Policy memo: You have been asked by a Southeast Asian government of your choosing to write a memo about whether or not to participate in China’s Belt and Road initiative. Should Chinese investment in your country be welcomed or resisted? Please be specific in outlining what your country’s national interests are and consider what policies your government might pursue to realize these objectives.
Required reading
Prashanth Parameswaran, “ASEAN’s Divided Approach to China’s Rise,” The ASAN Forum, October 6, 2016
ASEAN’s Divided Approach to China’s Rise
Yun Sun, “Winning Projects and Hearts? Three Cases of Chinese Mega-Infrastructure Projects in Southeast Asia,” ASAN Forum, November 3, 2017
Winning Projects and Hearts? Three Cases of Chinese Mega-Infrastructure Projects in Southeast Asia
Additional Reading
Cheng-Chwee Kuik, “How Do Weaker States Hedge? Unpacking ASEAN States’ Alignment Behavior Towards China,” Journal of Contemporary China, 25, 100 (2016)
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10670564.2015.1132714
Alice D. Ba, “Is China Leading? China, Southeast Asia and East Asian Integration,” Political Science 66, 2 (2014): 143-165.
A few country studies: Kevin Hewison, “Thailand: an Old Relationship Renewed,” The Pacific Review, 31, 1 (2018) here.
John Ciorciari, “A Chinese model for patron–client relations? The Sino-Cambodian partnership,” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 15 (2015): 245–278.
Le Hong Hiep, “Pull and Push: Sino-Vietnamese Relations and President Xi’s Hanoi Visit,” ISEAS Perspective December 2017 here.
A policy memo is designed as a real-world, real-time exercise in providing policy analysis and prescription (1000 words). A policy memo should be from someone, to someone, and have a date. The memo should reflect what the author and recipient knew at the time, not events or information that is only revealed subsequently. A policy memo should:
• Outline the policy issue in question;
• Consider options that were or could have been taken;
• Reach a judgment about the costs and benefits of different policy choices.
• It should also make a recommendation.
In this assignment, you must apply concepts from this course to address a real-world policy challenge. This paper is not a research paper or analytic essay; rather, it is a policy document for a hypothetical policymaker. There is some room to be creative with regards to who is your intended audience. But it is important to spend some time putting yourself in the shoes of that policymaker and thinking about what their goals and priorities are.
The structure of a policy memo and briefing is somewhat different than a more academic paper that is trying to test a theory with some data. A policy memo is more action- oriented and usually has the following components. You will see that we have provided you prompts around which to write.
• What problem needs to besolved?
What decision needs to be made? What critical problems is the organization having?
Sometimes this is obvious, but often it requires work to figure out the real problem at hand. Is there in fact a problem at all or has it been exaggerated? Sometimes, the best advice is to continue doing what you have been doing or do nothing at all.
• What is theenvironment?
Each actor has to have some assessment of the nature of the environment and actors that matter, which includes not only foreign players but the domestic scene as well. For example, you can outline a bold approach, or you can ignore the issue altogether. Both may be defensible; but how will other parties and your domestic audience react?
• What are alternativesolutions?
Policies are always formed in the context of alternatives and you need to think about what these might be.
• Evaluate the alternatives, and select one ormore
Much of your effort and prose will go into this step. It is useful to prepare some kind of comparison table summarizing the costs and benefits of different courses of action, if only for yourself. Of course, evaluating each alternatives does not mean simply evaluating it from your perspective; you have to look down the game tree at how other parties might react, including in the unexpected ways. Remember: one possible option is always to do little or nothing at all!
• Implementationplan
Think through the next steps. You’ve said what should be done, but how do you actually make it happen? What obstacles and contingencies do you need to plan for? For example, if you need agreement from other parties, what arguments will you make to persuade them? If your plan entails major financial outlays, how will these be met?
How should a policy memo be formatted?
There is no single established format for a policy memo, but most share a number of features that will be outlined here and that we expect you to broadly follow.
The standard memo style typically starts with a four-line block at the top. For example:
To: President XiJinping
From: Yang Jiechi, State Counselor and Secretary General of the Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group
Date: January 1, 2018
Re: Enforcement of North Korea sanctions in2018.
Note that your policy is from someone, to someone on a particular date. The people you choose for your memo should be actual decision-makers or a plausible advisor. (for example, Stephan Haggard, Advisor to the President on the North Korean issue).
Your subject line (the Re: line) should be clear and can even be argumentative, telling your reader exactly what the controversy is and what position you take. For example, it could be “Stronger Enforcement of North Korean Sanctions in 2018” or “Resisting US Pressure for Collapse of North Korea through Sanctions Enforcement”
Executive Summary: The first paragraph of your memo is the Executive Summary. DO NOT stage set; go straight to the essential information of the memo:
• What is the question you areanswering?
• What are the critical pieces of evidence for youranalysis?
• In some cases, you may need to note the key players in adebate
• What is the solution youpropose?
Treat this paragraph as if it is the only one in the memo likely to be read. You have the option to use bullet points here if you feel this would be most effective in getting your point across.
Ex. Poor Executive Summary:
North Korea, officially the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (abbreviated DPRK), is a country in East Asia constituting the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. In 2017, North Korea conducted a series of missile and nuclear tests that demonstrated the country’s ability to launch ballistic missiles beyond its immediate region and suggested that North Korea’s nuclear weapons capability was developing at a faster rate than had been assessed by the U.S. intelligence community. This, coupled with a regular joint U.S.–South Korea military exercise undertaken in August 2017, as well as U.S. threats, raised international tensions in the region and beyond. Trump Administration officials have stated that “all options are on the table,” to
include the use of military force to “denuclearize”—generally interpreted to mean eliminating nuclear weapons and related capabilities from that area.
[Note that this summary identifies a problem in broad terms, but it does not focus on policy choices and simply describes in broad terms what has happened.]
Ex. Good Executive Summary [note this is from a much longer report than 1000 words and thus much longer than you will need for this assignment]:
North Korea’s apparently successful July 2017 tests of its intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities, along with the possibility that North Korea (DPRK) may have successfully miniaturized a nuclear warhead, have led analysts and policymakers to conclude that the window for preventing the DPRK from acquiring a nuclear missile capable of reaching the United States is closing.
A key issue is whether or not the United States could manage and deter a nuclear-armed North Korea if it were to become capable of attacking targets in the U.S. homeland, and whether taking decisive military action to prevent the emergence of such a DPRK capability might be necessary. Either choice would bring with it considerable risk for the United States, its allies, regional stability, and global order.
One potential question for Congress is whether, and how, to employ the U.S. military to accomplish denuclearization, and whether using the military might result in miscalculation on either side, or perhaps even conflict escalation. In this report, we identify seven possible options, with their implications and attendant risks, for the employment of the military to denuclearize North Korea. These options are:
• maintaining the military statusquo
• enhanced containment and deterrencewhile
• denying DPRK acquisition of delivery systems capable of threatening the UnitedStates
• eliminating ICBM facilities and launchpads
• eliminating DPRK nuclearfacilities
• DPRK regime change
• withdrawing U.S. militaryforces.
Headings: Each section of your memo should have a clear heading so that a reader interested only in the background, analysis or recommendations can find them quickly. If you want to include sub-headings that add specificity, you may do that but make certain that they are clear and substantive. The headings after your Executive Summary would likely be:
Background:Again, this section should have relevant information only. You are not tracing the memo issue from the dawn of time. Indeed, a specialist may choose to skip this section; make the background explanation concise so that you have room in your memo for the analysis and prescription.
In the background section, then, you want to answer very specific questions: What happened? Why is the issue pressing at this moment? Who are the critical participants in the debate? What are the particular pieces of evidence that are important to both understanding the debate and your prescription?
Analysis: This is the section that examines, piece by piece, the evidence that supports your recommendation or argument. In a 1000 word memo, probably three quarters of your memo will be devoted to this section.
Each paragraph in the analysis should be dedicated to a single piece of evidence and have one point to make. Keep in mind the AXES rule as you write a paragraph:
• The paragraph should begin with an Assertion that states the argument of that paragraph (A)
• The assertion should be followed with an eXample/piece of evidence(X)
• The example should then be Explained(E)
• The paragraph should conclude with a Statement that ties the evidence assertion back to the argument of your memo.(S)
The sequencing of your body paragraphs should be dictated by the logic of the evidence as it builds to your conclusion. Note that it is extremely important that you consider possible counterarguments to the one you advance: why other positions will have negative effects.
Conclusion/Policy Recommendation: You began your memo with an Executive Summary that contained a statement of your recommendation. Each succeeding paragraph built the case, piece by piece, for that recommendation. The conclusion, then, draws on everything in your analysis, explaining how the evidence fits together and points most logically to your argument.
One warning about the conclusion—it should never have anything new; your conclusion should not surprise your reader. Take some time to look at your introductory paragraph and conclusion side by side. It may be the case that you need to do some rewriting of the front end of your memo to bring it in line with your argument.
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