SQUIRREL-KILLERS 2016AFFIRMATIVE CASEBOOK

Dr. John F. Schunk, Editor

“Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its economic and/or diplomatic engagement with the People’s Republic of China.”

AFFIRMATIVE CASESA01. TPP (TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP)A02. BILATERAL INVESTMENT TREATYA03. UNCLOS (LAW OF THE SEA TREATY)A04. CLIMATE CHANGEA05. NORTH KOREAA06. STUDY ABROAD

EXTENSION BRIEFSA07. A STRONGER CHINA BENEFITS THE U.S.A08. CHINA IS NOT A THREAT TO THE U.S.A09. TPP (TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP)A10. BILATERAL INVESTMENT TREATYA11. UNCLOS (LAW OF THE SEA TREATY)A12. CLIMATE CHANGEA13. NORTH KOREAA14. STUDY ABROAD

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debate@squirrelkillers.comhttp://www.squirrelkillers.com

SK/A01. TPP (TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP)

PLAN:1. The U.S. federal government will condition ratification of TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) on inclusion of China as a party to the treaty.2. Funding will come from a financial transaction tax.3. Enforcement will be by all necessary means.

I. U.S.-CHINA TRADE RELATIONSHIP IS DANGEROUSLY SKEWED

A. U.S.-CHINA RELATIONSHIP IS VITAL TO GLOBAL ECONOMY

SK/A01.01) Justin Logan [Director, Foreign Policy Studies, Cato Institute], USA TODAY, March 2013, p. 32, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The U.S.-China relationship is the most important one in international politics. Looking into the 21st century, it seems possible that America could be eclipsed in economic--and possibly military--terms by China. According to The Economist magazine, China is likely to overtake the U.S. in gross domestic product at market exchange rates in 2018. To give a sense of China's staggering relative growth, its GDP was one-eighth America's in 2000 and, by 2010, it was one-half.

B. CHINA HAS A MASSIVE TRADE SURPLUS WITH U.S.

SK/A01.02) Neil Gough, INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES, November 24, 2015, p. 16, LexisNexis Academic. China is on track this year to surpass Canada as the biggest single trading partner of the United States. But as trade as ballooned in recent years, tensions have grown. China sells far more goods to the United States than it buys, resulting in a Chinese trade surplus with the United States of $218 billion in the first 10 months of this year.

C. CHINA IS A HUGE MARKET POTENTIAL FOR U.S.

SK/A01.03) Joseph Horton & Lauren Maxwell [both, U. of Central Arkansas], COMPETITION FORUM, July 2014, p. 57, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. As the Chinese become more prosperous, they become a bigger and better market for American companies whether the goods produced in the US or in China. The largest selling car in China is the Ford Focus. Buick which had been in first place fell to number three (China Daily). There is every reason to believe that this market will continue to expand and that American companies should be prepared to participate in the Chinese economy. Potential markets in China include not only cars, power plants and irrigation equipment but also home textiles, travel and tourism (U.S. suppliers Decima Research).

II. EXCLUDING CHINA FROM THE TPP IS FATALLY FLAWED

A. CHINA IS NOT A PARTY TO THE TPP

SK/A01.04) George H. Pike [Director, Pritzker Legal Research Center, Northwestern U.], INFORMATION TODAY, January-February 2016, p. 1, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. After 7 years of secret negotiations, followed by a publicly announced accord but continuing secrecy about the details, then a WikiLeaks sneak peek, the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has finally been released by the Obama administration's Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR). The TPP is a trade deal negotiated and agreed to by 12 Pacific Rim nations: the U.S., Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam.

B. TPP WILL TEAR DOWN MAJOR TRADE BARRIERS

SK/A01.05) George H. Pike [Director, Pritzker Legal Research Center, Northwestern U.], INFORMATION TODAY, January-February 2016, p. 1, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. One of the most substantial goals of the TPP would be to reduce taxes and tariffs on U.S.-made goods. According to the USTR, the U.S. exported more than $600 billion worth of U.S.-manufactured products to TPP countries in 2013 (the most recent data available). Many of those items are subject to import tariffs of as much as 40% by the receiving country. Tariffs are a common, if controversial, economic tool used by nations to impose a surcharge on imported or exported products. The intent is often to protect domestic producers of a particular item by increasing the cost of imported goods. As countries apply taxes and tariffs to various products, prices may be artificially raised (usually) or lowered (occasionally). Economists often characterize tariffs as inconsistent with free markets, and they are often seen as anti-consumer and leading to higher prices.

C. EXCLUDING CHINA DOOMS TPP TO FAILURE

SK/A01.06) THE ECONOMIST, July 25, 2015, p. 55(US), GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Ultimately, for TPP to really make a mark, it has to be bigger. Leaving out China is an expedient to get the deal done but, if kept that way, it would be a huge gap. China is the world's biggest manufacturer. Any Asian trade zone without it faces one of two sorry fates. Either, because of China's centrality to Asian supply chains, the deal is so riddled with exemptions that it becomes worthless. Or, if the zone gains traction, the effect is to divert trade away from the most efficient Chinese companies and hurt the global economy. The TPP is likely to face both problems.

III. INCLUSION OF CHINA IN TPP WILL PROMOTE PEACE & PROSPERITY

A. CHINA WANTS TO JOIN THE TPP

SK/A01.07) THE ECONOMIST, July 25, 2015, p. 55(US), GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Officials in China, who previously viewed TPP as a gambit to isolate it, now drop hints about wanting to join the club. "It won't be the gold-standard deal they've been talking about, and they will be lucky to get a silver. Perhaps it will be a bronze," says Jayant Menon of the Asian Development Bank. With other ambitious trade talks gathering dust, however, even a bronze would glitter.

B. TPP WILL LEVEL THE ECONOMIC PLAYING FIELD

SK/A01.08) Clyde Prestowitz [President, Economic Strategy Institute], THE AMERICAN PROSPECT, Fall 2015, p. 16, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Imposing a China-like "you have to make it here to sell it here" rule on Chinese sales in the U.S. market would have done far more to contain China and to change the structure of trade in the whole Asia-Pacific region than any TPP. Or, alternatively, inviting China to join the TPP and thus be subject to its much-touted (by the Obama administration) "high standard" rules would at least have put China on the same playing field as the United States.

C. TPP WILL IMPROVE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

SK/A01.09) George H. Pike [Director, Pritzker Legal Research Center, Northwestern U.], INFORMATION TODAY, January-February 2016, p. 1, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Reflecting concerns about global commerce and the environment, including issues of climate change, air and water pollution, illegal trade in endangered species, and the sustainable use of natural resources such as timber and fish, the TPP has a number of environmental objectives. These include the promotion of alternative energy and environmental protection infrastructure such as solar panels, wind turbines, and air and water treatment technology through the elimination of tariffs and trade barriers. The agreement also provides for better protections of endangered and threatened species, increased efforts to combat trafficking in illegal wildlife and wildlife products, and more effective enforcement of existing environmental laws, including multi-country treaties.

D. PARTICIPATION IN TPP WILL PROMOTE REFORMS IN CHINA

SK/A01.10) Elizabeth C. Economy [Director for Asia Studies, Council on Foreign Relations], FOREIGN AFFAIRS, November-December 2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The United States should also encourage China's participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a major regional free-trade agreement under negotiation. Just as China's negotiations to join the World Trade Organization in the 1990s prompted Chinese economic reformers to advance change at home, negotiations to join the TPP might do the same today.

E. INCLUSION OF CHINA WILL BENEFIT THE WORLD ECONOMY

SK/A01.11) THE ECONOMIST, April 25, 2015, p. 12(US), GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. If the China-containment logic leads to a minimalist agreement, then the economic gains from TPP will be slim. TPP's real value is to set high new standards for world trade, and that demands the boldest possible agreement. And in the long run the world gains most if China joins.

F. INCLUSION OF CHINA WILL REDUCE GLOBAL CONFLICTS

SK/A01.12) Henry M. Paulson Jr. [former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury], THE WASHINGTON POST, September 20, 2015, p. A19, LexisNexis Academic. More broadly, China's foreign policy reach and ambitions are naturally expanding to match its growing network of trade and investment links. Having China as a key participant in an evolving rules-based global economic regime has the potential to mitigate foreign policy conflicts between the United States and China.

SK/A02. BILATERAL INVESTMENT TREATY

PLAN:1. The U.S. federal government will resume bilateral investment treaty negotiations with China on a platform of (a) curtailment of investment barriers, (b) mutual cybersecurity regime, and (c) third-party binding arbitration.2. Funding will come from a financial transaction tax.3. Enforcement will be by all necessary means.

I. U.S.-CHINA RELATIONSHIP IS IN SERIOUS JEOPARDY

A. U.S.-CHINA RELATIONSHIP IS TOP U.S. FOREIGN POLICY ISSUE

SK/A02.01) Justin Logan [Director, Foreign Policy Studies, Cato Institute], USA TODAY, March 2013, p. 32, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Given the potential impact of U.S.-China competition on security and domestic politics, getting American-Sino relations right is the most important challenge for U.S. foreign policymakers.

B. U.S. ECONOMIC FUTURE DEPENDS ON A SOUND RELATIONSHIP

SK/A02.02) Thomas Velk [Director of North American Studies, McGill U., Canada] et al., ANTITRUST BULLETIN, Spring 2015, p. 4, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. America's burden now includes a heavy debt load, underfunded domestic infrastructure, and an electorate unable or at least unwilling to pay for extraterritorial responsibilities. In a culture marked by excessive borrowing and nonexistent saving habits, the West faces a bleak financial future. An improved partnership with China is necessary so that the United States can help manage, to a small degree at least, the transformation of China's portfolio from lending in support of American debt to equity ownership and management of former Western assets.

C. U.S.-CHINA RELATIONSHIP IS KEY TO CYBERSECURITY

SK/A02.03) Scott J. Shackelford [Asst. Professor of Business Law & Ethics, Indiana U.] et al., AMERICAN BUSINESS LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 11. However, the key point is that the U.S.-China relationship is a critical one on which to focus given that it involves the two largest economies in the world with increasingly deep trade and investment links, and both countries are cyber superpowers developing some of the most advanced offensive and defensive cyber capabilities in the world.

D. CYBERWARFARE IS A MASSIVE THREAT TO U.S. SECURITY

SK/A02.04) James Bamford [author of THE SHADOW FACTORY: THE ULTRA-SECRET NSA FROM 9/11 TO THE EAVESDROPPING ON AMERICA], FOREIGN POLICY, September-October 2015, p. 102, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Cyberweapons crossed the "kinetic" threshold with the U.S.-Israeli Stuxnet digital strike on Iran's nuclear centrifuges in 2010, progressing from erasing hard drives and stealing data to disrupting or destroying physical objects. (The same technique employed in Stuxnet--implanting a virus to send a system out of control--could be used to derail a train or bring down a dam.) And U.S. President Barack Obama has refused to take off the table the use of nukes in response to a severe cyberattack. As the Internet turns into a battlefield with dangerous real-world implications, there's an urgent need for the United States to begin thinking of ways to de-escalate this new kind of warfare.

E. CYBERTHEFT TAKES BILLIONS FROM THE U.S. ECONOMY

SK/A02.05) Arthur Herman [Sr. Fellow, Hudson Institute], COMMENTARY, March 2016, p. 20, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. According to a 2014 Intellectual Property Commission report, China is behind 75 to 80 percent of international cyberthefts, which extract an annual total of roughly $400 billion from the world economy. And the bulk of that total is stolen from the United States.

II. INVESTMENT BARRIERS CRIPPLE U.S.-CHINA RELATIONSHIP

A. CHINA IMPOSES SUBSTANTIAL BARRIERS TO U.S. INVESTMENT

SK/A02.06) Emily Rauhala, THE WASHINGTON POST, September 21, 2015, p. A11, LexisNexis Academic. U.S. companies that operate in the country have long complained that their success in the gargantuan Chinese market is undercut by policies that give local companies an advantage, whether by restricting foreign investment, subsidizing local firms or selective targeting in periodic compliance crackdowns.

B. U.S. IMPOSES SERIOUS BARRIERS TO CHINESE INVESTMENT

SK/A02.07) Emily Rauhala, THE WASHINGTON POST, September 21, 2015, p. A11, LexisNexis Academic. Asked about the concerns of Chinese investors and businessmen in the United States, Zhang flipped the script, zooming in on how national security reviews in the United States have affected Chinese firms such as Huawei, one of the world's biggest makers of telecommunications equipment. The Chinese firm hoped to expand into the United States but faced strong opposition, with many U.S. voices noting that the company's founder, Ren Zhengfei, was once in the People's Liberation Army. In 2012, a year-long House Intelligence Committee investigation into the company found that it was a threat to national security.

C. INVESTMENT TREATY NEGOTIATIONS HAVE STALLED

SK/A02.08) Henry M. Paulson Jr. [former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury], THE WASHINGTON POST, September 20, 2015, p. A19, LexisNexis Academic. One way to assure these gains would be through a high-standards bilateral investment treaty that supports reforms in China while giving China a fairer shot at the U.S. market. But negotiations have bogged down over the scope of market-opening on each side.

III. INVESTMENT TREATY WILL PROMOTE PEACE AND PROSPERITY

A. CHINA IS OPEN TO RESUMING NEGOTIATIONS

SK/A02.09) Scott J. Shackelford [Asst. Professor of Business Law & Ethics, Indiana U.] et al., AMERICAN BUSINESS LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 45. For instance, recent Chinese BITs [bilateral investment treaties] signed with European countries, such as the China-Switzerland BIT, rely on the European model and second-generation Chinese approach of comprehensive investor rights. According to Professor Axel Berger, this "seemingly puzzling pattern" is demonstrative of China's flexibility in negotiating BITs, which might bode well for a potential U.S.-China BIT. Unlike many other capital-exporting countries (including the United States), China "is not insisting on its own model text as a basis of negotiations." Rather, according to Professor Berger's interviews with investment treaty negotiators, China is willing to negotiate based on partner countries' model texts-in both BITs and preferential trade agreements.

B. THIRD-PARTY ARBITRATION IS KEY TO SUCCESS

SK/A02.10) Scott J. Shackelford [Asst. Professor of Business Law & Ethics, Indiana U.] et al., AMERICAN BUSINESS LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 32. Indeed, according to Professor Vandevelde, the greatest BIT [bilateral investment treaty] guarantee to foreign investors has been "the right to binding, third-party arbitration of investment-related disputes with the other party. This investor-state dispute provision was the most important innovation in the BITs with respect to U.S. investment treaty practice." This is because, in the absence of an investor-state dispute provision, a foreign investor must rely upon its home country for diplomatic, military, or economic sanctions whenever its investments are not treated fairly by a host nation. This is applicable in the U.S.-China cybersecurity context given that such a BIT could provide a forum to hear grievances, potentially including unresolved trade secrets disputes.

C. INCREASED INVESTMENT WILL BENEFIT U.S. ECONOMY

SK/A02.11) Henry M. Paulson Jr. [former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury], THE WASHINGTON POST, September 20, 2015, p. A19, LexisNexis Academic. The United States needs more investment, too. China is already the top market for U.S. agricultural goods, purchasing 20 percent - or nearly $30 billion worth - of all U.S. exports in the sector. In 2011, the value of farm exports to China supported more than 160,000 U.S. jobs. Direct investment from China can expand these opportunities. For example, a private Chinese firm has bought Smithfield Foods, and the company's pork exports to China jumped 45 percent in the first half of 2015. Total direct Chinese investment now exceeds $54 billion, including green field investment.

D. RECIPROCATION WILL REFORM CHINESE POLITICIAL SYSTEM

SK/A02.12) Thomas Velk [Director of North American Studies, McGill U., Canada] et al., ANTITRUST BULLETIN, Spring 2015, p. 4, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. If Chinese capital is allowed into the West, Chinese rule of law is improved, and mutual transparency occurs, China is more likely to open its own economy to outside investors, who will introduce healthy legal traditions, hostility to corruption, and free market ideas. These second-order consequences of the partnership model will advance China's evolution toward social and political accommodation with the rest of the world--a development that will benefit everyone. It is a much better option for the West to cooperate with the politically evolving country rather than fight it. Effecting changes like open politics and rule of law through trade is more effective and efficient than combat.

E. INVESTMENT TREATY CAN ACHIEVE CYBERPEACE REGIME

SK/A02.13) Scott J. Shackelford [Asst. Professor of Business Law & Ethics, Indiana U.] et al., AMERICAN BUSINESS LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 5. The world trading community still lacks a cohesive international mechanism for the protection of foreign investments and cybersecurity. Thus, BITs [bilateral investment treaties] could be instrumental in building a law of cyber peace applicable below the armed attack threshold. This article argues that BITs and trade agreements have great potential to enhance cybersecurity as one component of a "polycentric" response to managing cyber attacks.

SK/A03. UNCLOS (LAW OF THE SEA TREATY)

PLAN:1. The U.S. federal government will ratify UNCLOS (Law of the Sea Treaty) and convene an international conference to demilitarize the South China Sea.2. Funding will come from a financial transaction tax.3. Enforcement will be by all necessary means.

I. CHINA’S LAND GRAB IN SOUTH CHINA SEA HARMS U.S. INTERESTS

A. CHINA CLAIMS OWNERSHIP OF SOUTH CHINA SEA ISLANDS

SK/A03.01) Ross P. Buckley [Professor of International Finance & Regulation, U. of New South Wales, Australia], BOSTON COLLEGE INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW REVIEW, Winter 2014, LexisNexis Academic, p. 42. China is pushing its claim to the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea vigorously against the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Brunei--all of whom maintain claims to at least some of the islands. A quick look at a map shows the validity of the Philippines', and perhaps Vietnam's, claims to the Spratlys and the vast oil and gas reserves beneath them. A map also shows how slender China's claims are--the Spratlys are a long way from China. China, however, bases its claims on history, not geography. China reinforced its claims in July 2012, by resolving to garrison troops on one of the islands and appointing forty-five legislators to govern them.

B. CHINA IS PURSUING A VIGOROUS MILITARY BUILDUP

SK/A03.02) Suzanne S. Kimble [Tulane U. Law School], TULANE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW, 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 287. It is evident the buildup in the SCS [South China Sea] is in line with the Chinese government's aim to project its power. The director of the Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative, Mira Rapp-Hooper, stated the claims China is making in the SCS will "allow Beijing to conduct regular, sustained patrols of the airspace and water, and to attempt to press its far-flung maritime claims as many as 1,000 miles from its shores." In support of increasing its naval strength and power, the Chinese government has made an agreement with civilian shipbuilders that ships being built meet criteria that enable them to be used by the military in times of emergency. It is clear that China is working to strengthen its military and its power, and that its construction in the SCS is part of this effort.

C. CHINA’S MILITARY BUILDUP THREATENS U.S. INTERESTS

SK/A03.03) Marjorie Ellen Gallagher [Temple U. School of Law], TEMPLE INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2014, LexisNexis Academic, p. 16. The South China Sea is vital to the United States and world policy. Half of the world's gas, oil, and shipping tonnage navigate this area. Approximately $ 5.3 trillion of global trade passes via the South China Sea each year. Likewise, the area is particularly critical to U.S. trade; $ 1.2 trillion of the $ 5.3 trillion total global trade passes through U.S. ports.

D. U.S. RISKS BEING DRAWN INTO WAR

SK/A03.04) Marjorie Ellen Gallagher [Temple U. School of Law], TEMPLE INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2014, LexisNexis Academic, pp. 25-26. The United States should be very concerned about this situation. There are conflicting territorial claims in the South China Sea, such as the Spratley Islands. Should the Philippines and China end up in an armed conflict over these islands, the Philippines will look to the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty, and the United States could likely be pulled into war it does not want or need.

II. U.S. FAILURE TO RATIFY UNCLOS IS A HUGE MISTAKE

A. ENERGY RESERVES MOTIVATE CHINA’S LAND GRAB

SK/A03.05) Sharon Lo [Managing Editor], DEFENSE TRANSPORTATION JOURNAL, October 2015, p. 22, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. What is so special about the disputed territories? For one thing, these areas contain valuable natural resources. There are large oil and gas deposits which, if Chinese estimates are correct, could hold more oil than any area of the world except Saudi Arabia. Such large reserves could help provide energy independence to whatever nation controls them.

B. U.S. LACKS STANDING TO NEGOTIATE A DISPUTE SETTLEMENT

SK/A03.06) Marjorie Ellen Gallagher [Temple U. School of Law], TEMPLE INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2014, LexisNexis Academic, p. 24. According to one commentator, conversations between the United States and China regarding foreign military activity in China's EEZ currently look like this: Chinese official: Your navy ships have no right to be in our exclusive economic zone without our permission. American official: Yes they do. The U.N. Law of the Sea Convention, which reflects customary international law, provides other states have freedom of navigation in exclusive economic zones. Chinese official: You are not a party to convention, so it doesn't matter what it says - you have no standing to make that argument.

C. CURRENT DISPUTE RESOLUTION IS FAVORABLE FOR CHINA

SK/A03.07) Suzanne S. Kimble [Tulane U. Law School], TULANE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW, 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 277. In response to the growing Chinese aggression, competing claims, diplomatic disagreements, and physical confrontations, the Philippines has turned to the arbitral tribunal established by UNCLOS (Tribunal) to assert its claim to the KIG [Kalyaan Island Group]. The Philippines is a small nation and, without international support, no match for China's economic and military power. In turning to the UNCLOS Tribunal, the Philippines took unprecedented action to confront its more powerful neighbor. On January 22, 2013, the Philippines launched an arbitration proceeding under UNCLOS.

III. RATIFICATION OF UNCLOS REDUCES THE RISK OF WAR

A. RATIFYING UNCLOS WILL ENABLE U.S. TO INTERVENE

SK/A03.08) Michael J. Kelly [Professor of Law, Creighton U.], CASE WESTERN RESERVE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, Fall 2012, LexisNexis Academic, p. 472. Perhaps the biggest immediate benefit [of ratifying UNCLOS] would be the ability of the United States to throw the rulebook at China's feet on its oceanic claims in the same way that it can with respect to China's trading practices within the World Trade Organization--an analogously effective multilateral tool the United States uses to help manage China's rise to great power.

B. U.S. SHOULD CONVENE A DEMILITARIZATION CONFERENCE

SK/A03.09) Arthur L. Herman, NATIONAL REVIEW, December 21, 2015, p. 23, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. If China succeeds in establishing a military presence in this corner of the South China Sea, it will pose a direct strategic threat to U.S. interests. Even the Obama administration has belatedly acknowledged this. China's South Sea Fleet, headquartered in Zhanjiang; its two new nuclear submarines; its first aircraft carrier, based in Hainan (a large island and China's southernmost province), which could provide air cover for any extended operations around the Spratlys--all of these developments have added to the danger. Therefore, the United States also should convene an international conference to "demilitarize" the Spratlys. It would argue that demilitarization is necessary to secure free passage for all vessels, including military ones.

C. CHINA IS VULNERABLE TO DIPLOMATIC PRESSURE

SK/A03.10) Suzanne S. Kimble [Tulane U. Law School], TULANE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW, 2015, LexisNexis Academic, pp. 285-286. The Philippines brought its claim to the UNLOS Tribunal in an effort to compel China, a formidable economic and military power, to define its legal claim and cease its operations in the KIG [Kalyaan Island Group]. The Chinese government's construction efforts may be indicative of its belief that it does not have a strong legal claim to territorial sovereignty. Several actions the Chinese government has taken suggest that it may recognize the weakness of its legal argument. The Chinese government has flexed its economic muscle in hopes of persuading the Philippine government to abandon efforts to resolve the dispute through the international tribunal. China attempted to encourage the Philippine government to undertake bilateral negotiations in two instances.

D. RISK OF ARMED CONFLICT WILL BE REDUCED

SK/A03.11) Editorial, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, May 9, 2012, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. To prevent wars, the United States needs the best tools of peace. But right now it is missing a critical one in not approving the Law of the Sea Treaty. Adopting this international pact, which 153 nations now follow, could come in very handy as the US tries to help end a heated conflict in East Asian waters. Since early April, China and the Philippines have been in a tense, ship-to-ship standoff over control of a disputed shoal in the South China Sea. As a defense ally of the Philippines, the US could be obligated to assist the Philippines if China forcibly takes Scarborough Shoal.

SK/A04. CLIMATE CHANGE

PLAN:1. The U.S. federal government will negotiate a reciprocal carbon tax regime with China.2. Funding will come from a financial transaction tax.3. Enforcement will be by all necessary means.

I. CLIMATE CHANGE THREATENS TO DESTROY PLANET EARTH

A. CLIMATE CHANGE IS UPON US AND RAPIDLY ACCELERATING

SK/A04.01) Stephane Dion [Member, House of Commons of Canada], HARVARD INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, Spring 2015, p. 49, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The planet is warming up, and warnings are coming from every quarter. The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for the January to October 2014 period was "the warmest such period on record." The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide is also increasing, and rose last year at the fastest rate in nearly 30 years.

B. CLIMATE CHANGE IS DEVASTATING THE ENVIROMENT

SK/A04.02) Hilary Tuttle, RISK MANAGEMENT, January-February 2016, p. 4. GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. "Rising global temperatures should be a concern to us all as it will lead to rising sea levels, more frequent droughts and extreme wildfires," said Megan Linkin, natural hazards expert and vice president of global partnerships at Swiss Re. Here in the United States, she added, some of the most imminent and severe impacts will focus on areas like Miami and South Florida, the South West and California, but the warming climate and resulting extreme weather are already impacting every state through drought, powerful storm systems, tornadoes, heavy snow and ice, and flooding. In Aon Benfield's 2015 Annual Global Climate and Catastrophe Report, the company reported that 31 events with economic losses exceeding $1 billion billion-dollar loss events had occurred in 2015, 11 of which hit the United States.

C. CLIMATE CHANGE HAS KILLED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS

SK/A04.03) Susan Vermillion [College of William & Mary Law School], WILLIAM & MARY ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND POLICY REVIEW, Winter 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 468. WHO estimates that climate change had already cost over 140,000 excess deaths per year by 2004. WHO also estimates that climate change's direct damage cost to health will exceed two billion dollars by 2030. Rising temperatures contribute to deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory disease in the elderly, and increase the levels of ozone and other pollutants in the air. Air pollution already contributes to 1.2 billion deaths every year, and the number is expected to increase as temperatures rise.

D. CLIMATE CHANGE RISKS AN UNINHABITABLE PLANET

SK/A04.04) Robert H. Frank [Professor of Economics, Cornell U.], THE NEW YORK TIMES, August 3, 2014, p. BU-6, LexisNexis Academic. In 2009, the respected M.I.T. global climate simulation model estimated that if we do nothing to curb greenhouse emissions, there's a 10 percent chance that temperatures will rise by more than 12 degrees Fahrenheit by century's end, causing wholesale destruction of life as we know it.

II. U.S. AND CHINA HAVE FAILED TO EXERT RESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP

A. CARBON EMISSIONS ARE MAJOR CAUSE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

SK/A04.05) Stephen Sewalk [Asst. Professor of Business], SUFFOLK UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW, 2014, LexisNexis Academic, p. 527. With "very high" confidence, the bulk of the rise in temperatures over the past fifty years, according to climate scientists, can be attributed to human-caused GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions from burning fossil fuels combined with land-use changes.

B. CARBON EMISSIONS ARE NOT BEING SUFFICIENTLY REDUCED

SK/A04.06) Ian Parry [Principal Environmental Fiscal Policy Expert, Fiscal Affairs Dept. International Monetary Fund], FINANCE & DEVELOPMENT, December 2015, p. 10. GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Global carbon dioxide emissions from fuel combustion are slightly more than 30 billion metric tons a year, and without mitigating measures are projected to roughly triple by 2100 due to expanding energy use, especially in the developing world. In fact, developing economies, including emerging markets, already account for nearly three-fifths of global emissions, roughly half of which go into the atmosphere and remain for about a century.

C. U.S. MUST TAKE LEADERSHIP ON REDUCING EMISSIONS

SK/A04.07) Jay Inslee [Washington State Governor], THE JOURNAL OF VALUES-BASED LEADERSHIP, Winter-Spring 2016, p. 15. GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The US is far from blameless with regard to the current environmental crisis. China's population is more than five times that of the United States and while China claimed the title of the world's largest polluter in 2006, the US still has a drastically larger carbon footprint per capita than any other nation (Gallucci, 2013).

D. ANY SOLUTION REQUIRES RECIPROCITY FROM CHINA

SK/A04.08) Alex L. Wang [Asst. Professor of Law, UCLA], UCLA LAW REVIEW, July 2014, LexisNexis Academic, p. 2020. Ninety-two percent of the increase in global greenhouse gas emissions between 2012 and 2040 is projected to originate in countries that are not members of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Forty-five percent of total growth is expected to come from China alone, which has already become the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gases. Any solution to global climate change will require significant action from China in particular, and developing countries in general.

III. CARBON TAXATION WILL AVERT GLOBAL DISASTER

A. U.S. MUST NEGOTIATE WITH CHINA ON CARBON TAXATION

SK/A04.09) William C. Tucker [Asst. Regional Counsel, Environmental Protection Agency], THE NEW YORK TIMES, December 19, 2015, p. A22, LexisNexis Academic. What is needed, in other words, in addition to the Paris accord, is a gradually increasing carbon fee and dividend (a fee or “tax” on fossil fuels rebated per capita to all individuals), imposed at the source, instituted unilaterally by China and the United States, with the threat of tariffs as an incentive for other countries to follow with similar measures. This will ensure that the environmental costs of carbon emissions are reflected in fossil fuel prices, making renewables increasingly competitive in the open market.

B. CHINA IS VULNERABLE TO PUBLIC PRESSURE

SK/A04.10) Leah Marie Shellberg [San Diego Law School], SAN DIEGO INTERNATIONAL LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2014, LexisNexis Academic, p. 356. China's growing influence comes at a price. The Chinese government is well aware the world is watching, and must monitor its reputation as a growing, if not a fully-fledged, superpower.

C. OTHER NATIONS WILL FOLLOW U.S.-CHINA LEADERSHIP

SK/A04.11) Henry M. Paulson Jr. [former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury], THE WASHINGTON POST, September 20, 2015, p. A19, LexisNexis Academic. The G-20 will never work without a smooth U.S.-China relationship. And on issues such as climate change, joint U.S.-China action can help to spur broader progress from other G-20 members.

D. CARBON TAXES WILL SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCE EMISSIONS

SK/A04.12) Christina Boyle, LOS ANGELES TIMES, December 2, 2015, p. A2, LexisNexis Academic. Another way of pricing carbon, and the method Incropera [former Dean of Engineering, U. of Notre Dame] favors, is to levy a carbon tax. "If you raise the price of a consumable, it's likely to reduce demand and encourage the pursuit of alternatives," he said. The simplest way to do this is to apply the tax at the source. "In the case of the carbon tax, you're not explicitly controlling total emissions but if you make that tax high enough you will indirectly bring those emissions down."

E. BRITISH COLUMBIA DEMONSTRATES CARBON TAX EFFICACY

SK/A04.13) THE ECONOMIST, December 5, 2015, p. 75(US), GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. In 2008 British Columbia, a province in Canada, implemented a carbon tax close to an economist's ideal. At C$30 ($24) a tonne it is high relative to others that have been adopted. Relatively few sources of carbon (only about a quarter) are exempted from the tax. Emissions are down by 5-15% since its adoption. The tax does not seem to have harmed the provincial economy, and is more popular now than at its inception.

F. THOUSANDS OF LIVES WILL BE SAVED

SK/A04.14) Soledad Cuevas & Andy Haines [London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK], THE LANCET, January 2, 2016, SCIENCE DIRECT, p. 8. One estimate shows that taxation that reflects the costs of carbon dioxide emissions, local air pollution, and additional transport-related externalities (such as congestion and accidental injury) resulting from burning coal, natural gas, petrol, and diesel could create additional revenues, equivalent to about 2·6% of global gross domestic product, while simultaneously reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 23% and pollution-related mortality by 63%.

SK/A05. NORTH KOREA

PLAN:1. The U.S. federal government will resume diplomatic negotiations with China to achieve denuclearization of North Korea.2. Funding will come from a financial transaction tax.3. Enforcement will be by all necessary means.

I. NORTH KOREA IS A WORSENING NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE

A. NORTH KOREA CONTINUES TO DEVELOP NUCLEAR WEAPONS

SK/A05.01) Bill Powell, NEWSWEEK, January 2, 2016, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Experts believe the bomb Pyongyang detonated was probably a hybrid, in which hydrogen isotopes are used to increase yields on conventional fission devices. But as North Korea watcher Stephan Haggard of the Peterson Institute for International Economics says, "The main point is not in the technical details but in the obvious: North Korea is actively developing its nuclear capacity and in parallel its missile capabilities as well."

B. NORTH KOREA FUELS INTERNATIONAL PROLIFERATION

SK/A05.02) Gordon C. Chang [author of NUCLEAR SHOWDOWN: NORTH KOREA TAKES ON THE WORLD], THE NATIONAL INTEREST, March-April 2016, p. 43, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The Kim regime, in part due to the failure of its internal economy, has become the world's arch nuclear proliferator and a major seller of chemical weapons, such as those used by Syria's Bashar al-Assad this past half-decade. And the importance of this trade to the regime means that Pyongyang will continue to develop and test nuclear warheads, long-range missiles and assorted weaponry, thereby further undermining the world's nonproliferation regime.

C. THREAT OF NUCLEAR STRIKES IS ACCELERATING

SK/A05.03) MACLEAN’S, March 2016, p. 21, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Tensions have ratcheted even higher on the Korean peninsula after North Korea, facing sanctions over recent nuclear and rocket tests, threatened "preventive nuclear strikes" on the U.S. and South Korea. The amped-up rhetoric was in response to bigger-than-usual joint military exercises by Seoul and Washington, which this year included a "beheading mission" targeting North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un.

D. U.S. HOMELAND IS UNDER THREAT OF ATTACK

SK/A05.04) Molly Jackson, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, February 2, 2016, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. Experts believe that North Korea possesses some nuclear weapons, but debate whether it has the technology to attach a nuclear warhead to ballistic missiles and send them far overseas. Ballistic missile tests are banned under UN sanctions, but satellite launches are commonly viewed as disguised attempts to test North Korea's new missile technologies. South Korean officials who analyzed debris from the North's 2012 satellite launch determined that the missile's range might be up to 6,200 miles, putting the western coast of the United States within reach.

II. CURRENT U.S. POLICY IS AN ABYSMAL FAILURE

A. RECENT NUCLEAR TEST EMPIRICALLY PROVES FAILURE

SK/A05.05) Nicholas Eberstadt [Chair in Political Economy, American Enterprise Institute], NATIONAL REVIEW, February 29, 2016, p. 32, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. North Korea is embarked on a steady, methodical, and relentless journey whose intended endpoint is a credible capability to hit New York and Washington with nuclear weapons. Pyongyang's nuclear test in January is only the latest reminder that America's policy response to nuclear proliferation in North Korea is a prolonged, and thoroughly bipartisan, failure.

B. DIPLOMATIC ENGAGEMENT WITH CHINA HAS BROKEN DOWN

SK/A05.06) Thomas J. Christensen [Professor of World Politics of Peace and War], FOREIGN AFFAIRS, September-October 2015, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Beijing and Washington worked closely together on North Korean denuclearization in the six-party talks, particularly from 2006 to 2008, but those talks broke down in the last year of the Bush administration and have not been revived since.

C. MISSILE DEFENSE WOULD SQUELCH FUTURE ENGAGEMENT

SK/A05.07) Editorial, LOS ANGELES TIMES, March 6, 2016, p. A19, LexisNexis Academic. Beijing must recognize that anxiety about North Korea's intentions threatens a nuclear arms race not just on the Korean peninsula but in the entire region. It also should realize that if it doesn't put meaningful pressure on North Korea, the U.S. may go forward with a high-altitude missile defense system in South Korea that China sees as a threat to its own arsenal. However justified it might be, a strengthening of South Korea's defenses would make it even less likely that there would be another round of negotiations involving the two Koreas, the U.S. China, Russia and Japan. The last version of such talks collapsed in 2009.

III. DIPLOMATIC ENGAGEMENT WITH CHINA IS THE ONLY SOLUTION

A. MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM IS A POWERFUL BARGAINING CHIP

SK/A05.08) Rick Gladstone, THE NEW YORK TIMES, March 2, 2016, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. North Korea does not want to be seen as capitulating to threats, and some analysts see more defiance ahead, including further testing of nuclear weapons and rockets. China also is facing a quandary because South Korea may now deploy an American antimissile defense system in response. The Chinese have expressed strong objections to that possibility, which would place advanced United States military weaponry on China's doorstep.

B. CHINA HAS MOTIVE TO DENUCLEARIZE NORTH KOREA

SK/A05.09) Young Back Choi [College of Business, St. John’s U.], REVIEW OF BUSINESS, Summer 2015, p. 130, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The third [of China’s interests in North Korea] is Japan becoming a nuclear power, on the pretext of responding to the North Korean threat. Nuclear Japan would be a significant challenge to China's ambition for regional hegemony. So China would now like to see Kim Jong-Un downplay if not stop his nuclear program.

C. DIPLOMACY CAN GAIN CHINESE COOPERATION

SK/A05.10) Nicholas Eberstadt [Chair in Political Economy, American Enterprise Institute], NATIONAL REVIEW, February 29, 2016, p. 32, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. That said, China has been allowed to play a double game with North Korea for far too long, and it is time for Beijing to pay a penalty for all its support for the most odious regime on the planet today. We can begin by exacting it in diplomatic venues all around the world, starting with the U.N. Non-governmental organizations can train a spotlight on Beijing's complicity in the North Korean regime's crimes. And international humanitarian action should shame China into opening a safe transit route to the free world for North Korean refugees attempting to escape their oppressors.

D. CHINA IS THE KEY TO EFFECTIVE SANCTIONS

SK/A05.11) Editorial, LOS ANGELES TIMES, March 6, 2016, p. A19, LexisNexis Academic. But even as it strengthens sanctions, the resolution leaves their enforcement to U.N. members. As a practical matter, that means North Korea will feel the pressure only if China takes its responsibilities seriously, rather than circumventing the sanctions on the pretext of avoiding "adverse humanitarian consequences."

E. CHINA HAS THE POWER TO ALTER NORTH KOREAN POLICY

SK/A05.12) Javier C. Hernandez, THE NEW YORK TIMES, January 9, 2016, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. American officials have said that China, North Korea's main ally, is uniquely positioned to discourage the North's nuclear ambitions by cutting off oil shipments or disrupting its financial transactions. China is North Korea's biggest trading partner, and the two countries have been allies for six decades.

F. U.S.-CHINESE ENGAGEMENT IS KEY TO EFFICACY

SK/A05.13) Victor Cha & Robert L. Gallucci [both, professors at Georgetown U.], THE NEW YORK TIMES, January 8, 2016, p. A23, LexisNexis Academic. But the United States can -- and should -- push for Beijing to dial back its support. China could instruct Chinese companies to curtail business with North Korea, and the government could reject any calls from North Korea for new economic projects until the government returned to negotiations. China could also agree to not obstruct any Security Council discussions on human rights abuses in the North. Washington must frame cooperation on North Korea as a cornerstone of United States-China relations.

SK/A06. STUDY ABROAD

PLAN:1. The U.S. federal government will provide full funding for a minimum of 100,000 U.S. students to study in Chinese colleges and universities annually.2. Funding will come from a financial transaction tax.3. Enforcement will be by all necessary means.

I. U.S.-CHINA RELATIONSHIP IS TOP 21ST CENTURY CHALLENGE

A. HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP IS KEY TO PEACE AND STABILITY

SK/A06.01) Matthew Kroenig [Associate Professor of Government and Foreign Service, Georgetown U.], THE NATIONAL INTEREST, July-August 2015, p. 38, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Liberal internationalists argue that the long-term goal of American strategy toward China should be to peacefully incorporate Beijing into the American-led international system. According to this perspective, increasing interaction through markets and international institutions will enhance incentives for cooperation. As China develops economically, China's growing middle class will demand a voice in politics, leading inevitably to a democratic transition. Democratic-peace theory tells us that a democratic China will be more cooperative and less prone to war, completing Beijing's full incorporation into a more peaceful, rules-based international order.

B. ISOLATIONISM IS DEADLY TO CONSTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT

SK/A06.02) Sanford J. Ungar [President Emeritus, Goucher College], FOREIGN AFFAIRS, March-April 2016, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. One symptom of Americans' new isolation is a sharp contrast between the positive, even zealous views they hold of the United States and its role in the world and the anti-Americanism and negative perceptions of U.S. foreign policy that flourish almost everywhere else. This gap persists in part because relatively few Americans look beyond, or step outside, their own borders for a reality check. Less than 40 percent of Americans hold passports. Compare that figure with the numbers from other English-speaking countries that are geographically isolated: 50 percent of Australian citizens hold passports, as do more than 60 percent of Canadians and 75 percent of New Zealanders. In the United Kingdom, which is admittedly much closer to foreign destinations, some 80 percent of citizens carry passports.

C. MISTRUST RISKS WAR AND DESTRUCTION

SK/A06.03) Anna Rosario Dejarlo Malindog, ASIAN POLITICS & POLICY, July-September 2012, p. 449, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Friedberg [author of A CONTEST FOR SUPREMACY: CHINA, AMERICA, AND THE STRUGGLE FOR MASTERY IN ASIA] then argues that despite the existence of many common interests that should act to facilitate improved relations--such as the fight against terrorism, climate change, interdependence in international trade and commerce, and the common advocacy against nuclear proliferation--U.S.-China relations remain problematic. According to Friedberg, the reasons for this are twofold. First, both countries remain hostage to the historical quandaries of mutual distrust and suspicion. Second, both countries harbor deep-seated ideological and political differences. These ideological and political divides between China and the United States are the fundamental raisons d'etre why the existing relationship between the said countries is full of mistrust and is conflict-prone. Friedberg's assessment of this scenario is that as long as these political and ideological differences are not bridged, the possibility of war between the two countries will remain.

II. U.S. FAILS TO RECIPROCATE ON STUDY ABROAD WITH CHINA

A. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF CHINESE STUDY IN THE U.S.

SK/A06.04) Niall Hegarty [St. John’s U.] et al., REVIEW OF BUSINESS, Winter 2013, p. 81, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. China is the second largest economy in the world; the country is also the heavyweight with regards to outbound international student mobility. China has emerged as the leading source of international students for U.S. universities in recent years. The total number of Chinese students who study in the U.S. increased by about 21% to nearly 235,597 and that accounted for 28.7% of the total international students in the U.S. in 2013 as compared to prior year (Open Doors Report, 11E, 2013).

B. FEW AMERICAN COLLEGE STUDENTS STUDY ABROAD

SK/A06.05) Sanford J. Ungar [President Emeritus, Goucher College], FOREIGN AFFAIRS, March-April 2016, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. According to the most reliable estimates, some 304,000 U.S. students studied abroad for credit during the 2013-14 academic year, which represented about 1.5 percent of all American students enrolled in institutions of higher education that year. The number of Americans studying abroad seems especially low compared with the flow in the other direction. International students, for whom the United States has become the top destination of choice, now make up almost five percent of the total enrollment in U.S. higher education, split roughly evenly between undergraduate and graduate programs.

C. COST IS MAJOR BARRIER TO STUDY ABROAD

SK/A06.06) Sanford J. Ungar [President Emeritus, Goucher College], FOREIGN AFFAIRS, March-April 2016, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Another major obstacle to study abroad is cost: concern about affordability is the number one reason cited in surveys that explore Americans' reluctance to study abroad.

D. U.S. FAILS TO PROVIDE FINANCIAL SUPPORT

SK/A06.07) Karin Fischer, CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, January 28, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. An Obama administration goal to double the number of Americans studying in China by 2014 got a high-profile endorsement on Wednesday from Michelle Obama, who called such student exchanges "a key component of this administration's foreign-policy agenda" in a speech at Howard University. International educators' excitement at this national spotlight on study abroad, however, is tempered by serious concerns about the achievability of such an ambitious target. For one, the administration is putting forward a challenge but no cash, saying that financial support for the effort will come from the private sector.

E. “100,000 STRONG” INITIATIVE HAS BEEN A MASSIVE FAILURE

SK/A06.08) Sanford J. Ungar [President Emeritus, Goucher College], FOREIGN AFFAIRS, March-April 2016, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. In 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton established the "100,000 Strong" initiative to increase to that level the number of U.S. students in China. The Chinese government, supportive of the effort and recognizing that a vast number of Chinese students receive financial aid in the United States, pitched in with 10,000 scholarships for Americans who study in China. The goal of increasing the number of U.S. students in China has proved elusive, however. In fact, the number has been slowly declining: in the 2013-14 academic year, there were fewer than 14,000 Americans studying there.

III. STUDY ABROAD PROGRAM WILL PROMOTE PEACE AND STABILITY

A. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT MUST FUND NEW PROGRAM

SK/A06.09) Sanford J. Ungar [President Emeritus, Goucher College], FOREIGN AFFAIRS, March-April 2016, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Congress should enact a new, modern counterpart to the NDEA, providing federal funding for study abroad as a critical investment in the national security of the United States, just as the 1958 law was intended by President Dwight Eisenhower to advance the country's technological sophistication.

B. CHINA WELCOMES INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

SK/A06.10) Mary Hennock, CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, August 17, 2012, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Even more than most countries, China sees universities as "economic drivers" that signal its ability to compete globally, says Robert Daly, who heads the University of Maryland's Maryland China Initiative, which provides training in management and pedagogy to Chinese universities. "This is a policy that aims at a certain kind of prestige. The Chinese will not be satisfied unless they're attracting American, European, and Australian students," says Mr. Daly, who advises Chinese universities on how to improve courses taught in English.

C. STUDY ABROAD INCREASES TRUST AND UNDERSTANDING

SK/A06.11) Sanford J. Ungar [President Emeritus, Goucher College], FOREIGN AFFAIRS, March-April 2016, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. It is hardly a new discovery that sending young Americans abroad promotes better understanding of global affairs and has other profoundly positive impacts at home. Many current and past leaders in U.S. business, government, science, education, the nonprofit and foundation sectors, and the arts participated in overseas study, service, or work experiences at an impressionable stage in their lives. Their time spent in other countries broadened their perspectives and deepened their appreciation for the many different ways that other societies approach common problems.

D. CONSTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT WILL MOLD A BETTER CHINA

SK/A06.12) Thomas Velk [Director of North American Studies, McGill U., Canada] et al., ANTITRUST BULLETIN, Spring 2015, p. 4, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. China's growing influence creates an even more urgent need for North America to develop a sustainable foreign policy vis-a-vis China. From China's perspective, an East-West partnership will help address internal problems of inflation, lack of rule of law, and increasing social tension between rural and urban citizens.

SK/A07. A STRONGER CHINA BENEFITS THE U.S. & THE WORLD

1. CHINA’S ECONOMIC GAINS BENEFIT THE U.S.

SK/A07.01) Andrew J. Nathan, FOREIGN AFFAIRS, January-February 2016, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Meanwhile, China has integrated its interests so tightly with those of the United States that its rise supports, rather than threatens, the U.S.-led global order.

SK/A07.02) Reihan Salam, NATIONAL REVIEW, March 14, 2016, p. 18, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. There is a reason that U.S.-based Apple reaps the majority of the profits from sales of the iPhone while most of the hard work of assembling the device is done in East Asia. By controlling the highest-value components of the global supply chain--the branding, the creation of new intellectual property--it occupies the most privileged position in this new, more dispersed hierarchy of production. So it is wrong to say that the U.S. has "lost" from globalization. Many Americans have lost from it, as Autor, Dorn, and Hanson have documented. But most Americans have won from it, whether as consumers, as workers who occupy the more privileged rungs of these complex production hierarchies, or as shareholders who profit when multinational business enterprises grow more valuable.

2. IMPORTS FROM CHINA BENEFIT AMERICAN CONSUMERS

SK/A07.03) Joseph Horton & Lauren Maxwell [both, U. of Central Arkansas], COMPETITION FORUM, July 2014, p. 57, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. It has been estimated that the lower cost of imported goods, especially from China, has allowed Wal-Mart to offer its "always low prices." This has made it possible for low and moderate income Americans to increase their standard of living to a degree which otherwise would not be possible. By 2010, annual real disposable income per household may have increased by 1000 USD due to trade with China (The China Effect).

3. CHINA’S ECONOMIC GAINS BENEFIT THE WORLD

SK/A07.04) Joseph Horton & Lauren Maxwell [both, U. of Central Arkansas], COMPETITION FORUM, July 2014, p. 57, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. As China becomes a more mature economy, it will make increasing contributions to invention and discovery in fields now dominated by the United States such as pharmaceuticals. This need not be a cause of conflict, but rather an opportunity for cooperation. The opportunities for specialization, economies of scale, invention, and innovation are limited by the size of the market. A richer China expands the size of many markets. The increasing education of the Chinese people expand the size of the talented work force seeking to take advantage of the expanded market. These developments promise many external benefits for both countries and for other countries around the world.

SK/A07.05) Ross P. Buckley [Professor of International Finance & Regulation, U. of New South Wales, Australia], BOSTON COLLEGE INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW REVIEW, Winter 2014, LexisNexis Academic, pp. 49-50. The G20 would be a more effective institution of global economic governance if it had a strong and unified policy input from East Asia. The region with the highest growth rates in the world must have useful insights on global economic issues and needs to be heard. The capacity to bring this to fruition lies in China's hands.

SK/A07.06) Thomas Velk [Director of North American Studies, McGill U., Canada] et al., ANTITRUST BULLETIN, Spring 2015, p. 4, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Although in a combative relationship with a major trading partner, China's presence in the WTO is, overall, a positive sign. China's involvement in proceedings of international law as a means of resolving trade disputes is an indication that China is willing, at least in some respects, to play by the rules and accept the norms of international trade. The West should accept this new, global role for China. China's role in the world is inevitable. It also presents an opportunity for everyone. The time is now to build common ground and common understandings to link East and West in a spirit of dignity and mutual understanding. The alternative is profoundly dangerous.

4. ECONOMIC GAINS WILL GENERATE DEMOCRACY

SK/A07.07) Anna Rosario Dejarlo Malindog, ASIAN POLITICS & POLICY, July-September 2012, p. 449, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Friedberg [author of A CONTEST FOR SUPREMACY: CHINA, AMERICA, AND THE STRUGGLE FOR MASTERY IN ASIA] also demonstrates a range of plausible scenarios concerning the possible effects of China's outstanding and remarkable economic progress (Chapter 5). He argues that as China continues to liberalize its growing economy, there is a significant possibility that this process will generate political reforms toward the consolidation of a liberal democracy. If this happens, Friedberg argues that it could positively redefine the U.S.-Sino relationship in a manner that would generate greater collaboration, cooperation, and trust. According to the author, this would, in turn, demonstrate to the world that the potential for war between two superpowers is no longer foreseeable.

SK/A07.08) Minxin Pei [Professor of Government, Claremont McKenna College], THE NEW YORK TIMES, March 1, 2016, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. At present, China's socioeconomic development, measured in income and education attainment, has reached the median level at which comparable countries (Communist, middle-income and Asian) made the transition from dictatorship to some form of democracy in the last 40 years. If China's development continues in the next 15 years, even at a much slower pace, it will have created, by 2030, a society in which maintaining an autocratic regime is far more difficult, if not impossible. Historically, no autocratic regimes have survived for more than 74 years, because of the decay of their ideology and the corruption of the ruling elites. The Communist Party will have been in power for 81 years by 2030.

5. A STRONGER CHINA PROMISES CURES FOR DEADLY DISEASES

SK/A07.09) Joseph Horton & Lauren Maxwell [both, U. of Central Arkansas], COMPETITION FORUM, July 2014, p. 57, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. In summary, America and the world have much to gain from a prosperous and developed China. It is a market for our products. It creates a larger market which will make products, including pharmaceuticals to cure diseases, which would not be viable without the larger market.

SK/A07.10) Joseph Horton & Lauren Maxwell [both, U. of Central Arkansas], COMPETITION FORUM, July 2014, p. 57, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The cure for diseases will come not just from American labs but from Chinese labs as well. There was a time when made in Japan meant junk. Today it means world class quality. Today the Nobel Laureates in Biology and Chemistry are Japanese. One prize is for work leading to the identification of the AIDS virus and for work which may soon lead to a vaccine against it. With an enormously larger number of scientists and engineers, we can confidently predict that this will happen with Chinese science and technology as well. This is not competition of which we should be afraid but additional benefits for the whole world.

6. A STRONGER CHINESE MILITARY CAN BENEFIT WORLD PEACE

SK/A07.11) Zack Cooper [Center for Strategic and International Studies] & Eric Lorber [Financial Integrity Network], THE NATIONAL INTEREST, March-April 2016, p. 36, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. China's increasingly capable military could even cooperate with the United States to conduct humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, noncombatant evacuation and peacekeeping operations abroad.

SK/A08. U.S. DISENGAGEMENT IS A DEADLY MISTAKE

1. SANCTIONS ARE DOOMED TO FAILURE

SK/A08.01) Zack Cooper [Center for Strategic and International Studies] & Eric Lorber [Financial Integrity Network], THE NATIONAL INTEREST, March-April 2016, p. 36, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Yet China is not Russia or Iran, and trying to impose an extensive sanctions regime on Beijing would be both unwise and ultimately ineffective. Given China's global economic importance--notwithstanding its recent economic troubles--U.S. policymakers would struggle to attract the international support required to implement an extensive sanctions regime in response to cyber attacks or regional coercion. In addition, unlike the Russian or Iranian economies, which are dependent on energy exports, the Chinese economy is highly diversified and would be much more resilient to sanctions.

SK/A08.02) Zack Cooper [Center for Strategic and International Studies] & Eric Lorber [Financial Integrity Network], THE NATIONAL INTEREST, March-April 2016, p. 36, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Even if such sanctions could be constructed, China has the economic heft and political influence to hit back and do real damage to both U.S. companies and broader U.S. interests. If Beijing viewed extensive economic sanctions as an effort to undermine the economic basis of the Chinese Communist Party's rule--particularly in the aftermath of China's recent economic stumbles--Beijing's response could be highly escalatory. In short, China's global importance and its enormous economy inoculate it against the type of extensive sanctions levied on Russia and Iran.

SK/A08.03) Scott Kennedy [Director of the Project on Chinese Business & Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies], THE NEW YORK TIMES, January 18, 2016, p. A21, LexisNexis Academic. Some in Congress have long clamored for the Treasury Department to label China a currency manipulator and issue sanctions. Even Donald J. Trump has advocated for a 45 percent across-the-board tariff on Chinese imports. But given that China is not trying to depress its currency to make its products more competitive, penalties are not justified. Nor would they work; they might make Washington feel better, but American investors, producers and consumers would all suffer from the resulting tit-for-tat.

2. SANCTIONS ARE COUNTERPRODUCTIVE

SK/A08.04) Chi Lo [Sr. Economist, BNPP IP Asia Ltd], THE INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY, Fall 2015, p. 54, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The real question is not whether China can be contained, but through which channels it will exercise its influence as a new international player. Economic expansion is one possibility, military confrontation is another. China's former leaders pursued a "peaceful rise." The current generation of leaders may not necessarily take the same reserved approach.

3. A WEAKER CHINESE ECONOMY THREATENS GLOBAL RECESSION

SK/A08.05) Rana Foroohar, TIME, January 25, 2016, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The next recession will be caused by a slowdown in the Chinese economy. This slowdown is due to a steep rise in debt levels, which are also rooted in real estate as in the United States. The problem of debt, which caused the Great Recession in the US and around the world, was never really addressed. Government statistics claim that the Chinese economy continues to grow at 7% but the actual growth may be 4% or lower.

4. A WEAKER CHINESE ECONOMY PROMPTS MILITARIZATION

SK/A08.06) Robert D. Kaplan [Sr. Fellow, Center for a New American Security], FOREIGN AFFAIRS, March-April 2016, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Slow growth is also leading China to externalize its internal weaknesses. Since the mid-1990s, Beijing has been building a high-tech military, featuring advanced submarines, fighter jets, ballistic missiles, and cyberwarfare units. Just as the United States worked to exclude European powers from the Caribbean Sea beginning in the nineteenth century, China is now seeking to exclude the U.S. Navy from the East China and South China Seas. Its neighbors have grown worried: Japan, which views Chinese naval expansion as an existential threat, is shedding its pacifism and upgrading its forces, and Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam have modernized their militaries, too.

SK/A08.07) Robert D. Kaplan [Sr. Fellow, Center for a New American Security], FOREIGN AFFAIRS, March-April 2016, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. What were once relatively placid, U.S.-dominated waters throughout the Cold War have become rougher. A stable, unipolar naval environment has given way to a more unstable, multipolar one. But as with Russia, China's aggression increasingly reflects its cresting power, as its economy slows after decades of acceleration. Annual GDP growth has dropped from the double-digit rates that prevailed for most of the first decade of this century to an official 6.9 percent in the third quarter of 2015, with the true figure no doubt lower. Bubbles in the housing and stock markets have burst, and other imbalances in China's overleveraged economy, especially in its shadow banking sector, are legion.

SK/A09. TPP (TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP): Extensions

1. U.S.-CHINA RELATIONSHIP IS VITAL TO GLOBAL ECONOMY

SK/A09.01) George R. Hoguet [State Street Global Advisors], THE INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY, Fall 2015, p. 34, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Internationally, a key priority should be to convince China of the benefits conferred by being a responsible stakeholder in the international system, and to find ways where the United States and China can work together. Together the two economies represent about 40 percent of global output (in nominal GDP terms), and the health of both is one key to global prosperity and stability.

2. CHINA HAS A MASSIVE TRADE SURPLUS WITH U.S.

SK/A09.02) Neil Gough, INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES, November 24, 2015, p. 16, LexisNexis Academic. Despite an overall slump in China's exports and imports this year, and an economic growth rate that is expected to be the country's slowest in a quarter-century, Chinese factories continue to do brisk business selling goods to Americans. China's merchandise exports to the United States rose 5.2 percent in the first 10 months of the year to a record $340 billion, according to Chinese customs data.

3. CHINA IS A HUGE MARKET POTENTIAL FOR U.S.

SK/A09.03) Joseph Horton & Lauren Maxwell [both, U. of Central Arkansas], COMPETITION FORUM, July 2014, p. 57, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The United States should not worry about the potential of a strong Chinese economy. In fact, rather than fearing harm from growth in any nation's economy, we should welcome the innovation, lower prices and better quality goods and services that healthy competition generates. The United States and China are the largest and the second largest economies in the world. China has replaced Mexico as our second largest trading partner. During 2012, we imported more from China than from any other nation in the world and in 2013 exported more to China ($219 billion in 2011) than to any country other than our NAFTA partners Mexico and Canada. The United States (US) is China's largest export market $409 billion in 2011, reaching an all-time record high in 2011. China remains the fastest-growing segment of US exports (Eernisse & Strouhal, 2008, p. 36; The China Effect; Chinese Imports; US-China Trade Facts).

SK/A09.04) Joseph Horton & Lauren Maxwell [both, U. of Central Arkansas], COMPETITION FORUM, July 2014, p. 57, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. China is the largest export market for US agriculture. Agricultural exports to China increased three fold from 2007 to 2012, totaling $26 billion in 2012. Each country's agricultural policies are of considerable importance to the other country.

4. CHINA IS NOT A PARTY TO THE TPP

SK/A09.05) Neil Gough, THE NEW YORK TIMES, January 20, 2016, p. B1, LexisNexis Academic. Dongguan is at the heart of south China's Pearl River Delta. For decades, the region drove the country's global ascent in exports, producing furniture, garments, shoes and other goods. But the world's workshop has been stumbling as cheaper production bases in Asia have gained ground. Last year, Chinese exports fell for the first time since the financial crisis -- and for only the second time since the country's economy began reopening to the outside world in the late 1970s. That position is likely to be further eroded by the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The United States-led trade agreement deepens American ties with Asian countries like Vietnam and Malaysia, but it excludes China.

5. TPP WILL TEAR DOWN MAJOR TRADE BARRIERS

SK/A09.06) Naina Bajekal, TIME, October 19, 2015, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The U.S. and 11 other Pacific Rim countries reached an agreement on the trade accord Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on October 5, 2015. Aside from eliminating 98% of tariffs on products such as dairy and energy, the TPP will set shared standards for everything from e-commerce to business practices.

6. EXCLUDING CHINA DOOMS TPP TO FAILURE

SK/A09.07) Elizabeth Van Wie Davis [Director of Liberal Arts & International Studies, Colorado School of Mines], CHINA REVIEW INTERNATIONAL, Winter 2012, p. 602, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The author [Donald Gross, author of THE CHINA FALLACY: HOW THE U.S. CAN BENEFIT FROM CHINA’S RISE AND AVOID ANOTHER COLD WAR] clearly states that it is essential for the United States to exert leadership in Asia by promoting greater trade and investment and by preventing any other group of countries from creating an exclusive trading area that excludes Americans. Nonetheless, he is adamant about the negative and divisive character of the Obama administrations Transpacific Partnership (TPP), which, he argues, punishes and isolates China by seeking to exclude it from a future regional free-trade zone that would embrace Chinas neighbors and major trading partners.

SK/A09.08) Patrick Burnson [Executive Editor], LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT, December 2015, p. 80, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Some trade analysts suggest that China's exclusion from the current TPP configuration might well be a deliberate attempt to contain the superpower's range and ambitions in the region. Indeed, it could further isolate a country that's already regarded by regional partners as a rogue influence that's unwilling to respect intellectual property rights or develop adequate government procurement standards. But besides its involvement in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank, China has many independent trade negotiations to conduct before worrying about being left out in the cold. Furthermore, no one is counting on keeping China out of the TPP indefinitely--to do so might be a regrettable provocation.

SK/A09.09) Jacqui Fatka, FEEDSTUFFS, February 23, 2015, p. 1, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Vilsack [U.S. Agriculture Secretary] noted that if the U.S. cannot wrap up TPP, it's not as if nothing happens and the status quo continues. Instead, he said, "China comes in and fills a void"--and does so in a way that doesn't include the environmental and labor standards the U.S. is seeking within the regional agreement.

SK/A09.10) Clyde Prestowitz [President, Economic Strategy Institute], THE AMERICAN PROSPECT, Fall 2015, p. 16, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Countries are understandably playing China and America against each other and hedging their bets on both sides. Consider Singapore. Even as it works to conclude the TPP and warns America of the danger of withdrawal from Asia, it is negotiating assiduously to complete the China-led RCEP. So it's implausible that TPP would limit or retard the expansion of Chinese influence and power in any way.

SK/A09.11) Clyde Prestowitz [President, Economic Strategy Institute], THE AMERICAN PROSPECT, Fall 2015, p. 16, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Thus, to some extent, China will inevitably be writing some of the future rules of world trade. It won't dictate all the rules, but it will surely have a major role in their writing. But that is only the beginning of China's increasing global influence, and the TPP does nothing to counter the other elements. China is on a massive campaign to barter investment in third-world infrastructure projects for access to the raw materials that its economy needs. This offensive naturally yields diplomatic influence.

7. CHINA WANTS TO JOIN THE TPP

SK/A09.12) George H. Pike [Director, Pritzker Legal Research Center, Northwestern U.], INFORMATION TODAY, January-February 2016, p. 1, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Notably absent from the TPP is China, which is now the world's second largest economy by gross domestic product. While China has been identified as having an interest in the TPP and has participated in other multinational trade agreements, it is not one of the 12 parties.

SK/A09.13) J.D. Kenneth Boutin [Sr Lecturer in International Relations, Australian National U.], INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, September 2015, p. 372, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. American efforts to set the terms of economic relations are likely to increase as concern over China deepens and as Sino-American economic engagement expands through the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, which China has indicated an interest in joining.

SK/A09.14) Steven Schwankert [Beijing correspondent], AMERICA, October 19, 2015, p. 12, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. China's Communist Party hitched its train to the engine of economic growth more than three decades ago, and it views social stability as its number one priority at all times. How it maintains that control during the country's first major economic slowdown in more than a generation will determine Mr. Xi's ultimate success. That economic uncertainty put China on the back foot for the first time in years. In the past the United States needed China to buy more U.S. goods--even American debt. Now it is China that is facing a slowdown and could benefit from a better trade relationship with the United States.

8. TPP WILL LEVEL THE ECONOMIC PLAYING FIELD

SK/A09.15) Patrick Burnson [Executive Editor], LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT, February 2016, p. 28, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Keith Williams, U.S.-ABC chairman, is also bullish on the effort, noting that the TPP creates "a more balanced playing field" for U.S. businesses competing in Asia against businesses from China, India and Europe by establishing pro-innovation standards in a wide variety of areas. "In electronic commerce, for example, the TPP contains important commitments to the free flow of data and consumer protection," says Williams. Furthermore, adds Williams, it will eliminate 100% of the tariffs on thousands of qualifying exports of industrial goods and textiles. And by streamlining customs procedures to simplify the release of goods across borders, it will help small and medium-sized businesses obtain greater opportunities out of trade agreements.

SK/A09.16) George H. Pike [Director, Pritzker Legal Research Center, Northwestern U.], INFORMATION TODAY, January-February 2016, p. 1, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The TPP is being presented by the Obama administration as a "new, high-standard trade agreement that levels the playing field for American works and American businesses." It reduces the costs of U.S. goods and services in overseas markets by eliminating or cutting taxes and tariffs, lessens trade barriers, promotes ecommerce and an open internet, and encourages good governance and anticorruption efforts among the TPP countries. It also has protections for labor, the environment, digital freedom, and intellectual property. The U.S.' goal for the agreement is to make "sure our farmers, ranchers, manufacturers and small businesses can compete ... in some of the fastest-growing markets in the world."

SK/A09.17) THE ECONOMIST, April 25, 2015, p. 25(US), GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Jason Furman, the chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, says that by 2025 the TPP would raise American incomes by 0.4% per year.

SK/A09.18) Jacqui Fatka, FEEDSTUFFS, March 7, 2016, p. 4, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) released a comprehensive analysis Feb. 22 showing that annual net farm income would increase $4.4 billion if TPP is ratified versus not approving the trade deal among Pacific Rim countries (Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and the U.S.). The report assesses the effects on U.S. agriculture of reducing agricultural tariffs, adjusting tariff-rate quotas and reducing non-tariff barriers to trade in 2026--the assumed end date of the pact's implementation.

SK/A09.19) Patrick Burnson [Executive Editor], LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT, February 2016, p. 28, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Election year politics notwithstanding, Alexander Feldman, president and CEO of the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council (US-ABC) is a strong advocate of the Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP]. "The TPP agreement marks an extraordinary opportunity to open markets and level the playing field for American exporters and investors competing in some of Asia's fastest growing markets, including four ASEAN markets," says Feldman. "Building on the success of the U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement of 2004, American exports to Singapore have grown by nearly 90%, and we believe that TPP can offer similar export opportunities in Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam."

SK/A09.20) Jacqui Fatka, FEEDSTUFFS, February 23, 2015, p. 1, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Without U.S. agricultural exports, net farm income would essentially be eliminated as exports contribute 30% of all gross sales, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack explained.

SK/A09.21) Josh Barro, THE NEW YORK TIMES, January 28, 2016, p. A3, LexisNexis Academic. Mr. Bernanke [former Chief, Federal Reserve Board] told me last year that trade imbalances are a problem that can't be dealt with through formulaic rules and are instead a matter for international diplomacy. That is, we must urge countries that are running persistent and unjustified trade surpluses to stop it.

SK/A09.22) George H. Pike [Director, Pritzker Legal Research Center, Northwestern U.], INFORMATION TODAY, January-February 2016, p. 1, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. A challenge for several developing TPP countries is fostering investment in domestic operations and facilities, particularly by U.S.-based businesses and investors. The agreement has several objectives that are intended to protect and encourage investment in TPP countries, including "most-favored-nation" treatment of TPP partner investors. This means that investments coming from other TPP countries would be given the same treatment and benefits that domestic investors would get and would receive no worse treatment than the country would give to any non-TPP investors. TPP partners would provide protection against seizure of property without compensation, similar again to that which is required by U.S. law. Investors would not have to appoint senior managers from the host country, absent a particular business need.

9. INCLUSION OF CHINA WILL BENEFIT THE WORLD ECONOMY

SK/A09.23) THE ECONOMIST, June 20, 2015, p. 14(US), GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Yet TPP would be worth more if China was part of it and America's long-term interests are best served by knitting China into a rules-based economic system.

SK/A09.24) THE ECONOMIST, April 25, 2015, p. 12(US), GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Flanked by Japan and America, the TPP would link countries which make up 40% of global GDP. It could boost world output by $220 billion a year by 2025. It is supposed to reform difficult areas such as intellectual property, state-owned firms and environmental and labour standards. It would join economies--from Vietnam to Australia--that lie at different ends of the spectrum of development.

SK/A09.25) Chunding Li & John Whalley, WORLD ECONOMY, February 2014, p. 169, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. This paper uses numerical simulation methods to assess the potential effects of a TPP agreement on China and also China's inclusion or exclusion on other countries. We use a numerical 11-country global general equilibrium model with trade costs and inside money. Trade costs are calculated using a method based on gravity equations. TPP barriers potentially removable are trade costs less tariffs. Simulation results reveal that China will be slightly hurt by TPP initiatives in welfare when China is out, but the total production and export will be increased. Other non-TPP countries will be mostly hurt in welfare, but member countries will mostly gain. If China takes part in TPP, she will significantly gain and increase other TPP countries' gain as well.

10. INCLUSION OF CHINA WILL REDUCE GLOBAL CONFLICTS

SK/A09.26) CHOICE: CURRENT REVIEWS FOR ACADEMIC LIBRARIES, May 2015, p. 1552, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. In this thought-provoking book [BRIDGING THE PACIFIC: TOWARD FREE TRADE AND INVESTMENT BETWEEN CHINA AND THE UNITED STATES], Bergsten, Miner, and others at the Peterson Institute for International Economics propose a comprehensive China-US trade and investment agreement. The authors argue that the agreement would increase income and productivity for both countries, reduce the risk of economic conflict, and help provide global sustainability and stability. The authors envision the agreement being achieved through either a traditional bilateral trade agreement or Chinese accession to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

SK/A10. BILATERAL INVESTMENT TREATY: Extensions

1. U.S.-CHINA RELATIONSHIP IS TOP U.S. FOREIGN POLICY ISSUE

SK/A10.01) Thomas J. Christensen [Professor of World Politics of Peace and War], FOREIGN AFFAIRS, September-October 2015, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. China's rise poses two broad challenges for U.S. foreign policy: how to deter the People's Republic from destabilizing East Asia and how to encourage it to contribute to multilateral global governance. Although China is not yet a military peer competitor of the United States, it has become powerful enough to challenge U.S. friends and allies in East Asia and to pose serious problems for U.S. forces operating there. And although China is still a developing country with significant domestic problems, it has become an important enough actor that its cooperation is necessary to solve global problems such as nuclear proliferation, climate change, and international financial instability.

SK/A10.02) Thomas Velk [Director of North American Studies, McGill U., Canada] et al., ANTITRUST BULLETIN, Spring 2015, p. 4, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. For the past decade and more, the world has been astonished by China's double-speed march forward. American sanctions against Iran and threats against Syria in the United Nations are neutralized when China, supported by Russia, decides to veto. The roughly $1.25 trillion of American debt held by China as of October 20141 could threaten the American financial system even more than would a fleet of submarines and aircraft carriers. China's economy, the second largest in the world, is estimated to pass America's and become the world's largest in the coming years. The United States was, at one time, considered the only superpower by many measures. Now, China too can be reasonably regarded as one as well.

2. U.S. ECONOMIC FUTURE DEPENDS ON A SOUND RELATIONSHIP

SK/A10.03) Henry M. Paulson Jr. [former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury], THE WASHINGTON POST, September 20, 2015, p. A19, LexisNexis Academic. Second, U.S. and Chinese companies need expanded opportunities in each other's markets. From agribusiness to medical devices, the U.S. and Chinese economies are increasingly complementary. What is missing are policies to better enable direct investment and to provide companies a level playing field.

3. U.S.-CHINA RELATIONSHIP IS KEY TO CYBERSECURITY

SK/A10.04) Jon R. Lindsay [Asst. Professor of Digital Media & Global Affairs, U. of Toronto, Canada], NEW PERSPECTIVES QUARTERLY, July 2015, WILEY ONLINE LIBRARY, p. 18. There is, however, some danger of crisis miscalculation when states field cyberweapons. The secrecy of cyberweapons’ capabilities and the uncertainties about their effects and collateral damage are as likely to confuse friendly militaries as they are to muddy signals to an adversary. Unsuccessful preemptive cyberattacks could reveal hostile intent and thereby encourage retaliation with more traditional (and reliable) weapons. Conversely, preemptive escalation spurred by fears of cyberattack could encourage the target to use its cyberweapons before it loses the opportunity to do so. Bilateral dialogue is essential for reducing the risks of misperception between the US and China in the event of a crisis.

SK/A10.05) Henry M. Paulson Jr. [former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury], THE WASHINGTON POST, September 20, 2015, p. A19, LexisNexis Academic. We also need an enforceable, rules-based cybereconomic regime to punish and curb cybertheft. This requires the cooperation of all the major economies, including China.

4. CYBERWARFARE IS A MASSIVE THREAT TO U.S. SECURITY

SK/A10.06) James Bamford [author of THE SHADOW FACTORY: THE ULTRA-SECRET NSA FROM 9/11 TO THE EAVESDROPPING ON AMERICA], FOREIGN POLICY, September-October 2015, p. 102, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. In our conversation, Snowden also highlighted a secret program, code-named MonsterMind, that was still in development when he left the NSA. It is intended to detect suspicious malware entering the United States by spotting known algorithms as they zip through communications links. But there were indications it could also include an automated strike-back capability, allowing it to instantly initiate a counterstrike at a piece of malware's source. An error in such an autonomous system, Snowden pointed out, could lead to an accidental war. "What happens when the algorithms get it wrong?" he asked. "What if it was a Chinese hacker launching an attack from an Iranian computer targeting the United States? ... We're opening the doors to people launching missiles and dropping bombs by taking the human out of the decision chain."

SK/A10.07) Scott J. Shackelford [Asst. Professor of Business Law & Ethics, Indiana U.] et al., AMERICAN BUSINESS LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 72. As was discussed in Part I, the importance of enhancing cybersecurity to the international community cannot be understated. In fact, in late 2013, members of the Wassenaar Arrangement-an alliance of forty-one Western nations (including the United States) that was organized to curb the spread of potentially dangerous goods and technology-proposed "an agreement that would put sensitive cybersecurity technologies on the same footing as regular armaments."

5. CYBERTHEFT TAKES BILLIONS FROM THE U.S. ECONOMY

SK/A10.08) Scott J. Shackelford [Asst. Professor of Business Law & Ethics, Indiana U.] et al., AMERICAN BUSINESS LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 2. Cyber attacks constitute a vast, evolving, and controversial class of incidents. In August 2013 alone, the Syrian Electronic Army allegedly launched cyber attacks against the New York Times and Twitter among other outlets, one of the largest cyber attacks in history targeted China, and new revelations came to light regarding the National Security Agency's (NSA) surveillance programs.

SK/A10.09) Scott J. Shackelford [Asst. Professor of Business Law & Ethics, Indiana U.] et al., AMERICAN BUSINESS LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 2. But the specter of cyber warfare is far from the only component of the cyber threat; cybercrime and espionage are on the rise and pose significant challenges to companies and countries alike. The true extent of cybercrime is unknown, but contested estimates have placed losses at $ 1 trillion for 2010, prompting U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, to suggest that "we are suffering what is probably the biggest transfer of wealth through theft and piracy in the history of mankind."

6. U.S. IMPOSES SERIOUS BARRIERS TO CHINESE INVESTMENT

SK/A10.10) Scott J. Shackelford [Asst. Professor of Business Law & Ethics, Indiana U.] et al., AMERICAN BUSINESS LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 36. Meanwhile, Chinese investors in the United States fear "political backlash" over Chinese ownership, national-security based congressional rejections, and visa difficulties among other challenges--as was briefly alluded to in the Huawei saga in the Introduction. As such, negotiating an investment treaty that addresses these issues "could dramatically expand business opportunities for both countries."

SK/A10.11) Scott J. Shackelford [Asst. Professor of Business Law & Ethics, Indiana U.] et al., AMERICAN BUSINESS LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2015, LexisNexis Academic, pp. 47-48. China is particularly concerned about the actions of the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which has the authority to block foreign investments in the United States if such investments represent national security concerns. While CFIUS prevents "only a small number of deals," numerous high-profile, attempted Chinese acquisitions have been blocked by CFIUS, contributing to "a Chinese perception of operating at a disadvantage when investing in the U.S."

7. INVESTMENT TREATY NEGOTIATIONS HAVE STALLED

SK/A10.12) Scott J. Shackelford [Asst. Professor of Business Law & Ethics, Indiana U.] et al., AMERICAN BUSINESS LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2015, LexisNexis Academic, pp. 3-4. At the July 2013 U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, the United States and China publicized plans to begin negotiating an expansive BIT that will reportedly include the difficult Issue of enhancing bilateral cybersecurity. According to U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew, if successful, this would be "the first time China has agreed to negotiate a bilateral investment treaty, to include all sectors and stages of investment, with another country."

8. CHINA IS OPEN TO RESUMING NEGOTIATIONS

SK/A10.13) Scott J. Shackelford [Asst. Professor of Business Law & Ethics, Indiana U.] et al., AMERICAN BUSINESS LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 50. Indeed, while the United States is interested in negotiating a U.S.-China BIT [bilateral investment treaty] to gain substantially more market access, China is likely interested in negotiating a BIT that will increase transparency and perceived fairness in the CFIUS review process. Such a position seems especially likely if the United States pushes for trade secrets theft provisions to be included in the BIT; discussions about cyber espionage accusations will surely provoke Huawei-related frustrations.

SK/A10.14) Jon R. Lindsay [Asst. Professor of Digital Media & Global Affairs, U. of Toronto, Canada], NEW PERSPECTIVES QUARTERLY, July 2015, WILEY ONLINE LIBRARY, pp. 17-18. More important, both the US and China have strong incentives to moderate the intensity of their cyber exploitation to preserve profitable interconnections and avoid costly punishment. The policy backlash against US firms and liberal internet governance by China and others is ultimately more worrisome for US competitiveness than espionage; ironically, it is also counterproductive for Chinese growth.

SK/A10.15) Jon R. Lindsay [Asst. Professor of Digital Media & Global Affairs, U. of Toronto, Canada], NEW PERSPECTIVES QUARTERLY, July 2015, WILEY ONLINE LIBRARY, pp. 19-20. Information technology has generated tremendous wealth and innovation for millions, underwriting the US’ preponderance as well as China’s meteoric rise. The costs of cyber espionage and harassment pale beside the mutual benefits of an interdependent, globalized economy. The inevitable frictions of cyberspace are not a harbinger of catastrophe to come, but rather a sign that the states inflicting them lack incentives to cause any real harm. Exaggerated fears of cyberwarfare or an erosion of the US’ competitive advantage must not be allowed to undermine the institutions and architectures that make the digital commons so productive.

SK/A10.16) Scott J. Shackelford [Asst. Professor of Business Law & Ethics, Indiana U.] et al., AMERICAN BUSINESS LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 65. First, before BITs [bilateral investment treaties] could provide an effective avenue to enhance global cybersecurity, the expansion of international investment agreements (IIAs) into a wider investment landscape would need to continue to garner support from key nations such as the United States and China. Such an expansion of traditional BIT protections is not without precedent as recently concluded IIAs refer to trade law, intellectual property rights, and even noneconomic concerns such as environmental protection or labor rights.

9. THIRD-PARTY ARBITRATION IS KEY TO SUCCESS

SK/A10.17) Scott J. Shackelford [Asst. Professor of Business Law & Ethics, Indiana U.] et al., AMERICAN BUSINESS LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 26. Perhaps most critically, BITs [bilateral investment treaties] also generally provide for the international arbitration of disputes between investors and host countries, such as through the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) or the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), as is explored below in Parts III and IV.

SK/A10.18) Scott J. Shackelford [Asst. Professor of Business Law & Ethics, Indiana U.] et al., AMERICAN BUSINESS LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 63. The vast majority of international investment agreements contain dispute settlement provisions in which governments give their consent that, should an investment dispute arise with a qualifying private investor from another contracting state, they will submit to international arbitration. It is in these instances that BITs [bilateral investment treaties] can ensure that foreign-based entities are not able to benefit from the cyber-enabled theft of trade secrets without consequence, as BITs provide consent to investment arbitration as a condition of the trade agreement.

SK/A10.19) Scott J. Shackelford [Asst. Professor of Business Law & Ethics, Indiana U.] et al., AMERICAN BUSINESS LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 25. For more than fifty years now, BITs [bilateral investment treaties] have become the most important legal mechanism for the encouragement and governance of foreign direct investment (FDI) and, increasingly, trade secrets protections.

10. INCREASED INVESTMENT WILL BENEFIT U.S. ECONOMY

SK/A10.20) Thomas Velk [Director of North American Studies, McGill U., Canada] et al., ANTITRUST BULLETIN, Spring 2015, p. 4, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Free trade for capital means that China may use its economic might and its accumulated stash of dollars to buy equity in commodities and other goods. It could then improve its domestic economy, and thus prevent unrest that could have international implications. The West should not impede this process, because China's purchase of Western commodity assets, and the resulting exports of products from those assets, will also stimulate Western domestic economies. The correct Western response is a form of partnership whereby the nations grow and thrive together, rather than oppose one another. For example, elements in the U.S. Congress recently expressed fears that a proposed investment by Huawei Inc. and ZTE Inc. would pose a security risk. It would be better if instead of China bashing, American politicians urged American technology firms to partner with their Chinese cousins, keep open mutual books, and thus give these dealings greater transparency.

SK/A10.21) Elizabeth Van Wie Davis [Director of Liberal Arts & International Studies, Colorado School of Mines], CHINA REVIEW INTERNATIONAL, Winter 2012, p. 602, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. He [Donald Gross, author of THE CHINA FALLACY: HOW THE U.S. CAN BENEFIT FROM CHINA’S RISE AND AVOID ANOTHER COLD WAR] concludes the section with the contention that the best way for Americans to benefit from Chinas economic growth is for the United States to expand exports to China significantly, invest in China's economic developments, and welcome China's investment in the United States.

SK/A10.22) Pankaj Ghemawat [Professor of Management & Strategy, School of Business, NYU] & Thomas Hout [Middlebury Institute of International Studies], FOREIGN AFFAIRS, March-April 2016, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. One of the keys to the United States' economic dominance is its huge investment in foreign markets. American corporations put $337 billion into overseas markets in 2014, a full ten percent of what they committed at home. All told, U.S. firms have directly invested $6.3 trillion overseas, which helps explain why the companies listed on the S&P 500 earn roughly 40 percent of their profits outside the United States.

11. INVESTMENT TREATY CAN ACHIEVE CYBERPEACE REGIME

SK/A10.23) George R. Hoguet [State Street Global Advisors], THE INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY, Fall 2015, p. 34, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. An enforceable cyber security deal with China designed to protect intellectual property could promote financial stability and possibly serve as a template for a multilateral cybersecurity protocol.

SK/A10.24) ENP NEWSWIRE, March 25, 2016, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Huawei today called for the cybersecurity industry to adopt an open and cooperative approach to security that is built-in to assurance systems, rather than bolted on as an afterthought.

SK/A10.25) ENP NEWSWIRE, March 25, 2016, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. At the Commonwealth Cybersecurity Forum 2016 held in London, David Francis, European Chief Security Officer at Huawei, discussed how the public and private sectors can work better together to protect critical infrastructure and secure networks from cyberattacks. In his talk 'Built in, not bolt on - Delivering secure networks' Francis outlined why organisations need to take an open & cooperative approach to cyber security, to ensure product security is given the same priority as product quality.

SK/A11. UNCLOS (LAW OF THE SEA TREATY): Extensions

1. CHINA CLAIMS OWNERSHIP OF SOUTH CHINA SEA ISLANDS

SK/A11.01) Suzanne S. Kimble [Tulane U. Law School], TULANE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW, 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 271. Within the SCS [South China Sea] there are four archipelagos: the Pratas, the Macclesfield Bank, the Paracels, and the Spratly Islands. Six countries claim sovereignty over the Spratly Island group: the People's Republic of China (PRC), The Republic of China (Taiwan), Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines.

SK/A11.02) Marjorie Ellen Gallagher [Temple U. School of Law], TEMPLE INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2014, LexisNexis Academic, p. 18. Currently, China is involved in disputes over three islands in the South China Sea: the Paracel Islands, the Spratly Islands, and the Scarborough Shoal. Nearby countries have been in disagreement for some time, "the intensification of the disputes is due in part to an increase in assertiveness by China in stating and defending its maritime territorial claims." Further, "it is the Chinese claim - because of its aggressive scope, the history behind it, and China's growing military capacity to back it up - that poses the real problem to regional stability."

2. CHINA IS PURSUING A VIGOROUS MILITARY BUILDUP

SK/A11.03) Suzanne S. Kimble [Tulane U. Law School], TULANE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW, 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 286. An important aspect of the SCS [South China Sea] dispute is China's use of the land features for its military build-up. The first public Chinese Military strategy paper, released on May 26, 2015, led noted political analysts to think the most important use of these islands will be to increase China's military power and to extend it beyond its current region. China has constructed a military-sized air strip on Fiery Cross Reef, and it is believed that China is in the process of constructing a second military-sized air strip on another reef. The potential for China to set up an air defense identification and interfere with any efforts the United States may take to come to the aid of its allies, such as the Philippines, is worrisome to U.S. officials and allies.

SK/A11.04) Christopher Bowen Johnston [Fellow, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown U.], PARAMETERS, Winter 2014, p. 49, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The South China Sea is now a constellation of competing claims. China, the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei each covet overlapping shares. Yet through extraordinary land reclamation and construction activity China is literally creating a new reality. Unless countered, it will shortly possess the means to station troops, ships, and aircraft across a range of disputed shoals and islets. In due course this will enable the PLA to declare--and potentially enforce--an Air Defence Identification Zone over the South China Sea.

SK/A11.05) Andrew S. Erickson [Associate Professor, Naval War Colleges China Maritime Studies Institute], NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW, Winter 2016, p. 7, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. In 2014, China greatly accelerated what had long been a very modest process of "island building," developing land features in the Spratlys and Paracels on a scale and [with a] sophistication that its neighbors simply cannot match, even collectively over time. "Features" is the key word here, because many were previously small rocks or reefs not legally considered "islands." Then China used some of the world's largest dredgers to build up some of the most pristine coral reefs above water with thousands of tons of sand, coral cuttings, and concrete. U.S. Pacific Fleet commander Admiral Harry Harris aptly terms China's creation a "Great Wall of Sand." It has created over two thousand acres of "land" where none remained above South China Sea waters before. But it's what China is constructing atop this artificial edifice that most concerns its neighbors and the United States: militarily relevant facilities, including at least two runways capable of serving a wide range of military aircraft, that could allow Beijing to exert increasing influence over the South China Sea.

SK/A11.06) Andrew S. Erickson [Associate Professor, Naval War Colleges China Maritime Studies Institute], NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW, Winter 2016, p. 7, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Beijing itself has stated officially that there will be military uses for the new "islands" it has raised from the sea. On 9 March 2015, China Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying stated that Spratly garrison "maintenance and construction work" was intended in part for "better safeguarding territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests" and elaborated that construction was designed in part to "satisfy the necessary military defense needs." Chinese military sources employ similar wording. The likely translation, in concrete terms: * Better facilities for personnel stationed on the features * Port facilities for logistics, maritime militia, coast guard, and navy ships * A network of radars to enable monitoring of most of the South China Sea * Air defense missiles * Airstrips for civilian and military aircraft.

SK/A11.07) Ross P. Buckley [Professor of International Finance & Regulation, U. of New South Wales, Australia], BOSTON COLLEGE INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW REVIEW, Winter 2014, LexisNexis Academic, pp. 42-43. Likewise, in mid-2012, China established a military garrison on the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, which are claimed by Vietnam. This was described by one of Australia's most perspicacious commentators as "an extraordinary act of provocation".

3. CHINA’S MILITARY BUILDUP THREATENS U.S. INTERESTS

SK/A11.08) Marjorie Ellen Gallagher [Temple U. School of Law], TEMPLE INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2014, LexisNexis Academic, p. 26. Additionally, the United States needs to accede to UNCLOS because of the importance of the South China Sea trade routes. China believes that UNCLOS gives it the right to demand notification when foreign countries enter its EEZ. The United States does not believe that it has to notify China when the U.S. military enters Chinese waters. These U.S. reconnaissance missions in the South China Sea are crucial to its military security procedures, if for no other reason than the volume of U.S. trade passing through the area. This disagreement has arisen out of differing readings of UNCLOS.

SK/A11.09) Marjorie Ellen Gallagher [Temple U. School of Law], TEMPLE INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2014, LexisNexis Academic, p. 26. Until the United States accedes to UNCLOS, it has no doctrinal authority to argue with China, because the United States has not agreed to be bound by UNCLOS. As a signatory, the United States would have the ability to take up this issue with the committee to determine what authority each country has to regulate foreign military in its EEZ.

SK/A11.10) Marjorie Ellen Gallagher [Temple U. School of Law], TEMPLE INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2014, LexisNexis Academic, pp. 23-24. The legal right of U.S. naval forces to operate freely in EEZ waters is important to their ability to perform their missions around the world, because many of those missions are aimed at influencing events ashore, and having to conduct operations from more than 200 miles offshore would reduce the inland reach and responsiveness of ship-based sensors, aircraft, and missiles, and make it more difficult to transport Marines and their equipment from ship to shore.

SK/A11.11) Andrew S. Erickson [Associate Professor, Naval War Colleges China Maritime Studies Institute], NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW, Winter 2016, p. 7, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Together with the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea, the South China Sea is a vital part of the global commons, on which the international system depends to operate effectively and equitably. Half of global commerce and 90 percent of regional energy imports transit the South China Sea alone. We cannot allow Beijing to carve out within these international waters and airspace a zone of exceptionalism in which its neighbors face bullying without recourse and vital global rules and norms are subordinated to its parochial priorities. This would set back severely what Beijing itself terms democracy" or "democratization in international relations."

SK/A11.12) Michael C. Davis [Faculty of Law, U. of Hong Kong], DENVER JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND POLICY, Winter 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 124. A prominent Japanese retired admiral has even argued, beyond seabed resource claims, China's real goal in seeking to control the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands and the South China Sea is to create a submarine safe-zone in the South China Sea to enhance unfettered access to the open ocean by nuclear submarines, as a deterrent against the U.S.

4. U.S. RISKS BEING DRAWN INTO WAR

SK/A11.13) Andrew S. Erickson [Associate Professor, Naval War Colleges China Maritime Studies Institute], NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW, Winter 2016, p. 7, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. More broadly, worries about China's island construction, developing force posture in the South China Sea, and accompanying official statements exemplify broader foreign concern about Chinas rise--that as it becomes increasingly powerful, Beijing will * Abandon previous restraint in word and deed * Bully its smaller neighbors * Implicitly or explicitly threaten the use of force to resolve disputes * Attempt to change--or else run roughshod over--important international norms that preserve peace in Asia and underwrite the global system on which mutual prosperity depends.

SK/A11.14) Michael C. Davis [Faculty of Law, U. of Hong Kong], DENVER JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND POLICY, Winter 2015, LexisNexis Academic, pp. 122-123. While the present essay will discuss prominent East China Sea disputes, those in the South China Sea are equally compelling. Any of these disputes risk conflagration across the region as various security alignments are brought into play. Recent developments, with China employing drones near the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands and declaring an Air Defense Identification Zone ("ADIZ") to overlap the Japanese controlled islands, have raised ominous concerns about miscalculations leading to military conflict.

SK/A11.15) Christopher Bowen Johnston [Fellow, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown U.], PARAMETERS, Winter 2014, p. 49, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Armed conflict between the United States and China, however unlikely, represents the most perilous security contingency in the Asia-Pacific region. It is historically unusual that neither party has any territorial design on the other, but would most likely become embroiled over a third country or disputed territory. Rather than remaining resolutely on the sidelines, the United States should actively encourage the resolution of disputes in the East China Sea. There are greater dangers here, and better prospects for diplomacy than Washington might find in the Middle East or elsewhere.

5. ENERGY RESERVES MOTIVATE CHINA’S LAND GRAB

SK/A11.16) Arthur L. Herman, NATIONAL REVIEW, December 21, 2015, p. 23, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The existence of competing territorial claims for the Spratlys should come as no surprise. Off their shores are large, deepwater natural-gas and oil reserves. For China, securing control of these islands has become a basic part of its "first island chain" strategy to protect its vulnerable southern coast by sealing off other powers' access to the area, particularly that of the United States.

SK/A11.17) Marjorie Ellen Gallagher [Temple U. School of Law], TEMPLE INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2014, LexisNexis Academic, p. 16. Recent reports found that the South China Sea holds about 1.6 billion barrels of recoverable petroleum, while some Chinese studies increase this estimate by a power of ten. Further, it is estimated that a large amount of methane hydrates are in the South China Sea - "initial median estimates [of methane hydrates] place ... China's [reserves] at 5 trillion cubic meters." Control of the South China Sea is thus very important.

6. U.S. LACKS STANDING TO NEGOTIATE A DISPUTE SETTLEMENT

SK/A11.18) Yann-huei Song [Academia Sinica] & N. Elias Blood-Patterson [NYU School of Law], JOURNAL OF MARITIME LAW AND COMMERCE, October 2012, LexisNexis Academic, p. 449. Second, in recent years, conflicting claims in the South China Sea have resulted in flared tensions between nations in the region, raising a real risk of conflict, in particular, between China and two of its neighbors: the Philippines and Vietnam. The U.S. has strong interests in stabilizing these relationships, but whenever it urges others to adhere to key provisions of the LOS Convention, they have responded that, as a nonparty, the U.S. has no standing to push for any interpretation of the treaty.

SK/A11.19) Michael J. Kelly [Professor of Law, Creighton U.], CASE WESTERN RESERVE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, Fall 2012, LexisNexis Academic, p. 471. Even though Washington recognizes many of the UNCLOS provisions as binding custom, the United States is still the outsider. As such, it is difficult for the United States to force compliance with UCNLOS provisions and impossible to avail itself of dispute resolution features as a party--the threat of which could induce better Chinese cooperation, especially in the case of island claims.

SK/A11.20) Marjorie Ellen Gallagher [Temple U. School of Law], TEMPLE INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2014, LexisNexis Academic, p. 24. If the United States acceded to UNCLOS, then China's response could no longer be, "You are not a party to the convention." Admiral Locklear, the U.S. Navy Commander in the U.S. Pacific Command, has mentioned that in the South China Sea, where "competing claims and counter claims in the maritime domain are becoming more prominent ... the effectiveness of the U.S. message is somewhat less credible than it might otherwise be, due to the fact that we are not a party to the convention." The United States would finally have standing to make the argument that China needs to follow UNCLOS.

SK/A11.21) Marjorie Ellen Gallagher [Temple U. School of Law], TEMPLE INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2014, LexisNexis Academic, p. 24. Currently, the State Department's suggestion to the competing claims in the South China Sea is for all of the nations to follow UNCLOS. It is hypocritical for the United States to encourage another country to follow UNCLOS without actually acceding to it herself. Further, China is less likely to listen to the United States from a "position of weakness."

SK/A11.22) Marjorie Ellen Gallagher [Temple U. School of Law], TEMPLE INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW JOURNAL, Spring 2014, LexisNexis Academic, p. 25. Further, the United States needs to accede to UNCLOS to exert credible influence over the competing territorial claims in the South China Sea. Although the United States has not taken a position on the competing claims in the region, it has urged the parties to follow UNCLOS. Admiral Locklear comments that by becoming a party of UNCLOS, "we place ourselves in a much stronger position to demand adherence by others to the rules contained in the Convention." Without being a party of UNCLOS, the United States's recommendations to China carry little weight.

SK/A11.23) Suzanne S. Kimble [Tulane U. Law School], TULANE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW, 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 288. The Chinese government rejects the U.S. involvement in the SCS [South China Sea] dispute. In the first official comments made by China regarding the SCS, Spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, "China's sovereignty and rights in the area have a historical foundation, and do not require land reclamation as justification." Chunying also warned that other states should not abuse freedom of navigation and called on states to allow China and ASEAN nations to resolve the SCS dispute without their interference.

7. CURRENT DISPUTE RESOLUTION IS FAVORABLE TO CHINA

SK/A11.24) Daniel Andreeff [NYU School of Law], NEW YORK UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND POLITICS, Summer 2015, LexisNexis Academic, pp. 859-860. China's land reclamation activities have been met with protest from several of the interested states, particularly the Philippines and the United States. The Philippines has repeatedly and vigorously protested China's land reclamation projects in the Spratlys at the United Nations and in communication with China. Vietnam and Indonesia have also formally argued that China's claims have no international legal and/or historical basis in submissions to the United Nations Secretary-General. The United States has also critiqued the projects.

SK/A11.25) Suzanne S. Kimble [Tulane U. Law School], TULANE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW, 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 289. The Philippine government has been struggling to maintain what it believes to be its rights to the contiguous zones, EEZ, and continental shelf off the KIG [Kalyaan Island Group] islands, while the Chinese government has claimed the majority of the SCS [South China Sea], including this island grouping. UNCLOS attempted to establish a mechanism for equitably settling such disputes. This dispute is not new and there is great uncertainty as to how it will conclude.

8. RATIFYING UNCLOS WILL ENABLE U.S. TO INTERVENE

SK/A11.26) Christopher Bowen Johnston [Fellow, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown U.], PARAMETERS, Winter 2014, p. 49, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. It is clearly in US interests for China to support, not overturn established international covenants. To be seen as an honest broker the United States should also uphold the primacy of international law. When it comes to averting maritime conflict the most important legal instrument is the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This convention is already observed in practice, if not in principle by the US Navy. Washington has publicly supported the Philippines in its appeal to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. The US Senate should proceed with the formal ratification of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to follow its 1994 Agreement on Implementation.

SK/A11.27) Michael J. Kelly [Professor of Law, Creighton U.], CASE WESTERN RESERVE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, Fall 2012, LexisNexis Academic, pp. 463-464. History has shown that great powers operating within a multilateral legal framework agreement like UNCLOS or the World Trade Organization (WTO) balance one another to the benefit of all parties. By joining UNCLOS and operating within that system, the United States would be better able to more legitimately check China's behavior.

SK/A11.28) Editorial, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, May 9, 2012, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. In the past, China has shown it is willing to kill the soldiers of other countries in taking various islands in the sea. Even on Wednesday, China stated that it "has ... made all preparations to respond to any escalation of the situation by the Philippine side." China's aggressive tactics to assert maritime rights and claims in the seas around its shores could be better countered if the US were on firm legal ground with a rules-based approach to resolving such disputes. To achieve that, the Senate must approve the Law of the Sea Treaty soon.

9. U.S. SHOULD CONVENE A DEMILITARIZATION CONFERENCE

SK/A11.29) Christopher Bowen Johnston [Fellow, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown U.], PARAMETERS, Winter 2014, p. 49, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The United States also shares a vital interest in the peaceful resolution of territorial disputes in the South China Sea, particularly involving China and the Philippines, a US ally. It would be prudent for the United States, Australia and Japan to invest in all the instruments of regional dispute resolution, including peacekeeping forces. Given China's seat on the UNSC, it is unlikely UN troops could ever be deployed in a manner potentially injurious to Chinese interests. The United States, Australia and Japan should consider bolstering ASEAN and the Pacific Forum to more capably facilitate conflict management and peacekeeping.

SK/A11.30) Suzanne S. Kimble [Tulane U. Law School], TULANE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW, 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 284. Since the 1980s, scholars have suggested that joint development is the best approach to resolving the competing claims in the SCS [South China Sea]. A joint development program calls for allowing the features to generate a "regional zone" that is shared and jointly managed by the claimants. The precedent for this development strategy was established in the Gulf of Fonseca Case, where Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador jointly share ownership of the waters which each of the three nations claimed on the basis of historic use.

SK/A11.31) Suzanne S. Kimble [Tulane U. Law School], TULANE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW, 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 284. A joint development proposal would be consistent with China's past public statements. It would be in the interest of all parties involved to seriously consider a joint development program for several reasons. First, it is unlikely that an agreement will be reached through other forums. Second, there are significant potential economic benefits to be derived from the exploration and extraction of oil (which will not be able to proceed lawfully while the sovereignty of the territory is in dispute).

SK/A12. CLIMATE CHANGE: Extensions

1. CLIMATE CHANGE IS UPON US AND RAPIDLY ACCELERATING

SK/A12.01) THE ECONOMIST, November 28, 2015, p. 11(US), GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. That climate change is happening, that it is very largely man-made and that it is exceedingly dangerous, are all now hard to deny (though America's leading Republican presidential candidates routinely try). This year will all but certainly be the hottest since 1880, when NASA's records begin. If so, 2015 will break a record that was set only in 2014. Every single year so far this decade has been hotter than every single year before 1998.

SK/A12.02) Olivia Lowenberg, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, December 16, 2015, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. New data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) indicates that this November was the warmest since recording temperature data began in the 1880s. It was also about 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the 1951-1980 baseline average. While 2014 is currently on record as the warmest year ever recorded, this and other recent data puts 2015 on track to top that.

SK/A12.03) Caroline McDonald, RISK MANAGEMENT, March 2016, p. 8. GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Overall, the number one risk in terms of impact on society is the failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation, according to the World Economic Forum's Global Risk Report 2016. Weapons of mass destruction ranked second and water crises ranked third. Large-scale involuntary migration also rated among the top five for impact, as did severe energy price shock.

SK/A12.04) Jay Inslee [Washington State Governor], THE JOURNAL OF VALUES-BASED LEADERSHIP, Winter-Spring 2016, p. 15. GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Despite the global disparity in economic development--with a per capita GDP of over $45,000 in the US contrasting sharply with approximately $7,000 per capita in China as of 2014 (The World Bank, 2014)--climate change can no longer be viewed as a single country's issue. Air pollution from China now contributes to an estimated 50% of pollution in Seoul, South Korea according to 2013 data (Shim, 2015). Japan also fears for the health of its people as deadly toxins from other parts of Asia fill its air (Ryall, Yoo, 2013). The US is also vulnerable to pollution from other parts of the world; research from NASA suggests that changes in US weather patterns are due to pollution and environmental degradation in Asia (Chaisson, 2015).

2. CLIMATE CHANGE IS DEVASTATING THE ENVIRONMENT

SK/A12.05) Coral Davenport, THE NEW YORK TIMES, November 30, 2015, p. A1, LexisNexis Academic. Recent scientific reports have concluded that the first effects of human-caused climate change have already started to sweep across the Earth, from rising sea levels flooding Miami to savage heat waves in Australia. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration projects that 2015 will be the hottest global year on record, beating the record set in 2014.

SK/A12.06) Ken Caldeira [climate scientist, Dept. of Global Energy, Stanford U.], TECHNOLOGY REVIEW, January-February 2016, p. 40. GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Already, in the middle latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, average temperatures are increasing at a rate that is equivalent to moving south about 10 meters (30 feet) each day. This rate is about 100 times faster than most climate change that we can observe in the geologic record, and it gravely threatens biodiversity in many parts of the world. We are already losing about two coral reefs each week, largely as a direct consequence of our greenhouse-gas emissions.

SK/A12.07) Stephane Dion [Member, House of Commons of Canada], HARVARD INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, Spring 2015, p. 49, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The negative impacts of global warming are being felt in many areas. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) found climate change to be responsible for 7 percent of the decline in the number of vertebrate species, which has been reduced by half in the last forty years. After overexploitation and habitat loss, climate change is the third most important threat to species survival.

SK/A12.08) Stephane Dion [Member, House of Commons of Canada], HARVARD INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, Spring 2015, p. 49, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Without effective action, the two degree threshold will be crossed. The global temperature increased by 0.85 degrees Celsius over the period from 1880 to 2012. The IPCC foresees that under current policies, global warming could well exceed four degrees Celsius by the end of the current century: "Baseline scenarios, those without additional mitigation, result in global mean surface temperature increases in 2100 from 3.7 degrees Celsius to 4.8 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels." Such a temperature rise would increase climate disruption, thereby increasing the severity of extreme weather events, sea level rise, ocean acidification, animal and plant extinctions, disruptions in food production and water supply, and damage to infrastructure and settlements.

SK/A12.09) Noah M. Sacs [Professor of Law, U. of Richmond], ENVIRONMENTAL LAW, Fall 2014, LexisNexis Academic, pp. 993-994. Global climate change will cause severe food and water scarcity, resource conflict, and sea-level rise that will threaten major cities. Many nations will become overwhelmed by these impacts, and some nations will likely be destroyed. Already, Pacific island nations are evacuating their citizens as they lose their territory to the rising seas.

3. CLIMATE CHANGE HAS KILLED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS

SK/A12.10) Eva Botwin-Kowacki, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, November 24, 2015, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. Weather-related events made up 90 percent of natural disasters in the last 20 years, and it's only going to get worse, according to a United Nations report published Monday. Floods, heatwaves, storms and other weather events have devastated communities globally, taking 606,000 lives and leaving 4.1 billion people homeless, injured, or in need of aid from 1995 to 2015.

4. CLIMATE CHANGES RISKS AN UNINHABITABLE PLANET

SK/A12.11) Ken Caldeira [climate scientist, Dept. of Global Energy, Stanford U.], TECHNOLOGY REVIEW, January-February 2016, p. 40. GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Recently, my colleagues and I studied what will happen in the long term if we continue pulling fossil carbon out of the ground and releasing it into the atmosphere. We found that it would take many thousands of years for the planet to recover from this insult. If we burn all available fossil-fuel resources and dump the resulting carbon dioxide waste in the sky, we can expect global average temperatures to be 9 [degrees]C (15 [degrees]F) warmer than today even 10,000 years into the future. We can expect sea levels to be about 60 meters (200 feet) higher than today. In much of the tropics, it is possible that mammals (including us) would not be able to survive outdoors in the daytime heat. Thus, it is essential to our long-term well-being that fossil-fuel carbon does not go into our atmosphere.

SK/A12.12) Stephane Dion [Member, House of Commons of Canada], HARVARD INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, Spring 2015, p. 49, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Although the Arctic is particularly affected, the impact does not stop there; global warming could reach dangerous levels everywhere on the planet. Climate scientists have agreed that it would be imprudent to allow global warming to exceed an average of two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Farenheit) above pre-industrial levels. They warn that beyond this tipping point, our planet will become much less hospitable for virtually all forms of life, including humans. In fact, even two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels is likely to have serious impacts, according to UN-mandated scientists under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

SK/A12.13) Coral Davenport, THE NEW YORK TIMES, November 30, 2015, p. A1, LexisNexis Academic. The objective of climate change policy is to curb greenhouse gas emissions enough to avoid a global average temperature increase of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Beyond that threshold, scientists say, there will be devastating effects. Research shows the globe has already warmed about 1.7 degrees since the Industrial Revolution.

SK/A12.14) Alex L. Wang [Asst. Professor of Law, UCLA], UCLA LAW REVIEW, July 2014, LexisNexis Academic, p. 2020. Experts have determined that a failure to limit greenhouse gas emissions in the next fifteen years would make it "virtually impossible" to solve the problem of climate change with existing technologies.

SK/A12.15) Stephen Sewalk [Asst. Professor of Business], SUFFOLK UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW, 2014, LexisNexis Academic, p. 527. Failure to reduce global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is not an option. If we fail, then we risk the future of our environment and threaten catastrophic devastation to our coastlines, cities, farms, and the entire planet's resources. The changing climate, due to man-made emissions, could very well significantly alter the landscape and characteristics of planet Earth.

5. CARBON EMISSIONS ARE NOT BEING SUFFICIENTLY REDUCED

SK/A12.16) Eva Botwin-Kowacki, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, November 24, 2015, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. Although the report does not specifically focus on climate change, the UN does say that atmospheric levels of the global warming-causing greenhouse gas carbon dioxide has risen to break records every year over the past three decades.

SK/A12.17) Oren Cass [Sr. Fellow, Manhattan Institute], NATIONAL EVIEW, December 31, 2015, p. 28. GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. China pledged that its carbon dioxide emissions would peak "around 2030," which is exactly when a prior study by the U.S. government's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory suggested they would peak anyway. It also offered to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP ("carbon intensity"), but analysis by Bloomberg New Energy Finance found that this commitment lagged behind where the country was already headed. Just before the conference began, China announced that it was burning 17 percent more coal--an extra Germany worth of emissions each year--than previously reported, but no, it would not revise its pledge.

SK/A12.18) Bill Powell, NEWSWEEK, December 11, 2015, pNA. GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. In truth, the commitment Beijing made was far less dramatic than it seemed. The peak date for emissions was in line with forecasts already made by several state-backed think tanks: The China Academy of Social Sciences said in a 2014 study that slowing rates of urbanization would likely mean industrial CO 2 emissions would peak around 2025 to 2030 and start to fall by 2040. Furthermore, China has made it clear that it won't be legally bound by whatever comes out of the Paris summit. "The time line China has committed to is not a binding target," says Li Junfeng, an influential Chinese climate policy adviser linked to the NDRC.

6. ANY SOLUTION REQUIRES RECIPROCITY FROM CHINA

SK/A12.19) Christopher Bowen Johnston [Fellow, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown U.], PARAMETERS, Winter 2014, p. 49, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. China surpassed America in 2006 as the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide from energy, and is now producing nearly twice America's level. China, the United States, and Japan could unite to address this challenge more effectively through shared innovation in energy technology.

SK/A12.20) David A. Lipton [First Deputy Managing Director, International Monetary Fund], FINANCE & DEVELOPMENT, March 2016, p. 28, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. China's rapid growth has had environmental consequences. It is the largest emitter of carbon dioxide (C02) in the world, accounting for 25 percent of the global total in 2012. Outdoor air pollution, partly from fuel combustion, caused 1.4 million premature deaths in 2010 according to the World Health Organization. Traffic congestion is growing relentlessly: traffic delays in Beijing, one of the worlds most congested cities, are estimated to cost over 4 percent of the city's GDP. Fossil fuel subsidies in China, including implicit subsidies from undercharging for environmental costs, amounted to 17.3 percent of GDP in 2013.

SK/A12.21) Alex L. Wang [Asst. Professor of Law, UCLA], UCLA LAW REVIEW, July 2014, LexisNexis Academic, pp. 2024-2025. China is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases and its largest consumer of energy. This marks a dramatic change over thirty years, as rapid economic growth has resulted in a six-fold increase in energy consumption. China's energy mix is fossil fuel intensive, with coal supplying approximately 70 percent of total energy. This expansion in carbon-intensive energy use has led to a several-fold increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

7. OTHER NATIONS WILL FOLLOW U.S.-CHINA LEADERSHIP

SK/A12.22) NEW STATESMAN, November 20, 2015, p. 60. GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Paul Ekins [director of the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources at University College London] agreed that a mechanism needed to be in place to encourage correct behaviours. He prefers a carbon tax. "Lots of countries have them," he said. "Sweden has a carbon tax of about 100 [euro] per tonne across its household sector. It gives significant exemptions for industry. France has introduced a carbon tax. The UK has a carbon price floor on the electricity sector.”

SK/A12.23) Michael Holtz, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, June 1, 2015, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. About 40 countries use or say they are planning to use a tax on carbon to bring down greenhouse gas emissions, according to a report released last month by the World Bank. The country's generate about 12 percent of annual global emissions.

8. CARBON TAXES WILL SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCE EMISSIONS

SK/A12.24) Soledad Cuevas & Andy Haines [London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK], THE LANCET, January 2, 2016, p. 7. Carbon pricing is, according to economic theory, the most efficient way to reduce carbon emissions. Such pricing can reflect at least part of the damage resulting from fossil fuel combustion or other sources of greenhouse gas emissions, and thus their true costs to society.

SK/A12.25) Robert H. Frank [Professor of Economics, Cornell U.], THE NEW YORK TIMES, August 3, 2014, p. BU-6, LexisNexis Academic. Reducing CO2 emissions would actually be surprisingly easy. The most effective remedy would be a carbon tax, which would raise the after-tax price of goods in rough proportion to the size of their carbon footprint. Gasoline would become more expensive, piano lessons would not.

SK/A12.26) Cristina Maza, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, October 29, 2015, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. The idea is simple. We consider carbon-heavy fuels like coal cheap because we usually don't factor environmental costs into the final market price. Inflating that price - either through a tax on carbon emissions or carbon credits that emitters can buy and sell - sends a clear and strong signal in the universal language of money. Markets adapt to the added cost burden, discouraging emissions-heavy fuels and encouraging lower-carbon ones like natural gas, or zero-carbon sources like nuclear power and renewable energy.

SK/A12.27) Editorial, THE NEW YORK TIMES, June 7, 2015, p. SR-10, LexisNexis Academic. A carbon tax would raise the price of fossil fuels, with more taxes collected on fuels that generate more emissions, like coal. This tax would reduce demand for high-carbon emission fuels and increase demand for lower-emission fuels like natural gas. Renewable sources like solar, wind, nuclear and hydroelectric would face lower taxes or no taxes. To be effective, the tax should also be applied to imported goods from countries that do not assess a similar levy on the use of fossil fuels

SK/A12.28) David A. Lipton [First Deputy Managing Director, International Monetary Fund], FINANCE & DEVELOPMENT, March 2016, p. 28, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Efficient energy taxation is essential to environment-friendly growth [in China]. The price of fossil fuels needs to reflect their contribution to pollution for growth to be environmentally sustainable. Energy taxes are a straightforward extension of gasoline taxes. Carbon charges can be applied in proportion to a fuel's C02 emission rate, local air pollution charges can be set on coal use, with credit for emission-control technologies linked directly to smokestack emissions. Gasoline taxes should reflect all adverse side effects from vehicle use--C02 emissions, local air pollution, traffic congestion, accidents, and road damage. A full energy tax reform could reduce C02 emissions by 26 percent and fossil fuel air pollution deaths by 60 percent, while raising revenue by about 9 percent of GDR.

SK/A12.29) Ian Parry [Principal Environmental Fiscal Policy Expert, Fiscal Affairs Dept. International Monetary Fund], FINANCE & DEVELOPMENT, December 2015, p. 10. GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Reducing carbon dioxide emissions requires reducing the demand for fossil fuels, especially high-carbon fuels such as coal. Basic economics tells us the best way to do that is to raise the price of fuels. A higher price causes a wide range of behavioral changes that result in fewer emissions. For example, energy demand will decline as firms and households switch to more energy-efficient products and capital (including lighting, air-conditioning, cars, and industrial machinery) and conserve on the use of these products. Users will also switch to cleaner fuels--for example, from coal to natural gas in power generation and from these fuels to wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear, all of which produce no carbon. Ultimately it may be possible for some large industrial sources to capture the carbon dioxide emissions from fuel combustion and store them underground.

SK/A12.30) Ian Parry [Principal Environmental Fiscal Policy Expert, Fiscal Affairs Dept. International Monetary Fund], FINANCE & DEVELOPMENT, December 2015, p. 10. GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The beauty of carbon pricing--imposing charges on the carbon content of fossil fuels or their emissions--is that a single instrument can encourage the entire range of these behavioral responses across an economy, as carbon charges are reflected in higher prices for fuels, electricity, and so on. It also strikes a cost-effective balance among those responses, by providing the same reward for reducing emissions by an extra metric ton across different sectors.

9. BRITISH COLUMBIA DEMONSTRATES CARBON TAX EFFICACY

SK/A12.31) Editorial, THE NEW YORK TIMES, June 7, 2015, p. SR-10, LexisNexis Academic. British Columbia started phasing in a carbon tax in 2008 and used the revenue to reduce income taxes. The province's fossil fuel use fell after the tax was put in place, even as fuel consumption increased in the rest of Canada, and the economy of British Columbia has grown faster than that of the rest of the country.

SK/A12.32) Eduardo Porter, THE NEW YORK TIMES, September 24, 2014, p. B1, LexisNexis Academic. In 2008, for instance, the Canadian province of British Columbia unilaterally imposed a carbon tax that rose from 10 Canadian dollars per ton of CO2 in 2010 to 30 dollars in 2012, using the money to reduce personal and corporate income taxes. An assessment of the experience published last year by economists at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that fuel use declined, but economic growth remained on the same trajectory as the rest of Canada's. Notably, British Columbia ended up with the lowest income tax in the country.

SK/A12.33) Cristina Maza, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, October 29, 2015, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. Launched in 2008, British Columbia's carbon tax is lauded for its revenue-neutral design. A reduction in income taxes offsets a new levy on the carbon content of fuels. The result? Per-person consumption of fuels dropped by 16 percent from 2008 to 2013 while economic growth kept pace with the rest of Canada, according to Sustainable Prosperity, an Ottawa-based think tank. Income and corporate taxes, meanwhile, were slashed, and the program earned the praise of international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. By 2012, the province's emissions had dropped 6 percent below 2007 levels, meeting an interim goal on the path to cutting emissions 80 percent by mid-century.

10. THOUSANDS OF LIVES WILL BE SAVED

SK/A12.34) Ian Parry [Principal Environmental Fiscal Policy Expert, Fiscal Affairs Dept. International Monetary Fund], FINANCE & DEVELOPMENT, December 2015, p. 10. GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. But for many countries, carbon pricing can actually be in their own interest, due to environmental benefits that accompany carbon pricing--most important, the lives saved from less local air pollution as carbon pricing reduces the use of coal, diesel, and other dirty fuels. The IMF (Parry, Veung, and Heine, 2014) estimates that, on average, these accompanying benefits would have warranted carbon dioxide prices of $57 a metric ton among large emitters in 2010, and these prices would have reduced global emissions by about 10 percent. That means many countries would make themselves better off by moving ahead unilaterally with carbon pricing that at a minimum addresses local problems and raises revenue.

SK/A12.35) Soledad Cuevas & Andy Haines [London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK], THE LANCET, January 2, 2016, SCIENCE DIRECT, p. 8. However, evidence exists that carbon pricing can lead to important health co-benefits. Co-benefits are those effects that are not related to mitigation itself. Health co-benefits are generally more easily estimated, more localised, and more immediate than the long-term benefits of reducing climate change. Studies in the USA, Chile, India, and China have documented the health co-benefits from reduced fine particulate air pollution. These studies report that monetised health co-benefits can offset to varying degrees the costs of policies to reduce carbon emissions. In the USA, for example, health co-benefits are estimated to be able to offset the cost of carbon reduction policies by 26–1050%. In east Asia, monetised benfits could exceed abatement costs by 10–70 times in 2030.

SK/A12.36) Soledad Cuevas & Andy Haines [London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK], THE LANCET, January 2, 2016, SCIENCE DIRECT, p. 9. Evidence exists that properly designed carbon taxes can be redistributive mechanisms, improving health and contributing to mitigation of climate change.

SK/A13. NORTH KOREA: Extensions

1. NORTH KOREA CONTINUES TO DEVELOP NUCLEAR WEAPONS

SK/A13.01) Gordon C. Chang [author of NUCLEAR SHOWDOWN: NORTH KOREA TAKES ON THE WORLD], THE NATIONAL INTEREST, March-April 2016, p. 43, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Although Kim Jong-il promised in September 2005 to give up his atomic stockpile, that pledge was quickly dishonored, and it's clear he fully backed the nuclear-weapons program as well as the military's effort to develop long-range missiles.

2. NORTH KOREA FUELS INTERNATIONAL PROLIFERATION

SK/A13.02) Gordon C. Chang [author of NUCLEAR SHOWDOWN: NORTH KOREA TAKES ON THE WORLD], THE NATIONAL INTEREST, March-April 2016, p. 43, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Problems in North Korea have ways of radiating out from its borders and affecting both neighbors and others. If Kim Jong-un cannot restart the economy with limited reforms, he will become even more reliant on sales of weapons--conventional and otherwise--and dangerous technologies. Some of those sales have the potential to destabilize regions far from North Asia. For instance, North Korea supplies Iran with, among other things, nuclear-weapons technology and ballistic missiles.

SK/A13.03) Editorial, THE NEW YORK TIMES, February 14, 2016, p. SR-8, LexisNexis Academic. The North is believed to have produced 10 to 16 crude nuclear weapons since 2003. And the more weapons North Korea produces, the more likely it is to try to sell them to earn hard currency.

3. THREAT OF NUCLEAR STRIKES IS ACCELERATING

SK/A13.04) Victor Cha & Robert L. Gallucci [both, professors at Georgetown U.], THE NEW YORK TIMES, January 8, 2016, p. A23, LexisNexis Academic. Over the past several years, North Korea has degraded its conventional military capacity in order to pursue nuclear weapons. Under normal circumstances, a weaker North Korean Army would be welcome news to the rest of the world, but with a budding nuclear state it can lead to rapid escalation in the event of a conflict. This could mean either pre-emptive action by the United States, or, if North Korea ever used nuclear weapons, a massive retaliation.

4. U.S. HOMELAND IS UNDER THREAT OF ATTACK

SK/A13.05) Steven Borowiec & W.J. Hennigan, LOS ANGELES TIMES, February 9, 2016, p. A3, LexisNexis Academic. North Korea claims that its testing of long-range rocket technology is simply part of a peaceful space program, while the United Nations and U.S. view its tests as steps toward becoming able to strike the mainland U.S. with a missile armed with a nuclear warhead.

5. RECENT NUCLEAR TEST EMPIRICALLY PROVES FAILURE

SK/A13.06) Daryl G. Kimball [Executive Director, Arms Control Association], ARMS CONTROL TODAY, January-February 2016, p. 3, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Washington's diplomatic posture must shift as well. For too long, U.S. and North Korean diplomats have haggled over the conditions for resuming nuclear talks, with Washington insisting that Pyongyang recommit to its broken 2005 denuclearization pledge. Meanwhile, Pyongyang has used the time to amass larger amounts of fissile material, test more-sophisticated bombs, and develop longer-range ballistic missiles. Today, it likely has 10 to 16 nuclear weapons. By the end of the decade, it could have more than 50. The long-term U.S. goal should continue to be North Korea's verifiable denuclearization and the normalization of relations. But realism demands that talks on Pyongyang's nuclear program resume soon, with the near-term goal of halting further nuclear testing, missile testing, fissile material production, and the possible transfer of nuclear material.

6. DIPLOMATIC ENGAGEMENT WITH CHINA HAS BROKEN DOWN

SK/A13.07) Myoung-Kyu Park [Director, Institute for Peace and Unification Studies, Seoul National U., South Korea], HARVARD INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, Spring 2015, p. 27, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The United States, China, Russia, and Japan, alongside South Korea, launched the Six-Party Talks with North Korea in 2003 in order to address the denuclearization of the country, but the dialogue has been suspended since 2008.

SK/A13.08) Myoung-Kyu Park [Director, Institute for Peace and Unification Studies, Seoul National U., South Korea], HARVARD INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, Spring 2015, p. 27, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. China and the United States have consistently adopted opposing stances in the six-party discussions of international sanctions against North Korea and internationalizing human rights issues in North Korea. In particular, while the annual large-scale US-South Korean joint military exercises threaten North Korea, they are more likely to conflict with China's security interests.

SK/A13.09) Bill Powell, NEWSWEEK, January 2, 2016, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. So the central question, as it has been after every previous nuclear test, is: What will Beijing do in response to Pyongyang's latest provocation? The initial response was not encouraging to those hoping for a "We're fed up, let's bring the hammer down" moment. The foreign ministry called for a resumption of the Six-Party Talks--a response that exasperated one longtime Japanese diplomat who works on North Korea. "We're going to need a lot more than that from the Chinese," he said.

7. MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM IS A POWERFUL BARGAINING CHIP

SK/A13.10) Editorial, THE NEW YORK TIMES, February 14, 2016, p. SR-8, LexisNexis Academic. South Korea also has agreed to discuss deploying an American missile defense system that could track North Korean activities and to step up security coordination with Japan. None of this will please Beijing. But such steps are needed to calm anxious citizens in South Korea and Japan while persuading China to be more constructive in helping to find a solution to the North Korean threat.

SK/A13.11) Editorial, THE WASHINGTON POST, January 3, 2016, p. A24, LexisNexis Academic. It [Obama administration] also needs to find ways to raise the cost for the Xi regime of its stubborn commitment to its neighbor's "stability." There are steps the administration could take that would advance both aims. One would be to work with South Korea and Japan on the deployment of advanced missile defenses in those countries, something that would help protect them against the North Korean threat. China, which objects to a U.S.-South Korean missile deal, should be told it is a consequence of its own passivity. Congress should also act on proposals for unilateral U.S. sanctions that would target Chinese banks and companies that do business with North Korea - an approach that was effective with Iran.

SK/A13.12) Michael Brooks, NEW STATESMAN, February 12, 2016, p. 16, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. A warhead is best intercepted in space after release from the missile. Unfortunately, at this juncture, it is easy simultaneously to release and inflate a flock of metallised balloons. No anti-nuke interceptor is able to tell the warhead from the balloons and so an interceptor is almost certain to miss its target. According to the Pentagon, pre-empting this and acting before the balloons are released "requires Herculean effort and is not realistically achievable, even under the most optimistic set of deployment, sensor capability and missile technology assumptions".

8. CHINA HAS MOTIVE TO DENUCLEARIZE NORTH KOREA

SK/A13.13) Stuart Leavenworth, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, January 7, 2016, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. In a blog post, Bonnie Glaser, a China expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, based in Washington D.C., wrote that it is possible Beijing will support some form of limited sanctions in the wake of North Korea's latest nuclear test. "China may be more willing than in the past to strictly enforce existing and new U.N. sanctions, for example by conducting more rigorous inspections of vehicles crossing the border," Ms. Glaser wrote. "China may also be prepared to take unilateral steps to put pressure on North Korea, including delaying delivery of oil and other forms of assistance."

SK/A13.14) Sei Hee Park [Pepperdine U. School of Law], PEPPERDINE DISPUTE RESOLUTION LAW JOURNAL, 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 656. In addition to Kim Jong-un's own personal traits and factors influencing the nation's unpredictability, there is also the underlying fact that North Korea is very secluded and has no strong allies. Due to the weakened relationship between North Korea and China in the spring after Kim Jongun's defiance of the Chinese leader, North Korea has backed itself into a corner without much support.

SK/A13.15) Sei Hee Park [Pepperdine U. School of Law], PEPPERDINE DISPUTE RESOLUTION LAW JOURNAL, 2015, LexisNexis Academic, p. 655. His [Kim Jong-un] behavior even affected North Korea's relationship with its closest ally, China, when he disregarded the Chinese leader's message not to launch a ballistic missile in April 2013. With one decision, a relationship that had been "as close as 'lips and teeth'" weakened. Kim Jong-un was unable to maintain the close relationship that his father had with China.

SK/A13.16) Elizabeth Philipp, ARMS CONTROL TODAY, March 2016, p. 32, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. China has signaled support for punitive actions against North Korea. In remarks on Feb. 16, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that North Korea must "pay the necessary price" under new UN sanctions, according to a report by South Korea's Yonhap news agency. Wang said the purpose of a forthcoming UN resolution would be to "stop North Korea from going any further down the path of developing nuclear weapons." He stated that North Korea must return to the six-party talks, a negotiating forum that Pyongyang left in 2009.

SK/A13.17) Thomas J. Christensen [Professor of World Politics of Peace and War], FOREIGN AFFAIRS, September-October 2015, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. At first, the Obama administration wisely asked China to cooperate on reining in North Korea. But when Beijing demurred, Washington turned to Japan and South Korea to coordinate a reaction to Pyongyang's belligerence, which ultimately led to enhanced intelligence cooperation among the three countries and U.S.--South Korean exercises in the Yellow Sea. Beijing did not like the tightening alliances that North Korean aggression was creating in its neighborhood, and so it reportedly stepped in to dissuade Pyongyang from carrying out further threatened provocations in December 2010.

9. CHINA IS THE KEY TO EFFECTIVE SANCTIONS

SK/A13.18) Daryl G. Kimball [Executive Director, Arms Control Association], ARMS CONTROL TODAY, January-February 2016, p. 3, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Like previous North Korean nuclear tests, this one will prompt UN Security Council action against Pyongyang. This time, however, there must be tougher penalties. Unfortunately, China, which is North Korea's only significant trading partner, so far has been unwilling or unable to enforce fully the existing sanctions and has resisted tougher measures. That approach must change.

SK/A13.19) Thomas J. Christensen [Professor of World Politics of Peace and War], FOREIGN AFFAIRS, September-October 2015, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Yet China trades and invests more in North Korea today than it did in 2008, providing enough support to make U.S. and allied sanctions lose their bite.

SK/A13.20) Editorial, LOS ANGELES TIMES, March 6, 2016, p. A19, LexisNexis Academic. China may not be able to dictate policy to North Korea's unpredictable leader Kim Jong Un. But it provides a lifeline to him and his inner circle and props up the country's infrastructure.

SK/A13.21) Oren Dorell, USA TODAY, February 11, 2016, p. 2A, LexisNexis Academic. Most banks that North Korea uses to finance trade, imports and weapons programs work through China, said Richard Fisher, vice president of the International Assessment and Strategy Center. "The financial wherewithal for North Korea to sustain itself runs through China," Fisher said. "Without China participating, financial sanctions will not have a decisive effect."

SK/A13.22) Stuart Leavenworth, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, January 6, 2016, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. While Beijing's relations with Kim have soured, China remains the principal economic lifeline for North Korea. Along with supplying aid and energy, China buys about $3 billion in goods from North Korea each year.

10. CHINA HAS THE POWER TO ALTER NORTH KOREAN POLICY

SK/A13.23) Bill Powell, NEWSWEEK, January 2, 2016, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. China could, if it wishes, inflict enough economic pain, as Pyongyang's only significant trading partner, to prompt North Korea to "alter its trajectory," as Haggard [Peterson Institute for International Economics] puts it.

11. U.S.-CHINESE ENGAGEMENT IS KEY TO EFFICACY

SK/A13.24) Cory Gardner [U.S. Senator], CONGRESSIONAL HEARING TRANSCRIPT DATABASE, September 29, 2015, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. For instance, if we continue to engage China on the threat of North Korea, I believe that we can actually make a difference in North Korea's behavior. It's Beijing that holds the key to survival of the North Korean regime, and that's a message that I reiterated to Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing during our meeting last month.

SK/A13.25) Elizabeth Van Wie Davis [Director of Liberal Arts & International Studies, Colorado School of Mines], CHINA REVIEW INTERNATIONAL, Winter 2012, p. 602, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Finally, regarding Korea's foreign relations, Donald Gross [author OF THE CHINA FALLACY: HOW THE U.S. CAN BENEFIT FROM CHINA’S RISE AND AVOID ANOTHER COLD WAR] argues that a decrease in U.S.-China tensions on the Korean peninsula may result in an eventual democratic Korean reunification that will please Koreans on both sides of the thirty-eighth parallel, allay Chinese fears of the loss of a buffer zone, and give Americans a historic vindication of human rights.

SK/A13.26) Steven Borowiec & W.J. Hennigan, LOS ANGELES TIMES, February 9, 2016, p. A3, LexisNexis Academic. "Over the long run we need something like the Iranian deal, which combines sanctions with a diplomatic road map that would show North Korea how they might benefit by giving up their nukes," Armstrong [historian at Columbia U.] said.

SK/A14. STUDY ABROAD: Extensions

1. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF CHINESE STUDY IN THE U.S.

SK/A14.01) Sanford J. Ungar [President Emeritus, Goucher College], FOREIGN AFFAIRS, March-April 2016, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. According to the Institute of International Education (IIE), the foreign population in U.S. colleges and universities increased by ten percent in the 2014-15 academic year, to a record high of nearly 975,000 students, over 30 percent of whom were from China. Put simply, that means that there are more than three times as many foreigners studying at U.S. colleges and universities as there are Americans studying abroad altogether, and about the same number of Chinese students matriculate in the United States as do Americans anywhere in the world.

SK/A14.02) Thomas Velk [Director of North American Studies, McGill U., Canada] et al., ANTITRUST BULLETIN, Spring 2015, p. 4, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The framework of the East-West partnership that emerges in the next half-century will be made possible, in part, by "agents of change"--young professionals on both sides of the Pacific who study in North America and return to China with belief in Western norms of business and political behavior. This group of returnees will be scattered throughout China, creating business relationships between East and West. Separately, they will create a small platform of East-West contracts, agreements, practices, rules of business, and economic behavior. Many aspects of this practical culture will be private and not dominated by government. Yet, the aggregate and largely unplanned actions of agents will shape the overall political relationship between East and West, forging strong bonds of partnership premised on similar systems of values.

2. U.S. FAILS TO PROVIDE FINANCIAL SUPPORT

SK/A14.03) Karin Fischer, CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, January 28, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The Institute of International Education, which promotes international exchanges, tallies about 365 study-abroad programs in China, and Ms. McGiffert said the Chinese government is investing in improving facilities at dozens of its universities to accommodate foreign students. Jill Welch, deputy executive director for public policy at Nafsa: Association of International Educators, said her members' greatest concern is simple: money. In a time when many college budgets are squeezed, institutions don't have the funds to start or expand overseas programs or to finance scholarships to send students abroad. Ms. Welch argues that there needs to be federal-government support for such efforts. Legislation that would have authorized $80-million in grants to individual students, colleges, and nongovernmental institutions that provide study-abroad opportunities died in the last Congress.

3. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT MUST FUND NEW PROGRAM

SK/A14.04) Sanford J. Ungar [President Emeritus, Goucher College], FOREIGN AFFAIRS, March-April 2016, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The federal government should pass ambitious legislation, akin in scope and impact to the transformative National Defense Education Act (NDEA) of 1958, that would directly fund more study-abroad opportunities and create incentives for colleges and universities to put them in place and for students to pursue them. Such action would help democratize study abroad by making it more affordable and accessible, spreading its benefits beyond the relatively narrow cohort of mostly white and well-off students at a relatively small number of institutions who tend to take advantage of it today.

SK/A14.05) Sanford J. Ungar [President Emeritus, Goucher College], FOREIGN AFFAIRS, March-April 2016, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Now that every academic field, profession, and industry has taken on an international dimension, study abroad increasingly appears to be an essential element of success, a requirement to compete in the global marketplace. And there is some evidence that obtaining part of one's education overseas likely increases one's lifetime earning potential--a further bonus on top of the extra $1 million or so that experts believe results from an undergraduate degree, on average, depending on the field of study.

4. STUDY ABROAD INCREASES TRUST AND UNDERSTANDING

SK/A14.06) Sanford J. Ungar [President Emeritus, Goucher College], FOREIGN AFFAIRS, March-April 2016, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Given the United States' determination to project its hard and soft power and preserve its influence in a restless but interconnected world, the almost universal failure of the broader U.S. public to know and understand others, except through a military lens, is not just unfortunate but also dangerous. It severely hinders the creation and implementation of a rational, consistent, and nuanced foreign policy that reflects American values and enjoys public support. Luckily, there exists a disarmingly simple way to help address this problem and to produce future generations of Americans who will know more and care more about the rest of the world: massively increase the number of U.S. college and university students who go abroad for some part of their education and bring home essential knowledge and new perspectives.