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 29,2016 Special Forum

Navigating Historical Tensions: Pragmatic Leadership, Empathy, and the United States Factor in Japan-South Korea Relations

The year 2015 was, arguably, an important turning point for Japan’s relations with South Korea. Since the advent of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) administration of Prime Minister Abe in 2012, and the election of Park Geun-hye as South Korea’s president in 2013, political relations between East Asia’s most vibrant democratic polities had been in the doldrums. Despite rep..

John Nilsson-Wright
Abandonment-Entrapment model , Han Miracle , Kono Statement , Yasukuni Shrine
April 19,2016 Country Reports

Country Report: China (April 2016)

In early 2016, Chinese articles assessed Japanese relations with Myanmar, ASEAN’s South China Sea policy, and China–ASEAN relations. They considered South Korea’s new policies toward Japan and the Arctic region and analyzed the limited effectiveness of its middle power diplomacy. They also evaluated Japan’s nuclear policy and its potential civil nuclear cooperation with In..

Danielle F. S. Cohen (assisted by Dong Jiaxin)
Arctic policy , ASEAN-Chinan relations , Japan-Myanmar relations , Maritime security , NPT , South China Sea
April 14,2016 Country Reports

Country Report: Japan (April 2016)

In the late winter of 2016, the Japanese mainstream was pleased with US foreign policy, if nervous about campaign rhetoric: reassured about triangularity opposed to North Korea, but still trying to keep dialogue with the North alive for the sake of the abductions issue; exceedingly quiet on Abe’s plan to meet with Putin in Sochi in early May; and disappointed that hopes for improving ti..

Editorial Staff
December 28 Japan-ROK agreement , History textbooks , JICA , South China Sea , Takeshima , Trump
April 07,2016 Review Article

Ex-ambassadors to Seoul Advise It to Change

G. A. Ivashentsov and Shin Beom-shik, eds., Bezopasnost’ i Sotrudnichestvo v Severo-Vostochnoi Azii: Sovmestnyi Dokument Rossiiskikh i Iuzhnokoreiskikh Ekspertov (Security and Cooperation in Northeast Asia: Joint Document of Russian and South Korean Experts) (Moscow: Spetskniga, 2015) Muto Masatoshi, Nikkan Tairitsu no Shinso (The True Face of the Opposition between Japan and South..

Gilbert Rozman
Historical consciousness , North Korean threat , Sino-US Relations , trilateralism
April 07,2016 Open Forum

Washington Insights (Vol. 4, No. 2)

Sino-US Relations While many are discussing the dominance of competition over cooperation in Sino-US relations, one DC presentation argued that both threads are intensifying under the strong leadership of Xi Jinping. After many years in the 2000s when Washington had urged China to play a more active role in regional and global affairs—becoming a “responsible stakeholder”—ra..

Editorial Staff
Eurasian Five , Japanese nationalism , Obama-Xi Summit , Russian Far East , South China Sea
February 23,2016 Open Forum

US-Japan Relations, 2015-2017

One year has passed since (in The Asan Forum 3, no. 1) I analyzed US-Japan relations during the first two years (December 2012-January 2015) of Abe Shinzo’s second term as prime minister. This article assesses developments in the bilateral relationship since then, examining what can be expected in 2016 and assessing prospects for 2017 under a new US administration, taking into account d..

Glen S. Fukushima
Abe Shinzo , Abenomics , Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) , US Presidential Primaries , US-Japan Joint Vision Statement , US-Japan Relations , US-Japan Security Treaty
February 23,2016 Open Forum

Synopsis: German Marshall Fund Workshop on Sino-Russian Relations After Maidan—A New Reality? (February 4, 2016)

In 2015, Sino-Russian relations figured into debates on international relations more than at any time since the end of the Cold War. There was notable divergence on the state of these relations. There was also concern about what should be done to limit the relationship from drawing closer with little consensus on how to proceed. From the point of view of US relations with allies, there was disagre..

Editorial Staff
Sino-Russian Relations
February 11,2016 National Commentaries

A Japanese Perspective

"US-ROK-Japanese Trilateral Security Cooperation"   In the mid-1990s, when Japan and the United States redefined their alliance and revised the "Guidelines for Defense Cooperation between the United States and Japan" to match the new set of international security challenges that arose after the end of the Cold War, trilateral security relations among the United States, the Rep..

Yamaguchi Noboru*
Regionalism , Track 2 talks , US deterrence