DSpace Community: 2010亞太研究英語博士學位學程學術研討會
https://ah.lib.nccu.edu.tw/handle/140.119/79911
2010亞太研究英語博士學位學程學術研討會2024-03-28T20:19:33ZChina’s Dam-Building on the Mekong River: A Case of Issue Linkage Reversed
https://ah.lib.nccu.edu.tw/handle/140.119/80106
題名: China’s Dam-Building on the Mekong River: A Case of Issue Linkage Reversed
摘要: China’s immense military build‐up as well as its emerging global power projection over natural resources may well be perceived as contradictory to its proclaimed peaceful rise/development strategy. China’s yet cautious but extending inroads into the Indian Ocean are the most recent example of this discrepancy. China has been active in sponsoring several port facilities along the Indian Ocean littoral and, simultaneously, has heavily invested in the modernization of its naval capabilities. Building a “blue‐water navy” and acquiring overseas air and naval bases to protect China’s oil supplies and improve its overall geo‐strategic position, however, would represent a major reconceptualization of Chinese national security and have far‐reaching international implications. Consequently, this trend needs closer examination. Providing a step into this direction, I focus on disclosing and assessing different models that potentially drive the development outlined above. I highlight domestic rationales and pit them against foreign policy explanations. While the former are linked to Neoclassical Realism and consider foreign politics primarily as internally driven necessities to guarantee regime survival, the latter revolve around relative capabilities as well as power maximization and are rooted in Neorealism. I argue that neither of these perspectives can be regarded as appropriate to sufficiently explain China’s possible forays into the Indian Ocean. On the one hand, Realist theories neglect that China has acknowledged U.S. predominance for the time being and considers direct confrontation with the U.S. as unfeasible and unwise. Also, an offensive westward strategy would arouse suspicion among most countries in the region and thus be detrimental to China’s “friendly‐neighborhood policy” pursued in the past. On the other hand, domestic rationales also lack explanatory power. Even though China does not defend its oil sea lanes of communication itself, there is currently no obvious danger to their sudden disruption and, thus, no necessity to offensively defend them in order to contribute to the survival of China’s output‐legitimated regime, either. This is especially true since U.S.‐China economic interdependence has grown rapidly and bilateral relations have become more resilient. As a consequence, further approaches have to be devised once China’s forays into the Indic become more manifest.2015-12-29T08:50:34ZThe Study of Development between EU and ASEAN in the 21st Century-View of Regionalism
https://ah.lib.nccu.edu.tw/handle/140.119/80105
題名: The Study of Development between EU and ASEAN in the 21st Century-View of Regionalism
摘要: The EU and ASEAN is the size of the two regional entities in the current international environment. From an objective point of view, these two regional bodies to each other is not the same culture, historical background, and even in the descent, ethnically, is also a body of two separate regions. Moreover, from the post-World War II to observe the development of international politics, European countries from the initial safety and economic considerations, began to seek cooperation and alliances, so as to promote the establishment of the European Union. Together with the international cooperation and consultation with each other constantly, so the scope of cooperation of States, from the past, security and economic considerations, extending to political, domestic and social issues and cultural aspects, through diversity of the run-in, thereby enabling the EU from the economic alliance, and gradually towards the development of political alliances. Other hand, countries in Southeast Asia to each other Meet in the establishment of ASEAN, and its purpose is not always the case is based on economic considerations, of which also contains a number of political and strategic factors. In each country has its own considerations under the establishment of ASEAN, Southeast Asian countries can only provide a platform for dialogue with each other and become national institutions and exchanging information, but ASEAN itself has not yet developed into a complete organization, Southeast Asian countries can be effectively constrained conduct and guidelines, compared to the EU Member States, the power and operation mechanism, compared with ASEAN`s member states are more bound to the respective capabilities. Looking at the two regional organizations, development, at first glance, these two regions seems to follow the established body of historical context, from the low-level integration phase, integration phase to the high-end forward, from the historical experience of the past to make inferences on ASEAN development should eventually follow the European Union context, and gradually become a political alliance. In this paper, trying to doctrine from a regional point of view, the prosecution permit the EU and ASEAN in the course of development is consistent with the expectations of regionalism argument and discussion? At the same time through the same channels as the basis for further, different from the EU and ASEAN in the development process in the present context differences.2015-12-29T08:50:32ZMany faces and one identity? ASEAN in the search for a common role to play: the case of human rights regime.
https://ah.lib.nccu.edu.tw/handle/140.119/80104
題名: Many faces and one identity? ASEAN in the search for a common role to play: the case of human rights regime.
摘要: Since 40th anniversary of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2007, followed by the signing of the ASEAN Charter in 2008, and most recently the 15th Summit in October 2009 with the milestone creation of ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission for Human Rights, we observe a drastic change in the nature of the Association. This paper looks at the recent process of forming an ASEAN-identity in functional cooperation, in particular the human rights body. Much has been said on the Southeast Asian regionalism, criticism has been expressed about the weak institutionalization of the region, many scholars blame it on the lack of identity and comparisons have been made to the model of the European Union integration. This research, however, attempts to analyze the evolutionary process and the shift of cooperation tendency from the internal motivations of the members. The ASEAN Charter has given the Association itself a legal personality. Sensitive issues and the key obstacles for ASEAN effective integration were tackled in the new light. Community-building, people-oriented integration, promotion of democratic values and human rights were stated in the documents among its main objectives. This poses a challenge to the core principle of ASEAN – the non-interference. Human rights issue is new to the Southeast Asian nations both in terms of conceptualisation and legal regulation. ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (ICHR) is seen as regime-forming process, interestingly reflecting the new personality of the Association. This paper assumes that ASEAN has adopted regime-building in view of creating a step-by-step community. Such regimes addressing common challenges to the region are to construct a more coherent region and to nurture shared norms and values. So is the changing personality of ASEAN an attempt to find common goals, visions and values for the common future? Does the people-oriented direction fall into the social-artefact type of regime? Is the Intergovernmental Committee on Human Rights an exercise for ASEAN to socialize norms and standards that could be shared for the entire sub-region despite grim challenges from member states, such as Myanmar? (Since the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) had its 40th anniversary in 2007, followed by signing the ASEAN Charter in 2008 and the most recent 15th Summit in October 2009 with milestone creation of ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission for Human Rights, we can observe a drastic change in the nature of the Association. This paper looks at the recent process of forming an ASEAN-identity in functional cooperation and searches for a theory that is capable of explaining the current development of ASEAN. Much has been said on the Southeast Asian regionalism, criticism has been expressed about the weak institutionalization of the region, many scholars blame on the lack of identity and comparisons have been made to the model of the European Union integration. This research, however, attempts to analyze the evolution process and the shift of cooperation tendency from the internal motivations of the members. ASEAN Charter has settled “new millennium goals” and given the Association itself a legal personality. Sensitive issues and the key obstacles for ASEAN effective integration were tackled in the new light. Community-building, people-oriented integration, promotion of democratic values and human rights were stated in the recent documents among main objectives. This poses a challenge to the core principle of ASEAN – non-interference. Human rights (HR) issue is new to the Southeast Asian nations both in terms of conceptualisation as well as implementation and legal regulation. The ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (ICHR) is seen as regime-forming process, interestingly reflecting the new personality of the Association. The author assumes that ASEAN has adopted regime-building and functional cooperation in a view of creating step-by-step a community. Such regimes addressing common challenges to the region are to construct a more coherent region with common tasks and visions, not only declared on the official documents, but also to nurture shared norms and values. In the Preamble of the ASEAN Charter, Leaders of member states announced being “Inspired and united under One Vision, One Identity and One Caring and Sharing Community”1. Thus, the author draws a hypothesis that this is the stage of ASEAN development where the members seek and adjust the functional cooperation projects to join themselves gradually into a cohesive image of the ASEAN personality. The questions this paper needs to ask are: Is the changing personality of ASEAN an attempt to find common goals, visions and values for the common future? Does people-oriented direction fall into the social-artefact type of regime? Is the Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights an exercise for ASEAN to socialize norms and standards that could be shared for the entire sub-region? This paper starts with an introduction where the scope of the issue is outlined and where major questions and assumptions are made. The first section focuses on the new rhetoric emphasizing democratic values, in the recent recommendations and official statements from ASEAN. This part contains an overview of human rights body creation and the process of pushing through the agenda despite the internal disparities. It analyzes the transformation of new ASEAN personality: the people-oriented organization, caring for human rights and calling for participatory from civil society. The second part contains theory review of international regimes, looking for a suitable theory to reflect ASEAN policy of community creation. In the third section the author searches for the explanation for ASEAN strategy towards “building synergy and coherence in ASEAN’s promotion and protection of human rights”1 and argues that the current human rights mechanism, which could be seen as major transformation in ASEAN’s personality, is aimed at finding a new vision of community. Through inclusive and multi-dimensional approach, this paper intends to take into consideration diversity of ASEAN nations to understand the different perceptions on the role of human rights regime. In the last part, prior to conclusions, the author refers to the most common criticism of the ASEAN Human Rights Body as well as the functions of regimes themselves. The final of this paper outlines the challenges for the human rights regimes and the community-building through searching to common goals and cohesive values and vision of ASEAN after 40.)2015-12-29T08:50:30ZForest Loss in Indonesia: Imperiling Environment Security in Asia-Pacific
https://ah.lib.nccu.edu.tw/handle/140.119/80103
題名: Forest Loss in Indonesia: Imperiling Environment Security in Asia-Pacific
摘要: Current literature on deforestation in Indonesia presents a multitude of data on the local environmental effects. But a framework incorporating the causes and implications for the Asia-Pacific region is incomplete and underdeveloped. The aim is to provide answers to the question if deforestation in Indonesia is caused by human ignorance, mismanagement and design or by accident and what the non-traditional security threat/s to the region is. An environmental approach examines the deforestation picture in its global context, then narrowing the scope down to a conception and operational definition for the region. The main findings suggest that uncontrolled management of deforestation creates uneven natural resource distribution, asymmetrical environmental issue-linkages, ecological imbalances and regional climate change. Empirical data shows that by the year 2015, the islands of Sumatra, Sulawesi and Kalimantan will be cleared of its natural vegetation. In contrast to the middle half of the twentieth century, when approximately 50% of Indonesia was still covered with lush and tropical rainforests, the current picture seems a little gloomy. By the end of 2007, 72% of the natural rainforests have been cut down. This means that Indonesian timber, unless drastic measures are not taken, will lose its natural resource value. The implication is that Asian–Pacific countries will feel the burden of increased resource rivalry. In conclusion, it is not possible to reverse the process of deforestation in Indonesia, but the local and regional effects can be ameliorated by effective control and management. A recommendation is that interest groups, for example Global Forest Watch (GFW) should have more say in the negotiation process between the multinationals and government agents. Impact studies by environmental groups can shed light on the biodiversity and ecological dimensions. It is important that governments in the region realize the nature of the problem. Not only will the immediate environment be protected for future generations, but the issue of global warming will also be addressed.2015-12-29T08:50:14Z