China’s military reform and planning have long been a complicated issue as it contrasts the Chinese facet of ‘peaceful rise’. This facet has important regional and global implications.
The second summit between the U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jung Un is likely to be held in the middle of February 2019. The main objective of this meeting is North Korea’s denuclearisation, which still seems an unattainable goal.
Over the last few years, the unprecedented level of economic growth in the Indo-Pacific region has led to a pro-active energy policy-making by the countries in this region. The consumption rate of natural resources continues to increase since the last decade, which even led to the sky-rocketing demands for energy resources.
The pace with which the Artificial Intelligence (AI) strategies have been unveiled by 22 prominent states in the last 15 months, in a way reveals the extent of growing dependence on the automated machines and their expanded roles.
There has been a consistent dissatisfaction in US regarding the human rights abuses in China in the past decades but the recent awareness of the existence of internment camps in Xinjiang province with 100,000 ethnic Muslim Uyghurs and worsening conditions of other minorities raised apprehensions in the US Congress.
Huawei comes under a long list of Chinese companies that had been subjected to restrictions from doing business in the United States. In all these cases, the Trump administration and the Obama administration before it, has cited ‘national security’ reasons to keep out the Chinese companies from the US domestic market.
Indonesia will go for Presidential and legislative election in April; it will be crucial to watch the extent to which Social Media is used in bringing the elements of hate and fear in the people.
Japan’s challenge to keep its interests intact while hesitatingly moving towards a possible US-Japan FTA presents a dilemma to a nation that is otherwise interested in multilateral engagement.
The initiation of peace talks in the Korean peninsula has resulted in a string of diplomatic developments in the region. With President Trump looking to push for the denuclearisation of North Korea, the support of American allies in the region especially that of South Korea is crucial.
With the enhanced geopolitical significance of the Indo-Pacific region in recent years, the defense ties between India, US, and Japan have consequently deepened. The Chinese assertiveness in the South and East China seas has been the prime concerns of the United States and Japan.