A US Perspective

The New Washington Consensus Washington DC is a sharply divided city these days. A recent Pew Research Center poll concluded that Americans have increasingly embraced “conflicting partisan priorities […]

China’s Political Trajectory and Foreign Relations under the Influence of National Identity

Since Xi Jinping formally ascended to power in 2013, China has been flaunting its superior “China Model” to the rest of the world more actively than ever before. […]

Analyzing the Relationship between Identity and Democratization in Taiwan and Hong Kong in the Shadow of China

After 160 years of non-democratic colonial rule by the British, Hong Kong became part of China in 1997 under a mini-constitution, the Basic Law, that guaranteed a number […]

Country Report: China (December 2018)

In late 2018, Chinese experts assessed China’s relations with India and India’s maritime strategy in the Indian Ocean under the Modi administration. They examined the revival of the […]

The Last Asian Frontier? A Comparison of the Economic Cooperation Agendas of China, Japan, and South Korea with Uzbekistan

China, Japan and South Korea have regarded Central Asia (CA) as a new, and perhaps the last, Asian frontier in their foreign policies after the collapse of the […]

Security I

The most recent development in Sino-Japanese relations, particularly in the security arena, suggests that bilateral relations have already hit bottom and begun to improve gradually. On June 8 […]

From Friend to Foe-ish: Washington’s Negative Turn on the Belt and Road Initiative

Despite its status as a Pacific power, the United States has been somewhat peripheral to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) since the latter’s inception in late 2013. […]

Synopsis of the 2018 Asan Plenum: “Illiberal International Order”

The agenda of the 2018 Asan Plenum included a keynote address, a book launch, four plenary sessions, and fourteen panels meeting simultaneously in groups of two or three. […]

Positive Scenario II

In his negative scenario 1, Ivan Zuenko reviewed several possible factors that could substantially worsen Sino-Russian relations in general, including activation of latent Chinese claims to Russian territory […]

Positive Scenario I

Setting aside the ongoing debate in The Asan Forum and other platforms about the extent and durability of the Sino-Russian alignment, it is hard to gainsay that Central […]