While OBOR requires a very large and sustained investment effort, there are many uncertainties and risks, not least in the political sphere, related to investing in developing countries in Asia and Africa. Infrastructure investment is at the heart of OBOR, but because of the high costs and often low returns, this kind of investment in many...
This essay addresses questions that are related to two recently proposed concepts: Hugh White's Concert of Asia and Henry Kissinger's Pacific Community. First, what basis is there for the US as a non-Asian country to pursue a lasting leadership role in East Asia? Second, what would it mean for the US to treat China as a security partner in East...
The Chinese government says that it supports the notion of international diversity of political-economic systems. This should not be regarded as mere propaganda. Apart from a brief period during the Cultural Revolution, China never was interested in exporting its ideology or in trying to turn other countries into a replication of itself. It is...
Today Philips is one of the largest foreign investors in East Asia. The foundation for the company's East Asian position was laid by investment in Taiwan in the 1960s and early 1970s, at a time when this country and the rest of the region were still largely ignored by other European investors. This article investigates the motives for Philips to...
It is true that in the decades preceding the beginning of China's republican era in 1912 the Netherlands played only a small role in international relations in the Far East and that the Dutch government was much more concerned with neutrality towards the European powers than with gaining influence over the Chinese empire. Still, such circumstances...
