East Asia

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Program(s): Prevention and Peacebuilding, Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies

Inequality, Lockdown, and COVID-19: Unequal Societies Struggle to Contain the Virus

There is nothing equal about COVID-19. It is now well established that poor and underprivileged social groups have absorbed most of the pandemic’s negative impact. However, the connection between COVID-19 and inequality might run even deeper. During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, one additional point of the Gini coefficient correlated with a 1.34 percentage point higher rate of weekly new infections across countries. This difference in infection rates compounds like interest every week.

Publication Date: Apr 13, 2021

Author(s) / Contributor(s): Paul Von Chamier

Region/Country: Central Asia, East Asia, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, United States, South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa, West Africa

Topic(s): Global Governance, Humanitarian Crises

Program(s): Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies

Reimagining U.S. Asia Policy for a Peaceful Afghanistan

This policy paper by Barnett Rubin, Senior Fellow at CIC examines how the Afghan peace process provides the United States with an opportunity to pivot to a strategy that frees it from dependence on military bases in the landlocked backyard of Russia and China, and how that can provide it with an entry point to an expanded and more effective Asia policy focused on some of the most vital threats confronting humanity.

Publication Date: Jan 06, 2021

Author(s) / Contributor(s): Barnett Rubin

Region/Country: Central Asia, East Asia, United States, South Asia, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan

Topic(s): Afghanistan, South Asia

Program(s): Afghanistan-Pakistan Regional Project

Technology and the Future of Work

Recent decades have seen rapid increases in the use of robots and rapid advances in artificial intelligence, driven particularly by improvements in machine learning. From games like chess and Go to speech recognition and image recognition, machines have come to outperform humans in an expanding range of activities. This development has motivated many attempts to gauge the impact on the future of work for humans.

Publication Date: Dec 18, 2020

Author(s) / Contributor(s): Ian Goldin

Region/Country: East Asia, Europe, United States, South Asia, India

Topic(s): International Security, Transnational Threats

Program(s): Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies

The Just Transition in Energy

With each new year of data, and each new intergovernmental report, it becomes harder to deny the scale and urgency of the energy transition required to prevent catastrophic anthropogenic climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change urges countries to take action to prevent a rise in temperature by more than 1.5°C, and warns of catastrophic consequences of a rise above 2°C. Yet current policies and pledges fall far short of hitting these targets.

Publication Date: Dec 18, 2020

Author(s) / Contributor(s): Ian Goldin

Region/Country: China, East Asia, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, United States, South Asia, India, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa, West Africa

Topic(s): Crises, International Security

Program(s): Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies

There Is Only One Way Out of Afghanistan

For Foreign Affairs, CIC senior fellow Barnett Rubin writes that the only way out of Afghanistan requires cooperation with regional powers.

Read the full column in Foreign Affairs here.

Publication Date: Dec 09, 2020

Author(s) / Contributor(s): Barnett Rubin

Region/Country: China, Central Asia, East Asia, Middle East, United States, South Asia, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan

Program(s): Afghanistan-Pakistan Regional Project

Topic(s): Afghanistan

Inclusive COVID-19 Relief Finance

This paper analyzes COVID-19 relief spending in ten countries to assess whether governments are investing resources in inclusive programs that will lead to the desired goal of ‘building back better.’ The results of this analysis indicate that current investments are likely to maintain the status quo, and potentially lead to a deepening of inequalities by overlooking urgent needs of marginalized groups affected by the social and economic effects of the pandemic. The countries analyzed are the following: Canada, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Mexico, Sierra Leone, South Korea, Sweden, Tunisia, and Uruguay.

Publication Date: Jul 07, 2021

Author(s) / Contributor(s): Amanda Lenhardt

Region/Country: East Asia, Latin America, South Asia, South Africa

Program(s): Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies

North Korea Is Following the Saddam Hussein Playbook

The big question for the world is whether the United States will now follow its old Iraq playbook, too. CIC Non-Resident Fellow James Traub digs deeper.

Publication Date: Jun 11, 2018

Author(s) / Contributor(s): James Traub

Region/Country: East Asia

Reading between the lines of the Bangladesh-Myanmar MOU

In signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Bangladesh on the return of Rohingya refugees, Myanmar portrayed the agreement as “a win-win situation for both countries” and a victory for neighbours resolving their differences without the interference of outsiders. But the deal may also reveal that wider conflicts are brewing.

Publication Date: Nov 30, 2017

Region/Country: East Asia

Program(s): Prevention and Peacebuilding

Topic(s): Crises

Nikki Haley and the Trump administration’s UN policy

The Trump administration’s evolving UN policy is a case study in how policymaking in the administration remains a work in progress amid competing worldviews, absent or unclear guidance, and an idiosyncratic president. There are deep ideological divisions within the White House about America’s role in the world.

Publication Date: Aug 18, 2017

Region/Country: East Asia, United States

Program(s): Prevention and Peacebuilding

Topic(s): United Nations