June 30,2016 Special Forum

Regional Security Architecture in the Asia-Pacific: What Role for the EU?

Ever since the financial crisis crept from the United States to Europe in 2008, we have observed change in the international system, in general, and in Asia, in particular, which, in turn, has global repercussions with the re-emergence of China. Change follows change, adding to complexity: while China’s role as the economic power house was the prevailing narrative, the slowing down ..

Michael Reiterer
CBM , CICA , EAS , EU-China Connectivity , Global Strategy , Hegemon , Multipolarity , Revisionist foreign policy , Rule of law
June 24,2016 Open Forum

The Pivot vs. the “Progressives”

For more than a decade the two most divisive issues in East Asia have been the gap over how to deal with: 1) the Sino-US relationship and which side is responsible for damaging it and endangering regional stability; and 2) North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile threats and how best to resolve them. In recent commentaries we find misleading talk of both China’s limited aspiratio..

Gilbert Rozman
Asia for the Asians , China first , G2 , hegemonism , Kurt Campbell , Six-Party Talks , Sunshine Policy
June 22,2016 Open Forum

China and the Evolving World Order: A Stakeholder or a Revolutionary Power?

China’s rapid rise has raised the question if China is a stakeholder or a dissatisfied revolutionary power to advance its alternative visions. This article argues that although China is not a simple rule-taker content to preserve the existing order, it is not yet a revolutionary power discontent with and willing to undermine the existing order. Not only is China far from the position to..

Suisheng Zhao
AIIB , Bretton Woods , Institution-building , OBOR , Reformist , Revisionist , sovereignty , Tianxia
June 22,2016 Alternative Scenarios

Negative Scenario II: The Integration of China’s Northeast and Russia’s Far East in the Silk Road Economic Belt

Russia pursues a top-down, state-led policy formulated in Moscow to promote economic development of the Russian Far East and its economic relations with the Asia-Pacific. Can this policy be considered state-led industrialization with characteristics similar to Japanese, Chinese and South Korean models of state-led industrialization and export-led growth? Given Russia’s asymmetric econo..

Gaye Christoffersen
Access Meeting China-Russia , Asymmetric economic relations , Silk Road fever , State-led industrialization , Valdai Discussion Club
June 16,2016 National Commentaries

A View from the United States: Defending Camelot

President Obama’s final G7 summit meeting occurred against the backdrop of a world in which the core values espoused by the G7—democracy, the free-market economy, and respect for international norms of security and human rights—are increasingly under stress. The very fact that this was a G7 rather than a G8 meeting underscored the recent setbacks in what had been a trend toward cons..

Frank Jannuzi
Brexit , Consensus-building , International norms , Musudan IRBM , TPP , UNCLOS Tribunal , US nuclear deterrence
June 10,2016 Alternative Scenarios

Positive Scenario II

In 2009 in New York, a vast program for cooperation between the regions of the Russian Far East and Eastern Siberia, on one side, and Northeast China, on the other, extending to 2018, was adopted by the leaders of Russia and China (Dmitri Medvedev and Hu Jintao). For the realization of this program, they were to carry out economic integration of these two border regions on a qualitatively new leve..

Ivan Zuenko
Agricultural cooperation , Free port Vladivostok , SREB EEU Convergence , Yellow Peril
June 03,2016 Alternative Scenarios

Negative Scenario I: The Integration of China’s Northeast and Russia’s Far East in the Silk Road Economic Belt

Beijing’s initiative, the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB), is meant to contribute to China’s economic rise by creating markets for surplus production of such goods as steel and cement, putting Chinese companies to work building infrastructure, and integrating China’s economy with its periphery. It also was meant to develop comprehensive relations with countries along the SREB ..

Gaye Christoffersen
Dongbei-RFE integration , EEU , ESPO , Heilongjiang , SREB
June 03,2016 Open Forum

Chinese Interpretations of Japan and Its Role in the Indo-Pacific Region in 2016

In April, Kishida Fumio made the first official visit by a Japanese foreign minister to China in more than four years. Sino–Japanese relations had deteriorated over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute in the early 2010s and have yet to recover. They overcame one hurdle when Xi Jinping agreed to meet Abe Shinzo during Abe’s visit for the November 2014 Beijing Asia-Pacific Economic Coope..

Danielle F. S. Cohen (assisted by Dong Jiaxin)
Article 9 , China threat theory , Expansionist history , India-Japan relations , Japanese Air Self-Defense Force , proactive pacifism , Quadrilateral initiative , South China Sea , UNCLOS
May 30,2016 Country Reports

Country Report: Russia (May 2016)

On April 12, Sergei Lavrov in Rossiiskaya Gazeta made clear Russian thinking about Mongolia, Japan, and China. His words for Mongolia spoke only of closeness: in history, today, and in three-sided cooperation with China, joining together the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB), and the Steppe Road of Mongolia. For Japan, the message was much more guarded: about a ..

Editorial Staff (with the assistance of Olga Puzanova)
Authoritarian capitalism , EEU , Eurasianism , Pluralism , Sino-Russian Relations , SREB , Turn to Asia