August 03,2016 National Commentaries

Implementing Sanctions against North Korea：A Chinese Perspective

North Korea’s repeated nuclear and missile tests have invited international sanctions, including those by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Since 2006, the UNSC passed six resolutions against it, leaving North Korea and the international community bogged down in a drawn-out confrontation. In defiance, North Korea continues to develop its nuclear and missile programs, and the ..

Cheng Xiaohe*
Agreed Framework , China-DPRK bilateral relations , China-DPRK trade , Non-proliferation treaty , Resolution 2270 , Six-Party Talks
July 27,2016 Country Reports

Country Report: South Korea (July 2016)

Three international thunderbolts of late June and early July drew intense responses in the South Korean media. The decision to deploy THAAD in South Korea was recognized as destabilizing relations with China and Russia, affecting the diplomatic balance that Seoul had been striving to cultivate since the end of the Cold War. The international court ruling on the South China Sea was perceived ..

Editorial Staff (prepared by Han Minjeong)
Cold War , Russia-China-North Korea , South China Sea , THAAD , US-Japan-South Korea
June 30,2016 Special Forum

The NATO vs. East Asian Models of Extended Nuclear Deterrence? Seeking a Synergy beyond Dichotomy

Amid North Korea’s apparent progress in its nuclear weapons program and China’s military build-up, including the modernization of its nuclear arsenal, experts and officials in East Asia, particularly those in Japan and the Republic of Korea, are nowadays discussing more frequently the issues related to extended deterrence, not least its nuclear elements called extended nuclear det..

Michito Tsuruoka
DCA , DSC , EDD , NATO model , NPG , Nuclear allergy , Nuclear burden-sharing , Nuclear deterrence , Saber-rattling
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 commentaries we find misleading talk of both China’s limited aspiratio..

Gilbert Rozman
Asia for the Asians , China first , G2 , hegemonism , Kurt Campbell , Six-Party Talks , Sunshine Policy
June 16,2016 National Commentaries

A View from the United States: Defending Camelot

President Obama’s final G7 summit meeting occurred against the backdrop of a world in which the core values espoused by the G7—democracy, the free-market economy, and respect for international norms of security and human rights—are increasingly under stress. The very fact that this was a G7 rather than a G8 meeting underscored the recent setbacks in what had been a trend toward cons..

Frank Jannuzi
Brexit , Consensus-building , International norms , Musudan IRBM , TPP , UNCLOS Tribunal , US nuclear deterrence
June 16,2016 National Commentaries

A View from Germany

The summit in Ise-Shima was already the third G7-meeting without Russia. (Germany had hosted the previous gathering in Elmau in 2015.) Japan, thus, worked particularly closely with Germany in coordinating the substance of this summit. This is evident from the importance given to issues such as global health, climate change, and women’s empowerment and gender equality in the discussions ..

Hanns W. Maull
German-Russian cooperation , ITLOS , Leaders' Declaration , Quantitative easing , Three arrows , UN sanctions regime , Wandel durch Annäherung
June 15,2016 Country Reports

Country Report: China (June 2016)

In the spring of 2016, Chinese analysts considered the repercussions of North Korea’s latest nuclear test. They assessed the prospects for China’s “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) policy, with particular attention to its implementation in Iran and Afghanistan. They also evaluated the prospects for Sino–Russian cooperative relations, and sharply criticized Japan’s intervention in the South C..

Danielle F. S. Cohen (assisted by Dong Jiaxin)
Afghan reconstruction , Cuban missile crisis , enuclearization , Japanese intervention , Sino-Iranian relations , SLOC , Sustainable security , THAAD
June 10,2016 Review Article

Russian Authors on the Korean Peninsula and on Japan in Joint Publications

25-ia Godovshchina Ustanovleniia Diplomaticheskikh Otnoshenii mezhdu Respublikoi Koreia i Rossiei: rezul’taty i vyzovy (25th Anniversary of the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between the Republic of Korea and Russia: Results and Challenges) (Moscow: Aziatsko-Tikhookeanskii Issledovatel’skii Tsentr, Universitet Khan’ian, Institut Dal’nego Vostoka Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, 2015). R..

Gilbert Rozman
NAPCI , Putin , Resolution 2270 , Russo-DPRK relations , Shinzo Abe , Suzuki-Muneo scandal , Trustpolitik
June 07,2016 Country Reports

Country Report: Japan (June 2016)

Kawakami Takashi in the March Kaigai Jijo assessed the Obama presidency, faulting him for high-sounding language on a non-nuclear world while doing nothing to stop North Korea from possessing nuclear weapons. He calls this “leading from behind” or “talk without action,” creating a vacuum by thinking that the United States is no longer the world policeman. On Asian polic..

Editorial Staff
G7 , GSOMIA , Ise-Shima summit , Japanese-Russian relations , Minsk Accord , Northern Territories , Nuclear threat
May 27,2016 Open Forum

Washington Insights (Vol. 4, No. 3)

In April and May 2016, the extension and reinforcement of the international system drew repeated attention in Washington: bringing the Europeans into Asian security, solidifying cohesion with Japan in facing challenges in both the South China Sea and North Korea, assessing and responding to China and to Sino-Russian relations, and, most of all, strategizing about North Korea and the combined ..

Editorial Staff
EEU , Japan-US relations , OBOR , SREB