Russia and the Asia-Pacific Region

Long accustomed to a seat on the sidelines of East Asian affairs, Russia now finds itself sought after as an energy and military partner, particularly by Vietnam, but increasingly by a wider range of states in Southeast Asia. Russia’s growing…

The rivalry between the US and China for primacy in the Asia-Pacific, and then possibly on a global scale, is becoming the main story of world politics in the first decades of the twenty-first century.   But how, in the first place, did China grow…

Russia, Southeast Asia and ASEAN Asia Pacific was in focus for Russia when it chaired APEC in 2012.  However, it did not necessarily turn Russia’s attention to the region, including Southeast Asia.  Domestic factors within Russia play…

The collision of a Chinese ‘fishing’ boat into vessels of the Japanese Coast Guard in September 2010 near the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands triggered the rise of tension between China and Japan. After the arrest of the captain and crew of the boat…

Owing to political problems arising from Russian company TNK-BP’s ownership of the Kovykta gas field in Eastern Siberia, Moscow decided to prioritise the development of Chayandagas and the surrounding four major gas fields in the Sakha Republic…

Recent elections in the United States, China, Japan and the Republic of Korea brought new Administrations to power in early 2013. Though it is too early to make meaningful prognostics as regards their impact on the fragile regional stability, the…

At noon on the 1st of October 2012, the first Osprey V-22 aircraft landed at Futenma Marine Corps Air Station on Japan’s Okinawa Island. The controversial deployment of this ungainly looking aircraft (a hybrid between a helicopter and fixed-wing…

On November 14, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced, all of a sudden, the dissolution of the Lower House (or the House of Representatives) ten months before the expiration of its full term. After the election on December 16, the newly…

Globalization and geopolitics are the two defining features of contemporary international relations. Yet there exists a fundamental tension between these two processes - one refers to a deepening and broadening flow of trade, goods, people, and…