Imagery of weather and baseball dominated Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda’s visit to China at the end of 2007. Greeting Fukuda in Beijing, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao observed that, “Although it is a chilly winter day, we can feel the warmth from friendly China-Japan relations here.” The Chinese had characterized Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s October 2006 visit as “ice-breaking,” while terming Wen’s April 2007 trip to Japan as “ice-thawing.” The most publicized event of the summit occurred when Fukuda and Wen, dressed in baseball uniforms, tossed a ball back and forth in front of the cameras to symbolize [...]
This year, the leaders of the European Union likely will become preoccupied with securing ratification of the Lisbon Reform Treaty, which their heads of state and government signed on Dec. 13, 2007. The aim of the treaty is to strengthen Europe’s ability to advance its internal and external objectives. Despite surface appearances, the new arrangements, if adopted, will not radically enhance Europe’s status as an international security actor. The Treaty of Lisbon, also known as the Reform Treaty, aims to restructure the EU’s core institutions in response to two fundamental changes in recent years. First, from April 2004 to January [...]
On Dec. 23, the Belgian Chamber of Representatives approved the formation of a new interim government, thus providing a respite from an institutional crisis that had seen the country without a government for some six months since general elections in June. The crisis was provoked by the inability of leading political parties from Flanders and Wallonia — the Dutch-speaking north and the French-speaking south of the country respectively — to come to terms on a governing coalition. It has transformed the hitherto merely theoretical prospect of a break-up of Belgium into a real possibility. One party that explicitly favors the [...]
