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Originally posted at Brooks Foreign Policy Review.
by Collin Spears – Visiting Fellow, Center for New Politics and Policy
If the United States and its allies want to denuclearize the Korean peninsula, and not just temporarily allay tensions, they must call Kim Jong-Il’s bluff by escalating the situation. As North Korea’s primary benefactor, China is the only nation that can force the North to dismantle its nuclear arsenal and return to 6-Party Talks. However, China will not exert such pressure, until the threat of instability on its border forces it to recalculate the utility of supporting the Kim regime. When the liability of North Korea becomes a greater threat to China’s internal security than the potential presence of American troops at its border, China will cooperate with the American alliance. Contrary to common media depiction, Kim is a rational actor. In fact, when scrutinizing North Korea’s conduct with the supposition that every action it has taken is for the preservation of Kim’s personal power, it is apparent that even the most provocative actions have been deliberate. America must use a realist approach to exploit these aims, if it wants to end the last great impasses of the Cold War.
This article can also be found at Brooks Foreign Policy Review, here.
by Collin Spears – Visiting Fellow, Center for New Politics and Policy
As discussed in Part I of this series, the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA) will be a win-win for the signatories. The agreement will produce greater economies of scales, as it expands trade between members, which will result in an aggregate increase in competitive export products from China and ASEAN. However, it will not foreshadow European-style regional integration, at least not in the near future. The centrifugal force generated by the agreement will not only draw ASEAN closer to China, the regions manufacturing hub, but it will push those states outside the bloc to liberalize their own trade in order to stay competitive. While the United States is generally supportive of ASEAN, it is not in the strategic interest of the U.S. for it to be outside of an Asian economic bloc, especially one that will aid in cementing a strong Chinese leadership position in Southeast Asia. Implementation of this agreement has increased concerns among some analysts that the economic and perhaps, the political center of gravity of the region are shifting away from the United States and toward China.
The latest article is now up at Brooks Foreign Policy Review, here.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), founded 42 years ago, was created to provide a framework to advance regional stability in Southeast Asia at a time when the withdrawal of colonial powers had created a vacuum. This placed the newly independent states of the region in danger of succumbing to ethnic strife and communist insurgencies. Since the conclusion of the Cold War, ASEAN has embarked on a series of free trade initiatives, linking it to some of the Asian-Pacific regions most dynamic economies.
The latest article is now up at Brooks Foreign Policy Review, here.
By Collin Spears, BRPR Senior Foreign Policy Correspondent
The Chinese government declared 2006, The “Year of Russia”; and in turn, Russia celebrated 2007 as “The Year of China.” These mutual pronouncements were part of a decade long rapprochement between the two states. After many years of mutual acrimony and suspicion the barriers that divide the two nations have abated, replaced by a bridge of pragmatism. This new relationship, based on mutual resentment of global Western dominance and a shared interest in Central Asian security; has an unintended consequence, both nations are seeing increased economic interaction on their border. Conversely, this contact has fed lingering paranoia and insecurity in Russia, a former great power that is seeing itself eclipsed economically and politically by China, a state it once considered a “little brother”. Less then a decade ago, this was reflected in an ominous warning gave by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, ‘‘If we don’t make concrete efforts…the future local population will speak Japanese, Chinese or Korean” (Wines 2001). Currently, the Russian political elite are not publically expressing fear of territorial encroachment and potential colonization, but these attitudes are increasing in the general population. This xenophobic sentiment is an outgrowth of reawakened Russian nationalism, which has served as a swathe for the disillusionment that came from loss of empire. However, to have a truly constructive engagement with China, Russia must move beyond its historic tendency to loath any nation along its periphery it cannot dominate.
