Regions

After bowing to Beijing’s request to retract his decision to plant a flag on Thitu Island over Philippine Independence Day, the President Rodrigo Duterte has likely angered the Chinese again.

Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, under investigation for his Russian ties and money laundering, will advise Chinese billionaire Yan Jiehe on gaining access to lucrative infrastructure projects in the U.S.

The unpredictable Duterte, has again changed course in the South China Sea, cancelling his plans to plant a flag on Thitu Island over Philippine Independence Day.

Lack of political will is largely motivating the inaction in the Korean peninsula. But with nuclear weapons threatening US mainland, it may be that Washington will decide on a policy of “now or never”.

Stressing only the expediency of resolving the DPRK issue, the U.S. risks not seeing the forest for the trees in the overall scheme of U.S-China relations.

Venezuela witnessed an upheaval in the national legislature and the ban of the leading opposition figure from running for office, resulting in massive protests and violent clashes with police.

Hanoi has acknowledged its citizens’ newfound environmental activism, hoping to avoid any widespread social unrest. But it is also taking punitive measures to quell protests.

South Korea’s new president will largely determine the future of the US-ROK alliance, relations with China, and the security approach in the Korean peninsula.

Future policies that deeply antagonize communities need to be prevented at all costs. Otherwise, it is unlikely that attacks, such as the one in St. Petersburg, will end.

Vietnam reacted strongly in response to a recent visit by a Chinese cruise ship to the disputed Paracel archipelago. Hanoi pressed for an end to the cruise ship visits, which have taken hundreds of Chinese tourists to the island chain since 2013.

In response to Beijing’s recent economic retaliations over the deployment of THAAD, Seoul raised the issue of trade agreements violations at a WTO meeting.

With protests against China’s investments in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Pakistan, the country’s ambitious expansion via economics in the Indian subcontinent is not going as well as Beijing had imagined.