Despite significant commonalities such as shared threat perceptions, democratic consolidation, and socioeconomic interdependence, Korea and Japan have failed to find a deeper level of reconciliation. To solve this puzzle, in this article I introduce and illuminate the features of an 'ideational reconciliation process', which captures the dynamics created by the main actors in the process people. Through this analytical framework I explain how and why Korea and Japan failed to achieve a deep level of reconciliation by analyzing the sophisticated features of a flawed ideational reconciliation and the 'rights revolution' brought about by the sex-slave victims and forced laborers' transnational litigations. Contrary to the liberalist prediction of unconditional cooperation between Korea and Japan, this study foresees an era of new dynamics surrounding historical contentious issues in the Korea-Japan relationship.
This paper examines why the United States and China could not accommodate their trade disputes within the framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which now escalated into a rhetorical and retaliatory tariff war. The existing literature, which assumes the dominance of US institutional power in the WTO litigation process, has not anticipated the administration's current gambit that has ignited a trade war with China. Specifically, many liberal‐minded pundits and public alike were puzzled by the United States imposing self‐destructive tariff measures against the WTO rules, despite the WTO still remains as an effective tool and resource for America's trade policies. Against such a backdrop, this paper claims that the concurrence of America's limited legal leverage in the WTO and China's domestic industrial structure that induces overproduction substantially explains the puzzle. To support this central claim, the paper conducts a comparative case analysis of US–China disputes in two industrial domains: steelmaking and renewable energy, including solar photovoltaic (PV) power and wind power. Despite contrasting domestic industrial structures and sectoral characteristics, the case study shows a similar pattern present in China's successful legal maneuvers and US strategic failures. Furthermore, the study also reveals the structural causes of overproduction beyond the Chinese central authority's managerial capacity.
Driven by structural theories of international relations, some scholars have described China as either spoiling or shirking the rules-based liberal international order (RBLIO). The convergence of the relative US decline since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and China’s assertive diplomacy has aggravated this anxiety. This paper examines the theoretical and empirical validity of this argument by utilizing competing theories of social constructivism and issue–path dependence. Specifically, this paper conducts a brief empirical analysis of China’s stances on four core issues of global governance, including (1) voting patterns in the United Nations General Assembly, (2) trade and the World Trade Organization (WTO), (3) South China Sea disputes and the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), and (4) the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). The results indicate that China has been passive toward the restructuring of legal norms, merely invoking them when a specific dispute arises. Concurrently, China occasionally pursues an alternative institutional platform if the functional concentration of a target institution is diffused and fragmented. In short, the empirical analysis demonstrates the salience of claims for China’s issue–path dependence. The paper concludes with theoretical and policy implications, concluding that as China holds no predetermined, concrete stance on all components of the rules-based liberal international order, disintegrating the country from it could be a fatal mistake.
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