Asia & the Pacific

23 Items

Olli Heinonen delivering the keynote address at the 2014 JAEA International Forum, Tokyo, 3 Dec. 2014.

JAEA

Testimony

International Efforts for Ensuring Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Nonproliferation, and Expectations for Japan

| December 3, 2014

Senior fellow Olli Heinonen delivered the keynote speech at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency International Forum on ongoing proliferation concerns and the future of Japan's nuclear policy.

Missile destroyer Yueyang enters service at a naval port in Sanya in south China's Hainan Province on Friday, May 3, 2013.

Li Zhanglong/CCPHO

Policy Brief - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Time to Worry about China's Military Rise

    Author:
  • Evan Braden Montgomery
| June 2014

For the first time in more than two decades, the United States faces a competitor that has the ability to inflict heavy costs on its air and naval forces. Maintaining stability in East Asia will therefore require significant changes in U.S. military capabilities and posture—changes that are likely to prove difficult while defense resources are scarce. Many of these changes will take years to implement, however, and China's military modernization shows no signs of slowing. The United States cannot afford to delay.

Outside view of the UN building with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) office inside, at the International Center, in Vienna, Austria, June 8, 2012.

AP Photo

Policy Brief - Centre for International Governance Innovation

Unleashing the Nuclear Watchdog: Strengthening and Reform of the IAEA

| June 2012

Published along with the report Unleashing the Nuclear Watchdog: Strengthening and Reform of the IAEA — the result of more than two years of research  and examining all aspects of the Agency's mandate and operations this policy brief summarizes the report's key findings and policy recommendations for strengthening and reforming the IAEA.

A nuclear power plant in Beijing

Bret Arnett, CC licensed

Policy Brief

China’s Nuclear Energy Industry, One Year After Fukushima

| Mar. 05, 2012

It has been one year since the disastrous nuclear accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in March 2011. Experts now view Fukushima as the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986.

In the aftermath, the Chinese government promptly reaffirmed that nation’s nuclear energy policy. Yet China also became the only nation among all major nuclear energy states that suspended its new nuclear plant project approvals. Before it would restart approvals, China said it would:

1) Conduct safety inspections at all nuclear facilities

2) Strengthen the approval process of new nuclear plant projects

3) Enact a new national nuclear safety plan

4) Adjust the medium and long-term development plan for nuclear power

Where is China on this path, and what is the future of its nuclear power industry?

Policy Brief - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Nuclear Policy Gridlock in Japan

    Author:
  • Jacques E.C. Hymans
| November 2011

The historical growth in the number and variety of Japanese nuclear veto players has made the country an extreme case of stasis in fundamental nuclear policies. Japan is not the only country to experience this phenomenon, however. In many advanced industrialized democracies, the old Manhattan Project model of top-down, centralized, and secretive nuclear institutions has gradually given way to more complex arrangements. And as a general rule, the more numerous the veto players, the harder the struggle to achieve major nuclear policy change.

A tourist takes photos of China's first aircraft carrier, former "Varyag" of Ukraine, which is under restoration in a shipyard in Dalian, China, July 28, 2011. China says the refurbished ship will be used only for research and training.

AP Photo

Policy Brief - Quarterly Journal: International Security

China's Aircraft Carrier: Chinese Naval Nationalism and Its Implications for the United States

    Author:
  • Robert Ross
| October 2011

China's carrier program reflects the Chinese Communist Party leadership's surrender to the forces of nationalism....As Chinese domestic instability has grown, the increasingly insecure Communist Party leadership has used the carrier program to bolster its nationalist legitimacy—just as it used the 2008 Olympics, the 2009 Shanghai Expo, high-speed rail, the 'world largest airport,' and other high-profile projects for this purpose."