Alistair D. B. Cook

Myanmar’s China Policy: Agendas, Strategies and Challenges:

Over the past two decades there has been increasing international attention to the interactions between Myanmar and China. While China has significant influence in relation to other international actors, there is also significant calculation by the government in Myanmar in an effort to ensure that no single external actor calls the policy shots. Instead, the policy choices of the government illustrate that they are calculated on a case-by-case basis to respond to emerging security threats and challenges. However, this represents only a partial truth because there are myriad actors competing for legitimacy in Myanmar which also have various relationships with external actors. Indeed, to fully understand the relationship between Myanmar and China a multifocal lens is required to appreciate the nuances and tensions within Myanmar and their effects on its overarching relationship with China. Furthermore, this lens must also be applied to China, as it too has multiple levels of engagement with Myanmar at both formal and informal levels to varying degrees. This article analyses this complex web of interactions to provide insight into the various agendas, strategies and challenges at play in the relationship between Myanmar and China.

Post-Myitsone Relations Between China and Myanmar – More Continuity than Change?

While the worlds media has centred on the opening up of Myanmar and the removal of sanctions by the West, less attention has been focused on Myanmars relations with China. Can this relationship be ignored within the context of the Sino-American rivalry in the Asia-Pacific? This policy article focuses on the recent evolution of China-Myanmar relations and Chinese interests in and perceptions of Myanmar in transition.

Unpacking the Scarborough Shoal Dispute

In April 2012, another territorial dispute broke out in the South China Sea highlighting challenges to regional peace and security in East Asia. While China and the Philippines sought to resolve the Scarborough Shoal dispute peacefully, domestic concerns coupled with greater US involvement in the region illustrated the multifaceted nature of these issues. Future attempts at managing and resolving disputes will need to balance interests between actors at the sub-national, national and international levels.

Negotiating access to populations of concern in South-East Asia

ABSTRACT South-East Asia is home to both conflict and ‘natural’ disasters which have caused significant displaced populations. Given this context, there is a need to better understand the motivations of the multiple actors involved in negotiating humanitarian responses, and to account for the impact the finished agreement has on the region both in the short and long terms. This article investigates the motivations behind two humanitarian responses in South-East Asia. The first case is the set of humanitarian responses to the Indochinese exodus in the 1970s and 1980s. The second case is the humanitarian response to those affected by Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar during the late 2000s and early 2010. Both of these agreements have been held up as historic and ground breaking achievements within the international relations of South-East Asia. This article assesses these agreements to identify the multiple levels of governance involved and the individual actors’ motivations behind them. It argues that greater appreciation of these dynamics will contribute to understanding the governance of humanitarian responses to populations of concern in South-East Asia. This will be important to consider as new crises emerge that demand new negotiations within a crowded field of actors governing humanitarian responses in the region.

Governance and Human Insecurity in Myanmar

Over the past decade, Myanmar has undergone several changes in the way it is governed from a formalized military junta to a mixed civilian and military system. There remain, however, multiple challenges to the well-being of people in Myanmar, and human insecurity disproportionately affects ethnic nationalities and minority groups. This chapter identifies three significant challenges to achieving human-centered governance in Myanmar: (1) trust-building with the military to cede power; (2) building bureaucratic capacity to fulfill election promises and establish the rule of law at the national and local levels; and (3) developing an effective political party system. As a result of these challenges, the prospects of a democratic system of government remain dim in the near term and addressing human insecurity will be incremental in nature.

Siloes, Synergies and Prospects for Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief in Southeast Asia

As the Asia-Pacific is the most disaster affected region in the world, there is widespread disruption to the functioning of states and the security and well-being of people. Humanitarian assistance and disaster relief has emerged as an important site of both cooperation and competition in the region as civilian agencies, militaries, international and regional organisations, non-governmental organisations and civil society organisations respond to crises. This chapter seeks to explain the myriad actors involved in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief through the lens of polycentrism that conceptualises security in the Asia-Pacific as having multiple and overlapping frameworks. Through an assessment and mapping exercise, this chapter demonstrates normative competition through a web of security architectures that reveals a greater appreciation of the multiple sites of interaction between state and non-state actors is needed. The interactions around humanitarian assistance and disaster relief lay the groundwork for a more informed understanding of the sometimes cooperative, and at other times competitive, security environment in the Asia-Pacific.

Southeast Asian Perspectives on un Peacekeeping

Since the 1950s both Indonesia and Malaysia have contributed to United Nations peace operations across the world to varying degrees. Both states have contributed to regional peace initiatives as well; again to varying degrees and levels of success. These regional initiatives are seen through the prism of greater regionalism, which reflects a shift in focus to regional organisations in the pursuit of peace. Furthermore, understanding the motivations and decisions to contribute to peace operations requires a multifocal lens that recognises the various manifestations of this commitment and identifies the salient motivations behind these decisions. This lens illustrates that both competition and cooperation co-exist in the Indonesian and Malaysian decisions to contribute to peace operations in pursuit of increased political legitimacy in the global system.

International Law, US Power: The United States' Quest for Legal Security

another China book published in 2012, Edward N. Luttwak’s The Rise of China vs. the Logic of Strategy*that sees balancing behaviour as inevitable if a state is becoming strong enough to seek hegemony at the expense of the status quo. But White is no Luttwak, and thankfully so, or this ‘logic’ would have the USA and its allies (including Australia) on the brink of conflict with China. White does not see a coalition of forces forming to constrain China. None of China’s neighbours, White explains, ‘wants to live under China’s thumb, but equally none of them wants to make China an enemy. Above all, they want peace, stability and opportunities to grow’ (83 4). So, rather than defend the status quo to retain US primacy (option one), or withdraw from the scene to allow the new leader to prevail (option two), the idea is for the USA and China to cooperate along the lines of a concert of powers*specifically a ‘Concert of Asia’ that would extend to India and Japan. It is here that the idea of cooperation becomes problematic: it is a cooperation of the strong and powerful. Far more in tune with the times and the interests of less powerful neighbouring countries would be a deepening regionalism as the basis of cooperation. Why privilege powerful states as the actors of most interest? The continued salience of the state as the primary unit of global order*rather than, say, global and regional systems of governance*cannot be guaranteed. In this sense, The China Choice, though published only last year, may well be out of date. The roads to the future may not end at the nation state*or even a concert of strong states. It may also be dated in that the containment of China is no longer an option for the USA, which the author himself recognises when he discusses the failed policy of hedging (29). China has grown too big and interconnected to be treated as a ‘choice’, even an inevitable one. This book is best viewed as a watershed work in the prolific ‘rise of China’ literature*an ‘in-between’ book that hails a new order of a risen China, but does not quite relinquish the habits of the past. These are analytical habits in which power is still predicated by the strong state and its cohorts, whereas future trends point to a more complex architecture of power. Overall, however, Hugh White has delivered on the aims of the book, matching the content to the promise of the cover title. Given the importance of the subject of China-in-the-region as a work in process, the author’s credentials in the academic and policy realms, and his clarity of expression, this work is worthy of serious attention.

Cambodia's Legacy and the Responsibility to Protect in Asia

Up to 1.7 million Cambodians—amounting to nearly a quarter of the country’s population—died of extrajudicial executions, starvation, overwork, and disease as a result of the policy of social engineering implemented by the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979. In addition, there were also other gross abuses of human rights, such as enslavement, systematic torture, and rape. Due to power politics at the international level during the Cold War and the prevailing norms of national sovereignty and non-interference, the mass atrocities had not been stopped until the Vietnamese invasion in 1979, which led up to the overthrow of the regime. The Khmer Rouge was forced to the forests and a new government was installed by the Vietnamese. After the full picture of mass atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge was revealed, the international community responded with deep sympathy.