For readers who might wish to compare its message with the usual image of a competent Japanese pharmaceutical industry – one that remains among the largest in the world after the US and China, with a world market share of approximately 7% – here’s a recent news item Asia Times asked me to unpack: Japan-made…
NATO 2030; United for a New Era, the recent policy paper produced by the U.S.-NATO military alliance, selects two main enemies, which of course it protests aren’t enemies at all, merely countries that threaten the world and will have to be dealt with. It is not mentioned that Russia and China are both embarked on…
Recent reports from Japanese media alleging that US immigration authorities there consider Russian nationals in some of the Kuril Islands to legally be Japanese represent an attempt by the fading unipolar superpower to ruin former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s legacy of rapprochement with Russia by pressuring his successor Yoshihide Suga into backtracking from that forward-looking…
China has achieved the almost impossible – a free trade agreement with 14 countries – the ten ASEAN, plus Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, altogether 15 countries, including China. The so-called Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, was in negotiations during eight years – and achieved to pull together a group of countries…
Signed and sealed in a video conference ceremony after nearly eight years of grueling negotiations, the world’s largest free trade bloc was forged on November 15 in a show of collective defiance against protectionism that sets the stage for China to supplant the United States as the Asia-Pacific’s main trade engine. Proclaimed as a win…
Ho Chi Minh, in his eternal abode, will be savoring it with a heavenly smirk. Vietnam was the – virtual – host as the 10 Asean nations, plus China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, on the final day of the 37th Asean Summit. RCEP, eight…
