CIAO DATE: 06/2010
Volume: 10, Issue: 1
January 2010
Australia, Indonesia, and West Papuan refugees, 1962–2009 (PDF)
Klaus Neumann, Savitri Taylor
In this paper we examine the Australian government’s response to West Papuan asylum-seekers during the period 1962–2009. We argue that, throughout this period, the Australian government has attempted to appease the sensitivities of its powerful northern neighbour, Indonesia, as far as it can without outraging a domestic public sympathetic to West Papuans or drawing international condemnation by too obviously breaching international law. For the most part, it has done so by trying to avoid accommodating refugees from Indonesia, liaising closely with the Indonesian government in relation to asylum-seekers, and assuring the Indonesian government of its unequivocal support for Indonesian territorial integrity.
Subaltern straits: 'exit', 'voice', and 'loyalty' in the United States–China–Taiwan relations (PDF)
L.H.M. Ling, Ching-Chane Hwang, Boyu Chen
Mainstream approaches perpetuate the Taiwan–China ‘crisis’. They do so by following Cold-War concepts and prescriptions, despite the rise of new realities and new visions for cross-strait relations. We draw on Hirschman’s identification of ‘loyalty’ and ‘voice’ to describe the mainstream discourse on cross-strait relations in Taiwan, mostly directed by the United States. But a third option is now emerging. It offers the possibility of a paradigmatic breakthrough or ‘exit’ based on articulations of a postcolonial subjectivity for Taiwan and its relations with China.
Russia's breakthrough into the Asia-Pacific: China's role (PDF)
Gaye Christoffersen
Russia’s place in the Asia-Pacific region (APR) is undefined, hovering between Moscow’s grandiose visions of its geopolitical role in balance of power strategies, and Russia’s near invisibility in the region. Russia’s integration into the Asia-Pacific has been dependent on China to give Russia a legitimate political and military presence in the region. Moscow blames mistakes it has made in Asia Pacific integration, 1992– 2005, on this China dependence, and expects that post-2006 Russian integration will be different as Moscow diversifies its relations in the region, culminating in Russia hosting the APEC 2012 summit. There is a human security deficit for the people of the Russian Far East, which Russians believe will be solved by better integration into the APR. This article examines Russian preparations to host APEC 2012, local-level Sino-Russian economic relations, and Russian ambivalence regarding dependence/interdependence with its Chinese neighbor.
Young Chul Cho
Focusing on the US Clinton and Bush administration’s dissimilar security policies and practices toward the Korean Peninsula, this article aims to examine how the two different external security environments shaped South Korea’s collective identity in relation, respectively, to the United States and North Korea, and the Sunshine Policy in different ways, with a temporal focus on the Kim Dae-Jung administration (1998–2003). In so doing, this article will investigate the following substantive questions: what are the reason and implication of harmony between South Korea–US alliance identity and inter-Korean national identity in South Korea during the Clinton administration? In contrast, what are the reason and implication of discord between the two identities during the Bush administration? Related to these questions, this article presents two analytical arguments on the formation of South Korea’s collective identity associated with the Sunshine Policy, along with an International Relations theoretical argument implicated in the empirical analysis.
Domestic sources of Japanese foreign policy activism: loss avoidance and demand coherence (PDF)
Mireya Solís, Saori N. Katada
The conventional view in the field of international political economy – that greater economic interdependence creates an incentive for active foreign policy engagement – is hard to reconcile with Japan’s foreign economic policy. To explain this counterintuitive outcome, we develop a new model of domestic demand for policy activism that integrates strands of prospect theory, collective action, and interest aggregation. We argue that both the rationale for mobilization and lobbying capacity are essential elements in understanding the domestic demand for significant foreign policy departures. We apply this conceptual framework to Japanese foreign economic policy in two issue areas: finance (Japan’s response to the 1980s Latin American debt crisis and the late 1990s Asian Financial Crisis), and trade (Japan’s Free Trade Agreement negotiations with Mexico and South Korea).
Not just global rhetoric: Japan's substantive actualization of its human security foreign policy (PDF)
Tan Hsien-Li
While there is much theoretical and academic discussion of human security, as well as regional expressions of human security by the Organization of American States, African Union, and the European Union, little of this is translated into substance except for Japan, which has incorporated human security into foreign policy. This paper examines Japan’s definition and aspiration for human security, especially its plans to expand development aid through this modality in Southeast Asia. This scrutiny will encompass Japanese human security foreign policy and its substantive action through the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the UN Trust Fund for Human Security. Thus, the potential for Japanese human security cooperation with Southeast Asian partners will be reviewed in light of Japan’s projected trajectory. The paper concludes by positing that bilateral engagement might be expected for the considerable future and suggests policy consolidation before regional engagement can be effected.
Norms, Interests, and Power in Japanese Foreign Policy (PDF)
Hiro Katsumata
Japan's Aggressive Legalism: Law and Foreign Trade Politics beyond the WTO (PDF)
Leonard J. Schoppa
China and the Global Political Economy (PDF)
Yoshifumi Nakai