Fighting Al Qaeda in Yemen? Rethinking the Nature of the Islamist Threat and the Effectiveness of U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy

This article evaluates U.S. perception of and response to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) operating in Yemen. It evaluates the empirical evidence on which the present understanding of the group is based, the implications of the sociopolitical context in which it operates, and the uneasy position of the Yemeni government in the War against Terror as it has been affected by U.S. policy from the early 1990s to the present. In the contested Yemeni state, AQAP is competing for political legitimacy and is increasingly dependent on public support. The U.S. kill-or-capture response, the “on–off” nature of its support that has made Yemen vulnerable to the influence of Al Qaeda in the past, and the actions of the Yemeni government itself, which depends on the continued existence of the threat to secure financial support vital for political survival, means that none of the measures being taken has the potential to defeat AQAP.     

China's Evolving Views of the Korean–American Alliance, 1953–2012

This article reconstructs an ideational trajectory in which China's views of the Korean–American alliance evolved during the last 60 years. The article first surveys China's general policy toward alliance and alliance-making. The article then traces the evolutionary path of Chinese views in the following four periods: (1) the Cold War era (1950s–1960s); (2) transformative years (early 1970s–mid-1990s); (3) the period of a strained alliance (late 1990s–late 2000s); and (4) an era of great reversal (late 2000s–present). Principally, the article suggests that China's view of the Korean–American alliance was intense antagonism during the Cold War era, although it was significantly watered down during the transformative years of Sino–South Korean rapprochement. With the normalization of relations between Beijing and Seoul in 1992 and a decade of progressive rule (1998–2007) in South Korea, China's view encompassed some wishful thinking about a gradually diluted alliance. The strong comeback of the conservatives in South Korean politics since 2008, however, shattered such optimism and re-awoke Beijing to some cold realities. China's view of the Korea–American alliance may grow more negative in tandem with US–China relations, irrespective of the official rhetoric of sovereignty regarding alliance and alliance-making.     

Allele frequencies of 10 STR loci in Koreans

Allele frequencies for the 10 STR loci, D6S1043, D9S925, D7S821, D4S2368, D21S2055, GATA193A07, D12S391, D10S2326, D15S822 and D18S51 were obtained from a sample of 217-310 unrelated Koreans. In this study, 2 out of the 10 loci did not meet Hardy-Weinberg expectation. The combined probability of identity for 10 loci tested was 4.93 x 10(-14).     

Accounting for Taiwan's economic policy toward China

This article explores the ideas, institutions, and interests in which Taiwan's economic policy toward China is embedded. The authors indicate that the ideas behind Taiwan's economic policy toward China are as vibrant as ever, the political foundation for a coherent and feasible policy is eroding, and commercial interests are digressing from the Taiwan government's policy goals. Political forces around ideas have strong hearing on the formation of Taiwan's economic policy toward China. The truthfulness or falseness of the security argument is of intrinsic value to Taiwan's decision makers. The authors also point out that in order to have a complete picture of cross‐Strait economic relations, we need to specify how trade and investment with China influence Taiwan's distribution of political interests.     

Taiwan’s Anti-Nuclear Movement: The Making of a Militant Citizen Movement

Social movement studies have constantly focused on research relating to movement strategy, without reaching a consensus on the most viable strategies for realising a movement’s goal. Instead of conceptualising movement strategy as merely a product of movement leaders’ rational calculations, this article analyses a case of strategy shift attributable to leadership replacement and unexpected events. This article examines the significant breakthroughs achieved by Taiwan’s anti-nuclear movement following Japan’s Fukushima Incident in 2011, as well as the 2014 Sunflower Movement in Taiwan. It argues that a militant citizen movement came into being because a new wave of activism employed non-partisan leadership and demonstrated a willingness to employ disruptive tactics. Mounting protests generated a split among members of the traditionally pro-nuclear Kuomintang political party, which was forced to halt the construction of the fourth nuclear power plant in 2014. With the regime change in 2016 that brought the more environment-friendly Democratic Progressive Party to power, Taiwan is now on course to phase out nuclear energy.     

The Korean experience in FDI and Sino-Korean relations

The possibility of regional cooperation in the Yellow Sea Rim (YSR) area has been discussed since the early 1980s. In recent years, Korean outbound foreign direct investment (FDI) has increased rapidly and it will be growing much further. In the new phase of the global economy and the post-cold war political environment, Korean firms consider the socialist countries, especially China, to be attractive new partners for trade and investment projects. Foreign investment contributed to economic growth in developing countries. In the early stage of industrialization in the 1970s, the share of foreign firms amounted to about one-tenth of the total manufacturing employment in Korea. Similarly, outbound Korean FDI could also play an important role in the industrialization of the LDCs in Southeast Asia and China. A case study of a Korean multinational corporation reveals that the direct employment effect of Korea’s FDI is extensive in terms of money invested. In spite of the complementarity in economic structure and the phase of development between Korea and China, the prospect of Korea’s outbound FDI is not all clear. However, one can safely assume that the unit scale of FDI projects will increase. Unlike in the past, the large Korean corporations are now preparing more than a few fair-sized projects in China. The positive impact of those FDI will be significant. The YSR cooperation, if successful, could create efficient economic cooperation based on complementarity between Korea and China. The Korean outbound FDI would pave a road to such regional cooperation. This article is the revised version of a paper prepared for the International Conference on Regional Development in the Yellow Sea Rimlands, held February 18–21, 1991. The conference was cosponsored by the Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements, the State Science and Technology Commission of China, and the East-West Center of Honolulu, Hawaii.