P-ISSN: 0258-9184

E-ISSN: 2288-2871

Published Quarterly

Manuscript Submission Guidelines

ASIAN PERSPECTIVE

Current Issue

Vol. 49, No. 2 SPRING 2025

Special Issue on Great Power Competition in the Indo-Pacific and Eurasia – Part 2

Great Power Competition in Small States:

The Case of Turkmenistan

Farkhod Aminjonov

Great Power Competition in Associated States:

The Case of Bhutan

B. M. Jain

Great Power Competition in Contested States:

The Case of Nagorno-Karabakh

Kristel Vits and Elias Götz

Great Power Competition in Territorial Autonomies:

The Case of Gagauzia

Marcin Kosienkowski

Politics in Asia

The Geoeconomics of the International North-South Transport Corridor:

Connecting or Competing with the Belt and Road Initiative?

Nurlan Aliyev

Institutional Trust, Individualism, and Redistributive Attitudes in Asian Countries

Hoyong Jung

South Korea–China Relations

South Korea’s Narratives on China:

Evidence from Elites, Masses, and Scholars

Esther E. Song

BOOK SYMPOSIUM

Book Symposium on Andreas Fulda. 2024. Germany and China: How Entanglement Undermines Freedom, Prosperity and Security. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 256 pp.

Martin Šebeňa

Rowan Callick

Andreas Fulda

The current issue of the journal can be found at https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/54927/print

FORTHCOMING ISSUE

Vol. 49, No. 3 SUMMER 2025

Special Session on Southeast Asia–Middle East Relations – Part 1

Introduction: The Influence of New Bilateralism on Southeast Asia-Middle East Relations and the Path to Deeper Transregionalism

Gürol Baba and Lai Yew Meng

Arab-Turko-Persianate and Malay World Relations:

Past, Present, and Future

Khairudin Aljunied

The Novelty of Complementarity between Transregionalism and New Bilateralism:

Southeast Asia-Middle East Affairs

Gürol Baba and Lai Yew Meng

Russia and China

The Impact of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine on Russian and

Chinese Foreign Policy in Central Asia

Jeanne L. Wilson

A Study on China-Myanmar Complex Interdependence Based on Night-time Light

Zhu Xiongguan Zhu, Lili Tan, and Wanshu Li

Politics in Taiwan and South Korea

Retrospection and Vote Choice:

Evidence from Cross-Sectional Studies in South Korea

Sanghoon Park, Hyun-Hee Heo, Deok Hyun Jang, Won Mo Jang, and Jaeyoung Hur

Socialism in Heart, Capitalism in Mind:

Class Cleavage in Taiwan’s Party Politics

John Fuh-sheng Hsieh

BOOK SYMPOSIUM

Book Symposium on TJ Cheng, Uradyn E. Bulag, and Mark Selden. 2023. A Chinese Rebel beyond the Great Wall: The Cultural Revolution and Ethnic Pogrom in Inner Mongolia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 410 pp.

Peter C. Perdue

Christopher Atwood

TJ Cheng, Uradyn E. Bulag, and Mark Selden

Current and back issues of the journal can be found at https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/733

Great Power Competition in Small States: The Case of Turkmenistan

While the underlying perception of Turkmenistan as a policy-taker permeates conventional analyses of the Central Asian region, this article argues that the ability of Turkmen authorities to navigate their foreign policy toward hegemonic powers has a significant but often under-appreciated part of the narrative about Central Asia–great power relations. Even though Turkmenistan has swapped its excessive geopolitical and economic dependence on Russia to a near-similar degree of dependence on China, Ashgabat has concurrently exercised agency by resisting great powers' hegemonic ambitions. The argument in this article is developed with a theoretically-driven approach in foreign policy analysis known as "hedging." There ... Read More

Great Power Competition in Associated States: The Case of Bhutan

Understanding the metamorphosis of Bhutan as an associated state necessitates locating its genesis and legal evolutionary process in a historical context. The concept of associated states is traceable to the decolonization process following the end of World War II in 1945, though it was originally conceived by the United Nations (UN) as a "new form of decolonization i.e., independence from a colonial power" (Broderick 1968). According to international law specialist Chimène Keitner (2003, 19), "The smaller state, the associate, delegates certain functions to the more powerful state, the principal while maintaining its own international status. The features of associate statehood include internal control ... Read More

Great Power Competition in Contested States: The Case of Nagorno-Karabakh

This article explores how the ensuing great power competition in the South Caucasus has affected the conflict over the self-proclaimed Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh (NKR, also known as the Republic of Artsakh in Armenian), a contested state that existed from 1994 until the end of 2023.1 While the NKR's territory carries great cultural and historical significance to the parent state Azerbaijan and the patron state Armenia, it is not particularly rich in natural resources. Nevertheless, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has drawn in both regional and global powers, most importantly Russia, Turkey, and the United States, but also Iran, Israel, and the European Union (EU). In what follows, we unpack why this is the case as ... Read More

Great Power Competition in Territorial Autonomies: The Case of Gagauzia

Gagauzia is a territorial autonomy in Moldova, and the official name is the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia, which was established in 1994/5. As a territorial autonomy as conceptualized by Fong (2022b, 312), it is a demographically distinctive jurisdiction dominated by the Gagauz people (constituting 83.8 percent of its population; the rest are Bulgarians – 4.9 percent, Moldovans – 4.7 percent, Russians – 3.2 percent, Ukrainians – 2.5 percent, and others – 0.9 percent), which exercises asymmetrical, legally entrenched self-governing powers within a sovereign state of Moldova (see more about Gagauzia as a territorial autonomy in Neukirch 2002; Walsh 2018). Due to the dominant position of the Gagauzians in ... Read More

The Geoeconomics and Geopolitics of the International North-South Transport Corridor: Connecting or Competing with the Belt and Road Initiative?

The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) is a multimodal network of sea, rail, and road routes. The agreement creating the INSTC was signed on September 12, 2000, between India, Iran, and Russia. Later, several countries joined the project, including Kazakhstan, Belarus, the Sultanate of Oman, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Türkiye, and Ukraine (Russian Foreign Ministry 2016). Armenia, Syria, and Bulgaria have been observers since 2006. Four of the five member states of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) became parties to the agreement. Turkmenistan has not yet joined despite the Zhanaozen-Kyzylkaya-Bereket-Etrek-Gorgan line passing through its territory, connecting Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan ... Read More

Institutional Trust, Individualism, and Redistributive Attitudes in Asian Countries

Income inequality is increasing globally, and awareness of its economic and social problems is spreading (Anand and Segal 2008; Alvaredo, Chancel, Piketty, Saez, and Zucman 2017). In response, there is a consensus on the importance of the government's role in redistribution, making it a point of discussion in various political and economic arenas (Berg, Ostry, Tsangarides, and Yakhshilikov 2018; Blanchard and Rodrik 2021; Piketty 2013; Saez and Zucman 2019). Many countries are moving toward welfare state regimes to meet the growing demand for social services and respond to economic crises with active fiscal policies. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) statistics, the ... Read More

South Korea's Narratives on China: Evidence from Elites, Masses, and Scholars

What narratives have emerged in South Korea regarding China since the normalization of relations between the two countries in 1992? Narratives help humans understand events. Hinchman and Hinchman (2001, as cited in Hagström and Gustafsson 2019) defined narratives as "discourses with a clear sequential order that connect events in a meaningful way … and thus offer insights about the world and/or people's experiences of it." Recent studies have shown that narratives can have empirical effects. For instance, Krebs (2015) showed that debates over national security have been underpinned by dominant narratives and that these narratives shape national security policies. Other studies have empirically examined how ... Read More

Great Power Competition in Small States: The Case of Turkmenistan

While the underlying perception of Turkmenistan as a policy-taker permeates conventional analyses of the Central Asian region, this article argues that the ability of Turkmen authorities to navigate their foreign policy toward hegemonic powers has a significant but often under-appreciated part of the narrative about Central Asia–great power relations. Even though Turkmenistan has swapped its excessive geopolitical and economic dependence on Russia to a near-similar degree of dependence on China, Ashgabat has concurrently exercised agency by resisting great powers' hegemonic ambitions. The argument in this article is developed with a theoretically-driven approach in foreign policy analysis known as "hedging." There ... Read More

Great Power Competition in Associated States: The Case of Bhutan

Understanding the metamorphosis of Bhutan as an associated state necessitates locating its genesis and legal evolutionary process in a historical context. The concept of associated states is traceable to the decolonization process following the end of World War II in 1945, though it was originally conceived by the United Nations (UN) as a "new form of decolonization i.e., independence from a colonial power" (Broderick 1968). According to international law specialist Chimène Keitner (2003, 19), "The smaller state, the associate, delegates certain functions to the more powerful state, the principal while maintaining its own international status. The features of associate statehood include internal control ... Read More

Great Power Competition in Contested States: The Case of Nagorno-Karabakh

This article explores how the ensuing great power competition in the South Caucasus has affected the conflict over the self-proclaimed Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh (NKR, also known as the Republic of Artsakh in Armenian), a contested state that existed from 1994 until the end of 2023.1 While the NKR's territory carries great cultural and historical significance to the parent state Azerbaijan and the patron state Armenia, it is not particularly rich in natural resources. Nevertheless, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has drawn in both regional and global powers, most importantly Russia, Turkey, and the United States, but also Iran, Israel, and the European Union (EU). In what follows, we unpack why this is the case as ... Read More

Great Power Competition in Territorial Autonomies: The Case of Gagauzia

Gagauzia is a territorial autonomy in Moldova, and the official name is the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia, which was established in 1994/5. As a territorial autonomy as conceptualized by Fong (2022b, 312), it is a demographically distinctive jurisdiction dominated by the Gagauz people (constituting 83.8 percent of its population; the rest are Bulgarians – 4.9 percent, Moldovans – 4.7 percent, Russians – 3.2 percent, Ukrainians – 2.5 percent, and others – 0.9 percent), which exercises asymmetrical, legally entrenched self-governing powers within a sovereign state of Moldova (see more about Gagauzia as a territorial autonomy in Neukirch 2002; Walsh 2018). Due to the dominant position of the Gagauzians in ... Read More

The Geoeconomics and Geopolitics of the International North-South Transport Corridor: Connecting or Competing with the Belt and Road Initiative?

The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) is a multimodal network of sea, rail, and road routes. The agreement creating the INSTC was signed on September 12, 2000, between India, Iran, and Russia. Later, several countries joined the project, including Kazakhstan, Belarus, the Sultanate of Oman, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Türkiye, and Ukraine (Russian Foreign Ministry 2016). Armenia, Syria, and Bulgaria have been observers since 2006. Four of the five member states of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) became parties to the agreement. Turkmenistan has not yet joined despite the Zhanaozen-Kyzylkaya-Bereket-Etrek-Gorgan line passing through its territory, connecting Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan ... Read More

Institutional Trust, Individualism, and Redistributive Attitudes in Asian Countries

Income inequality is increasing globally, and awareness of its economic and social problems is spreading (Anand and Segal 2008; Alvaredo, Chancel, Piketty, Saez, and Zucman 2017). In response, there is a consensus on the importance of the government's role in redistribution, making it a point of discussion in various political and economic arenas (Berg, Ostry, Tsangarides, and Yakhshilikov 2018; Blanchard and Rodrik 2021; Piketty 2013; Saez and Zucman 2019). Many countries are moving toward welfare state regimes to meet the growing demand for social services and respond to economic crises with active fiscal policies. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) statistics, the ... Read More

South Korea's Narratives on China: Evidence from Elites, Masses, and Scholars

What narratives have emerged in South Korea regarding China since the normalization of relations between the two countries in 1992? Narratives help humans understand events. Hinchman and Hinchman (2001, as cited in Hagström and Gustafsson 2019) defined narratives as "discourses with a clear sequential order that connect events in a meaningful way … and thus offer insights about the world and/or people's experiences of it." Recent studies have shown that narratives can have empirical effects. For instance, Krebs (2015) showed that debates over national security have been underpinned by dominant narratives and that these narratives shape national security policies. Other studies have empirically examined how ... Read More

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press for the Institute for Far Eastern Studies, Kyungnam University

© Copyright 2019, All Rights Reserved

Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy

Designed by Justin's Web Design

Share by: