Search

In recent years, China has been under frequent attacks by nature. Due to high population, low economic development, wide climate range and vulnerable environment, China would adopt appropriate adaptive and reduction actions according to the basic situation of the country and under the framework of sustainable development. the PRC government released its first policy report on climate change in June 2007, China's National Plan for Climate Change. In 2008 and 2009, China followed up with the release of a white paper titled China's Policies and Actions on Climate Change, which points out that "as a responsible developing country, China is fully aware of the importance and urgency of addressing climate change and has adopted a series of policies and measures in this regard." This essay addresses China's policy responses towards climate change. This paper discusses China's policy response to climate change. The discussion begins with the influences of climate change on China's environment and then moves on to discuss China's concern, guiding principle, goal and policy action in reaction to the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the implications for the rise of China have been debated in the global or systemic contexts, as well as regional or bilateral contexts, thin scholarly attention has been devoted to the rise of the other great power - India, and how these two Asian great powers - India and China - perceive the ascendancy of the other state. Yet how these two very different Asian giants with a complex relationship view each other and consequently negotiate their paths in substantially changed international milieus will be important for scholarly interest and policy making. This paper examines how Indian elites - in political, security, and economic arenas - perceive the rise of China and their assessment of the feasibility of Indo-Chinese partnership ("Chindia") or rivalry by employing a mixed-method research strategy, combining secondary literature research, elite interviewing, and direct observation conducted over the summer of 2008. It analyzes the Indo-Chinese relationship through three paradigms - geopolitical, geoeconomic, and geocivilizational. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship in foreign policy (FP) often examines the decision-making process or outcomes of states at a single level of analysis, and frequently the study is of a single case over a short period of time. By incorporating multiple levels of analysis within a comparative framework, more robust findings may be gleaned, yielding greater insight into the FP decisions that states make and which decisions can be anticipated under certain conditions.I attempt such a comparative analysis in FP by performing case studies of several countries over time, unpacking to how the domestic, state, and international levels of analysis combine causally to influence FP decisions. My paper will confine its scope to the issue area of international environmental commitments and the ways in which perceived national role in the international system and concomitant state priorities interact with domestic-level support, giving rise to predictable outcomes.I expect that those states that perceive their international roles as increasing will look to carve out a niche in the international system in a given issue area (such as environmental protection) while promoting domestic support for this area, which serves to signal a strong level of commitment to international audiences. States in decline will likely look to make any number of international commitments in an effort to “save face,” yet will fail to promote or allow domestic support for these commitments to grow. Finally, status-quo states will focus on issue areas directly related to security and power, sidelining issues that do not have direct bearing on the state’s ability to maintain its present level of power in the international system; domestic support for non-security-related issues will be minimal and stagnant over time. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's grand strategy, reflected in recent years by its "New Security Concept", is becoming more dependent on governmental and sub-governmental institutional cooperation. The development of sub-governmental dialogues (Track II) on regional security issues in the Pacific Rim has accelerated since the 1990s and is now widely seen as an optimal method of promoting both discourse and confidence-building in the region. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the strategic outlook of the world's largest yet understudied armed force ? China's People's Liberation Army (PLA). With its sheer size, rapidly increasing capabilities, and uncertain intentions, the PLA's assessment of the country's external security environment entails profound implications for international relations. China has the world's largest military (with a manpower of over 2.3 million), second highest defense spending ($90 billion in 2004, by Pentagon's estimates; or $25.6 billion, by China's Defense White Paper), and one of the fastest-growing economies serving as the resource base for double-digit increases in defense spending for each of the past 15 years and for rapidly expanding its military capabilities. Yet, studying China's strategic intentions faces methodological challenges. China's decision-making process is opaque; its top leadership is not accountable to the electorate. A peculiar "civilian control of the military" ensures that the military will protect the party's interests. Access is guarded. Top generals rarely give interviews and their public statements echo top party leaders' statements. Discussions with "think tanks" affiliated with PLA tend to be formalistic. Moreover, a "strategic culture" of realism and a "cult of defense" combine to give Chinese an edge in deception and asymmetry. For a question crucial to U.S. national security, these problems have confounded scholars and policy-makers.The PLA's stated raison d'être is to "safeguard China's sovereignty and territorial integrity" and preventing Taiwan's formal independence for now (or, in the future, incorporating Taiwan through force) has provided the impetus for the modernization of this armed force. But will China's aspirations increase with growing capabilities? The "Taiwan issue" thus provides a good angle to understand and evaluate China's perception and assessment of its security environment in the first decade of the 21st century.This paper tackles four questions: (1) How to disentangle the PLA's worldviews from those of China's civilian party leaders? (2) Compared to civilian leaders, is the military more hardline on issues perceived to pertain to sovereignty and territorial integrity but also more cautious on the use of force? (3) Are there subtle differences within the PLA -- by services, cohorts, doctrines -- on key strategic issues? (4) How does China's military development coalesce with the current leadership's stated strategy of "peaceful rise"? ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most analyses of the development in post-Cold War Chinese security policy presume or picture the Chinese security policy as reflecting a coherent security strategy being either revisionist or status quo oriented. In contrast, my departure point is that the development in the Chinese post-Cold War security policy shows both revisionist and status quo oriented characteristics, and that the development in the policy has a highly reactive character. I argue that it is possible to identify a pattern in what the Chinese post-Cold War security policy is reacting to, and how the policy develops as a reaction to these factors. Thus, my overall objective is to identify the most important factors that influence the development in post-Cold War Chinese security policy and in which way. For achieving this objective, I construct and apply a so-called contingent realist argument about the development in a rising power's security policy under unipolarity. In this paper, I present the theoretical argument and conduct a preliminary case study of the Taiwan Strait Crisis 1995-96. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As China continues its shift from being an energy exporter to one of the greatest importers in the world, Beijing's foreign policy is becoming increasingly sensitive not only to the international energy market, but also to the security of its energy trade routes. Since 2003, there has been increased talk within the Chinese government of a "Malacca Dilemma", the problem of potential trade bottlenecks in the South China Sea region which could conceivably be blocked, creating a potential political and economic crisis for China. This thinking has greatly affected China's diplomacy in Southeast Asia but also with other energy producing regions in the developing world. This paper will examine the geo-strategic question of the Malacca Dilemma and its effects on Chinese energy policy and its 'new diplomacy', including whether its policies will bring it into greater opposition with the West as it too seeks to secure energy sources from the Middle East and beyond. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper overviews sophisticated triangular relations among Taipei, Beijing and Washington after 2000. Then, it scrutinizes the development of US mediation as a form of third-party intervention in such complicated dynamics in the Taiwan Strait. The pattern of contemporary US mediation is studied in an analytical way. Then, it analyzes the role and approaches (strategies) of the US in mediating between the ROC and the PRC, as well as evaluates preliminarily the future of US mediation. Some key findings include, for example: the US is gradually moving towards the role of real mediator in the cross-strait dispute, the characteristics of the US itself and the environment are positive forces driving further effective US mediation, as well as the US will continue to play a mediating role throughout the George W. BushÂ’s presidency but has to be cautious of the effectiveness of its mediation and the differences between Taipei and Beijing in order to find a useful way to enhance the understandability and acceptability of its official position on the peaceful resolution of the cross-strait sovereignty dispute. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]