Showing papers in "Asian Affairs: An American Review in 2003"

Stirring Samurai, Disapproving Dragon: japan's Growing Security Activity and Sino-Japan Relations

Abstract: : Japan-China relations are often described as an uneasy mix of uniting and dividing issues. Upon the 30-year anniversary of the normalization of Sino-Japanese relations in 2002, Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun noted that many Japanese felt "Japan-China relations are at their worst since normalization," while in China an opinion poll showed that half of respondents believed relations with Japan were "not good" and only 22 percent said relations were "good." These indications of poor Sino-Japanese relations take place, curiously, amidst a thriving bilateral economic relationship and a region-wide Chinese peace and reassurance offensive. Observers note that Notwithstanding the close and significant economic interdependence between China and Japan, there is no corresponding spillover into social, intellectual or security engagement, and that "intensifying rivalry is crowding out the positive aspects of bilateral ties." There is a growing asymmetry developing between Chinese society, in which young people as well as old remain unwilling to accept Japan as a "normal country" (largely because the Chinese government has continually published stories of Japanese wartime brutality through the media and education system over the last half century) and Japanese society, in which younger generations born since the end of World War II are decreasingly sympathetic to attempts to constrain Japan due to the "history issue." This generational change is reflected in Japan's leadership. Japanese politicians such as Tanaka Kakuei and Nonaka Hiromu, who previously worked with some success to build personal ties with Chinese leaders that helped stabilize the bilateral relationship, are being replaced by the likes of current Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro, who is clearly less averse to angering China. There are many implications of these changes, but one of the most important consequences is that China-Japan security relations will remain tense in the future.

The Ideological Paradigm Shifts of China's World Views: From Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to the Pragmatism-Multilateralism of the Deng-Jiang-Hu Era

Abstract: (2003). The Ideological Paradigm Shifts of China's World Views: From Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to the Pragmatism-Multilateralism of the Deng-Jiang-Hu Era. Asian Affairs: An American Review: Vol. 30, No. 3, pp. 163-175.

Does European Integration Provide a Model for Moderating Cross-Strait Relations?

Abstract: Since the mid-1990s, the cross-strait relationship between the Republic of China on Taiwan (ROC) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) has been fairly stormy, with periodic crises in which the risk of armed conflict has been significant (although not highly probable). In contrast to the deadlock and hostility of "high politics" between Taipei and Beijing, other aspects of cross-strait relations are far more promising. Over the last decade or so the huge increase in economic transactions between Taiwan and China has created a growing integration that implies a good deal of amity at the level of "low politics," "people-topeople diplomacy," and social communications. This contact suggests that the gradual growth of the European Union (EU) in the postwar era might provide a more positive model for managing cross-strait relations, reducing the threat of new crises and military hostilities that neither side seems to desire. This essay thus explores the question of whether the growing economic integration across the Taiwan Strait might hold the key to overcoming the deadlock in high politics created by the incompatible views of the PRC and ROC on the critical issue of sovereignty. In the first part I briefly sketch the theory of how growing integration and social communications create the bases for a "community," and I apply that theory to the evolution of the EU. The second part describes the economic and social processes that are increasingly linking Taiwan to the Chinese mainland. In part 3 I argue that growing economic and social integration across the Taiwan Strait had created processes similar to the EU model by the

Precarious Partnership: Pakistan's Response to U.S. Security Policies

Abstract: Pakistan was hailed during the 1950s as a frontline bulwark against communist expansionism. Bound to the United States in multiple security treaties, it gained a reputation as "America's most allied ally." Pakistan's reputation among Americans slipped in the 1960s and rose swiftly during the Afghanistan War (1979-1989), only to fall again in the years following the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. The inconstancy of the relationship with the United States has greatly bothered Pakistanis. In fact, nothing has drawn more rueful public commentary in Pakistan in the past decade than what Pakistanis almost universally understand to have been Pakistan's unceremonious dumping by Washington once its usefulness in bringing down the Soviet Union had expired. Just how favorably Washington was disposed toward Pakistan at any given time depended on many factors, including the state of Pakistan's confrontational relationship with India, the strength of its embrace of political democracy and free market economics, the spirit in which it incorporated Islam into its state identity, and the license it took in the pursuit of nuclear weapons. More than any of these, however, what always affected Pakistan's standing in Washington most dramatically was its strategic utility, or "fit": whether and to what extent its leaders seemed able and willing to meld Pakistan's national interests with the U.S. policy imperatives of the day. In this transparently dependent relationship, it was always Washington's perception of strategic necessity, together with Pakistan's capacity for adapting to it, that drove the U.S.-Pakistan relationship.

Red Chips: Implications of the Semiconductor Industry's Relocation to China

Abstract: (2003). Red Chips: Implications of the Semiconductor Industry's Relocation to China. Asian Affairs: An American Review: Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 237-253.

Russia and Pakistan: The Difficult Path to Rapprochement

Abstract: (2003). Russia and Pakistan: The Difficult Path to Rapprochement. Asian Affairs: An American Review: Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 36-55.

Grudging Partner: South Korea

Abstract: S outh Korea welcomes increased U.S. interest and commitment in East Asia. South Korea, like many other countries in Asia, has a vital interest in keeping close economic and security relations with the United States. The United States has been the largest market for the export-oriented South Korean economy and has provided South Korea with security, a critical contribution to its stable economic development. South Korea recognizes the importance of U.S. power and leadership in world politics and regards friendly relations with the United States as the backbone of its foreign and defense policies. The U.S. military presence is well accepted by South Korea for its own security interests. Both governments favor an American military presence on the Korean peninsula as a critical deterrent against communist North Korea. Under the armistice agreement ending the Korean War, the two Koreas remain technically at war, without a peace treaty, despite recent rapprochement efforts between the two archenemies. Whether through internal collapse or a desperate act of aggression, a failing North Korean regime armed with weapons of mass destruction poses a potent threat to the peninsula a decade after the end of the Cold War. About 37,000 U.S. soldiers are stationed in South Korea, the second largest U.S. Asian deployment. South Korea has worked closely with U.S. military forces in maintaining a strong alliance with the United States. Under the Combined Forces Command in Yongsan, South Korea's military forces are effectively integrated into the U.S. war strategy, which maintains readiness to meet any threat from North Korea. The extensive military cooperation with the United States includes combined defense planning, joint training exercises, intelligence integration and sharing, a sophisticated logistical interface, educational exchanges, and defense industry cooperation.

High Hopes: India's Response to U.S. Security Policies

Abstract: : Compared with America s traditional allies, India has been much more supportive and understanding of the Bush administration's policy initiatives on missile defense, arms control, the International Criminal Court, and the UN role in the management of international security challenges. India welcomes the Bush administration's plans for a greater Indian role in a wider Asian security system so as to create a strategically stable Asia. As a non-status-quo power, India appears more sympathetic than France or China to the American effort to rework the rules of the global game. India wants to work with the U.S. in shaping a new world order that must be constructed amidst the dissolution of the old. On controversial issues such as missile defense and the war against Iraq, the Vajpayee government's stance is dictated primarily by the pragmatic consideration of sustaining improvement in U.S.-Indian ties and avoiding alignment with anti-U.S. forces. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 proved to be a catalyst in improving U.S.-Indian ties, but also complicated them. For example, the war on terrorism has highlighted differences of definitions, sources, and approaches to fighting terrorism. Indian officials increasingly speak of the disconnect between India's expectations of the U.S. and what Washington is able and willing to deliver with regard to terrorist infiltration into Kashmir from Pakistan. Indians believe Washington will have to rethink its strategy if the global campaigns against terrorism and WMD proliferation are to be won decisively. Even as the China factor increasingly draws the U.S. and India closer, the Pakistan factor pulls them apart.

The Glacier Moves: Japan's Response to U.S. Security Policies

Abstract: The Bush administration came into office with high hopes for strengthening the U.S.-Japan alliance. As was adumbrated in the October 2000 Armitage Report-a bipartisan road map of the future of the relationship assembled by a group of Japan experts, including several tapped for senior positions in the new administration-the goal was a closer and more equal partnership on the model of that between America and Britain.' (The emphasis on Japan is also reflected in the administration's National Security Strategy and Quadrennial Defense Review.) From Washington's perspective, there were several key markers of progress toward this partnership. One was Tokyo's participation in the joint development of a missile defense shield designed to protect both Japan and the United States. Another priority was Japan's willingness to allow its Self Defense Forces (SDF) to stand shoulder to shoulder with U.S. forces in regional military conflicts, including those geographically remote from Japan. A third was the revival of Japan's moribund economy, which was assumed to require a more determined approach to reform. Few Americans knowledgeable about Japan had any illusions that its evolution into the "Britain of East Asia" would be easy. The most obvious impediment was the continued appeal of pacifism as manifest in a widespread aversion to military force, support for Japan's "self-defense only" posture, and acceptance of its constitutional ban on collective defense. (Article 9 of Japan's 1947 "Peace Constitution," which renounces the use of military force to settle international disputes, is interpreted to permit self-defense but prohibit collective defense.) Although the collective defense taboo had not blocked U.S.-Japan military coop

The Stability of Nuclear Deterrence in South Asia: The Clash between State and Antistate Actors

Abstract: (2003). The Stability of Nuclear Deterrence in South Asia: The Clash between State and Antistate Actors. Asian Affairs: An American Review: Vol. 30, No. 3, pp. 177-199.

Is the European Exchange Rate Mechanism a Model for East Asia

Abstract: he idea of an East Asian economic zone, first proposed in the late 1980s, T showed few signs of becoming a reality through economic diplomacy alone. In 1997, however, capital markets treated East Asia as a distinct region, with contagion from Thailand sweeping first through Southeast and then Northeast Asia. As liquidity supply from international capital markets dried up, several currencies went into free fall, at times fluctuating wildly. Currency devaluations against the dollar also resulted in large changes in cross-rates against other East Asian currencies, straining regional trade relationships and serving as a conduit for contagion. Compared with Europe's currency crisis of 1992-1993, Asia's was much more chaotic, and the ensuing economic downturn was much deeper. This raises the question of whether a regional exchange rate mechanism modeled on Europe's would have permitted a less-turbulent adjustment of Asian currencies in 1997. Although there have been no moves in that direction so far,' the crisis did give rise to closer cooperation among Asian monetary authorities, the idea of an Asian Monetary Fund, and consideration of deeper regional economic ties. Exchange rate regimes are particular to the political and economic circumstances of their age. The international gold standard came into being because of the historical accident that gold was Britain's monetary standard when it emerged as the world's leading industrial, colonial, and trading power in the 1800s. Growth in trade made it convenient for other countries to adopt the British monetary standard, and the massive expansion of gold production from around 1850, following discoveries of gold in the United States and Australia, made it possible.2 Britain's stable balance of payments, an important factor anchoring the system,

Still Great Mates: Australia and the United States

Abstract: S ince the trauma of the Pacific War, Australia has maintained a close alliance with the United States. Australia, which once looked to the United States to fill the void left by Britain's global retreat, now views its "special relationship" with the United States as the cornerstone of its foreign relations and position in the world. That relationship is as close as the one between the United States and the United Kingdom. During the Cold War, Australia returned U.S. support by keeping the entire South Pacific in the Western camp and by paying its "insurance dues" by going to war in Korea and Vietnam.

Reluctant Partner: Indonesia

Abstract: U .S. interests in Indonesia have changed since the beginning of the global war on terrorism, given Indonesia's status within the Muslim world and especially after the Bali blast in October 2002, which marked the clear emergence of Islamist terror groups within Indonesia. During the Cold War, Indonesia had been an important partner in containing communism. Indonesia remains important today, as it sits aside critical sea lanes, and its fate will have a dramatic impact on the resilience of Southeast Asia as a whole.

A Marriage of Convenience: Russia and U.S. Foreign Policy

Abstract: (2003). A Marriage of Convenience: Russia and U.S. Foreign Policy. Asian Affairs: An American Review: Vol. 30, The Responses of Asian Nations to Bush Administration Security Policies, pp. 151-159.

Let's Just Be Friends: New Zealand and the United States

Abstract: I n the words of the U.S. Department of State, bilateral relations between New Zealand and the United States are excellent. The two countries "share common elements of history and culture and a commitment to democratic principles."' This close relationship started as a result of military fears and was disrupted by military differences. In June 1940 the British government told New Zealand that in the event of war in the Pacific, British (and thus New Zealand) interests there would have to be safeguarded by the United States.2 For the next forty-five years New Zealand placed greater or lesser emphasis on the notion that the country's defense and security would be underpinned by a strong U.S. presence in the Pacific region as well as a close military relationship between the two countries.

U.S.-East Asian Trade Friction: Exit and Voice in the Steel Trade Regime

Abstract: T he steel industry remains one of the major industrial sectors for Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China. Japan became the primary country of steel production in the late 1960s. South Korea followed Japan in the 1980s with the success of Poland Iron and Steel Company (POSCO), which became the world's largest steel producer in 1998. In the 1990s, China developed its steel industry to become the primary producer country of crude steel in 1996. The steel industry is an important topic of discussion in international trade. The industry continues to be a source of trade friction centered on the U.S. market. The United States has imposed some form of restriction on steel imports since the late 1960s. More recently, in 1998, the U.S. steel industry lodged antidumping complaints against imports of a wide range of steel products. Because of the U.S. steel industry's seemingly arbitrary use of antidumping measures, the topic of amending the Agreement on Implementation of Article VI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 (Antidumping Agreement) has stayed on the agenda at World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meetings. Although a number of studies discuss the economic implications of protectionist trade measures in the U.S. steel industry,' few have highlighted the impact of U.S. protectionist measures on other countries' governmental policies. This study seeks to fill the gap in research by examining the influence of protectionist measures in the U.S. steel industry on East Asian governments' policies and behavior. In particular, this study explores how the Japanese and Korean governments have responded to U.S. trade measures involving the steel industry. I argue that successive U.S. antidumping measures encouraged the Japanese and Korean

A Late Honeymoon for Bush and China: Enjoy it While it Lasts

Abstract: (2003). A Late Honeymoon for Bush and China: Enjoy it While it Lasts. Asian Affairs: An American Review: Vol. 30, The Responses of Asian Nations to Bush Administration Security Policies, pp. 79-87.

Regional Impacts of China's WTO Membership

Abstract: C hina's admission into the World Trade Organization (WTO) has important implications for the international trading system.' Before its admission, China had the largest economy outside the WTO. By many estimates, China is the world's third largest economy after the United States and Japan, and the world's tenth largest trading economy. A World Bank report estimates that China's share of world trade may triple from 3 percent in 1992 to 9.8 percent in 2020, making China the world's second largest trading nation after the United States.2 China's WTO application was controversial because China was still a developing country, yet its economy and trade were significant. China's WTO membership means China must change many laws, institutions,