On December 16, 2022, Japan’s Cabinet approved amendments to three key national security and defense documents. First, an increase in the military budget is envisaged. The Japanese government has previously announced plans to increase defense spending to 2% of GDP by 2027 (it is currently 1% of GDP). If Japan does so, its defense spending […]
Generally, when it comes to cybercrime, the author writes about North Korean hackers, but an overview of what the issue of hackers in the ROK in general looks like is also noteworthy. First, some general statistics on hacker attacks in the ROK. Back in 2021, following the attempted hacking of the Korea Atomic Energy Research […]
Right at the end of 2022 the first of China’s COMAC (Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China) C919 airliner jets was delivered to a domestic Chinese airline company, China Eastern Airlines. Reuters in an article titled, “China Eastern takes delivery of the world’s first made-in-China C919 jet,” would report: The world’s first C919, a Chinese-made narrowbody […]
On December 26, 2022, there was an incident between North and South that some media outlets immediately hyped as “peninsula on the brink of war”: five North Korean drones crossed the inter-Korean border, with one of them flying over northern Seoul. This was the first such incident in five years. Four downed drones were discovered […]
On December 16, Japan unveiled its new defence strategy aimed at giving a massive boost to the country’s defence and offence capability. This is arguably the largest defence upgrade that Japan has unveiled since the Second World War when it became a ‘pacifist’ state. As the new documents show, Japan is now shunning its ‘pacifism’ […]
As previously reported in the NEO, a joint meeting of the leaders of the ruling parliamentary coalition (90% of which are members of the Liberal Democratic Party) on December 12 approved new draft versions of three documents concerning national security and military development in Japan. Of these, the basic document will be Japan’s second postwar […]
The middle of December 2022 was marked by several important events that were not so much an aggravation of the situation on the Korean peninsula, but rather an important step in implementing the decisions of the 8th Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea regarding the development of the DPRK’s nuclear missile capabilities. On December […]
In 2014, South Korea was rocked by the Sewol ferry tragedy, including a failed rescue operation. To be honest, it failed for objective rather than subjective reasons, but the outcome of the tragedy made the public look for the culprits and the Democratic Party, being in opposition at the time, “rode the wave” and “turned […]
On December 12, Japan’s ruling party coalition, composed of 90% Liberal Democratic Party MPs plus 10% Komeito Party MPs, agreed on changes to the national security strategy that will form the basis of three government documents. Two of them, on general security issues as well as defense aspects, will be valid for the next 10 […]
For a long time, Western propagandists insisted that Chinese diplomacy was successful only in Central and Southeast Asia. As for the Middle East, Beijing allegedly had no experience in this region and no prospects for developing ties with the Arab world. However, the visit of Chinese leader Xi Jinping to the Middle East and his […]
