Abstracts for Volume 1 of Peace and Development in 2015

(All.pdf)

1. New Changes of Middle East Transformation and New Developments in China-Middle East Relationship, by Gao Zugui, Professor and Deputy Director at Institute for International Strategic Studies of the Central Party School of the CPC, and Guest Researcher of CPDS. Ever since 2014, the Middle East has experienced over 4 years of evolution and continued to show some new characteristics: the moderate Islamist forces suffered setbacks but would still influence the political development in many countries; the extreme forces messed up the regional setup as they grew stronger, which led to joint response from many countries in the region; the Iranian nuclear issue continued to develop on the track of negotiation, but it is still uncertain whether a final solution could be reached; Israel and Palestine moved from peace talk to conflict and the diplomatic games intensified again. Faced with these developments, the United States had to fine-tune its Middle East policy. Under such backdrop, China and the Middle East countries are in growing need of strengthening their mutual relations. China and the Middle East relations achieved new development under the framework of building “one belt and one road”.

2. Security Situation of China’s Border and Coastal Defense and Responses, by Ouyang Wei, Professor of National Defense University and Guest Researcher of the CPDS. Since entering into the new century, the threat of direct military invasion against China is on the decline, while the insecure factors are on the increase with big powers’ involvement and sovereignty claims of neighboring countries to the disputed maritime areas. Non-traditional security problems as terrorism and drug trafficking become prominent. Accordingly, China has to make corresponding adjustments to the strategic goals, policies and measures of its border and coastal defense.

3. Analysis of the American New Anti-terrorism Policy, by Zheng Dongchao, Assistant Research Fellow at China Center for Contemporary World Studies.  Faced with the strong attack of extreme terrorist forces, the United States has finally come to the fore from the behind, published new anti-terrorism policy, hoping to weaken and completely destroy the Islamic State (IS) forces in Iraq and Syria. The new policy, with extensive comprehensiveness, is to engage military intervention mainly in the form of air strikes, embed the Syrian crisis into the war on terror, form a new international anti-terrorism alliance network and conduct humanitarian assistance. It can be said that the Obama Administration has made an up-side down change to its Iraqi policy because of the rise of the IS. This change shows among other things that the U.S. needs to continue the war on terror in order to maintain the interests of its own and its allies, and reflects that the U.S. wants to dominate the Middle East situation and maintain its leading position in the region. However, as President Obama’ s remaining term is less than two years, the U.S. is unlikely to make significant adjustment to its Middle East policy, but will make a slight swing back from the policy of restraint and contraction to make progress and get involved again.

4. Current Development and Challenges of U.S.-Vietnamese Military Relationship, by Song Qingrun, Associate Research Fellow at Institute for South Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania Studies with China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. After Obama entering into office, the bilateral military relationship between the U.S. and Vietnam has reached the best level in history since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Vietnam has become an important cooperative partner of the U.S. in military strategic affairs in Southeast Asia, while the U.S. is an important country that Vietnam could rely upon. The two militaries conducted extensive and close cooperation in such areas as high-level defense dialogue, joint military exercise, maintaining maritime security, military medical science, natural disaster response, joint maritime search and rescue, non-proliferation, dealing with Vietnam War legacy and upgrading the military capabilities of the Vietnamese Army. In October 2014, the U.S. partially lifted the ban on the sale of lethal weapon to Vietnam and a historical breakthrough in their military cooperation was achieved. Now, military and security cooperation has become the main pillar of U.S.-Vietnam relations, which made it possible for them to carry out strategic consultation as well as practical cooperation and pushed forward the promotion of their bilateral relations.

5. Obama Administration’s Cyber Security Policy and Its Basic Implication to China, by Ren Yanyan, PhD Candidate at School of International Studies of Renmin University of China, and Fang Lexian, Professor at the same school and Guest Researcher with the CPDS. As the importance of cyber security increases, the Obama Administration strengthened the control of cyber security, tried to improve structural construction and strategic planning of the U.S. cyber security. In the meantime, the dispute and conflict between China and the U.S. over cyber security became prominent. Obama administration’s cyber security policy towards China has the following features: on the one hand, the U.S. vigorously carries out “micro-blog diplomacy”through network, strengthening ideology export and infiltration; while on the other hand, the U.S. ascribes the damage of its critical infrastructure caused by the theft of economic secrets and sensitive military information to the hacker attacks supported by the Chinese military, spreading “the threat of Chinese cyber attack” and smearing China’s international image. Faced with the pressure and challenge of cyber security from the U.S., China should pay more attention to the issue from a strategic height, actively exploring the feasibility of gradually increasing mutual strategic trust from the cooperation on specific affairs. At the same time, China should seek coordination and cooperation with Russia and other developing countries, make full use of multiple platforms to push forward the shaping of international cyber security regulations. In addition, China should try to consider mobilizing the participation of domestic private sectors and masses to create a broad environment of maintaining cyber-space security.

6. Ukraine Crisis and its Revelation for China’s Development, by Dr. Zhang Yanbing, Deputy Director at the Institute for International Strategic and Development Studies with School of Public Policy & Management of Tsinghua University, and Zeng Zhimin PhD Candidate of the same school. The Ukraine crisis is an international political issue that attracts most international attention. The article outlines the origin and development process of the crisis, and tries to explore the setback and its reason that Ukraine suffered in the process of political democratization after the Cold War in the context of internal unique historical culture, national contradiction, outside geopolitical intervention and modern western democratic politics. Based on the current extremely complicated internal and diplomatic background, the Ukraine crisis may have many important revelations for China’s development. First, political democratization processes in non-Western countries are deeply affected by international political forces. Second, countries beset with complicated ethnic and religious problems are liable to be led into political chaos and national disintegration when they are trying to implement democratic election system. Third, a country’s political system should be rested on its unique cultural traditions. Fourth, election itself is necessarily not the only cure-all that can resolve China’s current development problems.

7. Ukraine Crisis and the New Cold War between the U.S. and Russia, by Yang Lei, Associate Professor at Zhou Enlai School of Government of Nankai University. There is a big controversy in academic circle over the issue of whether currently the United States and Russia have run into a new Cold War. As two major powers in international politics, the contradictions and struggles between the U.S. and Russia had profound impact to the development of international relations. In the evolution of the Ukraine crisis, it is very easy to notice the existence of Cold-War mentality in their relations, which not only did harm to the U.S.-Russian cooperation, but also hindered the development of international relations, forming a pattern similar to a new Cold War in Eastern Europe. If we recognize this pattern of new Cold War, we could be able to find historical references to its development trend in the Cold War period between the Soviet Union and the United States. But Russia will not repeat the same mistake as the Soviet Union and go into disintegration. The international setup today has undergone tremendous changes, which provided Russia with wider room to maneuver. As a battleground of competition in the new Cold War, it is difficult for Ukraine to get rid of the fate of territorial disintegration. 

8. Japan’s South China Sea Policy and its Evolution, by Dr. Li Lingqun, Research Fellow at the Collaborative Innovation Center of South China Sea Studies of Nanjing University. As a major power in Asia and an ally of the U.S., Japan’s South China Sea policy has major influence to the situation of South China Sea region. The understanding of the process and characteristics of the evolution of Japan’s South China Sea policy since the end of WWII, especially since the end of the Cold War, will help China to make accurate prediction and take effective measures to the changes of the surrounding geopolitical security environment, and create a favorable peripheral environment for maintaining China’s sovereign interests in the South China Sea and China’s peaceful development.