Asia-Pacific Archive

On March 23 in Hanoi, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his Vietnamese counterpart, Tran Dai Quang, announced plans to rapidly increase trade between their two countries from more than $60 billion today to $100 billion by 2020. Bilateral trade has been growing quickly since South Korea and Vietnam signed a free trade deal in 2015, building on economic ties formed after diplomatic relations were established in 1992. In an email interview, Lee Jaehyon, a research fellow and director of the Center for ASEAN and Oceania Studies at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, discusses South Korea and Vietnam’s deepening […]

In rapid succession, America’s mercurial commander-in-chief has changed U.S. policy toward two of the world’s most tragic and intractable conflicts. In Afghanistan and Syria, President Donald Trump has simultaneously ramped up U.S. involvement and insisted that America cut its losses and get out. In both cases, it is hard to track the true underlying strategy that would achieve some durable American objectives. Rather, he is approving policy tactics formulated to respond to worsening conditions on the ground and to the advice of his military commanders, who see the larger consequences of security setbacks. First, the facts. It was late last […]

The Maldives, a country known far more as a honeymoon hotspot in the Indian Ocean than as a hub of political crisis, is back to “business as usual,” according to its president, Abdulla Yameen, following the lifting of a 45-day state of emergency on March 22. But with one former president forced into exile, another joining two Supreme Court justices in indefinite detention, and 31 of 45 opposition lawmakers still either in jail or facing trial, it looks like anything but that. After weeks of unrest, the government of the Maldives has bought the current calm with the last dregs […]

Peacemaking is generally a quiet and deliberative business. Professional mediators typically approach international standoffs and civil wars in a methodical and low-key manner. They assume that any sudden moves or big news stories about a peace process will throw everything off-track. If you ever meet a group of mediators from organizations like the United Nations, you will notice that they have a penchant for long silences, oblique comments and inscrutable glances. Donald J. Trump is known for exactly none of these things. The U.S. president’s extraordinarily high-profile decision to negotiate with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over Pyongyang’s nuclear […]

In late March, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena was in Pakistan for a three-day visit that included attending the country’s Republic Day celebrations as the guest of honor, a sign of deepening ties between the two South Asian nations. The visit was seen as an attempt to build on defense cooperation that has been especially strong since the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war. In an email interview, Michael Kugelman, the deputy director of the Asia Program and senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, discusses bilateral relations between Sri Lanka and Pakistan and […]

Measures announced last month at China’s 13th National People’s Congress to strengthen the leadership role of the Chinese Communist Party and remove term limits for President Xi Jinping have raised fears about the increasingly authoritarian trajectory of Chinese politics. However, given the country’s immense economic and governance challenges and the realities of its political system, authorities have little realistic alternative than to rely on the Communist Party’s leadership to oversee difficult structural changes. While repression may well increase and the possibility of policy misjudgment cannot be ruled out, boosting the party’s influence also increases the chance that Beijing will fulfill […]