EAI Fellows Program Working Paper Series No. 19   Author Jianwei Wang, Professor of Political Science and past recipient of a prestigious MacArthur Foundation Grant, is an expert on U.S./China relations. Dr. Wang has made frequent trips between the United States and China to do research and to promote mutual understandings between the two countries. He has appeared nationally as an expert on China on media outlets such as PBS News Hour, FOX, National Public Radio and Nightline. Wang is associated with the Atlantic Council, a prestigious foreign affairs think tank and the Voice of America regularly flies Wang to Washington to participate in roundtable discussions that are broadcast to the Far East. This year he gave a paper at a conference celebrating 30 years of U.S.-Chinese relations and met with President Bush. Dr. Wang regularly takes students to the annual National Model United Nations (UN) conference in New York City. This paper was submitted to "EAI Fellows Program on Peace, Governance, and Development in East Asia" supported by the Henry Luce Foundation based in New York. All papers are available only through the online database.     China’s rise as a leading economic and military power is among the most epic phenomena in the 21st century. Since the Chinese leadership made a strategic choice to reform its economic system and to open up to the world economy in the late 1970s, China has sustained an average annual economic growth of about 10 percent for thirty years, the fastest in the world and unprecedented in world history of economic development. In 2005, China surpassed Japan as the largest holder of foreign exchange reserve. In 2007, China overtook Germany to become the 3rd largest economy and 2nd largest trading nation in the world. In 2008 China’s GDP reached to 4.5-6 $ trillion moving closer to the 2nd largest economy in the world--Japan. As the largest creditor of the sole superpower.United States by holding more than $720 billion of the US treasury bonds, China began to be called “Bank of America.” It is widely projected that China will replace the United Sates as the largest economy by 2025-2040     China’s emergence as a global power has become one of hottest topic of academic and policy research triggering heated debate in the United States and elsewhere in the international community. Over years the focus of the debate has shifted from “whether China will rise” to “how China will rise” and what are the implications of its rise to the United States’ interest in particular and to the existing international system and international order in general.   Along with China’s take-off as a rising power came the perception of “China threat” which has been prevalent in West since the 1990s. Embedded in the logic of traditional realist Western IR theories, this perception argues that as an unsatisfied rising power, China is bound to challenge the dominant position of the United States and to disrupt the international status quo. History has witnessed numerous wars for hegemony between a dominant power and a rising power. If that is the case, China’s rise tends to pose a threat the United States and the status quo in the international system and consequently U.S.- China relations could be put on a collision course. The authoritarian nature of the political system in China further deepens people’s wariness of China’s international behavior when it becomes strong and powerful.    To alleviate these concerns and suspicions, Chinese political elites in recent years coined a so-called “theory of peaceful rise.” This theory argues that for various reasons China could take a route very different from other major powers in history. China’s rise will be peaceful and beneficial both to the Chinese people and the rest of the world. The United States and other nations should have nothing to fear from China’s rise. In other words, China’s rise is more an opportunity than a threat to the world.    My study attempts to look into this critical question of how the international community has perceived and reacted to the theory of China’s “peaceful rise” in particular and China’s accelerating rise in recent years in general, and whether it has been effective in dispelling the perception of “China threat” in the international community. To answer these questions, I take the United States as the major case study as the United States is supposed to be one of the original and main sources of “China threat” and therefore became the main target for China’s effort of persuasion with the “peaceful-rise” theory. However to make the study of America’s perception more interesting and meaningful, I try to setup a system of reference for the American cognition of China’s rise. For that purpose I choose China’s two major neighboring countries--Japan and South Korea to find out how they have reacted to China’s rise and “peaceful rise”? Are their reactions similar to or different from the American ones and why?    The rationale for the selection is that historically China’s neighbors were under the cultural sphere of influence of the Chinese rule as characterized by the “tribute system.” Naturally they tend to have some deep-rooted uneasiness and suspicions about China’s long-term intension in the region. My assumption is that comparing the Western and non-Western reactions to China’s rise could yields some interesting insights about China’s potential and limitation in cooperating with these countries in particular and with the international community in general.   While comparing perceptions of and reactions from three countries regarding China’s “peaceful rise,” I also attempt to explore the sources of their perceptual similarities and differences by taking a number of variables that might impact their reactions to China’s rise. Some tentative hypothesis will be suggested for empirical testing and analysis. Finally the effectiveness of China’s marketing strategy to permeate its “peaceful rise” will be discussed...(Continued)    

EAI Fellows Program Working Paper Series No. 9   Author Elizabeth Wishnick is Assistant Professor of Department of Politcal Science at Government at Montclair State University. Professor  Wishnick is the author of Mending Fences: The Evolution of Moscow’s China Policy from Brezhnev to Yeltsin (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001) and of numerous articles on great power relations and regional development in Northeast Asia, published in Asian Survey, NBR Analysis, SAIS Review, Journal of East Asian Affairs, Issues and Studies, and Perspectives Chinoises, as well as in several edited volumes. Her current research focuses on Regional economic development in Northeast Asia; International relations in Northeast Asia; Russian-Chinese relations; and Post-Soviet foreign policy. This paper was submitted to "EAI Fellows Program on Peace, Governance, and Development in East Asia" supported by the Henry Luce Foundation based in New York. All papers are available only through the online database.   The April 2007 visit by Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to Japan highlights new opportunities for cooperation between China and Japan to address challenges of globalization, such as pollution and rising demand for energy, yet progress in their relations has been uneven. Their economic ties have flourished despite deep-rooted political tensions, significant security concerns, maritime boundary disputes, conflicting nationalisms and historical narratives. Since the mid-1990s China and Japan have steadily cooperated to reduce air pollution, but energy has proven to be a source of competition and tension, though there have been some recent cooperative impulses.   Until recently China’s approach to globalization largely focused on its economic benefitsand assumed that the Chinese state would be able to manage the process. Increasingly Chinese leaders and scholars are calling attention to the numerous non-traditional security challenges facing their country. The problems of economic globalization and non-traditional security are linked, however, as China’s dramatic growth creates unintended non-traditional security consequences for its neighbors, as well as its own citizens. Even if its rise is peaceful, China’s development creates unintended environmental consequences such as trans-boundary air pollution and rising demand for energy, which create risk for its neighbors. This article will look at China’s environmental risk management and its impact on Sino-Japanese relations. The article will show a pattern of cooperation in addressing air pollution, but greater competition over energy. Why is there cooperation in the environmental area? Why has competition been more prevalent over energy? Typically realist theories are employed to explain Sino-Japanese competition over energy and liberal theories are used to account for their environmental cooperation. This piecemeal approach misses the broader context of globalization and focuses on the policy choices of political leaders in both countries, when the issues at play may not be intentional. It is argued here that rising demand for energy and air pollution in China are the unintended consequences of development choices, which create risk with policy implications for China’s neighbors. The paper explains how several factors shape the impact of environmental risk in China’s relations with Japan, including the urgency of the risk involved, the nature of risk management, statesociety relations, and the securitization of risk. Finally, the paper calls attention to the dynamic between risk management in China and Japanese policy responses. All countries produce risk and this article is not intended to single out China. However, the Chinese case is unique: as a developing country with an extremely dynamic economy butincreasingly uneven distribution of wealth, it presents both environmental risks associated with poverty and prosperity. Because of China’s growing global and regional role and expanding environmental footprint, how the country addresses environmental risk has great significance globally, regionally, and domestically. This article is a component of a larger research project addressing non-traditional security issues in China’s relations with its neighbors in East Asia. The article also represents a first draft of research in progress and some sections (particularly the role of civil society in risk management and Japanese securitization of environmental risk) are incomplete at this writing...(Continued)    

EAI Fellows Program Working Paper Series No. 3   Abstract South Korea needs a new strategy for managing triangular ties with China and Japan. It. must address the deteriorating state of Sino-Japanese relations as well as U.S. scepticism about China’s push for regionalism and the South’s autonomous inclinations through a patient role as a facilitator, not a balancer. In 2005 it overreached in a desperate response to a difficult environment. Tracing the dilemma the South faces, this paper focuses first on the U.S. factor and the frustrating impact on Roh Moo-hyun’s plans to engage North Korea. Then it evaluates ties with Japan, delineating causes and effects of the sharp slide in bilateral cooperation with restoration difficult. Next it assesses relations with China and how hard it is to synchronize them to other ties. The conclusion stresses the value to South Korea of a balance of power. As a middle power between assertive competitors, it must tread cautiously with special attention to shaping the triangle with China and Japan.   Author Gilbert Rozman is Musgrave Professor of Sociology, specializes on comparisons and relations in Northeast Asia, including China, Japan, and Russia. In the year 2000-2001, he began to add Korea to this mix. He compares the historical development of these countries, their recent-day societies, their search for national identities, and their strategies for international relations.  His recent published works include ed., Japan and Russia: The Tortuous Path to Normalization 1949-1999, "Sino-Russian Cross-Border Relations: Turning Fortresses into Free Trade Zones," "Flawed Regionalism: Reconceptualizing Northeast Asia in the 1990s," "Backdoor Japan: The Search for a Way Out via Regionalism and Decentralization."   This paper was submitted to "EAI Fellows Program on Peace, Governance, and Development in East Asia" supported by the Henry Luce Foundation based in New York. All papers are available only through the online database.   South Korea is buffeted by four countries whose foreign policy does not measure up to the standards needed for our times. All have reacted to recent international events by accentuating worrisome trends seen in earlier policies and show no inclination of changing direction. George W. Bush has steered the US not only away from Clinton’s engagement policy toward China but also toward an inconsistent regional strategy in which Richard Armitage’s Japan first approach coupled with Robert Zoellick’s follow-up to encourage China to become a “stakeholder” has been interspersed with Dick Cheney’s neo-conservative quasi-containment of China combined with an ideological rejection of diplomacy with North Korea.1 Koizumi Junichiro has let his obsession with visiting the Yasukuni Shrine overwhelm traditional diplomatic professionalism, making no effort to staunch an upsurge of ultra-nationalist claims in Japan or to try to contain the damage across the region. Hu Jintao has been less flagrant about his transgressions of cautious diplomacy, but some would argue that he has betrayed early expectations that China was ready to find common language to reassure the US and Japan by exploring shared values with increasing transparency. Finally, Vladimir Putin has resuscitated the image of an authoritarian leader in Moscow narrowly concerned with supporting dictators in order to expand his state’s influence regardless of the impact on regional stability and human rights. In the shadow of the powerful US influence and a marginal Russian one, South Korea faces the challenge of managing the deepening rivalry between China and Japan.   Among three choices for South Korean diplomacy in the coming years, only one is bound to serve the national interest best. Yet, given the policy choices favored in the four competing powers and North Korea’s inclination to seek advantage from hyperbolic rhetoric and purposeful threats, the path forward is not easy. One choice is to accept the vision of US neoconservatives and Japanese ultranationalists and draw a taut line against North Korea in the Six-Party Talks while recognizing that a three-way alliance must stand firm against China’s drive for regionalism. Taking this approach would be an admission that the Sunshine Policy was wrong and that the cold war continues in Asia, reviving the logic of the 1950s to 1980s. A second choice is to accede to the rise of China as the center of regionalism, essentially reverting to the sinocentric order during the millennium before the end of the nineteenth century. Given the rapid economic integration of South Korea and China and the preeminent influence of China in dealing with North Korea, this might seem to be a realistic adjustment to ongoing trends if it were not obvious that it would be a betrayal of aspirations for autonomy and leverage in foreign policy that have escaped Koreans since the seventh century and only from 1990 became a serious possibility. Finally, South Korea could strive for a region in equilibrium where the weight of China would be balanced by the weight of nearby Japan coupled with that of distant US, and its own flexibility would be maximized. This is a worthy goal not contradictory to certain views advocated by US and Japanese diplomats as well as experts in China, but the way Sino-Japanese relations are evolving may now be the foremost barrier to its realization. Why is the deterioration in Sino-Japanese and Japanese-South Korean relations of 2005 different from other setbacks in the region over the past decades? First, contrary to what is asserted in most coverage, it is about fundamental matters of security and identity. Second, it should be understood not only as another instance of “economics hot, politics cold,” but, as explained by former Japanese ambassador Tanino Sakutaro, also as “people cold.”2 Even Japanese-South Korean mutual trust, which had been rising since 1998 and benefited from the “World Cup,” the “Korean wave,” and a surge in cross-tourism, has fallen with 89 percent of the Koreans saying that they cannot trust Japan, including a doubling from 2002 to 38 percent who cannot trust it at all.3 Third, it exposes the difficulty of South Korea in steering a middle road in the region. Northeast Asia is at a crossroads, and how Seoul manages ties to its two closest great power neighbors is one factor that may tip the balance. Cognizant of forces that complicated Seoul’s choices in 2005, we still should draw lessons on what is needed to improve the situation. The intensified rivalry between China and Japan posed new challenges in 2005 for many countries. The US faced unprecedented concern that this rivalry was spoiling the atmosphere for strategic cooperation in East Asia, leading officials to debate quiet intervention to find a way to ameliorate damage from Koizumi’s visits to the Yasukuni Shrine while still giving priority to boosting Japan versus China. ASEAN states struggled with the impact of the rivalry on plans for regionalism, agreeing with Japan’s request to expand the new East Asian Summit with three additional members that had the effect of diluting China’s potential dominance but followed with an approach welcomed by China to confine discussion on forging an East Asian Community to the more compact ASEAN + 3 setting. Russia and India debated counteroffers by these two other claimants to Asian great power status, without making abrupt changes. Yet, the most important battleground for China and Japan once again became the Korean peninsula; South Koreans confronted the most urgent decisions on how to manage this rivalry along with a fraying US alliance...(Continued)    

EAI Fellows Program Working Paper Series No. 2   Abstract This paper examines how veterans of the People's Liberation Army were treated in their communities and workplaces after their demobilization in the 1950s and 1960s.  It argues that evidence of widespread discrimination against veterans, who were lauded by the state for their heroism and sacrifice, challenges one of the more common "tropes" of contemporary Chinese politics--that patriotism and nationalism are rising among wide swathes of the population.  Using new archival sources, the paper focuses on the challenges veterans faced in the post-war era, among them chronic pain, poverty, job discrimination, and marriage difficulties. as well as how they responded to them. To be sure, these problems were not unique to China; many veterans around the world experienced them. The paper concludes by exploring the cultural, political, and economic reasons why veterans in China appear to have fared particularly poorly when compared with many of their counterparts elsewhere in the world.   Author Neil J. Diamant is Assistant Professor, specializing in East Asian politics with an emphasis on state-society relations, policy implementation and institutional analysis. He is author of Revolutionizing the Family: Politics, Love and Divorce in Urban and Rural China, 1950-1968 (University of California Press, in press), which examines the implementation of laws liberalizing divorce in Chinese cities, suburbs and among ethnic minorities in frontier regions.   This paper was submitted to "EAI Fellows Program on Peace, Governance, and Development in East Asia" supported by the Henry Luce Foundation based in New York. All papers are available only through the online database.   The Chinese state, like many modern ones, has two calendars. The first, shaped by culture and history, is the more familiar one: all students in courses in East Asian Studies departments learn about Chinese New Year, the Moon and Dragon Boat Festivals, Qingming (Tomb-Sweeping) and others. The other, less familiar to foreigners, is the political calendar. Its features, however, are readily recognizable: a day celebrating a political founding (Oct. 1, 1949 in the PRC; Jan. 1, 1912 in Taiwan), critical junctures in history, or the contributions of various social groups to national development (for example, May 1st for labor, March 8 for women). Sometimes cultural and political holidays overlap—the ROC government notes that, during the Qingming festival, it’s “customary to visit the tombs of the martyrs or the revolution”—but usually the calendars remain separate, and change little or only incrementally, usually accompanied by controversy. Governments, like leaders of organized religion, understand the need to maintain ritual and routine to sustain legitimacy, and attempt to create rituals that speak to the heart of their citizens.     1 Despite the plethora of political events and the variety of groups they commemorate, two days are conspicuously missing from the PRC’s political calendar: a “Veterans Day” and “Memorial Day.” Despite the fact that the CCP emerged victorious from its decades-long rivalry with the Nationalist Party, awarded veterans high class status (they belonged to the “red” category), claims victory in the war against Japan and the United States in the Sino-Japanese and Korean Wars respectively, defeated the Indian Army in the border wars of the early 1960s, there is not a single holiday devoted to the people responsible for these accomplishments. Nor has current-day bellicosity among “nationalists” (who threaten to use military force against Taiwan and the US should Taiwan declare independence) translated into a commemorative holiday for veterans, even as they were called the “flesh and blood” of the revolution.   2 Years of veteran political activism, which include uprisings, strikes, slow-downs, sit-ins and petitioning Beijing, has not resulted in their “elevation” to holiday status (unlike women and children, who both have their days).   3 On the contrary: groups of organized veterans are swatted away much like any other group that “threatens social stability.” In April 2005, just to give one recent example, 1,000-2,000 veterans (including divisional commanders), many wearing their old uniforms, gathered in front of the General Political Department of the PLA to protest their treatment after their discharge, 4 and on August 1 2005 (Army Day), hundreds of veterans protested in Beijing but were quickly dragged away by the police. The missing commemorative day for PRC veterans is somewhat of an anomaly when considering the comparative record of modern states that have fought large scale wars in the 20th century.   5 The United States, which has lost far fewer soldiers than the PRC, has a Veterans Day and a Memorial Day; the Mall in Washington has public memorials for three wars, including one that was lost. Israel’s Memorial Day comes the day before Independence Day, cementing the link between sacrifice and nation-building. In the post WWII period in the Soviet Union, perhaps the country most comparable to China in terms of its political system, veterans managed to “carve[d] their own space” within the “highly styled parameters of the Soviet polity.” There, veterans came to dominate the post-war scene politically and culturally: war novels, memoirs, and parades and honors galore were bestowed upon the victors in the “Great Patriotic War.” There was no status higher than a decorated and wounded combat veteran; those not serving in combat were marginalized in the Communist Party.   6 In this paper I suggest that China’s missing days are not happenstance: they speak to the highly problematic position veterans occupy in the Chinese state and society. I will also suggest that a deeper understanding of veterans’ experiences places us in a unique vantage point to reassess many of the key components of Chinese patriotism after the 1949 revolution. Let’s think about it: Why would officials and citizens of a country that asserts its patriotic pride by pointing to the positive outcome of military successes (such as a strong state that can no longer be “bullied”) discriminate against or ignore the veterans who fought those wars, to the point where veteran suicides prompted numerous state investigations? What does it say about the nature of patriotism when urban youth who protest against Japanese textbooks and casually assert a military response to Taiwanese independence, pay no heed to their own veterans’ predicament, or when the only Letter to the Editor concerning veterans that was written by a student in People’s Daily between 1949-1978 registers complaints about them? What does it say about the Chinese state when those who sacrificed so much for it—one of the 2005 protesters was the son of a Korean War veteran who was denied medical insurance and petitioned the state for a decade—are carted off by the police and have their leaders arrested? These events (from the 1950s, 1990s and after the turn of the century) surely complicate the notion of Chinese patriotism as an ascending ideological force legitimating the regime, as well as a “bonding force” between people. They demand that we revisit a question that preoccupied state-builders from Liang Qichao, Kang Youwei, Sun Yatsen and Mao Zedong: do Chinese citizens appreciate martial qualities? Most citizens do not join the military, but are they willing to give a “fair shake,” in the sense of fair and equitable treatment, to those who are rhetorically and legislatively praised (in the form of beneficial policies) for having risked their lives and devoted time, resources, and families for the sake of the nation?7 While the narrative of “ascendant patriotism” would suggest an answer in the affirmative, the evidence suggests a far more complicated picture...(Continued)    

EAI Fellows Program Working Paper Series No. 1   Abstract The paper examines the increasing influence of various domestic factors such as academics, media, and public opinion within the context of newly developed internet technology, on the foreign policy making of the People’s Republic of China in the last decade. The basic research questions of this study are: Has there been an emergence of societal forces, independent of the Communist Party, that have begun to exert influence over the foreign policy making process? If so, how is it affecting the ability of Chinese government to frame and implement foreign policies?  It argues  that due to an open door policy and the increasing development of information technology, China's hierarchical, elite-driven foreign policy making structure has experienced profound changes; these changes, which are characterized with decentralization, professionalization and institutionalization,  have created opportunities for societal forces to influence the decision making process.  It suggests that globalization has produced a certain amount of transnational forces within Chinese society, and the degree of its influence depends on how the public is informed and manipulated and the degree of the country’s integration with the world. When the public has more access to information about the outside world and internal development, the societal pressure influencing foreign policy behavior becomes more visible.    Author Yufan Hao is Professor of Political Sciences at Colgate University. He obtained his MA and PhD from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in 1984 and 1989 respectively and was a McArthur Fellow at Harvard University Center for International Affairs 1988-1989. He was a visiting professor to Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Renmin University of China. His latest books include Chinese Foreign Policy Making: Societal Forces in Chinese American Policy Making, (Ashgate, London, co-edited, 2005); Bush’s Dilemma: Experts on the Possible Trend of American Foreign Policy (Shishi, Beijing, co-edited, 2005); Power of the Moment: American and the World after 9/11 (Xinhua, Beijing, co-authored, 2002), White House China Decision (Renmin Press, Beijing, 2002). Currently he serves as the Dean of Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at University of Macau.   This paper was submitted to "EAI Fellows Program on Peace, Governance, and Development in East Asia" supported by the Henry Luce Foundation based in New York. All papers are available only through the online database.     The spring of 2005 was quite turbulent in China-Japan relations. Along with the issues of Security Council bid, the history textbook, and gas exploration in disputed waters, Japan stated on the Chinese Lunar New Year that the Senkaku Islands were officially Japanese. In February, Japan and the US declared a closer military bond. After another visit by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, where convicted Class-A war criminals are honored along with other Japanese war dead, the bilateral relations plunged to their lowest point since 1972, when a nationwide anti- Japanese riots erupted in China. Angry Chinese protesters marched at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, throwing eggs and rocks protesting against school textbooks they say whitewash Japanese wartime atrocities in China, and against Tokyo’s bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and against Koizumi’s visit to Yasukuni Shrine. After a week of violent protests against Japan in Beijing, thousands marched on the Japanese consulate in Shanghai, smashing its windows with rocks, pelting it with paint bombs and attacking Japanese restaurants along the way. Protest spread to several large cities in the south, as Chinese massed outside Japanese stores and consulates, calling for a boycott of Japanese products and demanding that Japan own up to war crimes of 60 years ago. The rising anti-Japanese sentiments within Chinese society have made it more difficulty for the Beijing leadership when making their policies towards the Tokyo. Chinese government became tougher towards Tokyo and publicly registered its objection to Japan’s bid to UN Security Council. Meanwhile, Chinese government began to clamp down harder to keep the capital peaceful before Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura’s visit. University students were warned by email not to protest. Top anti-Japanese activists in Beijing were rounded up to prevent further protests. China even began to control media coverage of Sino-Japanese relations and had cancelled a few academic conferences and workshops related to Japan.   Why did the Chinese leadership decide to take a tough stand toward Japan at the time China is trying to show to the world its peaceful intention of rising up? At the same time, what made the Chinese leaders try continually to maintain relations with Tokyo, not hurting 178 billion dollars in annual trade between the two economic powers?   What happened in the spring of 2005 seems to illustrate a long overlooked element affecting Chinese foreign policy making: the influence of social forces. Since 1949, Chinese foreign policy has been traditionally viewed as highly centralized, dominated by a few powerful, personalized seniors acting free from domestic public pressure. Never before has Chinese leadership considered the interests and opinions of various domestic political constituencies. What  happened in 2005 in China’s policy towards Japan seems to illustrate an interesting change. Beijing leadership had to accommodate domestic outcry in the wake of the certain external events, even though they wished to maintain and continue to improve Sino-Japanese relations. The moment may have arrived in China when policy makers cannot create policy initiatives without a serious consideration of public opinion, and support within the bureaucratic apparatus. This may represent a gradual but significant shift from the Communist Party’s centralized control over Vhina’s foreign policy making, relatively free of social pressure, to a new pattern characterized by increasing domestic restraints...(Continued)    

EAI Fellows Program Working Paper Series No. 17   Abstract In the aftermath of the SARS epidemic much was made of China’s effective efforts at disease control and prevention. China’s perceived success in controlling SARS stands in stark contrast with Taiwan’s troubled response to its own SARS outbreak. Why does Taiwan, a geographically small, yet densely populated country with a democratic government, wealthy and modern knowledge-based economy, fail to effectively respond to SARS whereas big, heavily populated, relatively under-developed and soft authoritarian China succeeds? Author Jonathan Schwartz, Assistant Professor of Department of Political Science and International Relations, the State University of New York, New Paltz   This paper was submitted to "EAI Fellows Program on Peace, Governance, and Development in East Asia" supported by the Henry Luce Foundation based in New York. All papers are available only through the online database.     In the aftermath of the SARS epidemic much was made of China’s effective efforts at disease control and prevention. China’s perceived success in controlling SARS stands in stark contrast with Taiwan’s troubled response to its own SARS outbreak. Why does Taiwan, a geographically small, yet densely populated country with a democratic government, wealthy and modern knowledge-based economy, fail to effectively respond to SARS whereas big, heavily populated, relatively under-developed and soft authoritarian China succeeds?     To address this question, I focus on disease control efforts in Taiwan, considering relevant parallels in Chinese infectious disease control to draw out the causes for Taiwan’s poor infectious disease response. I use the SARS epidemic as a case study, comparing specific policies and actions taken by Taiwan and China in response to their respective SARS outbreaks.   As I am particularly interested in understanding the factors influencing Taiwan’s response, I focus initially on Taiwan, describing the genesis of SARS in Taiwan and its infectious disease response capacity. I then draw on previous studies of China’s SARS response to highlight the differences between the Chinese and Taiwanese SARS responses. In the final section I draw on this comparison to identify broader lessons regarding factors influencing effective infectious disease response...(Continued)    

EAI Fellows Program Working Paper Series No. 16     Abstract     Historical disputes are central to current relations among Northeast Asian nations and promoting historical reconciliation will be critical not only to ensuring regional peace and security but also protecting American interests in this important region. The primary aim of the article is to explore whether the U.S. has any role to play in the process of historical reconciliation in Northeast Asia. After reviewing past attempts at historical reconciliation, it is argued that the U.S. is not an outsider nor free of responsibility for the history problem in the region and that it can play a constructive role in facilitating regional reconciliation. Author Gi-Wook Shin, Director of Asia-Pacific Research Center and Professor of Sociology, Stanford University This paper was submitted to "EAI Fellows Program on Peace, Governance, and Development in East Asia" supported by the Henry Luce Foundation based in New York. All papers are available only through the online database.     It is now well known that over the last fifteen years Northeast Asia has witnessed growing intra-regional exchanges and interactions, especially in the realms of culture and economy. China has become the number one trading partner of South Korea, and Chinese products constitute the largest share of Japanese imports. Reflecting such economic exchanges,there has been a marked increase in the number of Northeast Asian people traveling to other nations within the region. There are growing numbers of Chinese students studying in Japan, and Korean films and dramas have been popular in China and Japan. China, Japan, and South Korea are active participants in regional institutions such as ASEAN Plus Three and the East Asian Summit, which often excludes the United States.   Yet wounds from past wrongs—committed in times of colonialism and war—are not fully healed and have become highly contentious “diplomatic” issues. All nations in theregion have some sense of victimization and often blame others, rather than taking responsibility. Anti-Japanese sentiments seem undiminished in China and Korea, even among the younger generation with no direct experience of colonialism or war. The Japanese suffer from “apology fatigue,” questioning why they must continue to repent for events that took place six or seven decades ago. Ironically, increased regional interaction has not diminished but rather intensified disputes and contention over the past. According to a 2006 survey, Chinese listed their top four reasons for unfavorable views of Japan, as related to history issues: the most often selected was the Nanjing massacre (42.19%) followed by historical issues (19.76%), denial of historical crimes (15.62%), and visits to the Yasukuni shrine (10.19%). More than half of the respondents (54.78%) said that the difficulties of Sino-Japanese relations should be resolved by addressing “historical issues first.” Another survey of Koreans conducted in 2005 shows that 93% of the respondents said that “unresolved historical issues are very important or somewhat important to Korea-Japan relations.” Japanese largely concur with Chinese and Koreans in their view of the importance of resolving historical issues as a way to improve their relations with China and Korea. As with many other cases around the world, reconciliation between countries in Northeast Asia first occurred between governments. Japan established diplomatic rapprochement with countries it had once invaded or colonized: with the Republic of China in 1952, with the Republic of Korea in 1965, and with the People’s Republic of China in 1972. The ROK also normalized its relations with former enemies, the PRC and Russia, in the early 1990s, and inter-Korean relations have improved significantly in the last decade. Yet, reconciliation in Northeast Asia has been “thin” since these nations have failed to come to terms with the past. Japan paid no reparations to its former colonies—though it gave “grants and aid” to South Korea for normalizing their relations. China and Korea were excluded from the San Francisco Treaty that settled Japanese war crimes and atrocities. Historical issues such as war responsibilities, disputed territories, and Japan’s colonial rule and crimes against humanity were largely overlooked in the Cold War system. The question of history has now become a central one across Northeast Asia. It is not simply about what has happened in the past but touches upon the most sensitive issues of national identity, including the formation of historical memories and national myths that have a powerful role to play. Whether it is Japanese atrocities in China or the American decision to drop atomic weapons on Japan, no nation is immune from the charge that it has formed a less-than-complete view of the past. And all nations, sharing a reluctance to fully confront the complexity of that past, tend to blame others...(Continued)    

EAI Fellows Program Working Paper Series No. 2   Abstract This paper examines how veterans of the People's Liberation Army were treated in their communities and workplaces after their demobilization in the 1950s and 1960s.  It argues that evidence of widespread discrimination against veterans, who were lauded by the state for their heroism and sacrifice, challenges one of the more common "tropes" of contemporary Chinese politics--that patriotism and nationalism are rising among wide swathes of the population.  Using new archival sources, the paper focuses on the challenges veterans faced in the post-war era, among them chronic pain, poverty, job discrimination, and marriage difficulties. as well as how they responded to them. To be sure, these problems were not unique to China; many veterans around the world experienced them. The paper concludes by exploring the cultural, political, and economic reasons why veterans in China appear to have fared particularly poorly when compared with many of their counterparts elsewhere in the world.   Author Neil J. Diamant is Assistant Professor, specializing in East Asian politics with an emphasis on state-society relations, policy implementation and institutional analysis. He is author of Revolutionizing the Family: Politics, Love and Divorce in Urban and Rural China, 1950-1968 (University of California Press, in press), which examines the implementation of laws liberalizing divorce in Chinese cities, suburbs and among ethnic minorities in frontier regions This paper was submitted to "EAI Fellows Program on Peace, Governance, and Development in East Asia" supported by the Henry Luce Foundation based in New York. All papers are available only through the online database.     The Chinese state, like many modern ones, has two calendars. The first, shaped by culture and history, is the more familiar one: all students in courses in East Asian Studies departments learn about Chinese New Year, the Moon and Dragon Boat Festivals, Qingming (Tomb-Sweeping) and others. The other, less familiar to foreigners, is the political calendar. Its features, however, are readily recognizable: a day celebrating a political founding (Oct. 1, 1949 in the PRC; Jan. 1, 1912 in Taiwan), critical junctures in history, or the contributions of various social groups to national development (for example, May 1st for labor, March 8 for women). Sometimes cultural and political holidays overlap—the ROC government notes that, during the Qingming festival, it is “customary to visit the tombs of the martyrs or the revolution”—but usually the calendars remain separate, and change little or only incrementally, usually accompanied by controversy. Governments, like leaders of organized religion, understand the need to maintain ritual and routine to sustain legitimacy, and attempt to create rituals that speak to the heart of their citizens.     i Despite the plethora of political events and the variety of groups they commemorate, two days are conspicuously missing from the PRC’s political calendar: a “Veterans Day” and “Memorial Day.”ii Even though the CCP emerged victorious from its decades-long rivalry with the Nationalist Party, awarded veterans high class status, claims victory in the war against Japan and the United States in the Sino-Japanese and Korean Wars respectively, defeated the Indian Army in the border wars of the early 1960s, there is not a single holiday devoted to the people responsible for these accomplishments.iii Nor, for that matter, are there any stadiums, bridges, parks, or road commemorating veterans, although “Workers Stadiums” abound. Even current-day bellicosity among some “nationalists” (who threaten to use military force against Taiwan and the US should Taiwan declare independence) has not translated into a commemorative holiday for veterans, even as they were called the “flesh and blood” of the revolution and were the primary force behind the CCP victory.iv Nor has political activism made much difference: veterans have staged uprisings, strikes, work slow-downs, sit-ins and petitioning, but these have not resulted in their “elevation” to holiday status, unlike workers, women and children, who each have their days.v Groups of organized veterans are swatted away much like any other group that “threatens social stability.” In April 2005, just to give one recent example, 1,000-2,000 veterans, including divisional commanders, many wearing their old uniforms, gathered in front of the General Political Department of the PLA to protest their post-discharge treatment, but the police quickly arrested the leaders and the rest were dispersed.   vi When considering the comparative record of modern states that have fought and won large scale wars in the 20th century, the missing commemorative day for PRC veterans is somewhat of an anomaly.vii The United States, which has lost far fewer soldiers than the PRC, has a Veterans Day and a Memorial Day; the Mall in Washington is festooned with public memorials for three wars, including one that was lost (Vietnam) and one that ended in a stalemate (Korea). Israel’s Memorial Day comes the day before Independence Day, cementing the link between sacrifice and nation-building. In the post WWII period in the Soviet Union, perhaps the country most comparable to China in terms of its political system, veterans “carve[d] their own space” within the “highly styled parameters of the Soviet polity.” As noted by Amir Weiner, Red Army veterans dominated the post-war scene politically and culturally: war novels, memoirs, and parades and honors galore were bestowed upon the victors in the “Great Patriotic War.” China’s missing days, I argue, are not happenstance; they reflect the failure of the modern Chinese state (Republican and Communist) to successfully cultivate an appreciation of “martialcitizenship” among its own officials and ordinary people, as well as the resistance of business and cultural elites to see much of value in military service, no matter what the cause. Chinese citizens, this article will show, frequently failed to provide veterans (of the anti-Japanese, Civil and Korean Wars) with a sense that their service was honored, valued, or appreciated.ix Hundreds of reports from those years when the emotions associated with patriotism supposedly peaked—the tension-filled 1950s and 1960sx—document a widespread pattern of overt and covert discrimination, limited access to medical care and land, and politically motivated bullying and retribution by other officials.xi By the mid-1950s, veterans in the provinces wrote letters to the Chair of the National People’s Congress, Liu Shaoqi, complaining that they were being treated like “donkeys slaughtered after having ground the wheat” (momian shalü), disposed of after having served their purpose. Others warned that they would not serve in the reserves if a war broke out because of the lack of state and public support for them.xii In a single factory in Shandong, eighty veterans, angry at the CCP, refused to register for the reserves,xiii and suicides among them were serious concerns. Given that politics in the PRC during these years have been described as militarized (there were “campaigns,” “production brigades,” “advances” and “fronts”), China fought several wars and the most iconic figure from the Maoist years—Lei Feng—was a soldier, the seething discontent among veterans is clearly something that requires further exploration and explanation...(Continued)