John Hemmings

In this post for LSE International History, John Hemmings provides a thought-provoking analysis on the history of imperialism in India and its use in modern-day politics. He argues that concepts such as reparations and justice – a theme at a recent Oxford Union debate – must be addressed in a way that is itself just. Concepts such as reparations and justice must be addressed in a way that is not prejudiced against Western imperialism (“far imperialism”), in favour of “local imperialism”, which is often ignored in discourse and popular perception.

While much has been wri en on the apparent diminishment of the liberal global order, and on the rise of Chinese and Russian revisionism in Ukraine and the South China Sea, compara vely li le has been wri en about how liberal democracies around the world have responded to these mini‐a acks on the interna onal system. One of the most prominent and interes ng trends has been in the security realm, where new “virtual” and “quasi‐alliances”, trilaterals, and quadrilaterals have sprung up between states with previously‐weak security es. While few of these rela onship can be defined as actual alliances – they lack mutual defense commitments a er all – they have many “alliance‐like” features, including coopera on in sensi ve intelligence and defense sectors. Australian scholar, William Tow, calls them a “unique theore cal challenge” for interna onal rela ons theorists since they do not accord with our tradi onal understanding of what cons tutes an alliance.

This thesis examines how the United States reacted to changes in its external environment in the Asia Pacific after the Cold War; in particular, this paper examines the creation of the security trilaterals in what had been a traditionally bilateral alliance system and seeks to explain this through Washington’s complex relationship with the other great power in the region, China. American policy toward China has been marked by its policy complexity, in the sense that the US has seen China both as an important trade partner and a potential peer competitor. While many scholars have covered both alliance theory and US approaches toward China, this thesis seeks to explore both together, seeking to put American strategy in the region writ-large within an overarching neoclassical realist (NCR) framework. As a result, this thesis prioritizes power and the structure of the international system, while also maintaining that external variables alone are insufficient to explain the complex behav...

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is attempting to incrementally reshape the global order through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). To this end, it is using—among other means—new disruptive technologies that will allow it to dominate data and communications in the political, economic, and social realms across the large expanse of the initiative. The Digital Silk Road has been a part of the PRC’s approach since at least 2015, when it first appeared in a government white paper on BRI. The Digital Silk Road binds together new technologies in “bundles,” such as smart cities, smart ports, and satellite-networked communications, using 5G as a baseline for other technologies like artificial intelligence, data analytics, and the Internet of Things. Success in using this communications infrastructure to dominate markets, standards, and political elites would give China a multiregional base from which to project its norms, systems, and networks to the wider global market. In the long run, this will not only give a competitive advantage to Chinese companies but also allow them to spread more widely across remaining markets.

Structural realists might reasonably predict that foreign policy elites in countries like Japan and Australia would view China's economic and military rise as a potential threat and seek to balance against it. However, the actual policy behaviour of Japanese and Australian policy elites has been quite complex—pushing forward at times, hesitating at others and generally uncertain if an explicit counter-coalition against China through bilateral security cooperation is the right policy path. Why is this? This paper explains the puzzle by focusing on the perceptions of policy-makers regarding the risk of provoking China; entrapment with the other; and entrapment with the United States. The paper demonstrates how policy-makers’ concerns regarding entrapment or abandonment related to their mutual US ally—as well as concerns about potentially provoking China—have had an instrumental effect on the degree to which Japan and Australia have strengthened their security commitments to each other. While the rise of China—and the relative decline of US power—has shaped the overall direction of Japan–Australia security ties, such structural imperatives are of course also complicated by how domestic actors think about the tactical aspects of understanding and surviving these structural features.

For China, the South China Sea is an integral part of its political and economic strategy and wellbeing. Yet its increasingly bold territorial claims there have raised tensions with neighbouring states, as well as the US – the architect of the region’s security order. Legal wrangling and military confrontation over the last year show that, rather than Taiwan or Korea, it may be the issue of the South China Sea that inames Sino-US tensions.

On becoming Japan's prime minister for the second time, Shinzo Abe has set himself the task of reviving Japan as a regional power, by repairing years of economic and political stagnation. However, his foreign-policy intentions vis-à-vis China, Japan's largest neighbour, are not yet clear. John Hemmings and Maiko Kuroki argue that Abe's first premiership in 2006–07 provides clues which suggest that he will seek rapprochement with China, while simultaneously developing strong regional ties and fortifying the USJapan alliance.

On becoming Japan's prime minister for the second time, Shinzo Abe has set himself the task of reviving Japan as a regional power, by repairing years of economic and political stagnation. However, his foreign-policy intentions vis-à-vis China, Japan's largest neighbour, are not yet clear. John Hemmings and Maiko Kuroki argue that Abe's first premiership in 2006-07 provides clues which suggest that he will seek rapprochement with China, while simultaneously developing strong regional ties and fortifying the US-Japan alliance

Shinzo Abe has assumed the premiership for the second time to nd that once again Sino-Japan relations present his foreign policy ambitions with great challenges. A nationalist, Abe is also a pragmatist whose previous China policy was a nuanced combination of hedging and engagement. Unlike the last time around, however, Abe is determined to stay in power the full ve years allocated to Japanese Prime Ministers and knows that he must consolidate his domestic position and Japan's economy before embarking on his foreign policy vision.

ABSTRACT On becoming Japan's prime minister for the second time, Shinzo Abe has set himself the task of reviving Japan as a regional power, by repairing years of economic and political stagnation. However, his foreign-policy intentions vis-à-vis China, Japan's largest neighbour, are not yet clear. John Hemmings and Maiko Kuroki argue that Abe's first premiership in 2006–07 provides clues which suggest that he will seek rapprochement with China, while simultaneously developing strong regional ties and fortifying the USJapan alliance.