Asia

Ormai è certo: il prossimo direttore generale del WTO sarà una donna. La prima volta nei 25 anni di vita dell’Organizzazione mondiale del Commercio, una delle maggiori istituzioni internazionali. Alla penultima tappa della selezione, due candidate sono infatti arrivate sul filo di lana del prestigioso traguardo: la nigeriana Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, e la sud-coreana Yoo Myung-hee. La scelta finale dovrebbe arrivare il 7 novembre (in ogni caso, dopo le presidenziali USA). 

Il tema della necessità di procedere verso una migliore definizione delle relazioni tra l’Unione Europea e la Cina si è complicato in seguito alle frizioni tra Cina e Stati Uniti, che compromettono la possibilità di risolvere autonomamente molte delle questioni aperte. Bruxelles si sta anche nascondendo dietro queste difficoltà oggettive, dimostrando l’assenza di una visione autonoma.

Lo squilibrio commerciale tra Cina e Stati Uniti è stato uno dei cavalli di battaglia di Donald Trump. Come è variato negli anni?

With the resignation of Prime Minister Abe, the future of Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy has been called into question. Abe was indeed one of the key architects of this vision and he devoted enormous energy to flesh it out. For sure, his successor, Suga Yoshihide, will have his hands full with domestic issues, from tackling the COVID-related economic crisis to implementing daunting structural reforms.

The prime ministership of Abe Shinzo has had a considerable impact on the relationship between Japan and Australia, as well as Canberra’s own foreign policy perspectives. The two countries have come to see each other as their central security partner outside of their respective alliances with the United States, and their most reliable partner with Washington in its current unpredictable state.

Bilateral relations between Japan and China are one of the scarecrows that hover over the issues of East Asia’s security and trade. Several elements characterize the divide between the two countries, mainly historical disputes over the Japanese invasion in the 1930s and the close relationship developed by Japan and the United States after the Second World War.

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo is generally credited with improving and intensifying bilateral relations with the US, especially on security matters. In 2014 he moved to reinterpret Article 9 of the constitution that bars Japan from waging war and maintaining military forces. In doing so, he overturned his own Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) longstanding position against exercising the right of collective self- defense. In 2015 he agreed to new US-Japan Defense Guidelines that greatly expand Japan’s commitment to provide military support to the US in the event of conflict.

Young people in Japan like to talk about people’s personalities, by saying that someone is “Yin” (dark) and another is “Yang” (light). According to Oxford Reference, “Yin-Yang” is the “two great opposite but complementary forces at work in the cosmos.” Suga Yoshihide, Japan’s new prime minister, worked in close tandem with Abe Shinzo for nearly eight years, like “Yin-Yang.” Although Suga’s name is little known internationally, he helped the former Prime Minister promote his political agenda, particularly on domestic policy issues.