Extremists are extremely extreme

Abstract

China's foreign policy during the Cultural Revolution is usually treated as a non-event. Melvin Gurtov in his careful and extremely useful chronological account of China's foreign policy at this time (RAND, RM-5934-PR) still deems it “an aberrant episode” (VII, 83). He describes it as the manifestation of a power struggle between extreme young zealots and implacable older powerholders. “Substantive policy views” are almost beside the point (76). Far Eastern Economic Review (1968 Year Book) also characterizes Cultural Revolution foreign policy as one of “excesses” and “‘extreme’ behavior,” giving anti-foreignism as its content. Anti-foreignism is seen as a deeply felt belief that an attempt to borrow from foreigners has resulted in “manipulation and exploitation” by foreigners. Yung Ho, writing for the Union Research Institue's (URI) Communist China 1967, finds the essence of Mao's thought to be opposition to “anything foreign,” and China's attempt at “propagating Mao-Tse-tung's thought abroad” to be an aggressive policy “even worse than Hitler's rule,” one which inevitably produced setbacks which further isolate China (326–327).     

“The Chinese Dream” and Chinese Foreign and Security Policies—Rosy Rhetoric versus Harsh Realities

The “China Dream” announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping’ in 2012 paints a very rosy picture of China under his seemingly undisputed leadership: China's economic and political rise will be beneficial to China and indeed the international community putting Beijing on top of the list of “peace-loving” countries. Reality, however, as it turned out over the last four years, is distinctively different as a number of countries in China's neighborhood and beyond can surely confirm. Indeed, Beijing unilaterally claiming and building civilian and military facilities on disputed islands in the South China Sea are arguably the very opposite of a peaceful contribution to world politics and security facilitated by the rhetorical hype of Xi's “Chinese Dream.” While outside observers can be excused for concluding that the “Chinese Dream” mantra is directed at the Chinese domestic audience to distract from the very many economic, environment and social problems within China, the consequences of Beijing's “dreaming” of re-gaining its former undisputed “Middle Kingdom” status in Asia are very much felt abroad. This, it is argued, could be the time when “dreams” turn into “nightmares” for those at the receiving end of Beijing's dream.     

Strategic Othering: Framing Lebanese Migration and Fraser's “Mistake”

Australian Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Peter Dutton, has framed the mid‐1970s immigration of Lebanese affected by civil war as Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser's “mistake”. His remarks sparked controversy in the parliament and the media. The issue became a contest of frames between the Murdoch media, which supported the Minister's “mistake” frame and argued his right to “tell the truth”, and the Fairfax media, which viewed the Minister as being “racist” for “scapegoating” the Lebanese community. Along with archival documents, this article examines the context and coverage of the Minister's remarks, noting that the frames presented in the media “indexed” those adopted amongst political elites, while failing to re‐examine the historical record. This case study demonstrates the power of framing and the media's tendency to accept rather than challenge frames used by those in the political contest, with the result that errors in the representation of history were never corrected. This article draws on framing theory and indexing theory and concludes that the “mistake” frame for the Lebanese feeds into narratives that serve to “other” Muslim and Arab groups, fanning fears and mobilising a discourse of Islamophobia around the exclusion of “undesirable” immigrants on the basis of “cultural fit”.     

International Intervention and the People's Will: The Demoralization of Democracy in Cambodia

This article examines the deterioration in relations between two Cambodian opposition parties and the “international community” from whom they sought support during the 1998 Cambodian elections. It is suggested that the manipulation, by influential political actors, of internationally promoted political concepts such as “democracy,” “sovereignty,” and “the people's will” is problematic for mutual understanding between international and local political actors. In Cambodia in 1998, liberal views of the “people's will” as an amoral and neutral construct facilitating the delegation of authority were awkwardly but influentially conflated, by the election campaigning of the two parties, with a view of the “people's will” as a moral imperative to liberate the nation from alleged “traitors.” This caused widespread adherence, among the parties' followers, to views of the 1998 elections that were non-liberal and antidemocratic in a number of respects. When sharp differences in understandings of the political situation emerged between local and international actors, following the electoral defeat of those opposition party leaders, the fragile nature of a purported “partnership” between a self-appointed “international community” and the Cambodian people was exposed.     

DIALOGUE WITH THE WEST

Abstract

This portrayal of China by one of the most respected intellectuals ever to emerge from the shadowy labyrinth of the American diplomatic establishment mirrors twenty years of concentrated work by American China scholars. Not every China expert would accept all of Kennan's assumptions or express them in such strident form. Yet over the last two decades the China profession has evolved a style of thought, a mode of asking questions, which has largely substantiated such views in both the public and scholarly worlds. The majority of China watchers have pleaded for “tolerance” and “patience” towards the People's Republic as she gradually learns, aided by a flexible American containment policy, to “adjust” to the “international community of nations” and the “rationalizing” qualities implicit in the “modernization” process. While protesting against certain aspects of America's foreign policy toward China, however, their thought and work has reinforced, at times deepened, the ideological justifications that support America's role in Asia and her attitudes towards China.     

Development of the Mekong Region as Part of Japan's Diplomatic Strategy for East Asia

Japan's active engagement in the development of the Mekong region since the 1990s needs to be understood not only from an economic but also from a diplomatic perspective. Japan seeks to collaborate with ASEAN in facilitating multilateral “political dialogue” in the Asia-Pacific region and building an East Asian order based on “universal values” such as democracy and the rule of law, and the Mekong region could be the “weakest link” of ASEAN. After outlining Japan's twenty-year undertaking to cultivate Mekong-Japan cooperation, the author suggests that it is time to broaden the scope of the cooperation and accelerate Japan's “proactive contribution to peace” policy to cope with the changing security environment.     

“Making the Crooked Straight”: China's Grand Strategy of “Peaceful Rise” and its Central Asian Dimension

Abstract

This article argues that China's foreign policy since 1991 has been guided by the evolution of a grand strategy of “peaceful rise” that seeks to ensure China's smooth transition to great power status. Moreover, it suggests that a strategic preoccupation with Central Asia has become an important expression of this grand strategy. Framing these arguments is a third overarching one that postulates that China's foreign policy in Central Asia is not only intimately related to the strategy of “peaceful rise” but also to a particular, historically and geopolitically informed narrative of China's “Inner Asian” power.     

INDIA'S MYANMAR POLICY AND THE ‘SINO-INDIAN GREAT GAME’

Recent literature has aimed to “deconstruct” the notion of a “Sino-Indian rivalry” in Myanmar. The argument is that China's leverage in Myanmar far outweighs India's, and that the Tatmadaw nevertheless prevents either country's manipulation of Myanmar. In contrast this article argues that the idea of a “Sino-Indian Great Game” still marks the Indian debate, thinking and policy on Myanmar. China's continued rise will remain a main driver behind India's Myanmar policy, and Myanmar will remain geostrategic relevant to India.

The article describes the historical legacy of India's relationship with Myanmar, discusses the role of China in Indian Myanmar policies, and examines the effects of Myanmar's democratization process. While the Myanmar playing field has changed, Indian perceptions of a “Sino-Indian Great Game” are lasting.     

Gorbachev's Social Contract

The Soviet economic slowdown is explained in the context of an eroding “social contract” between regime and society, established in the 1950s and defined as a set of norms, constituency benefits, and political-economic institutions which elite and public have regarded as legitimate means of regulating their mutual relations. Gorbachev must rebuild state legitimacy; the “objective,” mutually constraining relationship between economic system and state legitimation implies that a new social contract can serve as a “test” of Gorbachev's intent to pursue “radical” economic reform. Evidence suggests that prospects for radical reform have risen substantially since Gorbachev's election as General Secretary. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 052, 124, 830.     

China and the “Responsibilities” of a “Responsible” Power—The Uncertainties of Appropriate Power Rise Language

This article looks at the ambiguities and tensions for and around the People's Republic of China (PRC) in being “responsible” (fuzeren) and having “responsibilities” (zeren), both of which are related consequences surrounding its growing power (guo) in the international system and in the Asia-Pacific. However, the ambiguities surrounding the implications of being “responsible” and of having “responsibilities” cause problems not only for the international system but also for the PRC in terms of its image, and others' reaction to the PRC. International and regional stability will be shaped by how far these aspects of power rise settle down in the PRC's interaction and presence in the international system and in the Asia-Pacific.     

Reflections on Japan's past

Fifty years after the devastation of World War II, Japan's remarkable long‐term, export‐driven economic success is known as the East Asian development model and East Asian economies have become the engine for the world's economic growth. Yet the collapse of Japan's 1980s over‐inflated “bubble economy” has created apathy and pessimism, says former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone. In May 1995, on the occasion of his seventy‐seventh birthday, after more than 45 years in the Diet, IIPS Chairman Nakasone reflects on Japan's modern history and issues a call for renewal in the following speech. Above all, he says, “Japan does have a few mavericks” and “people with true convictions [should] come forward . . . the Japanese are waiting for genuine leadership.”     

Norbert Elias and Postnational Integration

What is the “Civilising Process” according to Norbert Elias? It is the history of the increase in interdependency links, and in their complexity, between individuals. From this perspective, the evolution of European society since the medieval period has seemed to follow a “determined direction” or a “constant orientation” defined by the passage to more and more globalising domination instances. Nowadays the debates arising from the building up of a political Union on a European scale lend new interest to the works of the German sociologist. Starting from the distinction between “objective” functional interdependence and integration, which suggests the development of a collective identity, Elias attempts to explain the gap between the arrival of a new “survival entity” and the growth of a new “definition of “we””. In the case of contemporary Europe, the persistence of national habitus which run counter political integration portrayed nonetheless as ineluctable have to be explained. In order to evaluate the originality of Elias' approach and its relevance to the present philosophical and political issues at stake, the author's “postnational intuitions” have to be confronted with the most recent theoretical orientations, including Dominique Schnapper's national‐democratic option and the “constitutional patriotism” of Jürgen Habermas.     

Alexei Navalny and challenges in reconciling “nationalism” and “liberalism”

This article examines the challenges and complexities in the efforts by political activist Alexei Navalny to reconcile “nationalist” and “liberal” modes of thinking in the current Russian environment. After deciphering three major axes of Navalny's narratives on the national question, the author then discusses the social and political context within which the national-democratic (Natsdem) movement was forged. Natsdems, who are simultaneously pro-European and democratic but also xenophobic, and who target an audience among the urban middle classes, reflect a fundamental shift in Russian society. The last part of the article discusses the paradoxes of Navalny's trajectory, in which a failed theoretical articulation between “nationalism,” “democracy,” and “liberalism” nonetheless has translated into a political success.     

Inequality for the Greater Good: Gendered State Rule in Singapore

Abstract

The Singapore state, in response to demographic trends of later marriage and lower fertility, has put in place numerous institutions aimed at “protecting” the family as a unit. In their effects, many of the policies place disproportionate burdens on women, particularly insofar as the policies reproduce “traditional” gendered divisions of labor within the household at the same time that they encourage women to participate in the formal workforce. We might expect the contradictory demands placed on women and the gender inequalities embedded within the state's policies to lead to resistance and/or expressions of displeasure — in ways that could undermine the state's legitimacy — but the policies seem instead to be integral to and enhancing of the state's capacity for rule. This article shows that gendered family policies reproduce state power through three interconnected mechanisms: they establish regular relationships between state and society; articulate particular identities and interests of Singaporeans as members of families, thereby undercutting gender and ethnic identities; and give content to notions of “tradition” and “modernity” that solidify the state's claim to being the only agent able to balance the twin tensions that are at the core of the nation's survival.     

China's industrial revolution: Politics,planning and management, 1949 to the present,by Stephen Andors

Abstract

The study of Chinese industrial development has come a long way since the 1969 publication of Barry Richman's Industrial Society in Communist China (New York: Random House, 1969). Richman recognized that China had begun to “organize conscientiously and vigorously for industrial progress since the beginning of the 1950's.” Unlike some of his predecessors, he did not explain China's industrial growth in terms of mass coercion or swarms of “blue ants” instead, he warned the reader that “in order to understand more fully how Chinese management and Chinese organization function, it is essential to have an understanding of Chinese ideology.” His examples of the use of ideology-e.g., the study of Mao's On Contradiction to help resolve a problem of cost vs. quality in bicycle production-were refreshingly concrete and useful.     

Logics of action and models of capitalism: Explaining bottom‐up non‐liberal change

Recent institutionalist scholarship has theorized the liberalization or “disorganization” of capitalism as the result of shifts in economic actors' “logic of action” towards opportunism. Little attention has been given to the reverse possibility that shifts in economic actors' “logic of action” away from opportunism might contribute to “embedding” or “organizing” capitalism. This paper builds on recent scholarship to theorize this scenario and then demonstrate its empirical validity with an historical institutionalist study of the emergence of such a “non‐liberal” institution in Switzerland in 1961. The theoretical framework links three “logics of action” – opportunism, enlightened self‐interest and strong solidarity – to Höpner's typology of capitalist institutions – organized, coordinated, and liberal. It theorizes the interactions between these logics and the social mechanism – goal signaling – that can explain a shift from one logic of action to another, potentially leading to change from one type of institution to another.     

The Evolution of China's Naval Strategy and Capabilities: From “Near Coast” and “Near Seas” to “Far Seas”

Abstract

This study first shows that China's naval strategy has undergone two major changes: from “near-coast defense” prior to the mid-1980s to “near-seas active defense” after the mid-1980s, and then to the advancement of a “far-seas operations” strategy. Related to the evolution of naval strategy is the change in naval capabilities: from limited capabilities for coastal defense to more expansive capabilities to operate more effectively in China's near seas by the late 2000s. The new strategy of “far-seas operations” endorsed since the mid-2000s may have major implications for the future development of China's naval capabilities. Second, this study argues that changes in naval strategy and capabilities can be accounted for by a combination of major variables, including the role of naval leadership and personal experience, endorsement of civilian leadership, changing perception of external security environment, availability of funding and technologies, and institutionalization of naval research. Also, while a major change in naval capabilities may be related to a change in naval strategy, it may also be driven by other highly contingent or idiosyncratic reasons.     

The Lansdowne “Peace Letter” of 1917 and the Prospect of Peace by Negotiation with Germany

In late November 1917, Lord Lansdowne, one of the most senior of British Unionist politicians, wrote a letter to the editor of the Daily Telegraph. The letter asked for the war aims of the Entente and the USA to be “coordinated” and suggested that a moderate revision of war aims might bring a negotiated peace nearer. The letter appeared to ally Lansdowne with the British Radicals, who had been close to President Wilson (until April 1917), and had argued for a negotiated peace to end the war since the autumn of 1916. The letter was ferociously denounced by the Northcliffe press, and by many of Lansdowne's Unionist colleagues. It was supposedly a “plea for surrender” and “a national misfortune”. Nevertheless, it touched off a series of new departures in the search for a negotiated settlement: House's visit to the inter Allied Conference in December, the Labour War Aims Memorandum, Lloyd George's Caxton Hall speech, Wilson's Fourteen Points Address, and the beginning of a public parley with the Central Powers in the replies of Hertling and Czernin in January 1918. The paper examines the possibilities for a negotiated peace during the winter of 1917–1918, that is, in the period between the publication of Lansdowne's famous letter and the sudden Versailles “Knockout Blow” Declaration of February 1918 which rejected out of hand any prospect of negotiation. The paper examines Wilson's ambiguous position in this debate, and in particular the evolution of moderate opinion inside Germany in reaction to these events. The paper suggests the unfortunate enfeeblement of moderate opinion in Germany in the face of the apparent triumph of “knockout blow” opinion in the Entente camp.     

The Rise and Fall of Missile Diplomacy? President Clinton and the “Revolution in Military Affairs” in Retrospect

During the 1990s the “revolution in military affairs” (RMA), which produced “smart” weapons like cruise missiles, came of age. This apparently transformed how America viewed the relationship between force and international relations. It looked like technology was framing foreign policy. In particular, smart weapons enabled President Clinton to combine risk minimization with an expanded security agenda. However, we should be wary of ascribing technological determinism to the conflicts of the 1990s dominated by Washington's flexing of its strategic superiority, such as its bombing of Belgrade. As shown by comparison with post‐“9–11” US strategy, Washington's stance in the 1990s was shaped by linkages between technology and specific political circumstances. As these circumstances changed, so did the RMA's place in US efforts to shape world order.     

Japan as the “Indispensable Nation” in Asia: A Financial Brand for the 21st Century

This article addresses Japan's global financial “brand.” It first examines the concept of a national “brand” and the difficulties associated with creating a desirable image of a country among outsiders. It adopts an instrumental concept of branding, which focuses on the behavior that the national image should elicit from foreign countries. It also notes that effective branding must accurately reflect reality. For Japan, the goal should be to promote economic cooperation where mutual interests exist. Efforts should be focused on East Asia, where mutual economic interests are least fully realized, and where Japan's national image appears to be an important stumbling block. Japan should seek to demonstrate the potential for transition to a “post-developmental” financial model and to be the “indispensable partner” for regional cooperative and development initiatives. This will require continued progress in cleaning up and improving the competitiveness of Japan's financial institutions and financial system.