Political Integration and Identity
Cultivating Talented Individuals:Support Scheme:Investigative Research Assistance (for student)
WIRTH Christian / Investigation Area: Beijing and Qingdao, People's Republic of China
2009.11.23
Year: D2
Name: WIRTH Christian
Itinerary: 11/23/2009 - 12/11/2009 (Month/Date/Year)
Destination (Name of city and country)
Research objectives
The research project undertaken here, shall contribute to the understanding of regional cooperation in Northeast Asia by looking at Japan-China security relations. It analyzes the interplay between the management of policies in traditional security on the one hand and non-traditional security on the other hand.
Based on neo-functionalist explanations of regionalism, it is often argued that East Asian regional cooperation in response to non-traditional security concerns is easier to achieve than cooperation in traditional security matters (Akaha 2004; Valencia 2000; Wang Yong 2005). The main argument is that non-traditional security threats are of a kind which create imperatives for states to work together in order to solve the problems affecting their national security successfully. Moreover, it is argued that cooperation in areas of non-traditional security, or 'functional cooperation', contributes to the building of political trust and therefore leads to increased international cooperation. Other reasons might be that relevant issues are not associated with deliberate, targeted and sudden state action which threatens the core of another state's sovereignty, that is territorial and political control. So as to assess the neo-functionalist claim, and given the profound impact of globalization and rapid economic development on East Asian states and societies, an important question is therefore how issues of non-traditional security and issues of traditional national security relate to each-other.
Research project
According the research plan of the PhD thesis, and in order to assess the levels of cooperation between Japan and China since 1994, the interviews conducted during this research trip had the following objectives:
- Clarify the amount, as well as the nature and meaning of cooperative measures in the areas of politics/military, environment and law enforcement at sea by getting more specific information on cooperative activities than available through literature and internet research;
- Explore the perceived amount and nature of cooperative measures which are desirable in the future and the difficulties which hindered their implementation in the past;
- Analyze how scholars and officials perceive the correlation and causality between security cooperation in traditional and cooperation in non-traditional issues.
Achievement
Several interviews and exchange of ideas with scholars, researchers and officials from universities, government-related think tanks and ministries were done.