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The Strategic Defense Initiative: Its Implications For Asia And The Pacific

Edited by Jae Kyu Park and Byung-joon Ahn
Reviewed by By Donald S. Zagoria
Summer 1988
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Edited by Jae Kyu Park and Byung-joon Ahn
Westview Press/Seoul: Kyungnam University Press
1987
274 pp.
$35.00

This collection originated in a conference in South Korea convened to discuss the implications of SDI for the Asia-Pacific region. Few of the essays have much worthwhile to say on the subject. However, one probing essay by Bonnie S. Glaser and Banning N. Garrett on the Chinese reaction says that the Chinese believe that SDI has contributed to a shift in the balance of power in favor of the U.S. Moscow's preoccupation with the American technological challenge has increased the incentive for the Soviet Union to improve relations with China as well as with Japan, Western Europe and the United States. Beijing sees a "window of opportunity" for China during the next 15 years in which the balance of power will continue to favor the U.S. and provide a peaceful international environment. During this period, the Chinese predict that the Soviets will refrain from launching a new round of expansionist activity.

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