Author: Tobias Harris, MIT

Michael Cucek has already pondered Yosano Kaoru’s thinking behind his strange alliance with arch-revisionist Hiranuma Takeo – which has resulted in a party that will supposedly be called Stand Up Japan! – but there’s another factor beyond the electoral factors considered by Cucek.

The alliance is a marriage of convenience in policy terms for both Yosano and Hiranuma. Read more…

Author: Chung-in Moon and Sangkeun Lee, Yonsei University

The two Koreas remain engaged in a protracted arms race, jeopardising peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and in the region. A numbers analysis of military capabilities between the two Koreas suggests that North Korea is far superior to the South. The South leads the North only in three areas: the size of navy personnel, armoured vehicles, and helicopters. The North leads in all other areas.

However, a qualitative analysis renders quite a different outcome. Overall conventional defence capabilities favour the South due to more modern military equipments including many cutting-edge weapons. Read more…

Author: John Braithwaite, ANU

President Obama’s forthcoming trip to Indonesia is an opportunity to congratulate President Yudhoyono for the considerable success he has had as a peacebuilder. He was a worthy Nobel Peace Prize nominee for his contribution to peace in Aceh, and made admirable contributions to building peace in Ambon and Poso, among other places. He could never be a worthy Nobel winner, however, because of the situation in West Papua. President Obama’s visit is also an opportunity to confront the failure to grasp the nettle of peacebuilding in Papua.

The human rights and militarised violence situation in Papua is as bad today as it has been for some years, in the aftermath of a sequence of shooting incidents around the giant American Freeport mine. Read more…

Author: Andrei Lankov, ANU and Kookmin University

On the evening of March 26, Cheonan, a 1,200 tonne South Korean corvette, was on patrol in coastal waters near the disputed border with North Korea when its stern was suddenly torn away by a powerful explosion.

The warship sank within a few minutes, taking the lives of 46 sailors. The South Korean government initially assumed the warship was attacked by a North Korean submarine and put its military on high alert. Read more…

Author: Emma Campbell, ANU

It is hard enough to be a twenty-something in the best of times, but South Korea’s twenty-somethings (the yishipdae) are having it particularly tough. This new generation, the ‘G-generation’, is the focus of critical attention across Korea’s intellectual and media forums. They are Korea’s most highly educated generation, with unique international experience. They are the first generation whose lives have only spanned post-1987 democratic South Korea.

These expressions of concern by older generations is historically unprecedented in South Korea. A book 88 man won saedae, decrying the directionless trajectory of these young people, sold over one million copies. Read more…

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW@ADFA

The wind-back of former Prime Minister Koizumi’s postal privatisation reforms is a spectacular example of how special interests are exerting pivotal influence over key economic policies in the Hatoyama administration.

Japan’s postal lobby is strongly committed to government ownership of postal services. Its grass-roots components consist of postmasters’ organisations and Japan’s largest labour union with 229,000 members (the Japan Postal Group Union). In the past, postmasters’ organisations strongly backed LDP candidates in Diet elections, but Koizumi’s privatisation reforms seriously frayed this long-standing link. Read more…

Author: Frank Jotzo, ANU

China has pledged to reduce the emissions intensity of its economy (tonnes of CO2 per yuan) by 40-45 per cent from 2005 to 2020. It seems that the Chinese government is serious about this target, and it is fair to expect that China will strive to meet the targeted reductions. In fact, the expectation among observers in Beijing is that the 12th Five Year Plan, which is under development now, will contain a 2015 emissions intensity target as a half-way mark. But how will China go about trying to meet it?

First up, it is important to note that effort will be needed to achieve the target. Read more…

Author: Peter Drysdale

Chinese President Hu Jintao is heading to Washington this week to take part in US President Obama’s conference on nuclear disarmament. President Hu’s participation in the meeting, 12-13 April, Washington time, is of interest well beyond what weight it might add to lessening the risks from the world’s nuclear arsenals.

Two days after the nuclear disarmament meeting, on 15 April, the US Treasury was scheduled to make its recommendation on whether China should be cited for manipulating its currency, the RMB (or yuan), ostensibly with the effect of underpricing exports, wracking trade and current account surpluses and causing unemployment and trade deficits in partners like the United States. Read more…

Author: Yiping Huang, Peking University and ANU

Tim Geithner’s decision to delay the US Treasury Department’s biannual report on international economic and exchange rate policy, originally scheduled for release on April 15, probably helped avert a potentially ugly confrontation between the world’s two economic superpowers. The ball is now in China’s court.

Recent developments suggest that China is about to amend its current soft peg of renminbi (RMB) to the US dollar (USD). I remain confident that the band of RMB/USD exchange rate will be widened modestly soon and the RMB could rise by 5-8 per cent before year’s end. Read more…

Author: Wang Yong, Peking University

By 15 April, the US Department of Treasury was scheduled to decide whether to label China as ‘a currency manipulator’. The prospect of a trade war, or even worse a currency war, between the world’s two largest economies has further destabilised the shaky recovery growth of the global economy. Given the extremely complicated nature of the RMB exchange rate in the global economic context, the US should undertake a rational cost-benefit analysis instead of threatening sanction.

Since July 2005, China’s RMB has appreciated by 21 per cent. But this has not significantly improved the US trade deficit, nor reduced China’s trade surplus. Read more…

Author: Luke Nottage, University of Sydney

Privately-supplied alternative dispute resolution (ADR) services are increasing in Japan. This is partly explained by a  shift in self-image among many bengoshi lawyers, linked to the increasing presence of corporate law firms.  In 2004, the ‘Law to Promote the Use of Out-of-Court Dispute Resolution Procedures’ which followed a Judicial Reform Council (JRC) recommendation in 2001, was rapidly enacted.

Despite its slow start, this law has been successfully promoting privately-supplied ADR services. Read more…

Authors: Lex Rieffel, Brookings Institution, and Raymond Gilpin, USIP

After decades of domestic conflict, military rule and authoritarian governance, Burma’s economy could provide a viable entry point for effective international assistance to promote peace. Doing so would require a detailed understanding of the country’s complex and evolving political economy.

Burma’s civil war, unresolved since the country gained its independence in 1948, is rooted in ethnic differences and an abundance of natural resources. Sixty years of misguided policies have moved the country from being the Southeast Asian country with the brightest economic prospects at the end of World War II to ranking among the lowest in the world by almost all socioeconomic indicators. Read more…

Author: T J Pempel, Berkeley

East Asia encompasses vastly different political and economic systems. Religious and cultural cleavages are often deep and divisive, unresolved territorial conflicts are numerous, and several of the world’s most powerful nation-states have competing interests in the region. Virtually all national weapons systems deployed across the region are directed at other Asian states. With so much combustible tinder spread across the region, reducing mutual mistrust is imperative.

Intraregional cooperation and collective action take advantage of opportunities that transcend national boundaries, such as pandemics, piracy and natural disasters. Read more…

Author: Andrei Lankov, Kookmin University

When considering the future of North and South Korea, we can see that the time has come to raise an alternative elite, the kind that meets the expectations of the modern world and has no relationship with the Kim Jong Il regime.

However, it is impossible to participate in any political activity or gain a great deal of knowledge while inside North Korea. For North Korean intellectuals with a sense of the modern world, the birthplace of the alternative elite is the defector community in South Korea. Read more…

Author: Tommy Koh, University of Singapore

In his address in Singapore on November 15 last year, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama explained that his vision of an East Asian Community was inspired by the concept of yu-ai, a legacy from his grandfather. Yu-ai means ‘fraternity’. Mr Hatoyama would like to bring about a historic reconciliation between Japan and the countries it occupied during World War II. He was inspired by the post-war experience of Europe, where, following two world wars, historic enemies reconciled and a union of 27 countries was established.

I share Mr Hatoyama’s vision. The quest for an East Asian Community will be realised sooner if we can get rid of our historical baggage and begin to treat one another with fraternity, mutual trust and confidence. Read more…