North Korea and the Geopolitics of Development

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Gray ◽  
Jong-Woon Lee
Keyword(s):  
National Development ◽  
Subsequent Development ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The North ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
Secular Decline ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Rise Of China ◽  
State Socialist

Kevin Gray and Jong-Woon Lee focus on three geopolitical 'moments' that have been crucial to the shaping of the North Korean system: colonialism, the Cold War, and the rise of China, to demonstrate how broader processes of geopolitical contestation have fundamentally shaped the emergence and subsequent development of the North Korean political economy. They argue that placing the nexus between geopolitics and development at the centre of the analysis helps explain the country's rapid catch-up industrialisation, its subsequent secular decline followed by collapse in the 1990s, and why the reform process has been markedly more conservative compared to other state socialist societies. As such, they draw attention to the specificities of North Korea's experience of late development, but also place it in a broader comparative context by understanding the country not solely through the analytical lens of state socialism but also as an instance of post-colonial national development.

The Mainland minus One

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catharin Dalpino
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Regional Environment ◽  
China And India ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
Regional Order ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Rise Of China

The ancient cultural threads that linked Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar—the so-called Indianized states in Southeast Asia—have long since frayed. Shifts beginning in the 1990s signaled yet another new regional order, which is still being formed. The end of the Cold War, the Cambodian peace agreement and the subsequent enlargement of ASEAN, the rise of China and India, a modest renewal of U.S. interest in Southeast Asia, and Myanmar’s reform process have forged new relations with old adversaries but also created new (or renewed) tensions. This chapter examines the transformation of the foreign relations of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar in this new regional environment.

The rise of China in Kenya’s foreign relations

2020 ◽  
pp. 601-614
Author(s):  
Samuel M. Makinda
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Commercial Activities ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Rise Of China

In the past few decades, Kenya has benefitted considerably from its improved relations with China. Chinese investments in infrastructure, education, and ICT have opened up greater opportunities for development. Moreover, the availability of diverse and affordable goods has enabled many Kenyans to engage in more commercial activities. This economics-driven diplomacy has been shaped by Kenyan and Chinese political leaders, shifts in the structure of the international system after the Cold War, and the evolving interests of both countries. However, Kenya’s diplomacy is based on a weak knowledge base, as few Kenyan policy makers speak Mandarin and understand China’s diplomatic history. Moreover, China’s investment patterns, which differ from those of Kenya’s traditional Western partners, could negatively impact on Kenya’s commercial domination of eastern Africa. Thus, while Kenya–China relations have promoted some of Kenya’s policy objectives, they also contain the potential to undermine some of Kenya’s other long-range goals.

scholarly journals An Accommodative Security Architecture in the Asia-Pacific

2015 ◽  
Vol 01 (02) ◽  
pp. 247-264
Author(s):  
Chunsi Wu
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Security Architecture ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Security Environment ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Rise Of China ◽  
Diverse Cultures

In the Asia-Pacific geopolitical dynamics, China's rise and its accompanying "assertive" diplomacy are often cited by some studies as the cause of security concerns. The author argues that this interpretation of the Asia-Pacific security situation is wrong. The Asia-Pacific confronts various and complex security problems, which cannot be simply attributed to the rise of China. The occurrence and activation of so many security problems in the Asia-Pacific only indicate that the security architecture in the region is undergoing a profound transition. The old security architecture inherited from the Cold War era cannot effectively handle the security problems in the region any more. The Asia-Pacific needs a new architecture adaptive to the features of the post-Cold War era. The new security architecture should embody the spirit of cooperation and reflect Asian countries' interests and ways of handling regional affairs. More importantly, the new security architecture should feature ample accommodativeness, not only including the diverse cultures and paths of development of the region, but also encouraging and incentivizing all parties of the region to learn from each other so as to JNTly create a sustainable security environment for the region.

scholarly journals The rise of China between Global IR and area studies: an agenda for cooperation

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Matteo Dian
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Ir Studies ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
Chinese School ◽  
The Rise Of China

Abstract East Asia is increasingly at the centre of debates among International Relations (IR) scholars. China's political, economic, and military ascendency is increasingly considered as a crucial test case for main approaches to IR. Despite this renewed attention, mainstream theories employed to analyse contemporary Asia are still remarkably Euro-centric. A wave of studies has argued in favour of a broad ‘decolonization’ of theoretical concepts used to analyse East Asia as well as other regions. These efforts have produced several distinct research agendas. Firstly, critical and post-colonial theorists have worked on the par destruens, highlighting the inherent Euro-centrism of many IR concepts and theories. Secondly, scholars such as Buzan and Acharya have promoted the idea of Global IR, seeking to advance a ‘non-Western’ and non-Euro-centric research agenda. This agenda has found fertile ground especially in China, where several scholars have tried to promote a Chinese School of IR. This article has three main purposes. Firstly, it briefly explores the issue of Eurocentrism in IR studies dedicated to East Asia. Secondly, it maps the theoretical debates aimed at overcoming it, looking in particular at the ‘Global IR’ research programme and the so-called Chinese School. Finally, it sketches a few other possible avenues of research for a very much needed cooperation between Global IR and area studies.

4. From the end of the cold war to a new world dis-order?

2019 ◽  
pp. 70-83
Author(s):  
Michael Cox
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International System ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
Clinton Presidency ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Rise Of China

This chapter provides a broad overview of the international system between the end of the cold war— when many claimed that liberalism and the West had triumphed— through to the second decade of the twenty-first century, when the West itself and the liberal economic order it had hitherto promoted appeared to be coming under increased pressure from political forces at home and new challenges abroad. But before we turn to the present, the chapter will look at some of the key developments since 1989—including the Clinton presidency, the George W. Bush administration’s foreign policy following the attacks of 9/11, the 2008 financial crash, the crisis in Europe, the transitions taking place in the global South, the origins of the upheavals now reshaping the Middle East, the political shift from Barack Obama to Donald Trump, the emergence of Asia, and the rise of China. The chapter then concludes by examining two big questions: first, is power now shifting away from the West, and second, to what extent does the current wave of populism in the West threaten globalization and the liberal order?

Chasing the Rising Red Crescent: Sino-Shi’i Relations in Post-Cold War Era China

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 313-347
Author(s):  
Itamar Y. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Rise Of China ◽  
Middle East Policy ◽  
The Impact

This article adopts a unique angle to analyze China’s Middle East policy in “Chasing the Rising Red Crescent: Sino-Shi’i Relations in the Post-Cold War Era.” With the end of the Cold War and the political renaissance of Islam, the author argues that China’s strategic approaches towards the Middle East have changed fundamentally. The rise of China on the Middle East coupled with the strategic ascendancy of Shi’i Islam in the Middle East invites a strategic window for the emerging architecture of global geopolitics and world economy. The aim of Lee’s study is to make clear the historical trajectories and evolving strategic calculations in China’s Middle East policy and its global implications by reviewing Sino-Shi’i relations in general and introducing Chinese strategic interactions with Iran, Iraq, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas in particular. Since the establishment of zhongguo zhongdong wenti teshi [Chinese Special Envoy for Middle Eastern Affairs] in 2002, China’s economic presence and political clout in the Middle East including the Shi’i region have been advanced obviously. Sino-Shi’i relations in the post-Cold War era, thus, should be seriously examined not only for understanding China’s strategic perceptions of the Middle East but also for explaining the pattern of Chinese foreign behaviours, as well as for expecting the impact of China’s rising in the region and its geopolitical implications for the future of China-U.S. relations

Relocating anti-racist science: the 1950 UNESCO Statement on Race and economic development in the global South

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
SEBASTIÁN GIL-RIAÑO
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Global South ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The North ◽  
Scientific Experts ◽  
International Projects ◽  
Applied Social Science ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Development Paradigm

AbstractThis essay revisits the drafting of the first UNESCO Statement on Race (1950) in order to reorient historical understandings of mid-twentieth-century anti-racism and science. Historians of science have primarily interpreted the UNESCO statements as an oppositional project led by anti-racist scientists from the North Atlantic and concerned with dismantling racial typologies, replacing them with population-based conceptions of human variation. Instead of focusing on what anti-racist scientists opposed, this article highlights the futures they imagined and the applied social-science projects that anti-racist science drew from and facilitated. The scientific experts who participated in drafting the first UNESCO Statement on Race played important roles in late colonial, post-colonial and international projects designed to modernize, assimilate and improve so-called backward communities – typically indigenous or Afro-descendent groups in the global South. Such connections between anti-racist science and the developmental imaginaries of the late colonial period indicate that the transition from fixed racial typologies to sociocultural and psychological conceptualizations of human diversity legitimated the flourishing of modernization discourses in the Cold War era. In this transition to an economic-development paradigm, ‘race’ did not vanish so much as fragment into a series of finely tuned and ostensibly anti-racist conceptions that offered a moral incentive for scientific elites to intervene in the ways of life of those deemed primitive.

How the Deal Was Born

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Chaitanya Ravi
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Technological Determinism ◽  
Thick Description ◽  
Indian American ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Rise Of China

The chapter begins with a brief history of lukewarm Indo-US relations during the Cold War and the reasons for the lack of depth. The chapter then traces the converging trends including the collapse of the Soviet Union, India’s neoliberalization, India’s 1998 nuclear tests, the Indian American diaspora, the rise of China and re-emergence of Russia that resulted in movement towards a Indo-US strategic embrace undergirded by a grand nuclear accommodation of India’s hitherto sanctioned nuclear programme culminating in the July 18, 2005 joint statement. Multiple narratives of the nuclear deal’s origins are explored and the more salient ones are highlighted. The chapter ends with a brief summary of the constructivist Science and Technology Studies (STS) approach’s key principles such as thick description, multidimensional narration and rejection of technological determinism.

China-Europe Strategic Issues

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-89
Author(s):  
Demetrios Tsailas
Keyword(s):  
International Organizations ◽  
World Order ◽  
International Terrorism ◽  
Security Strategy ◽  
Strategic Issues ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
National Power ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Global Agenda ◽  
The Rise Of China

Today, a shakeup of forces and a great power competition have begun on the global geopolitical scene. This competition is mainly due to the rise of China, the deepening of globalization and the interdependence of countries, and violent movements that transcend borders, such as international terrorism. In particular, the increase in China's national power has led to a change in the world order that emerged after the Cold War, and geopolitics is once again taking a central role on the global agenda. The geopolitical focus on the Asia-Indo-Pacific Ocean complex has evolved into a geostrategic rivalry where China is seen as the main threat. This approach is reflected in the international security strategy. In addition, it also manifests itself in the practices of international organizations led by the West forces. We see the most important example of this in the European Union's view of China.

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