expand their presence in the region. While the report also looks at military issues and the likely evolution of Latin America’s relationship with the United States, it finds equally dramatic implications for China’s willingness to use its soft power in the region. While this report does not claim that China has nefarious objectives to politically dominate the region, or usurp the United States as a superpower, it does find evidence that the logical extension of China’s current expansion plans threatens to relegate the region to a future of limited economic opportunity and personal liberty. This is seen in China’s actions to pursue its development interests, dominate the most lucrative parts of global value chains, and expand China’s power with a questionable level of respect for Western concepts of universal laws, rights, and freedoms. As China continues in the pursuit of these goals, compromised elites serve the transfer of wealth and resources from the Latin American region and other "Belt and Road" region to the new imperial center.
- Topic:
- International Cooperation, Hegemony, Foreign Interference, and Regional Power
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, Latin America, Caribbean, and North America
2214. Technological Competition and China
- Author:
- James A. Lewis
- Publication Date:
- 11-2018
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- Napoleon’s famous quotation about a sleeping giant moving the world when it awoke seems prescient, but a closer examination presents a more complex story. China’s rise is often accompanied by corresponding predictions of inevitable conflict and U.S. decline. These predictions are simplistic and rest on assumptions of China’s economic and political trajectory that may not be valid. In the near term, competition is unavoidable, and the more important challenge comes from China’s efforts to “return to the center of the world stage” and the means China uses to attain this at a time when the United States is reassessing its global role. The United States and China are in a growing competition, perhaps verging on conflict, but it is not a nineteenth century competition between empires for control of territory and resources. Unlike great power competition in previous centuries, the focal point is not military strength or territorial expansion. This conflict is over control of the modern levers of power—global rules and institutions, standards, trade, and technology. The ability to create new technologies, particularly digital technologies (given their importance for politics, security, and economic growth) have become key factors in the U.S.-China relationship, which is marked by close commercial cooperation and deep governmental distrust. This disparity creates unavoidable tensions. The link between technology, innovation, national security, and international power is now widely recognized. When Vladimir Putin says that the country that leads in artificial intelligence (AI) “will be the ruler of the world,” it is hyperbole, but hyperbole that confirms that political leaders recognize that the ability to innovate is a potent source of national power. In the digital age, national security and national power have different requirements shaped by technological change and cyberspace. Innovation has become a central element of its international influence.1 This is not new—the U.S.-Soviet space race was a contest of the ability of different systems to produce new technologies, but those were unique government programs. Technological competition today is as much between companies as states. A country’s ability to innovate and produce advanced technologies provides economic strength, military power, and an intangible benefit of perceived leadership. Both China and the United States have advantages and disadvantages in this contest, and while it is usual to focus on quantitative aspects—such as the number of engineers or patents and spending on research and development (R&D)—these are not the key determinants of technological competition between states. This competition is a contest of ideas on governance for investment, innovation, and the internet. The internet and global connectivity not only reshape the environment for competition but also create political and market forces that both nations find difficult to control.
- Topic:
- Science and Technology, Hegemony, and Strategic Competition
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
2215. The Article II Mandate: Forging a Stronger Economic Alliance between the United States and Japan
- Author:
- Matthew P. Goodman, Ann Listerud, and Daniel Remler
- Publication Date:
- 12-2018
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- The alliance between the United States and Japan has been a force for peace and prosperity around the world for nearly 60 years. Economics has been at the heart of the U.S.–Japan alliance from the outset: Article II of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security mandates that the two allies “seek to eliminate conflict in their international economic policies and … encourage economic collaboration between them.” Nowhere are U.S. and Japanese strategic interests more closely aligned than in the Indo-Pacific region. Both Washington and Tokyo seek to ensure regional security and stability, expand trade and other economic opportunities, and support universal democratic norms. The two countries have worked constructively together for many decades to shape regional economic rules and norms through institutions such as the Asian Development Bank and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.
- Topic:
- International Cooperation, International Trade and Finance, Regionalism, and Economic Cooperation
- Political Geography:
- Japan, China, Asia, North America, and United States of America
2216. 8 Key findings regarding the Korea nuclear arms crisis from recent discussions with experts in China, Russia and Korea
- Author:
- Charles Knight
- Publication Date:
- 02-2018
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Project on Defense Alternatives
- Abstract:
- Most interlocutors thought that there is almost no chance that the presently stringent sanctions can force the DPRK to agree to disarm. The Chinese and the Russians generally believe that the maximal concession that sanctions can win from the DPRK is an agreement to freeze their warhead and missile development — particularly inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) development — in return for some combination of confidence-building measures, security guarantees, and progress toward political normalization. The North Koreans will not give up the nuclear weapons they already have… at least not until there is a permanent peace on the peninsula and the US is no longer understood to be an enemy.
- Topic:
- Conflict Prevention, Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear Power, and Disarmament
- Political Geography:
- Russia, China, North Korea, and United States of America
2217. The Inter-Korean Summit Declaration of April 27, 2018: a review in detail
- Author:
- Charles Knight
- Publication Date:
- 05-2018
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Project on Defense Alternatives
- Abstract:
- The April 27, 2018 Inter-Korean Summit was a visibly cordial, even happy, event. At its conclusion, North and South Korea released a “Declaration of Peace, Prosperity and Unification.” This paper reviews a selection of key sections and phrases in “The Declaration” with attention to understanding their implications for the goal declared by both parties of ending “division and confrontation” on the peninsula and for addressing the overhanging issue of denuclearization. Notably, both parties strongly assert their rights as Koreans to take leadership in this task before them. Among the issues this review examines are the implications of various provisions in The Declaration for two great powers with long-standing interests in and influence on the Korean peninsula: China and the United States.
- Topic:
- Conflict Prevention, Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear Power, and Disarmament
- Political Geography:
- Russia, China, South Korea, North Korea, and United States of America
2218. Grasping Power with Both Hands: Social Credit, the Mass Line, and Party Control
- Author:
- Samantha Hoffman
- Publication Date:
- 10-2018
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- China Brief
- Institution:
- The Jamestown Foundation
- Abstract:
- The CCP’s development of the ‘social credit’ system is another step in the Party’s long exploration of ways to fuse political control and economic prosperity. The expanding global reach of China’s economy means that social credit’s fusion of social and political control will also be used to bend entities outside China’s borders towards the Party’s political objectives. Dozens of international airlines, including four US airlines, recently discovered what this means in practice.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Economy, Ideology, and Surveillance
- Political Geography:
- China and United States of America
2219. Risky Business: A Case Study of PRC Investment in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan
- Author:
- Danny Anderson
- Publication Date:
- 08-2018
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- China Brief
- Institution:
- The Jamestown Foundation
- Abstract:
- China’s “New Silk Road” or “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) has reached Central Asia in resounding fashion. As a result, the republics of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have seen large increases in Chinese presence and investment. Although both countries have overlapping needs, the degree and character of PRC involvement in each has differed. PRC investment in Tajikistan is characterized by expensive loans on infrastructure investment and energy projects that the country may be unable to repay (Avesta.tj, December 25, 2017). Kyrgyzstan, while having hosted similar projects, is also attempting to move the country into the twenty-first century by improving its transportation and digital infrastructure (Tazakoom.kg). Development experts classify both countries as “high-risk” for debt distress given public debt projections (Cgdev.org). However, despite the risk of such an outcome, both countries appear inclined to welcome PRC investment with open arms, as a way of funding needed investment like power generation and logistical links with the outside world.
- Topic:
- Development, Infrastructure, Economic Growth, and Soft Power
- Political Geography:
- Russia, China, Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan
2220. Censorship, Geopolitical Time Bombs, and China’s Islamophobia Problem
- Author:
- Matt Schrader
- Publication Date:
- 07-2018
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- China Brief
- Institution:
- The Jamestown Foundation
- Abstract:
- China has a serious and worsening Islamophobia problem. While relations between China’s Muslim minorities and its Han majority have been fraught since 2009’s deadly inter-ethnic riots in the far western city of Urumqi, recent years have seen the normalization of online hate speech directed at Muslims. The rise of Islamophobia inside China is a product both of government action, and of the government’s failure to act. Commentary on the recent death of a prominent Muslim leader in the western province of Qinghai highlights the extent to which the situation has deteriorated, and suggests the ways in which China’s warped online discourse could blunt its efforts to build influence and win friends in countries across the Muslim world.
- Topic:
- Demographics, Ethnic Conflict, Islam, Geopolitics, and Islamophobia
- Political Geography:
- China and Gulf Nations