Explore the vast range of titles available.

With nearly twenty-five million citizens, a secretive totalitarian dictatorship, and active nuclear and ballistic missile weapons programs, North Korea presents some of the world's most difficult foreign policy challenges. For decades, the United States and its partners have employed multiple strategies in an effort to prevent Pyongyang from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. Washington has moved from the Agreed Framework under President Bill Clinton to George W. Bush's denunciation of the regime as part of the \"axis of evil\" to a posture of \"strategic patience\" under Barack Obama. Given that a new president will soon occupy the White House, policy expert Walter C. Clemens Jr. argues that now is the time to reconsider US diplomatic efforts in North Korea. InNorth Korea and the World, Clemens poses the question, \"Can, should, and must we negotiate with a regime we regard as evil?\" Weighing the needs of all the stakeholders -- including China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea -- he concludes that the answer is yes. After assessing nine other policy options, he makes the case for engagement and negotiation with the regime. There still may be time to freeze or eliminate North Korea's weapons of mass destruction. Grounded in philosophy and history, this volume offers a fresh road map for negotiators and outlines a grand bargain that balances both ethical and practical security concerns.

KCI Citation Count: 0

The future of civilization could be determined by a China that exceeds the United States not only in numbers of people but also in gross domestic product (as measured by purchasing power parity) and in its mastery of high-speed trains and some other technologies. China now plays a larger role in international trade than the United States. China is the only major economy to record positive growth in the year when COVID-19 challenged most of humanity. What will be the geopolitical consequences of a world economy suffering the most severe downturn since the Great Depression and with US GDP shrinking by 4.3 percent while China grows by almost 2 percent (Allison 2020)?Retired Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani asks, Has China Won? He cautions both Beijing and Washington not to underestimate— or overestimate—the other. While many forces push them onto a collision course, theirs need not be a zero-sum conflict. Mahbubani asserts that while Americans claim to prize individual freedom and decisiveness, Chinese value freedom from chaos and patience. America is becoming a society of lasting inequality, while, he says (ignoring huge inequalities and corruption), China is an aspiring meritocracy. The Trump presidency abandoned multilateralism, while Beijing’s rulers claim to welcome it. Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative reaches into every continent, branding itself as a global public good, though critics term it a new version of self-seeking imperialism.Mahbubani says that the US-China relationship is like yin and yang—opposites but interdependent. The United States and China are joined by what he calls five “noncontradictions” that permit and encourage cooperation (pp. 261–279). First, Chinese and US “interests” do not really conflict. The fundamental national interest of both societies should be to improve the well-being of their people. Less military spending and more domestic investment would benefit each country. Second, unless all large powers act to slow climate change, all living beings will suffer. Third, neither side makes ideological claims on the other, as did the Soviet Union and the United States: Chinese power—not “communism”—is what China’s neighbors fear. Fourth, the China-US “clash” is not between civilizations. Both countries have inherited much of the Enlightenment dedication to reason and its use to improve societal well-being. Fifth, their values are different but need not clash, Mahbubani contends. Chinese value social harmony and Americans individual rights. If each side has treated Muslims poorly (as in Xinjiang and Guantánamo), each should try to clean up its own act and not hector the other.

A review essay on books by 1) Kent E. Calder, Super Continent: The Logic of Eurasian Integration (2019); 2) Jiwei Ci, Democracy in China: The Coming Crisis (2019); & 3) Mara Hvistendahl, The Scientist and the Spy: A True Story of China, the FBI, and Industrial Espionage (2020).

Actors on the world stage often behave in ways they hope will enhance their material interests, but intangibles also play a role—not just feelings and ideals but also memories of pain and pleasure. Blends of tangible and intangible factors probably shape the behavior of most individuals and larger entities—communities, businesses, nongovernmental bodies, and governments. For more than a century, most US citizens have forgotten whatever pains earlier Americans suffered when dealing with the British Empire. Many Americans have also pushed away the factual record of how many whites treated (and still treat) Native Americans, Afro-Americans, Asians and other non-whites. But memories of negative experiences linger in other parts of the world, including East Asia. Even in the United States, some elderly Chinese living in their adopted land do not forget trying to save their own lives, cattle, and other possessions from Japanese invaders in World War II. Some of these individuals refuse to buy a Honda or Toyota no matter how highly they are rated by Consumer Reports.

A review essay covering books by 1) Stephen Little and Virginia Moon (Eds.), Beyond the Line. The Art of Korean Writing (2019), 2) John Henry Rice and Jeffrey S. Durham, Awaken: A Tibetan Buddhist Journey toward Enlightenment (2019), 3) John Carpenter (Ed.), The Tale of Genji: A Japanese Classic Illuminated (2019) and 4) Forrest McGill (Ed.), The Rama Epic: Hero, Heroine, Ally, Foe (2016).

This is a review essay covering books by 1) Bill Hayton, The Invention of China (2020), 2) Jonathan E. Hillman, The Emperor's New Road: China and the Project of the Century (2020), 3) Maria Adele Carrai, Jean-Christophe Defraigne and Jan Wouters (Eds.), The Belt and Road Initiative and Global Governance (2020) and 4) Clyde Prestowitz, The World Turned Upside Down: America, China, and the Struggle for Global Leadership (2021).

Why did some countries transition peacefully from communist rule to political freedom and market economies, while others did not? Why did the United States enjoy a brief moment as the sole remaining superpower, and then lose power and influence across the board? What are the prospects for China, the main challenger to American hegemony? In Complexity Science and World Affairs, Walter C. Clemens Jr. demonstrates how the basic concepts of complexity science can broaden and deepen the insights gained by other approaches to the study of world affairs. He argues that societal fitness—the ability of a social system to cope with complex challenges and opportunities—hinges heavily on the values and way of life of each society, and serves to explain why some societies gain and others lose. Applying theory to several rich case studies, including political developments across post–Soviet Eurasia and the United States, Clemens shows that complexity science offers a powerful set of tools for advancing the study of international relations, comparative government, and, more broadly, the social sciences.

Soviet and East European documents provide significant revelations about the interactions of North Korea and its allies. First, they show Pyongyang's longstanding interest in obtaining nuclear technology and probably nuclear weapons. Second, they reveal that North Korea's leadership consistently evaded commitments to allies on nuclear matters—particularly constraints on its nuclear ambitions or even the provision of information. Third, North Korea's words and deeds evoked substantial concerns in Moscow and other communist capitals that Pyongyang, if it obtained nuclear weapons, might use them to blackmail its partners or risk provoking a nuclear war. When aid from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was not forthcoming, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea sought to bypass Moscow and obtain assistance from the Kremlin's East European clients and, when that proved fruitless, from Pakistan. The absence of international support reinforced the logic of self-reliance and “military first,” pushing North Korea to pursue an independent line with respect to its nuclear weapons. These patterns cannot be extrapolated in a linear way, but they surely suggest reasons for caution by those hoping to engage North Korea in a grand bargain.

“What kind of government is this?” Bella Zhang, a 25-year old perfume saleswoman with tinted blue hair asked as she sat outside a Wuhan hospital in February 2020 with her mother and younger brother, all three hooked to intravenous drips attached to a tree branch. Since the hospital had no free beds, the whole family was quarantined at home, but visited the hospital for medication. An epidemic could begin in any country, but not every political regime would labor to suppress news of its emergence (although the US president and Iran’s top leaders downplayed its dangers).1 One saving grace for China was that its system could build new hospitals nearly overnight and regulate population movement to limit contagion. Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; Turning and turning in the widening gyre The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. The book contains sixty figures and tables illustrating such variables as “Increase in Chinese National Income Generated by One Unit of Fixed-Asset Investment, 1981–2012” and “China’s Gini Coefficient in Comparative Perspective.”