The United States in the New Asia


Book Description

At head of title: International Institutions and Global Governance Program.




ASEAN Centrality and the ASEAN-US Economic Relationship


Book Description

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is strategically significant because of its size, dynamism, and role in the Asian economic and security architectures. This paper examines how ASEAN seeks to strengthen these assets through "centrality" in intraregional and external policy decisions. It recommends a two-speed approach toward centrality in order to maximize regional incomes and benefit all member economies: first, selective engagement by ASEAN members in productive external partnerships and, second, vigorous policies to share gains across the region. This strategy has solid underpinnings in the Kemp-Wan theorem on trade agreements. It would warrant, for example, a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement with incomplete ASEAN membership, complemented with policies to extend gains across the region. The United States could support this framework by pursuing deep relations with some ASEAN members, while broadly assisting the region's development.




Asia and Latin America


Book Description

Until the late 1980s, Japan was the only country in Asia with notable political and economic relations. Since then, however, several Asian nations have perceived growing links with the Latin American region as a means of diversifying their political and particularly economic relations while many Latin American decision-makers have increasingly recognised the strategic importance of East Asia in their foreign policy and foreign economic policy designs. This book analyses the economic, political and socio-cultural relations between Asia and Latin America and examines their growing importance in international relations. In the first part of the book the contributors look at the policies, interests and strategies of individual Asian and Latin American states, while the second part delves into the analysis of multilateral institution-building in Asia-Latin America relations,. As such, Asia and Latin America will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate scholars of comparative politics, international relations, Asian politics and Latin American politics.




ASEAN-U.S. Relations


Book Description

"This book is the result of a workshop of the ASEAN Studies Centre (ASC) held in July 2010"--P. ix.




By More Than Providence


Book Description

Soon after the American Revolution, ?certain of the founders began to recognize the strategic significance of Asia and the Pacific and the vast material and cultural resources at stake there. Over the coming generations, the United States continued to ask how best to expand trade with the region and whether to partner with China, at the center of the continent, or Japan, looking toward the Pacific. Where should the United States draw its defensive line, and how should it export democratic principles? In a history that spans the eighteenth century to the present, Michael J. Green follows the development of U.S. strategic thinking toward East Asia, identifying recurring themes in American statecraft that reflect the nation's political philosophy and material realities. Drawing on archives, interviews, and his own experience in the Pentagon and White House, Green finds one overarching concern driving U.S. policy toward East Asia: a fear that a rival power might use the Pacific to isolate and threaten the United States and prevent the ocean from becoming a conduit for the westward free flow of trade, values, and forward defense. By More Than Providence works through these problems from the perspective of history's major strategists and statesmen, from Thomas Jefferson to Alfred Thayer Mahan and Henry Kissinger. It records the fate of their ideas as they collided with the realities of the Far East and adds clarity to America's stakes in the region, especially when compared with those of Europe and the Middle East.




Trade Policy in the Asia-Pacific


Book Description

East Asian countries are now pursuing greater formal economic institutionalization, weaving a web of bilateral and minilateral preferential trade agreements. Scholarly analysis of “formal” East Asian regionalism focuses on international political and economic factors such as the end of the Cold War, the Asian financial crisis, or the rising Sino-Japanese rivalry. Yet this work pays inadequate attention to the strategies of individual government agencies, business groups, labor unions, and NGOs across the region. Moreover, most studies also fail to adequately characterize different types of trade arrangements, often lumping together bilateral accords with minilateral ones, and transregional agreements with those within the region. To fully understand this cross-national variance, this book argues that researchers must give greater attention to the domestic politics within East Asian countries and the U.S., involving the interplay of these subnational players. With contributions from leading country and regional trade specialists, this book examines East Asian and American trade strategies through the lens of a domestic bargaining game approach with a focus on the interplay of interests, ideas, and domestic institutions within the context of broader international shifts. With respect to domestic politics, the chapters show how subnational actors engage in lobbying, both of their own governments and through their links to others in the region. They also trace the evolution of interests and ideas over time, helping us to generate a better understanding of historical trends in the region. In addition to scholars of East Asian and comparative regionalism, this book will be of interest to policy-makers concerned with international trade and U.S.-Asia relations, and those interested in understanding the rich trade institutional landscape that we see emerging in the Asia-Pacific.




New Dynamics in US-China Relations


Book Description

Washington’s strategic pivot to Asia and Beijing’s pursuit of new strategic and security interests in the region have led to increasing tensions between the two powers. US leaders have stressed that their increased interest in Asia is driven by a desire to benefit from the thriving regional economies, as well as to play the leading role in maintaining peace and stability in the region. However, Beijing is particularly concerned about US efforts to consolidate its alliances and deepen security partnerships with a number of regional states. Given the centrality of the two powers to the strategic stability and economic development of the region, these new dynamics in US-China relations must be properly understood and appropriately handled. This book examines the growing Sino-US strategic rivalry in the Asia-Pacific alongside the strategies employed in the management of this relationship. In turn, it illuminates the sources of conflict and cooperation in US-China relations, looking specifically at maritime disputes, economic relations, energy security, non-traditional security, defence and strategic forces, and Taiwan. Finally, it explores the role of regional states in shaping US-China relations, and in doing so covers the influence of Japan, India, the Korean Peninsula, the Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Cambodia. With chapters from leading scholars and analysts this book deals with a diverse range of issues including strategic rivalry, expanding regional trade relations, non-traditional security issues, the role of energy security, maritime security and how Asian states view their relations with the US and China respectively. New Dynamics in US-China Relations will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Asian politics, US politics, international relation and security studies, as well as practitioners involved in framing and implementing foreign, security and economic policy pertaining to the Asia Pacific.




Pacific Currents


Book Description

China's importance in the Asia-Pacific has been on the rise, raising concerns about competition the United States. The authors examined the reactions of six U.S. allies and partners to China's rise. All six see China as an economic opportunity. They want it to be engaged productively in regional affairs, but without becoming dominant. They want the United States to remain deeply engaged in the region.




The United States and Asia


Book Description

Now in a fully revised and updated edition, this cogent book provides an overview of the historical context and enduring patterns of U.S. relations with Asia. Noted scholar Robert G. Sutter offers a balanced analysis of post–Cold War dynamics in Asia, which involve interrelated questions of security, economics, national identity, and regional institution building. He demonstrates how these critical concerns manifest a complex mix of realist, liberal, and constructivist tendencies that define the regional order. He describes how the United States has responded to Asia’s growing strength and importance while at the same time trying to maintain its leading position as an Asian power despite China’s rising influence. Considering the most important transition in American policy toward Asia since the end of the Cold War, Sutter assesses the growing U.S.-China rivalry that now dominates both regional dynamics in the Asia-Pacific and U.S. policy in the region.




ASEAN-China Economic Relations


Book Description

Examines the rapidly expanding economic relations between ASEAN and China in recent years, covering trade, investments, economic challenges, competition and opportunities in the various sectors of the two economies.