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CIAO DATE: 03/05/07
Volume 17, Number 3, October 2005
Contributors
Introduction
ChinaUS relations: A difficult balancing act for Australia? by Stuart Harris
Australia has close alliance links with the US but also growing links with China. While the US and China have many interests in common they also have many differences that periodically lead to significant tensions and such tensions could remerge in the future and pose challenges for Australia's diplomacy. The major potential risk in the future seems likely to be over Taiwan. This article notes that despite the improvement in the US-China relationship since 9/11, there are still strong anti-China interests in the US and anti-US interests in China that could pose difficulties for that relationship. It concludes that, with the exception of Taiwan, any such difficulties are unlikely to be of great significance for Australia. Provided the recent more effective US management of the Taiwan issue is maintained, balancing Australia's relationships with the two countries should not be especially problematic.
Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone developments in Asia: Problems and prospects by Michael Hamel-Green
Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones (NWFZs) are binding agreements to prevent the acquisition and stationing of nuclear weapons within a particular region, and to secure guarantees from nuclear states not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against the zone. In the context of developing dialogues on nuclear proliferation and security issues in the Asian region, the existing Southeast Asian NWFZ (Bangkok Treaty), the current negotiations towards a Central Asian NWFZ, and proposals for NWFZs in South Asia and Northeast Asia, are examined and assessed from the viewpoint of their contributions to regional arms control and security, scope, and prospects for implementation. It is concluded that such zones provide an important avenue, in conjunction with the Nonproliferation Treaty, for regional groups of states in Asia to reduce nuclear proliferation threats within their own regions, to gain security assurances from the nuclear powers, and to facilitate wider confidence-building and cooperative security approaches to nuclear and weapons-of-mass destruction threats across the Asian region. Proposed ways forward include enhanced cooperation between existing NWFZ states, further international conferences in UN studies on NWFZ initiatives, and civil society pressures to establish NWFZs.
East Asia's emerging regionalism: Tensions and potential in design and architecture by Joseph A. Camilleri
The Taiwan question and Sino-Australian relations: The context of China's modernization by Hou Minyue
Understanding US unilateralism and its impact on East Asia by Shaolei FENG
Understanding and preventing new conflicts and wars: China's peaceful rise as a strategic choice by Yu Xintian
Great power relations and AsiaPacific security by Yang Chengxu
Since the end of the Cold War, the global strategic architecture has undergone immense change. Six developments merit particular attention. First, we have seen the overall relaxation of tensions at the international level, along with sometimes mild and sometimes serious turbulence occurring in some regions. When it comes to regional conflicts, inter-state wars and inter-state political tension in general, we no longer see zero-sum conflicts comparable to those of the Cold War years. These latter conflicts were characterized by a scramble for power along an EastWest axis.
A Study in harmony: The great powers in Asia and the Pacific by David Sadleir
Book Reviews