The man at the helm in North Korea today is an accident of history, surrounded by vestigial assertions of narcissistic genius that are de rigueur for North Korea’s depiction of its own leaders. More than any time since the young Kim Il-song was surrounded by Soviet generals in the 1940s, the North Korean leader today […]
North Korea celebrated the 101st anniversary of its founder’s birth with flowers on Monday, although there was no sign of tension easing as South Korea warned that the North’s survival could be in question without change and development. Saying it with The North has threatened for weeks to attack the United States, South Korea and Japan after new U.N. […]
India and China are working towards stacking up more confidence building measures (CBMs) during a period of frequent consultations that could lead to the first-ever back-to-back visits by the two Prime Ministers, in coming months. Both sides, according to informed sources, are currently finalising details of a visit by the new Chinese Premier, Li Keqiang, […]
Of all the nightmares Chinese President Xi Jinping figured he would have to face, a resurgent Japan Inc. surely wasn’t among them. A major slowdown in the Chinese economy? Yes. Social instability? Absolutely. Debilitating pollution? Check. Rampant corruption eating away at the Communist Party’s legitimacy? You bet. An economically vibrant Japan emboldened to challenge China […]
South Koreans look a little puzzled when asked whether they’re concerned about North Korea’s daily barrage of threats that, if carried out, would be the worst conflagration of modern times. What worse can a regime, governed ostensibly by a 29-year-old heir to his father and grandfather’s power, vow than a “thermonuclear war” that would annihilate […]
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrives in Asia today for meetings seeking to reassure allies in South Korea and Japan and encourage new Chinese President Xi Jinping to increase pressure on North Korea to drop its threats and nuclear-weapons development. Kerry will ask China to abide by United Nations sanctions against North Korea and shut off the flow […]
Although North Korea and Iran are thousands of kilometers apart on opposite sides of Eurasia, they are linked — directly as well as indirectly — in the North Korean crisis. Iran’s nuclear and long-range ballistic missile ambitions are silent actors in the confrontation between North Korea and a wide range of countries in the international community, […]
North Korea is a constant enigma, a point made apparent once again in the current crisis. Analysts of every stripe have mispredicted its behavior and longevity for decades, and this time around, it is again very unclear what exactly they want. So rather than make any predictions that will turn out to be laughably wrong next month, […]
There are two schools of thought about what lies behind North Korea’s increasingly frenzied posturing. The first goes like this: The rhetoric emanating from Pyongyang, including calls to “break the waists of the crazy enemies [and] totally cut their windpipes”, is no worse than their decades-old ritualistic promises to turn South Korea into a “sea […]
Myanmar’s transition from military rule to democracy was never going to be easy, and the violent events of March show why it will be more complicated than previously thought. Contrary to the notion that democracy and pluralism go together, the new Burma is becoming a hot spot of sectarian violence. For sure, the problem is […]
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