Suchergebnisse

Pyongyang's nuclear strategy has been significantly shaped by the perceived U.S. nuclear threat since the early 1950s, portending a quest for a self-reliant existential nuclear deterrent for the DPRK. This article tracks and explains how Washington's nuclear threat cast a long shadow that underpins the evolution of North Korea's nuclear thinking and strategy over the years. North Korea's nuclear strategy is being shaped as much if not more so in Washington than in Pyongyang. Just as importantly, the implementation process of major denuclearization agreements has seemed ready-made to be hijacked by war hawks in domestic politics in Washington. In pursuit of these lines of reasoning, the article proceeds in three sections. The first section appraises the interplay of Washington's nuclear threats and Pyongyang's songun ("military-first") politics in the evolution of North Korea's nuclear thinking and strategy over the years. The second section offers a critical analysis of the changing dynamics of domestic politics in the making and unmaking of key denuclearization accords in the course of the first and second U.S.-DPRK nuclear standoffs. The third section brings the common-security engagement back in charting an alternative pathway toward a working peace system in the Korean peninsula. (Asian Perspect/GIGA)

China, with its rapid economic rise, holds one of the master keys to the future of globalization in the post-cold war world. This article explores how China is coping with the forces of globalization since that time, beginning with a brief description of the global discourse and politics on globalization. The article then tracks Chinese views on globalization, especially how its promises and perils are conceptualized and addressed by key pundits and decision makers. An examination follows of the complex and evolving interplay between globalization and China's policies in terms of globalizing economy, security, and soft power. The final section sketches out a series of major challenges confronting the Chinese leaders, each of which will involve a strategic decision and sequencing regarding how to cope with globalization challenges and how to redefine the role of the state as a competent, efficient, and adaptable actor. (Asian Perspect/GIGA)

This article provides an analysis and assessment of China's uncharacteristically proactive conflict-management (CM) diplomacy in the U.S.-North Korea (DPRK) nuclear standoff on the Korean peninsula from 2002 to 2005. In the first of four sections, the focus is on the global context and conditions that gave rise to CM studies as a new field of international relations research in the West. The second section argues that three proximate and underlying causes - greater danger, greater stakes, and greater leverage -catapulted Beijing into the terra incognita of a CM leadership role. The third section examines the shift in China's role as well as the style and substance of this approach. The fourth section critically evaluates the possibilities and limitations of China's conflict-management diplomacy for the resolution of the U.S.-DPRK nuclear standoff. The conclusion is a brief assessment of future prospects for establishing a more peaceful and prosperous regional order in Northeast Asia either through the ongoing Six Party Talks or through some permanent Northeast Asian security regime coming out of the success or failure of the six-party process. (Asian Perspect/GIGA)

As the author sees it, in several respects, China's North Korea policy is made to order for exploring the interplay between China and the outside world - how external factors shape Chinese international conduct, on the one hand, and how Chinese international conduct itself impacts upon the structures and processes of post-Cold War East Asian regional and global politics, on the other. After a look at the post-Cold War world situation from a Chinese perspective, the author explores China's North Korea policy. (DÜI-Sen)

According to the author, at no time since the end of World War II has the question of a new world order seemed more urgent, promising and open-ended than it has over the past several years. Mainland China has also responded to the global debate with its own call for a "new international and economic order". The author provides a theoretical and empirical foundation for describing and explaining the mainland Chinese image and strategy of world order. It is noted that the main problem with mainland Chinese world order thinking lies in the Maoist actor-oriented approach. (DÜI-Sen)

According to the author, the dynamics of legitimation challenge and response seems a promising way of capturing the unfolding tensions between the policies and the principles, the means and the ends, and changes and the continuities of Chinese foreign policy. He explores Peking's foreign policy before and after the Tienanmen carnage. (DÜI-Sen)