Conventional wisdom predicted that the Liberal Democratic Party would reign supreme in Japan’s July 12 Upper House elections. Public opinion polls taken a week before the election gave little cause for doubt: major newspapers projected that an indifferent electorate would allow the LDP to at least preserve its position, and the LDP boastfully predicted that […]

President Clinton’s visit to China, by virtually all accounts, has been a huge diplomatic success. Even seasoned China-watchers (and seasoned China bashers) were impressed by the degree of openess and candor of the dialogue and by Beijing’s willingness to broadcast Clinton’s less than flattering remarks to a broad Chinese domestic audience.

The following is summary of the key points of a June 1998 U.S. Institute of Peace Special Report by Scott Snyder. Copies of the full report are available from USIP (www.usip.org.).

President Clinton is presently in China for his second summit meeting within a year with Chinese President Jiang Zemin. The summit has been mired in controversy since before it began but, perhaps the most egregious foreign policy error President Clinton made was in not stopping in Japan on his way to or from China.

President Clinton leaves for China on 24 June. Because this is the first Presidential trip to China this decade there has been the predictable surge in editorials and features on China in the mainstream press and a dramatic increase in the number of conferences, meetings and roundtables at all the major think-tanks. Under any circumstances […]

Indonesia is fortunate to have ended the 32-year rule of President Suharto without much bloodshed. The succession could have degenerated into civil war or anarchy. Although the process of political change is far from over, the worst seems past. This is due to the restraint shown by the conflicting forces, especially Mr. Suharto himself, the […]

Serious funding problems facing the Korea Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) jeopardize important U.S. interests and risk reopening the North Korean nuclear issue.

During their historic summit meeting in Washington last October, Presidents Clinton and Jiang Zemin issued a joint statement indicating that they were mutually “determined to build toward a constructive strategic partnership” between the U.S. and China. This commitment was reaffirmed during Secretary of State Madeline Albright’s recent visit to Beijing to prepare for next month’s […]

Has the nuclear genie been let out of the bottle? Will this week’s series of nuclear tests by India result in a new nuclear arms race? Will Pakistan soon follow suit? Will North Korea? Will Taiwan? Will others?

At first glance, recent events in Indonesia would appear to signal the imminent exit of President Suharto. How can he possibly escape the combined effects of economic collapse, incompetent response, and student protest?