Three for today

Some informative articles out there on East and North-east Asia this week. First up is a long look at Russia's foreign policy, oil and gas wealth, the pipeline network, and Russia's moves in the Far East and especially involving North Korea:

The most significant issue involving Russia in Northeast Asia is its abundant oil fields and natural gas reserves. The Asian Financial crisis of 1997-1998 that devalued the Russian rouble and the dramatic rise in the price of crude oil and natural gas in the early 2000s has given Russia newfound economic muscle. [5] The state-controlled Gazprom is the third largest corporation in the world in terms of market capitalisation and it will grow even stronger, many experts predict, as the industry is swiftly re-nationalised. “Russia’s economy is about oil,” explains Natalia Orlova, chief economist at Moscow-based Alfa-Bank. [6] In 2006, oil and gas were estimated to account for 65 percent of Russia’s exports and 60 percent of federal tax receipts, making it the world’s largest gas exporter and second-largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia. In 2007, Russia’s foreign exchange reserves swelled to $476.4 billion USD, more than in the entire Euro zone.

Also up is an article on how Japan's rice holdings can save the world from the current rice crisis:

The simplest mechanism to stop the crisis has the U.S. authorize Japan to sell its surplus rice stocks directly to the world market at a price that covers its acquisition and storage costs – probably below $600 per ton, to whichever importer wants to buy. Once this happened, the Philippines was at the front of the line, and quickly arranged to buy 300,000 tons of the Japanese stocks. But other countries have urgent import needs as well, and no additional supplies have been forthcoming. It is important to realize that this additional rice does not “solve” the world’s rice problem—rice at $600 per ton is still a major burden for the poor – but it has the potential to prick the speculative rice price bubble. Indeed, immediately after the announcement of the Japan-Philippines deal, world rice prices fell by $200 a ton over a week.

Finally, the International Affairs Forum has its latest China Briefing out, full of articles and interviews on China's internal and external affairs, including The Beautiful Island. It's by turns informative.....

Nearly all of Beijing’s centuries-old cityscape has been bulldozed in recent years, despite legal protections and the brave resistance of residents and the nascent Chinese preservation movement. Redevelopment in Shanghai has been equally catastrophic, forcing the relocation of tens of thousands of families. China’s cities are also rapidly sprawling across the landscape, churning precious farmland into highway-laced landscapes of superblock housing estates and gated single-family subdivisions. As early as 1995, the built-up area of Shanghai (including the city proper and its inner suburbs) covered nine times the land area it did just a decade
earlier—jumping from 90 to 790 square miles.

....provoking...

IA Forum: How would you describe Sino-U.S. relations under the Bush Administration?

Scott Kennedy: I think they’re generally cooperative and constructive, particularly since late summer 2001. The relationship got off to a bad start with the EP3 [spy plane] incident. When the problems with that were identified, in the summer of 2001 the Bush Administration realized that a confrontational relationship with China was not in the U.S.’s best interest and so they started to change. That sentiment was magnified with 9/11, and so the problems we had with China were put on the back burner and the much larger problems the U.S. faced took center stage. Gradually, over time, the two sides developed a pretty good working relationship. Right now U.S. policy toward China under the Bush administration has to be one of its most obvious successes, which I think distinguishes it from U.S. foreign policy generally during this period.

....prescient....

China displaced the United States to become the largest trading partner of India during 2007-08. During the same twelve month period, the Sino-Indian border—the longest disputed boundary in the world (2,520 miles)—witnessed nearly a hundred incidents of incursions and tense stand-offs. These co-evolving economic and security trajectories are a microcosm of a complex chess game being played out between Asia’s second and third largest economies that will have an increasingly significant impact on not just their dyadic relationship but also on the wider Asia-Pacific region and beyond.

.... and just plain silly...

Unlike organic nations that are formed naturally over time, the Chinese nation is a product of the Chinese people’s experience of being abused and humiliated by outside groups. Their shared suffering at the hands of common enemies transformed Chinese from being “a tray of loose sand” into a nation. In effect, Chinese nationalism from its very beginning has been reactive and xenophobic.

An engaging compilation of information and opinions. Kudos to the IA forum for putting it all together.

And from the world of Way Cool: this Asian photography exhibition 1840s -1940s in Australia has a some amazing and moving photos. To see them, click on THEMES at the top of the home page.

[Taiwan]