Chinese checkers in Central Asia

FRANCOIS GODEMENT, JérôME Doyon, Jean-Pierre Cabestan, Marie-Hélène Schwoob, Martina Bassan of the Asia Centre, Sciences Po, analyze content in Chinese language publications in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan to argue that Central Asia with a population of 66 million and source of more than 10 percent of China's oil and gas imports was fast becoming a laboratory for Chinese foreign policy.

In a China Analysis article for the European Council for Foreign Relations, "The New Great Game in Central Asia", they state that Beijing had set its sights on Central Asia as it became increasingly important as a lower-risk source of oil and gas, a market for consumer goods and core of the Shanghai Co-operation Organization (SCO). They state that Beijing could play an increasing role in Central Asian geopolitics by mobilising its oil companies and forex reserves to counterbalance the influence of Washington and Tokyo in the energy sector and integrate further into the infrastructure and transportation sector.

EU's Strategic Partnerships

ANNE SCHMIDT of the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (German Institute for International and Security Affairs) reviews the debate on 'strategic partnerships' within the EU in the wake of the guiding principles drawn up for the strategic partnership format. In a working paper for SWP, "Strategic Partnerships – a contested policy concept", she reviews recent publications within the EU to recommends that the EU itself had to develop into a strategic actor and achieve  the stated goal of effective multilateralism as well as reconciling the EU’s broad normative concerns with its narrower interests.

Dìyuán zhèngzhì

FRANCOIS GODEMENT, director at Asia Centre, Sciences Po, analyzes content in Chinese language publications in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan to state that Beijing's defensive and cautious approach based on conflict avoidance was a temporary strategy intended to be applied while it rose and it would run its writ unconstrained once its ascent was complete. In a China Analysis article for the European Council for Foreign Relations, "Geopolitics on Chinese terms", he states that the concept of Beijing as a responsive stakeholder was getting outdated since it was not interested in norm-setting beyond the principle of non-interference and that the Chinese strategic community itself was in a state of flux with its focus to partnership driven more as a tactic to prevent its own strategic encirclement.

Liberal bloc

MARK LEONARD, Director at the European Council on Foreign Relations states that Beijing's diplomacy could be characterized as defensive multilateralism, where it joined international organizations such as the UN, WTO etc. to protect its own interests rather than to support the broader goals of those institutions and this approach had been relatively successful in changing the global order and reducing international pressure on states such as North Korea, Myanmar and Iran. In an op-ed in the Süddeutsche Zeitung,"How to deal with a more assertive China?", he calls for a more assertive Western approach that would preserve the liberal bias in the international system with the EU and the US acting in concert to break up illiberal international coalitions and focus on integrating states such as India, Indonesia, South Africa and Brazil into the liberal bloc.

Playing fair in Stockholm??

S. GANESAN, Chairman of the International Treaties Expert Committee at the Indian Chemical Council states that the EU was increasingly using the Stockholm Convention to apply trade restrictive measures on low-priced generics manufactured outside the EU and used its dominance in the decision-making committees to make unfair decisions disregarding due process. In a report "Deceitful Decisions at the Subsidiary Body of the Stockholm Convention", he chronicles how the EU dominance in the decision-making process flouted the rules of the Stockholm convention and cautions that accountability and due process had to be restored to ensure the survival of the Stockholm Convention.

Asia-Pacific Economic Security in the aftermath of the crisis of 2008

François Godement, fellow of the European Council on Foreign Relations, traces the origins of Asian regional integration cautioning that although China may be grooming its currency for capital convertibility and creating a modest role for the yuan as a reserve currency, economic security may not necessarily be improved due to China’s opacity and the fact that Asian currencies are as close to a dollar peg as they’ve ever been. In a paper for Institute for National Policy Research, Taiwan “Asia-Pacific Security in the context of global economic crisis”,  at the Asia-Pacific Security Forum 2009, he states that Asian based approach to enhanced economic security would be complementary to global approaches and would also involve expanded roles for Asian countries like China and India in international institutions.