Are We Seeing the North Korean Nuclear Crisis Coming to an End?
It has been confirmed; US President Donald Trump is to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore next month, and East Asia is […]
China
China Guessing
I have never been comfortable with the term “China watcher.” It is an awkward expression. It brings to mind a beardy, near-sighted academic in his […]
China Scraps Presidential Term Limit: Implications for the World
China abolished the constitutional limit on the number of terms the president and vice-president can serve. The message is clear: Xi Jinping can remain China’s […]
The Chaos and the Calm
On March 13, President Trump fired his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson via Twitter and replaced him with CIA Director Michael Pompeo. The news was […]
How to Lose Friends and Alienate Your Allies
On March 8, US President Donald Trump defied sage economic advice and followed his political gut by signing tariffs on imported steel (25%) and aluminum […]
Trade or No Trade: China’s DPRK Dilemma
Nuclear weapons expert and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), David Albright, recently published a damaging report about Shenyang Machine Tools […]
The Enemy of our Enemy is our Future Enemy
When peaceful protests against the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, began in 2011, they were met with violent oppression, which eventually led to the current civil […]
Going Against the Grain: Japan’s Choice of Self-Restraint
In much of the world, the political current has changed course from globalization towards nationalism. While military spending and sharp upticks in nationalism are not […]
Choosing Sides: The Former TPP
The largest trade deal in history died before it could live. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) took years to negotiate and the finished product was going […]
Making Waves: Vietnam’s rising power in ASEAN
All eyes are on Vietnam. A country that exactly two decades ago had 51% of its population living under the World Bank’s poverty line, now […]