Chinese Foreign Aid to Fiji: Threat or Opportunity

China Report ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-258
Author(s):  
Saber Salem
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Military Government ◽  
Chinese Investment ◽  
Island States ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Us ◽  
Diplomatic Recognition ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Impact

China’s political, economic and cultural influence is steadily rising in Fiji and the Pacific region as a whole. The Sino–Fiji cooperation deepened at multiple levels after the Fijian military assumed power through a coup d’état and removed the civilian government from power in late 2006. This ‘undemocratic behaviour’ infuriated the two regional powers—Australia and New Zealand who then applied sanctions on Fiji, particularly the military brass, and encouraged their counterparts as well as multilateral aid organisations to ‘punish’ Fiji’s military ‘regime’. The military government in order to derail the impact of sanctions from its traditional donors adopted the ‘Look North Policy’, which was opening cooperation with China and attracting Chinese investment in Fiji. China welcomed the friendship gesture and furnished Fiji with financial assistance. This Chinese friendship was also due to Taiwanese involvement in the region, which was providing aid for diplomatic recognition and support at the UN. The ‘microstates’ hold about 7 per cent of UN votes. Both China and Taiwan need their votes at multilateral organisations and given that these microstates are mostly aid-dependent economies, initiated an era of Chequebook diplomacy, which is basically money for diplomatic recognition in the case of Taiwan or acceptance of One China Policy in the case of China. The microstates have time and again switched between China and Taiwan and played one against the other to get more aid money out of their diplomatic rivalry. The Sino–Taiwan aid competition in the Pacific forced US to make a strong comeback and ensure that China under the pretext of denying Taiwan space in the region actually spies on the US activities in the region. As a result, the US and its regional allies have significantly increased their foreign aid to the island nations in order to coax them to diminish their level of financial dependence on China. So far, they have not been successful enough and China’s aid package has gone far beyond the level US is giving. Today, China is the second largest donor to the region and largest financier to Fiji. Fiji has become the ace in this game as it is the regional hub of the Pacific Island states. Bearing the current high level of aid competition between traditional and emerging donors in mind, it is too early to judge whether Chinese aid will cause more harm to Fiji than benefit or vice versa. It also entirely depends on the Fijian government as to how much it relies on Chinese aid and how clean Chinese are with their soft loans. China has been blamed for not being clear and specific about the terms and conditions of its concessional loans. This vagueness and secrecy that is associated with Chinese aid been a cause for concern, especially among traditional donors.

scholarly journals The Convergence of Military Conduct and Policing in Israeli-Controlled Territories

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Nir Gazit ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Police Officer ◽  
The United States ◽  
Police Brutality ◽  
Media Attention ◽  
Military Forces ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Impact

The murder of George Floyd by a police officer in the United States in May 2020 and the subsequent turmoil, as well as the violence against migrants on the US-Mexican border, have drawn major public and media attention to the phenomenon of police brutality (see, e.g., Levin 2020; Misra 2018; Taub 2020), which is often labeled as ‘militarization of police’. At the same time, in recent years military forces have been increasingly involved in policing missions in civilian environments, both domestically (see, e.g., Kanno-Youngs 2020; Schrader 2020; Shinkman 2020) and abroad. The convergence of military conduct and policing raises intriguing questions regarding the impact of these tendencies on the military and the police, as well as on their legitimacy.

scholarly journals Messages from the ‘Older Brother’: Djawa Baroe and the Japanese Propaganda in Indonesia (1943-1945)

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Putut Widjanarko
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Military Government ◽  
Pacific War ◽  
Japanese Occupation ◽  
Original Intention ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Military

The Japanese occupation of East Asia during World War II was accompanied by its propaganda targeted to the local population. In Indonesia, the military government, among other things, published Djawa Baroe, a fortnightly magazine published from January 1, 1943 to August 1, 1945.Compared to other magazines, this bilingual magazine (in Japanese and Bahasa Indonesia) Djawa Baroe was unique: it featured ample photographs and illustrations. Qualitative content analysis method enables this study to find the meaning of a theme in its holistic political, social, and cultural contexts beyond the number of its occurrences in the text offered by quantitative content analysis. All the issues of Djawa Baroe are examined in detail and reiteratively. Six themes can be found in Djawa Baroe, i.e., the friendship between Japanese and Indonesians, the description of Japanese military prowess, the exaltation of nationalism and the preparation for the war, the evil nature of Western power, the role of women in society, and entertainment. The study concludes that along with the development of the Pacific War that turned against the Japanese, Djawa Baroe moved its emphasis on long-range goals at the high psychological level to influence and win the hearts and minds of Indonesian people, to a more immediate result and practical guide in facing the imminent war. On the other hand, against the original intention of the Japanese propaganda, Djawa Baroe may have helped its educated readers to imagine their future nation-state, Indonesia. Keywords: Djawa Baroe; Wartime propaganda; Japanese occupation; nation-building

Mr. X and the Pacific

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul J. Heer
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Korean War ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
The Impact

This book chronicles and assesses the little-known involvement of US diplomat George F. Kennan—renowned as an expert on the Soviet Union—in US policy toward East Asia, primarily in the early Cold War years. Kennan, with vital assistance from his deputy John Paton Davies, played pivotal roles in effecting the US withdrawal from the Chinese civil war and the redirection of American occupation policy in Japan, and in developing the “defensive perimeter” concept in the western Pacific. His influence, however, faded soon thereafter: he was less successful in warning against US security commitments in Korea and Indochina, and the impact of the Korean War ultimately eclipsed his strategic vision for US policy in East Asia. This was due in large part to Kennan’s inability to reconcile his judgment that the mainland of East Asia was strategically expendable to the United States with his belief that US prestige should not be compromised there. The book examines the subsequent evolution of Kennan’s thinking about East Asian issues—including his role as a prominent critic of US involvement in the Vietnam War—and the legacies of his engagement with the region.

Brothers in Arms?

2021 ◽  
pp. 344-369
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Guglielmo
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
Home Front ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
Military Justice ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Us ◽  
The One ◽  
The Military ◽  
Race War

Chapter 9 looks at what happened to the US military’s white-nonwhite lines as American troops moved overseas during World War II. Nonblack minorities faced both bright and blurry white-nonwhite lines when deployed abroad. At times, the military remained determined to uphold distinctions between whites, on the one hand, and Asian Americans, Latin Americans, and Native Americans, on the other. This determination, evident in everything from military justice proceedings to promotion patterns, stemmed primarily from long-standing civilian investments in these distinctions and in response to the vicious race war in the Pacific with Japan. At the same time, overseas service also witnessed the continued blurring of white-nonwhite lines—the transformation of “Mexicans,” “Puerto Ricans,” “Indians,” “Filipinos,” “Chinese,” and even “Japanese” into whites’ buddies and brothers, comrades and fellow Americans, deepening a process that had begun on the home front. While this overseas blurring often emanated from day-to-day battlefield bonding, it was America’s military leaders and commanders who largely made it possible. In doing so, they narrowed the white-nonwhite divide, but also deepened the black-white one in the process.

John Useem and Governance Operations

2018 ◽  
pp. 199-238
Author(s):  
Montgomery McFate
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Small Island ◽  
Military Government ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Successful Case ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Navy ◽  
Government Enterprise ◽  
The Military

This chapter concerns the wartime civil affairs experience of John Useem, a US Navy officer who became the military governor of a small island in Micronesia. While the post-World War II, military government established in Germany and Japan are often offered as examples of successful governance operations, the partially successful case of Micronesia better exemplifies the paradoxes at the heart of the military government enterprise. These issues which plagued the US military government in Micronesia, and which John Useem wrote about in the 1940s and 1950s, were the exact same issues that have plagued the intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq more than a half century later. What happens when the policy of democratization is incompatible with the existing social order? What happens when American social norms conflict with the society they intend to govern? What happens when the core principle of military government non-interference cannot be implemented in practice and outright contradicts the imperatives of ‘nation building’?

The US Fights Overseas

2020 ◽  
pp. 51-58
Author(s):  
Courtney A. Short
Keyword(s):  
Military Government ◽  
Military Forces ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Us ◽  
Training Schools

U.S. military forces spread across the globe in various states of preparation. While some military government personnel attended Civil Affairs training schools, many only received training onboard the transport ships heading across the Pacific. Soldiers received training that instructed them to approach the Okinawans with caution and to view them as potential enemies, yet they also were granted the authority to assess their own interactions with the civilians on their own merits. Marines training finalized Okinawan identity and left no room for debate or reconsideration.

scholarly journals Impact of war on veteran life span: natural experiment involving combat versus non-combat exposed military personnel

2021 ◽  
pp. e001991
Author(s):  
Nick Wilson ◽  
C Clement ◽  
J A Summers ◽  
G Thomson ◽  
G Harper
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Life Span ◽  
Military Personnel ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Combat Exposure ◽  
Average Life Span ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Impact

IntroductionThere is still uncertainty around the impact of combat exposure on the life span of war veterans. Therefore we made use of a natural experiment to study the impact on veteran life span of combat versus non-combat exposure in World War II (WW2).MethodsThe combat-exposed military personnel were derived from a random (10%) sample of the military roll of the 28th (Māori) Battalion from New Zealand. One non-combat cohort was the 15th Reinforcements of this same Battalion, since the war ended before they reached the front line. The other non-combat cohort were Māori personnel who were only involved in Jayforce, which occupied Japan at the end of the WW2. Data on life span were mainly derived from an official repository of birth and death records, but supplemented with other sources, including military files.ResultsWhen comparing life spans of service veterans, there was no statistically significant reduction for the average life span of the 234 combat-exposed veterans in our sample from the 28th (Māori) Battalion (66.7 years), relative to the Māori veterans from two non-combat cohorts: the 132 personnel in the 15th Reinforcements (67.2 years) and the 147 personnel in Jayforce (66.9 years).ConclusionsDespite a very high level of wounding in the combat-exposed group (48%), there were no statistically significant reductions in life span between this group and comparable non-combat exposed veterans. This finding contrasts to life span reductions found in a similar study of New Zealand veterans of WW1.

Economy will be key test for Thai junta in 2016

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Terrorist Attack ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
Private Investment ◽  
Infrastructure Development ◽  
Military Government ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Primary Determinant ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Economic Outlook

Subject Economic outlook. Significance The military government on December 1 approved action plans for infrastructure development worth 1.79 trillion baht (nearly 50 billion dollars) over the next five years. Boosting public spending is one of the junta's primary tools to boost GDP growth to 3.8% in 2016. Impacts Absent a major terrorist attack, tourism should recover modestly as the impact of the August Bangkok bombings declines. Private investment and demand are unlikely to recover significantly: Thai industry has surplus capacity and households are deeply indebted. Royal transition is the primary determinant of the junta's timetable for fresh elections.

AFRICAN POLICY COMPONENT OF THE US, PRC AND RUSSIAN FEDERATION (PART 2)

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-20
Author(s):  
D. V. GORDIENKO ◽  
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
Military Policy ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Impact

The aim of the work is to assess the impact of the African component of the policy of the states of the strategic triangle Russia-China-USA on the implementation of their current economic and military policy. The assessment of the impact of this component on the national security of these countries is considered. An approach to the comparison of such influence is proposed, which makes it possible to identify the priorities of Russia's policy in Africa and other regions of the world. The article can be used to justify recommendations to the military and political leadership of our country.

Assessing the Impact of the South China Sea Arbitration on Small Island States: A Case Study of Kiribati

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 778-799
Author(s):  
Stuart Kaye
Keyword(s):  
South China Sea ◽  
South China ◽  
Small Island ◽  
High Threshold ◽  
China Sea ◽  
Island States ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Small Island States ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe Annex VII Tribunal in the South China Sea Arbitration placed a high threshold on States seeking to claim an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) around small features. The implications of such an interpretation are potentially significant for the maritime jurisdiction of a number of States, particularly in the Pacific. This article considers the implications of the decision of the Tribunal, and applies it to Kiribati as a case study. It also considers possible ways States may minimize the risk associated with the Tribunal’s interpretation.

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