Journal of International Studies

China’s reliance on coal has serious environmental consequences, but is keeping U.S. companies in business.

Obama can expect some difficult conversations when he heads to Asia in April.

The strategic triangle from the Cold War is returning. Only this time, Russia is the prize.

Offshore engagement presents a middle ground between offshore balancing and deep commitment.

To combat mutual suspicion, the U.S. and China are ramping up their joint humanitarian and disaster relief exercises

The “Great Triangle” of the Asia-Pacific region formed by the United States, Russia, and China is particularly important in both geopolitical and military-strategic terms.

In applying a football metaphor to the Indo-Pacific the US Navy ought to ask itself some hard questions.

Authors:  Mira Rapp-Hooper , Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow, and Linton F. Brooks 

Chinese President  Xi Jinping  (R) shakes hands with U.S. President  Barack Obama 's special representative and Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 15, 2013. (Xinhua/Ma Zhancheng) BEIJING, Nov. 15 (Xinhua) -- China and the  United States  should strengthen policy coordination during their respective reform and restructuring process, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Friday. Xi made the comment in a meeting with special representative of U.S. President Barack Obama, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, in Beijing. Xi stressed the just concluded Third Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee mapped out an overall plan for comprehensively deepening reforms. "China's comprehensive reform and opening-up will not only provide strong momentum to China's development, but also bring more new opportunities for China-U.S. economic cooperation and other countries in the world," Xi said. By doing ...

In an interview, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman sent a warning: We want to trade with countries in Asia, but they have to adhere to our standards. 

Could the much-maligned cuts to defense spending actually be a good thing for American strategy? That’s the case that historian Melvyn Leffler  makes  in the most recent issue of  Foreign Affairs . Responding to those who argue that past retrenchments have left the military ill prepared to respond to future dangers and stress the need to avoid doing the same today, Leffler argues that these fears are overblown. In his words: Contrary to such conventional wisdom, the consequences of past U.S. defense cuts were not bad. In fact, a look at five such periods over the past century—following World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War—shows that austerity can be useful in forcing Washington to think strategically, something it rarely does when times are flush. The argument, in a nutshell, is that when the government is operating under constrained resources, it is forced to make more difficult choices and prioritize more effectively, lea...

The reverberations of the shale energy revolution in the United States, which helped the U.S. surpass Russia to become the world’s largest natural gas producer in 2009 and may result in the U.S. displacing Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil producer around 2020, are already being felt in China. [1]  The dramatic change in the energy fortunes of the U.S. – the country is poised to shift from a net natural gas importer to a net natural gas exporter by 2020 and its dependence on oil imports is projected to fall from 60 percent in 2005 to 34 percent in 2019 – is also beginning to reshape those of China. [2] One change occurred in September, when the U.S. passed the title of world’s largest  net oil importer, a crown it had worn since the mid-1970s, to China. Five other ways in which the surge in U.S. shale gas and shale oil production is starting to alter China’s energy landscape are discussed below. 1. It has generated enormous interest in China about whether the U.S....

Editor's Note: In  a November 6, 2013 op-ed in  The Asan Forum , adapted from remarks delivered at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul on October 4, 2013, Robert Einhorn evaluates the future of nuclear cooperation in the U.S.–South Korean alliance. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES SPEECH  THE ASAN INSTITUTE OF POLICY STUDIES U.S.-ROK Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement: Overcoming the Impasse October 11, 2013 The US-ROK Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement: Overcoming the Impasse The United States and Republic of Korea have enjoyed a strong partnership for over 60 years, which has contributed to peace, security, and prosperity in the southern half of the peninsula. It is an impressive success story of which Koreans and Americans can be proud. A significant part of that success is cooperation in the civil uses of nuclear energy, which started out as a one-way street, with the United States, the senior partner, supplying the ROK with equipment and tec...

HOUSTON  -  The   United   States   and   China   are   at   a   crucial   moment   in   their   bilateral relationship   and   the   two   countries   should   work   with   each   other   to   help   resolve   world   issues , former   US   Secretary   of   State   Madeleine   Albright   said   Monday . In   a   live   webcast   interview   hosted   by   the   National   Committee   on   US-China   Relations ,  the former   secretary   of   state   recalled   her   diplomatic   career   with   China   starting   from   the   mid- 1970s when   she   accompanied   a   Senate   delegation   to   China   in   an   effort   to...

CHICAGO  -  US   experts   discussed   the   improved    Sino.US   relationship   on   Monday   at   an   annual event   organized   by   the   National   Committee   on   United   States-China   Relations  ( NCUSCR ). The   CHINA   Town   Hall ,  a   national   day   of   programing   to   provide   Americans   with   the   opportunity to   discuss   China-related   issues ,  took   place   this   year   at  64  venues   in   the   United   States ,  as   well as   in   Beijing   and   Hong   Kong   via   webcasts . " Understanding   the   Sino-American   relationship   is   essential   to   developing   and   maintaining   a so...

The US rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific has unsettled relations with China, and distrust between the two countries has deepened since the United States started relocating its massive military assets to the region. On Tuesday, Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, commander of the US Pacific Command, said that basing a large portion of the US navy in the Pacific should not be viewed as unusual. Then on the same day, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel vowed that the US will maintain its military supremacy. However, his comment that the Pentagon is not taking the lead in this rebalancing shows that the US has finally realized that its overemphasis on the military component has been unwise. Pang Li / China Daily Robert Ross, a professor of political science at Boston College and an associate at the John King Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University, wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine that the Barack Obama administration's rebalancing is not contributing to stabili...

BEIJING, Nov. 11 (Yonhap) -- China on Monday warned Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe against regarding Beijing as its rival to bolster its security role in the region, saying the move would be a "wrong choice and wrong calculation." China's foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang made the remark in response to reported comments by Abe, who cited China's rise and North Korea's nuclear threats as key reasons to create a U.S.-style national security council in Japan. "Japan provokes China over and over again. What on earth does Japan really want to do?" Qin told reporters in unusually frank words. "If Japan insists on taking China as a rival, it would make a wrong choice and make a wrong calculation," Qin said. China and Japan have been locked in a bitter dispute over a set of islands in the East China Sea, which are known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan. Tension sparked in September last year when the Tokyo government purcha...

In early September, China hosted the 10th China-ASEAN Expo in southern Chinese city of Nanning.  There, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang glowingly characterized the last ten years as a “golden decade” of growing economic ties between China and the countries of Southeast Asia, all of which are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).  He now foresaw that the next decade would be even better—a “diamond decade.” Together with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visits to Indonesia and Malaysia and his high-level meetings at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum that would soon follow, Li’s remarks appeared to mark the start of a new charm offensive in Southeast Asia.  China’s last charm offensive, despite Li’s depiction of a “golden decade,” had sputtered out at the end of that decade, overshadowed by China’s growing economic and political assertiveness on land and at sea.  Although China’s disputes with its maritime neighbors have drawn mor...

Today I was the Knight  Who Says Ni   Conference. The Naval Diplomat took part  in a conference !  A  conference  in  a fair city where people appeared to be having a good time!!!  ( Click here  to sample the Monty Python-esque flavor of official policy toward conferences.) These are sad times when  passing ruffians  can say  conference  within earshot of meek U.S. government officials. But fear not, brave folk: no taxpayer dollars went to fund the iniquities of international-relations scholars. Nor did I enjoy myself. On to serious matters. I chaired a panel on International Cooperation composed of a trio of bright Ph.D. candidates from places like Oxford and Toronto. Good stuff. Later I presented a paper titled "The Death and Life of Surface Fleets," basically an amalgam of arguments familiar to  Naval Diplomat  readers ( see here  and  here for  a recap). Underlying the nuts-and-...