Japan

Rachel Brown, Sherry Cho, Lorand Laskai, and Gabriel Walker look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. LDP eyes offensive push for Japan. A policy research group in Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is pushing for the adoption of new long-range offensive capabilities. Consisting primarily of former defense ministers, former deputy defense ministers, and former parliamentary vice ministers, the LDP group urged the government to begin considering a change to Japan’s military stance, citing a “new level of threat” from North Korea. The recommendations, focusing on the potential acquisition of new ballistic missile defense assets, exploration of “counter-attack” capabilities, and protection of Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), are in line with Abe’s efforts to shift Japan’s security posture away from its historically defense-oriented stance. Since taking office in 2012, he has been instrumental in ending a decades-long ban on weapons exports and facilitating the reinterpretation of Japan’s pacifist constitution to allow for the defense of allies. While proposals for acquiring long-range strike capability, such as cruise missiles, have been made in the past, the recent North Korean launch of four ballistic missiles—three of which fell into Japan’s EEZ—has spurred a new sense of urgency. The LDP, however, will face obstacles in pursuing any official change to Japan’s security stance. The LDP must account for their coalition partner, the Buddhist-backed Komeito party, which favors an exclusively defensive posture, and a challenging fiscal environment in which any increase in defense spending must account for both the conventional military threat of North Korea and countering assertive Chinese actions in the East China Sea. 2. Tencent builds global investment portfolio with Tesla stake. Chinese gaming and messaging giant Tencent invested $1.8 billion in Tesla this week, acquiring a 5 percent stake in the American automaker and energy storage company. The Tesla stake is hardly Tencent’s first major international investment, and rather represents a continuation of the company’s effort to diversify investments and expand beyond China. Tencent is among China’s most highly valued companies, but many of its products, including the messaging platform WeChat, have not yet caught on abroad. Instead, Tencent has invested heavily in gaming and messaging companies with products already popular both inside and outside of China. Such firms include Supercell, which makes Clash of Clans; Riot Games, which makes League of Legends; and Pocket Gems, Activision Blizzard, and Glu Mobile. Tencent is also reportedly considering an investment in the Indian e-commerce company Flipkart. But what Tencent saw in Tesla, a firm outside its core business, remains uncertain. The deal could demonstrate Tencent’s burgeoning interest in the electric car market, where it has made a few other bets including in Tesla rival NextEV. The deal could also help Tesla increase its presence in the Chinese market, where it hasn’t previously thrived. Other potential synergies also exist between the two companies; perhaps someday passengers will recline in the backs of autonomous electric cars while sending WeChat messages and playing League of Legends. 3. North Korean hackers target banks. An attempted hack into Polish banks recently exposed efforts by the North Korean government to target financial institutions around the world. The over one hundred targets identified through the hackers’ digital trails included international institutions, such as the European Central Bank and World Bank, national central banks, and private firms such as Bank of New York Mellon and Deutsche Bank. The information from Poland adds another red flag amidst growing concern over North Korean hacking and global financial systems. U.S. officials are also investigating North Korean involvement in the case of the $81 million stolen in the 2016 Bangladesh Bank heist; in that instance, Chinese intermediaries may also be implicated. Besides these more lucrative targets, North Korean hackers have also ramped up usage of ransomware as well as attacks on defectors and South Korean assets such as transportation and weather facilities. North Korea’s cyber capabilities include a network of an estimated 1,700 hackers who mostly live and work abroad, but remain under constant supervision by government minders. 4. Westinghouse files for bankruptcy protection. Ten years ago, Japanese multinational Toshiba Corp. purchased Westinghouse, the American power company, for $5.4 billion dollars—three times the company’s estimated value. At the time, some analysts predicted that the acquisition would “strain Toshiba’s financial standing.” This week, those analysts’ fears were realized: Westinghouse, a name that once “symbolized America’s supremacy in nuclear power,” filed for bankruptcy protection. The news comes in the long wake of the 2015 Toshiba accounting scandal involving $1.2 billion of overstated operating profits, and reports from earlier this month that Toshiba was considering a $1.8 billion writedown of overstated Westinghouse assets. Just two weeks ago, the company said it would “aggressively” seek strategic options to avoid declaring Westinghouse bankrupt, but evidently found no other way out. Though some argue that Westinghouse’s fate is more symptomatic of incompetent business practices rather than a failing nuclear power industry, the bankruptcy is a serious setback for Japan’s historic prominence in global nuclear energy generation. 5. Didi courts SoftBank. Didi Chuxing, China’s largest ride-sharing company, is reportedly in talks with Japan’s SoftBank to secure a multibillion dollar investment. Didi became the undisputed leader of ride-sharing in China after buying Uber China last year, ending a multi-year tussle between Uber and domestic competitors over China’s gigantic ride-sharing market. A large investment from SoftBank would put Didi Chuxing roughly on par with Uber in terms of capital funding and help the company invest in next-generation autonomous vehicles. The company, which is widely considered China’s newest “national champion,” has also expressed interest in expanding internationally. While Didi has not formally expanded its service abroad yet, the company is already partnering with Uber’s rivals abroad, including Lyft in the United States. Lofty ambitions for driverless cars and international dominance aside, SoftBank’s investment will also help Didi fend off a host of regulatory challenges at home. Bonus: Cambodia bans breast milk exports. This week, the Cambodian government officially banned the sale and export of breast milk, following the temporary suspension of exports earlier this month. The Health Ministry allegedly singled out one Salt Lake City-based company, Ambrosia Labs, which was the sole exporter of milk collected from Cambodian mothers and sold overseas. Ambrosia, cofounded by a former Mormon missionary to Cambodia, collected milk daily from more than twenty women for around $.50 per ounce in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, and resold it in $20 five-ounce packs to customers in the United States. Many donors, who made as much upwards of $10 a day or even $120 per week, relied on the stable source of income their milk provided. UNICEF, however, criticized the company for exploiting “vulnerable and poor” Cambodian mothers, and suggested that excess breast milk should remain within the country. A government statement endorsed by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said, “even though Cambodia is very poor, she doesn’t sell mothers’ breast milk.”

James Curran is Professor of History at Sydney University and a non-resident fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy. He was recently in India as a guest of the Australian High Commission. Since Donald J. Trump’s election the very word “transactional” has sent a shiver up many an allied spine in Europe and Asia. But not in New Delhi. The Indian reaction to Trump’s rise has been somewhat different. Instead of alarm, there has been calm; instead of panic, patience. Amongst the foreign policy elite in New Delhi, there is much to like in Trump’s positions on China, his search for a more cooperative relationship with Russia and his revival of a more hard line, “war on terror,” rhetoric. There is hope that he will adopt a tougher stance on Pakistan. And defense cooperation with Washington is unlikely to lose steam in the years ahead. For Australian analysts and commentators, this more sanguine reaction is striking. Many in Canberra are still reeling from the controversy over the leaking of a private phone conversation between President Trump and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, in which the new U.S. leader strongly criticized a refugee deal with Australia that had been struck by the Barack Obama administration. India certainly has its own issues with Trump on immigration—in particular, his intention to reform H-1B visas—but many in New Delhi counsel the need to avoid allowing the issue to hamstring the relationship so early in Trump’s term of office. Here, Turnbull’s judgment in raising a contentious issue in his first conversation with Trump is seen as a salutary lesson. This newly transactional approach suits India just fine for the moment, but it’s probably more a case of keeping one’s head down as the Trump administration continues to search for a settling point. As such, enduring questions remain in Canberra, and elsewhere in the region, about New Delhi’s willingness to adopt more of a strategic role commensurate with its growing economic weight. Indeed, with President Trump’s continuing pressure on allies and partners to do more, repeated in his recent address to Congress, India too will find that the United States and others will look to see whether India starts to spread its strategic wings. An abiding question remains: just how readily will India seek to play more of a geopolitical role outside its own neighborhood? Indian confidence abroad is growing. Along with developing what former Australian Foreign Affairs Secretary Peter Varghese calls “the institutional horsepower of a great power,” Prime Minister Modi has been pursuing an active foreign policy, particularly with other regional powers. Some Indian think tanks now even talk of India “punching above its weight.” This is good news for New Delhi’s partners in Washington, Tokyo, and Canberra as they look to Modi to keep growing his country’s Indian Ocean capabilities and to India more generally to help shore up the liberal world order. And it is clearly backed up by policy momentum. As Japan and India look to further harmonize their respective strategic visions—witness the coming together last November of Modi’s “Act East” policy and Abe’s “Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy”—Australia-India cooperation has also been expanding. Following the elevation of the relationship to a “strategic partnership” in 2009, bilateral maritime dialogues and exercises have followed, and a civil nuclear cooperation agreement has now entered into force. The two countries have also agreed to hold a “2+2” meeting with their defense and foreign secretaries. Continuing uncertainty over Trump’s Asia policy has only prompted a renewed call for further, deeper cooperation between Australia, India, and Japan, and it should be noted that there is already an annual trilateral meeting of these countries’ foreign secretaries. As Australian High Commissioner Harinder Sidhu stresses, “small group diplomacy will matter more over time in the Indo-Pacific. Small groups, overlapping groups, and so-called ‘minilateralism’ are important because every strategic issue we face is different and will engage different countries in different combinations.” Others are now reviving middle power coalitions as a means of overcoming the constraints imposed by a zero-sum view of U.S.-China regional dynamics. Thus C. Raja Mohan and Rory Medcalf have recently argued that such coalitions can not only answer Trump’s call for allies and partners to do more, they can help “shape the regional order and not simply accept the results of U.S.-China competition, collision or collusion.” Sometimes the premise for more middle power coalitions, however, is based on the assumption of rapid U.S. retrenchment from the region. This view sees in Trump’s abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and his conflicting statements on the need for U.S. allies to stump up more for their own self-defense the seeds of an Asia without the United States. One Indian analyst even put forward the view that the current American strategic predicament in Asia is akin to that facing UK policymakers in the late 1960s, when the decision was taken to withdraw British military forces from “East of Suez.” “One blink,” said this analyst, and “the U.S. will be gone.” It is a dubious assessment based on a flawed interpretation of history. The proponents of middle power coalitions can be somewhat defensive, too, on the question of whether these arrangements will be seen as yet another means of containing China. They stress that so long as ministers and officials watch their language carefully, Beijing will come to respect such gatherings, acknowledging that the enlargement of its sphere of interest cannot come at the expense of its neighbors’ interests. Skeptics are not convinced, asking how a middle power coalition that holds security dialogues, shares intelligence, exchanges data on maritime surveillance, and seeks to build military and maritime capabilities throughout the region can avoid being viewed by Beijing as some kind of willful act of containment or encirclement. However suave and smooth the rhetoric, there remains a significant problem of presentation here. There is also the problem of recent history: namely the fate of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. Conceived by Japanese Prime Minister Abe as an “Asian Arc of Democracy” and formed in 2007, it brought together the United States, Japan, Australia, and India and was accompanied by the collective military exercise entitled “Malabar.” In recent weeks the former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating has caustically dismissed the revival of the quadrilateral proposal as, “recklessness on an international scale,” pointing precisely to the problem of its likely reception in China. The criticism is overblown, but it is not entirely inaccurate. After all, it was former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s apparent deference to Chinese sensitivities that lay behind his unilateral abandonment of quadrilateral activities in early 2008. It is an Australian walkout that Indian officials remember only too well. There is, however, a momentum towards greater cooperation among India, Japan, and Australia—particularly at the official level—that seems difficult to stop, especially in the age of President Trump.

Rachel Brown is a research associate for Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. This is the third part of a series on migration trends in India and China. India’s outsourcing and IT sectors are on edge. The combination of recent congressional proposals to alter the H-1B visa program, President Donald J. Trump’s vitriolic statements, and his draft executive order on visa reform looms large for heavily visa-reliant companies. Currently, roughly 70 percent of H-1B visas go to Indian nationals. But that could all soon change. H-1B visas are intended for temporary skilled workers, but some politicians perceive abuse of system, in which employers allegedly substitute foreigners for more expensive U.S. labor. Recent bills crafted by both House Republicans and Democrats seek to eliminate perceived loopholes, as well as to raise the base salary required for an H-1B visa up from $60,000 to anywhere from $100,000 to $130,000. It is unclear whether such bills will be enacted or what form executive action might take, but the increasingly hostile climate toward foreign workers in the United States will no doubt hit Indian IT firms particularly hard. Just three of these firms – Wipro, Infosys, and Tata Consultancy Services – together accounted for over 12,000 H-1B visas granted in 2014. But could greater visa restrictions on Asian workers going to the United States have the silver lining of promoting greater talent circulation within Asia? Two of the first places Indian firms may look in their quest to diversify are Japan and China, the two largest economies after the United States. But neither country is known for its openness to foreign workers. So what kind of reception might Indian companies and workers expect? Japan actually appears increasingly eager to attract and host skilled foreigners. Reforms to the country’s permanent residency system released this year by the Ministry of Justice would shave down the waiting period for skilled foreigners. Instead of waiting five to ten years, workers will now be able to apply after just one to three years, depending on how many points they accrue based on their education, profession, and salary. The changes go into effect at the end of this month. While Japan’s proposed immigration reforms received an enthusiastic response in Indian media sources, reasons remain for skepticism over whether a country with such notoriously stringent immigration policies can truly open up. On the face of it, Chinese companies too appear ready to welcome foreign tech workers displaced from the United States. In November, Baidu CEO Robin Li criticized Trump advisors’ hostility toward foreigners in Silicon Valley. He added, “so I myself hope that many of these engineers will come to China to work for us…In the past, Chinese IT companies can only attract Chinese engineers from abroad. We would now like to hire more engineers from different backgrounds around the world, because China is the fastest growing major market, so let’s all work together.” The Chinese government also looks increasingly supportive of attracting foreign talent to promote innovation. Recent immigration reforms include a streamlined work permit program being piloted in select provinces and municipalities. Additionally, in July news leaked of plans to set up China’s first immigration agency under the Ministry of Public Security. Restrictions on permanent residency were also eased slightly last year; individuals working for certain science, technology, or other research-oriented entities in both the public and private sectors can now apply. In 2016, the number of foreign permanent residents increased by 163 percent, although the country still granted a mere 1,576 new green cards. Chinese officials would like to see that number rise further. As Indian IT companies look to expand in China, they will need to consider not just government policies, but also their own mixed records of success in the country. Tata Consultancy Services has operated in China since 2002. However, its business has grown slowly and is not yet profitable. Others are faring better. Infosys, which posted revenues of approximately $120 million in China in 2015, aims to more than double its employees in China. Meanwhile, management training firm NIIT opened a data and IT training center in Guizhou’s provincial capital this year. Digging deeper, however, the prospects dim for would-be H-1B visa recipients to relocate to China. The foreign talent that Chinese firms and officials hope to attract is mostly made up of skilled engineers and coders, essentially the cream of the H-1B crop. But many individuals sent to the United States by outsourcing firms are not programmers but managers and other less technical personnel. Moreover, acquiring a Chinese green card remains an onerous process with high skill, salary, and/or investment barriers even after reform. Even the pilot work permit system classifies workers into buckets of “high-end personnel, professional personnel and the temporary and seasonal personnel,” and seeks to manage flows from the latter two categories. An early test of Indian technology firms’ ability to reorient toward China, Japan, and other Asian markets will come from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations. Prior to the most recent round of discussions, Indian negotiators pushed for more liberal policies on services and greater freedom of migration. But whether India’s proposals will be included in a final agreement remains uncertain. ASEAN countries have previously resisted pairing open markets with open immigration policies; similar opposition from both ASEAN and Northeast Asian states could hamper RCEP negotiations. At present the likelihood remains low that any but the highest-skilled Indian IT professionals could relocate to China or Japan in the wake of a dramatic change to the U.S. H-1B visa program. Eventually, however, improving regional labor mobility will be necessary to address Asia’s impending demographic reality. Ironically, as the U.S. government seeks out all manner of ways to tighten borders, historically closed-off Asian states may be the ones to embrace and benefit from immigration.

Rachel Brown, Sherry Cho, Larry Hong, Gabriella Meltzer, and Gabriel Walker look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. India’s space program shoots for the stars. This Wednesday, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) launched a record-breaking 104 satellites into orbit from a single rocket. The feat, which shattered the previous Russian record of thirty-seven satellites in one launch, cemented India as a “serious player” in the private-sector space market. ISRO’s missions are notoriously economical—its 2014 Mars mission cost only one-tenth that of an American Mars orbiter program—in part because salaries for highly skilled aerospace engineers are only a fraction of those in Europe or the United States. Additionally, according to ISRO’s chairman, foreign entities covered about half of the costs of this week’s launch. Eighty-eight of the satellites, which are only twelve inches long and nicknamed “Doves,” belonged to Planet, an American imaging and data company. Despite ISRO’s achievement, Chinese media was quick to call it “limited” in significance and point out India’s “weak foundation for national development.” While it is still early days in the Asian space race, competition for national pride and profit will likely only escalate in the coming years. 2.  Kim Jong-nam murdered in Malaysia. Kim Jong-nam, the exiled half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was assassinated on Monday at the Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia. Scheduled to board a flight back to Macau, where it is believed he lived, Kim was waiting in a check-in line when, according to South Korean intelligence reports, he was poisoned by two women. Two women, with Vietnamese and Indonesian passports, and a Malaysian man have been arrested by the Malaysian police in conjunction with the assassination. Kim lived much of his life abroad; his mother was exiled to Russia, he studied in Switzerland, and he was eventually exiled to China, where he supposedly enjoyed Chinese protection. Kim lived for over a decade in Beijing and Macau after his 2001 arrest for attempting to enter Japan on a forged Dominican Republic passport, allegedly to visit Tokyo Disneyland. His assassination comes at a sensitive time for China, just days after a North Korean nuclear missile test and increased domestic and international scrutiny of China’s relationship with North Korea. After the 2013 execution of Kim Jong-un’s pro-Chinese uncle, Jang Sung-taek, relations between Beijing and Pyongyang have steadily declined, with President Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un still yet to meet in person. While the official Chinese response to Kim’s assassination has been muted, analysts note that China is bound to be displeased by the murder of someone nominally under their protection and who could have been used as possible leverage with North Korea. 3. Jakarta election likely to enter runoff. The Indonesian capital’s gubernatorial election is expected to head into a runoff election in April, as no candidate appears to have garnered a majority in the first round of voting. Current Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (better known by his nickname Ahok) is predicted to finish first in the polls with 43 percent of votes estimated from “quick counts” of ballots. However, former Indonesian Education Minister Anis Baswedan trails close behind with 40 percent of votes. Based on current projections, another candidate, Agus Yudhoyono, who previously served in the military, will drop out in the next stage. A runoff election could exacerbate ethnic and religious tensions by pitting Ahok, who is Christian and ethnic Chinese, against the Muslim Anis; blasphemy charges surrounding comments made by Ahok on a Koranic passage have also plagued his campaign. Some analysts suggest that voters deciding on a religious basis, as well as those coming over from the Agus camp, could push Anis to victory in the spring. Anis was also endorsed by Prabowo Subianto, who will likely challenge sitting President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) for the presidency. Even if Ahok, a Jokowi ally, comes out ahead, the election could bruise Indonesia’s image of pluralism and tolerance and foreshadow a bitter presidential race in 2019. 4. Japan lodges protest over Russian naming of Kuril Islands. A formal protest has been lodged by Japan against the Russian naming of five islands in the disputed Kuril island chain. The contentious renaming of the uninhabited islands occurs just two months after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit in Abe’s hometown of Nagato to discuss the Russo-Japanese dispute over the Kuril chain. The 56-island Kuril chain has been a point of contention in Russo-Japanese relations for the past seventy-two years. The islands have changed hands between Russia and Japan multiple times since the 1855 Treaty of Shimoda, which confirmed Japanese sovereignty over the four southernmost islands—Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan, and Habomai—and Russian sovereignty over the rest of the islands. To further complicate the issue, Russia ostensibly inherited the island chain at the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991; however, Japan still retains a claim to the four islands it refers to as the Northern Territories. The negotiations over the Kuril chain have continued to act as a bellwether for relations between two fiercely nationalist states at a time when the countries appear eager to gain a friendlier economic relationship. While official responses to the naming of the islands have been temperate, domestic concerns may lead to more bellicose reactions later. Abe may be obliged to issue a response capable of assuaging the right-wing nationalists within his party and opinion polls show that the Russian public is fervently against surrendering any Kuril island ownership. Pointedly, the islands were named after Russians like Kuzma Derevyanko, who signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender with the Allied forces in 1945, and General Alexei Gnechko, who led the occupation of the Kuril Islands in the same year. 5. Eight killed in Xinjiang attack. According to local officials, paramilitary police in China’s western province of Xinjiang shot dead three assailants, who had killed five people and wounded ten others in a knife attack. At this point, the assailants’ identities and motives have not yet been disclosed. The local government website called the assailants “thugs” and stated that “at present, social order is normal at the site, society is stable, and investigation work is under way.” Xinjiang has been plagued by unrest in recent years. The Chinese government and members of Xinjiang’s Uighur population, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group, attribute the violence to different causes. The Chinese government cites terrorism and separatist efforts as sources of unrest, and has often blamed the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) or people inspired by ETIM for violent incidents both in the province and beyond the region’s borders. On the other hand, many Uighurs contend that the unrest is a direct response to government restrictions on their religious expression and way of life. The Chinese media usually keep a tight lid on the coverage of attacks in Xinjiang, and authorities typically respond to unrest with lock downs, raids on homes, and restrictions on phone and internet communications. Bonus: A lonely Valentine’s Day for Chinese men. As the world celebrated Valentine’s Day on Tuesday, the holiday was a sobering reminder of loneliness for millions of unwed Chinese, the majority of whom are men. 2010 national census data show that 24.7 percent of men and 18.5 percent of women above the age of fifteen are unmarried. According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, only 48.8 percent of China’s population is female, compared to a global average of 49.6 percent. This gender gap, which makes it difficult for males of lower socioeconomic status to find spouses, results from sex-selective abortions undertaken in response to a traditional preference for boys and the more than three-decade long one-child policy. Although the one-child policy was rescinded in 2016 amidst concerns over low fertility rates, care for the elderly, and potential social unrest, its long-term effects were certainly felt on a day surrounding love and marriage. Li Xuan of New York University Shanghai commented that although the problem is not serious, “people are anxious about deviance from the traditional family ideal” and that “Chinese culture believes that everything rests on the family.”

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe could not have wished for a better outcome from his summit meeting with President Donald Trump. To be sure, there were some awkward moments—like the Lost in Translation-like nineteen-second handshake. But Japan’s prime minister came to Washington to ensure that the U.S.-Japan alliance was on steady ground with the new administration and to explore the economic pathway for Japan as the president develops his America First agenda. The formal meeting on Friday produced a joint statement and a presser that allowed both leaders to discuss their priorities. Trump read from the script when it came to the security guarantee the United States offers to Japan. In many ways, it read like the to-do list for the U.S.-Japan alliance: Deterring aggression. Check. Senkaku Islands protection. Check. China. Check. But with Trump’s addition of alliance reciprocity. Check. For his part, Abe had his own check list, one that focused largely on the benefits of the liberal economic order. Shared democratic norms. Check. The rule of law. Check. Free and fair trade. Check. There was no reference to the Transpacific Partnership. Nor did Abe use the word protectionism. Nonetheless, Abe too echoed the alliance refrain that previous prime ministers might have used with U.S. presidents. But Japan’s prime minister brought also some new ideas for working with the Trump administration. New avenues for economic cooperation will be explored including President Trump’s ambition for a nation-wide infrastructure improvement plan. Japan’s much vaunted high speed rail and its newer maglev technologies, Abe noted, could help. Maglev, for example, would allow President Trump to get from Washington to New York in an hour, he promised. Equally important, a new high level conversation was established between the vice president, Michael Pence, and the deputy prime minister and finance minister, Aso Taro. They will delve into the various ways the United States and Japan can find common economic cause, one that will help both leaders fulfill their promises at home for economic growth and job creation. Business done, the two leaders headed to Florida for extensive socializing. The Abes were scheduled for dinner with the Trumps along with Robert Kraft, the owner of New England Patriots, two or three rounds of golf, and lots of fun at Mar-A-Lago, Donald Trump’s private resort. On television, CNN and other media shared small glimpses of Abe and his wife, Akie, with Donald and his wife, Melania, seemingly having a wonderful time as a room of on-lookers set back at a discrete distance looked over their shoulders at the new U.S. president’s diplomatic gathering. On Saturday, however, this carefully planned program of down time for Abe and Trump was interrupted by North Korea. The launch of a Pukguksong-2 missile from a mobile launch vehicle in North Pyongan province, which came down in the Sea of Japan, could not have been better timed. At a hastily arranged press conference, Prime Minister Abe invoked the United Nations Security Council and decried the launch as “absolutely intolerable.” President Trump stood back until Abe turned over the podium, and then stated, “The United States of America stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100%.” From a Japanese perspective, no more needed to be said. As summits go, it was an unusual one. The diplomatic ups and down of the first few weeks of the Trump administration had dominated the headlines, from the cancellation of the Mexican president’s visit to the curt twenty-minute phone call with Australia’s prime minister. But this was a hole in one for the U.S.-Japan relationship, reflecting the care with which both governments gave to ensuring success. Back home in Tokyo, newspapers headlined the visit as an Abe-Trump “honey moon” or a “homerun,” but remained cautious as to what could be ahead. After Candidate Trump rattled many, initial worries in Japan seemed to have been assuaged. Now it will be up to Vice President Pence and Deputy Prime Minister Aso to translate this initial diplomatic win into a meaningful economic agenda, and for Secretaries James Mattis and Rex Tillerson to assume leadership over the alliance agenda. As Pyongyang just demonstrated, Asia will not stand still. This article originally appeared on Forbes.

President Donald J. Trump’s initial forays into foreign policy suggest a desire to abdicate the throne. Not his own position as president of course, but rather the United States’ position as the world’s preeminent power—both as a driver of a globalized world and a defender of the traditional liberal order. He has withdrawn the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Asia-Pacific trade pact that would have cemented U.S. leadership among the economies that make up 40 percent of the world’s GDP. He has claimed that climate change is a hoax and wants to raise the U.S. fossil fuel industry from the dead. He is moving forward to build a wall to prevent Mexican citizens from crossing through to the United States, and he has issued a ban on Muslims traveling to the United States from seven different countries. (Whatever happened to the “welcoming pledges” that cities all across the United States adopted in the late 2000s to help immigrants adapt and thrive?) His brand of “Make America Great Again,” rejects the notion that American greatness depends in large measure on values that underpin the current global system. Thus, President Trump has little interest in supporting—much less leading—a globalized world. Who, then, can fill the vacuum? Leading in an era of globalization requires three things: domestic institutions that promote the free flow of goods, information, and people; the economic wherewithal to shape world affairs; and the vision to look beyond one’s own immediate interests. Surprisingly, it is not difficult to find countries that fit the bill. To begin with, there are countries that epitomize open markets in the form of free trade and investment. Hong Kong, Singapore and New Zealand achieve top status, but they are too small to drive the world economy. China as the world’s largest trading nation would certainly qualify in economic heft but it fails the test of openness, ranking 144th on Heritage’s “Economic Freedom” scale. The countries that rank high on both metrics include the United States, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan. Also essential to a well-functioning globalized world is the free flow of information. Here, too, tiny countries take top billing. Estonia and Iceland rank first and second in net freedom. But Canada, the United States, Germany, Australia, Japan, and the United Kingdom follow closely on their heels. China, in contrast, ranked last out of the sixty-five countries evaluated by Freedom House, earning it the title of “worst of the worst.” Globalization also relies on the free flow of people. Unsurprisingly, large liberal democracies dominate the top group. The countries perceived as having the most open immigration policies are Canada, Australia, Germany, Singapore (an exception to the rule), and the United States. To be fair, however, the countries that bear the burden of the largest number of refugees are Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon, Iran, and Ethiopia. While openness to the flow of goods and services, information, and people is critical to leadership in a globalized world, countries must also demonstrate the capacity to adopt the interests of the broader international community as one’s own. For example, when disaster strikes, who can be counted on to help? In terms of humanitarian assistance, the United States stands head and shoulders above the rest of the world, spending more than twice as much as the United Kingdom, the second largest donor. Germany, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, and Canada rank next in line.  Several of the same countries—the United States, Germany, Japan, Canada, and the United Kingdom—top the list for donations to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees; and financial support to meet the Ebola crisis in 2015 brought out a similar group of supporters: the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Sweden, Japan and Canada. While the United States and China have received credit for their leadership on climate change, neither breaks into the top twenty for actual performance, ranking 34th and 47th respectively in Germanwatch’s Climate Change Performance Index. Instead, look to the United Kingdom and Germany among the large economies, along with Denmark, Sweden, and Morocco, for true leadership on the issue. Finally, there is the issue of will. What country is ready to succeed the United States? China was quick off the starting block. At the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering of political and economic elites in Davos this past January, Chinese president Xi Jinping used his star turn to assert Beijing’s desire to wear the crown. Yet China is a mere pretender to the throne, demonstrating none of the qualities necessary to support, much less lead, a globalized world. Justin Trudeau, in contrast, replied to President Trump’s ban on Muslim refugees by welcoming the refugees to Canada, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel has long kept the door open to refugees fleeing violence in the Middle East. The reality may well be that there is no one, individual country that can replace the United States. Instead, an informal alliance of countries may need to step up to the plate. Germany, Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom all emerge as important pillars of a globalized world, with different combinations playing a central role on different issues.  And in some cases, smaller countries may become the true leaders. After President Trump announced a ban on American funding for overseas non-governmental organizations that provide abortion services, for example, the Netherlands emerged to rally a group of twenty-odd countries to begin to fill the $600 million funding gap. Many Americans will undoubtedly despair that the United States is no longer the essential power. What really matters, however, is that the values and institutions that the United States helped create and sustain for more that seventy years are strong enough to withstand the loss of its leadership.

Rachel Brown, Sherry Cho, Lorand Laskai, Gabriella Meltzer, and Gabriel Walker look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. Trump doesn’t like China, but does he like Chinese money? President Donald J. Trump will soon face some important decisions on Chinese investment in the United States. Trump will need to decide whether to approve a plan by Alibaba’s Paypal-like subsidiary Ant Financial to buy U.S. payment processor MoneyGram, or block the acquisition on national-security grounds. On the campaign trail, President Trump indicated that he would block Chongqing Casin Enterprise Group’s planned acquisition of the Chicago Stock Exchange. China bars foreign investment in a number of sectors, such as finance and cultural production, even though Chinese conglomerates in these industries, many of which are partly or wholly state-owned, are aggressively pursuing large acquisitions abroad. A number of policymakers believe the asymmetry is unfair. In its annual report, the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China wrote that the U.S. government would need to decide whether “market access for Chinese investors in news, online media, and the entertainment sectors [should be] conditioned on a reciprocal basis in order to provide a level playing field for U.S. investors.” Still, there are factors that might lead Trump to soften his tough-on-China approach, not least of which is Trump’s budding friendship with Alibaba founder Jack Ma. In addition, China foreign direct investment in the United States reached a record $45.6 billion in 2016. If Trump wants to stimulate job growth, he might need all the help he can get. 2. Pakistan ramps up missile tests. Last week, Pakistan conducted the first flight test of its Ababeel missile, a nuclear-capable, multiple-warhead, surface-to-surface ballistic missile with a range of 2,200 km (1,370 mi)—far enough to reach most of India, portions of western China, and a number of countries in the Middle East. The trial flight came soon after another test earlier last month of the Babur-III submarine-launched cruise missile, which the Pakistani military called “a major scientific milestone.” Pakistan’s attainment of second-strike capability and a strong nuclear deterrent marks a ratcheting-up of tensions in the region, particularly with India. Though Pakistan cannot match India’s spending on convention arms, notes one Pakistani commentator, it is taking a different route to bolster its ability to deliver a credible response. The fact that the two countries share a contentious land border makes it more likely that a small-scale altercation may spin into a much larger escalation of force. In January, for example, Pakistani officials threatened to use nuclear weapons should India invade Pakistani territory. It is also possible that U.S. President Donald J. Trump may escalate tensions in the region by declaring Pakistan a “terrorist state,” but only time will tell. 3. Researchers solve mysterious illness in Indian children. For over two decades, roughly one hundred seemingly healthy children in the northern Indian state of Bihar each summer suffered seizures and lost consciousness—roughly half of whom died—confounding local doctors. A new study published in Lancet Global Health solves this medical mystery. Researchers from the National Center for Disease Control in New Delhi and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigated children admitted to the hospital Muzzafpur in 2014, and discovered that their ailments were caused by eating lychee fruit on empty stomachs. Lychees contain hypoglycin, a toxin that inhibits glucose production in the body. The poor children in this lychee-producing region were consuming the fruit without eating dinner, leaving their blood sugar levels low and vulnerable to the effects of the toxin. As a result of these findings, local authorities have encouraged parents to feed their children evening meals and limit the consumption of lychees. 4. Singaporean activist awaits asylum review. After arriving in the United States in mid-December, teenage Singaporean political activist and filmmaker Amos Yee received a brief court hearing this week, but may remain in detention until March when his full hearing occurs. Immigration authorities have detained Yee near Chicago in the McHenry County Jail since he requested political asylum. He traveled to the United States after being imprisoned twice in Singapore in relation to multiple YouTube videos with inflammatory political and religious content that he produced. In one video entitled “Lee Kuan Yew Is Finally Dead!”, he described the deceased prime minister as “a horrible person” and compared him to the “power hungry and malicious” Jesus Christ. More recently, he produced videos bashing Islam and Christianity. Last year, when he was just seventeen, Yee was convicted for “wounding religious feelings.” His confrontational rhetoric ran antithetical to the Singaporean government’s emphasis on multicultural inclusion. Ironically, when Yee first arrived in the United States, the New York Times suggested his opposition to political correctness would mesh well with the attitudes of Donald J. Trump; now, President Trump’s immigration ban could derail ongoing bids for asylum. 5. Myanmar’s military-commercial complex draws concern. The 2016 lifting of U.S. economic sanctions against Myanmar was hailed as a momentous step in the country’s liberalization. However, critics warn of the Burmese military’s embedded power and sprawling commercial interests in the newly opened economy. Enterprises such as the Myanmar Economic Corporation, an opaque defense ministry-owned conglomerate nominally specializing in strategic sectors like port operations and telecommunications, and Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd., a military-run conglomerate with sprawling interests as diverse as cigarettes and construction, have arguably the most to gain after the return of civilian government. The arrival of international companies, many in consumer industries, has brought in more than $30 billion in foreign investment since 2011. Tempted by the financial prospects under Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian-led administration, military-affiliated companies have made a public effort at rebranding. Nonetheless, for many who remember the years of profligate corruption, widespread land-seizure, and human rights abuses under the military junta and military-backed government, the continuing role of the military at the very core of the state economy is troubling. There are hopes that the entrance of U.S. multinationals in particular will raise standards for rule of law, accounting, labor rights, and environment governance, but such reassurances do little to allay criticism of the continuing influence of military-linked companies and their ties to troubled industries such as those for jade, rubies, and drugs. Bonus: Gold goes green for 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Organizers of the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo announced this week that award medals will be sourced completely from recycled consumer products. The Japan Environmental Sanitation Center has partnered with NTT Docomo, the country’s largest mobile phone operator, to place collection bins in 2,400 Docomo stores throughout Japan to solicit donations of cell phones, cameras, laptops, and other e-waste. Organizers estimated that millions of old devices—around eight tons’ worth—will be required to gather enough metal to craft the 5,000 medals. In the past, including at the 2016 Rio Games, medals have only been partially sourced from recycled materials. The 2020 medals, according to one Japanese gymnast, “will be made out of people’s thoughts and appreciation for avoiding waste.” The strategy is not only a nod to Japan’s commitment to recycling, but also a move to cut costs: by one recent calculation, the Games could cost up to 2 trillion yen ($18 billion), or 2.5 times the initial estimate. And despite the good intentions, the eight tons is only a drop in the bucket of the millions of tons of e-waste produced in Asia every year.

Northeast Asia is facing profound political uncertainty: South Korea is immobilized by a political scandal that has resulted in the impeachment of its president, Park Geun-hye, and ensnared top business elites; Japan has been left high and dry after U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership, arguably the country’s best chance at growth; and North Korea is getting closer and closer to becoming a nuclear power. And no one knows what President Trump’s “America First” agenda means for the country’s Asian allies. What both Japan and South Korea need right now is assurance from the United States that its alliances are a priority. In his first overseas trip as the new Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis will be sure to affirm that commitment. Dealing with North Korea The four-day visit, beginning today, builds upon President Trump’s conversations with South Korean Acting President Hwang Kyo-Ahn and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last week in an effort to calm Northeast Asian nerves, especially in advance of the next unpredictable but inevitable North Korean provocation. The trip is an important indicator that North Korea’s nuclear and missile priorities have emerged near the top of the U.S. national security agenda, a welcome sign for both countries. In advance of his visit, Defense Secretary Mattis and his South Korean counterpart Han Min-koo have already confirmed the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to the country, removing from the table an issue that remains politically contentious in South Korea because of Park’s impeachment. This frees Mattis to focus on ensuring readiness and establishing the high levels of security coordination on how to deal with North Korea. But by agreeing to the THAAD deployment, South Korea now faces increased political and economic retaliation from China. China has already applied non-tariff barriers and on-site safety inspections for South Korean businesses operating in the country, and even curtailed concerts by Korean artists and removed Korean dramas from Chinese television. This was all to deter South Korea from deploying THAAD, at the request of the U.S. The Mattis visit should also make it clear that China’s retaliation against U.S. allies will not be tolerated–and it does not help in addressing current disconnects in U.S.-China relations. The comfort woman issue in flux While in Seoul and Tokyo, Mattis will likely hear about the breakdown of a 2015 deal between the two countries regarding comfort women as well. The December 2015 agreement had promised a final and irreversible resolution of the comfort woman issue in return for an apology from Abe and the establishment of a Japanese-funded and Korean-administered foundation that would provide compensation to the comfort women and their families. In addition, the South Korean government pledged to make its best efforts to move a comfort woman statue located in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul. But South Korean NGOs earlier this year placed a replica of that comfort woman statue outside the Japanese consulate in Busan to protest the deal, and it soon fell through. The Japanese ambassador has been recalled and the acting government in Seoul has no political power to address the issue now, leaving things in flux. Mattis will have to tread carefully on this issue, as the United States has a long-standing interest in promoting trilateral security cooperation with its two northeast Asian allies. It would not be wise to choose sides as both countries are crucial in responding to North Korea’s nuclear threats. Laying the groundwork in Japan Mattis will take the same message of assurance to Japan, but with a different scope and greater prospects for building political momentum. While Tokyo is also concerned about North Korea, it will also want to know that the United States is committed to defending the Senkakus against China’s challenge to Japanese sovereignty and administrative control. But more importantly, Mattis will lay the groundwork for Abe’s February 10 visit to Washington for his first summit meeting with Trump. That is when the contours of the Trump administration’s early approach to Northeast Asia will be clearer. A version of this post originally appeared on Forbes.

Rachel Brown, Sherry Cho, Gabriella Meltzer, and Gabriel Walker look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. Sprawling influence-peddling scandal spreads to Samsung leadership. Last week, the de facto leader of Samsung, Lee Jae-yong, faced a twenty-two-hour interrogation regarding allegations that Samsung paid, and promised to pay, a total of 43 billion won (roughly $36.4 million) in bribes to South Korean President Park Geun-hye and her close confidante, Choi Soon-sil, in exchange for the government-controlled National Pension Service’s support of a contentious 2015 merger of two Samsung affiliates. This Monday, South Korean prosecutors sought a warrant for Lee’s arrest. Although the warrant was summarily denied by judges, legal experts say that the court decision may propel prosecutors to strengthen their case. Analysts say the $8 billion merger between Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries in July 2015 was critical to the third-generation transfer of power in Samsung by consolidating Lee’s control over Samsung Electronics. The bribery crisis continues to dominate the news cycle in South Korea, where Samsung and other chaebols, or family-run conglomerates, are deeply embedded in Korean politics. The country’s largest chaebols are no strangers to legal battles and convictions, but these episodes often end with pardons due to the close collusion between the South Korean state and the powerful chaebol. Although there is little past evidence to suggest the immunity from true punishment hurts chaebol performance, a recent poll showed that a majority of South Koreans disapprove of third-generation heirs. This growing censure of the South Korean elite may lead to problems in the future for Lee and other chaebol heirs, regardless of the bribery scandal’s final outcome. 2. China cancels new coal. As President Trump promises to resuscitate America’s waning coal industry, China is taking a very different tack with its own. This week, the Chinese National Energy Administration announced plans to halt the construction of over a hundred coal-fired power plants in fifteen regions across the country, according to calculations by Greenpeace. This amounts to cutting around 120 GW of potential capacity, over a third of all the coal capacity in the United States and double that of Germany. Though the cancellations will cost around $30 billion, mainly affecting developers whose finances are already tied up in ongoing projects, the move is an important step in achieving China’s broad national energy goals put forth in the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016–2020). The country currently has around 900 GW of coal-fired capacity, and aims to peak at no more than 1,100 GW by 2020—still far more capacity than is actually utilized. On other fronts, in recent weeks China has also fined hundreds of coal-fired power plants for breaching environmental regulations and announced plans to spend $360 billion on renewable power through 2020. 3. Potential for Islamic State presence increases in the Asia Pacific. At a security conference in New Delhi this week, Admiral Harry Harris, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, counseled Asian officials to closely monitor the risks posed by violence from the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) in the Asia-Pacific region. Already, IS has inspired attacks in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Bangladesh. Of particular concern now is the threat fighters returning from Syria and Iraq present as IS’s territory shrinks. According to the Soufan Group, an estimated 600 individuals have traveled to Iraq and Syria from Southeast Asian nations including Malaysia and Indonesia, and IS has actively recruited from the region. Additionally, sixty Indians are also believed to have joined IS. While much concern centers on South and Southeast Asia, China has also seen more than one hundred Uighurs depart for IS-controlled areas. Southeast Asian governments have been actively cooperating on intelligence and prevention, but risks remain surrounding everything from militant recruitment in prisons to lone-wolf attacks. 4. China protests over Japanese hotel CEO’s Nanjing Massacre denial. One of Japan’s largest hotel chains, the APA Group, has faced an outpouring of criticism after it was revealed online that the hotel chain is refusing to remove copies of a radically right-wing and historically revisionist book from its hotel rooms despite increasing protest and furor. The book, titled Theoretical Modern History II–The Real History of Japan, was written by its CEO, Toshio Motoya, under a pen name, and denies the veracity of the Nanjing Massacre. The killing of Chinese citizens by Japanese troops in 1937, which later became known as the “Rape of Nanjing,” continues to be one of the biggest points of contention in a China-Japan relationship that is already far from amicable. Beijing claims up to 300,000 people were killed in the massacre, while many right-wing Japanese nationalists have denied the existence of the massacre or expressed doubts of the high body count. Motoya has stated that the killing of 300,000 people was impossible because Nanjing’s population at the time was only 200,000. 5. Bhutan takes a unique approach to social development. Dasho Karma Ura currently serves as the president of the Center of Bhutan Studies and GNH Research. Ura, a renowned economist, historian, and philosopher, has dedicated his life to defining GNH, or gross national happiness, as a development indicator to supplement, or even supplant, traditional metrics such as a gross domestic product. GNH is developed from thirty-three indicators under nine domains. Bhutan’s democratic constitution was ratified in 2008, and guides the nation’s leaders to abide by GNH’s four pillars: good governance, sustainable socioeconomic development, preservation and promotion of culture, and environmental conservation. Bhutan boasts 91.2 percent of its citizens reporting narrow, extensive, or deep happiness, with urbanites and men reporting higher levels than their rural and female counterparts. Ura’s development philosophy has spread far beyond the borders of the remote Himalayan kingdom and forms the basis of the United Nations-sponsored World Happiness Report, in which Denmark currently ranks first. Ura notes that in a moment in history defined by “more guns, bullets, and bombs,” it is “imperative that countries devise indicators that look beyond economics.” Bonus: Japanese techno-toilets get new buttons. In a historic display of multilateral cooperation, nine manufacturers of advanced Japanese toilets joined forces this week to announce an unprecedented effort to standardize the digital bathroom experience of the future. The high-tech washroom devices, which often come equipped with warmed seats, bidets, sterilized water, and more, have an array of controls that confuse many foreign visitors. Starting soon, the firms have agreed to begin using the same eight pictograms to standardize and streamline the restroom experience. Industry representatives hope that the move will make the devices more accessible for hapless tourists, and help the toilets catch on overseas. Some consumers, it seems, need no convincing: Japanese toilet seats are already a hot buy for plenty of Chinese tourists during holiday shopping season.

Richard Javad Heydarian is an assistant professor in political science at De La Salle University in Manila, and, most recently, the author of Asia’s New Battlefield: The U.S., China, and the Struggle for Western Pacific. As electoral shocks overhaul the Asian geopolitical landscape, Japanese Prime Minster Shinzo Abe is on an all-out charm offensive. When Donald Trump Jr. pulled off a surprising electoral victory on the back of a populist, anti-globalization rhetoric, the Japanese leader immediately scrambled to secure a meeting with the president-elect. In fact, Abe became the first head of government to visit Trump Tower after the November elections in the United States. However, there is little indication that the Japanese leader managed to change the president-elect’s views on some of Tokyo’s key strategic concerns, particularly the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. Well before meeting Trump, however, Abe was already on a mission to win the favor of the Philippines’ tough-talking leader, Rodrigo Duterte, who has been dubbed as the “Trump of the East”. In his first six months in office, Duterte has shaken up the regional geopolitical landscape to the consternation of traditional allies such as Japan. A self-described socialist with a long history of tense relations with the United States, Duterte has managed to recast his country’s foreign policy more radically than any of his recent predecessors in Manila. Vowing to pursue a more independent foreign policy, Duterte has gradually downgraded military relations with Washington in favor of closer economic and military ties with China and Russia. In recent months, Manila has moved towards terminating major joint military exercises with Washington, namely the Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training Exercise (Carat) and the joint U.S.-Philippine Amphibious Landing Exercise (PHIBLEX). Manila’s deteriorating ties with Washington have gone hand in hand with improved ties with Beijing. In fact, the Dutetre administration is now considering military agreements with both China and Russia. In a dramatic departure from its predecessor’s hawkish foreign policy on China, the Duterte administration has effectively sidelined the Philippines’ landmark arbitration case against China in the South China Sea, advocated for joint development schemes in disputed South China Sea waters, and often described Beijing as a friend and partner. With the Philippines assuming the chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) this year, Duterte has signaled minimum interest in mobilizing regional pressure against China’s maritime assertiveness, even though other Asean members, like Vietnam and Singapore, would be happy if the organization stepped up the pressure on Beijing. Thus, Abe’s recent two-day visit to the Philippines came at a critical juncture in Asian geopolitics. Tokyo is deeply troubled by deepening tensions between Manila and Washington, particularly over Duterte’s controversial campaign against illegal drugs. In many ways, the Japanese leader’s goal was to maintain strong strategic relations with Manila, mediate between feuding allies, and ensure the Duterte administration is not moving too far into the Chinese strategic orbit. The Abe administration seems interested in assertively countering China’s charm offensive in Manila and matching whatever economic incentives Beijing offers the Duterte administration. Abe became the first head of government to visit the Philippines during Duterte’s term, even though the Philippine president chose to make his own first state visit to Beijing rather than Tokyo. Given the importance in Asia of Japan, the world’s third largest economy and an increasingly major bilateral security partner for many Southeast Asian nations, the Abe visit also served as a major source of legitimization for Duterte, who has faced increasing international pressure over his human rights record. As the Philippines’ biggest export destination, leading foreign investor, and largest source of overseas development assistance, Japan already has significant leverage over the Philippines. Still, Abe offered a whopping additional $8.7 billion five-year aid package, focusing on infrastructure development across the Philippines, including in Duterte’s home island of Mindanao. In a classic display of personal diplomacy, Abe also visited Duterte in Davao, where they had breakfast amid much fanfare. Abe also became the first global leader from a rich democracy to offer support for Duterte’s controversial campaign against illegal drugs, offering assistance in terms of drug rehabilitation. But aside from charming, there was also some prodding by Abe. Though Abe formally welcomed improved relations between Manila and Beijing, he pushed the Philippines to be cautious on repairing ties with China, to maintain a strong stance on the South China Sea issue, and to uphold the rule of law (a code word for the arbitration award) on the high seas. Abe also offered more maritime security assistance to bulk up the Philippines’ surveillance and coast guard capabilities in the South China Sea. Abe also encouraged the Duterte administration to find a common understanding with Washington, especially with the Trump administration, which has shown little interest in human rights concerns overseas, set to take over the White House. It is far from clear whether Abe has convinced Duterte to reconsider his strategic posturing, but Duterte now appears to be the beneficiary of a bidding war among regional powers.

Rachel Brown, Sherry Cho, Lorand Laskai, Gabriella Meltzer, and Gabriel Walker look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. China’s aircraft carrier sails through Taiwan Strait. Early Wednesday morning, China’s sole aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, sailed into the Taiwan Strait, leading Taipei to scramble F-16 fighter jets and ships to “surveil and control” the movement of the Liaoning and its accompanying five warships. The carrier ship group was returning to Qingdao after training exercises in the South China Sea, and did not technically veer into Taiwanese waters during its ten-hour journey through the Taiwan Strait. This new military posturing by China comes at a delicate time in cross-strait relations. On her way to a diplomatic visit in Central America, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen recently met with prominent U.S. politicians such as Senator Ted Cruz in a visit that, unsurprisingly, met with Chinese censure. Tsai’s Central America visit was itself intended to shore up support from Taiwan’s dwindling number of diplomatic allies after São Tomé and Príncipe’s recent diplomatic recognition of China, which left Taiwan with just twenty-one diplomatic allies. Since last May, when Tsai refused to acknowledge the 1992 Consensus in her inauguration speech, relations between China and Taiwan have deteriorated. China views the consensus, a tacit agreement that there is only one China, with each side having its own interpretation, as crucial to ensuring stable cross-strait ties. An unprecedented phone call between Tsai and U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump last month injected further uncertainty into China-Taiwan relations. And while Beijing may continue to claim that its recent maneuvers are normal training exercises, China’s most recent round of military exercises in the disputed South China Sea continues to sustain tensions with its Pacific neighbors in a theater already full of fraught enmities and uneasy allies. 2. Philippines to expand birth control access. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte authorized his government to increase contraception availability for approximately 6 million women currently lacking access. The government’s first priority will be assisting 2 million women living in poverty over the next year by partnering with civil society organizations. Birth control is already available in the Philippines, but it is often prohibitively expensive, making it accessible only to middle- and high-income individuals. Family planning poses a conundrum for the Philippines, which is 81 percent Catholic and the only Asian country to experience a rise in the rate of teen pregnancies over the past twenty years. In 2008, 54 percent of pregnancies were unintended, most of which occurred among poor women. Abortion is illegal in all circumstances. While the Philippines passed the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act in 2012, which would have provided nationwide birth control access, it has been stalled by a temporary restraining order from the Supreme Court. The order stopped issuance of implanted birth control devices, and budgets for birth control provision have been cut independent of the court’s ruling. Duterte’s latest move to promote contraception access will likely anger the Catholic Church as well. 3. $100 billion SoftBank Vision Fund takes shape. Last October, Japanese telecommunications multinational Softbank made headlines by announcing a plan to create a $100 billion fund to invest in new technologies—the largest such fund in history. Now, with a number of investors and leaders in place, the fund is beginning to take shape. So far, investments have come from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund ($45 billion) and SoftBank itself ($25 billion), along with Qualcomm, Apple, and others. The sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi may soon join as well. In addition to SoftBank Chief Executive Masayoshi Son, many of the fund’s leaders are Wall Street veterans, including the fund’s head Rajeev Misra who formerly worked at Deutsche Bank. The Vision Fund is expected to invest in a range of new technologies including robotics, artificial intelligence, and the “Internet of Things,” and will likely make investments in larger companies as well as start-ups. With the fund, Son will endeavor to build off previous technology investment successes including deals with Alibaba and Yahoo! Japan. Some have speculated, however, that the fund may also serve as a way for SoftBank to cozy up to the incoming Trump administration by investing large sums in the United States. 4. China offers to remove compulsory IUDs. For more than thirty years, the Chinese government has required many women be fitted with an intrauterine device (IUD) in order to comply with the country’s controversial one-child policy. But now with the country’s birth rate declining, the government has replaced the one-child policy with a “two-child” policy and is offering women that were forced to receive an IUD a free surgery to remove the device. But many women are not accepting that gesture graciously: after years of being subjected to forced family planning, the government’s about-face without an apology has left many women indignant. Since the inception of the one-child policy, over 300 million Chinese women were fitted with IUDs and more than 100 million underwent tubal ligations. The enforcement of the one-child policy, which Nobel Prize-winning author Mo Yan portrays in Frog, a novel about the most intense years of forced sterilization and abortion in a fictional village, has had a brutal history. Over three decades later, its victims’ scars have not yet healed. 5. Australia and East Timor tear up maritime agreement. On Monday, Australia and East Timor, a nation of just over a million citizens that became a sovereign state in 2002, agreed to terminate a decade-old treaty in favor of negotiating a new maritime boundary. Under the 2006 treaty, the two countries agreed to suspend boundary talks for fifty years and split the tax revenues of the Greater Sunrise oil and gas field equally—a tract closer to East Timor’s coast with up to $40 billion in hydrocarbons. Now, according to a joint statement, the governments have committed to negotiate a new maritime boundary under the auspices of The Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration. But this time around, East Timor will likely demand a boundary line equidistant between the two countries and, as a result, a greater share of the oil and gas revenues from the region. For East Timor, the revenues are practically a matter of life and death: without new sources of income, some predict that the fledgling nation could be bankrupt within a decade. Bonus: Benefits of China’s “anti-smog” teas debunked. Chinese citizens in Beijing are finally finding relief after a period of dangerous smog that forced a red alert for twenty-three cities throughout northern China and shut down schools, construction sites, and factories. The smog extended 3.9 million square miles, which is roughly the area of the continental United States. In an effort to protect themselves from pollution levels ten times greater than those advised by World Health Organization guidelines, many Chinese have turned to “anti-smog” teas, sold widely in medicine shops, pharmacies, and online for about $2.90 per pack. Listings claim that the tea’s combination of traditional Chinese herbs, including dried chrysanthemum and honeysuckle, can boost overall health and remove smog-induced impurities from the body. However, a recent state report on CCTV featuring Liu Quanqing, president of the Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, attacked these claims as false, saying that the “digestive and respiratory systems are separate” and that many of these teas contain ingredients that in fact can cause “health problems if taken for a long time.” China’s Centers for Disease Control instead recommends face masks and air purifiers to combat smog.

The December 9 impeachment of South Korean President Park Geun-hye has created a vacuum of political leadership in South Korea. Normally, the South Korean president would lead a full court press to confirm President-elect Donald Trump’s commitment to the U.S.-ROK security alliance and coordinate a consistent approach to the growing North Korean nuclear threat. Instead, South Korea’s bureaucracy muddles through by managing day-to-day activities under an acting president while South Korea’s Constitutional Court deliberates for up to 180 days on whether to uphold or reject the South Korean National Assembly’s impeachment motion. Presidential candidates prepare for an early election that will be held sixty days following the court’s judgment if the impeachment is upheld. If the impeachment is rejected, elections will be held in December 2017 as originally scheduled. Until South Korea has a new president, South Korea’s political vacuum will not be filled. Read more on The Cipher Brief.