Javier Solana at the 2012 SDA Presdient's Dinner, Brussels, Belgium, May 27, 2012 (Security and Defence Agenda photo licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license).

World Politics Review’s Maria Savel had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Javier Solana regarding the European Union’s relations with China, ASEAN and Asia as a whole. Dr. Solana is president of the ESADE Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics and previously served as the European Union high representative for the common foreign and security policy, NATO secretary-general and Spanish foreign minister. The following is a condensed version of their conversation. World Politics Review: Germany-China ties indicate a lot of the fault lines in the European Union and its approach to China in terms of balancing national and European interests. […]

A mother and her daughter tie yellow ribbons with messages for missing passengers and victims aboard the sunken ferry Sewol at a group memorial altar in Seoul, South Korea, July 28, 2014 (AP photo by Lee Jin-man).

SEOUL, South Korea—Last week, South Korea marked 100 days since the ferry disaster that left 304 people dead, most of them young high school students. The sinking of the Sewol, as the ship was named, has grown into much more than a heartbreaking tragedy. It has become a landmark event in the country’s history, one whose impact on South Korea’s politics, economy and self-image continues to grow. Memorials to the dead are visible throughout Seoul, and the sounds of continuing protests by relatives of the victims and their supporters can be heard across the city. More than anything, the Sewol […]

Missile launchers on the deck of the Chinese destroyer Haikou, U.S. Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, July 5, 2014 (Kyodo via AP Images).

On July 23, China conducted its third declared ballistic missile defense (BMD) test in the past four years, with the Defense Ministry announcing afterward that the test had “achieved the desired objectives.” But it would be premature to conclude that Beijing now embraces BMD. China lacks the capabilities to establish an operational missile defense network, even as Chinese officials continue to attack U.S.-sponsored BMD efforts. Instead, the recent tests are designed primarily to overcome adversary missile defenses as well as to develop China’s anti-satellite systems, a capability renounced by the United States as strategically destabilizing, which ironically is the same […]

The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and the Indian navy fleet oiler INS Shakti conduct a refueling at sea exercise, Indian Ocean, April 13, 2012 (U.S. Navy photo by Seaman Apprentice Andrew K. Haller).

Yesterday India and the United States kicked off the 2014 Malabar naval exercise, the latest in a series of joint exercises going back over two decades, with the Japanese navy participating as well. This serves as an opportunity for the United States to demonstrate its commitment to naval engagement in the region, to reassure nervous allies in the face of an expansionist China and to refocus the U.S.-India relationship, which is widely seen as off track. The exercise will consist of activities on and around Japanese territory. According to a statement from the Indian navy, the exercise will include exchanges […]

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and his counterparts from five central Asian nations pose prior to their talks in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, July 16, 2014 (Kyodo via AP Images).

Last week, Japan’s Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida met with his Central Asian counterparts in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, as part of the fifth Central Asia Plus Japan (CAPJ) Dialogue. Initiated in 2004, the dialogue has served as the foundation for recent ties between Tokyo and five countries in Central Asia: Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. This year’s meeting focused on enhancing economic cooperation in the agricultural and energy sectors, while also discussing potential security collaboration. Prior to the CAPJ Dialogue, Japan channeled its engagement with the region through its so-called Silk Road Diplomacy, which it launched in 1997 to […]

Chinese President Xi Jinping at Seoul National University, South Korea, July 4, 2014 (photo from the website of the Republic of Korea licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license).

SEOUL, South Korea—Washington’s plan to shift its attention toward Asia, the famed “pivot,” has been postponed or at least slowed by the rash of crises in the Middle East over the past three years. But East Asia, as it turns out, is not waiting for the U.S. Major countries in the region, including America’s key allies and its top emerging rival, are actively jockeying for influence, assertively reassessing relations with their neighbors and generally stirring for what could become a significant realignment of power in the world’s fastest-growing region. America’s strategic and diplomatic position on the eastern shores of Asia […]

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China’s post-1980s generation—around 240 million people born between 1980 and 1990—has received greater media coverage in China than any previous generation; moreover, assessments of this generation have varied widely. Often called the “me generation” and noted for an addiction to online games, Western fast food chains and Hollywood films, they have also received high praise for their selflessness and altruism after their response to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Such a diversity of perceptions is not surprising since this generation, which is crucial to China’s continuing economic success and international rise, clearly holds values that are far more contradictory than earlier […]

Students leave a testing site for China’s national college entrance examinations, in Nanjing, China, July 7, 2020 (Chinatopix photo via AP Images).

Editor’s note: The following article is one of 30 that we’ve selected from our archives to celebrate World Politics Review’s 15th anniversary. You can find the full collection here. China’s post-Mao generation, born since Mao Zedong’s 1976 death, has had formative life experiences that fundamentally differ from China’s older generations. Unlike their elders, Chinese born in the post-Mao era have not suffered the trauma of civil war, revolution, collectivization, starvation or the chaos of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. They also have been far more geographically mobile than older generations, whose ability to move freely was highly constricted by the government’s strict residential […]

Chinese President Xi Jinping (Defense Department photo by Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo).

On July 14, Xi Jinping began his second official visit to Latin America as president of China. The trip touches off with Xi’s participation in the sixth BRICS summit in Fortaleza, Brazil, which begins today. After this meeting of emerging market leaders, Xi will attend a Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) meeting in Brasilia, followed by visits to Argentina and Venezuela, where China maintains substantial energy-related interests. Xi’s Latin America tour will conclude on July 23 after a stop in Cuba. Xi’s trip is largely consistent with China’s previous state visits to Latin America. Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela […]

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There is a timeless observation according to which younger generations never fail to rebel against their parents’ values. In reality, most rising generations of youth do not overthrow the ways of their ancestors, but rather carry them forward, even teaching them to their own descendants. This is evidenced by the simple fact that, generation after generation, certain cultural beliefs and traits continue to be identified with particular regions. Today in the Middle East, for example, as in the past, the Koran continues to be revered. And in China, many of the basic precepts of Confucianism still hold sway, as they […]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, July 7, 2014 (Kyodo via AP Images).

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was in China last week, where she visited Chengdu, in the west of the country, and Beijing. This marks Merkel’s seventh official trip to China since she took office in 2005, a further sign of the growing importance of Berlin’s special relationship with Beijing. Germany and China have been steadily boosting ties since the late 1990s, when Gerhard Schroeder was chancellor. In 2012, then-Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, while visiting Berlin, announced the goal to increase bilateral trade with Germany from $180 billion to $280 billion by 2015. Trade between the two reached $193 billion in 2013, […]

Chinese President Xi Jinping at Seoul National University, South Korea, July 4, 2014 (photo from the website of the Republic of Korea licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license).

Last week’s China-South Korea summit confirmed the good relations between Beijing and Seoul under Chinese President Xi Jinping and South Korean President Park Geun-hye. When they met in Seoul on July 3 for their fifth personal meeting since Park assumed office in March 2013, the two leaders announced ambitious economic goals and reconfirmed their opposition to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Nonetheless, despite Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang’s pre-summit forecast that Xi’s trip would “take the strategic cooperative partnership between China and South Korea to a new level,” no breakthrough occurred, and their bilateral relationship remains essentially the same. […]

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari walks with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, Baghdad, Iraq, Feb. 23, 2014 (AP Photo by Ahmed Saad, Pool).

Like it did with the crisis in Ukraine, China is trying to keep out of the chaos in Iraq. But as the central government in Baghdad confronts the Sunni militants spearheaded by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an al-Qaida splinter group that aims to create an Islamic caliphate from eastern Syria to northwestern Iraq, it will be hard for China to preserve a policy of noninterference. This time around, unlike what happened in Ukraine, China cannot keep out of another sovereign nation’s internal affairs—until now a cornerstone of its diplomacy—given Beijing’s huge economic and commercial interests in […]

Protesters in Hong Kong, China, July 1, 2014 (AP photo by Kin Cheung).

Hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators took to the streets of Hong Kong last week on the anniversary of its handover to China, and more than 500 were arrested. In an email interview, Simon Young, a law professor at Hong Kong University, placed the protests in the context of Hong Kong’s relationship with the mainland. WPR: How has Hong Kong’s status within China developed since the end of British rule in 1997? Simon Young: Hong Kong’s status within China, known as “one country, two systems,” grew out of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration framework and is formally defined in the […]

China's Taiwan Affairs Council Minister Zhang Zhijun and Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council Minister Wang Yu-chi, Taoyuan County, Taiwan, June 25, 2014 (Kyodo via AP Images).

Zhang Zhijun, director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, recently concluded a four-day visit to Taiwan. He is the highest-ranking official from the People’s Republic of China ever to have visited Taiwan, making the trip something of a milestone in relations across the Taiwan Strait. First up on Zhang’s itinerary was a meeting with his Taiwanese counterpart, Wang Yu-chi, the director of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council. The two had held the first such government-to-government talks in February in Nanjing, where they agreed in principle to establish mechanisms for official communication, including representative offices. This time they moved one step closer to […]

South Korean President Park Geun-hye embarks from Seoul Airport, South Korea, March 1, 2015 (Korean Culture and Information Service photo by Jeon Han).

South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s high-profile six-day visit to Central Asia last week imparted further momentum to her “Eurasia initiative,” intended to deepen South Korean ties with that energy-rich but geopolitically volatile region. The trip also highlighted South Korea’s value to Washington at a time when the U.S. role and influence in the region is declining due to the ebbing U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and strained relations between the United States and the other two great powers active in the region, Russia and China. Park announced her Eurasia initiative last October. The declared goal is to remove physical and […]

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks during a press conference at his official residence in Tokyo Tuesday, July 1, 2014 (AP photo by Koji Sasahara).

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe today announced a major shift in the posture of Japan’s military, known as the Self-Defense Force, that could allow it to engage in combat on foreign soil six decades after it was founded. Japan’s military has for decades maintained a defensive mission under Article 9 of Japan’s constitution, which states that “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.” The move was greeted with protests both at home and abroad. Local polls showed at least half […]