China and East Asia

March 2005
Indonesia after the Tsunami
by Sumit Ganguly
"Can the Bush administration successfully set aside its differences with India and build on the emerging commonalities of interest?"

March 2005
Australia's Emerging Global Role
by Allan Gyngell
"Where once Australians felt remote from global power, they now find themselves closer to it."

September 2004
China and Europe: The Emerging Axis
by David Shambaugh
"The China-Europe relationship will continue to grow and develop at a steady pace. Over time it will become a new axis in world affairs, and will serve as a source of stability in a volatile world."

September 2004
Beijing's Ambivalent Reformers
by Bruce J. Dickson
"The party has implemented various modest reforms in recent years. Some are designed to allow the party to implement its policy agenda more efficiently. Others aim to make it more responsive to a changing society, or at least to appear so. All are designed to perpetuate the Communist Party's rule, not necessarily to make China more democratic."

September 2004
The Latin Americanization of China?
by George J. Gilboy and Eric Heginbotham
Land reforms aimed at raising rural incomes and promoting urbanization could accelerate the crisis already building in China's cities. If urban legal and social reforms fail to keep pace, China could face intensifying conflict between a burgeoning class of have-nots and an entitled minority, a consolidated alliance between political leaders and business and social elites, and a host of other social and political ills familiar to many Latin American states.

September 2004
Repression and Revolt in China’s Wild West
by Joshua Kurlantzick
"A struggle looms within Xinjiang's Uighur population between a no-holds-barred, more violent resistance to Beijing and a more assimilationist, peaceful approach that hopes to win greater political autonomy and economic rights. Unfortunately, too often both Beijing's and Western nations' policies toward Xinjiang only strengthen the hard-liners."

September 2004
The Mao Industry
by Michael Dutton
"One can indeed say that political reform has been visited upon China. It came, however, not in the form of an institutional transformation of the state-based political system . . . but in a far subtler yet profoundly life-transforming manner. No longer are people enthralled by the political, or even intimidated by it."

September 2004
North Korea's Nuclear Politics
by Kongdan Oh and Ralph C. Hassig
"Blessed with enormous military and economic power, Americans expect to find quick and effective solutions to whatever crises they encounter. For North Korea's Kim Jong-il, however, generating one crisis after another may be the best way to stay in power."

September 2004
Japan: America's New South Korea?
by James E. Auer and Robyn Lim
"There are signs that Japan will assume the geostrategic role of the 'new South Korea'-a leverage point against China. Missile defense in particular will transform the us-Japan relationship into a 'normal' alliance, taking it in directions not hitherto contemplated."

September 2004
Asia in the Balance: America and China's "Peaceful Rise"
by Robert Sutter
"America's strengths in Asia remain formidable. . . . Chinese leaders seem to understand this in their acceptance of us leadership in Asian and world affairs, as part of a long-term strategy to develop 'peacefully' without upsetting the United States."

September 2004
Hong Kong: "One Country, Two Systems" in Troubled Waters
by Craig N. Canning
"Chinese central government officials are reluctant to allow political reform in Hong Kong to proceed too rapidly or to be driven primarily by public demonstrations and aggressive pro-democracy activists."

April 2004
Learning by Doing: Al Qaeda's Allies in Southeast Asia
by Zachary Abuza
"Al Qaeda and its affiliates will continue to attack soft economic targets, primarily in moderate Muslim states, whose secular regimes, closely allied with the United States, are Al Qaeda's real focus."

April 2004
Southeast Asia's Marred Miracle
by Carlyle A. Thayer
"Although midterm economic prospects for Southeast Asia appear reasonably good, the region's political and security dynamics pose considerable risks to a full recovery from the crisis of 1997."

April 2004
Gloomy Burmese Days
by Joshua Kurlantzick
The optimism surrounding the possibility of a democratic thaw in 2002 "was a mirage, a blip distracting attention from a more depressing long-term trend. . . . Burma's Asian neighbors, including democracies India and Thailand, increasingly are giving the junta free rein to dominate politics and abuse the citizenry."

December 2003
China's Dubious Role in the War on Terror
by Joshua Kurlantzick
"Although China has made some attempts to help the United States combat terrorist groups, its contributions have been limited and overpraised, and it has manipulated the war on terror for its own means."

September 2003
Changing Course on China
by Elizabeth Economy
Relations between China and the United States are perhaps the best they have been since 1989. . . . What accounts for this seemingly dramatic transformation?

September 2003
China and the Politics of SARS
by Joseph Fewsmith
"By challenging the Chinese to consider not only the accountability of their government, but also issues of openness, trust, responsiveness, and the ëright to know,' the sars crisis seems likely to provide a major impetus to new thinking about relations between society and state."

September 2003
Hong Kong and the Limits of People Power
by Frank Ching
"Hong Kong has little choice but to try to make the one country, two systems formula work. The alternative is not independence but absorption into the mainland's political system."

September 2003
"Houston, We Have a Problem": China and the Race to Space
by Joan Johnson-Freese
"If the United States continues to exploit the obvious military advantages of space and China feels compelled to respond, a space race seems inevitable. It is inevitable because both countries recognize that space can provide advantages, or at least avoid disadvantages, regarding the other. Space may inevitably make China the third man in the fourth battlefield."

September 2003
China's Brave New World
by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom
"China's leaders have shifted from relying on Orwellian strategies to policies that Huxley provides us with a better guide for understanding...[T]o see China today as a Big Brother state is to miss much that has been actually taking place in the People's Republic."