Asia-Pacific Archive

The United States has been active in its policies toward the smaller countries of South Asia in the Indian Ocean region. In recent weeks, the U.S. concluded its third annual security dialogue with Bangladesh and sponsored a resolution against Sri Lanka at the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) calling for an international investigation into alleged war crimes. Since early 2014, Washington has called for new elections in Bangladesh after much of that country’s opposition boycotted national polls, and last year the U.S. pursued a defense agreement with Maldives that would have allowed rights for U.S. military personnel visiting the country. […]

This month, separatist rebels in northeastern India attacked Muslim villagers, killing 22 people in two days. In an email interview, Paul Staniland, assistant professor of political science at the University of Chicago and author of “Networks of Rebellion: Explaining Insurgent Cohesion and Collapse,” discussed India’s efforts to contain domestic security threats. WPR: Where do India’s major militant groups operate, and what are their objectives? Paul Staniland: There are four broad contexts in which militant groups operate in India. In Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, several armed groups, manned by a mix of Kashmiris and Pakistanis, are fighting for the accession of […]

Since the 1998 election of former President Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan government has sought to bolster its state sovereignty and reduce its dependence on the U.S. These efforts have involved, among other strategies, strengthening relations with regional allies such as Cuba and Bolivia, shoring up new regional institutions such as the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and cracking down on domestic nongovernmental organizations that rely upon U.S. funding for survival. As a petro-state, however, Venezuela remains heavily reliant upon its oil industry for revenues. If Venezuela is to ever […]

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe just finished a 10-day, six-country tour of Europe. The trip’s primary focus was securing momentum toward an end state in Tokyo’s negotiations with the European Union on an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). The trade talks have been moving at a steady pace since the first round of negotiations in early 2013. A finalized Japan-EU EPA would facilitate trade between the world’s third-largest economy and the EU, a partnership that would be worth over $20 trillion dollars, or nearly one-third of global GDP. According to a report from the European Commission, the EPA would result in […]

Last month, amid nonstop coverage of the Ukrainian crisis and an onslaught of domestic U.S. issues, the New York Times published an editorial urging the U.S. Congress to pass legislation to comply with international obligations on illegal fishing. Why did the editorial board think this issue warranted ink? Part of the answer is that the illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) trade in fish is no longer just a conservation and biodiversity challenge. Environmental crimes across the board today have significant consequences for countries’ development aspirations, in addition to global security implications. In this light, governments around the world need to […]

Twenty years ago, hardly anyone outside of China and Taiwan gave any thought to Chinese. Though spoken by a whole lot of people in a rapidly developing country, the language was seen as obscure, possibly nearly unlearnable. Nowadays, however, Mandarin Chinese language instruction worldwide is experiencing huge growth. Increasingly, Chinese is not just being taught in elite U.S. secondary and tertiary schools, it is also being spoken more in areas where China has secured access to key natural resources, like Australia, Kazakhstan and sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, Mandarin has also eclipsed all other varieties of Chinese as the premier language of […]

One of the effects of the Western military drawdown from Afghanistan has been to strengthen Russian-Indian security ties. Whereas New Delhi has tried in recent years to diversity its defense relationships, including by seeking out better ties with the United States, the need to prevent the pro-Pakistani Taliban from returning to power in Afghanistan has given a second wind to its security alignment with Moscow. Until now, their mutual engagement regarding Afghanistan was mostly diplomatic. But media reports have now emerged of a new arms-transfer arrangement in which India will buy weapons from Russia for delivery to the Afghan military […]

Against the backdrop of a threatened new nuclear test, North Korea is doing what it has long done to hedge against political and economic isolation: maintain and expand its network of partners. As it anticipates new international sanctions and a cooling of relations with China, North Korea has just concluded new trade deals with Russia and Uganda and is continuing to boost trade with the rest of the world, despite U.N. sanctions and U.S. efforts to sever its connections to financial institutions around the globe. Often miscast as a “hermit kingdom,” North Korea has been anything but that when it […]

President Barack Obama’s delayed visit to East Asia—finally carried out this month after domestic politics forced him to skip key summits last fall—was supposed to highlight America’s seriousness about rebalancing its foreign policy attention to the Asia-Pacific region. Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, spoiled the narrative, as the ongoing crisis in Ukraine continues to suck up most of the oxygen of the U.S. foreign policy process. Unlike earlier Obama peregrinations overseas, this trip did not generate blockbuster headlines or do much to burnish U.S. global leadership. Some pundits are already writing off the entire “pivot” to Asia as a failed […]