Since the end of World War II, the United States has played a leading role in shaping the global economic system. While US influence has waned with the reconstruction of Europe and the rise of China, it has remained the leading power in the international system. The election of Donald Trump, however, represents a significant shift in US trade policy. In its first days the Trump administration withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and has since taken specific steps to renegotiate trade agreements and protect US industries. Politicizing the importance to reduce bilateral US trade deficits and to bring manufacturing jobs back home, the Trump administration has also utilized trade remedies in addition to the seldom-used safeguards to advance its “America First” economic agenda. Although trade remedy actions―the imposition of antidumping and countervailing duty based on the US Trade Act of 1974―have been critical instruments for US trade, prioritizing trade deficit reduction in US trade policy has the potential to erode the underlying international system and exacerbate rather than resolve the tensions that have spurred nationalistic economic movements. Against this backdrop, in this article we explore the implications of an abrogation of US global economic leadership for the international trading system and US influence more broadly. We also consider the implications for East Asia and the global economy as a whole as China, the European Union, and Japan take on larger leadership roles within the global trading system.

This article investigates whether countries in East Asia are acting anomalously from traditional balancing and bandwagoning assumptions in the face of China's reemergencel the form of sending ambiguous alignment signals toward the United States in return for more autonomy by states that have no official alliance with Beijing. Incorporating Lim and Cooper's redefinition of hedging, this study focuses on the conditions under which China's neighbors adopt hedging behaviors. This article aims to show that coercive capability indicators, including national capability and a US military presence, are major factors in decisions by countries in East Asia to adopt hedging strategies. The findings suggest that when countries in this region seek to maximize economic benefits with Beijing, they also seek certain security assurances from Washington as a hedge against Beijing's influence over their national affairs.

During the Cold War Burma followed a foreign policy of neutralism that was shaped between 1948 and 1954. In 1954, Burma began to move closer to China in order to balance the Western influence in the country. The diplomatic balancing skills of Burmese leaders were reflected in Burma's early postcolonial diplomacy and constitute a substantial core dimension of the Burmese foreign policy tradition. Between 1998 and 2010 Burma was heavily reliant on China in the face of Western sanctions and its relative isolation; China's influence thus increased sharply in that country. The pattern of China-Burma-US triangular relations that was restructured in the early 1950s reappeared in the twenty-first century. Beginning in 2011, Nay Pyi Taw's policy reflected a determination to weaken China's growing influence and rebalance Burmese relations with Washington and Beijing. However, this Burmese rebalancing was overinterpreted by the media as Nay Pyi Taw's shift into the American orbit. Both Thein Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi have attempted to steer Burma's foreign policy back to its traditional neutralist and nonaligned track.

This study aims to identify the determinants of trust in other countries, focusing on US citizens' trust in Japan. The analysis of the data of the national Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2015 examines the determining influence of theoretical correlates, which draw from extant studies of international trust, including national images, goal compatibility, issue awareness, and historical memories. Images of the Japanese people as honest, inventive, and hardworking increase trust in Japan. US perceptions of historically inimical events in US-Japan relations do not influence current trust, and the comprehensive regression of trust in Japan on diverse correlates does not demonstrate a predicted cross-generational difference due to experiential distance from such events. A higher level of trust in Japan is observed among US citizens who think that Japan, despite its declining economy, should play a more active military role in the Asia-Pacific region. These US citizens tend to see Japan as a trustworthy partner, given the economic and military rise of China and the resulting goal compatibility (due to dealing with a common threat) between the United States and Japan.

Since the early 2000s, energy security has appeared frequently in Chinese policy statements. The focus is on security of supply, even if the discourse is becoming more attentive to other dimensions, such as environmental sustainability. Securitization theory can shed light on this specific threat construction and its implications for China and Chinese foreign policy. Applying securitization theory and reviewing existing debates, I show how the construction of an external threat and a focus on securing access to oil downplay other vulnerabilities and contribute to the perception among China's neighbors and others of a Chinese threat, despite new Chinese security discourses to the contrary. I argue that two factors contribute to this threat construction and its resilience: the role of national oil companies and the limited mobilizing power of environmental and climate security discourses.

In this article we examine how the phrase “China and Thailand are brothers” became the diplomatic discourse that both countries commonly use to articulate their cordial relations. First, we trace the historical contexts in which the discourse was constructed and how this discourse played a crucial role in encouraging overseas Chinese to integrate into Thai society in the early twentieth century. Second, we explain how the discourse provided insights for Thai and Chinese political elites relevant to the transformation of their nations' foreign policies toward Sino-Thai normalization during the Cold War. We further demonstrate how the discourse has reinforced a certain perception of Sino-Thai relations since diplomatic normalization between the two countries. Finally, we suggest a rethinking of the implications of diplomatic discourse with Chinese characteristics to better understand China's relationship with foreign countries in general and with Thailand in particular.

Although North Korea remains one of the most isolated countries in the world, hundreds of foreign actors continue to work quietly inside the country. What is the size and scope of foreign engagement inside the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)? What types of activities do nongovernmental organizations, businesses, and other private actors conduct? What has been the experience and impact of those working inside the DPRK? Relying on an original data set and interviews with sixteen organizational field representatives and staff members with experience working inside the DPRK, I uncover basic trends related to people-to-people engagement in areas such as humanitarian relief, development assistance, educational assistance, professional training, and business interaction. Although impressive growth has taken place in foreign engagement in the DPRK, its potential impact remains unclear due to ongoing internal and external constraints.

The reform of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) has been a leading element of public sector reform since the 1980s. Starting with the radical actions of Margaret Thatcher's government in the United Kingdom, privatization was disseminated across the world. By 2004, over $1 trillion of SOEs had been privatized. The privatization stampede represented the ascendancy of neoclassical economics and the view that governments should get out of business and leave the invisible hand of the market to either generate efficiency in often poorly performing enterprises or simply close them down (World Bank 1995, 1996, 1997). This neoliberal policy orientation dovetailed with the Washington Consensus and the spread of New Public Management, both of which sought leaner, more fiscally disciplined government that focused on core functions (Turner, Hulme, and McCourt 2015).Privatization was slow to gain traction in Asia, where the idea of state ownership was firmly entrenched (Cheung 2002; Deutsch 1988; Gomez 1997; Gupta 2008), but driven by the need to fix government budgets and the unrelenting promotion of privatization by the international financial institutions, Asian governments began to accept SOE reform. Despite opposition from workers, management, nationalists, and those who profited from rent seeking, privatization took off, albeit at different speeds and levels of enthusiasm in different countries.As privatization became more commonplace across Asia, more variation appeared in the forms it took. Large numbers of SOEs were sold off to the private sector, but governments sometimes preferred to retain significant shareholding. Alternatively, they instigated corporatization, partially reregulated markets, or experimented with public-private partnerships (PPPs) that came in increasingly diverse forms (Turner, Hulme, and McCourt 2015).What became apparent across Asia was that privatization was invariably a political battleground where an array of stakeholders fought to promote their particular interests. Battles differed according to local conditions. Decisions were not made based on strictly rational business criteria-they came about through political processes that reflected the institutional arrangements of a country and the relative strengths and strategies of the protagonists.The politics of SOE reform is the subject of the three cases presented in this section. They show the need to engage in political economy analysis in order to fully understand the decisionmaking process in SOE reform and the outcomes that emerge.The first case involves the privatization of Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO), the giant SOE that had a national monopoly on electricity generation and supply. Attempts to privatize KEPCO commenced in the 1990s and are still ongoing. …

As the international security environment grows increasingly complex, the need for multilateral solutions grows. Two such efforts are United Nations peacekeeping and counterpiracy operations off the coast of Somalia. Over the years many states have contributed police, observers, military personnel, ships, and other assets to support these multinational efforts. Since 2009 Seoul has sent a destroyer and a team of Navy SEALS to the counterpiracy operations near Somalia. In this study I contrast South Korea’s contributions to UN peacekeeping and maritime security with those of Australia, China, and Japan.

In my article, I examine the use of foreign currency in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) border economy since the 1980s. I focus not on the US dollar so beloved of elites in Pyongyang but on the steady uptake of Chinese renminbi by nonelites, a phenomenon that emerged first from the economy of the border region that the DPRK shares with China. Relying on testimony from structured interviews conducted in 2014 with former DPRK citizens now based in the Republic of Korea, I position the expansion of foreign currency usage within the history of contemporary DPRK marketization, specifically linking that expansion to economic shocks felt in 1992, 2002, and 2009. I conclude by discussing the threats and opportunities presented by the rising tide of foreign currency possession and use.