The return of the Indo-Pacific strategy: an assessment

ABSTRACT

Eleven years after it was abandoned, the so-called Indo-Pacific concept is back with a vengeance in regional security debates. At the 2017 Shangri-la Dialogue, there were only five mentions of the ‘Indo-Pacific’ at the annual defence ministerial forum. In the following year, the figure had jumped to 92. The Indo-Pacific Four countries promoting the ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ (FOIP) concept share many principles, including freedom of navigation and overflight, connectivity and economic growth, and respect for the rule of law. There are, however, clear points of divergence between them, such that there are actually different Indo-Pacific strategies among the Indo-Pacific Four. Even if the Indo-Pacific Four manage to resolve these issues (and the possibility of this is low), it is not likely that ASEAN would endorse the FOIP concept. The reality remains that Indonesia and ASEAN have taken a different approach to the Indo-Pacific. The ASEAN approach is to appropriate elements of FOIP strategy which are more attractive to ASEAN (for example, connectivity and infrastructure), yet reject elements of FOIP strategy which ASEAN deems inappropriate (the exclusion of China and the loss of ASEAN centrality). This does not augur well for the adoption, in its entirety, of the FOIP concept by ASEAN.     

Soft balancing against the US ‘pivot to Asia’: China’s geostrategic rationale for establishing the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

The existing accounts about the China-led multilateral development bank—the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)—have focused on the USA’s policy concerns and the economic and commercial reasons for China having established it. Two deeper questions are left unaddressed: Was there any strategic rationale for China to initiate a new multilateral development bank and, if so, how effective is China’s strategy? From a neorealist balance-of-power perspective, this article argues that China has felt threatened by the Obama administration’s rebalance to the Asia-Pacific strategy. In response, China is opting for a soft-balancing policy to carve out a regional security space in Eurasia in order to mitigate the threat coming from its east. China’s material power, premised on the fact that the country is a huge domestic market and flush with cash, has proved irresistible for Asian states, with the exception of Japan, to be enticed away from the USA. On the one hand, this article adds weight to the claim that although the USA remains the pre-eminent military power in the Asia-Pacific, it has fallen into a relative decline in regional economic governance; on the other, China’s soft balancing has its own limitations in forming like-minded partnerships with, and offering security guarantees to, AIIB members. A China-led regional order is yet to have arrived, even with the AIIB.     

Why US-Sino strategic competition is good for Australia

ABSTRACT

Faced with an increasingly authoritarian and assertive China, the United States (US) under President Trump administration’s has embarked on a course toward a more openly competitive US–China relationship. However, the debate in Australia has viewed the new era of US-Sino strategic competition mostly negatively. Indeed, arguments have been made for a need to ‘radically’ rethink Australia’s defence policy in order to prepare for a ‘post-US-led’ regional order. For some analysts, Canberra has even no other choice than to adopt a strategy of ‘armed neutrality’ to deal with an emerging China-dominated regional order and a declining US, confused and unwilling to defend its allies. In contrast, this article argues that on balance Trump’s course correction on China is positive for Australia as the US is likely to maintain its robust engagement in the Indo-Pacific. While the president’s inconsistencies partly undermine US declaratory statements in regards to greater competition with China, a bipartisan consensus is likely to continue to shift US policy in this direction. While greater US-Sino competition requires Australia to assume greater responsibilities for regional security, radical changes to its defence policy and security alignment are not needed.     

Michael Drayton’s Poly-Olbion: maritime England and the free seas debates

ABSTRACT

Attending to Poly-Olbion’s river dynamics, I argue that, implicitly opposing natural, inevitable unionization, Drayton demonstrates through visual and poetic means that any viable empire is forged by deliberate local choices about conjunction and affiliation. Further, I show that by reconfiguring Saxton’s maps, rejecting politically defined boundaries and perceptions, and situating three major rivers as the organizing features of the landscape and the empire, Drayton ultimately defines Britain as inherently and universally maritime. Moreover, linking Poly-Olbion to mare clausum and mare liberum debates, I reveal that Drayton situates the flow of self-aware rivers into the sea as an extension of Britain beyond its land boundaries. He thereby suggests that the eventual mixing of British waters with the larger oceans establishes the basis of Britain’s local and global maritime rights, linking regional autonomy and conjunction by choice with claims to both local offshore dominion and global freedom of navigation and trade.     

中国海外利益的政治风险与侨务公共外交

论文对中国海外利益及其政治风险这两个概念进行了界定;把海外利益按照类别分为海外安全利益、海外经济利益和海外形象利益;从国家对外资源投资、企业海外并购以及华商海外经营三方面,分析了中国海外利益面临的主要政治风险,认为在新一轮国际格局变动时期,中国海外利益面临的政治风险在加大。鉴于华侨华人是保护中国海外利益的重要依托力量,中国应拓展侨务公共外交的特殊渠道,并提出了未来侨务公共外交的努力方向。     

China’s soft power conundrum,film coproduction,and visions of shared prosperity

ABSTRACT

This paper looks at China’s soft power strategy in relation to the film industry, which since the early 2000s has opened to international co-productions and investment. Despite many coproduction projects being endorsed by government, results have not added significantly to China’s film-making reputation. The paper shows that coproductions have a diplomatic function, which implies a more conventional understanding of soft power. The paper also considers the tension between artistic freedom and censorship that impacts on all coproduction projects in China and which undermines the efficacy of China’s soft power strategy. The paper advances the proposition that coproduction with countries in Eurasia under the cultural template of the Belt and Road Initiative might present new opportunities to blend China’s stories into a narrative of shared prosperity. In doing this, the advance of China’s economic power is supported by cultural policies that evoke a historical past as much as a shared future.     

竞争性区域主义与区域建构研究展望

随着全球化的不断深入,竞争性区域主义开始盛行于全球各地,并掀起区域建构的热潮。本研究对西方学术界的竞争性区域主义和区域建构理论进行了系统综述,内容涉及社会建构的区域、空间规划在区域建构中的作用、区域建构的阶段和区域建构中利益相关者的冲突与博弈等方面。在此基础上,对我国城市竞争和空间规划等相关研究进行了综述,对我国竞争性区域主义与区域建构研究进行了展望。     

Changes in the Foot Binding Culture: The Female Body and Politics in Regions Governed by the Communist Party of China during the Anti-Japanese War

Since 1949, Chinese mainland historians and creators in film and television, novels, and reportage have continued to shape the heroic image of female groups in the base areas of the Communist Party of China (CPC) during the Anti-Japanese War. They participated in production, women’s mobilization, and reconstruction of the rural political order “like men.” They pursued the equality between men and women, marked by freedom of marriage, and also participated in regional guerrilla warfare to combat the Japanese puppet army “as men.” However, in the remote villages of north China at the end of the Qing dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, it was not common for women to unbind their feet. In wartime, most women over twenty years of age were forever left with the “three-inch golden lotus” (sancun jinlian) feet. The damage of the war accelerated their acceptance of the CPC’s emancipation concepts and policies and presented them with an opportunity to actively implement them. The experience of survival drastically changed traditional aesthetics, ideas, and customs related to women. Physical and psychological changes occurred as a result of the war; women began to go out of their homes to participate in the work of the Women’s Salvation Association and the Youth Salvation Association, and a group of women achieved marriage equality between men and women in the form of “divorce her husband” (qi xiu fu). Due to pressure, women carried more physical and mental responsibilities, faced insufficient advocacy for their rights, and the aesthetics and mentality of womanhood underwent change.     

Diversifying Australia’s Indo-Pacific infrastructure diplomacy

Infrastructure is an emerging component of Australian diplomacy. In recent years, many infrastructure and connectivity (I&C) programs have been launched in the Indo-Pacific, designed to close the ‘infrastructure gaps’ that plague the region. Competition amongst these, particularly between US and Chinese offerings, has posed a dilemma for Australian foreign policy. Australia has struggled to articulate a policy on China’s Belt and Road Initiative that balances strategic concerns against economic opportunities; while enthusiastic engagement with US alternatives risks perceptions of ‘choosing’ sides between the region’s two main powers. Yet the contemporary marketplace for Indo-Pacific I&C is much broader, with programs recently launched by many governments and regional organisations. These presents an opportunity for Australia to diversify its infrastructure diplomacy, particularly through engagement with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, cooperation with Japan and new avenues for commercial diplomacy. By engaging with a wider range of I&C partners and institutions, Australia can better integrate itself with the emerging infrastructure systems of the Indo-Pacific.     

Capacity for Freedom – Using a New Poverty Measure to Look at Regional Differences in Living Standards within Australia

Using a recently developed measure of multidimensional poverty, the Freedom Poverty Measure, the difference in poverty rates of major cities, inner regional, and other areas have been compared. The population living in ‘other areas’ had the highest proportion of individuals living in freedom poverty. Those in inner regional areas (P = 0.0303) and those in major cities (P < 0.0001) were significantly less likely to be in freedom poverty than those in ‘other areas’. However, when breaking the analysis down to look at the different poverty rates for different age groups across the three regional classifications, it was found that there was no difference in the likelihood of being in freedom poverty between children in inner regional and other areas, adults in inner regional and other areas, and older people in inner regional and other areas. This may indicate that the disadvantage experienced by those living in regional centres has been overlooked in the past and is an emerging contemporary issue for health and education equity as well as economic equality.     

China’s new Eurasian ambitions: the environmental risks of the Silk Road Economic Belt

China is moving ahead with the Silk Road Economic Belt, an ambitious infrastructure development agenda with the distinct promise of regional and sub-regional economic development. However, the initiative will create new environmental risks across the entire Eurasian continent, especially in countries with predominately poor records of environmental governance, including the former Soviet republics and Russia. Concurrently, on the domestic front, the Chinese Government has launched a new policy paradigm, “ecological civilization,” to dramatically improve environmental regulations, reduce pollution, and transform industries by adopting new green technologies and higher environmental standards. But does China’s intention to go through a “green shift” domestically resonate with these new transborder infrastructure development mega-projects? This paper will attempt to answer this question by juxtaposing China’s new domestic policy paradigm with environmental standards currently proposed in its global outreach projects focusing on China-northern Eurasia and China-Russia, including trade exchanges in natural resources.     

建设以非洲地理研究为特色的非洲学——南京大学非洲地理研究成果回顾与展望

论文全面回顾了南京大学非洲地理研究发展的历史,从自然地理、能源地理、农业地理、矿产地理、工业地理、人口与城市地理等方面总结了南京大学非洲地理的重要领域。指出了当前研究的困境与不足,并探讨了今后南京大学非洲地理研究应关注的重点。     

Australia's ‘special strategic relationship’ with Japan: another ‘China choice’?

In July 2014, Australia's new Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, and his Japanese counterpart, Shinzō Abe, elevated the status of bilateral ties to a ‘special strategic relationship'. Both sides also agreed on intensifying their defence technology cooperation, including in the submarine space. As well, Prime Minister Abbott called Australia a ‘strong ally’ of Japan. Yet, the prospect of a further strengthening of Australia–Japan defence relations has led to criticism by Australian strategic commentators. In particular, critics argue that closer strategic relations with Japan could damage Australia's ties with a rising China. In a worst-case scenario, Australia might even become ‘entrapped’ in a Sino-Japanese conflict. However, this argues that a closer defence relationship is in Australia's strategic interests in the face of China's increasing challenge to the rules-based order in the region. China's uncompromising position in the South China Sea and its more assertive behaviour have led to a greater congruence of threat and risk assessment between Australia and Japan. Indeed, Australia and Japan are increasingly facing a security dilemma vis-à-vis China, albeit to varying degrees. Therefore, for Australia, promoting Japan's ‘security normalisation’ contributes to regional stability. As well, the article points out that closer strategic ties with Japan do not automatically come at the expense of Sino-Australia relations. China's leverage to ‘punish’ Australia for unwanted strategic behaviour is limited, and concerns about ‘entrapment’ in a Sino-Japanese war are exaggerated. However, the more China exerts coercive diplomacy, the closer Australia–Japan defence relations are likely to become.     

南京大学经济地理学发展历程与展望

南京大学是我国地理学研究的重要阵地,在经济地理学领域更是有着深远的影响。本文基于对地理学刊物上发表论文的统计,对南京大学经济地理学发展的历程进行了系统的研究。南京大学经济地理学发展主要分为快速发展期、波动停滞期、复苏繁荣期、蓬勃发展期等四个阶段。在研究内容上,主要涉及区域经济与区域发展、交通地理学、空间结构与空间布局、产业集群与新产业区、企业与区域增长、低碳经济与可持续发展、全球化的经济活动、技术进步与信息化、制度经济地理学等9个主要领域。这9大领域在国内学界有着重要的影响。最后,展望南京大学经济地理学学科发展,提出新经济地理学、制度转向/文化转向、服务国家需求是未来研究的三大主要方向。     

Migration and regional inequality: changing characteristics of China’s economic inequality

Scholars studying economic inequality in China have maintained that regional inequality and economic divergence across provinces have steadily increased over the past 30 years. New studies have shown that this trend is a statistical aberration; calculations show that instead of quickly and sharply rising, regional inequality has actually decreased, and most recently, remained stable. Our study suggests that China’s unique migratory regime is crucial to understanding these findings. We conduct a counterfactual simulation to demonstrate how migration and remittances have mitigated income inequality across provinces in order to show that without these processes, we would have seen more of a rise in interprovincial income inequality. We conclude by arguing that inequality in China is still increasing, but it is changing and becoming less place-based. As regional inequality decreases, there are signs that point to the increasing importance of interpersonal inequality.     

Spatial Disparities and Economic Development in China, 1953-92: A Comparative Study

It seems to be widely accepted that China's interior development during the Maoist period was based on ‘equality’ considerations, which narrowed Chinese regional disparities. By contrast, the recent coastal development during Deng's reform era has been coined as ‘uneven’ and ‘undesirable’, because it has created tremendous inequalities across the country. However, the findings of this study suggest that the question may not be that simple. This article examines the spatial disparities of economic development in China between 1953 and 1992, focusing on a time-series comparison between the development policies of Mao and Deng, their outcomes and the resulting changes. By using provincial and regional economic and investment data, the article elaborates why Mao's interior development did not lead to a more equitable outcome than Deng's uneven strategy of’ east coastal development’. The findings provide an insight into some of the unexpected outcomes of more than forty years of socialist development, in the realm of economic growth and disparity.     

The Meaning and Value of Freedom: Berlin contra Arendt

This essay considers the theoretical disagreement between Isaiah Berlin and Hannah Arendt on the meaning and value of freedom. Berlin thinks that negative liberty as non-interference is commendable because it is attuned to the implication of value pluralism that man is a choice-making creature and cannot be otherwise. By contrast, the political freedom to act is in Arendt’s view a more fulfilling ideal because it is only in political action that man’s potentiality is actualised, his unique identity manifested and his being-in-the-world-with-others reaffirmed. What lies beneath the two thinkers’ dispute over the most satisfactory meaning of freedom, I argue, is a deeper disagreement over human nature itself. The implication of this analysis for the contemporary debate between pluralist liberals and their agonistic critics is briefly discussed in conclusion.     

Japan's response to China's rise: regional engagement, global containment, dangers of collision

Japan and China's ability to manage their bilateral relationship is crucial for the stability of the East Asian region. It also has a global impact on the security and economic development of other regions. For just as China's rise has inevitably involved an expansion of its global reach, so Japan's responses to the challenges posed by China have increasingly taken a global form, seeking to incorporate new partners and frameworks outside East Asia. Japan's preferred response to China's regional and global rise in the post‐Cold War period has remained one of default engagement. Japan is intent on promoting China's external engagement with the East Asia region and its internal domestic reform, through upgrading extant bilateral and Japan–China–US trilateral frameworks for dialogue and cooperation, and by emphasizing the importance of economic power to influence China. Japan is deliberately seeking to proliferate regional frameworks for cooperation in East Asia in order to dilute, constrain and ultimately engage China's rising power. However, Japan's engagement strategy also contains the potential to tilt towards default containment. Japan's domestic political basis for engagement is becoming increasingly precarious as China's rise stimulates Japanese revisionism and nationalism. Japan also appears increasingly to be looking to contain China on a global scale by forging new strategic links in Russia and Central Asia, with a ‘concert of democracies’ involving India, Australia and the US, by competing for resources with China in Africa and the Middle East, and by attempting to articulate a values‐based diplomacy to check the so‐called ‘Beijing consensus’. Nevertheless, Japan's perceived inability to channel China's rise either through regional engagement or through global containment carries a further risk of pushing Japan to resort to the strengthening of its military power in an attempt to guarantee its essential national interests. It is in this instance that Japan and China run the danger of a military collision.     

Sino–American relations and the ‘Australian factor’: inflated expectations or discriminate engagement?

Orchestrating relations between its American security ally and increasingly crucial Chinese trading partner constitutes perhaps the major foreign policy challenge now confronting Australia. The Howard government insists that it can pursue such diplomacy without having to choose between the US and China in the event of a future great power regional confrontation. Both Washington and Beijing, however, appear intent on pulling Australia into their own orbits of influence. This article contends that neither of them will be content to allow Australia to apply a ‘discriminate engagement’ policy toward their own regional interests if Sino–American strategic competition intensifies over Taiwan or throughout the Asia–Pacific region. It reviews Chinese and American strategic expectations regarding Australia and their response to that country's relations with the other, and outlines growing policy imperatives that Australia must confront in order to overcome current anomalies in its ‘dual strategy’ directed toward China and the United States.