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58372. Accessing Venture Capital in India
- Author:
- Rafiq Dossani
- Publication Date:
- 10-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- In the 1970s, IT exports from India began with “body-shopping,” also known as contract programming. In such contracts, the amount of code was specified in the contract and there was relatively little risk. Until 1991, this was the main form of IT exports, and it was per- formed exclusively by Indian firms. Foreign firms were deliberately excluded as a matter of government policy. It was a difficult business environment. Indian firms that were exporting bodies, as well as firms that operated only in the domestic market, found themselves operat- ing in a closed economy, featuring high tariffs on hardware imports and non-tariff barriers on software imports. Quite by accident, this situation led to a growth of skills that would be of great value to India a few years later. India's UNIX talents, now globally in demand due to the growth of the Internet, developed because the country's closed economy forced Indian computer makers to develop their own hardware and software design skills. Sridhar Mitta noted that, in 1983, the United States used an Intel 386 microprocessor as the base for a simple personal computer, whereas India employed the same microprocessor with the UNIX operating system to power mainframes that controlled large enterprises. India's closed environment also spurred the country's IT industry to develop advanced skills in system design, architecture, protocol stacks, compilers, device drivers, and boards.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- United States, India, and Asia
58373. Assessing U.S. Bilateral Security Alliances in the Asia Pacific's "Southern Rim": Why the San Francisco System Endures
- Author:
- William T. Tow
- Publication Date:
- 10-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- At the turn of the century, the United States' postwar alliance network remains a key component of its international security policy. That policy is fundamentally based on maintaining military superiority over current and potential rivals in the Eurasian landmass.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- United States, Eurasia, Asia, and San Francisco
58374. Containment by Stealth: Chinese Views of and Policies toward America's Alliances with Japan and Korea after the Cold War
- Author:
- Yu Bin
- Publication Date:
- 09-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- At the height of the Cold War, the dominant Western theories of alliance building in interstate relations argued that alliances tend to be motivated more by an external need to confront a clearly defined common adversary than by the domestic attributes of alliance partners. The newly reinvigorated U.S.-Japan alliance, however, together with the newly expanded NATO, seems to depart from the conventional pattern by emphasizing shared democratic values and by maintaining a high degree of ambiguity regarding the goals and targets of the alliance. Although these new features of American-led military alliances provide an anchor in an other- wise highly fluid situation in the post–Cold War world, many Chinese foreign-and defense-policy analysts believe that U.S. alliances with Asian countries, particularly with Japan, pose a serious, long-term challenge, if not a threat, to China's national security, national unification, and modernization. The ambiguity of the revised U.S.-Japan security alliance means that it is at best searching for targets and at worst aiming at China.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- United States, Japan, Asia, and Korea
58375. Catch-Up; Why Poor Countries Are Becoming Richer, Democratic, Increasingly Peaceable, and Sometimes More Dangerous
- Author:
- Henry S. Rowen
- Publication Date:
- 08-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- It is easy to be confused about the world's prospect. On the one hand, since the collapse of the Soviet Union and its empire, many millions of people have been freed from economic and political shackles that had long kept them under authoritarian rule and in poverty—or at least far poorer than they should be. On the other hand, several parts of the world are beset by political turmoil and conflicts, rapid population increases, and falling incomes.
- Topic:
- Security, Democratization, Development, Emerging Markets, and Third World
- Political Geography:
- Soviet Union
58376. Crisis and Aftermath: The Prospects for Institutional Change in Japan
- Author:
- Rafiq Dossani
- Publication Date:
- 08-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- Impelled in large part by the nearly decade-long stagnation of the Japanese economy, institutions in Japan are undergoing fundamental changes. When Professors Masahiko Aoki, of the Stanford University Department of Economics, and Henry Rowen, director of the Asia/Pacific Research Center, were talking about these changes, they realized that an international conference on the subject would be useful and informative. With funding from the Asia/ Pacific Research Center and the Institute for International Studies, a distinguished group of speakers, commentators, and participants was brought together for a one-day conference to look at institutional changes in three distinct sectors of Japanese society: the political system, the bureaucracy, and corporations.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- United States, Japan, and Asia
58377. Nesting the Alliances in the Emerging Context of Asia-Pacific Multilateral Processes: A U.S. Perspective
- Author:
- Douglas Paal
- Publication Date:
- 07-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- As Americans consider their options for protecting and advancing their interests in Asia in the twenty-first century, it is natural that there will be wide-ranging views and vigorous debate. Recent events such as the 1996 Taiwan crisis, the Asian economic meltdown in 1997, and the exchange of state visits by presidents Bill Clinton and Jiang Zemin in 1997 and 1998 have intensified, then moderated and redirected, much of the debate over a very short span of time. Two years ago, for example, the Chinese were worrying aloud about American efforts to “encircle” China. Now they talk about “building a constructive strategic partnership with the U.S.” Despite these ups and downs, however, the fundamental choices for the United States have remained largely the same.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, America, Taiwan, and Asia
58378. When Realism and Liberalism Coincide: Russian Views of U.S. Alliances in Asia
- Author:
- Andrew C. Kuchins and Alexei V. Zagorsky
- Publication Date:
- 07-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- Contemporary discussions of virtually any aspect of Russian foreign and security policy must take as their point of departure the extraordinarily weakened condition of the Russian Federation. There is no comparable case of such a rapid and dramatic decline in the status of a great power during peacetime in modern history. The Russian economy has been in a virtual free fall for most of the 1990s. The World Bank estimated the Russian GNP in 1997, using fixed exchange rates not adjusted for purchasing power parity, at $403.5 billion, making Russia the twelfth-largest economy in the world, just ahead of the Netherlands and just behind South Korea. Russian per capita GNP of $2,740 ranked fifty-first in the world and was in the category of “low middle” income countries. In 1997 the Russian GNP was about 5 percent of that of the United States, 8 percent adjusted for purchasing power parity. The figures for 1998 will be even starker given the devaluation of the ruble to approximately 30 percent of its 1997 value and continuing overall economic decline. A back-of-the-envelope calculation would have Russian GNP at the end of 1998 at no more than $120 billion and per capita GNP at less than $1,000.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, Asia, South Korea, and Netherlands
58379. Adjusting America's Two Alliances in East Asia: A Japanese View
- Author:
- Takashi Inoguchi
- Publication Date:
- 07-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- The alliances of the United States in East Asia are in a process of profound change (Okimoto 1998). The treaties with Japan and Korea are undergoing distinctive metamorphoses. These changes are the result of a number of forces that unfolded over the decades of the twentieth century, most notably the Cold War, globalization, and democratization (Inoguchi 1993, 1995; and Archibugi, Held, and Koehler 1996).
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- United States, America, East Asia, and Asia
58380. Changing Relations between Party, Military, and Government in North Korea and Their Impact on Policy Direction
- Author:
- Jinwook Choi
- Publication Date:
- 07-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- North Korea has recently exhibited some noteworthy changes. In September 1998 it amended its constitution to change the power structure and introduced a number of progressive clauses. It also began to use the slogan “A Strong and Prosperous Nation,” which emphasizes economic prosperity as well as political, ideological, and military strength.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- United States, Asia, and Latin America