Hedging: the Real US Policy Toward China?

Hedging: the Real US Policy Toward China?

The Diplomat, 13 May, 2013

Over the past several years, it has been common practice for Chinese academics and pundits to describe the U.S. “pivot” or “rebalancing” to Asia as part of a greater strategy of containment. Popular Chinese news media like Xinhua, the People’s Daily and the Global Times regularly run articles assuming that the U.S. is enacting a containment strategy as it once did against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. In the contemporary debate among various Chinese scholars and in the media, the pivot is seen as  a strategy based on American financial monopoly, or at least one based on the military industrial complex’s need for an opponent. Occasionally some in the U.S. like Bonnie Glaser and Joseph Nye warn the U.S. against a policy of containment, apparently giving credibility to such charges.

On the other hand, U.S. policymakers reject the notion of containment. There simply has not been the type of policy realization as famously took place when George Kennan sent his ‘Long Telegram’ to Washington in 1946. Indeed, many in Washington insist that the relationship with China is one of engagement and is highly successful in a number of spheres, including trade, counter-proliferation, and global governance. Voting patterns in fora like the UN Security Council show closer U.S.-Chinese positioning than would be expected.

So the question remains: how should we understand the disconnect between the two perspectives? These two opposing viewpoints can be explained if one assumes that the U.S. has been enacting a much more nuanced policy than simple containment. Instead, the U.S. is enacting a policy of hedging towards China. In fact, many states in the region (such as Japan, Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines) have policies towards China that could be characterized as hedging.

Appropriated from the financial world, the basic assumption is that hedging means a state spreads its risk by pursuing two opposite policies towards another state. In international relations, this would seem to be implementing contradictory policy directions simultaneously: balancing and engagement. A state prepares for the worst by balancing – maintaining a strong military, building and strengthening alliances – while also preparing for the best and engaging – building trade networks, increasing diplomatic links, and creating binding multilateral frameworks. U.S. behavior towards China easily fits into both of these extremes.

Why have U.S. policymakers and a number of their Asian peers decided to pursue such a policy towards Beijing? In essence, the decision to hedge comes from uncertainty. It is difficult to develop policy without strong knowledge of what the other state intends. While this uncertainty exists at some level between all states, diplomatic custom, international government organizations, and multilateral rule systems (like the WTO) minimize this uncertainty by imparting predictability to state-to-state relations. This predictability is enhanced by diplomacy, transparency, and on occasion, espionage. So what is different concerning China that has provoked the US (and others) to hedge?

First, China is a rising power. Beijing’s unfinished rise means that no one yet knows – including China itself – its true potential and willingness to project power. This uncertainty could be described as structural: it has to do with power and the perception of how much power and influence Beijing will eventually have. Second, no one knows how China will use its growing clout. Indeed, over the duration of the South and East China Sea crises, regional players have been trying to gauge Chinese willingness to use force to pursue its claims. No one knows how far Beijing is willing to go. Thirdly, China’s regime type makes it a particularly difficult state to read; its foreign policy-making system is comparatively opaque. Contrast this with the United States, where foreign diplomats can access U.S. policy intentions by spending time in Congress, visiting think tanks,  reading  free media, and so on.

Clearly the utilization of a hedging strategy demonstrates that U.S. policymakers are undecided on whether China constitutes a threat. Hedging is about threat potential, in other words. So how can we recognize hedging in the policy world? Hedging is based intentions, rather than just two-directional policy-making. For example, in May 1941, although Germany’s relationship with the USSR looked like hedging, it was not. While Germany was enacting two opposing policies of balancing and engagement with the Soviet Union, it had in fact already decided on war byNovember 1940. This illustrates a crucial difference between U.S.-China relations and German-Soviet relations: U.S. policymakers are genuinely uncertain which line to pursue. This uncertainty should be good news to China.

In a situation when a state is hedging against another state, what is the optimum policy reaction for the latter? One advantage of the hedging discourse over a containment discourse is that Chinese leaders need not take the defensive. They can attempt to persuade the U.S. and regional powers of China’s benign intentions through a re-engagement of China’s 1990s soft diplomacy. Beijing could begin by shelving or de-prioritizing a number of territorial issues. The Chinese leadership might opt for trust-building through new institutions and customs while resurrecting neglected ones, such as the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement. If Chinese leaders were to accede to a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, or utilize conflict resolution mechanisms such as the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), it might go a long way to dampen the hedging policies of regional states. If the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were to continue its tradition of issuing White Papers with ever-increasing transparency, it would also go a long way to calming regional fears. In order to mitigate a hedging strategy, one must only address the causes of uncertainty in the relationship. Some of those are structural and difficult to address, but others are well within the reach of policymakers in Beijing.

By that logic, the reverse it equally true. If a state continues to carry out policies which do not reassure regional states and partners, when does hedging become pure balancing? Or to use a historical analogy, when does the US have its George Kennan moment with China? It should be clear to policy-makers in Beijing, that this choice exists and that their actions can change and modify perceptions of China around the region. However, this means adopting wiser strategic policies immune to domestic and bureaucratic pressures. Is Beijing ready or willing to adopt those policies? One would hope so.

Shinzo Abe: Foreign Policy 2.0

Shinzo Abe: Foreign Policy 2.0 

Harvard Asia Quarterly, 15 April, 2013 Co-Authored with Maiko Kuroki, Doctoral Candidate, LSE

(This is an abridged version of the HAQ piece)

To outside observers of Japanese politics, Shinzo Abe’s return to power in Japan was unexpected and slightly unlikely. The unanticipated and sudden end of his first premiership seemed to be a final closure on the grand ambitions of a leader molded in the style of Prime Minister Yoshida. For despite his conservative nature, foreign policy of the first Abe cabinet was noted for its groundbreaking approach to Japan’s security and foreign policy. Noting that his flamboyant predecessor Junichiro Koizumi had begun to move Japan out of its careful and pacifist foreign policy positioning – at the request of the US in the post-9/11 period – Abe dreamt of turning Japan into a ‘normal power’, one with allies, interests, and hard and soft power. This meant developing a more balanced and equal relationship with Washington, while also developing strong ties abroad with other Asia-Pacific powers like India and Australia. It also meant developing a strong relationship with China, while simultaneously hedging against the growth of Chinese power in the region. Such a nuanced and complex policy towards Beijing would require squaring within the right-wing factions of Abe’s party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), but this could be ameliorated by Abe’s revisionist approach to Japan’s constitution as well as his hard-line policy vis a vis North Korea. Whatever the case, Shinzo Abe is likely to try and leave his mark on Japan’s place in the world and his second premiership is similarly likely to herald a stronger more dynamic policy vis a vis China, as well as a refocusing of Japanese foreign policy to other regional security partners besides the US. In the forty years since Tokyo and Beijing restored diplomatic relations, the bilateral relationship has seen its ups and downs. Leadership visits between Tokyo and Beijing have been characterized as ‘thawing’ at times, but unfortunately, these patches of political warmth have been interspersed with a series of mini-crises, freezing winters which seem to throw relations into hibernation. Thus far, this off-and-on-again cycle has not prevented the two countries from strengthening economic ties. At the same time, China’s economic rise has encouraged an enlarged naval force and a more assertive foreign policy on its periphery. Shinzo Abe has assumed the premiership in Japan on the back of a renewal of tensions between the two powers, centered on the maritime territorial conflict of the Senkaku Islands.

Current Sino-Japanese Ties

Much has changed in the economic and military balance between China and Japan since 2007. Trade has continued to grow in importance, while political tensions have worsened. The development of the Senkaku / Diaoyu island dispute as the predominant issue of contention between the two is far removed from previous issues, a shift from the previous cycle of on-and-off ties. Unlike past sources of tension, like Koizumi’s Yasukuni Shrine visits[1] or historical textbooks, the objects of dissent are a real group of islands, visible, accessible, and perfectly situated between the two nations. Furthermore, both capitals have backed themselves into diplomatic corners, with little room for negotiation without losing face domestically. The porous and ungoverned nature of the maritime space[2] increases the number of civilian actors who can interact around the islands, turning them into a political amphitheater with nationalist audiences on both sides of the East China Sea. These crucial differences, combined with a number of intertwined factors – undersea gas fields, current People’s Liberation Army (PLA) naval doctrine and bureaucratic overlapping – mean that this maritime territorial dispute is easy to inflame, difficult to extinguish. The resulting increase in nationalism among the general public – and the attendant demonstrations in Beijing and to a lesser extent Tokyo – have the power to seriously derail the bilateral relationship, a relationship carefully rebuilt since 1972. Furthermore, continued media attention and naval intrusions from September 2012 indicate that the crisis is merely dormant, rather than resolved. How Abe deals with the issues vis a vis the Japanese public, his own party, and with China over this issue are likely to shape shape Sino-Japanese ties for some time into the future.

Abe 2.0

It is difficult to predict which way Abe’s policy vis a vis China will go in the next 12 months. There is a very great possibility that the Senkaku / Diaoyu issue will flare up again and lead relations to further deteriorate. Indeed, a number of Western media outlets have recently reported concerns that an escalation in incidents could lead to an outbreak of war between Japan and China. While it is true that Abe has often made ‘hawkish,’ ‘nationalistic,’ and ‘anti-China’ statements, it is clear from his first premiership that he is also extremely pragmatic in his foreign policy principles. The political dynamic in Tokyo is fairly similar to that during the previous Abe cabinet, which might lead one to believe that Abe will attempt to repeat his pragmatic approach to China this time as well.

Election Pressures

Less than six months after assuming office, Abe must face his first electoral challenge in the form of an Upper House election, due to take place in late July 2013. In many ways this situation mirrors that of his first administration in 2006, in which Abe was constrained by the need to achieve a two-thirds majority in the Upper House as part of his constitutional revision policy. Stabilizing the Sino-Japanese relationship at that time became an important way to gain political support in the Diet, beyond the small coterie of Anti-China Diet members. This time, Abe is faced with serious economic problems, has already sought a wide-ranging set of economic reforms, now known as ‘Abenomics’. While, critics contend that these resemble the traditional LDP cash injections into the economy, Abe changed leadership at the Bank of Japan and has devalued the Yen, boosting exports. In many ways, Abe’s concentration on economics over foreign policy is just good politicking. According to a poll by the Asahi Shimbun, 48% of respondents answered that they expected Abe to focus on ‘economic-boosting policies’ and ‘employment measures’, while only 11% of respondents wanted the administration to step up its ‘diplomacy and security’ policies. In other words, economic recovery is more important than security concerns for Japanese voters. Moreover, Abe himself analyzed a factor in being reelected might be his past track record with having made improvements in the relationship with China. Therefore, it is likely that Abe seek to win the Upper house election through strong economic performance, avoiding confrontational policies with China. On the whole, he drew a curtain over his ‘hawkish’ and ‘anti-China’ political inclination and devoted to his entire attention to ‘safe driving’ to maintain stable government. At the post-election news conference on December 26^th, he spoke about restoring the economy, and at his inaugural policy speech at the opening of the Diet on January 28^th 2013, Abe indicated that Japan’s economic recovery is his first priority. In both speeches, he avoided discussing China or historical issues and clearly prioritized economic measures over diplomatic issues. Indeed, Shinzo Abe told the interviewer of the Washington Post that his duties and mission that he must fulfill is ‘to regain a strong and robust economy, and also to restore Japan’s strong foreign policy capability’. Thus, economic recovery is much emphasized than the China issue. Moreover, in an interview with Asahi Shimbun, one of Abe’s aides indicated that the administration exclusively focuses on economic recovery until the coming Upper House election and Abe will be in power for a longer period by avoiding a ‘twisted Diet’, and thus avoid the humiliating setback experienced in his first premiership when he lost the Upper House to the opposition Democratic Party of Japan. Given these calculations, Abe’s policy of avoiding tensions derives not only from his desire to strengthen economic relations, but also stems from internal Japanese political dynamics. As a result, it can be argued that Abe want to avoid the further escalation of diplomatic crisis with China before wining the election and taking a to firm grip on power.

To continue reading, please go to the Harvard Asia Quarterly link.

 

North Korea’s 3rd Nuclear Test

A Cold War Response to North Korea’s Latest Challenge

CNN, 13 Feb, 2013

As the dust settles from a third – more effective and miniaturized – North Korean nuclear test, the question rings out: what do they want? What are the intentions of Kim Jung-un, the newest, and youngest version of the Dear Leader?

The timing is of course, everything. Setting the test for the day of President Obama’s State of the Union is not random luck. It puts pressure exactly where pressure is wanted: in Washington. As the Obama Whitehouse doubtless received the news in the early hours of the morning, they will have been scrambling to find out what ‘we do we know?’ They will also have been fending off calls from the Post, the New York Times, countless news agencies, along with more than a few concerned Senators and Congressmen. The message from the latter will no doubt have sounded something like the following, ‘what are you doing about this?’ The call will be to act, but how, what, and where? Doubtless the Obama team will be as stumped as the rest of the agitated diplomats rushing around the United Nations Security Council.

Of course, the Chinese diplomats in the UNSC will be concerned, but unlike their Japanese, South Korean, and American colleagues, they’ll probably remain seated. They’ll have firm orders from Beijing to keeping emotions from boiling over. They may even water the sanctions down. As if they needed to. Any sanctions imposed, would doubtless lose meaning, as the mornings trains began their daily shipment of goods and fuel across the DPRK/PRC border. Xi Jingping, China’s new leader, may want a ‘new relationship’ with the United States, but that doesn’t mean that Washington’s strategic concerns are China’s.

And if we didn’t already know what Pyongyang wants, the Obama team will no doubt call on DPRK-watchers from the CIA, the State Department, and the DOD, all of whom will say what they’ve been saying for years. North Korea wants (in order of importance): (1) regime survival (2) acceptance as a nuclear power by the US (3) a peace treaty between the US and North, (4) trade and economic growth on their terms, and hey, if we can (5) Korean unification under Pyongyang’s benign rule. Of course, Obama’s team will have been told about the ‘provocation cycle’, that unfortunate fact that the US and its allies will sit down to the table with North Korea within six months of any provocation. Why will they do it? Because of the heat generated within Washington, the demands to ‘do something’, and to allay regional fears that Uncle Sam’s security guarantees are fraying.

So what can the Obama team do, if sanctions are ineffective and if a military response is out of question? Well, they can learn the art of pressure from their opponents in this. But, of course, the question is what makes Pyongyang squirm? It clearly isn’t sanctions on luxury goods, as these have failed to deter endless missile tests. The answer to that riddle lies in the recent histories of the Cold War, in which we learnt the impact of free information on Soviet citizens behind the Iron Curtain.  Information is the greatest weapon at the disposal of the Obama team and they should apply it liberally. The North Korean people are their greatest ally, and should be messaged accordingly. According to a 2011 Intermedia report on North Korean susceptibility to outside media, radio and DVDs are the most common way for normal North Koreans to hear media from the outside world.  The Obama team should not look to its diplomats in New York for salvation, but rather to Langley, and to USFK’s best and brightest.

Each time Pyongyang ratchets up the pressure, Washington should reply in kind by smuggling in 150,000 DVDs about the free world outside North Korea’s humble borders. Radio stations should work overtime to bring impartial news about the world to the hapless citizens, who still live in the Cold War, while the rest of us move on. Let’s not let the pressure be one-way. American newspapers and senators may tremble about a North Korean nuclear-tipped bomb, but certainly young Kim must tremble too at the prospect of his citizens awash in the streets, their eyes open to the nature of their lot.

Options for China and Japan in the East China Sea

Options for China and Japan in the East China Sea

RUSI Newsbrief, 17 Jan 2013

The recent resurfacing of tensions between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea now seems to have died down. Yet given its perfect (or perhaps imperfect) combination of drivers – nationalism, resources and strategy – the dispute continues to present leaders in both countries with a real dilemma, and is unlikely to be resolved any time soon.

Economically interdependent, the destinies of the two states – as well as future regional economic growth – are bound inexorably together. And at the same time, the dispute seems only to worsen each time it resurfaces, with ever-deeper political repercussions. Given the fact that the two countries also have the region’s most powerful militaries after the United States, this is a worrying trend. Perhaps even more alarmingly, leadership changes in both states seem to favour a hardening of positions with regard to each other. The danger that this will have economic repercussions is therefore very real, raising the prospect of a potential economic decoupling.

Given these trends, what can be done to ameliorate the situation? There are three possible strategies for resolving the dispute. The first is to utilise the relevant international dispute-resolution mechanisms – such as the International Court of Justice or the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea – to settle the issue of sovereignty in relation to the islands. The second is a strategy involving the shelving of the territorial issue to allow for the joint development of undersea gas fields in the contested areas, a factor said to underlie the entire dispute. The third involves reasserting total political control over the issue in order to maintain the status quo.

International Stabilization and Reconstruction and Global Korea

International Stabilization and Reconstruction and Global Korea

Asia Unbound, November 15th 2012

South Korea’s stabilization efforts in Afghanistan have not gained a lot of prominence in the Western media, but they are arguably one of the great successes of recent ROK overseas policy and deserve international recognition. The decision, made this September, to extend South Korean involvement in the Afghan theatre for one more year, demonstrates Seoul’s determination to continue its contribution to the stabilization efforts of International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) and NATO troops and to solidify its Global Korea posture.

However, it is not yet clear if the next administration in Seoul—to be elected this December—will seek to maintain South Korea’s stabilization and reconstruction (S&R) activities as described in CFR’s new ebook Global Korea. It is not beyond South Korea’s capacity to develop the skill sets required for these missions, since they have already – to some extent – begun the process of acquiring and honing them for the last two years building and maintaining a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Parwan Province, Afghanistan. However, carrying out S&R work under securitized conditions is a historically unusual activity for South Korea, and much will depend on how South Koreans view the net gain of such operations.

Keeping military personnel in, what are commonly described as, ‘traditional’ roles is a basic assumption of any global military. These traditional roles include war-fighting, defense of state sovereignty, internal security, and, over the last century, disaster relief. Two areas added to this list of functions in the past fifty years have been peacekeeping and stabilization and reconstruction. While disaster relief, peacekeeping, and S&R share commonalities (a high level of civil-military engagement), they have pose different levels of security threats. Of the three, S&R activities are commonly agreed to as having the highest risk factor for deployed personnel since, by its function, development work takes place while a conflict is still on going.

South Korea has three reasons for wanting to carry out stabilization activities. In no particular order, they are: a function of their alliance commitments to the United States; a realization of ROK sense of obligation to ”international society”; and a potential tool necessary in any collapsed regime scenario involving North Korea. (Michael J. Finnegan highlights the potential benefits of South Korea’s S&R activities to the U.S.-ROK alliance in the event of North Korean instability in U.S.-ROK Alliance: Meeting New Security Challenges). According to interviews with South Korean diplomats, development workers, and military personnel conducted this past year, all three factors played a part in the decision to deploy the PRT in Parwan, and were a result of fortuitous timing with South Korean internal politics and internal U.S. alliance dynamics. Whether South Korea wants to retain this capability is essentially a political decision and difficult to predict.

However, should a new South Korean president decide to keep S&R, what do ROK government agencies have to do to maintain this capability? As the involved agencies of the United States and the United Kingdom have learned, S&R is difficult to maintain, requiring intense training and adaption of force postures to the unique practicalities required. Here are some basic recommendations:

• South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) should set stabilization as a core mission alongside war fighting and peacekeeping
• South Korea should send bi-ministerial research teams (consisting of Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and MND personnel) to the United States, the United Kingdom, and NATO Centres of Excellence to look at how those entities maintain this function
• The Ministry of National Defense and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT) should establish a joint department training facility, staffed jointly by MND, MOFAT, and Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) personnel. As well as running courses for pre-deployed personnel, the facility could also host visiting scholars and practitioners from the international community which deals with stabilization activities
• MND and MOFAT should also create S&R units within their ministries, whereby they may contain these functions. Alternatively, the MND could add these functions to the Evergreen PKO unit
• South Korea should establish a taskforce to establish how best to deal with the operational and planning difficulties presented by stabilization at the bureaucratic level. For example, there is the ‘joint unit’ system as in the United Kingdom’s Stabilization Unit, or the ‘coordination function’ system such as the American Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations
• The Korean Institute for Defense Analyses and the Korean National Defense University should be allocated research grants for building programs that carry out S&R research and contain S&R fellows

Why China Needs to Change its Japan Policy

Why China Needs to Change its Japan Policy

The Diplomat, 12th November, 2012

The Chinese Communist Party’s 18^thNational Congress is one of the most important political events of the year, beginning a turnover in Party (and ultimately state) leadership. In addition to the leadership transition, the National Congress will define the party line in all major policy sectors, including foreign and defense policy. It is an excellent opportunity for Chinese leaders to turn the current disastrous Japan policy around before it’s too late.

The recent tensions between China and Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea continue to simmer after the Japanese government purchased the islands from a private owner in mid-September. Following the purchase, nationalists from both Japan and Taiwan made publicity landings on the islands, revealing the extent that nationalism on both sides has hijacked the issue from political leadership. While order has been restored, extreme views of the dispute are beginning to prevail in the media of both China and Japan. It is no longer a question whether a new crisis will take place over the islands, but when.

While Beijing and Tokyo are said to be renewing talks over the disputed territory, the islands will continue to bedevil relations unless both China and Japan reset their policies with regard to each other. While Japan has an unfortunate sense of timing (purchase of the islands coincided with the anniversary of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident), China has also encouraged anti-Japanese sentiment in its school texts and (war) history museums. The gravest sin of Chinese policy toward Japan however seems to be a growing perception in Beijing that ‘Japan doesn’t matter’ and that China can get on without Japan. This erroneous perception weakens the Chinese leadership in the region and at home.

The most important bilateral relationship in the Asia Pacific is thought to be that between the U.S. and China. While that is true, a second bilateral of great importance to the Asia-Pacific – the Japan-China relationship — gets far less attention than it deserves. This bilateral has long been a bellwether for any Asian order, and is important for both medium- and long-term reasons. Medium-term trends show Chinese growth slowing, with double-digit growth slowing to around 7-7.5 percent. There are signs that the next Congress will push for reforms of the state-owned enterprises sector, encouraging instead a larger private sector, and overhaul local government finances. This will require regulatory framework, which returns ebbing confidence of foreign investors on a host of areas such intellectual property and impartial legal process in law. To carry out these reforms, China will need massive flows of foreign direct investment, particularly to its’ banking and manufacturing sectors.

For this, China needs Japan and Japanese investment badly.  More than 20,000 Japanese companies ranging from apparel, electronics, and the auto industry have operations in China, with an annual turnover of $345 billion. Now, that could be at risk. According to a Reuters poll taken in Tokyo in September, more than 37 percent of Japanese companies have expressed caution about future operations on the mainland, and suggested redirecting investment to Southeast or South Asia. This would not be good. The global economy needs Chinese reforms, just as the Chinese economy needs Japanese investment.

And this financial debate is overlaid by the long-term great power cultural and military rivalry between the two powers. While both countries remain wedded to the modern liberal rules-based order, memories are short, and the possibilities for miscalculation ever-present. For all the talk of China’s defense modernization,  Japan’s defense budget is the world’s sixth largest and it has one of the region’s largest navies.

But Beijing needs Japan much more than it realizes. Declining or not, Japan is still big. It has the world’s third largest economy, and is the second largest holder of US treasury bonds. It has a large impact on global commodities and energy: it is the largest importer of liquid natural gas (LNG) and third largest importer of crude oil. Despite its financial troubles, it still carries considerable weight in financial global institutions like the IMF, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization.Then there are Japanese activities in the Chinese market itself: in 2011, Tokyo invested $6.3 billion of operations on the mainland (while the U.S. only invested $3 billion that same year). Japan is said to have provided more than $45 billion in development loans to China since the 1970s.  China simply cannot afford to use Japan as a foil for its nationalism and domestic security.

Allowing national sentiment to rule foreign policy has hurt Beijing’s own ambitions. By encouraging or allowing nationalism at home, China’s regional policies alienate and isolate it from the very regional powers that it needs to renew its economy and develop its place as a power in the region. One result, as has been seen, is the shift of China’s neighbors from open engagement to cautious hedging. Worryingly still, Chinese policy-makers continue to see negative regional reactions to its growing Chinese assertiveness as part of a grand U.S. containment strategy. At one conference (governed by Chatham House rules), a senior Chinese scholar noted that in the China-Philippines dispute, it was clear that the U.S. was ‘leading from behind’, a grotesque inversion of political realities and a belittling of Philippine autonomy and decision-making.  What is worrying is that China is not only blind to its negative impact on Japan and other regional powers, but it believes the responsibility for that lies elsewhere. As long as this situation continues, then no matter what the delegates at the Party Congress decide in November, the future will look less rosier than it is now.

Global Korea: South Korea’s Contribution to International Security

Global Korea: South Korea’s Contribution to International Security

Council of Foreign Relations, October 2012

The Korean peninsula often comes to mind as a global security flash point. The most recent reminders include North Korea’s April 2012 failed test of a multistage rocket and the November 2010 North Korean shelling of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island. Given the seriousness of the ongoing standoff on the Korean peninsula, South Korea’s emergence as an active contributor to international security addressing challenges far from the Korean peninsula is a striking new development, marking South Korea’s emergence as a producer rather than a consumer of global security resources. This volume outlines South Korea’s progress and accomplishments toward enhancing its role and reputation as a contributor to international security. Contents Overview Scott A. Snyder Korea and PKO: Is Korea Contributing to Global Peace? Balbina Hwang South Korea’s Counterpiracy Operations in the Gulf of Aden Terence Roehrig The ROK Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan John Hemmings Counterproliferation and South Korea: From Local to Global Scott Bruce Publisher Council on Foreign Relations Press

Release Date October 2012 Price$10.00 100 pages ISBN 978-0-87609-542-3