Eastern Asia

Owing to his professional activities, the author often reads various reports written by South Korean representatives dedicated to the topic of “how we could rebuild North Korea after the acquisition.” Most of them leave very curious impressions in terms of their analysis methods: in examining in detail the procedure for the cleansing of the ranks of power, or methods of exploitation of the natural resources of the North, their authors are putting the cart before the horse, all the while omitting the most imp

Japan, the third world economy, has virtually no gas and oil reserves. The situation is somewhat paradoxical since no country can prosper without oil and gas. Thus, the Land of the Rising Sun has been successfully coping with the situation by importing oil in tankers from the Middle East, liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and that same Middle East. Japan also needs coal for its CHP plants, which it purchases from Australia, Indonesia and China.

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In our last article on China-DPRK relations we paid particular attention to the ambivalence of Chinese politics, thinking about how soon the hard tone toward their relations with Pyongyang may change to a rhetoric of convergence. Today, we talk about the events that could be considered the first steps in this direction.

The Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission of Korea announced the entry into force of the anti-corruption law, also known as the Kim Young-ran Law, named after the former chairman of the commission, who proposed the bill as early as 2012. 2.5 million people fall directly under the jurisdiction of this new law.

North Korea once again was on a brink of a war, and it once again managed to pull back out of it. While another escalation of the situation on the Korean Peninsula is subsiding, the global community is wondering what the future holds, and whether there is a way to halt a negative development of events.

The United States, as part of its stated agenda of raising tensions in the South China Sea to encourage cooperation across Southeast Asia with the US in encircling and containing Beijing’s regional and global rise, has included several high-profile naval and aviation incidents. However, there is a legal battle lurking just behind these more spectacular headlines, and once again the United Nations is being brought in and undermined in the process.

On June 22, 2016, North Korea conducted two unsuccessful launches of medium-range presumably Musudan-type missiles.
According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Korea, the first missile was launched from the area of the city of Wonsan, Gangwon province at 5:58 am and flew 150-160 kilometers, the second one was launched at 8:05 am and flew 400 kilometers. Both missiles, however, exploded in mid-air, and the debris fell into the East Sea.

“Any man in combat who lacks comrades who will die for him, or for whom he is willing to die, is not a man at all. He is truly damned.” – William Manchester, in Goobye Darkness
The game has changed in Okinawa. The usual apologies for the latest gruesome crime, with promises to see that such things never happen again, has been thrown back in the faces of Washington and Tokyo. “Killers go Home” read one sign as 50,000 islanders protested at all the US bases.

On June 13, the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea Yun Byung-se has met with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. It was the first visit by the South Korean Foreign Minister to the Russian capital in the last five years. The reaction of mass media of both countries regarding the meeting results was quite different. In the Russian Federation, particular attention was drawn to the action plan signed between the foreign ministries for the period of 2016-2017.