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Asia Pacific Governance & Law

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?

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Asia Pacific Economics Policy & Politics Security & Conflict

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.

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Africa Asia Pacific Economics International Development North America Policy & Politics

Mutual Delegitimization: American and Chinese Development Assistance in Africa

How can China’s ideas of development assistance to Africa be regarded within the context of a wider struggle among global powers? In contrast to the dominant public understanding that Chinese aid has “no strings attached,” authors Salvador Regilme and Henrik Hartmann from the University of Leiden show that US and Chinese governments’ aid strategies champion their own geostrategic national interests in the African continent.

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Asia Pacific Energy & Environment Governance & Law

China’s Coal-to-Gas Program: A Developing Environmental Governance Regime

Despite the increasing centralization of China under Xi Jinping, SAIS student Yujin Zhang uses the example of China’s Coal-to-Gas program to show that principal-agent problems and competing interests between Beijing and local governments still negatively affect environmental policy implementation. Effective environmental policies require long-term institutional reforms, not short term campaign-style enforcement.

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Asia Pacific Economics International Development Policy & Politics

China’s Belt and Road Gamble: Can it Deliver?

At a time when China is increasing its power on the world stage, Dr. Shahid Yusuf, the Chief Economist of The Growth Dialogue at the George Washington University School of Business in Washington DC, attempts to investigate the effects of China’s Belt Initiative. In doing so, he discovered that the project will certainly increase China’s influence and economic power in Central Asia but it will also place the Chinese economy under heavy strain as Chinese growth begins to slow.

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Asia Pacific Policy & Politics Security & Conflict

Ending the Korean War

In this article, Dr. Michael F. Duggan traces the roots of the present conflict on the Korean Peninsula to its origins during the Korean War. After a discussion on the causes and the course of the war, he then discusses the implications of a North Korea with nuclear weapons as well. He then discusses the reasons why North Korea would seek to develop a nuclear bomb in the first place. Dr. Duggan then closes by proposing ways that the US and China could work together to avert a potential nuclear war on the peninsula.

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Asia Pacific Energy & Environment Governance & Law Policy & Politics

Beyond COP21: Opportunities for China-India Climate Collaboration – Part II

PART II In Part I, we argued that meeting the ambitious targets agreed upon at the 21st United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP21) will require concerted efforts—including policy changes, technological developments, the deepening of financial markets, and political leadership. Developments will be more fruitful if they are marked […]

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Asia Pacific Energy & Environment Governance & Law Policy & Politics

Beyond COP21: Opportunities for China-India Climate Collaboration – Part I

This report was produced by a team of twenty Johns Hopkins University SAIS students and supported by the school’s Energy, Resources, and Environment department. It is the result of independent research, as well as two field research trips to Beijing and New Delhi.

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Asia Pacific Book Reviews Civil Society Policy & Politics

Muslim, Trader, Nomad, Spy: China’s Cold War and the People of the Tibetan Borderlands

Tenzin Norgary, a Senior Fellow at the Tibet Policy Institute, reviews Sulmaan Wasif Khan’s recent book “Muslim, Trader, Nomad, Spy: China’s Cold War and the People of the Tibetan Borderlands.”

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Editors' Updates

Editor’s Picks, December 30 – January 3

The best of the Internet on maritime resources and sovereignty for late December and early January.