Welcome to the latest issue of Diplomat Brief. This week our top story explores the trajectory of Japan’s foreign policy under new Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae. We also have an interview with Ranjana Giri, a climate justice program officer with the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law, and Development (APWLD) on climate change, COP30, and the Asia-Pacific. |
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 | | Takaichi Sanae is now Japan’s prime minister, and she begins her tenure with a promise to accelerate the foreign and security policy changes that her mentor, Abe Shinzo, set in motion over a decade ago. But Takaichi does not enjoy the domestic political foundation that Abe used to build his strategic vision. Her Liberal Democracy Party must govern with a minority and thus is dependent on opposition party cooperation to legislate policy change. In short, Takaichi is in a far weaker political position than Abe and his successors and will have to work harder than her predecessors to build political consensus to realize her strategic vision. Meanwhile, the security environment has continued to worsen. Tokyo faces the possibility that the United States is fundamentally rethinking its own strategic priorities. China is now a global power, and has made vast inroads in the Global South, especially since U.S. policy has become less predictable. Moscow’s overtures to Pyongyang bring home the possibility that for the first time one of the world’s leading nuclear powers will help others proliferate. For now, the prime minister will need to be steady as she goes through these tricky waters. Time is needed for much of the reforms Takaichi has initially prioritized, and time is what she needs to put her government on a firmer political footing. | Find out more |
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| VIDEOS |  |
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| At our YouTube channel, Diplomat Asia, we explain major topics and trends in the Asia-Pacific in video form. Check out our latest video on India’s embrace of the Taliban, despite the fraught history between the two. | Watch the video |
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| BEHIND THE NEWS |  |
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| | Ranjana Giri, a climate justice program officer with APWLD, on how women in Asia are moving ahead with their own climate initiatives: “Across Asia, women are leading wide-ranging climate responses within their communities. While much of this work is informal and largely unrecognized in official policy spaces, it remains essential for community survival. Women organize communal food production, lead reforestation efforts, manage essential water systems, and actively protect both forests and biodiversity.” | |
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| It started out innocently enough: Japan's new prime minister was asked in a Diet committee meeting if she thought a Taiwan Strait crisis might constitute a “crisis of national survival” – the legal threshold for Japan to exercise collective self-defense. Her answer – yes, depending on the severity of the action – sparked a diplomatic firestorm. Chinese officials and state media alike responded with outrage and decidedly undiplomatic language, with the Osaka-based Chinese consul general even suggesting that Takaichi’s “dirty head” must be “cut off.” That, in turn, sparked its own backlash in Japan, where calls are growing for the consul general to be declared persona non grata. The massive spike in tensions over a few sentences is testament to the underlying frictions in China-Japan relations – and Beijing’s extreme suspicion of Takaichi personally. | |
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| | The 27th Amendment, which encompasses changes to judicial structures, federal-provincial relations, and military command hierarchies, was approved by both houses of Pakistan’s Parliament in early November. One of the central changes is to the office of the Chief of Army Staff, which will concurrently assume the role of Chief of Defense Forces (CDF). This dual designation gives expanded powers to the COAS, currently Field Marshal Asim Munir. In addition to having political implications – the COAS/CDF is immune from prosecution, for example – the changes will also remake Pakistan’s military command structure and strategic planning bureaucracy. | |
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| | Hundreds of thousands of people gathered this week in Manila to demand accountability for a flood-control corruption scandal that has implicated dozens of lawmakers and government officials. The protests, organized by the influential church Iglesia ni Cristo, are the latest that have erupted following the revelation earlier this year of massive corruption in government flood control contracts. An internal audit found that found that thousands of state-funded infrastructure projects were either substandard, poorly documented, or non-existent. The scandal has since broadened into a generalized anger with the corruption that is deeply embedded in the Philippines’ clan-dominated political system. While President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has promised action, the scandal has also implicated some of his closest allies, and now threatens to engulf his administration. | |
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| | Mongolia’s 38-year-old first deputy prime minister, Uchral Nyam-Osor, secured a landslide 94.95 percent of the vote during the MPP's Congress on November 15 to become the ruling party's new chair. The party is in the midst of an existential crisis. Prime Minister Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrai lost a no confidence vote in June and resigned after protests rocked Ulaanbaatar demanding he step down. With the MPP's old guard tainted by scandal, Uchral stands as a "reset candidate," for the party. | |
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| PODCASTS |  |
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| In the latest episode of “Asia Geopolitics,” hosts Katie Putz and Ankit Panda discuss the significance of the recent C5+1 summit in Washington, the shift toward economic diplomacy in the Central Asia-U.S. relationship, and the implications of the Trump administration’s foreign policy on dealings with the region. | |
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| VISUALIZING APAC |  |
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| In September, South Korea exported $16.6 billion worth of semiconductors, an amount equivalent to roughly one-fifth of its total merchandise shipments. This surge was not an outlier, but reflects the country’s longstanding overreliance on the chip sector. | |
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Welcome to my geopolitics blog site. This is a Hawaii Island news site focusing on geopolitical news, analysis, information, and commentary. I will cite a variety of sources, ranging from all sides of the political spectrum.