Eastern Asia

On June 8 2018 the FBI put Park Jin Hyok, a North Korean citizen, on its Wanted list and issued an order for his arrest. He is accused of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and computer fraud.

China recently opened yet another high-speed rail line, this one linking Hong Kong to China’s mainland, cutting the trip to Beijing from 24 hours to just 9.

On September 20 this year, at the congress of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (LDP), the incumbent Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe was chosen its President for the next 3 years for the third time after he received 69% of the vote. His competitor Shigeru Ishiba was left with the remaining 31%.

Over the recent months, the Japanese mass media have prioritised the topics with the key words like Okinawa and Futenma, which have considerable weight both within Japan and in its relations with its key partner, the USA. Let us remind you that the first of these words refers to one of the 47 prefectures of the country, as well as the largest island of the Ryukyu Archipelago which stretches for almost 1,000 km (almost reaching Taiwan) to the south of the 4 main islands of Japan.

The Roman Catholic Church and the Peoples Republic of China are set to sign an agreement, which would formally end the hostilities between these two entities. The Chinese government will formally acknowledge the Pope as the leader of the Catholic Church in China. In exchange, the Pope will reinstate ex-communicated Bishops selected by the Communist Party to lead Catholics on the Chinese mainland. In this context, it is worth reviewing the shifts and evolutions of Catholicism in global politics.

At the end of August 2018 various sources reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping is to visit Pyongyang on September 9 for the Day of the Foundation of the Republic, and is highly likely to attend the military parade. This will be the first visit to North Korea by a Chinese leader in 13 years. We will discuss the visit itself in a separate article – here we will look at relations between the two countries in the context of the ongoing standoff between the USA and China.

The exchange of congratulations between the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe and his Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang on the 40th anniversary of signing the Treaty of Peace and Friendship in August 1978 is a prominent event regarding the transformation of the political map of the Indian and the Pacific Ocean region, which is going on right before our very eyes.

On August 9-10 American and Japanese ministerial-level delegations met for talks on a range of issues related to trade and the economy. Some of these issues are dominated by various aspects of the two countries’ relationship with each other, while others concern turbulence in the processes underlying international trade as a whole.