Cooperation and coordination in a context of animosity? East Asia, peacekeeping operations and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief

ABSTRACT

East Asia (here consisting of China, Japan, North and South Korea, and the ten states of the ASEAN) is increasingly being considered as a region which is a potential crucible for conflict. Even the most optimistic authors recognise that there is the potential for security tensions to develop into more comprehensive kinetic actions. In the context of the growing trade tensions between China and the United States, which is drawing in other regional actors, the potential for economic interdependence to mitigate these tensions is reducing. Despite the context in this region we do, however, see evidence of cooperation and coordination emerging within the arena of (so-called) non-traditional security challenges. These papers explore different aspects of the cooperation that we see, and collectively they present the conditions under which there are positive cooperation outcomes in the areas of humanitarian assistance (HA) and disaster relief (DR) and/or peacekeeping operations (PKO). Collectively, they identify that mid-range theories have great explanatory power in exploring and researching this region.

KEYWORDS:

• Cooperation
• coordination
• humanitarian assistance and disaster relief
• peacekeeping operations
• East Asia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Rikard Jalkebro is directing the Global Challenges Programme in the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. Rikard's research interests include exposing the juncture between the dynamics of peace processes and terrorism, with a particular focus on organised crime and corruption; risk resilience; and climate change.

Dr Catherine Jones is a lecturer at the University of St Andrews where she teaches on Northeast Asian international relations and the politics and development of Southeast Asia. Her research focuses on China's interaction and contribution to international norms and their implementation which was the topic of her recent book China's Challenge to Liberal Norms, published by Palgrave in 2018. Her work as also been published in The Pacific Review, Pacific Focus and International Politics.

ORCID

Rikard Jalkebro http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3555-0139

Catherine Jones http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4049-1003

Notes

1 We thank Greg Moore and the participants of the ADI conference in Copenhagen in June 2019 for this point.

2 We thank Chris Ankerson (NYU) for this point contributed to a GCRF Workshop in Bangkok.

3 UN participant observation, UN HQ, March 2016.

4 We thank Oscar Gomez at Ritskumeikan University for his contribution to developing this section.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by British Academy / Leverhulme SRG 170645.