Eastern Asia

The author has no other choice but to begin his latest article on the problematic nature of the relationship between Japan and the Republic of Korea / South Korea (both important neighbors of Russia) with either the adverb ‘sadly’ or ‘unfortunately’. The New Eastern Outlook recently…

The Republic of Vanuatu is an island nation, a part of the New Hebrides archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, located some 1,750 km from Australia’s East coast. Before gaining its independence in July 1980, New Hebrides (the name of the nation before it became Vanuatu) was a colony of both Britain and France. Even after Vanuatu…

China’s recent building-spree of schools in its underdeveloped and remote region of Xinjiang – in a saner world – would be good news. But for editors at the BBC it is being depicted as sinister and dystopian. The BBC’s article, “China Muslims: Xinjiang schools used to separate children from families,” attempts to depict boarding…

The most recent G20 summit, attended by heads of state of the 20 most important global economies, was held from June 28-29 in the Japanese city of Osaka. The G-20 format, as we have noted on previous occasions is, at present, possibly the only political platform that allows participants to discuss and try to resolve urgent global and “local” problems. And, beyond…

Modern fractional reserve banking is ultimately a confidence game. If lenders or depositors are confident their bank is solvent, it stands. If confidence is broken, that historically leads to bank panics, deposit runs and domino collapse of a financial system or worse. The surprise collapse in late May of a small Inner-Mongolia Chinese bank…

If Washington’s goal was to pressure and isolate China by targeting smartphone giant Huawei, it seems to have accomplished the exact opposite. In the process, the US has only accomplished in exposing its own growing weakness and unreliability as a trade partner amid a much wider, misguided and mismanaged “trade war.” While we’re only talking about smartphones…

Over the last 70 years, countries in APAC (Asia Pacific) have shown rapid economic growth, thereby attracting more and more interest to this region from world players, which has resulted in a battle for influence among them in this part of the world. During this period, Japan was the first to embark on its path towards development…

U.S. media outlets continue to report that Kim Jong-nam had worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (the CIA) before he was killed in 2017. In addition to WSJ (The Wall Street Journal) articles, Kim Jong-nam and his role as a CIA informant have been mentioned in…

The Western media has been boasting over recent protests in Hong Kong. Western headlines have claimed the protests have “rattled” Beijing’s leadership. The protests have been organized to obstruct Hong Kong’s elected government from moving forward with an extradition…

Another pivotal battle is being fought over Hong Kong between Beijing and political forces backed by the special administrative region’s former British colonial masters. At the heart of the battle is a proposed law that will allow suspects to be extradited to mainland China, Taiwan or Macau. The BBC in its article, “Hong Kong lawmakers…

The entire month of May, South Korea was in the throes of yet another scandal involving the government, which can be best summarized as follows. On 7 May 2019, ROK’s President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump had a 35-minute telephone conversation, during which…