Carla Park Freeman

Fragile Edges Between Security and Insecurity: China's Border Regions

Considerable analysis has focused on regions in which a fragile state or states interact with neighboring states to incubate widening, regional conflict; however, work addressing the impact of fragile states on the countries with which they share an international border from a subregional or subnational perspective has been more limited. This chapter seeks to contribute to filling this gap by looking at the particular vulnerabilities to human security experienced by the subregions along borders of fragile states. Focusing on Chinas border with North Korea, this chapter examines the dimensions of fragility in Chinas border areas to formulate some preliminary conclusions about the dynamics of subregional fragility.

Neighborly Relations: the Tumen development project and China's security strategy

This article considers why China has continued to support multilateral efforts to develop the Tumen River Delta region despite the failure of these efforts to achieve significant economic results. It argues that China has sustained its critical role in Tumen development because the project has served multiple objectives consistent with Chinas approach to managing its security along its land borders, and in this case its border with the Korean peninsula—an approach which sees its domestic and international security objectives as not only linked but closely intertwined.

Dam diplomacy? China’s new neighbourhood policy and Chinese dam-building companies

ABSTRACT This analysis examines whether the Chinese state has transformed state dam-construction firms engaged abroad into agents of ‘hydro-diplomacy’ to reflect larger diplomatic initiatives to improve relations with neighbouring countries. It concludes that there is little evidence of strengthened direct oversight over Chinese dam-building companies in the region, which remain principally profit-seeking actors. In implementing projects, they prioritize the standards of host countries over the strategic concerns of the Chinese state. This suggests that either the ‘agency costs’ of hydropower firms’ behaviour remain acceptable to Beijing or there are other impediments to policy change.

The Fragile Global Commons in a World in Transition

There are vast spaces of the earth that lie outside the sovereign jurisdiction of any single sovereign state, including much of the world’s oceans, the atmosphere, outer space, and the continent of Antarctica. Accessible to all, these “global commons” serve as vital zones for global connectivity, as well as a critical source for military power and environmental resources. Yet, they lack strong global institutions to govern them. This discussion considers how changes to the international order, driven by the rise of new actors, new technologies, and new tests to human and environmental security, pose risks to the future of global spaces shared by all.

New strategies for an old rivalry? China–Russia relations in Central Asia after the energy boom

ABSTRACT China and Russia both have interests in bordering Central Asia. Chinas thirst for energy has seen its footprint expand rapidly in the region relative to that of Russia, Central Asias historical hegemon. With the two powerful neighbors’ history of competition and conflict, the shift in relative influence between them risks a resurgence of bilateral rivalry. Referencing the scholarly literature on strategic rivalry, this article examines how energy relations have helped shaped the trajectory of China-Russian relations in Central Asia, particularly after the shock that came with the collapse of oil and gas prices in 2008–2009.

Improving the Prospects for Fragile Regions Through Effective Management: Conclusion

The preceding chapters have explored a variety of sources of fragility and their manifestations in regional context. As the chapters have described, regional fragility may be associated with such conditions as geography, the natural environment, natural resources, economic issues and characteristics, social and cultural factors, and political and administrative structures. However, as the cases presented in this book illustrate, while regions’ fragility may be linked to many different conditions, it is how effectively these conditions are managed that is critical to preventing their deterioration.

Urban Revolution and Social Change in Contemporary China

Freeman reviews and compares Concrete Dragon: China’s Urban Revolution and What it Means for the World, by Thomas J. Campanella (New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 2008), and Creating Wealth and Poverty in Postsocialist China, by Deborah S. Davis and Wang Feng (eds.) (Stanford University Press, 2008) – among the most recent examinations of the features and effects that are directly and indirectly linked to China’s extraordinary urban transformation.

Book Review: Yongshun CAI, State and Laid-Off Workers in Reform China: The Silence and Collective Action of the Retrenched.

The reform of state-owned enterprises in China begun in the 1990s has resulted in massive layoffs of workers who once could count on lifetime employment. Tens of millions of workers have been released into an uncertain and challenging job market with weak state support for their transition from the “iron rice bowl.” Yet, while restiveness by the unemployed associated with layoffs has become widespread, the kind of large-scale collective action that might have challenged the government’s reform program has not materialized. Yongshun Cai analyzes the reactions of laid-off or xiagang workers to their job losses to offer an explanation for this phenomenon and offer insight into the dynamics behind collective action. Drawing on Chineseand Englishlanguage sources and original survey data from 724 workers in more than two dozen localities from the late 1990s, Cai seeks to explain why some workers choose to take action while others do not. His conclusion: it is more than a function of how outraged workers are about the loss of a job or how much they feel their moral rights to economic benefits have been deprived. Whether or not workers engage in collective action in response to being laid off is better seen, Cai argues, as a reflection of two dynamic factors—both connected to the interactive nature and essential rationality of worker resistance. Worker resistance depends upon the interaction between workers and the prospective targets of their collective action—the enterprise or the state. It is also determined by how workers interact. Workers take action, including appeals, demonstrations, protests, and attacks on the government, when they calculate that the potential benefits of doing so outweigh the costs and they judge the odds of success in their favor. This is a function of the extent to which there is cooperation and a sense of shared goals among laid-off workers, and a common perception that the enterprise or state is constrained in its ability to respond. Thus, fragmentation among workers and policies adopted by the firm or government that appear to increase the potential costs of action relative to their benefits serve to dampen collective action. Cai’s is a compelling argument supported by extensive empirical data but the book is not without weaknesses. For example, it includes rich discussions comparing China with other transitional economies, including Poland and a number of former Soviet-bloc states. These are limited, however, to brief sections concentrated in the book’s first and final chapters. Cai thus misses an Book Rview s