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Advanced English Readings for IR

Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành (Học viện Ngoại giao Việt Nam)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I: REGIONAL AND GLOBAL ISSUES ............................................................ 3

Unit 1 Globalization ................................................................................................................ 4
The 1914 Effect: The Globalization Counter-Reaction ................................ 4
Retreat from Globalization Will Destabilize the World Economy ............. 11
Unit 2 Environment............................................................................................................... 17
The COP21 Deal: What Does It Mean for Asia? ....................................... 17
Clear Thinking Needed ............................................................................... 22
Unit 3 Economic Issues ......................................................................................................... 29
The Right Way to Help Declining Places ................................................... 29
Misplaced Charity ....................................................................................... 34
Unit 4 Terrorism .................................................................................................................... 41
Jihad at the Heart of Europe ....................................................................... 41
Heart of Asia 2016: Phony Peacemaking for Afghanistan? ....................... 50
Unit 5 Conflicts ..................................................................................................................... 53
Asia’s Challenge: Separatism ..................................................................... 53
Neither Peace Nor War, Just Endless Suffering ........................................ .60
Unit 6 Other issues ................................................................................................................. 66
Internet Age - Social Media and Democracy ............................................ .66
Asia-Pacific: Time for New Energy Solutions ........................................... 72

PART II: POWERS AND FOREIGN RELATIONS ............................................. 77

Unit 7 America ...................................................................................................................... 78
A Very Long Engagement .......................................................................... 78
US and the Hyperpower.............................................................................. 84
Unit 8 China ........................................................................................................................ 89
China’s Offensive Charm: Reef Knots ....................................................... 89
How to Heat up Lukewarm India–China Relations ................................... 95

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Unit 9 Russia ..................................................................................................................... 101

Dancing with Bears in Putin's Shadow ..................................................... 101
Rethink the Reset ...................................................................................... 105
Unit 10 Other powerful countries ....................................................................................... 110
The Great Britan - British Politics is Being Profoundly Reshaped by Populism .... 101
Japan - What to Expect from Abe's US Visit ............................................ 115

PART III: REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANZATIONS ............. 119

Unit 11 South East Asia - ASEAN .................................................................................... 120
Agreeing to agree .............................................................................................. 120
ASEAN Strategic Diplomacy Underpinning Regional Stability .................... 125
Unit 12 Asia Pacific - APEC .............................................................................................. 130
The Least that East Asians Can Do to Cooperate ...................................... 130
Ever Ambivalent APEC ........................................................................... 134
Unit 13 Europe - EU ........................................................................................................... 139
Can Europe be saved?........................................................................................ 139
The road to Brexit............................................................................................. 144
Unit 14 Trade/Economic Agreements and Organisations ................................................. 150
Life after Doha..... ............................................................................................ .150
The collapse of TPP - Trading down. ............................................................. 154
Unit 15 The United Nations.................................................................................................. 160
The UN in conflict zones - Peacekeepers in name only ................................ 160
The UN Human Rights Council Will Be Weaker If America Leaves ............ 167
APPENDIX 1 Language and Structures of Newspaper Headlines … ................................... 173
APPENDIX 2 Guidance on Summary Writing ....................................................................... 175

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PART I

REGIONAL
AND
GLOBAL ISSUES

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Unit 1 GLOBALISATION
The 1914 Effect: The Globalisation Counter-Reaction
Globalisation is a highly disruptive force. It provoked a reaction in the early 20th
century. Are we seeing a repeat?
1. WHEN the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in 1914, there were few
initial indications that world war would follow. In retrospect, many people have argued
that the killing was a freak event that should not have resulted in the folly of war.
2. But was the subsequent war really an exogenous event? Or was it the near-inevitable
consequence of the tensions resulting from the first great era of globalisation? If Franz
Ferdinand had survived, maybe something else would have triggered the conflict. If the
latter possibility is right, that may be a warning sign for the current era.
3. From 1870 to 1914, the first great era of globalisation saw rapid economic growth,
trade that grew faster than GDP, mass migration from Europe to the New World and
convergence of real wages between the old and new worlds. In Europe, GDP per capita
grew more than 70%; in the new world, (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada and the
United States) it doubled. Trade grew from 5.9% of global GDP to 8.2%. In many
European countries growth was much higher; nearly 15% in the UK and 18% in Belgium.
This occurred despite the restoration of tariffs in many countries in the 1880s onwards.
Transport costs were falling fast thanks to the railway and the steamship which meant that
prices for goods like wheat, iron and copper converged across the western world.
4. Migration rates were remarkable. In the decade 1901-10, 5% of those from Austria-
Hungary left the country, more than 6% of Britons, 7% of the Irish, 8% of Norwegians,
and nearly 11% of Italians. Argentina added another 30% to its population, in immigrants
alone, in that decade. Europe had lots of workers; the new world not so many. So as the
workers moved, real wages nearly doubled in Europe during the period compared with a
50% rise in America.
5. That globalisation had brought greater prosperity was recognised at the time. Keynes
famously said that in 1914
6. The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed,
the various products of the whole earth, in such quantity as he might see fit, and
reasonably expect their early delivery upon his doorstep; he could at the same moment

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and by the same means adventure his wealth in the natural resources and new enterprises
of any quarter of the world, and share, without exertion or even trouble, in their
prospective fruits and advantages.
7. Capital flowed freely. Britain financed the railways of Latin America; France the
economic expansion of Russia. In his 1909 book, The Great Illusion, Norman Angell,
argued that war between the great powers was futile because of the economic damage it
would cause.
8. And yet in 1914, the great powers “sleepwalked” into war, as one author put it.
Globalisation then went into reverse. It wasn’t until the 1960s or 1970s that trade
recaptured its share of global GDP or countries like America started to re-open their
borders to immigrants in a substantial way. Capital flows weren’t freed until the 1980s.
The intervening period saw two world wars and a great Depression.
9. Globalisation was one of the forces that helped created the First World War because
it has profoundly destabilising effects, effects we are also seeing today. In large part
globalisation is about the more efficient allocation of resources—labour, capital, even
land—and that creates losers. People don’t like change, especially when they lose from it.
Clearly, the mid-19th century was a period of enormous change that were not just
economic. In America, the industrial north defeated the agricultural south; Germany and
Italy became nation states, and the multi-national Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires
sunk into terminal decline.
10. Germany and America were able to catch up and, in the latter’s case, surpass the
British economy. The pax Britannica in which Britain supported global trade through its
powerful navy and financial system was weakened; the Bank of England needed loans
from other central banks when Barings collapsed in 1890.
11. Industrialisation meant that new sources of power emerged to challenge the old
aristocratic elites—industrialists and factory workers. Workers were able to use their
muscle to demand more rights and, increasingly, the vote. Elites turned to nationalism as
a way of distracting voters from economic issues and shoring up their support. This
nationalism led to clashes with the other great powers where their interests diverged;
between Britain and Russia in Asia; Russia and Austria in the Balkans; Germany and
France in north Africa.

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12. As the powers sought to head off these challenges, they split into the triple entente
of Britain, Russia and France and the triple alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and
Italy. Britain worried about the growing economic power of Germany and entered a naval
race; Germany worried about the growing power of Russia and wanted a war sooner
rather than later. Confrontation looked more attractive than collaboration.
13. Globalisation also meant that events in other part of the world become more
important; if anything ought to have been an event in a “far way country of which we
know nothing”, it was the assassination of an archduke in Sarajevo. But it dragged Britain
into a war that ultimately sabotaged its status as a great power.
14. At the same time, the great powers had to deal with much unrest at home. What
George Dangerfield called "The Strange Death of Liberal England" saw a potential civil
war in Ireland, mass strikes and suffragette protests. The Russian regime nearly fell in
1905. France was convulsed by the Dreyfus affair, which divided society as clearly as
Brexit or the Trump presidency. And then there were assassinations: Tsar Alexander II,
the Italian king, the Spanish prime minister, the Empress of Austria and the American
president William McKinley. In some cases, the murderers were immigrants; the clichéd
picture of the anarchist with a bomb in hand dates from this era.
15. To sum up, globalisation disrupted both international power structures and domestic
ones. This rapid change caused a reaction that was often violent. World War One was not
inevitable but it was unsurprising.
16. So let us move to the current era of globalisation, during which the export share of
global GDP has more than doubled since the 1960s. New economic powers have emerged
to challenge American dominance; first, Japan, and now China and potentially India.
Imperial overstretch threatens America as it did Edwardian Britain. The ability and, more
recently, willingness of America to act as global policeman has been eroded. Indeed,
unlike Britain in 1914, America is a net debtor not a creditor. Can it hold China’s
ambitions in check in the Pacific, counterbalance Iran and the terrorists of Islamic State in
the middle east and deal with a nationalist Russian regime? It seems clear that other
powers think it can’t. They are pushing to see whether America will react.
17. Migration has increased again, not quite to pre-1914 levels but in another direction:
from the developing world to the developed. This has led to cultural and economic
resentment among voters and imported the quarrels of other countries. We see terrorists

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on the streets of London, Manchester, Paris and Boston; all inspired by events thousands
of miles away. Economic integration means that financial crises can quickly spread; just
as American subprime mortgages hit the world in 2008, Chinese bad debt may do so in
future.
18. Within the economy two big changes have occurred. Manufacturing capacity has
moved from the developed world to Asia. Technology has rewarded skilled workers and
widened pay gaps. Voters have rebelled by turning to parties that reject globalisation.
This didn’t happen in France but generally it has made life more difficult for centre-left
parties and turned centre-right parties more nativist. America’s Republicans used to be
enthusiasts for free trade. Now they have elected Donald Trump.
19. Just as in the first era, globalisation has disrupted international and domestic power
structures. Thankfully this does not mean that another world war is inevitable. But it is
easy to imagine regional conflicts: Iran against Saudi Arabia, or an American attack on
North Korea that provokes a Chinese reaction.
20. But we will see more resistance to globalisation from governments, as they calculate
that voters will reward nativism. Foreign takeovers will be blocked. Domestic companies
will be subsidised or favoured in government programmes. Tit-for-tat trade embargoes
and tariffs will be imposed; the WTO could come under threat. Immigration will be
discouraged, even of high-skilled workers. Populism can emerge from the left (higher
taxes and nationalisation) as much as from the right; see Britain.
21. The real danger is that this a zero-sum game. Governments will appear to grab a
larger share of global trade for their own countries. In doing so, they will cause trade to
shrink. That might make voters even angrier. From the early 1980s to 2008, most
companies could count on a business-friendly political environment in the developed
world. But it looks as if that era has ended with the financial crisis. Globalisation has
caused another counter-reaction.
22. The best hope is that technology can deliver the economic growth and rising
prosperity voters want. If that happens, these threats will not disappear but they will be
much reduced. But for all the hype about new technology, productivity has been sluggish.
The omens are not great.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
This article was published in Buttonwood column of The Economist on June 14th, 2017.

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title, subtitle of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do know about globalization?
2. What are advantages and disadvantages of globalization?
3. Write down three questions to which you expect to find the answers in the article.

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. What were the effects of the first phase of globalization?
2. Why was globalization considered as the cause of the First World War?
3. How did globalization affect social classes?
4. Why could elites distract voters by using nationalism?
5. How did globalization disrupt both international power structures and domestic ones?
6. What is the situation of America now?
7. What are potential disadvantages that globalization can bring about?
8. What will governments do to deal with bad effects of globalization?
9. How do you understand the last sentence of the article?

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E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.
1. a highly disruptive force (subtitle)
2. an exogenous event (P. 2)
3. adventure his wealth (P. 6)
4. the great powers “sleepwalked” into war (P. 8)
5. the pax Britannica (P. 10)
6. the old aristocratic elites (P. 11)
7. sought to head off these challenges (P. 12)
8. suffragette protests (P. 14)
9. convulsed (P. 14)
10. imperial overstretch (P. 16)
11. America is a net debtor not a creditor (P. 16)
12. subprime mortgages (P. 17)
13. nativism (P. 20)
14. tit-for-tat trade embargoes (P. 20)
15.populism (P. 20)

F. Translation:
Translate the last four paragraphs into Vietnamese (from “Just as in the first era….” to
“..... are not great”).

G. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 – 200 words.

H. Language:
Add more synonyms of the following words:

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1. Embargo:
2. Counterbalance:
3. Sabotage:

I. Extended questions for discussion:

1. Do you support or oppose globalization? Why?
2. In what ways do you think developing countries like Vietnam can benefit from
globalization?
3. In the article, the author mentions centre-left and centre-right parties (P. 18) as well as
the left and the right (P. 20). What do you know about them?

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Retreat From Globalization Will Destabilize The World Economy

Hostility in the UK and US to structures such as the EU, World Bank and IMF will lead
to increasing instability for everyone.
1. The retreat of the advanced International Monetary Fund and the
economies from the global economy – and, World Bank), which gives them a
in the case of the UK, from regional disproportionate influence on the rules and
trading arrangements – has received a lot practices that govern the international
of attention lately. At a time when the economic and monetary system. And,
global economy’s underlying structures are given their historical dominance of these
under strain, this could have far-reaching organisations, their nationals are de
consequences. facto assured the top positions.
2. Whether by choice or necessity, the 5. These privileges don’t come for free
vast majority of the world’s economies are – at least they shouldn’t. In exchange, the
part of a multilateral system that gives advanced economies are supposed to fulfil
their counterparts in the advanced world – certain responsibilities that help ensure the
especially the US and Europe – enormous system’s functioning and stability. But
privileges. Three stand out. recent developments have cast doubts on
3. First, because they issue the world’s whether the advanced economies are able
main reserve currencies, the advanced to hold up their end of this bargain.
economies get to exchange bits of paper 6. Perhaps the most obvious example
that they printed for goods and services is the 2008 global financial crisis. The
produced by others. Second, for most result of excessive risk-taking and lax
global investors, these economies’ bonds regulation in the advanced economies, the
are a quasi-automatic component of financial system’s near-meltdown
portfolio allocations, so their governments’ disrupted global trade, threw millions into
budget deficits are financed in part by unemployment, and almost tipped the
other countries’ savings. world into a multi-year depression.
4. The advanced economies’ final key 7. But there have been other lapses,
advantage is voting power and too. For example, political obstacles to
representation. They command either veto comprehensive economic policymaking in
power or a blocking minority in the many advanced economies have
Bretton Woods institutions (the undermined the implementation of
structural reforms and responsive fiscal

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policies in recent years, holding back movements on both sides of the Atlantic
business investment, undermining are condemning both concepts to win more
productivity growth, worsening inequality, support for their own causes.
and threatening future potential growth. 11. It is not yet clear whether this is a
8. Such economic lapses have temporary and reversible phenomenon or
contributed to the emergence of anti- the beginning of a protracted challenge to
establishment political movementsthat are the functioning of the global economy.
looking to change – or are already What is clear is that it is affecting two
changing – long-established cross-border important relationships.
trade relations, including those within 12. The first is the relationship between
the European Union and the North small and large economies. For a long
American Free Trade Agreement time, small, well-managed, and open
(NAFTA). economies were the leading beneficiaries
9. Meanwhile, a prolonged and of the Bretton Woods system and, more
excessive reliance on monetary policy, generally, of multilateralism. Their size not
including direct central-bank involvement only made them crave access to outside
in market activities, has distorted asset markets; it also made other market actors
prices and contributed to resource more willing to integrate them into
misallocation. And the advanced regional pacts, owing to their limited
economies – particularly Europe – have displacement potential. Membership in
shown little appetite for reforming effective international institutions brought
outdated elements of governance and these countries into consequential global
representation at the international financial policy discussions, while their own
institutions, despite major changes in the capabilities allowed them to exploit
global economy. opportunities in cross-border production
10. The result of all this is a multilateral and consumption chains.
system that is less effective, less 13. But, at a time of surging
collaborative, less trusted, and more nationalism, these small and open
vulnerable to ad hoc tinkering. Against this economies, however well managed, are
background, it should not be surprising likely to suffer. Their trading relationships
that globalisation and regionalisation no are less stable; the trade pacts on which
longer command the degree of support they depend are vulnerable; and their
they once did – or that some rising political

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participation in global policy discussions is 15. The Bretton Woods organisations,

less assured. instituted after world war two to maintain
14. The second relationship is that stability, risk losing their influence, and the
between the Bretton Woods institutions countries with the clout to bolster
and parallel institutional arrangements. For themseem unwilling at this stage to press
example, while they pale in significance to, ahead boldly with the needed reforms. If
say, the World Bank, China-led institutions these tendencies continue, developing
have proved appealing to a growing countries will probably suffer the most; but
number of countries; most US allies have they won’t be alone. In the short term, the
joined the Asian Infrastructure Investment world economy would face slower
Bank, despite American opposition. economic growth and the risk of greater
Similarly, bilateral payment agreements – financial instability. In the longer term, it
which, not long ago, most countries would would confront the threat of systemic
have opposed via the IMF, owing to their fragmentation and proliferating trade wars.
inconsistency with multilateralism – are
proliferating. The concern is that these
alternative approaches could undermine,
rather than reinforce, a predictable and
beneficial rules-based system of cross-
border interactions.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
The article was written by Mohamed El-Erian and published in The Guardian on Jan
30th, 2017. Mohamed El-Erian is chief economic adviser at Allianz and was chairman of
Barack Obama’s Global Development Council.

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title, subtitle of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you think the article is about?
2. What do you think of the trends of globalization and retreating from globalization?
3. Write down three questions to which you expect to find the answers in the article.

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and the write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. Why does the author say that multilateral system gives the advanced
economiesenormous privileges?
2. According to the author, what should those advanced economies do in return for the
privileges they are given? Have they done it?
3. What are the reasons and consequence of the 2008 global financial crisis?
4. What about other failures of those advanced economies? And their results on countries’
politics?
5. How have some advanced economies, especially Europe, reacted to the need of
conducting reform?
6. How has the multilateral system been affected by all the discussed problems?
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7. What does the author think of the impacts made by the advanced economies’ trend of
retreating from the global economy on two significant relationships?
8. According to the author, if those trends keep happening, who will suffer from what?

E. Words & Expressions:

Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.
1. a quasi-automatic component of portfolio allocations (P. 3)
2. their nationals are de facto assured the top positions (P.4)
3. to hold up their end of this bargain (P. 5)
4. the financial system’s near-meltdown (P. 6)
5. anti-establishment political movements (P. 8)
6. ad hoc tinkering(P. 10)
7. limited displacement potential (P. 12)
8. parallel institutional arrangements (P. 14)
9. pale in significance (P. 14)
10. the countries with the clout to bolster them (P. 15)

F. Translation
Translate paragraphs 6 to 10 of the article into Vietnamese, from “Perhaps the most
obvious example…” to “… to win more support for their own causes.”

G. Summary
Summarize the article in about 150-200 words.

H. Language
Distinguish the following words/phrases:
1. Recess, crisis, depression, and down turn
2. Organization, institution, establishment, and arrangement

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I. Extended questions:
1. What does the author mean by “certain responsibilities” that the advanced economies
are supposed to take?
2. Why are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund called Bretton Woods
institutions? What do you know about the Bretton Woods system?
3. What is the current level of involvement and interest of Vietnam in Bretton Woods
alternative institutions (e.g. the AIIB)?

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Unit 2 ENVIRONMENT
The COP21 Deal: What Does It Mean for Asia?
Asian countries played a major role in Paris, and will remain at the forefront of climate
change issues
1. What a difference six years makes. In Copenhagen, it was the Asian giants, most
notably China, who were blamed for the failure of the 2009 UN Climate Change
Conference - COP15, which derailed global action against climate change for several
years, during which greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continued to rise and extreme
weather events became more and more frequent.
2. Last week, in stark contrast, all countries wanted action on climate change, and
though deciding how to do this was a challenge, in the end we got an agreement that was,
though far from perfect, more robust than many had anticipated in the run-up to the 2015
UN Climate Change Conference - COP21.
3. “In Paris, there were no heroes or villains – all countries moved from their positions
in the end,” said Lou Leonard, vice president of climate change at the World Wildlife
Federation.
4. It included a mention of human rights in the preamble, a strong ambition
mechanism, a collective stocktake of emissions reduction actions in 2018, followed by a
regular, ratchet-up mechanism to ensure that the Internally Determined National
Contributions (INDCs) each nation submitted prior to COP21 are scaled up over time. It
also established that support for capacity building in developing countries – crucial for
much of Asia – would launch in 2016, and enshrined transparency, a key demand of many
developing countries.
5. What changed? Quite simply, Asia. The past few years has seen the environment
emerge as a serious issue across the region. In China, it is air pollution that is forcing the
government to take action, while in the Philippines, it was Typhoon Haiyan two years
ago that really made it clear what the highly vulnerable archipelago nation would have to
deal with if climate change continued unabated. Moreover, in 2009, for most Asian
countries, cutting emissions sounded like a sure-fire way to slash future growth potential.
Why cut emissions for a problem that was primarily caused by the United States and
Europe? But now, with solar expanding rapidly in India, and China leading the world in

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renewables, peaking emissions in the coming years no longer sounds like a burden, but an
opportunity.
6. “In India…the private sector can take advantage and move towards a prosperous low
carbon future by demanding as well as investing in clean energy,” said Krishnan
Pallassana, India executive director for The Climate Group. “The benefits for business are
threefold: greater energy security, affordable supplies, and recognized leadership
internationally.”
7. So in Paris, China entered as a country pushing for change – having submitted a
strong INDC with a goal of peaking GHG emissions by 2030. India was feared by many
as being this year’s China. At times it seemed schizophrenic. One day, it announced an
ambitious, trillion-dollar International Solar Alliance, and then, days later, stood
alongside fossil-fuel dependent Saudi Arabia in refusing to accept a 1.5 degree warming
limit. In the end, though, India was less of a roadblock than expected, though it still
makes any future emissions reductions dependent on robust finance and technology
transfer.
8. Conversely, another large Asian developing nation, the Philippines took on a
leadership role at COP, as the chair of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a grouping of 43
countries that pushed, successfully, for the inclusion of a 1.5 degree goal rather than a 2
degree one. They also were forceful in the inclusion of Loss & Damage, a mechanism to
assist countries unable to prepare for climate change, in the final agreement. The CVF
allowed the voices of developing nations – particularly the Small Island Developing
States (SIDS) of the Pacific Ocean – to be far louder and more prominent in Paris than at
any previous COP.
9. “These negotiations have made enormous progress, not only because of the ice
breaking relationship of the U.S. and China, but also and perhaps ultimately more
important participation and engagement of developing country parties,” said Gary Yohe,
professor of economics and environmental studies at Wesleyan University.

What Now?
10. The deal is not perfect by any means, and one crucial weakness is the fact that
emissions from shipping and aviation were not included in the deal. Singapore, which
relies on trade for its economy and has one of the continent’s major shipping and aviation
ports, was the main roadblock on this. Moreover, there was little mention of land-use

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emissions, the same year that we saw Indonesia’s unprecedented fires, which emit
massive carbon dioxide. It is likely that these will be a topic at a future COP and will
require compromise – and leadership – from Asia.
11. Scientists themselves are concerned that the agreement does not do enough in the
short term. They fear that, without drastic cuts now, we may emit enough GHG to get to
1.5 degrees in just the next five years.
12. In other words, what came out of Paris is ultimately little more than a piece of paper
that must now be acted upon, and fast. The mechanisms and operationalization of the
agreement now fall to the United Nations, which much figure out how to disperse funds
from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and develop a fair system for carbon accounting. But
emissions reductions actions are the responsibility of the nearly 200 member-states,
meaning the ultimate success of the agreement depends on Asia, responsible for the
biggest proportion of global emissions.
13. Another crucial factor will be the robustness of the climate finance mechanism, to be
funded primarily by developed countries including Japan, and if technology transfer
allows for the rapid expansion of clean energy as is hoped. Though French President
Francois Hollande made it a center point of his post-agreement speech that the $100
billion figure for the GCF was a floor, in the final agreement, the date for the fund’s
inception was pushed back by five years to 2025.
14. “Developed countries have obtained another five years to deliver what they agreed
to do. It is regrettable that this has happened as it delays action in developing countries
who are in need,” said Meena Raman, Legal Advisor at the Third World Network.
15. Nevertheless, when the agreement was announced, there were cries of joys, and
even tears, at the Le Bourget conference center in Paris, along with a sense that this was
historic. Twenty-one years after the Rio Earth Summit, more than three decades after
scientists first pinned global warming on carbon dioxide emissions, and despite intense
lobbying efforts by fossil fuel companies, we finally have an agreement.
16. Now the hard part begins. If this is truly Asia’s century, then Asia has the
opportunity to make it a green one.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
This article is written by Nithin Coca and published in the Diplomat on December 18th,
2015 issue. Nithin Coca is a freelance journalist who focuses on environmental, social,
and economic issues around the world, with specific expertise in Southeast Asia.

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title, subtitle of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you think the article is about?
2. What do you know about climate change and its effects on the globe?
3. What do you know about UN Climate Change Conferences?

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1.How has the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference organized in Paris (COP 21) been
different from the 2009 Conference in Copenhagen (COP15)? Why?
2.According to the article, what did the Paris Agreement include?
3. Why have countries adopted such changes?
4.What other reasons have contributed to the great success of the COP21?
5. How have the India’s position and performance in the COP21 been described by the
author?
6. What are the shortcomings of the COP21 Agreement? P10, 11
7. What would be the main factors deciding the successful operation of the agreement? P12, 13

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E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.
1. derailed (P. 1) Taking the wrong way, quite different from the initial intention (Global action against climate change)

2. moved from their positions (P. 3) Change their points of view /minds
3. a collectivestocktake (P.4) : an opportunity for all parties to assess what progress has been made
towards the goal of
4. ratchet-up mechanism (P.4) The system of means to boost the process reducing emission
of reducing emission
5. capacity building (P.4) The development and the strengthening of the human resources/capability
6. highly vulnerable archipelago nation (P.5) Island nations which often suffer from climate changes
7. unabated (P.5) Continue increasing without any reduction in strength/intensity
8. to slash (P. 5) to reduce by a large amount
9. as being this year’s China (P. 7) Acted like China in Cop15
10. the ice breaking leadership (P. 9) Improve the relationship between US and China

F. Translation:
Translate the first four passages from “What a difference six years makes…” to “..of
many developing countries.”

G. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 – 200 words.

H. Extended questions for discussion:

1. In your opinion, is it now too late to stop climate change?
2. What has the international community done to address the impacts of global warming?
3. How has global warming/climate change affected your country (Vietnam)? And what
have your country done to deal with that?

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Clear Thinking Needed

Global warming cannot be dealt with using today’s tools and mindsets. So create some
new ones.

(photo source: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2015/11/28/clear-thinking-needed)

1. IN SOME ways, the climate talks that begin in Paris on November 30th will show
world leaders at their best. Taking a break from pressing issues such as terrorist threats
and stuttering economies, they will try to avert a crisis that will pose its gravest risks long
after they have left office. It is the opposite of the myopic thinking that is often said to
afflict politics. A pity, then, that politicians have set themselves an impossible task, and
that they are mostly going about it in the wrong way.
2. 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.
3. The wind turbines and solar panels that are spreading across Europe, America and
China are barely restraining carbon-dioxide emissions. Since the turn of the century,
global energy has become more, not less, carbon intensive. Coal now supplies 41% of the
world’s electricity and 29% of the world’s energy—a bigger share than at any time in at
least four decades. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide is 40% higher than it
was at the beginning of the industrial revolution.
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A terrible two
4. The presidents and prime ministers who gather in Paris will insist that global
warming must be halted before the world becomes 2°C (3.6°F) hotter than it was in pre-
industrial days. That is what they have said for years but, considering the momentum
behind climate change, this target is as unrealistic as it is arbitrary. If annual greenhouse-
gas emissions remain at the present level, enough pollution will enter the atmosphere in
just 30 years eventually to warm the world by two degrees.
5. Greens say that the target is a rallying point—that it is useful because it inspires
action, and action, once under way, will inspire yet more action in a virtuous circle. If
only world leaders would stiffen their spines and promise even more green energy, they
argue, disaster could be averted. But this drastically understates the challenge. The parts
of the planet that have become rich have done so by tapping a vast store of fossil energy
with feckless, if understandable, abandon. For the rest of the world to join them over the
century ahead, and then for all concerned—as well as the planet’s non-human
inhabitants—to flourish in the centuries that follow, will take a lot more than just a big
expansion of existing renewable technologies.
6. The world and its leaders need more ambition and more realism. The ambition
requires increasing the options available. Generous subsidies perpetuate today’s low-
carbon technologies; the goal should be to usher in tomorrow’s. Unfortunately, energy
companies (unlike, say, drug firms or car companies) see investment in radical new
technologies as a poor prospect, and governments have been feeble in taking up the slack.
A broad commitment quickly to raise and diversify R&D spending on energy
technologies would be more welcome than more or less anything else Paris could offer.
7. This would be costly. But remember three things. One is that spending money to
reduce grave risks is reasonable. The second is that some of today’s climate policies cost
a lot more than a greatly expanded research portfolio and yield rather less. The subsidies
that have created thousands of wind and solar farms have achieved only a little and at
great cost. Other green subsidies, such as some of those for biofuels, have done actual
harm. There is plenty of money to be saved.
8. A third is that one of the best measures against climate change raises money. Well-
designed carbon prices can boost green power, encourage energy-saving and suppress
fossil-fired power much more efficiently than subsidies for renewables. A few brave
places have plumped to set such prices through carbon taxes: the latest is Alberta, in

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Canada. Most countries that have tried to price carbon have instead issued tradable
pollution permits—invariably too many of them, with the result that the price is too low to
change behaviour. Ideally such countries would admit their mistake and start taxing.
Failing that, they should keep their emissions-trading schemes but add a floor price, and
raise it steadily.
9. The new research agenda needs to tackle the deficiencies of renewables. Though
solar, in particular, has become a lot cheaper, new materials, manufacturing and assembly
technologies could make it cheaper still. Better ways of storing energy are required—so
that wind or solar power can be used, for example, in the cold, still winter evenings when
European electricity demand tends to peak. So are better ways of getting it from A to B,
either through larger grids or in the form of newly synthesised fuels. Could biotechnology
produce photosynthetic bugs that pump out lots of usable fuels? No one knows. It would
be worth a few billion to find out.
10. Nor should the ambitions for research be limited to renewables. There are other
forms of fossil-fuel-free energy, such as nuclear. Innovation in nuclear energy is not easy:
such power plants are dangerous and need vigilant, independent regulation; they are
unpopular and currently vastly expensive. But a civilisation that looks decades or more
ahead cannot exclude new forms of nuclear from the research agenda.
Living with it
11. Radical innovation is the key to reducing emissions over the medium and long term,
but it will not stop climate change from getting worse in the meantime. This is where the
realism comes in: many people will have to adapt to a hotter Earth, and some of them will
need help.
12. Wealthier countries (including China) have promised $100 billion a year to help
poorer ones. The trouble is that it is not clear what counts towards this total or what the
money is for. If the Paris climate conference dissolves in rancour, this will probably be
the cause. The priority should be research into crops that can survive extreme weather;
better sanitation and health care to make the poor more resilient to climate shocks; and
cheap energy, whether green or not. The poor need all these things more than they need
gifts of green-power technologies that even the West finds too expensive.
13. The final strand of new thinking ought to be research into cooling the Earth
artificially. Climate models suggest that global warming could be slowed by spraying

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particles into the stratosphere or by using salt crystals to make clouds whiter, and hence
better at reflecting sunlight. No one knows whether such “geoengineering” projects can
be designed in a way that does not replace existing climate risks with worse new ones.
But that is a reason for research and debate, not for looking the other way.
Geoengineering is not a substitute for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions (for one thing, it
does not stop carbon dioxide from changing the chemistry of the oceans). But putting it
off-limits, as many greens desire, is foolish.
14. In short: thinking caps should replace hair shirts, and pragmatism should replace
green theology. The climate is changing because of extraordinary inventions like the
steam turbine and the internal combustion engine. The best way to cope is to keep
inventing.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
This article is published in the Leaders category of The Economist on November 28th,
2015.

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title, subtitle of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you think the article is about?
2. What do you think would be some new ways to tackle global warming?
3. What do you think as the methods that have been efficiently applied in your country to
deal with climate change?

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. What is the most notable evidence of climate change cited in the article?
2. What is causing climate change mostly, according to the author?
3. How does the author view the goal set by world leaders in Paris conference? Why?
4. What do green activists think about that goal?
5. According to the author, who should take the greatest responsibility of dealing with
climate change and what should they do?
6. What are the things that make the costs of dealing with climate change become
reasonable?
7. What should be included in the research agenda?
8. What is the problem with the amount of money promised to support poorer countries?

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9. What should be done to help the poor and vulnerable people/places adapt to climate
change?

E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.
1. stuttering economies (P.1)
2. the myopic thinking that is often said to afflict politics (P. 1)
3. arbitrary (P.4)
4.greens say that the target is a rallying point (P.5)
5. feeble in taking up the slack (P. 6)
6. tradable pollution permits (P.8)
7. floor price (P.8)
8. deficiencies of renewables (P.9)
9. newly synthesised fuels(P.9)
10. realism (P.11)
11. dissolves in rancor (P. 12)
12. resilient to climate shocks (P.12)
13. thinking caps should replace hair shirts (P.14)

F. Translation:
Translate the last threeparagraphs into Vietnamese, from “Wealthier countries”….to
“to keep inventing”.

G. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 – 200 words.

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H. Extended questions for discussion:

1. In your opinion, who should be held accountable for climate change, developed nations
or developing ones? Why
2. In what ways do you think developing countries can help themselves to mitigate
negative impacts caused by climate change?

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Unit 3 ECONOMIC ISSUES

The Right Way To Help Declining Places

Time for fresh thinking about the changing economics of geography

1. Populism’s wave has yet to crest. That is the sobering lesson of recent elections
in Germany and Austria, where the success of anti-immigrant, anti-globalisation parties
showed that a message of hostility to elites and outsiders resonates as strongly as ever
among those fed up with the status quo. It is also the lesson from America, where Donald
Trump is doubling down on gestures to his angry base, most recently by adopting a
negotiating position on NAFTA that is more likely to wreck than remake the trade
agreement.
2. These remedies will not work. The demise of NAFTA will disproportionately
hurt the blue-collar workers who back Mr Trump. Getting tough on immigrants will do
nothing to improve economic conditions in eastern Germany, where 20% of voters
backed the far-right Alternative for Germany. But the self-defeating nature of populist
policies will not blunt their appeal. Mainstream parties must offer voters who feel left
behind a better vision of the future, one that takes greater account of the geographical
reality behind the politics of anger.

Location, location, vocation

3. Economic theory suggests that regional inequalities should diminish as poorer
(and cheaper) places attract investment and grow faster than richer ones. The 20th century
bore that theory out: income gaps narrowed across American states and European regions.
No longer. Affluent places are now pulling away from poorer ones. This geographical
divergence has dramatic consequences. A child born in the bottom 20% in wealthy San
Francisco has twice as much chance as a similar child in Detroit of ending up in the top
20% as an adult. Boys born in London’s Chelsea can expect to live nearly nine years
longer than those born in Blackpool. Opportunities are limited for those stuck in the
wrong place, and the wider economy suffers. If all its citizens had lived in places of high
productivity over the past 50 years, America’s economy could have grown twice as fast as
it did.
4. Divergence is the result of big forces. In the modern economy scale is
increasingly important. The companies with the biggest hoards of data can train their
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machines most effectively; the social network that everyone else is on is most attractive to
new users; the stock exchange with the deepest pool of investors is best for raising capital.
These returns to scale create fewer, superstar firms clustered in fewer, superstar places.
Everywhere else is left behind.

5. Even as regional disparities widen, people are becoming less mobile. The
percentage of Americans who move across state lines each year has fallen by half since
the 1990s. The typical American is more footloose than the average European, yet lives
less than 30 kilometres from his parents. Demographic shifts help explain this, including
the rise in two-earner households and the need to care for ageing family members. But the
bigger culprit is poor policies. Soaring housing costs in prosperous cities keep newcomers
out. In Europe a scarcity of social housing leads people to hang on to cheap flats. In
America the spread of state-specific occupational licensing and government benefits
punishes those who move. The pension of a teacher who stays in the same state could be
twice as big as that of a teacher who moves mid-career.
6. Perversely, policies to help the poor unintentionally exacerbate the plight of left-
behind places. Unemployment and health benefits enable the least employable people to
survive in struggling places when once they would have had no choice but to move.
Welfare makes capitalism less brutal for individuals, but it perpetuates the problems
where they live.

Welcome to the place age

7. What to do? One answer is to help people move. Thriving places could do more
to build the housing and infrastructure to accommodate newcomers. Accelerating the
reciprocal recognition of credentials across state or national borders would help people
move to where they can be most productive. But greater mobility also has a perverse side-
effect. By draining moribund places of talented workers, it exacerbates their troubles. The
local tax-base erodes as productive workers leave, even as welfare and pension
obligations mount.
8. To avoid these outcomes, politicians have long tried to bolster left-behind places
with subsidies. But such “regional policies” have a patchy record, at best. South Carolina
lured BMW to the state in 1992 and from it built a thriving automotive cluster. But the
EU’s structural funds raise output and reduce unemployment only so long as funding

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continues. California has 42 enterprise zones. None has raised employment. Better for
politicians to focus on speeding up the diffusion of technology and business practices
from high-performing places. A beefed-up competition policy could reduce industrial
concentration, which saps the economy of dynamism while focusing the gains from
growth in fewer firms and places. Fostering clusters by encouraging the creation of
private investment funds targeted on particular regions might help.
9. Bolder still would be to expand the mission of local colleges. In the 19th century
America created lots of public technical universities. They were supposed to teach best
practice to farmers and factory managers in small towns and rural areas. They could play
that role again today for new technologies, much as Germany already has a network of
applied-research institutions. Politicians might even learn from Amazon, whose search for
a home for a second headquarters has set off a scramble among cities hoping to lure the
giant etailer. Governments could award public research centres—in the mould of
America’s National Institutes of Health or Europe’s CERN—to cities which prepare the
best plans for policy reform and public investment. This would aid the diffusion of new
ideas and create an incentive for struggling places to help themselves.
10. Perhaps most of all, politicians need a different mindset. For progressives,
alleviating poverty has demanded welfare; for libertarians, freeing up the economy. Both
have focused on people. But the complex interaction of demography, welfare and
globalisation means that is insufficient. Assuaging the anger of the left-behind means
realising that places matter, too.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
This article was published in The Economist on October 21st, 2017.

B. Pre-Reading exercises:
Read the title, subtitle of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you know about the gap between the rich and the poor in the world?
2. What do you know about the industrialization and the industrial revolution 4.0 in the
developed countries?
3. What do you know about how poor and developing countries in the world strive for
their competition with the developed ones in the current situation?

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension Questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. According to the author, how has populism been favored recently in developed
countries? What are the evidences to prove that?
2. In the author’s viewpoint, will those movements help to improve ordinary people’s
lives? Why?
3. What does the author mentions as important factors affecting the economic and
developmental opportunities of people in the modern time?
4. What does the author put out as the right way to help declining places?
5. What are possibly negative impacts of the recommendations? How to limit those?
6. In short, what does the author suggest for governments and politicians?

E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meanings of the following words and expressions as used in the article.
1. Populism’s wave has yet to crest (P. 1)
2. resonates (P. 1)

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3. is doubling down on gestures to his angry base (P. 1)

4. the self-defeating nature of populist policies will not blunt their appeal (P. 2)
5. bore that theory out (P. 3)
6. Affluent places are now pulling away from poorer ones. (P. 3)
7. footloose (P. 5)
8. two-earner households (P. 5)
9. exacerbate the plight of left-behind places (P. 6)
10. the reciprocal recognition of credentials (P. 7)
11. draining moribund places of talented workers (P. 7)
12. a beefed-up competition policy (P. 8)
13. saps the economy of dynamism (P. 8)
14. the giant etailer (P. 9)

F. Summary:
Summarise the article in about 150 - 200 words.

G. Translation:
Translate paragraphs 3-5 into Vietnamese, from “Economic theory suggests…” to
“…who moves mid-carrer.”

H. Extended questions for discussion:

1. What do you know about the industrialization and the industrial revolution 4.0?
2. How might the industrialization and the industrial revolution 4.0 affect the poor
countries?

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Misplaced Charity
Aid is best spent in poor, well-governed countries. That isn’t where it goes.

(photo source: https://www.economist.com/international/2016/06/11/misplaced-charity)

1. NOT long ago Malawi was a donor darling. Being dirt poor and ravaged by AIDS, it
was needy; with just 17m inhabitants, a dollop of aid might visibly improve it. Better still,
it was more-or-less democratic and its leader, Joyce Banda, was welcome at Westminster
and the White House. In 2012 Western countries showered $1.17 billion on it, and foreign
aid accounted for 28% of gross national income.
2. The following year corrupt officials, businessmen and politicians pinched at least
$30m from the Malawian treasury. A bureaucrat investigating the thefts was shot three
times (he survived, somehow). Germany said it would help pay for an investigation; later,
burglars raided the home of a German official and stole documents relating to the scandal.
Malawi is no longer a donor darling. It now resembles a clingy lover, which would be
dumped were it not so needy. It still gets a lot of foreign aid ($930m in 2014), but donors
try to keep the cash out of the government’s hands.
3. Foreign aid can work wonders. It set South Korea and Taiwan on the path to riches,
helped extinguish smallpox in the 1970s and has almost eliminated polio. Unfortunately,
as Malawi shows, it is liable to be snaffled by crooks. Aid can also burden weak

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bureaucracies, distort markets, prop up dictators and help prolong civil wars. Taxpayers in
rich countries dislike their cash being spent on Mercedes-Benzes. So donors strive to send
the right sort of aid to the places where it will do the most good. How are they doing?
4. A decade ago governments rich and poor set out to define good aid. They declared
that aid should be for improving the lot of poor people—and not, implicitly, for propping
up friendly dictators or winning business for exporters. It should be coordinated;
otherwise, says William Easterly of New York University, “the poor health minister is
dealing with dozens of different donors and dozens of different forms to fill out.” It
should be transparent. Where possible, it should flow through governments.
5. These are high-minded ideals, reflecting the time they were laid down: the cold war
was over and the West had plenty of money. They are nonetheless sound. Aid-watchers,
who row bitterly over whether the world needs more foreign aid or less, mostly agree with
them. They tend to add that aid should go to relatively free, well-governed countries.
6. By almost all of these measures, foreign aid is failing. It is as co-ordinated as a
demolition derby. Much goes neither to poor people nor to well-run countries, and on
some measures the targeting is getting worse. Donors try to reward decent regimes and
punish bad ones, but their efforts are undermined by other countries and by their own
impatience. It is extraordinary that so many clever, well-intentioned people have made
such a mess.
7. Official development aid, which includes grants, loans, technical advice and debt
forgiveness, is worth about $130 billion a year. The channels originating in Berlin,
London, Paris, Tokyo and Washington are deep and fast-flowing; others are rivulets,
though the Nordic countries are generous for their size. More than two-fifths flows
through multilateral outfits such as the World Bank, the UN and the Global Fund. Last
year 9% was spent on refugees in donor countries, reflecting the surge of migrants to
Europe.
8. As the aid river twists and braids, it inundates some places and not others. India
contains some 275m people living on less than $1.90 a day. It got $4.8 billion in “country
programmable aid” (the most routine kind) in 2014, which is $17 per poor person.
Vietnam also got $4.8 billion; but, because it is much smaller and rather better off, that
works out to $1,658 per poor person (see map). By this measure South-East Asia and
South America fare especially well.
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(photo source: https://www.economist.com/international/2016/06/11/misplaced-charity)

9. Western countries have mostly been shamed out of the cold war-era habit of
funnelling aid to friendly regimes and former colonies. But aid is still used more-or-less
explicitly as a tool of foreign policy—and increasingly so, says Owen Barder of the
Centre for Global Development, a think-tank. Today’s enemy is not communism but
radical Islam. Afghanistan, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Turkey each got more net aid than
Bangladesh in 2014, although none contains nearly as many poor people. This week the
EU promised more aid to African and Middle Eastern countries that clamp down on
migrants.
Rewarding failure
10. A better reason not to give much aid to the poorest countries is that many are badly
run. But that is not why they get so little. Claudia Williamson of Mississippi State
University has created a yardstick that measures both poverty and the quality of
government. On her measure, the targeting of aid worsened between 2004 and 2012. “Aid
goes to middle-income countries that are also poorly governed,” she says.
11. Donors often reward democratic reforms; they also try to punish corruption and
backsliding, as in Malawi. Between 2009 and 2014, 12 countries improved by at least two
points on a 14-point scale produced by Freedom House, a think-tank, suggesting they
became notably more democratic and liberal. Ten of them received more net aid in 2014

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than five years earlier. Of the nine aid-receiving countries that worsened by two points or
more on the same scale, six got less.
12. But such inducements tend to be subtle, whereas the surge of aid into strategically
important states is often huge. Net foreign aid to Turkey, an increasingly autocratic
country that is not poor, rose more than tenfold between 2004 and 2014, to $3.4 billion.
Besides, donors often have short attention spans. Two academics, Darren Hawkins and
Jay Goodliffe, have shown that donors tend to reward countries that are becoming more
like them. Once countries have joined the democratic club, aid drops. American aid to
Peru followed that pattern. “You get penalised for achieving too high a level of
democratic governance,” says Brad Parks of AidData, another think-tank.
13. Even if Western countries sent clear, consistent signals, they might struggle to be
heard. Aid has become less important to many poor countries than foreign investment or
remittances. And donors have become far more diverse. Several countries that used to
receive aid now hand it out; a few, including India and Turkey, do both. China distributed
roughly $3.4 billion last year, according to the OECD. Although that is puny next to
America or Britain, China is important because it can act as a shock absorber, moving
into a country when others are pulling out. Last month it promised Malawi more food aid
and 100 police cars.
14. For corrupt dictators, Chinese aid is even better than the Western kind. China tends
not to fuss over democracy, and it seldom objects to loans being spent on pointless grand
projects: after all, it builds a lot of those at home. The money is easier to snaffle. One
study found that Chinese aid is highly likely to flow to the districts where African leaders
were born.
15. In one big way, though, the proliferation of donors harms poor countries. Aid now
comes from ever more directions, in ever smaller packages: according to AidData, the
average project was worth $1.9m in 2013, down from $5.3m in 2000. Mozambique has 27
substantial donors in the field of health alone, not counting most non-Western or private
givers. Belgium, France, Italy, Japan and Sweden each supplied less than $1m. Such
fragmentation strains poor countries, both because of the endless report-writing and
because civil servants are hired away to manage donors’ projects.
16. Donors would probably do more good by concentrating on a few projects in a few
countries. But they strive to achieve the opposite. To them, and to the politicians who
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control the purse strings, plastering the world with flags is a sign of success. Erik
Solheim, chairman of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee, remembers
trying to persuade his own country, Norway, to focus on what it really knows about
(managing an oil boom) rather than on things like tropical agriculture. He did not succeed.
17. A decade ago the approved cure for fragmentation was for donors to pay aid directly
to poor countries to use as they please. This has become deeply unfashionable. A donor
who funds a government feels responsible for every dismal thing that government does,
whether it is passing anti-gay laws or stealing the cash. Once lost, trust is hard to recover.
Donors seem disinclined to resume direct budget support to Malawi: one describes it as
“in the past”. Britain’s department for international development, which used to
proselytise about the virtues of budget support, said last year that it would stop doing it.
Increasingly, donors also earmark the funds they provide to multilateral outfits.
18. The situation is a mess in almost every way which is why it is good news that a great
deal of progress has been made on one of the ideals agreed on in Paris a decade ago.
Donors have become far more open about where their aid goes and how it is spent. It is
because of the advances in transparency that we know just how badly things are going.
But knowledge and the willingness to change are not the same.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
This article was published in The Economist on June 8th, 2016.

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title, subtitle of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you think the article is about?
2. What do you know about the mechanism of distributing international aid?
3. Write down three questions to which you expect to find the answers in the article.

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. What does the writer mean when saying “Malawi was a donor darling”? Why so?
2. What happened then that turned Malawi into no longer being “a donor darling?”
3. What are some great achievements that are gained thanks to foreign aid?
4. What are the side-effects that foreign aid might possibly bring to receiving countries?
5. How do some governments define good aid?
6. How has international aid failed?
7. How does the author compare and contrast aid from different sources around the
world?
8. What are criteria for donors to choose which countries would receive their aid?
9. What are new trends in giving aid recently?
10. Why has China become a preferable donor to some governments?
11. What might be the difficulties of the receiving countries when being aided?

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E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.
1. a clingy lover, which would be dumped were it not so needy (P. 2)
2. it is liable to be snaffled by crooks (P. 3)
3. as co-ordinated as a demolition derby (P. 6)
4. As the aid river twists and braids, it inundates some places and not others (P. 8)
5. clamp down on migrants (P. 9)
6. backsliding (P. 11)
7. a shock absorber (P. 13)
8. who control the purse strings (P. 16)
9. plastering the world with flags is a sign of success (P. 16)
10. to proselytise about the virtues of budget support (P. 17)

F. Translation:
Translate paragraphs 7, 8 and 9 into Vietnamese, from “Official development aid…”
to “… clamp down on migrants.”

G. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 – 200 words.

H. Extended questions for discussion:

1. How has Vietnam benefited from international aid?
2. Do you think that Vietnam is also having such problems that the author mentions in his
article?

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Unit 4 TERRORISM
Jihad At The Heart Of Europe
Brussels is not just Europe’s political and military capital – it is also the centre of its
terrorist networks.
1. WITH its stout brick houses and wrought-iron balconies, as well as occasional
tower blocks, Molenbeek would not be out of place in a multicultural corner of any
western European capital. Residents can shop at the Marrakech baker, Islamic butcher,
Halal Turkish Pizzas or the King of Saree. A rundown Islamic centre offers classes in
rapid memorisation of the Koran around the corner from a main commercial street strung
with municipal Christmas lights.
2. In recent days, after the carnage in Paris, Molenbeek has changed in the public
imagination from an edgy ethnic corner of Brussels into a nest of European jihadism. One
of the Paris suicide-bombers, BrahimAbdeslam, was a French citizen who lived in the
area. His younger brother, Salah, is believed to have fled back to Belgium after the
carnage. Raids by armed Belgian police in Molenbeek on November 16th and 19th were
intended to track him down.
3. The presumed mastermind of the attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian of
Moroccan descent, also grew up in Molenbeek. He had been assumed to be in Syria—
Islamic State’s glossy magazine even “interviewed” him about his exploits in evading
capture. But on November 18th French police fought their way into a flat in Paris where
he was thought to be hiding. A woman blew herself up; Mr Abaaoud died, too. The public
prosecutor said the raid had foiled another imminent plot to attack the Paris region.
4. Molenbeek has a longer association with jihadism. Former residents of north
African extraction include the killers of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the commander of
Afghanistan’s anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, who was assassinated in 2001 as a prelude
to al-Qaeda’s attacks on America on September 11th; a man involved in the Madrid train
bombings in 2004; a man who killed four people at a Jewish museum in Brussels in 2014;
and a man who tried to kill passengers on a high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris in
August. As Charles Michel, the Belgian prime minister, puts it, “Almost every time [there
is an attack], there’s a link with Molenbeek.”
5. The question of why some of Europe’s young Muslims become radicalised, fight in
Syria and kill their own fellow-citizens is a conundrum that worries all governments—

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none more so than Belgium’s. France has more Muslim citizens than any other country in
the European Union, and the largest number of foreign fighters in Syria; but Belgium has
the highest proportion of those fighters as a share of its population.
6. The causes are not only, and perhaps not mainly, Islamic puritanism and economic
marginalisation—although Molenbeek, where locals complain of unemployment and
discrimination, has its share of both. In June a French parliamentary report pointed to
more personal factors: “an existential quest” for identity and belonging undertaken by
those with “psychological and social malaise”. Those heading for Syria are often petty
criminals. But there are also middle-class youngsters, young girls and converts, says
DouniaBouzar, who runs a French deradicalisation centre.
7. Despite this variety, the fact that many of the attacks in Europe in recent years
have been carried out by people tagged by security agencies as potential extremists
suggests the spooks are at least looking in the right pool of suspects. But the numbers are
so large that it is impossible even for the most generously funded agencies to monitor
them all. It apparently takes from 20 to 60 people to follow a single suspect around the
clock.
8. Whether or not Belgium has a worse problem with radicalism than elsewhere, it is
clearly struggling to cope with it. Its police and intelligence forces are, like most of the
country’s institutions, fragmented and under-resourced. It has long had a reputation as the
way-station for drug- and gun-smuggling between the Netherlands and France. Another
problem is that Belgium lies at the heart of the Schengen zone area. Once a gun is
smuggled across the external border of the free-travel area, typically from the Balkans,
where they are plentiful, it can be taken freely across much of Europe. Black-market
prices suggest that automatic weapons are cheapest in the Balkans and most expensive in
Britain, which is outside Schengen. Some reports say that weapons used in the Charlie
Hebdo attacks in Paris in January came from a specialist in Slovakia.
9. If the Schengen zone is border-free for holidaymakers and terrorists, it is full of
unseen barriers for police and intelligence agencies. Authorities have no means of
monitoring passenger-name records for cross-border travellers, even those coming from
outside Schengen. Where passports are looked at, eg, at airports, the identities of
Schengen-area citizens are not systematically checked against databases of suspected
criminals or terrorists. Too many of the supposed joint European databases contain little
data, or cannot be properly searched. Even when a suspect’s name records a hit, all that

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comes back is the name and number of a police officer to be contacted for information.
Despite fears that jihadists could be slipping into Europe with the flood of refugees,
European police forces cannot gain access to the Eurodac database that records
fingerprints and other details of asylum-seekers.
10. Some, especially on the far right, are clamouring for the abolition of Schengen. But
even if European voters were to put up with border controls, it would be impossible to
check the roughly 200 road crossings between Belgium and France alone. MrAbdeslam is
said to have slipped past several police checkpoints as he fled Paris.
11. A more ready answer lies in improved security co-operation. After the Charlie
Hebdo attacks in Paris, European leaders pledged to solve many of the problems. But
progress has been slow because of resistance from the European Parliament, bureaucratic
lethargy and the reluctance of many security forces to share information for fear that it
will leak—or expose domestic failings. France was due to renew its demand for action at
an emergency meeting of interior ministers on November 20th.
12. Intelligence relations are closest between Britain and the other so-called “Five
Eyes” (America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand); and between Britain and France,
the two military and security giants in Europe. But co-operation across the rest of the
continent is patchier, not least because the big intelligence agencies do not trust the
competence of the smaller outfits, or even their ability to keep secrets. Belgium has some
1,000 intelligence officers, and 800 Islamists on its watch-list, says KristofClerix, the
author of a book on Belgian intelligence. They must also watch the many foreign spies
operating around the headquarters of the EU and NATO, and operate under unusually
restrictive laws.
13. “Terrorism is borderless,” says Belgium’s former prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt.
“Intelligence has to be borderless also.” For now, what better for jihadists wanting to
strike at France than to hole up in Belgium, a French-speaking country with a large
Muslim population and lax controls, just a short drive from Paris?

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
This article was published in The Economist on November 21st, 2015.

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title, subtitle of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you think the article is about?
2. What do you think of terrorism?
3. Write down three questions to which you expect to find the answers in the article.

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. Why does the author of this article think that Brussels is now the centre of Europe’s
terrorist networks?
2. According to the author, why does Belgium have the highest proportion of fighters as a
share of its population among European countries?
3. What does the author mean by “unseen barriers for police and intelligence agencies” in
the Schengen zone?
4. In the author’s opinion, would the situation be better controlled if there were borders
between the EU countries?
5. How has the author described the security cooperation among the EU countries?
6. What does Belgium’s former prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt. mean by saying
“Intelligence has to be borderless also”?

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E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.
1. would not be out of place in a multicultural corner (P.1)
2. carnage (P.2)
3. his exploits in evading capture (P. 3)
4. the raid had foiled another imminent plot to attack the Paris region (P. 5)
5. a conundrum (P. 5)
6. Islamic Puritanism and economic marginalization (P. 6)
7. “an existential quest” (P. 6)
8. clamouring for the abolition of Schengen (P. 10)
9. bureaucratic lethargy (P. 11)
10. patchier (P. 12)

F. Translation:
Translate the first three paragraphs into Vietnamese, from “With its stout brick
houses…” to “… to attack the Paris region.”

G. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 – 200 words.

H. Language:
Distinguish the differences between the following words:
1. Jihad:
a) Jihadism
b) Jihadist

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c) Jihadi
2. Marginalization:
a) economic marginalization
b) the marginal propensity to import
c) the marginalization of exportation

I. Extended questions for discussion:

1. How do you define Jihad? What does ‘Jihad’ really mean to Muslims?
2. In your opinion, how can terrorism been curbed?

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Heart Of Asia 2016: Phony Peacemaking For Afghanistan?

(photo source: https://thediplomat.com/2016/12/heart-of-asia-2016-phony-peacemaking-

for-afghanistan/)
1. Modern Afghanistan has been ravaged and damaged by terrorism as well as
regional and external powers’ geopolitical interests, starting in 1979 with the Soviet
Union’s intervention. The same problems were further heightened with the International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF)’s post-9/11 war against terrorism in general and al-
Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden (until his death in 2014) in particular. Due to a long war
sparked by the ISAF invasion, Afghanistan has become entrapped in myriad political,
economic, and security problems. It has also become one of the world’s major refugee-
generating countries.
2. Seeing the gravity of these challenges, external and regional powers have made
efforts toward socioeconomic reconstruction, rebuilding, and peacemaking in
Afghanistan. However, after the withdrawal of the ISAF in 2014, the Taliban and the
other terrorist groups re-emerged, posing an existential threat to Afghanistan. The sixth
Heart of Asia (HoA) Ministerial Conference 2016, which recently took place in Amritsar,
India, was supposed to provide an opportunity for creating peace and stability not only in
Afghanistan, but in the neighboring regions as well. However, given the geopolitical
dynamics of the region, there are a serious questions about HoA 2016. How can it be
helpful in peacemaking when the participants continue to adopt double standards?

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Civil War and Terrorism: Afghanistan’s Major Challenges

3. Given its strategic location, multicultural and multiethnic make-up, attractive trade
background, and abundant natural resources, Afghanistan has been a magnet for external
invasions and, consequently, infested with terrorism and fear. However, throughout recorded
history, Afghanistan has fought well against such foreign invaders and proved as disastrous
for them as they were for Afghanistan – hence the country’s nickname as the “Graveyards of
Empires.”
4. In part, its frequent problems with civil war can be traced to its ethnic composition. It is
a nation with many cultures and ethnicities, although Pashtuns have privilegd positions in
politics, the army, police, and various bureaucratic offices. The others ethnic groups – such
as Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Aimaks, Turkmens, and Balochs – often complain of
discrimination and feel little connection to their government.
5. Meanwhile, the roots of terrorism in Afghanistan can be traced to Cold War
geopolitics in general and the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-89) in particular. Fanaticism,
poverty, inequality, and underdevelopment are some other internal factors perceived to be
responsible for terrorism in Afghanistan. Active terrorist groups such as Taliban, the
Hezb-e-Islami, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Lashkar-i-Jhanghi, and the Haqqani Network have
been operating in Afghanistan since the late 1980s.

Peacemaking and Reconciliation in Afghanistan

6. To bolster mainstream Afghan society and curb terrorism, several efforts have
been made to bring peace and stability in Afghanistan, from the Geneva Accord of
1988 to then-President Hamid Karzai’s National Consultative Peace Jirga (NCPJ) talks
with the Taliban. The most recent such attempt, formed soon after the withdrawal of the
ISAF in December 2014, is the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG), consisting
of the United States, China, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The QCG was designed to
jumpstart comprehensive peace talks with the Taliban. However, despite several efforts
on the part of the QCG, it has also failed to bring any profound effect in peacemaking and
reconciliation. Instead, terrorist attacks, and resulting deaths, have increased.
7. The HoA is another (thus far fruitless) attempt to forge peace. Five “Heart of Asia”
conferences have taken place since its inception in November 2011. These meetings have
focused on securing cooperation on major issues such as maintaining peace and stability;

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curbing terrorism, separatism, and fundamentalism; ending the production, trade and
trafficking of drugs; and promoting peace and cooperation between Afghanistan and its
neighbors. The fifth HoA Conference, held in December 2015 in Islamabad, which
adopted the “Islamabad Declaration” to promote peace, security, economic development,
and Afghan connectivity with the South and Central Asian region.
The Sixth Heart of Asia
8. The sixth HoA was held in Amritsar on December 3 and 4. Prime Minister Narendra
Modi of India and President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan jointly inaugurated the sixth HoA
Ministerial Conference, focusing on the theme “Addressing Challenges, Achieving
Prosperity” on December 4, 2016. On December 3, senior officials of the HoA members had
discussed important security and economic issues for finalizing the Amritsar Declaration,
including the adoption of the Regional Counterterrorism Framework drafted and chaired by
Afghanistan. The 2016 HoA Conference was attended by the senior officials of all 14
countries (including Afghanistan’s neighboring countries India, China, Russia, Iran, and
Pakistan) and the representatives of 17 supporting nations.
9. However, the HoA Conference took place at a time when both India and Pakistan
are locked in mistrust. The host country, India, has suffered several terrorist attacks, from the
attack on Pathankot Air Force Station on January 2, 2016 to attacks in Pampore, Uri, and
Baramulla, and the latest attack, on Nagrota Indian Army Base on November 29.
10. On the other hand, since the ISAF withdrawal, the Taliban has been resurgent in
Afghanistan. As a result, both Afghanistan and Pakistan have suffered many terrorist
attacks and consequently lost many innocent lives. It’s not only Afghanistan, the focus of
the HoA process – its neighbors in South and Central Asian have also been suffering from
terrorism. It’s no surprise, then, that security issues (such as the threat of terrorism,
radicalization, and extremism) and economic issues (like heightening connectivity with
South and Central Asian countries to increase trade) were the lynchpin of the meeting.
11. Thus, now the question is how, and to what extent, the HoA could help curtail
terrorism and bring peace to Afghanistan.
Phony Peacemaking
12. According to Edson Jose Neves Junior and Larlecianne Piccolli, there are two
different peacemaking approaches at work in Afghanistan today: interventionist (the
United States) and regional institutionalization (China, Russia, and other neighboring

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countries including India). The QCG and HoA are some of the endeavors that are part of the
second strategy, with a focus on strengthening Afghanistan strategically, politically, and
economically. Politically and economically, Afghanistan has achieved considerable progress.
However, the military solution pursued by the ISAF to achieve peace, stability, and rooting
out terrorism had only worsened the security situation in Afghanistan.
13. A peaceful and stable Afghanistan is not only in the interests of the extra-regional
powers, but those of the neighboring countries as well. However, it seems that the QCG
and HoA members have not been serious about curbing terrorism. Until sincere efforts
are made, peacemaking would remain a distant dream for Afghanistan. China is the
dominant power in the region, but it seems that it is not serious about making practical
efforts to curb the terrorism. That may be because of its all-weather friendship with
Pakistan. Though Pakistan has been suffering from terrorism, at the same time, it is not
serious about checking terrorism either.
14. Pakistan has assured India and Afghanistan several times that it will not allow
its land to be used by terrorists, but there seems little question that is exactly what is
happening. India had requested Pakistan to ban some terrorist organizations that have
been operating from within Pakistani borders. India even raised the same case in the UN,
but China, considering its vested geopolitical and geostrategic interests in Pakistan,
scuttled the resolution by using its veto power. Recently, during the 2016 BRICS
Summit in Goa, India once again China blocked India’s efforts to include the names of
terrorist organization such as JeM and LeT in the Goa Declaration.
15. The most tragic part of the issue is, India has been failed to garner the support of
its traditional strategic partner Russia on the same subject in the Goa Declaration 2016,
despite the JeM and LeT being the greatest challenges for regional security. Indeed Russia
has a large stake in a peaceful and stable Afghanistan but it has yet to play a major role in
this regard. Strategic commentator Brahma Chellaney has argued that Russia was
interested in accommodating India’s security concerns; however, due to the stiff
opposition from China, Moscow shied away from supporting the real cause of regional
security.
16. From these arguments, it seems that only China can call the shots for regional
security. Unless, China has the intention to do so, these summits and conferences on
Afghanistan will remain meaningless rituals.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
This article was written by Dr. Bawa Singh and published in The Diplomat on December
6th, 2016. Dr. Bawa Singh teaches at the Center for South and Central Asian Studies,
School of Global Relations, Central University of Punjab, Bathinda, India.

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title the subtitle of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you know about the present situation of Afghanistan?
2. What do you know about Heart of Asia and Heart of Asia 2016?
3. Write down three questions to which you expect to find the answers in the article.

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. What is the current situation of Afghanistan?
2. What are the roots of Afghanistan’s present major challenges?
3. What have powerful countries tried to do to help Afghanistan? How successful have
they been?
4. What are the focuses of the six Heart of Asia (HoA) Ministerial Conferences,
especially the fifth and the sixth?
5. What are the two different peacemaking approaches in Afghanistan? Which one has
been used by the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) and HOA?
6. What should the QCG and HoA members do to help eliminate terrorism and bring
peace to Afghanistan?

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7. What are the rolesthat regional powers play in Afghanistan?

E. Words and expressions:
Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.
1. refugee-generating countries (P. 1)
2. to adopt double standards (P. 2)
3. a magnet for external invasion (P. 3)
4. fanaticism (P. 5)
5. India and Pakistan are locked in mistrust (P. 9)
6. the lynchpin (P. 10)
7. Russia has a large stake in (P. 15)
8. call the shots (P. 16)

F. Translation:
Translate paragraphs 6-8 into Vietnamese, from “To bolster mainstream …” to “…17
supporting nations.”

G. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 – 200 words.

H. Language:
Find possible collocations for the following words:
1. terrorism: 2. extremism:

I. Extended questions for discussion:

1. What do you know about the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-89) and ISAF invasion (2001-
2014)?
2. In what ways do you think governments should do to eliminate terrorism?

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Unit 5 CONFLICTS
Asia’s Challenge: Separatism

(photo source: https://www.indoleft.org/news/2004-10-16/human-rights-violations-must-

be-fully-investigated.html)

1. Some of the attention being devoted to the issue of terrorism in Asia could be
usefully directed to a related problem: unresolved separatist conflicts. In countries as
diverse as the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India, governments continue to face
significant separatist movements. Some of these conflicts have dragged on for 20 years or
more, with significant accumulated human, social and economic costs.
2. While each separatist conflict has its own distinctive causes and trajectory, they
share some common characteristics. Most separatist movements grow out of an
accumulation of grievances, some rooted in historical circumstances but many caused by
bad government policies. Religion and ethnicity are important factors in almost every
separatist conflict. But most are not about religion per se; nor are they the inevitable result
of “primordial” ethnic hostilities. Rather, as the case of Sri Lanka’s Tamils shows, most
of these conflicts arise out of the failure of governments to protect the identity and
security of religious and ethnic minorities. Typically, separatist movements arise when
geographically concentrated religious or ethnic minorities perceive their identity and
welfare to be threatened by policies affecting their language, education, employment and
control of land and other resources. If unaddressed, these “first generation” grievances
evolve into complex and more extreme grievances and demands. Like the Tamils, most

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disgruntled groupsfirst try to use political channels to get their grievances redressed. If
this fails they seek to carve out a separate state and turn to armed struggle.
3. Sadly, most Asian governments have done a poor job of responding to minority
demands for security or greater autonomy. From India to the Philippines, the initial
response simply has been to ignore or dismiss minority concerns. Then, when facing with
militant separatism, governments typically deploy their army, police and intelligence
agents. Sometimes, this is combined with an attempt to divide or co-opt the movement’s
leadership. Neither response begins to address the underlying causes of the problem.
Moreover, because many of Asia’s military and police are poorly led, trained and paid,
human-rights abuses and corruption almost are inevitable. As a result, as in Aceh, military
successes frequently are offset by a further loss of trust and the creation of new layers of
grievances.
4. Unfortunately, most governments seem to have concluded that the costs of
protractedseparatist conflicts are bearable. Political leaders have been slow to recognize
that these conflicts are breeding grounds for violence, criminality, corruption and
extremism. Moreover, the societal damage that occurs in conflict areas virtually
guarantees huge and costly post-conflict challenges. Only when governments finally
recognize that most separatist movements can’t be defeated by the military alone do they
typically offer some form of autonomy as an alternative to independence. But the
autonomy arrangement usually is developed without the full participation of the aggrieved
groups and doesn’t address some of their key complaints.
5. The solutions to separatism include decentralization, special autonomy or other
forms of self-governance, recognition of special rights for indigenous peoples and
federalism. Adopting any of these approaches typically requires politically difficult legal
or constitutional changes. And the actual implementation of the new arrangement requires
a long-term commitment involving significant human and financial resources.
6. To hasten the resolution of these conflicts, governments must recognize that
history, symbols and emotions matter. And because most separatist movements have
multiple grievances, state responses need to be multifaceted. A military approach without
a political and developmental response is likely to fail. Next, governments and separatists
need to rethink their notions of sovereignty and self-determination.Neither is an
unqualified, absolute right. Both concepts evolve over time; they can be reconciled with

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flexibility. Likewise, governments must move from policies based on assimilationist

nation-building to those that seek to accommodate pluralism.
7. Finally, the international community must ensure that it plays a constructive role. This
can range from providing negotiation training to playing the role of third-party mediator – such
as Norway does in Sri Lanka. Also, the international community and America in particular,
must ensure that the current concern with combating terrorism in Asia doesn’t lead to a further
militarization of government responses to armed separatism.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
The article was written by David G. Timberman and published in the Fifth Column of the
Far Eastern Economic Review on February 21st, 2002. The writer, based in Jakarta, was
writing a book on separatism, autonomy and democracy in Asia.

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you know about separatism in Asia? Name two separatist conflicts or
movements you know about.
2. What might be the causes of separatism in Asia?
3. What disadvantages might separatism bring about to a society?
4. Write down three questions to which you expect to find the answers in the article.

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. Why, according to the author, is the issue of terrorism related to the unsolved separatist
conflicts in Asia?
2. The writer identifies some common causes of separatist conflicts in Asia. What are
they?
3. What stages, according to the writer, do these separatist movements develop into,
before breaking out into armed conflict?
4. What are the direct consequences of separatism in Asia?
5. How do Asian governments view separatism?

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6. What have Asian governments been doing so far to solve this problem?
7. What solutions does the writer put forward to resolve these separatist conflicts?

E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.
1. trajectory (P. 2)
2. per se (P. 2)
3. “primordial” ethnic hostilities (P. 2)
4. geographically concentrated religious or ethnic minorities (P. 2)
5. disgruntled groups (P. 2)
6. are offset by a further loss of trust and the creation of new layers of grievances (P. 3)
7. protracted (P. 4)
8. aggrieved groups (P. 4)
9.decentralization (P. 5)
10.federalism (P. 5)
11. multifaceted (P. 6)
12.Neither is an unqualified, absolute right. (P. 6)
13. assimilationist nation-building (P. 6)
14. pluralism (P. 6)

F. Language and structures:

1. – ism
+ A suffix forming nouns:
- denoting an action or its result: baptism, exorcism.
- denoting a state or quality: barbarism.

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- denoting a system, principle, or ideological movement: Anglicanism,

feminism, hedonism.
- denoting a basis for prejudice or discrimination: racism.
- denoting a peculiarity in language: colloquialism, Americanism.
- denoting a pathological condition: alcoholism.
+Origin from French -isme, via Latin from Greek -ismos, -isma.
+ Now find all words ended with -ism in the reading and give their Vietnamese
equivalents.
2. – ist
+ A suffix forming personal nouns and some related adjectives:
- denoting an adherent of a system of beliefs, principles, etc. expressed by
nouns ending in -ism: hedonist, Marxist.
- denoting a person who subscribes to a prejudice or practices
discrimination: sexist.
- denoting a member of a profession or business activity: dentist,
dramatist, florist.
- denoting a person who uses a thing: flautist, motorist.
- denoting a person who does something expressed by a verb ending in -
ize: plagiarist.
+Originfrom old French -iste, Latin -ista, from Greek –istes.
+ Now find all words ended with -ist in the reading and give their Vietnamese
equivalents.
G. Translation:
Translate the last three paragraphs of the article into Vietnamese, from “The solutions
…” to “… to armed separatism.”

H. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 - 200 words.

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I. Extended questions for discussion:

1. Name some recent separatist movements that you know.
2. In your opinion, is it possible to stop/control separatism? If so, what should be done?
3. Could there be a version of the European Union in Asia? Why/ Why not?

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Neither Peace Nor War, Just Endless Suffering

(photo source:
www.theguardian.com/world/2000/oct/13/comment.israelandthepalestinians+&cd=1&hl=
en&ct=clnk&gl=vn)
1. The artesian well of hatred spouting in the Holy Land is a terrible reminder that
deep national grievances never drain away, but seep underground to await their moment.
The scenes in Israel and the territories are reminiscent of the violence that was endemic
before the Israeli state was founded, when burned buses littered the roads, and Jewish and
Arab throats were slit every day.
2. It may well be that the two populations have indeed psychologically regressed half
a century or more. Israelis understand that they are still hated, a fact that many of them
had put out of their minds in their obsession with how much they were ready to give for
peace and how much gratitude they deserved in return. Some Palestinians, at least, have
gone back to a time when no compromise could be contemplated.
3. Those who opposed Oslo now feel justified. Yet it is arguable that it was not the
Oslo process that led to this disaster, but Israeli insistence on trying to dominate and
control the Palestinian future. Everything had to be arranged so that a Palestinian state
could offer no threat, so that the settlements could be maintained, and the lion's share of
Jerusalem retained. In trying to prevent a future threat the Israelis created a present
danger.

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4. Israel was so strong militarily, economically and diplomatically that it did not have
to bargain with the Palestinians: it could give what it wished and keep what it wished. It
gave too little, too late: the result is evident.
5. That is not a view many Israelis hold. Most may believe that the Palestinians have
viciously rejected a generous offer, one that Israel should never repeat, in favor of war.
They are perplexed at Palestinian anger, not grasping that Israeli actions are foremost
among the reasons for it.
6. It is true that Ehud Barak was ready to make unprecedented "concessions". But
these were only concessions if you began with the assumption that Israel's physical
possession of territory was the same as legal ownership, and that anything it was ready to
hand over was therefore being "given" to the Palestinians. If you began instead with the
idea that, at the very least, ownership was disputed, then the fact that Yasser Arafat never
questioned Israeli control of West Jerusalem was a far bigger concession than any made
by Barak. The status of the sacred sites was a sticking point for people who believed that
they had already given up too much, and Arafat knew it had to be a sticking point for him.
7. There is a time for peace and a time for war, the Bible says, but in the Holy Land
today the problem is that neither side wants either. The swift settlement that seemed pos-
sible only a few weeks ago is lost. Yet war is not a choice that either side can take in the
long run.
8. This is not a struggle the Palestinians can continue for long, for the costs would be
truly terrible, and there is a limit to the political gains, in terms of international sympathy,
that the confrontation can bring. Equally, there can be no return by the Israelis to
occupation, with the new war it would inevitably entail. Since war is not possible,
therefore,' both sides are condemned to some sort of agreement.
9. As soon as it decided it would have to accept a Palestinian state, Israel moved to
ensure that this state would be militarily, economically and politically weak enough to
present no threat to Israel, but strong enough to deter those who might present such a
threat in the future. As the Palestinians grasped that this was the only state they were
likely to get, they began to ponder how they might subvert such a strategy. Arafat and his
Fatah party leaders concentrated most on how they could deal with Israel on these terms
and yet retain enough political credibility to rule.
10. The radical group Hamas distanced itself from Fatah's compromises, yet did not
wholly repudiate a state it might aspire at some stage to inherit. Radicals of various kinds

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saw ahead a long linked struggle to strengthen the Palestinian state and expand the rights
of a growing Palestinian minority within Israel. In spite of the legalities of two states,
Israel and Palestine would remain in some ways a single political space, and Israelis and
Palestinians would continue to contend within it, even if they did not resort to physical
violence. This, rather than "peace" in the romantic sense of a total reconciliation, was
what seemed to lie ahead a few weeks ago.
11. But on the Israeli side there was an unrealistic expectation that the pay-off for
allowing a weak Palestinian mini-state would be the end of all conflict and of. any future
claims on Israel. On the Palestinian side people had little understanding of the idea of a
long-term effort to remove the constraints that Israel was building into any settlement.
12. Now the most that can be hoped for in the immediate future is a truce, followed by
the restoration of some minimal cooperation. If there is then to be a new effort at creating
a framework for co-existence, it will depend on a recognition by Israel that peace is
undermined if you try too hard to rig history in your favor.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
This article was written by Martin Woollacott and published in the Guardian Weekly,
October 6th – 13th 2000.

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you think the article is about?
2. What do you know about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinian people?
3. Think of all the things you already know on that topic or what you guess the article will
say, and write down in the mind-map below.

Neither peace nor war,

just endless suffering

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

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D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. What does the first paragraph say about the state of Israeli-Palestinian relations?
2. Why does the author say that “the two populations have indeed psychologically
regressed half a century or more” (P. 2)?
3.According to the author, what are the reasons leading to the situation now?
4. Which side has been criticized by the author? For what reasons?
5. In the author’s viewpoint, why can’t the struggle last long?
6. What is the difference in approaches of Hamas and Fatah toward the struggle of
Palestine against Israel?
7. What recommendations does the author make to settle the problem?

E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.
1. reminiscent of the violence that was endemic (P. 1)
2. no compromise could be contemplated (P. 2)
3. the lion's share of Jerusalem retained (P. 3)
4. perplexed at Palestinian anger (P. 5)
5. sticking point (P. 6)
6. there can be no return by the Israelis to occupation (P. 8)
7. to ponder how they might subvert such a strategy (P. 9)
8. did not wholly repudiate a state it might aspire at some stage to inherit (P. 10)
9. to rig history in your favor (P. 12)

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F. Translation:
Translate the first three paragraphs of the article into Vietnamese, from “The artisan
well…” to “… a present danger.”

G. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 – 200 words.

H. Extended questions for discussion:

1. What do you know about the Oslo peace agreement?
2. What do you know about the role of the US in resolving the conflict between Israel
and Palestine?
3. What do you know about Hamas and Fatah?

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Unit 6 OTHER ISSUES

Internet Age- Social Media And Democracy
1. The last few weeks have not been good ones for the large internet platforms—
Facebook, Google, and Twitter. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg asserted after last
year’s election that it was “crazy” to think that his company had any influence on it. But
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer, had to spend a week in
Washington doing mea culpas as it was recently revealed that the Russians had bought
political advertising during the campaign. Twitter had been notified that a handle called
@TEN_GOP pretending to be the mouthpiece of the Tennessee Republican Party was
actually a Russian troll spewing racist and divisive messages, and that it had not been
taken down for months after the real Party organization notified the company. More
executives from the platforms will be dragged in front of Congressional committees in the
coming week and grilled over their responsibilities to American democracy.
2. The internet and the rise of social media has changed the terms of the free speech
debate worldwide. There has always been bad information, propaganda, and
disinformation deliberately put out to affect political outcomes. The traditional free
speech defense has been the marketplace of ideas: if there is bad information, the solution
is not to censor or regulate it, but to put out good information, which will eventually
counter the bad. More information is always better. But it’s not clear that this strategy
works so well in the internet age, when thousands of bots and trolls can amplify the bad
messages without anyone knowing. The platforms’ business models exacerbate the
problem with algorithms that optimize for virality and accelerate the rate at which
conspiracy stories and controversial posts are passed along.
3. The platforms, for their part, argue that they are just that: neutral technology
platforms on which their users share information, just as a phone company connects
telephone users. The legal regime left over from the 1990s reinforces this view, since it
exempts them from liability for materials they host on the grounds that they are conduits
and not media companies. But they are not neutral: their business model is built around
their knowledge of their users’ likes and preferences, which they use to tailor advertising
toward them. This is precisely what politically-driven firms like Cambridge Analytica did
deliberately on Trump’s behalf during the campaign. Only the platforms have the power
to do this on a global basis.

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4. The sudden recognition of the prevalence of fake news, targeted advertising, and
manipulation of these systems by a hostile foreign power has naturally led to a reaction in
the form of calls, and in some cases action, to regulate the internet. The most notable case
is the German law passed by the Bundestag over the summer to criminalize fake news,
setting huge penalties of up to €50 million for platforms that allow such content to appear.
In the United States, Mark Warner, John McCain, and Amy Klobuchar have introduced a
bill that would require platforms to disclose information about purchasers of political
advertising on the internet; others have suggested banning foreigners from doing so
altogether. Such measures would simply bring internet rules in line with those already set
for television, though enforcing them would be considerably more difficult.
5. In confronting the social media challenge to democracy, a longstanding political
divide has appeared between Europe and the United States. Among developed
democracies, the American First Amendment stance on free speech has always been
exceptional, putting few if any limits on political expression. Most European countries by
contrast have been more willing to criminalize certain forms of hate speech such as
Holocaust denial. In general Europeans are more willing to use state power to regulate
behavior, based on their more benign view of the state as a neutral protector of public
interest. State-sponsored public broadcasting—one obvious way of combatting fake
news—is far more prevalent in Europe than in the United States, and indeed is a condition
for membership in the Council of Europe. Americans, by contrast, are much more ready
to see the state as a threat to individual freedom. The Public Broadcasting Service has
never been seen as a neutral purveyor of public interest. It has been attacked from the start
by conservatives, with some justice, as a captive of the the Left.
6. It is not clear at the present moment whether state regulation is even possible in the
United States, given the country’s underlying degree of polarization. Banning foreigners
from buying political ads might work, but any effort to control content will run afoul both
of First Amendment protections, and of political disagreement. It is hard to imagine
government regulation of fake news when the President himself is one of the biggest
purveyors of the genre, and has turned the very words “fake news” into an epithet he uses
against his critics.
7. This means that the burden of any move towards control of bad information will
have to rest in the United States on the platforms themselves. They are coming under
huge pressure from their users, advertisers, and their own employees to step up to the

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responsibility of seeing themselves not just as neutral platforms but as media companies
that have a responsibility for curating the content they provide. They have already been
forced to play such a role with regard to terrorist content, child pornography, and cyber-
bullying through changes to their terms of service. They need to go further than this,
however, by changing the algorithms that promote certain kinds of sensational stories that
have harmful political effects. This is not a free speech issue: the First Amendment does
not, as far as I am aware, protect the rights of bots to replicate messages on a global scale
at a speed limited only by network latency.
8. There is a further problem, however, that will not be solved by self-regulation,
which is the problem of scale. In a healthy democratic political system, media companies
will compete with one another to provide alternative points of view, subject to certain
baseline journalistic standards. Such companies take particular political slants, but there is
enough diversity to ensure some form of overall balance: if you don’t like the New York
Times, you can always turn to the Wall Street Journal.
9. This is not the situation that prevails in today’s internet world. There are not a
variety of competing platforms with differing points of view; rather, there is Facebook,
which has become a sort of global utility. Facebook does not have a clear political
agenda, and is motivated by profit-maximization, which probably ensures that it will not
want to annoy any large group of users by appearing biased. On the other hand, it de
facto exercises a huge amount of control over what its users see on a virtual monopoly
basis. There are entire countries where Facebook Messenger has replaced email as the
primary channel by which people communicate. This kind of power wielded at such a
scale is unprecedented in human experience, and we need to think carefully about whether
American democracy can continue to coexist with such power concentrated over the
longer run.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
This article was written by Francis Fukuyama and published in The American Intereston
October 30th, 2017. Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama (born on October 27th, 1952) is an
American political scientist, political economist, and author.

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you think the article is about?
2. What do you think of the connection/relations between social media and democracy?
3. Write down three questions to which you expect to find the answers in the article.

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. What happened to numerous large Internet platforms after the US Presidential Election
2016? Why?
2. What is the traditional strategy to fight against bad information?
3. Why does the author think that the traditional strategy has been no longer effective?
4. How do the Internet platform argue to protect themselves in such information crisis?
5. In which way could they be seen as guilty?
6. How have some countries tried to regulate the Internet?
7. What is the difference between the US and Europe in regulating the Internet? Why?
8. Why does it seem so hard for the US to issue regulations to the Internet and put them
into effect?

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9. What should be done, according to the author, to solve the problem?

10. What might be other challenges?

E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.
1. mea culpas (P. 1)
2. mouthpiece (P. 1)
3. spewing racist and divisive messages (P. 1)
4. grilled over (P. 1)
5. bots and trolls can amplify the bad messages (P. 2)
6. algorithms that optimize for virality (P. 2)
7. conduits (P. 3)
8. a neutral purveyor of public interest (P.5)
9. a captive of the the Left (P. 5)
10. underlying degree of polarization (P. 6)
11. run afoul (P. 6)
12. has turned the very words “fake news” into an epithet he uses against his critics (P. 6)
13. curating (P. 7)
14. replicate messages on a global scale at a speed limited only by network latency (P. 7)
15. biased (P. 9)

F. Translation:
Translate the first three paragraphs into Vietnamese, from “The last few week…” to
“… on a global basis.”

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G. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 – 200 words.

I. Extended questions for discussion:

1. Do you think that Facebook and other Internet platforms have helped improve
democracy or not?
2. What do you think about the positive and negative effects that Facebook as well as
other Internet platforms have made on politics today?
3. In your opinion, what should be done to solve the problems that the author mentions in
his article?

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Asia-Pacific: Time For New Energy Solutions

(photo source: https://thediplomat.com/2017/01/time-for-new-energy-solutions/)

1. The Asia-Pacific region is at a turning point in its energy trajectory. The energy
solutions that have fuelled growth in the region over the past few decades are no longer
compatible with the sustainable development aspirations of our nations and their people.
In transitioning to a new era of sustainable energy, policymakers across the region face
complex decisions. Supplies must be secure and affordable, and they must fill the energy
access gap which leaves half a billion people across the region without access to
electricity. At the same time, mitigating the local impacts of energy generation and use
will be vital in resolving problems such as the air pollution choking our cities and the
global consequences of greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change. Solutions exist,
but only through regional cooperation and integration can Asia and the Pacific transition
to sustainable energy in time to meet the ambitious 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development and its Goals.
2. Countries have committed to moving towards a more diverse and low carbon
energy mix through the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
However, fossil fuels stubbornly remain a major part of the regional energy mix,
accounting for three-quarters of electricity generation. Unless the region’s countries work
together to accelerate the incorporation of sustainable energy into their strategies,
business-as-usual approaches will result in a continuation of fossil fuel use and associated
impacts.
3. While some countries suffer from energy shortages which limit their economic and
social development, others enjoy energy surpluses, such as hydropower and natural gas.

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Trading these resources through new cross-border power grids, drawing on renewable
energy when possible, as well as gas pipeline infrastructures, can open up enormous
opportunities for both economic growth and decarbonization.
4. The energy technology renaissance already underway in some countries is playing
a vital role in the transition. New technologies are reducing the cost of clean energy and
renewable power. Smart grids and electric vehicles are rapidly gaining market share.
Since 2010, the cost of solar power generation has declined 58 percent, with the cost of
wind power down by one-third. The International Renewable Energy Agency projects
cost reductions of 59 percent in solar power and 12 percent in wind power within 10
years, edging below fossil fuel electricity costs in most Asia-Pacific countries. Advances
in long-distance power transmission technologies enable the linking of renewable energy
resource-rich areas such as the Gobi Desert, Central Asia and far eastern Russia, with
distant population centers. Asia-Pacific has emerged as an engine for clean energy, both
as a manufacturing center for renewable energy technologies and as the leading region for
deployment, with $160 billion invested in renewables in 2015.
5. On the demand side, energy efficiency technologies have an important role to play
in the energy transition. Better energy efficiency is a key driver in decoupling energy use
and GDP growth in many economies. With 15 percent of the world’s electricity consumed
by lighting, efficient LED lighting technology, which consumes up to 85 percent less
energy, will make substantial savings. Energy storage technologies for vehicles and
power applications have also leapt ahead, offering flexibility in power usage and
balancing variable electricity generation from renewables. Here again, regional
cooperation, technology transfer and south-south collaboration will play a vital role in the
transition.
6. Despite these encouraging developments, the success of the energy transition will
require sustained commitment at national and regional levels through better policies,
incentives and allocation of investments. The inertia of the existing energy sector is
considerable, with its long-lived assets and entrenched institutional arrangements.
Regional cooperation, through sharing of policy experiences, building capacity and
mobilizing finance can play a significant role in assisting countries to implement their
own energy sector reforms and capture the many co-benefits. The importance of regional
energy cooperation is evident in the transboundary nature of many prominent energy
challenges – improving regional energy security, managing air pollution and establishing

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cross-border energy infrastructure. ASEAN, South Asian and Central Asian countries as
well as China, Russia and Mongolia are already embracing cross-border energy
connectivity. Initiatives such as the CASA 1000 and the ASEAN Power Grid will allow
low carbon energy from gas, hydropower, solar or wind to be traded across borders.
Long-term regional dialogue is required to further develop these complex and
infrastructure-intensive initiatives.
7. Connecting countries, finding regional solutions and promoting regional standards
and guidelines has been at the core of the work of the United Nations Economic and
Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific for the past 70 years. We recognize the need
for regional energy cooperation, and with the support of our member States established an
intergovernmental Committee on Energy that will meet for the first time in Bangkok,
January 17 to 19. Through the Committee, countries will help to map out key regional
energy solutions for the region such as accelerating uptake of renewables and energy
efficiency, establishing cross-border energy connectivity, promoting regional approaches
to energy security, and providing modern energy access throughout the region to ensure a
sustainable energy future for all. Through regional cooperation and integration I am
confident that the countries of Asia-Pacific region can transform their energy trajectories
to better serve their people, the region and the planet.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
This article was written by Shamshad Akhtar in The Diplomat on January 17th, 2017
issue. Dr. Shamshad Akhtar is an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN)
and the Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the
Pacific (ESCAP).

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you think the article is about?
2. What do you think of fossil fuels and their alternatives?
3. Write down three questions to which you expect to find the answers in the article.

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. Why do policymakers across the Asia-Pacific region face complex energy decisions?
2. How can countries suffering from energy shortages promote their economic and social
development?
3. What benefits are new energy technologies bringing to Asia-Pacific countries?
4. How useful are energy efficiency technologies for energy transition from fossil fuel use
to sustainable energy development in the Asia-Pacific region?
5. What needs to be done to ensure the success of Asia-Pacific energy transition?
6. What will countries do through the Intergovernmental Committee on Energy which
was newly established?

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E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.
1. at a turning point in its energy trajectory (P. 1)
2. choking (P. 1)
3. business-as-usual (P. 2)
4. drawing on (P. 3)
5. the energy technology renaissance (P. 4)
6. gaining market share (P. 4)
7. south-south collaboration (P. 5)
8. inertia (P. 6)
9. entrenched institutional arrangements (P. 6)
10. infrastructure-intensive initiative (P. 6)

F. Translation:
Translate the first two paragraphs into Vietnamese, from “The Asia Pacific region…”
to “… and associated impacts.”
G. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 – 200 words.
H. Language:
Find out all the collocations for the following words:
1. energy
2. transition

I. Extended questions for discussion:

1. What are the goals of 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development? Are they different
from the Millennium Development Goals?
2. What do you know about South–South cooperation?

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PART II
POWERS AND
FOREIGN
RELATIONS

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Unit 7 AMERICA
A Very Long Engagement
Xi Jinping’s state visit to Washington will do little to resolve growing tensions.

(photo source: https://www.economist.com/china/2015/09/19/a-very-long-engagement)

1. WHEN Deng Xiaoping donned a cowboy hat at a rodeo during his first trip to America
soon after the two countries re-established diplomatic ties in 1979, his striking gesture
symbolised the end of a decades-long freeze. The Chinese were not only opening up their
markets, but also their minds. Deng’s hosts dared to hope that engagement with China
would help to mould it in America’s image. Xi Jinping, China’s president, will make his
own attempt at retail politics when he visits the United States from September 22nd. But
he will do little to win over Americans—now far less optimistic about changing China,
and increasingly wary of its growing strength. The question is whether Mr Xi cares what
America thinks.
2. This is an important moment for one of the world’s most vital relationships. Trust is
fading on both sides. Mr Xi has shown signs of impatience with Deng’s policy of keeping
a low profile in foreign affairs, which the late leader poetically described as taoguang
yanghui, or “hiding brightness, nourishing obscurity”. Since he took over in 2012, Mr Xi has
been flexing muscle in the seas of the western Pacific, avoiding direct confrontation with
America and its allies but testing their resolve (new satellite images released by an American
think-tank on September 15th appeared to show that China was building a third airstrip in
disputed waters of the South China Sea, despite calls by America and others to desist). America

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has responded to such moves by beefing up its alliances. It too wants to avoid a conflict, but
countries in the region fret about possible accidents that could trigger one.
3. This will not be the first extended meeting between Mr Xi and Barack Obama, the
American president. But it will be Mr Xi’s first trip to the White House since he took
office; there he will enjoy the formal pomp of a state visit, complete with 21-gun salute
and brass fanfare. The two sides will have much to chew over at their meetings and a
black-tie state dinner at the White House: the alleged hacking of 22m American
government employees’ personal records by Chinese cyber-spies in April; accusations
that China is manipulating its currency to make exports cheaper; as well as China’s
island-building in the South China Sea. Mr Xi’s suppression of civil society and
tightening of controls on the internet will be on the agenda too, though the Americans do
not want to let disputes over such issues aggravate other disagreements.
4. Not all is acrimony. In recent months there have been notable areas of accord. In November
the two countries reached an agreement on carbon emissions, which they hope will encourage
progress at UN climate talks in Paris later this year. China helped broker a nuclear deal with
Iran in April. It is moving closer to America’s stance on North Korea. There is even speculation
that the two countries may announce an eye-catching deal (on what is unclear) during Mr Xi’s
trip. But it would have to be a big one to improve the mood.
5. It does not help that both countries are preoccupied with politics at home. Mr Xi is
waging the most sustained and far-reaching campaign against corruption that China has
seen in decades. This is partly aimed at boosting the Communist Party’s image, and partly
at intimidating anyone who might think of challenging him. He has his eye on leadership
changes in 2017. Five of the seven most powerful leaders are due to retire then; he wants
trusted supporters to replace them. Displaying backbone in dealing with foreigners is
never a bad tactic in Chinese politics.
6. Similarly in America, the approach of next year’s presidential elections is giving rise to
more China-bashing than usual. Donald Trump, fighting for the Republican nomination,
has accused China of “raping” America and trying to “suck the blood” out of it. Mr
Trump and others view China’s devaluation of the yuan in August as the first shot in a
global currency war—an attempt to boost exports and “steal” American jobs.

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(photo source: https://www.economist.com/china/2015/09/19/a-very-long-engagement)

7. Such sentiment helps explain why Mr Xi’s first stop will be in Seattle, to meet tech
executives. Business was once a bridge between the two countries. Now it too is part of a
tangled geopolitical rivalry. America accuses China of abetting cybercrime and stealing
intellectual property. Just before the visit, American officials mulled slapping sanctions
on Chinese companies suspected of pinching American secrets. Mr Xi’s meetings in
Seattle appear aimed at showing that China, far from harming American business, is still a
boon to it. He also wants to make a point to Mr Obama: American companies, for all their
concern about Chinese cybertheft, are still hungry for access to China’s huge market.
8. But the allure of China’s economy is fading. When Mr Xi last visited America in 2013,
for an informal “no neckties” summit with Mr Obama at a Californian ranch, China’s
growth was already slowing. Now worries are mounting in America that China could
suffer a “hard landing”, brought on by piles of debt. The Chinese government’s image
among American business leaders, as well as at home, has been tarnished by its botched
attempt in August to prop up the country’s stockmarket. Details released on September
13th of plans for reforming state enterprises may have been intended to show that Mr Xi
is still a reformer at heart. But they were hardly inspiring.
9. Mr Xi may hope that nationalist displays will help to boost his popularity among
middle-class Chinese as the economy enters a rough patch. A military parade through
Beijing on September 3rd, involving 12,000 goose-stepping troops and ballistic
missiles—some of them recently developed in order to keep American power at bay—
was one such. Its stated purpose was to commemorate the defeat of Japan in the second

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world war, but it was also clearly intended to reinforce Mr Xi’s prestige. It was the first
such review since he became China’s leader, and the first marking victory over Japan;
America and most of its allies pointedly stayed away.
10. Chinese leaders’ pride in shows of pomp extends to American soil. Mr Xi’s
predecessors viewed their receptions at the White House as a badge of honour—symbolic,
as they saw it, of America’s acceptance of China as a global power. So Mr Xi will at least
try to appear civil during his trip. In recent weeks state media have toned down their anti-
American rhetoric, referring to relations with the United States as “a little awkward” and
even describing American reservations about China’s rise as “understandable”.

(photo source: https://www.economist.com/china/2015/09/19/a-very-long-engagement)

11. Under Mr Xi, however, the Communist Party’s anti-foreign rhetoric has become more
shrill. Anti-American feeling has also grown (see chart). Winning over American public
opinion—Deng’s clear aim with the cowboy hat—does not appear to be one of Mr Xi’s
priorities. That is fortunate for him. His trip is likely to be eclipsed by that of another
leader of a billion-plus people, Pope Francis, who is due to arrive on the same day he
does. In America, Mr Xi risks suffering something worse than criticism: neglect.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
This article was published in the China column of The Economist on September 19th,
2015.

B. Pre-Reading exercises:
Read the title, subtitle of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you know about the recent history of relationship between China and the US?
2. What do you know about Xi Jinping’s ascension to power in China?
3. What do you know about the foreign policy toward Asiaof Barack Obama’s
administration?

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension Questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. Why is Mr Xi’s visit to the White House so important?
2. What might be the topics for discussion between Mr Xi and Mr Obama?
3. Name some achievements the two countries have reached in their bilateral relations.
4. What problems are both Chinese and American leaders facing before Mr Xi’s visit?
5. Why does Mr Xi choose Seattle as his first stop of the visit?
6. According to the author, what areMr Xi’s intentions, given his recent policies prior to
his visit to the US?
7. How do Chinese leaders usually expect to be received by the US? Has Mr Xi’s
reception by the US this time met his expectation? Why?

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E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.

1. mould it in America’s image (P. 1)

2. retail politics (P. 1)
3. flexing muscle (P. 2)
4. beefing up its alliances (P. 2)
5. have much to chew over (P. 3)
6. not all is acrimony (P. 4)
7. displaying backbone in dealing with foreigners (P. 5)
8. a boon to it (P. 6)
9. suffer a ‘hard landing’(P. 8)
10. a badge of honour(P. 10)

F. Summary:
Summarise the article in about 150 - 200 words.

G. Translation:
Translate paragraphs 4 to 6 into Vietnamese, from “Not all is acrimony…” to “… steal
American job.”

H. Extended question:
1. Do you have any knowledge about the current state of relationship between China and
the US?
2. Other than their political relationship, what do you know about the Sino-American
economic interdependency and soft powers between them?
3. Do you envision a world order where China would surpass the US as the dominating
superpower/hyperpower?

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US And The Hyperpower

1. America is wonderful but there’s just one problem: it has too much power. For most
of the 20th century, the defining political question was: what do you think of Russia? At
the beginning of the 21st century, it is: what do you think of America? Tell me your
America and I will tell you who you are.
2. Sitting in sun-dried Stanford, California, I have been trying to work out exactly what
I think. Several writers in this newspaper, and probably quite a few readers, regard
America as a dangerous, selfish giant, blundering around the world doing ill. And, at
home, as an anthology of all that is wrong with capitalism - by contrast with our morally
superior European versions.
3. Well, for starters I don't think either of those things. One reason I don't is that
America is just so large, so diverse, such a cornucopia of combinations and
contradictions, that it can't be reduced in this way. Here in Stanford there is the post-
September 11 "United we stand" poster on the Japanese-American sushi bar, but also the
bookshop that declares itself a "Hate-free zone", with a notice deploring recent attacks on
Arab-Americans.
4. There's the "Proud to be an American" sign on the clubhouse door, but also a
teenage girl of my acquaintance who declared herself a Muslim after September 11 -
because she had been told at school how wonderful Islamic culture is. There's the gung-ho
unilateralism of Fox TV, but also the patient multilateralism of elder statesmen
interviewed on CNN. As Walt Whitman wrote: "Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I
contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes."
5. So any simple generalisation will be wrong. My own, more complicated conclusion
is this: I love the place and I'm worried about its current role in the world. I use the word
"love" loosely, of course, as we do in our increasingly Americanised English. I love the
energy, the openness, the everyday cheerfulness of people in shop and street, the sense of
freedom you get driving for hours down a Californian highway under those king-size
skies, and the feeling that everyone - whoever they are, wherever they come from - has a
chance to shape their own life. "Tell that," you may snort, "to a poor black child in an
innercity ghetto." And of course you're right; but, coming from complicated, snobbish old
Britain will you honestly claim that you have never felt this new world sense of
opportunity?

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6. Then I love the accuracy of the New York Times, the vigour of television's
Crossfire, the probing seriousness of the best universities in the world, and, yes, the fast
food that never tastes quite the same back in Europe. And the American activists I've
worked with in eastern Europe and the Balkans who really do want other people to have
the freedoms they enjoy.
7. Your list will be different, but I bet you have one. Reading the latest Granta, in
which writers from across the world reflect on America, I am again reminded how
America is part of everyone's imaginative life, whether they grow up in Bilbao, Beijing or
Bombay, through movies, music, television and the web. Everyone has a New York in
their heads, even if they have never been there - which is why the destruction of the twin
towers had such an impact. This fascination exerted by American culture, in the broadest
sense of that term, is part of what Harvard's Joseph Nye calls America's "soft power".
8. So why I am worried about this wonderful country's current role in the world? Well,
partly because I have been watching CNN's footage from Yasser Arafat's compound in
Ramallah and President George Bush's reaction from his Texas ranch. I fear that if the
United States were to go to war against Iraq while supporting Sharon's actions against
Arafat - both as part of the proclaimed "war against terrorism" - this could unite the
Islamic world against the west while dividing Europe from America, with disastrous
consequences for years to come.
9. But my concern goes deeper than simply a worry about the current Middle Eastern
policy of a particular administration. The fundamental problem is that America today just
has too much power for anyone's good, including its own. It has that matchless, global
"soft power" in all of our heads. In economic power its only rival is Europe. In military
power it has no rival. Its military expenditure is greater than that of the next eight largest
military powers combined. "Not since Rome," they say, has a single power enjoyed such
superiority - but the Roman colossus only loomed over part of the world. Stripped of its
anti-American overtones, the French foreign minister Hubert Védrine's term
"hyperpower" is apt.
10. The main problem with American power is not that it is American. Many readers
will disagree. But put your hand on your heart and tell me: would you really rather such
predominant power were wielded by the Russians, Chinese, Japanese, or, for that matter,
the French or British? Really?

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11. No, the main problem with American power is the power itself. It would be
dangerous even for an archangel to wield so much power. The writers of the American
constitution wisely determined that no single locus of power, however benign, should
predominate; for even the best could be led into temptation. Every power should therefore
be checked by at least one other. So also in world politics.
12. Of course it is good that such power should be exercised by rulers under the scrutiny
of a developed and critical democracy. But democracy in a hyperpower brings its own
temptations. The temptation, for example, to impose unjustified tariffs on steel imports,
threatening the world framework of free trade in order to win some votes in steel-
producing states.
13. Moreover, when you are as powerful as this, what you don't do is as fateful as what
you do. Thus, the Bush administration came to power determined not to get dragged into
detailed mediation between Israelis and Palestinians, as Bill Clinton had been. The
horrors of the suicide bombings of innocent Israelis and the siege of Ramallah are at least
in part a result of this policy, which might be called partisan disengagement. Critical
Europeans generally see the US as messing things up by intervening, and there have
certainly been examples of that, from Cambodia to Nicaragua. But as often, the problem
is that the hyperpower does not intervene - witness the agony of Bosnia.
14. Who, then, should check and complement American power? International
organisations, starting with the United Nations, of course, and transnational non-
governmental ones. But that's not enough. My answer is: Europe. Europe as an economic
equal to the United States and Europe as a close-knit group of states with long diplomatic
and military experience. Not Europe seeing itself as a rival superpower to the US but
Europe as America's most important partner in a world community of liberal democracies.
15. The difficulty, of course, is to disentangle this idea from its sticky, anti-American
integument, and to make it happen. But that is what we must do. If we succeed, there will
be plenty of Americans to welcome it. "Healthy cooperation with Europe," writes Samuel
Huntington, one of the most influential political analysts in America today, "is the prime
antidote for the loneliness of US superpowerdom." That's an invitation - and the case is
urgent.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
This article was written by Timothy Garton Ash in The Guardian Weekly, April 11th – 17
th
2002.

B. Pre-reading questions:
Read the title of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you think the article is about?
2. What do you know about the US?
3. What do you think about the US role in the world today?

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. What are the contradictions in the US today as described by the author?
2. What things does the author loves about the US?
3. What is the author’s principal worry about the US today?
4. What does the author mean by “democracy in a hyperpower bring its own
temptations”?
5. Describe the consequences from the two types of US decisions mentioned in the article.
6. What kind of a check on the US should Europe be?

E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meanings of the following words and expressions, as used in the article.

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1. hyperpower (title)
2. blundering around the world doing ill (P. 2)
3. cornucopia (P. 3)
4. the gung-ho unilateralism of Fox TV (P. 4)
5. “soft power” (P. 7)
6. It would be dangerous even for an archangel to wield so much power (P. 11)
7. partisan disengagement (P. 13)

F. Summary:
Summarize the article in about150 – 200 words.

G. Translation:
Translate the last three paragraphs of the article into Vietnamese, from “Moreover…”
to “… the case is urgent.”

H. Extended questions for discussion:

1. What do you know about “hard power” and “soft power”?
2. The author believes that Europe should check and complement the US’s hyperpower.
What has Europe done in this regard?
3. What might be some “disastrous consequences” of the US policy on Iraq and the
Palestine – Israel conflict?

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Unit 8 CHINA
China’s Offensive Charm: Reef Knots
No more Mr. Nasty Guy, China tries to be nice.

(photo source: https://www.economist.com/asia/2015/11/07/reef-knots)

1. It is not just towards Taiwan that China has been showing a friendlier face. Recent
days have seen a flurry of high-level diplomacy that has helped calm some of its many
other quarrels in Asia. China’s president, Xi Jinping, has paid a rare state visit to
Vietnam, despite continuing tensions over competing claims in the South China Sea. And
China has taken further steps to normalise relations with Japan, fraught for the past five
years over disputed islands and a long-running row about Japan’s view of its own history.
2. The overture to Vietnam is perhaps the more surprising, given recent developments.
Like other claimants in the region, notably the Philippines, Vietnam has been angered by
the breakneck pace of Chinese land reclamation around rocks and reefs in the sea. When,
late last month, America sent a naval destroyer close to one of those reefs to assert
“freedom of navigation”, Vietnam did not publicly cheer, as the Philippines did. But it
was undoubtedly pleased. China, for its part, fulminated against the American “threat”,

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and held live-fire military exercises in the sea. But its reaction, though shrill, was
formulaic. It seems reluctant to provoke a showdown with the United States.
3. Nor, however, is China making any concessions. Along with the Philippines and
Vietnam, it was among 18 countries attending a meeting of defence ministers in Kuala
Lumpur this week. Unusually for an event organised by the Association of South-East
Asian Nations, this wound up with no agreed joint statement. China objected to the
inclusion of anything related to the South China Sea.
4. The dispute is causing China legal as well as diplomatic embarrassment. On October
29th the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled that it did have jurisdiction
over a case filed by the Philippines under the United Nations Convention on the Law of
the Sea (UNCLOS). It accepted that the Philippines’ submission was not about
sovereignty, but about the interpretation of the law. China has refused to take part or to
recognise the court’s jurisdiction. It will consider whether China has illegally obstructed
Philippine fishermen and broken obligations to protect the environment.
5. The court will also pass judgment on whether the features that China is building up -
now, in effect, artificial islands - are entitled to the 12-nautical-mile territorial waters and
200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zones (EEZ) that UNCLOS allows to habitable
natural islands. The Philippines maintains that they are either uninhabitable rocks, which
get no economic zones, or reefs submerged at high tide, with no territorial waters either.
This was the point America wanted to make in sending the USS Lassen near one feature,
Subi reef: it used to be a “low-tide elevation” and, whoever owns it, building around it
does not alter its legal status.
6. Against this backdrop, Mr Xi’s visit may have been an effort to remind the region
that it is an indispensable economic force as well as a rising military power. For Vietnam,
as for many other Asian countries, China is the single largest trading partner. And China
will have followed the debate in Vietnam ahead of a leadership transition at a Communist
Party congress in early 2016. Some Vietnamese leaders want the country to tilt more
decisively towards America. In recent years it has forged much closer ties and joined the
American-led trade pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Others favour maintaining a
balance, arguing that America is fickle, whereas China will always be next door.
The American friend
7. Japan’s territorial dispute with China, over the tiny uninhabited Senkaku or Diaoyu
islands, has a different context—that of Japan’s security treaty with America. As China

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sees it, this has allowed Japan to risk China’s wrath, as when, in 2012, it nationalised
three of the islands that had been privately owned. Since then bilateral relations have been
dire. Japan has been engaged in equally bitter disputes with South Korea, over yet another
rocky island, and over Japan’s 20th-century militarism.
8. So a trilateral summit in Seoul this week between China’s prime minister, Li
Keqiang, his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe, and South Korea’s president, Park Geun-
hye, was a breakthrough. Their disagreements are substantial and heated, and the most
important were dodged in the joint statement. Yet the three declared that co-operation had
been “completely restored”, after a break since May 2012.
9. This will be welcomed by America; it has long cajoled Japan and South Korea, its
two most important East Asian allies, to make it up, and watched with some alarm as
South Korea has grown closer to China. But America will also be relieved that China and
Japan seem to be edging away from confrontation. They agreed to resume talks between
their ministers for trade, finance and foreign affairs, suspended since 2010. Both realise
the risks of a flare-up in the East China Sea, so they are working to manage their rivalries
instead. Incursions by Chinese vessels into the waters surrounding the Senkaku islands
continue. But they are calibrated and orchestrated.
10. Undercurrents abound, however. China also appears to be slowly repairing ties with
its old ally, North Korea: ties which, shrouded in secrecy and arcane rhetoric, have been
strained since Kim Jong Un came to power four years ago. Last month China sent its first
high-ranking official to the North since 2013 for the celebrations of the 70th birthday of
the North Korean Worker’s Party. That is all to the good, if it helps China rein in its
obstreperous neighbour. But the South’s present cordial relations with China have yet to
be tested by a North Korean provocation as serious as its presumed torpedoing of one of
the South’s warships in 2010; then, China’s equivocal response soured relations with the
South.
11. Some think China has good reasons to want better relations across the region.
Douglas Paal of the Carnegie Endowment, a Washington think-tank, says the recent
diplomacy is part of China’s “counterbalance” to America’s rebalance in Asia. China has
realised that it has been “scoring own-goals all over the region”; now it wants to tone
down disputes. Worried about managing hostility on two fronts, it is trying to mend some
fences. But China’s neighbours would like to see smiles from Mr Xi and Mr Li translated
into a less assertive approach on the high sea.

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GUIDE TO STUDY
A. Notes:
The article was published in The Economiston November 7th, 2015.

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title, subtitle of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you think the article is about?
2. How do you understand the title of the article?
3. What do you know about the South China Sea dispute?

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Reading comprehension:
Read the article and then answer the following questions in your own words.
1. Which countries has China recently been trying to be nicer to? Why?
2. What were the action and intention of China in response to the naval activity of America
in the South China Sea last month?
3. How did the meeting of defense ministers in Malaysia last week end? Why?
4. What contents related to the South China Sea dispute are expected to be decided by the
Court of Arbitration in The Hague?
5. What have some Vietnamese leaders been debating about?
6. How have the Japan’s relations with South Korea and with China developed recently?
And how has America viewed those developments?
7. What are the recent moves of China toward North Korea? And the impacts of those
moves on Sino-South Korean relations?
8. What might be the reasons for China to want better relations with other regional
countries?

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E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meaning of each underlined word or expression as used in the article:
1. offensive charm (title)
2. a flurry of high-level diplomacy (P. 1)
3. the overture to Vietnam (P. 2)
4. the breakneck pace of Chinese land reclamation (P. 2)
5. fulminated against the American “threat” (P. 2)
6. reluctant to provoke a showdown (P. 2)
7. China objected to the inclusion of anything related to the South China Sea (P. 3)
8. jurisdiction (P. 4)
9. a “low-tide elevation” (P. 5)
10. Against this backdrop (P. 6)
11. to risk China’s wrath (P. 7)
12.militarism (P. 7)
13. it has longcajoled Japan and South Korea to make it up (P. 9)
14. Undercurrents abound (P. 10)
15. rein in its obstreperous neighbor (P. 10)
16. its presumed torpedoing of one of the South’s warships (P. 10)

F. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 - 200 words.

G. Translation:
Translate paragraphs 4 to 6 into Vietnamese, from “Nor, however, is China …” to
“….will always be next door.”

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H. Extended questions for discussion:

1. What have you known about the relations between Vietnam and China since the
establishment of the Communist Parties in both of the countries?
2. Summarize all the recent actions of China in the South China Sea and the response from
Vietnam and other related parties.
3. What have you known about the case over the South China Sea submitted by the
Philippines to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague? What about the Court’s
rulings and its impact on the related parties?

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How To Heat Up Lukewarm India–China Relations

1. The relationship between China and India will be one of the most important of this
century. Their ability to cooperate will be crucial on international issues ranging from
climate change to multilateral trade negotiations. Yet for all of its future significance, the
relationship remains shallow, unbalanced and stuck in the past. As Narendra Modi visits
Beijing this week, there are signs of change but progress will likely be slow, piecemeal and
pragmatic.
2. Gradually and from a low base, India is creeping up Beijing’s list of diplomatic
priorities. Li Keqiang’s first foreign visit after becoming premier in 2013 was to India and
Modi’s trip to China this week follows a highly-publicised India trip undertaken by Xi
Jinping in September 2014.
3. India’s increasingly prominent global role — especially through the BRICS group
and the G20 — has given it a more serious spot on Beijing’s geopolitical map. And the
countries have also found common ground in a weariness of Western-dominated
international institutions, with India featuring prominently in China’s efforts to build
alternatives, such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the BRICS Bank, and the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
4. More than politics, it’s the prospect of making money that’s nudging Sino–Indian
relations in a positive direction. Annual trade has ballooned to US$66 billion from just
US$3 billion in 2000. Chinese companies, such as the high-tech firms Huawei and Xiaomi,
are beginning to think big about India. And India, in turn, has high hopes for its software
and pharmaceutical companies in China. In a way that would have seemed implausible
even a few years ago, Chinese and Indian businesspeople are dreaming in rupees and
renminbi.
5. But there’s still a long way to go before China considers India a peer. Since its
victory in the countries’ brief 1962 border war and mindful of its economic heft, China has
often treated India dismissively. As Zhu Feng, a leading Chinese commentator and
professor at Nanjing University, puts it, ‘we don’t consider India a very successful
contender and I don’t think Modi can change that’. India, for its part, has viewed its
neighbour with suspicion, fixating on the ongoing border dispute to the exclusion of closer
economic or social ties. These attitudes are deeply entrenched among the political and
bureaucratic elites of both countries; they will take a long time to change.

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6. Turning economic enthusiasm into political goodwill is also no easy task — not least
because the economic relationship remains deeply unbalanced. India runs a US$37.8
billion trade deficit with China and its exports to the country are overwhelmingly
composed of raw materials rather than finished goods, a fact that accentuates Indian
insecurities about China’s economic success.
7. These trade imbalances are accentuated by the shallowness of China and India’s
investment relationship. Despite its decade-long overseas spending spree, China’s
investment in India totals just US$500 million, less than Malaysia, Canada and Poland
have invested in the country. Indian investment in China is also relatively feeble at around
US$470 million. Without strong investment ties, the relationship is deprived of an
important lobby with a vested interest in strong bilateral relations: investing in overseas
firms involves businesspeople putting down roots in foreign countries, making investors
vulnerable to downturns in bilateral ties.
8. Much of this reflects the way that Chinese and Indian firms struggle to succeed in
each other’s markets. Chinese companies in India are often ensnared by the Indian
bureaucracy’s fears of over-dependence on China or of espionage. Indian firms in China
struggle to gain market access in information technology and pharmaceuticals. They also
deal with deep-seated perceptions that they have little to offer. When companies run into
trouble, they have few organisations or experienced compatriots to turn to for help. Indian
firms in China, for instance, must rely on an embassy with just 30 diplomats, nominal
representation by Indian industry associations, and a small Indian diaspora that lacks any
political clout.
9. Put simply, economic ties are not yet deep or substantive enough to overcome
decades of political suspicion.
10. But perhaps the largest obstacles to a burgeoning relationship are the Chinese and
Indian people themselves. The Chinese and Indian publics do not know each other well —
and what they do know is coloured by historical baggage. This, combined with strong
nationalist strands in both countries, makes it difficult for the political relationship to
progress.
11. According to a July 2014 Pew Global poll, just 30 per cent of Chinese hold a
favourable view of India and a mere 31 per cent of Indians hold a favourable view of
China. This is partly because there is little interaction between the two populations. Of the
100 million Chinese who travelled overseas in 2013, just 160,000 ended up in India.

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Bycontrast, 1.4 million visited France. Of the 270,000 Indian students studying abroad in
2013, just 9200 were in China; at the same time, only 2000 Chinese students were studying
in India. On top of this, the visa process is cumbersome and direct flights are limited: only
one airline, Air China, covers the Beijing–Delhi route and no direct flight links the
commercial hubs of Shanghai and Mumbai.
12. Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping clearly understand the potential of the Sino–Indian
relationship. They have emphasised the countries’ shared history of trade along the ancient
Silk Road, their shared ties of Buddhism and the nations’ past economic glories. They will
no doubt reemphasise them this week. But to move forward the leaders need to deal with
more recent history. This means encouraging creative thinking to alleviate the border
dispute, eliminating bureaucratic hurdles to the bilateral business relationship and, above
all, working to improve attitudes on both sides through academic exchange and people-to-
people contact. The obstacles may be formidable, but the outcomes will be critical to
regional — and global — geopolitics.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
This article was written by Peter Martin is Associate Director, India, at APCO Worldwide.
He was previously based in Beijing. This article was published in Foreign Affairs and
reprinted with the permission of the Council on Foreign Relations in East Asia Forum on
May 14th, 2015.

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you think the article is about?
2. What do you know about the relationship between China and India?
3. Write down three questions to which you expect to find the answers in the article.

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. How does the author assess the relationship between China and India?
2. How have the bilateral relations developed recently? What are the evidences to prove
that?
3. What are the reasons for such improvement?
4. What are the obstacles in the process of cooperation between the two states?
5. In the author’s view, what have leaders of the two countries done and what should they
do to heat up their bilateral relations?

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E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.
1. How to heat up lukewarm India–China relations (title)
2. stuck in the past (P. 1)
3. India is creeping up Beijing’s list of diplomatic priorities (P. 2)
4. a weariness of Western-dominated international institutions (P. 2)
5. nudging Sino–Indian relations in a positive direction (P. 3)
6. to think big about India (P. 3)
7. Chinese and Indian businesspeople are dreaming in rupees and renminbi (P. 3)
8. mindful of its economic heft (P. 4)
9. fixating on the ongoing border dispute to the exclusion of closer economic or social ties
(P. 4)
10. accentuates Indian insecurities (P. 6)
11. ensnared by the Indian bureaucracy’s fears of over-dependence on China or of
espionage (P. 7)
12. deep-seated perceptions (P. 7)
13. coloured by historical baggage (P. 10)

F. Translation:
Translate the first four paragraphs into Vietnamese, from “The relationship …” to “…
in rupees and reminbi.”

G. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 – 200 words.

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H. Extended questions for discussion:

1. What is the role of China in Asia?
2. What is the role of India in Asia?
3. To what extent do you agree with the viewpoint of the author on Sino-Indian relations?
Why?

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Unit 9 RUSSIA
Dancing With Bears In Putin's Shadow
1. Perhaps more than any other capital in the world, Beijing has closely observed the
changing of the guard in the Kremlin. There are many reasons for Beijing's concerns:
Russia's revival as a major power, its petro-politics approach to foreign relations, its
management of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), not to mention the stability
of the 4,300-km Sino-Russian border.
2. Russian President Vladimir Putin's arrangement with Dimitri Medvedev last
December was a surprise for Beijing. Few, if any, Chinese observers had anticipated that
Putin would have his cake and eat it too. What separates Beijing from the West in their
respective perceptions of Russia's leadership transition is a matter of substance vs. form.
3. For the West, Putin's rule signifies Russia's departure from democracy. Beijing's view
is that Putinism works for a nation like Russia. During eight years under Putin, Russia has
been transformed from chaos to stability, from fragmentation to recentralization, and from
poverty to prosperity. It is only natural for Russians to continue the current policy, with or
without Putin. For Beijing, Moscow seems to have finally figured out its approach to
modernity: neither Western nor Eastern, but somewhere in the middle — the Russian way.
4. The same charisma and capabilities that brought Russia back from the brink of collapse
have been actively applied to dealing with others, including China. In eight years, Putin
repositioned Russia's relations with the West, consolidated the former Soviet space,
institutionalized the SCO with Beijing, and prioritized economics in Russia's foreign policy. All
this has been driven, at least partially, by rapidly rising energy prices.
5. In the past eight years, the Sino-Russian strategic partnership has broadened and
deepened, albeit without much progress on the much-talked-about oil pipeline from Siberia
to China's northeast (backed by Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1994). The pipeline is
still in the pipeline. It remains to be seen what Prime Minister Putin will do in this vital
area of Russian-China economic cooperation.
6. Although both sides claim that the current bilateral relationship is the "best" in
history, this state of affairs was achieved at a time of Russia's historical decline and
China's historical rise. For the foreseeable future, Beijing will have to adjust to an
increasingly strong and self-confident Russia. Already in the past eight years, China has
learned, from firsthand experience, that Putin's ability to defend Russia's national interests
should never be discounted.

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7. One key element of the current Sino-Russian strategic partnership has been a high
level of trust that is expected to continue under the Medvedev-Putin team. Harmony
among political elites, however, is no guarantee of success in managing a host of dissonant
issues such as asymmetrical trade (a rapid decline in Russian equipment exports to China),
stagnant military sales and perceived Chinese immigration into Russia's far eastern region.
8. It is unclear whether the just finished "China Year in Russia" (2007) and "Russia
Year in China" (2006) will help ordinary Russians and Chinese to develop some mutual
chemistry. Moscow and Beijing also need to invigorate the SCO to turn it into a more
efficient regional grouping. It is not easy to interface with the various religious and cultural
systems involved: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism. SCO's
future expansion and relations with others, particularly Washington, continue to challenge
this diverse group of nations from the East and the West, democracies and
nondemocracies, large and small, relatively developed vs. newly industrialized and less
developed.
9. While two U.S.-led wars on terror are being fought on the SCO's peripheries
(Afghanistan and Iraq), none of the 10 formal and observer members of the SCO wants to
turn this group into an anti-West or anti-U.S. alliance. Beijing and Moscow will have to
figure out how to keep a delicate balance among these diverse interests.
10. At the end of Putin's second term as president, Sino-Russian relations have
experienced 19 years of stability, almost double the 10-year Sino-Soviet "honeymoon"
(1949-1959). This still pales in comparison to the 30 years of "bad times" (1960-1989),
after Beijing and Moscow switched from being allies to adversaries almost overnight.
During these three decades, precious resources were diverted, drained and wasted by both
sides.
11. Russia is heading back to its past glory and dream with a strong leader like Putin as
both "the great" (staying in office beyond 2008) and the "ghost" (working behind the
scenes). It remains to be seen how the dragon will play with the new double team of bears
in the coming years.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
This article was the editorial of the Japan Times, published on March 16 th 2008.

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title of the article carefully and try to answer the following questions
1. What do you know about Mr. Putin’s presidency and its impact on Russia’s current
situation?
2. What do you know about Sino-Russian relations?
3. Write down three questions to which you expect to find the answers in the article.

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. What does the author mean by writing “the changing of the guard in the Kremlin”? Why
did China care about it?
2. How is Beijing’s view of Mr Putin’s rule different from the West’s view?
3. What have been Putin’s important accomplishments in domestic and foreign affairs
during his time in power?
4. What might be the reason for Mr Putin’s accomplishments?
5. Brief the progress of the Sino-Russian relations since 1949 up to now.
6. What are the existing problems in the Sino-Russian relations?
7. What might be the challenges to the SCO?
8. How do you understand the title and the last sentence of the article?

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E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.
1. the changing of the guard in the Kremlin (P. 1)
2. its petro-politics approach to foreign relations (P. 1)
3. Putin would have his cake and eat it too (P. 2)
4. a matter of substance vs. form (P. 2)
5. Putin's rule signifies Russia's departure from democracy (P. 3)
6. institutionalized the SCO (P. 4)
7. The pipeline is still in the pipeline (P. 5)
8. firsthand experience (P. 6)
9. to develop some mutual chemistry (P. 8)
10. This still pales in comparison to the 30 years of "bad times"(P. 10)

F. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 - 200 words.

G. Translation:
Translate the last four paragraphs of the article into Vietnamese, from “It is unclear…”
to “… .in the coming years.”

H. Extended questions for discussion:

1. What do you think of Putinism?
2. Work in groups to discuss the impacts of Putin’s leadership on Russia’spolitical and
economic situations.

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Rethink the Reset

NATO should not give in to Russian aggression.

(photo source: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2012/05/19/rethink-the-reset)
1. FOR 20 years NATO has wooed the Kremlin, with disappointing results. The alliance
has repeatedly said it does not regard Russia as a threat and has forsworn putting nuclear
weapons (or indeed anything else significant) in member states that were once part of the
Soviet empire. Indeed, so keen was NATO not to offend Russia that for the first few years
after the newcomers joined in 2004, it made no plans to defend them.
2. Yet Russia’s behavior to NATO is becoming nastier. The chief of the general staff,
Nikolai Makarov, recently spoke openly about a first strike against future American
missile-defense installations in Poland and Romania. Russia has conducted ostentatious
military drills on its border with the Baltic states, NATO’s most vulnerable members.
Vladimir Putin, newly reinstalled in the Kremlin, has gone back to bashing the West. He
is shunning NATO’s Chicago summit next week (and also the G8’s, even though his
hosts moved that one from Chicago to make him happier). Residual cold-war thinking is
exemplified by Russia’s espionage efforts at NATO’s Brussels headquarters, where its
military observers are rather generously given an official and formal accreditation.
3. What should be done? Nobody is challenging the status quo publicly. But in private,
some see a bargain: America stops standing up to Russia in Europe, in return for Kremlin
concessions on issues that America really cares about, such as a new nuclear-weapons

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deal. That would include America rejigging its missile-defense plans, to leave out any
bases in countries that were once part of the Soviet empire.
4. A softer stance could also include downgrading NATO’s planned exercisesnext year in
Europe. Named “Steadfast Jazz”, these will be potentially the biggest maneuvers since the
end of the cold war. They are largely a response to troubling Russian exercises in 2009,
which simulated the invasion of the Baltic states (followed by a dummy nuclear attack on
Warsaw). Some cash-strapped European countries would be happy not to pay for their
part in expensive war-games.
5. Wooing Russia this way would be a mistake. America’s missile-defense plans are
aimed at Iran, not Russia. But they are also a token of transatlantic seriousness about
Europe. Any suggestion of making them a bargaining chip unsettles those in Poland and
elsewhere who doubt the durability of America’s security relationship with Europe.
Big talker
6. Russian saber-rattling is not militarily significant: even with its big increase in defense
spending of recent years, and the colossal sums promised for the future, Russia is no
military match for a united NATO. But it does signal unpleasant thinking at the top, and a
desire to bully. The right response from NATO would be to make Steadfast Jazz as
realistic a defensive drill as possible. By demonstrating NATO’s resolve, a strong stance
would enhance security; just as a weak one would only encourage Russia to pick a bigger
stick.
7. The irony in all this is that Russia should be far more worried about China in the east
and Islamists to the south than about NATO. The alliance is beset with problems:
inadequate defense spending, finding a respectable exit from Afghanistan, and America’s
“pivot” to Asia. NATO used to worry about a loss of purpose. Indeed, had Russia not
antagonized its former empire in the 1990s, NATO might have shut up shop by now. The
way things are going, it is lucky that it did not.

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Guide to Study
A. Note:
This article was published in The Economist on May 19th, 2012.

B. Pre-reading questions:
Read the heading and sub-heading of the article carefully and try to answer the
following questions:
1. What do you know about NATO? Briefly outline its history and its member countries.
2. What is the role of the US in NATO?
3. How is the relationship between NATO and Russia?

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Read the article and answer the following questions in your own words.
1. What has been the NATO’s approach toward Russia over the last two decades? What
about its results?
2. Why does the author believe Russia’s behavior toward NATO is becoming extremely
unpleasant?
3. What does the author think as the implicit bargain put out by Putin? How does he
assess that?
4. In his opinion, what should the US do? Should the US worry about Russian military
strength?
5. According to the author, what should Russia have concerned about, rather than NATO?
6. What does the author mean by the title and the last two sentences?

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E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meanings of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.
1. give in to Russian aggression (subtitle)
2. so keen was NATO not to offend Russia (P. 2)
3. bashing the West (P. 2)
4. shunning NATO’s Chicago summit (P. 2)
5. residual cold-war thinking is exemplified by Russia’s espionage efforts (P. 2)
6. challenging the status quo publicly (P. 3)
7. standing up to Russia (P. 3)
8. rejigging its missile-defense plans (P. 3)
9. downgrading NATO’s planned exercises (P. 4)
10. cash- strapped European countries (P. 4)
11. a token of transatlantic seriousness about Europe (P. 5)
12. a bargaining chip (P. 6)
13. Russian saber-rattling (P. 6)
14. encourage Russia to pick a bigger stick (P. 6)
15. is beset with problems (P. 7)

F. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 - 200 words.

G. Translation:
Translate the last three paragraphs of the article into Vietnamese, from “Wooing
Russia …” to “… that it did not.”

H. Extended questions for discussion:

1. Do you know about NATO enlargement? What does the author mention as “the
newcomers” in the article (P. 1)

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2. How important is NATO enlargement to promote the US national interest?

3. What do you think about the future of NATO? Make your own prediction based on
your own arguments.

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Unit 10 OTHER POWERFUL COUNTRIES

THE GREAT BRITAIN
British Politics Is Being Profoundly Reshaped By Populism
Britain ought to have been immune to populism. Instead it is becoming an unlikely victim.

1. BRITAIN should have been better placed than any other country to fight off the
populist fever that is spreading around the world. The House of Commons is one of the
oldest representative institutions on Earth. The country’s last violent revolution was in the
middle of the 17th century. With politicians as different as Clement Attlee and Margaret
Thatcher denouncing them as “a device for dictators and demagogues”, Britain avoided
nationwide referendums until 1975 and has only used them three times. The British erect
statues to statesmen and women in Parliament rather than to “the people”.
2. Yet British politics is currently being reshaped by populism. The essence of
populism is the belief that society can be divided into two antagonistic classes—the
people and the powerful. The people are presumed to have a single will. The powerful are
presumed to be devious and corrupt: determined to feather their own nests and adept at
using intermediary institutions (courts, media companies, political parties) to frustrate the
people.
3. You can see evidence of this everywhere in British politics. The Brexiteers’
clinching argument is always the same: “The people have spoken.” The Daily Mail has
branded the judges of the High Court as “enemies of the people” and urged Theresa May
to “crush the saboteurs”. On November 15th the Daily Telegraph tried to out-
Mail the Mail by printing photographs of the 15 Tory MPs who had indicated that they
would vote against Mrs May’s attempt to enshrine the date that Britain leaves the
European Union into law and branding them “the Brexit mutineers”.
4. Far from fighting off the virus of populism, Britain is becoming its most surprising
victim. British politicians may look civilised compared with, say, Hungary’s Viktor
Orban or America’s Donald Trump. But Mr Orban rules a country that has been scarred
by communism and Mr Trump is hedged in by checks and balances galore. Americans
will be rid of Mr Trump by 2021 or 2025. The Brexit referendum will continue to shape
British politics for decades to come.
5. Britain has succumbed to the populist virus because it decided to apply the most
powerful tool in the populist toolbox—the referendum—to the most profound question in

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British political economy—its relationship with its main political and economic partner.
The subsequent debate pitted Britain’s entire ruling class, from the leaders of the three
main political parties to the heads of multinational companies, against a ragbag army of
rebels, troublemakers and mavericks. By voting Leave, the British not only elected to
change their relationship with the European Union but also to reorder their political
system.
6. The most visible result of this reordering is the chaos of daily politics. Since the
referendum two of Britain’s three main parties have lost their leaders, Theresa May has
fought a botched election, the cabinet has been paralysed by infighting and Jeremy
Corbyn, Labour’s hard-left leader, has become prime-minister-in-waiting. The less visible
result is a constitutional revolution. Before the referendum, Parliament was sovereign
(though, as Brexiteers rightly pointed out, the EU kept encroaching on that sovereignty).
Now, for the first time in Britain’s long parliamentary history, most MPs feel obliged to
vote for a policy that they oppose—in other words, to give in to a populist revolution.
Three-quarters of MPs voted for Remain. Only two parties, with a combined total of nine
MPs—the UK Independence Party with one and the Democratic Unionists with eight—
supported Brexit. Still, the chances of Parliament scuppering the withdrawal are small.
7. Why did a traditionally cautious people decide to take such a radical step? Roy
Jenkins, a former cabinet minister, once pronounced that the British voted to stay in the
European Community (as it then was) because they “took the advice of people they were
used to following”. David Cameron, the unwitting Faust of Britain’s populist revolution,
chose to call the referendum at a time of maximum disillusionment with those “people
they were used to following”. Voters felt they had little in common with politicians who
seemed to come with identikit backgrounds (a posh university and a spell in a think-tank)
and identikit views (cosmopolitan liberalism). And they felt that politicians had messed
up the government of the country. Both Labour and the Tories had claimed to know how
to harness globalisation for the common good. But the financial crisis of 2008 had led to
the deepest recession for decades, with real wages falling and productivity growth
stalling. Many Britons used the referendum as an excuse to deliver a one-fingered salute
to their supposed betters.
Here to stay
8. The strongest justification of the referendum is that it was a one-off vote to settle
the vexed constitutional question of Britain’s relationship with the EU: once Britain has

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reasserted its independence, the sovereignty of Parliament will be restored and populism
contained. This is wishful thinking. If Britain withdraws from the EU, the economic
shock will be profound. Those who will suffer most will be the very people who voted for
Brexit as a cry of defiance (the depreciation of sterling since the referendum has already
disproportionately hit the lowest-paid, by pushing up the price of food and fuel).
Meanwhile, if Parliament somehow scuppers the process, there could be riots in the
streets.
9. The biggest beneficiary of this turmoil is Mr Corbyn. He has always been a
populist. A long-standing admirer of firebrands such as Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez, he
believes that Parliament is only one arena for the people’s struggle against the powerful.
His supporters have already toyed with de-selecting MPs who do not toe the hard-left
party line and with engaging in direct action to bring down Mrs May’s government. They
have also built a personality cult around Mr Corbyn as the true voice of the people in a
corrupt political world. It could be a very long time indeed before British politics returns
to what was once regarded as normal.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
This article appeared in the Britain section (Bagehot) of The Economist on November
16th, 2017 under the headline "Power to the people."

B. Pre-Reading exercises:
Read the title, subtitle of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you know about populism?
2. Do you think that populism will dominate the world? Defense yourself with real cases.?

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension Questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. Why does the author believe that “Britain ought to have been immune to populism”
(subtitle)?
2. How does the author define populism?
3. What are the examples that the author has cited to illustrate the rising populism in
Britain’s politics?
4. Why does the author say “Britain is becoming its (populism’s) most surprising victim?
5. What does the author say about the current politics of Britain?
6. In the author’s opinion, why do British people vote for Brexit?
7. How might Brexit affect Britain’s economy and politics?
8. Who is Mr. Corbyn? And why does the author think that he’s the person who benefits
the most from the crisis?

E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.

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1. to fight off the populist fever (P. 1)

2. the House of Commons (P. 1)
3. denouncing them as “a device for dictators and demagogues” (P. 1)
4. the British erect statues to statesmen and women in Parliament rather than to “the
people” (P. 1)
5. determined to feather their own nests (P. 2)
6. out-Mail the Mail (P. 3)
7. “the Brexit mutineers” (P. 3)
8. is hedged in by checks and balances galore (P. 4)
9. succumbed to the populist virus (P. 5)
10. the EU kept encroaching on that sovereignty (P. 6)
11. the unwitting Faust (P. 7)
12. a one-fingered salute (P. 7)
13. wishful thinking (P. 8)
14. a cry of defiance (P. 8)

F. Summary:
Summarise the article in about 150 - 200 words.

G. Translation:
Translate paragraphs 3-5 into Vietnamese, from “You can see evidence…” to “… their
political system.”

H. Extended questions for discussion:

1. What do you know about the Brexit?
2. Why do you think the Brexit is created?
3. Can you list advantages and disadvantages for Britain as being a member of the EU?

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JAPAN
What To Expect From Abe's US Visit
Security issues and the TPP — but not history — will feature prominently during Abe’s
first state visit to Washington.
1. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will arrive in the U.S. for a state visit on April
26, making him the first Japanese prime minister to pay an official visit to Washington
since 2006. There are a variety of issues on the agenda for Abe’s first state visit to the
U.S., from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to new defense guidelines for the U.S.-
Japan alliance. Speaking to journalists in Washington D.C., Japanese Ambassador
Kenichiro Sasaecalled Abe’s visit “epoch-making,” saying the two sides will discuss their
“common vision” for the future of the alliance.
2. Part of that discussion will center on how the alliance will function in the face of a
changing regional and global security environment. Sasae said the new defense guidelines
currently under discussion will aim to “update, modernize and strengthen the alliance
framework, reflecting the changes” in the security environment (including new challenges
in the space and cyber domains).
3. During Abe’s visit, he and Obama will also discuss how the U.S.-Japan alliance
should address regional security tensions. Sasae described the current security situation as
a “grey area” – neither problem-free nor on the brink of armed conflict. Tensions in the
region are particularly high as the military balance shifts thanks to China’s military
modernization program. Although Sasae made it clear in a previous interview with The
Diplomatthat Japan doesn’t “define China as a threat,” Japan has expressed concern over
a lack of transparency regarding China’s military build-up as well as China’s assertive
actions in the East and South China Sea.
4. New defense guidelines will seek to equip the alliance in order to respond to the new
security environment. The U.S. has long pushed for Japan to shoulder more of the burden
for providing for its own and regional security, changes now made possible by new
security legislation that should be taken up by Japan’s Diet later this year. At the same
time, however, Sasae said Japan believes the U.S. should continue to give the “proper
message” about its standing in the region.
5. The debate over TPP has increasingly taken on shades of this on-going security
dilemma in the Asia-Pacific. In his 2015 State of the Union address, Obama described

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TPP as an opportunity for the U.S. to forestall Chinese attempts to “write the rules” for
global trade. More recently, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter emphasized the strategic
benefits of the TPP, calling it “as important… as another aircraft carrier.”
6. However, Japan is reluctant to adopt similar rhetoric to argue in favor of the TPP, even
while acknowledging the strategic importance of the deal. In discussions of the TPP, the
China factor has become “inflated,” Sasae said. He explained that the agreement is “not [an]
exercise to counter China” but an “exercise to set high standards, new rules in the 21st
century.” China will be welcome to join if it can meet those standards, Sasae said,
acknowledging that doing so would require “enormous domestic reform” on China’s part.
7. Sasae’s explanation of the TPP is quite similar to that used early on by the Obama
administration. The change to an emphasis on the strategic importance of the TPP – and
framing it as part of a competition against China – may be Obama’s way of trying to
garner domestic support for the negotiations. Congress still hasn’t passed a bill granting
the Obama administration Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), although both the House
and Senate are currently working on drafts of such legislation. The United States’ fellow
TPP negotiators – including Japan, as well as 10 other countries – consider TPA crucial to
finalizing the agreement.
8. Accordingly, a large goal of Abe’s visit will be to reaffirm the importance of TPP –
and hopefully to convince Congress to move forward with TPA. Sasae envisions Abe’s
visit as a “major engine” for the TPP moving forward. On April 29, Abe will become the
first Japanese prime minister to address a joint session of Congress, and he will use this
opportunity to seek Congressional support for TPP and TPA. Sasae said embassy officials
have already held meetings with senators and representatives in preparation for Abe’s
visit, with much of the conversation focusing on TPP.
9. One point not likely to be a major topic during Abe’s visit is history. Sasae said
Abe’s speech before Congress will focus on the U.S.-Japan alliance and the progress that
has been made since World War II. As for the war itself, Sasae speculated that Abe would
touch on the subject but emphasized that a speech before the U.S. Congress is “not a place
to address other countries.” A focus on history is “not something the United States is
asking for,” Sasae said, adding that wartime history would not be a major part of the
agenda for Tokyo and Washington.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes
This article was published in The Diplomat on April 23rd, 2015 by Shannon Tiezzi, an
editor at The Diplomat. Her main focus is on China, and she writes on China’s foreign
relations, domestic politics, and economy. Shannon previously served as a research
associate at the U.S.-China Policy Foundation, where she hosted the weekly television
show China Forum. She received her A.M. from Harvard University and her B.A. from
The College of William and Mary. Shannon has also studied at Tsinghua University in
Beijing.

B. Pre- reading exercises:

Read the title, subtitle of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you think the article is about?
2. What do you know about US-Japanese relations?
3. What do you know about the TPP?

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. What are the key issues that will be addressed during Abe’s first state visit to
Washington?
2. Why is it important to discuss new defense guidelines on how the US-Japan alliance
will function in the future?
3. What content do the new defense guidelines cover?
4. How did Japanese Ambassador Kenichiro Sasae describe the current regional security
situation?
5. Did the US and Japan share the same viewpoint on China’s factor and the importance

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of the TPP? Give evidence for your answer.

6. Why did the US Secretary of Defense compare the TPP with “another aircraft carrier”?
7. How did the Obama administration change their argument on the importance of the
TPP? Why?
8. What might be included and might not be included in Mr Abe’s speech before the US
Congress?

E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meanings of the following words and expressions, as used in the passage.
1. called Abe’s visit “epoch-making” (P. 1)
2. China’s military build-up (P. 3)
3. to shoulder more of the burden (P. 4)
4. taken on shades of this on-going security dilemma (P. 5)
5. Japan is reluctant to adopt similar rhetoric to argue in favor of the TPP (P. 6)
6. a “major engine” for the TPP moving forward (P. 8)

F. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 – 200 words.

G. Translation:
Translate the last three paragraphs of the article into Vietnamese, from “Sasae’s
explaination ...” to “... and Washington.”

H. Extended questions for discussion:

1. What do you know about the US-Japan alliance as mentioned in the article?
2. How important is the TPP for the US and Japan?
3. What are the opportunities and challenges that the TPP can bring to Vietnam as a
member state?

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PART III
REGIONAL
AND
INTERNATIONAL
ORGANISATIONS

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Unit 11 SOUTHEAST ASIA –ASEAN

Agreeing To Agree
South-East Asian summitry is the apogee of form over substance. That may be no bad
thing.

(Photo source: https://www.economist.com/asia/2016/09/01/agreeing-to-agree)

1. FOR world leaders, the prospect of a day spent milling around a gleaming new
conference centre in Hangzhou, China, at the G20 summit this week, with nothing to
show for it but an anodyne communiqué, must be depressing enough. Worse is the
knowledge that many of them will then head straight for the East Asia Summit, an annual
jamboree hosted by the ten-member Association of South-East Asian Nations, or
ASEAN, to be held this year in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Whatever skills President
Xi Jinping of China may display in concealing an absence of purpose at the G20 were
surely learned from South-East Asia. When it comes to elevating form over substance,
and confusing a proliferation of meetings and acronyms for a deepening of ties, ASEAN
is the Zen master.
2. Laos has what may be the world’s most closed political system after North Korea.
The last ASEAN summit held there, in 2004, led to the construction of sleepy Vientiane’s

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first high-rise. As for the few visiting media, the communist official appointed as
spokesman for the occasion responded to most questions by blinking. This time the
presidents of America and Russia, the prime ministers of China, India and Japan and
5,000-odd other foreign officials and journalists are about to descend on a city that is no
bigger than the obscure Thai provincial capital on the opposite bank of the Mekong river.
3. At a meeting of ASEAN’s foreign ministers in Vientiane in July (the AMM, since
you ask), fluttering welcome flags lined the streets leading to the convention centre—the
cathedral of summitry, often bearing signs of hasty completion. The youngish new foreign
minister displayed a suavity that was absent a dozen years ago.
4. In the new cathedrals, the “ASEAN way” prevails. Like many other dogmas, this
one is tautologous. At its squidgy centre sits the hallowed principle of “consensus”. A
consensus about what? You do not begin to grasp the way until you grasp that the first,
overarching consensus is to have a consensus, usually in the form of a post-summit joint
statement. The consensus can, as a Singaporean diplomat, Bilahari Kausikan, puts it, be
goals that everyone knows are unattainable. Or it can be extraordinarily bland.
5. If there is any excitement, it tends to come from outside the cathedral. At the East
Asia Summit in Pattaya in Thailand seven years ago, protesters invaded the convention
centre; the Chinese, Japanese and South Korean leaders had to be airlifted to safety and
the summit cancelled. Reporters found the Thai finance minister on the beach, the
trousers of his impeccable suit rolled up, helping foreign dignitaries into rubber dinghies.
6. Some romantics put this agreement not to disagree down to a beguiling regional
culture of pacifism, fine manners and face-saving. Sorry, lah! South-East Asia has had
more than its share of modern horrors, including genocides (eg, Cambodia), civil wars
(Vietnam and, still, Myanmar), race riots (Malaysia, Singapore), coups (Thailand) and
pogroms (Indonesia, Myanmar again). Visceral ethnic, religious and linguistic
antagonisms still lurk just beneath the surface in even the most peaceable-seeming of
South-East Asian societies.
7. And that is the point. A modicum of cohesion, order and civility became—Mr
Kausikan again—central to a grouping in which none of those qualities could be taken for
granted. Formal voting would only create winners and losers, risking rupture. So
bloodless consensus-building it is. From this follows another hallowed principle, that of

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non-interference. That is how, for years, Myanmar’s oppressive generals were allowed to
run their country into the ground with not a peep from fellow members of ASEAN.
8. Prioritising form over substance has clear drawbacks, including a tendency towards
pomposity—as when ASEAN declared itself a nuclear-free zone. But members remember
ASEAN’s provenance. The five founders in 1967 (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines,
Singapore and Thailand) had their differences; Indonesia had just waged an undeclared
war against Malaysia. But they came together to confront the threat of Soviet-backed
communism emanating from Vietnam.
9. The cold war is long over, and ASEAN has expanded to include communist or
formerly communist countries—Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. But, more than ever,
cohesion is called for, thanks to a new great-power contest between China and America
being played out in the South China Sea. At an AMM in Phnom Penh in 2012, China
sought to apply pressure through Cambodia, a near-client state, to have even the tamest
reference to growing Chinese assertiveness in the sea excluded. After fierce bickering
behind the scenes, no joint communiqué was issued—a first.
10. It was, says a senior ASEAN diplomat, a “near-death experience”. At best, it
threatened to make a mockery of the hallowed “ASEAN centrality”; at worst, it might
have blown the club apart. Since then, and despite redoubled lobbying by China following
an international tribunal’s sweeping judgment against its maritime claims, even tiny Laos,
beholden to China but resenting it, will strive to avoid a repeat.
The bland leading the bland
11. For now, it suits the great powers to court ASEAN, taking part in its forums and
indulging its notions of centrality. Even China would hate to be blamed for the club’s
demise. And so ASEAN summits continue to proliferate.
12. That is no disaster. For all their imperfections, they are the only game in Asia, a
region with a heap of problems and a dearth of structures. They provide a rare opportunity
for global leaders to build trust in bilateral meetings on the sidelines. And, for ASEAN, a
scintilla of influence is preferable to none at all.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
This article was published in The Economist on September 1st, 2016.

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title, subtitle of the article and look at the illustrated picture carefully and try
to answer the questions below.
1. How many national flags that you can recognize?
2. What do you think the article is about?
3. Write down three questions to which you expect to find the answers in the article.

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. According to the author, how do state leaders think about the G20 and East Asia
summits?
2. In which field does the author think ASEAN is “a Zen master”? What does he mean?
3. What principles of ASEAN have been described in the article?
4. How have those principles been challenged recently?
5. What events in the past and recently that helped to unify ASEAN members?
6. Why happened at the AMM Phnompenh 2012 and what might be its impacts?
7. How important is ASEAN today? Why?

E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.
1. the apogee of form over substance (title)

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2. an anodyne communiqué (P. 1)

3. elevating form over substance (P. 1)
4. confusing a proliferation of meetings and acronyms for a deepening of ties (P. 1)
5. tautologous (P. 4)
6. bland (P. 4)
7. a beguiling regional culture of pacifism, fine manners and face-saving (P. 6)
8. to run their country into the ground with not a peep (P. 7)
9. pomposity (P. 8)
10. a near-client state (P. 9)
11. the tamest reference (P. 9)
12. make a mockery of the hallowed “ASEAN centrality (P. 10)
13. beholden to China but resenting it (P. 1)
14. a scintilla of influence is preferable to none at all (P. 12)

F. Translation:
Translate the first three paragraphs into Vietnamese, from “For world leaders…” to
“…a dozen years ago.”

G. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 – 200 words.

H. Extended questions for discussion:

1. Specify the working meachism of ASEAN.
2. What are the achievements ASEAN has gained?
3. What are the criticism that ASEAN has been facing with?
4. What do you think about the role of Vietnam in ASEAN?

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ASEAN’s Strategic Diplomacy Underpins Regional Stability

1. Try imagining a world where the Middle East is at peace. The thought seems almost
inconceivable. Imagine a world where Israel and Palestine, two nations splintered from
one piece of territory, live harmoniously. Impossible? This is what Malaysia and
Singapore accomplished. After an acrimonious divorce in 1965, they live together in
peace.
2. Imagine a world where Egypt, the most populous Islamic country in the Middle
East, emerges as a stable and prosperous democracy. Impossible? Then ask yourself how
it is that Indonesia, the most populous Islamic country in Southeast Asia—with more than
four times as many people as Egypt—has emerged as a beacon of democracy. Egypt and
Indonesia both suffered from corruption. And both experienced decades of military rule,
under Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Suharto in Indonesia.
3. Yet Egypt remains under military rule while Indonesia has emerged as the leading
democracy in the Islamic world. What explains the difference? The one-word answer is
ASEAN. ASEAN’s success in practising strategic diplomacy over the past 50 years has
been one of the most undersold stories of our time.
4. If one were looking around the world to find the most promising region for
international cooperation, Southeast Asia would have been at the bottom of the list. Home
to 240 million Muslims, 130 million Christians, 140 million Buddhists and 7 million
Hindus, it is the most diverse region in the world. In the 1960s, when ASEAN was
formed, the region had garnered a reputation as ‘the Balkans of Asia’, due to its
geopolitical rivalries and pervasive disputes.
5. Today, ASEAN is more important than ever. It has become more than an important
neutral zone for great-power engagement. Its success in forging unity in diversity is a
beacon of hope for our troubled world.
6. As the ASEAN dynamic gained momentum and the organisation moved towards
creating hundreds of multilateral meetings a year, the Southeast Asian region became
more closely connected. Webs of networks developed in different areas of cooperation,
from trade to defence.
7. ASEAN camaraderie has defused many potential crises in the region.
8. One shining example of the success of ASEAN’s strategic diplomacy occurred in
2007. In August that year, the world was shocked when monks in Yangon were shot
during street protests after the unexpected removal of fuel subsidies led to a drastic

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overnight rise in commodity prices. Since ASEAN had admitted Myanmar as a member
in 1997, there was pressure on ASEAN countries to make a statement criticising these
shootings.
9. As an ASEAN member state, Myanmar had two options. It could have vetoed an
ASEAN joint statement or disassociated itself from such a statement. Then there would
have been a statement among the remaining nine countries criticising Myanmar. Many,
including the nine other ASEAN foreign ministers, expected this to be the outcome.
10. To their surprise, Myanmar’s foreign minister, Nyan Win, agreed that all 10
countries, including Myanmar, should endorse the statement. This was a truly remarkable
decision—the statement said that the ASEAN foreign ministers ‘were appalled to receive
reports of automatic weapons being used and demanded that the Myanmar government
immediately desist from the use of violence against demonstrators’.
11. In short, even when there were sharp disagreements between Myanmar and its
fellow ASEAN countries, Myanmar decided that sticking with ASEAN was preferable to
opting out. Clearly the ASEAN policy of engaging the military regime in Myanmar with
strategic diplomacy had succeeded. This story of engagement almost reads as a foil to the
EU’s disastrous policy of isolating Syria.
12. ASEAN’s ability to foster peace extends outside its member states. In an era of
growing geopolitical pessimism, when many leading geopolitical thinkers predict rising
competition and tension between great powers—especially between the United States and
China—ASEAN has created an indispensable diplomatic platform that regularly brings all
the great powers together. Within ASEAN, a culture of peace has evolved as a result of
imbibing the Indonesian custom of musyawarah and mufakat (consultation and
consensus).
13. Now ASEAN has begun to share this culture of peace with the larger Asia Pacific
region. When tensions rise between China and Japan and their leaders find it difficult to
speak to each other, ASEAN provides a face-saving platform and the right setting to
restart the conversation. In particular, ASEAN has facilitated China’s peaceful rise by
generating a framework that moderates aggressive impulses. In short, ASEAN’s strategic
culture has infected the larger Asia Pacific region.
14. One of the miracles of the Asia Pacific is that significant great-power conflict
prevented, even though there have been enormous shifts of power among the great nations
in the region. Of course, the reasons for this lack of conflict are complex. ASEAN’s

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neutrality, which helps the organisation retain its centrality in the region, is one factor in
keeping the region stable and peaceful.
15. This is why it is important that in the growing Sino–US geopolitical competition,
both sides should treat ASEAN as a delicate Ming vase that could easily break. US and
Chinese interests will both suffer if ASEAN is damaged or destroyed—delicacy in
dealing with ASEAN is critical for both sides.
16. ASEAN is far from perfect—its many flaws have been well documented, especially
in the Anglo-Saxon media. It never progresses in a linear fashion, often moving like a
crab, taking two steps forward, one step backwards and one step sideways. Viewed over a
short period, progress is hard to see. But despite its many imperfections, in a longer view,
ASEAN’s forward progress has been tangible. In these interesting times, ASEAN’s
policies and practices of strategic diplomacy deserve appreciation and study by the global
community.

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GUIDE TO STUDY
A. Notes:
The article was written by Kishore Mahbubani - dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of
Public Policy at the National University of Singapore and co-author of The ASEAN
Miracle. An extended version of this article appeared in the edition of East Asia Forum
Quarterly, ‘Strategic diplomacy in Asia’ on June 18th, 2017.

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. How do you understand the title of the article? Do you agree with that?
2. For what reasons do you think that statement might be true/might not be true?
3. Write down three questions to which you expect to find the answers in the article.

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. What does the author want to illustrate when comparing ASEAN countries’
experiences with other non-ASEAN ones in the first three paragraphs?
2. According to the author, what are the achievements that ASEAN has gained since it
was founded?
3. What happened in Myanmar in 2007? How did Myanmar react to the ASEAN joint
statement on that incident? What is the meaning of that reaction?
4. In the author’s viewpoint, how do great powers view ASEAN? And how should they?
5. What does the author mean when describing the progress of ASEAN as a crab’s
movement?

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E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.
1. inconceivable (P. 1)
2. an acrimonious divorce (P. 1)
3. a beacon of democracy (P. 2)
4. the most undersold stories of our time (P. 3)
5. “the Balkans of Asia” (P. 4)
6. camaraderie (P. 8)
7. (Myanmar) disassociated itself from such a statement (P. 9)
8. reads as a foil to the EU’s disastrous policy of isolating Syria (P. 11)
9. growing geopolitical pessimism (P. 12)
10. a face-saving platform (P.13)

F. Translation:
Translate the last three paragraphs into Vietnamese, from “One of the miracles…” to
“...by the global community.”

G. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 – 200 words.

H. Extended questions for discussion:

1.Do you know about the establishment history of ASEAN?
2. Do you agree with the author’s viewpoint? Why/Why not?
3. What do you think about the effect that ASEAN membership has had on Vietnam?

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Unit 12 ASIA PACIFIC - APEC

The Least that East Asians Can Do to Cooperate
1. As China continues its unremitting rise, people throughout East Asia are wondering
whether their states will ever be able to achieve the peaceful, stable relations that now
characterize Europe. Given the regularity of serious diplomatic spats -- over everything
from tiny atolls in the South China Sea to the legacy of World War II -- this may sound
like an elusive dream. But, with nationalism and military budgets rising sharply,
achieving consensual stability has become imperative for the region. Can it be done?
2. The “liberal” view of international relations recommends three ingredients: political
democratization, deeper economic interdependence and viable institutions through which
East Asia’s states can conduct their affairs in a multilateral way. Because, as Immanuel
Kant noted long ago, states with democratic political systems tend not to fight with each
other, democracy should be encouraged in order to secure peace.
3. Pursuit of a Pax Democratia has long been embedded in American foreign
policymaking. And European states have, since 1945, made democracy a core element in
their integration. But East Asia’s wide variety of political systems makes such a
democratic consensus highly unlikely, at least for now.
4. On the other hand, economic interdependence among East Asia’s states has been
deepening. For 30 years, East Asians have received the ample rewards of Adam Smith’s
insight that free trade would bring material benefits to participating countries. Regional
policymakers nowadays are loath to risk this progress through hostile behavior.
5. Economic interdependence in East Asia gained momentum following the Asian
financial crisis of 1997-1998. But confrontations between the United States and China,
the US and Japan, and China and Japan over the past year have left many wondering
whether economic interdependence alone can bring about stable regional relations.
6. The third liberal route to peace -- institutionalizing international relations -- aims to
regularize the behavior of states through a system of norms and rules, thereby creating
order (and peace) out of quasi-anarchy.
7. European states accept the common norms and rules of the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and are almost always prepared to be regulated by
them. Indeed, the European Union is the fruit of a long, continuous effort to strengthen
common norms and rules among European states.

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8. In contrast to Europe, East Asia is composed of states that are radically different in
terms of their size, development, and political-economic systems. East Asian
policymakers understand that there is little that they can do to alter their neighbors’
political systems. Nor can they do much in an official way to deepen economic
interdependence in the short term.
9. So it is natural for the region’s policymakers to focus more on institutionalization,
with lively discussions regularly taking place about the region’s nascent constellation of
groupings: ASEAN+3, the East Asian Summit, the East Asian Community, Asia Pacific
Economic Cooperation, Asia-Pacific Community, etc.
10. But this process has been politicized and ridden by an acute behind-the-scenes
competition for influence among the major powers. Indeed, East Asia seems to lack the
equivalent of major EU architects like Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman -- visionaries
with the stature and political support needed to begin building a framework for regional
peace in a time, like today, of great change.
11. So, for now, East Asians should be very pragmatic about institutionalizing regional
affairs. Rather than spending energy on trying to build large-scale institutions covering
the entire region, it would be better to focus more on smaller, issue-oriented institutions.
12. For example, the first successful step toward regional economic cooperation in East
Asia was the Chiang Mai Initiative for international currency swaps, which followed the
1997-1998 crisis. Similarly, the Six-Party Talks on the denuclearization of North Korea,
though producing no significant results so far, remain the only useful mechanism for
addressing the problem collectively.
13. More broadly, only through the establishment of less ambitious, smaller-scale, and
functionally oriented institutions can momentum be built for a regional framework for
peace. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the EU -- rooted in the post-war
European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) -- began with similar small steps toward
integration.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
The article was written by Yoon Young-kwan and published in The Japan Timeson May
5th, 2011. Yoon Young-kwan, South Korea’s foreign minister in 2003-2004, is currently
professor of International Relations at Seoul National University.

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you know about East Asian countries?
2. What do you know about the liberalism?
3. Write down three questions to which you expect to find the answers in the article.

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and tell what the article is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. Paraphrase the underlined sentence in the first paragraph in your own words.
2. Why is it imperative for East Asia to achieve stability now?
3. According tothe liberal views of international relations, what are the three ingredients
for peace?
4. What are the obstacles for East Asia to achieve stability under the three ingredients of
the liberal views?
5. What, in the author’s view, can East Asian nations do to achieve peace and stability for
the region? Have they done it yet? Evidences.

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E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.
1. consensual stability (P. 1)
2. Pax Democratia (P. 3)
3. democratic consensus (P. 3)
4. are loath to risk this progress through hostile behavior (P. 4)
5. institutionalizing international relations (P. 6)
6. quasi-anarchy (P. 6)
7. the region’s nascent constellation of groupings (P. 9)

F. Translation:
Translate the paragraphs 6 - 9into Vietnamese from “The third liberal route…” to
“…Asia-Pacific Community, etc.”

G. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 - 200 words.

H. Extended questions for discussion:

1. Do you think that with the problems that the EU is now facing, the EU is still a model
for ASEAN to follow? Why/ Why not?
2. What might be the obstacles for ASEAN countries to follow the EU model?

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Ever Ambivalent APEC

1. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), once derided as "four adjectives in
search of a noun," is a study in frustration. APEC's strongest asset is also its greatest
weakness. The group is made up of 21 member economies that account for 41 percent of
the world's output and 50 percent of world trade. That gives APEC decisions considerable
impact worldwide. Those members also encompass extraordinary diversity, ranging from
the world's richest countries to some of the poorest; they occupy virtually every rung on
the ladder of development. As a result, finding common ground for policy decisions is
difficult as was evident at last week's Leaders' Meeting in Sydney. A summit that had
raised hopes of tackling pressing issues like climate change and reinvigorating the global
trade agenda foundered on the group's diversity and a seeming lack of political will to
make hard choices.
2. There is no mistaking the most important issues on the APEC agenda. If the steady
stream of international meetings and reports on the growing seriousness of climate change
has not claimed the leaders' attention, then the plea from APEC business leaders for a
clear framework so that they could make investment plans should have done the trick.
3. To their credit, the assembled grandees acknowledged the problem in their joint
statement on the climate, declaring "The world needs to slow, stop and then reverse the
growth of global greenhouse gas emissions." But then they pulled their punch, merely
calling for nonbinding targets to slow the growth of carbon emissions, the key contributor
to greenhouse gas emissions. The climate statement adopts two "aspirational goals": a
reduction in energy intensity of at least 25 percent by 2030 (with 2005 as the base year)
and increasing forest cover in the region by at least 20 million hectares of all types of
forests by 2020, which would store approximately 1.4 billion tons of carbon, equivalent to
some 11 percent of annual global emissions (in 2004).
4. Australian Prime Minister John Howard, the summit host, said the statement "charted
a new international consensus for the region and the world." His optimism reflects the fact
that APEC members include six of the world's 10 largest carbon emitters and accounts for
about 60 percent of the world's energy consumption. He is also pleased to have China on
board, and that China "has agreed to any notion of targets at all for developing
countries…” Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer called that "an enormous
diplomatic breakthrough."

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5. Environmental activists were not as impressed, dismissing the targets as "business as

usual." They noted that the energy efficiency target is one that most APEC members are
already meeting as they develop their economies. And while China agreed to the
statement, its leaders — like those of other APEC developing economies including India
and Indonesia — still believe the primary responsible for reducing greenhouse gas
emissions rests on the shoulders of developed nations.
6. That does not bode well for ongoing negotiations to establish a post-Kyoto
framework for climate change, which expires in 2012. Japan has made climate issues a
priority in its diplomacy and will need to muster all its political capital and creativity to
help develop an international consensus when it hosts the Group of Eight summit next
year and the APEC summit again in 2010.
7. The second vital issue in Sydney was the need to revitalize the stalled Doha round of
global trade talks. Here the leaders only spoke in generalities. A successful round "is our
first priority." In a separate statement on the WTO negotiations, the leaders "pledge the
political will, flexibility and ambition to ensure the Doha Round negotiations enter their
final phase this year." That is precisely what has been missing throughout the first six
years of negotiations and it is hard to believe that an APEC declaration will overcome the
political resistance that has blocked progress to date.
8. APEC leaders said they would accelerate regional economic integration and "examine
the options and prospects for a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific." That is a second best
alternative to a global trade deal, but it is most likely intended to goad non-APEC
members into negotiating seriously.
9. The problem is that, as noted, APEC includes many of the key players in the Doha
negotiations. An unwillingness to cut a deal in one forum is likely to anticipate a similar
difficulty in making a deal in the other. The only way APEC could really press a Doha
deal would be by demonstrating the will to strike one itself. That in turn would require a
seriousness and sense of purpose that APEC leaders have not demonstrated, at least not in
Sydney last week.

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Guide to Study

A. Notes:
This article was the editorial of the Japan Times, published on September 14th2007.

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you know about APEC in terms of
- its foundation?
- its goals
- its evolution?
2. What do you think the article is about?

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. According to the first paragraph, what are the strengths of APEC?
2. What makes it difficult for APEC to agree on policy decisions?
3. What issues does the writer think are the most important ones for APEC?
4. What did the Australian Foreign Minister see as “an enormous diplomatic
breakthrough” and why was it important?
5. What does the writer think the APEC leaders could do that would bring about a
successful Doha agreement?

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6. How do you understand the title of the article?

E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meanings of the following words and expressions, as used in the article.
1. they occupy virtually every rung on the ladder of development (P. 1)
2. finding common ground (P. 1)
3. done the trick (P. 2)
4. pulled their punch (P. 3)
5. to have Chine on board (P. 4)
6. as “business as usual” (P. 5)
7. bode well (P. 6)
8.to muster (P. 6)

F. Vocabulary:
Can these words be used interchangeably? Provide some collocations with these words
to demonstrate that you know how to use them:
- Aim
- Goal
- Objective
- Purpose
- Target
- End

G. Translation:
Translate the first two paragraphs of the article into Vietnamese , from “The Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation…” to “… done the trick.”

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H. Summary:
Summarise the article in about 150 - 200 words.

I. Extended questions for discussion:

1. What do you think are the greatest advantages to being part of APEC?
2. Which countries do you think should bear the most responsibility for reducing global
warming? Why?
3. Is “climate change” a relevant issue for discussion at the APEC meetings? Why/why not?

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Unit 13 EUROPE - EU
Can Europe Be Saved?
If it is to survive, the European Union must become a lot more flexible

(photo source: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2017/03/25/can-europe-be-saved)

1. On March 25th 1957, with the shadow of the second world war still hanging over
them, six European countries signed the founding treaty of a new sort of international
club. The European Union, as the club came to be called, achieved success on a scale its
founders could barely have imagined, not only underpinning peace on the continent but
creating a single market as well as a single currency, and bringing into its fold ex-
dictatorships to the south and ex-communist countries to the east, as it expanded from six
members to 28. Yet even as today’s European leaders gather in Rome this weekend to
celebrate the 60th anniversary, they know their project is in big trouble.
2. The threats are both external and internal. Internally, the flaws that became glaringly
evident in the euro crisis have yet to be fixed. Prolonged economic pain has contributed to
a plunge in support for the EU. Populist, anti-European partiesare attacking the EU’s very
existence—not least in France, where Marine Le Pen is doing uncomfortably well in the
presidential campaign, even if the National Front leader is unlikely to win in May. The
most dramatic result of the anti-EU backlash so far is Brexit. Britain’s Prime Minister,
Theresa May, will not be in Rome for the birthday party; on March 29th she plans to
invoke Article 50 of the EU treaty to start the Brexit process. Negotiations over Britain’s
departure will consume much time and energy for the next two years; losing such a big
member is also a huge blow to the club’s influence and credibility.

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3. The external pressures are equally serious. The refugee crisis has abated, but mainly
thanks to a dodgy deal with Turkey. A newly aggressive Russia under Vladimir Putin and,
in Donald Trump, an American president who is unenthusiastic about both the EU and
NATO, make this a terrible time for Europe to be weak and divided. That a project set up
to underpin Europe’s post-war security should falter at the very moment when that
security is under threat is a bitter irony. It is also a reminder of how much is at stake if
Europe fails to fix itself.
Never-closer union
4. The traditional response of EU-enthusiasts to such challenges is to press for a bold
leap towards closer union. The euro needs this if it is to succeed, they argue. Equally, they
say, more powers ought to shift to the centre to allow the EU to strengthen its external
borders and ensure that it speaks with one loud voice to the likes of Mr Putin and Mr
Trump. Yet the evidence is that neither European voters nor their elected governments
want this. If anything, public opinion favours the reverse.
5. If ever-closer union is not possible, another Brussels tradition is simply to muddle
through. The euro crisis is past its worst, immigration has peaked and Brexit will be
managed somehow. If, after this year’s elections, Emmanuel Macron is France’s president
alongside either Angela Merkel or Martin Schulz as Germany’s chancellor, the club
would be under staunchly pro-EU leadership. Yet muddling along has risks of its own. A
renewed financial crisis that upset the euro again, or the election of another government
committed to a referendum on EU or euro membership, could tear the union apart.
6. Is there a better alternative? The answer, as our special report argues, is to pursue,
more formally than now, an EU that is far more flexible. In Euro-speak, this means
embracing a “multi-tier” system, with the countries of a much wider Europe taking part to
different degrees in its policies—and able to move from one tier to another with relative
ease.
The great British break-off
7. There has recently been a flurry of interest in the notion of a “multi-speed” Europe.
But what most EU leaders mean by the term is that core members should be able to
pursue common policies in areas like defence, fiscal or welfare policy; it implies that all
countries are moving towards the same destination. A broader, “multi-tier” Europe would
find a place for non-members as well. The continent consists of 48 countries and 750m

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people, not just the 28 countries and 510m people in the union, still less the 19 and 340m
in the euro.
8. The core of Europe will be those countries that share the single currency. To solve
the euro’s ills, they need more integration and shared institutions—from a proper banking
union to a common debt instrument. The next tier would comprise a looser group than
now of EU members that are not ready to accept the sacrifice of sovereignty needed to
join the euro, which some will not do for many years, and may never.
9. Beyond that a multi-tier Europe should accommodate widely differing countries.
That means a changed mindset more than changed treaties: in the language of Eurocrats,
accepting a menu that is à la carte, not prix fixe. This is anathema in Brussels, where the
idea that you can pick and choose the bits of the EU that you like is frowned upon, but it
is what Europeans increasingly want. Countries like Norway or Switzerland may wish to
be closely bound to the European single market. Others such as Britain may not be ready
to accept the single market’s rules, but still wish to trade as freely as possible with the
EU. They might seek a bigger role in other areas such as defence and security. And places
like Turkey, the western Balkans, Ukraine and Georgia might prefer a similar associated
status instead of today’s unsatisfactory situation, where they are told they are eligible to
be full members but know they will never be allowed to join.
10. To work, a multi-tier Europe should be pragmatic about the rules that each tier
entails. Those in the outer group might not accept fully free movement of people, for
instance, but that is no reason to wall off their access to the EU’s single market. Nor
should there be a stigma of second-class status for those outside the core: after all, they
include Denmark and Sweden, two of Europe’s most successful countries. Ways should
be found for countries with military or diplomatic clout (eg. post-Brexit Britain) to join in
foreign and defence policies.
11. For the European project to survive another 60 years, the key is flexibility, in both
directions. Just as Britain is leaving the EU, another country might one day leave the euro.
Any such step will be hard to manage. But if the union cannot embrace differentiation, it
faces the risk of disintegration instead.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
This article was published in The Economist on March 25th, 2017.

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title, subtitle of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you think the article is about?
2. What do you think the Europe needs to be saved from? Why?
3. Write down three questions to which you expect to find the answers in the article.

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. How has the EU exceeded its founders’ expectation?
2. What are the threats the EU is facing?
3. Why would a closer union not possible for Europe?
4. What is the concept of a “multi-speed” that European leaders seemed to be interested
in?
5. What is a “multi-tier” Europe and what are considered in each tier?
6. What is the difference between “multi-speed” and “multi-tier” Europe?
7. What recommendations does the writer suggest for a “multi-tier” Europe to work?

E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.
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1. underpinning (P. 1)
2. its fold ex-dictatorships to the south and ex-communist countries to the east (P. 1)
3. a plunge in (P. 2)
4. polulist, anti-European parties (P. 2)
5. backlash (P. 2)
6. a huge blow to the club’s influence and credibility (P. 2)
7. has abated (P. 3)
8. dodgy deal (P. 3)
9. falter (P. 3)
10. a bold leap (P. 4)
11. muddle through (P. 5)
12. a menu that is à la carte, not prix fixe (P. 9)
13. is frowned upon

F. Translation:
Translate the first three paragraphs into Vietnamese, from “On March 25th 1957…” to
“…to fix itself.”

G. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 – 200 words.

H. Extended questions for discussion:

1. Do you think the Europe Union can be saved?
2. How might the disintegration of the EU affect other regions and organizations,
especially developing ones like South East Asia and ASEAN?

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The Road To Brexit

Britain’s prime minister must resist her party’s dangerous instincts.

(photo source: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2016/10/08/the-road-to-brexit)

1. THE destination was decided in June, by simple majority: Britain is leaving the
European Union. The journey, however, will be complex and perilous, beset by wrong
turnings, chicanes and elephant traps.
2. With 64m Britons in the back seat, perhaps that is why Theresa May has avoided
talking about the road ahead. But at the Conservative Party conference this week the new
prime minister could delay no longer. In a speech that thrilled party activists, she declared
that she will invoke Article 50 of the EU treaty by the end of March, triggering a two-year
countdown that should see Britain leave the union in early 2019. She also hinted that she
would be prepared to steer Britain towards a harder sort of Brexit, involving a wide
separation of labour, product and financial markets.
3. Mrs May is at risk of putting her party before her country—with grave
consequences. Brexit will determine Britain’s fortunes in the decades to come. If it is to
be done at all, it must be done right.
Hard, soft or half-baked?
4. Mrs May faces an inevitable tension. Domestically, if she is not to be overwhelmed
by the politics of Europe, as so many Tory prime ministers have been before her, she
needs to convince those who voted to leave that their victory will be honoured. That is

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why her speech conveyed urgency and, when it came to immigration, sovereignty and the
jurisdiction of the European court in Luxembourg, she took a hard line.
5. In Europe, however, this domestic rhetoric will impede Mrs May’s task of
negotiating the best possible form of Brexit. To maximise her bargaining power, Mrs May
needs time. To get the best deal, she needs to be flexible on immigration.
6. The centrepiece of the deal ought to be to secure maximum access to Europe’s
single market. Brexiteers say that, once outside, Britain would eventually negotiate low or
no tariffs on its trade with the EU. Yet, even if it did, tariffs are less than half the problem.
Without harmonised regulations, British firms will discover that their products do not
meet European requirements, and vice versa. And it is unlikely that a trade deal between
Britain and the EU would cover services, including the financial sort that are among
Britain’s biggest exports. A study by the Treasury before the referendum estimated that
the hit to GDP within two years of Brexit would be nearly twice as large if Britain left the
single market than if it remained a member.
7. Mrs May seems to want to carve out a special deal with the EU, in which Britain
limits immigration and determines product standards—on, say, food-labelling—while still
operating fully in the single market. Perhaps the negotiations will show that this is
possible. However, the signs are that she is overestimating the EU’s willingness to give
ground. Each country has a veto over Britain’s status. On almost every issue, from
immigration to financial services, at least one of them will be reluctant to surrender its
advantages.
8. If that means Mrs May must give ground on immigration, remember that such
“concessions” actually benefit Britain. The supply of workers and students from the EU
has helped Britain grow faster than any other member state in recent years. To avoid
suffocating industry, ministers have already indicated that they may let in financial-
services employees, as well as seasonal agricultural workers. There are sure to be more
exceptions as bottlenecks emerge.
9. The second ingredient of a good Brexit is a sensible transition to the new regime—
especially if Britain is about to walk away from the single market. The bureaucracy and
cost of a sudden imposition of tariffs and non-tariff barriers would lead to a brutal
dislocation. Separation from the EU will involve divvying up EU-owned assets, pensions
and much else. Everything from fishing rights to aircraft-landing slots are agreed on at an
EU level; these rules must be redrafted and re-regulated.

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10. Amid the world’s most complex divorce, Britain’s diplomats also have another vital
task. Through its membership of the EU, Britain is a member of the World Trade
Organisation (WTO) and party to free-trade deals with 53 other countries. When it leaves,
it will lose all that. So Britain must urgently prepare to rejoin the WTO as an individual
country—which, again, requires the consent of every other member.
11. Mrs May seemed to acknowledge the benefits of a smooth transition this week. Her
proposed “Great Repeal Bill”, which will get rid of all existing EU law from the statute
book, will in fact merely translate it into British law, to be chipped away later at leisure if
desired. She should likewise negotiate an interim trade deal—through temporary
membership of the European Economic Area, say, of which Norway is part. This would
mean paying into the EU budget and accepting free movement but, in return, Britain
could take as long as it needs to line up WTO accession and trade agreements with the EU
and other countries, while still under the shelter of the single market.
12. Ardent Brexiteers worry that, ensconced in such a halfway house, Britain would stay
put for ever. That is indeed a possibility, and there is no reason it should not be: with half
the population having voted to Remain and many of those who voted to Leave reluctant to
quit the single market, a majority might favour such a “soft” Brexit.
Open all hours
13. The final ingredient of the approach Mrs May put forward was her broad agenda to
open Britain to the world beyond the EU—which she calls “Global Britain”. In theory this
should entail a willingness to welcome international capital and labour, which would
benefit the country whatever its relations with the EU. Sadly, the reality looks less rosy.
The home secretary, Amber Rudd, this week complained that some companies were
employing too many foreigners and talked about “flushing out” the worst offenders.
Likewise, Mrs May’s conference rhetoric was strikingly interventionist, putting the state
at the heart of the economy. A flirtation with industrial policy sounds worryingly as if it is
designed to keep foreigners out.
14. A Brexit of some sort looms and Mrs May will determine its course. If Britain is not
to suffer a car crash, she must ignore the back-seat drivers and fix her eyes firmly on the
road ahead.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
This article was published in The Economist on October 8th, 2016.

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title, subtitle of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you think the article is about?
2. What do you know about the Brexit?
3. Write down three questions to which you expect to find the answers in the article.

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. Why did Mrs May announce in the Conservative Party conference that week?
2. How and why does the author compare Brexit with a journey?
3. What are the challenges Mrs May might have to face with in her home country and
within the EU?
4. What are the core factors ensuring a “good” Brexit?
5. What might be the obstacles for Britain to obtain those factors?
6. What are the other negotiations that Britain will have to carry out in parallel with
Brexit?
8. How do you understand the subtitle of the article?
9. How do you understand the last sentence of the article?

E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.

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1. Britons in the back seat (P. 2)

2. invoke (P. 2)
3.at risk of putting her party before her country (P. 3)
4. Tory prime ministers (P. 4)
5. to give ground (P. 8)
6. suffocating industry (P. 8)
7. bottlenecks emerge (P. 8)
8. divvying up (P. 9)
9. the statute book (P. 11)
10. to be chipped away (P. 11)
11. an interim trade deal (P. 11)
12. ensconced in such a halfway house (P. 12)
13. stay put for ever (P. 12)
14. “flushing out” the worst offenders (P. 13)

F. Translation:
Translate paragraphs 4 to 6 into Vietnamese, from “Mrs May faces…” to “… if it
remained a member.”
G. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 – 200 words.

I. Extended questions for discussion:

1. What is the current status of Brexit?
2. Has Britain been affected by the Brexit or not? How?
3. Many people think that Brexit is the example of the opposite phenomenon to
globalization/global integration which is on trend now because of the latter’s drawbacks.
What do you think?

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Unit 14 TRADE/ECONOMIC AGREEMENTS AND ORGANISATIONS

Life After Doha
Even a small global trade deal is welcome. But a fresh approach is now needed.
1. MANY times over the past 12 years the efforts to reach an agreement in the “Doha
round” of world-trade negotiations have seemed doomed. Yet reports of the death of
Doha have proved to be greatly exaggerated. In Bali on December 7th a deal was done.
2. True, it is a modest one, covering mostly “trade facilitation” (simplifying customs
procedures) and not the broad liberalisation that was the aim of Doha. But it is the first
global deal since the World Trade Organisation (WTO) came into existence in 1995. It
includes some useful stuff: by one estimate, cutting customs red tape could raise annual
global output by $400 billion, with much of the gain flowing to developing economies.
3. And it is a personal triumph for Roberto Azevêdo, the Brazilian who became the
WTO’s director-general in September and who always insisted a deal was possible. Now
Mr Azevêdo needs to make the most of his momentum.
4. The main lesson is not to repeat the sorry history of the Doha round. It has taken
years of effort and several near-death experiences to produce this small success. The
problem has been the WTO’s all-or-nothing approach of seeking a jumbo accord which
has to be approved by all 159 members. In theory this is the way to ensure that trade
liberalisation is truly global. In practice, with each country able to wield a veto, it is a
recipe for deadlock—and for handing power to obstructionists.
5. Last week’s deal was achieved only after the WTO lowered its sights and settled on
a lowest-common-denominator part of the Doha agenda, leaving out more difficult topics
such as farm trade and intellectual property. And even then an agreement was reached
only when other parties caved in to demands from India, whose politicians stubbornly
insisted on getting an indefinite exemption from WTO rules for its farm subsidies.
Beyond Bali
6. The action in the trade-liberalisation world these days is not inside the WTO but
with regional agreements. The recent agreement in principle between the European Union
and Canada is a pioneering example. Other big pacts under negotiation are the Trans-
Pacific Partnership (involving a dozen countries including America and Japan, now sadly
set to miss their end-2013 deadline) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment

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Partnership between America and the EU. Even the long-moribund talks between the EU
and Mercosur are showing signs of life.
7. Regional deals are better than no progress at all, but they are not ideal. Rather than
leading to more trade overall, they can divert it from countries outside the pact to those
within it. And as they proliferate, they risk creating a Balkanised world of large trade
blocks that trade more and more internally and less and less with the outside world.
8. The WTO should work against Balkanisation not by opposing regional pacts, but by
trying to draw them into the global system. After the bruising experience of recent years
the chances of broking another big global deal look vanishingly small. A more promising
route is what is known in the hideous jargon of the trade world as plurilateral
agreements—deals whereby groups of countries get together to agree to liberalise their
rules on one sort of good or service, with others free to join as and when it suits them.
They are far simpler to negotiate than multilateral agreements. They set the right
incentives for laggards: get on board or get left behind. And, as others sign up, they can
turn into global ones.
9. Such coalitions of the willing look particularly promising for trade in services and in
information technology. Other areas that could benefit from this strategy include
investment rules (to chip away at subsidies) and trade in environmental goods and
services (covering everything from septic tanks and air filters to green consulting). China
seems to see this as a promising way forward, despite resistance from its protected state-
owned enterprises.
10. Ideally every regional deal should also be open to others. So Ghana, say, could sign
up to the EU-Canada deal, providing it met the conditions, or, more controversially,
China could join TPP. That will irk those who are building regional trade pacts as
political fortresses. But that is the point. Now is not the time to give up on the principle
that free commerce is a good thing in itself. Grand deals may be beyond the WTO’s reach
for the moment, but small successes may grow into bigger ones.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
This article was published in The Economist on December 14th, 2013.

B. Pre- reading exercises:

Read the title, subtitle of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you know about the WTO?
2. What do you know about the Doha round of world-trade negotiations?
3. Write down three questions to which you expect to find the answers in the article.

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. What is the main content of the newly achieved deal by the WTO and its economic
significance?
2. What is believed to have hampered the finalisation of any Doha agreement so far?
3. How has the Bali deal overcome such obstacles?
4. What did India require? How did the WTO members respond to India’s demands this
time?
5. According to the author, what might be the drawbacks of regional trade deals? What
should the WTO do to avoid those effects?
6. How can plurilateral agreements contribute to multilateral trade accords?
7. What does the author mean by saying “That will irk those who are building regional
trade pacts as political fortresses”?

E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meanings of the following words and expressions, as used in the passage.
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1. customs red-tape (P. 2)

2. make the most of his momentum (P. 3)
3. handing power to obstructionists (P. 4)
4. a lowest-common-denominator part (P. 5)
5. caved in to demands from India (P. 5)
6. the long-moribund talks between the EU and Mercosur are showing signs of life (P. 6)
7. hideous jargon (P. 8)
8. chip away at subsidies (P. 9)

F. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 -200 words.

G. Translation:
Translate the last three paragraphs into Vietnamese, from “The WTO should …” to “...
into bigger ones.”

H. Extended questions for discussion:

1. Do you agree/disagree with the author when he says: “Grand deals may be beyond the
WTO’s reach for the moment, but small successes may grow into bigger ones”.
2. Do you agree/disagree with the author that “deals whereby groups of countries get
together to agree to liberalise their rules on one sort of good or service,….(are) far simpler
to negotiate than multilateral agreements”? Why/why not?
3. Supporters of Vietnam’s access to WTO say “no pains, no gains”. Opponents say “the
pains may outweigh the gains.” Explain what you think about these “pains” and “gains”?
What have been the ‘pains” and “gains’ since Viet Nam's participation in the WTO on
11th January, 2007.

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The Collapse Of TPP- Trading Down

A big free-trade deal’s demise leaves a worrying void in Asia

(photo source: https://www.economist.com/asia/2016/11/19/trading-down)

1. Depending on who is talking, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is either the
world’s most ambitious trade deal or the most dangerous. But these days a simpler
description suffices: it is dead. With Donald Trump’s victory, America has abandoned
TPP, in effect killing the trade pact that was a decade in the works and nearly complete.
Amid all the unknowns about what Mr Trump’s presidency might mean, this is one of the
few certainties.
2. The consequences are far-reaching. TPP’s collapse removes the main economic
plank of Barack Obama’smuch-hyped, largely abortive “pivot” to Asia. It leaves a gaping
hole in the architecture of Asian commerce. And it adds to the strong headwinds that are
buffeting global trade.
3. The chances that America would ratify TPP had already been dwindling because
of growing opposition. If Hillary Clinton had won the election, Mr Obama might have
made a last-ditch push during the lame-duck session of the outgoing Congress,which

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started this week. With the triumph of Mr Trump, who has called TPP a “terrible deal”,
even that faint hope has vanished.
4. On the basis of size alone, TPP would have been important, the largest regional
trade deal in history. It encompassed 12 Pacific countries, including America, Japan and
Canada (see chart). Together, they account for two-fifths of the world economy. But what
made it all the more significant was its strategic intent. Notably absent from the
membership was China. Economically, this made little sense. Studies indicated that
including China, the world’s biggest exporter, would have substantially expanded the
benefits of TPP. But America wanted to show that it could set Asia’s economic agenda.
China might eventually have been invited to join TPP, but only after America had written
“the rules of the road”, as its negotiators liked to say.
5. Rather than a conventional focus on cutting tariffs, TPP emphasised stronger
safeguards for intellectual property, the environment and labour rights (detractors felt it
went too far on the first and not far enough on the other two). Matthew Goodman of the
Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a think-tank, considers its collapse a “body
blow” to American economic policy in Asia.
6. It is also a blow to the global economy. Over the years rich countries have cut
tariffs to the point where the main obstacles to commerce now lie in regulations that
discriminate against foreign companies. TPP took aim at barriers hidden in government-
procurement guidelines and investment restrictions. It would have raised the bar for future
trade deals, says Jayant Menon of the Asian Development Bank: “That’s where the
biggest loss lies.”
7. Global trade is on track to expand more slowly than world GDP this year for the
first time in 15 years, according to the World Trade Organisation. In Asia exports are set
to grow just 0.3% this year in volume terms, well below the 8% average of the past 20
years. For poorer countries, exports have long been the most reliable way to kick-start
development. That route now looks less accessible. If Mr Trump keeps his threat to slap
fearsome tariffs on Chinese goods, the fallout could easily tip global trade into outright
contraction.
8. There are a few candidates to fill the void left by TPP. One possibility is that the
11 remaining governments forge on, minus America. Having agreed to the deal in
February, they were on the cusp of ratifying it (Japan did so this month). But the
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withdrawal of America is likely to prove fatal. When countries made difficult

concessions—for instance, Japan’s opening to more foreign rice and beef—it was with a
view to expanding their access to America’s vaunted consumer market. Take that out and
the incentive to give ground in other areas quickly dissipates.
9. The focus is shifting to whether China might step in with an alternative trade
deal. Chinese officials have vowed to push for an even larger regional pact called the Free
Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), tying together 21 countries including America.
It will, however, go nowhere. Opposition in America to an American-led deal was already
fierce enough; it would be even fiercer to a China-led one.
10. Optimists can at least point to one trade pact that is close to completion. The
Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) includes China, India, Japan and
South-East Asian countries. It covers nearly a third of the world economy and a much
bigger share of its population than TPP. But RCEP is far less ambitious, focusing on the
basic business of cutting tariffs, rather than more complex regulations. Tariffs are still
high in Asia, so lowering them would help. But He Ping of Fudan University in Shanghai,
who has monitored the talks, expects few breakthroughs. India, a perennial sceptic on free
trade, has been dragging its feet and others are wary of China’s export juggernaut. A
weak RCEP will do little for Asia, even if China relishes the opportunity to show that,
unlike America, it can bring deals to fruition.
11. For Asia’s reformers, there is thus no getting around the disappointment of
TPP’s demise. Vu Thanh Tu Anh, a Vietnamese economist, says that Vietnam had hoped
to use the deal to pressure sluggish state-owned companies to shape up. Shinzo Abe,
Japan’s prime minister, viewed it as part of his programme of structural reforms, since it
would have exposed coddled Japanese industries such as health care and agriculture to
more competition. Even in China, liberal officials thought TPP might prompt the
government to loosen its grip on markets in order to join one day.
12. Big regional trade deals are, mercifully, not the only show in town. There has
been a bewildering array of smaller, often bilateral, pacts in recent years. Asia now has
147 free-trade agreements in force, up from 82 a decade ago. A further 68 are under
negotiation. From the perspective of trade theory, these are suboptimal: a jumbled,
overlapping mess. In practice, they may well be Asia’s best hope for getting more goods
and services to flow across borders.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
This article appeared in the Asia section of The Economist on November 19th, 2016.

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title, subtitle of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you think the article is about?
2. What have you known about the TPP?
3. Write down three questions to which you expect to find the answers in the article.

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. What does the author mean when saying TPP is dead?
2. What are reasons for deeming the TPP as the most ambitious trade deal?
3. What are main differences of TPP in comparison with other previous trade deals?
4. How would the collapse of the TPP negatively affect both the US and the global
economy?
5. What may happen if the remaining 11 countries decide to forge on without the US?
6. According to the article, how are the FTAAP and the RCEP compared to the TPP? And
what might be their prospects?
7. In addition to regional trade deals, what might the Asian trade rely on? How does the
author assess it/them?

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E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.
1. Trading down (title)
2. far-reaching (P. 2)
3. Barack Obama’s much-hyped, largely abortive “pivot” to Asia (P. 2)
4. adds to the strong headwinds that are buffeting global trade (P. 2)
5. dwindling (P. 3)
6. Mr Obama might have made a last-ditch push during the lame-duck session of the
outgoing Congress (P. 3)
7. it could set Asia’s economic agenda (P. 4)
8. “the rules of the road” (P. 4)
9. detractors (P. 5)
10. “a body blow” (P. 5)
11. to slap fearsome tariffs on Chinese goods (P. 7)
12. the fallout could easily tip global trade into outright contraction (P. 7)
13. the incentive to give ground in other areas quickly dissipates (P. 8)
14. India, a perennial sceptic on free trade, has been dragging its feet (P. 10)
15. to pressure sluggish state-owned companies to shape up (P. 11)
16. prompt the government to loosen its grip on markets (P. 11)

F. Translation:
Translate the first three paragraphs into Vietnamese, from “Depending on who is
talking…” to “...faint hope has vanished.”

G. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 – 200 words.

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H. Extended questions for discussion:

1. How is TPP now? What have its members done towards it?
2. Summarize the process of Vietnam entering the TPP?
3. What might be the advantages and disadvantages for Vietnam as a TPP member?

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Unit 15 THE UNITED NATIONS

The UN in Conflict Zones - Peacekeepers in Name Only
The persecution of the Rohingya is the latest atrocity the UN has failed to stop.

(photo source: https://www.economist.com/international/2017/10/28/peacekeepers-in-

name-only)
1. Since the end of August, more than half of the 1m Rohingyas in the state of Rakhine
in Myanmar have fled across the border to Bangladesh. The flight of the Muslim minority
group is the quickest mass departure of people from any country since the genocide in
Rwanda in 1994. Rohingyas are still pouring into makeshift camps, bringing with them
stories of how villages were incinerated, children shot dead, women raped and babies
tossed into canals. If the exodus continues few of them will be left in Myanmar.
2. The Tatmadaw, Myanmar’s army, is chiefly responsible for the ethnic cleansing. It
is aided and abetted by local Rakhine politicians, while the government of Aung San Suu
Kyi has done little to stop the violence. But the UN is at fault, too. Despite having 19
agencies in Myanmar, and several offices and plenty of staff in Rakhine state, it has failed
to stop the catastrophe or warn of its coming.
3. Inside the UN, some officials argue that those in charge of the mission downplayed
the treatment of Rohingyas to win the co-operation of Myanmar’s authorities in order to
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build schools, sanitise dirty water and develop a civil service—“capacity-building” in

UN-speak. The special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, Tomas Quintana, says
he was discouraged from visiting Rakhine state by the head of the mission, Renata Lok-
Dessallien. The Canadian denies this, but has been recalled to the UN headquarters in
New York.
4. A UN mission, whether a multi-agency presence as in Myanmar or one of its 15
peacekeeping operations, can be a thankless task. Those in charge are constrained by local
and international politics. Yet they could do much better. Myanmar is far from the first
example of a dysfunctional mission. The UN hasrepeatedly dawdled in response to
atrocities. António Guterres, secretary-general since January 2016, wants to reform how
operations are run. The plight of the Rohingya shows how much work he has to do.
Cosying up to the bad guys
5. The failings in Myanmar are reminiscent of those of the UN’s mission in Sri Lanka
at the end of the civil war in 2009 between the government and the Tamil Tigers, a
guerrilla group. An internal review led by Charles Petrie, a former UN official, concluded
there had been “systemic failure”. Mr Petrie accused the members of the Sri Lankan
mission of appeasing the government in Colombo, so that they could promote their
development work and receive international aid. Standing up for human rights was often
deemed too difficult.
6. In Myanmar, instead of confronting the government on behalf of the Rohingya, the
UN championed a policy of development for all in Rakhine state. That ignored how the
delivery of services would inevitably be channelled through, and controlled by, those in
power, namely Buddhist Rakhine politicians, the enemies of Rohingyas. A report
commissioned by the mission in Myanmar in 2015 pointed out that such an approach
would be “more likely to reinforce discrimination than change it”.
7. The Petrie report chronicled how the Sri Lankan mission recorded all the civilian
deaths attributed to the Tamil Tigers, but understated the numbers of civilians killed or
wounded by the army—again, to keep the government sweet. This pattern was also
apparent in Rwanda in 1994 and in the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur
(UNAMID), one of the UN’s largest-ever peacekeeping operations, established in 2007.
In 2013 Aicha Elbasri, the spokeswoman for the mission, resigned, handing in a list of 16
cases where UNAMID had “concealed” assaults on civilians and even UN peacekeepers.

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8. Ban Ki-moon, Mr Guterres’s predecessor, commissioned another UN review, which

upheld five of the complaints. Ms ElBasri, Moroccan by birth, argues that the deceptions
were carried out to avoid offending the Sudanese government of Omar al-Bashir, adding
that Africans in the mission were keen to defend one of their own. Mr Ban said that the
“tendency to underreport” had left him “deeply troubled”. But no one was held
accountable, and nobody had to resign. The whistleblower, however, forfeited her job.
9. Missions need the consent of the host governments to operate; the UN cannot
invade. But too often agencies and blue helmets (as in the headgear worn by
peacekeepers) are lackeys of autocrats, forming “abusive” relationships with those in
power, according to Richard Gowan of Columbia University. This undermines the UN’s
claim to moral authority.
10. The operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a case in point. The
UN has deployed peacekeepers there since 1999, and MONUSCO, the French acronym
by which the mission is known, now has about 16,000 troops, and costs more than $1bn a
year.
11. Since 2016, the UN has failed to prevent violence that has forced over 1m people to
flee their homes. Troops get away with defining their operating boundaries
conservatively. Perversely, they are rewarded for not using their kit, as they are
reimbursed for equipment returned in good condition. Meanwhile MONUSCO cannot
easily get rid of underperforming civilian staff, partly because of pressure from trade
unions but also because of the complex way in which UN headquarters imposes its choice
of recruits on the mission.
Standing idle
12. Another $1bn-per-year mission, UNMISS, has done almost nothing to prevent the
descent into civil war and famine since South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in
2011. The 12,500 peacekeepers have a mandate to protect civilians, but have failed to do
so. In August 2016 aid workers were raped, beaten and robbed by South Sudanese
government troops just minutes away from the main UN compound in Juba, the capital.
Despite desperate phone and text messages from the victims, the 2,000 or so troops never
stirred. “[The blue helmets] are supposed to protect civilians,” admits a UN official in
South Sudan. “But they don’t. Something is upside down. It’s not working.”

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13. One reason for the failure is that the mission asks permission from the government
before it sends out troops, fearing that otherwise politicians will obstruct the delivery of
food and medicine to the starving and the sick even more than they already do. But since
it is often the government carrying out the massacres, permission is often refused or
delayed.
Fired up, not ready to go
14. The UN argues that, despite the manifest failings of these missions, it is better to
have them than not. The mere presence of its troops can sometimes deter attacks, and
even if blue helmets are reluctant to go out and help civilians, at least the civilians can
huddle in and around its bases for protection, as in South Sudan.
15. The UN has no mandate to impose its will independently on a country. All
peacekeeping missions are authorised by the Security Council, and subject to approval by
the General Assembly, giving China and Russia ample room to minimise the scope of
missions in the interests of their clients and allies.
16. Such was the case in Sudan. China has considerable economic interests here, and it
struggled for years to prevent any outside intervention in Darfur. Eventually, in 2007, it
did concede to sending in UNAMID, but only after ensuring that the mission could cause
Mr Bashir as little inconvenience as possible. The offer of Western troops was kept to an
absolute minimum, denying UNAMID the sort of kit and operational efficiency that
might have made a difference.
17. Another reason why, when the call goes out from New York, peacekeeping
generally attracts troops from poor countries, is because the pay is relatively high. But
they are typically risk averse. Some forces commit crimes. Another whistleblower,
Anders Kompass, exposed allegations of sexual abuse of young children by troops in the
Central African Republic in 2015.
18. Rather than take on the difficult task of improving peacekeeping operations, Mr Ban
tried to encourage reporting of abuses of human rights. That way, the theory went,
countries could avoid the crimes which would lead to the intervention of troops in the first
place. His main initiative, “Human Rights Up Front”, required all staff to take
responsibility for reporting abuses. But in Myanmar this policy has failed at first contact
with the enemy.

Remaking the peace

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19. Mr Guterres has a chance to do much better. For example, he could increase the
annual budget for the human-rights office ($190m), which is dwarfed by the $12bn that
the UN spent on development. He could have heads of mission report to him, not to
UNDP, so as to reduce the risk that human-rights abuses are ignored by officials who rely
on local politicians’ support for their pet projects.
20. Mr Guterres has said he wants the UN to do more before the blue helmets have to
wade in. In recent years it has tried to mediate between factions in several countries.
Sometimes it has staved off all-out war, thus avoiding the need for peacekeepers. Kofi
Annan, a former secretary-general, rescued Kenya from a descent into further violence
after disputed elections in 2007, for example; a team helped to stabilise Guinea after a
coup in the west African state in 2008; and the UN also brokered a deal in Madagascar in
2011.
21. Building on these successes, Mr Guterres has called for a “surge in diplomacy for
peace”, and has set up a “High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation”, which includes
such luminaries as Michelle Bachelet, the president of Chile, and Justin Welby, the
Archbishop of Canterbury.
22. Jaw-jaw is, of course, better than war-war. But as the failure in Myanmar shows, the
UN still has a lot to learn about keeping the peace.
Clarification (October 30th 2017): The original version of this article said that $12bn
was spent on the UN Development Programme. In fact, that was the sum spent on all
development by the UN.

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Guide to Study
A. Notes:
This article was published in The Economist on October 28th, 2017.

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title, subtitle of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. What do you think the article is about?
2. What do you know about the UN peacekeeping forces?
3. What do you know about the Rohingya people and their situation?
4. Write down three questions to which you expect to find the answers in the article.

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. Why have the Rohingyas in Myanmar suffered from?
2. According to the author, who should be blamed for the catastrophe happened to the
Rohingyas?
3. What are the self-protective arguments of the UN officials?
4. What does the author say about other UN failures in similar cases?
5. What are reasons for those dysfunctional missions of UN?
6. What has UN General Secretary António Guterres done and would do to fix the problem?

E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.
1. are still pouring into makeshift camp (P. 1)

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2. ethnic cleansing (P. 2)

3. downplayed the treatment of Rohingyas (P. 3)
4. a thankless task (P. 4)
5. a dysfunctional mission (P. 4)
6. The UN has repeatedly dawled in response to atrocities (P. 4)
7. cosying up to the bad guys (P. 5)
8. to keep the government sweet (P. 7)
9. the whistleblower forfeited her job (P. 8)
10. lackeys of autocrats (P. 9)
11. reimbursed (P. 11)
12. their pet projects (P. 19)
13. staved off all-out war (P. 20)
14. jaw-jaw (P. 22)

F. Translation:
Translate the first three paragraphs into Vietnamese, from “Since the end of August…”
to “…in New York.”

G. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 – 200 words.

I. Extended questions for discussion:

1. What do you think about the functions and efficiency of UN peace-keeping forces?
2. What do you know about Vietnam’s contribution to that force?
3. In your opinion, what should be done to improve the situation?

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The UN Human Rights Council Will Be Weaker If America Leaves

Despite its flaws, the organisation helps make the world a better place

(photo source: https://www.economist.com/international/2017/06/03/the-un-human-

rights-council-will-be-weaker-if-america-leaves)
1. To many, the UN’s Human Rights Council is a den of hypocrites, where brutal
regimes wax self-righteous about Israel in particular and the West in general. And indeed,
it has wasted a vast share of its time castigating Israel while failing to bring vile
malefactors elsewhere to book. At its next session, starting this month, Donald Trump’s
ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley (pictured), is expected to say whether America will
stay or, as it did under George W. Bush in 2006, leave in a huff. She is likely, at the least,
to put the council “on notice”.
2. Yet virtually everyone who cares about human rights hopes America will stay.
Though selectively and patchily, the council has promoted justice around the world.
When America has backed it or argued from within, it has been more effective. Even
Israel’s government says America, for the time being at least, should stay in.
3. In 2006 the council replaced the UN Commission on Human Rights, which had been
irredeemably discredited, not least by being chaired just a few years earlier by Libya, then
ruled by the despotic Muammar Qaddafi. The new body was smaller, and its 47 members
would be elected (in five geographical clusters) by the UN General Assembly, which

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could, by a two-thirds majority, chuck out any member judged to have committed “gross
and systematic violations of human rights”.
4. This has happened too rarely. Of the current members, some have dire records:
Burundi, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, for instance. Regional blocs have often
been biased, shielding their members from criticism. “It is an assembly of states, not a
beauty parade of saints,” says a human-rights campaigner.
5. Israel still receives outsized criticism, not least because a standing agenda topic
(“Item 7”) on the Palestinian Territories must be raised at every session. According to UN
Watch, a Geneva-based pro-Israeli monitor, in the council’s first decade 68 resolutions
were passed against Israel and 67 against everywhere else. By contrast, says UN Watch,
Syria has been condemned 20 times, North Korea nine times, Iran six and Sudan three.
(The UN classifies its resolutions slightly differently, and says UN Watch exaggerates.)
Though the new body provides for “special sessions” to discuss gross human-rights
violations, governments committing atrocities in places such as Chechnya and Zimbabwe
have never been condemned outright.
6. The most effective diplomats in Geneva are probably Cuba’s, says Andrew Clapham
of Geneva’s Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. “They are
skilful, well-trained and have a lot at stake”—not least in shielding fellow anti-democratic
regimes from condemnation. A so-called Like-Minded Group within the council, whose
sturdiest component is African, tends on principle to oppose “country-specific
resolutions”, meaning direct criticisms of abusive governments.
7. Moreover, the council has continued to make partisan appointments. From 2008 to
2014 Richard Falk, an outspoken anti-Zionist, was the special rapporteur for Palestine.
Jean Ziegler, a Swiss revolutionary apologist for Fidel Castro and Qaddafi, is an adviser
to the council. In 2015 Saudi Arabia was chosen to represent its regional bloc on a
consultative committee that helps choose the special rapporteurs and experts for particular
countries or themes.
Let’s go bloc-busting
8. Yet the council is a lot better than the commission was, and is still improving. The
most important difference is the system of “universal periodic reviews” that all members
of the UN are subjected to, at a rate of about 40 a year. The number of special rapporteurs,
most of them truly independent, has risen, too. Since 2011 there have been investigations
into human-rights abuses in Burundi, the Central African Republic, Eritrea, Iraq, Ivory
Coast, Libya and North Korea, as well as Gaza. The council has steadfastly monitored the

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horrors in Syria and played a helpful role in Myanmar, Colombia and (after a poor start)
Sri Lanka.
9. The disproportionate focus on Israel is lessening. From 2010 to 2016 only one
special session was held on Israel/Palestine, down from six in the previous four years,
says the council’s spokesman. The share of time spent on Item 7 has halved, to 8%.
10. The quality of members may improve, too, as regional groups are a bit less willing
to shield their own. Last year Russia lost its seat, receiving 32 votes fewer than Hungary,
and two fewer than Croatia. In the past few years Belarus, Iran, Sri Lanka, Sudan and
Syria have failed to be elected or have withdrawn their candidacies. None of the nine
worst human-rights offenders, as ranked by Freedom House, a Washington-based NGO,
(Syria, Eritrea, North Korea, Uzbekistan, South Sudan, Turkmenistan, Somalia, Sudan
and Equatorial Guinea) has ever been elected to the council. In a telling moment in 2014,
a forcefully critical resolution on Sri Lanka was passed.
11. Things started to change in 2010, says Marc Limon, a British former official in the
council, who now heads the Universal Rights Group, a Geneva-based think-tank, when a
clutch of independent-minded countries, including Mauritius, Mexico and Morocco,
began to vote more freely, often for American-backed resolutions. Before then, members
of the 57-strong Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC) and the African Group
(whose members often overlapped and later reconfigured as the Like-Minded Group)
“virtually controlled the council”, he says. Anti-Westerners have recently been defeated
or forced to compromise on several issues. A resolution to exempt blasphemy from free-
speech protections was fended off against the wishes of the Like-Minded. The same group
failed to block a resolution to appoint an independent expert to investigate discrimination
against gay and transgender people.
12. American diplomacy under Barack Obama was a big reason for the shift. “It’s a fact
that the US takes the lead in protecting people around the world,” says Navi Pillay, a
former high commissioner for human rights, citing America’s key role in persuading the
council to take on Sri Lanka in 2014. As for Israel, says a Western ambassador, “It would
have been much worse for it if the US hadn’t been there.”
13. Ms Haley is likely to make two demands. The first, to drop the permanent anti-Israel
item from the agenda, will probably be refused. The second, that members should be
elected competitively rather than by regional blocs voting for “clean slates” (pre-cooked
lists), is more feasible but still unlikely. What is more certain is that if America walks out,
the cause of human rights would be weakened—along with American influence.

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GUIDE TO STUDY
A. Notes:
The article was appeared in the International section of The Economist on Jun 3rd, 2017
under the headline "America, you’re still needed."

B. Pre-reading exercises:
Read the title, subtitle of the article carefully and try to answer the questions below.
1. How do you understand the title of the article? Do you agree with that?
2. What do you know about the UN’s Human Rights Council as well as other
international human rights campaigns and organizations?
3. Write down three questions to which you expect to find the answers in the article.

C. Reading for the gist:

Read the article and then write down what it is about in one complete sentence.

D. Comprehension questions:
Answer the following questions in your own words.
1. What are the problems of the UN’s Human Rights Council being mentioned in the
article?
2. What are the differences between the UN’s Human Right Council and its predecessor,
the UN Commission on Human Rights? How improved has the UN’s Human Rights
Council got in comparison with the previous one?
3. What might be one of the main reasons for such improvement?
4. How important is America participation to the Council? to human rights around the
world? and to America itself?

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5. What might be the requests made by Nikki Haley, US President’s ambassador to the
UN, for America to stay? How feasible are those requests?

E. Words and expressions:

Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, as used in the article.
1. a den of hypocrites (P. 1)
2. brutal regimes wax self-righteous about Israel in particular and the West in general
3. leave in a huff (P. 1)
4. irredeemably discredited (P. 3)
5. chuck out (P. 3)
6. shielding their members from criticism (P. 4)
7. have a lot at stake (P. 6)
8. a so-called Like-Minded Group (P. 6)
9. to make partisan appointment (P. 7)
10. rapporteur (P. 7)
11. bloc-busting (P. 8)
12. A resolution to exempt blasphemy from free-speech protections was fended off (P. 11)
13. “clean slates” (P. 13)

F. Translation:
Translate the last three paragraphs into Vietnamese, from “Things started to
change…” to “… along with American influence.”

G. Summary:
Summarize the article in about 150 – 200 words.

H. Extended questions for discussion:

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1. Do you know about the human rights situation of Vietnam?

2. Do you think that the way the UN’s Human Rights Council works is efficient in
improving the global human rights?
3. What recommendations would you make to improve the efficiency of the UN’s Human
Rights Council?

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APPENDIX 1
Language and Structure of Newspaper Headlines

1. Things to remember: A headline writer has to keep two principles in mind. First, he
must attract the attention and interest of the reader. Some newspapers are more
sensational than the others, but even the so-called “serious” newspapers use fairly
dramatic language in their headlines. Secondly, the headline writer is influenced by
the fact that in a very limited space he must give the reader some idea of what the
article is about. The result is a language characterized by:
a) a very condensed structure;
b) words chosen for their brevity and/or their dramatic quality.

2. The structure of headlines:

a) Articles and the verb “to be” are frequently omitted.
e.g. MEN HELD.
b) The verb system is greatly simplified:
- the present simple tense is used to describe something happening in the
present or the past.
e.g. DOLLAR PLUNGES
FAMILY DIES IN BLAZE.
- the present continuous tense is sometimes used, mostly to give the
meaning of something that is developing. The auxiliary is omitted.
e.g. RAIL CHAOS GETTING WORSE.
- the infinitive is used to refer to the future.
e.g. POPE TO VISIT US.
- in passive constructions the auxiliary is omitted and only the past
participle is used.
e.g. HIJACKERS ARRESTED.

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3. A series of nouns used as adjectives are blocked together, often without any verbs
or conjunctions.
e.g. WAGE ACCORD REACHED

Practice:
1. Find out what these headlines mean.
a) BBC Boss Quit in Row.
b) Man Aids Police.
c) Blair Backed as P.M.
d) Petrol Squeeze Ahead.
e) US Ambassador Received.

2. Which of the following headlines is a good one? Explain.

a) Sierra Leone Athletes on the Run.
b) Pregnancies Double among US Virgins.

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APPENDIX 2

Guidance on summary writing

I. Why to Write a Summary?

1. Academic Reasons:

• Research: A summary can be used to take notes from reference books when you
are doing research for term papers.1

• Writing: A summary can be used to include another writer’s ideas in your own
writing without plagiarizing the original writer’s work.
In order to do this, you simply include the summary and then footnote the source in
order to give the original writer credit. This improves your argument by adding the
weight of clear evidence from another source (the original writer). Though
plagiarism is universally condemned in academic writing, summarizing
information and noting the source is not only acceptable, it makes your writing
stronger.

• Listening: Knowing how to write a good summary can be helpful when you are
taking notes on a lecture because it trains you to listen for the most important
information.

2. Business and Government:

• Bosses and supervisors often do not have time to read all of the information they
need. In addition, their second language may be Chinese or Russian rather than
English. Because of this, they often require their staff to summarize (and
sometimes translate) articles for them so that they can get key information quickly.
If your boss asks you to do this, your ability to write a clear, accurate summary
will be a great asset to your career.

II. How to Write a Summary

1
If it is only for your own use, proper formatting and complete sentences are not as important as when you are
writing something that someone else will read.
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1. What is a summary?
A summary is a shortened version of a more detailed body of information. A good
summary clearly and accurately expresses the essence of the original text. While a
summary is expected to include all of the important ideas of the original, it must do this in
fewer words.
2. How is a summary structured?
Most writing has three sections: an opening, a body, and a conclusion. This is also true for
summaries.
Opening: The opening frames your comments and provides a context for them. In a
summary, the opening often states the title and author(s) of the original text, the sections
that will be summarized, and a concise statement of the general topic discussed in the
text.
Body: The body summarizes the main points discussed in the reading and may include
facts or examples taken from the text. This section also reports the original author’s
position or viewpoints. It does not include your opinions or viewpoints.
Conclusion: The concluding sentence should summarize the original author’s conclusion.

3. What should you not do in a summary?

• Do not begin your summary with:

The article I would like to summarize is…
or I have been asked to summarize an article by…
or The text I am going to summarize is…

• While it is acceptable to begin a presentation with an introduction like that, it is not

necessary (or good style) in a written summary. As your readers read your
summary, they should be able to see that information for themselves. 2

• Do not use too many of the original author’s words. If you use part of the original,
be sure to enclose it in quotes. Example: Victor claims that Kyoto’s emission
targets have “forced governments into bizarre diplomatic contortions.”

2
See Section 4. for a sample pattern for an opening sentence.
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• Do not express your point of view. Because your summary is about the content of
the text and not your opinion of it, never use the words “I” or “my” in your
summary.

• Do not discuss the minor points; stay focused on the major points. This means that
you will have to determine what information should be included and what can be
discarded. It can be helpful to make a skeletal outline of the article to determine the
main points. Plan before you write!

• Do not make your summary too long. The reader just wants the important
information, not a summary that is as long as the original text.

4. Topic Sentences:
You can give the all of the basic information, as well as the gist of the article, in one
sentence by using the pattern below.
Pattern:
In <title of the original text>, published in <source> on <date>, <author(s)>
3
writes that <gist of the article>.
Note: The purpose of learning to write a clear, accurate sentence to
summarize the gist of an article is so that you can use it in the topic sentence
of your summary.
Example:
Title: “Piety at Kyoto Didn’t Cool the Planet”4
Source: The New York Times, March 23, 2001.
Author: David Victor
Gist of the article: The Kyoto Protocol set unrealistic emissions targets and the
US should propose a workable alternative.
Topic Sentence: In “Piety at Kyoto Didn’t Cool the Planet,” published in the New York
Times on March 23, 2001, David Victor writes that the Kyoto Protocol set unrealistic
emissions targets and the US should propose a workable alternative.

3
Either “writes” or “wrote” can be used.
4
Article titles should be enclosed in quotes. Book titles should be underlined without quotes
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5. What expressions are often used for summaries?

Choosing the most important ideas and examples from the article:
The author5 says/emphasizes/argues that…
The author examines three approaches to…. The first is…. The second is…. The
third is….
The author’s first main point is… The second point is…
One example the author gives is…
The author’s strongest point is…
Reporting the author’s opinion or point of view:
The author believes/claims/concludes that…
According to the author…
It is clear that the author favors…

6. Checklist:
a. Are the title and author stated clearly at the beginning?
b. Is the topic of the article stated clearly and concisely?
c. Do the facts and examples you used support the main points?
d. Is the writing clear?
e. Is the summary too long?
f. Does the summary include too many examples?
g. Does the summary contain the original author’s ideas?
h. Did you write the summary in your own words?

III. Practical Tips For Writing a Good Summary.

1. What to remember:
5
In each example, the author’s name can be used instead. “Victor says …”
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• While the purpose of the original text may have been to report, persuade, comment
or entertain, the purpose of your summary is functional – to present the gist of the
original text.

• The summary should be brief and its content should only include the main ideas of
the original author and the relevant supporting arguments and evidence.

• As far as possible, you should use your own words. Words and phrases from the
passage should not be copied, except in cases where those words and phrases are
the most appropriate. When quoting the author, use quotation marks.

• Only use complete sentences in your summary, even if the original text uses
literary language.

• A good summary should convey the structure, message and tone of the original.

2. How to find the main ideas and supporting details:

• Read the headline. It will often indicate what the article is about.

• Read the subheading. It will usually give you more information than the headline.

• With an essay, pay close attention to the first and last paragraphs. They will often
contain the main ideas.

• With an editorial, pay close attention to the first 2-3 paragraphs and the last 2-3
paragraphs. In a normal text, the first and last paragraphs often contain key
information. However, when an editorial is formatted for a newspaper, the
paragraphs are often broken up to keep the paragraphs short.

• With a news article, pay close attention to the first paragraph. Newspaper articles
are designed to give the most important information first. You should be able to
answer most of the Wh - questions from the first paragraph.

• Pay close attention to the first sentence of each paragraph. A normal paragraph
should contain one main idea in the topic sentence. The other sentences in the
paragraph expand on that idea or give supporting evidence.

3. Suggested procedure for writing a summary.

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Phase 1: A quick reading of the article to get the gist. Ignore any words you don’t know.
You can look them up in Phase 2.
Phase 2: A careful second reading.

• Look for answers to Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Not all of those
questions can be applied to every text, but it’s a good start.

• Circle or underline words you don’t know. Look up the ones you think are
important for an accurate understanding of the article.

• Read the article a third time and write a summary of the gist of the article in one
clear sentence.

Phase 3:

• Outline the article to discover the main points.

I. Gist.
a. Main Point 1
i. Supporting detail (facts/examples).
b. Main Point 2
i. Supporting detail (facts/examples).
ii. Supporting detail (facts/examples).
II. Author’s conclusion.
• Choose which information needs to go into your summary.
Phase 4: Write a draft.
Phase 5: Revise your draft into a final copy. By this point you should have good content
– pay attention to your spelling, verb tenses and other grammar.

EXAMPLE:

ORIGINAL ARTICLE (430 words):

Fuel Choices, Food Crises and Finger-Pointing

By ANDREW MARTIN
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News Analysis
April 15, 2008

The idea of turning farms into fuel plants seemed, for a time, like one of the answers to
high global oil prices and supply worries. That strategy seemed to reach a high point last
year when Congress mandated a fivefold increase in the use of biofuels.

But now a reaction is building against policies in the United States and Europe to promote
ethanol and similar fuels, with political leaders from poor countries contending that these
fuels are driving up food prices and starving poor people. Biofuels are fast becoming a
new flash point in global diplomacy, putting pressure on Western politicians to reconsider
their policies, even as they argue that biofuels are only one factor in the seemingly
inexorable rise in food prices.

At a weekend conference in Washington, finance ministers and central bankers of seven

leading industrial nations called for urgent action to deal with the price spikes, and several
of them demanded a reconsideration of biofuel policies adopted recently in the West.

While there is agreement that the growth of biofuels has contributed to higher food prices,
the amount is disputed. Work by the International Food Policy Research Institute in
Washington suggests that biofuel production accounts for a quarter to a third of the recent
increase in global commodity prices. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations predicted late last year that biofuel production, assuming that current
mandates continue, would increase food costs by 10 to 15 percent.

According to the World Bank, global food prices have increased by 83 percent in the last
three years. Rice, a staple food for nearly half the world’s population, has been a
particular focus of concern in recent weeks, with spiraling prices prompting several
countries to impose drastic limits on exports as they try to protect domestic consumers.

Skeptics have long questioned the value of diverting food crops for fuel, and the grocery
and live- stock industries vehemently opposed an energy bill last fall, arguing it was
driving up costs.

But August Schumacher, a former under secretary of agriculture who is a consultant for
the Kellogg Foundation, said the criticism of biofuels might be misdirected. Development
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agencies like the World Bank and many governments did little to support agricultural
development in the last two decades, he said. He noted that many of the upheavals over
food prices abroad have concerned rice and wheat, neither of which is used as a biofuel.
For both those crops, global demand has soared at the same time that droughts suppressed
the output from farms.

© 2008 NY Times

SAMPLE SUMMARY (197 words):

In “Fuel Choices, Food Crises and Finger-Pointing,” published in the New York Times on
April 15, 2008, Andrew Martin says that Western governments are under pressure to
reconsider their ethanol policies because of ethanol’s effect on food prices. Political
leaders from poor countries say that using edible grains for fuel production drives up food
costs and starves poor people. Finance ministers and bankers from industrial nations have
also demanded a reconsideration of recent European and American biofuel policies. The
author says that there is agreement that ethanol has an effect on food prices, but
disagreement about the extent of ethanol’s effect. On one side, the International Food
Policy Research Institute says biofuel is responsible for up to one-third of the recent rise
in prices. On the other side, supporters of ethanol say that drought and a lack of support
for agricultural development are larger factors. They cite the recent rise in the cost of
wheat and rice, neither of which are used as biofuels. Martin points out that there is
disagreement about the extent of ethanol’s effect on food prices and what should be done
about it, but he does not take an position on the issue.
____________________

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