Category Asia Pacific
The Future Arenas of Great Power Competition
Bias and the Perceived China Threat
A Rendezvous with Destiny for Two Unsinkable Aircraft Carriers
Since the Trump administration designated China a “strategic competitor,” Sri Lanka and Taiwan have increasingly become plausible geopolitical flashpoints in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. How could Taiwan and Sri Lanka dictate the post-coronavirus endgame for China and the United States?
Toolkit for a Successful Movement: Digital Tools in Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement
In 2014, hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Taipei to protest the Cross-Strait Services Agreement—a free trade agreement between Taiwan and Beijing—believing it would give the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) too much political and economic control over the island. The protesters wielded social media and the internet to communicate, inform and mobilize. These tools did not work in a vacuum, however, and understanding their interactions with conventional media and offline associations becomes crucial. This paper demonstrates how, through one-way and interactive communications, the participants of the Sunflower Movement used digital tools to realize their demands.
The RCEP minus India: Reasons and Implications
The RCEP was to be a potent vehicle to support the spread of global production networks and reduce the inefficiencies of the multiple prior Asian trade agreements. Yet India still pulled out. Why?
Indonesia’s Global Maritime Fulcrum: Confronting Maritime Irregular Warfare’s Twin Threats in the South China Sea and Maritime Southeast Asia
This paper examines Indonesia’s Global Maritime Fulcrum (GMF) initiative, and its present and future importance, primarily in combating the threat of maritime irregular warfare (MIW) in Southeast Asia. Specifically, it references the rise of grey-zone operations in the South China Sea, particularly by China.
The Indic Roots of Espionage: Lessons for International Security
In international scholarship, the enormous Indic legacy on formulating and categorizing spy networks is more or less forgotten. This analysis will address this void in scholarship by shedding light on the sophisticated Indic spy system.
Confucius Corrects The Communist Party
The return of Confucius as a notable figure in the Chinese government's public presentation has been the subject of substantive scholarly discussion. Unlike much of this work, however, the present paper engages two questions difficult to assess within pure academia: how does the government fare when judged from a traditional perspective it now uses to justify its own actions, and what effects, if any, would closer adherence to that tradition have on modern governance?
The Superpower and the “Stans”: Why Central Asia is Not “Central” to the United States
Although Central Asia stands as a region of strategic importance, relations between the United States and the five Central Asian republics are limited in scope. Why? [T]he absence of a Central Asian lobby, the nature of the many “linkages” between the “Stans” and other nearby Great Powers, and the onset of a “New Cold War” between Russia and the West impede the fostering of greater ties between the United States and the Central Asian republics. Central Asia’s importance from a U.S./Western perspective will also likely continue to dissipate unless local elites implement significant reforms in the near future.
Assessing American Statecraft in Asia
The United States will not tolerate any other power establishing “exclusive hegemonic control” over Asia or the Pacific, according to renowned Asia scholar Michael Green. In a magisterial work, Green argues persuasively that this anti-hegemonic impulse has been the central driver of American grand strategy toward the Asia-Pacific for over two centuries.
The Silver Jubilee of India-ASEAN Relations: A Geopolitical Rejuvenation?
To achieve its goal of deepened integration with ASEAN, India has established and continuously emphasized opportunities for economic and security partnership. All the while, it has simultaneously appealed to socio-cultural ties. Closer integration with ASEAN, India hopes, will allow the two to jointly balance China’s growing regional influence.