Asia & the Pacific

9 Items

Electricians install solar panels.

AP/Mary Altaffer

Report Chapter - Brookings Institution

Mexico’s Energy Reforms: A Blow to Realizing the Most Competitive and Dynamic Region in the World

| Feb. 28, 2022

In late 2017, Mexico made headlines as Italian company Enel bid what was then a world-record low price for renewable energy in the country’s third such energy auction. This development was possible due to the historical and sweeping energy reforms passed with broad support in Mexico in 2013. Then-President Enrique Peña Nieto had succeeded where previous Mexican presidents had failed, reversing decades of resource nationalism and overhauling the energy sector through constitutional reforms that gave the private sector a larger role and advantaged renewable energy in Mexico’s economy. The 2017 auction seemed to indicate Mexico’s bright future not only as a conventional oil producer, but also as a clean energy power.

The U.S. Capitol is seen at sunrise, in Washington, October 10, 2017

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Paper - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Protecting Democracy in an Era of Cyber Information War

| February 2019

Citizens voluntarily carry Big Brother and his relatives in their pockets. Along with big data and artificial intelligence, technology has made the problem of defending democracy from information warfare far more complicated than foreseen two decades ago. And while rule of law, trust, truth and openness make democracies asymmetrically vulnerable, they are also critical values to defend.  Any policy to defend against cyber information war must start with the Hippocratic oath: first, do no harm.

SUMMARY REPORT: U.S.-China 21

Report - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

SUMMARY REPORT: U.S.-China 21

| April 2015

The future relationship between China and the United States is one of the mega-changes and mega-challenges of our age. China’s rise is the geopolitical equivalent of the melting polar ice caps – gradual change on a massive scale that can suddenly lead to dramatic turns of events.

In this Summary Report of a longer forthcoming work, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, a senior fellow at the Belfer Center, asks if this defining trend of the 21st century can be managed peacefully? He argues that it can – if Washington and Beijing commit to placing their relationship on a stable, long-term footing.

Rudd's findings emerge from a major study he led at the Center on the possibilities and impacts of a new strategic relationship between China and the United States.

Winning the Peace

Photo by Martha Stewart

Report

Winning the Peace

May 16, 2014

The last seven decades without war among the great powers – what historians describe as “the long peace” – is a remarkable achievement. “This is a rare and unusual fact if you look at the last few thousand years of history,” said Graham Allison, director of the Belfer Center and moderator of the IDEASpHERE panel “Winning the Peace.” “Furthermore, it is no accident. Wise choices by statesmen have contributed to ‘the long peace,’ which has allowed many generations to live their lives.”

Plutonium Mountain: Inside the 17-Year Mission to Secure a Legacy of Soviet Nuclear Testing

Report - Managing the Atom Project, Belfer Center

Plutonium Mountain: Inside the 17-Year Mission to Secure a Legacy of Soviet Nuclear Testing

| August 15, 2013

The Belfer Center’s Eben Harrell and Pulitzer Prize-winning author David E. Hoffman for the first time report the details of one of the largest nuclear security operations of the post-Cold War years — a  secret 17-year, $150 million operation to secure plutonium in the tunnels of Degelen Mountain.

Internet Fragmentation: Highlighting the Major Technical, Governance and Diplomatic Challenges for U.S. Policy Makers

Paper - Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, Belfer Center

Internet Fragmentation: Highlighting the Major Technical, Governance and Diplomatic Challenges for U.S. Policy Makers

| May 2012

The Internet is at a crossroads. Today it is generally open, interoperable and unified. Tomorrow, however, we may see an entirely different Internet, one not characterized by openness and global reach, but by restrictions, blockages and cleavages. In order to help ensure that the Internet continues to serve as a source of global integration, democratization, and economic growth, American policymakers must be aware of the most significant technical, political and legal challenges to a unified Internet.

Cyber Norm Emergence at the United Nations—An Analysis of the UN's Activities Regarding Cyber-security

Discussion Paper - Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, Belfer Center

Cyber Norm Emergence at the United Nations—An Analysis of the UN's Activities Regarding Cyber-security

    Author:
  • Tim Maurer
| September 2011

Cyber-warfare is no longer science fiction and the debate among policy-makers on what norms will guide behavior in cyber-space is in full swing. The United Nations (UN) is one of the fora where this debate is taking place exhibiting an astonishing rate of norm emergence in cyber-space. Most recently, Russia together with China proposed an “International code of conduct for information security” in September 2011 after the U.S. reversed its long-standing policy position in 2010.