- Program：Master’s Program
- Enrollment in：April 2022
- Study Plan：Society and Communication
- Directed Research: International Relations
Message
My master’s thesis is focusing on the relationship between Natural Disasters in China and Human Security. Human Security was first mentioned in the 1994 UNDP Human Development Report. When the early stages of the new term came out, most people only understood the traditional concept, which is that security is provided by state institutions such as the police and military. However, some new threats came out during the Cold War, which were out of the state’s control. There are seven major threats to Human Security, but I am mainly going to focus on three of the threats, which are environmental security, personal security, and economic security.
My primary research question is about how we can protect human security when impacted by the natural disasters in China. First, I am going to compare the similarities and differences between the major earthquakes that occurred in China and Japan, such as the casualty rate, magnitude of the earthquakes and restorative measures taken by both countries. Professor Bacon has also published a book about human security and natural disasters in Japan with other scholars. The majority of my information was gathered from this book—Human Securities and Natural Disasters. Second, I am going to discuss what are considered as man-made natural disasters and what actions we should do to reduce the negative impacts created by man-made factors. In my opinion, natural disasters are uncontrollable, but many natural disasters nowadays will have some human influence. The causative factors are natural, but the disasters are man-made. For example, if a volcano erupts in the middle of the wilderness, this is the causative factor. But if the volcano erupts around a major city, I think that catastrophe can be considered man-made, since residences existing near a volcano is a result of overpopulation. This is because when cities grow too fast and become overpopulated, there are many residents who choose to live near volcanoes. The government needs to warn local residents of the dangers of living near volcanos, reduce the number of people living near volcanoes, and be prepared to evacuate in the event of an eruption. Third, I am going to research how natural disasters impact the economy of China and find some case studies to see how China recovered their economy and how long it took to do so. Since natural hazards could lead to long-term negative effects, which are inevitable, my main objects are finding possible solutions to decrease the threats to economic security and collect some datasets to clearly show readers the economic trends that followed after natural disasters occurred in China.
