October 23,2020 National Commentaries

Kazakhstan’s Ambiguous Position towards the Uyghur Cultural Genocide in China

There is a cultural genocide ongoing in the Uyghur region of China. As I detail in a recently published book, large swaths of the Uyghur population has been incarcerated or put in mass internment camps, the local population outside these institutions are subjected to omni-present surveillance, and they have no choice but to acquiesce to forced assimilation measures as signs of their culture a..

Sean R. Roberts
counterterrorism , Cultural Genocide , Kassym-Jomart Tokayev , Nursultan Nazarbayev , Uyghur , Xi Jinping , Xinjiang
October 23,2020 National Commentaries

Mongolia’s Response to China’s New Educational Policy in Inner Mongolia

As Chinese authorities began to introduce the new educational policy in Inner Mongolia, protests have been staged by ethnic Mongolian communities in Chinese northern provinces. The new educational policy, which has already been implemented in minority ethnic schools in autonomous regions of Xinjiang in 2017 and Tibet in 2018, requires three subjects—“language and literature,” &l..

Mendee Jargalsaikhan
"Belt and Road" Initiative , “Save the Mongolian Language” , Battulga Khaltmaa , China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor , Dalai Lama , Shanghai Cooperation Organization , Xi Jinping
October 23,2020 National Commentaries

Chinese Cultural Policies in Tibet: A Perspective from India

Indians have at least two vantage points from which to view what is happening in Tibet. Large parts of Himalayan India border Tibet, and the perspective from these regions is often different from the capital in New Delhi. Lay and monastic populations of Himalayan India, Bhutan, and Tibet have been closely knit in networks of kinship, religious patronage, pilgrimage, and trade for centuries. ..

Swati Chawla
communism , Dalai Lama , Narendra Modi , One Child Policy , Sinification , Tibet , Xi Jinping
October 19,2020 Open Forum

Kazakhstan in Sino-Russian Relations: Cooperation and Competition between the EEU and BRI

On the sidelines of the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) foreign ministers’ meeting in Moscow on September 12, 2020, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, issued a joint statement hailing the Sino-Russian “comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.”1 While containing a boilerplate restatement of the two parties’..

Michael Clarke , Dana Rice
"Belt and Road" Initiative , Commonwealth of Independent States , Eurasian Economic Community , Eurasian Economic Union , Shanghai Cooperation Organization , Xinjiang
October 12,2020 Open Forum

Washington Insights, Vol. 8, No. 5

Leadership change was on peoples’ minds in the late summer and early fall of 2020. What would a Biden administration do differently from Trump in the Indo-Pacific region? How does the departure of Abe Shinzo impact Japan’s foreign policy, given his personalized relations with the leaders in the US, China, Russia, and India as well as his icy relationship with Moon Jae-in? As..

Editorial Staff
COVID-19 , Donald Trump , free and open Indo-Pacific , Joe Biden , US-China rivalry , Yoshihide Suga
October 12,2020 Country Reports

Country Report: Japan (October 2020)

With Abe Shinzo’s decision to resign for health reasons at the end of August, discussion turned quickly to his legacy, including in international relations. One position was that he transformed Japanese politics, hollowing them out for foreign and domestic decision-making. He not only had been obsessed with amending the Constitution, he violated it with impunity, one read in Gendai B..

Editorial Staff
"Belt and Road" Initiative , Donald Trump , free and open Indo-Pacific , Joe Biden , Northern Territories , Senkakus , US-China rivalry , Yoshihide Suga
October 08,2020 Special Forum

Introduction

In the early autumn of 2020, when Joe Biden was leading decisively in the polls, many in the Indo-Pacific region were reflecting on what his policy would be to China, Japan, India, and the region more broadly. Would he break sharply from Donald Trump’s approach? Would he revert to the Obama administration’s policies? Are there grounds to foresee a multilateral Democratic foreign..

Gilbert Rozman
Donald Trump , Joe Biden , Narendra Modi , US-China rivalry , Xi Jinping , Yoshihide Suga
October 08,2020 Special Forum

Contemplating US Policy on China and the Indo-Pacific: Some Thoughts regarding a Possible Biden Administration

By most accounts, the last four years have been something of a sea change in US foreign policy. During this time, the US has stepped back from its familiar leadership role in several multilateral initiatives, cast aspersions at global governance efforts, flirted with dictators and authoritarian regimes more openly and brazenly than ever in the past, and pursued hawkish policies and postures t..

Amanda Trea Phua , Liow Joseph Chinyong*
COVID-19 , Donald Trump , free and open Indo-Pacific , Hong Kong , Joe Biden , Taiwan , US-China rivalry , Xi Jinping , Xinjiang
October 07,2020 Special Forum

Anticipating Japan’s Attitudes toward the US President in 2021

Japan has a very practical view on who the US president is. Throughout the postwar period, Japan’s national interest and security have been protected and advanced by the US-Japan security alliance. Its centrality will remain the same for the foreseeable future-just a reflection of geopolitical realities. Japan has to get along and deal with the US president, regardless of individual..

Akimoto Satohiro
Donald Trump , free and open Indo-Pacific , Joe Biden , Kamala Harris , Narendra Modi , Quad , US-China rivalry
October 07,2020 Special Forum

Sustaining the Momentum in the Indo-Pacific: The US Presidential Elections and Priorities for Indo-US ties

When asked about bipartisan support for the Indo-US relationship, India’s Foreign Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar said, “[T]hink back at the last four American Presidents. Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W Bush, and Bill Clinton. I'm sure you'd agree with me, you can't find four people in the world less similar to each other, right, and yet the one thing on which actually, all four ..

Shruti Pandalai
Donald Trump , free and open Indo-Pacific , Joe Biden , Kamala Harris , Narendra Modi , Quad , US-China rivalry