http://www.project-syndicate.org/series/asia_watch <p><em>Is China Asia’s new hegemon, or is a balance of power emerging among China, India, Japan, and the United States? Is Japan breaking away from American tutelage? Will the rise of the consumer transform Asia’s export-led economies? Can Asia’s giants cope with climate change without choking off growth? Is a cooperative regional infrastructure such as exists in Europe possible?</em></p> en 2012-02-10T06:00:39+01:00 webmaster@project-syndicate.org Yuriko Koike 1994-01-01T00:00:00+01:00 4 hourly http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike26/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike26/English>KOIKE: China’s Soft-Power Offensive in Taiwan</a> China has learned trade and other enticements, rather than threats and bullying, are more effective in swaying voters during Taiwanese elections. But will China take the next step and learn that democracy Taiwan-style might also work in the mainland? Yuriko Koike 2012-01-30T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike25/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike25/English>KOIKE: North Korea’s Samurai Rules</a> Although Kim Jong-il received his reign from his own father, North Korea’s founder, Kim Il-sung, history suggests that a clean transfer from father to son is the exception rather than the rule. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine North Korea's aging, battle-hardened generals, kowtowing to the callow and inexperienced Kim Jong-un. Yuriko Koike 2011-12-26T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike24/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike24/English>KOIKE: A Democratic Burma?</a> <p>TOKYO – Historic transformations often happen when least expected. Mikhail Gorbachev’s liberalizing policies of glasnost and perestroika in the Soviet Union emerged at one of the Cold War’s darkest hours, with US President Ronald Reagan pushing for strategic missile defense and the two sides fighting proxy wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Deng Xiaoping’s economic opening followed China’s bloody – and failed – invasion of Vietnam in 1978. And South Africa’s last apartheid leader, F. W. de Klerk, was initially perceived as just another apologist for the system – hardly the man to free Nelson Mandela and oversee the end of white minority rule.</p><p>Now the world is suddenly asking whether Burma (Myanmar), after six decades of military dictatorship, has embarked on a genuine political transition that could end the country’s pariah status. Is Burma, like South Africa under de Klerk, truly poised to emerge from a half-century of self-imposed isolation? And can Aung San Suu Kyi, the heroic opposition leader, and Thein Sein, Burma’s new president, engineer a political transition as skillfully and peacefully as Mandela and de Klerk did for South Africa in the early 1990’s?</p> Yuriko Koike 2011-11-30T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike23/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike23/English>KOIKE: Obama and Asia’s Two Futures</a> Despite the relentless shift of global economic might to Asia, and China’s rise as a great power, America’s focus over the past decade has been elsewhere. In November, Barack Obama can begin to correct that when he hosts the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in his native state of Hawaii. Yuriko Koike 2011-10-31T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike22/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike22/English>KOIKE: China’s African Mischief</a> As Libya’s National Transitional Council attempts to establish a functioning government for a newly liberated country, the truth about what went on under Muammar el-Qaddafi’s regime is starting to come to light. Some of the dirtiest secrets, it turns out, involved China. Yuriko Koike 2011-09-28T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike21/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike21/English>KOIKE: The Last Days of Qaddafi</a> At long last, the endgame in the Libyan conflict appears to be at hand. But, while Muammar el-Qaddafi ousted King Idris 42 years ago without bloodshed, he now seems intent on a kind of desert Götterdämmerung. Yuriko Koike 2011-08-22T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike20/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike20/English>KOIKE: Unsafe at Any Speed?</a> The intellectual-property dispute between Japan and China over the technology used in China’s new bullet trains was heated before the recent collision of two Chinese trains that killed 38 people and injured more than 200. In the wake of the crash, the dispute has become scalding. Yuriko Koike 2011-07-28T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike19/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike19/English>KOIKE: Asia After the Afghan War</a> July will mark two milestones in America’s relations with Asia: the first US troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, and the 40th anniversary of Henry Kissinger’s secret mission to Beijing. Will the Obama administration’s apparent lack of any explicit Asia strategy mean a general US retreat from Asia? Yuriko Koike 2011-06-20T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike18/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike18/English>KOIKE: Squaring Asia’s Nuclear Triangle</a> At their recent trilateral summit, Japan, China, and South Korea agreed to cooperate more closely on managing nuclear power in the region. But regional cooperation on nuclear safety cannot succeed unless Taiwan is invited to join the effort. Yuriko Koike 2011-05-30T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike17/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike17/English>KOIKE: The Sun Will Rise Again</a> Japan’s economy, having endured two decades of sluggishness, has been falling behind globally even faster since the financial crisis that erupted in 2008. How, then, will the massive shock caused by the earthquake and tsunami affect the country’s economic prospects? Yuriko Koike 2011-04-15T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike16/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike16/English>KOIKE: Japan’s Recovery Bonds</a> Even when faced by the vast confusion created by disaster on the scale of the recent earthquake and tsunami, Japanese relied on "kizuna" (bonds of solidarity) to help and reassure each other. And kizuna is also the main Japanese word for "recovery." Yuriko Koike 2011-03-28T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike15/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike15/English>KOIKE: Asia’s Chains that Bind</a> Asia’s vast production networks are at the heart of Asia’s booming growth. Three changes in China may auger significant changes in how these networks invest and function in the years ahead. To manage Asia’s growing economic integration, its nations need greater coordination of monetary and fiscal policies, with leaders focusing as much on the regional good as well as individual national interests. Yuriko Koike 2011-02-28T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike14/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike14/English>KOIKE: Peace, Not a Peace Offensive</a> Kim Jong-il’s recent soothing words to US diplomats do not represent an offer of peace, but a “peace offensive” – a tactic used by the North repeatedly in order to sow division whenever the regime’s adversaries show unity and resolve. Yuriko Koike 2011-01-21T00:00:00+01:00