2016, Vol.23, No.4

Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.61

pISSN : 1225-8539 / eISSN : 2671-5171
https://journal.kci.go.kr/japs

Conflict between the United States and China has rapidly increased. Both absolute and relative power difference between the two countries have been reduced. This international systemic change created new risks and insecurities. As the United States adopted the policy of ‘pivot to Asia’, China responded to this by strengthening relationship with Asian countries. It is not still clear whether relationship between the two countries will be more cooperative or more conflictual. So far, the United States and China disputed in some issues, while they cooperated each other in other issues. There are many existing IR theories which can be applied to analyses on the relationship between the two countries. Offensive realism, defensive realism, power transition theory, hegemonic competition theory, complex interdependence theory, and constructivism explain the bilateral relationship from different perspectives. Cooperation-conflict patterns between the two countries will depend on change in national power of the two countries, mutual cognition toward the other and environmental changes in the international system. This study establishes two hypotheses based upon these practical and theoretical analyses. The first one is that there have been big changes in American and Chinese foreign policies toward Asia after 2010-2011. The second one is that there have been cross-issue differences in American and Chinese foreign policies toward Asia. Even though we cannot make definitive conclusions, empirical data show that the United States have taken more aggressive security policy since 2010, while China have responded to American policies by strengthening non-security relationships with Asian countries. Nature of bilateral relationship between the United States and China will become clearer, as time passes by. We need to do closer and more precise analyses on bilateral relationship in the future. By doing more researches and monitoring bilateral relationship in the future, Korea must adopt and practice “good” foreign policies to maximize national interest in the middle of competition between the United States and China.

This study surveys the socioeconomic status and poverty of second generation Korean Americans by using the American Community Survey 2010-14 dataset. The poverty rate is lower among 2nd generation Korean Americans than among Whites. In contrast to either Whites or 2nd generation Chinese Americans, more women and those of older than 55 are found poor among 2nd generation Koreans. The absolute majority of poor 2nd generation Koreans live as never married single. Poor 2nd generation Koreans are much highly educated than are poor Whites, not to mention poor 2nd generation Chinese. There are very few poor native Koreans of less than high school graduate, which is contrasted to the one forth of poor Whites being less than high school graduate. In contrast to Whites, much higher proportion of poor 2nd generation Koreans are ‘working poor.’ While income gap is quite large among 1st generation Koreans, the gap is much smaller among 2nd generation Koreans, which is even smaller compared to the income gap of either Whites or 2nd generation Chinese. A set of logit-regression analyses with chance of poverty as the dependent variable indicate that the odds of being poor is significantly larger among 2nd generation Koreans than among either Whites or 2nd generation Chinese. Particularly, the effect of education on lowering the risk of being poor is significantly smaller among 2nd generation Koreans than among Whites. It is not certain why American-born Koreans are more likely to be poor then are Whites with identical level of education, The authors suspect that the American society may not discriminate the highly educated 2nd generation Koreans, but that it does discriminate the 2nd generation Koreans when being lower in education compared to their co-ethnics. The America-born Koreans not commensurate to the image of “model minority” have to struggle under double disadvantages in the American society.

Faced with the problem of population decrease and economic downturn, Japan introduced a point system targeting global talents in 2012. The purpose of the point system is to attract more global talents and make them work and live longer in Japan. Global talents are awarded points according to the standards of education, income, and other criteria. And if the total exceeds a certain point, preferential immigration treatments are granted to them. The most important characteristic of this system is that it includes a variety of measures to promote permanent residence of global talents. And this characteristic is seemingly against the non-immigration state identity that has been kept strongly during the postwar times. However, it is important to note that the abandonment of non-immigrant state identity is ‘partial’ and ‘strategic’, only for global talents with relatively high socioeconomic status. And this aspect only reinforces another principle related to the acceptance of foreigners in postwar Japan, the exclusion of blue collar workers and the acceptance of professional workers. In other words, the point system has the feature that it keeps the big frame of the selective acceptance of ‘desirable’ foreigners by ‘exceptionally’ abandoning the non immigration state identity with the least social burden.