Colonial Politics of Security Arrangements

Ota thinks that the main reason that Okinawa bears a disproportionate burden of the US' military presence in Japan is because mainland Japanese politicians do not think of Okinawa as wholly Japanese or as first-class citizens. He also says that the Japanese government refuses to listen to the citizens of Okinawa, who have signed petition after petition asking for the US military's presense to be reduced or at least made proportionate to the military presense on mainland Japan. Also, if Okinawa is not under-represented in the Diet, not enough representatives believe that Okinawa needs help and they refuse to form coalitions to help Okinawa. They also do not want to back anything that will take US bases from Okinawa and put them in their own backyard.

The main reason that the US military refuses to decrease their military is because Okinawa is a strategic location that serves both Asia and the Middle East. Also, the US military can do basically whatever it wants without too many repercussions because of several treaties signed with the US and Japan. Ota is frustrated because the US military acts without much thought to the Okinawan citizens, much like a dictator, and the US, of all places, should be championing democracy. But instead the US leaders just ignore all of the Okinawans attempts as solving anything democratically. This hypocracy is central to the issue of US bases on Okinawa and cannot be easily ameliorated.

Japan- McCormack

I think that it is possible for Japan to be both dependent and assertive, it just is not quite the easiest combination to achieve. One of the main things that McCormack stresses is that Japan's current political situation was basically mandated by the US after WWII, with some help from the Japanese Emperor . He also mentions how much the current Japanese government is willing to cooperate with Bush, regardless of whether or not that cooperation is reciprocated or approved of by the Japanese people. Because Japan's "American-imposed" identity has only been established in the latter half of the 20th century, it is difficult for Japan to become part of a greater "Asian" identity. Because Japan is dependent on the US but has an undercurrent in its identity of strength and aggression, it is hard to find a midpoint between dependence and assertion. It seems like Japan is able to be dependent on the US for some things/aspects, like the military, but is assertive in other aspects, like economics. Therefore, Japan will end up being assertive in non-security aspects without being assertive in security aspects. This non-assertion in security aspects will be hard to mesh with the Japanese identity that the Japanese government put forth, but it will be interesting to see how much Japan will continue to be dependent on the US for security if the Japanese identity is strengthened. The dependence-assertion combination is possible, but the emphasis depends on whether or not the government wants to focus on security or on more domestic issues. That give-and-take is constantly changing, so it is possible to achieve a mix of the two and still be a powerful state.

Getting Beyond the Impasse

Kim and Feffer's article is very critical of the Bush administration's handling of the North Korea situation. They feel that the administration is hypocritical in their polices and that they still try to skirt around the issue rather than seek a solution, even with the Six Party Talks. They explain how North Korea is very reluctant to make any concessions until they get some kind of guarantee that they will get something in return, so far the US and Japan have been hesistant to change their policies towards North Korea.

Klinger defends the Bush administration (and South Korea's) by saying that there needs to be some type of North Korean accountibility before any of the polices laid out in the Six Party Talks be implemented. He thinks that the new South Korean president Lee will be a better player than the former South Korea president Roh because Lee will run the country like a business and not be as unfocused in his dealings with North Korea as Roh was.

I think that Kim and Feffer make a better argument, they don't "sugar-coat" the situation as much as the Bush Administration does. I think that the way they talk about North Korea seems more logical and realistic than Klinger's. It takes into account other reasons why North Korea is acting the way they're acting.

Nuclear Chess in North Korea

While watching the documentary, one of the main things that struck me was how basically irresponsible Bush's policy towards North Korea nuclear proliferation really is. That is especially obvious because it seemed like Clinton'sadministration was fairly close to getting Kim to vow not to make bombs; it is faintly ridiculous and childish that Bush stopped talks and refuses to negotiate with North Korea because he "doesn't trust" Kim, I think there are a lot of people in decision-making positions that aren't entirely trustworthy but that doesn't mean that you refuse to try to negotiate with them. I forget who said it (maybe Albright or the other woman), but they said that it is extremely hard to solve anything if the administration has said that giving anything to North Korea is "appeasement"- part of negotiating is compromising somehow. That stance makes it impossible to accomplish anything, which is not in the interests of either the US or North Korea.

I do understand the problem that some people had with Clinton's policy of "appeasement", though, because the "appeasement" money did not really help the North Korean people, it just help the military and Kim. Clinton's policy also was "paying the North Koreans to not do anything dangerous", as one of the interviewees put it, which isn't the best way to solve the problems with North Korean relations. But nothing will get difinitively solved while the current balance of power remains as it is.

Grassroots challenges to military power

The traditional way of looking at players in international security relations often ignores or leaves out many players. This leads to an underestimation of power in the study of international relations which then leads to traditional policy analysts being "suprised" when the player they ignored shifts the policy outcome. An example of this is how the villagers in Daechuri have protested to save their farms/village from the expansion of US Camp Humphreys. Even though the villagers did end up leaving their homes, they got more compensation money and land and caused enough noise and attention to get the government (both South Korea and the US) to take another look at their expansion plans. International relations analysts who only look at major players within governments and ignore small, often politically invisible groups were suprised to see how a small village of farmers were able to find enough of a voice to eventualy be heard.

Power "on the margins" should not be ignored. Of course, there are groups of people who do not really care about how their country is interacting with other countries because those interactions do not effect them. But once a government or group tries to exploit or disturb the marginalized group, the marginalized group will react to try to save their way of life. When that happens, the marginalized group gets the attention of the group in power and usually (hopefully) saves their way of life from destruction. It is dangerous for the groups in power to continuously marginalize other groups becasue once one group is marginalized, its easier to rationalize marginalizing another group and another, and eventually the group in power has created enough marginalized groups to band together and take back power. Disenfranchizing groups and ingoring others makes it difficult to get the full understanding of the issues and factors that build international security relations, and underestimating even one factor can lead to very unfortunate and dangerous circumstances. But very country ignores some groups, so it is diffucult to ever fully understand the motives behind foreign relations.

Moon- "Sex Among Allies"

Moon's thesis is that these women were "instruments of promotion of two governments' bilateral security interests." This is a different way to think about the issue of security, because most interpretations focus on broader, more systemic, relations than those of individuals. But I think it is now important, in our more globalized world, that we do think about the relations between every combination of people, instituitions and governments. The fact that the camp women were a major piece of the interaction between the soldiers and the South Korean citizens is something that can't really be explained by the normal modes of discussion about security, but their interaction has become so entwined that it can't be left out when the South Korea-US relations are being analyzed.

{Prostitution as a symbol of US domination over South Korea in a neo-colonial status. Women's relationships with foreign soldiers personifies and defines the relationship between the governments. Moon}

US Military In Korea

Haselden's main argument is that Korea's reunification would change the current Northeast Asia security/military situation, with Korea, the US, Japan, China, and Russia. He also discusses how the combination of strong economies and strong militaries of East Asia would make the security situation around Korea unstable if US troop withdrawal created a power vacuum. Unified Korea would not be strong enough on its own to change the power structure in the absence of US troops, but if Korea sided with either Japan or China the regional security structure would change. Given how South (and North) Korea views China and Japan, they could potentially side with either country: South Korea has some distrust of Japan but a more working relationship with China and North Korea sides with its "Communist brother" China. Haselden says that the Koreas would resemble South Korea once unified because of the very obvious failure of North Korea, but he doesn't say whether Korea would side with Japan or China. He does say that "Korea's long mutual border, increased economic and political ties, and historical bond with China may lead to a stronger relationship with China, rather than Japan." (pg. 3).

I still am not entirely sure why South Korea would want reunification. I understand the concepts of Pan-Korean nationalism and anti-Great Power-ism, and even how the generation gaps plays into the equation but I'm not sure if all those factors add up to more than economic forces. North Korea's economy is so awful and South Korea's is quite good, so it seems to me like South Korea would be sacrificing prosperity and growth for cultural unity. I think I need to look more into this issue, maybe even do my paper on South Korea somehow, because I want to understand the culture/economy pieces of the Korean reunification issue.

The Struggle For And Against A Reunification of the Two Koreas: Pan-Korean Nationalism and Anti-Great Power-ism

The issue of North and South Korean reunification has many factors. Jiyul Kim describes some of these factors, like Pan-Korean Nationalism, Anti-Great Power-ism and US-South Korean relations. He also emphasizes how the generation gap between those who remember the Korean War and those who don't makes a difference in the individual's opinion of foreign policy and North Korea, the US, Japan, and China.

Since the collapse of the USSR, South Korea has started to view North Korea as another brother-victim of "Great Powers" instead of another Communist threat, which has lead to Pan-Korean Nationalism. That has also led to what Kim calls "Anti-Great Power-ism", the South Korean social movement that combines Anti-Americanism and a reaction against Korea being a "victim" of Great Powers, like the US, Japan, China, and the USSR, that the Korean Peninsula experienced since the late 19th Century.

Sheila Miyoshi Jager' article talks about Anti-Americanism (and Anti-Great Power-ism) in South Korea. This ties directly into the issue of security on the Korean Peninsula, because South Koreans are beginning to see the US as an imperialist threat, instead of relying on the Cold War power balance with North Korea as the common US-South Korean threat. She says that Anti-Americanism is nothing new to South Korea but what is new is the fact that the Anti-American sentiment has spread to all levels of the South Korean society, instead of being a more minority view. This has changed because of the rise of Pan-Korean Nationalism has lead to a desire for Korean unity, and the US's designation of North Korea as an "Axis of Evil" country has shifted the way South Koreans view America. Jager says that "More South Koreans today see the United States as a greater threat to their national security than North Korea."

If the South Korean government decides that the US is a bigger threat against North Korea than it is, relations could become strained. This is also exascerbated by the fact that the US still has many military bases in South Korea, bases that are becoming more unecessary ans more contentious as South Korea becomes even more self-sufficient and less threatened by North Korea.

Environmental Issues in Regional Context

Some of the major forms of environmental insecurities in the region are water and air pollution. Water pollution is caused by radioactive waste disposal, industrial waste dumping, oil spills, heavy metals and agricultural chemical runoff (Haque, pg. 213). Some examples of air pollution are emissions from coal-burning factories and power plants in China. Examples of air pollution are the use of products cntaining CFCs and an increase of greenhouse gasses emitted by industrial areas.

Haque states four things that have lead to environmental degradaton: 1) population pressure caused by increasing population 2) the intensive process of land development and urbanization 3) the rapid rates of industrial expansion and 4) the exceptionall high economic growth rate. All of these factors lead to governments priortizing their policies, with environmental concerns coming in at the bottom of the list, after other concerns like population, economy, and industry. Because, after all, governments are supposed to protect and provide for the people but not necessarily the environment. And its really hard to deny and justify denying people food and shelter who are desperately in need of it so that the government can protect the environment. This isn't to say that people can't be fed and sheltered while the environment is protected; but many, if not all, of these countries do not have to resources to do both at the same time, leading to the massive environmental degradation that is rampant in the area.

Economic Growth and Environmental Protection

In a globalized economy, environmental and health issues are shifted from developed countries to un- or under-developed countries, like lead from th US being shipped to China for recycling. That recycled/reused lead is then making its way back into products made for the US. Fairclough says that this is "closing a globilization loop in which toxic materials from high-tech garbage are turned into potentially dangerous gooods for kids and shipped back." Not much is being done to regulate the export of "non-hazardous" materials like the e-waste that is being recycled for its lead components becasue the EPA doesn't classify the e-waste components as hazardous. In this situation no one wins.

Some of the Chinese companies and manufacturers claim that "buyers know what they're getting and say using lead is the only way to offer low prices that foreign purchasers are willing to pay". I don't know if I agree with that statement or if I think that the manufacturers are just trying to cover their tracks. I feel, as a consumer, that I have no idea what I'm getting when I buy products. I also am kind of lazy and don't make an extreme effort to check where the product I am buying is manufactured. Maybe I should start doing that though. But, at the same time, the manufacturers or the companies that sell those products should make a little bit more effort to protect or inform the consumers rather than ignore them and hope they don't start a lawsuit later. I also thought it was very characteristic of the US government to begin to research the problem of exporting e-waste to "get an idea of the problem's global scope," rather than doing something concrete about it.

Labor Testimony

Kernaghan's report describes all the abuses that Chinese factories routinely do. He gives examples of specific toys/companies (Barbie, Speedo) that have factories in China and what kind of abuses they do. He tells how much pay the workers are docked, how much overtime pay is denied them, and how much the finished product is marked up. He explains what the company spends thier money on because they obviously do not spend that money on their workers' well-being. His lists of these abuses and the money and percentages of wages denied to workers became very repetitive very quickly. Simply giving an example of one or two specific products and the abuses those companis practice and then listing other companies that do the same thing would have been just as effective.

Kernaghan makes the very apt point that American consumers would be horrified if they knew the way the products were made and how little the factory owners regard human rights. He then goes on to say that the reason American consumers don't know these practices is because the companies that own theses factories do everything in their power to keep this information hidden. I personally am horrified by these practices, but most of the ability to change these practices lies with the consumer; if the consumer is ignorant of these practices and has no viable option but to purchase those products, not much change for the better can occur. Which is just the way these companies want to keep it. Also, Kernaghan states that there is more than enough money in the companies' vaults to change their practices to adopt more humane ones, but the practices remain hidden and the profits increase, so the company has absolutely zero incentive to spend money on changing their practices. Without major incentive, these companies will just continue to pocket the profit they make, it is naive to think that they will be inspired to change their ways because they have obviously made the conscious decision to operate inhumane factories.

Cheek- Living with Reform and "China Blue"

Since the new economic reforms in 1989, China has fractured into several different classes of citizens. The first class is the rich, who have amassed great wealth and luxury and make up a tiny percentage of the population. The next class is the middle class, who can afford to have an apartment and education for their children, some consumer items, and family vacations. These two classes have a tentative hold on the class conflict situation, but are fearful of the lower classes. The next class is the working class, who can barely afford to live and are very wary of layoffs and unemployment. This class is volitile and prone to protests, but that's only because they know they should be treated better. The final class is the underclass of migrant workers composed of people from rural areas who move to the cities to find work, who have absolutely no rights and are forced to work in apallingly horrible conditions for practically nonexistent pay. All of these classes are exclusive, isolated, fearful of the other classes and are quickly becoming more and more seperate from each other. If you are in one class there is no way for you to advance to the next higher class, there is no opportunity to do so.

Some of these conditions were highlighted in the movie "China Blue". Jasmine, a young girl from a rural province, moves to the city to work in a factory. The movie shows how much they are forced to work, how their pay is cut for any reason, and how they are absolutely mistreated by the management. What sickened me the most was that the owner of the factory actually thought he was helping out the migrant workers because they were subhuman enough to need that kind of atmosphere in order to work and that they wouldn't know any better. Also, there are labor and minimum wage laws in China, but no one follows them because they wouldn't be able to compete with other factories if they did. The workers work for more than 15 hours a day in terrible conditions, with little food and no rest and make only several cents a day. I can barely believe that the factory owners and the government can rationalize this kind of treatment, it is absolutely awful.

Amnesty International Report and Internet Censorship In China

The claims that companies like Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google are making are absolutely abhorrent. Those companies should actually be making an effort to comply with international human rights standards rather than caving to the Chinese government at the slightest "law". I understand that internet companies are a little nebulous and illusory to be making huge, obvious stances for human rights, but they can do better than they have been doing. Their reaction is very typical of corporate America: just blame someone else and you won't have to actually do anything to remedy the situation. This reaction frustrates me because I am more ideologically and honor driven than economicly driven; I could never be the CEO of a multi-national corporation. Also, I know that some aspects of human rights complicate the market economic system, but some things are more important than profit. Like freedom of expression. Sure, some information is better than none, but freedom of information is better than partial information.

Foreign companies should comply with local laws. That being said, the Chinese Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and also states that "information cannot be disseminated which is against the principles of the Constitution." But the Chinese government pushes the companies to censor themselves. How much does the Chinese Constitution even mean, since the government is contradicting itself? By the government contradicting itself in this manner, it is impossible for the companies to know which "laws" to follow. Therefore, the companies should follow thier own codes of conduct (or even the laws of their home countries), which doesn't seem to be the case. Basically, the companies will do whatever they think will cause the least outcry, or whatever they think they can get away with.

Tiananmen Movement Video

The Chinese government feared a worker's rebellion more than they feared a student movement, basically because the party had come to power decades earlier because of a worker's movement. Once everyday citizens and workers became involved in the Tiananmen Square events, the government began to fear for their own power and cracked down on the protesters. The Tiananmen Square events forced the Chinese government to address (or appear to address) some of the issues important to the protesters. In order to do this, the government had to offer either economic reform or political reform. They would never reform politically so the only real option was economic reform: free-market capitalism.

This refom led to a huge rift opening between the wealthy and the workers. There are now two Chinas: the metropolitan, modern cities and the underdeveloped rural areas. The modern cities have benefitted from the economic reforms while the rural farming areas- which cover a majority of China- have slipped farther away from modernity. People from the rural areas move to the cities to work for the factories and get paid (if they get paid) the most minimal wages possible and then are forced to leave the cities before they can even benifit form the modernity of the cities. All of this migrant worker population is sinking farther and farther away from the wealth, prosperity, and growth that the factory owners and other wealthy people are experiencing. This split is causing increasing social unrest that the government doesn't know how to handle. This problem runs deeper than the government cares to acknowledge and this social unrest can only get worse before any solution will be attempted.

Activist Websites

When I looked at the www.freechina.net, I was intrigued to see that they had a whole news section for the US Congress article links that pertained to China. There was also a section for UN news links, but that made more sense to me because the UN is an international body. The US Congress is not. But the US Congress is important to Chinese government because there is a direct reactionary relation between US and Chinese policies and actions. All of the news stories from the section from China were about activists who had been imprisioned, why they were imprisioned, and how they were treated when they were imprisioned. No stories like these would have been even hinted at on the documentary we watched in class. These stories show how repressive and authoritarian the Chinese government really is; the face of the government they really don't want people to see. Some of the other stories are about different political events, but most are examples and reactions to how repressive the Chinese government really is. These stories are not really very well sourced, they seem more like word-of-mouth horror stories, they could be exaggerated to fuel the anti-authoritarian-government movement. But they probably have some basis in fact, the Chinese government doesn't have the best track record on human rights.

* My post was a bit later than intended because the internet in my apartment has been being finicky all week, tonight was no exception. Sorry if this messed up your reading schedule.

Pei- China Is Paying the Price of Rising Social Unrest

China is facing increased social unrest. Social tensions are rising because China is trying to become competitive (or more competitive) in the global market, which is not a simple task. As the government tries to change policies, those policies effect different groups of people, and those people protest the policies. But the government in Beijing is unwilling to address all those problems, which has led to an "unresponsive authoritarian political system with few pressure valves." There is a lot of corruption, which is not a new problem for the Chinese government, for example, when Mao first instituted communist reforms to the Chinese economy, the surplus products of labor were not divided equally because they were distributed according to who contributed more originally, meaning that more wealthy peasants still came out ahead of the less well off peasants.

The economy has also always been a volatile factor that the Chinese government has fought to control. The first communist economic controls instituted in the 1950s led to major famines from 1959-1962 (Guthrie, pg 34). More recently, the extremely fast economic growth rate that China has had for the past couple decades is causing other social strains because the problems that come from that level of growth are being ignored: "environmental degradation, a collapsing public health system and neglect for the poor," to name a few. These problems that stem from economic growth are the root of most of the social unrest that China is feeling. In order for the social unrest to be lessened, the government needs to be willing to compromise on some economic aspects, a course of action that an authoritarian government is not inclined to take.

Klare- Revving Up the China Threat & Zhang- Discourses of Security in China

According to Klare, the "China Threat" is directly related to oil consumption and the competition for more reserves. There are other factors, like China's modernization of their military, but China's increasing oil consumption is the main reason China is making security strategists in Washington uncomfortable. He also blames "conservative strategists" who seek to keep the US as the supreme global military power, a sort of Cold War type mentality that Zhang also mentions.

Zhang states that "China is a rising power", " the Chinese state today has a profound sense of insecurity", and "China is still percieved as a major problematic for regional and global security" as reasons why there is a perceived "China threat". The fact that China is a rising power threatens the Unite States' sense of security because Chinese capabilities might surpass the US's capabilities in the near future if their expansion trends continue. Zhang also states that "China has recently experienced a fundamental transformation from an isolated revolutionary power to an increasingly globalized state" which makes its actions new to the global stage. He also explains that any political move America makes that effects China, whether obviously or subtly, forces China to shift their own policy to react to the move the US made. This then causes China to seem like their resoning is faulty or less formed than it should be. But most of these problems would be solved if the US decided to be less obviously aggressive or "hawk"ish in their foreign affairs.

Cha- Countdown to Beijing & Beeson- the Weight of History

The two main themes from Cha's excerpt are the fact that the Olympics has always been a political event and the Beijing Olympics are no different and that China has been trying to change its image and policies in light of the scrutiny the Olympic Games brings. These two themes overlap- the international scrutiny that the Olympics brings only illuminates the political issues that China has.

China wants the Beijing games to show how much ecomonic and political progress they have made in the past century. China wants the Beijing Olympics the show that China is no longer the "sick man" of Asia and is now a modern nation. But China might not be as modernized as it wants to be. Cha explains how China has built a new airport, torn down "hutong" neighborhoods, banned one million cars from the city, and planted trees to absorb carbon dioxide in an attempt to show modernization and improve itself for the Games. But some of these "fixes" seem to be short term, rather than long term fixes that would make China truly modern.

Cha states that "Beijing must find a way to join its controlled and closed political system with the classical liberal ideas of individualism, open competition, and respect for human dignity embodied in the Olympics." This shows how China's political issues and ideas are coming under scrutiny because of the Olympic Games and that China must find a way to improve their politics. Cha states that China has cooperated with North Korea and Iran over climate issues because it helps China's interests and not because of Olympic ideals. He also thinks that "movement on trade, currency reform, and product safety would reflect Beijing's interests in avoiding trade wars" rather than shifting towards more "Olympic" ideals. Cha also describes how China is under pressure to change some of their human rights issues and their foreign policy. China has codified the state's constitutional responsibility to safeguard and respect human rights, which is an embracing of Olympic ideals. Also, China had been under scrutiny because it sells arms to and buys oil from Sudan while ignoring the ongoing genocide in Darfur, but it has recently begun cooperating with the UN instead of continuining its previous trade practices. these small gains show how China is willing to change policy in order to be more representative of the Olympics.

Cha also mentions how the 1988 Games in Seoul and the 1964 Games in Tokyo were a catalyst for change in both Korea and Japan. The 1988 Games in Seoul showcased South Korea's rapid economic growth and prosperity and the 1964 Games in Tokyo shifted Japan away from a wartime mentality. Cha thinks that the 2008 Beijing Games have the potential to do similar things for China. Of course, China wants the 2008 Games to show how prosperous and economically sound they are and to transition China into an era of more positive international cooperation. Cha states that the 2008 Beijing Olympics is the third time since 1896 that the Summer Olympics were held in Asia. Because of that statistic, the Beijing Games hold even more significance for China's international relations and will really become a way for China to prove that they are modernized and capable of being an important part of world politics.

Beeson mentions several times how competitive China and Japan are. This competitiveness shows how much pressure Beijing is under because of the Olympic Games, especially because Japan hosted the Games in 1964 when China was a communist state that wouldn't have been able to host the Olympics themselves. Much of the preparations that China is taking now are a reaction to the competition that exsists between China and Japan.