August 12,2016 Open Forum

Northeast Asia’s Space Launch Nationalism

*The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not represent official policies of the U.S. Navy or the U.S. Department of Defense. Northeast Asia today is in the midst of a major expansion of space launch services—with Japan, South Korea, North Korea, China, and Russia all attempting to build […]

James Clay Moltz
anti-satellite weapons test , geostationary orbit , liquid-fuel rocket , low-Earth orbit , space launch capability , UN Convention on the Registration of Space Objects , UN Outer Space Treaty
August 03,2016 Open Forum

Russia’s Korean Policy since 2012: New Hopes, Achievements, and Disappointments

This article focuses on Russia’s Korean policy since 2012. That year was very important: in North Korea, Kim Jong-un had just come to power at the end of 2011; in Russia, Vladimir Putin returned to the presidential office in May; and in South Korea, leadership changed in the aftermath of Park Geun-hye winning the December […]

Serghei Golunov
Gaeseong Park , Rajin-Khasan , Resolution 2270 , Six-Party Talks , South China Sea , THAAD , USSR
June 24,2016 Open Forum

The Pivot vs. the “Progressives”

For more than a decade the two most divisive issues in East Asia have been the gap over how to deal with: 1) the Sino-US relationship and which side is responsible for damaging it and endangering regional stability; and 2) North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile threats and how best to resolve them. In recent […]

Gilbert Rozman
Asia for the Asians , China first , G2 , hegemonism , Kurt Campbell , Six-Party Talks , Sunshine Policy
June 22,2016 Open Forum

China and the Evolving World Order: A Stakeholder or a Revolutionary Power?

China’s rapid rise has raised the question if China is a stakeholder or a dissatisfied revolutionary power to advance its alternative visions. This article argues that although China is not a simple rule-taker content to preserve the existing order, it is not yet a revolutionary power discontent with and willing to undermine the existing order. […]

Suisheng Zhao
AIIB , Bretton Woods , Institution-building , OBOR , Reformist , Revisionist , sovereignty , Tianxia
June 03,2016 Open Forum

Chinese Interpretations of Japan and Its Role in the Indo-Pacific Region in 2016

In April, Kishida Fumio made the first official visit by a Japanese foreign minister to China in more than four years. Sino–Japanese relations had deteriorated over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute in the early 2010s and have yet to recover. They overcame one hurdle when Xi Jinping agreed to meet Abe Shinzo during Abe’s visit for […]

Danielle F. S. Cohen (assisted by Dong Jiaxin)
Article 9 , China threat theory , Expansionist history , India-Japan relations , Japanese Air Self-Defense Force , proactive pacifism , Quadrilateral initiative , South China Sea , UNCLOS
May 10,2016 Open Forum

Synopsis of the Asan Plenum, “The New Normal,” April 26-27, 2016

[Asan Plenum 2016 Agenda] “North Korea Out of Control, China Overextended, the United States Arousing Doubts, South Korea Sobering Up” The 2016 Asan Plenum put “gloom and doom” in the forefront as the “New Normal,” while offering repeated hints of a polarized “New Order” in Northeast Asia. Instead of deepening troubles awakening states to shared […]

Editorial Staff
Donald Trump , New Normal , Nuclear insecurity , Resolution 2270 , SIno-US talks , TPP
April 19,2016 Open Forum

Russia-Southeast Asia Relations: In China’s Shadow?

From May 19-20, the leaders of Southeast Asia nations will convene for the Russia-ASEAN summit at the Black Sea resort of Sochi to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the establishment of the ASEAN-Russia Dialogue Partnership.1 Moscow attaches great importance to this summit as a step forward to reassert Russia’s global standing damaged by the reverberations […]

Vitaly Kozyrev
APEC , EAS , EEU , regional security architecture , Russian Far East
April 15,2016 Open Forum

Can’t Buy Me Soft Power (with Hard Power): China’s Appeal to South Koreans

In January 2016, Twice, a multinational girls pop group of South Korea, was at the center of controversy. Chou Tzu-yu, one of the members from Taiwan appeared on a show holding the Taiwanese official national flag (quite possibly asked to do so by the production team). The clip was uploaded on the Internet and then […]

Kim Jiyoon*
American culture , Confucius Institutes , Global leadership , Liberal democracy , Smart power , Twice
April 15,2016 Open Forum

The Belt & Road Initiative as Power Resource: Lessons from Japan

In 2013, the Chinese government announced its plans to establish the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and to pursue a massive regional infrastructure plan initially called either the “New Silk Road” or the “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR), and now officially termed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The simultaneous push to create a new […]

William W. Grimes
"Belt and Road" Initiative , ADB , AIIB , MITI , Transactional power