Journal of International Studies

Recent news reports underscore the need for progress on transparency if reforms are to really succeed.

AS IF a global financial-market meltdown, the deepest U.S. recession in seventy years, an existential crisis in the euro zone and upheaval in the Middle East hadn’t already created enough trouble for one decade, now the unrest and anxiety have extended to some of the world’s most attractive emerging markets. Just in the past few months, we’ve seen a rough ride for India’s currency, furious nationwide protests in Turkey and Brazil, antigovernment demonstrations in Russia, strikes and violence in South Africa, and an ominous economic slowdown in all these countries. Adding to the uncertainty, as the carnage and confusion in Syria remind us, is the fact that there is no longer a single country or durable alliance of countries both willing and able to exercise consistent global leadership. The Obama administration and congressional Republicans don’t want to alienate a war-weary U.S. public by spending blood in the Middle East or treasure in Europe. Europe’s leaders have their hands ...

A  recent article in  the  New York Times  highlighted China’s rise as a major arms exporter. The mainstream discovery of China’s growing weight in the international arms trade won’t surprise many close observers (or many  Diplomat readers), but it’s nevertheless worthwhile to study the trends in some detail. According to SIPRI , China is the fastest growing arms major arms exporter in the past decade. Also, Chinese arms exports  have moved beyond small arms  and into heavier equipment, such as aircraft and warships. For countries  seeking medium-range arms  with no-strings-attached, Chinese equipment is a good option. But cornering the market on low-end, inexpensive options is difficult. Numerous firms have begun to chase the “practical-minded” defense dollar; countries which have clear defense needs and are less interested in high-profile, high-prestige defense acquisition.  In the aviation sphere, the  Textro...

Some weekend China links: China’s state media has sought to build excitement about the Third Plenum this weekend by comparing it to the historic 1978 Third Plenum where Deng Xiaoping is said to have seized power and set China toward reform – opening up path that has helped power rapid economic growth for 35 years. But over at  Sinosphere , Chris Buckley has a must-read post that rightly paints a more nuanced picture of the idolized Third Plenum in 1978. By consulting experts and using past interviews of Chinese officials, Buckley shows that China had already begun some gradual economic reforms under General Secretary Hua before the meeting. Moreover, at the meeting Deng was more often reacting to events than imposing a grand vision on a skeptical party. In any case, Deng was rather more conservative about economic reform in 1978 than he is usually depicted as being. In fact, it wasn’t until years later that he would finally embrace many of the key chang...

A specter has been haunting the Western Hemisphere since mid-summer 2012, the specter of China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) routinely patrolling the waters of the Atlantic Ocean.  At first sight, it might seem that Beijing is truly laying the groundwork for its foothold in the Atlantic Rim. Not least, Chinese government signed a free-trade agreement with Iceland in April and PLAN vessels recently made a month-long trip in the Mediterranean Sea and Eastern Atlantic. Even so, China's strategic projection in the Atlantic is still far from becoming reality. The whole psychodrama unfolded at the end of June 2012, when then Chinese premier Wen Jiabao made a stopover on the Portuguese island of Terceira, in the Azores, after a four-nation visit to South America. The Azores are placed right in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean between Europe and the United States. Wen's blitz there fueled speculation that China had thrown an eye on Lajes Field, the local mili...

No tanks, no bullets, no boots on the ground, but a mix of money (a lot of money) and engineers. China and its companies are betting on geopolitical corridors to expand their international clout and business opportunities. Though it is grappling with a creeping economic slowdown, the government in Beijing seems to be keen to fund a string of new, innovative transport arteries around the world.  The first project under the spotlight is the overland corridor that should link up Kashgar, in China's western Xinjiang autonomous region, with the Pakistani port of Gwadar in the Arabian Sea. In July, Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Chinese counterpart, Li Keqiang, agreed to build the 2,000 kilometer road link that would pass through the troubled southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan, the inaccessible Karakoram mountains and onwards to the Xinjiang, also an area of some unrest. The scheme, worth US$18 billion, provides for a parallel railway to be built la...

China is bracing for natural gas shortages this winter as the government tries to fight smog by reducing consumption of coal.  On October 21, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's central government administrative agency, said it would take steps to limit gas use as a result of shortages that have already appeared in cities including Urumqi and Beijing, Reuters reported.  The NDRC plans to control the increase of new gas users following rapid switching from coal to the cleaner-burning fuel.  Cities in the north and northwest have been turning quickly to gas-fired heating systems under pressure to improve air quality, an unnamed analyst for China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) was quoted as saying.  The NDRC is reportedly encouraging utilities to cut back on gas-fired power production to ease expected shortages during the winter heating season.  "With the unusually high growth in gas demand, the gap between...

This past week South Africa’s Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe  attended  the fifth South Africa-China bi-national commission (BNC) in Beijing. There is nothing particularly shocking about this. China has worked hard in the last decade or more to establish relationships with African countries. And while we can argue (as myriad academics and journalists have) about the nature of this relationship — is it fundamentally unequal? Does it represent a version of Sino-imperialism? Does it provide a protection for African regimes that violate the human rights of their citizens? — The fact that the Chinese would want to engage with the most powerful economic and political power in sub-Saharan Africa seems obvious. But what is also interesting is that while by any economic measure China dwarfs South Africa, the relationship is far closer to one between semi-equals than it is the sort of asymmetrical relationship that plays out with China and most countries north of the Limpopo ...

Most orbital debris is U.S. or Russian in origin. But China’s space program exacerbates an urgent issue. US Starting Asia Space Race? American Space Strategy: Choose to Steer, Not Drift Grappling With a MAD Space Future Mining in Space – The Next Frontier? Asian Space Race In one of this fall’s most anticipated blockbusters,  Gravity , an astronaut duo played by George Clooney and Sandra Bullock are left adrift in space after their shuttle is destroyed. The culprit is Hollywood’s newest villain: space debris. Unfortunately for present day astronauts, this is not just Hollywood’s febrile imagination at work. As innocuous as it may sound, space debris is extremely hazardous and could even be lethal. In fact, the National Aeronautical Space Administration (NASA) has initiated an entire program, the  Orbital Debris Program Office , dedicated to studying and monitoring this man-made phenomena. The international community, including the  European Union ...