This article proposes a theoretical framework for understanding Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte’s celebrated ‘pivot to China.’ It begins by discussing the model of asymmetric relations as a suitable framework for understanding relations between highly unequal states, and the concept of dual structural asymmetry as a means of theorising the triangular relations among the Philippines, the USA and China since the end of the Cold War. Next, it presents various economic and political indicators of the shift in Filipino foreign policy under Duterte. It goes on to propose a theoretical model for identifying the linkages between elements of political economy and international security from the perspective of Brantly Womack’s theory of asymmetry. Lastly, it presents three scenarios for resolving the territorial dispute in the South China Sea (SCS) between the Philippines and China: two with maximum gains for one country only, and a third with an acceptable result for both countries as a product of mutual concessions.

This article examines the China-Philippines relations in the South China Sea (SCS) from 1997 to 2017. The premise is that the China's interaction with litigating neighbors in the SCS (such as Vietnam and the Philippines) is shaped by strategic, political-economic and symbolic relations analogous to the dynamics of the Imperial China with the nomadic peoples of Central Asia in the so-called "tributary game" (Zhou, 2011). The central hypothesis is that, just as the tributary game lasted for centuries in an asymmetric but relatively stable pattern, the same asymmetrical and stable pattern tends to prevail in the contemporary stage. In this scenario of a de facto Chinese control of many positions in the SCS and the expectation of economic gains by the Philippines, it is more likely that the tributary game shall move away from a conflictive stance and towards the conciliation-submission stance consolidated by the mutual learning process and by the inevitable economic and diplomatic gravitation of Asian countries around China.

ResumoEste artigo examina a projeção da China sobre o Sudeste (SE) Asiático a partir de três ciclos recentes: 1990-1997, 1997-2008, e de 2008 até hoje. Tem-se como hipótese que o SE Asiático tem se tornado um palco de grande relevância no jogo de poder e riqueza entre EUA e China desde 2008, e se afastado do cenário proposto por Giovanni Arrighi e Beverly Silver de formação de um "arquipélago de economias de mercado", no qual as disputas por poder estariam subordinadas a ganhos coletivos por meio da interdependência econômica. Com foco na relação histórica SE Asiático-China, argumenta-se que, apesar do esforço diplomático desse país, o terceiro ciclo de relações com a região é mais agressivo e tem elevado as assimetrias nas esferas comercial, financeira e político-militar. Somando-se isso ao pivô estratégico da administração Obama, concluímos que o acirramento da disputa entre as potências é um cenário provável. Palavras-Chave:Relações China-Sudeste Asiático; Arquipélago de Economias de Mercado; Competição Interestatal; Pivô Estratégico. AbstractThe article analyses China's projection on Southeast (SE) Asia based on three recent cycles:

The South China Sea (SCS) is one of the regions with the most dynamic and intense military activity in the world. This is largely due to commercial and political interests linked to the region, which is crucial for global maritime trade and rich in natural resources. China is the most interested party in the SCS, claiming 90% of its entire area, a portion referred to by Beijing as the “nine-dash line.” The present article seeks to analyse both quantitatively and qualitatively the influence of China on the military spending of four Southeast (SE) Asian countries that are also interested in the SCS: Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia. For quantitative analysis, we used the data for military expenditure, armaments acquisition, the frequency and type of incidents involving national navies and/or civilians. For qualitative analysis, we retrieved information from hemerographic sources and official documents from the United States, China, SE Asian countries, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and the World Bank (WB).

O presente artigo tem como objetivo examinar a relação Rússia-UE em duas etapas: caracterizar a Rússia como uma energy surplus nation e a UE como uma energy deficit nation, com dados empíricos, para compreender a interdependência energética entre ambos; e traçar os cenários de possíveis desequilíbrios de vulnerabilidades nesta relação de interdependência complexa.

This paper´s central hypothesis is that China´s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) implies the construction of new networks in the international division of labor that insert the partner countries in a peripheral condition towards China. Although it is clear that the ambitious project of Eurasia´s integration, announced by Xi Jinping in 2013 and formalized in 2017, is by itself a novelty of structural impacts in the international system, it is also a product of deep transformations within China since the early 2000s and, to understand its current impacts, it is crucial to look back at the roots of China's foreign insertion in the previous decade. This paper is divided into the following sections: i) a brief discussion of the three major domestic transformations in China since the 2000s; ii) China's economic statecraft overseas as a byproduct of strategic and economic forces; iii) the symbolic-institutional dimension of that economic statecraft; iv) a case study of Chinese projection in Southeast (SE) Asia divided in two parts, which correspond to the two waves of outward foreign direct investments (OFDI); and v) final considerations.

A partir da abordagem teórico-metodológica da Escola de Segurança Internacional de Copenhagen, busca-se compreender as raízes da crise interna do Estado ucraniano a partir da identificação dos atores externos relevantes no nível regional, inter-regional e global.

Examina-se a política externa chinesa para o Irã e, a partir do conceito de balanceamento de poder segundo Robert Pape, tem-se como hipótese a intenção chinesa em utilizar a crescente influência regional iraniana como ferramenta de balanceamento hard e soft sobre os interesses norte-americanos no Grande Oriente Médio.