Category: Blog

On May 8, 2018, US President Donald Trump announced that the United States would pull out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and reinstate economic sanctions on Iran. “America will not be held hostage to nuclear blackmail. We will not allow American cities to be threatened with destruction, and we will not allow a regime that chants ‘Death to America’ to gain access to the most deadly weapons on Earth,” Trump said in his speech to the press. The Rising Powers, meanwhile, have nothing but tough words for the US. Read more here.

The Inter-Korean Summit in the Joint Security Border between North and South Korea on April 27, 2018, resulted in the Panmunjeom Declaration for Peace as well as the shocking photo-op of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un stepping into the South Korean side of the border. The Summit followed a series of surprise announcements, such as North Korea’s promise to halt nuclear and ballistic missile tests until the Trump-Kim Summit later this year, and secret meetings, such as Kim’s visit to see Chinese President Xi Jinping in late March 2018 and newly-confirmed US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s stealthy preparatory visit to North Korea as then-Director of the CIA in early April 2018. With all the cloaks being tossed over the negotiating process, many watchers in the Rising Powers are wary of potential daggers. In this RPI Policy Alert, we sample the reactions to the recent developments on the Korean Peninsula. Read more here.

On April 7, 2018, a suspected chemical attack occurred in the Syrian town of Douma, which was held by rebel forces at the time. The Syrian government, with strong support from Russia, has denied the allegations that it was behind the attack. Citing their own evidence of Syrian responsibility, the United States, United Kingdom, and France went ahead and fired over one hundred missiles on “three distinct Syrian chemical weapons program targets.” Inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) are finally entering the area, after charges and countercharges regarding reasons for the delay. In this RPI Policy Alert, we assess the Rising Powers’ responses to the crisis. Read more here.

RPI’s Nuclear Debates in Asia: The Role of Geopolitics and Domestic Processes, co-edited by Director Deepa M. Ollapally and RPI-affiliated expert Mike Mochizuki, was reviewed in the March 2018 issue of Pacific Affairs. Read it here!

RPI Director Deepa M. Ollapally questions whether we are asking too much of India’s Look/Act East policy in her review of Frédéric Grare’s India Turns East: International Engagement and US-China Rivalry. Read Dr. Ollapally’s review for Asia Policy here.

On March 17, 2018, the New York Times and Observer broke the news on Cambridge Analytica’s use of an estimated 85 million Facebook users’ personal information that was “scraped” without authorization in its public relations services–specifically in its dealings with political campaigns. Although the lion’s share of impacted users were American, according to initial Facebook’s estimates, over 560,000 Indian and 443,000 Brazilian users’ data was leaked. The scandal has prompted new debates on individuals’ rights to privacy as well as their governments’ roles in protecting them from violations. In this week’s Policy Alert, we survey this ongoing dialogue within the Rising Powers.Read more here.

China recently has ramped up its bilateral pressure on Taiwan. This has coincided with a rise in uncertainty of American commitment to the island. The United States Department of State’s removal of the Taiwanese flag from its website has further alarmed Taiwanese as they look to counter growing Chinese influence. With a backdrop of uncertainty for a longstanding U.S. partner, the Sigur Center for Asian Studies convened a Roundtable of experts to discuss political and strategic trends pertaining to the dynamics of Taiwan-China-U.S. relations. Read more here.

SaveSave

On March 8, 2018, US President Donald J. Trump ordered a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and a 10 percent tariff on imported aluminum from all countries which went into effect on March 23. Initial exemptions were granted for Canada, the US’s largest supplier of aluminum and steel, and Mexico, and later expanded to include other US allies such as the European Union, Australia, and Brazil. On March 22, Trump ordered an additional $50 to 60 billion in tariffs against Chinese imports for its alleged lack of action on intellectual property rights infringement, with additional tariffs rumored to be announced on March 27. How are the Rising Powers responding to the possible first shots in a trade war? Read more here.

RPI Director Deepa M. Ollapally was featured in a roundtable on rising powers in Ethics and International Affairs. Read the article here.

Abstract: India is gradually changing its course from decades of inward-looking economics and strong anti-Western foreign policies. It has become more pragmatic, seeing important economic benefits from globalization, and some political benefits of working with the United States to achieve New Delhi’s great-power aspirations. Despite these changes, I argue that India’s deep-seated anti-colonial nationalism and commitment to strategic autonomy continues to form the core of Indian identity. This makes India’s commitment to Western-dominated multilateral institutions and Western norms, such as humanitarian intervention, partial and instrumental. Thus, while Indian foreign-policy discourse shows little sign of seeking to fully challenge the U.S.-led international order beyond largely reformist measures of building parallel institutions such as the New Development Bank, India will continue to strongly resist Western actions that weaken sovereignty norms.

SaveSave

The Communist Party of China (CPC) presented its recommendations for several substantive amendments to the country’s constitution to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress at the end of February 2018. Most notably, the term limits for the country’s president and vice-president were removed, leading many–both domestically and abroad–to question President Xi Jinping’s future career plans. The foreign press emphasized reports that Chinese censors were cracking down on criticism of the changes on online platforms and speculated that the Chinese press purposefully attempted to downplay the move. Although the governments of the Rising Powers have kept mum on the subject, their presses have not. Read more here.

President Donald Trump made headlines shortly after his electoral victory by accepting a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen. It signaled what some saw as a renewal of American commitment to Taiwan in the face of Chinese criticism.  But over a year later, Taiwan is still waiting for a specific policy towards the island nation from the Trump Administration. President Trump has often been unrestrained with his criticisms of trade arrangements between the U.S. and mainland China. Yet dialogue over Taiwan’s place in the new Administration has been few and far-between, peculiar for a nation ranked as the tenth largest goods trading partner of the United States. Read more here.

SaveSave

Ahead of upcoming elections in the Maldives, the Maldivian Supreme Court overturned the highly contested convictions of exiled Former President Mohamed Nasheed and nine Members of Parliament from his political party on February 2nd. In defiance of the court order, President Abdulla Yameen suspended parliament, declared a state of emergency, and ordered the arrest of several political rivals, including two of the Supreme Court Justices. In this Policy Alert, RPI explores the Rising Powers’ stakes in the Maldives crisis as allegations of intervention fly on all sides. Read more here.

Asia’s need for energy resources has sparked new debates involving energy security within rising powers in the region. Increased economic development has pushed these countries to consider new strategies for energy procurement in the 21st century. Key Asian nations have invested in renewable energy sources in an effort to diversify their energy assets as well as to fuel their expansion in the coming years. But traditional sources for energy, mainly petroleum, are still tremendously important. Some analysts fear energy conflicts could develop out of countries’ desires to lock down supplies of petroleum outside of Asia. Read the full report here.

World leaders, celebrities, activists, and business moguls rubbed elbows at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, under the theme “Shared Future in a Fractured World.” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the opening speech of the forum, while US President Donald Trump provided the closing remarks. Read more here.