Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — North Korea is playing a skillful game of funeral diplomacy and politics that’s dividing South Koreans and leaving everyone to wonder who’s doing what to whom in the corridors of power in Pyongyang. All North Korean strategists have had to do is issue a huge welcome […]
Sol W. Sanders A new era of increasing instability is opening in East Asia. The death of North Korean leader Kim Il-Jong is only adding another, if explosive, element to an already volatile equation: China enters a period of substantially slower economic growth, if not a crash, on the eve next autumn of a takeover […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com The future of the post-Kim Jong-Il North Korea lies in the hands of the military, the only force capable of shoring up stability in the abjectly poor Stalinist regime. And it is a testimony of the sagacity of the Chinese Communist Party administration’s Korean specialists that Beijing started […]
Special to WorldTribune.com ANKARA — Turkey intends to expand the presence of a controversial telecommunications company suspected of quietly serving the military of China and Iran. Turkey has approved a proposal for China’s Huawei to expand its presence and investment. Huawei said it would bolster its research and development center in Istanbul with a $15 […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — No matter which way South Korea looks, the government faces tough new/old issues with the two enormous powers that have subjected the Korean Peninsula to pain and suffering over the centuries. First, this week, the problem was with China after the skipper of a Chinese fishing […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com Things are not looking favorable for the world’s second-largest economy as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership takes steps to ensure enough economic growth in 2012 to head off massive social unrest. The Central Economic Work Meeting (CEWM), which concluded in Beijing on Dec. 14, confirmed earlier speculation […]
Protesting villagers in southern China said they will march on government offices this week unless the body of a local leader is released and four villagers in police custody are freed. The 13,000 residents of Wukan, in the wealthy province of Guangdong, are in open revolt against officialdom and have driven out local Communist Party […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com President Hu Jintao has underscored the imperative of developing a strong navy by directing the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) to “expand and deepen preparations for military struggle.” The term “military struggle” is longstanding PLA shorthand for “winning regional warfare under high-tech conditions.” Hu, who chairs the policy-setting […]
Times 247.com The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Monday made no apology for the killing of a Korean coast guard officer by the skipper of a Chinese trawler who was caught fishing illegally in Korean waters. … On Oct. 24, when the South Korean coast guard seized three Chinese fishing boats after a pitched battle with […]
John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — With the historic visit of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Burma, the highest profile American diplomatic contact in fifty years, the United States has entered a high stakes geopolitical chess game in Southeast Asia. Burma, a political pariah state has long been courted by China, coveted by India, […]