• Acta Via Serica
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.83-104
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• 2022

This article attempts to explain current social perceptions in Mexico about the Silk Road. Based on a critical geopolitics approach, the author analyzes how the idea of the Silk Road is socially constructed in Mexican popular geopolitics, focusing on studying digital mass media between 2013 and 2020. The main research questions are: how is the Silk Road notion constructed in Mexican popular geopolitics and what are the geopolitical implications for Mexico? The article discovers that in Mexico, the idea of the "Silk Road" is profoundly close to the idea of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) given China's geostrategic discourse that constructs the BRI as a "New Silk Road". The article also argues that Mexico's social-political agency to deal with China may be hindered by divergent social perceptions in favor and against the "Silk Road".

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.143-160
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• 2016

The official development assistance (ODA) accompanies an interstate financial transaction, such as trade, foreign direct investment, and money transfer. ODA policy has designated several purposes. Among them, political purposes have been considered to be the key factors in the regional distribution of foreign aid. If we agree the traditional approach that recognizes ODA as a 'political one', the practice of ODA can be a kind of state geopolitics. This study investigates the construction and characteristics of geopolitical discourses. More specifically, this study pays special attention to the 'practical geopolitics' that is crucial to the policy-making. By analyzing the minutes of the National Assembly Standing Committee, four geopolitical discourses were identified: 'practicing humanities as a developed country', 'providing a role model to developing countries', 'developing new foreign markets' and 'coping with global geopolitics'. These geopolitical discourses have been constructed through the process of justifying the ODA policy to the domestic and international audiences. Constructing discourses on ODA shows the representation of a dichotomous and typical image of developed/developing.

• Acta Via Serica
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.51-67
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• 2016

This article examines the nature of geopolitics and its impact on the international political economy of Eurasia/Silk Road. The research questions are exploratory and aim at revealing the differing geopolitical perceptions of the Russian Federation, the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the former Soviet Central Asian countries-Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan-within the context of an emerging "New Silk Road". Consequently, the main goal of this article is to contribute to a better understanding of what factors constrain and shape Silk Road initiatives in Eurasia. To this end, the article focuses on geopolitics and regional integration theories through a consideration of the Silk Road initiatives of a number of Eurasian countries.

• Strategy21
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• s.36
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• pp.33-58
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• 2015

In 1996, China, Japan and the ROK all became the party to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Since then, the UNCLOS has been a fundamental basis for the resolution and management of maritime disputes amongst them. However, there still remain acrimonious disputes in the region. Resources nationalism and the revival of geopolitics aggravates the disputes particularly on sovereignty over disputed islands, maritime delimitation and the legal nature of military activities in other States' Exclusive Economic Zones. Under the circumstances, why have the demands for the conclusion of a regional agreement been raised in this region? A desirable regional agreement regarding ocean affairs should be compatible with the rights and obligations under the UNCLOS, a universal norm regarding ocean affairs. This paper will propose a desirable regional agreement by adopting an incremental approach.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.297-313
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• 2003

Problems caused by the U.S. military bases have attracted little attention until recently due to the national security of S.Korea and the peace of North-Eastern Asia, emphasized from the perspective of macro-geopolitics. However, since the political regime has been democratized and political discourses have been liberalized from the 1990s, those problems become a nation-widely serious social issue, though they have been brought about on the local areas. Thus, it can be suggested that micro-geopolitics is highly relevant and significant in approaching the local problems caused by the U.S. military bases, and ultimately resolving the macro-geopolitical problem of longstanding unfair relations in the SOFA and the withdrawal of U.S. troops. This paper aims to consider local problems caused by the U.S. military bases and resolving strategies from the perspective of micro-geopolitics. First of all, it discusses some significance of the micro-geopolitical perspective, as it has been recently emphasized in political geography in considering local problems and politics of life on the basis of place, then looks on empirically criminal and environmental problems caused by the U.S. military bases, analyses the questionnaire date on the perception of local dwellers around the military camps in Nam-gu Daegu, and finally suggests strategies to resolve those problems, which level up from the micro to the macro-scale of geopolitics.

• 에너지협의회보
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• s.14
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• pp.14-19
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• 1990

• Strategy21
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• s.36
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• pp.5-32
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• 2015

Geopolitics or Political Geography is an essential academic field that should be studied carefully for a more comprehensive analysis of international security relations. However, because of its tarnished image as an ideology that supported the NAZI German expansion and aggression, geopolitics has not been regarded as a pure academic field and was rejected and expelled from the academic communities starting from the Cold War years in 1945. During the Cold War, ideology, rather than geography, was considered more important in conducting and analyzing international relations. However, after the end of the Cold War and with the beginning of a new era in which territorial and religious confrontations are taking place among nations - including sub national tribal political organizations such as the Al Quaeda and other terrorist organizations - geopolitical analysis again is in vogue among the scholars and analysts on international security affairs. Most of the conflicts in international relations that is occurring now in the post-Cold War years can be explained more effectively with geopolitical concepts. The post - Cold War international relations among East Asian countries are especially better explained with geopolitical concepts. Unlike Europe, where peaceful development took place after the Cold War, China, Japan, Korea, the United States, Taiwan and Vietnam are feeling more insecure in the post-Cold War years. Most of the East Asian nations' economies have burgeoned during the Cold War years under the protection of the international security structure provided by the two superpowers. However, after the Cold War years, the international security structure has not been stable in East Asia and thus most of the East Asian nations began to build up stronger military forces of their own. Because most of the East Asian nations' national security and economy depend on the oceans, these nations desire to obtain more powerful navies and try to occupy islands, islets, or even rocks that may seem like a strategic asset for their economy and security. In this regard, the western Pacific Ocean is becoming a place of confrontation among the East Asian nations. As Robert Kaplan, an eminent international analyst, mentioned, East Asia is a Seascape while Europe is a Landscape. The possibility of international conflict on the waters of East Asia is higher than in any other period in East Asia's international history.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.285-299
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• 2019

The 'One Belt One Road (OBOR)' initiative, which was promulgated as part of the enlargement policy along with the advent of Xi Jinping in 2013, is a policy to expand China's political and economic power externally through linkages with neighboring countries. China's overseas port investment plays an important role in the promotion of the 'OBOR' policy from the coast of China through maritime transportation routes from S.E Asia to Mediterranean and Europe. Since China's overseas port investment has been made from several factors such as political, economic, and military motives, it differs in purpose and character from investments made by private companies, such as Global Port Operators(GTO) which consider profitability first. This study aims to address future prospects and implications by analyzing the geopolitics of China's overseas port investment under the 'One Belt One Road' initiative. According to the results, China's overseas port investment is dominated by state-owned enterprises and political and security factors are more important than profitability. China's overseas port investment has been on a large scale in a short period of time, and China has faced with various problems both domestically and internationally. such as debt default, environmental problems, subordination problems from recipient countries and political and military confrontation with great countries such as United States, Japan and India etc.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.25-33
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• 2011

• Acta Via Serica
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.161-180
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• 2018

Pax Sinica is a historiographical term, modeled after the original phrase Pax Romana. It refers, in Latin, to a Chinese-provided peace which in turn is used to describe an era of peace in East Asia sustained by Chinese hegemony. In historical terms, both the Pax Sinica of the Eastern hemisphere through Han China and the Pax Romana of the Western hemisphere through Rome signified a trans-regional order based on rules and regulations. This orderly world of the Pax Sinica generated a number of positive results such as the intensification of travel, ever-expanding trade relations, an increase in the overall living standards of the populace, the proliferation of cities, and a demographic upsurge in Eurasia along the ancient Silk Road. During this period, China was the dominant civilization not only in the Eastern hemisphere but also in the Middle hemisphere due to its political, economic, military and cultural influence. This paper aims to reintroduce this historiographical term to elucidate the recent Chinese initiatives in Eurasia along the Silk Road to facilitate the integration and connectivity of the continent.