China has the highest level of self-sufficiency in weapons production in the Indo-Pacific region, with second-placed Japan not even close, according to a research report released this month. Read More Here
Former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo was assassinated on July 8 as he gave a stump speech for this Sunday’s Upper House election in the western city of Nara. The shocking act not only marked the death of a towering national figure but triggered new concerns about the state of Japan’s democracy. Read More Here
From its stance on Russia to the tilt toward non-traditional security and public goods, India’s fingerprints on the Quad agenda are clear. Read More Here
As he concludes his debut tour of Asia, President Joe Biden is using Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to send an unmistakable message to China: a similar breach of international order would generate a fierce US response. Read More Here
Although China has rarely seen India as a peer competitor, Beijing is acutely conscious that India could create significant problems for China if aligned against it with other powers. Keeping India—a potential superpower—from aligning with the United States is thus a first-order strategic goal for Beijing. Read More Here
Japan and China tend to agree on very little when it comes to economic strategy, geopolitics or managing Western idiosyncrasies. Yet Joe Biden is bringing Tokyo and Beijing together on one issue: their combined US$2.4 trillion of US Treasury debt holdings that are now suddenly in doubt. Read More Here
The evolution of the Indo-Pacific security structure, from the Cold War “Hub and Spokes” model to more networked comprehensive architecture, has featured growing security relationships among Australia, India, and Japan. Read More Here
In a typical rich country, 80 percent of inward FDI takes the form of mergers and acquisitions (inbound M&A)—but in Japan, it’s only 14 percent. Total inward FDI is meager mainly because inbound M&A is so small. Read More Here
The Quad’s emergence shouldn’t surprise Beijing. Rising powers routinely evoke countervailing coalitions, and shared anxiety about an adversary can contribute to their cohesion—but that’s just a starting point. The Quad’s problem is it doesn’t have much else to run on and hence will ultimately amount to U.S. power with a multilateral veneer. Read More Here
Japanese politicians are often driven to act by gaiatsu—the Japanese word for “external pressure”—and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga got a welcome dose of it in Cornwall, England, last week when his fellow G-7 summiteers endorsed holding the Olympic Games in Tokyo next month. Read More Here
looking beyond borders 