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
August 29,2019 Country Reports

Country Report: China (August 2019)

In the middle of 2019, Chinese experts assessed Sino–US relations under the Trump administration and explored the implications of the United States’ competitive approach to China for China’s regional interests. They also evaluated the improvement in Sino–Indian relations following the Doklam incident and analyzed recent Sino–Japanese third-party market cooperation efforts. A..

Danielle F. S. Cohen (assisted by Dong Jiaxin)
"Belt and Road" Initiative , 5G , Doklam crisis , Indo-Pacific strategy , US-China trade war
August 28,2019 Special Forum

Introduction

The G20 summit will easily pass into oblivion for its collective agenda, but it should long be remembered for its bilateral and trilateral summits and one that failed to occur between the leaders of Japan and South Korea. Xi Jinping conducted many meaningful meetings. Modi Narendra balanced two triangular agendas with the United States and Japan on one side and China and Russia on the other..

Editorial Staff
"Belt and Road" Initiative , free and open Indo-Pacific , G20 summit , US-China trade war
August 28,2019 Special Forum

Abe’s Korea Policy

Sandwiched around the G20 Osaka summit were Abe’s “honeymoon” with Trump, called the best relationship ever with the United States, and Abe’s “nightmare” with Moon Jae-in, called the worst relationship with South Korea since the 1965 normalization. Are the two extremes in Japanese foreign policy related? What is driving Abe’s foreign policy at the e..

Gilbert Rozman
"Belt and Road" Initiative , free and open Indo-Pacific , G20 summit , GSOMIA , Trans-Pacific Partnership , US-China trade war , value diplomacy
August 28,2019 Special Forum

Moon’s Failed Balancing Act

The mood was decidedly upbeat in South Korea around this time last year: following the “historic summit” between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un in Singapore, many praised Moon Jae-in as the “master mediator.”1 When Trump contracted cold feet just two weeks before his meeting with Kim, Moon staged a surprise inter-Korean summit to dispel their growing misgivings; the Si..

Eun A Jo
“No Japan” movement , G20 summit , GSOMIA , Korea Passing , nuclear diplomacy , Panmunjom handshake , THAAD , US-China trade war