The following interview originally appeared on Dawn.com, Pakistan’s most respected English news source. I am reproducing it here for the interest of our readers. It’s a rare opportunity to come across an American diplomat who understands the South Asian culture and speaks fluent Urdu and Hindi. Former ambassador Teresita C. Schaffer, 66, is one of […]
Japan was alerted to Russian military air drills being conducted “unusually close” to its airspace near the disputed Kuril Islands, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said Thursday. Fujimura said the Russian military had designated an area within Russian airspace as dangerous for aviation northeast of Japan’s Hokkaido island as it continued drills above the Sea […]
An apparel manufacturing facility in Gurgaon Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has just completed a high-profile trip to Bangladesh. Although domestic politics in India prevented the visit from being as fruitful as it could have been, Mr. Singh nonetheless made good progress on issues that have divided the two neighbors for decades. Yet even greater dividends […]
We are now just about a week into the Noda administration and a new foreign policy landscape is beginning to take shape. We have a clearer picture of PM Noda’s stance on Futenma; a commitment not to visit the Yasukuni Shrine; and a better sense of his personal politics, what might be called “moderate nationalism.” And now […]
What is more important: Securing Pakistan’s strategic relationship with the United States or asking what some may call the “tough questions”? The presence of Osama bin Laden in the country’s garrison town of Abbottabad may not have been in the knowledge of the top Pakistani military authorities but it is no coincidence that many other […]
Yoshihiko Noda delivered his first press Friday since becoming Japan’s newest prime minister. He announced the four top priorities of his cabinet, which was sworn in Friday. Noda’s top priority is recovery of the disaster-hit areas of the March 11 quake and tsunami. The government aims to pass a third supplementary budget for reconstruction, expected […]
Online campaigns are viewed as the most democratic medium in contemporary times. There are numerous examples of social media resulting in change and enhancing accountability in countries, towns and villages. As someone who studies the positive impact of social media on civil society interactions, it’s heartening to witness these developments. Various forms on online protests, […]
September was supposed to be the month in which operations began at a rare earth processing facility located in Kuantan, Malaysia, a fast-growing port city situated along the South China Sea. The project, awarded to the Australian-based Lynas Corporation, was originally envisaged as a lofty effort at breaking the Chinese monopoly of the production of […]
Once again, it’s time for business leaders to step forward As earlier posts have argued, relations between Washington and New Delhi – which not too long ago seemed destined to reach for the stars – are now feeling the heavy tug of gravity. In place of soaring rhetoric and high-profile undertakings, ties between the two […]
Just a quick post to draw attention to a short piece by Georgetown’s Victor Cha, who, while touring China with the Hoyas, witnessed the Great Brawl of China first hand. Given Cha’s up-close and personal experience of the event and his recent book on the politics of sport in East Asia, he is doubly qualified […]
The government said Tuesday that Japan’s jobless rate climbed to 4.7 percent in July, up 0.1 percent from a month earlier, while household spending fell a real 2.1 percent to 280,046 yen ($3,649). While a jobless rate of 4.7 percent seems relatively low considering that the U.S.’s unemployment rate for July was 9.3 percent, this […]
In her most recent post at CFR’s Asia Unbound, Elizabeth Economy lays out the range of Chinese reactions to PM Noda’s election, which has spanned, in her words, “from the bleak to the belligerent.” She writes, “Chinese analysts point out that the prime minister has not renounced his comments to the effect that Class-A Japanese […]
This isn’t going to be one of my typical analytical postings, but there was some interesting news as well as a few fascinating/disturbing videos that were brought to my attention this week that I felt I simply had to share. Firstly, there was a chilling scene outside a Phnom Penh money exchange yesterday that resulted […]
The recent election of Noda Yoshihiko as president of the Democratic Party of Japan, and thus Prime Minister, has set off a flurry of commentary on the foreign policy implications of the new party leadership, particularly as it relates to the reception of the leadership change in China and South Korea. Though little is available yet […]
The ruling Democratic Party of Japan chose a new president, and in effect, a new prime minister, today. Japan’s newest prime minister, the sixth in five years, is Yoshihiko Noda. The former finance minister was chosen over other top runners, including former Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara and Trade Minister Banri Kaieda. The new prime minister […]
