Asia-Pacific Archive

Taiwanese voters will head to the polls on Jan. 14 to cast their ballots in a close presidential race that has focused largely on how to address relations with China, which claims Taiwan as a province. Ma Ying-jeou, the incumbent and chairman of the Kuomintang or Chinese Nationalist Party, has worked to strengthen ties across the Taiwan Strait. With James Soong, a candidate who trails a distant third, expected to bleed off some potential Kuomintang support, Ma is neck-and-neck with Tsai Ing-wen, the opposition candidate whose Democratic Progressive Party favors independence from the mainland. Expanding beyond the media focus on […]

The Sept. 11 attacks made a household name out of al-Qaida, an organization whose existence had earlier concerned only intelligence professionals and a handful of journalists. As 2012 begins, al-Qaida has suffered a series of harsh blows, leading some to conclude that the once-predominant purveyor of terrorism and extremist ideology in much of the world has become a spent force, one without much of a future. To be sure, 2011 was a devastating year for the organization. But al-Qaida is not about to fade quietly into the sunset. Like a virus that mutates to survive its host’s most potent defenses, […]

Tokyo has said that it will support the U.S.-led sanctions on Iran, and will steadily reduce its orders of Iranian oil. World News Videos by NewsLook

Both the Obama administration and its opponents have exaggerated the significance of the Pentagon’s new Defense Strategic Guidance (.pdf) that was issued last week. The administration wants to take pride in its new creation and demonstrate to potential congressional budget-cutters that the Defense Department has already made all the financial sacrifices that the Pentagon can prudently afford. Meanwhile, the administration’s domestic opponents attack it from both the left, which calls for more radical cuts, and the right, which accuses the administration of deliberately trying to reduce U.S. military power in order to discourage future U.S. military operations. The truth is […]

In supporting her proposal to reverse the Australian ban on uranium exports to India at the Australian Labour Party’s conference in early December, Prime Minister Julia Gillard argued that, “We should take a decision that is in our nation’s interest, a decision about strengthening our strategic partnership with India in this, the Asian century.” The proposal, which was successfully passed at the conference, comes at a time when U.S. President Barack Obama is orchestrating Washington’s strategic pivot to Asia and signals that further space is being negotiated for India in the existing regional order. Washington seems to be using its […]

From the start of 2011 to the year’s end, corruption dominated India’s headlines and enflamed public opinion like no other issue. Three developments in particular brought corruption to the fore. First, in late-2010, the office of India’s comptroller and auditor general released a report stating that the Indian exchequer had lost more than $20 billion in revenue in the auction process allocating 2G telecommunications airwaves. Second, a 70-year-old Gandhi-esque figure led an anti-corruption movement that captured the nation’s attention and garnered global coverage. Third, an increasing number of India’s powerful elite began calling the country’s most famous prison, Tihar jail, […]

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has been acquitted in a stunning climax to a two-year sodomy trial, and has quickly set his sights on ousting the long-ruling coalition in upcoming polls. World News Videos by NewsLook

Faced with irreversible long-term fiscal pressures to reduce the U.S. defense budget, late last week the Obama administration began unveiling its supremely focused rationale behind future cuts. The result is an elegantly slim strategic statement (.pdf) that indirectly names its deepest fear in its title: “Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense.” According to the document, over the past decade the U.S. military force structure has been “by necessity” dangerously skewed by “today’s wars.” Now America must start “preparing for future challenges” arising from a frightening and apparently imminent “inflection point” in East Asia’s military balance of power. […]

News arrived this week that the second-largest oil company in China has agreed to pay $900 million, and contribute as much as $1.6 billion to future drilling costs, for a one-third stake in five American exploratory oil projects. The foray into American energy investment, the first by China Petrochemical Corp., known as Sinopec, comes in the form of a partnership with Oklahoma-based Devon Energy Corp. to develop shale reserves. “It’s a marriage of convenience and opportunity,” said Clayton Dube, associate director of the University of Southern California’s U.S.-China Institute. “This is further evidence of Chinese firms and the Chinese state […]

According to an unnamed administration official cited by the Atlantic’s Steve Clemons this week, Vice President Joe Biden has been tasked by the White House with overseeing U.S.-China relations. As such, Biden will work directly with his Chinese counterpart, Vice President Xi Jinping, who is currently responsible for the Chinese side of the strategic dialogue between Beijing and Washington, but is widely expected to succeed to the Chinese presidency later this year. As Clemons concluded, the move reflects the Obama administration’s assessment that the “management of U.S.-China policy has become so central to a vast array of other policy challenges […]

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union’s military-industrial complex sustained the massive Soviet military institution, which regularly gobbled up 15-25 percent of the nation’s GDP. In an odd and unexpected twist to the end of the Cold War, the Russian arms industry has turned to sustaining itself by arming a pair of Asian giants: Arms exports to China and India have proven lucrative for Russia — and have even had a synergistic and competitive quality. The unease each country has felt due to the other increasing its military capability has led to higher revenues for Rosoboronexport, the Russian state-owned arms […]

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell met with his counterparts in China on Jan. 4 to discuss the situation in North Korea. The two discussed the maintenance of peace and stability in the country in the wake of the recent leadership change, as well as food aid and a possible resumption of talks over North Korea’s nuclear disarmament, according to Campbell. World News Videos by NewsLook

In 2011, Myanmar astonished the international community with a series of political openings that led even U.S. President Barack Obama to see “flickers of progress” in the country. The approval by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit last November of Myanmar’s bid to chair the regional bloc in 2014 and the historic visit of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the country seem to have launched a regional race for gaining a “special relationship” with the Myanmar authorities, themselves eager to attract new foreign investment. But it is doubtful that increased economic involvement with neighboring countries will […]

Last year was a tough one in terms of global economics, humanitarian disasters and political leadership among the world’s great powers. But it was also the year of the glorious Arab Spring and hints of similar developments in Myanmar, Russia and Ethiopia. So while the year’s “fundamentals,” as the economists like to say, weren’t so good, it left us with plenty to be grateful for as globalization continues to awaken the desire of individuals for freedom the world over. Keeping all that in mind, here is my foreign policy wish list for 2012. A decisive election in the United States. […]