Eastern Asia

1 January 2019 marked the third day since the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) came into force. Irrespective of what will happen during this whole, still new year, the aforementioned event will remain among the most…

On 18 December the Xinhua news agency publicized the state China’s Policy Paper on the European Union. We would like to highlight straightaway that this is not a unique document in the history of their official bilateral ties, established in 1975. Similar policy papers were issued in 2003 and 2014. But the latest in this series of documents has generated heightened interest from experts. The…

Once the story criticizing a report on mass-rape in DPRK was published, its author has faced with a fierce backlash. Many people were unwilling to believe that by “presenting notorious stories not as exceptions but as examples of daily tactics, and by then employing a similar…

There used to be a pair of beautiful swings for children, not far from an old rural temple in Mie Prefecture, where I used to frequently powerwalk, when searching for inspiration for my novels. Two years ago, I noticed that the swings had gotten rusty, abandoned, and unkempt. Yesterday…

In recent months, Japan has borne witness to a series of various important events occurring with a greater frequency. And as they become increasingly staggered, processes within the nation’s political life begin to speed up as a result. We could refer, for instance, to the issue (discussed on numerous…

The ties between South and North Koreas are becoming closer and there are fewer tensions in the relationship between DPRK and the USA. That often makes us forget that, though it was rather the Democrats’ strategy to pick on North Korea for violating human rights, the pressure on…

On 30 August, South Korea’s President replaced several ministers including the Minister of National Defense. Jeong Kyeong-do, who was a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was appointed as the new minister. He is the first appointee to have come from the Air Force in the past 24 years. The former minister…

The arrest of the CFO of the China’s largest telecoms equipment company, Huawei, carries hallmarks of deep state or behind-the-scenes sabotage designed to rupture recent progress between US President Trump and China President Xi Jinping on strategic issues. Here are some elements…

The numbers speak for themselves. 746,000 New Energy passenger cars were sold in China between January and October. By the end of 2018, all buses and taxis in the vital tech hub city of Shenzen will be electric. The central borough of the city of Dalian…

From the point of view of developments in the “game” of global politics, the most interesting thing about the recent Group of Twenty (G-20) summit, held in Buenos Aires from November 30- December 1, was not so much the forum itself, but the moves made by the main participants on the sidelines of the event. These moves were made in…

On 10 October 2018, several American doctors, who were involved in caring for and treating the fairly well-known Otto Warmbier, confirmed the theory, proposed by the student’s parents, that Otto’s teeth and gums looked as if they had been cut with a saw, and as a result…

Only recently we have published an article describing how Moon Jae-in is strengthening his position of power via a large-scale “clean-up”, and yet one scandal follows after another. For instance, the act of reforming the police force, sub-divided into the local branch (which will be…