Axel Berkofsky
The EU-Japan Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) was signed and adopted in July 2018 in parallel with the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).[1] For now, the agreement is only...
Germany got its way. Well, German business with business interests in China did. The German EU Council Presidency ended with a big bang on December 30, when the EU and China signed their long-awaited...
In 2020, the way we define “insecurity” has drastically changed. Insecurity can now also be invisible and all around us, in the shape of a virus that disrupts people’s lives, upends the economy,...
After Abe Shinzo announced his early retirement at the end of August, Japan has had to come to terms with a significant structural change on top of all the challenges left by the Covid-19 pandemic....
After almost eight years as Prime Minister, Abe Shinzo retired. On 16 September the national Diet (Japan’s parliament) nominated Suga Yoshihide as his successor. Since Abe announced his intention to...
Japan’s longest-serving Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has resigned. Officially because of reasons related to his health but unofficially and in reality there is probably much more than meets the eye. Abe...
None of the challenges China has encountered since its establishment 70 years ago has been as multi-faced as the coronavirus pandemic. As the phase of severe emergency comes to an end, the rising...
China is having a good crisis. The spread of Covid-19 in China – if one believes the statistics and declarations of the Chinese government – is under control, while many Western countries (and the U....
China’s future role on the global stage hinges upon a mixture of strengths and weaknesses. Beijing’s meteoric rise in economic terms has been coupled by increasing military expenditures and a more...
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s long-life obsession to revise the country’s pacifist constitution suffered a blow in Japan’s Upper House elections last Sunday. The pro-revision political parties...
The expansion of Tokyo’s security and defence ties in East, Southeast and South Asia inspired Washington – together with India and Australia – to get on board Tokyo’s strategy to deter or indeed...
Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) policy is at the centre of Tokyo’s economic and security strategy in the Indo-Pacific Region. Although Japanese policymakers do not admit to that in public,...