Eastern Asia

On January 14, 2021, South Korea’s Supreme Court upheld former President Park Geun-hye’s 20-year sentence on charges of corruption and abuse of power. This is quite a milestone, as the charges against Park are finally being brought and approved. That evening, the Blue House issued a statement on the verdict: “such an incident must never happen again, taking…

On January 4, 2021, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) boats detained a South Korean-flagged vessel in the Strait of Hormuz. According to Iranian agencies Tasnim and Fars, the South Korean tanker MT Hankuk Chemi, which was going from Saudi Arabia to the United Arab Emirates, is now in the port of Bandar Abbas on the southern coast of Iran. There…

Late 2020 put a decisive end to the confrontation between Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl and Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae: season one in this political series ended with a victory for Yoon, but a second season, and perhaps one that is no less exciting, may begin in the new year. For those who have not been following this subject. In July 2019, President Moon…

At the beginning of December China’s Xi Jinping officially declared that China had eliminated poverty entirely, part of his priority program. Western financial pundits have praised the remarkable economic recovery of China following the severe lockdowns a year go to combat the coronavirus. Predictions that China would once again, as it did in 2008, lead the rest…

Washington’s predictable answer to Beijing’s ongoing efforts to uproot US-funded unrest in its Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has been more sanctions. The New York Times in its article, “US Imposes Sanctions on Chinese Officials Over Hong Kong Crackdown,” would report: The United States imposed travel bans and other sanctions on…

It should be stated right away that the very presence of “Tibetan issues” in contemporary international politics is almost entirely due to those phobias that are whipped up by the United States due to the fact that the PRC is turning into a second global power. Whereas as far as the latter is concerned, there are no significant transnational “Tibetan issues…

In December 2020, the Japanese press published classified diplomatic documents that were made in preparation for the 1989 G7 Summit, which took place in Paris on July 14-16. These documents show that already at that time there was a crack in the informal bloc of countries, which is still often referred to by the generalized term The West…

The year 2020 was formally rich in events related to exposing the DPRK from the perspective of human rights. As early as January 15, 2020. Human Rights Watch has called on the ROK government to assess the human rights situation in North Korea: although “North Korea remains one of the most repressive countries in the world,” President Moon Jae-in’s administration has…

The proposed budget posted on the Japanese Ministry of Defense website for this agency for the next financial year, subject to approval during the upcoming regular session of parliament, is worthy of attention for several reasons. First of all, this is because its main provisions attest to the fact that the entire process of the country’s military…

On December 24, the Mongolian Parliament (State Great Khural) approved the Law on Presidential Elections. In the summer of 2021, the country will hold its eighth presidential election in its history, in which Mongolians will choose their sixth president. The upcoming presidential elections in Mongolia have already intensified…

Earlier, the author wrote an article about North Korea’s battle against the COVID-19 pandemic, whose spread within the nation was halted owing to its strict and unprecedented in nature public health measures. By the end of 2020, this topic has become even more politicized because a totalitarian regime is not meant to show better outcomes than those of democratic nations…

The recently announced EU-China principally agreed investment deal is a watershed moment, marking a first EU-China investment deal of its kind that would open the doors for the EU to make direct investment in China. China will also have opportunities to expand its reach in the European market. While the deal would yield numerous benefits to the parties involved, it also has very visible…