Discussion of 'International Political Economy from a Chinese Angle'

According to Zhu Wenli, Chinese scholars of political economy have been examining many of the same issues as their American counterparts, but have reached quite different conclusions. Chinese scholars accept the importance of globalization, but do not believe that globalization is making the nation-state less relevant or international regimes more powerful. They concede that economic and other transnational issues are becoming increasingly salient in international affairs, but conclude that they are simply altering the ways in which nations compete for power rather than making the international system more cooperative. They agree that much of today's world order is rooted in American hegemony, but do not consider that US foreign policy can be characterized as 'benign'. These conclusions have troubling implications for US‐China relations. They suggest that China will not agree to be integrated into an international community led by the United States, and that the relationship between Beijing and Washington is more likely to be competitive than cooperative.     

China and the Globalisation of IR Theory: Discussion of 'Building International Relations Theory with Chinese Characteristics'

This essay examines current developments in International Relations theory in China. First it comments on Song Xinning's essay, agreeing that IR theory in China is limited by ideology, the dominance of policy-oriented research, and the state. But rather than seeing culture ('IR theory with Chinese characteristics') as a problem that can be solved by a more scientific approach to IR theory, the essay argues that the scientism of realism and IPE has similar problems. Thus the essay switches from the universals of science to the contingency of interpretation to understand global politics, drawing on recent books which combine IPE with historical and cultural studies. The concept of sovereignty is deconstructed to show how it is not universal, but is bound up in knowledge practices in both the West and China. The essay concludes by suggesting that we broaden both the concepts and the resources of IR research to consider the transnational economic‐cultural relations of Greater China. In this way China can be part of the globalization of IR theory, for such concepts exemplify current theoretical debates about the meaning of globalization. This approach moves from territorial notions of sovereignty where power is based on an expansion of economic and political relations—which reify borders—to popular notions of sovereignty where power is measured by movements of people across borders in a qualitative struggle of cultures and knowledge.     

Domestic constraints and international competitiveness: A research note on the China case

This article examines China toward the end of the twentieth century through the perspectives of both the theory of relative political capacity and the geopolitical theory. While the latter theory explains a country's development as a consequence of international events, the former theory emphasizes the efficiency and competency of a government as the cause of the nation's political and economic status. We believe that the two theories should be connected in analyzing a nation's political and economic behavior; international and domestic factors reinforce each other in shaping a government's policies, strategies, and priorities. A synthetic analysis of the two scenarios shows that China is likely to continue to move toward a market economy and political democracy.     

US Arms Transfer Policy to Taiwan: From Carter to Clinton

The US has maintained a keen interest in Taiwan's military security for decades, and US arms transfer to Taiwan has become an especially important issue for both China and Taiwan since the normalization of US-China relations. This study attempts to examine US arms transfer policy toward Taiwan since the late 1970s. What factors have been involved in the formulation and implementation of US arms transfer policy? How have structural changes in the international system, such as the end of the Cold War, affected the policy? Since the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979 allowed continued sales for Taiwan's security and the US-PRC Joint Communique on 17 August 1982 agreed to decrease arms sales to Taiwan, how has the US resolved the contradiction between the two sets of policies? Finally, what is the effect of US arms transfer on Taiwan's national security and defense industry?     

The US Global Strategy in the Post-Cold War Era and Its Implications for China‐United States Relations: A Chinese perspective

At the early stage of the post-Cold War era, Chinese scholars put more attention into the study of US international standing than to the study of US global strategy. Around the middle of the 1990s, it became obvious for Chinese scholars that the power structure in the post-Cold War era was 'yi-chao-duo-qiang' (one super-power and several big powers). People realized that the leading position of the US would be unshakable and its comprehensive national power would be unparalleled by any single country in the foreseeable future. Since then, Chinese scholars have paid more attention to the study of US global strategy. Chinese scholars tend to agree that the Bush Administration's strategy was a transitional one, and that the US global strategy in the post-Cold War era came into being in the middle of President Clinton's first term. It is symbolized by the appearance of so-called 'engagement and enlargement strategy'. At the very beginning of his Administration (January 1993), President Clinton set forth that 'economy, security and democracy' would be the three pillars of US foreign policy. This greatly changed the traditional 'security first' strategy. The new strategy reflects some new features in the international and domestic contexts of the post-Cold War era. It has very important influences on Sino‐US relations.     

China and the 1995 United Nations conference on women

This study looks at the ways in which China's hosting of the 1995 United Nations Conference on Women failed to improve China's international prestige. China made enormous commitments of resources to the meetings. However, China did not benefit because of its own internal policies, because of a series of political events that, in conjunction with media coverage, created a critical environment, and because of the deteriorating relationship between China and the US.     

China's good neighbor policy and its implications for Taiwan

Chinese leaders in recent years have been following a coherent policy toward Asia that emphasizes moderation and accommodation while preserving core PRC interests. China's prevailing ‘good neighbor’ policy approach—backed by improvement in US–China relations—provides important opportunities and challenges for Taiwan. It clearly inclines the PRC leaders to avoid more aggressive or harder‐line tactics in the mix of carrots and sticks that makes up China's recent approach toward Taiwan. To follow a more disruptive course would undermine the influence and advantage Beijing has been seeking with its ongoing moderate approach toward the United States and other Asian powers. The main challenge for Taiwan is how to deal with the current balance of carrots and sticks in China's policy. Much depends on the ability of Taiwan's leaders and populace to turn the prevailing balance in PRC policy to Taiwan's advantage. This presumably will involve reviving their economy, promoting effective governance and prudent defense, while consolidating relations with the United States and managing tensions in cross‐Strait relations to the advantage of Taiwan's future security and development. Unfortunately, there is no political consensus on Taiwan to mobilize domestic resources and opinion in a concerted effort to protect Taiwan's future as an entity independent of PRC control. Those outsiders who have followed with positive interest Taiwan's remarkable development over the past decades hope that Taiwan makes good use of the opportunities posed by China's good neighbor policy to adopt prudent and concrete measures beneficial to Taiwan's long range prospects.     

Discussion of 'US Global Strategy in the Post-Cold War Era'

This response to Jin Canrong's paper about US post-Cold War global strategy focuses on the concerns of both authors that the current 'three pillars strategy' is a source of growing tension in PRC‐US relations, leading to Chinese perceptions that ideological factors (US idealism) are playing a bigger role in US policymaking. Despite this, Jannuzi searches for common ground, focusing on issues areas, such as Cambodia, where China has found US idealism to be useful and helpful. He argues also that, as China joins more international treaties and regimes, Chinese and American interests will start to converge, although he concedes that the Kosovo intervention has caused ambivalence in China about unrestrained US 'idealism'.     

From functional integration to structural readjustment: Taipei–Beijing relations and the role of the United States

Regardless of the continued stalemate in the political arena, trade and economic interactions between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait have increased steadily. Both aggregate data and the results of survey research have testified to the existence of functional integration of the two societies across the Taiwan Strait. In addition to functional integration, structural readjustments have also been made by political authorities both in Taipei and Beijing so as to facilitate continuity of trade and economic relations. These types of mutual accommodations include: establishing proper ‘unofficial’ agencies on both sides to serve as instruments of practical contacts and negotiation; the more flexible definition of ‘One China’ by Beijing; and the opening of ‘small links’ between Quemoy and Amoy by Taipei. Beijing's refusal to grant Taipei any official diplomatic status and Taipei's reluctance to accept the ‘One China’ principle remain major obstacles to cross‐Taiwan Strait relations. The United States will continue playing a key role in future cross‐Strait relations. Beijing seems to be content, at least temporarily, to maintain cordial relations with the United States in exchange for the latter's adherence to the ‘One China’ principle and rejection of the option of Taiwan independence. Whether Taipei will use enhanced US commitment to Taiwan's security to strike a better deal with Beijing for gradual cross‐Strait integration or to utilize increased American protection to move onto the separatist road will be affected by domestic politics in Taiwan, future US policy toward to the island, and Beijing's response to Taipei's demand for security and international recognition.     

The political economy of Taiwan's mainland policy

The emerging patterns of the cross‐strait interaction present a perplexing duality, revealing both the trends toward closer economic convergence and greater political divergence. Taiwan's mainland policy is both the manifestation and the catalyst of the two contradictory processes. It is the locus of confrontation of the various economic, social, and political forces that propels the two concurrent processes. It has been propelled by the epic changes in the global political economy, the market‐oriented reform in China, and Taiwan's economic restructuring process. It has also been prompted by the perceived challenges and opportunities brought about by the transition to the post‐Cold War era, the unraveling of structural conflicts between a status‐quo power (i.e., the US) and a rising power (i.e., the PRC) and by the politics of political succession within the CCP. In more immediate terms, it has been driven by the power struggle over political succession within the KMT, the bureaucratic process, the interest group politics, the partisan politics in both the electoral and legislative arenas, and the unfolding of the national identity crisis during Taiwan's recent transition to democracy.     

Hong Kong in United States‐China relations: The international politics of Hong Kong's reversion to Chinese sovereignty

This article examines the implications of the political transition of Hong Kong on US‐China relations in strategic, political and economic dimensions. It evaluates the impact of Hong Kong's changing status in the context of the engagement‐containment debate on China policy in the US. It suggests that US concerns over questions such as democracy and human rights and China's rejection of foreign interference’ in Hong Kong would turn the territory into a source of political conflict between the US and China. Finally it points out that any major trade confrontation between the two countries would have serious implications for the territory. The article concludes by arguing that if Hong Kong could continue to be a prosperous and free society with a global outlook, it would facilitate China's integration with the global community, but if a reversion to authoritarian rule occurred in Hong Kong, US‐China relations will be aversely affected.     

Explaining Taiwan's Revisionist Diplomacy

Taiwan is a revisionist power. Its independence movement challenges a vital status-quo interest of mainland China's opposition to a de jure Taiwan declaration of independence and maintaining, however ambiguously, Taiwan's commitment to the ‘one-China’ formulation. Why is it that a small and vulnerable island off the coast of a great power has continued to challenge the vital interest of that great power and risk war? Adopting a ‘levels of analysis’ approach to Taiwan's mainland policy, this paper addresses this question by examining four prevalent explanations for Taiwan's revisionist diplomacy: (1) the mainland deterrent is ineffective, reflecting Taiwan doubts about either mainland capabilities or mainland resolve to wage a retaliatory war; (2) in an example of the security dilemma in alliance politics, US commitment to Taiwan, although aimed at deterring PRC use of force, encourages Taiwan to challenge the status quo because the Taiwan leadership is confident of US intervention and US ability to defend Taiwan; (3) because of the development of a ‘Taiwan identity’ and of corresponding domestic political pressures, the Democratic Progressive Party has been compelled to adopt a pro-independence policy; (4) Chen Shui-bian has a personal commitment to Taiwan independence and has been willing to challenge the mainland's interest in one-China, despite risk of heightened conflict and regardless of domestic political considerations.     

China as a latecomer: Toward a global logic of the open policy

The paper reviews a number of substantive issue‐areas in China's foreign economic sector (the foreign trade system, industrial and geographical targeting, foreign investment regulations, and the foreign exchange regime), finding that conventional mercantilist accounts of China's recent success in world markets are overstated. In fact, the paper argues that the most salient changes occurring in China's foreign economic sector are now in many respects beyond the immediate control of the state. In this vein, it is argued that most scholars have seriously underestimated the structuring impact of the international political economy on China's reform and opening. Indeed, the paper maintains that there is a ‘global’ logic to the evolution of the Open Policy, just as others have identified an ‘economic’ or ‘political’ logic to foreign trade reform, the creation of the SEZs, liberalization of investment laws, the loosening of foreign exchange controls, and other such changes. The paper concludes, therefore, that there is much about the course of China's reform and deepening integration into the world economy that can be understood as a function of its position as a latecomer in the international system.     

Viewing a Changing World from the PRC Embassy Window in Washington DC

This is the first chapter from the author's book (in Chinese), The Inside Stories of China-US Diplomacy after Tiananmen . With the benefit of an insider's knowledge, Chen explains the Chinese government's perceptions, motivations and policy-making during this tumultuous period. The book reveals many stories about Deng Xiaoping and other Chinese leaders' thoughts, and policy decisions, as well as the role of the PRC embassy in Washington, in dealing with the United States and the changing world situation; much of these processes remain unknown to the outside world today. A highly renowned political commentator, Chen also makes profound analyses in the book based on his own observations and judgment. It is a path-breaking and unique book on China's foreign policy-making in that critical historical moment, written by an experienced former PRC diplomat. It will be of practical interest to anyone in the US policy community seeking to understand how personalities, perceptions, and institutions interact to produce Chinese foreign policy behavior.     

An Emerging China and Diasporic Chinese: historicity,state, and international relations

The past decade has seen a growing body of literature on the (re)emergence of China and its implications for the new international order, and this scholarship is accompanied by the attempts from both within and outside of China to establish Chinese schools of international relations (IR). These admirable efforts, however, have been largely state-centric and concerned mainly with the balance of power, with little attention being directed to the diaspora's role in the evolution of China's international relationship and their potential contribution to bridging China studies and international relations theorization. Drawing upon theoretical insights from both IR and diaspora studies and employing a wide range of primary data including archives and personal interviews, this essay examines the diaspora's role (or the lack of it) in China's diplomacy since 1949 and attempts to conceptualize the Chinese experience in an historical and comparative perspective. I argue that historicity and state have played a significant part in shaping the interactions between the diaspora and diplomacy. The Chinese state's resilient capacity in domesticating (potential) diplomatic problems with respect to the diaspora and transforming them into new policy initiatives through facilitating diasporic participation in China's socio-economic and political processes has opened up new venues for the Chinese overseas to be involved in China's diplomacy. This article concludes by considering three different routes in engaging the diaspora with diplomacy at a time of China rising and by calling for strategic integration of diaspora into the emerging discourses on ‘IR theories with Chinese characteristics’.     

The changing role of business associations in democratizing Taiwan

This article examines the role of business associations in Taiwan. It begins by comparing the three approaches used to explain state‐society relations in modern Taiwan: capitalist, corporatist, and pluralist. Legal requirements for economic organizations reflect a corporatist impulse. However, empirical measurements of associations’ communications with government, government supervision of associations, and economic impacts on state policy demonstrate increasing pluralism. Today's business associations have greater autonomy than previously, but at the cost of reduced control over their members. SMEs and large conglomerates have growing political influence in Taiwan's changing political economy.     

China and Asian regionalism: Challenge and policy choice

Regionalism has become an interesting phenomenon in Asian international relations. Driven by fast growing trade and investment, Asian countries have developed variegated patterns of economic co‐operation and a complex level of interdependence among themselves. Although the growing Asian regionalism is very much an economics‐driven process, it has profound impacts on regional political organization. This analysis examines Beijing's changing attitudes toward Asian regionalism and its policy choice in the regional economic integration. It is argued that the integration of the Chinese economy into the regional structure is promoted by the government as well as driven by market dynamics. Although Beijing has let the Chinese economy develop into the regional ‘flying geese’ structure, the best policy choice for China, as many Chinese scholars have argued, would be a three‐circle strategy of integrating into the world economy and a strategy of ‘market for technology’ in regional economic co‐operation. This analysis also discusses the regional political obstacles impeding co‐operation across national borders. It is argued that healthy bilateral relations and more political will toward regional multilateralism on political issues would be instrumental for future regional prosperity and stablity in Asia.     

Constitutionalism and Hong Kong's future

This paper considers the transition and handover processes in Hong Kong in terms of constitutional development. It is argued that the Sino‐British Joint Declaration effectively promises Hong Kong a liberal constitutional system and that this system has been implemented in part and eroded in part. It considers the health of Hong Kong's constitutional system in the first year‐and‐a‐half of the handover. The paper then identifies the three central threats to Hong Kong's continued constitutional health: a Chinese and SAR policy vision that favors economic over political liberalism; the threat of mainland intrusion upon Hong Kong's autonomy; and any mainland failure to respect Hong Kong's viable international status to the extent guaranteed in the Joint Declaration. The history of Chinese policy calls into question its appreciation of these threats.     

The Taiwan Problem in the Second George W. Bush Administration—US officials' views and their implications for US policy

The behavior of Taiwan leaders and people in 2003–2004 raised the salience of Taiwan's assertive movement toward permanent independence for US policy makers. No longer did US officials responsible for assessing cross-Strait relations and their implications for US policy take it for granted that such assertiveness and moves toward independence would be held in check by the mainstream opinion in Taiwan, previously but no longer viewed as pragmatic by US decision makers. In response to the new situation, US policy makers intervened in Taiwan politics, trying to channel Taiwan assertiveness along lines less likely to lead to war with China. US interventions were widely seen to have had a moderating effect on the Taiwan elite and public opinion in the lead-up to the December 2004 legislative election that resulted in a significant setback for President Chen Shui-bian's push toward greater independence. Taiwan's political opposition leaders pursued high-level contacts with China. Chinese leaders warmly welcomed the Taiwan opposition leaders who renounced Taiwan independence. However, Taiwan politics remained sharply divided over cross-Strait issues, with President Chen unwilling to renounce Taiwan independence or accept a version of the so-called one China principle seen by China as a prerequisite for improved relations with the Taiwan government. President Bush and other US officials encouraged both governments to show greater flexibility in order to promote dialogue that would reduce misunderstanding and ease tensions. The uncertain outlook for cross-Strait relations included the possibility of talks, improved relations, and agreements on managing cross-Strait tensions between the Taiwan and Chinese governments. On the other hand, the impasse between China and Taiwan could deepen. The Bush administration appeared to have settled on a policy that endeavored to deter China from using force against Taiwan and deter Taiwan from taking provocative steps toward independence. The main alternatives to this approach seemed less acceptable to US policy makers under prevailing conditions, suggesting that US policy is likely to persist with a dual deterrence policy for the rest of President Bush's term in office.     

The political dynamics of regulatory change: Speculation and regulation in the real estate sector

China's real estate sector has experienced dramatic changes since the late 1980s. This article explores the political economy of China's recent ‘real estate fever’ and examines the government's efforts to deal with rampant speculation and foster the growth of a real estate industry. It suggests that the political dynamics of regulatory changes in the real estate sector illustrate the problems of Chinese policy making in the reform era.