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"At a time when China's historically close "as lips and teeth" relations with North Korea appear to be changing, this volume provides unique access in English to the diverse perspectives informing China's North Korea policy and insights into how Chinese specialists assess a country that, while both its neighbor and ally, is also a threat to international security and China's national interests. The editor has gathered original essays by some of today's leading Chinese experts on China's foreign policy toward North Korea, the history of Beijing's relations with Pyongyang, and North Korea's politics and economy. Contributors include scholars from China's elite universities and think tanks in Beijing, as well as from provinces bordering North Korea"--

In 2017, scholar Joseph Nye postulated that a rising China that failed to deliver global public goods could result in a 'Kindleberger Trap', failing, like the then rising United States about a century ago, to supply global public goods at a time of need. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has made expanding China's role in global public goods provision a hallmark of his foreign policy. This study assesses Xi-led China's commitment to supplying global public goods using guideposts from historical examples of countries that made the shift from consumers to suppliers of global public goods. It finds that China seeks to enlarge its role in providing global public goods. However, Beijing is supplying those global public goods that it sees as maximising its interests, while simultaneously reshaping existing or constructing new modalities for their delivery. This behaviour, associated with systemic challengers, weakens confidence in China's role as a stabiliser in future global crises.

This study assesses China's approach to the global commons, those areas of the globe over which no state exercises sovereignty and that are accessible to all. Examining Chinese behaviour, official statements and expert positions towards the extant high seas and outer space regimes, this research concludes that China approaches the principle of international access to the two domains situationally, reflecting its assessment of how these regimes affect its national interests. The finding cautions against blanket characterizations of China's strategic orientation towards the global commons. (China Q/GIGA)

AbstractWhen the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) was launched in January 2016, 57 countries signed on to its charter. The United States was not among them. It does not appear likely that the US will change its position, particularly amid deteriorating trade relations between the US and China. However, a description of the US relationship to the AIIB that is limited to opposition and non‐membership is not adequate or accurate. This analysis takes a closer look at US interactions with the AIIB, beginning with its response to the Bank when it was announced through the time of writing in 2019. The main finding of this reexamination is that relations between the United States and the AIIB have been and remain more multifaceted than the conventional narrative portrays. Since Beijing announced plans to establish the AIIB, the United States has engaged the AIIB in ways that presented opportunities for Washington to communicate its preferences with respect to the policies and operations of the Bank.

AbstractThis study assesses China's approach to the global commons, those areas of the globe over which no state exercises sovereignty and that are accessible to all. Examining Chinese behaviour, official statements and expert positions towards the extant high seas and outer space regimes, this research concludes that China approaches the principle of international access to the two domains situationally, reflecting its assessment of how these regimes affect its national interests. The finding cautions against blanket characterizations of China's strategic orientation towards the global commons.

China and Russia both have interests in bordering Central Asia. China's thirst for energy has seen its footprint expand rapidly in the region relative to that of Russia, Central Asia's 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. (Pac Rev/GIGA)

For six decades, China's central authorities have promoted development in ethnic regions through special fiscal allocations with the idea that economic development is the key to national integration and inter-ethnic harmony. Yet, inter-ethnic tensions and violence persist in China. Focusing on historical changes to fiscal allocations as the principal policy instrument used by Beijing to promote development in ethnic areas, this analysis finds these changes mirror broad shifts in the country's national development strategy. As the study argues, this pattern reflects an approach to development policy in ethnic regions whereby policies serve central objectives consistent with a policy process for determining the fiscal allocations to ethnic regions that has been both centrally concentrated and non-participatory. With evidence that this "non-engaging" approach may be exacerbating ethnic tensions, Beijing has made efforts to introduce more "inclusive" approaches to determining policies for ethnic regions; however, whether these approaches will be institutionalized remains unclear. (JCCA/GIGA)