East Asia: The Commercial Peace

Author(s):  
Michael Mandelbaum

China has ended the post–Cold War peace in East Asia by claiming, contrary to international law, sovereignty over most of the western Pacific Ocean, by rapidly increasing its military capability, and by bullying its neighbors. China’s aggressive policies stem from the Chinese version of nationalism, which sees China as having the right to exercise dominance in the region. Chinese aggression stems also from Xi Jinping’s desire to maintain public support for, or at least tolerance of, the dictatorship of his Communist Party—which the slowing of economic growth threatens—by presenting himself as China’s champion against foreign enemies. China has also increased the threat to the region through its support for North Korea, with its nuclear weapon program.

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 587-607 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dieuwertje Kuijpers ◽  
Gijs Schumacher

Abstract Do political parties change their position when military casualties increase? Several studies demonstrate that once military casualties increase, public support for sometimes even the government itself declines. With this potential backlash, once governing parties are faced with military casualties, do they (1) maintain that intervention was the “right thing” to do and even escalate their commitment by becoming even more pro-military or (2) try to avoid the blame and downplay the issue, i.e., “not mentioning the war”? And do the opposition parties become more negative or more positive about the military? To evaluate this, we measure the position on military issues in parties’ election manifestoes. Our dataset comprises 326 party policy changes in eleven Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and focuses on post-Cold War military interventions. By using pooled time-series cross-sectional analysis, we find that opposition parties and governing parties respond differently. Generally, governing parties become more negative in their manifesto and opposition parties more positive. We also demonstrate important differences between party families and pre/post-9/11. Our analyses show that whether political parties change policy course once confronted with negative outcomes depends on their position in office, and also the direction in which they change policy depends on political ideology.


2006 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 693-704 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junbin Zhang ◽  
Zeping Cai ◽  
Liangmin Huang

Abstract The population genetic structure of the crimson snapper Lutjanus erythropterus in East Asia was examined with a 427-bp hypervariable portion of the mtDNA control region. A total of 262 samples were collected and 75 haplotypes were obtained. Neutrality tests (Tajima's and Fu's) suggested that Lutjanus erythropterus in East Asia had experienced a bottleneck followed by population expansion since the late Pleistocene. Despite the low phylogeographic structures in mtDNA haplotypes, a hierarchical examination of populations in 11 localities from four geographical regions using analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) indicated significant genetic differentiation among regions (ΦCT = 0.08564, p < 0.01). Limited gene flow between the eastern region (including a locality in the western Pacific Ocean and two localities in the East Sea) and three geographic regions of the South China Sea largely contributed to the genetic subdivision. However, comparisons among three geographic regions of the South China Sea showed little to no genetic difference. Populations of Lutjanus erythropterus in East Asia are inferred to be divided into two major groups: an eastern group, including populations of the western Pacific Ocean and the East Sea, and a South China Sea group, consisting of populations from northern Malaysia to South China. The results suggest that fishery management should reflect the genetic differentiation and diversity in East Asia.


2003 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert S. Ross

East Asia in the post–Cold War era has been the world's most peaceful region. Whereas since 1989 there have been major wars in Europe, South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, and significant and costly civil instability in Latin America, during this same period in East Asia there have been no wars and minimal domestic turbulence. Moreover, economic growth in East Asia has been faster than in any other region in the world. East Asia seems to be the major beneficiary of pax Americana.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiawei Li ◽  
Zhiwei Han ◽  
Pingqing Fu ◽  
Xiaohong Yao

Abstract. Organic aerosols from marine sources over the western Pacific Ocean of East Asia were investigated by using an online-coupled regional chemistry-climate model RIEMS-Chem for the entire year 2014. Model evaluation against a wide variety of observations from research cruises and in-situ measurements demonstrated a good skill of the model in simulating temporal variation and spatial distribution of particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter less than 2.5 μm and 10 μm (PM2.5 and PM10), black carbon (BC), organic carbon (OC), and aerosol optical depth (AOD) in marine atmosphere. The inclusion of marine organic aerosols apparently improved model performance on OC aerosol concentration, reducing the normalized mean biases from −19 % to −13 % (KEXUE-1 cruise) and −21 % to −3 % (Huaniao Island) over the marginal seas of east China, and from 33 % to 5 % (Dongfanghong II cruise) and from −13 % to 3 % (Chichijima Island) over remote oceans of the western Pacific. It was found that marine primary organic aerosol (MPOA) accounted for majority of marine organic aerosol (MOA) mass in the western Pacific. High MPOA emission mainly occurred over the marginal seas of China and remote oceans of the western Pacific northeast of Japan. The seasonality of MPOA emission is determined by the combined effect of Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration and sea salt emission flux, exhibiting the maximum in autumn and the minimum in summer in terms of domain average over the western Pacific. The annual mean MPOA emission rate was estimated to be 0.16×10−2 μg m−2 s−1, yielding an annual MPOA emission of 0.78 Tg yr−1 over the western Pacific, which potentially accounted for approximately 8~12 % of global annual MPOA emission. The regional and annual mean near surface MOA concentration was estimated to be 0.27 μg m−3 over the western Pacific, with the maximum in spring and the minimum in winter, resulting from the combined effect of MPOA emission, dry and wet depositions. Marine secondary organic aerosol (MSOA) produced by marine biogenic VOCs (isoprene and monoterpene) was approximately 1~2 orders of magnitude lower than MPOA. The simulated annual and regional mean MSOA was 2.2 ng m−3, with the maximum daily mean value up to 28 ng m−3 over the western Pacific in summer. MSOA had a distinct summer maximum and winter minimum in the western Pacific, generally consistent with the seasonality of marine isoprene emission flux. In terms of annual mean, 26 % of the total organic aerosol concentration was contributed by MOA over the western Pacific, with an increasing importance of MOA from the marginal seas of China (13 %) to remote oceans of the western Pacific (42 %). MOA induced a minor direct radiative effect (DRE), with a domain and annual mean of −0.21 W m−2 at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) under all-sky condition over the western Pacific, whereas the mean indirect radiative effect (IRE) due to MOA at TOA (IREMOA) was estimated to be −4.2 W m−2. MSOA contributed approximately 6 % of the annual and regional mean IREMOA over the western Pacific, with the maximum seasonal mean contribution up to 14 % in summer, which meant MPOA dominated the IREMOA. It was noteworthy that the IREMOA accounted for approximately 32 % of that due to all aerosols over the western Pacific of East Asia, indicating an important role of MOA in perturbing cloud properties and shortwave radiation in this region.


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