Japan

Putin EEF

Turning To The East

Russia is the land of the rising sun, said Russian President Vladimir Putin on September 5 during a meeting with activists of the environmental forum in Kamchatka. On the same day, the Russian government decided to withdraw from agreements with Japan on the procedure of mutual visits and facilitated visits […]

shinzo-abe

Shinzo Abe: A Controversial Visionary

When politicians die, especially an untimely death in tragic circumstances, obituaries tend to go overboard. A sense of perspectives is lost when obituaries become eulogies. But you can’t falsify history. And in the final analysis, it is the forces of history that write the course of politics rather than individuals, […]

G7

G7: Cracks In Western Unity On Russia

Ottoman Sultan Abdulmejid spared no expense to build the sumptuous Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul during 1843 and 1856, which was constructed to impress the world. It had the largest Bohemian crystal chandelier ever installed and fourteen tonnes of gold to gild the ceilings. In subaltern history, that splash, which the […]

Yang Jiechi

US-China Détente On The Horizon

The Kyodo news agency reported on Monday that Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand are holding a four-way summit on the fringes of the NATO leaders’ gathering in Spain next week. The report said Tokyo’s initiative on the quadrilateral meeting is seen “as an attempt to keep an assertive […]

IPEF

IPEF Will Be A Hard Sell In Indo-Pacific

A new economic bloc comprising twelve countries of the Indo-Pacific region and the United States was unveiled on Monday in Tokyo on the sidelines of President Joe Biden’s visit. Christened as the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), it is conceived as the economic correlative of the US Indo-Pacific Strategy. The Biden […]

Biden In Tokyo

Biden In Tokyo: Killing Strategic Ambiguity

Could it have been just another case of bumbling poor judgment, the mind softened as the mouth opened? A question was put to US President Joe Biden, visiting Tokyo and standing beside Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida: “You didn’t want to get involved in the Ukraine conflict militarily for obvious […]

Kuril

Asian Fault Lines Of Biden’s War On Russia

The tremors of the United States’ tensions with Russia playing out in Europe are being felt in different ways already in Asia. The hypothesis of Ukraine being in Europe and the conflict being all about European security is delusional. From Kazakhstan to Myanmar, from Solomon Islands to the Kuril Islands, […]