Reflections from IR Simulation

In my International Relations Class, we had quite the interesting simulation. There were five groups, and each was assigned a different Southeast Asian country: North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, or China. Within each country, there wee also roles: Political Advisor, Diplomat, Economic Advisor, or Military Advisor. I was the Economic Advisor for Taiwan.

After researching our given country, we were given a “crisis” to which we had to formulate a coherent, probable political response. The crisis was that China had moved nuclear submarines into the waters of the Senkaku islands. 

Both Taiwan and South Korea has claims over the Senkaku islands, but China has a political interest because the islands are said to be rich with oil. 

As Taiwan, we were in a unique position. We did not have a lot of power, but the conflict involved us heavily. We lacked power mostly because of China - both their size and influence shrunk our ability to negotiate and make deals. 

The biggest takeaway from the experience was just how unbalanced global power was. I was the economic advisor, and one of my goals was to decrease China’s involvement in our economy. Yet, I found that to be almost impossible because of the inherit power given to China. It wasn’t only CHina’s historic involvement in Taiwan that made this goal difficult, but also the fear from other countries of China’s influence over them. Therefore, there was little Taiwan could do in terms of increasing sway in the South China Sea.

A second takeaway was how economic motivation was embedded into almost every decision. I’m not sure that this was something I had not already observed, necessarily, but rather an observation. Questions such as “well how will this make us richer?” or “how about protecting our trade routes?” were thrown around by every country. With decision making in the given scenario, each country is trying to do what is best for themselves. I think that economic concern is then inherently in this conversation as it looks after a country’s self-interest. 

Overall, however, the simulation revealed much about the political structure in the South China Sea. I learned about Taiwan, but I almost learned more about the other countries. We did not really resolve the conflict, I will add, but the process of discussing and coming up with solutions was harder than I thought it would be.