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 […]
China
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 […]
Bracing for the Storm: Can China’s urban areas adapt to climate change?
Over the past 30 years, China has undergone an immense economic and social transformation. For centuries, China was predominately an agrarian society where the vast […]
Silence the Alarm: Why China’s AIIB is not a Trojan horse
The Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB) has been a lightening rod for western analysts, think-tanks and media that believe China represents a threat to […]
Deep Sea Mining: Diamond in the rough, or Pandora’s box?
Robert Peary, Roald Amundsen, Tenzing Norgay, Edmund Hillary. All are names of explorers famous for reaching places considered unreachable. Peary reached the North Pole in […]
Global Leaders Warming Up To The Climate
In Paris on the 13th of December last year, after hours of waiting, good news arrived at the ministers’ debate chamber. Soon after, the […]
A Rocky Identity: Power struggle for the seas and our identities
In recent years, tensions between Asian countries over hotly contested waters, rocks and manmade islands have become impossible to ignore. For this issue, I had […]
Cadres and Trials – How top Chinese officials get purged
Friday the 13th of May 2016 was a bad day for Ling Jihua. The former top aide to Hu Jintao was charged with “taking bribes, […]
FTAs in East Asia: Economic integration or spheres of influence?
In the past few years the rhetorical back and forth between China and the US over economic institutional governance has intensified. Along with concerns over […]