#Japan

Relationship managers across Asia have a potently difficult year ahead as news reports continue to highlight actions and words that are anything but conducive to cooperation and understanding between regional states. When a former British ambassador to North Korea writes an op-ed in the Daily Telegraph titled “Are China, Japan and South Korea fanning the […]

  Gokudo Uyoku Connection is a new series of documentaries by Sebastian Stein, director of Twilight of the Yakuza. Like his earlier film, Stein gives his audience a rare inside look into a group few foreigners (and few Japanese) ever get to see up close. In his new series, Stein draws attention to the connection […]

  After Beijing unilaterally declared an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea last month, to include the disputed Tokyo-controlled islands called Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese, the reaction by regional neighbors and the U.S. was swift. But with each action, a subsequent and escalating reaction has been triggered. China’s […]

A perusal of reader comments on Chinese news websites following Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s recent visit to the Yasukuni war shrine in Tokyo reveals an online explosion of nationalist fury. Despite U.S. attempts to dissuade Abe from visiting the shrine and U.S. criticism following his visit, America has not been spared the anger of […]

China and the United States were both right to condemn Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s official visit to the Yasukuni war shrine in Tokyo on Dec. 26, 2013. For once China and America are on the same page. China’s leaders will waste no time, however, in exploiting the incident to stir up anti-Japanese nationalism at […]

China presumes “great power” status for itself equal to the United States. What has China done recently to demonstrate its readiness for such a role? It has raged incoherently at Japan for a modest increase in military spending and accused a video game of “cultural aggression” against China. In response to China’s saber-rattling in the […]

China sent the diplomatic world into a spin on November 23 by declaring an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea. This is cause for some concern, given the state of Sino-Japanese relations. The concern has been boosted by some vague and rather provocative Chinese statements but also by the fact that […]

In a rare slap in the face to Beijing, last week the U.S. flew two of its unarmed B-52 bombers into China’s newly-established East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone.  The air defense zone had been recently created in order to assert Beijing’s claim to disputed territorial waters of the East China Sea and to […]

AP Photo: David Guttenfelder With the official death toll from Typhoon Haiyan topping 4,000 on Wednesday, nations from around the world are ramping up their efforts to help the Philippines deal with over 1,600 missing persons, 700,000 damaged houses and the nearly 10 million people affected.  Australia, Britain and the U.S. have so far each […]

When the average American is asked how much of the federal budget they believe is allocated to foreign aid, the response is 25 percent — twenty-five times the current amount. When Americans are surveyed on how much funding they believe should be allocated to foreign aid, the response is 10 percent. In reality, USAID comprises less than […]

“It’s so far, but so very near to us now.” This is what Dr. Uttam Kumar Sinha observed during the opening of the AsiArctic conference at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA) in New Delhi, India last week. India received observer status in the Arctic Council in May of this year, along with […]

A graduate student recently interviewed me for his dissertation on Russia, the Arctic, oil and gas. During the interview, he asked me what I believed was the single most important Arctic resource. The answer could have been oil, gas, minerals, fisheries, or any other number of commodities. I responded that oil and gas are probably […]