East Asia Archive

India and Taiwan recently began the process of considering a free trade agreement. In an email interview, Mukul G. Asher, discussed India-Taiwan economic relations. WPR: What is the extent of Taiwan-India trade relations? Mukul G. Asher: In 2010, the bilateral merchandise trade between India and Taiwan was valued at $6.5 billion, making India Taiwan’s 16th-ranked global trade partner and accounting for only 1.2 percent of Taiwan’s and 1.6 percent of India’s global trade. The balance of trade is in Taiwan’s favor by $800 million. Data for trade in services are not published on a bilateral basis. WPR: What is driving […]

Last month, the Philippines deported 14 Taiwanese citizens suspected of fraud to China, a move largely seen in the international community as legally justified but diplomatically tone-deaf. The Philippines justified the decision by claiming that the 14 were Chinese, not Taiwanese, in a de facto denial of Taiwan’s separate sovereignty from the mainland. Manila’s snub of Taipei, its longtime friend and partner, speaks to an Asian region increasingly willing to accede to Beijing on issues touching on Taiwan’s sovereignty. Legal issues aside, the row has exposed how much the self-ruled island’s already minimal global leverage has dwindled beside that of […]

Who’s in charge in North Korea? Contrary to what some news coverage has suggested in recent months, the answer is obvious: Kim Jong Il. Ever since the North Korean leader suffered a stroke in the summer of 2008, media reports have been rife with speculation that he would soon give way to a successor, or else that a struggle for power was raging in Pyongyang. Much of that speculation was idle, little of it informed, and some of it motivated. North Korea may be opaque, but this much is clear to close observers of its hermetic ruling circles: In January […]

With the Russian government having assumed an increasingly aggressive posture regarding the country’s territorial dispute with Japan in recent months, the question naturally arises, Why? Senior Russian leaders including President Dmitry Medvedev and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov have broken with precedent and visited what the Russians call the Southern Kurils and what the Japanese label their Northern Territories. The Russian government has also announced plans to enhance the islands’ socio-economic development and defenses. The escalating crisis led the counselor for European Affairs at the Japanese Foreign Ministry to characterize the Russian-Japanese relationship last week as being at its lowest point […]

With the Russian government having assumed an increasingly aggressive posture regarding the country’s territorial dispute with Japan in recent months, the question naturally arises, Why? Senior Russian leaders, including President Dmitry Medvedev and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, have broken with precedent and visited what the Russians call the Southern Kurils and what the Japanese label their Northern Territories. The Russian government has also announced plans to enhance the islands’ socio-economic development and defenses. The escalating crisis led the counselor for European Affairs at the Japanese Foreign Ministry to characterize the Russian-Japanese relationship last week as being at its lowest point […]