When it came to China, Secretary of State John Kerry’s confirmation hearing touched on a little bit of everything. Here is what he said he wants:

• To compete with China economically in Africa—this will be tough given the extraordinary government resources China pours into its trade and investment effort in the continent;

• To use the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as leverage with China to ensure commonly accepted rules of the road on trade—of course the TPP has to move forward for this to happen; Read more »

Over at Asia Sentinel, a new piece notes the extremely high growth rates posted in the third and fourth quarters of 2012 by major Southeast Asian economies. Most notably, Thailand posted a staggering 18.9 percent year-on-year growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2012. Although this growth is somewhat artificial, since it is compared to the anemic growth in the flood-wracked fourth quarter of 2011, it is still extremely impressive. The Philippines also is growing strongly, posted over 7 percent growth in the third quarter of 2012, and Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia also are booming. Read more »

Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, returned to Tokyo this weekend after his first summit meeting in Washington with President Barack Obama. Post-summit, Abe faces two important economic decisions. The first is his nomination for the next governor of the Bank of Japan (BOJ). The second is whether Japan’s prime minister will urge his party onwards to participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). To succeed, Abe now has to confront some political hurdles at home. Read more »

Over the past decade, up until the beginning of Myanmar’s reform period in 2010, China had appeared to consolidate its influence over the country. Without a doubt, China had become Myanmar’s most important ally, diplomatic partner, and aid donor, and probably its largest trading partner, though the statistics were hard to keep. Yet China’s policy toward Myanmar was always more complicated than it appeared. Read more »

South Korea’s new President Park Geun-hye took the oath of office today as South Korea’s first female president, the first Korean president to have previously lived in the Blue House, and the first Korean president to have visited North Korea prior to her term in office.  In her inauguration address, Park vowed to “open a new era of hope” in the face of a global economic crisis and North Korea’s nuclear threat.  She pledged a “creative economy” based on scientific and IT innovation, a “new paradigm of tailored welfare” and a merit-based society that enforces social justice through effective rule of law, a Korean cultural renaissance, and step-by-step efforts to build trust-based diplomacy with North Korea and with South Korea’s other partners. Read more »

In all the recent news about the southern Thailand insurgency—a failed attack by insurgents on a marine base in the south, and a string of attacks in recent days that included at least fifty bombings and shootings—there has not been enough attention paid to the motivations of some of the insurgents killed in the last week. In the Bangkok Post, Veera Prateepchaikul alludes to the problem: Several of the insurgents killed by Thai forces in the marine attack had been present at a protest in 2004 at Tak Bai at which at least seventy-eight protestors were stuffed into hot, airless trucks and ultimately suffocated to death. Read more »

On Saturday, 3,000 demonstrators turned out in Singapore—in one of the biggest protests in the country’s history—to protest the government’s new plan to increase the tiny nation-state’s immigrant population by nearly two million people by 2030. And who are this proposal’s greatest opponents? The Singaporean middle class, which has increasingly seen its political capital and purchasing power strangled by the influx of wealthy immigrants, mainly from China. Read more »

A few months ago, the eminent Chinese scholar Wang Jisi noted that China had achieved “first class power status” and “should be treated as such.” The current situation with North Korea suggests two responses: There is scarcely a more opportune moment for Beijing to step up to the plate; and be careful what you wish for. Read more »

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) made good on a January 24, 2013, pledge by the National Defense Commission to conduct a nuclear test “of higher level” on February 12, 2013. The statement, which also pledged launches of “a variety of satellites and long-range rockets,” was North Korea’s defiant response to passage of UN Security Council Resolution 2087, which condemned North Korea’s December 12, 2012 launch of a satellite in violation of previous UN Security Council resolutions 1695, 1718, and 1874. Read more »

My new book Democracy in Retreat: The Revolt of the Middle Class and the Worldwide Decline of Representative Government (CFR and Yale University Press) has started to amass reviews, and from both bookstores and online booksellers starting this week, including amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and indiebound.org. It has started to garner reviews from a wide range of places, including some surprising sources. Read more »