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The choice facing China today is whether it will follow the precedent set by Otto von Bismarck—which appears to be its stated goal—or whether it will (intentionally or unintentionally) follow the path of another German leader, Kaiser Wilhelm, and pursue a policy of military growth, territorial and/or maritime expansionism, and a relative disregard for the concerns of its neighbors. The South China Sea will be an important test case, an arena where China's choices will impact its relations with its neighbors and other great powers like the United States.

While China's rising power is certainly an important variable in Sino-Japanese relations, it cannot explain either why the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute broke out anew in the fall of 2012 or why the Chinese response was so strong. China read Japan's move to nationalize the islands as an in-your-face move designed to show disrespect for China and make Japan's sovereignty over the islands a fait accompli. In this article I borrow from Robert Putnam's notion of twolevel games to argue that there are two levels of face politics going on in this case: one between domestic actors in Japan and in China, the other between the two countries. A solution to the territorial dispute can only be found when both sides' “face needs” are recognized and met at both levels of analysis.

This article brings an international relations perspective to the discussion of the science and policy of avoiding a Sino-US arms race in space. A blind adherence to realist and space nationalist assumptions, without considering alternative approaches such as the policy options offered here, will likely doom China and the United States to a long, expensive, and potentially dangerous arms race in space for decades to come. KEYWORDS: US-China relations, arms control, space security, Chinese military, international relations, East Asian security. "WHO CONTROLS LOW-EARTH ORBIT CONTROLS NEAR-EARTH SPACE.WHO controls near-Earth space dominates Terra [Earth and atmosphere]. Who dominates Terra dominates the destiny of humankind. . . . The United States is the morally superior choice to seize and control space" (Dolman 2002, 2005). Statements such as Everett Dolman's embody an approach to space security that makes war and conflict in space almost inevitable, and they certainly have ominous implications for the future of Sino-US relations.Most experts on space security agree that space has not been weaponized to date (O'Hanlon 2004; Moltz 2008), and while terrestrial weapons can strike space assets and while space assets are used in targeting for terrestrial weapons with terrestrial targets, there are as of yet no weapons located in space, whether those of China or the United States. Yet how long can this last?While five of the six previous articles in this collection are authored by physicists or engineers with technical expertise in matters of space weaponry (Grego, Shen, Chen, Wu, and Gubrud), this article is an attempt to bring a political science/international relations (IR) perspective to discussion of the potential and dangers of a Sino-US extraterrestrial arms race, and prospects for avoiding it. The article poses several questions. As China continues to rise economically and militarily, is an arms race or even a conflict in space between the United States and China inevitable? What role do one's theoretical lenses have regarding views of the inevitability of an extraterrestrial Sino-US arms race or conflict in the future? Is there a realistic basis for seeking common ground between the United States and China on these issues, so that an arms race and conflict in space might be avoided? The Very Real Potential of a Sino-US Extraterrestrial Arms Race The Imbalance of Capabilities To begin the discussion, it should be noted that the possibility of a Sino- US arms race in space is related to the larger phenomenon of the rise of China and the transmutability of economic power into political and military power. In 2010 China surpassed Japan as the world's secondlargest economy, behind only the United States. In the last couple of years, China has also become the world's largest new car market, surpassing the United States, and the world's number-one producer of greenhouse gases. Although China has the world's largest population, comparing its gross domestic product (GDP) per capita with the United States put things in a more realistic perspective-based on 2011 figures from the International Monetary Fund, US GDP per capita is $48,655 and China's is $7,519-there is little doubt that the most significant international relations story of the twenty-first century is the rise of China as a global power and the manner in which the world's reigning superpower, the United States, reacts to that new reality. Given the growing importance of space to both countries, the way in which they manage their presence there will be a fundamental part of their relationship in coming decades. Presently, the United States has an undeniable and almost unchallenged position of space primacy. For example, at the time of writing (June 2011), according to Union of Concerned Scientists data, of the 957 operating satellites in orbit around the Earth, 436 (45.6 percent) are from the United States, 100 (10.4 percent) are from Russia, and 69 (7. …

America's North Korea nuclear policy has been a failure. Instead of achieving its goal of preventing North Korea from possessing and proliferating nuclear weapons, it has had the opposite effect. This failure was a result of the George W. Bush administration's blanket rejection of the previous administration's approach to North Korea, the tendency to ignore the advice of experts, neoconservative influence on foreign policy, and divisions within the administration resulting in an inconsistent approach. This article suggests a bold new approach in which the United States offers North Korea full diplomatic recognition and a formal end to the Korean War as first steps toward the goals established in the 2007 Six Party Talks on North Korea, i.e., that North Korea give up its nuclear weapons and nuclear-weapons programs, and cease its proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Taking these moves as a starting point rather than a reward for compliance will deepen North Korea's commitment to nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation by removing its gravest external security threat-the United States. Key words: U.S. foreign policy in East Asia, North Korea, nuclear weapons, multilateral security - East Asia The Failure of U.S. Policy There can be no denying that America's North Korea nuclear policy since 2000 has been a failure. U.S. policy goals regarding North Korea's nuclear programs have focused primarily on deterring North Korea from developing nuclear weapons, and preventing North Korea from proliferating technology, knowhow, or materials related to its nuclear program to other states. Yet since 2000, North Korea has withdrawn from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), ejected international inspectors from its plutonium processing facilities and removed monitoring devices, and declared itself a nuclear-weapons club member by testing with marginal success a rudimentary nuclear device. It has shown itself not only willing to proliferate nuclear technology and materials, as well as the missile hardware and technology to potentially deliver them, but to have already done so to Iran, Pakistan, and Syria.1 In short, the administrations of both Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have failed to deter North Korea from developing and testing nuclear weapons, and have failed to keep North Korea from proliferating nuclear weapons technology and materials to states of concern to the United States. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill's recent attempts via bilateral meetings within the Six Party Talks (6PT) to draw North Korea into a bilateral agreement with the United States have been admirable. Moreover, U.S. flexibility, shown in the 2007 agreement that has been reached with North Korea, and the October 2008 removal of North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, are goodfaith efforts on Washington's part, and are certainly moves in the right direction. Unfortunately, they are still too little, too late. As has been the case with U.S. policy toward Cuba, the United States has preferred to isolate North Korea rather than pursue the path followed with China in the 1970s, i.e., recognizing and engaging constructively with it. Despite its imperfections today, China and Chinese foreign-policy behavior have changed remarkably since the change in U.S. policy toward it. This is not true of Cuba, however, nor is it true of North Korea, which begs the question, why doesn't the United States try something truly novel in its dealings with North Korea? In this sense, today's U.S. policy makers have much to learn from Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, who exhibited fortitude and creativity in forging a radically new policy toward China in the early 1970s during the height of the Vietnam War and the cold war. This article will first provide a brief overview of U.S. policy toward the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) regarding the recent nuclear standoff and the 6PT. …