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After the demise of bipolarity there are at least two significant impediments in creating a more secure, cooperative and prosperous global system. One involves miscalculations in the West, while the other rests with a fundamental misunderstanding in Moscow and Beijing regarding the nature of success inherent in liberal democracies and market economics. Development is a long-term process and Western attempts at achieving overnight results require near political suicide from entrenched elites. A policy that requires irrationality on the part of decision makers in the developing world is prone to suboptimal outcomes. Moreover, leaders in the former Soviet Union and Beijing misunderstand two of the most important aspects of long-term Western success: secure intellectual property rights creating the incentives for innovation, creativity and technical change, and the mitigation of the effects of the security dilemma by creating security structures that complement rather than compete with one another. The article analyzes these issues from a geopolitical perspective and assesses their impact on potential policy options. Adapted from the source document.

Even though Latin America & the Asian Pacific nations have taken different developmental paths, Latin America is now poised to take advantage of the dynamic growth of the Asian Pacific, with Chile enjoying a privileged geographical position. Connections between the two regions have been formed on three axes -- the state, trade, & academia -- & after September 11, 2001, there is a security reason to connect. Economic conditions in the People's Republic of China, Japan, & Chile, & the relationship between China & Japan are discussed. Chile needs to build up its existing networks with the Pacific Rim, especially cultural ones, to increase exchange & trade & benefit from the Pacific Rim successes. Adapted from the source document.

Conference paper. Increasing economic interest and reduced military presence.

Future international relations in East Asia are likely to be largely shaped by the maritime strategies and policies of various actors. This paper examines China's policy and behavior in maritime cooperation in the East Asian region in recent years, a topic that has been insufficiently understood. I suggest that while it is necessary and useful to take into account China's naval power, more attention to Chinese intentions and policy on East Asian maritime issues is warranted to arrive at a more balanced, and arguably more accurate, understanding of China's role in East Asian maritime affairs. This paper takes stock of China's changing perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors in maritime cooperation in the region. I describe China's new policy moves in the South China Sea and East China Sea. I also address some of the major Chinese concerns for further maritime cooperation in East Asia. I conclude that while a grand cooperative maritime regime is still not possible from a Chinese perspective, China is likely to agree to more extensive and substantive maritime cooperation in many functional areas, most notably in the non-traditional security arena. (J Contemp China/GIGA)

New long‐term environmental sequences for Southeast Asia provide a basis for reevaluating the development of agroecosystems. Previous models depict agricultural development as a singular, relatively rapid response to various stimuli such as climate change and population growth. In contrast, the Southeast Asian data indicate that the development of tropical agro‐ecosystems are the result of stresses separated in time and not part of a unitary developmental process. Two phases are evident: At the end of the Pleistocene, environmental data indicate a significant climatic change that would have affected the distribution of food resources. In some areas, this encouraged food production as previous food resources decreased or disappeared. In the second phase, during the mid‐ Holocene, increased cultural and social risks led to shifts in strategies that created agro‐ecosystems—a more fundamental transformation of landscape ecology. This distinct two‐phase pattern suggests groups were responding to very different challenges in each period These findings underscore the need to reexamine agricultural models that conflate separate and distinct processes of cultural change. [Keywords: Southeast Asia, tropical land use, phytoliths, agriculture, Thailand]

Factory Asia, supply chains in Asian countries, is a center of global manufacturing. Over the last decade, Asian multinational enterprises have become a significant part of Factory Asia. In this paper, we examine the boundaries of Korean firms in Asia. More specifically, we test the predictions of property rights theory for cross‐border vertical integration, using firm‐level data from Korean multinational enterprises. In line with the theory's predictions, we find that cross‐border backward vertical integration is positively related to the R&D intensity of domestic producing industries and negatively related to those of foreign supplying industries, but only when transactions between the producing and supplying industries are large enough. These results can help us to understand how Asian multinational enterprises develop their supply chains in Asia.

The prevailing orthodoxy in the academic literature devoted to the history of Australia's post-1945 international relations posits that a mixture of suspicion and condescension permeated the attitude of the governments headed by Robert Menzies (1949–1966) toward the Asia-Pacific region. Menzies's regional policies, according to this view, not only prevented Australia from engaging meaningfully with its Asian neighbors but also ended up antagonizing them. This article rejects the conventional view and instead shows that the prevailing left-Labor assessments of Menzies's regional policy are fundamentally marred by an anachronistic disregard of the diplomatic dynamics, political challenges, and economic realities of Cold War Asia.

To address the impacts of climate change, countries in South Asia are increasingly making efforts to design climate change adaptation (CCA) policies. Such policies are prepared in a complex power-loaded environment, where different policy actors struggle with one another to meet their personal or collective interests. Current CCA policy research highlights the importance of power in policy-making, but few studies have looked into this systematically. This dissertation therefore aims to study the role of power in CCA policy-making in South Asia and to recommend ways to deal with the negative effects of power. The research adopts an abductive research design, using qualitative case studies in Nepal, India and Bangladesh. Case studies at local, national and transboundary level are conducted to study how actors' power interplay influences CCA policy-making processes and policies. This dissertation proposes a power interplay framework that describes interactions between policy actors and how actors deploy material and ideational resources to influence one another. It presents evidence of how policy actors use these resources at local and regional level to exclude local policy actors and push for short-termism in local adaptation plans and in the planning process for the transboundary Brahmaputra River basin. It shows that multiple climate policy paradigms shape the way in which adaptation is framed and approached by policy actors and that these paradigms have an important influence on how power interplay evolves. To reduce the negative effects of power – for example, the exclusion of actors – I distilled four power-sensitive design principles (PDPs) from other social science disciplines for application in the CCA context. The results of this dissertation offer theoretical contributions to the study of CCA policy-making in South Asia, and concrete and practically relevant PDPs are proposed to improve long-term CCA planning.

This paper argues that the collective action in Asia by its regional organizations has historically suffered from a "capability-legitimacy gap": a disjuncture between the capability (in terms of material resources) of major Asian powers to lead regional cooperation on the one hand and their political legitimacy and will as regional leaders on the other. Successful collective action requires leadership with both capability (as suggested by rationalist theories) and legitimacy (as suggested by constructivist approaches). A central point of the paper is that the putative or aspiring leaders of Asian regionalism throughout the post-war period never had both. Actors who were materially capable of providing leadership and direction (the United States [US]1 and Japan) have lacked the necessary legitimacy, while those who have possessed legitimacy (India and the People's Republic of China [PRC])2 in the 1940s and 1950s, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) since 1967, and Indonesia in the context of Asia as a whole) have lacked the necessary resources. The result has been that while the ASEAN-led Asian institutions have made a significant normative contribution to regional order, they have not proved to be effective instruments of regional problem solving. But the capability-legitimacy gap has both costs and benefits. While Asian regional institutions remain weakly institutionalized and attract criticism as "talk-shops", they have helped to ensure that Asia does not degenerate into a hegemonic order or a concert of power. It remains to be seen whether regionalism in an era of a rising PRC and India could bridge this gap. It is theoretically possible that the PRC and India could develop and possess both the resources and political will and standing to provide collective goods and lead Asian regionalism, but their mutual rivalry might prevent this.

Le but de cet article est de donner un aperçu général des aspects juridiques des relations entre l'UE et les républiques d'Asie centrale, en examinant les Accords de partenariat et de coopération (APC) et leurs lacunes. Une attention particulière a été accordée à la République d'Ouzbékistan. Les Accords de Partenariat et de Coopération signés entre l'Union européenne (à l'époque des Communautés européennes) et les républiques d'Asie centrale, ainsi que d'autres républiques de la Communauté des États indépendants (CEI) qui ont une histoire particulière. Les Accords de partenariat et de coopération ont la nature d'« accords mixtes », car les champs d'application ne relèvent pas de la compétence exclusive de l'UE ou des États membres où les deux partagent les compétences. L'auteur se concentre sur la nature juridique et sur le caractère « mixte » de l'Accord de partenariat et de coopération et propose de moderniser ces accords en tenant compte de l'expérience de 15 ans au cours des dernières années de sa réalisation.

After examining the theoretical foundations of financial development, the author presents a range of indicators of financial development for selected Asia-Pacific countries. According to him, the first objective of financial development in a financially repressed economy is to set financial prices at broadly the correct level, that is, real deposit and loan interest rates should be significantly positive. (DÜI-Sen)

Contents -- Abbreviations -- Contributors -- Introduction: Interdisciplinary Approach to Regional Cooperation in South Asia -- 1 Human Interaction in Space -- 2 Role of Infrastructural Networks on Cooperation and Development -- 3 Sustainability and Natural Resources -- 4 Institutional Issues -- 5 Conclusion -- Part I: Social and Economic Aspects in South Asia Interaction -- International Trade and Widening Wage Gap: A General Equilibrium Approach -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Debate on the Cause of Widening Wage Gap: Trade vs. Technology -- 3 Role of International Trade: Recent Theoretical Explanations -- 4 Symmetric Widening of Wage Gap: Examples -- 4.1 Continuum of Stages of Production, Outsourcing and Widening Wage Gap -- 4.2 Tariff Reduction in a Generalized HOS Model -- 4.3 Tariff Reductions in 2 x 2 HOS Model: Role of Initial Level of Protection -- 4.4 Conversion of Quantitative Restrictions, Rent-Seeking and Wage Gap -- 5 Dimensions of Wage Gap in Developing Countries -- 5.1 Diversified Export Basket and Complementarity -- 5.2 Segmented Labour Markets and Informal Wage -- 6 Conclusion -- References -- Causes and Effects of Foreign Direct Investment in South Asia -- 1 Investment, Cooperation and Development -- 2 Foreign Direct Investment in South Asia: An Overview -- 3 Effects and Causes of FDI in South Asia -- 4 Concluding Remarks -- References -- Migration Flows in South Asia -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Causes and Factors of Migration -- 2.1 Types of Migration -- 2.2 Migrants Trend -- 2.3 Demographic Characteristics of Migrants -- 2.4 Remittances Inflow and Share of GDP -- 2.5 Projection of Remittance Flow -- 2.6 Uses of Remittances -- 2.7 Impact of Migration Flow -- 2.8 Demographic Impact -- 2.9 Social and Political Impact -- 2.10 Economic Impact -- 2.11 Detrimental Effects -- 3 Human Trafficking and Gender Violence -- 3.1 Migration Trap

Rapid population growth and widespread unemployment are twin dilemmas in all the South-east Asian nations. In other more developed countries, increases in population have coincided with the growth of industry and towns. Consequently serious rural unemployment has been avoided. However, the pace of industrialization in South-east Asia has not been able to cope with the natural growth of the cities, let alone to absorb immigrants from the countryside. Yet, even the very limited opportunities for employment in the towns has attracted people to them with concomitant spreading of slums, poverty and squalor. It can be argued that 'urban growth in the underdeveloped areas is not a feature of the expansion of the industrial base but an expression of the severity of the agrarian crises'. Further, it seems unlikely that the current rate of urbanization and industrialization in South-east Asia will solve the unemployment problem in the region. A solution must be found within a rural context.

The bare facts about the history and organization of the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) are not difficult to relate. The commission was established in 1947 by the Economic and Social Council, along with two other regional economic commissions for Europe and Latin America, as a five-year experiment. Its terms of reference authorized it "acting within the framework of the policies of the United Nations and subject to the general supervision of the Council" and provided that it take "no action in respect to any country without the agreement of the Government of that country" to:(a) initiate and participate in measures for facilitating concerted action for the economic reconstruction of Asia and the Far East, for raising the level of economic activity … and for maintaining and strengthening the economic relations of these areas both among themselves and with other countries of the world;