Category: Economic Relations

Meanwhile in the Central Philippine Sea

While tensions continue to rise in the South China Sea and the disputing governments nervously await a decision in the Philippines’ arbitration case against China, an important sideshow has arisen between Japan and Taiwan in the central Philippine Sea.

On 24 April Japan’s Coast Guard arrested a Taiwanese fishing vessel and its crew for fishing in waters that Japan claims are part of its 200-nautical mile ‘exclusive economic zone’ (EEZ) under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

India’s Modi Courts the U.S., and it’s Working

In the first two years of the Modi government, India and the United States have taken calibrated efforts at the highest political level to transform bilateral relations. It was in this context that the visit of United States Defense Secretary Ash Carter to India on 10–13 April assumed huge significance. His visit symbolised the deepening defence ties between the two countries, with the Modi government agreeing in principle to sign three groundbreaking agreements.

India’s Got Talent…for Japan

There is a popular saying among Indians that ‘Dubai is the best-run Indian city’. Hundreds of thousands of Indians, as well as others from the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, have been making a living in the Gulf region through temporary contract labour.

They are mostly unskilled or semi-skilled workers engaged in the provisioning of a variety of services such as construction, retail, building maintenance and security, teaching, healthcare and domestic help.

Restarting Economic Cooperation in the Form of a Dam

In 2009, Myanmar agreed on the huge dam project with Chinese contractors; in 2011, it was suspended. As the new government must decide its future, it is closely watched by both Chinese and international investors.

In 2009, after years of talks, most of the $3.6 billion Myitsone Dam project was to be covered by the China Power Investment Corp. in a joint venture with Myanmar’s Ministry of Electric Power. Myanmar was expected to get 10% of the electricity garnered, own the project after a 50-year period and earn $54 billion via tax payment, power and shares.

Can the Next Philippine President Bridge the U.S.-China Gap?

In the past six years, Washington and Manila have been cementing a military alliance, which is reassuring to many Filipinos but leaves some apprehensive – including the leading presidential contenders.

Is the Japan-U.S. Relationship Stronger than Isolationist Rhetoric?

Signed in 1951, the US–Japan Security Treaty and the alliance it established have endured for over six decades and continue to play an instrumental role in shaping the regional security order. However, with Republican presidential nominee frontrunner Donald Trump’s ‘America first’ isolationist foreign policy views gaining traction in the United States, concerns are mounting over the future of the alliance.

Anxiety-building as a Strategy Against China

The Obama administration has never plainly acknowledged that it faces a major challenge from China to the US-led order in Asia, and it has therefore never clearly explained its strategy to deal with that challenge. Because it has never been clearly explained, the strategy has never been carefully scrutinised to see whether it has a credible chance of working. Instead, it has slowly become accepted as orthodoxy among the US foreign and strategic policy community without serious debate.