scholarly journals Someone else’s chain, someone else’s road: U.S. military strategy, China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and island agency in the Pacific

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 13-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sasha Davis ◽  
Lexi A. Munger ◽  
Hannah J. Legacy
Keyword(s):  
Free Association ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Belt And Road ◽  
Rising China ◽  
Sphere Of Influence ◽  
Zero Sum ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Western Pacific

The islands of the western Pacific have increasingly been portrayed by policymakers, military strategists, journalists, and scholars as places caught between a rising China and traditional powers such as the United States and their allies. In this article, however, we aim to challenge the geopolitical view of islands as ‘falling’ into the sphere of influence of one power or another. Specifically, we use an approach informed by assemblage theory to highlight the ways that islands in the Pacific simultaneously engage with multiple powers and their associated political, economic, and social influences. To ground our argument, we discuss two ‘great power’ schemes that aim to bring islands in the region into specific relational configurations: U.S. ‘littoral defense lines’ and China’s Belt Road Initiative. We also include a brief case study of Chinese tourism investment in Yap Island (Wa‘ab) in the Federated States of Micronesia (which is a state in ‘free association’ with the U.S.). Through these examples, we show how influence in the island Pacific is not a zero-sum game between foreign powers vying for hegemony. Instead, from an island perspective, residents and policymakers are attempting to weave together and navigate multiple foreign influences in ways that frustrate colonial and neocolonial logics of international relations.

scholarly journals The Geopolitical Context of Chamorro Cultural Preservation in Guam, U.S.A.

2012 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria-Elena D. Diaz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Free Association ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Preservation ◽  
Limited Resources ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Multicultural Society ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Island Territory

An unincorporated Pacific Island territory of the United States, Guam has been under American rule since 1 898. While proudly “Chamorro,” the descendants of indigenous islanders have been American citizens since 1 950. U.S. foreign policy, Americanization of island institutions, immigration flows from Asia and Micronesia, and economic uncertainty present challenges to the perpetuation of Chamorro culture-a syncretic blend of indigenous, Spanish, and American influences that has endured through centuries of foreign domination. As a gateway from the East to the United States and a frequent destination for Micronesian immigrants from the Compacts of Free Association, Guam regularly receives immigrants from Asia and other Micronesian islands. Many immigrants arrive on Guam to fill labor shortages as professionals or construction workers, while others arrive with limited resources and skills that don't easily transfer across cultures. Adding to this mix, a major U.S. military build-up is underway to transform Guam into a forward base in the Pacific. This article provides a case study of Guam through an overview of historical influences on Chamorro culture, a description of the island's contemporary multicultural society, and a discussion of current geopolitical and social forces impacting Chamorro culture in the land “where America's day begins.”

Higher Learning int eh Pacific

2011 ◽  
pp. 248-273
Author(s):  
Kirk Johnson ◽  
Jonathan K. Lee ◽  
Rebecca A. Stephenson ◽  
Julius C.S. Cena
Keyword(s):  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Higher Learning ◽  
Pacific Region ◽  
Academic Goals ◽  
Central Focus ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
The University ◽  
The Western Pacific

This chapter provides an overview of particular issues of diversity and technology within an island university. The chapter’s central focus rests on the complexity of both concepts within the context of higher education in the Pacific. In particular, the chapter highlights both the challenges and opportunities that the university faces as it attempts to address the unique multicultural landscape of the Western Pacific region and its technological realities. It focuses on a capstone senior-level course as a case study, and explores the possibilities inherent in directly addressing issues of diversity and technology while at the same time accomplishing the course’s prescribed academic goals. The chapter concludes by outlining 10 important lessons learned from the experience that others can benefit from, and establishes the importance of such a capstone experience for both students and faculty alike.

scholarly journals Anticorruption as Transnational Law: The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, PRC Law, and Party Rules in China

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-279
Author(s):  
Matthew S Erie
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Global Market ◽  
Legal Analysis ◽  
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ◽  
Transnational Law ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Transnational Communities ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Extraterritorial Jurisdiction ◽  
Zero Sum

Abstract Corruption has been linked to urgent transnational problems, including, inter alia, market uncertainties, the undermining of democracy, economic disparity, religious extremism, and authoritarianism. As corruption is a global problem, it requires coordination across states’ anticorruption laws. Anticorruption thus provides grounds to reassess the promise and limits of transnational law. This Article examines the operation of anticorruption as transnational law across the corporate governance regimes of the United States and China, the world’s two largest economies. As opposed to perceptions that Washington and Beijing are engaged in a zero-sum game, anticorruption is a policy concern against which both states may rally. Inter-regulatory coordination is far from a frictionless process, however. Cross-border lawyers working on both sides of the Pacific engaged in anticorruption law are a type of transnational community and highlight these tensions. Lawyers apply standards in the 1977 U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the People’s Republic of China antibribery laws, and internal Chinese Communist Party rules to ensure their clients comply with multiple regimes. Ethnographic data shows that lawyers assess different regulatory environments, in this case, one of extraterritorial jurisdiction and the other characterized by a political campaign, in the course of advising multinational companies. The Article argues that lawyers’ roles are a lynchpin of these overlapping systems of compliance as their work operates to discipline corporations in China; nonetheless, lawyers’ position in the global legal market impacts what they deem to be “corrupt” and which rules apply. A focus on cross-border lawyers as transnational communities thus marries legal analysis with a contextual grounding in lawyers’ work, an approach that has merit for the study of comparative law more generally. The Article finds that given market pressures, in the area of anticorruption, trends show a preference for “bicultural lawyers,” those who are both embedded within transnational communities and respond to demands in the global market.

The Negotiations for the Future Political Status of Micronesia (1980-1984)

1984 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
pp. 484-497
Author(s):  
Arthur John Armstrong ◽  
Howard Loomis Hills
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Pacific Islands ◽  
Free Association ◽  
The United States ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Marshall Islands ◽  
Political Status ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
New States

Fourteen years of Micronesian political status negotiations culminated in 1983 with the final signature of the Compact of Free Association between the United States and the Governments of Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). Upon being approved in accordance with its terms and the constitutional processes of the signatory Governments, the Compact will establish bilateral relationships between the United States and the new states emerging from the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Approval of these future political status arrangements will also provide the basis for termination of the Trusteeship Agreement between the United States and the United Nations Security Council. The Compact defines an international political partnership between the United States and the freely associated states that is without precise precedent in international law or U.S. domestic practice. Under the Compact, each freely associated state will enjoy control over its internal affairs and its foreign relations, including competence to enter into international agreements. Mutual security arrangements, set forth in the Compact and its separate agreements, provide for a U.S. defense umbrella during the life of free association and long-term exclusion of third-country military forces, should any or all of the freely associated states opt for independence at some future date.

Future Warfare in the Western Pacific: Chinese Antiaccess/Area Denial, U.S. AirSea Battle, and Command of the Commons in East Asia

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Biddle ◽  
Ivan Oelrich
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western Pacific ◽  
New Era ◽  
Global Commons ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Sphere Of Influence ◽  
The Western Pacific ◽  
The U.S

Many analysts worry that improvements in Chinese missile, sensor, guidance, and other technologies will enable China to deny the U.S. military access to parts of the Western Pacific that the United States has long controlled. Although these “antiaccess, area denial” (A2/AD) capabilities are real, they are a geographically limited long-term threat. As both the United States and China deploy A2/AD capabilities, a new era will emerge in which the U.S. military no longer enjoys today's command of the global commons, but is still able to deny China military hegemony in the Western Pacific. In this new era, the United States will possess a sphere of influence around allied landmasses; China will maintain a sphere of influence over its own mainland; and a contested battlespace will cover much of the South and East China Seas wherein neither power enjoys wartime freedom of surface or air movement. This in turn suggests that the Chinese A2/AD threat to U.S. allies is real but more limited than often supposed. With astute U.S. choices, most U.S. allies in this new system will be imperfectly, but substantially, secure.

scholarly journals TURNKEY PROJECT DAN DINAMIKA PENGATURAN KETENAGAKERJAAN ASING DI INDONESIA

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 137
Author(s):  
Muhammad Badaruddin ◽  
Suciliani Octavia
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Investment ◽  
Foreign Worker ◽  
Foreign Workers ◽  
Infrastructure Development ◽  
Road Map ◽  
Project Scheme ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Belt And Road ◽  
Chinese Workers

China’s aggressiveness to conduct its belt and road initiatives through the Pacific Rim meets Presiden Joko Widodo’s ambition to attract foreign investment. The Indonesian President has been very ambitious in reaching high economic growth that requires readiness of infrastructure support. In dealing with China, Indonesia is required to accept China’s turnkey project scheme for infrastructure development, particularly in welcoming Chinese workers and equipments as an integral part of the project package. As a consequence, Indonesia has to loose its foreign worker regulation despite creating new contradictions with its domestic policy. This article is trying to investigate China’s funding and investment influence in Indonesia particularly in the foreign worker management during the period of President Joko Widodo Administration. The research conducted with qualitative method particularly the case study to analyze a sequential case in the field. Result of this research shows that the China’s turnkey project scheme impacts the foreign worker management in Indonesia. Our data displays pretty massive cases related to Chinese workers, extending from the violation of immigration regulation to the increase number of smuggling and other criminal activities. This research also highlight the indication that the Joko Widodo Administration tend to loose the Indonesian foreign worker regulations, as well as being less assertive in processing varous immigration cases which related to Chinese foreign workers. Moreover, the Jokowi administration has changed lots of regulations despite it has conflicting issues with the Law on Foreign Worker. On the other hand, the Parliament’s Special Committee on the Foreign Worker Issue has recommended the Jokowi Administration to pay more serious attention on cases related to the Chinese workers.   Keywords: Turnkey Project, Foreign Investment, Foreign Aid, Regulation on Foreign Worker, Illegal Foreign Worker     Abstrak   Agresivitas Pemerintah China dalam menjalankan belt and road initiatives ke berbagai negara yang terpetakan dalam road map-nya, bertemu dengan kepentingan Indonesia di bawah Pemerintahan Joko Widodo. Yakni ambisi untuk mengejar target pertumbuhan yang tinggi yang mempersyaratkan dibangunnya berbagai proyek infrastruktur sebagai penunjangnya. Pembangunan berbagai proyek tersebut membutuhkan ketersediaan anggaran yang cukup besar dalam waktu cepat. Salah satu strategi pemenuhannya adalah dengan mencari investasi maupun pinjaman luar negeri, terutama asal China yang secara koinsiden juga sedang agresif berekspansi. Kehadiran investasi dan pinjaman asal China di Indonesia dengan skema turnkey project ternyata menimbulkan ekses yang tidak sederhana. Skema tersebut menjadi salah satu pintu masuk tenaga kerja asal China melalui proyek-proyek infrastruktur yang ternyata menimbulkan permasalahan baru dalam pengaturan sektor ketenagakerjaan asing (TKA) di Indonesia. Irisan fenomena dari keinginan untuk merealisasikan proyek infrastruktur secara cepat, kebutuhan anggaran yang cukup tinggi terhadap pendanaan proyek dari China, dan kekurangsiapan dalam pengaturan masuknya tenaga kerja asing adalah fokus dari penelitian yang hasilnya penulis tuangkan dalam artikel ini. Dari penelitian yang dilakukan, terdapat peningkatan berbagai kasus yang terkait dengan kehadiran TKA asal China, antara lain adalah penyalahgunaan visa, penyalahgunaan status kerja, sampai pada meningkatnya angka penyelundupan dan tindak kriminalitas. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode kualitatif dengan menganalisis secara triangular beberapa data yang didapatkan melalui wawancara terhadap narasumber primer, pengolahan dokumen-dokumen resmi, analisis terhadap berbagai literatur dan pemberitaan media massa.   Kata Kunci: Turnkey Project, Investasi Asing, Pinjaman Asing, Tenaga Kerja Asing, Peraturan Ketenagakerjaan

Preparing the South Pacific for U.S. Influence: The uss Narragansett in Samoa, 1872

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-28
Author(s):  
Kenneth J. Blume
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Business Leaders ◽  
New Wave ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Naval Officers ◽  
The U.S

This article explores the diplomatic negotiations that U.S. Navy Commander Richard W. Meade conducted in Samoa in 1872. The resulting agreement that came to be known as “the Meade Treaty” was the first the United States negotiated with Samoa, but scholars usually have not explored the details of it and the process that produced it because the U.S. Senate rejected the treaty. Meade’s motivations and actions in Samoa provide a case study in how the interactions of naval officers, business leaders, islanders, and diplomats converged to produce early U.S. diplomacy in the Pacific. The article sketches the situation in Samoa in 1872 when Commander Meade and his ship, the uss Narragansett, arrived. The role of the United States in the Pacific was changing in the last third of the 19th Century, and Commander Meade’s motivations, influences, and actions illustrate the new wave of U.S. Pacific expansion during the years after the American Civil War.

Soviet Strategy, Opportunities, and Constraints in Southwestern Asia

1984 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 182-211
Author(s):  
Keith A. Dunn
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Third World ◽  
The United States ◽  
Major Elements ◽  
Central Focus ◽  
Soviet Invasion ◽  
Pahlavi Dynasty ◽  
The Third World ◽  
Zero Sum ◽  
Political Economic

AbstractThe collapse of the Pahlavi dynasty and Soviet invasion of Afghanistan have combined to focus the attention of the United States upon Southwestern Asia. One of the most important current issues in U. S. defense planning is: how can the United States best secure its interests in Southwestern Asia?1 Part of the answer lies in identifying U. S. constraints and then attempting to solve shortfalls in U. S. strategy, forces, and regional relations. Those issues have been examined elsewhere and are not the central focus of this article. Another part of the answer lies in understanding what are Soviet interests, objectives, and major elements of strategy toward the Third World in general and specifically Southwestern Asia. What opportunities and advantages does Moscow have in the region? And, finally, are there political, economic, and military factors which would constrain future Soviet behavior in Southwestern Asia? These are the questions this study will analyze in an attempt to demonstrate that the United States is not competing in Southwestern Asia in a zero-sum game where Moscow holds all the aces.

scholarly journals China in the Pacific Islands: Shaping a Community of Shared Future

2018 ◽  
Vol 04 (03) ◽  
pp. 419-437
Author(s):  
Jiarui Liang
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Islands ◽  
Pacific Island ◽  
Belt And Road Initiative ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Cultural Relations ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Belt And Road ◽  
Pacific Island Countries ◽  
Political Economic

Separated by the vast Pacific Ocean, China and Pacific Island countries have been interlinked through vigorous ocean diplomacy which helps strengthen their political, economic and cultural relations. Based upon common perceptions and with new momentum generated under China’s “Belt and Road Initiative (BRI),” both sides can join hands in building a community of shared future for their mutual benefits. With regard to the cultural diversity, colonial history, group identity and various legitimate concerns of Pacific Island countries, China needs to adopt a more comprehensive and pragmatic approach in order to achieve win-win cooperation.

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