Asia-Pacific Archive

For the third year running, China’s upcoming National People’s Congress will be dominated by political maneuvering and speculation over the 2012 leadership transition. With jockeying for post-2012 power an increasing focus of attention, the outgoing Hu-Wen administration has lost influence, effectively putting the government on lockdown at a time of critical economic and social change. As a result, Beijing has opted to flood the economy with new credit rather than engage necessary structural reforms, creating an increasing disparity between the country’s halting social progress and the image portrayed in government propaganda. Since Deng Xiaoping’s oft-cited instruction that China’s process of […]

A few news items highlight a point I’ve been periodically raising over the past year, namely that Africa, as the region of the world with the most strategic upside, deserves more and better-conceived U.S. attention. We already know about China’s strategic inroads into Africa’s resource and infrastructure markets. That has driven what is to my mind perhaps the most under-appreciated story of the past few years: India’s push to play catch-up in Africa. That has taken the form of investments in resources and manufacturing infrastructure, but also mobile phone markets and consumer goods. At the same time, the European Commission, […]

One of the most complex and difficult humanitarian problems confronting the international community today is that of protracted refugee situations. These are refugee situations that have moved beyond the emergency phase, but where solutions in the foreseeable future do not exist. Many of the refugees left behind in these situations have to live under terrible conditions, warehoused in camps or stuck in shanty towns, exposed to dangers, and with restrictions placed upon their rights and freedoms. I first became aware of the significance and dimensions of the contemporary problem of prolonged exile in 2001, after a brief visit to the […]

Footage has emerged of a gang of Muslim men beating to death three members of the Ahmadiyah sect in Indonesia. The attack has been condemned by rights groups and the government, but some say a 3-year-old law banning Ahmadis from spreading their faith incited the violence.

While there remains a ton of things that can go wrong with the unfolding revolution in Egypt, there’s a strong case to be made that America, despite its low popular standing there, has been handed a gift horse whose mouth, as the axiom puts it, is best left unexamined. Because most of America’s concerns center on security issues, I’ll frame the argument for why this is the case in tactical, operational and strategic terms, and then finish on the most relevant grand strategic note — namely, the new Axis of Good that may result. Concerning President Hosni Mubarak’s conditional offer […]

China and Argentina recently signed a round of agricultural trade agreements. In an e-mail interview, R. Evan Ellis, an assistant professor at the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies of the National Defense University and author of “China in Latin America: The Whats and Wherefores,” discussed China-Argentina trade relations. WPR: What is the current state of trade relations between Argentina and China? R. Evan Ellis: Argentina is running a trade surplus with China, driven by the export of soy products. Yet Argentine manufacturing interests are being undercut by Chinese companies that sell ever-more goods in the country, beginning with toys, footwear […]

India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), announced in late December that it would no longer allow Indian importers to trade with Iran using the Asian Clearing Union (ACU), saying it wanted to explore an alternate means of facilitating trade-related payments. The move came as something of a surprise, even though the U.S. had been pushing India to take this measure for quite some time. For its part, Iran did not welcome the move and initially put the onus on India to find an alternative mechanism. Talks are currently underway to resolve the issue. Nevertheless, the episode has […]

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono just concluded a landmark visit to India, where he was the guest of honor at India’s 62nd Republic Day celebrations on Jan. 26. Ties between the two countries stretch back to India’s first Republic Day celebration in 1950, when Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno, was also the guest of honor. India had previously given unstinting support to Indonesia’s struggle for independence from the Dutch, convening a special U.N. conference on the subject in New Delhi in 1949 to further mobilize support. The two countries went on to become leading members of the Nonaligned Movement, founded in […]

Many observers of the Korean Peninsula have traced the apparent relaxation of tensions there to the supporting contributions made by China and the United States, with attention now focusing on the upcoming inter-Korean dialogue. But Russia’s role in this process also deserves mention, since Moscow can be a positive force regarding the Koreas. Throughout the past decade, under Presidents Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, Russian government policy toward the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Republic of Korea (ROK) has remained remarkably consistent, adhering to several key goals, strategies, and tactics. In the security realm, Russia’s objectives include […]