Feb 01,2017 Country Reports

Country Report: Japan (January 2017)

Three shocks left Japan’s media groping for answers at the end of 2016 and the start of 2017. The Trump shock kept playing out after the initial alarm and adjustment in November. This journal covered the first month’s response in detail, so this theme is not a focus here, even as the implications for Asia […]

Editorial Staff
abductions , Abe Shinzo , anti-globalization , ASEAN , Australia , comfort women , Crimea , Diaoyu islands , energy , GSOMIA
Dec 28,2016 Alternative Scenarios

Negative Scenario II

The long-awaited December 15-16 Yamaguchi-Tokyo summit appears to have been a failure, which masqueraded as a step forward. That is the conclusion many sources in Japan have drawn, and the most reasonable finding unless one deduces from the remarks of Abe Shinzo and Vladimir Putin that in their 95-minute tete-a-tete with only interpreters present a […]

Gilbert Rozman
1956 Joint Declaration , Abe Shinzo , Eastern Economic Forum , energy , G7 , Hikiwake , Kuril Islands , Northern Territories , Peace Treaty , Putin
Dec 13,2016 Country Reports

Country Report: Japan (November)

Two themes dominated the news in November: the “shock” of the election of Donald Trump, which is covered separately in a Special Forum article, and the “anticipation” of Vladimir Putin’s visit to Japan on December 15. Already in the first part of the fall there was a sharp increase in Japanese articles on Japan-Russia relations, […]

Editorial Staff
AIIB , ASEAN , comfort women , East China Sea , energy , G20 , GSOMIA , Hikiwake , Kaesong Industrial Complex , Northern Territories
Dec 07,2016 Open Forum

Russia’s Far East Transborder Pains: China Threat Syndrome and the Tragedy of the Anticommons

The Russian Far East (RFE) has come a long way in the last fifteen years. The signature image of the region’s largest city of Vladivostok is no longer that of a quaint, late-nineteenth century railway station, but that of a daringly aerodynamic, cable-stayed bridge built over a mile long and two hundred feet tall to […]

Mikhail Alexseev
anticommons , China threat , migration , Russian Far East , Transborder Trade and Economic Complex
Nov 24,2016 Country Reports

Country Report: Russia (November 2016)

Noteworthy in the fall of 2016 has been the increase in articles about the Russo-Japanese relationship. They accompanied the Eastern Economic Forum meeting of Putin and Abe and anticipated the planned visit of Putin to Yamaguchi in December. Further attention was also given to Sino-Russian relations, especially as questions kept being raised about how linking […]

Editorial Staff (with the assistance of Olga Puzanova)
Crimea , Eurasian Economic Commission , Eurasian Economic Union , European Union , G7 , Kuril Islands , NATO , Northern Territories , Russian Far East , Shanghai Cooperation Organization
Nov 01,2016 Special Forum

Trilateralism and Realignment: Reassessing Three Triangles with South Korea

South Korea stands at the vortex of three geopolitical triangles and also in the shadow of the North Korean menace to regional stability. All of these trilateral configurations in the final months of 2016 are in the process of transformation and could evolve in unexpected ways. Foremost in most minds is the US-Japan-ROK alliance triangle, […]

Gilbert Rozman
5thnuclear test , comfort women , constitutional revisionism , Denuclearization , Eastern Economic Forum , Eurasia Economic Union , Eurasian Initiative , GSOMIA , Northeast Asia Peace and Cooperation Initiative , Park Geun-hye
Oct 26,2016 Alternative Scenarios

Negative Scenario I

As Abe Shinzo proceeds at breakneck pace to reach a breakthrough with Vladimir Putin, at least five questions need to be addressed from the perspective of the United States. First, is there reason to object to a territorial settlement less than the optimal position of Japan in years past? Second, what economic arrangements between Japan […]

Gilbert Rozman
four islands in a batch , G7 , Multipolarity , Putin , Russian Far East , sanctions , Shinzo Abe , THAAD , two plus alpha
Apr 19,2016 Open Forum

Russia-Southeast Asia Relations: In China’s Shadow?

From May 19-20, the leaders of Southeast Asia nations will convene for the Russia-ASEAN summit at the Black Sea resort of Sochi to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the establishment of the ASEAN-Russia Dialogue Partnership.1 Moscow attaches great importance to this summit as a step forward to reassert Russia’s global standing damaged by the reverberations […]

Vitaly Kozyrev
APEC , EAS , EEU , regional security architecture , Russian Far East
Apr 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 […]

Editorial Staff
Eurasian Five , Japanese nationalism , Obama-Xi Summit , Russian Far East , South China Sea