Commentary: In pursuing peace, Japan’s leader must also prepare for war

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In US President Joe Biden, Kishida has a counterpart who believes in old-fashioned diplomacy and a rules-based order, and has displayed the kind of nerve on Chinese expansionism that was singularly lacking when he was Barack Obama’s vice president and Beijing was militarising islands in the South China Sea. US support is one of the reasons Kishida has been able to lift a decades-old cap on defence spending.

Until recently, such a move would have been met with suspicion across the Pacific. Now, the US ambassador has hailed it as starting a “new era in the defence of democracy”. While the prime minister’s office may not have been happy with a Time magazine cover featuring Kishida in which said he wanted to “abandon decades of pacifism”, the premier has nonetheless found himself at a point in time when Japan’s geopolitical significance is surging.

SECURITY AT THE FOREFRONT OF G7 

With the G7 taking place in a country that borders Russia and would be on the frontlines of a conflict over Taiwan, security will be at the top of the agenda. And while Kishida will seek agreement on a statement supporting the elimination of nuclear weapons, he’ll know that progress on denuclearisation has rarely seemed more distant.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised the stakes. Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, threatened earlier this year that the West’s move to supply weapons to Ukraine was bringing a “nuclear apocalypse” closer. Kyiv – which briefly had the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal – gave up the weapons on its territory in 1994 after the fall of the Soviet Union, in exchange for security guarantees. 

It is incumbent on G7 leaders to make a strong commitment to continued military and financial support for Ukraine to ensure there isn’t a resurgent interest in nuclear weapons as a way of safeguarding sovereignty and independence. 

In the case of North Korea, that’s too late, with Pyongyang undeniably having become a fully-fledged nuclear power over the past decade. And that in turn has led South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol to recently suggest his country might need to develop atomic weapons, though he has since backed off the idea following a visit to Washington.

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Commentary: Understanding China's foreign policy, beyond protocol and alcohol

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NEW DELHI: There are phases in international relations when diplomacy between some countries is unfortunately reduced to protocol and alcohol. Such phases are never entirely intentional. No well-meaning government conducts diplomacy just for the sake of talking.

However, structural limitations appear like mighty boulders on the path to reach reasonable agreements. Countries in the Indo-Pacific are undergoing one such phase with respect to their negotiations with China.

Diplomacy, in its quintessential sense, is the adjustment of differences through dialogue. Diplomacy works when a general equilibrium prevails in the international order. Put loosely, compromise is imminently possible when political leaders across countries intuitively understand and accept their place in the pecking order.

However, when a revisionist power is disgruntled with the established order, expecting it to be a reasonable negotiator is unwise.

NEW PECKING ORDER IN ASIA

The regional order in Asia is undergoing constant churn. China’s proclaimed ambitions to dominate Asia have altered the strategic landscape. Under the successive leadership of Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, Beijing sold the narrative of its peaceful rise to the world.

China’s dizzying growth was in the West’s interests, so the story went. We owe a great deal to President Xi Jinping for reminding us that economics and politics are essentially intertwined. Prosperity begets power. Power protects prosperity.

The mandarins of Zhongnanhai calculate that China’s phenomenal economic, political and technological growth has significantly increased the potential benefits and decreased the potential costs to China for seeking a change in Asia’s strategic landscape.

Put simply, Beijing believes that the benefits of a new Sino-centric Asia outweigh the costs of disrupting the old Asian order. This must be considered before expecting anything substantial while negotiating with China.

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Commentary: Why so many South Korean women are refusing to date, marry or have kids

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The government has created gender quotas in certain industries to try to unravel this system of gendered citizenship.

For instance, some government jobs have minimum gender quotas for new hires, and the government encourages the private sector to implement similar policies. In historically male-dominant industries, such as construction, there are quotas for female hires, while in historically female-dominant industries, such as education, there are male quotas.

In some ways, this has only made things worse. Each gender feels as if the other is receiving special treatment due to these affirmative action policies. Resentment festers.

“THE GENERATION THAT HAS GIVEN UP”

Today, the sense of competition between young men and women is exacerbated by the soaring cost of living and rampant unemployment.

Called the N-Po Generation, which roughly translates as “the generation that has given up”, many young South Koreans don’t think they can achieve certain milestones that previous generations took for granted: Marriage, having kids, finding a job, owning a home and even friendships.

Although all genders find themselves discouraged, the act of “giving up” has caused more problems for women. Men see women who forgo marriage and having kids as selfish. And when they then try to compete against men for jobs, some men become incensed.

Many of the men who have become radicalised commit digital sex crimes to take revenge on women who, in their view, have abandoned their duties.

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Commentary: What does China hope to achieve from peace plans for Saudi-Iran, Russia-Ukraine and Afghanistan?

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The force of these more interventionist points is otherwise thoroughly neutered. The paper denounces the “enormous losses” caused by attempted “democratic transformation”, while declaring Beijing’s respect for Taliban rule, cynically couched as the “independent choices made by the Afghan people”.

These statements are combined with professions of categorical respect for Afghanistan’s sovereignty, and a disavowal of “external interference” and “unilateral sanctions”. A special mention is given to the freezing of Afghan Central Bank holdings, which Beijing, with some justification, notes are undermining Afghanistan’s humanitarian situation.

The tenor of the position paper makes clear that China’s priority remains counterterrorism, specifically combatting the Uyghur separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Blandishments offered in exchange for Taliban suppression of ETIM include counterterrorism assistance, “reconstruction”, and sizeable infrastructure investment.

This is essentially a reprisal of the carrot and no sticks formula that Beijing has offered the Taliban since the US withdrawal in August 2021. Both sides have arguably failed to deliver. China has only very recently announced its first sizeable Afghan investment. According to a 2022 UN Security Council Report, despite some Taliban efforts at restraint, ETIM has otherwise “rebuilt several strongholds”, purchased weapons and “expanded its area of operations”.

CONSERVATIVE STANCE

A keen student of the failure of successive foreign interventions in Afghanistan, China remains extremely wary of entanglement in Afghanistan. Even if China’s calculus were to change, Beijing’s scope for intervention would likely be hidebound by its extensive rhetoric on the primacy of sovereignty, and opposition to sanctions and foreign interference.

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Commentary: Yoon and Biden meeting sends a message to North Korea and China

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The White House meeting might well frame the event around the strengthening of ties between Seoul and Washington, but in reality they will want to send a message of unity in the face of sabre-rattling – and worse – by North Korea, China and Russia.

A FRIENDSHIP FORGED IN WAR

Washington and Seoul’s relationship was forged in the bloody crucible of the Korean War of 1950-53. For several decades, the alliance was lopsided, especially in the lean two decades following the armistice of 1953 when the South Korean subsistence economy was almost totally dependent on US aid.

But over the past two decades, South Korea has evened up the ledger, becoming a world leader in electronics, shipping, vehicles, arms and pop culture. The US-South Korea alliance has developed into one based as much on economic interests as diplomatic and strategic concerns.

Even the awkward issue of recent reports of alleged US spying on the South Korean presidential office is not likely to dampen the show of friendliness expected on display during the bilateral meeting.

After all, Biden and Yoon have more serious matters to contend with. The state visit follows a year in which North Korea fired nearly 100 missiles into the skies in and around the Korean Peninsula, Russia brazenly invaded Ukraine, and China upped its rhetoric around the disputed island of Taiwan. And each will need addressing in the summit.

NORTH KOREAN MISSILES

To South Korea, the threat of the isolationist state to its north is the most existential. Biden will likely underscore the US commitment to the defense of South Korea against a nuclear-armed North Korea.

But the threat is not confined to imperiling the Korean Peninsula. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s intercontinental ballistic missiles now have the capability to hit the US mainland. Such a development may be intended to draw Washington’s attention, but it has another consequence: Aligning the existential threat that South Korea faces with that of the United States.

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Commentary: Like the US, Asia is less than enthusiastic about another Biden term

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Coming off his re-election win in Florida, one of the few Republican bright spots in the November midterm elections that saw many Trump-backed candidates defeated, DeSantis was polling neck and neck with Trump.

Since then, his trajectory has been mostly downward and he trails Trump, who is the choice of almost half (46 per cent) of Republicans by a margin of 15 points. Other declared or presumed Republican candidates including former vice president Mike Pence, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott barely register with percentages of support in the low single digits.

With almost nine months until the first presidential primary elections, there is still ample time for the field to shift for DeSantis. Yet his wobble highlights how hard it is for Republicans to gain ground against Trump. Fearful of alienating his deeply committed supporters, challengers hold their fire.

THE ONLY CANDIDATE CAPABLE OF BEATING TRUMP

For Democrats, there is a parallel dynamic of reactivity to Trump at work. Despite apprehensions about Biden’s age and fears about his low approval ratings, he is the only one who is seen as capable of beating Trump, shutting off the path for younger party hopefuls.

Certainly, Biden is credited with the party’s surprisingly good performance in November’s midterm elections. Typically, the incumbent president’s party loses substantial ground in the midterms, on average giving up 29 congressional seats. Yet under Biden, the Democrats did far better than predicted, relinquishing only nine House seats in the lower chamber House of Representatives, narrowly losing the majority and retaining control of the Senate.

Analysts attribute this to several factors including a resilient economy despite the challenges of inflation, a rejection of the extremism around the Capitol riot and election denial, the popularity of Biden policies like infrastructure investment and anger over the Supreme Court’s decision in June 2022 to roll back abortion rights.

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