Bush, China, Taiwan: A triangular analysis

This paper reexamines American policy toward China, Taiwan, and their ambivalent bilateral relationship, focusing on the period since Washington’s shift from strong (but not unconditional) support of Nationalist China to the role of balancer in the early 1970s, particularly on the most recent period under George W. Bush. We analyze the relationship from a strategic triangular perspective. The China-Taiwan-US relationship is triangular in the sense that each actor’s relations with the other two depend on its relations with the third. It is strategic in its focus on security. The United States has been the consistent “pivot” of this triangle, having better relations with both “wings” than they have with each other. Washington has retained this structurally advantageous position partly because of its disproportionate strategic weight, and partly because of the inherent difficulties Taipei and Beijing have had forging a cooperative bilateral relationship. This structure has been quite stable since the Cold War, as Washington has periodically shifted its balance from one wing to the other without altering the triangle’s basic configuration. Yet so long as the configuration is maintained, the basic problem on which the triangle is based — the contested independence of Taiwan — cannot be resolved. This creates a sense of national identity frustration that will continue to generate attempts at resolution, either by Taiwan’s declaration of independence or China’s forced reunification (or both). editor ofAsian Survey, has written or editedSino-Soviet Normalization and Its International Implications (1992),China’s Quest for National Identity (with Samuel Kim, 1993), and many other analyses of Chinese domestic and foreign policy. His most recent book (with Haruhiro Fukui and Peter N.S. Lee) isInformal Politics in East Asia (Cambridge, 2000).     

The Sino-Japanese-Russian triangle

This paper attempts to understand the relations between three important actors in Northeast Asia — China, Russia, and Japan — since the end of the Cold War. Whereas the political changes attending the collapse of the communist bloc have opened new foreign policy opportunities to all three actors, only China and Russia have been quick to move on them. Japan’s relative inflexibility, attributable to its alliance with the US on the one hand and its territorial dispute with Russia on the other, has had the effect of impeding the application of triangular diplomacy. Editor ofAsian Survey, has written or editedSino-Soviet Normalization and Its International Implications (1992),China’s Quest for National Identity (with Samuel Kim, 1993), and many other analyses of Chinese domestic and foreign policy. His most recent book (with Haruhiro Fukui and Peter N.S. Lee) isInformal Politics in East Asia (Cambridge, 2000).     

State versus market: Taiwan’s trade, investment and aid policies in mainland China and southeast Asia in the post-Deng period

For many years Beijing has sought to isolate Taiwan from the world community, threatening to sever relations with any country that tries to establish or strengthen relations with Taiwan. As a result, economic diplomacy has become a tool in conducting Taiwan’s international affairs. Political and economic considerations are thus intermingled in Taiwan’s pursuit of its foreign economic policy. This paper does not intend to go into a traditional debate on the conflict between the state (politics) and the market (economics) in conducting a country’s foreign economic relations. Rather, it attempts to coordinate the merits of both state and market and assumes that an understanding of their interaction is useful in examining Taiwan’s foreign economic relations in the post-Deng period. The empirical study of this paper will focus on mainland China and the Southeast Asian countries. Southeast Asia is a region where no country maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan. It is difficult indeed for Taiwan to develop official political ties with Southeast Asian countries because of their geographical proximity to mainland China, which tends to make them subject to pressure from Beijing. Thus, whenever Taipei conducts its economic communications (such as in foreign trade, foreign direct investment and foreign economic assistance) with mainland China and those Southeast Asian countries, political and economic factors are always taken into account by decision-makers.     

Understanding the Political Economy of Cross-Strait Security: A Missing Link

This paper explores how and why China has been perceived as an economic threat in Taiwan through an examination of Taipei’s post-Cold War economic policy with respect to the mainland. While Taipei’s restriction on trade and investment across the Taiwan Strait until mid-2008 was widely considered a failure by both opponents and supporters of closer cross-Strait economic ties, this analysis points to an overlooked function of Taiwan’s economic policy that was not just about tackling the problems of the security externalities or promoting the island’s economic development. What appeared to be an ineffective policy can be understood as a successful boundary-drawing practice that discursively constituted a vulnerable Taiwan under Chinese economic threat, hence conducive to the (re)production of Taiwanese national identity.     

The energy factor in China’s foreign policy

This paper argues that China’s foreign policy behavior has been influenced by growing energy dependence. As a major importer, China can pursue energy security through strategies that result in conflict; alternatively, energy vulnerability might lead it toward cooperation with rival oil consuming nations through participation in multilateral organizations and other forums. After outlining the argument for the strategic nature of energy, China’s increasing energy dependence is assessed, as are Beijing’s efforts to shift China’s energy balance. China’s energy diplomacy with the Middle East, Russia and Central Asia, the Asia-Pacific, Africa and Latin America are examined, and Beijing’s efforts toward greater energy security through multilateral organizations are discussed. The evidence supports the liberal hypothesis that economic interdependence promotes international cooperation. Energy demands have accelerated China’s rise to global prominence, and appear to moderate conflictual aspects of Chinese foreign policy. He is co-editor of and contributor toRussia’s Far East: A Region at Risk (University of Washington Press, 2002), and author ofThe History of Russia (Greenwood, 1999),Foreign Policy and East Asia (Cambridge University Press, 1993), andEnvironmental Policy in the USSR (University of Massachusetts Press, 1987). His articles have appeared inProblems of Post-Communism, Asian Survey, Pacific Affairs, Comparative Politics, Political Science Quarterly, British Journal of Political Science, and many other journals and edited books. The author would like to thank Igor Danchenko for his able research assistance on this project.     

India going nuclear: A bomb against China?

As China and India were gradually repairing their relations since the late 1980s, India’s nuclear tests in May 1998 caused a major setback for the improvement of the bilateral relationship. By discussing the question whether New Delhi is developing the bomb against China or not, this article attempts to shed some light on the strategic fallouts of the Indian nuclear tests for Sino-Indian relations and South Asian security. It is argued that despite measurable improvements in Sino-Indian relations in recent years, the two nations still view each other as geo-strategic rivals. The major motivation for New Delhi’s bomb decision was that it had felt increasingly uncomfortable with the power asymmetry between India and China and it wanted to sit as equal as China at the table of world powers by declaring itself a nuclear weapons state. His teaching and research interests include East Asian international relations, Chinese foreign policy and national security.     

The Political Economy of the Sino-Middle Eastern Relations

This paper attempts to understand the Sino-Mideast relations in terms of energy cooperation and the subsequent cooperation in the areas of trade and arms sales. It also examines the political economy of China’s energy policy toward the Middle East. The paper argues that the objective of China’s engagement in the Middle East is energy security rather than undermining the United States’ interests in the region. Contrary to realist assumptions, China is utilizing the existing Western institutions to achieve its goals in the region, a step highly welcomed and encouraged by Middle Eastern states. The paper attempts to develop a tridimensional and triangular approach to the political economy of the region in relation to the rapid pace of China’s involvement in the Middle East. Such involvement is generating substantial intellectual interests and anxiety among major players in the region in terms of its nature, goals and mechanisms. In so doing, China maintains a balance in its relations with protagonists in the region and skillfully navigates its national interest in the region.     

Gendering women and politics in contemporary China

This article suggests moving beyond "state-society" models of Chinese politics in order to more effectively integrate "gender" as a category of analysis. The article examines a number of empirical examples of women’s activism in Hong Kong prior to the 1997 handover to China as a way of gaining insights into which variables might more effectively nuance "state-society" models so as to highlight the gendered aspects of women and politics. In the Hong Kong case, such variables include ethnicity, class, race, nationalism, and feminism. The article finds 1)that a number of these variables also apply equally well to research on women and politics in Hong Kong and to gender studies focusing on the contemporary People’s Republic of China; and 2)that disaggregating concepts like "state" and “society” using variables like gender, race, and class provides a more complex understanding of the process of politics in Chinese societies. She received her Ph.D. degree in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has taught in both Hong Kong and the United States. Her work on the women’ movement in pre-1997 Hong Kong will soon be published in an edited volume from University of British Columbia Press.     

The post‐cold war security agenda of Russia: Implications for Northeast Asia

The end of the cold war has seen the emergence of new political and geo‐strategic rivalries for Russia. The major aspect of change has been an intensification of an eastern focus in Russian security policy. The identification of changing security concerns, be they the intensification of local conflicts on Russian borders or potential territorial claims from neighbours, poses new problems for the Russian army. This paper looks at Russia's post‐cold war security agenda and military modernization questions in the light of these potential problems. In regional terms the paper focuses on the implications of these wider questions for Russia's relations with Northeast Asia, especially in its dealings with the Korean peninsula issue and remaining border questions with China and Japan.     

Asian crisis,transparency and the international media in Singapore

Abstract

The issue of Taiwan and relations across the Taiwan Strait is not only of fundamental interest to China, but also crucial to peace and stability in the Asian Pacific, thereby also making it of key concern to major players such as the United States and Japan. Beijing has faced enormous challenges over how to solve its dilemma. I would like to achieve reunification with Taiwan through a peaceful path, but perceive that it must be prepared for a war scenario if Taiwan insists on breaking from the mainland for its independence. The dilemma facing Beijing in terms of war or peace with Taiwan has become more acute since the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) moved to power in 2000. This article analyses Beijing's dilemma over the above policy choices by examining five stages of Beijing's assessment toward regime change in Taiwan from late 1999 to early 2005. It also illuminates the potential impact on major power relations in East Asia.     

Immigrant influx and generational politics: A comparative case study of Hong Kong and Taiwan

Studies have long shown the existence of an age gap in voting behavior. We argue that the influx of immigrants can influence the size of this gap. Young people can become more apprehensive toward immigrants than older people because of the former's greater exposure to more competition from immigrants in the labor market and susceptibility to anti-immigrant sentiments in society. The age gap in attitudes toward immigrants can carry over to vote choice. We illustrate our argument with a comparative study of Hong Kong and Taiwan. While the two societies share many similarities, Hong Kong has experienced a significantly larger influx of immigrants from mainland China. Based on two election surveys in 2016, we find a distinct generational gap in attitudes toward immigrants in Hong Kong, but not in Taiwan. The age gap in Hong Kong also manifests itself in electoral support of China-resisting political parties.     

Resolving China’s Island Disputes: A Two-Level Game Analysis

Although territorial disputes have been much studied, the application of “two-level game” analysis in peace research and conflict resolution is still relatively unexplored. In this essay, I seek to use the analytical propositions derived from this “two-level game” bargaining framework to explain the success, failure, or partial resolution of sovereignty negotiations over China’s island claims to the disputed islands of the Diaoyu/Senkaku, Amur/Ussuri rivers, and South China Sea. This essay will focus on the interaction between governments and domestic nationalist groups, the role of institutions, and the strategies of negotiators to explain the development of the territorial disputes. I will evaluate how different political and social preferences, historical memories, economic priorities, side payments, and institutional constraints affect inter-state bargaining behavior and relations between the government and different segments of society. Basically, I am interested in finding out what significant roles national, sub-national and transnational actors can and do play in aggravating, minimizing, terminating or preventing conflicts over island claims involving China. Dr. Chien-peng Chung is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and Sociology of Lingnan University, Hong Kong. He is the author of Domestic Politics, International Bargaining, and China’s Territorial Disputes (London & New York: Routledge, 2004).     

Taiwan’s power reconfiguration and its impact on cross-strait relations

This paper explores Taiwan’s power reconfiguration resulted from the 2000 presidential election and its implication for the perplexed cross-Strait Strait relations. It looks back at Taiwan’s party transformations on the part of the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) over the past decade, discusses several important factors directly related to the victory of the DPP, and analyzes Taipei’s post-election political arrangements and conciliatory gestures toward Beijing. The paper concludes that given the political disparity between mainland China and Taiwan as well as the transitory nature of Taipei’s new government, Beijing will continue its “wait and see” policy toward Taipei, hence the chance for political dialogue between the two sides is slim in the foreseeable future. He served as President of the Association of Chinese Political Studies from 1998 to 1999. He writes on Chinese politics and cross-Taiwan Strait relations. Most recently, he co-edited Transition toward the Post-Deng China (forthcoming in 2001) and Prospects for Cross-Taiwan Strait Developments (2000). He received a Ph.D. in political science from Pennsylvania State University (1997). Gang Lin is Program Associate at the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Asia Program. This article reflects the author’s personal viewpoints only.     

Hong Kong’s security law

China has imposed a security law on Hong Kong that specifies severe penalties for what Beijing deems to be secession, subversion of state power, terrorist activities and ‘collusion with foreign external forces to endanger national security’. Beijing is determined to bring Hong Kong to heel, whatever the international repercussions. In the long term it is likely that Beijing will progressively eliminate all vestiges of Hong Kong’s separate identity along with all remnants of the territory’s colonial past.     

A new dynamism in Sino-Japanese security relations: Japan's strategic use of foreign aid

Abstract

In November 2004 a Chinese nuclear submarine cruised into Japan's territorial waters near the Okinawa Islands. In response, the Japanese government dispatched several Japanese naval ships and planes to chase the Chinese submarine until it navigated into international waters. This event, which potentially could have become the first exchange of fire between Japan and China since the Second World War, illuminated increasingly problematic security relations between the two neighbouring countries in the twenty-first century. In fact, deterioration of Sino-Japanese security relations is not a recent phenomenon but has already been evident since the mid-1990s, when Japan imposed a series of economic sanctions on China. Between 1995 and 2000 Japan had suspended its foreign aid to China in protest against: China's nuclear weapons tests; China's large scale war game including the launch of missiles across the Taiwan Strait; and Chinese naval activities in disputed areas in the East China Sea. This article looks at Sino-Japanese security relations since the mid-1990s through three case studies of the aid sanctions imposed by Japan on China. It clarifies the domestic political and bureaucratic interests that motivated aid sanctions and determined the decision-making process leading to these sanctions. The article argues, that with certain politico-security interests, Japanese governments actively used foreign aid as a strategic instrument to counter provocative military actions by China in the East Asian region since the mid-1990s. Despite the limited influence that Japanese aid sanctions have actually had on Chinese military behaviour, Japan's strategic use of foreign aid has undeniably created a new dynamism in security relations between the two neighbouring great powers in Asia.     

To Build A “Harmonious World”: China’s Soft Power Wielding in the Global South

This study attempts to answer a new but important question in China’s foreign policy— how Beijing has wielded its soft power to construct its ideal of international order in the age of China’s rise. Before empirical analyses, this study tries to set up a conceptual framework on the relations between the idea of “harmonious world” and China’s soft power wielding in its rising process. Within this framework, this study examines a rising China’s foreign policies towards three targeted regions in the global south—Africa, East Asia, and Latin America. On the one hand, due to Beijing’s carefully-designed and soft power-based foreign policies, the global south has become an increasingly harmonious environment for Beijing to cultivate a favorable national image, exert its political influence on regional affairs, benefit its own domestic economic developments, etc. On the other hand, some problems such as the so-called “China’s New Colonialism” and the increased vigilance from the other powers have already began to challenge Beijing’s harmony in those regions. Sheng Ding is assistant professor of political science at Bloomsburg University. He received both his masters and doctoral degrees from Rutgers. His research interests include soft power in international relations; transnational identity in globalization; information technology and world politics; politics in Pacific Asia; Chinese politics and foreign policy; U.S.-China relations, etc. His research articles have been published by Pacific Affairs, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics and East Asia: An International Quarterly. The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments on the draft of the paper.     

Community welfare services in Urban China: A public-private experiment

The social welfare system in China has been undergoing transition since the economic reform in 1978 when the Chinese government began introducing a series of welfare changes aimed at shifting responsibility from the government to a combination of government, communities, enterprises and individuals. Consequently, many cities in China have been experimenting with community-based welfare services — a state-sanctioned practice based on socialist ideology, but at the same time market driven and incorporating the private sector. This new welfare approach started an ongoing dialogue in China regarding the role of the public and private sectors in social welfare, the balance between socialist and capitalist values, and the input of the free market and political democracy. This paper presents a case study of an urban community in Beijing. It examines the policy of community-based services and discusses its implementation in urban communities. The research suggests that the public-private coordination is, within limits, effective in meeting people’s needs in the community. However, further attention should be given to the sharing of responsibility for welfare between the public and private sectors so as to protect vulnerable populations. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Denver. Her major interests of research focus on social development and community service, law and social work, and comparative welfare policies. He was also chair professor of Social Work Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and founding Dean of the School of Social Development at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. He has written extensively on international social development and human security.     

全面二孩视域下我国推进就业性别平等的立法构建

男女两性就业机会、获取报酬、晋升等平权是男女平等原则在经济领域的具体体现。一直以来,女性在孕、产、哺乳期阶段的就业、酬劳、晋升仍面临不同程度的困难。虽然我国立法对女性就业保障有系列规定,尤其是2018年针对女性在孕、产、哺乳期的就业歧视,有关部门颁布了具体细致的“禁令”,其核心要义是让全面二孩政策付诸落实。但专门立法的缺失、现行立法的零散及层级低下无法有效应对当下生育意愿低迷,进而影响人口出生率低下的现象。应当以人口红利衍生的性别红利理论为导向,结合我国港台地区推进就业平等的立法经验,以此构建推进性别平等、追求性别红利,最终提升人口数量的法律制度。     

发展型政府理论与香港实践

发展型政府都将经济发展作为国家政策制定的重中之重,并且采取有力措施来实现经济发展目标。香港是典型的小经济体,对外在环境有非常大的依存度,一直关注如何维持与中国内地、周边、亚太地区乃至世界经济的良好互动。在把握有关发展型政府理论的脉络及主要观点的基础上,深入探讨发展型政府理论在香港的实践与CEPA框架下香港政府扮演的四重经济角色以及可能存在的风险。认为,应该从增强香港经济自主性、制度建设和增加内地与香港抵御金融风险的能力等方面入手,进一步完善CEPA。结论部分探讨了在CEPA框架下,内地和香港的各级政府成为更加有效的发展型政府的途径以及对两岸经济关系的启示。