ASIA
Spring 2013
"From the Director"
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School
"The strategic partnership between Harvard and China is unique among universities of the world," writes Belfer Center Director Graham Allison, "this relationship is reflected in decades of scholarship in Cambridge, tens of thousands of Chinese graduates of Harvard graduate and executive programs, and the policies of both governments that have brought us to this point."
Spring 2013
"Ensuring Nuclear Safety and Security in China"
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
Most of the global growth of nuclear power over the coming decade will occur in China. The safety and security policies guiding that growth are significant far beyond China, since an accident or act of terrorism would affect the use of nuclear energy around the world. In January, the Managing the Atom Project (MTA) held a workshop in Shenzhen, China, to discuss safety and security at China’s nuclear power and fuel cycle facilities.
April 2, 2013
Assessment of the Nuclear Programs of Iran and North Korea: Foreword
Book Chapter
By Olli Heinonen, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
During the last two decades, there have been successes but also disappointments in fighting against nuclear proliferation. On the positive side, we witnessed the dismantlement of nuclear weapons programs in South Africa, Iraq, and Libya.
April 2, 2013
"Why Nuclear Powers Should Start Walking Toward Global Zero"
Op-Ed, RIA Novosti
By Simon Saradzhyan, Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"On April 5, 2009 President Barack Obama gave a speech that was supposed to set the agenda for his presidency in international security. “I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” he proclaimed in front of an enthusiastic crowd in Prague. Four years later, however, this drive to achieve “Global Zero” seems to have waned to a point when even another round of modest reductions in US and Russian arsenals appears difficult to achieve."
March 29, 2013
U.S.-Russia Arms Control: Prospects and Challenges
Media Feature
This seminar examined the prospects for further nuclear arms reductions between the United States and Russia, including the possibility that negotiations might be expanded to weapons not limited by the New START Treaty. The seminar covered U.S. and Russian differences over missile defense and how those might be resolved to allow a cooperative NATO-Russia missile defense arrangement for Europe.
February 20, 2013
"A Chinese Silver Bullet for North Korea’s Nuclear Program?"
Op-Ed, RIA Novosti
By Simon Saradzhyan, Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"North Korea’s nuclear test last week indicates that the regime's race to acquire long-range nuclear missiles may have entered its final stretch. If this is the case, then those countries that have been fighting, in vain, to rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions might soon find themselves with only one possible secret weapon of their own: China," Simon Saradzhyan of the Belfer Center.
March 28, 2013
"'Star Wars' Today: What would Reagan do?"
Op-Ed, Los Angeles Times
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School
"President Reagan stunned fellow citizens and the world 30 years ago this month with a dramatic announcement that the United States would develop and deploy a system capable of intercepting and destroying strategic ballistic missiles." For Reagan, Graham Allison writes, "this was an essential steppingstone to his even grander vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. [To] persuade America's Cold War adversary to eliminate its superpower nuclear arsenal as well, Reagan proposed to share this SDI technology with Moscow."
March 25, 2013
"North Korea Stirs Cuban Crisis Memory"
Op-Ed, Asia Times
By Hui Zhang, Senior Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
"President Barack Obama and Kim Jong-eun could end up confronting each other 'eyeball to eyeball', each with nuclear weapons on hair trigger, as president John F Kennedy and Nikita Khruschev did over five decades ago during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. However, the younger and less-experienced Kim of the smaller and isolated Kingdom might not behave as rationally as Khruschev."
March 13, 2013
"North Korea and the Price of Patience"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By David Ignatius, Senior Fellow, Future of Diplomacy Project
"The Obama administration’s approach toward North Korea has been described as 'strategic patience.' A more accurate evaluation of U.S. policy would be “failure.” The administration has alternately wooed and threatened North Korea for four years, with no discernible effect.
Here’s what failure looks like: Since President Obama took office, Pyongyang has conducted several missile tests and two nuclear weapons tests, the most recent on Feb. 12. When the international community has tried to hold Pyongyang accountable, the regime has become even more erratic," warns David Ignatius of the Washington Post.
March 18, 2013
"North Korea’s Nuclear Test of China"
Op-Ed
By William H. Tobey, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
The most recent North Korean nuclear detonation is as much a test of China’s foreign policy as it was of the DPRK’s ability to induce atomic fission. It exposes outdated assumptions and policies, and the pernicious effects of China’s mushrooming foreign trade and investment in North Korea. Beijing’s relations with Pyongyang are guided by the International Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, which still thinks of the 1950 conflict as “the war to resist America and aid Korea.” The policy that China and North Korea should be as close as “lips and teeth” is a relic of the Cold War. The notion that North Korea could or should somehow act as a “buffer state” in an era of air power and massive Chinese trade with the South is equally archaic. Click the link below for the full text of this article:
