China Expert: I’m Drunk

Posted on July 16, 2017 by admin

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 5, No. 7, July 2017

Beijing partiers are photographed in black and white dozing off at a bar on tables full of empty bottles.

Beijing partiers doze off at a bar, 2013. Source: Andrea La Rosa via Flickr.

Anders Corr
Publisher of the Journal of Political Risk

The following conversation between myself and a drunk China expert, who published a well-reviewed book on China recently, covers a wide-ranging set of topics, including the hard-to-decipher policy intentions of the U.S. and China. The conversation, which occurred by email starting Friday night, April 21, is sometimes humorous, and may be politically incorrect to some. But it succinctly and candidly addresses critical themes of U.S.-China relations, and touches on the politics of China analysis in the U.S. and Europe.

The expert, once he sobered up, gamely gave me permission to publish the exchange, but not to use his name. “I don’t want to be seen as a panda hugger,” he said, “because I’m not.”

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Investigating the Trump Scandal: Implications for Democracy and Political Risk

Posted on May 22, 2017 by admin

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 5, No. 5, May 2017

Gergana Dimova, Ph.D. [1]
Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation in Ukraine/Institute and the Centre of Democracy in Bulgaria

The single most common question posed since the media allegations of Trump’s campaign alleged connections with Russia broke out is whether American democracy is failing and how political risk is affected. I use a database of more than 1,890 critical articles leveled at the governments in the established democracy of Germany, and the managed democracy of Russia, to place the Trump’s investigations in a comparative perspective. The analysis explains how the appointment of a special prosecutor affects the democratic nature of accountability arrangements and offers predictive statistics of political risk in the aftermath of this media scandal. It considers factors related to regime type, institutional and electoral constraints, reputational effects, policy proposals, sanctions and verbal explanations in the media.

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Critical Comments On ‘US Policy Toward China: Recommendations For A New Administration’

Posted on February 10, 2017 by admin

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 5, No. 2, February 2017

President Xi Jinping flanked by Chinese soldiers. The President is walking down stairs on a red carpet.

President Xi Jinping flanked by Chinese soldiers. Source: Kremlin via Wikimedia Commons.

James E. Fanell
U.S. Navy (ret)

Below are the critical comments I provided to Dr. Orville Schell, the co-chair of the recent Asia Society and University of California, San Diego report US POLICY TOWARD CHINA: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR A NEW ADMINISTRATION. While there are sections of the work that I agree with, I still fundamentally disagree with the overall foundation of the document’s recommendations which I believe are designed to sustain the past 40 year of a policy that promotes unconstrained “engagement” with the PRC. As such, I’ve gone through the entire document and extracted several statements and paragraphs that I disagree with and a few that I agree with. While I will provide comments for each specific reference issue, I can summarize my dissent of the report in the following major themes:

1. Unconstrained Engagement. Engagement with China is asserted to be the primary goal of US relations with China without providing evidence for that assertion. Or worse, suggesting things are actually going well, contrary to all objective evidence.

2. “The Relationship” is the #1 Priorty. “The relationship” is prioritized as being equal to or more important than U.S national security. There is no clear articulation that U.S. National security should be the #1 national security priority for the US and that our relationship with China should be judged through that lens, not through the lens of sustaining “the relationship” at all costs.

3. Do Not Provoke. America should not “provoke” China, but again, there is no evidence to support why this position will benefit U.S. national security interests.

4. Dissent Not Welcome. While I appreciate inclusion of Ambassador Lord’s dissenting opinion on North Korea, clearly the study did not value, or include, dissenting opinions, especially in the Asia-Pacific Regional Security and Maritime Dispute sections.

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The Three Oppositions: Chinese Dissident Groups Holding Mass Demonstrations Since 2012

Posted on February 8, 2017 by admin

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 5, No. 2, February 2017

Falun Gong practitioners are photographed seated cross legged on the floor.

Falun Gong practitioners before the annual July 1 protest march in Victoria Park, Hong Kong, China. Source: Remko Tanis via Flickr.

Tom Stern

As President Donald Trump takes command 28 Years after the Tiananmen Square Massacre in Beijing, there are three prominent groups which are considered by the Communist Party of China (CPC) to be dissident and subversive to its ideals, posing a danger to political stability. Each of these could potentially become the backbone necessary for the expansion of freedoms in China.

the Tuidang Movement, [1]
the New Citizens’ Movement [2], and
the practitioners of Falun Gong [3].

Tuidang Movement

The 退黨運動 (Tuìdǎng yùndòng), or Tuidang movement for short, is one that seeks the abolition of the CPC. Literally meaning “to withdraw from the Communist Party,” its members are bound by their desire to end the corruption tied to the Party. Caylan Ford, in his dissertation “Tradition and Dissent in China: The Tuidang Movement and its Challenge to the Communist Party” notes a key difference between the movement and those before it in that, rather than drawing from western principles and ideals of democracy and free expression, it seeks to act as a mirror to the nation’s idealized past. In its reflexive approach, the movement employs exigent and distinct Chinese language and ways of thought, such as Confucianism. Ironically, Ford also notes that the movement views the Communist ideology as a largely foreign and detrimental one, “which is portrayed as antithetical to true Chinese values, human nature, and universal laws.” Rather than using a geopolitically-charged force behind its espoused arguments, the Tuidang movement draws from both history and morality in its efforts to compel the Chinese public to recognize their unified, and wholly unnecessary, suffering under the Communist Party.

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Boom in the Iran Crude Tanker Business

Posted on October 9, 2016 by admin

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 4, No. 10, October 2016

Oil-tankers docking in Rotterdam, Holland. Source: Creative Commons/Public Domain.

Reza Yeganehshakib, Ph.D
University of California, Irvine (UCI)

The oil industry has experienced numerous fluctuations in crude prices during its history. Falling prices in 2014 developed into a historic downturn by 2016, reaching lows that were last seen in the 1990s. As a result, several oil giants were forced to decommission almost two thirds of their rigs, while also dramatically decreasing their investment in the upstream oil industry.[1] Counter-intuitively, the crude shipping industry did not go through the same catastrophic loss as its upstream counterpart. Iran, one of the world’s biggest oil exporters and crude shipping operators, experienced this firsthand.[2] While the country’s oil revenue sharply declined, its crude shipping industry grew. This situation was not without problems, however, as explained herein.

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