Suchergebnisse

Amid U.S.-led efforts to "internationalize and multilateralize" support for Taiwan in response to mounting pressure from China, the 2021 U.S.-South Korea presidential statement's unprecedented reference to "peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait" made global headlines. This study analyzes contemporary Korea-Taiwan relations in historic and comparative perspective, focusing especially on Seoul's official 1992 position on "One China" and its implications for Korea's Taiwan policy. It demonstrates that Seoul has never recognized Beijing's self-defined "One China principle" concerning its essential claim of PRC sovereignty over Taiwan. Comparative analysis of Korea's position and subsequent policies with the U.S.', Japan's, and others' further reveals significant (potential) flexibility in Korea's approach to Taiwan. The relatively distant state of Korea-Taiwan relations today is the collective political choice of Korea's democratically-elected leaders—not the legacy of some (non-existent) putative commitment made to Beijing 30 years ago. (J Contemp China / GIGA)

This lead article surveys the history and evolving policy legacies of the "one China" framework 50 years after US President Richard Nixon's historic 1972 visit to China. It begins by introducing key concepts and highlighting the crucial difference between Beijing's self-defined "one-China principle" and the US's, Japan's and key other countries' variable "one China" policies as it relates to Taiwan. It argues that three seminal 1970s developments consolidated the "one China" framework as an informal institution of international politics. The ambiguity baked in by Cold War-era geopolitical necessity provided flexibility sufficient to enable diplomatic breakthroughs between erstwhile adversaries, but also planted seeds for deepening contestation and frictions today. Recent developments – especially Taiwan's democratization and Beijing's increasingly bold and proactive assertion of its claim to sovereignty over Taiwan – have transformed incentive structures in Taipei and for its major international partners. The net effect is that the myth of "consensus" and the ambiguities enabling the framework's half-century of success face unprecedented challenges today. (China Q/GIGA)

AbstractPolitical parties' behavior in coalition formation is commonly explained by their policy-, vote-, and office-seeking incentives. From these perspectives, the 20-year partnership of Japan's ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its pacifistic Komeito junior coalition partner is an anomalous case. The longevity, closeness, and nature of their unlikely partnership challenges core assumptions in existing theories of coalition politics. LDP–Komeito cooperation has sustained for two decades despite vastly different support bases and ideological differences on fundamental policy issues. LDP leaders also show no signs of abandoning the much smaller Komeito despite enjoying a single-party majority. We argue that the remarkable durability of this puzzling partnership results primarily from the two parties' electoral incentives and what has effectively become codependence under Japan's mixed electoral system. Our analysis also demonstrates that being in a coalition can induce significant policy compromises, even from a much larger senior partner. Beyond theoretical implications, these phenomena yield important real-world consequences for Japanese politics: especially, a far less dominant LDP than the party's Diet seat total suggests, and Komeito's remarkable ability to punch significantly above its weight and constrain its far larger senior partner, even on the latter's major national security policy priorities.

As China's active assertion of its claim to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands has increasingly crowded the surrounding waters and airspace with military and paramilitary forces, the risk of a Sino-Japanese crisis has reached unprecedented heights. Neither side wants conflict, but the increased frequency and proximity at which vessels and aircraft encounter one another means that overall risk has grown proportionately. Were a miscalculation or even an unintended low-level incident to occur, de-escalation would hinge on each side's respective internal crisis management capabilities and political leaders' ability to communicate expeditiously. This article analyzes China's side of the ledger. Specifically, it assesses the extent to which institutional reforms since the 2001 US-China EP-3 crisis have ameliorated longstanding weaknesses in China's crisis management capabilities and its ability to communicate via hotlines with Japan. While significant issues and obstacles to further urgently needed improvements remain, with the establishment of a Central National Security Commission (CNSC) and other recent reforms, Beijing may finally be achieving modest improvements. Bilaterally, however, no Sino-Japanese crisis hotline exists to date. (J Contemp China/GIGA)

In the post–Cold War period, scholars have considered the Asia Pacific to be ripe for military competition and conflict. Developments over the past decade have deepened these expectations. Across the region, rising military spending and efforts of various states to bolster their military capabilities appear to have created an increasingly volatile climate, along with potentially vicious cycles of mutual arming and rearming. In this context, claims that China's rapid economic growth and surging military spending are fomenting destabilizing arms races and security dilemmas are widespread. Such claims make for catchy headlines, yet they are rarely subject to rigorous empirical tests. Whether patterns of military competition in the Asia Pacific are in fact attributable to a security dilemma–based logic has important implications for international relations theory and foreign policy. The answer has direct consequences for how leaders can maximize the likelihood that peace and stability will prevail in this economically and strategically vital region. A systematic empirical test derived from influential theoretical scholarship on the security dilemma concept assesses the drivers of bilateral and multilateral frictions and military competition under way in the Asia Pacific. Security dilemma–driven competition appears to be an important contributor, yet the outcome is not structurally determined. Although this military competition could grow significantly in the near future, there are a number of available measures that could help to ameliorate or manage some of its worst aspects.

China's limited transparency concerning its defence spending harms strategic trust, but foreign analysts often lose sight of important realities. Specific details remain unclear, but China's defence spending overall is no mystery - it supports PLA modernization and personnel development as well as its announced objectives of securing China's homeland and asserting control over contested territorial and maritime claims, with a focus on the Near Seas (the Yellow, East, and South China seas). This article offers greater context and perspective for Chinese and Western discussions of China's rise and concomitant military build-up through a nuanced and comprehensive assessment of its defence spending and military transparency. (China Q/GIGA)