Northeast Asia Forum is supervised by Ministry of Education of PRC, and sponsored by Jilin University. It is an authoritative academic journal, aiming to promote international cooperation, economic and trade, friendly exchanges, especially emphasizing on the strategic issues among Northeast Asian countries. Its scope covers studies in political, economic, historical, cultural, regional cooperation and international relations of Northeast Asia, and also lays stress on the development and new trends in all industries in Northeast Asian and Asia-Pacific areas.
The journal is included in CSSCI.
Editor-in-Chief Zhu Xianping
Deputy Editor-in-Chief Li Yingwu
Editorial Board Lowell Dittmer (U.S.); Lee Il-houng (ROK); Mikhail Titarenko (RUS); Davydov Andrey (RUS); Ogawa Yuhei(JAP); Wang Jisi; Zhu Xianping; Liu Jiangyong; Liu Debin; Li Junjiang; Li
During the G20 summit of 2016, the summit talk between China and Japan is the third time since the 2014 summit talks, providing new opportunities for the improvement of Sino-Japan relations. President Xi advocated the concept of “a community with shared future,” which has become the guiding principle for the development of Sino-Japan relations. Since March 2013, President Xi has been explaining the idea of “a community with shared future,” hoping to build a new blueprint for international fair and equitable order. The community with shared future, beyond the thinking of the great power in the Cold War, is a new proposition of the international order, and has a great guiding significance for the top-level design of Sino-Japan relations. In the future, China and Japan should take the “community with shared future” as the guiding ideology of the top-level design, try to go back to the “re-normal” development route of Sino-Japan relations, and together with the East Asian countries to promote consensus and build the Asian community with shared future.
After China and Russia jointly conferred the document of the docking of Silk Road Economic Belt and Eurasian Economic Union in May 2015, the strategy started with the platform-cooperating and mechanism-building and economic pragmatic cooperation. There will be both a series of favorable strategic support and a number of challenges to the docking of Silk Road Economic Belt and Eurasian Economic Union in the future. But overall, the strategy has a bright prospect. There will be a prospective improvement both in trade and transport facilitation, while the construction of the economic integration system and the preferential trade system will need a long process. The paper believes that in order to promote the docking of Silk Road Economic Belt and Eurasian Economic Union, the relative parties should find the convergence point and the greatest common divisor of cooperation under the premise of the real strategic interests of all the parties related. In addition to this, promoting the cooperation platform, mechanism construction, and economic pragmatic cooperation in parallel is also necessary. The Regional Comprehensive Eurasian Partnership (RCEP) will become a “golden key” to push forward the construction of free trade areas in the Asia-Pacific region if it can be built previously. While the preferential trade system is constructed actively, the improvement of the global multilateral trading system should be accelerated.
In recent years, G20 attaches great importance to climate change, and its role is increasingly indispensable. This importance is determined by its inherent attributes. First, the regime contains advocates of emission reduction like the EU. Second, national factions within the group are similar to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiation. Third, the issue of climate change which is repeatedly embedded in economic issues has become part of the process of institutionalization. In the external relations, the continuity of global climate governance context for G20 provides discussion and the formation of emission reduction actions in different time and space; interaction with the UNFCCC for G20 has maintained basically the same climate issues, such as responsibility and funding. As a result, G20 has gained momentum for continued participation in global climate change governance, which is reflected in its political commitment to negotiations under the UNFCCC framework, and the adoption of normative initiatives to shape climate governance and sustainable development to provide a new content and principle.
The beginning of the 21st century has witnessed a series of changes: the “derail” of US war on terror, the “fast development” of extremist terrorism, the “disorder” of the Middle East, the deteriorating Europe from “debt crisis” to “political crisis,” the US from getting out of the “trouble” of the Middle East to “pivot to Asia,” as well as the “rise” of China and the “revival” of Russia. They have all accelerated the endgame of the Eurasian geopolitical “grand chessboard” envisioned by Zbigniew Brzezinski in 1997, and demonstrated the formation of Sino-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership the world-order significance. The US President Donald Trump brings about new uncertainties to international relations, and Sino-Russian partnership starts to face the “Trump shock.” Both China and Russia need to withhold a firm strategic stance to “tame” the unbridled “Trump shock,” to make the compromise of the US and the West happen, and finally to realize a new strategic partnership with China and Russia for the formation of a brand new world order.
The “freedom of navigation in the South China Sea” is the “Sunday punch” of America’s Asia-Pacific rebalancing strategy towards China. Avoiding the trap of “freedom of navigation in the South China Sea” is a real challenge that China has to face in defending national sovereignty, maintaining international law, and realizing the dream of maritime power. America is conducting vessel or aircraft freedom of navigation operations under the guise of maintaining the “freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.” Its purpose is to maintain American hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region. The essence of the dispute between China and the U.S. over the freedom of navigation in the South China Sea is the competition of strategic contradictions and strategic interests between the maritime hegemon and the new-type maritime power. Its legal inducement is the cognitive differences on the principle of freedom of navigation. It is also the continuation of “Freedom of the Seas” of idealism and “Freedom of Navigation Program” of realism. The continuous fermentation of the “freedom of navigation in the South China Sea” issue can result in serious impacts on China’s maritime military security, expanding maritime strategic space and the public opinion environment of the rise in the sea. China should think of ways to solve the issue against the background of the maritime power strategy. Firstly, China should maintain strategic focus, and strive for the period of strategic opportunities to build itself into a maritime power. Secondly, China should strengthen the strategic dialogue with the U.S., and build a stable mechanism of freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. Thirdly, China should take diplomatic initiative in international public opinion, maritime legal order and regional maritime public goods, and promote the construction of islands and reefs in the South China Sea appropriately in a timely manner.
How Trump regime will change America’s Asia-Pacific rebalancing strategy has become the touchstone of American grand strategy. From the “Trump phenomenon,” the American isolationist trend indicates that America’s hegemonic thinking is changing. However, changes do not mean America’s strategic contraction. From the “Trump shock,” some new understanding and changes can be illustrated from the thinking pattern, consideration of strategic priority and approach of regional order in America’s Asia-Pacific policy. These new understanding and changes objectively determine that Trump will shift and remodel the Asia-Pacific rebalancing strategy. Overall, Trump regime’s adjustment is not just a simple revolution of the management pattern of Asia-Pacific area, but also a transition or diversion of America’s hegemonic logic and strategic conception.
Through taking the favorable opportunity of the Pacific regional market that is away from the influence of Europe and the sterling area, the United States has laid a solid foundation for the internationalization of the dollar through the construction of an internationalized regional market network. The dollar was promoted to be an internationalized currency in the region among regional monetary bloc flexibly formed in the regional market. On this basis, a game started between the dollar and the British pound. Due to the difficulty of the pound in maintaining credit and the adjustment of the international financial system, the United States has successfully made the dollar an internationalized currency around the globe. To smoothly achieve the internationalization of the RMB we need to learn from the case of the dollar, and build solid trade and financial networks in neighboring countries and regions in order to promote the RMB as a regional international currency. Based on domestic economic development and financial innovation, we can consolidate the RMB credit basis and enhance China’s international competitiveness. Through promoting the reform of international financial system, we can optimize the institutional environment of RMB internationalization and eventually promote the internationalization of the RMB through sustained, steady and orderly steps.
The Belt and Road Initiative, which has been a focus for China to deepen opening-up and participate in international economic cooperation and global economic governance, has received extensive attention from all over the world. However, there are also misunderstandings. Discussions on the theoretical basis of the Belt and Road Initiative is of great significance to evaluate, accommodate and make the initiative a platform to push global economic growth and share the fruit of China’s economic development. The theory of market failure in Marxism has laid a theoretical foundation for the Belt and Road Initiative.
