Europe's Lessons for East Asian Integration

The European Union sees itself as offering “a cultural and governance ideal” for nascent and aspiring regional blocs.  Carnegie Beijing co-sponsored a May 4-5 conference on comparative regionalism to explore the EU’s universality and the lessons, if it works, for East Asian integration.
 

Additional Updates from Beijing:

The G20 Meetings: No Common Framework, No Consensus
Averting Crisis: A Path Forward for China's Healthcare System
The Threat of Protectionism During the Financial Crisis
European Security Strategy and Its Impact on the United States and China
The Environmental Impact of the Financial Crisis: Challenges and Opportunities
ASEAN Integration and Its Effects
A New Beginning: American Foreign Policy Under a New Administration 

Reframing China Policy: The Carnegie Debates

On October 5, 2006, the China Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace launched a series of debates on the most critical—and controversial—issues involving China’s economic, political-social, and military evolution and their policy implications.  The main purpose of the debates is to provide fresh thinking based on systematic, well informed deliberation of the main issues.

• Debate 1: The Sustainability of the Chinese Communist Party
• Debate 2: China's Economy
• Debate 3: China's Military Modernization
• Debate 4: Human Rights in China
• Debate 5: China's Role in Asia
• Debate 6: China's Trade Policy
• Debate 7: China as a Responsible Stakeholder
• Debate 8: U.S. Policy Toward Taiwan, Time for Change?
• Debate 9: Does China's Financial Sector Jeopardize Economic Growth?

Asia Needs to Ditch Its Growth Model

Asian countries are responding to the global economic crisis with policies that may temporarily boost growth but that are likely to make the transition from a development model that emphasizes personal savings and increasing production more difficult.  Accordingly, Michael Pettis says that the time has come for Asia to abandon its current growth model. 

Further Analysis of Issues in Chinese Economic Development >

The U.S.-China Spat at Sea

On March 9, the White House lodged an official complaint with Beijing: Five Chinese vessels had surrounded the USNS Impeccable south of the Chinese mainland near Hainan island, forcing the surveyor ship to take evasive maneuvers.  Just five days earlier in the Yellow Sea, between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula, another U.S. ship, Victorious, was reportedly harassed by a Chinese vessel using a high-intensity spotlight.  Despite slow-burning U.S. concerns about China's growing military presence, Michael Swaine argues that the incidents seemed to come without provocation or precedent -- an unwelcome surprise for a fresh U.S. administration.

Further Analysis of Issues in Security and Foreign Policy >

A Nuclear Test of China

Pyongyang's latest nuclear test makes the potential for cooperation between China and North Korea poorer than ever, and from Washington's perspective, that's progress.  Doug Paal argues that the test underscores the ignorance of officials in Washington and their counterparts in Beijing as to the dynamics of the regime's inner circles.

Further Analysis of Issues in U.S.-Asia Relations >

One Country, Two Systems: Is It Time to Change Tack?

Beijing's policy toward Hong Kong since it gained control of it in 1997 has been based on the “one country, two systems” principle. Deng Xiaoping conceived of this notion in the early 1980s when negotiating with Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher about how to transfer control of Hong Kong back to Beijing. Britain was looking for a way to exit with a sense of honor, and Beijing for a way to retain some degree of control without appearing heavy-handed.  Because Hong Kong was capitalist and democratic compared to the rest of China, Beijing sought to absorb it and give it a substantial measure of autonomy without allowing it to operate with total independence. 

Further Analysis of Issues in Chinese Political Development >

U.S.-China Climate Change Cooperation

The U.S. and China, the world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, must both take decisive action to reduce emissions in the next five years—before it is too late to avoid the most catastrophic effects of global warming. Cooperation on climate change is in both countries’ interests, and groundbreaking dialogues between China and the United States have already begun to identify areas of consensus and mutual interest.  Minister Xie Zhenhua, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission and China’s top climate change negotiator, and Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington State discussed U.S.-China climate cooperation.

Further Analysis of Issues in Energy and Climate Change >

How Beijing Can Boost Its Human Capital

Based on government data and expert estimates, 10m migrant labourers lost their jobs last year.  In addition, 1.5m of the 5.6m university graduates in 2008 have not been able to find jobs.  If anything, the employment situation is likely to deteriorate in 2009.  Economic growth will slow further because of the decline in exports and the bursting of the real estate bubble.  For good reason, Minxin Pei argues, the Chinese government has candidly admitted that the rising unemployment of migrant labourers and graduates poses the most direct threat to social stability.

Further Analysis of Issues in Chinese Social Development >

China's Evolving Legal System

In the past three decades, China’s legal system has undergone significant reform.  But only a few empirical studies have tried to measure whether the reforms are succeeding in protecting the rights of individuals or businesses.  To come up with a better understanding of how well China’s revamped legal system is performing in the protection of property rights, Minxin Pei worked with a group of researchers at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences to conduct two surveys of litigants in Shanghai covering 214 individuals and 190 companies. 

Further Analysis of Issues in Civil Society in China >