If it sounds like a new cold war and looks like a new cold war, then it probably is a new cold war. For what other interpretation is to be placed on US president Joe Biden’s latest ramping up of diplomatic, economic and military pressure on China? Western officials tend to avoid the term, recalling as it does decades of hair-trigger confrontation with the former Soviet Union. They talk instead about enhanced security and defence cooperation and the importance of a free and open Indo-Pacific region. But such bland generalisations…
Tag: Japan
U.S.-Japan-South Korea Security Pact Likely to Deepen China’s Dismay
Ever since members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization sprang into action to help Ukraine try to thwart Russia’s invasion last year, China has warned about a similar U.S.-led security alliance forming in Asia that would seek to hobble Beijing’s ambitions and provoke a confrontation. President Biden’s Camp David summit on Friday with the leaders of Japan and South Korea most likely reinforces Beijing’s perception. The talks saw Japan and South Korea put aside their historical animosities to forge a defense pact with the United States aimed at deterring Chinese…
U.S. Seals Security Pact With Japan and South Korea as Threats Loom
The new three-way security pact sealed by President Biden and the leaders of Japan and South Korea at Camp David on Friday was forged with threats by China and North Korea in mind. But there was one other possible factor driving the diplomatic breakthrough: Donald J. Trump. While the former president’s name appeared nowhere in the “Camp David Principles” that the leaders issued at the presidential retreat, one of the subtexts was the possibility that he could return to power in next year’s election and disrupt ties with America’s two…
At Camp David Summit, Japan, South Korea and U.S. Present a United Front
President Biden plans to cement a newly fortified three-way alliance with Japan and South Korea during a landmark summit at Camp David on Friday, bridging generations of friction between the two Asian powers to forge mutual security arrangements in the face of an increasingly assertive China. Mr. Biden will host Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan and President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea at the presidential retreat in Maryland, the first time he has invited foreign leaders there and the first time the leaders of the three countries will…
US promises ‘new era’ as Biden prepares to host first summit with Japan and South Korea
The US has promised to usher in a “new era” in relations with its most important allies in Asia, as the region struggles to address the threat posed by an increasingly assertive China and a nuclear-armed North Korea. Joe Biden is expected to take advantage of a recent thaw in ties between Japan and South Korea – home to tens of thousands of US troops – to announce new collaborations on missile defence and technology, when he meets the countries’ leaders on Friday. Biden will host the South Korean president,…
Why Cash Is an Appropriate Gift at Asian Weddings
When I received a wedding invitation from my friends Jiyeon Kim and Olof Norlander this year, I knew exactly where I would pick up their wedding present: the bank. The two had already married in Uppsala, Sweden, where they live, but Ms. Kim’s father wanted the newlyweds to have a second ceremony in Changwon, South Korea, where he had spent years attending the weddings of his friends’ and colleagues’ children. As is tradition, he gave the marrying couples envelopes of cash known in Korean as chug-ui-geum, or congratulatory money. Having…
Seiichi Morimura, 90, Who Exposed Japanese Wartime Atrocities, Dies
Seiichi Morimura, who wrote a searing exposé of the Japanese Army’s secret biological warfare program in occupied China, describing how it forcibly infected thousands of prisoners with deadly pathogens, died on July 24 in Tokyo. He was 90. The announcement of his death by his publisher, Kadokawa, was cited in Japanese media. Mr. Morimura detailed the atrocities committed by the Japanese program — called Unit 731 — in a widely sold book, “Akuma no Hoshoku,” or “The Devil’s Gluttony” (1981). Among the horrors he described were vivisections performed without anesthesia…
Japan Defense White Paper Affirms Stronger Military Strategy
China is the “greatest strategic challenge.” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a “serious violation of international law.” North Korea is an “imminent threat.” And Japan needs to “fundamentally” strengthen its military and work more closely with countries like South Korea to preserve regional stability. The tough assessment comes from Japan’s annual defense white paper, approved by the cabinet office Friday amid growing security concerns that have pushed Tokyo to rethink its decades-long commitment to pacifism. The document, which borrows much of its language from the national security strategy released in…
What Japan’s Economy Can Tell Us About China
I hope that at least some of my readers are too young to remember this, but in the early 1990s many Americans — especially pundits, but also business leaders and a fair share of the general public — were obsessed with the rise of Japan. Two of the best-selling books of 1992 were Michael Crichton’s novel “Rising Sun,” about what he imagined to be the growing, sinister influence of Japanese corporations, and Lester Thurow’s “Head to Head: The Coming Economic Battle Among Japan, Europe and America.” It’s easy to forget…
Brutal heat and heavy rain: a week of extreme weather
52.2C in China A remote township in the north-western region of Xinjiang set a Chinese record of 52.2C (125.9F) on Sunday – in a country that was battling -50C weather six months ago. Sanbao is in the Turpan Depression, an arid basin of sand dunes and dried-up lakes where 50.3C was recorded in 2015. Beijing topped its record for high-temperature days in a year on Tuesday, with 27 days above 35C. The temperature in its southern suburbs soared even higher on Wednesday to 36.3C. 53.3C in the US Temperatures at…