March 18,2015 Country Reports

Country Report: South Korea (March 2015)

Assessments of the Park administration’s foreign policy Marking the third year of the Park administration, criticism of her foreign policy grew more intense. On March 2, a Chosun Ilbo article assessed it as unbalanced, charging that too much weight has been put on the inter-Korean relationship. Reunification is, for sure, important, but related policies are dominated by populism and propagan..

Editorial Staff (prepared by Han Minjeong)
Asia-Pacific alliance , TPP , Wendy Sherman
March 10,2015 Open Forum

Washington Insights: February 2015

Triangularity figured heavily in DC seminars over the first two months of 2015. With the United States and China standing at opposite ends, coverage ranged from ASEAN to India to South Korea to Japan. Russia and North Korea also entered the picture at times, adding to the array of triangles or, on occasion, introducing a quadrangular angle. Accepting that the Obama administration is pushing TPP an..

Editorial Staff
normal nation , Revisionism , ROK-Japan Relations , TPP
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 27,2015 Review Article

‘Sengo 70nen hoshu no Ajiakan’ [‘The Asian Views of Conservatives over the Postwar 70 Years’]

Wakamiya Yoshibumi, Sengo 70nen hoshu no Ajiakan, [The Asian Views of Conservatives over the Postwar 70 Years] (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun shuppan, December 25, 2014) In the face of an unrelenting onslaught of criticism from Japanese conservatives, the progressive side, led by Asahi Shimbun, continues to make its case. Unlike the era of the Cold War, when the principal foreign policy divide was the U..

Gilbert Rozman
collective self-defense , conservatism , hereditary leadership , Revisionism , Shinzo Abe , Yasukuni Shrine
February 27,2015 Country Reports

Country Report: China (February 2015)

An article by Zhong Feiteng in Waijiao pinglun describes China’s new Asian strategy. It observes that Europe has been the geopolitical center and Asia the periphery, and Great Britain and the United States have reigned as the leaders of the international system. With China and India rising, in the 21st century Asia is becoming the global geopolitical center, but this has caused the United States..

Editorial Staff (with the assistance of Dong Jiaxin*)
ASEAN , Cool Japan , Indo-Pacific strategy , Korean wave , Maritime Silk Road , Peaceful Development , Ukraine
February 05,2015 Special Forum

Abe Shinzo: Japan’s Most Consequential Prime Minister since Yoshida Shigeru

Introduction to Special Forum Abe Shinzo: Japan’s Most Consequential Prime Minister since Yoshida Shigeru   The year 2015 promises to be a milestone in Japan’s transition from a defeated state remaining on the defensive over its history with a low strategic profile, to a proud and proactive force for the reorganization of Asia within the US-led international community. Abe Shinzo i..

Editorial Staff
Abenomics , comfort women , commemorations , Shinzo Abe , TPP , Yasukuni Shrine
January 12,2015 Country Reports

Country Report: South Korea (January 2015)

Deepening confrontation between China-North Korea-Russia on one side and South Korea-the United States-Japan on the other was the center of discussion over the last two months. As the year 2015 marks the 50th anniversary of the normalization of Korea-Japan relations and the 70th of Korea’s independence, how to overcome the stalled relationship gained weight. Park also spurred “small multilater..

Editorial Staff (prepared by Han Minjeong)
Eurasia Initiative , human rights , Korean reunification , Revisionism , sanctions , Yasukuni Shrine
December 30,2014 Country Reports

Country Report: China (December 2014)

The prevailing Chinese narrative is zero-sum, blaming Japan unsparingly and the United States, if in a less vitriolic manner, for regional fragmentation when a path to integration is within reach. Not only is there no hint of any mistakes made by China at any time since the 1949 revolution, there is no indication that compromise is part of resolving problems. The voices of the small group of acade..

Editorial Staff (with the assistance of Dong Jiaxin*)
Japanese containment , New Cold War , Sino-ROK alliance , US-ROK alliance