May 10,2016 Open Forum

Synopsis of the Asan Plenum, “The New Normal,” April 26-27, 2016

[Asan Plenum 2016 Agenda] “North Korea Out of Control, China Overextended, the United States Arousing Doubts, South Korea Sobering Up” The 2016 Asan Plenum put “gloom and doom” in the forefront as the “New Normal,” while offering repeated hints of a polarized “New Order” in Northeast Asia. Instead of deepening troubles awakening states to shared […]

Editorial Staff

Donald Trump , New Normal , Nuclear insecurity , Resolution 2270 , SIno-US talks , TPP

Apr 29,2016 Alternative Scenarios

Xi Jinping’s Belt & Road Initiative: How to Win Friends & Influence Europeans

In China’s history, every so often a fever grabs hold of the public imagination. Since Xi Jinping enunciated the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, over one million academic papers were written in China on this new subject.1 China’s experts were recruited to celebrate Xi Jinping as the “designer of China’s road to being […]

Theresa Fallon

BRI , Economic statecraft , Juncker Plan , MES , TPP

Mar 25,2016 Country Reports

Country Report: Russia (March 2016)

Vladimir Lukin, after explaining shortcomings of the United States, wrote in Rossiia v Global’noi Politike, no. 1, about his conceptions of China and India. He praised Deng Xiaoping for controlling China’s not inconsiderable foreign ambitions to devote all energies to resolving severe domestic problems. Over the following three-and-a-half decades, China lost not in the least […]

Editorial Staff (with the assistance of Olga Puzanova)

EEU , Russian Far East , Silk Road Economic Belt , Sino-US Relations , TPP

Oct 23,2015 Open Forum

Japan and the TPP Conclusion: Regional Order, Negotiations, and Domestic Adjustment

It took five and half years for 12 member states to reach general agreement over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which in encompassing 40 percent of the global economy now proposes to emerge as the largest free trade agreement (FTA) in history. Qualitatively, TPP can be viewed as one of the most ambitious FTAs ever. Dubbed […]

Terada Takashi*

China , Economic Relations , FTAAP , Regionalism , TPP

Jun 30,2015 Open Forum

The US-Japan Alliance and East Asia: Five Guiding Principles

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s trip to the United States in late April and early May was touted as a success and a boost for US-Japan alliance relations. The personal dynamics between President Obama and Abe appeared much warmer compared with their previous meeting in 2014. Public sentiment between the United States and Japan is at […]

Tanaka Hitoshi*

AIIB , Japan-US alliance , SDF , TPP , US-Japan Defense Cooperation Guidelines

Jun 11,2015 Special Forum

Option 3: Reclaiming Diplomatic Ownership

During the more than five centuries of the Yi dynasty (1392-1910), Korea practiced one-dimensional diplomacy; it had only to take care of its tributary relationship with China. Within this arrangement, Korea enjoyed de facto independence except for ownership of its diplomacy, which Korea had to relinquish to China. This configuration is what some scholars refer […]

Choi YJ*

AIIB , multidimensional diplomacy , Sino-US Relations , TPP

May 15,2015 National Commentaries

A Japanese Perspective

  "Reading Abe’s Washington Visit"   A View from Tokyo   Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s visit to the United States drew widespread praise in both Tokyo and Washington, but in both capitals a wary eye was kept on the reaction in Seoul. The visit proceeded in a triangular context. Not only were the media focused […]

Kazuhiko Togo

China’s rise , collective self-defense , historical revisionism , Korea Fatigue , TPP

Apr 30,2015 Open Forum

Washington Insights (Vol. 3, No. 2)

Different options have recently been aired before Washington think tanks for the regional architecture of Asia/the Asia-Pacific/the Indo-Pacific. Comparisons of four of these and the responses to some by the audience should be instructive. They are: 1) deferring to China centered on the South China Sea, promoting sinocentrism; 2) endorsing an invigorated EAS, capable of […]

Editorial Staff

APC , EAS , mililateralism , NAPCI , pivot to Asia , Sinocentrism , sub-regional multilateralism , TPP

Mar 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 […]

Editorial Staff (prepared by Han Minjeong)

Asia-Pacific alliance , TPP , Wendy Sherman

Mar 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 […]

Editorial Staff

normal nation , Revisionism , ROK-Japan Relations , TPP