Axel Berkofsky
After almost eight years as Prime Minister, Abe Shinzo retired. This morning 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,...
The Asia-Pacific has become the Indo-Pacific region as the US, Japan, Australia and India have decided to join forces and scale-up their political, economic and security cooperation. The message...
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe got the message. The Japanese public and electorate are really not that interested in his constitutional amendment revising Article 9 (which renounces war) with a...
In July 2018, Tokyo and Brussels did it. Japan and the European Union adopted their bilateral Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA). The SPA is aimed at further institutionalizing EU-Japan...
Recent months have been crucial for EU-Asia relations. With Trump’s new trade tariffs and the uncertain future of NATO after the mid-July summit in Brussels, the EU reached two important deals with...