“I would insist that [part of the South China Sea] is ours and I will drill oil there,” Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte claimed he told his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping during his second official trip to China earlier this month. “[Xi] replied to me, ‘We are friends. We do not want to quarrel with you…We…
With Moon Jae-In’s victory in South Korea, the period of tension on the Korean Peninsula is likely to end. With the rise to power of the new president, South Korea can expect a sharp decline in hostilities with North Korea as well as a resumption of dialogue with China. An expected and highly anticipated victory was confirmed in…
In the week of World Press Freedom Day the New York Times carried one of its holier-than-thou and unintentionally ironical editorials, this time titled «Donald Trump Embraces Another Despot». Seeing the headline, the world could be forgiven for asking which one it might be, this time, and eventually the Editorial Board revealed the target of their displeasure to be President Duterte…
First the Golan Heights, now the South China Sea – The United States used to patrol this regularly to ensure “freedom of navigation” for all the nations who claim part (or all) of the sea and the islands within it. Now it is being reported that it has called its aircraft carriers home and left…
The big story in Asia IMO is the smaller powers trying to integrate with the PRC economically while keeping it at arms’ length militarily, but that doesn’t seem to drive the coverage I see. Perhaps as a function of that “salary depends on not understanding” Mark Twain crack, US diplos/generals/journos/wonks seem determined to ignore the…
In 2012 President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter launched a new chapter in their quest for global dominance: a realignment of policies designed to shift priorities from the Middle East to Asia. Dubbed the ‘pivot to Asia’, it suggested that the US would concentrate its economic, military and diplomatic…
