Asia-Pacific Security Research Articles

China rising: can there be a European strategy?

Abstract Europe–China relationships have gone from praise to disappointment, from talk about lifting the European arms embargo to worries about trade deficit, monetary undervaluation and investment. A strategic partnership has never been fully achieved. The relationship is important in some areas, such as trade and finance; in others, it remains lightweight. The European Union has become China's first market abroad, while China is moving rapidly to the position of first supplier. China needs to maintain access to the European market, while Europe struggles for a share of the Chinese market. Europe is not a major strategic actor in Asia–Pacific security issues, and has been thought to exercise a soft influence that would complement the Sino-American strategic relationship. European leverage is actually quite limited. The causes within the European institutional setup include complex policymaking at the European level and competition among national leaders, particularly those of France, Germany and the UK. ...

The English School and Asia-Pacific Security

The Balance of Power in Asia-Pacific Security: US-China Policies on Regional Order. By Liselotte Odgaard. London: Routledge, 2007. 288 pp., $150.00 (ISBN: 0-415-41591-8). With respect to the Asia-Pacific region, international relations (IR) theory appears to have reached an impasse. In the post-Cold War era, two lines of debate emerged that attempted to explain the organization and evolution of politics and security in the region from opposing positions. The first position was structuralist, and it employed different power factors to assess the organization and evolution of security arrangements in the region. These scholars generally debated whether these factors were static, such as “a geography of the peace” (Ross 1999), or dynamic, such as “offshore balancing” (Layne 1997). The second position was culturalist, and it employed various normative devices to explain the organization and evolution of security arrangements. These scholars debated whether these factors were historical, reflecting “hierarchical primacy” (Kang 2003), or sociological, reflecting “normative socialization” (Acharya 2001). The stalemate between these positions was all the more unhelpful given that the agenda that international relations faced in the region seemed to continuously expand: the rise of neonationalism, the possibilities for regionalism, the region's relationship to the “war on terror,” weapons proliferation and arms racing, to name but a few. There was, however, some consensus on what was likely to be the central problem in the future and the keystone around which other problems would revolve: the extant power and normative order of the United States versus the rising power and normative challenge of China. Another IR position, however, …

Conducting event studies with Asia-Pacific security market data

We investigate the effectiveness of several well-known parametric and non-parametric event study test statistics with security price data from the major Asia-Pacific security markets. Extensive Monte Carlo simulation experiments with actual daily security returns data reveal that the parametric test statistics are prone to misspecification with Asia-Pacific returns data. Two non-parametric tests, a rank test [Corrado and Zivney (Corrado, C.J., Zivney, T.L., 1992, The specification and power of the sign test in event study hypothesis tests using daily stock returns, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis 27(3), 465-478)] and a sign test [Cowan (Cowan, A.R., 1992, Non-parametric event study tests, Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting 1(4), 343–358)] were the best performers overall with market model excess returns computed using an equal weight index.

The Culture of Self-Destruction: Pyongyang's Struggle for Regime Survival

North Korea is at the top of the agenda of Asia-Pacific security, but the agenda remains almost exclusively reactive, not proactive. Against this backdrop, the article argues that the key to dealing with North Korea is Pyongyang's culture of self-destruction, collectively held ideas of state-centred sacrifice designed to ensure regime survival. Fears of insecurity embedded in unequal relations with Asia-Pacific powers have lead this authoritarian state to construct and reconstruct a national identity narrative of life and death, fostering domestic solidarity against foreign powers. As an inseparable part of this ideational power, its nuclear weapons are primarily utilized to attract international attention, to maximize political and economic gains and, in the end, to guarantee regime survival. Given the dynamic of increasing accessibility to dual-use technology, ideology-based non-proliferation rules, and North Korean determination to weaponize its nuclear technology, it is time for the Asia-Pacific powers to acknowledge that North Korean nuclear proliferation is about knowledge of nuclear technology and weapons, and will continue to remain uncontrolled and directionless. Autonomy of knowledge suggests that the Non-Proliferation Treaty is unenforceable in North Korea and, by extension, in other parts of the world, a problem the international community must face and accept. North Korea's neighbours, not the distant powers, must take the lead in regional security, seeking solutions acceptable to all the parties for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.

Conducting Event Studies With Asia-Pacific Security Market Data

We investigate the effectiveness of several well-known parametric and nonparametric event study test statistics with security price data from the major Asia-Pacific security markets. Extensive Monte Carlo simulation experiments with actual daily security returns data reveal that the parametric test statistics are prone to misspecification with Asia-Pacific returns data. Two nonparametric tests, a rank test [Corrado and Zivney (1993)] and a sign test [Cowan (1992)] performed the best overall with market model excess returns computed using an equal weight index.

The Balance of Power in Asia-Pacific Security: U.S.-China Policies on Regional Order

Abstract The article presents an analysis of the post-Cold War dynamics of powerbalancing between the United States and China, and the role great powers and middle powers such as ASEAN, Russia, South Korea, Japan and India play in this process. It makes a contribution to the ongoing debate on the U.S.-China relationship by showing how divergent U.S.-China policies in key areas such as anti-terror and anti-WMD initiatives, democracy and human rights, the U.S. alliance system and the UN system contribute to unstable patterns of power balancing in the Asia-Pacific. The article argues that the main flaws in Chinese policies on Asia-Pacific security come to the fore in Northeast Asia, which is a stronghold of the U.S. alliance system and China's near abroad, thus affecting China's influence on global security. If China cannot accommodate the region into its overall foreign policy strategy, its suggestions for a post-Cold War security order are likely to appear unconvincing to the international community. The a...

China's Peaceful Development and Asia-Pacific Security

Abstract The rapid emergence of a large country like China understandably will cause some international concern and suspicions. However, China has decided to take the road of peaceful development, and has committed itself to building a harmonious world China persists in mutual benefits and collective development, while pursuing its own prosperity. China advocates the establishment of a democratic and fair world order when it merges itself into the world and abides by the established international norms. China cannot develop peacefully without a favorable periphery and international environment. Among the three elements, common security is the objective that all players in the region should seek. Cooperation security is the approach that all countries have to adapt in an era of globalization. Development security is the foundation. It promotes the prosperity of each individual country so as to eliminate the roots of insecurity. The following five goals should be pursued by China and other countries to preserve win-win benefits for all: Increasing Strategic Mutual Trust Between the Countries; Joining Hands to Maintain Cross-Taiwan Strait Peace and Stability; Striving For a Peaceful Solution of the DPRK Nuclear Issue; Promoting Regional Security Cooperation; and Enhancing Regional Cooperation in Areas Other Than Security.

Book Review: See Seng Tan & Amitav Acharya (eds.), Asia-Pacific Security Cooperation: National Interests and Regional Order (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2004, 264pp., £57.95, hbk.)

Book Review: See Seng Tan & Amitav Acharya (eds.), Asia-Pacific Security Cooperation: National Interests and Regional Order (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2004, 264pp., £57.95, hbk.)

Stability and Complexity in Asia-Pacific Security Affairs

ASIANPERSPECTIVE, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2006, pp. 179-192. Commentary STABILITY AND COMPLEXITY IN ASIA-PACIFIC SECURITY AFFAIRS* Robert Ayson Understanding "Stability" This commentary offers a preliminary assessment of whether contemporary theories of complexity can help us understand leading security issues in the Asia-Pacific. In particular it focuses on the relevance of thinking about complexity for approaches to stability in the Asia-Pacific. With its variety of great and rising powers experiencing sometimes difficult interstate relations, a changing regional balance of power, a series of still embryonic institutions, a mixture of strong and weak states, and a combina­ tion of economic vibrancy and fragility, the Asia-Pacific is nothing less than a laboratory for some of the most important stability questions of the day. Can the understanding of stability in theo­ ries of complex systems help us better understand these stability issues? Can it enhance our appreciation of the dynamics that can cause dangerous, even life threatening, instability and the sorts of actions that might prove possible to avoid such harmful out­ comes? Can such an approach also allow us to make sense of the possibility of thinking about the stability of the Asia-Pacific in overall terms—to help us come to grips with the problematic notion of Asia-Pacific regional stability? These are the types of questions that guide this research. This article is a revised version of the author's presentation to the 2006 International Studies Association Convention in San Diego, California. 180 RobertAyson My earlier work found that Asia-Pacific stability could be understood in terms of at least five stability categories.1 These categories are: stability in the sense of the avoidance of war between states in the Asia-Pacific; the stability of the balance of power between these same states; the stability of institutions formed by countries in the Asia-Pacific (including norms of behavior as well as formal arrangements); domestic political sta­ bility within Asia-Pacific countries; and the degree of financial and economic stability that these countries enjoy. For each of these five types, the concept of stability was found to have two main reference points. First, stability can be understood as a given system's tendency toward equilibrium. This means understanding stability as a condition of something. Stability here can be the capacity to retain an already existing equilibrium—e.g., an existing regional balance of power among major contributors to the security environment in East Asia (including the U.S.-China balance) or existing political arrange­ ments within particular Asia-Pacific countries (including, for example, South Korea's own form of democratic governance). Or, stability can be the capacity to shift to a new equilibrium. This might involve movement toward a new balance of power in the region that recognizes a major alteration in relative capac­ ities (for example one that incorporates India's rise). Or, it might involve the transition from an autocratic to a democratic form of politics, as seen in Indonesia after the Suharto era or in the Philippines after Marcos. It is this capacity to find a new equilibrium in circumstances of significant change that is the real test of a system's stability. This holds whether the system consists of the domestic political arrangements within a particular Asian country, the institutions that help bind Asia-Pacific countries together in convergent behavior, or the balance of power in a changing Asia-Pacific of rising powers. The second reference point for stability is the avoidance of major harm: This means approaching stability as the aim or out­ come of a particular process. Examples here might include the 1. Robert Ayson, "Regional Stability in the Asia-Pacific: Towards a Con­ ceptual Understanding," Asian Security, vol. 1, No. 2 (April, 2005), pp. 190-213. Stability arid Complexity in Asia-PacificSecurityAffairs 181 avoidance of major violence between states as they adjust to a new power balance—the capacity, for instance, of the United States and Japan to accommodate China's reemergence as a regional great power in a reasonably peaceful manner. It could mean the capacity of regional countries to cope with substantial economic changes without incurring major harm—an important question for a modernizing China given the pace...

Japan's changing conception of the ASEAN Regional Forum: from an optimistic liberal to a pessimistic realist perspective

This article explores changes in Japan's conception of and policy toward security multilateralism1 in the Asia-Pacific region after the end of the Cold War with special reference to the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). It makes the observation that notwithstanding Japan's active role behind the establishment of the ARF in the early 1990s and continuing public expression of strong support for Asia-Pacific security multilateralism since that time, in actuality, Japan's enthusiasm for it has dwindled from the late 1990s onwards. This article argues that this has been due primarily to Japan's disappointing experiences in the ARF, evinced by its abortive efforts to promote meaningful cooperative security measures and the failings of multilateral security diplomacy in addressing its security concerns. Consequently, Japan's conception of regional security multilateralism has shifted from an optimistic liberal to a more pessimistic realist perspective from which the ARF can, at best, be seen as a venue contributing only to a minimal level of confidence building among regional countries or, to put it more cynically, ‘a talking shop’. This has made Japan's ARF policy more tentative and less energetic. Japan's enthusiasm has also been diluted by a number of internal and external constraints on ARF policy, including US misgivings about Japan's tilt toward regional security multilateralism, its domestic organizational limitations, growing dissent within the Japanese government over the value of security multilateralism, the lack of political support for bureaucratic initiatives and the unexpected frictions between bilateral and multilateral security approaches in Japan's overall security policy.

Asia-Pacific Security Cooperation: National Interests and Regional Order. Edited by See Seng Tan and Amitav Acharya. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2004. xxxii, 264 pp. $73.95 (cloth); $26.95 (paper). - Strategic Asia 2004–05: Confronting Terrorism in the Pursuit of Power.. Edited by Ashley J. Tellis and Michael Wills. Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2004. xvii, 525 pp. $24.95 (paper).

Asia-Pacific Security Cooperation: National Interests and Regional Order. Edited by See Seng Tan and Amitav Acharya. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2004. xxxii, 264 pp. $24.95 (paper). - Volume 64 Issue 4

The US–China Relationship and Asia-Pacific Security: Negotiating Change

The crucial determinant of Asia-Pacific security is whether the U.S. and China can negotiate their relationship and their relative positions and roles in such a way as to produce sustainable regional stability. This paper examines three alternative scenarios of negotiating Sino-American coexistence: (I) The maintenance of the status quo of U.S. strategic dominance over the region, which China does not challenge; (II) negotiated change, by which the two powers coordinate to manage a more fundamental structural transformation; and (III) power transition, in which there is a significant structural shift in the regional system as a rising China challenges U.S. dominance, with a range of possible outcomes.

Regional Stability in the Asia-Pacific: Towards a Conceptual Understanding

This article evaluates regional stability as a concept for Asia-Pacific security analysis. Stability can be viewed as a system's tendency towards equilibrium, including its ability to find a new equilibrium in changing conditions. This approach is reflected in five types of Asia-Pacific stability - the avoidance of major war, the stability of the distribution of power, the stability of institutions and norms, political stability within countries, and economic stability. While all of these factors constitute stability in the Asia-Pacific, it is not clear that any of them constitute the stability of the Asia-Pacific region as a coherent unit of analysis.

Southeast Asia in the Sino‑ U.S. Strategic Balance

Introduction Throughout much of the post-Gold War period, the dynamics of the Sino-U.S. relationship have been a critical factor in Southeast Asian states' foreign policies. Southeast Asia has traditionally been a site of great power competition for regional dominance, due to its strategic location as a bridge between continental and maritime Asia. To manage this competition and to enhance their own subregional autonomy, the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) engaged in a number of regional institution building initiatives during the early 1990s. This institutionalist agenda led to speculation that ASEAN could become the hub of a nascent regional security community. (1) Following the 1997 Asian financial crisis, however, the prospect that ASEAN could act as an autonomous entity to mitigate Sino-U.S. geopolitical pressures seemed increasingly tenuous. Weakened by political and economic instability, intra-regional disputes and a simultaneous expansion of its membership, ASEAN has come to question its own identity. This has only further undermined ASEAN-led regional security initiatives such as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). More frequently, Southeast Asian states have favoured bilateralism and have looked to external powers to realize their security interests. (2) These changing subregional dynamics have, in turn, prompted renewed efforts by China and the United States to cultivate influence within Southeast Asia. China's attempts to gain support for its new security concept and US efforts to secure additional access and infrastructure agreements along the East Asian littoral are illustrative. To some extent, Sino-U.S. geopolitical competition has been modified by strategic cooperation resulting from the war on terror. Yet China still remains wary of U.S. attempts to engage Southeast Asia in countering global terrorism. (3) These trends have, in turn, compelled analysts to reconceptualize the Southeast Asian security landscape in a balance of power context. Principal among these exponents is Robert Ross. In his article Geography of Peace, Ross argues that as the two most geopolitically dominant regional actors, China and the United States preside over their own separate but complementary spheres of regional influence. He asserts that continental Southeast Asian states have aligned with China and maritime Southeast Asian states have aligned with the United States. (4) The geographic position of China and the United States, and the evolution of their interests and military capabilities accordingly, make it unlikely that either country would seek to project power into the other's respective sphere. Ross therefore postulates that the emerging bipolar structure is likely to be a stable and enduring one. This portrayal of Sino-U.S. relations has been acknowledged by recent literature on Asia-Pacific security. (5) However, Ross' depiction of how Southeast Asian states respond to this relationship has been subject much less to theoretical analysis. One contending school that has emerged argues that ASEAN states have adjusted to great power geopolitical competition by pursuing a strategy rather than by aligning with either China or the United States. Gaye Christofferson specifically seeks to refute Ross' argument by asserting that the Southeast Asian states maintain a position of equidistance between the great powers. She attributes this to the ASEAN states' general distrust of great powers and their desire to maintain the delicate Sino-U.S. regional balance. (6) In making this case, however, Christofferson fails to account for exactly how the Southeast Asian states overcome Sino-U.S. geopolitical pressures and under what conditions hedging prevails. These weaknesses are, to some extent, addressed by Avery Goldstein and Amitav Acharya. Both analysts place greater emphasis on the smaller Southeast Asian states maintaining closer external ties with one power while engaging the opposing power. …

Asia-Pacific Security Issues and U.S. Policy*

A comprehensive examination and analysis of the domestic issues that confront the major actors in the area and influence them as they pursue their foreign policy objectives in relationships with the United States and other powers.

The Internet and Asia-Pacific security: Old conflicts and new behaviour

The positive uses of the Internet by civil society groups, research ­institutes, governments and other entities interested in promoting Asia-Pacific community building and cooperative security regimes have been studied and ­appreciated. The paper begins with a discussion of regional Internet diffusion patterns and the associated increase in Internet incidents. In the wake of 11 September 2001 and recent analysis of the 'dark side' of the Internet and networks, it then examines some of the destructive ways Internet technologies are being used by actors in the Asia-Pacific region. It provides examples from the patterns of Internet conflict involving a quadral relationship among four nodes, uncivil society, civil society, government and business as well as the pattern of conflict within each of the nodes. Finally, it looks at three topic areas - national security agendas, the making of security policy and the regional security dialogue process - that deserve further attention.

The UN system's contribution to Asia-Pacific security architecture

Although it has been the major states of China, the former Soviet Union and especially the United States that have made the major contributions to shaping the security architecture of the Asia-Pacific region since 1945, the UN system has played a useful, adjunct role. This is especially the case in the post-Cold War era when its principal bodies, together with its various specialized agencies, have provided vital support in moving warring societies into a period of relative peace and stability. The UN peace-building operations in Cambodia and East Timor were some of the most demanding ever undertaken by this universal institution. But beyond these particular examples, the United Nations has been influential in the region in other, more indirect, ways. It has set standards, its charter has been a powerful source of ideas when it comes to composing parallel documents at the state or regional levels, and it has helped with the negotiation of global arms control treaties, making up to some degree for the absence of such arrangements at the regional level. The UN has also had a legitimating function, providing an arena where Asia-Pacific states can publicize their grievances, and receive approval or reprimand for their behaviour. It has played a valuable role, too, as third-party mediator. However, the UN's political structure constrains the contribution it can make to the security order since it is reliant on major state agreement before it can act. Veto power - not its actual use but simply its anticipated use - gives China, Russia and the United States a controlling function with respect to a potential UN role in the management of conflict. Beijing and Washington would work, and have worked, to exclude the United Nations from major involvement in conflicts in which they have direct security interests: the Taiwan and Korean issues being the two most obvious in this regard. Thus, the United Nations is a useful buttress but not a central pillar of the region's security architecture.

Security in the Asia-Pacific: Australia and New Zealand

L'A. retrace les conditions historiques et contemporaines des politiques, de l'influence et des actions de l'Australie et de la Nouvelle-Zelande du point de vue de la securite dans l'aire Asie-Pacifique

Asia-Pacific Security Regionalism: The Impact of Post-1997 Developments

Asia-Pacific Security Regionalism: The Impact of Post-1997 Developments

An Evitable War: Engaged Containment and the US-China Balance

War is of vital importance to the state; the province of life or death; the road to survival or ruin. Sun Tzu America's success as a world power since 1898 has hinged on balancing its interests in Asia and Europe, often in the face of significant distractions and conflicting interests. Though our policy of engagement with China barely harks back to the reestablishment of diplomatic ties in 1972, it has proven adequate to managing that balance. Though far from perfect, engagement provides a workable foundation for our continued relationship with that country, provided that all three of the following conditions are met: * China's internal political configuration remains stable. * China's economic ambitions continue to take precedence over military ambitions. * The cost of using force to redress the balance of power in Asia remains prohibitive to all parties. America can do little about the first condition. The second condition is the major premise driving our relationship with China, and our engagement concept currently focuses on our economic relationship. The third and final condition is almost entirely up to the United States, and there are serious reasons to doubt that our current policies are adequate to its continuance. The problem lies not with US capabilities, but with US interpreted intentions; not with our resolve, but with our ability to redefine and communicate our vital interests in a rapidly changing strategic environment; not with our ability to use force, but with the credibility of its possible use to deter potential antagonists. In a 1998 speech on America's Asia-Pacific security strategy delivered in Singapore, amid souring US-China relations, then-Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen drew on the paintings of Toko Shinoda to craft a metaphor of the Asian security landscape, warning that we must beware of monochromatic interpretations, and have: a complete palette, and an ability to capture on our conceptual canvas both light and shadow--one that reflects Asia's complex, but enduring features, while also conveying the dynamism of the region ... because in the security realm it is critical to understand the interplay between what is fixed and what is in flux if we are to successfully anticipate and manage change. [1] Secretary Cohen went on to recite a list of US efforts to make its military apparatus more open to China, and to express official optimism at the forthcoming summit between Presidents Jiang Zemin and Bill Clinton. Quoting a 1997 speech at the National Defense University in Washington, in which Minister of Defense General Chi Haotian had expressed a hope to prevent the in our bilateral relationship, Secretary Cohen expressed a hope that the ties between the United States and China would in the future be marked by a steady and sustained engagement. Unfortunately, are exactly what has occurred. Two years later, and after relations with China had significantly cooled following the United States' accidental bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade, Secretary Cohen cheerfully announced: I just returned from China .... [A]fter a year's hiatus in our relationship for--as what they said, obvious reasons--China wants to get back on a solid track with the United States. I had a very good meeting with the Chinese leadership, and they want to establish good military-to-military relations. And it's important for us that we do this. [2] This sort of merry-go-round is typical of the type of volatile US-China relationship that is a product of the current engagement strategy. The Defense Minister of the Philippines, a country at the top of anyone's list of candidates to feel the sharp edge of Chinese force in the near future, calls it talk and take. [3] The truth is that zigzags appear not to be a by-product of our bilateral relationship with China, but rather the very essence of it. …