Eurasia's Ascent in Energy and Geopolitics Bedeski, Robert E.; Swanström, Niklas
Eurasia's Ascent in Energy and Geopolitics,
2012, 20120806, 2012-08-06, 20120101, Letnik:
35
eBook, Book Chapter
The Sino-Russian relationship has experienced several permutations in recent decades as both states have undergone radical domestic changes, including the end of Soviet communism and the abandonment ...of Maoism. This volume brings together scholars to address the current status of Sino-Russian relations in the political, military, energy and trade sectors.
In this comprehensive new volume, authors offer a detailed account on the both the historical context and current status of relations between Russia and China and the geo-political realignments in Eurasia. This analysis of the evolving relationship addresses global strategy, energy politics, national security, human security, and Central Asian links. Individual chapters examine key issues such as China's economic ascendancy, military relations, the geostrategic position of Mongolia, Japan's views and historical background. With authors representing a broad range of current active experts and researchers working in Europe, the US, Central Asia, China and Japan, this book offers a long-term and in-depth analysis of the relations and potential developments in both bilateral and international relations.
This work will be of great interest to scholars of international relations, Asian security, and the Eurasian region.
International relations scholarship and the popular media tend to portray China as a great power with hegemonic designs for Southeast Asia. Moreover, studies on Chinese influence in Southeast Asia ...predominantly focus on the Chinese state. This paper argues that Chinese non-state actors and their daily encounters with local communities in Southeast Asia deserve equal attention as these interactions evidently produce friction at both the society-to-state and state-to-state levels.The influence of Chinese non-state actors in Southeast Asia can be illustrated with three examples, namely, Chinese tourism operations in Thailand, Chinese market demand and agricultural transformations in Myanmar, and Chinese gangs within the casino economy in Cambodia.Thailand has recently become a top tourist destination for Chinese nationals. This has cultural implications as those involved in the tourism industry need to have Chinese language skills. The economic implications include increased competition and decreased accountability as Chinese tour companies have set up in Thailand using Thai locals as nominees. Bilateral relations also soured after a boat carrying Chinese tourists capsized in Thailand.As global prices of corn rose in 2011 and 2012, areas in Myanmar close to the Chinese border have increased corn cultivation to meet Chinese demands for that crop. This has led to deforestation in these areas. Chinese gangsters fleeing their government's crackdown in China have settled down to operate in the casino economy in Cambodia. Consequentially, there has been a rise in crime rate involving online scams and deteriorating public security. Despite the Chinese government encouraging the Cambodian government to enforce a ban on online gambling, the actions of non-state actors from China continue to be associated with the Chinese state as a whole and there is rising
resentment towards the Chinese in Cambodia.The COVID-19 pandemic has temporarily halted cross-border trade between China and mainland Southeast Asia. This has negatively affected local farmers who are dependent on the Chinese market.
Based on archival materials from several countries, especially China, , interviews, and more than twenty years of research on the subject, Zhihua Shen and Yafeng Xia offer a comprehensive look at the ...Sino-Soviet alliance from the end of the World War II through 1959, when the alliance ended as a result of foreign and domestic policies. Mao and the Sino-Soviet Partnership, 1945-1959: A New History is a reevaluation of the history of this alliance and offers the first comprehensive account of it from a Chinese perspective.
For close to sixty years, the United States has maintained alliances with Japan and South Korea that have included a nuclear umbrella, guaranteeing their security as part of a strategy of extended ...deterrence. Yet questions about the credibility of deterrence commitments have always been an issue, especially when nuclear weapons are concerned. Would the United States truly be willing to use these weapons to defend an ally?In this book, Terence Roehrig provides a detailed and comprehensive look at the nuclear umbrella in northeast Asia in the broader context of deterrence theory and U.S. strategy. He examines the role of the nuclear umbrella in Japanese and South Korean defense planning and security calculations, including the likelihood that either will develop its own nuclear weapons. Roehrig argues that the nuclear umbrella is most important as a political signal demonstrating commitment to the defense of allies and as a tool to prevent further nuclear proliferation in the region. While the role of the nuclear umbrella is often discussed in military terms, this book provides an important glimpse into the political dimensions of the nuclear security guarantee. As the security environment in East Asia changes with the growth of North Korea's capabilities and China's military modernization, as well as Donald Trump's early pronouncements that cast doubt on traditional commitments to allies, the credibility and resolve of U.S. alliances will take on renewed importance for the region and the world.
Dr. Hu Shih (1891–1962) was one of China’s top scholars and diplomats and served as the Republic of China’s ambassador to the United States during World War II. As early as 1941, Hu Shih warned of ...the fundamental ideological conflict between dictatorial totalitarianism and democratic systems, a view that later became the foundation of the Cold War narrative. In the 1950s, after Mao’s authoritarian regime was established, Hu Shih started to analyze the development and nature of Communism, delivering a series of lectures and addresses to reveal what he called Stalin’s “grand strategy” for facilitating the International Communist Movement. For decades—and today to a certain extent—Hu Shih’s political writings were considered sensitive and even dangerous. As a strident critic of the Chinese Communist Party’s oligarchical practices, he was targeted by the CCP in a concerted national campaign to smear his reputation, cast aspersions on his writings, and generally destroy any possible influence he might have in China. This volume brings together a collection of Hu Shih’s most important, mostly unpublished, English-language speeches, interviews, and commentaries on international politics, China-U.S. relations, and the International Communist Movement. Taken together, these works provide an insider’s perspective on Sino-American relations and the development of the International Communist Movement over the course of the 20th century.
When President George W. Bush launched an invasion of Iraq in March of 2003, he did so without the explicit approval of the Security Council. His father's administration, by contrast, carefully ...funneled statecraft through the United Nations and achieved Council authorization for the U.S.-led Gulf War in 1991. The history of American policy toward Iraq displays considerable variation in the extent to which policies were conducted through the UN and other international organizations.
InChannels of Power, Alexander Thompson surveys U.S. policy toward Iraq, starting with the Gulf War, continuing through the interwar years of sanctions and coercive disarmament, and concluding with the 2003 invasion and its long aftermath. He offers a framework for understanding why powerful states often work through international organizations when conducting coercive policies-and why they sometimes choose instead to work alone or with ad hoc coalitions. The conventional wisdom holds that because having legitimacy for their actions is important for normative reasons, states seek multilateral approval.
Channels of Poweroffers a rationalist alternative to these standard legitimation arguments, one based on the notion of strategic information transmission: When state actions are endorsed by an independent organization, this sends politically crucial information to the world community, both leaders and their publics, and results in greater international support.
As new federations take shape and old ones are revived around the world, a difficult challenge is to create incentives for fiscal discipline. A key question is whether a politically-motivated central ...government can credibly commit not to bail out subnational governments in times of crisis if it funds most of their expenditures. The center can commit when subnational governments retain significant tax autonomy, as in the United States. Or if the center dominates taxation, it can tightly regulate borrowing, as in many unitary systems. In a third group of countries including Brazil and Germany, the center can neither commit to a system of market-based discipline nor gain a monopoly over borrowing. By combining theory, quantitative analysis, and historical and contemporary case studies, this book explains why different countries have had dramatically different experiences with subnational fiscal discipline.
ASEAN-India-Australia Tow, William T; Chin, Kin Wah; Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
09/2009
eBook
India's emergence of a great power has sensitized its regional neighbours to its growing role as a key security actor in an increasingly interdependent world. Both Australia and ASEAN now view India ...as a major player in the formulation and application of their own broad security agendas. This emerging trilateral compendium is particularly evident in such policy areas as maritime security, climate change, energy security, law enforcement, "good governance" and the politics of security institutions or "architectures". This book represents one of the first systematic efforts to consolidate these diverse but important concerns into an overarching framework for ascertaining and cross-comparing how these three entities are approaching these policy challenges, individually and collectively. It argues that the dynamics underlying their intensifying security relations are sufficiently important to conceptualize them as a distinct analytical framework that needs to be understood in the larger context of Asia-Pacific security politics.
In the eyes of both contemporaries and historians, the United
States became an empire in 1898. By taking possession of Cuba and
the Philippines, the nation seemed to have reached a watershed
moment ...in its rise to power-spurring arguments over whether it
should be a colonial power at all. However, the questions that
emerged in the wake of 1898 built on long-standing and far-reaching
debates over America's place in the world. Andrew Priest offers a
new understanding of the roots of American empire that foregrounds
the longer history of perceptions of European powers. He traces the
development of American thinking about European imperialism in the
years after the Civil War, before the United States embarked on its
own overseas colonial projects. Designs on Empire examines
responses to Napoleon III's intervention in Mexico, Spain and the
Ten Years' War in Cuba, Britain's occupation of Egypt, and the
carving up of Africa at the Berlin Conference. Priest shows how
observing and interacting with other empires shaped American
understandings of the international environment and their own
burgeoning power. He highlights ambivalence among American elites
regarding empire as well as the prevalence of notions of racial
hierarchy. While many deplored the way powerful nations dominated
others, others saw imperial projects as the advance of
civilization, and even critics often felt a closer affinity with
European imperialists than colonized peoples. A wide-ranging book
that blends intellectual, political, and diplomatic history,
Designs on Empire sheds new light on the foundations of
American power.
This book offers a synthesis of social science and evolutionary approaches to the study of intergenerational relations, using biological, psychological and sociological factors to develop a single ...framework for understanding why kin help one another across generations. With attention to both biological family relations as well as in-law and step-relations, it provides an overview of existing studies centred on intergenerational relations – particularly grandparenting – that incorporate social science and evolutionary family theories. This evolutionary social science approach to intergenerational family relations goes well beyond the traditional nature versus nurture distinction. As such, it will appeal to scholars across a range of disciplines with interests in relations of kinship, the lifecourse and the sociology of the family.
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