September 29,2014 Country Reports

Country Report: Russia (September 2014)

While the world’s gaze centered on Russia’s relations with the West and the on-again, off-again confrontation over Ukraine, Russian publications paraded a new, more assertive outlook on Russia’s “turn to the East” (povorot na Vostok). Giving impetus to this was an early July meeting of ambassadors addressed by Vladimir Putin, the statements at which on East and Central Asia were aired by..

Editorial Staff (with the assistance of Olga Puzanova)
BRICS , Central Asia , dead hikiwake , India , liberal secularism , New Cold War , turn to the East , Ukraine
September 29,2014 Topics of the Month

Civilizational Divides and Regional Confrontations – 1

To start this exchange, Gilbert Rozman wrote a meditative piece on the dangers of civilizational “pull” for Japan and France were they to respond with some complacency toward Russia and China’s respective challenges to their immediate neighborhoods. He is right on the need for a strategic “push”—one whereby both countries would clearly overcome their old, cultural inward-thinking and c..

François Godement
civilizational debates , cultural inward-thinking , France , Putinism , Sino-Russian quasi-alliance , strategic gambles , Ukraine
September 29,2014 National Commentaries

A Japanese Perspective

"Reassessing the Park-Xi Summit"   For understandable reasons, the Japanese paid rapt attention to the July 2014 Seoul summit between China and South Korea. Perhaps, the most compelling reason was to see what stance the two would take on issues concerning Japan, especially the territorial and historical consciousness questions. At the prior June 2013 Beijing summit, there was im..

Kimura Kan*
China , collective self-defense , Japan , joint ceremony of remembrance , missile defense , National identity , National security , public opinion , South Korea , Southeast Asia
September 12,2014 Country Reports

Country Report: South Korea (September 2014)

President Park’s “principled diplomacy” has been criticized for a lack of detailed policies. Park set the two diplomatic goals of a “Northeast Asian Peace Process” and a “Korean Peninsula Trust Process.” The former has been practically blocked by Korea-Japan relations, and the later by the inter-Korean relationship. Seoul and Japan currently have only one official dialogue channel at..

Editorial Staff (prepared by Han Minjeong)
Apologizing compensation" , May 24 restrictions , principled diplomacy , reunification charter , sex slaves , small routes to North Korea , universal human rights and history
September 02,2014 Topics of the Month

Civilizational Divides and Regional Confrontations – 2

Unlike previous Topics of the Month, this one will have multiple authors as well as rejoinders. The idea for it arose from Francois Godement’s observations that the European powers are not much interested in becoming involved in the maritime struggles between China and its neighbors or in the North Korean nuclear crisis. Unlike the era of the Cold War, when developments tied to the global Soviet..

Gilbert Rozman
Asia , China , Economic dependence , Europe , France , G7 sanctions , international community , Japan , National identity , National security
September 02,2014 Review Article

Japanese Publications on Japan-Russia Relations

Kaigai jijo, special Issue on turbulence in the sphere of the old Soviet Union, June 2014 Togo Kazuhiko, Hoppo ryodo kosho hiroku: ushinawareta gotabi no kikai [The Inside Story of the Negotiations on the Northern Territory: Five Lost Windows of Opportunity] (Tokyo: Shinchosha, 2007; rev. expanded paper edit. 2011). Kimura Hiroshi and Hakamada Shigeki, eds., Ajia ni sekkinsuru Roshia: sono ..

Gilbert Rozman
China , Japan , Mini-Soviet Union , National identity , National security , Putin’s visit to Japan , Russia , sanctions , Sphere of influence , Territorial Disputes
August 31,2014 Country Reports

Country Report: China (August 2014)

An article by Sun Ru in Zhongguo zhoubian distributed in its August 2014 posting took a close look at the US-Japan-South Korea triangle as it was strengthened by the three-way summit in March. It explained that the United States occupies the leading position in this triangle and has succeeded in temporarily getting the other two states to recommit to the triangular framework and support its rebala..

Editorial Staff (with the assistance of Dong Jiaxin*)
Arms trade , CK FTA , equilibrium , hegemonic thinking , India , public relations battle , Six-Party Talks , Southeast Asia , values-based diplomacy , Xi-Park Summit
August 12,2014 Topics of the Month

Multilateralism in Northeast Asia – 3

One of the main difficulties in my discussion of Russian foreign policy in Asia—indirectly alluded to in Elizabeth Wishnick’s comments—is a sense of uncertainty about Russia’s direction. While my analysis registers the undeniable closing of ranks between Beijing and Moscow, I fall short of proclaiming the death of multilateralism and highlight sources of tension between China and Russia th..

Sergey Radchenko
Alliance , colored revolutions , polarization , Vladimir Putin , Xi Jinping
July 25,2014 Special Forum

Introduction to Special Forum

Economists, political scientists, and sociologists greeted developments at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s with acclamation that their theoretical views were proven correct and those of marginalized social scientists and area specialists were now disposable. Communism in all its assaults on freedom was passe, as were Sovietologists and those who had concentrated on “Maoist China...

Editorial Staff
contradictory transitional thinking , elite continuity , historical memories , symbolic pretexts
July 25,2014 Country Reports

Country Report: Russia (July 2014)

New Russian articles suggest that South Korea’s foreign policy is more intriguing than previously anticipated. Explaining that there is talk today of forging a new system of global governance, an article in the June issue of Mezhdunarodnaia zhizn’ argues that the responsibility is rising for South Korea, with its important interests in the geopolitics and geoeconomics of the Korean Peninsula. ..

Editorial Staff (with the assistance of Olga Puzanova)
Gas deal , global governance , New Cold War , New Silk Road , SCO , Sino-Russian alliance , soft integration , threat from the West , Trustpolitik , Ukraine