China recently opened its domestic satellite navigation network to commercial use across the Asia-Pacific region. The move underscored China’s emergence as an independent space power challenging the primacy of the United States, Russia, Europe and Japan. The network offers a still-to-be-proven alternative in the region to the well-established and highly accurate U.S. global positioning system (GPS), […]
Shinzo Abe is known to be staunchly pro-Indian. Not only did he describe strengthening bilateral ties as extremely important to Japan’s interests in his 2006 book Utsukushii Kuni E (Towards a Beautiful Country), but one of his major foreign policy initiatives during his previous tenure as PM was establishing a new vision for bilateral ties with India. […]
In his new book, “The Great Convergence: Asia, the West and the Logic of One World,” Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, at last rises to the challenge. In a way, it is no surprise that a former UN ambassador from one of the smallest countries in Asia has the largest vision. […]
As Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party national defense task force announced on Jan. 8 that it would increase the nation’s defense budget by more than 100 billion yen ($1.15 billion), three of five scenarios explored by the defense ministry recently involve the Self-Defense Forces squaring off against the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). While contingencies involving North Korea’s ballistic […]
U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is calling it a day. So is Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, the $418 billion effort to rescue banks, automakers and other companies during the financial crisis. In announcing its intention to complete the sale of the remaining shares it owned in General Motors Co. (GM), American International Group Inc. (AIG) and 218 smaller banks, Treasury is essentially […]
The new Japanese prime minister reiterated his “values diplomacy” recently, confirming his nation’s “pillar” ties with the US and reaching out to two countries in particular, Australia and India. “Freedom, democracy, and fundamental human rights,” Shinzo Abe told the newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun in a December 28th interview. “We will deepen ties with nations that share and uphold these values.” […]
A QUESTION haunts America: Is it in decline on the world scene? Foreign-policy discourse is filled with commentary declaring that it is. Some—Parag Khanna’s work comes to mind—suggests the decline is the product of forces beyond America’s control. Others—Yale’s Paul Kennedy included—contend that America has fostered, at least partially, its own decline through “imperial overstretch” […]
2013 will be remembered as the year China became a more “normal economy”. What does normality mean for China? Soon-to-depart Premier Wen Jiabao’s oft-cited quote that China’s growth is “unbalanced, unsustainable and uncoordinated” is a good place to start. China was an abnormal economy with its state-led capitalist approach that produced double-digit growth rates, no […]
Four Asian countries are now purchasing nearly all of Iran’s oil exports according a report this week from the Economist’s Intelligence Unit (EIU). “Almost all of Iran’s oil exports now go to China, South Korea, Japan and India,” the report said even as it noted a sharp decline in the amount of oil each country purchased from […]
As China keeps extending its interests abroad, some predict that neighboring countries will form a coalition to counter it. Any of three states could take the lead on building such an alliance: India, South Korea, or Japan. Each has a different mix of technological, economic, and diplomatic power that — when combined with the resources […]
looking beyond borders 