Eastern Asia

The beginning of May 2017 was marked by a series of high-profile statements published by the DPRK media on the unmasking of an alleged attempt to topple the country’s top leadership. On May 5, the Ministry of State Security of the DPRK made official statements to this effect.

On July 2, President of the Republic of Korea Mr. Moon Jae-in returned home from the United States, completing his first five-day foreign visit after assuming office. During the summit, issues related to the settlement of the North Korean nuclear program, the functioning of the military alliance between Seoul and Washington, as well as a possible revision of the free trade agreement between the two countries were discussed.

We recently published an article explaining how, on June 13, 2017, after 17 months of imprisonment, the DPRK released American student Otto-Frederick Warmbier, whom they had sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment, and who had fallen into a coma. Unfortunately, the story ended up having a sad sequel with unpleasant political consequences, for, on June 19, 2017, a few days after returning home, Otto-Frederick died due to severe brain damage.

On June 21-23 this year, the first U.S.-China Diplomatic and Security Dialogue (D&SD) was held in Washington. This kind of a ‘dialogues’ between the two leading world powers at the ministerial level began to be held (alternately in the territories of the two partners) in the second half of the last decade, and since 2009, they have been annual in nature.

This year’s annual EU-China Summit, which was held on June 2, deserves special attention since it has occurred in a period of radical progress in the political world, as a whole, and the relationships between the main participants of the global game, in particular.

On June 8, 2017, a representative of the presidential administration of the Republic of Korea told reporters that the deployment of US missile defense systems on South Korea territory should be suspended until the completion of a full-fledged environmental impact assessment of the land plot to be transferred to the US military for these very purposes.

The coming to power of Moon Jae-in that was elected president of South Korea occurred against the background of the recent aggravation of relations with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, that keeps on developing its own nuclear capabilities, along with conducting numerous missile test launches.

I want to share with readers my impressions and experiences on a recent trip through several parts of the Peoples’ Republic of China. I made the journey this June as part of my research for a forthcoming book on the Eurasian Century, my term for what is emerging as an alternative to a war-crazed West.

As you must know, Japan does not have enough natural resources to ensure its energy security without turning to any foreign players. At the same time, its closest neighbor – Russia possesses impressive hydrocarbon reserves and can be in the list of major exporters of those. Nevertheless, it is difficult to describe the volume of bilateral trade between the two states as impressive, in fact it’s the exact opposite.

At the beginning of May 2017, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported the detention of two US citizens, both of Korean origin.