Who is at the helm of Japan, politicians or bureaucrats?
October 30, 2014
Japanese political culture and bureaucrats Yuichiro Shimizu, Visiting Professor at Harvard University, gave a talk to IAPS on the linkages between the bureaucracy and the political class in Japan, Japan adopted a parliamentary system not unlike the United Kingdom after being defeated in WWII. The majority of post-war prime ministers in Japan were formerly bureaucrats. …
China and the spectre of water wars in Southeast Asia
Written by Pichamon Yeophantong. In late 2013, controversy over China’s dams on the upper stretches of the Mekong River—otherwise known as the Lancang Jiang—flared up once again. Disbelief quickly spread among the communities of the Lower Mekong Basin when an acute peak in water levels during December resulted in massive flooding in parts of northern …
Beyond the Water Transfer: Five Key Challenges
Written by Sam Geall. At the end of this month, the “middle route” of China’s massive South-to-North Water Transfer project will become operational, supplying Yangtze River water from the Dangjiakou Reservoir in central Hubei province to arid Beijing for the first time. Famously proposed by Mao Zedong in 1952 to address chronic water scarcity in …
Transnational Water Security in Asia: A Leadership Role for Rising Powers?
October 28, 2014
Written by Katherine Morton. Water security is one of the most intractable challenges confronting Asia’s future. It is widely recognised that climate change combined with other stress factors relating to population growth, urbanisation, and unsustainable development are leading to negative impacts on the availability and quality of the region’s water resources. Equally worrying are the lack …
Water Security in Asia
In 2011 Anatol Lieven wrote that the ‘greatest source of long-term danger to Pakistan’ was dependence on the river Indus and climate change in general. Lieven was in no doubt that water security was a far greater than that of Islamic extremism. The politics of water, one of the major aspects of water security, are complex, far …
China and the Future of Global Governance
October 3, 2014
Written by Dr Miwa Hirono (IAPS Seminar Coordinator) The IAPS Seminar Series for the academic year 2014-2015 began with a fantastic seminar yesterday, delivered by Dr Katherine Morton, Associate Professor at the Australian National University and a Senior Associate Member of St Antony’s College, Oxford University. This seminar was a special event jointly organised by …
Recent Comments