Diplomatic Alliances Research Articles

China’s Belt and Road Initiative and its Implications on the Global Power Dynamics

This work explores the multifaceted impact of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) initiated by China on global power dynamics, economic landscapes, and diplomatic alliances. Beginning with an overview of the BRI's historical context and objectives, the essay delves into its theoretical framework, employing Organski's power transition theory to analyze economic, geopolitical, strategic, and cultural dimensions. The literature review integrates insights from scholars such as Layne, Modelski, Thompson, Huntington, and Nye, providing a nuanced understanding of the BRI's placement within broader historical patterns. The essay then examines the economic impact of the BRI on participating countries, emphasizing infrastructure development, trade facilitation, and technology transfer. A shift in the global economic center of gravity towards Asia is explored, challenging traditional economic power structures. Geopolitical implications and evolving power dynamics are analyzed, highlighting the strategic positioning of China and the formation of new alliances. Global responses to the BRI, particularly from major powers like the United States, Russia, and the European Union, are discussed, reflecting varying perspectives on China's growing influence. The work also addresses challenges and criticisms related to debt sustainability, environmental concerns, transparency, and governance. In conclusion, the paper reflects on the transformative effects of the BRI, emphasizing its role in shaping a multipolar world and challenging existing norms of hegemony.

Amir Temur's State and It’s Department

This study explores the governance system and administrative reforms implemented by Amir Timur, drawing from historical texts that highlight his consolidation of power and state-building efforts. Initially adopting Mongol administrative structures, Timur gradually reformed these systems to create a highly centralised state apparatus. Amir Timur’s state-building initiatives merged traditional Central Asian governance models with the Mongol administrative legacy. Initially adopting the Mongol structure, Timur later implemented extensive reforms to centralise authority and strengthen his empire. He established a complex administrative system divided into seven ministries, each responsible for functions such as taxation, trade, and justice. Timur's governance was deeply influenced by Islamic principles, emphasising sharia law and council deliberations to ensure stability. The "suyurgol" system allowed Timur to distribute land holdings among his descendants while retaining centralized control over key resources and military power. Through a blend of military conquests and diplomatic alliances, Timur expanded his empire, integrating vast territories and securing vital trade routes along the Silk Road, contributing to a unified and prosperous state.

Deciphering China’s higher education outreach paradigm in Southeast Asia: can a neo-tributary perspective work?

AbstractChina’s unprecedented economic rise has fueled scholarly debates about its mentality of power strategy. Pundits have approached China’s strategic objectives through its higher education outreach, with Confucius Institute expansion and international student recruitment as two mostly discussed pathways. Whereas their efforts have been largely oriented by Western lexicon including soft power and center-periphery dichotomy. China’s emerging engagements in higher education aid projects and partnerships, particularly along the Belt and Road, are rarely noticed. Adopting the Chinese history-based neo-tributary perspective as the theoretical lens, this study (re)conceptualizes China’s paradigm for global rise through its higher education export to Southeast Asia, encompassing language training, educational development assistance, student mobility, and institution/program partnerships. Data was collected from documentation, institutional data, and semi-structured interviews with 40 informants from Sino-Cambodian higher education programs. The results suggest that universities serve as a showcase for a more pragmatic Chinese exceptionalism, in which traditional Chinese worldview has been incorporated with scientific outward-looking Western ideals. A cultural recognition-seeking tactic has been experimented through telling stories of China’s attractive contemporary cultures and values in educational practices. China has relied more on utilizing higher education as a tool for short-lived economic incentives, diplomatic alliances, and image-building activities to yield quick returns. However, concrete higher education outreach practices remain scant. Neo-tributary perspective is helpful in systematically examining China’s power projection but still confined to its simplified presuppositions of Sino-centrism. It should integrate pluralistic concepts like tianxia and knowledge diplomacy to unveil China’s interactions with the ‘Global South’ and the ‘Global North’.

Translation as Politics: Translating Nikolai Karamzin’s Letters of a Russian Traveler in Nineteenth-Century France

This article examines the three translations of Nikolai Karamzin’s Letters of a Russian Traveler published in nineteenth-century France. Relying on Descriptive Translation Studies so as to challenge the traditional narrative about the political innocuousness of Karamzin’s travelogue, it reconstructs the historical contexts of the three publications in order to highlight the political agendas of their translators and/or translating patrons. Far from being the innocent product of the translators’ sheer curiosity, the three translations prove to be political objects, used at three key moments in the history of Franco-Russian relations in the nineteenth century, in order to call for political change, to try and restore Russia’s damaged reputation, or to attempt to forge new diplomatic alliances.

Pak-US Relations: An Overview in Historical Perspective (1947-2021)

This comprehensive analysis explores the history of relations between the United States and Pakistan from the country's founding in 1947 to the year 2021, providing valuable context for understanding the complex nature of this diplomatic alliance. Through the use of a historical lens, the study investigates the major occasions, turning moments, and thematic developments that have influenced the bilateral relations between Pakistan and the US over time. Starting with the early years of diplomatic engagement, the examination looks at how Cold War dynamics affected Pakistan and the United States' alignment of interests in the early post-independence era. It explores the significance of Pakistan's role in enabling the U.S. and China to establish diplomatic relations in the 1970s and how it affected world geopolitics. The research also examines times of conflict and divergence, such as the 1960s military aid embargo, the 1980s nuclear proliferation worries, and the difficulties brought on by regional conflicts. A particular focus is placed on the period following 9/11, elucidating the intricacies of the strategic alliance established within the framework of the fight against terrorism and the consequent realignment of objectives. In addition, the abstract evaluates the relationship's economic aspects by looking at trade agreements, foreign aid, and how economic assistance shapes bilateral ties. It also takes into account how the internal political climates of both nations affect the ebb and flow of their interactions. This overview attempts to offer a comprehensive understanding of the persistent trends, difficulties, and opportunities that have shaped Pakistan-U.S. relations by utilizing a historical perspective. The study adds to a thorough examination of the diplomatic, geopolitical, economic, and sociocultural factors that have influenced the development of this important relationship over more than seven decades by using a multidimensional analysis.

Belt and Road Initiative and China-Latin America Relations | A Iniciativa Cinturão e Rota e as relações China-América Latina

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has become a significant component of China’s foreign policy. Latin American countries were invited to participate in the BRI in 2018. Despite a considerable number of countries subscribing to the initiative, China has faced difficulties expanding the BRI in Latin America. The purpose of this paper is to investigate why Latin America is relevant to an Asian-centered project such as the BRI, how the BRI can influence the region's geopolitical and economic landscape, and what are the implications of this initiative for Latin American countries. This article argues that the future of the BRI in Latin America depends on China's ability to (1) address the concerns of countries that fear signing agreements related to the BRI amidst increasing competition between China and the US, and (2) make the BRI attractive to Taiwan's diplomatic allies.

Spies and scholars in the cyber age: researching intelligence in Australian policy and regional security

ABSTRACT The limited treatment of intelligence by IR and strategic studies academics in Australia distorts the scholarly research and public understanding of policymaking in Canberra. This article provides an overview of intelligence-focused research in Australia, including the traditional challenges which constrained the field, its limited engagement with more conventional scholarship, and the potential for more applied historical study of intelligence-related issues in the future. It demonstrates how key developments in Australian alliance diplomacy and cyber security are heavily influenced by intelligence and identifies trends in the US–China relationship and regional security which are elevating the strategic importance of Australia’s intelligence agencies. More interest from the academic community in the role and contribution of intelligence to foreign and defence policy will be needed in the coming years if scholarship is to remain in touch with the reality of Australian statecraft.

Situating India in Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy

The widening rift between the United States and China, the former’s efforts to strengthen ties with partners in Asia, China’s aggressive postures and its poaching of Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic allies have opened up new possibilities for Taiwan’s external engagement. The inclination of the Democratic Progressive Party-led government in Taiwan to forge regional partnerships led it to develop its flagship foreign policy – the New Southbound Policy (NSP-T) and to proactively look towards India. Amid the changing geopolitical situation, the regional positions and roles of India and Taiwan have undergone a transformation and the two states’ interests in advancing relations have become visible. While NSP-T represents a concrete decision from Taiwan’s side to push outwards, the deterioration in India’s relations with China, particularly since the border clashes at Galwan in 2020, along with India’s own growing role in the region, could be categorised as pull factors. This article offers an Indian perspective on India’s place in the NSP-T. It argues that China’s increasing assertiveness and the possibility of mutual economic benefits are the main factors driving Taiwan-India relations and that the NSP-T is facilitating the cooperation and advancement in the ties.

Strategy and Tactics of Taiwan’s Foreign Policy Against the Background of Aggravated Tensions with China

Currently, more than seven decades after its emergence in 1949, the Taiwan issue has not lost its relevance, but, instead, against the backdrop of growing U.S.–China tensions, is becoming especially acute. The PRC, which has already built up an impressive financial and economic might and a powerful military, is focused on achieving the so-called second “centennial goal” by 2049, which includes, among other things, the return of Taiwan to Beijing’s control. The return to power in Taiwan in 2016 of the Democratic Progressive Party, which stands on the positions of Taiwan’s movement towards independence, led to an almost complete “zeroing” of all the achievements as the results of the normalization of Sino-Taiwan relations in 2008–2016, dispelled hopes for a peaceful solution to the Taiwan problem and caused another round of aggravation of tension in the Taiwan Strait. The purpose of this article is to characterize the strategy and tactics of Taiwan’s foreign policy in 2016–2022, when the Tsai Ing-wen administration, which rejected the “one state, two systems” formula of unification, was under strong pressure from Beijing. In its relations with the PRC conducting the “steadfast diplomacy”, the Tsai Ing-wen administration has been taking efforts to promote a narrative in the world discourse that emphasizes the geopolitical, economic, technological, and ideological significance of Taiwan and its autonomous existence from mainland China for the world community and, first of all, its liberal-democratic part. Continuously losing its “diplomatic allies” due to Beijing’s intensified activities in limiting Taiwan’s international space since 2016, the Taiwan administration purposefully builds up and actively uses such advantages as developed democracy, technological power, and competitive, innovative, open economy in order to attract new like-minded partners for close cooperation.

Smugglers, pirates, diplomacy, and the Spanish Caribbean in the late seventeenth century

ABSTRACT In November 1682 the Dutch pirate Nicholas Van Hoorn entered the port of Santo Domingo. He left behind a path of robberies in Spain and attacks on ships of every nationality in West Africa for which English and Dutch authorities sought to prosecute him. The events that transpired during Van Hoorn's visit to Hispaniola reveal that European diplomatic alliances meant little in places where local groups had co-opted the Spanish bureaucracy under their own control and patronage. Local interests used their political influence to maneuver the Spanish administration and to serve their own goals, thus upending Spanish (and by extension, European) diplomatic arrangements. The sack of Veracruz in 1683 was in part the consequence of these actions, showing a worst-case scenario of the impact that events in the Spanish Caribbean borderlands had on the functioning of imperial systems. This article thus seeks to encourage a reevaluation of the relevance of Spanish Caribbean in the functioning of the Spanish colonial system beyond their traditional categorization as marginal enclaves.

Between EU candidacy and independent diplomacy: third country alignment with EU positions at the OSCE

ABSTRACT This article considers differentiated cooperation between European Union (EU) member states and third countries in diplomatic statements at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Using a novel dataset on interventions in OSCE Permanent Council meetings, it analyzes when and why third countries align with the EU's positions. The observed alignment patterns underline the complexity of third country motivations to form part of the EU's diplomatic alliances, such as their institutional proximity to the organization, or their own involvement in regional conflicts. In so doing the article explores the limits of differentiated diplomatic cooperation with the EU in multilateral security organizations. It also points to the constraints the EU faces when trying to establish itself as a relevant player in European and international security through diplomatic acceptance and amplification of its own views by others.

동맹외교를 통한 루마니아의 국가안보

To understand a phenomenon and to overcome it effectively, we need a lens that can see the phenomenon clearly. The meaning and type of the phenomenon look different depending on which lens we look through, and furthermore, the countermeasures and solution method for it are also different. The same goes for international relations. Alliance diplomacy, one of the various approaches to understanding the behavior of international relations, can be said to be a basic diplomatic means to maintain the balance of power between countries. The key to alliance diplomacy is the balance of power. The true purpose of alliance diplomacy is to secure a balanced power against the hostile country by forming an alliance with other countries when national security cannot be achieved on its own. The military value of Romania is increasing at the European level by the United States trying to strengthen NATO’s current strategic role. Romania is a very important region for the national interest of the United States. It is true that Romania, which is very close to Russia, a hostile hegemon, is also faithfully responding to changes in the security environment through an alliance with the United States. However, the range of mutual understanding between the United States and European countries across the Atlantic Ocean is getting narrower. Between the two powers, Europe, which provides software values such as economy and culture, and the United States, which provides hardware means such as political and military power, the scope of Romania’s movement may be narrowed. Romania is receiving economic support from the EU, a large European economic community, and security guarantees from NATO, led by the United States. Therefore, in the face of the dilemma of cooperation and discord between the two powers, Romania will have to properly adapt to the international system that is transitioning to a multipolar system by maximizing its strategic flexibility.

France and the Kingdom of SCS at the Peace Conference in Paris .

The international position of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in the post-war period was extremely difficult and complex. This was primarily due to the issues related to the dynamics and the very concept of unification of South Slavs, but also because of the situation on the European continent as a whole, which once again faced the redrawing of borders as a consequence of the disappearance of great empires – the Russian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy, and the German Empire – and the emergence of new states. In such a turbulent period, political leaders and diplomats of the common state of Southern Slavs, which was founded on December 1, 1918, were expected to use the Paris Peace Conference to search for new diplomatic alliances, as well as to preserve the traditional ones, the alliance with France in particular. The representatives of the Kingdom had to strike a balance between abiding by the wishes and demands of the great powers and defending national interests, with the primary goal being to preserve the territories that the Kingdom of Serbia, as a victor of the Great War, liberated and united.

COVID 19 and Taiwan’s Medical Aid to Honduras: The Last Latin American Frontier for the Republic 2020-2021

Republic of China (Taiwan) has a long history of foreign aid policy/programs towards Honduras, one of their most consistent and strategic allies in the Central American region. As shifts in Taiwan’s foreign policy gradually increased participation of civil actors and number of development projects in Honduras, the arrival of COVID-19 pandemic brought changes to the said aid programs. As a result, Taiwan’s foreign aid program to Honduras changed from development projects to the transfer of medical equipment; masks, ventilators, thermal imager, and test kits from Taiwan to Honduras. As per objective of foreign aid in Taiwan’s white paper on foreign aid policy, foreign aid is utilized to ensure closeness with Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, including Honduras. This study hence is aimed to extensively explore the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on Taiwan’s aid to Honduras through qualitative-descriptive means. In the end, uncertainty lingers around the future of Taiwan’s diplomatic relations with Honduras and subsequent foreign aid policy limited by their inability to produce vaccines, perhaps showing the weakness of Taiwan’s previous shift to value-based aid approaches in times of crisis compared to material aid.

Re-Thinking Pan-Africanism and African Integration

It is 129 years since an African-American journalist in Chicago coined the word “Pan-Africanism”. Pan-Africanism began as a gift of the diaspora to the African continent. These civil society initiatives in the diaspora culminated in an elaborate permanent, continental, state-centric institutionalisation, starting six decades ago with the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963. Its current dispensation is the African Union, and sub-regional organisations such as the Economic Community of West African States, the East African Community, and the Southern African Development Community. Diplomacy, peace-making, and economic integration have been prominent dimensions of Pan-African endeavours. As well as the continuing growth of African diasporas in countries ranging from the USA to China, we need to note the precarious position of growing intra-African diasporas in other African countries. Pan-Africanism will remain fragile until it can grow mass support, as opposed to being usually limited to intellectuals and some members of the ruling elites. African integration has not yet achieved the extraordinary supra-national aspirations enunciated in its treaties. Taken literally, they would require such significant concessions of national sovereignty as to amount to a post-Westphalian dispensation. But dense, overlapping networks of inter-governmental organisations, and continental NGOs, continue to proliferate and have substantial successes to date. These range from multi-lateral peace-enforcement expeditionary forces, to free trade areas and the start of common markets. Diplomatic alliances mark the essence of most sub-regional organisations and explain why they continue to thrive, notwithstanding the “spaghetti bowl” incomprehension of some economists and law scholars about their entanglement. We can confidently predict the continued growth of inter-governmental organising, sub-regional and continental NGOs, and Pan-African corporate expansion of an order of magnitude above what currently exists.

The Crescent on the Stage: Islam and Muslims in the Plays of two Elizabethan Dramatists

This article investigates the convention of Elizabethan Orientalism vis-à-vis historical, political, and cultural context of the period. Anglo-Islamic contact during the age of discovery is at the heart of this study. Since Queen Elizabeth consolidated strong economic and diplomatic alliance with the Muslim empires of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, her subjects exhibited special interest in the Orient. Two chief dramatists of the age, Shakespeare and Marlowe, staged their plays saturated with Islamic themes and characters. This study capitalises on the negative image of the Orient in the works of these writers. It is further argued that Elizabethan (mis) representations of the Orient were fraught with ambiguities. It witnesses that the Orients were always depicted as barbaric and uncivilised, the antipode of civilised Europe. Shakespeare and Marlowe, in their portrayal of Muslim characters, deviated from real historical facts and depicted them in a very despicable manner. They also employed many pejorative appellations for these characters. For example, ethnic terms like ‘Turks’ and ‘Moors’ were used for Muslim characters. These writers synonymized black people with tyranny and lechery. I have tried to read their plays in their true historical background. While Queen Elizabeth was establishing favorable relationships with the mighty Ottomans and the kingdom of Morocco, her writers were demonizing and vilifying them. Most of the plays by Shakespeare and Marlowe translate Muslim characters on the stage as powerful and erotically alluring. It is also shown that these dramatists thrived on paradox and ambivalence.

INDIA AND THE QUAD: OPPORTUNE GEOPOLITICS OR INCONSEQUENTIAL COOPERATION?

The tragic death of Shinzo Abe and the inception of the Maiden West Asian QUAD, the recent rollout of the Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA), and the 'Quad Partnership on Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) in the Indo-Pacific' and the QUAD’s recent announcement of an extension of 50 Billion USD to bridge infrastructural lacunae and debt obligations in the Indo-Pacific have all pummelled the diplomatic alliance under the limelight and back into the microscopic scrutiny of scholars, political thinkers and strategists. Having displayed exceptional collaborative results in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the QUAD is seen reorganising itself, with more structure, a concrete goal, defined ambitions and convergent interests.The alliance, growing in determination, resources and effectiveness has been criticised by being equated to an Asian NATO by a disgruntled China, whose Belt and Road Initiative is being systematically undone and countered by the QUAD and their strategic policies, be it Indo-Pacific monitoring or a competitive module of vaccine diplomacy. However, despite diligent and extensive contribution in the QUAD’s undertakings, India has been termed ‘the weakest link’ in the QUAD. The purpose of this paper is to understand and analyse whether the QUAD is the future or past of regional geopolitics—whether it has the will, resources, and strength to spearhead international action and cooperation in the pursuit of its agendas—and where the balance of interest lies in India's membership in the QUAD.

Debates About Russia, America, and New World Order: Four Books from the 1850s

Introduction. The first major crisis of the international relations system founded in Vienna after Napoleonic wars emerged with the series of European revolutions of 1848–1849 and Crimean War of 1853–1856. Not only diplomatic alliances required to be re-evaluated, but also politicians and thinkers challenged the philosophical foundations of the world order. As Russia was the guarantor of the old system, and the United States appeared as an attractive model for the European revolutionaries, the debate on the new world order involved re-assessment of the two countries respective roles and of their future relations. Methods and materials. The article examines books on the subject written during 1850s by four prominent thinkers: American aspiring politician Henry Winter Davis, Russian diplomat Alexei Evstafiev, Polish émigré and American journalist Adam Gurowski and Russian political émigré Ivan Golovin. Analysis. They provided four different visions of the future of the world, and, while never mentioning each other, produced a polyphonic sound of the important debate on the eve of the American Civil War. Results. Bipolarity of the international system predicted by Davis became a fact only a century later, while criticism and praise to American role as a model and an intervening power in European affairs became a constant feature of any subsequent debate.

China

In recent years, China has been steadily expanding its non-military footprint in the Pacific region in an unprecedented manner. The multi-dimensional expansion of Chinese presence in the Pacific has arguably, made the region a microcosm of power politics amongst regional and established powers. Part of the explanation for the Chinese fastpace growth in the Blue Pacific is the presence of the Taiwanese who have been one of the biggest providers of aid for diplomatic recognition. The aid-dependent Pacific Island Countries (PICs) by being active creators of the Sino-Taiwan chequebook diplomacy have time and again switched their diplomatic allegiance in order to secure more foreign aid for their social development and economic growth. Despite such an “unreliable” behaviour, Beijing has widened and deepened its presence in the region by providing concessional loans with “no strings attached.” The latter element has been conveniently alluring to all the PICs so much so that they have borrowed more than 50 percent of their GDP from China. This has alarmed the traditional donors such as US, Japan and Australia which are revisiting their policies and re-engaging in the Pacific politics actively, all aimed at preventing the Island nations sinking in Chinese debt and consequently losing their strategic leverage to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). As for Taipei, it had managed to ally itself with six PICs in return for provision of foreign aid and foreign direct investments. However, in September 2019, two of its diplomatic allies ditched it in favour of Beijing. There has also been a paradigm shift in Beijing’s earlier policy vis-à-vis the PICs. In the past, PRC would not allocate aid to Taiwan’s (ROC) allies, however, after a shift in policy, ROC’s diplomatic allies currently get more aid from Beijing than from Taipei. The other worrying factor for the local population is a steady growth of the Chinese diaspora. Despite anti-Chinese riots in many countries, the new wave of Chinese immigrants do not seem deterred by the negative repercussion of their presence in the region. These Chinese new arrivals invest heavily in real estate in a bid to legitimise their presence in the island nations. This development has caused massive trepidation among regional powers, as they believe, would pave the way for Chinese military presence in the region under a legitimate claim to protect its overseas nationals.

The Motivation of Diplomatic Switch of Selected States Newly Recognizing China Within the China-Taiwan Rivalry

The recent considerable loss of many of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies remainsunchanged. The authors of the article focus on the period between 2016and 2018, when the People’s Republic of China (PRC) established itsdiplomatic ties with Taiwan’s former allies such as Gambia, Burkina Faso,the Dominican Republic, Panama, São Tomé and Príncipe and El Salvador.The aim is to explore whether the diplomatic transition was the outcome ofdollar diplomacy alone, or if there were further motivations influencing therecognition process. The diplomatic overturn was analysed within six casestudies with a specific focus on the non-economic motivations. Inconclusion, the authors found out that the examined cases are di!erentfrom each other – in terms of not only the motivations themselves but alsothe ‘levels’ of these motivations. In most of the cases, it was possible todetect at least one significant non-economic motivation for the diplomaticswitch.