¡@
Environmental Security, International Cooperation, and American Foreign Policy toward Northeast Asia
¡@
¡@
Abstract
In Chapter 3, Paul G. Harris looks at environmental security in Northeast Asia, a region with some of the world's most heavily polluted areas, and where natural resources are being placed under tremendous stress from economic growth. As we have seen, economic growth in China has led to sharp increases in its emissions of pollutants causing global warming and associated climatic changes. While the effects of climate change for China and the region will likely be severe at times, they will also affect the entire world. The United States, particularly over the last decade, has taken a growing interest in these sorts of problems. It came to view environmental changes as genuine threats to national security, and it particularly viewed East Asia (especially China) as a region where environmental changes could contribute to insecurity that might affect U.S. interests. While traditional security issues were usually considered more important, there was a consensus in the United States during the 1990s that environmental issues ought to receive serious attention by the security establishment. As a consequence, the United States began to cooperate with states in the region to help them address adverse environmental changes and resources scarcities. This trend in U.S. foreign policy was very important because of the great potential of the United States to contribute to international environmental cooperation in the region, given its economic, technological and diplomatic resources.
¡@
However, with the advent of the administration of George W. Bush in 2001, environmental security seemed to have been downgraded as a concern of U.S. foreign. This bodes ill for U.S. contributions to international environmental cooperation in East Asia. What is more, if the Bush administration ignores environmental issues, the incentives for states in the region to address environmental changes will likely be reduced, thereby possibly contributing to existing tensions that threaten wider regional security and peace. Having said this, deteriorating environmental conditions in the region (not to mention career government officials and vocal environmentalists interested in these issues) may pressure the Bush administration and its security officials to give environmental security in Northeast Asia serious attention. Harris argues that the domestic and international forces that shaped the policies of the Clinton administration on environmental protection in Northeast Asia may eventually influence its successors' policies. He concludes that dire predictions of U.S. withdrawal from environmental protection efforts in the region are premature, and that U.S. foreign policy over the long term is likely to continue supporting international environmental cooperation there. Harris's chapter shows that politics and policy making in a powerful state actor from outside Pacific Asia can be important considerations for international environmental cooperation in the region.
¡@