Introduction: The International Politics of Resources

Abstract

China, Japan and Korea’s international relations are shaped by the fact that all three are significant importers of resources. This Introduction proposes two conceptual frameworks for understanding the politics that is taken up in the papers of this Special Issue. The first is to consider the extent to which there is an East Asian model of resource procurement. We find that there are some similarities in the approaches taken by all three countries; for example, their development assistance shares a focus on infrastructure building and a reticence to purposefully influence domestic politics. There are, however, also significant differences due in large part to the individual nature of the states as international actors. The second conceptual framework is the broad contemporary theme of the end of Western dominance of the world order. The main way this affects the international politics of resources in Northeast Asia is through the belief that the activities of those countries are threatening in some way. In some cases Northeast Asian approaches to resources are seen as a problem because they are not sufficiently liberal, whereas in others the problem is that Northeast Asian powers are seen as replacing Western powers in exploiting resource-rich developing countries.

Keywords:

• energy security
• food security
• China threat
• development assistance
• foreign investment
• international relations

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to the University of Technology Sydney China Research Centre and the University of Sydney China Studies Centre for sponsoring the workshop at which this collection of papers was first presented. Thanks are due to all workshop participants for their comments on the papers, with special mention to Steve Fitzgerald, Peter Drysdale and Michael Wesley for helping to develop conceptual frameworks for the workshop. Thanks also to two anonymous reviewers of this paper, whose comments helped us refine our arguments.

Notes

1. “The West” and “Asia” are highly contestable and imprecise terms. We use “the West” here as shorthand for the countries of Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. For the purposes of this paper we do not include the former colonies of Latin America in “the West”, as they arguably have a different standpoint because of their experiences of having been colonised. “Asia” is used here in a broad sense to include countries east of the Bosphorus River, while “East Asia” means the countries on which this Special Issue focuses – China, Japan and South Korea.

2. In a subsequent publication, Brand China, Ramo is a good deal less upbeat, concluding that China is not trusted abroad, its brand is weak, and there is a need for self-invention that is not a “whitewash” (Ramo, 2007).

3. ‘China’s Foreign Policies for Pursuing Peaceful Development’. Available at http://www.gov.cn/english/official/2011-09/06/content_1941354_4.htm, accessed 6 November 2011.

4. In PNG, a Chinese state-owned enterprise is a new player in the mining scene (see Smith, this volume). In both Solomon Islands and PNG, ethnic Chinese business people have been the main buyers for seafood exports (mainly dried sea cucumber, shark fin and shells) for more than a century, and in recent decades Taiwanese and “new” Chinese companies have been key players in fishing for tuna and shark in these countries.