May 26,2016 Country Reports

Country Report: South Korea (May 2016)

Implementation of Sanctions against North Korea Chun Young-woo opined in the March 25 DongA Ilbo that rigorous implementation is the key to denuclearization of the North. Chun says even such tight implementation would take more than a year until the North changed its behavior and agreed to abandon its nuclear weapons program. Though the Security Council resolution 2270 imposed the highest ..

Editorial Staff (prepared by Han Minjeong)
CICA , Economic sanctions , non-proliferation , Resolution 2270 , THAAD
May 18,2016 Alternative Scenarios

Negative Scenario I: India’s Approach towards Indo-Pacific Triangularity

The year 2015 witnessed the formation of new strategic triangulations involving India. Frameworks including US-India-Japan and India-Australia-Japan were added to the existing Indian trilateral engagements, including the India-China-Russia arrangement, which has been in operation since 2002. The new trilateral designs, especially the US-India-Japan arrangement, are sometimes interpreted thro..

Titli Basu
Balance of interest , Geopolitics , SLOC , UNCLOS , US-Japan-India triangle
May 18,2016 Alternative Scenarios

Positive Scenario I: Japan-US-India will be “Natural Allies”

Japan-US-India trilateral security cooperation has been progressing fast. These three countries hold foreign minister level strategic meetings and trilateral naval exercises called Malabar. The increasing US-India arms trade especially indicates how much progress has been achieved (Figure1). Arms are to be used in tough conditions while retaining their mechanical precision. As a result, they ..

Nagao Satoru*
Chinese assertiveness , Japan-India-Australia Trilateral Dialogue , Malabar , Rim of the Pacific Exercises , US-China military balance
April 29,2016 Alternative Scenarios

Xi Jinping’s Belt & Road Initiative: How to Win Friends & Influence Europeans

In China’s history, every so often a fever grabs hold of the public imagination. Since Xi Jinping enunciated the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, over one million academic papers were written in China on this new subject.1 China’s experts were recruited to celebrate Xi Jinping as the “designer of China’s road to being a great power.”2 BRI is also known as t..

Theresa Fallon
BRI , Economic statecraft , Juncker Plan , MES , TPP
April 29,2016 Alternative Scenarios

Reconciling Alternative Scenarios

One Belt and One Road, hereafter the new Silk Roads, is a Chinese initiative to connect different parts of regions in Asia. As a newly launched ambitious program from a rising power, it has incurred concerns, skepticism, and resistance from other players in the region. Indeed, in the positive scenario, skepticism and self-doubts are reported in China after the inauguration of the new Silk Roa..

Min Ye
ADB , AIIB , Asian Financial Crisis
April 29,2016 Special Forum

Introduction to Special Forum

The relationship between the United States and Japan has changed under Prime Minister Abe and President Obama not only becoming more robust bilaterally, but acquiring new significance in trilateral contexts. This is evident along the southern reaches of Asia as Australia, India, and various countries of ASEAN now have reason to view Washington and Tokyo as partners in security as well as the ..

Editorial Staff
Japan-US relations , South China Sea , trilateralism
April 29,2016 Special Forum

Japan, China, and the United States in an Uncertain Asia

Since the territorial dispute erupted, there has been limited contact between the leaders of Japan and China. Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and President Xi Jinping have met only once since the initial meeting at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference in Beijing in November 2014, when they decided to put an end to their standoff. The military risk reduction agreement that they so..

Sheila A. Smith
Alliance Coordination Mechanism , Maritime Self-Defense Force , Senkaku Islands , State Oceanic Administration
April 29,2016 Special Forum

Synopsis of the German Marshall Fund’s Japan Trilateral Forum, March 1-2, 2016

Why is it important to forge a global triangular framework under the auspices of Washington, Tokyo, and Brussels? Triangularity was assumed to exist during the Cold War, but Japanese horizons remained seriously limited and Europeans relied heavily on US power in East Asia. A triangle of this sort was posited as the emerging structure in the early 1990s before China’s rise and Japan&rsqu..

Editorial Staff
AIIB , Asianism , Populism , Post-modern Syndrome , Refugee crisis
April 28,2016 National Commentaries

A View from the United States

Inadvertent escalation or Chinese expansion? Two very different fears compete for attention in the proliferating discourse on the risk-rich imbroglio  of the South China Sea. Some fear an inadvertent escalation that may unnecessarily trigger war. Others fear Chinese expansion that prepares for its hegemony. Only Xi’s China cultivates a priority fear of American expansion. Many of China..

Donald K. Emmerson
Nine-dash line , Pax Sinica , South China Sea , sovereignty , UNCLOS