June 01,2020 Country Reports

Country Report: Japan (June 2020)

The spring of 2020 saw a downturn in Sino-Japanese relations, which were now embroiled in the pandemic war of words, with little else on the foreign policy radar. Some warnings about North Korea and Russia were heard, while wishful thinking about South Korea also appeared. Some raised the puzzle of why Abe’s poll numbers were falling even as Japan was controlling the pandemic comparat..

Editorial Staff
"Belt and Road" Initiative , Cold War , COVID-19 , Northern Territories , Senkaku Islands , Wolf Warrior Diplomacy
May 25,2020 Country Reports

Country Report: Russia (May 2020)

One message stood apart in Russian coverage of international relations in the Indo-Pacific in the early spring of 2020: what is the impact of the pandemic on China and on Sino-US relations? In the background is the question: what will be the impact on Russian foreign policy? As for China, numerous questions are raised about its xenophobia, speed of recovery, political psychology, and altern..

Editorial Staff
"Belt and Road" Initiative , Cold War , COVID-19 , Eurasian Economic Union , Wolf Warrior Diplomacy
May 19,2020 Open Forum

The Launch of an Ideological Cold War in 2020: The US Perspective

Today’s US response to China that suggests a cold war mentality: first, blaming problems in the Sino-US relationship, China more generally, and the pandemic’s origin and response on the inherent nature of China’s communist system; second, referencing a different history or civilizational foundation, connected to such forces as the May Fourth Movement and Taiwan’s Chi..

Gilbert Rozman
Cold War , COVID-19 , Donald Trump , Joe Biden , Public diplomacy , Xi Jinping
May 15,2020 Open Forum

China’s “Wolf Warrior” Diplomacy in the COVID-19 Crisis

COVID-19, a black swan event, altered the planned trajectory of China’s domestic politics and its engagement with the rest of the world. The public health crisis from COVID-19 has strained every country’s resources and every government’s credibility. Especially for an authoritarian state such as China, which has drawn its legitimacy primarily from its performance, COVID-19 h..

Yun Sun
Boxer Protocol , China International Development Cooperation Agency , China Model , COVID-19 , Public diplomacy , World Health Organization
May 09,2020 Open Forum

Kim Jong-un’s Recent Absence: A Viewpoint from North Korean Media Analysis

“CONFIDENTIAL AND URGENT STOP LORD COPPER HIMSELF GRAVELY DISSATISFIED STOP LORD COPPER PERSONALLY REQUIRES VICTORIES STOP ON RECEIPT OF THIS CABLE VICTORY STOP CONTINUE CABLING VICTORIES UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE STOP... “They don’t seem very pleased with me in London. They seem to want more news.”1 The British writer Evelyn Waugh’s 1938 novel, Scoop, caricatures f..

Rachel Minyoung Lee
Kim Il-sung , Kim Jong-il , Kim Jong-un , Kim Yo-jong , media analysis
May 09,2020 Open Forum

The Coronavirus Pandemic and the Russo-Chinese Border

The pandemic has already changed the course of world history, and its future consequences, such as how and when it finishes, remain unknown to us amidst a dynamic situation. However, it is possible and necessary to draw some conclusions based on what is now known on how the situation is unfolding in concrete arenas of international relations. One of the most significant of these is the Washin..

Ivan Zuenko
China-Russia relations , COVID-19 , Eurasian Economic Union , New Silk Road , turn to the East
May 04,2020 Open Forum

Washington Insights, Vol. 8, No. 2

Unlike previous Washington Insights based on attendance at panels and person-to-person contacts, this one draws from a mixture of Zoom meetings and articles from Washington-based think tanks. Extracting alternative scenarios from these exchanges, we do not report on specific sources except for a small number of citations. The objective is to capture the overall tenor of the debate with an e..

Editorial Staff
America First , Cold War , COVID-19 , Donald Trump , hegemony , Sinocentrism , Xi Jinping
April 22,2020 Country Reports

Country Report: China (April 2020)

As 2020 began, Chinese authors were busy not only summing up the far-reaching results of 2019 but also putting them in broad analytical perspective. China’s other bilateral relations had slipped as a focus, secondary to the telling impact of the transformative core of the international order—the Sino-US nexus. Sino-Russian relations paled in significance. Relations with both Japan and..

Editorial Staff (with the assistance of Dong Jiaxin*)
"Belt and Road" Initiative , Cold War , community of common destiny , COVID-19 , Six-Party Talks , Xi Jinping
April 13,2020 Country Reports

Country Report: Japan (April 2020)

Geopolitics were not high on the media’s attention list in the first months of 2020; we need to look back a little to capture the state of the Japanese debate before it was put on hold. The pandemic saw people look inward, but China, its source, and the United States, soon to become its epicenter, always loomed in the background. Given the troubled state of Japan-ROK ties, the impact ..

Editorial Staff
Abe-Putin summit , COVID-19 , GSOMIA , Senkakus , Shinzo Abe , Tokyo Olympics
April 06,2020 National Commentaries

Second Chance to Boost Ties in Tsai’s Second Term

Tsai Ing-wen’s return to power in Taiwan in January 2020 means that her flagship New Southbound Policy (NSP) is here to stay. President Tsai’s long-term vision to integrate Taiwan with the most dynamic countries in Asia, extending all the way to South Asia, and her comeback, offers a renewed opportunity to boost Indo-Taiwan relations. Her previous stint showed the potential of c..

Deepa M. Ollapally
Act East Policy , COVID-19 , Make in India , Narendra Modi , New Southbound Policy , Quad-Plus Dialogue , Tsai Ing-wen