China and East Asia

April 2006
China’s Unpeaceful Rise
by JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER
"International politics is a nasty and dangerous business, and no amount of goodwill can ameliorate the intense security competition that sets in when an aspiring hegemon appears in Eurasia."

April 2006
India and the Asian Security Architecture
by VARUN SAHNI
"By building robust political and economic links with both China and the United States, India could end up playing an important catalytic role in bringing both countries together in a new cooperative Asia."

April 2006
Asia’s Challenged Giants
by SHALENDRA D. SHARMA
"China and India are already major players in the global economy. However, their impact in coming decades on the world's economic and strategic landscape will depend . . . on how each deals with its structural and economic challenges."

April 2006
Curbing Asian Corruption: An Impossible Dream?
by JON S. T. QUAH
"Many leaders have adopted 'hopeless' strategies that perpetuate corruption instead of stifling it."

April 2006
Fueling the Dragon: China’s Strategic Energy Dilemma
by MICHAEL T. KLARE
"Unless the world's existing powers are prepared to descend into the sort of resource-driven geopolitical competition that resulted in World War I . . . they must make room at the table for an energy-hungry China."

April 2006
The Koreas, Unification, and the Great Powers
by JOUNGWON ALEXANDER KIM and MYUNGSHIN HONG
"The Korean Peninsula has been Asia's Berlin Wall, where communism and democracy have directly confronted one another."

October 2005
The Great Powers in Central Asia
by MARTHA BRILL OLCOTT
"The United States, Russia, and China have spent the past few years jockeying for position in the region. . . . [But] the challenges facing Central Asian states remain largely unchanged, and governments there have received few new tools to address them."

September 2005
America’s Bismarckian Asia Policy
by Eric Heginbotham and Christopher P. Twomey
"US policy is not achieving the goals set out for it. It is ceding regional leadership while seeding regional rivalry. It is missing opportunities to help shape the development of a new security environment through regional institutions and instead acting to exacerbate the rise of nationalism. . . ."

September 2005
Chinese Nationalism: Challenging the State?
by PETER HAYS GRIES
"It would be a mistake to attribute to the Communist Party complete control over Chinese nationalism today. With the emergence of the Internet, cell phones, and text messaging, popular nationalists in China are increasingly able to act independently of the state."

September 2005
Corruption, Growth, and Reform: The Chinese Enigma
by Yan Sun
"The cumulative unfolding of corruption's many paradoxes in China has, above all, built up momentum and public support to improve state capacities, rather than further weaken them. Beijing does not suffer a legitimacy deficit despite corruption's staying power as a top public

September 2005
China’s New Exchange Rate Regime
by BARRY EICHENGREEN
"China's exchange rate system is a work in progress. Notwithstanding all the attention attracted by the dramatic decisions this July, that process has only started."

September 2005
Repairing China’s Social Safety Net
by ATHAR HUSSAIN
"Recent years have seen a marked shift away from single-minded emphasis on economic growth toward the development of a 'harmonious society.' Progress in improving China's social security system probably will be much quicker over the next 20 years than in the previous 20, but reform will still be piecemeal."

September 2005
Made in the P.R.C.: China's Consumer Revolution
by AMY HANSER
"Although the market and opportunities for consumption seem to offer a counterbalance to the government's authoritarian powers, many Chinese are ambivalent about the forces of Westernization and marketization and the rapidly growing gap between rich and poor."

September 2005
China’s Environmental Challenge
by ELIZABETH ECONOMY
"Environmental degradation and pollution constrain economic growth, contribute to large-scale migration, harm public health, and engender social unrest. Moreover, there is the potential . . . for the environment to serve as a locus for broader political discontent and further political reforms."

September 2005
Viva Macao?
by JOSHUA KURLANTZICK
"The influx of investment in gambling is powering Macao's growth, and Beijing thus far has tolerated the casino boom. In the longer term, however, China could enact policies that would stunt Macao's gambling industry and potentially burst the enclave's economic success."

September 2005
The Fallout of a Nuclear North Korea
by ANDREW SCOBELL and MICHAEL R. CHAMBERS
"The nuclearization of North Korea will have a profound impact on Northeast Asia. If Pyongyang opts for crash nuclearization through a weapon test, that could bring the countries of the region together in opposition. This reaction is far from assured, however . . . ."

April 2005
Nuclear Asia's Challenges
by Dinshaw Mistry
The middle-term challenges of averting a nuclear arms race in Asia are closely linked to the more immediate concern of reversing proliferation in North Korea.

March 2005
Indonesia after the Tsunami
by Edward Aspinall
"The post-tsunami relief, rehabilitation, and reconstruction efforts . . . pose enormous challenges for a new government that inherits, and is partly a product of, a ramshackle and ineffective state apparatus."

March 2005
Thailand's Thaksin to the Rescue
by Amy Kazmin
"Before the killer wave, the campaign had been heating up with increasing public debate about Thaksin's . . . authoritarian style and apparent contempt for democratic principles. After the tsunami, Thais rallied behind their leader."

March 2005
Laos: Still Communist after All These Years
by Joshua Kurlantzick
"Throughout the repression and the economic backsliding, most countries in the West have said little about Laos, even as they decry similar problems in Burma and Tibet and other regions of the world."