Ministry of Foreign Affairs

In many countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the government department responsible for the state's diplomacy as well as for providing support for a country's citizens who are abroad. The entity is usually headed by Foreign minister (the title may vary, such as Secretary of State who has the same functions).

Former countries

Foreign policy

A country's foreign policy, also called foreign relations policy, consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve goals within its international relations milieu. The approaches are strategically employed to interact with other countries. The study of such strategies is called foreign policy analysis. In recent times, due to the deepening level of globalization and transnational activities, the states will also have to interact with non-state actors. The aforementioned interaction is evaluated and monitored in attempts to maximize benefits of multilateral international cooperation. Since the national interests are paramount, foreign policies are designed by the government through high-level decision making processes. National interests accomplishment can occur as a result of peaceful cooperation with other nations, or through exploitation. Usually, creating foreign policy is the job of the head of government and the foreign minister (or equivalent). In some countries the legislature also has considerable effects. Foreign policies of countries have varying rates of change and scopes of intent, which can be affected by factors that change the perceived national interests or even affect the stability of the country itself. The foreign policy of one country can have profund and lasting impact on many other countries and on the course of international relations as a whole, such as the Monroe Doctrine conflicting with the mercantilist policies of 19th century European countries and the goals of independence of newly formed Central American and South American countries.

Foreign Affairs

Foreign Affairs is an American journal of international relations and U.S. foreign policy. Published bimonthly since 1922 by the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonprofit, 4,900-member organization, publisher, and think tank that was established in 1921 and specializes in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs.

According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2014 impact factor of 2.009, ranking it 6th out of 85 journals in the category "International Relations".

History

The Council on Foreign Relations was originally composed of 75 members of mainly academic and professional backgrounds. In its first year, the Council sought discourse mainly in meetings at its headquarters in New York City. However, the members of the Council wished to seek a wider audience, and, as a result, began publishing Foreign Affairs in September 1922.

The Council named Professor Archibald Cary Coolidge of Harvard University as the journal's first editor. As Coolidge was unwilling to move from Boston to New York, Hamilton Fish Armstrong a Princeton alumnus and a European correspondent of the New York Evening Post was appointed as a co-editor and was sent to work in New York to handle the mechanical work of publishing the journal. Armstrong chose the light blue color to be the cover of the journal and had his two sisters, Margeret and Helen, design the logo.

China

China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a sovereign state in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population of over 1.35 billion. The PRC is a one-party state governed by the Communist Party, with its seat of government in the capital city of Beijing. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces; five autonomous regions; four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing); two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau); and claims sovereignty over Taiwan.

Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometers, China is the world's second-largest country by land area, and either the third or fourth-largest by total area, depending on the method of measurement. China's landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes and the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts in the arid north to subtropical forests in the wetter south. The Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third- and sixth-longest in the world, run from the Tibetan Plateau to the densely populated eastern seaboard. China's coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometres (9,000 mi) long, and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East and South China Seas.

China Seas

The China Seas consist of a series of marginal seas in the Western Pacific Ocean, around China. They are the major components signifying the transition from the continent of Asia to the Pacific Ocean. They have been described in terms of their collective vastness and complexity:

Seas included in the China Seas are:

References