Sovereignty in the South China sea

Abstract

In January 1974, when fighting broke out between Saigon forces and Chinese in the oil-promising South China Sea, the American establishment news media tended to assume that the Chinese, being communists, must have been the aggressors. Those reporters who were quickly able to attune themselves to the official State Department line, however, refrained from making any judgment regarding the merits of the controversy. And well they might have, for the assertions of America's client regime regarding the various archipelagoes are at best dubious. Official U.S. Government maps designate the islets by their Chinese (not Vietnamese) names, and neither Hanoi nor the Provisional Revolutionary Government has stated any claims in the region.     

The erosion of women's rights and the political economy of customary law in Zimbabwe

Government has squandered much of the goodwill shown to the new South Africa by making ill‐considered foreign policy blunders and backing dubious agendas and political leaders.     

Political Chronicles

The Commonwealth of Australia January to June 2004 P aul D. W illiams Politics and Public Policy, Griffith University
New South Wales January to June 2004 S arah M addison Politics and International Relations, University of New South Wales
Victoria January to June 2004 N ick E conomou Monash University
Queensland January to June 2004 J ohn W anna Political Science Program, Australian National University, and Politics and Public Policy, Griffith University
Western Australia January to June 2004 H arry C. J. P hillips Parliamentary Fellow, Western Australian Parliament; Adjunct Professor, Edith Cowan University L iz K err A/Principal Research Officer, Legislative Assembly, Parliament of Western Australia
South Australia January to June 2004 H aydon M anning Political and International Studies, Flinders University
Tasmania January to June 2004 R ichard H err School of Government, University of Tasmania
Northern Territory January to June 2004 D avid C arment School of Creative Arts and Humanities, Charles Darwin University
Australian Capital Territory January to June 2004 J anine O'F lynn School of Business and Government, University of Canberra     

DIAMOND INDUSTRY IN WARTIME, 1941

Reprinted from "The South African Mining and Engineering Journal." Each year "The Jeweller's Circular-Keystone" publishes a reviewof the diamond industry. For as long as can be recalled thisreview has been prepared by Sidney H. Ball, of the engineeringfirm of Rogers, Mayer & Ball, of New York. The latest review,covering 1941, has now been published, and this article is abstractedfrom it by courtesy of the publishers.     

Why Abyei Matters: The Breaking Point of Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement?

The Abyei Area, straddling the North–South border of Sudan,was the subject of a separate protocol in the ComprehensivePeace Agreement signed between the Sudan government and theSudan People's Liberation Movement in January 2005. One provisionof that protocol was the establishment of a boundaries commissionto define the territory to be included in the special administrationof the area. The commission's decision was to be implemented‘with immediate effect’ on the submission of itsreport in July 2005, but implementation has been blocked bythe National Congress Party, which still controls the centralgovernment in Sudan. The conduct of war in Abyei establishedmany precedents for the conduct of war in Darfur in the useof tribal militias and the forcible displacement of non-Arabpeoples. The failure to implement the Abyei Protocol has implicationsnot only for determining the North–South border (as stipulatedby the CPA), but for the implementation of any Darfur peaceagreement. Douglas H. Johnson (douglas{at}wendoug.free-online.co.uk) was aresource person at the first session of negotiations on theThree Areas at Karen, Kenya, in January 2003 and subsequentlyserved as an international expert on the Abyei Boundaries Commission.He has recently advised the Government of South Sudan on theNorth–South boundary issue.     

Coming in from the Cold: Grenada and Cuba since 1983

Abstract

The Grenada Revolution’s radical course was stamped by the bold turn to Cuba in April 1979. Cuban commitment to Maurice Bishop’s regime was crucial to its consolidation. In 1983 counter-revolution and invasion ruptured Grenada–Cuba ties and damaged Havana’s relations with Caribbean Community states. Since the demise of the Cold War, Havana’s survival strategy has prioritised regional integration and cooperation in the Americas. In the Anglophone Caribbean, Grenada has been at the centre of this rapprochement since 1993. Despite Washington’s disapproval, Grenada champions expanded ties with socialist Cuba. The rekindled alliance brings tangible mutual benefits and validates the strategy of South–South cooperation advocated by Maurice Bishop’s People’s Revolutionary Government and New Jewel Movement.     

Unrecognized states as a means of coercive diplomacy? Assessing the role of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Russia’s foreign policy in the South Caucasus

The scholarship on unrecognized or de facto states has been booming in the recent decades exploring this phenomenon from a variety of perspectives. Yet, as this article illustrates, a crucial accent on the instrumentalization of unrecognized states by regional actors – or, to put it differently, on unrecognized states as a source of coercive diplomacy – has been neglected. This article seeks to fill that gap by offering an empirical analysis of Russia’s instrumentalization of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as unrecognized states as a means of putting effective pressure on the Government in Tbilisi – usually with respect to issues unrelated to the unrecognized states themselves. More specifically, this article shows that Moscow has used three instruments (military deployment, passportization of residents of the unrecognized states and responsibility to protect).     

2003 biennial dinner

Asia is crucial to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Considerable progress has been made to date. Further progress is achievable but not guaranteed. Much remains to be done, especially in South Asia. Future efforts should be informed by past successes whilst recognizing the diversity of experience. Asia still needs development assistance especially to support changes in policy; help shift priorities towards the poor; and encourage innovation. With the right policies, China can continue to substantially reduce levels of extreme poverty and South Asia could accelerate progress. Develop ment agencies need to support nationally led efforts, work with a variety of partners including Government, and target areas and sectors critical for poverty reduction in flexible ways. The Department for International Development (DFID) is increasing its budget for Asia and will continue to focus on the poorest countries and people. With political commitment and real partnership, poverty can be banished in Asia.     

The Renewal of Social Democracy? The Rann Labor Government (2002–11)

Labour governments around the world are struggling to renew labour and social democratic values in the modern era. The South Australian Labor government, led by Mike Rann (2002–11), presents a striking case of a labour government that pursued a renewal of social democracy. By offering a critical examination of the ideological contours of the Rann Government, this paper contributes to wider debates about the flux of social democracy. In Australia, debates about Labor's identity tend to focus on the federal rather than state level, which this article seeks, in part, to redress. The Rann government's economic and social inclusion policies are examined and compared with its South Australian historical forebears, and the Rann government is located within the various labour “traditions”.     

STATE AND CIVIL SOCIETY IN JAPAN

Professor Ian Neary is head of the Department of Government at Essex University. His recent publications include Human Rights in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan (Routledge, 2002) and The State and Politics in Japan (Polity Press, 2002). The following article is based on a lecture Professor Neary delivered at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation in July 2002.     

Charles Gavan Duffy's Ministerial Tour: Oratory,Electioneering and the Meaning of Colonial Democracy*

During 1871 and 1872 the Victorian Premier, Charles Gavan Duffy, led his minsters on a banqueting tour of the colony during which he made a series of speeches in defence of his Government. Little noticed since but controversial at the time, Duffy's tour called into question the centrality of parliament and the meaning of colonial democracy. Earlier interpretations, derived from the study of colonial New South Wales, paint Australian politics in this period as ideologically somnolent and unprincipled. Yet Duffy's tour and the associated hullabaloo reveal the intellectual vitality and vigour of democracy's brash antipodean form. Its significance has been overlooked by historians. However Duffy's oratory tour was undertaken almost a decade before Gladstone's 1879 apparently pioneering Midlothian campaign, and the electioneering practices he initiated in the early 1870s shaped elections in the years that followed.     

South-West Africa, the Union and the United Nations

The following address was given at a joint meeting of the RoyalAfrican Society and Royal Commonwealth Society on December 3,1959, by Sir Charles Arden-Clarke G.C.M.G., Chairman of theCouncil, former Governor-General of Ghana, and Chairman of theUnited Nations Good Offices Committee that visited South Africain 1958 to discuss the problem of South-West Africa with theUnion Government. Sir John Macpherson, G.C.M.G., former Governor-Generalof Nigeria, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Colonial Office,took the chair.     

Communications

Abstract

President Nixon’s January 25th speech represented not the beginning but the end of negotiations. It signified that the U.S. is downgrading the Paris talks and that no further secret negotiations are taking place. Nixon’s statement of the “U.S.-South Vietnam Proposal for a Negotiated Settlement” and its rejection by the other side is the latest clarification of a truth which has underlain the Paris Peace Talks since they began, namely that the contradictions between the Nixon Administration’s vision of a peace in Indochina and that of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG) and the North Vietnamese are irreconcilable. Nixon has never been, and is still not, willing to make the kind of concessions necessary to make real progress in the negotiations because he has throughout been committed to the maintenance of a staunchly anti-communist government in Saigon and the continuation of dominant U.S. influence over the domestic politics of South Vietnam. As a result, the PRG has not been willing to make the kind of concessions which would allow scope for negotiation because this would mean committing political suicide by entrusting itself to the tender mercies of the Thieu government.     

African Mental Ability

No question is more vital to the future of Africa than the mentalcapacity of its original inhabitants, whose two main groupingsare the Negro and the Bantu-speaking peoples. Nor is any questionless exactly known. It was therefore with surprise that manypeople learned earlier this year that Colonel Deneys Reitz hadmade the following statement in a war review at the Guildhallin London: "I am not an anthropologist and therefore not qualifiedto say whether our native tribes will ever be capable of evolvingup to European standards. Indeed the balance of scientific evidenceappears to lean to the contrary opinion." The Union High Commissionerin London speaks with the authority of a former South AfricanMinister of Native Affairs. Nevertheless this statement hasnot gone without challenge. The following article was writtenat our request by the Principal of the Adams Native Collegein Natal, who also represents the Natives of Natal and Zululandin the South African Senate. But the subject is of such importanceand such complexity that we have added an extended summary ofa book by Dr. S. Bieshcuvel, a psychologist now working withthe R.A.F., on "African Intelligence".Dr. Bieshcuvel‘swork, which has been delayed by the war, is a reply to someof the "scientific evidence" cited by Colonel Reitz. Althoughin his article Dr. Brookes mentions other work (by Dr. van Rensburg)more recent than Dr. Fick’s, the summary may give someidea of the complexity of the work of investigation requiredbefore it acquires a true scientific validity.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this article: The Astronomer of Rousdon: Charles Grover 1842–1921. By Barbara Slater Decision and Deliberation: The Parliament of New South Wales 1856–2003. By David Clune and Gareth Griffth The Premiers of New South Wales 1856–2005. Edited by David Clune and Ken Turner The First New South Wales Labor Government 1910–1916. Two Memoirs: William Holman and John Osborne. Edited by Michael Hogan Heroes before Gallipoli: Bita Paka and that One Day in September. By Kevin Meade Francis De Groot: Irish Fascist, Australian Legend. By Andrew Moore Prisoners of War, Prisoners of Peace: Captivity, Homecoming and Memory in World War II. Edited by Bob Moore and Barbara Hately‐Broad The Vision Splendid: A Social and Cultural History of Rural Australia. By Richard Waterhouse Changing Ways of Death in Twentieth‐Century Australia: War, Medicine and the Funeral Business. By Pat Jalland Treaty. By Sean Brennan, Larissa Behrendt, Lisa Strelein and George Williams Five Things to Know About The Australian Constitution. By Helen Irving Colonial Connections 1815–45: Patronage, the Information Revolution and Colonial Government. By Zoë Laidlaw Elizabethan Hero: The Life of Sir Martin Frobisher. By K.A. Frobisher Pardons and Punishments: Judges' Reports on Criminals, 1783–1830: HO (Home Office) 47 [1: HO 47/1–12, 1783–1790] (List and Index Society, volumes 304–5). Edited by Paul Carter The Satirical Gaze: Prints of Women in Late Eighteenth‐Century England. By Cindy McCreery J. Anthony Froude: The Last Undiscovered Great Victorian. By Julia Markus Ulster and Scotland 1600–2000 History, Language and Identity. Edited by William Kelly and John R. Young Ulster–New Zealand Migration and Cultural Transfers. Edited by Brad Patterson Washington und Berlin zwischen den Kriegen. Die Mixed Claims Commission in den transatlantischen Beziehungen. By Burkhard Jähnicke Israel's Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood. By Idith Zertal, trans. Chaya Galai, originally published in Hebrew in 2002 Political Cultures in the Andes 1750–1950. Edited by Nils Jacobsen and Cristóbal Aljovín de Losada Virtual Thailand: The Media and Cultural Politics in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. By Glen Lewis The New Global Politics of the Asia Pacific. By Michael K. Connors, Remy Davidson and Jörn Dosch Darwinian Conservatism. By Larry Arnhart The “Puritan” Democracy of Thomas Hill Green. By Alberto de Sanctis     

South African Native Policy

This defence of Union policy is part of a lecture given by theUnion High Commissioner at a combined meeting with the RoyalEmpire Society under the chairmanship of Lord Clarendon on the28th February. Mr. Heaton Nicholls has had long practical experienceof administration both in British Colonies and in South Africa,where he is recognised as one of the principal architects ofthe prevailing liberalism in Government policy. He opened bystressing three cardinal facts. (I) Union native policy is partof the whole concept of national government. (2) The Union isa nation in full control of its own destiny. (3) Past clasheshave left both European and Bantu in certain clearly definedareas of their own choosing.     

Political Chronicles

The Commonwealth of Australia January to June 2003 P aul D. W illiams School of Politics and Public Policy, Griffith University
New South Wales January to June 2003 S ean S calmer Politics and International Relations, Macquarie University
Victoria January to June 2003 N ick E conomou Monash University
Queensland January to June 2003 J ohn W anna School of Politics and Public Policy, Griffith University
Western Australia January to June 2003 H arry C. J. P hillips International, Cultural and Community Studies, Edith Cowan University D avid B lack John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library, Curtin University of Technology
South Australia January to June 2003 A ndrew P arkin Political and International Studies, Flinders University
Tasmanian Political Chronicle January to June 2003 R ichard H err School of Government, University of Tasmania
Northern Territory January to June 2003 D avid G arment Faculty of Law, Business and Arts, Northern Territory University
Australian Capital Territory January to June 2003 G wynneth S ingleton Canberra     

Nakhchyvan,the Armenian arguments and the Allied Powers in 1919

The article explores the territorial conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nakhchyvan region after the South Caucasus came under the Allied control following the Mudros Armistice of 30 October 1918. It analyses the arguments of the Armenian Government submitted to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 to substantiate its vision of territorial delimitation between the two republics with regard to Nakhchyvan, examines the positions of Azerbaijan and Armenia and the Allied Powers on the Nakhchyvan problem and assesses the impact of their stance on the settlement of the issue. It argues that the Armenian claims to the region were land-related, being part of the Armenian nationalist aim of constructing an expanded Armenia from the Mediterranean to Garabagh. It also argues that the Allied Powers were guided by their own interests while making proposals on the settlement of the conflict.     

The African renaissance and the Caribbean

In May 2010 South African President Jacob Zuma will have been in office for one year. During this time, the Zuma administration has been far less ambitious in its foreign policy than previous administrations. However, South Africa is not in a position where it is able to withdraw from foreign engagement, as regional issues — such as Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Swaziland — continue to demand attention. The Zuma administration's approach in the future, in terms of both substance and style, will need to be informed by lessons from past engagement, including South African peacekeeping efforts in countries such as the DRC and Burundi, and South African mediation efforts in countries such as Angola, Côte d'Ivoire and the Comoros. Certainly, South Africa's record of success in taking on international responsibilities over the past 10 years has been mixed, but there is scope for past experience to shape future engagement positively. Indications of this can be seen, for example, in Zuma's efforts to redress former President Thabo Mbeki's clumsy mediation efforts in Angola by deciding to make his first state visit as South Africa's president to Luanda. Zuma's approach to Zimbabwe could build on the foundation set by Mbeki's long engagement with that country.     

The China model of Korean reunification

Like Germany's reunification, essentially the annexation of East Germany by West Germany, Korean reunification looms as most likely, ultimately and largely entailing South Korea's annexation of North Korea. The awesome cost borne by West Germany for reunification has been instructive to South Korea, particularly in recognition that the material and ideological gaps between North and South Korea are far greater than those which existed between East and West Germany. A possible solution to the negative implications of cataclysmic reunificationmay rest in gradual reunification of the Koreas, with an interim industrialization of North Korea by South Korea, based on the model of the economic development zones in southeastern China; hence, the “China Model”. In such a scenario the investors in North Korea's gradual industrialization would be (primarily) the huge conglomerate South Korean corporations chaebol which seek cheaper labor pools abroad. Investment by such corporations, in cooperation with the South Korean government, and possibly supplemented by western and Japanese capital investment, would presumably raise levels of productivity and the standard of living in the economically and agriculturally ravished North. The North-South gaps would thus be gradually reduced as would the financial and other burdens South Korea would otherwise have to bear for cataclysmic reunification.