Tibetan filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen has been languishing in prison because he made a short documentary about how Tibetans felt about the summer Olympics coming to Beijing in 2008.
He and his assistant were arrested on charges of inciting separatism shortly after the film was finished in 2008 and were given a …
Taking lessons from the Fukushima nuclear incident in March 2011, the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will review standard evacuation procedures in the event of a threat to a US nuclear plant, an NRC official said at a think tank event Thursday (March 22nd).
Although current NRC standards require a …
Update 03/15/2012 9:00AM: Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported Thursday Bo Xilai would be replaced as Chongqing Communist Party leader by Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang. [end update]
It appears Chongqing chief Bo Xilai’s political aspirations have been irrevocably scuppered by China’s head of government after attempts to distance himself from …
Speaking at a Brookings Institution panel discussion in Washington, DC on Friday (March 2nd), ex-nuclear envoy Dr. Robert Gallucci startled audiences with the admission that he believes use of force may be the only method to ensure Iran‘s nuclear program is irrevocably halted.
“I have …
We are now just about a week into the Noda administration and a new foreign policy landscape is beginning to take shape. We have a clearer picture of PM Noda’s stance on Futenma; a commitment not to visit the Yasukuni Shrine; and a better sense of his …
What is more important: Securing Pakistan’s strategic relationship with the United States or asking what some may call the “tough questions”? The presence of Osama bin Laden in the country’s garrison town of Abbottabad may not have been in the knowledge of the top Pakistani military …
Just a quick post to draw attention to a short piece by Georgetown’s Victor Cha, who, while touring China with the Hoyas, witnessed the Great Brawl of China first hand. Given Cha’s up-close and personal experience of the event and his recent book on the politics of sport …
In her most recent post at CFR’s Asia Unbound, Elizabeth Economy lays out the range of Chinese reactions to PM Noda’s election, which has spanned, in her words, “from the bleak to the belligerent.” She writes,
“Chinese analysts point out that the prime minister has …
The recent election of Noda Yoshihiko as president of the Democratic Party of Japan, and thus Prime Minister, has set off a flurry of commentary on the foreign policy implications of the new party leadership, particularly as it relates to the reception of the leadership change …
Historian Brett Walker, in his disturbingly important new book, Toxic Archipelago: A History of Industrial Disease in Japan, draws important historical linkages between economic development, industrial pollution, pain, and the body in service of the nation-state. Though singularly focused on the toxic ramifications of Japan’s modern developmental state, …
“What has kept the world safe from the bomb since 1945 has not been deterrence, in the sense of fear of specific weapons, so much as it’s been memory. The memory of what happened at Hiroshima.” — John Hersey, Hiroshima
Early in the morning of August 6th, 1945 — 66 years …
I am going to spare you of my thoughts on the debt ceiling circus in Washington and its foreign policy implications in East Asia. (I’ll leave that to Krugman and Richardson, both of whom I think are spot on). Instead, I’d simply like to direct your attention …
First, a stunning set of pictures of North Korea taken by AP photographer David Guttenfelder, who was on a longer leash than usual during his recent visit to Pyongyang.
Second, a quick detour from the realm of foreign policy into that of East Asian historical research, my other hobbyhorse. …
For those interested in the current state of military affairs on and around the Korean peninsula, a recent report out of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, The Korean Military Balance, is worth a look. Spearheaded by CSIS’s indefatigable Anthony Cordesman, the report provides …
“The United States has always been a Pacific power because of our very great blessing of geography. And India straddling the waters from the Indian to the Pacific Ocean is, with us, a steward of these waterways. We are both deeply invested in shaping the future …
