Suchergebnisse

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the trend of transatlantic strategic convergence and policy coordination in response to Chinese trade practices and technological competition, specifically in the critical minerals sector.


Design/methodology/approach
The research draws on primary and secondary source material to identify evidence of and examine the drivers, manifestations and prospects for effective US-European efforts to advance the shared aim of reducing vulnerabilities in critical minerals supply chains.


Findings
The interests of the USA and Europe would be best served by prioritizing their own security, diversification and resilience strategies while seeking areas of common ground and constructive engagement with China.


Research limitations/implications
The research offers a fresh perspective on the growing alignment and persistent gaps in US and European perspectives on China's rising influence and assertive behavior.


Originality/value
The research highlights the vital role of critical minerals in national security, economic competitiveness, technological advancement and sustainable resource management. It underscores the shared recognition on both sides of the Atlantic that securing a stable supply of critical minerals – essential for maintaining strategic capabilities, driving innovation and ensuring long-term economic prosperity – necessitates tighter transatlantic coordination as well as constructive engagement with China.

The Gulf is now a focal point in the strategic rivalry between the United States and China. US China policy has shifted from engagement to strategic competition. US and China engagement in the Gulf is characterised by overlapping interests, distinctive roles and changing patterns. This article proposes ways for the United States to manage strategic competition in the Gulf responsibly, thereby moving away from nascent competition and further mutual distrust and hostility in the region.

The Biden administration's approach to the Indo-Pacific strategy represents the latest and most ambitious incarnation of the 'new multilateralism'—an institutional redesign that seeks to respond to unprecedented changes in and challenges to the US-led international order. This article sheds light on the conceptual underpinnings, structural features, and development of the strategy. It shows how 'entrepreneurial' Japanese diplomacy, US coalition-building, Transatlantic policy convergences, and the galvanizing effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine have combined to shape the contours of the strategy and endow it with a sense of common purpose. It brings into sharp focus the US strategy's reliance on the creation, strengthening, and leveraging of informal institutional configurations of power and cooperation. And it highlights some of the factors that might result in this approach ultimately proving to be more of a triumph of structure and process than of concrete substance and accomplishment.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is often described as the cradle of the three Abrahamic faiths and Iraq as a land "where faith was born." But the past two decades have dealt a severe, possibly fatal blow to religious communities that were once vibrant and integral parts of Iraq's social fabric—and perhaps to the very idea of pluralism in the region. Ensuring the continued presence of religious minority communities is vital to preserving Iraq's social diversity and nurturing a culture of pluralism. Iraq's best hope to save its vanishing minorities from extinction and revive religious pluralism lies in the Iraqi Region of Kurdistan (IRK). Fully incorporating displaced non-Muslim components of Iraqi society into host communities in the IRK while preserving their distinctive collective identity would advance the prospects for the survival of religious minorities and the future of pluralism in the IRK, the country at large, and the wider region.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate a significant course correction in US–China policy. It examines the increasingly broad dissatisfaction with China policy, which has resulted in an apparent end the era of intensive engagement and led to a hardening of the US approach to China across the policy spectrum, as exemplified by the critique of and incipient efforts to counter China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).


Design/methodology/approach
The research draws on primary and secondary source material to identify evidence of and examine the rationale behind the shift from the USA's decades-long "engagement" approach toward an in intensifying strategic competition with China.


Findings
A course correction in US–China policy has been years in the making, and as most now argue is long overdue. The idea that China has emerged as America's foremost strategic competitor is widely accepted, and indeed deeply ingrained in the thinking of most US foreign affairs professionals. It is also starkly evident in current US declaratory policy and increasingly in its operational policy as well.


Research limitations/implications
The research offers a fresh perspective on the domestic and diplomatic dimensions of China's rising.


Originality/value
The research builds on the latest scholarship on the growth of China's geopolitical challenge to the USA to explore the development of China–US tensions and rivalries at all levels from the Bush and Obama eras to the present.

Borrowing the term 'Indo-Pacific' from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and refashioning the Obama 'Pivot to Asia' or 'Rebalance Strategy', the Trump administration has articulated a vision of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP), which, as its public discourse and official documents reveal, is defined through the lens of great power competition with China. Since the latter part of 2017, the administration has laid the groundwork for a whole-of-government approach aimed at advancing this vision, which consists of three pillars: economy, governance, and security. Southeast Asia – a dynamic sub-region and the fulcrum of the wider Indo-Pacific – is central to the evolving US strategy. However, in its current form, that strategy casts China in the role of an existential threat and economic enemy, and seems overly focused on military security. For these reasons, it is unlikely to garner the full support of allies and partners – without which shared prosperity, good governance, and a peaceful and secure regional order across the Indo-Pacific cannot be assured. A repositioning and repurposing of the recently resuscitated Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (or Quad) could transform this minilateral platform into a useful instrument to coordinate the four members' actions, leverage the capabilities of Quad-Plus countries, and engage ASEAN in managing non-traditional security challenges and furthering its connectivity agenda. (Asian Aff/GIGA)

The vulnerabilities that turn natural hazards such as hurricanes and earthquakes into disasters are rooted in inequality. The overarching aim of this article is to shed light on the nexus between social justice principles and the mitigation of disaster impacts. The article uses 'disaster justice' – an offshoot of 'environmental justice' – as a conceptual lens to help enrich understanding of the differential impacts of disasters upon communities and to craft more inclusive policies and programmes. In India, among the world's most disaster-prone countries, as elsewhere, there is growing recognition that children and youth, who assume a disproportionate share of the burden created by disasters, are an underutilized demographic force multipliers for disaster risk reduction. The country's multi-hazard risk and vulnerability profile has led Indian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) not just to provide post-disaster relief but increasingly to integrate into their work programs designed to unleash the potential of young people to develop the resilience of their communities. (Asian Aff/GIGA)

The popular unrest that has swept the Arab World since January 2011—occurring as China entered a period of leadership succession and delicate economic adjustment—presented Beijing with both domestic political and diplomatic challenges. This article examines how, and how well, China responded to the Arab Awakening at home and in the conduct of its diplomacy.

John Calabrese is book review editor at the Middle East Journaland assistant professor at American University in Washington, DC.

John Calabrese is assistant professor of foreign policy at American University, resident scholar at the Middle East Institute, and book review editor of the Middle East Journal.