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| 1 |
ID:
141144
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| Summary/Abstract |
In recent years, a perception has emerged among many policymakers and commentators that the deepening of the People's Republic of China engagement in the Pacific Islands Region, predominantly through its expanding foreign aid programme, threatens to undermine the existing regional order, in which Australia is dominant. In this article, it is argued that China's apparent ‘charm offensive’ in the Pacific is mainly driven by commercial, not political, imperatives and is far more fragmented and incoherent than is often assumed. Hence, its (real) political effects hinge, not on any Chinese strategic designs for regional domination, or even a more limited resource security agenda, but on the intent and capacity of Pacific governments to harness deepening aid, investment and trade relations with China towards their own foreign and domestic policy objectives, which include limiting Australian interference in the internal governance processes of Pacific states. This argument is demonstrated by the case of Fiji after the December 2006 military coup.
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| 2 |
ID:
141146
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This article, hence, aims to explore the nature and patters of this ongoing process of strategic repositioning put into practice by Myanmar within the political triangle with Washington and Beijing. Against this backdrop, we will draw upon the conceptualization of ‘hedging strategy’, which identifies a set of multidimensional ‘insurance policies’ adopted by small actors in their relations vis-à-vis great powers.
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| 3 |
ID:
141148
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After a brief introduction of the existing literature on environmental pioneer states and their internal characteristics, this study examines various low-carbon green growth (LCGG) initiatives that the South Korean government introduced to market Korea as a trendsetter in the global environmental arena. The country's domestic foundations for environmental innovation, however, reveals a dissonance between its international aspirations and the internal conditions that are needed to sustain the pursuit. This case of mixed environmental achievements by a rising middle-power state suggests the insufficiency of a state-led approach to environmental innovation and leadership.
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| 4 |
ID:
141147
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| Summary/Abstract |
Building Community, Charter, Connectivity and Centrality – the 4Cs – is one of the most prominent goals for which ASEAN elites have continuously pledged for years. This article claims that the 4Cs are a reflection of structural concerns shared by individual ASEAN members. Specifically, the main source of the ASEAN's current practices is its members’ similar internal conditions that exposed elites to a substantial level of concerns over dual marginalization in relation to the leading countries of global governance. ASEAN elites have agreed to pursue the 4Cs, despite the 4Cs’ incompatibility with ASEAN members’ domestic practices as well as some conventional ASEAN ways of doing business, because they are expected to reduce elites’ dual concerns over becoming left-out or pushed-over within the current global governance. This explains selectivity and word–action gaps frequently observed in the ASEAN process. As elites’ concerns over being left-out and pushed-over have remained quite substantial, it is unlikely that any practices would take place if they are expected to raise either side of the concerns. Actual practices would follow elites’ words only when they are expected to mitigate fear of dual marginalization in a balanced way. To support this argument, this paper maps out the distribution of dual concerns that elites in each member state have faced and links the 4Cs’ utility to address the concerns.
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| 5 |
ID:
141145
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| Summary/Abstract |
Referring to the short-term survival of new progressive governments, ‘progressive setback’ has been a remarkable political phenomenon in many East Asian countries during the recent decades. Regarding this phenomenon's background, this paper investigates why and how urban citizens challenged their progressive governments in Thailand, South Korea, and Japan. First, this paper argues that the progressive setback across East Asia reflects the difficulty progressive governments faced in overcoming the legacy of longstanding conservative regimes, which had locked urban citizens into specific modes of subsistence. The progressives invoked the protest of urban populations as their new socioeconomic policies undermined these populations’ traditional basis of subsistence. Second, an investigation of the primary modes of urban subsistence in each country makes the cross-national comparison of progressive setback possible. Urban middle classes in Thailand, as an exclusive group incorporated into the mainstream political economy, engaged in a fierce contest with a progressive government that denied their privileged status in Thai society. In Korea, the self-employed turned to the conservative party since market restructuring programs of the progressive government made it difficult for these self-employed to maintain profits and sustain their livelihood. Finally, Japan's urban workers could not welcome the welfare expansion of the new labor-friendly government, because this class was too dependent upon wage incomes to agree with the consumption tax hike that welfare expansion required as its precondition. This paper implies that the old habits of urban citizens are an important hurdle for East Asia's progressives to overcome.
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| 6 |
ID:
141149
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| Summary/Abstract |
China's rise in recent years has exacerbated Vietnam–China security tensions over maritime disputes in the South China Sea. To manage its security competition with China, Vietnam has simultaneously improved its security cooperation with the United States while maintaining a safe distance from it, in efforts to reassure China. This article attempts to explore the dynamics of the Vietnam's security policy towards the United States and China in the Post-Cold War era. The authors find that the combinations of Vietnam's Post-Cold War security policy towards the United States and China are shaped by its concerns over regime security with respect to the primary threats of infiltration by US democratic norms and of excessive anti-Chinese nationalism. The relative levels of both these risks lead to various combinations of Vietnam's security policies vis-à-vis the United States and China.
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