Jeffrey Reeves

Mongolia's evolving security strategy: omni-enmeshment and balance of influence

Abstract With the publication of its 2010 National Security Concept and its 2011 Foreign Policy Concept, Ulaanbaatar has formalised a shift in foreign policy that has been readily apparent since 2000. Whereas Mongolias foreign policy for the 1990s was formulated around an omni-enmeshment strategy, its foreign policy from 2000 onward is best conceptualised as an amalgam of omni-enmeshment and balance of influence. Ulaanbaatars new foreign policy strategy implicitly identifies China as the countrys largest security concern. This sense of a China ‘challenge’ is mirrored in Ulaanbaatars post-2000 foreign policy relations.

Structural Power, the Copenhagen School and Threats to Chinese Security

This article engages with current debates surrounding Chinas security by employing the concept of structural power and the Copenhagen School approach to security studies to measure threats to Chinas security. Building on existing Chinese and English language research on Chinas security drivers, the article develops a mechanism for determining how Chinas economic relations with small states in Asia negatively affect their domestic stability and how this instability then loops back to undermine Chinas strategic position. The article uses Chinas relations with Cambodia, Nepal and Mongolia as case studies.

Sino-Mongolian relations and Mongolia's non-traditional security

The following article examines the effect China has on Mongolias non-traditional security. Using the Copenhagen Schools approach to non-traditional security, the article argues that Mongolias economic dependence on China coupled with weak political security have allowed China to develop structural power over Mongolias domestic institutions. This structural power also negatively affects Mongolias societal and environmental security. Chinese structural power, therefore, has a net negative effect on Mongolias domestic non-traditional security, despite Chinese policies that seek to maintain good relations with Mongolia. This suggests that China is not in complete control of its relations with Mongolia and that its use of economic ties to drive relations with Mongolia contains elements that ultimately undermine its position and Mongolias security.

China's self-defeating tactics in Nepal

Chinas use of coercion and its myopic focus on Tibetan issues in Nepal are undermining Nepalese public support for Chinas involvement in Nepal. If China desires continued, constructive contact with Nepal, it must alter its foreign policy approach accordingly. Yet all indications suggest that China will continue with its status quo policies toward Nepal in the near and medium term. This suggests that Chinas relations with Nepal will become more complicated in the future.

Imperialism and the Middle Kingdom: the Xi Jinping administration’s peripheral diplomacy with developing states

Abstract This article applies the Nexon/Wright concept of ideal-type empire to the study of China’s post-2012 peripheral relations to demonstrate that the Xi administration is engaged in a concerted imperialist policy towards its developing neighbour states. Using the Nexon/Wright framework, the article demonstrates how the establishment of a China-centric regional network structure undergirds the Xi administration’s key foreign policy concepts and how these concepts, in turn, inform China’s bilateral relations with its peripheral states. To demonstrate how China employs imperialist tactics to its pursuit of a regionally based order, the article examines China’s bilateral relations with the developing states on its periphery: Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar, Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam.

Mongolia’s Place in China’s Periphery Diplomacy

China seeks to use OBOR to establish more robust ties with its peripheral partners that ensure greater connectivity, greater interdependence, and a shared “destiny.” It has identified Mongolia as a key partner in OBOR and an “artery” in China’s overall regional diplomacy. Engagement has deepened over the past several years. Xi is eager to coordinate China’s OBOR with Mongolia’s Steppe Road Initiative, notably across the mining sector and with regard to infrastructure development. China has increased financial and developmental commitments at a time when other states are limiting their support, which is critical as global prices for commodities fall and massive debt due to budget shortfalls and bond repayments have led to extreme economic difficulties

China’s Silk Road Economic Belt Initiative: Network and Influence Formation in Central Asia

Abstract This article demonstrates that, rather than constituting a new model for Central Asian international relations, the SREB’s real strategic value for China is as an organizational concept and as an influence multiplier. In recasting its Central Asian bilateral relations as part of the SREB engagement model, Beijing has overlaid a strategic-level concept to its otherwise disparate patterns of engagement. In so doing, the Xi administration has consolidated its multiple lines of efforts and the diverse Chinese-based actors—both state and private—into a grand narrative: one that serves the strategic purpose of integration. The Xi administration has used (and is using) this integration to expand its influence throughout the Central Asian region, both through its bilateral relations and through a SREB-resulting network of Central Asian states. In particular, one sees regular instances within China’s SREB engagement where the Xi administration uses the initiative to reconstitute regional states’ development priorities, interests and relations in ways that benefit China’s overall strategic interests.

Weak Power Bargaining with China: Mongolia and North Korea in comparative perspective

This article examines Mongolias and North Koreas bargaining with the Peoples Republic of China to provide insight into Northeast Asian regional dynamics and weak state bargaining behavior. The article demonstrates how both Mongolia and North Korea (which it demonstrates are weak states) employ a variety of tactics within the categories of capitulation, neutrality and confrontation when managing their respective relations with China. The article also argues the applica`bility of the two case studies to a better understanding of the diplomatic challenges China faces as it continues its development and to Chinas relations with the various weak states on its periphery.

A Search for Causality: China’s Non-Traditional Security and State Weakness

This article examines China’s non-traditional security (NTS) relations with its neighbouring states through the lens of state weakness. Building on existing Chinese language literature on the NTS situation in China, the article demonstrates how weak institutions, political illegitimacy and poor state–society relations in six of China’s periphery states—Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar, and Mongolia—negatively impact China’s domestic NTS environment.