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3432. Can NATO Find a Role for Itself vis-À -vis China?
- Author:
- James Boutilier
- Publication Date:
- 12-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- NATO Defense College
- Abstract:
- NATO is at a crossroads. This is not the first time that Brussels has been faced with critical decisions about the direction, character and raison d'être of this unique and remarkable organization. But this time the stakes are even higher. The major centers of global power are all weak simultaneously for individual and inter-connected reasons. The greatest power on earth and NATO's banker, the United States, is confronting almost insurmountable levels of debt and talk about the end of the American empire has become commonplace. The European community is reeling from the cumulative effect of debt crises. And China, the 21st century's "workshop of the world" (and in the eyes of some a potential savor of ailing economies in Europe) has begun to see its economy slow disturbingly. At the same time, two other phenomena are unfolding; the rapid and profound shift in the global centre of economic gravity from the Euro-Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific region and the winding down of NATO's involvement in Afghanistan. The latter, of course, raises the inevitable question: "What next?" The former raises a related question: "Does NATO's future lie in Asia?"
- Topic:
- International Relations, Foreign Policy, NATO, and Hegemony
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, China, Europe, and Asia
3433. From Silk to Sanctions and Back Again: Contemporary Sino-Iranian Economic Relation
- Author:
- Aaron Morris
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- al Nakhlah
- Institution:
- The Fletcher School, Tufts University
- Abstract:
- Sino-Iranian economic ties have grown increasingly robust over the past 40 years despite efforts by the international community to strengthen the diplomatic and economic isolation of Iran vis-à-vis an ever-intensifying sanctions regime. As other nations retreat from their interactions with Iran, China benefits from consistent access to its oil and gas reserves in an environment of minimal international competition. Through this relationship, Iran finds a market for its vast oil and gas assets, as well as a partner through which to obtain support for infrastructure projects. It also benefits from importing China's refined gasoline for internal consumption, as Iran does not possess the internal capacity to produce refined petroleum in sufficient quantities to meet internal demand.
- Topic:
- Climate Change
- Political Geography:
- China and Iran
3434. God, guns, and … China? How ideology impacts American attitudes and policy preferences toward China
- Author:
- Peter Gries, Michael Crowson, and Huajian Cai
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
- Institution:
- Japan Association of International Relations
- Abstract:
- What impact does ideology have on American attitudes and policy preferences toward China? Based on two large N surveys, we first utilize exploratory factor analysis to uncover six distinct American ideological dimensions and two distinct dimensions of attitudes toward China that distinguish between its government and its people. We then utilize structural equation modeling to explore how attitudes toward the Chinese people (i.e. prejudice) and attitudes toward the Chinese government differentially mediate relationships between ideological beliefs, on the one hand, and Americans' China policy preferences, on the other. Results suggest both direct and indirect effects of ideology on policy preferences, with the latter effects being differentially mediated by prejudice and attitudes toward the Chinese government.
- Political Geography:
- China and America
3435. Strategizing aid: US–China food aid relations to North Korea in the 1990s
- Author:
- Taekyoon Kim
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
- Institution:
- Japan Association of International Relations
- Abstract:
- This study sets out to analyze strategic relations of two major donors – the United States and China – in delivering food aid to North Korea in the 1990s. By reviewing the historical evolution of US–China strategic relations in line with food aid and adopting a game model to verify historical findings, it addresses two significant observations. First, the North Korean food aid dynamics were constructed and crystallized by donors' strategic interactions, rather than humanitarian intention to save the famine-stricken North Korea. Both donors first took into account strategic interests in aid dynamics, and then utilized food aid as a strategic instrument for their own purposes. Second, any multilateral cooperation for delivering food aid to North Korea dooms to failure, despite the potential of aid coordination among donor states. Donors' competition for the primacy in the region of Northeast Asia hampered policy coordination for institutionalizing aid networks. It is concluded that the two donors were bound to strategize food aid as a logical outgrowth of their own interests in the wake of North Korea's humanitarian disasters.
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, North Korea, and Northeast Asia
3436. Diplomacy in an asymmetric alliance: reconciling Sino-Australian relations with ANZUS, 1971–2007
- Author:
- Shannon Tow
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
- Institution:
- Japan Association of International Relations
- Abstract:
- There is an assumption in international relations literature that junior allies must choose between supporting a dominant global alliance partner and engaging with a rising power. Yet, Australian policy-makers have paradoxically managed to deepen Sino-Australian relations despite their bilateral alliance with the United States. They have developed a discrete China policy on the assumption that they could persuade Washington to accept it over time. They reasoned that this outcome was more likely if Australia used diplomacy to facilitate Sino-American cooperation and to develop an Australian China policy non-prejudicial to ANZUS. This article explores how this 'diplomatic formula' supported expansion of Sino-Australian relations under the Whitlam, Hawke, and Howard Governments. It explains Australia's intra-alliance influence and paradoxical foreign policy behavior and contributes to understanding the dynamics of asymmetric alliances during power transition.
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, Washington, and Australia
3437. The Making of Northeast Asia
- Author:
- T. J. Pempel
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
- Institution:
- Japan Association of International Relations
- Abstract:
- Considerable research has been devoted to unraveling the complicated warp and woof of East Asia's onrushing regionalism. This book breaks from studies that take as the key unit of regional analysis either ASEAN (presumably in ' the regional driver's seat'), all of East Asia (the prevailing template of recent interactions), or the Asia-Pacific (the unit that most accounts for the preeminent East Asian influence of the United States). Calder and Ye argue instead that 'the increasingly intense and profound economic and social interactions within Northeast Asia…' (p. 251) are forging Japan, China, and South Korea into a far more significant 'synergistic entity'. In stressing the cooperative dimension of relations among these three powerful countries, the book not only calls for a new focus for regional analysis, but it also challenges the more traditional treatment of Northeast Asia as a hotbed of geopolitical tensions and rivalries.
- Political Geography:
- Japan, China, East Asia, and South Korea
3438. Rising States, Rising Institutions: Challenges for Global Governance
- Author:
- Isao Miyaoka
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
- Institution:
- Japan Association of International Relations
- Abstract:
- The global financial crisis of 2008 has strengthened the general impression that the decline of the United States and the rise of new powers such as China and India are simultaneously in progress. A shift in the balance of power must significantly affect the way of global governance. This is a subject of great importance in world politics. In the words of Robert Gilpin, 'the fundamental problem of international relations in the contemporary world is the problem of peaceful adjustment to the consequences of the uneven growth of power among states'. Since around 2010, scholarly attention has been paid to the impact of emerging new powers on global governance. One of the very first books is the volume under this review, Rising States, Rising Institutions: Challenges for Global Governance. This edited volume is the second book that was produced by the collaborative work between the Center for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) – a Canadian think tank based in Waterloo, Ontario – and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. (The first book from this partnership is Can the World Be Governed? Possibilities for Effective Multilateralism.)
- Topic:
- Financial Crisis
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, and India
3439. Consumption boosts China's resilience but risks of a property bust still loom
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- With the outlook for exports subdued and investment weak, we expect industrial output growth to slow further in 2012H1. But consumption is taking up the slack and fiscal policy is set to be supportive. As a result, we only expect a relatively modest slowing in growth in 2012 to 8.4% from 9.2% in 2011. But with house prices still falling in December, we remain concerned about the risk of a sharp slowing in the property market leading to strains on local government finances and a hard landing for growth, particularly with the external environment weak. However, central government finances are strong and fiscal transfers could provide a significant cushion in the event of a property bust.
- Topic:
- Communism, Economics, Government, International Trade and Finance, and Global Recession
- Political Geography:
- China and Israel
3440. Pharmaceutical Price Regulation: Macro-Level Evidence from China between 1997 and 2008
- Author:
- Qiong Zhang, Binzhen Wu, and Xue Qiao
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- This paper uses macro-level data between 1997 and 2008 to evaluate the effects of China's pharmaceutical price regulations. We find that these regulations had short-run effects on medicine price indexes, reducing them by less than 0.5 percentage points. The effects could have been slightly reinforced when these regulations were imposed on more medicines. However, these regulations failed to reduce household health expenditures and the average profitability of the pharmaceutical industry, and firms on the break-even edge were worse off. Finally, although these regulations have no significant effects on the price of substitutes or complements for medicines, they increased expensive medicine imports.
- Topic:
- Economics, Health, Human Welfare, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
- Political Geography:
- China