EAI Fellows Program Working Paper Series No.47   Author Ji-Young Lee is an Assistant Professor of School of International Service, American University. Dr. Lee’s research focuses on East Asian international relations, security, and diplomatic history. Her first book examines Chinese hegemony in early modern East Asia and is currently under review. Her second project investigates how China’s rise impacts the American-led international order, specifically through the lens of the U.S.-ROK alliance and China. At SIS, she teaches courses on Asian international politics, Korean politics and foreign policy, and North Korea and international security. Prior to AU, she was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Politics and East Asian Studies at Oberlin College, where she also taught as a visiting assistant professor. She was a POSCO visiting fellow at the East-West Center and a non-resident James Kelly Korean Studies Fellow with the Pacific Forum Center for Strategic and International Studies. Currently, she is a Korea Foundation-Mansfield Foundation scholar of the U.S.-Korea Scholar-Policymaker Nexus program.         With the growth of China’s relative power vis-à-vis the United States, many wonder whether China will replace the United States as the leading power in Asia. As one way to think about this debate, we can historicize the rise of China in the broader view of Asian international relations. Prior to the nineteenth century, the rise of a new Chinese state was always one of the most important sources of international change in the East Asian states system. It is arguable that China’s East Asian neighbors Japan and Korea had dealt with the “rising China question” several times prior to the twenty-first century. Is it possible then that we can identify recurring historical patterns in Asian international relations that may help elucidate today’s questions? China was the sole great power for centuries in East Asia. How does this affect the process of China’s rise now in the American-led hegemonic order? What policy-relevant lessons can we draw from the overall pattern of the way the Chinese hegemonic order worked during the early modern period that many scholars consider a period of “Asia’s long peace”?   In this paper, I approach the question of China’s rise today historically, and explore its implications for international order, especially in the areas of the U.S. alliance system in East Asia. The goal is neither to suggest that history will repeat itself, nor to predict that a particular future scenario will hold. Rather, the paper surveys how the past history of the Sino-centric tribute system is contributing to the shaping of the rise of China today. It then challenges two popular notions that inform the current debate about a rising China. One is the idea that China’s growing power will reestablish regional hegemony on the model of a Sino-centric tribute system, and the other is that Japan and South Korea should make natural security partners against a rising China.   More specifically, I make the following two claims. First, the tribute system is not a notion that is comparable with the concept of sovereignty upon which the existing international system is built. As such, any invocation of this notion tends to be associated with China’s revisionist intentions against the sovereignty norms in today’s international politics. Beijing’s own invocation of its imperial past in the context of its territorial claims over the South China Sea and the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands have, for example, contributed to the speculation that China is seeking to change the status quo and challenging the liberal principles that the current international order rests on. Second, historicizing China’s rise highlights the logic of geopolitics found in Asian history as a mechanism for continuity. By the logic of geopolitics, I mean the politics arising from the geostrategic location of the Korean peninsula as the “bridge” between China and Japan. I argue that an in-depth study on the recurring dynamics in Japan and Korea’s responses to imperial China suggests that China’s growing power and influence may affect America’s alliance system, not by openly challenging the U.S. and its allies, but by creating a structural condition for further highlighting the differences in Japanese and Korean responses to a rising China. Further, the overall pattern of international conflicts in China-Japan-Korea relations indicates that the Sino-Japanese strategic rivalry and the contingency situation over North Korea will be troubling hotspots for Asian security, possibly entrapping the United States and China in an unwanted military confrontation.   A mention of the scope conditions of this study is in order. I primarily look at the early modern period in Asian history and the major international events associated with the Chinese hegemonic order between the fourteenth and the end of the eighteenth centuries (the Ming and High Qing periods in China; the Koryo and Choson periods in Korea; the Muromachi, Senkoku, Tokugawa periods in Japan). Rather than presenting details of the historical study, the paper will focus on drawing its key insights. The remainder of the paper proceeds as follows. In the first section, I will discuss how the images of the past Sino-centric tribute system are affecting China’s rise today, while using three recent events as a window into what I call the “politics of the tribute system” in contemporary Asian politics. In the second section, I present my argument about what the tribute system was, challenging some of the existing images that have shaped the debate on a rising China. The third section discusses the lessons drawn from research on China-Japan-Korea relational patterns in early modern East Asia for a policy-relevant analysis that speaks to the contemporary debate on the future of U.S. alliance system and a rising China in East Asia.   The Politics of the Sino-centric Tribute System and a Rising China Today   In recent years, in both popular dialogue and academic discourse, a Sino-centric tribute system and China’s imperial past are increasingly perceived as associated with China’s future intentions. It is argued that a growing Chinese power will establish regional hegemony modeled on the tribute system. International relations scholar Charles Kupchan notes, “China might attempt to exercise a brand of regional hegemony modeled on the tribute system.” In popular dialogue, too, China’s invocation of its imperial past in territorial disputes has led many to suspect that China intends to resurrect “a new face to China’s ancient tributary system where China is the central power and Beijing is the global political pole.”   These speculations may come as little surprise as people wonder how China will use its power in the future. China’s own invocations of the Sino-centric tribute system took place in the process of China’s engagement with the world, with the prime example being the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. China chose the glamor of the Tang empire (618-907) and the Ming empire (1368-1644) as key themes in the ceremony in order to convey the message to the world that a ‘real China’ is powerful, confident, prosperous and cosmopolitan. The tributary missions by Zheng He during the Ming period were to highlight the harmony that Confucian values lend to the world, and that China’s rise is not a threat.   At a deeper level, the discourse on the tribute system is being animated in part because China is in the process of defining a new great power identity with its newly acquired power and wealth in the twenty-first century. It is seeking inspiration from an idealized version of its imperial past, including the influence and respect it enjoyed from its neighbors during earlier centuries. President Xi Jinping defines China’s foreign policy as serving “the ‘Two Centuries’ objective to realize the great rejuvenation of Chinese nation.” The “Chinese Dream” seeks to promote China’s cultural soft power and modern Chinese values, while he emphasizes that “China should be portrayed as a civilized country featuring rich history, ethnic unity, cultural diversity, and as an oriental power with good government, developed economy, cultural prosperity, national unity and beautiful mountains and rivers.” China’s dream is presented as a common dream of all of Asia. Further, the official China Daily writes, “The realization of the Chinese Dream is conducive to facilitating the rejuvenation of Asia.”   How about other East Asian neighboring powers’ views on China’s imperial past and the Sino-centric tribute system? How do these notions affect their perceptions of China’s rise? Despite China’s intended message of a peaceful rise, it appears that the discourse on the tribute system is interpreted as China’s intention of changing the status quo, while sometimes contributing to shifts in neighboring powers’ views on the rise of China. There are three events that can provide us with a potential window into this dynamics: the Koguryo dispute between China and the two Koreas, the territorial disputes over the South China Sea, and the dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands between China and Japan. What emerges from the developments of these events is as follows.   First, the notion of the Sino-centric system is not simply a question of China’s great power identity, but is also associated with the identity politics of its neighboring countries. The Koguryo dispute shows that differing interpretations over the history related to the tribute system can sensitize what Mitzen called “ontological security.” Ontological security refers to the need of a state to “experience oneself as a whole, continuous person in time… in order to realize a sense of agency.” In other words, given that Koreans have long regarded Koguryo (which existed from 37 BC to AD 668) as the fiercely independent Korean state, the claim that Koguryo was a provincial vassal kingdom of China threatened a Korean sense of ontological security. This flare-up between South Korea and China had substantial effects on the South Korean perception of the rise of China as a potential threat to their national security, a shift from its earlier excitement about China’s rise in Asia. An April 2004 Korea Herald poll found that 63 percent of South Korea’s ruling party members viewed China as its most important diplomatic partner. In August, however, a similar poll showed that that less than 6 percent of South Korea’s National Assembly members regarded China as their country’s most valuable diplomatic partner.   Second, the Sino-centric tribute system is juxtaposed with the rules and norms of the existing international law as exemplified by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in the case of the disputes over the South China Sea. In the process of parties to the disputes presenting their own claims, China’s invocation of the territorial rights “since ancient times” was considered as challenging international law and the liberal principles that the existing international order rests on. The disputes resulted in “a rapid dissipation of China’s ‘soft power’” that existed leading up to the Beijing Olympics. Today, China’s neighbors think about the link between China’s imperial past and its current ambitions, where “the main distinguishing feature of Zheng He’s voyages was the size of the vessels and numbers of soldiers they carried, enabling China to impose its will on some lesser territories.” Arguably, the heightened threat perceptions felt by Southeast Asian countries toward a rising China have led to the tightening of their security ties with the United States as part of “rebalancing to Asia” strategy. Third, another example of the linkage between the tribute system and a rising China occurred in June 2013, when China disputed Japan’s sovereignty of Okinawa on the grounds that the Ryukyu kingdom paid tribute to imperial China. Although the Chinese government involvement with this assertion is a question, cases such as these matter, because of its potential to escalate the tension between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands dispute into a crisis mode...(Continued)

EAI MPDI Working Paper No. 10   Author   Dong Ryul Lee is a professor at the Department of Chinese Studies of the Dongduk Women’s University since 1997. He is now a chair at China Research Panel of East Asia Institute (EAI). Previously, he served as a policy advisor to the Republic of Korea Ministry of Unification and an executive committee member in the Joint Committee of Experts for Korea-China Strategic Cooperative Partnership. He was also an editor of The Journal of Contemporary China Studies in Korea (2010-2011). He was a visiting scholar in the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University from August 2005 to August 2006. He received his Ph.D. in the Department of International Politics, Peking University in 1996. He has published many scholarly articles, monographs, and edited books, including Global Superpower? Prospects for China’s Future (2011), “China’s Policy and Influence on the North Korea Nuclear Issue: Denuclearization and/or Stabilization of the Korean Peninsula?” in The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis (2010), China’s Territorial Dispute (2008), and “Chinese Diplomatic Behavior in the United Nations” (2007). His research area includes Chinese foreign policy, international relations in East Asia, Chinese nationalism and minority.         This working paper will be included in an upcoming EAI publication set to be released in Spring 2016 entitled "Transforming Global Governance with Middle Power Diplomacy: South Korea's Role in the 21st Century." Please check in soon for the latest publication updates.

EAI Fellows Program Working Paper Series No.39   Author   Min Ye is Director of the East Asian Studies Program and Assistant Professor of International Relations at Boston University. She earned B.A. at Beijing University, M.A. at University of South Carolina, and Ph.D at Princeton. Her specialization includes China politics, comparative political economy, and Asian international relations.   Min Ye’s teaching and research interests include foreign direct investment policies and regional integration in East Asia. Her dissertation examines how economic liberalization in developing countries is shaped by external linkages and domestic interest group politics with a focus on economic reform in China and India since the late 1970s. In studying Asian regionalism, she centers on China and examines how local governments and transnational corporations serve as the driving force for regional cooperation in East Asia.   Ye coauthored (with Kent Calder) The Making of Northeast Asia, Stanford University Press, 2010. She has published articles in various journals and presented papers at professional conferences. She is the recipient of various grants at Princeton, including the Bradley Scholarship and Bobst Peace Foundation. External grants include Japan ’s Millennium Education Scholarship and the Pacific Forum Fellowship in Hawaii. She has been a visiting fellow at Waseda University in Japan, Chinese Academy of Social Science in Beijing, SAIS John Hopkins University in Washington DC, and Rajiv Gandhi Foundation in New Delhi.         Abstract China has become an influential source of foreign direct investment in the last decade. The growth coincides with a series of regulatory reforms governing China’s outbound direct investment (CODI). Current analyses of CODI and its regulatory environment are largely missing in the literature on China’s political economy, however. This woking paper studies the new regulation of CODI and explains distortion and disjuncture in CODI, particularly the under-representation of private companies, the market-defying geographic and sector concentration, and generally low profitability of China’s outbound investment. The paper uses statistics published by Chinese government and international organizations, as well as a number of interviews at investing companies.         China has the world’s second largest economy and largest accounts surpluses and is becoming an important source of global foreign direct investment. Chinese investors’ footprints have spread to 188 countries on the globe. Yet more publicity than prognosis has been offered in studying CODI. In the former category, the U.S is home to much criticism of investing China, stressing the strong role by the central government. It has been argued that, Chinese companies, due to their government connections, not only create unfair competition to investors of other home origins but also are “Trojan Horse” with unwanted challenge to norms, economy, and security in receiving nations. Such critiques and fears underlie American public opinion and politicians’ position on China’s corporate investments in the U.S, directly leading to the defeat of Chinese oil company CNOOC’s bid for Unocal in 2005, Chinese IT maker Huawei’s bids for Sprint, 3Leaf, and many other big contracts in the past five years. The high publicity, however, has not examined how China’s home institutions have shaped CODI and whether government connection strengthens China’s aspirant companies abroad.   On prognosis, two empirical works, both published in The China Quarterly, are particularly worth re-accounting here. Kevin Cai published the early study of China’s outbound investment and found that by 1997 China was already a leading investor among developing countries and at the time the Chinese government was yet to announce any encouraging policies toward outbound investment. Cai finds, for example, the Chinese share of outward FDI stock among developing economies increased from 0.5 percent in1985 to 6.4 percent in 1996, after only Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan in the developing world. By analyzing the sector and geographic distribution of China’s outbound investment, as well as the motivation of investing companies, Cai concluded that CODI’s patterns were “generally similar to those from other developing and developed market economies.” Indeed, Cai used a general FDI theory, the Dunning theory, to account for China’s rapid progress in outbound investment.   At the time of publication, Cai was optimistic, and argued that three factors would ensure China’s continual improvement in outward FDI. First, Chinese economy has performed quite well and will continue to grow and create very favorable background conditions for Chinese companies going abroad. Second, the Chinese industrial structure has been upgrading significantly and will continue to do so, making Chinese companies more competitive. Third, an increasingly strong political commitment on the part of the Chinese government to further liberalize its policies and to promote outward investment, in pursuing “world class” industrial-commercial conglomerates, “will surely be conducive to the further development of Chinese outward FDI.”   Confirming Cai’s optimism, Eunsuk Hong and Laixiang Sun published a 2006 article in The China Quarterly, investigating China’s “going out” strategy and companies in exploring global markets. They remarked, “in parallel with success in attracting inward FDI, China has achieved initial success in implementing its ‘going out’ [zouchuqu] strategy, which encourages domestic enterprises to play a part in international capital markets and to invest overseas.” In the early 2000s, Chinese companies scored many gains in overseas market. Haier, after succeeding in the U.S, acquired the microwave division of Japan’s Sanyang and formed strategic alliances with Sony and Toshiba. Lenovo acquired IBM’s notebook division in 2004. Other cases included Konka (color televisions), TCL (multi-electronics), Jianlibao (beverage), Tsingtao (beer), Galanz (microwave), and others. Hong and Sun’s overall assessment of CODI was similar to Cai’s 1997 conclusion, “Generally speaking, China’s outward FDI is similar in character to that of other third-world multinationals.”   Hong and Sun meanwhile stress the importance of government policies, especially the “going out” policy announced in the Tenth Five-Year Plan in 2001. Although no clear regulatory documents were inaugurated in connection to the policy, visible changes took place, according to them. Government officials in charge of screening and approval changed their attitude and became friendlier to commercial investment overseas, aiming to acquire resources, technology and strategic assets acquisition, and at the firm level, companies were increasingly interested in reputation and brand building, and in innovative investment mechanisms and financing channels. These trends, Hong and Sun argue, “will continue to deepen in the future,” as the government continues to liberalization outbound investment policies and companies make internationalization an imperative to acquire strategic assets and proprietary knowledge in developed economies...(Continued)

EAI Fellows Program Working Paper Series No.38   Author Yuan-kang Wang is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Western Michigan University. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago, and was an International Security Fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution's Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies. Wang specializes in international relations, East Asian security, and U.S.-China relations. His research examines the nexus between international relations theory and historical China. He is author of Harmony and War: Confucian Culture and Chinese Power Politics (Columbia University Press, 2011), which examines the influence of Confucian culture on Chinese grand strategy, use of force, and war aims. Wang has published articles on peripheral nationalism in China, nationalist mobilization during Taiwan’s democratization, and U.S. extended deterrence in the Taiwan Strait.             Much has been written about China’s rise, but few analysts have examined the issue from a historical perspective. Short-term analyses, important as they are, lack the depth and breadth of longitudinal studies. Both the academic and policy communities are in need of a long-term view of the impacts of a rising power in East Asia. As we assess the influence of China’s rise on East Asia and beyond, what can we learn from the past? Can international relations (IR) theory offer guidance? East Asian history contains rich, yet mostly untapped, deposits of empirical data for IR scholars to build and test their theories. Employing IR theory, this article examines the experience of the latest East Asian regional hegemon, Qing China (1644-1912), and uses insights gained from the research to shed light on China’s broad international behavior today.   The central question is two-fold: How does a state become a hegemon in its region of the world? And once it becomes dominant, what strategies does the hegemon employ to maintain supremacy in the international system and minimize resistance by lesser states?   In the aftermath of the Cold War the field of international relations began an intense debate about balance of power theory. Realists and their critics have argued over whether balances of power recurrently form in general, and specifically whether a balancing coalition against the United States, the current hegemon, will emerge. Some argue that the “unipolar moment” of American preponderance of power will be short-lived due to the tendency of states to balance power, while others consider that American primacy will be enduring because the balancing mechanism is weak. An important but oft-neglected question is how a hegemon maintains, and prolongs, its leading position in the system. The focus on power balancing, however important, only tells half the story; it neglects how states pursue power and maintains dominance. Classical realist Hans Morganthau sees international politics as a “struggle for power.” Offensive realist John Mearsheimer views “maximizing relative power” as the primary behavior of states. A domination-seeking state can maneuver to expand its power while preventing a counterbalancing coalition from forming. In contrast to strategies of resistance, strategies of domination have received scant attention in the international relations literature. This is unfortunate because domination, along with resistance, is an integral part of international politics. International relations theory should seek not only to analyze a state’s decision to resist and balance power, but also to explore how a state becomes dominant and maintains hegemony.   The People’s Republic of China inherited much of the territories of the Qing empire. The Manchus of the Qing dynasty expanded from a small area in present northeastern China to become “the most successful dynasty of conquest in Chinese history.” The territorial reach of the Qing empire more than doubled that of its predecessor, the Ming dynasty. The Qing conquered vast swaths of territory and became a regional hegemon. It established a hierarchical tribute system to manage its foreign relations. For foreign polities, interactions with the Qing followed tributary “rules of the game.” The Qing empire was a multiethnic state comprising Manchus, Han Chinese, Mongolians, Tibetans, Uighurs, and other minorities. Qing China enjoyed two centuries of preeminence in East Asia, with lesser states deferring to its power. It was not until the Opium War in 1839 that Qing power was substantially challenged.   The next section proposes a theory of hegemonic management. I argue that a hegemon will expand political interests abroad and establish rules of the game for the system. I then examine the Manchu state-building process, conquest of China, consolidation of conquest, and westward expansions. Upon becoming the regional hegemon in Asia, Qing troops marched westward and conquered a vast swath of territory in Inner and Central Asia, doubling the size of Ming China. To dictate the boundaries of appropriate behavior, the Qing adopted the tributary rules of the game to govern diplomatic interactions between Asian polities. Finally, I discuss the implications of this study for understanding China’s rise today.   A Theory of Hegemonic Management   The term “hegemony” is used in different and confused ways. Some use it interchangeably with “empire,” others consider it as a form of legitimate authority, and still others views hegemony as morally repugnant. In this article, I adopt a narrow definition of “hegemony” and distinguish it from “empire.” Hegemony rests on material power. For a state to be a hegemon, there must be a preponderance of military force over other political actors in the system. John Mearsheimer defines hegemon as the great power that dominates the system and enjoys so much military supremacy that "no other state has the military wherewithal to put up a serious fight against it." Except for the hegemon, there are no other great powers in the system. In addition to military superiority, hegemony is also about possessing a preponderance of economic resources, such as raw materials, capital, market access, and productive capacity. These economic resources are necessary to support the hegemon’s military capabilities. Having preponderant power, however, does not mean that the hegemon will always get the outcome it prefers, but it certainly creates unprecedented opportunities to do so. The emphasis on material capabilities does not rule out the social dimension of hegemony, such as authority, legitimacy, status, or prestige. These social aspects do not operate in a vacuum; they are usually derivative of the power relations underlying interactions among political units. Material resources are the necessary condition for a hegemon to exercise authority, enjoy prestige, or generate legitimacy. Compared to non-material factors, material power has more causal weight in producing the desired outcome.   Hegemony should be distinguished from empire. Hegemony is about possessing an overwhelming power advantage over others. A hegemon’s military power and wealth must be “stronger than all second-ranked powers acting as members of a counterbalancing coalition.” An empire, on the other hand, is about relationships of political control. It is the rule exercised by one political actor over subordinate ones in order to regulate their external and internal behaviors. A state can have an empire without itself being a hegemon. For instance, Britain had an overseas empire in the nineteenth century, but its land power and share of world GDP was far from hegemonic. The United Kingdom built a large formal empire, covering nearly a quarter of the world’s land surface, while indirectly ruling parts of Asia and Africa through local potentates. Yet, it was “never truly hegemonic.” In contrast, the United States was a regional hegemon in the Western Hemisphere, but its direct imperial reach was much more limited, covering only fourteen dependencies throughout the world, about one-half of one percent of the world’s land surface. A hegemon can have a small formal empire, or none at all, but it can still exert significant political influence in the system. Hegemonies require more material capabilities than do empires. Compared to empires, regional hegemony is more difficult to achieve, but it is still possible. Recent examples of regional hegemons include the Mughal dynasty in South Asia (1556-1707), the Qing dynasty in Asia (1683-1839), and the United States in the Western Hemisphere (1900-present)...(Continued)

EAI Asia Security Initiative Working Paper No. 26   Author Jung-nam Lee is associate professor of Asiatic Research Institute at Korea University, Seoul, Korea. Her research interests include contemporary Chinese politics, and focus especially on political transformation and China’s foreign policy. Her published works include: “Outlook on Chinese Foreign Policy in the Coming Era of Xi Jinping from China’s Perspective,” in The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis 24, 3 (September, 2012); Democracy and China (ed.) Seoul: Asiatic Research Institute Press, 2012; “China’s idea of East Asian Order: A Comparative Study of ‘Harmonious World Theory’ and Sino-centric Tributary System,” in The Korean Journal of International Relations 50, 3 (Spring 2010), “A Critical Analysis of the theory of Chinese‐Style Democracy” International Area Review 13, 2 (Spring 2010), “China’s soft power in East Asia: an estimation based on the outcome of surveys of six countries” in The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis 21, 2 (June 2009), and a number of other articles in academic journals.         I. Introduction   Since diplomatic relations were established between Korea and China in 1992, the relationship between the two countries has developed rapidly, according to various numerical statistics. In terms of economic exchanges, the countries’ trade volume—which totaled no more than 6.4 billion USD in 1992—increased to 240 billion USD in 2011, multiplying 37 times over and exceeding Korea’s aggregate trade volume with the U.S. and Japan. Last year, the volume of direct investment flowing from Korea to China amounted to 50 billion USD, with the number of Korean firms in China reaching 50,000. China has become Korea’s top economic partner, and according to the 2011 figures, Korea is now China’s third-largest economic partner after Japan and the United States (U.S.), although the figures exclude Hong Kong (Cheong 2012). The number of people travelling between the two countries has also increased apace: from 130,000 people in 1992 to 6,410,000 people in 2011, recording a remarkable 49-fold growth. A total of 130,000 people currently participate in student exchange programs (64,000 Chinese students in Korea and 68,000 Korean students in China) and direct flights run between the two countries 837 times a week (Kang 2012, 5).   The nature of Korea–China relations has also evolved since the “the good neighbor” days of “friendly cooperative relations” at the time when diplomatic relations were first established in 1992; in 1998, the countries announced they would pursue “cooperative partner relations in the 21st century,” and in 2003, a new framework of “comprehensive cooperative partner relations” was inaugurated. More recently, as a result of the Korea–China summits in 2008, the countries’ diplomatic relationship has been enhanced even further, to the level of “strategic cooperation relations”, the highest grade of diplomatic ties recognized by China since 1978 (Lee 2009, 103-108).   However, although Korea–China relations have developed and strengthened without any major hindrances for years—and the two countries have enjoyed a sort of diplomatic honeymoon—conflicts rose to the surface around the dawn of the 21st century. The Garlic Dispute in 1999-2000 put an end to the special honeymoon period for the two countries and relations were normalized based on mutual interests (Chung 2011, 262-286). Thereafter, many diverse conflicts and disputes rose to the surface: the dispute over the history of Goguryeo Kingdom during 2003–2004; the dispute over the Registration of Danoje Ceremony in Gangreung as an intangible cultural heritage site of UNESCO; the negative statement of the speaker of the Chinese Foreign Affairs Department on the Korea–China Alliance in 2008; the conflicts between South Korea’s strong stance against North Korea and China’s comprehensive policy for North Korea; the conflict related to the sinking of the Cheonan warship, and bombing on Yeonpyeong Island in 2010;the murder of a Korean Maritime police officer by Chinese fishermen, the delicate conflict related to the funeral process of Kim Jeong-il at the end of 2011; and the issues concerning North Korean expatriates in 2012. These conflicts have soured the public perception of state relations in both Korea and China and have stood as obstacles to the further development of a healthy strategic partnership between the countries. The results of public opinion polls readily corroborate this claim. As seen in Table 1, people in both countries appear to be recognizing that the relationship between the two countries is not improving, but rather deteriorating (see Table 1).     It is worth noting that early on, the conflicts between Korea and China were mostly economic and cultural in nature, but from 2008, strategic concerns such as the Korea–U.S. alliance, relations with North Korea, and the North Korean nuclear weapons program began to appear as major sources of diplomatic disagreement. In light of these pressing issues, the two countries upgraded their diplomatic relationship to the level of a strategic cooperation partnership to solve strategic issues with mutual cooperation; ironically, conflicts over strategic issues have become the core subjects of dispute between the both countries.   In fact, the two countries of Korea and China have not managed to create a substantial cooperative relationship in the political and diplomatic sense, in spite of their conspicuously successful economic partnership. Although more than 40 summit meetings have been held and military exchanges have been made, summits consisting of reciprocal visits have been made no more than seven times and military exchanges have been made only superficially. The reason why cooperation between the two countries has been weak (in terms of the diplomatic and security sectors) is mainly owing to the presence of a perceptual gap between China’s recognition that Korea still stresses the importance of its relationship with the U.S. concerning its security issues, and Korea’s recognition that China is overly sensitive about the public debate pertaining to the North Korea problem. This gap has been too large for a diplomatic quick fix and has impeded the development of better relations between the two countries (Kang 2012, 5).   With the rapid economic rise of China, the concept of the G2 (“The Group of 2”- the United States and China) has gained international currency, however informally. G2 is the term used to refer to the group of the strongest two countries in the world, U.S. and China, which tackles together political and economic issues in the international community (Bergsten 2008, 57-69; Kissinger 2009; Brzezinski 2009). What may be called the emerging “G2 era,” marked by the renewed and heightened interest of the United States in East Asia, solidly defines the China–U.S. relationship as a key variable and determinant of Korea–China relations. With the onset of the G2 era, the gap in recognition between the Koreans and the Chinese has been reinforced, worsening the relationship between the two nations. As strategic competition has exacerbated between China and the Unites States, the latter nation has tried to contain China by reinforcing the Korea–U.S. relationship. Meanwhile, China has tried to reinforce its relationship with North Korea to maintain security and the status quo on the Korean Peninsula and to secure a strategic buffer zone against the United States. Therefore, whenever strategic issues arise (such as nuclear threats), Korea is suspicious that China takes a loose position to secure the benefit of a buffer zone by maintaining the current North Korea regime, and China, in turn, is suspicious that Korea–U.S. relations plays a certain role in containing China as the United States returns to East Asia.   Therefore, this study claims that, with the emergence of the G2 era, mounting tensions between Korea and China have hampered the practical progress of these two countries’ “strategic cooperation partnership”. For this purpose, I look into the popular perception of current strategic threats and diplomatic challenges in the two countries, analyzing the results of Korean and Chinese public opinion polls. Next, this study observes how such public perceptions affect the recognition of Korea–China relations. In conclusion, this study discusses how, and along what lines, Korean and Chinese perceptions should change to promote the strategic relationship between Korea and China in the G2 era.   II. Theoretical Discussion and Research Methods   1. Public Opinion Polls and the Study of Foreign Policy   According to constructivist theory, the most important factors that comprise social structure are not physical matters, but perceptual ones. Further, the identity of the actors and the benefits they derive in that structure are not given naturally or from the outside, but are developed through shared concepts in the society (Wendt 1999, 1). From this viewpoint, the actors and structures are social entities and they are developed and reproduced through the process of mutual interactions (Chung 2000, 20). Viewed from this constructivist approach, the foreign policy of a country is not determined externally, but is composed of shared concepts in the society. Moreover, through the interactions between international society and domestic opinions, foreign policy is developed and reproduced based on socially shared concepts. From this standpoint, then, it is very important to analyze the direction and characteristics of a given country’s foreign policy by way of public opinion polls...(Continued)

Author Dong Wook Won, Dong-A University         Abstract This paper focuses on the debate between China and the United States regarding China’s new climate change policy following the expiration of the Kyoto Climate Change Protocol in 2012 and the new global climate governance framework in the Post-Kyoto era. By first presenting possible discourses of the international community that will ensue in the post-Kyoto era, this paper further discusses the policies being introduced in China as well as its response to the international community’s pressure to cut carbon emissions. This paper further analyzes the conflict and cooperation between China and the United States on climate change issues, and weighs the possibilities for a successful global architecture to arise with the evolution of a G2 era.   According to this analysis, China is aiming for a significant reduction in carbon emissions and is slowly switching to a low-carbon economy. At the same time, however, Beijing denounces the international community’s pressure for it to adopt mandatory emissions reduction and calls for “common but differentiated responsibility” to reduce carbon emissions by 2020. Although China disapproves the idea of a G2 governance system as pushed by the United States, it seeks to utilize climate change issues as an instrument to ensure talks with the United States and acquire technologies regarding renewable energy production and carbon reduction.         The full text in Korean is available here

Author Hwan-Woo Jung, Institute for International Trade         Abstract China's trade policies toward the United States has transformed from initially defensive cooperation at the time of its entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 to a more balanced cooperation. Also, in terms of purpose, Chinese polices are moving toward cooperation and expansion of mutually managing areas.   There are four main parts to trade policies: trade regulation, exchange rate, economic cooperation, and trade norms. As show in the table below, China's trade policy toward the United States changes depending on the agenda. With trade regulation, China has clearly demonstrated a will to respond strongly within the boundary of international norms. At the same time, while responding forcefully, China has cautiously and gradually accepted U.S. demands in areas under its control such as with the exchange rate. In contrast, China is actively accepting global trade norms and respecting multilateral and regional organizations. Also, in areas of economic cooperation where win-win effect is guaranteed, China demonstrates active cooperative. China is moving away from a passive response to a more active response while also pursuing balanced cooperation. In this way, China has been aggressive when necessary yet cooperative in more feasible areas.   Comparison of China's trade policy towards the U.S. before and after the financial crisis   What will the future be like? It depends upon the sustainability of external and internal elements in which a cooperative balance strategy is possible. China will maintain its current policy if its economic growth can be maintained under the existing trade order. In contrast, if the United States changes its policy of trade norms or China faces less room for economic growth under the WTO regime, Beijing will seek an alternative. Such a scenario though will remain unlikely so long as the United States needs cooperation from China and that under the free trade regime, China's economic growth will be unaffected.         The full text in Korean is available here

Author Young-Jin Kim, Kookmin University          Abstract Since the end of World War II, the international order made by the United States remains centered upon the free markets in terms of economics; human rights, and democracy in terms of politics. Human rights in particular are the means by which to relativize sovereignty, considered absolute in Westphalia system, and to politically intervene in other states. At the same time, it is a core value that the United States employs to maintain the current rules and order in this transitional period of China’s rise.   The multilateral, bilateral, and unilateral human rights diplomacy of Washington, however, has not been very successful. There have been setbacks due to limited international support as countries are more focused upon economic gains, persevering sovereignty, while there is ambiguity over the definition of human rights and a lack of coherence. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that human rights and democracy have been embraced universally, even within China. While it is hard to determine if this is the direct result of U.S. diplomacy toward China, it is a clear sign that America's values and rules are respected and even have expanded. Therefore, human rights and democracy issues will remain an integral part in diplomacy toward China.         The full text in Korean is available here