Books


Piracy and International Maritime Crimes in ASEAN: Prospects for Cooperation [Hardcover]. Robert Beckman (Author, Editor), J. Ashley Roach (Author, Editor).Southeast Asian waters are critical for international trade and the global economy. Combating maritime crimes has always been a priority as well as a challenge for ASEAN member states. While much emphasis has been placed on enhancing operational cooperation against maritime crimes, the need for an effective legal framework to combat such maritime crimes has not been sufficiently examined. This book demonstrates that ASEAN member states can establish a legal framework to combat maritime crimes by ratifying and effectively implementing relevant global and regional conventions. It also explores the issues that ASEAN member states, and ASEAN as an organization, face in establishing such a framework and suggests suitable steps that can be taken to address such issues. Reviews

Maritime Territorial Disputes and Sovereignty Issues in Asia [Paperback] Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Relations United States Senate (Author). Today the East Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee will consider the impact of recent and ongoing maritime territorial disputes in Asia, one of the most critical issues of strategic importance for the United States and for the entire Pacific region. Since World War II, our country has proved to be the essential guarantor of stability in this region, even as the power cycle shifted from Japan, to the Soviet Union, and most recently to China. Economically and politically, all of East Asia and the Pacific has benefited from the stability that has been made possible by our involvement in this region. Reviews

ASEAN Environmental Law, Policy and Governance: Selected Documents: [Two volumes, hardcover]. Lian Koh (Editor). Contains a judicious compilation of relevant ASEAN environmental instruments. These documents deal with ASEAN's progressive development of environmental law, policy and governance. Volume II covers sectoral areas including natural resources and biodiversity, forestry, agriculture and food, cultural heritage, coastal and marine environment, water resources management, zoonotic diseases and the environment, energy and climate change, environmental disaster management and environmental education. ASEAN has grown in stature and has an important role to play in developing global environmental sustainability. Regional organizations such as the European Union and governments of countries like the United States, Australia, China and India are partners in ASEAN's endeavours to develop a green planet. This book will be of interest in an interconnected environmental world. Reviews

When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order:
Second Edition [Paperback]. Martin Jacques (Author). Greatly revised and expanded, with a new afterword, this update to Martin Jacques’s global bestseller is an essential guide to understanding a world increasingly shaped by Chinese power. Soon, China will rule the world. But in doing so, it will not become more Western. Since the first publication of When China Rules the World, the landscape of world power has shifted dramatically. In the three years since the first edition was published, When China Rules the World has proved to be a remarkably prescient book, transforming the nature of the debate on China. Now, in this greatly expanded and fully updated edition, boasting nearly 300 pages of new material, and backed up by the latest statistical data, Martin Jacques renews his assault on conventional thinking about China’s ascendancy, showing how its impact will be as much political and cultural as economic, changing the world as we know it. Reviews

Improving Southeast Asian Security Within the ASEAN Framework -- Insurgencies and Counterinsurgencies [Paperback] Shing Tai Leung (Author). Since the end of the Cold War, changing global dynamics have brought about important political, social and economic developments to Southeast Asia. Foreign relations between the Southeast Asian states have also improved, reducing intra-regional tensions to the degree where inter-state armed conflicts are no longer likely. The domestic security situation of some Southeast Asian nations, however, remain precarious as local insurgencies resulting from political disagreements, ideological divergences and socio-economic gaps continue to plague these states. Terrorism, a second-order effect of these conflicts, has also become a security concern as regional terrorist groups, such as the Jemaah Islamiah and the Abu Sayyaf Group, have been working with global jihadist organizations to establish an ideological presence within these troubled states. If unchecked, these threats could potentially disrupt the peace in Southeast Asia and de-stabilize the region. Reviews

Infrastructure for Asian Connectivity (ADBI series on Asian Economic Integration and Cooperation) [Hardcover]. Biswa Nath Bhattacharyay (Author, Editor), Masahiro Kawai (Author, Editor), Rajat Nag (Author, Editor). The prospects and challenges concerning both soft and hard infrastructure development in Asia. Key topics include  demand estimates of national and regional infrastructure in transport, electricity, information and communication technology, and water and sanitation; empirical results on the costs and benefits of regional infrastructure for economies and households; the impact of infrastructure development on the environment and climate; rources and instruments of infrastructure financing; best practices and lessons learned from the experiences of the Asian region and other regions; and experiences of public-private partnership projects. Reviews