International Relations of the Asia-Pacific - recent issues

The seventh withdrawal: has the US forces' journey back home from Korea begun?

Levkowitz, A. — 2008-04-29

This article analyzes the reasons that led to the six United States forces withdrawals from South Korea between 1947 and 2008 and the Republic of Korea's responses to these policies. The article discusses the local and global aspects of these forces' functions and tasks and attempts to understand why Korea has not prepared itself for the withdrawal of the US forces throughout the years. The article will argue that there might be a seventh withdrawal of US forces from Korea in the near future, which South Korea and the USA should begin preparing for.

US economic statecraft in East Asia

Kelton, M. — 2008-04-29

Linkage politics in the US were revived after the terrorist attacks in 2001 as the US endeavored to bolster its position in the international system. This paper examines current US economic statecraft in East Asia, particularly through the use of the preferential trade agreement instrument. As the US encounters increasing threats in the region through China's economic and military expansion, the emergence of Islamic militancy, and continuing tensions on the Korean peninsula, it is attempting to reinforce its strategic position through the economic reinforcement of its bilateral politico-military alliances. However, as the establishment of its recent free trade agreements has revealed, neo-mercantilist politics, as motivated by US Congressional attention to domestic lobbying, present a risk to this strategy. It is possible that this tendency to economic nationalism, as evidenced in the Australia–US Free Trade Agreement, will detract from the broader purpose of reinforcing the US strategic position in the region.

Malaysia's 2005-2006 refugee stand-off with Thailand: a security culture analysis

Hourdequin, P. — 2008-04-29

In September of 2005, Malaysia–Thailand relations were stressed by an incident in which 131 Thai Muslims fled across the Southern Thai border to seek refuge in Malaysia. The Malaysian government initially refused to return these ‘asylum seekers,’ and eventually chose to internationalize the situation by calling on the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR). Malaysia's decision to internationalize the issue points to potential instability in Malaysia-Thailand bilateral relations and reflects several internal political problems faced by United Malays National Organization (UMNO) central decisions makers. This paper seeks to explain the Malaysian central government's security perspective on the northern border region. To do this, I employ Muthiah Alagappa's framework for security culture analysis in an attempt to understand Malaysian security culture from the perspective of that culture's central decision makers themselves. (Alagappa, M ed., (1998) Asian Security Practice: Material and Ideational Influences. Stanford: Stanford University Press.)

Realistic yet humanitarian? The comprehensive plan of action and refugee policy in Southeast Asia

Davies, S. E. — 2008-04-29

The 1989 Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA) has recently been described as a successful example of how to manage large protracted refugee flows. However, this article revisits the circumstances surrounding the CPA used to resolve the prolonged Indo-Chinese refugee crisis to highlight that part of its development was linked to the fact that Southeast Asian states refused to engage with proposed solutions, which did not include repatriation for the majority of the Indo-Chinese asylum seekers who were deemed to be ‘non-genuine’¹ (UNGA, 1989a) refugees. This resulted in the CPA often forcibly repatriating ‘non-genuine’ refugees, particularly near the end of its program. This article reviews the CPA in order to assess whether its practices and results should be repeated.

North Korea's foreign economic relations

Haggard, S., Noland, M. — 2008-04-29

Many debates about engagement with North Korea hinge on the precise nature of North Korea's foreign economic relations: whether trade and investment are on commercial or non-commercial terms; the extent of illicit activities, and the changing geographic patterns of North Korea's trade. This article provides an effort to reconstruct North Korea's foreign economic relations, subordinating our estimates to the discipline of the balance of payments accounting framework. Among the most salient findings for the debate about engagement and sanctions is that North Korea's trade and investment have continued to increase despite the onset of the nuclear crisis and a decline in illicit activities. This growth has occurred in part because of the growing weight of China and South Korea in trade, aid, and investment. We also find that economic relations between North and South Korea have a substantially greater non-commercial component than those occurring across the China–North Korea border.

Japanese and American Perspectives on East Asian Regionalism

Noble, G. W. — 2008-04-29

Regular convening of East Asian summits and rising concerns about the American dollar have heightened interest in Asian cooperation. Japan will necessarily play a central role in regional endeavors, and the United States must at least acquiesce if regional coordination is to progress. Among American accounts, the most theoretically elaborate and systematically comparative analysis is A World of Regions, while Remapping East Asia provides the most authoritative overview of recent developments. Japanese-language studies of East Asian regionalism agree that regional cooperation is far less institutionalized and rule-based in East Asia than in Europe, but they include a wider range of opinion about the desirability and feasibility of cooperation. Skeptics on the right warn that efforts to create a regional community would weaken the United States–Japan alliance, undermine universal values, and cede regional leadership to China. Optimists on the left counter that regional cooperation holds out the only hope for ameliorating nationalist conflicts. Most numerous are centrists arguing for active cooperation on economics and the environment, but only cautious moves on politics and security. Despite their caution, Japanese authors convey a sense that changes to the American-led global and regional order are occurring and likely will continue.

Japanese Strategic Thought toward Asia

Kimura, H. — 2008-04-29

Japan Rising: the resurgence of Japanese power and purpose

Kawasaki, T. — 2008-04-29

How North Korea threatens China's interests: understanding Chinese 'duplicity' on the North Korean nuclear issue

Moore, G. J. — 2007-12-17

Monetary and financial cooperation in Asia: taking stock of recent ongoings

Rajan, R. S. — 2007-12-17

Ever since the currency crisis of 1997–98, there has been a great deal of interest in enhancing regional economic cooperation in Asia. It is important to keep in mind that economic regionalism is of multidimensional nature. The focus of this paper is on policy initiatives underway in Asia to enhance monetary and financial regionalism and the analytical bases for these initiatives, rather than on examining the de facto level of financial and monetary links that already exists (which may or may not have been facilitated via regional policy mechanisms). There are many gradations of monetary and financial regionalism, ranging from the weak form involving regional policy dialog and surveillance, on the one hand, to exchange rate and monetary coordination, on the other. To maintain focus, this paper concentrates more narrowly on ‘medium forms’ of monetary and financial regionalism, broadly defined as the development of regional liquidity arrangements and regional financial markets.

Indonesia's foreign policy after Soeharto: international pressure, democratization, and policy change

He, K. — 2007-12-17

Indonesian politics opened a new phase of democratization after Soeharto stepped down from his 32 years of authoritarian rule. In this paper, Indonesia's foreign policy changes after Soeharto are systematically examined through an ‘international pressure–political legitimacy’ model derived from neoclassical realism. This model specifies that Indonesia's foreign policy during democratization is mainly influenced by two factors: international pressure and the political legitimacy of the new democratic government. Four cases of foreign policy decision-making from three post-Soeharto presidencies are examined: (i) Indonesia's East Timor policy under Habibie; (ii) Indonesia's ‘silence response’ toward China's protest on the anti-Chinese riots under Habibie; (iii) Wahid's ‘looking towards Asia’ proposal; and (iv) Megawati's anti-terrorism and Aceh military operation. The results show that political legitimacy shapes the nature of state behavior, i.e. balancing or compromising, whereas international pressure determines the pattern of state behavior, i.e. external/internal balancing or compromising in words/in deeds.

Contesting soft power: Japanese popular culture in East and Southeast Asia

Otmazgin, N. K. — 2007-12-17

During the last two decades, Japanese popular culture industries have massively penetrated East Asia's markets and their products have been widely disseminated and consumed. In this region, Japan has recently emerged as a cultural power, in addition to representing an industrial forerunner and model. The aim of this article is to explore the connection between popular culture and soft power by analyzing the activities of the Japanese popular culture industries in East Asia, and by examining the images their products disseminates. This study is based on export data, market surveys, and interviews with media industry personnel and consumers in five cities in East Asia, arguing that the impact of the Japanese popular culture lies in shaping this region's cultural markets and in disseminating new images of Japan, but not in exerting local influence or in creating Japanese-dominated ‘spheres of influence’.

Australia's treaty activity in the Asia-Pacific: a sub-regional trends analysis

Rose, G. L. — 2007-12-17

This paper investigates Australian treaty making with neighboring countries in the Asia-Pacific. Patterns of Australian treaty making with South East Asian countries are markedly different to those with South West Pacific countries and the difference is continuing to deepen. Treaties with the former are primarily bilateral and commercially oriented, whereas those with the latter are plurilateral and oriented to natural resources management and development. There is a major gap in Australian subregional treaty activity for natural resources management in South East Asian countries. A coalescence of issues in the law enforcement and security categories is occurring and the new direction in Australian regional treaty making for both subregions is to strengthen capacity to enforce the rule of law in national legal systems. Commercial treaty making remains and is likely to continue to be the strongest area of treaty activity.

Beyond Japan: The Dynamics of East Asian Regionalism

Tsunekawa, K. — 2007-12-17

Re-Orienting the Fundamentals: Human Rights and New Connections in EU-Asia Relations

Abe, A. — 2007-12-17

Preface: Why is there no non-Western IR theory: reflections on and from Asia

Acharya, A., Buzan, B. — 2007-09-12

Why is there no non-Western international relations theory? An introduction

Acharya, A., Buzan, B. — 2007-09-12

In Section 1, we outline the conceptual framework, rationale, and objectives of the Special Issue. Next, we clarify what we mean by ‘international relation theory (IRT)’, which would serve as the basis for organizing the case studies. We then examine several possible explanations of the absence of non-Western IRT, such as the belief that Western IRT has discovered the right path to understanding international relations so as to preclude the need for other voices, the hegemonic status of Western IRT that discourages theoretical formulations by others, the ‘hidden’ nature of IRT in Asia, lack of resources and local conditions that discriminate against the production of IR theory, and the time lag between the West and Asia in developing theoretical writings. This is followed by our suggestions about the possible Asian Sources for IRT, including the writings of classical political, military, and religious figures, thinking, and foreign policy approach of leaders, the work of Asian scholars who have applied Western IRT to local contexts, and finally, generalizations of Asian experiences to develop concepts which can be used more widely.

Why is there no Chinese international relations theory?

QIN — 2007-09-12

There is not yet a Chinese international relations theory (IRT) mainly due to three factors: the unconsciousness of ‘international-ness’ in the traditional Chinese worldview, the dominance of the Western IR discourse in the Chinese academic community, and the absence of a consistent theoretical core in the Chinese IR research. A Chinese IRT is likely and even inevitable to emerge along with the great economic and social transformation that China has been experiencing and by exploring the essence of the Chinese intellectual tradition. The Tianxia worldview and the Tributary System in the two millennia of China's history, the radical thinking and revolutions in the nineteenth and twentieth century, and reform and opening-up since 1978 are the three milestones of China's ideational and practical development and therefore could provide rich nutrition for a Chinese IRT. In addition, a Chinese IRT is likely to develop around the core problematic of China's identity vis-à-vis international society, a century-long puzzle for the Chinese and the world alike.

Re-imagining IR in India

Behera, N. C. — 2007-09-12

The poor conceptualization of Indian IR can be explained by local factors such as its disciplinary location and pedagogical issues but its mainly because Western IRT has acquired a Gramscian hegemony over the epistemological foundations of the disciplinary core of Indian IRT – termed as ‘traditional IR’ in this article. It discusses the ‘disciplinary gate-keeping practices’ of Western IRT and the intellectual dependency of Indian IRT, which does not acknowledge India's own history and philosophical traditions (e.g. Kautilya) as a source of IRT. Scholarly endeavors inspired by feminism, critical theory, development studies, and postcolonialism – termed as ‘new IR’ – are yet to be owned by Indian IR. This article argues for creating alternative sites of knowledge construction and explains how Indian ‘ways of knowing’, for example, a ‘non-dualistic mode of thinking’ in contrast to the modern ‘self-other binary mode’ of understanding realities can address the problematiques of contemporary IR.

There is no Indian school of IR and any assessment of Indian scholars' contribution to IR theory depends upon what counts as ‘IR theory’. The article starts with a critical overview of the state of the art of the IR discipline in India by analyzing disciplinary, pedagogical and discursive reasons to explain its poor conceptualization. This assessment is, however, predicated upon a very narrow disciplinary vision of IR, which for analytical purposes, is termed as traditional IR. The next section analyzes scholarly endeavors emanating from development studies, postcolonialism and feminism that lie outside the disciplinary core of (Indian) IR to reflect on issues being debated within the postpositivist domain of the ‘mainstream’ IR. To the extent these debates are yet to be owned by Indian IR and these intellectuals acknowledged as part of its scholarly community, it might be termed as new IR. Finally, the article argues for creating alternative sites of knowledge creation in IR by devising different set of tools and exploring a new repertoire of resources that have, thus far, been de-legitimized or rendered irrelevant for knowledge production in IR.

Re-imagining IR in India is not about creating an Indian school of IR but redefining IR itself. This problematizes the basic formulation and idiom of our query: why there is no non-western IR theory in India by highlighting its implicit binary character, which is not merely descriptive but hierarchical: the ‘dominant’ west and the ‘dominated’ non-west. From this standpoint, even if scholars were to succeed in creating an Indian school of IR, it would at best, earn a small, compartmentalized space within the master narrative of IR (read the western IR¹). The challenge, therefore, is not to discover or produce non-western IR theory in India but for the Indian IR community to work towards fashioning a post-western IR.

Are there any theories of international relations in Japan?

Inoguchi, Takashi. — 2007-09-12

This article argues that there are theories of international relations (IR) in Japan and that these theories are mostly of middle range type. I first give a brief survey of IR studies in Japan and its disciplinary backgrounds. On that basis, then I focus on the three outstanding cases of fledgling theories of IR as developed in the 1920s and 1930s, namely Nishida as an innate constructivist, Tabata as an international law theorist presupposing the natural freedom of individuals, and Hirano as an economist placing regional integration higher than state sovereignty, to develop the argument that there are indeed theories of IR in a fledgling form already before World War II.

Southeast Asia: theory between modernization and tradition

Chong, A. — 2007-09-12

This article inquires into the absence of non-western theorizing upon Southeast Asian international relations by positing that modernization and its conceptual kin ‘realism’ have proclaimed themselves as the mainstream in both theoretical and empirical research. This is as much a product of postcolonial western scholarship as it is of indigenous scholarship in reproducing the former's frameworks. The effect of this Gramscian hegemony is to marginalize possibilities for non-western international theory. There are nonetheless flickers of hope for a generic ‘Southeast Asian contribution’ to theorizing International Relations, inclusive of non-mainstream western scholarship, if one considers the categories of transitional and hybrid scholarship, in addition to historically informed possibilities of a traditional Southeast Asian statehood.

Conclusion: On the possibility of a non-Western IR theory in Asia

Acharya, A., Buzan, B. — 2007-09-12

In the conclusion, we seek to ascertain the possibility of a non-Western International Relations theory (IRT) in Asia. We find while there is a good deal of writing that can be regarded as ‘pre-theoretical’, these have not been fully exploited or exported to other parts of Asia and beyond. There is certainly little that can be called an Asian IRT. This is not because scholars in the region accept that Western IRT is unchallengeable nor that it has found all the answers to the major problems of international relations. Nor is it because non-Western theories are ‘hidden from the public eye’. It is rather due to a lack of institutional resources, the head-start of Western IRT, and especially the hegemonic standing of Western IRT. At the same time, the case studies point to the existence of abundant intellectual and historical resources that could serve as the basis of developing a non-Western IRT that takes into account the positions, needs and cultures of countries in the region. There is room in Asia for the development of non-Western IRT, but not an ‘Asian School of international relations’ (although national perspectives such as a ‘Chinese School’ are possible) which would assume a degree of convergence of perspectives and interactions among Asian scholars, which clearly does not exist. This development should and could go beyond simply ‘joining in to the existing game seeking to add local colour and cases to existing theory’, or developing a localist exceptionalism (‘Asian values’) or organizing local thinking into rebellions against prevailing orthodoxies (especially realism and liberalism) in the manner of the dependencia theory. Western IRT does not need to be replaced, but can and should be enriched with the addition of more voices and a wider rooting not just in world history but also in informed representations of both core and periphery perspectives within the ever-evolving global political, economic and social order.

In the conclusion, we first offer some generalizations from the four case studies with a view to addressing the main question posed in the introduction: the apparent absence of IRT in Asia and possible explanations behind it. We then reflect on whether the question of a non-Western IRT in Asia is a meaningful one, and whether the way it is approached in this special issue could result in a productive debate that would advance the discipline of IR. Although our empirical focus is on Asia, we suggest some insights that have more general relevance for non-Western IRT.

Environmental cooperation of Northeast Asia: transboundary air pollution

Kim, I. — 2007-09-12

The puzzle of why Northeast Asian countries do not have any environmental cooperation comparable to Europe's successful regulatory regime even though both regions have borne similar conditions of the atmospheric problem has been explored. In order to answer this question, the author shed light on some of the conditions in Northeast Asia that would be necessary for regional cooperation to take place, by examining the factors that shape the environmental foreign policy of sovereign states. The success of Europe's regional cooperation in dealing with acid rain has been investigated, through the lens of interest-based and epistemic community approaches. The interest-based approach provides two factors – ecological vulnerability and economic cost – to show why some countries have taken more active positions than others. In addition, the author argues that one more factor is necessary, the existence of an epistemic community, out of the knowledge-based community perspective, because even self-interested states have difficulties in defining their interests due to high uncertainty and complexity about developing goals and preferences. After applying the two perspectives to the cooperation of Northeast Asian countries, it is found that lack of domestic and regional consensus on ecological vulnerability to transboundary acid deposition and the high economic costs of reducing emission have contributed to slow development of the cooperation of Northeast Asia. In addition, the lack of solid expert communities in Japan, as a leading country, could hinder Northeast Asian countries from speeding up the transition toward regulatory regime formation from the current information sharing cooperation.

Between Two Empires: Race, History, and Transnationalism in Japanese America * Eiichiro Azuma * New York: Oxford University Press, 2005, 320 pp * ISBN: 0-195-15940-3 (Hardcover) * ISBN: 0-195-15941-1 (Paperback)

Koshiro, Y. — 2007-09-12

Northeast Asia's Stunted Regionalism: Bilateral Distrust in the Shadow of Globalization * Gilbert Rozman * New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004 * ISBN-10: 0-521-543-606 (Paperback), $29.99 * ISBN-10: 0-521-835-658 (Hardcover), $85.00

Wan, M. — 2007-09-12

Middle Power Statecraft: Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Asia-Pacific * J.H. Ping, * Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005, 270pp. * ISBN-10: 0-754-644-677, (Hardcover) $99.95

Sudo, S. — 2007-09-12