Asia

Tokyo
John Kerry’s first visit as secretary of state to Asia this week will be rightly dominated by the heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula, where Kim Jong-un’s regime continues to generate headlines around the world with its bluster and brinksmanship.

Asia’s democracies need to get their acts together to address a common danger from the region’s authoritarian/totalitarian powers. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan face rising challenges from China and/or North Korea. All have security arrangements with the United States to deter or confront those threats.

The Chinese military claims for the first time to have landed a plane on an aircraft carrier, the state media outlet Xinhua reports.

China has successfully conducted flight landing on its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, naval sources said," says Xinhua.

President Barack Obama called Burma 'Myanmar' after a bilateral meeting with Thein Sein, the president of that country. From the pool report:

Obama used the word "Myanmar," the preferred terminology of the former military government and currently nominally civilian government, in a spray following the bilat, rather than use "Burma," the former name of the country, and the one preferred by Aung San Suu Kyi as well as the name the U.S. uses.

President Obama heads abroad Saturday for a four-day visit to Thailand, Burma, and Cambodia. One assumes the president was going to add on to this trip a visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan, which would certainly be the fitting and proper thing to do.

A post in the Wall Street Journal blog covering India suggests relations are souring between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, long the main instrument of Riyadh’s ideological influence over South Asian Muslims. The desert monarchy has extradited several terrorist suspects to India, under a treaty signed between the two countries in 2010. Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari was sent to India in June, A. Rayees was deported by the Saudis to New Delhi in October, and Fasih Muhammad, last week.

During Monday night’s presidential debate, the candidates beat their breasts vying to be tougher on China. Barack Obama pointed to his accomplishments, while Mitt Romney attacked the president for being afraid to label China a currency manipulator. The amount of time devoted to America’s largest creditor and potential enemy shows that managing the relationship with China is critical for whoever sits in the Oval Office.

Relations between China and Japan, never particularly placid, have reached bona fide crisis proportions over the past several months—and could get worse.

Relations between China and Japan, never particularly placid, have reached bona fide crisis proportions over the past several months—and could get worse.

Eric Li’s op-ed in the New York Times, timed to coincide with the annual round-up of big wigs (with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey leading the U.S. delegation) in Singapore, the Shangri-La Dialogue, is a useful reminder of the many good things American power has done to lay the foundation for what’s supposed to be the “Pacific Century.”

Once again, North Korea flouted international law and disturbed the world with its launch of a rocket that could be used to carry a nuclear warhead.  Once again, the United States and the international community denounced the action and mobilized the U.N. Security Council to issue yet another rhetorical condemnation.

Jane Perlez’s and William Wan’s articles in today’s papers (the New York Times and Washington Post, respectively) stand as a minor but important milestone in elite understanding of international relations in the 21^st century.