US–Mexico relations under Trump

If US President-elect Trump were to fulfil his strident campaign promises on immigration and trade with respect to Mexico, prospects for left-wing, populist candidates in the 2018 Mexican presidential election would likely improve. Victory for such a candidate could make Mexico significantly more antagonistic to the United States.     

The evolution of US–Israel relations

The main source of change in Israel's current interests and objectives is its evolving relationship with the United States. During the eight years of the Obama administration, the two countries have clashed on a range of strategic issues, including the Iran nuclear deal and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The approach of Obama's probable successor – Hillary Clinton – is likely to involve more continuity than departure from his policies.     

US–Saudi relations: between friction and accommodation

US–Saudi relations have always been transactional, driven by US strategic interests and Saudi threat perceptions. After decades of relative stability, greater US energy independence and differences over the Iran nuclear deal, the Arab Spring and Syria have caused their interests and policies to diverge.     

Managing the MedUSA: comparing the political economy of US–Japan,US–German,and US–UK relations

Abstract

International experience tells that public services often fail to work for those in need. To make things work requires complex institutional changes that are difficult to come by, let alone sustain. This paper examines the situation of rural public service provision in China and a local attempt to revamp the service provision institution through adjusting the mix of state and the market. It reveals the dialectical process of policy evolution whereby innovation, and resistance to it, has emerged.     

The Trump–Russia connection

The ongoing congressional and FBI investigations of possible coordination between President Donald Trump's campaign team and Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election threaten, at a minimum, to undermine Trump’s policy priorities. If even some of the accusations prove true, they will produce the biggest White House scandal since the Iran-Contra affair in 1985–87 in an inexperienced administration already beset by infighting.     

Environmental protection and US–Asia relations: a policy of disconnect

Despite the post-September 11 focus on regional security and the continued emphasis on regional economic cooperation, environmental degradation should not be overlooked as an important issue for US policy in and relationship with the Asia-Pacific. It is an important issue in its own right, presenting the countries of the region with ecological, economic and social (human security) challenges. There are both ethical and instrumental impulses for the United States, as a rich indus­trialised country and as a disproportionate consumer of resources and polluter of global waste, to provide environmental assistance to the Asia-Pacific. Despite global demands that the ‘new’ new world (environmental) order should be based on solidarity and collective responsibility, neither US environmental policy towards the region nor the regional consequences of its international environmental policy more generally meet this test. The US is fundamentally self-regarding rather than other-regarding in the various dimensions of its environmental relationship with the region. The consequences for both the region and for the US may be substantial. Continued environmental degradation in the region has the potential to undermine other US policy goals, in terms of its reputation, it economic objectives and even its more orthodox geopolitical security objectives.     

The fly in the ointment? Chinese dissent and US–China relations

After the Tiananmen massacre of 4 June 1989 many Chinese pro-democracy activists have been able to settle in the USA. They have attempted to federate all the opposition forces overseas in an organization which aimed at influencing the US government’s policy toward China. However, plagued by factionalism, the opposition in exile has not been able to put to an efficient use the capital of sympathy that it enjoyed at the time of Tiananmen. After the failure of political organizations, Chinese dissidents have created NGOs which are regularly consulted by the Administration and the Congress. Since the mid-eighties, they represent a substantial factor in the making of American policy towards China.     

The US–Turkey rift

Capping an accumulation of mutual grievances, US sanctions on Turkey over its refusal to release an American evangelical pastor suspected of involvement in the July 2016 coup attempt are accelerating the deterioration of Turkey’s economy and threatening bilateral security cooperation and NATO cohesion.     

The US–China trade war

The US has weathered its trade war with China better than many observers had predicted, and China appears to be experiencing an economic slowdown. Beijing hopes that President Trump will accept an interim agreement narrower in scope than his more hawkish advisers would prefer, so long as it substantially reduces the bilateral trade imbalance. Unless these advisers persuade Trump to demand major Chinese concessions on broader structural issues, a deal in the next few weeks remains likely.     

Soviet Espionage in Israel, 1973–1991

In June 1967, the Soviet Union abruptly cut off diplomatic relations with Israel and withdrew its embassy staff from Tel-Aviv, including its large KGB Rezidentura. To develop new sources of intelligence in Israel, the KGB recruited under duress hundreds of Russian Jews to spy in Israel in return for allowing their families to leave the Soviet Union. Most of these ‘recruits’ abandoned their task once they reached Israel, leaving Soviet intelligence with only a small number of agents in Israel who were handled by KGB illegal case officers working out of Russian churches. These agents were able to make careers in Israel and obtain some access to confidential military information, but generally failed to reach Israel's inner circle of political and military decision makers. This inner circle was only breached in 1983 by the treachery of a highly placed former Mossad officer who offered his services to the Soviets and became the KGB's best source for secret information deep inside the Israeli government.     

The deterioration of Australia–China relations

Relations between Australia and China reached a new low after Australia’s foreign minister demanded an international inquiry into China’s response to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. Beijing’s pointed diplomatic response and imposition economic retaliatory measures are speeding the pace of Canberra’s already ongoing re-evaluation of the relationship.     

Endangering alliance or risking proliferation?: US–Japan and US–Korea nuclear energy cooperation agreements

This paper seeks to understand why the United States treated Japan and Korea differently in the revisions of bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements. On the sensitive issue of grating its allies the rights of developing enrichment and reprocessing (ENR), the United States did so for Japan in the 1977 and 1987 revisions, but did not for Korea during the 2015 revision. For the great power as a supplier state, there are two factors affecting the decision: policy-makers’ concern about alliance management prior to the calculation of security outcome, and firms’ commercial interests. In order to avoid damage to the US–Japan alliance and to maintain Japan's complementation for the US nuclear industry, Washington granted the rights of ENR to Tokyo. In contrast, because of its confidence of managing the US–Korea alliance and partly because of incompatibility of commercial interests between the two, Washington did not grant the rights to Seoul at the 2015 revision. Based on the comparison of the two cases, this paper underscores a need to alter the power projection theory regarding nuclear proliferation by explicating the alliance management as the ex ante element of power projection and by accounting for commercial interests such as fuel sale and technological partnership.     

The economy of secrecy: security,information control,and EU‒US relations

Abstract

This article develops an ‘economy of secrecy’ as a framework to understand how secrecy regulates interstate relations and to explicate why states react differently to breaches of secrecy. Drawing upon Simmel, the article argues that secrecy shapes interstate relations by tuning the ratio of ‘knowledge’ and ‘ignorance’. Furthermore, while the economy of secrecy acknowledges the existence of many types of secret, it emphasises their common underlying mechanisms, namely: secrecy as a field of power, secrecy as a field of performance, and secrecy as a normative terrain. Finally, the economy of secrecy is agnostic with regard to the moral character of promoting secrecy. In order to substantiate the argument, the article examines three recent iterations of how secrecy has disrupted EU?US relations: extraordinary renditions, WikiLeaks, and Snowden’s revelations. In addition to showcasing how the economy of secrecy operates, these examples contribute to our understanding of how secrecy affects information flow and dissemination in world politics.     

US–China dialogue and the tenuous bilateral relationship

Despite recent diplomatic efforts by Washington and Beijing to keep the bilateral relationship on an even keel, China has continued to behave assertively in the Asia-Pacific and Chinese President Xi Jinping has effectively promulgated his own vision for a regional and global order. In the absence of a robust or coherent US policy for the region, China appears to have gained the upper hand in terms of the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific.     

Trump’s fraught national-security transition

President-elect Donald Trump's enthusiasm for consequential policy decisions during the transition suggests that he has a greater taste for the hands-on formulation and execution of foreign policy than is commonly appreciated. Given his dubious choices of Mike Flynn as national security adviser and Rex W. Tillerson as secretary of state, and the military skew of his selections overall, this disposition intensifies worries about the path of US foreign and security policy.     

China–North Korea relations and the 19th Party Congress

China has come under increasing American pressure to lean on North Korea to curtail its nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programmes. But Chinese President Xi Jinping's priority is to maintain the domestic and international status quo to ensure the Communist Party's smooth transition behind him at the 19th Party Congress next autumn. Until that process has been completed, major change in Beijing's behaviour towards Pyongyang is unlikely.