Japan

I sat down yesterday with my colleague Sheila Smith to discuss Japanese Prime Minister Abe’s historic visit to Pearl Harbor next week. We also discussed President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima, disputes in the South China Sea, the future of U.S.-Japanese relations, and Japan’s relations with its neighbors as well as with Russia, among other topics. You can check out the video of our discussion below or on Facebook. (And I urge you to check out Sheila’s book Intimate Rivals: Japanese Domestic Politics and a Rising China.) Note: If the video is not displaying in your browser, please click here.

Late last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Japan, stopping first in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s home in Yamaguchi Prefecture and then moving up to Tokyo. It was a visit that had been long in the planning, but delayed after Russia’s annexation of Crimea. But Putin did not bring much with him, arguing instead that it was the United States that had derailed the Abe-Putin diplomatic momentum. Much has been made of the personal chemistry between Vladimir and Shinzo, but this meeting suggested that their fifteen previous meetings had been less about personality and more about a shrewd calculus of keeping others in Asia off kilter. Would they transform a relationship long stunted by a territorial dispute? Would they distance themselves from others who might want to limit their strategic options—Washington for Abe, Beijing for Putin? Would they be able to put an end to their extended “postwar” diplomatic purgatory for lack of a peace treaty? Moscow and Tokyo muddled through the Cold War without a peace treaty. There may be little real incentive for change. Energy and other economic cooperation has proceeded without one. Russians travel to Japan and Japanese to Russia freely and without rancor. The islands—known as the Kuriles in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan—appear to have few proponents in either capitol, and more than half a century later, seem far less pressing. This is not the same Asia, however, and the geopolitical currents are running faster. China is on the rise and willing to assert itself, and the United States, with an unpredictable new president-elect, could be wiling to upend some of the region’s longstanding foundations, including perhaps its alliances. As Putin said in the joint press conference with Abe, “Japan lived without close cooperation with Russia for seventy years, and we lived without it. Can we live without it in the future? Yes, we can. Will it be the right decision? No." Yet Putin did not bring to the table what Abe needed. There was no new thinking on the islands, and no readiness it seemed to be creative about how to find compromise. Sovereignty still matters, and island disputes in today’s Asia carry just as much nationalist emotions as they did in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The formula on the table remains one that former Soviet and Japanese leaders initially agreed in 1956. Two islands closest to Japan, Habomai and Shikotan, could be returned to Japan, under the conditions they would not be used for military purposes. The larger two islands to the northern, Etorofu and Kunashiri, populated by Russians and others, and the site of Russian infantry units, would not. Japan at one point may have been ready to settle for the two islands formula. Russia, like the Soviet Union, offers no more. Today, this same formula for solving Japan’s island dispute with Russia is not Washington’s primary concern, as it was in the 1950s. Rather it is Russian behavior elsewhere that concerns the United States. The annexation of Crimea and military involvement in Ukraine, as well as the growing pressures on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)’s newest members, continue to focus Washington’s attention on Russian behavior in Europe. More recently, the Russian intervention in the U.S. presidential election has put everyone—including the U.S. Senate—on edge. It seems Putin’s appetite for impinging directly upon Washington’s interests seems no less than that of his Soviet predecessors. The Russian and Japanese governments will continue to work on how to bridge their differences over the islands. The effort to find a pathway to some special initiative that could allow free movement and joint investment across the four islands continues. Abe delivered a letter during his early meeting with Putin, written in Russian, from the Chishima Habomai Shotō Kyojū Renmei, elderly Japanese who had been residents of these islands. Putin noted their sentiments, but did not meet with them nor promise any ready solution to their desire to visit. Visits between the islands might be made easier, a boon to tourism perhaps. And fishermen—the constituency with the most direct economic interests in the resolution of this half century of distance—may be able to fish without impunity in the waters of the Northern Territories/Kuriles regardless of nationality. The economic potential for Russia may not be insignificant—an eight point plan for Japanese economic initiatives with Russia is in the making. The Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry and other ministries signed agreements to explore economic cooperation. Before Putin’s arrival, up to 95 billion yen in loans to Gazprom, Russia’s state energy company, were being considered by private Japanese lenders. The full contours of such an agreement were not publicly disclosed, however, and Japanese companies may still hesitate until more credible signs of Russia compromise are evident. Yet despite Abe’s economic largesse, Putin demonstrated little of his normal warmth on this visit. He arrived three hours late, keeping Japan’s prime minister waiting in the midst of his home constituents. He refused the offer of a mate for his beloved Akita, a gift from Abe earlier in their diplomatic journey. Despite his second visit to the renowned Judo Dojo, Kōdōkan, in Tokyo where the elders of his favorite sport teach, he did not demonstrate his skills as he had in 2000—a move that could have won him greater popularity among an expectant Japanese public. Instead of the charming persona he presented to the Japanese then, this Putin seemed far cooler. He gave a pre-visit interview with the Yomiuri Shimbun and Nippon Television in Moscow that cast a chill over the visit. Claiming it was Japan that had abandoned the 1956 framework for resolving the island disputes, Putin laid bare his own calculus: Tokyo must abandon its support for sanctions that had been in place since Crimea. At the joint press conference after their meeting, Putin took aim at the United States, reminding his Japanese audience that after all it was the United States that had stood between Tokyo and Moscow in the 1950s. Today it is the sanctions against Russia imposed in the wake of Crimea that rankle. Putin suggested that yet again its ally in Washington was holding Japan back. For now, no tremendous breakthrough appears likely for this relationship which seems frozen in time. A grand bargain may be more appealing at a time when Russian prosperity looks more promising, when bridges across the frigid seas of the northern Pacific are more welcome, and when Japanese security is more assured. Instead, more modest goals may be prudent for the time-being. The two neighbors would be well served by beginning strategic dialogue they agreed to in the early days of Abe-Putin diplomacy to ensure stable and predictable interactions between their militaries, and by continuing to build the citizen-to-citizen ties that will support their diplomacy at home.

Rachel Brown, Sherry Cho, Gabriella Meltzer, and Gabriel Walker look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. Rex Tillerson’s South China Sea ties. While Tillerson’s relationship with Russia has attracted the lion’s share of attention after his recent nomination as secretary of state by President-Elect Trump, Tillerson’s ties to disputes in the South China Sea have garnered much less attention. ExxonMobil, under Tillerson’s leadership, wedged America’s largest oil company into one of Asia’s prickliest diplomatic disputes when it inked a deal with Vietnam to drill for natural gas in waters also partially claimed by China. Whereas other oil companies have given the South China Sea a wide berth due to fears of upsetting the delicate regional balance, ExxonMobil has emerged as a significant partner for Vietnam. China and its neighbors have occasionally clashed over disputed areas in the South China Sea over resources there: in 2014, for example, a Chinese rig started drilling in an area also claimed by Vietnam near the Paracel Islands, instigating a months-long impasse between Chinese and Vietnamese security forces. In the middle of the dispute, Tillerson flew to Beijing to meet with Chinese oil-company executives, including the chairman of the company which controlled the rig at the center of the dispute. While ExxonMobil and Tillerson have previously declined to comment on sovereignty claims in the South China Sea, Tillerson’s confirmation as secretary of state may herald an interesting change in America’s foreign policy approach to the South China Sea. 2. Cashless payments boom in India. So far, electronic payment services have been the winners in India’s ban of the 500 and 1,000 rupee notes in early November. Historically, India has been a cash-reliant economy, using bills for nearly 80 percent of transactions and with only approximately 20 percent of the population on electronic payment systems. However, users of such systems are growing rapidly with approximately 70,000 vendors joining Paytm, a popular mobile-payments service, daily in the wake of the demonetization and using it for 5–6 million transactions. Other services such as MobiKwik, Freecharge, and Bitcoin are increasingly ubiquitous as well. The government has also instituted the first subsidies to encourage the use of cashless payment and provides discounts for services bought online. Connecting bank accounts to Aadhar numbers, unique identifiers linked to biometric data, will further accelerate the use of electronic payments. Such data will make it easier to verify cashless payments by mobile phone through just a thumbprint. Many economists worry about an economic downturn for India as reduced cash in circulation slows activity, but a shift to cashless payments may ease some of that burden. 3. International nonprofits brace for new Chinese laws. China is placing strict restrictions on nearly all international nonprofits working in the country in an effort to expel unwanted foreign influences and consolidate the government’s control over society, culture, and politics. The law, passed in April and going into effect on January 1, will require all foreign nonprofits to register with China’s Ministry of Public Security, submit reviews of all operations and finances, and be sponsored by a Chinese partner organization. This places small nonprofits with a focus on criminal justice, rule of law, and civil rights at greater risk of police intervention in their activities. According to the law, foreign nonprofits are allowed to engage in the following sectors: economics, education, science and technology, health, culture, sports, environmental protection, charity, and disaster relief. That being said, even those organizations working on non-sensitive issues are vulnerable, given that there has been little official communication on how to go about the registration process or how the law will be implemented. In a December 8 meeting with Guo Shengkun, China’s minister of public security, U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice voiced her concern about the detrimental effect this will have on “people-to-people links” between the two nations. 4. Japan paves the way for legalizing casinos. On Thursday, Japanese legislators passed an “integrated resorts” law that removes a longstanding ban on casino gambling and is the initial step toward legalizing casinos in the country. Japan is known as the “final frontier” of the casino industry, with some estimates of its potential revenue as high as $40 billion annually. The combination of an affluent local population and a skyrocketing number of Chinese tourists makes Japan a unique opportunity for developers. Revenue from the pachinko industry earned more than $200 billion last year, far more than that from the casino industry in the United States and Macau. But casino developers may encounter pushback in coming years: a recent poll showed that 44 percent of Japanese oppose casinos, while only 12 percent support them. Many harbor concerns that casinos will be run by unscrupulous operators, worsen gambling addictions, and create public safety issues. The opposition leader against the ruling stated that casinos would damage the “dignity of the nation.” Whatever comes to pass in the coming years, casinos are not everyone’s idea of fun and games. 5. Philippines hunts for lost Marcos art. Thirty years ago, when Filipino investigators entered the New York City townhouse of Imelda Marcos, the wife of notorious Filipino leader Ferdinand Marcos, the family’s $500 million worth of art—including works by Van Gogh, Picasso, and Monet—was nowhere to be found. Over the years, around $17 million of it has been retrieved by the Philippines government. Today, around 200 works are still missing, part of the estimated $10 billion in assets Marcos stole while in power. The country’s Presidential Commission on Good Government has come up with to creative methods to employ the public’s help, creating a website gallery of the works and a hashtag, #ShowMetheMonet, to publicize the effort. Just a few weeks ago, it was reported that fifty works were located in a climate-controlled Brooklyn warehouse. Who the works rightfully belong to—either the Filipino people or the Marcoses’ personal secretary, who was convicted in 2013 of conspiracy and tax fraud—is now in the hands of a Manhattan federal judge. Bonus: Growing popularity of Asia’s craft breweries. November’s fifth annual Beertopia festival in Hong Kong saw a record turnout of over 14,000 attendees and featured almost 125 breweries from around the world. This two-day festival has become the biggest craft beer event in Asia, with almost half of the breweries featured based in the Asia Pacific. The growing popularity of the event reflects a increasing interest in craft beer throughout Asia, with many of the Asian craft breweries present at the beer festival eager to highlight their respective regional terroirs by showcasing local ingredients that give their beers a distinct sense of place, such as cacao nibs from Vietnam or Sichuan peppercorns and chilies. Many Asian breweries have benefited from the revision of outdated brewing laws, such as Japanese breweries, while some craft breweries have even resorted to circumventing archaic laws to brew their beer, like a Thai brewery brewing their beer in Cambodia and selling it back home in Thailand as an “import.”

Rachel Brown, Sherry Cho, Gabriella Meltzer, David O’Connor, and Gabriel Walker look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. South Korea’s National Assembly votes to impeach Park Geun-hye. On Friday, South Korea’s 300-member National Assembly voted 234 to 56 to impeach President Park Geun-hye. The decisive vote, for which many members of Park’s own Saenuri party joined opposition and independent assembly-members in a secret ballot to vote for her impeachment, follows months of escalating scandal centered on charges of influence-peddling. Continuing scandalous revelations about Choi Soon-sil, a longtime confidante and advisor of Park, and accusations that Park helped Choi extract money from chaebol conglomerates including Samsung, has incited mass protests of millions of South Koreans calling for Park’s resignation. South Korea’s conservative Constitutional Court now has six months to confirm the impeachment. If at least six of the nine judges uphold the parliamentary motion, Park will be permanently removed from office. Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn will serve as South Korea’s interim president until the court reaches a decision. 2. Duterte’s drug war wreaks havoc in Filipino communities. A powerful photojournalistic account by Daniel Berehulak published by the New York Times vividly captures the tragedy and chaos surrounding President Rodrigo Duterte’s controversial and brutal campaign to eradicate illicit drug usage and sales. The president’s police forces and other vigilantes have carried out at least 4,500 homicides and 35,600 arrests since July alone, including some of high-ranking officials allegedly tied to the industry. Those who are not murdered in cold blood are held in overcrowded prisons, and 727,600 users and 56,500 dealers have surrendered since Duterte’s election to the presidency. There is a sense of pride among officials by the volume of carnage, as Duterte has promised medals and cash rewards to those citizens who partake in the killings. Human rights groups condemn these practices, but Duterte sees human rights as “a Western obsession that keeps the Philippines from taking the action necessary to clean up the country.” The campaign has been endorsed by President-elect Donald Trump, who believes Duterte is doing it “the right way.” And Filipinos seem to agree too: Duterte’s trust rating from an October poll was 86 percent. 3. In Myanmar, Kofi Annan voices concern for Rohingyas. Kofi Annan, selected to lead a commission formed in August to investigate “the security of the people of Rakhine,” stated on Tuesday that he was “deeply concerned” by intensifying rights violations in Myanmar’s westernmost state. Annan made the statement at the end of a week-long visit to Myanmar, which included a trip to Rakhine state’s north, where the Myanmar army has been conducting an increasingly militant crackdown in response to the killing of nine police officers on October 9th by insurgents. The nine-person commission was created at the request of Myanmar’s de facto leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, weeks before the crackdown began in October. While the commission will make recommendations to the Myanmar government in late 2017 for alleviating ethnic strife in Rakhine state, the commission faces censure from multiple directions and concern from rights groups that it may be too little, too late for Myanmar’s Rohingyas. 4. Russia and Japan eye improved relations. Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Abe’s home province next week, and the two leaders are expected to discuss both economic cooperation and a possible resolution to territorial disputes. Abe is pursuing a “new approach” to Russia-Japan relations and hopes to make progress on the unresolved status of the islands known as the South Kurils in Russia and Northern Territories in Japan. The islands were seized by Stalin at the end of World War II and a peace treaty between the two nations has still not been signed. Putin and Abe have already met fifteen times, but expectations for what the upcoming meeting will achieve remain low. While Abe hopes for the return of the smaller two islands to Japan and a plan for future talks on the other two, Russia may not be open to the possibility of later negotiations. Beyond territorial disputes, warmer relations are strategic for both sides, with Russia seeking new economic opportunities in Asia following Western sanctions and declining commodity prices, and Japan aiming to prevent overly cozy China-Russia ties. Although Japan is pursuing closer trade and financial ties with Russia, it intends to remain part of the G7 sanctions on Russia. 5. Debt problems heat up for Chinese banks. According to a tally by the Wall Street Journal published this week, Chinese banks are “hiding” more than $2 trillion in loans. Over the past five years, small- and medium-sized banks in particular have granted financing with what they label as “investment receivables” rather than as loans. This classification requires banks to maintain just a fraction—or none—of the capital to cover potential losses that would be required for loans. By massaging their balance sheets, banks can keep investments flowing while covering up their increasing exposure to risky assets. “Investment receivables” joins a laundry list of disconcerting features of the Chinese banking sector in recent years: repackaged wealth management products, non-performing loans, high leverage, and risky interbank loans. But banks are between a rock and a hard place: the Chinese government has been pushing them to boost lending to bolster the country’s flagging growth. Bonus: Father of General Tso’s Chicken recipe passes away in Taipei. Peng Chang-kuei, a famed Hunanese chef, prepared “America’s favorite” dish for the first time in the midst of the 1955 Taiwan Strait Crisis, when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff visited the island. The name “General Tso’s,” originally improvised, proved more durable than the recipe, which Peng once said needed sugar to appeal to his non-Hunanese clientele in the United States. Peng was featured in the Netflix documentary The Search for General Tso, in which he called the modern American dish “crazy nonsense.” He passed away last week at age 98.

Rachel Brown, Erik Crouch, Sherry Cho, Gabriella Meltzer, and Gabriel Walker look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. Bird flu outbreak puts Asian nations on high alert. A newly identified spate of bird flu outbreaks has alarmed public health officials across Asia. Bird flu, more formally known as Avian influenza, is a virus that occurs naturally among wild aquatic birds, but can spread to domestic poultry and sometimes to humans. These fears harken back to an H5N1 strain that that killed 450 people throughout the 2000s. In an effort to prevent the recent strain from recombining into a new, potentially more lethal strain, countries such as Japan have culled 300,000 chickens and ducks this week alone, and South Korea has vowed to do the same to 3 percent of its total poultry. Because agricultural authorities in Seoul are concerned that the strain of H5N6 among its wild birds will spread beyond the country’s coast into the mainland, they ordered provincial governments to establish emergency operations centers and strengthen hygiene inspections. Despite the panic, the World Health Organization recently issued a report stating, “Further human infections with viruses of animal origin can be expected, but the likelihood of sustained human-to-human transmission remains low.” Should human-to-human transmission occur, however, it could materialize into a dangerous pandemic. 2. UN puts new crunch on North Korea. On Wednesday, the United Nations Security Council unanimously voted to enact a new round of sanctions on North Korea, ratcheting up economic pressure even more since the last UN resolution on North Korea was issued in March. The recent ruling takes particular aim at North Korea’s coal exports—capping them at 7.5 million metric tons or $400 million, whichever comes first—which are a major source of cash for the isolated nation. The sanctions will also limit North Korea’s nonferrous metal exports, and even prohibit it from selling statues abroad, in the hope of slashing export revenues by 25 percent in the coming year. In 2016, China—supposedly the sole importer of North Korean coal—is expected to import nearly $1 billion’s worth, so it will need to act as the main enforcer of the new policy. Although China supported the new ruling, some are still concerned that it will not follow through with implementation. The proof, as they say, will be in the pudding. 3. Three Chinese rights activists vanish. Three Chinese rights activists—Jiang Tianyong, Huang Qi, and Liu Feiyue—have not been heard from since the middle of last month, and are presumed to be detained by police. Liu has been formally charged by authorities, but Jiang and Huang have not. The three are well known for their rights activism: Jiang for representing clients such as Chen Guangcheng; Liu for running a Chinese civil rights organization and website; and Huang for running a website that focuses on civil rights and the legacy of the Tiananmen Square movement. Human rights organizations have called for the lawyers’ release and Jiang’s wife, Jin Bianling, who lives in the United States, has posted pleas online about his disappearance. The trio are hardly the first to go missing since Chinese President Xi Jinping came to power—in fact, this isn’t even the first time that any of these three lawyers have been detained over the last several years. The disappearances may be linked to the upcoming implementation of China’s new NGO law, which has the potential to further restrict civil society organizations in the country. 4. Amnesty exposes grim source of Indonesian palm oil. A new report released this week by Amnesty International found that nine major global firms—including the likes of Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, and Unilever—are selling products around the world “tainted by shocking human rights abuses” in Indonesia. Through interviews with 120 palm-oil plantation workers and supervisors, the authors found evidence of systemic abuses: minimal wages, child labor, exposure to a toxic herbicide and pollution from forest fires, and long hours of physically demanding work. A number of the companies issued statements expressing willingness to fix “unacceptable practices,” hold the plantation owners “accountable,” and eradicate any human and labor rights issues from their supply chains. 5. State-issued history textbooks raise controversy in South Korea. In an apparent shift for President Park Geun-hye’s administration, South Korea’s Ministry of Education has indicated that it is considering alternative options to mandating the usage of state-issued history textbooks. Textbooks can be a source of controversy in East Asia, but in South Korea the clamor over the government’s plan to institute a single history textbook is gaining extra momentum because of the corruption scandal that has led to calls for Park’s resignation. Since 2010, South Korean schools have been able to choose freely amid several privately published textbooks approved by the government. However, last October saw Park’s government announce that the government would again write history textbooks and require their adoption by schools, protesting that the privately published textbooks are too “ideologically biased.” Some of the current textbooks describe contentious aspects of modern Korean history, including wartime mass executions of civilians, abuse of pro-democracy dissidents, and Korean collaboration with the Japanese occupation. Opponents of Park and many local education offices have criticized the new textbook drafts, alleging they emphasize the successes of Park’s father, former dictator/President Park Chung-hee, while de-emphasizing his brutal dictatorship and collaboration with Japan’s colonial rule of Korea. Bonus: Something’s fishy at a Japanese ice rink. As the amusement park Space World recently discovered, sometimes life under the waves is not all it’s cracked up to be. In an effort to attract visitors, the park froze five thousand dead fish and assorted marine life into an ice rink and billed the attraction as an “Ice Aquarium.” But potential visitors weren’t so enthusiastic. Many netizens accused Space World, which is located on the island of Kyushu, of animal cruelty and disrespect. In response to the online outcry, the company announced plans to close the rink, melt the ice, and hold a marine memorial for the creatures. The attraction may be have been an original idea, but it doesn’t look like it will be adopted elsewhere anytime soon.

The United States will face a variety of challenges ahead in the Asia-Pacific. It will need diplomatic supporters, economic partners, and military allies. Japan and our Asian allies are all of these, and more. Today’s Asia is complex, but tomorrow’s Asia will be fraught if the United States fails to look ahead. It will be vital for the Trump administration to consider the longer game, aiming for a vision of Asia that in the end serves U.S. interests. Already it seems, the president-elect and his advisors have stepped back from some of the more radical statements of the campaign, and Trump’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe suggests that there will be common ground for thinking about the U.S.-Japan alliance going forward. Future conversations with other Asian partners will undoubtedly produce a similar outcome. Yet as the new administration prepares to manage U.S. interests in Asia, let me offer a few suggestions. Look Carefully at Alliance Equities Alliance equities have long been part and parcel of U.S. policy. The formula has remained fairly consistent since Senator Mike Mansfield led the Congressional discussion on “burden-sharing” in the 1960s: allies need to spend more on their defenses so that the United States can spend less. Since the 1980s, because of its constitutional constraints, Japan has increased its spending on U.S. forces stationed in Japan, and today spends more than any other ally on the forward deployment of U.S. military in Asia. In today’s Asia, Tokyo is far more likely to want to up its own military spending and enhance its own military self-reliance to improve alliance efficacy. But the U.S.-Japan relationship has far greater value to U.S. interests, and the incoming Trump administration will want to have Tokyo’s help for a variety of Asia’s challenges. A provocative North Korea sits high on that list. So too will be any recalibrating of our military relationship with China, especially in Asia’s waters where the U.S. and Japanese navies work in close cooperation. Beyond Bilateralizing… Part of the new administration’s challenge will be to develop their vision of Asia, a strategic vision that looks beyond the economic correctives that the president-elect included in his list of what a Trump administration will do in its first hundred days. This longer term strategy for Asia will take time, and will benefit from close dialogue with our Asian partners, first and foremost Japan. To get the maximum value from our alliances with Japan and others in Asia, I recommend the following. Perhaps most important, think carefully before bilateralizing all of our relationships, and especially our Asian alliances. While bilateral channels undoubtedly offer the most direct route to negotiating U.S. interests, our relationships in Asia are also part of a larger web that is less like billiard balls and more like electrical networks. A disconnect in one very quickly spreads to another, and before long the system of carefully nurtured and calibrated U.S. partnerships will be weakened. Our partners—Japan, Australia, South Korea, India, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) states—work more directly with each other today than ever, and it is in U.S. interests that they do so. Our Influence as a Composite A Trump administration should also think carefully about creating disconnects in our alliances while creating tensions with China. This matters in two ways. First, U.S. leadership, especially in Asia, is a fusion of economic and military power, a composite that cannot be disentangled. One cannot operate in the absence of the other. The Trans-Pacific Partnership demonstrated a U.S. interest in creating the economic playing field of the future, and remains the best (bipartisan) idea the United States has had in Asia. If the Trump administration wants to abandon it, it will need to think of an alternative way to embed the American economy over time in a thriving Asia. The Asia-Pacific is the center of the global economy, and withdrawing from it is simply not an option. But equally important, taking a backseat in the region’s economy will influence our ability to generate strategic cooperation going forward. Alliances Are Strategic Assets, Not Liabilities Perhaps most important for that long-game view of U.S. interests in Asia, the Trump administration should recognize that our alliances are perhaps our best strategic asset in Asia. U.S. military spending has gone up and down since the end of World War II; we fought the two hot wars of the Cold War there in Korea and Vietnam. Yet military might alone will not be enough. We will need all of our assets—economic, diplomatic, and military—if we are to play in the Asia of the future. While it is tempting to view our allies as liabilities, in fact they are the foundation of our success in Asia. This is true today, and will be in the difficult decades ahead. We should continue to revamp our cooperation to meet the strategic demands of Asia’s changing geopolitics, but it is wise to remember that the last time the United States ceded Asia to an ambitious rising power, we went to war. Read more about how the Trump administration should approach U.S. policy toward China (here and here), Korea, and South Asia, and Southeast Asia.

Rachel Brown, Sherry Cho, Gabriella Meltzer, and Gabriel Walker look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. Rohingyas suffer under Rakhine lockdown. Myanmar’s Rakhine State, home to roughly 1.1 million stateless Muslims self-identified as Rohingya, has been on military lockdown since October 9 following attacks on three border security posts. Government officials claim that the perpetrators were members of a jihadist organization, and that military exercises are counterterrorism measures. The military’s goal is to eradicate the presence of the group Aqa Lul Mujahidin, which is reportedly linked to the Organization for Rohingya Security, an armed group active during the 1990s. Over 130 people have died and 234 have been arrested in the heaviest wave of violence in the region since 2012. The local Rakhine government has vowed to demolish all “illegal” structures, including over 2,500 homes, 600 shops, twelve mosques, and over thirty schools, all belonging to Rohingya. As of November 13, Human Rights Watch has identified via satellite over 430 destroyed buildings in villages that have become military strongholds where food is scarce and rape and looting by soldiers are common occurrences. The organization is calling for Myanmar’s government to establish a UN-assisted investigation, but authorities are rejecting all allegations of violence and closing off the area to Western journalists. At least 500 Rohingya refugees have fled to neighboring Bangladesh where they are residing in four refugee camps. 2. Pro-independence Hong Kong lawmakers disqualified from taking office. Hong Kong’s High Court ruled that Sixtus “Baggio” Leung and Yau Wai-ching, elected in September, had willfully and deliberately insulted China by refusing to swear allegiance to the “Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China,” in effect declining to take their oaths. During their swearing-in, they had referred to the “Hong Kong nation” and used a derogatory term for China, while wearing flags saying “Hong Kong is not China.” The court’s decision was expected after Beijing’s recent announcement that anyone advocating for the city’s independence would be barred from holding office there. Leung and Yau intend to contest the ruling. A different attempt to unseat a pro-democracy lawmaker failed Friday, when the High Court dismissed the case against Lau Siu-lai, who had registered her protest by taking extremely long pauses during her swearing-in. 3. Choigate continues to roil Korean politics. President Park is facing a second investigation into her ties with confidante Choi Soon-sil, who allegedly used her close relationship with Park to coerce Korean companies into donating millions to nonprofit foundations used by Choi for personal gain. In response to concerns voiced by opposition leaders that the Ministry of Justice is linked too closely to the president and the executive branch to conduct a credible investigation, the National Assembly passed a measure on Thursday appointing an independent special counsel to conduct a separate probe in addition to the one being conducted by the Ministry of Justice. Despite weeks of massive public protests, increasing calls in the National Assembly for her to resign or be impeached, and with her approval rating hovering between 5 and 10 percent, Park seems intent on completing her single, five-year term of office that ends next year. 4. Blasphemy case brought against Jakarta governor. The investigation into Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, a Christian from Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese community, stems from comments he made in reference to a Quranic verse that some believe bans Muslims from having a non-Muslim leader. Basuki, who also goes by the nickname Ahok, implied this interpretation might be used to draw voters away from him during his re-election campaign. Although he apologized for his comments, there have been ongoing protests against him including a rally of more than one hundred thousand on November 4. Other supporters, however, including Muslims, have rallied around him in advance of the February election. According to authorities, Ahok’s case could go to court in approximately one month and a travel ban will be placed on him during the investigation. Blasphemy convictions can result in up to five years of jail time under Indonesian law.  Ahok assumed his current position when former governor Joko Widodo was elected president. And while the two have been political allies in the past, the blasphemy investigation may strain ties between them and project an image of Indonesia as a nation of religious intolerance. 5. Abe meets Trump. Last night at Manhattan’s Trump Tower, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe paid a visit to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump for an unofficial ninety-minute meeting. Though the get-together was hastily planned, and just a brief stopover for Abe on his way to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru this weekend, there were hopeful signs from both sides: Trump called it the start of a “great friendship,” and Abe claimed he was “convinced Mr. Trump is a leader in whom I can have great confidence.” But the two leaders will need to do more than establish a personal rapport in the coming years to make the alliance work. Trump suggested during his campaign that Japan should acquire nuclear weapons to defend itself and that it should share more of the cost of stationing U.S. troops in Japan, throwing into question his support for the alliance. He also made promises to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal that would buoy Japan’s flagging economy. If that happens, China is likely to fill the free-trade vacuum with its own deal. Bonus: Chinese internet hails the pheasant-elect. Images of a golden pheasant bird at China’s Hangzhou Safari Park flew across the web after a local journalist observed the similarities between the bird’s flaxen coif and that of President-elect Donald Trump. The bird, named Little Red for its crimson body, garnered much attention among Chinese netizens, some of whom found the bird more attractive than Trump. While the bird’s online popularity may not last much beyond the next news cycle, Little Red’s keeper indicated that he expected the bird’s popularity to draw more visitors to the park. And the golden pheasant isn’t the only of nature’s creatures that have earned Trumpian comparisons; others include caterpillars, rabbits, and howler monkeys.

Like many around the globe, Japanese are stunned by the election outcome and worried about what this means for the United States’ role in the world. Of particular concern, of course, are the comments Candidate Donald J. Trump made on the campaign trail about Japan, about trade, and about U.S. alliances. But what matters now is what President-elect Trump will do to reassure Tokyo that he values the U.S.-Japan strategic partnership. Last night, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met with Trump in New York, and by all accounts it was a good beginning to what will undoubtedly be a long conversation on the U.S.-Japan alliance and the strategic challenges of Asia. Abe wasted no time in reaching out to the president-elect after the election to congratulate him, and to stop by New York on his way to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Peru. For Trump, this was his first meeting with a world leader, and media from around the globe watched to see how he would handle the scrutiny. For Abe, however, this was the first opportunity to test just how committed the president-elect was to his campaign rhetoric. Abe hoped that his personal touch, including the gift of a golf club, would dispel fears in Tokyo that Trump wanted to abandon the alliance. During the campaign, Trump suggested that Japan and South Korea should acquire nuclear weapons and deal with North Korea on their own. He also claimed there was no reciprocity in the alliance, noting that while the United States defends Japan, Japan does little for the United States. He asked why Japan’s 50 percent contribution to the costs of stationing of U.S. forces there could not be raised to 100 percent. Since elected, however, Trump’s advisors have sought to reassure Tokyo on its support for the alliance. Even President Barack Obama joined in, noting that in his White House meeting with the president-elect it was clear that Trump valued America’s alliances. Trump himself tweeted that he never said Japan should have nuclear weapons. When questioned in the Diet on Thursday on his change of heart about the U.S.-Japan alliance, Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso noted this flip-flop was "to put it kindly, flexible; or to put it unkindly, ignorant." But in Tokyo, it was clear that Trump’s victory had triggered some of Japan’s leading defense policymakers to advocate for greater military self-reliance. In a November eleventh press conference, Minister of Defense Tomomi Inada said this election result "provided the opportunity to think more seriously about what Japan could do on its own to defend itself." Former Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera, a respected Liberal Democratic Party moderate, echoed her sentiments, arguing that this was "an opportunity for Japan to consider how to provide national security on its own." It is also worth mentioning that the Diet committee on constitutional revision resumed talks this week after a seventeen-month pause. Equally concerning to Tokyo is Trump’s intention to retreat from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The Abe cabinet invested deeply in the effort to conclude the twelve-nation trade pact, and Abe stood side-by-side with Obama in promoting the TPP abroad. Legislation needed to ratify the agreement is currently on the floor of Japan’s parliament, and in the wake of Trump’s victory, Abe has been bombarded with the anger of legislators who feel betrayed by the thought that the United States would just walk away from a hard won fight for trade liberalization. Other foreign policy aims threaten Tokyo’s broader foreign policy interests. Japanese worry about the United States triggering a trade war with China, and about the overall protectionist tone of a Trump administration. Moreover, Japan has long championed multilateral agreements on nonproliferation and climate change; Trump’s antipathy towards the nuclear deal with Iran raises fears about further conflict in the Middle East and his desire to withdraw from the Paris Agreement climate change undermines a multilateral project that Japan has long championed. Two relationships that could change dramatically under a new Trump administration are also critical to Japan’s strategic interests. Abe will undoubtedly want to understand Trump’s thoughts on Russia and how this might affect his own diplomacy with President Vladimir Putin, who is expected to visit Japan in a few weeks. Even more critical to Tokyo will be the U.S. relationship with China. Maritime tensions in the South China Sea have been on the top of the regional security agenda this year ever since the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) tribunal ruling [PDF] on Chinese claims challenged Beijing’s maritime and territorial rights in the Spratly Islands. Japan’s clash with China over the Senkaku Islands continues to hover over the U.S.-Japan alliance as Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) naval and air forces continue to test Tokyo’s resolve in the East China Sea. Trump said little about this in the campaign, worrying Tokyo that the alliance consultations on regional security crises might be deflected by his focus on a trade war with China. Abe and Trump, in short, have much to discuss, and many more conversations between the two governments in the months and years ahead. But under the intense glare of global media coverage, this ninety-minute get-to-know-you chat at Trump Tower was neither the time nor place. Abe went to New York to build a personal relationship with America’s president-to-be; Trump undoubtedly wants to put his best foot forward in this first foray into diplomacy. In his press briefing after the meeting, Abe was circumspect, thanking the president-elect for his time. On his Facebook page, Trump said, "It was a pleasure to have Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stop by my home and begin a great friendship." Japan’s prime minister succeeded in drawing out President-elect Trump, but there is far more at stake. This is, after all, America’s most important relationship in Asia, an alliance that grounds the United States in an accelerating geostrategic reshuffle. President-elect Trump will need to consider how the United States can shape Asia’s future, and the U.S.-Japan alliance will be an invaluable asset. For Abe, the meeting was a high-risk gamble; had he confronted Candidate Trump, it could have intensified angst at home and provided greater opportunity for Japan’s increasingly well-armed neighbors. More than a media moment, this was a significant test—of Trump’s new role, of Abe’s diplomatic skill, and ultimately, of the resilience of the U.S.-Japan alliance.

Rachel Brown, Sherry Cho, Gabriella Meltzer, and Gabriel Walker look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. Asia braces for Trump. On Tuesday night, as results from the U.S. general election poured in from polling places across America, Asian markets reeled at the prospect of a Trump presidency. By Thursday, U.S. markets stabilized and Asian markets had bounced back. But what will a Trump in the White House mean for Asia in the coming four years? At this point, even experts’ best guesses are still uncertain. Trump’s foreign policy strategies are a contradictory bunch: an isolationist “America first” doctrine and protectionist trade practices, but an “extremely tough” approach to taking on U.S. enemies. So far, the signals from Trump’s campaign have been just as mixed. On “day one,” according to a former U.S. Treasury official, Trump may label China a currency manipulator, a decision former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers called “ludicrous.” But at the same time, Trump spoke with both South Korea’s President Park and Japan’s Prime Minister Abe in a sign of reassurance from the United States to its allies in Asia. This week, two senior Trump advisors on Asia also published a Foreign Policy piece that put forth a vision of “peace through strength” whose policy prescriptions primarily attacked “bad trade deals” and proposed to increase the size of the U.S. Navy fleet. What will actually come to pass is anyone’s guess. 2. Delhi enveloped in life-threatening smog.  Hindus throughout the city of Delhi celebrated the holiday of Diwali, the festival of lights, on Saturday by lighting candles and lamps and setting off fireworks. Unfortunately, these joyful rituals exacerbated the metropolis’s preexisting pollution problem, sparking a week-long period of dangerous smog. The situation has forced the municipal government to close 1,800 schools, as well as impose a five-day moratorium on construction and a ten-day power plant closure; it is also advising residents to remain indoors. Hundreds of people gathered on Sunday to protest, as current levels of particulates are as dangerous as smoking two packs of cigarettes per day and 10 percent of the city’s workforce has been forced to call in sick. According to the World Health Organization, India currently houses thirteen out of the twenty most polluted cities on earth, with Delhi carrying the title of most polluted. Although changing weather conditions with the arrival of winter will dissipate the smog, poor city-dwellers often turn to the burning of trash, plastic, and rubber to keep warm. In addition, the various sources of pollution, including crop burning, vehicles, construction, and fireworks, all fall under the purview of different government agencies, which are oftentimes at odds with one another. Arvind Kejriwal, New Delhi’s chief minister has compared the city to a “gas chamber,” and has said that the government needs to take “some urgent measures.” 3. President Park asks opposition parliament to nominate new prime minister. The recent announcement was a major political concession for South Korean President Park Geun-hye and fresh confirmation of her waning political authority as the scandal involving her ties to Choi Soon-shil continues to roil the country. Despite Park’s efforts to regain public trust by replacing much of her presidential staff and cabinet, surveys show that Park has a less than 5 percent approval rating. Tens of thousands of protestors continue to call for her resignation in demonstrations throughout South Korea. In a Tuesday meeting with the National Assembly’s speaker, Chung Sye-kyun, Park asked opposition parties to nominate a new prime minister. This occurred six days after Park’s proposed candidate for prime minister, Kim Byung-joon, was summarily rejected by the opposition parties that control a majority of the South Korean parliament. Investigations into Choi Soon-shil, the centerpiece of this political scandal, continue. Park has offered to cooperate with any prosecutorial probes, possibly becoming the first South Korean president to be investigated while in office. Prosecutors reported on Tuesday that they had raided the Seoul offices of Samsung, South Korea’s largest chaebol, a kind of large business conglomerate, investigating allegations that the chaebol provided $3.1 million to a company co-owned by Choi and her daughter. Choi was arrested on November 3 and faces allegations of using her friendship with the president to act as a kind of “shadow president” and solicit donations. 4. Cambodia’s Hun Sen using courts as a weapon against opposition. The deputy leader of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), Kem Sokha, is the most recent target of a government that rights groups allege is using Cambodian courts as a willful weapon to suppress critics. Kem’s case is one of several facing opposition leaders in what is generally interpreted as an effort to upset the opposition’s organizing efforts for the local elections being held next June. Um Sam Ann, another opposition leader, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for criticizing the government’s handling of the Cambodia-Vietnam border demarcation. CNRP leader Sam Rainsy, currently in self-imposed overseas exile for the third time in a decade, is also facing legal troubles after an old conviction for defamation was reinstated and his parliamentary immunity was stripped by the government’s legislative majority. Although Cambodia is nominally a democracy, Hun has been Cambodia’s de facto leader for three decades. A 2013 general election, however, saw the CNRP mount a strong challenge to Hun’s control, winning fifty-five seats in the National Assembly and leaving Hun’s Cambodian People’s Party with sixty-eight. Many critics allege that Hun has prioritized the dismantlement of the political opposition since then, using complicit courts as a weapon against them. 5. India Bans 500 and 1,000 Rupee Notes.  In a surprise announcement, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi banned the use of 500 and 1,000 rupee notes in an effort to crack down on corruption, money laundering, and tax evasion. These two high denomination bills comprise an estimated 85 percent of the currency currently in use in the country. By requiring individuals to change over their bills, officials hope to bring to light billions of dollars of assets that are not currently reported. But while there may be long-run benefits in improved tax collection and financial transparency, the immediate effect was a stock market drop. The change also led to a two-day ATM shutdown and to chaos at banks where customers attempted to switch their bills for new 500 and 2,000 rupees with added security features. The introduction of a new 1,000 rupee note is also underway. The transition has been particularly felt in cash-dependent rural areas, but will also have implications for everyone from nonresident Indian nationals to foreign visitors. Bonus: Japanese augmented reality will hack your taste buds. At the University of Tokyo’s Cyber Interface Lab, researchers are using augmented reality—a combination of virtual reality and real-world objects—to trick how our brains process eating. Various headsets, detailed in this this video, can digitally manipulate the perceived size of a food item to affect how satiated a wearer feels while eating, or pump scents toward an eater’s nose that can suggest a wide variety of flavors. The effects can potentially reduce calorie intake by making the user believe he or she is eating more, or something different, than in reality. In some experiments, volunteers ate almost 10 percent less when a biscuit appeared 50 percent larger. Some companies, like Samsung, have also begun probing the “culinary virtual reality space” in other ways to offer state-of-the-art—albeit somewhat fictitious—fine dining experiences.

Sungtae “Jacky” Park is research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations. A series of geopolitical fault lines are coming apart today. There is a hybrid conflict in Ukraine, an arc of destruction from the Levant to Iraq, rising tensions on the Korean peninsula, and instability in the southern Caucasus, just to name a few. What these conflicts have in common is that they are taking place in strategic buffer zones, physical spaces caught between competing regional powers. To address these problems by drawing lessons from the past, my paper for the Center for the National Interest, completed in September and published in October, examines four major cases of strategic buffer space conflicts: the Belgian crisis of 1830-1831, Byzantine-Sassanid and Ottoman-Safavid wars, China-Japan-Russia competition over Korea during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and the Balkan powder keg that led to World War I. A brief summary of the four case studies can be found in The National Interest. The paper finds that dynamics of buffer space conflicts depend on four principal factors: Balance of Power among Great Powers: The relative imbalance of power among great powers competing over strategic buffer space often leads to a conflictual outcome, as the stronger side refuses to compromise, while the weaker side makes preventive attempts to claim the buffer region in dispute. Stability of the Contested Buffer Space: Great powers often fail to manage buffer space conflicts when competing parties are dealing with unstable buffers that contain multiple autonomous local actors with their own interests and goals. Third-Party Guarantor of Security: The existence of a relatively impartial third-party actor that has the capacity and will to guarantee security and stability of a contested buffer space helps to mitigate security dilemmas among competing great powers. Norm: Great powers are also inclined toward diplomatic solutions when there exists an agreed international norm that emphasizes moderation and equilibrium. In addition to the case studies, my paper discusses the findings’ implications for U.S. foreign policy and four contemporary conflict zones, namely Ukraine, the Middle East, the southern Caucasus, and the Korean peninsula. As a distant maritime power, the United States is in a unique position to influence conflicts over strategic buffer regions by taking the above factors into strategic planning. First and most important of all, the United States should seek to maintain the balance of power among competing regional powers, as imbalance of power is a major catalyst of conflicts over strategic buffer zones. Second, the United States should seek to reduce the number of relevant actors in a buffer region through either force, economic incentives, or diplomacy; a buffer conflict is often difficult to resolve because there are too many local actors with competing interests and shifting loyalties. The United States should also seek to stabilize fragmented strategic buffer zones or avoid creating them in the first place. Third, the United States should become a credible third-party mediator among competing regional powers by maintaining the most powerful military capable of projecting power and by being a “fair” mediator. Last but not least, the United States should work with other great powers to agree on a set of common principles to maintain global stability and order, as the Congress of Vienna had done before. With a carefully calibrated global strategy based on these principles, the United States can continue to maintain its standing in the world in a sustainable manner to secure its political, economic, and security interests. Read the full paper here.

Rachel Brown, Sherry Cho, Gabriella Meltzer, and Gabriel Walker look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. South Korean president makes second public apology. On Friday, President Park Geun-hye of South Korea made a second public apology amidst rising domestic turmoil surrounding allegations that her close friend, Choi Soon-sil, acted as a kind of “shadow president” and improperly profited from her relationship with the president. In addition to apologizing, Park recently replaced her closest aides, including the prime minister, in a bid to pacify criticism. Large protests against Park, which roiled Seoul last weekend, are expected to be surpassed by turnout at protests scheduled for this weekend. Park’s approval rating has fallen to just 5 percent, according to a Gallup Korea poll, which is the lowest since Park took office in 2013, and the lowest for any Korean president at any moment since 1948. Another poll found that 70 percent of respondents wanted her to resign or be impeached. In her apology, Park stated she would cut ties with Choi, flatly denied any involvement in the cult started by Choi’s father, and pledged to cooperate with any investigations. Choi, who fled to Germany in September when news of the scandal first broke but later returned home, was taken into custody recently under a South Korean law allowing "emergency detention" of suspects if authorities have reasonable grounds to believe the crime may warrant the death penalty or a life sentence, and believe the suspect is a flight risk who may also attempt to destroy evidence. 2. Malaysia to buy four Chinese naval ships. During a visit to Beijing this week, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak signed fourteen agreements worth approximately $34.4 billion. The deals included the purchase of four Chinese littoral mission ships, which are used mainly for coastal patrol and surveillance. Half of these ships will be built in Malaysia and half in China. During the trip, leaders from the two nations also discussed the South China Sea. Prior to his visit, Najib praised China "as a true friend and a strategic partner”. Following on the heels of Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s warm reception in Beijing last month, Najib’s trip provoked concern in some circles about closer ties between China and Southeast Asia.  However, others argue that the course of Sino-Malaysian relations has not shifted dramatically and the new agreements relate more to Malaysia’s domestic economic needs than changing geopolitics. 3. Abe promises $7.7 billion for Myanmar’s development. This Wednesday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that Japan would provide 800 billion yen over five years in development aid to Southeast Asia’s fledgling democracy. The funds will come as a combination of official development assistance and private-sector capital, and go primarily toward building industrial capacity and infrastructure. 40 billion yen has been earmarked for supporting development in regions home to ethnic minority groups. Abe’s aid commitment coincides with a visit to Japan by Burmese State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been traveling widely in recent months to strengthen bilateral ties with a number of countries, including China, India, and the United States. However, Japan’s investment promise this week is nothing new: over the past few years, Japanese business operations, language courses, and investment dollars in Myanmar have all increased. So Abe’s generosity signals more of a continued pledge rather than a new chapter in the two countries’ relations. 4. Afghan returnee children make bricks in bondage.  According to the United Nations, roughly 7,400 Afghans are crossing the border each day to return from Pakistan, whose government has imposed a deadline of March 15, 2017, for “voluntary return and repatriation.” The Pakistani government has placed greater emphasis on the return process in response to the spread of terrorism, the presence of ISIS, and deepening ties between Afghanistan and India. The nearly half a million impoverished Afghan returnees from both Pakistan and Iraq are straining the finances of the cash-strapped government and aid organizations, who are attempting to provide humanitarian assistance as winter approaches. Each returning family receives just fifty dollars per household member in assistance, assuming they have proper registration. Many families with young children have settled into brick factories, where they work by day and sleep in the factories at night since their villages of origin have been destroyed amidst the ongoing violence. These bonded laborers, many of whom do not receive the aid promised to them in returnee “incentive packages” by the government, are working for unlivable wages as their kiln bosses profit tremendously. Although Afghan law officially prohibits child labor, Human Rights Watch estimates that at least one quarter of the country’s children ages five through fourteen participate in the labor force. 5. An assertive China hung GSK out to dry. A New York Times report published this week, based on confidential documents and reports, rehashes the sordid bribery and corruption scandal that rocked the British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in China a few years ago, which resulted in a $500 million fine and prosecuted foreign management. Since the case, Chinese prosecutors have targeted a range of foreign businesses in anti-monopoly and anti-corruption cases, including Qualcomm (a record $975 million fine), shipping companies, and automobile manufacturers. And many American business leaders operating in China have simultaneously expressed concerns over rising distrust toward foreign businesses in the country. But the Times report also exposes how a foreign multinational can misstep under China’s increased regulatory assertiveness: in combating initial bribery accusations, GSK followed “the old playbook” and tried to downplay wrongdoing, discredit a whistleblower, and bribe regulators. The tactics backfired, and ended up implicating more executives and private investigators employed by the company. Whether or not Chinese regulators are in fact targeting foreign firms is an open question, but they are certainly not pulling any punches. Bonus: When pigs fly... Alibaba’s decision to rename its travel site Alitrip to Flying Pig, or Fliggy, provoked an unexpected controversy. In response to the change, Uighur snack entrepreneur Adil Memettur posted on Weibo criticizing the name as offensive to Muslims and said he would no longer use the service. Netizens responded with their own critiques of Memettur and Uighurs in general. Memettur later apologized on Weibo. Alibaba also clarified the rationale behind their rebranding, which was an effort to appeal to younger customers, who comprise over 80 percent of their users. But after the recent dust-up it remains to be seen whether the name Fliggy will fly.