April 30,2015 Open Forum

Synopsis of the Asan Plenum 2015: Is the U.S. Back?

[Agenda] The overall theme, “Is the U.S. Back?" provided the context for discussing in various panels timely issues concerning international relations in East Asia. Given the stress on US policy, this synopsis begins with views regarding Obama’s “rebalance to Asia,” proceeds to discussions of Sino-US relations, and continues with themes where the US role loomed more in the background or..

Editorial Staff

AIIB , Cyberwar , Russian Pivot to Asia , Sino-US Relations

April 30,2015 Open Forum

Mongolia’s Dilemma: A Politically Linked, Economically Isolated Small Power

Mongolia operates under the geopolitical and economic forces of rising China, reactive Japan and Russia, and retrenching America. It strives to preserve its nomadic, democratic, and Buddhist identities while accommodating currents of Western, Chinese, Russian, and Islamic civilizations. Thus, like other small powers, it faces new opportunities and uncertainties as the over-arching geopolitical, ec..

Mendee Jargalsaikhan

Abegeopolitics , Khaan Quest , Mongolia

April 09,2015 Special Forum

Four “Middle Power” Pivots to Asia

In this cluster of four articles on pivots to Asia, we expand the range covered in the Special Forum on pivots to Asia posted in the final issue of 2014. There, we included the United States, China, India, Russia, and Japan, concentrating on great powers. We now turn our attention to middle powers, adding Europe as a force that falls short of a great power, given its lack of cohesion and the hesit..

Editorial Staff

Middle Powers , National security , Sino-Russia rebalance , US-China rebalance

April 09,2015 Special Forum

Kazakhstan’s Multi-vector Foreign Policy: Diminishing Returns in an Era of Great Power “Pivots”?

Since Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the Obama administration’s “pivot” to Asia in 2011, the other most consequential powers—China, Russia, India, and Japan—have constructed their own versions of the “pivot.” Each ultimately seeks to make itself central to the reordering of strategic and economic power in Asia in the twenty-first century. China’s rise has been the dri..

Michael Clarke

March 25,2015 Country Reports

Country Report: Russia (March 2015)

An article by Gleb A. Ivashentsov attacks US moves in the Indian Ocean, while siding completely with China and suggesting that its plans fully meet Russia’s aspirations. In No. 2, Mezhdunarodnaia zhizn’ he discusses the situation in the Indian Ocean, which is described as the liveliest trade route in the world and the only year-round maritime route between European Russia and the Russian F..

Editorial Staff (with the assistance of Olga Puzanova)

Shanghai Cooperation Organization , Sino-Russian Relations

March 05,2015 Open Forum

Russia’s Policy towards China: Key Players and the Decision-making Process

Analyzing the foreign policy of modern states, many scholars lean towards describing different transactions as a result of interactions between states, which have their own interests and will, as the sole actors in international relations,. A more sophisticated analytical framework equates a certain policy with decisions taken by a ruler or the ruling elite. Russia’s “turn to the East” polic..

Alexander Gabuev

Balancing Against the West , Kremlin , Personality Politics , pivot to Asia , Putin , Sino-Russian Relations

March 02,2015 Country Reports

Country Report: Japan (February 2015)

South Korea preoccupied Japanese media more than China, recognized as a threat, North Korea, posing an ever greater threat, and Russia, which was transfixing the media elsewhere. Conservatives were obsessed with the “comfort women” issue and linked progressive dishonor of Japan with South Korean disrespect and campaigns in the United States and elsewhere to sully Japan’s name. The realist po..

Editorial Staff

historical revisionism , Murayama Statement , Yasukuni Shrine

February 16,2015 Open Forum

Making Sense of the Russo-North Korean Rapprochement

Although the six-party process about North Korean nuclearization is moribund if not dead, ongoing informal discussions among those parties are robust and ever evolving. Because these multi-party relationships are so protean, they force us to devise an analytic framework for them. After all, these talks are about much more than Korean denuclearization. They represent an embryonic or miniature versi..

Stephen Blank

Ostpolitik , pivot to Asia , rapprochement , Ukraine

February 05,2015 Special Forum

Abe Unleashed? Hardly

Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and his LDP chalked up a third consecutive election victory and extended their hold on the Diet for two more years with a convincing win in the snap Lower House election held in late December. While the victory consolidates the LDP’s grip on power and confirms that Abe is the real leader of the party—for now—, it is hard to call the results a mandate for hi..

Brad Glosserman

Abenomics , collective self-defense , Japan-US alliance , nuclear policy , Shinzo Abe , Territorial Disputes

January 27,2015 Country Reports

Country Report: Russia (January 2015)

Russian publications have had to react to an unexpectedly difficult environment at the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015. Counting on increasing polarization in the Asia-Pacific region, they observed Xi Jinping soften his opposition to the United States in meeting with Barack Obama in November. Intending to separate troubles in Europe from aspirations in Asia, Putin found the spillover so seve..

Editorial Staff (with the assistance of Olga Puzanova)

BRICS , FTAAP , India , Look East policy , Maritime Silk Road , TPP