Asia-Pacific Archive

The Taiwanese government of President Ma Ying-jeou has denied that it harbors plans for siding with Beijing in territorial disputes over the South China Sea. Yet the notion that the resource-rich and strategic waters should be the starting point for cross-Strait military cooperation is gaining traction on the island. Since last year, the People’s Liberation Army Academy has repeatedly called for cooperation with Taiwan in protecting “common ancestral rights” in the region’s disputed waters. At the same time, China has regularly invited retired Taiwanese military brass to cross-Strait symposiums where cooperation in the South and East China Seas as well […]

The downing of a Chinook helicopter carrying 31 Americans on Sunday graphically highlighted the continuing costs of fighting the war in Afghanistan. The presence of Navy SEALs among the dead made an emotional connection with the May killing of Osama bin Laden almost inevitable. The logic of that connection, though, has largely remained implicit: With bin Laden now dead, how long should the United States continue to accept the loss its very best in Afghanistan? Ending wars can be very difficult, even when the strategic ends of a war no longer justify the costs incurred. For the U.S. in Afghanistan, […]

“In China’s thousands of years of civilization, the conflict between humanity and nature has never been as serious as it is today.” — Minister of Environment Zhou Shengxian, February 2011. What is the biggest challenge that China faces? Corruption, the gap between the rich and poor, and the rapidly aging population often top the list of answers to this question. Yet a closer look suggests that the greatest threat may well be lack of access to clean water. From “cancer villages” to violent protests to rising food prices, diminishing water supplies are exerting a profound and harmful effect on the […]

An analysis released this week by the computer security firm McAfee (.pdf) exposed the widespread hacking of more than 70 corporations and government organizations worldwide. McAfee did not identify the hackers, saying only that evidence pointed to a nation-state as having carried out the attacks. However, some experts were quick to point to China as the most likely culprit. While he believes that may be an accurate assessment, Chris Bronk, a World Politics Review contributor and fellow in information technology policy at the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, says “the hardest thing on […]

BEIJING — China’s social contract revolves around the Communist Party delivering the benefits of modernization to the country’s citizenry, and not, as Western observers might hope, around the transition to multi-party democracy. Consequently, technocratic failure presents the greatest risk to the party’s domestic credibility, something emphatically highlighted by the ongoing wave of public anger over the Wenzhou high-speed rail crash. Moreover, unlike recent high-profile political cases, the Wenzhou crash might very well turn out to be the moment China’s emerging public sphere came of age. Beyond loss of life, perhaps the most profound source of public anger regarding the crash […]

While the horrific famine in the Horn of Africa has captured international attention, a similar emergency on the other side of the world, in North Korea, has quietly moved past the point of crisis. The World Food Program in April called for $224 million in emergency aid for North Korea. But the international community — particularly the United States and South Korea, traditionally the largest donors to North Korea — have so far refused to fund the request. Their resistance, according to Roberta Cohen, a nonresident senior foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, can best be explained […]

Weeks after the Malaysian government cracked down on pro-reform protesters gathered under the banner of the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections, or Bersih, uncertainty is still thick in Kuala Lumpur. Bersih, which literally means “clean” in Malay, estimates that 50,000 people showed up at the July 9 rally to protest in favor of electoral reforms, clean politics and anti-corruption measures as stated in an 8-point manifesto. The police, who fired tear gas and water cannons at the demonstrators, claim that only a few thousand were present. In the end, some 1,700 people were arrested, while several were injured, and […]

Recent violence in the China’s western Xinjiang province has resulted in more than a dozen deaths and prompted an aggressive security response by Chinese authorities, who assert the unrest is being driven by Muslim separatists trained in Pakistan. The accusation, leaked to China’s state media Monday, came as the head of Pakistani intelligence was making a visit to Beijing and exposed a potential sticking-point in the oft-celebrated alliance between the two countries. According to Kerry Brown, who heads the Asia program at Chatham House in London, it also shed light on the delicate balance that characterizes the three-way relationship between […]

Although China did not launch its first aircraft carrier in time for yesterday’s People’s Liberation Army Day, expectations are that a Chinese flat-top will soon appear on the high seas. Chinese media have been hinting for years that the PLA Navy would not go forever without such an important naval asset, and the past few days have seen extensive coverage of the Varyag, which when it is launched will be the country’s first carrier ship. In 1998, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) purchased the Varyag, an uncompleted Soviet-era sloped-deck carrier, for $20 million. The Chinese buyer claimed it would […]

Global Insider is an ongoing World Politics Review interview series that examines developing trends in geopolitics. From energy issues and policy close-ups to bilateral and regional relations, Global Insider explores the foundations and implications of new developments in international affairs through the voices of pre-eminent experts hailing from government, academia and research institutions. Global Insider is published 3-5 times per week on the Trend Lines page. Below are links to each article in this special report, which subscribers can read in full. Not a subscriber? Purchase this document for Kindle or as a PDF from Scribd. Or subscribe now. Energy […]