October 20,2014 Country Reports

Country Report: Japan (October 2014)

Hopes for Japanese diplomacy had grown faint in the late summer of 2014. Russian relations had stalled, as Russia flexed its muscles with rare military exercises on the islands in dispute. North Korea was delaying a report on the abductees, which Japan had been expecting in the middle of September. Possible meetings on the sidelines of APEC in November between Abe and Xi Jinping or Park Geun-hye r..

Editorial Staff
ASEAN Asian dream , comfort women , Eurasian diplomacy , Japanese Abductees , Northern Territories , Putin’s visit , sanctions , Thailand , Ukraine , US pressure
September 29,2014 Country Reports

Country Report: Russia (September 2014)

While the world’s gaze centered on Russia’s relations with the West and the on-again, off-again confrontation over Ukraine, Russian publications paraded a new, more assertive outlook on Russia’s “turn to the East” (povorot na Vostok). Giving impetus to this was an early July meeting of ambassadors addressed by Vladimir Putin, the statements at which on East and Central Asia were aired by..

Editorial Staff (with the assistance of Olga Puzanova)
BRICS , Central Asia , dead hikiwake , India , liberal secularism , New Cold War , turn to the East , Ukraine
September 29,2014 Topics of the Month

Civilizational Divides and Regional Confrontations – 1

To start this exchange, Gilbert Rozman wrote a meditative piece on the dangers of civilizational “pull” for Japan and France were they to respond with some complacency toward Russia and China’s respective challenges to their immediate neighborhoods. He is right on the need for a strategic “push”—one whereby both countries would clearly overcome their old, cultural inward-thinking and c..

François Godement
civilizational debates , cultural inward-thinking , France , Putinism , Sino-Russian quasi-alliance , strategic gambles , Ukraine
September 02,2014 Topics of the Month

Civilizational Divides and Regional Confrontations – 2

Unlike previous Topics of the Month, this one will have multiple authors as well as rejoinders. The idea for it arose from Francois Godement’s observations that the European powers are not much interested in becoming involved in the maritime struggles between China and its neighbors or in the North Korean nuclear crisis. Unlike the era of the Cold War, when developments tied to the global Soviet..

Gilbert Rozman
Asia , China , Economic dependence , Europe , France , G7 sanctions , international community , Japan , National identity , National security
September 02,2014 Review Article

Japanese Publications on Japan-Russia Relations

Kaigai jijo, special Issue on turbulence in the sphere of the old Soviet Union, June 2014 Togo Kazuhiko, Hoppo ryodo kosho hiroku: ushinawareta gotabi no kikai [The Inside Story of the Negotiations on the Northern Territory: Five Lost Windows of Opportunity] (Tokyo: Shinchosha, 2007; rev. expanded paper edit. 2011). Kimura Hiroshi and Hakamada Shigeki, eds., Ajia ni sekkinsuru Roshia: sono ..

Gilbert Rozman
China , Japan , Mini-Soviet Union , National identity , National security , Putin’s visit to Japan , Russia , sanctions , Sphere of influence , Territorial Disputes
August 12,2014 Topics of the Month

Multilateralism in Northeast Asia – 3

One of the main difficulties in my discussion of Russian foreign policy in Asia—indirectly alluded to in Elizabeth Wishnick’s comments—is a sense of uncertainty about Russia’s direction. While my analysis registers the undeniable closing of ranks between Beijing and Moscow, I fall short of proclaiming the death of multilateralism and highlight sources of tension between China and Russia th..

Sergey Radchenko
Alliance , colored revolutions , polarization , Vladimir Putin , Xi Jinping
August 11,2014 Country Reports

Country Report: Japan (August 2014)

On May 25, Yomiuri shimbun carried an article by Kitaoka Shinichi, who had chaired the advisory panel that had debated national security and defense capabilities. With the aim of identifying where the legal system for security relations was inadequate, his panel had found many barriers in the interpretation of the Constitution to acting in collective self-defense. Respecting the Constitution was a..

Editorial Staff
collective self-defense , New type of great power relations , North Korea card , peripheral diplomacy , propaganda war , Ukraine , Vietnam
August 11,2014 Open Forum

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization: A Fading Star?

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) stands at a pivotal point in its history. On the one hand, the growing ties between Russia and China as well as the withdrawal of the Western powers from Central Asia and Afghanistan could provide it with more cohesive leadership and more opportunities to become Eurasia’s dominant security institution. On the other hand, the SCO faces competition from ..

Richard Weitz
Afghanistan , Central Asia , CICA , CSTO , energy , Eurasian Union , mutual reassurance , security threats , Ukraine
July 25,2014 Special Forum

Introduction to Special Forum

Economists, political scientists, and sociologists greeted developments at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s with acclamation that their theoretical views were proven correct and those of marginalized social scientists and area specialists were now disposable. Communism in all its assaults on freedom was passe, as were Sovietologists and those who had concentrated on “Maoist China...

Editorial Staff
contradictory transitional thinking , elite continuity , historical memories , symbolic pretexts
July 25,2014 National Commentaries

US Perspective

"Sino-Russian Relations"   The Ukraine Crisis and the Future of Sino-Russian Relations President Vladimir Putin has described the improvement of relations with Beijing as one of his major foreign policy accomplishments. While this rapprochement has had concrete economic and political benefits, Russia tended to view relations with China instrumentally, using China as a “card..

Jeffrey Mankoff
Anti-Western sentiment , Arms sales , Central Asia , CICA , Eurasian Union , financial sanctions , gas pipeline , naval maneuvers , revisionist axis , SCO