Dec 10,2020 Country Reports

Country Report: Japan (November 2020)

The late fall of 2020 was eventful for Japanese foreign relations because it meant the start of a new relationship with a US president—this time with a new Japanese prime minister; renewal of diplomacy with China—more intent than before on driving a wedge between Japan and the US; the signing of a broad trade agreement—RCEP […]

Editorial Staff
ASEAN , free and open Indo-Pacific , Hong Kong , RCEP , Senkakus , South China Sea , Tokyo Olympics , TPP , US-China rivalry
Jun 20,2019 Country Reports

Country Report: China (June 2019)

In the spring of 2019, Chinese experts assessed China’s relations with the United States and Russia forty years after reform and opening began. They also evaluated China–Japan–South Korea and China–India–Russia relations. They analyzed the current US–Japan alliance and the US “securitization” of freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. Conspicuous in many of these […]

Danielle F. S. Cohen (assisted by Dong Jiaxin)
Cold War , Diaoyutai/Senkaku , Dokdo/Takeshima , freedom of navigation , South China Sea , trilateralism , US-Japan alliance
Apr 30,2019 National Commentaries

A View from the United States

Although there is progress regarding the code of conduct (COC) for the South China Sea between ASEAN and China, the South China Sea is not without tensions.1 China’s first aircraft carrier took part in a naval review, along with latest-generation nuclear submarines, destroyers, and fighter jets in late April, marking the People’s Republic navy’s 70th […]

Ketian Zhang
"Belt and Road" Initiative , FONOPs , free and open Indo-Pacific , South China Sea , Spratlys , the Quad
Feb 19,2019 Special Forum

Military Aspects of the Russo-Chinese Alliance: A View from the United States

Recent official US statements postulate Sino-Russian enmity towards the US.1 Moreover, they rightly highlight an unprecedentedly close alignment of these two states against the US.2  In other words the triangular relationship is now a relationship of two against one. Following the US assessment, this article opposes the reigning academic view, expressed in numerous recent studies […]

Stephen Blank
BRI , C4ISR , FONOPs , INF Treaty , Northern Sea Route , Sino-Russian alliance , South China Sea , UNCLOS , Vostok 2018
Dec 21,2018 National Commentaries

A US Perspective

The New Washington Consensus Washington DC is a sharply divided city these days. A recent Pew Research Center poll concluded that Americans have increasingly embraced “conflicting partisan priorities for US foreign policy.”1 On most major national security concerns—whether Russia, Iran, North Korea, or Afghanistan—there is little or no bipartisan agreement. On China, however, there is […]

Zack Cooper , Annie Kowalewski
"Belt and Road" Initiative , Meng Wanzhou , Nine-dash line , South China Sea , Tibet , Xinjiang
Sep 04,2018 Open Forum

Can China Seduce Japan? 14 Reasons for Its Overtures in 2018

As Sino-US relations have deteriorated in 2018, Beijing has looked elsewhere in Asia for closer ties: to the Korean Peninsula, where Kim Jong-un was desperate to improve relations in order to pursue diplomacy with Donald Trump with his “back covered” and Moon Jae-in was awaiting pressure from Trump after enticing him into diplomacy with Kim […]

Gilbert Rozman
BRI , Confucius Institutes , South China Sea , trade war , US-Japan alliance
Aug 31,2018 Special Forum

International Law in US-China Relations: Trade Wars and Maritime Rights in the Era of Xi and Trump

In an increasingly fraught US-China relationship, issues of international law have become important in their own right and illustrative of broader patterns. A pair of particularly salient and illuminating arenas are trade (and related economic matters) and maritime rights (including related security issues, especially in the South China Sea). In each of these fields, the […]

Jacques deLisle
BRI , CPTPP , Made in China 2025 , RCEP , South China Sea , TPP , UNCLOS , WTO
Aug 31,2018 Special Forum

A Prognosis of the Current Sino-American Malaise

The current relationship between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the United States has been described by reputable China scholars as the worst it has been since normalization in 1979.1 How bad can it get?  The easy answer to that question is, of course, no one can know the future. That granted, we focus […]

Lowell Dittmer
BRI , Socialism with Chinese Characteristics , South China Sea , UNCLOS , Xi Jinping Thought