Showing papers on "East Asia published in 1977"

China and the Major Powers in East Asia

Abstract: The foreign policy of the People's Republic of China has been dominated in recent decades by the problems of dealing with the other major powers in East Asia. Although many ideological, political, and economic aims have shaped particular Chinese policies, Peking's dominant concern has been national security. Since the late 1960s, its leaders have viewed the Soviet Union as the primary threat to China and have pursued a distinctive, Maoist, balance-of-power strategy against it. China's post-Mao leaders continue to give priority to strategic considerations and the problems of relations with the other major powers. It cannot be assumed, however, that they will simply continue past policies. The recent changes both within China and in the broad pattern of international relations in East Asia have created a new situation. In this study, A. Doak Barnett analyzes in detail China's bilateral relations with the Soviet Union, Japan, and the United States. He also examines the changing nature of the four-power relationship in East Asia. On this basis, he discusses possible future trends in Chinese policy and the prospects for achieving a more stable regional equilibrium.

China policy, old problems and new challenges

Abstract: Reviews United States-China relations since 1970 and examines the requirements for improving those relations, proposing goals for our dealings with the People's Republic and for a four-power balance in East Asia.

The economic determinants of internal migration in Korea.

Abstract: (1977) The economic determinants of internal migration in Korea Applied Economics: Vol 9, No 4, pp 307-318

Planning U.S. General Purpose Forces: Forces Related to Asia

Abstract: : This report is one of a series of reports on planning U.S. general purpose forces. The other papers have concentrated on force elements, such as tactical air forces, that relate to the demanding contingency of a conflict between NATO and Warsaw Pact nations. This paper discusses the general purpose forces deployed in East Asia and the Pacific. It identifies alternatives to the current posture, including reductions and deletions from the overall force structure, realignments involving transfer of some force elements to the continental United States and the Atlantic for NATO-related missions, and force enhancements concentrated in Northeast Asia. The focus of debate on the U.S. defense posture in Asia, apart from Vietnam, has in recent years been on the question of withdrawing, retaining, or phasing down the U.S. Army Second Division deployed in South Korea north of Seoul. That is an important issue, and it is addressed in this paper. But there is a wider range of force structure issues in East Asia and the Pacific that relate to the Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force and to deployments outside of Korea -- in and near Japan, the Philippines, and Hawaii, for example. The principal purpose of this paper is to illustrate the wider range of budget-related choices available in considering reductions and restructuring within the region. Another purpose is to highlight some dilemmas in which competing U.S. objectives make choices more difficult.

The United States, Japan and the Security of Korea

Abstract: The Carter Administration's decision to withdraw all U.S. ground forces from Korea by 1981 or 1982 met with little public criticism in this country when it was announced in March. Tokyo and, of course, Seoul were known to be unhappy with the President's announcement but, for more than two months, the withdrawal decision received extraordinarily little attention here. A national debate on Korea policy began to take shape only in mid-May, when Major General John K. Singlaub, chief of staff of U.S. forces in Korea, told the press of widespread concern among "senior military people" that the President's withdrawal plan would invite a North Korean invasion. Certain members of the Congress then voiced their own reservations, and in June, when an effort to put the Senate on record in support of the troop withdrawals was rebuffed, it became evident that congressional opposition to the Administration's Korea policy was substantial. Some of the criticism aimed at the withdrawal plan, both at home and abroad, stems from the way in which the Administration developed and presented its new policy. The Carter Administration has been notably deficient in its cultivation of congressional support on foreign policy issues, and Korea seems to be no exception. The legislators expressed their dissatisfaction with the extent of White House consultations on Korea when the Senate voted in June to require that all policy decisions concerning Korea be taken jointly by the President and Congress. Consultations with allied nations have been as problematic as those with the Congress. Although the Administration has repeatedly asserted that any change in U.S. policy would be developed in close consultation with Tokyo, as well as witb Seoul, the Korean withdrawal decision has shown just how difficult it is in practice to give meaning to that assertion. After taking the basic decision by itself, the

Korea: The Implications of Withdrawal

Abstract: GEOGRAPHY GEOGRAPHY PLAYS some role in shaping the character and destiny of every country.' For Korea, over the centuries, it has been a principal determinant. Indeed, geography has been a major factor in the tumultuous history of Northeast Asia as a whole. Draw a 700mile arc centered on Seoul and you encompass Tokyo, Peking, and the air and naval bases contiguous to Vladivostok. Viewed from Peking, Korea has been the land bridge from the Asian mainland to the Japanese islands; Tokyo has the reciprocal view. In the eyes of first the Tsars and later the Politburo, the Korean Peninsula was (is) an extension of the territory of Mother Russia, thus flanking China. Small wonder, then, that for a thousand years or more, the Korean Peninsula has been a battleground for the armies of these three powers, contending for control of that small appendage of the East Asian land mass. Throughout, the Korean people have maintained their ethnic and cultural distinction from their neighbors and their determination not to be assimilated-a main reason why the Peninsula has remained the scene of struggle. In the final days of World War II, and pursuant to the agreements at Yalta and Potsdam, the Soviet Union moved quickly to take control of the northern half of the Korean Peninsula, installed Kim Il-sung in Pyongyang, and maneuvered to bring all of the Peninsula under Soviet hegemony. There is evidence that Soviet plans for Korea went far beyond the blueprint for Eastern Europe-perhaps even to its incorporation as a constituent republic of the Soviet Union. Unable to achieve a unified Communist Korea by political means and misreading

Commentary: The United States, Japan and the Security of Korea

Abstract: In arriving at this conclusion, Mr. Weinstein makes many questionable assumptions concerning the political implications of withdrawal on the various countries involved. He seems to discern many advantages accruing to each of these countries that have not yet appeared visible to many other knowledgeable persons. He takes the dangerous and precarious position of assuming the most favorable results will prevail, rather than persuing a thorough consideration of the more likely unfavorable ones. Take, for instance, his references to the “corrupt and repressive government of South Korea.” He believes that withdrawal of U.S. forces will make this government more palatable to the American people and that it will present the opportunity to develop a closer relationship with Pyongyang. At no time does he mention the infinitely more repressive regime in North Korea. Nor does he explain why the American people should find it any more acceptable to do business there than in Seoul. In some unexplained way, he is convinced that withdrawal of U.S. forces will result in a change for the better in the cause of human rights in both North and South Korea. Mr. Weinstein is concerned because the presence of U.S. ground forces in South Korea would result in their “automatic commitment” to combat in the event of North Korean agression. In spite of the firmly stated U. S. policy of guaranteeing the security of South Korea, he thinks that if it should become necessary to implement this defensive policy, we might not really want to do so at the time. So, he reasons, we should not be forced into combat simply because our troops are there and actually have become involved once the North Koreans venture south of the thirty-nineth parallel. What he appears to be suggesting is that by withdrawing our troops we can make certain that we will not be pulled into war. But we should continue to give the impression that we will honor our present commit-

South Korea 1976: The Continuing Uncertainties

Abstract: THE OPERATIONAL MILIEU Of the Republic of Korea (ROK) continued to be dominated by the Big Four, namely, the United States, the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, and Japan. In three of these regional and world powers there were leadership transfers or transformations with real or imagined impact on South Korea. The Jimmy Carter phenomenon became a veritable Carter shock for the ROK government, largely because of his stance on the problems of human rights in Korea and on the proposed withdrawal of U.S. nuclear weapons as well as phased military disengagement from South Korea. The legacies of Chou En-lai and Mao Tse-tung regarding Kim Ii Sung's policy of "One Korea Soon"' remained uncertain. If some elements of South Korean elites were turning toward conservative forces in Japan as a more reliable ally than the United States, the outcome of the recent Japanese elections gave the new Japanophiles little comfort. The Soviet Union apparently remained the main source of modern military equipment for North Korea, and the Soviet naval forces near Korean waters were becoming increasingly visible.2 Thus the psychological milieu of South Korea in 1976, a year after the decisive Communist victories in Indochina where ROK troops participated in the war, was characterized by chronic and almost neurotic anxiety.

East Asia: China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam : geography of a cultural region

Abstract: These strictures are made with real regret: the reviewer still remembers warmly the excitement with which he reviewed the first edition 17 years ago. By no means all of the bright insights of 1954 are sadly faded by 1971; but too many of them are, and not a great deal of new insight has been gained from the experience of the last two decades—or at least it has not been presented here. For that, the conditions of American academic publishing rather than the authors may really be responsible. There is still a great deal of value in this edition of Asia, east by south, but there is also too much that has become dead wood in these last turbulent years, and that should have been excised. One cannot, unfortunately, escape the feeling that an opportunity has been missed: that the potential of the authors, which is very considerable, has been dissipated in a routine revision of a book which needed and deserved a more liberal and forward-looking treatment. As an introduction to Asian themes for the college student, the book can still be recommended; but not, alas, with the old enthusiasm. The Australian National University o. H. K. SPATE