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Asia's middle powers face a trilateral dilemma stemming from their relationships with the U.S. and China. This paper uses the Australian example to examine the dilemma. It shows that Australia has bound itself to the U.S. because of domestic political factors, cost considerations, a belief that it can keep its interests separate, and its perception of regional threats. The paper then argues that others are likely to resolve their trilateral dilemmas in ways that make the regional strategic dynamic more competitive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes China's impact on Australia-U.S. relations from 1949 to 1996, including how far Australia's China policy followed the American lead. The conclusion: American influence was dominant, but Australia's own initiative was enough to belie the suggestion that it was no more than a blind follower. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a critical overview of Australian, Chinese, and American perspectives on trilateralism, with a detailed discussion of Australian debates on the matter. Its aim is to trace the evolution of the changing discourse on the rise of China, examine major debates in Australia, and provide both an intellectual background and an overview for this special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ongoing reassessments in U.S. strategy in the Asia-Pacific have coincided with a major growth in Sino-Australian economic relations. The Australian-American alliance could be increasingly tested if U.S. policy planners are unsuccessful in generating more sensitive and proactive alliance security postures to ensure Australian support for key U.S. interests in the Asia-Pacific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the U.S. military's engagement with maintaining security in Taiwan and its evaluation of a possible Taiwan Strait crisis. Topics include how the U.S. became committed to resisting changes to Taiwan through the "Taiwan Relations Act" of 1979 and how U.S. military assessments consider the potential use of force by the People's Republic of China (PRC) against Taiwan. Additional information is presented on how the PRC will likely not attack if it believes it cannot deter the U.S. from defending Taiwan.

The Chinese Educational Mission (GEM) was one of the first efforts at "self strengthening," China's late nineteenth-century attempt at modernization. Beginning in 1872, the Qing government sent 120 boys to live and study in New England for extended periods. The mission was the brainchild of Yung Wing (1828-1912), known as a pioneering Chinese in America. This article contends that Zeng Laishun (ca. 1826-1895), the GEM'S original interpreter, was no less a pioneer. It examines Zeng's education in Singapore, New Jersey, and New York; his early career as, successively, a missionary assistant, a businessman, and a teacher at a naval school in China; his concurrent roles as the English translator for the GEM in the United States and (with his family) as a cultural interpreter of China to New England `s elite; and briefly, following his return to China in 1874, his association with Li Hongzhang as his chief English secretary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within international relations theory, there is significant disagreement on the nature and significance of leaders' dispute outcome preferences. While many variants of realism assume that such preferences are relatively fixed and homogeneous, both the liberal and the constructivist schools view them as significant variables. This debate remains unresolved because, for the standard large-sample conflict data sets, there are no direct measures of leadership preferences over outcomes in given types of international disputes. Using a conflict bargaining experiment, we ask whether, after controlling for the effects of relative power and initial conditions, leadership preferences have a statistically significant impact. We use two different country samples--from China and the United States--to examine whether the impact of leadership preferences varies internationally. We find that realist-style preferences are a special rather than a general case, and that such differences have significant implications for understanding continuities and changes in Chinese and US foreign policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the response by U.S.-educated Chinese to the international debate over the recognition of the Republic of China. In their private and public writings, these students viewed China’s struggle for recognition as part of the country’s bigger problem of securing allies in a world overpowered by imperialism and exploitation. While certain that the “monarchical powers” of Europe and Japan were using recognition as a tool to further extort the Chinese government, the students stressed that the United States could be counted on to stand up for China, based on the United States’ purported commitment to freedom and fairness. The question of recognition ultimately became a test of the Open Door Policy, which the students interpreted as a U.S. guarantee of Chinese sovereignty. This article provides a fresh interpretation of the recognition of the Chinese Republic while also reframing the Open Door by linking it to the notion of U.S. exceptionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In responding to China's rise, the best strategy for Australia involves a combination of accommodation and "soft balancing.'' The viability of this strategy is related to the extent to which U.S.-China relations are cooperative or conflictual. Recent Australian governments have been successful in implementing this preferred strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses conflicts over issues of sovereignty and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea (SCS), focusing on the involvement of the U.S. in the region in the 21st century. The author notes that countries such as the U.S., Japan, and India have interests in the SCS and highlights both diplomatic approaches to conflict and the building of military strength in order to address conflicts through force. The SCS is highlighted as a potential threat to maritime security, and multilateral efforts to address the issue by ASEAN are noted. Other topics include China's involvement in the region; a Code of Conduct on SCS disputes; and the 45th annual ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM) on July 9, 2012.

This article discusses the political and economic landscape of Vietnam during 2011. Topics include the macroeconomic imbalances caused by a lack of coherent government and their implications on public perception of the political leadership, the involvement of Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in the Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Group (VINASHIN) corruption scandal, and a Politburo structure indicating a break in Vietnamese Communist institutional norms that had a strong impact on Vietnam's foreign relations with the U.S. and China.

The article focuses on the important role of the predictions of the Dual Threats Model comprising the U.S. military response and the stability of North Korea on China's effort in formulating its response to North Korea's nuclear weapons provocations. It states that China's effort to prevent military conflicts on the Korean Peninsula is vital because peace and security in the region is important to ensure the country's continued economic growth. It mentions that the prospect of bolstered U.S. military activity cannot guarantee the country's support in confronting North Korea's misbehavior, because the fear of the instability in North Korea compels Beijing to refrain from exerting pressure on its troublesome fragile ally.

The article focuses on the 20th century author Pearl Buck. Buck's role in the 1943 repeal of a U.S. law restricting Chinese immigration to the U.S. is discussed, particularly the influence of the concept of "natural democracy" which was a theme of her 1930s novel "The Good Earth." Buck's argument that the Chinese devotion to family and rural life were a form of such "natural democracy" which expressed basic tenets of U.S. democracy is examined. It is noted that Buck's concept and "The Good Earth" were specifically cited by several of the U.S. legislators who supported the repeal of the law.

Washington has two long-term interests toward China: promoting a profitable, equitable economic relationship and managing Beijing's challenge to the U.S.-led international order. Although recent policy has achieved many tactical successes in these areas, the predominant record is one of broader strategic failure in the face of the rise of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why did the coolie's body speak so forcefully to nineteenth-century America of its future? And how did that body's loquacious, obscene ventriloquism shape the imaginary scaffolding of America's utopias, its science fictions? This essay answers those questions by reading Arthur Vinton's "Looking Further Backward" (1890), one of the first American novels to imagine a Chinese military invasion of the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]