Reprint from Living with China: U.S.-China Relations in the Twenty-First Century (New York: W.W.Norton, 1997).
Published as part of the "America's Alliances with Japan and Korea in a Changing Northeast Asia" Research Project.
China’s performance in numerous environmental areas—emission of greenhouse gases, use of ozone-depleting substances, reduction of sulphur dioxide emissions, or exploitation of fishing grounds in the western Pacific—will help determine the success of various global and regional environmental protection efforts. And as the World Bank’s recent study Clear Water, Blue Skies: China’s Environment in the New Century documents, the quality of life within China will be greatly affected by efforts to protect air, water, and soil, all of which are under heavy assault.
Ever since 1973, when Premier Zhou Enlai attended the United Nations–sponsored Stockholm Conference, the Chinese government has paid steadily increasing attention to environmental issues. It has joined many international accords, passed numerous environmental protection laws, and established a national environmental protection bureaucracy. On the surface, at least, there has been considerable movement. But how about beneath the surface?
With regard to its international commitments and agreements, what is the record to date? Why does China join international environmental accords? What happens domestically once it enters into an agreement? And what lessons can both China and the international community derive from the record to date? What factors encourage and inhibit effective implementation and compliance? What measures can be undertaken to improve the record?
This paper addresses these questions through an examination of China’s accession to and compliance with five environmental protection treaties: the Convention in Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in January 1981; the London Convention against Ocean Dumping in October 1985; the World Heritage Convention in December 1985; the International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA) in July 1986; and the Montreal Protocol in June 1992.
The paper is part of a multi-nation study under the direction of Professor Edith Brown Weiss of George Washington University Law School and Professor Harold Jacobson of the University of Michigan Political Science Department comparing compliance with these same treaties in the United States, Russia, Brazil, India, Japan, the Cameroons, and portions of Europe. The MIT Press is publishing the results of these studies under the title Engaging Countries: Strengthening Compliance with International Environmental Accords.
By almost any criterion of success—be it cost-effectiveness, risk-reward ratio, multiplier
effects, or sheer longevity, the Japan America Security Alliance (JASA) stands out as one of
the most successful alliances in twentieth century history. For the United States, chief
architect of a global network of military relationships, JASA is arguably the most important
of its many bilateral alliances. In terms of historic impact, JASA is comparable to the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a multilateral alliance that restructured the European
security landscape in 1949. For nearly a half-century, JASA and NATO have functioned
as the bedrock on which the Cold War security systems of Asia and Europe have been
constructed.
Published as part of the "America's Alliances with Japan and Korea in a Changing Northeast Asia" Research Project.
This study examines the likely security consequences of the continued growth in energy consumption in East Asia, and in particular:
security.
dependencies and insecurities.
The study concludes that:
1. Energy supplies for East Asian economic growth, as well as for other anticipated energy needs in the world, can be available at prices that will not set growth back provided that international markets for fuels, exports, technologies, and capital continue to operate.
2. The main source of insecurity connected with energy use will be the anticipation, on the part of countries partially or wholly dependent on imports of fuels and energy technologies, of political developments that would interfere with either energy-related imports or the exports needed to pay for them.
3. Economic and technical solutions to the problems posed by economic and energy consumption growth in East Asia and elsewhere, and by their regional and global environmental impacts, exist if the political framework is available to carry them out. Seeking out and implementing those solutions would serve U.S. leadership and prosperity. As a result, a principal goal of U.S. policies will be to make politically possible the combination of economic and security policies needed to provide that framework. These policies are highly interactive: failure of economic policies, or even misperception of the nature and impact of economic policies, can greatly heighten security problems.
Reprint from Behind East Asian Growth, edited by Henry S. Rowen (London: Routledge, Inc., 1998).
Reprint from Journal of Far Eastern Business originally printed Autumn, 1994.
Reprint from The National Interest (Summer 1997).
Published as part of the "America's Alliances with Japan and Korea in a Changing Northeast Asia" Research Project.
Published as part of the "America's Alliances with Japan and Korea in a Changing Northeast Asia" Research Project.
