The 'Nature' of Contiguous Borders: Ease of Interaction,Salience, and the Analysis of Crisis

This paper presents the dataset developed from an NSF-supported project on reconceptualizing borders through the use of geographical information systems (GIS). After presenting an overview of the 301 contiguous land borders which were remeasured in terms of ease of interaction (opportunity), and salience/importance (willingness), the dataset is used to revisit hypotheses dealing with territory and borders, specifically four hypotheses developed by Brecher and Wilkenfeld (1997) from their International Crisis Behavior (ICB) project. The results support the design and purpose of the GIS project of reconceptualizing borders, which breaks away from the dichotomous characterization of states as contiguous or non-contiguous in order to examine the "nature" of borders. Our results do not fit the expectations of the "standard" adversarial proximity conflict model, and demonstrate that the border reconceptualization presented here can be used to investigate a number of related questions in the study of international politics involving both cooperative processes as well as conflictual ones.     

接触中国：美国对中国崛起的初步反应——以克林顿政府为例

美国克林顿政府时期的对华接触政策,是美国国家安全战略的重要组成部分,也是美国新自由主义者对全球化背景下"中国崛起"的初步反应。其在政治领域,主要是通过政府高官乃至元首的多边和双边会谈、访问来进行;在经济领域,是使中国在接受美方相关条件的基础上,把中国纳入多边国际经济体制,并试图加深中国对美国和整个国际经济体系的依赖;在安全领域,则试图在承认中国若干合法安全利益的基础上,有选择地把中国纳入相关国际安全体系,并注重推动两边军事交流。克林顿政府的对华接触政策具有国际和国内"双管齐下"、接触加威慑"软硬兼施"两大特征。然而,中国作为一个大国,无论是其国际行为还是其国内进程,都要基于中国自身的战略考量,都有其复杂的内在逻辑,克林顿政府的对华接触政策只是中国发展与崛起过程中的一个重要外部变量而已。