THE whiff of agrarian reform has hung over North Korea since early summer when DailyNK, a Seoul-based defectors’ website, reported a plan to allow farmers to sell more of their harvest at market prices rather than lower, state-set ones. This week it grew stronger after two Western news agencies reported that farmers would be free […]
Fifty-two years ago, the United States and Japan signed the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security. Forged just 15 years after a brutal, racially charged war between the two nations, the treaty was an exercise in realpolitik. It was written with an eye toward not only Japan‘s security but the containment of communism across Asia. The […]
As nationalist war-mongering goes, the anti-Japanese demonstrations taking place across China have been relatively tame. Chinese authorities have maintained tight control over the protesters, some of whom call for an armed response against Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea: Plastic bottle-throwing is allowed, glass bottle-throwing discouraged. For all the jingoistic talk, the […]
Korean pop culture may not (yet) turn heads in Los Angeles or London, but its impact — economic as well as cultural — across the developing world is startling. First taking off in China and Southeast Asia in the late 1990s, but really spiking after 2002, Korean TV dramas and pop music have since moved […]
“I UNDERSTAND that the end does not justify the means…I apologise to the victims hurt by my father’s dictatorial rule in this regard.” These were the words offered by a leading hopeful for the presidency, Park Geun-hye, on September 25th. She was taking the bull by the horns, addressing what her opponents and other critics […]
Foreign direct investment (FDI) in the retail sector has been at the epicentre of national debate. Much has been said on India possibly losing out on investment by sending a wrong policy signal. But do we really need to get so worked up? Considering the anticipated level of inflows on account of FDI in retail, there […]
China and Japan are beginning to show two-track tactics toward their latest territorial row over a group of islands in the East China Sea. On the one hand, China is taking a hard-line; a flotilla of 16 Chinese surveillance ships on Tuesday entered Japanese territorial waters off the islands, known as Diaoyu in China and […]
Yoshihiko Noda will doubtless win his party’s leadership race this week. There’s little certainty, though, that Japan’s prime minister is up to putting his country, the world’s No. 3 economy, on stronger footing. For starters, Noda’s victory may be Pyrrhic. He is under pressure to dissolve parliament and hold national elections, perhaps as soon as November. […]
In his new book, The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate, Robert Kaplan (Stratfor Global Intelligence) contends that current global conflicts, including wars, political instability, and clashes over religion, can be better understood and even forecasted through close examination of the maps that chart our world. Read […]
If the age of men has ended, nobody told Asia. True, across the continent women are obtaining degrees at higher rates — in some cases outpacing men — and bucking traditional gender roles. Yet the past few decades have brought significant setbacks as well as breakthroughs. Men’s wages are now growing faster than women’s wages […]
looking beyond borders 