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262. Toward a New Phase of US-China Museum Collaborations
- Author:
- Melissa Chiu, Orville Schell, and András Szántó
- Publication Date:
- 01-2013
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Asia Society
- Abstract:
- The 2012 U.S.-China Museum Directors Forum, organized by Asia Society and the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, brought together 17 Chinese and 15 American museum leaders for a two-day dialogue to assess common needs and develop new processes for museum exchanges. The museum leaders identified various benefits of museum exchanges. Such programs provide information and experiences to museum audiences; foster tolerance and understanding between nations; and enhance cultural competence in a globalized world. The directors also identified obstacles impeding museum collaborations, including disparities in resources and practices; cumbersome bureaucratic, legal, and regulatory systems; a lack of familiarity between museum professionals; and the absence of institutional and funding mechanisms to facilitate exchanges. Going forward, the museum leaders pinpointed three key areas of need and opportunity for the evolution of U.S.-China museum collaborations: improving people-to-people contacts; fostering institutional relations; and greater coordination within the museum sector in both countries. Taken together, the recommendations offer a blueprint for improving institutional interactions. The directors suggested specific programs that their institutions, coupled with other museums, government agencies, and private funders, can pursue going forward. The consensus view among them was that the expansion of museum collaborations will require new funding and organizational mechanisms to spur and conduct exchange activities. Some of the goals outlined by the Chinese and American museum directors will be pursued by the Asian Arts and Museum Network, established in 2012 by Asia Society Museum.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Arts, Culture, and Museums
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, North America, and United States of America
263. A North Korean Spring?
- Author:
- Nicholas D. Anderson and Victor D. Cha
- Publication Date:
- 12-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Washington Quarterly
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- Is revolution similar to the Arab Spring possible in North Korea? The answer from most scholars and intelligence analysts has been “no”—that the Pyongyang regime's stability in the aftermath of the events in the Middle East and North Africa is an “old question” that was answered in the 1990s when the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea) faced the most critical test of its life, and survived. The collapse of the Soviet Union, the drastic cuts in patron aid from China, and the onset of famine that killed hundreds of thousands all constituted the ultimate test of DPRK stability, and the regime staggered on through it all. Thus, the assumption is that the Arab Spring has little relevance to the DPRK. The scholarly literature tends to support this assessment. Scholars like Georgetown University's Daniel Byman have argued that Kim Jong-il has effectively “coup-proofed” himself through an elaborate system of patronage, bribery, and draconian rule.
- Topic:
- International Relations and Arab Spring
- Political Geography:
- Asia, North Korea, and Asia-Pacific
264. A New Paradigm? Prospects and Challenges for U.S. Global Leadership
- Author:
- Tural Ahmadov
- Publication Date:
- 12-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Global Political Trends Center (GPoT)
- Abstract:
- Throughout the years the overwhelming preponderance of US global leadership is debated by scholars and politicians. In light of the 'rise of the rest', this preponderance is either diminishing or still standing. As of now, yet again, the US is a dominant player both economically and militarily. However, economic recession is likely to make the United States put more emphasis on domestic problems and less emphasis on foreign challenges. Since political and economic landscape is swiftly changing overseas, the United States should act accordingly and cooperate with regional powers on issues of mutual interest. Similarly, as current development is under way in the Middle East, the United States should staunchly back Turkey as the regional hub in dealing with Syrian crisis and foiling Iranian menace.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Foreign Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Economics, and Financial Crisis
- Political Geography:
- United States, Middle East, and Asia
265. The UN Security Council seat and Australia's diplomacy for the Asian century
- Author:
- Alex Oliver
- Publication Date:
- 12-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Lowy Institute for International Policy
- Abstract:
- It's been a big year for Australia's foreign relations. It's been a particularly big year for Australia's multilateralism and its position in the United Nations, with the win in late October of the seat on the UN Security Council after much speculation, controversy, partisanship and criticism.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and International Security
- Political Geography:
- Asia and Australia/Pacific
266. Prospects for Services Trade Negotiations
- Author:
- Jeffrey J. Schott, Julia Muir, and Minsoo Lee
- Publication Date:
- 10-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Peterson Institute for International Economics
- Abstract:
- Trade and investment in services are difficult to measure, and the regulatory barriers that inhibit the free flow of services are hard to quantify. As a result, very little attention has been paid to dismantling barriers to services trade and investment. Rather, free trade negotiations tend to focus on liberalizing merchandise trade. This paper examines what has been achieved in both regional and multilateral compacts by surveying international precedents involving Asian countries in which services reforms have been included in bilateral and regional trade pacts. The authors then assess the prospects for services trade negotiations and explore how services trade negotiations could be pursued over the next decade through two distinct channels: the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and a plurilateral approach among groups of WTO countries. The authors find that in the case of developing Asia, free trade agreements have largely excluded services or have only committed to "lock in" current practices in a narrow subset of service sectors. This is also the case in agreements negotiated between developing countries, which have produced less substantial commitments to liberalize services than those negotiated between developing and developed countries. Multilateral negotiations on services have also underperformed, as substantive negotiations on services in the Doha Round never really got underway. To that end, the authors advocate a stronger effort by developing Asian countries to prioritize services negotiations in their regional arrangements and to expand coverage of services in those pacts to a broad range of infrastructure services that are included in other FTAs in force or under construction in the Asia-Pacific region.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Development, Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and World Trade Organization
- Political Geography:
- Asia
267. True Partners? How Russia and China See Each Other
- Author:
- Dmitri V. Trenin
- Publication Date:
- 02-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- This report compares Russian and Chinese security perceptions and explains how they shape the two countries' policies towards each other. It argues that the modern relationship between the two countries, formed in the late 19th and 20th centuries, was turned on its head at the start of the 21st century. China has now become a powerful factor affecting a whole range of Russian policies, both domestic and foreign. The paper also argues that, while Russia is not central to China's foreign relations, and non-existent in China's domestic politics, good relations with Moscow are an important supporting element in Beijing's overall strategy of reclaiming China's 'rightful place in the world'. It concludes that while both countries need each other and would benefit from a stable political relationship and close economic ties, both Moscow and Beijing lack the long-term strategies to create such a bond.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- Russia, China, and Asia
268. How to get out of Afghanistan: NATO's withdrawal through Central Asia
- Author:
- Heidi Reisinger
- Publication Date:
- 06-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- NATO Defense College
- Abstract:
- NATO's decision to withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan has forced the Alliance to think long and hard about the "how" associated with such a withdrawal. As a result the strategic importance of the five Central Asian states Kazakhstan, Kyrrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, a politically neglected region, mostly seen as a supplier of raw materials and energy, is likely to increase significantly. During the past ten years the ISAF mission has focused its attention on Afghanistan itself. The only neighboring country taken into serious consideration has been Pakistan, as emblematically shown in the US AfPak policy approach. North of Afghanistan, the Central Asian states have been left on the sidelines and their strategic and political role has been underestimated. However, they are now back on the political agenda as an indispensable transit ground.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Foreign Policy, NATO, and Natural Resources
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States, Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Asia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan
269. Can NATO Find a Role for Itself vis-À -vis China?
- Author:
- James Boutilier
- Publication Date:
- 12-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- NATO Defense College
- Abstract:
- NATO is at a crossroads. This is not the first time that Brussels has been faced with critical decisions about the direction, character and raison d'être of this unique and remarkable organization. But this time the stakes are even higher. The major centers of global power are all weak simultaneously for individual and inter-connected reasons. The greatest power on earth and NATO's banker, the United States, is confronting almost insurmountable levels of debt and talk about the end of the American empire has become commonplace. The European community is reeling from the cumulative effect of debt crises. And China, the 21st century's "workshop of the world" (and in the eyes of some a potential savor of ailing economies in Europe) has begun to see its economy slow disturbingly. At the same time, two other phenomena are unfolding; the rapid and profound shift in the global centre of economic gravity from the Euro-Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific region and the winding down of NATO's involvement in Afghanistan. The latter, of course, raises the inevitable question: "What next?" The former raises a related question: "Does NATO's future lie in Asia?"
- Topic:
- International Relations, Foreign Policy, NATO, and Hegemony
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, China, Europe, and Asia
270. Book Reviews: International Relations theory
- Author:
- Patrick Chabal
- Publication Date:
- 09-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Chatham House
- Abstract:
- An ever more pressing issue in the social sciences today is the question of standpoint. From where do social scientists identify and analyse the problems they wish to understand and explain? Which theories do they deploy and why? And what concepts do they use to achieve enlightening results? This question is more often than not elided, both because we feel secure in the use of the standard theories we employ, and because we are not accustomed to think critically about the matter of standpoint, or perspective. Having acquired the theoretical tools of our discipline, we are not tempted to re-examine their merit whenever we embark on our analytical journeys. However, there are now voices calling into question this unthinking use of social, political and economic theories. Two critiques are particularly significant. The first is that which challenges social theory on the grounds that it is the theoretical tool of the West, or North, which is blind to the fact that, in the words of Edward Saïd, it is 'Orientalist'. The second is that which disputes the 'scientific' nature of the so-called social sciences.
- Topic:
- International Relations
- Political Geography:
- Asia