In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

On Thursday, November 5, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace will host and stream live a discussion on President Obama’s trip to Asia next week. Asia Foundation Trustee Douglas Paal, who is Vice President for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, will discuss President Obama’s trip with Michael Pettis, a senior associate in [...]

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On October 23, Douglas Bereuter, President and CEO of The Asia Foundation, delivered the keynote address at a conference hosted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in Chicago, Illinois. Titled “Implications of the Financial Crisis on American, Chinese, South Korean, and Japanese Soft Power in East Asia,” the October 22-24 conference discussed the effects [...]

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The world economy is slowly recovering but the effects of the financial disaster are far-reaching, especially for the U.S. Besides the immediate impact of the crisis on economic growth and employment, there are serious questions about America’s confidence in its global leadership and the future of its relationship with Asia. On October 23, Douglas Bereuter, [...]

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When Lehman Brothers collapsed one year ago, Japan entered the worst of the global financial crisis with a unique perspective. It had experienced its own asset bubble in the late 1980s, and the slowness and inadequacy of its response led to a decade of stagnation and missed economic opportunity. One result of that experience was [...]

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As Japan nears its August 30 election, a mixture of political weariness and anticipation fills the air. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), under the leadership of Prime Minister Taro Aso, is deeply unpopular and trails badly in pre-election polls; its nearly-uninterrupted 54-year reign seems to be in its final days. The opposition Democratic Party [...]

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The economy was at the top of the agenda at the 14th ASEAN summit this past week in Cha-am, Thailand. Just beforehand, on February 26, 2009, Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, Secretary-General of ASEAN and a Trustee of The Asia Foundation, laid out some of the issues at the 2009 ASEAN Business and Investment Summit (ABIS) in [...]

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The Japanese foreign affairs establishment welcomed Secretary Hillary Clinton’s February 16-18 visit to Tokyo with a strong dose of positive pleasure and a tad of uncertainty–even anxiety. The country is delighted by the fact that Secretary Clinton chose to make Tokyo her very first stop on her inaugural trip as Secretary of State. The visit [...]

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Japan’s new prime minister, Aso Taro, takes office facing many difficult if not intractable problems, not least of which is securing a ruling coalition for his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Beyond politics, the situation is equally bleak, given Japan’s moribund economy, global financial volatility, and a pervasive gloom that has descended over the country. But, [...]

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Over the past few weeks, as the U.S. financial system has reeled from a shocking series of major “adjustments,” Asia’s economists and bankers remind themselves of the key lessons — painfully taught — by the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s:  (a) all markets are linked; (b) financial markets are much more volatile than [...]

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With rumors of Korean President Kim Jong-Il’s ailing health abounding, Former Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs and Ambassador to the U.S, Han Sung-Joo addressed packed crowds in Washington and San Francisco at the formal launch of The Asia Foundation’s America’s Role in Asia.  Ambassador Han asked: “The question is, is North Korea more or less [...]

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