EAI Fellows Program Working Paper Series No. 4   Abstract East Asian countries have been engaged in disputes over history.  While their historical contentions have caused suspicions and frictions among them, I argue that they have also served as a medium of dialogue that helps establish a common understanding about the individual countries’ contemporary reality and future direction.  Historical contentions contribute to such a dialogue if and only if regional actors recognize each other as legitimate participants in a dialogue about the salient past and when they contend over the past within a common framework of meaning, can contentions over history contribute to the creation of a regional public sphere.  The regional public sphere is a discursive area where regional actors exchange their understandings of the past and their desires for the future, out of which emerge a new focal point for regional issues and a shared understanding of their own and others’ identities.  East Asia, through historical contentions in the 1980s and 1990s, produced an embryonic form of a regional public sphere but now stands at a fork between strengthening the regional public sphere and fracturing it into a contentious public sphere.    Author J.J. Suh is Assistant Professor of Government at Cornell University. He teaches International Relations theory, International Security, international institutions, Asian security, and U.S. foreign and security policies. His research interests include military alliances, regionalization, US security policy, weapons of mass destruction, Asian security and Korea. 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.     Asian countries wrangle over history. China, Japan and Korea are locked in disputes over Japan’s history textbook. Japanese prime minister’s apology about Japan’s past has been a sore issue for China and Korea for over half a century. A Chinese study of a local history (東北工程) suddenly became a concern for Koreans in 2004, degenerating into a source of tension between the two countries that were otherwise fast becoming close friends. A territorial dispute over a tiny island claimed by Japan and Korea or by Japan and China routinely escalate to a “history war” as the pair of governments turn to their respective versions of history as the source of the authenticity that prove their claims. These historical contentions are not mere academic disagreements. They have led to emotional street demonstrations, exchanges of accusatory government statements, and even recalling of ambassadors. They have had chilling effects on otherwise booming and mutually beneficial economic relationships. They often overshadow, and even forestall, summit meetings. Historical contentions are central to international relations in East Asia.   The central location of historical contentions in the region’s international relations raises a number of questions. Why are the East Asian countries so concerned about the past of their neighbors as to make it an international political issue? Will these historical contentions condemn the region to a fractured and conflictual arena of diatribes where they remain a source of suspicions, contentions and possibly conflicts in the future? Do historical disputes hold the potential to contribute to the emergence of a regional public sphere in which East Asian countries engage each other in dialogues about their identities, desires, and worries? These are some of the questions I address in this project. In other words, I am not so concerned with questions of historical accuracy: What are historical facts, and who, if any, got them right? Rather I am more interested to analyze the phenomenon of historical contentions itself as a way to think about the possibilities and difficulties in creating and maintaining a stable, and even peaceful, regional order. The central task of the paper is to understand the ways in which disputes over history widen the emotional fissure between the East Asian countries or lay a discursive foundation for a community. Current scholarship is divided about the impact that history has on East Asia. Some point to recent uproars about Japan’s history textbook in Korea and China as just one of the many lingering sources of deep-seated historical animosity that have the potential to disrupt the stability and peace in the region. But others turn to such historical legacies as Confucius world order as evidence that the region’s current peace has deep historical roots and thus is likely to continue into the future. In this project I develop a third perspective of history: an institutionalist argument that a history represents an institutionalization of memory that reflects a political pact made by state actors at a particular time. My argument has two parts. First, the history, once institutionalized, constitutes a common social reality as well as a focal point, both of which help the three countries carry out “normal” (in a Kuhnian sense) diplomacy. Second, the history, if its institutionalized form creates a dissonance with the reality on the ground, serves as a medium of communicative actions, through which the countries in Northeast Asia attempt to establish a set of new parameters of the diplomatic game. The two arguments suggest that “history wars” reflect, as the first group of pessimistic scholars suggests, fault lines among China, Japan and Korea but they contribute, as the second group suggests, to maintaining the stability and peace in the region. Seen from the institutionalist perspective, historical contentions look war-like but act like diplomacy. In order to flesh out the argument and test the hypotheses derived from the argument, this article focuses on the controversy over Japanese history textbooks, leaving other cases of historical contentions for future research. This article is organized as follows. The first part critically reviews the existing conventional views of the historical contentions, and argues that they fail to account for the pattern of the historical contentions because they are based on a common and problematic understanding of history as a set of objective facts. It suggests that the pattern is better accounted for if the historical contentions are conceptualized as discursive diplomacy. The second part of the article develops the concept of regional public sphere and examines the conditions under which historical contentions can contribute to the emergence of a regional public sphere. In the final section of a prognosis of the current status and possible future directions, the article concludes that while the historical contentions have in the past contributed to the creation of a public sphere of regional dialogue, they now run the risk of degenerating into nationalist or parallel public spheres...(Continued)    

EAI Fellows Program Working Paper Series No. 6   Abstract Government response to environmental problems is one of the key issues of our global era.  Theorists differ on whether the state will respond voluntarily or as a result of popular pressure.  In the rapid growth periods of the East Asian developmental states and societies – Japan (1970), Korea and Taiwan (1980s) and China (currently) – central government ministries guided growth and managed society toward that end.  Their growth produced equally rapid and severe pollution, disruption and social complexity.  Frustrated by their inability to control pollution and faced with rising social tensions damaging to their rule, the central ministries relaxed their grip on environmental activism.  They permitted greater citizen activism around environmental issues, but not for other issues, and found ways to “use” this activism for environmental governance.  The similarity of historical process in the four cases indicates the systemic interaction of economy and environment, mediated by similar core governmental ministries responding due to a mixture of ethical concern and social tensions.   Author Jeffrey Broadbent is Professor of Department of Sociology at University of Minnesota. His research interests include Political Sociology, Network Analysis, Institutions and Culture, Social Movements, Japan, East Asia, Cross-national Comparison, and  Environmental Politics. 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.     Human society around the world currently faces increasing global, regional and local environmental problems. Industrial growth has brought great prosperity, but has also brought environmental pollution and disruption. These problems present industrial civilization with a new dilemma -- how should we balance economic growth and environmental protection? The solutions to this dilemma involve not only technical invention, but also issues of governance and implementation in complex societies. Some degree of government involvement in setting rules and coordinating other social actors seems necessary. However, one major question, much debated in theoretical terms, is will government voluntarily take responsibility for controlling pollution and disruption, or will it only respond in the face of social protest? In theoretical terms, this question concerns the impact of environmental crisis on the constitution and response of both state and society. The framing of the research approach in this paper builds on the long line of theoretically-informed work on the “relative autonomy” of the state, that is, the state’s degree of independence from the (supposedly) more narrowly-focused interest groups and movements in society {Skocpol 1985b; Tilly 1992}. In the consideration of citizen activism as pressure on the state, the research framing adds the burgeoning work on social movements {Tarrow 1998}. Furthermore, environmental issues, as an irruption into human affairs from “Nature,” have added a new dimension to state-society interaction {Schnaiberg, et al. 2003}.   The cases of Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China, because their particular type of governmental institutions and strategies resulted in a particularly severe growth environment dilemma, take on special poignancy. Despite their many differences, during their time of rapid growth in particular, they all possessed some similar core governmental institutions: central ministries that guided the business sector and society toward maximum national power, growth and prosperity. 1 To that end, these ministries consulted with and orchestrated the investments of the business sector, while attempting to paternalistically impose a coordinated order on the rest of society. Theorists have labeled this form of growth-oriented ministerial guidance as the “developmental state” (Johnson 1982; Wade 1990; Applebaum and Henderson 1992; Johnson 1995; Evans 1995; Aoki 1997; Woo-Cumings 1999). In terms of state theory, developmental states and societies differ from predatory states that suck wealth out of society, laissez-faire states that keep “hands off” the market, and socialist states that exercise rigid top-down central planning (Johnson 1982; Evans 1995). To the world’s surprise and confounding standard Western market theories of economic growth, in different time periods, all four East Asian developmental states and societies attained unprecedented, even “miraculous” rates of economic growth (Johnson 1982; Vogel 1991). The very fruits of their rapid growth, though, brought about equally sudden changes that challenged the value of their economic achievements. One prominent cost of rapid growth was vast environmental pollution. In addition, industrial growth drew migrants from villages to cities, raised educational standards, created a restless working class, a prosperous middle class, and a wealthy entrepreneurial class, and many other changes. New social problems emerged: urban crowding, breakdown of traditional community, scattering of the family and its traditional welfare functions, growth of an underclass of unemployed, and not least, environmental disturbances such as pollution and forced displacement. At this historical juncture, the developmental states, governments and societies faced a terrible dilemma: continue heedless economic growth, or protect the environment at the cost of growth? This growth-environment dilemma brought in its wake a second dilemma: could traditional ministerial means of controlling and guiding society suffice, or would the government have to rely on help from active citizens to solve these new environmental problems? Allowance of or cooperation with independent citizen activism would be unfamiliar terrain for developmental governments. At the historical juncture when each developmental government first confronted these dilemmas, they seemed to be either-or, zero-sum choices. Later experience, though, proved that economic growth could proceed with environmental protection, and with citizen involvement. Japan, Taiwan and Korea each found different ways of solving these dilemmas, in ways that may shed light on China’s current confrontation with the same dilemmas...(Continued)    

EAI Fellows Program Working Paper Series No. 7   Author Victoria Tin-bor Hui is an Assistant Professor in Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. Her research examines the dynamics of international politics, the origins of constitutional democracy, and the development of trade and capitalism in the broad sweeps of history, with a special focus on historical and historical Europe. She is the author of War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2005). 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.     Chinese take for granted China’s “historical oneness.”1 They hold the belief that China or zhongguo refers to a natural territorial and cultural polity with five thousand years of history. Chinese leaders and intellectuals often insist that unification is a sacrosanct value and assert that “prosperity and development are associated with unity, while war and conflict come with separation.”2 Beijing’s “One China” policy is a modern variant of the classical da yitong or “great unity” paradigm.3 As the Lüshi chunqiu, a Warring States text, puts it, “There is no turmoil greater than the absence of the Son of Heaven; without the Son of Heaven, the strong overcome the weak, the many lord it over the few, they incessantly use arms to harm each other.”4 The modern argument refers to the interlocking claims that, although there were eras of division in Chinese history, unification has been the norm, unification after division has been the natural course of historical development, and unification has nurtured stability and prosperity while division has generated chaos and sufferings.   As the unity paradigm seeks authority in history, this paper examines its historical foundation. In tracing Chinese history in the longue durée, I follow the prospective approach and avoid the retrospective perspective.5 That is, I proceed from China’s formative era and search forward for alternative paths and outcomes, instead of viewing the past through the prism of the present. In addition, I follow R. Bin Wong’s “symmetrical perspectives”6 and juxtapose Sinocentric perspectives against Eurocentric perspectives. This does not mean that I naively apply Eurocentric theories to judge (or misjudge) Chinese history. Rather, I analyze if insights from comparative and world history shed light on actual developments in historical China. This paper is composed of two main sections. In the first section, I address the claim that unification has been the normal and natural course of Chinese history. I problematize the conventional understanding of historical China and develop a precise definition of unification. It is too often overlooked that the very term “China” or “zhongguo” has significantly evolved in Chinese history. Just as the term “Germany” (or any other country) involves a “troubled, contingent history” rather than a polity with “distinctive, enduring characteristics,”7 zhongguo does not entail an unchanging territorial space or a single culture. This term acquired the modern meaning of nation-state only in the late nineteenth century.8 Zhongguo originally referred to “central states” -- in plural form -- in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (656-221 BC). Although Qin unified this international system in 221 BC, the Qin empire and subsequent dynasties invariably broke down. In the post-Qin era, zhongguo referred to dynasties that controlled the central plain in northern China. If we look beyond the conventional Chinese chronology and develop a rigorous definition of unification, then historical zhongguo was more often divided than unified. Unification was not only not the normal existence, it was also not the natural result of division. The unity paradigm holds that unification recurred because the people yearned for it. But all instances of unification in Chinese history were achieved by wars of conquest. As Ge Jianxiong observes, “Unification – this sacred term – has been repeatedly associated with war.”10 Ho Ping-Ti similarly remarks that “Every dynasty was founded on military strength... From the dawning of the first empire in 221 BC to the founding of the PRC in 1949, there has not been a single exception.”11 It is no coincidence that the Sunzi bingfa, China’s famous military treatise written in the Warring States period, begins with this statement: “Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Way to survival or extinction.”12 Mao Zedong’s assertion “Power comes from the barrel of the gun” is not at all revolutionary in the Chinese context. In the second section, I analyze the claim that unification is the foundation for stability and prosperity while division is the recipe for chaos and sufferings. From the perspective of international relations theories, international systems may experience war, but they may also maintain stability and peace. From the Eurocentric perspective, international competition is the driving force for liberty, prosperity, and the rise of the West. Remarkably, the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, which most closely resembled the early modern European period, in fact witnessed the emergence of international agreements that provided a modicum of order for several centuries. The classical era even witnessed the birth of citizenship rights and the expansion of international trade. However, Qin achieved unification by stifling citizenship, suppressing trade, and violating international norms. All subsequent unifiers followed Qin’s example, achieving unification by war and maintaining unification by repression. In contrast, division always meant much weaker central control over political, economic, and social life. Division also provided the “exit option” which allowed dissenters to “vote with their feet.” Overall, this paper follows Michael Loewe’s suggestion to carefully examine the presumption that a unified China “contributed more to human welfare than a multiplicity of political units.”13 I close by discussing Sun Yat-sen’s proposal for a federal-democratic system as a solution to break the cycle of coercion...(Continued)    

.a_wrap {font-size:16px; font-family:Nanum Gothic, Sans-serif, Arial; line-height:26px;} Editor's Notes The United States' leadership for the democratic world was seriously damaged following the violence in the Capitol earlier this month. Now, with a genuine understanding of the existing threat to democracy, the newly inaugurated Biden administration can approach Asian democracies on equal terms to reverse the democratic setbacks that have become visible since the mid-2000s. Although the establishment of democratic coalitions between the US and other democracies is an increasingly debated topic, Sook Jong Lee, Professor of Public Administration at Sungkyunkwan University and Senior Fellow of the East Asia Institute, argues that these coalitions should be welcomed in Asia to sustain the regional liberal order.  However, she suggests that the US take a more cautious and nuanced approach when engaging with Asian democracies so that it is not viewed as another rebalancing against China. Professor Lee states that Asian democracies have both the capacity and limitations in participating in the global and regional spaces of governance. For human rights issues and other core democratic values and norms, global institutions such as the United Nations are more appropriate platforms for Asian democracies in forming democratic coalitions. At the regional level, Asian countries desire for US leadership in guaranteeing their protection from China’s economic coercion and in safeguarding fair and transparent rules for all. Asian democracies also have the ability to contribute to global governance by acting as aid donors to many developing countries in the world. The democratic assistance that these countries provide have the potential to generate meaningful impact, especially as it is shifting from conventional infrastructural aids to encompass the Sustainable Development Goal 16 (SDG-16). Combining these strategies, Asian democracies and the US can establish more durable democratic coalitions.     The lawlessness and violence at the US Capitol on January 6 were no less troubling to the people of democracies around the world than to American citizens. Policy leaders are concerned about the chilling effect of this event on the new Biden Administration’s attempts to restore its leadership of global democracy. Indeed, Hass said the self-made destruction contributes to the decline of US influence and would accelerate the onset of a post-American world.[1] Policy experts are arguing that repairing democracy at home is not incompatible with standing up for democracy abroad and that America needs a democracy summit now more than ever.[2] During the campaign period, Joe Biden expressed his genuine concerns about the global democratic setbacks and called for a summit of democracies.[3] This article supports the democratic coalitions between Asian democracies and the US. American leaders now have moments of their own democracy on which to truly reflect and a chance to engage Asian democracies on equal terms. But the US will need to take a more cautious and nuanced approach to such engagement in order not to be viewed by Asian democracies as merely pursuing another US rebalancing strategy against China.   The Renewal of American Democracy at Home and Abroad Together with collective security and open trade, democracy has been a pillar of the liberal international order which was shaped by American leadership. Democracy has been a source of legitimization of the US primacy in international politics. Both internal and external performances did matter. US demonstrations of the real practice of the core democratic values of individual freedom, minority rights, and the rule of law—often identified as “American values”—America stood as a “beacon of democracy.” But this was not sufficient to persuade others that democracy should be a pillar of the liberal international order. This persuasive power has been bolstered by the US commitment to multilateralism in which it binds itself to international rules and the willingness to restrain its power as one member state of many international organizations. From this perspective, the Trump administration’s “America First” foreign policy and disrespect for democratic values at home and abroad was an aberration in American history. While multilateralism is a way of governing international problems collectively regardless of internal political system, the “liberal” international order colors multilateralism as a specific democratic type that treats individual nations the same way that democracies treat their individual citizens. Therefore, the renewal of democracy must work for individual countries and the international order at the same time.   The Liberal International Order and the China Question in Asia Asia has benefitted from free trade and a decades-long peace with no major wars. Democracy has been considered a form of political modernization to many countries in this region. Strong nationalism has delayed the development of rule binding regionalism, but numerous regional organizations have been formed to respond to shared problems. The presence of the US in Asia has contributed to the post-World War II peace and prosperity of the Asian region. Such peace and prosperity was possible with the US providing security with its hub and spoke alliance system, and absorbing much of exports from the region. This picture has changed with the rise of China. Asian economies are now tied to China through their supply chains and intertwined exports and investment ties. Fiegenbaum and Manning wrote in 2012 that “Economic Asia” and “Security Asia” have been colliding each other in this gradual shift. As Asians provide economic public goods to one another, they say, the US role in this region has ebbed so that Washington has focused only on security rebalancing.[4] The Obama administration’s “Pivot to Asia” was one of the first US rebalancing strategies to counter the increasing Chinese influence in the Asia-Pacific region. Under the Trump administration, the rebalancing efforts changed the mapping of the Asia-Pacific to the Indo-Pacific, covering both the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The National Security Strategy of December 2017 recognized the growing competition between free and repressive visions of the future international order as the most consequential challenge.[5] The Indo-Pacific Strategy Report by the Department of Defense released in 2019 articulated four principles of the region’s liberal order—respect for the sovereignty and independence of all nations, peaceful resolution of disputes, free, fair, and reciprocal trade, and adherence to international rules and norms including freedom of navigations and overflight.[6] In the same year, the State Department’s A Free and Open Indo-Pacific: Advancing a Shared Vision leaned away from military cooperation and towards diplomatic and economic cooperation on issues such as trade, infrastructure, energy, and the digital economy.[7] Over the last few years, the US-China rivalry has come to focus on trade and technology, adding to the complexity of geopolitical competition. The region’s US allies have been pushed to choose between the US, a security patron, and China, the number one economic partner. The controversies surrounding the responsibility for the initial coronavirus outbreak in 2020 have worsened their diplomatic relations and derailed their trade negotiations. There have been voices of doubting the decoupling efforts of the Trump administration. William Burns, Biden’s nominee for CIA Director, called for the reinvention of American foreign policy between retrenchment and restoration. He said that the US and Chinese economies are too entangled to decouple and that the US would benefit more from shaping an environment in which China can rise together with the allies and partners across the Indo-Pacific who worry about China’s ascendance.[8] Similarly, Lake said that establishing boundaries between the US and Chinese spheres of influence is fraught, and boundary disputes are open to diplomacy and the effective management of international organizations.[9] Now, democratic Asian allies of the region are cautiously watching how the new Biden administration will reformulate the Indo-Pacific vision within his vision of democracy. The Community of Democracies was formed as an intergovernmental coalition in 2000 under US leadership, and high-level delegations from 106 countries signed the Warsaw Declaration Toward a Community of Democracies.[10] This attempt to forge a democracy coalition as one layer of the balancing China strategy appears new. Is this idea of mobilizing “Democratic Asia” going to work? The answer is conditionally “yes” when combined with a cautious and wise approach.   More Feasible Democratic Coalitions between the US and Asian Democracies Policy experts are advising the new administration about the right size for this proposed summit of democracies. Campbell, who will oversee Indo-Pacific affairs on the White House National Security Council, and Doshi have suggested democracy coalitions such as the D-10 proposed by the United Kingdom (the G-7 democracies plus Australia, India, and South Korea) on the problems of trade, technology, supply chains, and standards, and human rights coalitions among states that are criticizing China’s internment camps in Xinjiang and its assault on Hong Kong’s autonomy.[11] Others recommend taking a moderately big-tent approach, with a threshold to merit an invitation, and pursuing a broader agenda of democratic inclusiveness in addition to the suggested agenda items of anti-corruption digital technologies, fighting corruption, defending against authoritarianism, and advancing human rights.[12] The size issue of democratic coalitions is secondary. What is important is how to frame the agenda so that Asian democracies are willing to participate and capable of achieving shared goals. There seem to be three types of democratic coalitions in which Asian democracies might be willing to engage. The first is bolstering existing democratic norms and rules in global governance. China is accelerating its efforts to pursue its national interests in global governance. Hart and Johnson identified six key categories of these efforts: shaping multilateral action, disrupting international legal regimes, shifting international norms, co-opting international organizations, creating new international institutions, and building a China-centric platform for international cooperation.[13] Nadege emphasized that it is “discourse power”—the ability to exert influence over the formulations and ideas that underpin the international order—at which China aims intellectually.[14] China has long been criticizing the existing order as both Western-biased and unfair, and has spent the last decade attempting to sell the China model to developing countries as an alternative. Asian democracies, which share a similar history and culture, are better positioned than the West to point out the successes of Asian economies with democracy. Asian democracies can play a role in forming voting coalitions in response to China’s efforts to dilute or bend the core democratic norms and principles in global governance.  Asian democracies can better contribute to democratic norm preservation in a global rather than regional space. Logically, the United Nations is the most appropriate place for these countries to find their role in forming a bridge between Western democracies and developing countries. Plurilateral semi-governmental democratic coalitions where Asian democracies participate with Western democracies can be also useful. For example, in the “Democracies 10” where foreign ministries have convened since 2014, Australia, Japan, and South Korea are members together with Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union.[15] The British Prime Minister’s idea of expanding G7 to G10 by adding Australia, India, and South Korea proposed during the June summit this year will reportedly dovetail with Biden’s interest in promoting democracy as superior to authoritarianism.[16] The second is developing effective regional coalitions to prevent China’s economic coercion. Asian countries want the US to make greater efforts to protect them from Chinese coercive diplomacy by using its economic influence. Individual Asian countries become helpless when facing conflicts with China since their trade and supply chains are tied to China. When South Korea introduced a missile defense system from the US in 2016, China retaliated by restricting Korean business inside China and stopping Chinese tourism to South Korea, which damaged Korea’s economy. Recently, Australia is facing similar retaliation from China. The WTO is too distant and complex to be able to effectively counter this kind of economic coercion. The US and Asian countries need to develop mechanisms to address this kind of pressure from China by collective means, whether they employ naming and shaming statements or mobilize more tangible countermeasures. Lastly but not least, Asian democracies are supporting good governance through Official Development Assistance (ODA) and other private development assistance efforts. The aid from Asian donors like Japan and South Korea used to be characterized as “developmental” or “commercial” among Lancaster’s four ideal type models of development assistance policies; diplomatic, developmental, humanitarian, and commercial.[17]But, their conventional focus on infrastructure and education is diversifying to include assistance in public administrative capacity and, more recently, programs aligned with Sustainable Development Goal No. 16 on peace, justice, and inclusive institutions.[18] The remaining issue is that these development assistance efforts by Asian democracies are carried out bilaterally with recipient countries and involve few global partnerships with other donors. The formation of aid partnerships among Asian donors, together with American or European donors, can scale up support for democracy in the region.   Conclusions Asian democracies such as Australia, Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea, together with India despite its disappointing recent democratic performance, are willing to participate in US-led democratic coalitions. These countries share genuine concerns for the regional and global setbacks of democracy since the mid-2000s. Rising populism, polarized politics, and digital authoritarianism all matter. Asian democracies also share a sense of importance regarding the bolstering of democratic values and norms in regional politics since both their own democratic governance and the region’s public good hinge upon the liberal Asian order continuing to prevail. If renewed US efforts to build democratic coalitions are narrowly couched as another strategy to rebalance China, however, Asian allies and partners will be less willing to participate or remain passive after they join. Democratic Asia is likely to be more dynamic when the goal is framed in universal terms in which China issues are integrated. Asian democracies can take a more active role in assisting democracy by proffering aid and other material capacities. A coordinated approach in scaling up the amounts of development assistance and building common aid framework principles is likely to boost this role. On the other hand, Asian countries are afraid of China’s coercive economic policies and want the US to take initiative in providing certain practical mechanisms in response. With regard to human rights issues and other core norms and rules of democracy, many Asian democracies are likely to prefer global governance venues, especially the United Nations. Existing or newly attempted plurilateral democratic coalitions are also worthy of pursuit in highlighting the values and norms of liberal democracy. If these mixed approaches are used at the same time, the coalitions between the US and Asian democracies can work.■   [1] Richard Haass, “Present at the Destruction: Trump’s Final Act Has Accelerated the Onset of a Post-American World,” Foreign Affairs, January 11, 2020, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2021-01-11/present-destruction, accessed on January 14, 2021. [2] Thomas Wright, “The US must now repair democracy at home and abroad,” January 11, 2021. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/01/11/the-us-must-now-repair-democracy-at-home-and-abroad/; Frances Z. Brown, Thomas Carothers, and Alex Pascal, “America Needs a Democracy Summit More than Ever,” Foreign Affairs, January 15, 2021, America Needs a Democracy Summit More Than Ever  | Foreign Affairs. [3] Joe Biden, “Democracy at the Age of Authoritarianism,” Speech at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit, June 22, 2018. https://www.allianceofdemocracies.org/speech-by-joe-biden/. [4] Evan A. Feigenbaum and Robert Manning, “A Tale of Two Asias,” Foreign Policy October 31, 2012. ihttps://carnegieendowment.org/2012/10/31/tale-of-two-asias-pub-49859.  [5] The White House, National Security Strategy of the United States of America, December 2017. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905-2.pdf. [6] Department of Defense, United States. 2019. Indo-Pacific Strategy Report: Preparedness, Partnerships, and Promoting a Networked Region. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6111634-DOD-INDO-PACIFIC-STRATEGY-REPORT-JUNE-2019. [7] Department of State, United States. 2019. A Free and Open Indo-Pacific: Advancing a Shared Vision. Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. https://www.state.gov/a-free-and-open-indo-pacific-advancing-a-shared-vision/. [8] William Burns, “The United States Needs a New Foreign Policy,” The Atlantic, July 14, 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/united-states-needs-new-foreign-policy/614110/. [9] David Lake, “Whither the Liberal International Order? Authority, Hierarchy, and Institutional Change,” Ethics & International Affairs, Winter 2020. [10] https://community-democracies.org/values/organization/. [11] Kurt M. Campbell and Rush Doshi, “How American Can Shore Up Asian Order: A Strategy Restoring Balance and Legitimacy,” Foreign Affairs January 12, 2021, How America Can Shore Up Asian Order | Foreign Affairs. [12] Frances Z. Brown, Thomas Carothers, and Alex Pascal, “America Needs a Democracy Summit More than Ever,” Foreign Affairs, January 15, 2021, America Needs a Democracy Summit More Than Ever  | Foreign Affairs. [13] Melanie Hart and Blaine Johnson, Mapping China’s Global Ambitions, Center for American Progress, February 2019. Mapping China's Global Governance Ambitions. [14] Nadege Rolland, China’s Vision for a New World Order, National Bureau of Asian Research, January 2020. China's vision for a new world order. [15] https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/programs/scowcroft-center-for-strategy-and-security/global-strategy-initiative/democratic-order-initiative/d-10-strategy-forum/. [16] The Guardian, “UK plans early G7 virtual meeting and presses ahead with switch to D10,” January 15, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/15/uk-plans-early-g7-virtual-meeting-and-presses-ahead-with-switch-to-d10. [17] Carol Lancaster, Foreign Aid: Diplomacy, Development, Domestic Politics, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. [18]  Korea International Cooperation Agency, http://www.koica.go.kr/koica_en/8003/subview.do; Japan International Cooperation Agency, “JICA’s Position Paper on SDG: Goal 16.” https://www.jica.go.jp/aboutoda/sdgs/ku57pq00002e2b2a-att/goal16_e.pdf.     ■ Sook Jong Lee is a Professor of Public Administration at Sungkyunkwan University and Senior Fellow of the East Asia Institute. She has been directing the Asian Democracy Research Network since its formation in 2015, leading a network of about nineteen research organizations across Asia to promote democracy with the support of the National Endowment for Democracy. Her recent publications include Transforming Global Governance with Middle Power Diplomacy: South Ko-rea’s Role in the 21st Century (ed. 2016), and Keys to Successful Presidency in South Korea (ed. 2013 and 2016).     ■ Typeset by Jinkyung Baek, Director of the Research Department For inquiries: 02 2277 1683 (ext. 209) I [email protected]     The East Asia Institute takes no institutional position on policy issues and has no affiliation with the Korean government. All statements of fact and expressions of opinion contained in its publications are the sole responsibility of the author or authors.

Yukyung Yeo is an Associate Professor of the College of International Studies at Kyung Hee University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland-College Park in 2007. Before joining Kyung Hee University, she worked at the City University of Hong Kong as the post-doctoral fellow during 2007-2009 and an Assistant Professor during 2009-2011. Her research interests include institutional changes in the socialist market economy, political control of the CCP over business, and foreign economic policies. She published several articles and book chapters, including “Complementing the Local Discipline Inspection Commissions of the CCP: Empowerment of the Central Inspection Groups” (2016), “Contextualizing Corporate Governance: the Case of China’s Central State Enterprise Groups” (2013), and “China’s Perforated Investment Control, 1978-2013” (forthcoming). Her first book manuscript, From Planner to Regulator: How China Governs Strategic Industries, is currently under review.         Introduction   In deepening the post-Mao economic reforms, one of the most notable changes has been the transformation of the Chinese state from planner to regulator in governing the economy. However, instead of shifting in the direction of a minimalist government or independent regulators, this study argues Chinese state regulation, that has been underpinned by informal institutions and the party organizations combined with formal institutions, has remained resilient. Moreover, the pattern of selective industrial management and the ensuing internal variance in the forms of regulation reflect that there are many political economies in China. This study attempts to explain what generates such varied forms of state regulation, and then deals with two additional issues: one is whether this varied pattern of industrial regulation in China is compatible with the broader socialist regulation patterns found in other post-socialist contexts, such as Vietnam; and the other issue is whether the implications of this paper’s findings suggest future evolution toward a liberal market economy with independent regulators and autonomous business, or the consolidation of state capitalism as an alternative path.     State-Business Relations in China’s Strategic Sectors   Reforming an economy often implies replacing an old system with a new one. Economic reform in a socialist regime thus may mean replacing a set of institutions of the planned economy with market institutions, for most institutions of the planned economy are incompatible with the systems of market-oriented one. For example, microeconomic as well as macroeconomic institutions, particularly fiscal and monetary systems, should be adjusted into market-oriented ones to become global market actors without incurring or confronting risk. Despite increasing market liberalization in China, however, central control remains robust as long as the sectors are crucial to the national economy. In doing so, both informal institutions and the party organizations, though often dismissed, play key roles in regulating the markets and the businesses inside. The predominance of state ownership in the leading industrial sectors leaves little space the private firms to influence the policy-making process. By the same token, business associations that are supposed to represent the interests of industries and firms find it hard to function properly and play a meaningful role. In this sense, either business associations or public-private linkages, which are interrelated constituent dimensions in examining state-business relations in general, are not very useful in explaining the state-business relations in China’s leading strategic industries. Moreover, since this paper aims to examine how the state exerts regulatory control over business rather than how business influences state policies and regulation, more attention is paid to elucidating the means of state regulation and accounting for the causal variables that produce the internal variance across the sectors. The overriding norm and roles of informal institutions and party organizations in both government and business are discussed in the following.     The View from the Center   In China, there is one widely shared political norm: the strategic importance of the eyes of the central leadership may invite the central regulatory oversight, regardless of inherent industrial characteristics or institutional constraints (e.g., property rights), even though the central party-state lacks the formal authority; informal institutions have emerged to do so as discussed later. However, China’s industrial management shows that centralization of the regulatory authority did not lead to the creation of one set of rules for new markets; rather, a diverse set of institutional arrangements came into being. In other words, the forms of central regulation vary across sectors. The first intervening variable is the conception of control. In China, the notion of a need for tight state control over economic lifelines, such as top-tier industries, has resulted in the application of a highly centralized form of regulation (hard regulation). On the other hand, when delegating authorities to local and foreign investors is a development strategy, the form of central regulation tends to be soft. The dominant mode of property rights is another key intervening variable in making different forms of central regulation among strategic industries. The leading mode of ownership is important because it influences the balance of power between central and local authorities in governing the businesses of involved industries. The final intervening factor is the governing structure; the decentralized authorities and enterprises (that is, the lack of formal authority) are likely to lead the center to rely more on “informal” institutions for direct supervision. Hence, the business and market of highly decentralized strategic industries (for example, the automobile sector) are under central regulatory control but through an informal channel. Those three variables together have created a new form of (central) regulation in China’s leading economic sectors, such as soft vs. hard central oversight. This pattern has been generated by China’s “selective regulatory control” in its leading industrial sectors. What is more, the importance of informal institutions has received scant attention in conventional theories of regulation and regulatory politics, which may lead us to dismiss the underlying incentives of political behavior and leave us unable to explain institutional outcomes. Hence, the patterns of regulation in China can be summed up with the following key elements: the regulatory control from the center through informal institutions under the leadership of party organizations.     Informal Institutions   Indeed, increasing research on informal institutions reflects one undeniable reality: “many rules of the game that structure political life are informal – created, communicated, and enforced outside of officially sanctioned channels.” This is particularly astonishing in many developing and post-socialist countries, in that patterns of clientelism and patrimonialism coexist with new democratic and market institutions but still remain overriding. For example, the existence of blat in Russia or sticky government-business relations in China exhibits the importance of unwritten rules in accounting for political behavior and economic outcomes. To clarify, informal institutions in this study are defined as “socially shared rules, usually unwritten, that are created, communicated, and enforced outside of officially sanctioned channels.” In effect, informal rules have received little attention in the field of institutionalism (such as historical or rational) mainly because much literature posits that formal rules primarily influence the shaping of incentives and expectations of the actors. The study of regulatory politics and reform is no exception. Much of the literature has analyzed formal institutions, focusing on advanced industrial countries. Both neo-liberal and neo-corporatist statist models have suffered from not seriously taking into account the factors underlying informal rules and procedures and their influence on the performance of formal institutions and other involved actors. As Helmke and Livitsky aptly point out, “such a narrow focus can be problematic, for it risks missing much of what drives political behavior and can hinder efforts to explain important political phenomena.” As research on the regulatory politics of the automobile industry has detailed, formal institutions are limited in explaining the mechanism of regulatory institutions for China’s highly decentralized automobile industry and its businesses, where central oversight is often exercised by informally shared rules and procedures. More advanced institutional analysis, therefore, demands careful attention to both formal and informal rules. By considering the informal channel of a centrally organized regulatory body, xunshizu (巡视组), some have found how informal regulation from the center is designed and employed in order to complement formal institutions at the local level. Indeed, this informal regulation from xunshizu provides local authorities with incentives that constrain political behavior to co-opt with local state firms with regard to the mismanagement of state assets. What is more, the use of informal channel tends to make central regulation indirect and soft when compared with regulatory oversight by formal institutions. In fact, informal regulation in Chinese political economy is often exercised by party organizations that retain powerful political control over both government and state firms in China but are largely dismissed in neo-liberal and neo-corporatist/statist models.     Party Organizations   How do the party organizations, which have deeply penetrated government and business, affect the patterns of regulation in the leading industrial sectors? Arguably, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to play an important supervisory role in economic reform and using state assets. The question, then, is how the CCP exerts its control in regulating leading industries and their businesses? How do they affect the patterns of regulation for them? Indeed, the party organizations are major challenges to conventional frameworks that fail to integrate these key political institutions into the analysis. Two party organizations serve party interests. First, “leading small groups (领导小组),” as a kind of joint party-state organizations consisting of high-level officials in a given sector, oversee finance, telecommunications, electricity, and many other industries. That is, on top of a regulatory institution in each industry, leading small groups set the overall development directions and rules for markets. In this way, regulatory agencies are far from independent of this party-state influence. The other is its Organization Department (中组部), which is deeply involved in the appointment of high-level officials in regulatory agencies and top executives in state-owned industries. By using a system of rotation, the Organization Department attempts to maintain the party’s control over both regulatory agencies and major state firms. Strong representation of corporate leaders in the Central Committee of the CCP also indicates how the party has penetrated deeply into business groups under the guise of increased corporate autonomy. Therefore, the tools of leading small groups and the appointment power of the Organization Department have enabled the party to maintain its firm grip on most strategic industries. As a result, contrary to conventional wisdom that emphasizes the independence of a regulator from both government and industry, a highly interdependent relationship among government, industry, and regulators has been crafted in China. The party organizations, such as leading small groups, the Organization Department, and xunshizu, sit at the center in regulating the markets. In short, various party organizations generate interdependent state-industry, more precisely regulators-state firms, relations through three tools of control. This reflects one reality that a conventional dichotomous approach, such as market vs. state, is highly limited to account for the transitional economies armed with resilient political-economic legacies.     Comparative Perspectives: Party-State Regulation in Vietnam   A more nuanced perspective on the patterns of “selective industrial management” in China can be gained through a comparison of the underlying norms and institutions in other post-socialist countries, particularly Vietnam, which has adopted similar pathways of reform within resilient socialist institutions. Indeed, comparing China with Vietnam is part of an effort to see whether China’s selective industrial regulation followed by internal variance is compatible with broader socialist practices found in other post-socialist countries like Vietnam. This will enhance the construction of a general account of the changing nature of the state from planner to regulator under resilient socialist political-economic institutions. By placing China in the post-socialist context, we can examine if the patterns of selective industrial management, the key argument of this study, are to be seen as the common practices in post-socialist regimes. Existing studies argue that regulators in socialist regimes are strong states that through the past planning bureaucracies have carefully designed the rules and formal and informal institutions to mold market forces to the party-state’s goals of economic development and the party’s legitimacy. Vietnam and China are commonly treated as more alike than different in their formal institutional composition...(Continued)

Author  Eun Kyong Choi is an associate professor in the Department of Chinese Commerce and Diplomacy in the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. She received a Ph.D. from Princeton University’s Politics Department. Her research interests include tax institutions and social welfare in China. She published several articles, including “Patronage and Performance: Factors in the Political Mobility of Provincial Leasers in Post-Deng China” (2012), “The Politics of Fee Extraction from Private Enterprises, 1996-2003” (2009), and “Informal Tax Competition among Local Governments in China since the 1994 Tax Reforms” (2009). She currently has a forthcoming article entitled “Politics of Central Tax Collection in China since 1994: Local Collusion and Political Control.”             Abstract   Through a case study of China, this study investigates the impact of globalization on social welfare to the rural sector. This study provides support to the claim that globalization leads to social welfare expansion. In China, this was not conducted through a compensation mechanism in which volatility in globalization increases the societal demand for government welfare expenditure. This study finds that in countries with potentially huge domestic markets, an alternative mechanism is through the state’s change of its development strategy to a domestic consumption-driven one. I found that the volatility of exports during the global economic crises led Beijing to change its development strategies from an export-oriented to a domestic consumption-driven one. With this shift, central leaders gained incentives to extend social welfare provisions to the rural sector in order to increase consumption.   Introduction   Rural populations in China were virtually excluded from social welfare provisions in the 1980s and the 1990s despite phenomenal economic growth. Since the 2000s, however, the Chinese government has developed social health insurance and pension programs for rural populations. Although these programs are much inferior to those for urban populations, it is still a significant change for the welfare of huge rural populations in China. For the first time in the history of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the central government has provided a subsidy for rural health insurance and pensions. In 2011, 832 million people joined rural health insurance programs, recording a 97.5 percent enrollment rate, and 326 million people enrolled in rural pension programs.   Building upon the globalization literature, this study finds that the volatility in the export markets during global economic crises had impacts on extending social welfare to rural populations in China. Facing the instability of export markets, the Chinese government changed its development strategies from an export-oriented to a domestic consumption-driven one. This impelled the center to take initiatives in building social welfare institutions for the rural populations in order to boost domestic consumption.   This study contributes to the globalization literature by specifying an alternative mechanism in which globalization leads to welfare expansion. Existing studies explain this notion by referring to a compensation mechanism: as globalization increases volatility, it creates societal demands for social welfare protection. While the compensation mechanism may work in democratic countries, it may not do so well in non-democratic regimes where politicians tend to be insulated from societal demands. This study finds that in countries with potentially huge domestic markets, an alternative mechanism is through the state’s change of development strategies to a domestic consumption-driven one.   This paper is comprised of six sections. Following the introduction, the second section elaborates a theoretical framework. The third section examines how global economic crises engendered changes in the development strategies of China from an export-oriented to a domestic consumption-driven one. The fourth section investigates how this shift of development strategy led to a social welfare extension to the rural sector as a way to boost domestic consumption. The fifth sector examines the patterns of development for social health insurance and pensions for rural populations. Finally, the sixth section draws a conclusion...(Continued)

Editor’s Note With the rise of populism heating up discussion over the internal threats facing Western-style representative democracies, Professor Sunhyuk Kim draws attention to another important issue; the external threat posed by the success of the China model. In the past, the success of Western-style democracy was partially due to the lack of a viable alternative. However, as the Chinese system continues to succeed despite an absence of ‘representativeness’ in its so-called democratic structure, it has begun to emerge as a real competitor. Kim provides a fresh and insightful analysis of the successes and potential pitfalls of the Chinese model and highlights the challenges that China must overcome in order to maintain its momentum.         Now is a good time to reflect on democracy. In the U.S., Trump has been elected president, and in Europe, the UK has voted to leave the EU. South Korea has also impeached a president for the first time in its 30 years since democratization.   While trends differ across the world, the threats that democracy is facing can be summarized into two types. The first is ‘the input threat’’. When it first emerged, democracy was designed to be a political system capable of representing more people than any other. However, if we look at democracy in its current state, the current level of ‘input’ is not particularly representative. Voter turnout rates are already low in many democratic states and continue to fall. Winning candidates are often elected by a number of people far smaller than a true majority. The pool of candidates is narrow. It has become something of a cliché to criticize democracies as having become plutocracies, captured by a small minority of wealthy political elites. When this is added to the problem of intergenerational injustice marked by overrepresentation of older generations and underrepresentation of the young or the conflict of global inequality stemming from the overrepresentation of powerful countries on the world stage, the challenges facing democracy appear to be intractable.   The second danger posed to democracy is ‘the output threat’. People say that they feel as if the laws and policies created national security, economic growth, political development, and the other goals of state government are more important than whether or not the people are by the political elite and the other ‘products’ that emerge from the political system are not effective in improving the quality of their lives or solving the problems faced by the political community. In many democracies, political figures suffer from a severe deficiency of the leadership and initiative that resolving these social problems demands. Furthermore, there is an absence of integrity and professionalism among bureaucrats, policy acumen and negotiation skills among politicians, flexibility and cooperation between government departments, and other institutional factors that influence the level of development of a democracy. As a result, many important policy issues are not properly addressed, remain adrift, or are inadequately ‘solved’.   In reality, the biggest challenge facing democracy is neither the input nor the output threat. Rather, it is the existing alternative of the Chinese model. Existing representative democracy, no matter how great its deficits or how numerous its criticisms, has remained safe due to the lack of a realistic alternative. The Chinese model presents a strong challenge to the weaknesses of the democratic political system, particularly when it comes to the issue of policy performance.   The challenges that China presents to democracy can be summarized into four main points. First, output is more important than input in a political system. Effective policies or outputs of a government that resolve the problems of its citizens, ensure guaranteed fair and equal participation in the political process. Second, the basis for evaluating the quality of ‘input’ in Chinese democracy is not, as it is in Western democracies, ‘representativeness’, or in other words, ‘how appropriately and adequately each group of people is represented’. Rather, it is ‘how competent and exceptional talents within the entire population are discovered through competition or other methods, trained, and helped to ascend to the highest levels of decision-making’. Third, as far as the discovery of competent and exceptional talents, the trump card offered up by the majority of democracies, voting, is not really appropriate. Rather, the Chinese system puts forth the idea that competition within the Party decides the outcome, as a record of service in the local government is a more effective way to measure competence. Lastly, when competent and exceptional people are identified and assigned to administrative and policy duties, this carries over, resulting in high-quality policies that meet the wishes of the citizens.   According to Wang Shaoguang’s criticism of the representative system, in contemporary Western democracies, citizens are not able to become true ‘owners’, and instead can only act as ‘owners of choice’ when they vote. This is because Western democracy, rather than focusing on the essential meaning of ‘the people’, commits the error of becoming too obsessed with method and procedure. The true ‘people’ in democracy are not those who become the representatives of the ‘owners of choice’ through voting. Rather, democracy is a system wherein policies desired by the owners of state affairs are realized effectively by capable state officials in order to bring a wide variety of benefits to the people. Claims that the Chinese style of ‘meritocracy’ or ‘meritocratic democracy’ is superior to Western representative democracy have begun to receive attention based on the arguments presented above (Bell 2015; Bell and Li 2012; Li 2012; Li 2013).   In China’s ‘meritocratic democracy’, it inevitably becomes important to secure relative autonomy and insulation for government officials from the social pressure and direct influence of the people so that they can produce superior policy results and ongoing stability. Effective management and proper control of the internet are key to halting the emergence and spread of subversive public opinion in order to make this happen. The Chinese government’s ‘smart’ censorship, and the revolution of data communications technology through the construction and development of ChinaNet have been effective in preventing factors that could lead to instability (European Council on Foreign Relations 2013: 150-157).   However, no matter how ‘smart’ the government’s censorship and control is, it is difficult to perfectly halt or restrict the general influence of data communications technology on the people and politics. It is impossible to completely block China’s 300 million bloggers from discussing particular issues on ChinaNet or prevent the unpredictable disclosure of the corruption of public officials. In China, the internet and online realm are going through explosive growth, and exchange and communication are becoming more lively as a variety of platforms emerge and changes to fundamental mass media occur. The main user base and producers of online public opinion are the young generation and city residents, who are developing an individual sense of identity and becoming accustomed to free expression (Hu Yong 2006), with a fierce passion for democratic participation and criticizing injustice (Zhang Ji Jin 2011). Online public opinion and offline mass demonstrations tend to be connected.   Mass demonstrations in China totaled 10,000 in 1993 and 74,000 in 2004. Protests across the entire country reached 180,000 in 2010, twice the number of recorded demonstrations in 2006 (New York Times 2011.08.16). The majority of demonstrations were centered on the illegal or unfair private use of land by the government or development corporations, the abuse of authority by local officials, failure of companies to pay wages, and other such issues. The nature of these protests can be seen as public welfare movements or movements for rights protection rather than political movements. Recently, not only are demonstrations growing more frequent, they are also showing a higher degree of organization (Lee Dong-ryul and Seo Bongkyo 2012).   Under China’s meritocratic democracy, the lack of a representative factor in the input dimension is not likely to be seen as a serious problem. Because a conceptual conversion has taken place, in which the hand-picking of state officials by citizens and promotion of political representativeness is not true democracy: rather, ‘true democracy’ is a polity in which the government designs and implements policies for the people. As a result, the idea that delegative democracy, where the political elite are delegated to design and carry out policies “for the people,” is better than representative democracy, where the political representatives are elected “by the people,” has long been firmly entrenched.   Here, the supporting basis for the equation ‘for the people = democracy’ is the ongoing creation of superior policy that is able to satisfy the majority of people. However, historically there has never been a government that was able to produce successful policies in perpetuity. Every policy will fail at some point in some way, no matter whether that failure is large or small or how soon it occurs. It is possible that China’s alternative democracy will be able to conceal any negative impacts from its own policy failures either through ‘smart’ control of public opinion, effectively resolving the issue, or working to prevent online public opinion from erupting into large-scale mass protests. Moreover, an ongoing anti-corruption campaign is needed to substantiate the fairness and impartiality of the administrative and policy processes as well as the application of the law.   However, ensuring perpetually successful policy is no easy task. This is because ‘good policy’ that is able to respond well to a rapidly changing policy environment can hardly be formulated without a solid foundation of creativity, which the Chinese government has only recently begun to take an interest in. In order to perpetually produce high-quality policy, government officials must become creative beyond imagination, or they must be able to borrow the creativity they lack from private sectors such as the market or civil society.   Here lies the challenge for Chinese democracy. China’s democracy, through its redefinition, or conceptual conversion, of ‘democracy’, has emerged as an attractive alternative to Western representative democracy. It claims that even without Western-style representation it is able to more fully realize democracy. However, if China craves a creative society that offers a foundation for ongoing policy success (and moreover that is also capable of economic development), it will have no choice but to re-define a Chinese alternative to freedom as well. In other words, if China is capable of producing innovative talent even without Western-style freedom, Chinese democracy may become a powerful alternative to Western representative democracy, which is currently under threat. As a result, it is in reality ‘freedom’ rather than ‘democracy’ that will determine whether or not Chinese-style ‘democracy’ can succeed.         Author Sunhyuk Kim is a professor in the Department of Public Administration at Korea University. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University. His research focuses on South Korean politics, comparative politics, government reform, and other related topics. His recent publications include “The Changing Modes of Administrative Reform in South Korea” (2017, joint author), “The ICT Revolution and the Future of Democracy” (2016), and “NGOs and Social Protection in East Asia: Korea, Thailand and Indonesia” (2015).  

As the U.S. and China seek to construct and modify international regimes, some issue areas are being marked by one or the other of the two trends in Sino-U.S. relations: cooperation and conflict. March 2016 continued to show these trends and their impact on various regimes clearly. The international regime on nuclear proliferation and safety is clearly developing under U.S. and Chinese cooperation as the two were able to agree on the resolution sanctioning North Korea for its recent nuclear test and worked closely during the Nuclear Security Summit at the end of the month. Unfortunately, however, the international regimes developed to prevent and adjudicate maritime disputes has been branded by conflict as the U.S. calls on China to abide by a treaty that the U.S. itself has not ratified and China seeks to solve these disputes outside of the international regime developed to manage them. The summary below of statements made by U.S. and Chinese officials in March 2016 shows the impact the two countries are having on the development of global governance in a variety of issue areas.   Sino-US Cooperation Helps Lead to Resolution 2270   On March 2, 2016, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2270 in response to the North Korean nuclear test in January. Compared to the previous ones, the latest resolution was deemed to be tougher and more comprehensive as it imposes broad sanctions on sectors of the North Korean economy which are allegedly used by the government to fuel its nuclear and missile programs, and also targeted North Korean elites who benefit from such trades. China, considering that provocations may destabilize the region, welcomed the UN resolution as it stressed that sanctions should not be an end in themselves, reiterating the importance of dialogue for the denuclearization as well as the maintenance of peace and security on the Peninsula. The U.S. appears to be optimistic in its cooperation with China regarding the issue. On one occasion with Ambassador Motohide Yoshikawa of Japan and Ambassador Oh Joon of the ROK, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Powers praised China for its contribution in the adoption of the resolution. President Obama also remarked that both he and President Xi are fully committed towards denuclearization and implementation of the sanctions.   Arbitration for South China Sea Dispute?   The Philippines has been persistent in recent months about convening a arbitration tribunal under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This proposal has been resoundingly rejected by the Chinese as it has insisted that the Philippines' proposal is illegal and invalid. Making matters worse, tensions rose as Filipino fisherman and the Chinese Coast Guard were again involved in an entanglement in early March. The U.S. continued its support for the Philippines and its proposal for arbitration under the UNCLOS treaty, but China continued to brush aside these statements by pointing out that the U.S. is not party to the agreement in the first place. The Chinese position was punctuated by a speech given by the Vice Foreign Minister Mr. Liu Zhenmin during which he clearly rejected the arbitration tribunal and continued Chinese position of insisting on bilateral negotiations to settle territorial disputes in the South China Sea.   Room for Cooperation Found at Nuclear Security Summit   The fourth Nuclear Security Summit was held in Washington D.C. at the end of March and this forum provided the U.S. and China the opportunity to focus on an issue in which they are largely in agreement. The two countries issued a joint statement on the first day of the summit declaring their intention to work together to “foster a peaceful and stable international environment by reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism and striving for a more inclusive, coordinated, sustainable and robust global nuclear security architecture for the common benefit and security of all.’’ Perhaps more hope inspiring however was the fact that the two countries were able to move beyond words as the Center for Excellence on Nuclear Security, a joint project between China and the U.S., opened its doors in Beijing during the weeks leading up to the Summit.   Conflicting Definitions of Human Rights   The U.S. and China have also long been at odds over the definition of universal human rights and how to govern globally the application of that definition. Based on the American understanding of the term, the U.S. continued to call on China to abide by global norms on free speech and freedom of the press. China had a very different opinion of its own human rights record and argued that a "one-size-fits-all" approach to human rights is unfeasible. China went on to press the U.S. on its own poor standards regarding torture, racisim, and policing. One aspect the two countries could agree on though was the need for supporting gender equality around the globe as both made statements confirming their committment to this goal at the UN Commission on the Status of Women.   "Chinese Wisdom" for Syria?   Triggered by yet another terrible terrorist attack in Brussels, ISIL and Syria again dominated international politics in March. While the U.S. did not hide that it is still a long way from eradicating ISIL, the Secretary Kerry remained firm "that we continue to believe that Assad cannot be part of the future of Syria." For this to happen he urged for a clear abruption of Russian assistance to the regime. The U.S. repeatedly praised the close cooperation of the Global Coalition which facilitates the relatively stable ceasefire agreement throughout March. Elsewhere in the Middle East, the Iranian missile test at the beginning of the month was clearly condemned as a violation against UN Resolution 2231 and the Vienna agreement which led the U.S. to "consider our appropriate national response." Though China's reactions to both incidences were in line with the U.S. side, they remained rather calm and repeated their urge for political rather than military solutions. In accordance with this perception, they appointed Xie Xiaoyan as Chinese Special Envoy for the Syrian issue who ought to "contribute Chinese wisdom and proposals"’ thus facilitating a more active Chinese contribution to a final settlement of the Syrian issue.       Issue 1 – U.S. – China Bilateral Relations: Both Countries Acknowledge the Continuing Presence of Cooperation and Conflict in Relations   Issue 2 – Economic Relations: The Two Countries Continue to Disagree About Chinese Steel Dumping and Both Countries Turn Their Eyes Toward 2016 G20 Summit   Issue 3 – Military and Security Relations: Both Countries Recognize the Importance of Preventing Nuclear Proliferation at the Nuclear Security Summit and Fighting Terrorism in the Wake of the Brussels Attacks   Issue 4 – Human Rights and Humanitarian Issues: U.S. Issues Broad Criticisms of Chinese Human Rights Record and Works to Strengthen Reporting of Sexual Explotation and Abuse by UN Peacekeepers; China Rebuffs U.S. Claims and Touts Efforts to Improve Gemder Equality   Issue 5 – Climate Change and Environmental Issues: U.S. Continues Efforts to Decrease Carbon Emmissions; China Seeks a Plan for Environmentally Sustainable Economic Growth   Issue 6 – Asia Pacific Issues: U.S. Continues to Seek Stronger Ties with Allies in Asia Pacific; China Strongly Criticizes Japanese Revisions to its Pacifist Constitution and Expresses Concerns about Increased Presence of U.S. Military in the Region   Issue 7 – Korean Peninsula: U.S. Continues to Highlight China’s Special Relationship with North Korea; China States it Will Faithfully Implement Sanctions Against North Korea, Opposes Introduction of THAAD to South Korea   Issue 8 – Middle East and Africa Issues: U.S. Continues to Insist on Regime Change in Syria and Emphasizes Need to Stop ISIL Following Brussels Attack; China Notes Continued Cooperation with U.S. on Peace Process in Afghanistan   Issue 9 – Sovereignty and Territorial Disputes: U.S. Urges China to Participate in Tribunals to Settle South China Sea Disputes, Continues to Argue Crimea Belongs to Ukraine; China Justifies Placing of Military Equipment in Nansha Islands and Refuses Multilateral Settings for Negotiations on Territorial Issues in South China Sea