Asian Allies Research Articles

Reducing Nuclear Salience: How to Reassure Northeast Asian Allies

One of the Biden administration’s top foreign policy challenges is to reinvigorate US alliances. Regional threats in Eastern Europe and Northeast Asia have become more complex in recent years, just...

Emerging Structure of U.S. Alliances in Asia

Emerging Structure of U.S. Alliances in Asia

The Prospects of the US Alliance System in Asia: Managing from the Hub

This paper examines the implications of the United States’ “hub-and-spoke” alliance system in Asia. It argues that the US enjoys a bargaining advantage in the current bilateral security relations with its Asian allies. In contrast to a multilateral alliance, the US can better prevent free riders and joint resistance in its bilateral relations. It can effectively restrain the behavior of its allies and compel them to accommodate American interests. The hub-and-spoke system helps the US consolidate its policy influence over the Asian allies, supervise inter-alliance cooperation, and increase defense cooperation between allies and non-allies. This paper uses episodes of defense cooperation between the US, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and India to illustrate the American alliance management techniques since 2016. During this time, the US allies have increasingly participated in regional security affairs due to US demands and guidance rather than autonomous decisions. Facing strong US pressure, allies have found it hard to challenge the US under the hub-and-spoke system despite common grievances. This leads to two implications for the future: First, the US allies may have less autonomy in their foreign policies, restraining their ability to pursue neutral positions and policies in regional affairs such as the South China Sea dispute. Second, the US may discourage or even undermine the emergence of multilateral security institutions in Asia. The US is likely to maintain the “hub-and-spoke” system to safeguard its strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific.

Fishing for Oil: Natural-Resource Management between the United States and Maritime East Asia in the 1970s

The possibility of oil reserves under the seabed of the East China Sea created competition between Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan to claim ownership of these natural resources. The dispute marked the start of international cooperation in maritime East Asia and introduced the United States into this power game due to its exploration techniques and financial power. While Taibei, Tokyo, and Seoul put sovereignty-related disputes aside in an attempt to explore resources jointly, the change in international politics in East Asia and Washington’s perception of the western Pacific rim led to the failure of cooperation. This article argues that this international power game over natural resources management epitomized the dynamic politics between the United States and its East Asian allies. The roles of sovereignty, local interests, and U.S. international security created a dynamic scenario revealing how oil reserves were never the issue, but instead the embodiment of the actual concerns of these players behind their diplomatic language. Situating the 1970s oil exploration in the context of the Cold War, this article provides a historical lens to understand the contours of the shifting geopolitical structure in maritime East Asia.

Alliances Adrift: Is This the End of America's Asian Alliances?

Alliances Adrift: Is This the End of America's Asian Alliances?

Contested Concept: Unpacking Australia’s Indo‐Pacific Debate

Australia is among the most prominent advocates of the Indo‐Pacific concept that increasingly serves as a new point of convergence between the United States and its Asian allies and partners. In contrast to this upgraded Indo‐Pacific orientation, however, a vigorous debate is playing out in Australia regarding the merits of this concept and its supporting pillars, such as the idea of a rules‐based international order and the resuscitated Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (or Quad). This article traces the competing perspectives in that debate. While not anticipating any imminent shift in Canberra’s official support for the Indo‐Pacific concept, the argument is advanced here that Australia’s Indo‐Pacific debate requires careful monitoring. Precisely because Canberra’s Indo‐Pacific advocacy has been so prominent, any deviation from this posture could have negative ramifications for the Indo‐Pacific concept’s broader pervasiveness and sustainability, particularly among America’s Southeast Asian allies and partners who are now only beginning to embrace it.

CREATING GLOBAL DEMAND: POLYCENTRIC APPROACHES, CROSSROADS OF SILK AND SILVER IN CHINA AND IBERIAN EMPIRES DURING THE EARLY MODERN ERA

ABSTRACTThis monographic issue of theRHE-JILAEHpresents new case studies in order to compare regions of Asia, Europe and the Americas through analysis of global demand for western goods in China (goods of European and American origin) as well as demand eastern goods (of Chinese and Indian origin) in Europe and the Americas. The global circulation of goods included accumulation of American silver in the hands of Chinese merchants and private institutions. Thus, this issue re-evaluates origins of the first globalisation during the 16thcentury, as opposed to the 1820s. Global trade networks and long-distance alliances in Asia, the Americas and Europe date back to the 16thcentury when Manila galleon routes were established.

Defensive Defense: A Better Way to Protect US Allies in Asia

US strategy in East Asia is defensive—seeking to maintain the territorial status quo and to preserve open trade and investment. The military component of that strategy largely involves helping alli...

Re‐delimitation of Tinospora (Menispermaceae): Implications for character evolution and historical biogeography

AbstractTraditional Tinospora is a heterogeneous genus, distributed in the African and Asian tropics as well as Australia and adjacent islands. Molecular phylogenetics has contributed greatly to improve our understanding of the genus over the past decade, however its circumscription is yet unresolved. In this study, we present a phylogenetic analysis of Burasaieae using six molecular markers (rbcL, atpB, matK, ndhF, trnL‐F, ITS), with a focus on Tinospora. Our results indicate that sampled species of Tinospora are distributed in three different clades. Tinospora tinosporoides, endemic to Australasia, is strongly supported as sister to the South American Borismene. By integrating lines of evidence from molecular phylogeny and morphology, we resurrected the monotypic Fawcettia to include F. tinosporoides. Our estimated age for the split of Fawcettia‐Borismene was ca. 29 Ma, suggesting that trans‐Pacific long‐distance dispersal may be the most feasible explanation for the Australasian–South American disjunction. Tinospora oblongifolia is a member of Hyalosepalum, characterized by three stamens with connate filaments, whereas T. tenera, once placed in Hyalosepalum, is recovered within Tinospora, characterized by six stamens. Evolutionary inferences of morphological characters indicate that the five selected characters, traditionally used to distinguish genera in Burasaieae, are highly homoplastic. Our molecular dating and ancestral range reconstruction suggest that Tinospora originated from Africa in the middle Oligocene (ca. 28 Ma) and expanded into Asia in the Early Miocene (ca. 21 Ma). Within Tinospora, a vicariance event occurred in the Middle Miocene (ca. 17 Ma) resulting in the split of African T. tenera and its Asian allies. One dispersal from Asia to Africa was inferred in the Late Miocene (ca. 10 Ma). Australian T. smilacina and T. esiangkara originated from Asia in the early Late Miocene (ca. 11 Ma). Thus, geodispersal and subsequent vicariance, as well as transoceanic long‐distance dispersal, have been responsible for the present distribution of Tinospora.

Theorizing a Sustainable-Holistic-Interconnected-Partnership Development Model with Feminist, Activist Lenses: Best Practices from a Community-University Service-Learning Partnership in Asian American Studies

Mindfully engaging with one another on collaborative projects and relationship building is critical for sustaining partnerships of trust and reciprocity between community-based organizations (CBOs) and institutions of higher education. This resource paper presents the Sustainable-Holistic-Interconnected-Partnership (SHIP) Development Model based on a study theorizing the organizational evolution of the ten- year community-university service-learning partnership between the Youth Education Program of the Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community Alliance and the Asian American Studies Program at California State University, Fullerton. The authors conducted a self- study intersecting their lenses as feminist activists of color and their use of qualitative methods. They found that they sustained their partnership by intentionally grounding their norms and practice in the values of democracy, equity, social justice, and liberation. The SHIP model has diverse implications for community-university partnerships and the fields of Asian American studies (AAS) and service learning.

Japan, South Korea and the rise of a networked security architecture in East Asia

This article explains Japan’s and South Korea’s role in the transition from the hub-and-spokes alliance system to a networked security architecture in East Asia. It is argued that China’s contestation of the rules-based international order in East Asia has been confronted by East Asian states through a mixture of resistance and accommodation. From a Japanese point of view, Beijing’s ascendency is considered particularly disruptive for the regional order. Consequently, Japan has become a central hub in the development of the networked security architecture enacting two complementary strategies: the consolidation of the alliance with the United States and the creation of new and less binding forms of bilateral, minilateral and multilateral security partnerships with Asian allies. By contrast, since Seoul considers China as an essential partner for the stabilisation of the Korean Peninsula, it has played a more peripheral role in the development of this regional networking dynamic.

Spiritual Fraternities: The Transnational Networks of Ngô Đình Diệm’s Personalist Revolution and the Republic of Vietnam, 1955–1963

This article elucidates the role of personalism in Ngô Đình Diệm’s relations with his principal anticommunist allies in Asia by considering the First Republic’s involvement in the Asian Peoples’ Anti-Communist League and Moral Re-Armament. These organizations provided crucial transnational platforms through which Ngô Đình Diệm secured support for his personalist vision. Shared beliefs about the spiritual and moral threat of communist materialism, and the spiritual revolution it demanded in response, undergirded Ngô Đình Diệm’s anticommunist alliances in Asia. The First Republic’s deep involvement in these regional organizations, which operated free from US influence, challenges prevailing conceptions of its engagement with Cold War Asia.

A Missed Partnership: Russia and the US at the Pacific

Both Russia and the United States consider the Asia-Pacific as the center of the world economy and politics and assume the active presence in the region crucial for their security and economic development. They did not have such sharp contradictions there as in Europe or in the post-Soviet space. Moreover, some of their interests in the Asia-Pacific Region coincide – such as preventing Chinese hegemony. In this regard, the Russian-American dialogue and cooperation in the Asia-Pacific could be an important pillar of the positive agenda of their relations and a factor in their sustainability. Due to foreign policy inertia, the inflexibility of the agenda of Russian-American relations and the inability of the parties to go beyond the usual pattern, such a dialogue has not even begun. Both sides demonstrated strategic myopia. This weakened the resilience of US-Russian relations in the face of new challenges and accelerated their deterioration and disruption to a new confrontation. The Asia-Pacific has become another theater of the US-Russian systemic confrontation. However, it is in the interest of bothRussia and the United States to separate relations in this region from their general confrontation. This will create favorable conditions for Russia to build a balanced partnership system in the Asia-Pacific, which is necessary to consolidate its role as an independent global great power. In addition, the Russian-American dialogue on the Asia-Pacific, or at least the weakening of their confrontation in this region, will reduce its polarization and prevent tensions between the US and its Asian allies and partners.

A ‘pivot’ that never existed: America’s Asian strategy under Obama and Trump

This article argues that Donald Trump’s Asian strategy hardly marks a radical transformation from Barack Obama’s ‘pivot to Asia’. This is because the ‘pivot to Asia’ never really existed. Although Obama was successful in building legitimacy for the strategy through international norms, he failed to translate his lofty rhetoric into practice. Much of his original pivot components (building a constructive relationship with China, coordinating with Asian allies and multilateralism in the Association of South East Asian Nations and the Trans-Pacific Partnership) has either failed or did not live up to expectations. Donald Trump was adamant that the Asian pivot was a bad strategy and that he would not follow it. But although he completely discarded Obama’s legitimization of the rebalance (as Trump speaks pragmatically and does not care about international norms), in actuality he has followed many of Obama’s policies, and even improved on some of them. That being said, Trump’s ‘pivot actions’ appear to be erratic, pragmatic short-term actions rather than a meticulously planned long-term strategy similar to Obama’s rebalance (which did not materialize). Thus, while Obama failed to transform the pivot into an effective strategy, neither is Trump’s effectiveness backed by a coherent Asian strategy.

No-First-Use Policy and a Credible Nuclear Umbrella: Paradox or Possibility?

The article examines the dilemma between the no-first-use policy and providing a credible extended deterrence to US non-nuclear allies. It traces the previous administration's effort towards a nuclear free world and briefly discusses two East Asian allies' reactions to such a policy. The article points out the difficulties of achieving two conflicting goals and suggests two policies that would need to be in place before the next administration proposes the no-first-use policy: communicating comprehensive conventional crisis response scenarios to allies and continuing engagement with North Korea. While these two recommendations might be difficult to attain at this point in time, without these, any no-first-use policy proposed by the new administration would fall into the same traps as previous attempts to implement no-first-use, and ultimately, be short-lived.

СТРАТЕГИЯ АДМИНИСТРАЦИИ Д. ТРАМПА В АЗИАТСКО-ТИХООКЕАНСКОМ РЕГИОНЕ

The article provides a comprehensive review of the U.S. policy in Asia during the Trump administration, which is conceptualized on the basis of the “Indo-Pacific” concept. The author notes that this concept originated from Japan and India, then was adopted by the Obama administration as the political framework for the U.S. pivot to Asia, and now has been reintroduced in Asia to serve Trump’s “America First” guideline. Under the Trump administration, Washington sharply intensified its efforts to design the “Indo-Pacific region”: the four countries (the US, India, Japan, and Australia) openly support and advocate this concept, and to make it practical they have established multilateral political consultation mechanisms and developed military venues of quadrilateral cooperation. By this stage, as the author argues, the “Indo-Pacific” policy of the U.S. and its Asian allies shifted to be a blunt effort of block-building rather than an endeavor of establishing an inclusive regional cooperation mechanism. Moreover, the article interprets this block approach as growingly anti-China-centric. The U. S. is attempting to assemble a coalition to contain China in general, and particularly its implementation of its “One Belt, One Road” initiative. The author overviews the U.S. policy towards North Korea, economic cooperation in Asia, and relations with major Asian actors to build the ground for the main finding of the article: the “Indo-Pacific” block-building fundamentally contradicts the well-established Asian political tradition of a more inclusive and softer approach as is manifested in the core mechanisms of international relations in Asia, i. e. Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), East Asia Summit (EAS), and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). Hence, while many Asian states have concerns about the progressing Chinese might and ambitions, most of them — except the three countries (India, Japan, and Australia) — remain committed to these long-standing mechanisms, refraining from shifting to the “Indo-Pacific” block approach.

South Asian Epidemic of Antifungal Therapeutic Failures: Congress Proceedings and Take-home Messages. First International Congress of SAARCUM: South Asian Alliance against Recalcitrant CUtaneous Mycosis. 17 November 2018, Medanta - The Medicity, Gurugram, India.

South Asian Epidemic of Antifungal Therapeutic Failures: Congress Proceedings and Take-home Messages. First International Congress of SAARCUM: South Asian Alliance against Recalcitrant CUtaneous Mycosis. 17 November 2018, Medanta - The Medicity, Gurugram, India.

Congress and Trump Administration China Policy: Overlapping Priorities, Uneasy Adjustments and Hardening toward Beijing

ABSTRACTRepublican-led congressional interaction with the Donald Trump campaign and administration on China-related matters during the 2016 US election campaign and the first year of the new administration involved often grudging adjustments on both sides. Major controversy was avoided partly because China issues often were overshadowed by other policy priorities and partly because congressional Republicans feared retribution from their mercurial leader who was very popular with the party rank-and-file and often harshly punished opponents. Moreover, Donald Trump’s adjustments in 2017 saw him come into line with conventional Republican congressional views on the importance of Asian allies and partners, nuclear weapons nonproliferation and greater US pressure on North Korea and on China to influence North Korea.

Sinographic Writing as Script of Revolution and East Asian Alliance― Exchange of Revolutionary Knowledge, Reading Overturned Chariot: The Autobiography of Phan Bội Châu

Sinographic Writing as Script of Revolution and East Asian Alliance― Exchange of Revolutionary Knowledge, Reading Overturned Chariot: The Autobiography of Phan Bội Châu

Cheap talk, costly talk, crazy talk: patterns in North Korea’s English language propaganda

This article examines the patterns in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (North Korea’s) use of hostile rhetoric in its internationally-directed messaging. The article first places North Korea’s belligerent rhetoric in the context of that country’s capacity to threaten the US and its Northeast Asian allies; indeed many analysts worry that Pyongyang’s rhetoric represents a conflict escalation risk or even a casus belli. Following this, the article discusses the common explanations – irrationality/incompetence, lack of audience costs, inter alia – for why the North Korean regime employs such hostile rhetoric, and finds these explanations wrong or misleading. The main analysis section describes the results of a study of 10 years of English-language propaganda published by the KCNA (North Korea’s state news agency). A multiple regression model is used to test the relationship between North Korea’s hostile rhetoric and a set of independent variables. The statistical tests indicate a mixed correlation of North Korean rhetoric to the independent variables. One major finding is that there is no correlation between hostile North Korean rhetoric and the country’s kinetic provocations. The conclusion discusses the role that North Korea’s rhetoric plays within the country’s larger adversarial relationship to the US, South Korea, and Japan.