October 18,2019 Open Forum

Washington Insights, Vol. 7, No. 5

No topic stirred as much interest in DC think tanks as the US-Japan-South Korean triangle. In the background loomed North Korea, leading to overlapping interest in the Sino-North Korean-US triangle. The driving force remained Donald Trump, keeping on edge US relations with each of the other three countries. Naturally, the latter triangle was seen also through the prism of Sino-US relations ..

Editorial Staff
Act East Policy , free and open Indo-Pacific , GSOMIA , New Southern Policy , Trump-Kim summit , US-China trade war , US-ROK alliance
October 16,2019 Country Reports

Country Report: Japan (October 2019)

Japanese foreign policy drew increased criticism in the summer of 2019. On the left, there were harsh critiques of Abe’s diplomatic failures with Russia and North Korea (both putting Japan at increased risk), the breakdown of relations with South Korea, and the troubled state of the Japan-US relationship (Tokyo Shimbun, August 5). On the right, optimism was hard to find as well, altho..

Editorial Staff
"Belt and Road" Initiative , "Hate Korea” , GSOMIA , INF Treaty , Trump-Kim summit , US-China trade war , US-ROK alliance
October 07,2019 Country Reports

Country Report: South Korea (September 2019)

August saw a series of missile provocations from North Korea in the midst of growing tension between South Korea and Japan; the hostility against one another reached its peak as Seoul eventually announced its decision to end a military intelligence-sharing agreement, the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), with Tokyo and later filed a complaint with the World Trade Or..

Kim Kimberly
GSOMIA , John Bolton , peace economy , Trump-Kim summit , UN General Assembly , US-China trade war , US-ROK alliance
September 30,2019 Country Reports

Country Report: Russia (September 2019)

Three themes pervaded Russian writings on East Asia over the summer of 2019 after the G20 summit in Osaka: 1) China—its model, its trade war with the US, its handling of Hong Kong, and Sino-Russian relations; 2) the Korean Peninsula— above all, North Korean-US relations; and 3) the US role in the region—alliances with South Korea and Japan, impact on Hong Kong protests, and strategic ..

Editorial Staff (with the assistance of Olga Puzanova)
BRI summit , China Dream , G20 summit , John Bolton , One State Two Systems , Silk Road , Sino-Soviet relations
September 09,2019 Open Forum

Who Controls the Past Controls the Future: The political use of WWII history in Russia & China

Under a perfectly blue sky in September 2015, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin strode out to the Gate of Heavenly Peace in the center of Beijing. This was the entrance to the Forbidden City when China’s last emperors ruled, and it was where Mao Zedong declared the foundation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, but that was not what they were here to commemorate. Instead,..

Katie Stallard-Blanchette
Great Patriotic War , political memory , Victory Day , Vladimir Putin , World War II , Xi Jinping
September 03,2019 National Commentaries

A View from the United States

Since early June, Hong Kong has been experiencing one of the most serious political crises in its history, arguably the worst since the Maoist-inspired demonstrations against British colonial rule in 1967. The city has been wracked by near-continuous mass protests, some peaceful, some violent. Despite the Hong Kong government’s attempts to limit or suppress them and Beijing’s effo..

Harry Harding
Chinese National Day , Hong Kong demonstrations , Hong Kong Policy Act , Occupy Central Movement , One Country Two Systems
September 03,2019 National Commentaries

A View from Hong Kong

Both the Chief Executive (CE) of Hong Kong, Carrie Lam, and Zhang Xiaoming, the head of the Hong Kong and Macao Office under the Chinese State Council in Beijing, recently denounced the protests currently underway by arguing that they threaten the “one country, two systems” policy. That concept was first raised by Deng Xiaoping as a strategy to incorporate an open political and ec..

David Zweig
Basic Law , Occupy Central Movement , One Country Two Systems , Tiananmen , Umbrella Movement
September 03,2019 National Commentaries

A View from Japan

Amid the improving atmosphere in Japan-China relations, the crisis in Hong Kong has left many Japanese asking how their should country respond. In reaction to the proposed amendment to an extradition law, a vast number of Hong Kong citizens are repeatedly demonstrating in defense of Hong Kong’s freedom, which was guaranteed in the formula “one country, two systems.” For the ..

Kurata Toru*
"Belt and Road" Initiative , free and open Indo-Pacific , Senkaku Islands , Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy , Trans-Pacific Partnership , Yasukuni Shrine
September 02,2019 Alternative Scenarios

Negative Scenario II

Two months after the G20, Abe Shinzo can look back with satisfaction that, despite failing to secure the “supermajority” that the ruling LDP party would have needed to secure constitutional revision, he had scored a comfortable summer 2019 election victory,1 suggesting that he had made good use of the opportunity to host the G20 to springboard towards continued domestic success. In..

Ra Mason
"Belt and Road" Initiative , G20 , Osaka Summit , Shinzo Abe , US-China trade war
September 02,2019 Alternative Scenarios

Positive Scenario II

Japan hosted the G20 Osaka Summit at the end of June 2019, and the world promptly forgot about it and moved on. That is not a failure, at least by the standards of such events. When evaluating whether Japan—and by extension Prime Minister Abe—succeeded in Osaka, it is vital to be reasonable and keep in mind what is possible and impossible in such circumstances.  The only memorable G20 s..

Benjamin L. Self
"Belt and Road" Initiative , G20 , Osaka Summit , Osaka Track , Shinzo Abe