Support from China for Kim Jong-un would give him added weight with North Korea’s military.
North Korea More Dependent on China Than Ever
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China
Asia Stands Poised to Join 2011’s Global Revolution
If Asia takes a cue from the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, the world’s governments might face the haunting specter of working people of all countries uniting.
Popping the Jeju Bubble
With parliamentary and presidential elections coming up in 2012, South Korea is in the midst of its very first social-network-driven political season on the world’s stage. After nearly half a decade of the conservative policies of the Lee Myung Bak administration, Koreans seem ready to swing back to the left. The election in October of a progressive as the mayor of Seoul heralds this trend. This race also served as a beta test for an effective web-based campaign model in Korea. A key test issue for the opposition is the naval base that the government is constructing on Jeju Island.
Australia Remilitarizes
Recent transformations in the international system, notably the rise of China and an economic slump in the West, are rapidly ushering in a new age in Australian foreign policy. Slowly the sleeping continent has awoken to the din of machinery in uranium mines, shipbuilders in dry docks, and the arrival of a new contingent of U.S. Marines – the latter only the most recent indication of a re-posturing of the country’s foreign policy against perceived Chinese expansionism.
Burma’s Big Brother
Over 70 percent of Burma’s FDI has come from China, largely for development projects in ethnic-minority regions. These projects, along with smaller initiatives worth millions if not billions of dollars more in undocumented investment, have now brought tensions in ethnic regions to a boiling point. In turn, such tensions have led to the breakdown of a handful of ceasefire agreements between ethnic armed groups and the government army, which, incidentally, receives the majority of its weaponry from China.
China and the End of the Monroe Doctrine
The British firm Rockhopper Exploration was the first company to obtain oil off the coast of the Falkland Islands in 2010. Since then, these oil deposits have raised the stakes of the historical territorial dispute between the United Kingdom and Argentina over these islands located in the South Atlantic Ocean. A recent report by the pro-military think tank, the United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA), attempts to prove, albeit unconvincingly, that China could conceivably play a leading role in the future of this dispute.
America vs China in Africa
China’s imminent replacement of the West as the dominant international economic and political force in Africa epitomizes the most dramatic shift in geopolitics since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet the United States and Europe, Africa’s traditional trading partners, seem incapable of responding to the challenge and retaking the initiative. Instead, their response has been to wring their hands in despair and make ineffectual noises about human rights and democracy.
Occupy APEC with Aloha
“The time has come for us to voice our rage,” the Hawaiian artist Makana sang as he gently strummed his slack-key guitar. “Against the ones who’ve trapped us in a cage, to steal from us the value of our wage.”
Makana wasn’t serenading the Occupy movement; rather his audience included over a dozen of the world’s most powerful leaders, including President Obama and China’s Premier Hu Jintao, at the world’s most secure, policed, and fortified event: the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) dinner in Hawaii.
China’s Looming Economic Crisis
China’s economy has been growing at a phenomenal pace in recent decades, averaging around 10 percent a year. Few people seemed to worry, therefore, when the Chinese government announced recently that GDP growth in the third quarter of 2011 slowed to “only” 9.1 percent. Almost any country in the world would envy such growth. Yet beneath the continued robust appearances, there are signs that China is heading toward a crash reminiscent of the one that brought down the U.S. economy during 2007-2008.
The Puzzling Persistence of APEC
The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation has just concluded its annual summit in Honolulu, once President Obama’s home turf. It will probably be most remembered for the traffic jams it created in the Waikiki Beach area, to the consternation of residents and tourists alike. APEC’s continuing existence is a puzzle to many, for APEC’s record of irrelevance is rivaled by few other international forums.