BLOG Post #362: Risky Business: Japan Steps Out 25 Jan 202325 Jan 2023 (This blog is also available as a podcast at https://www.podserve.fm/episodes/86207/67-risky-business-japan-steps-out-h1JT0.mp3) Background to a Changing Strategic Perspective Japan’s Prime Minister Kishida Fumio has just visited Washington, drawing attention to how Japan…
BLOG Post #290: Biden’s Opportunity with China 23 Feb 202121 Feb 2021 The dominant view of China in both Washington and in American public opinion is that the United States faces an increasingly ruthless Chinese leadership, requiring that US policy restrain if…
BLOG Post #238: Trump-Kim III: Making History Without Making Progress? 2 Jul 20192 Jul 2019 Taking a few steps onto North Korean soil, and posing for pictures with a friendly dictator, seem to fit Trump-era diplomacy better than a carefully laid out process. But unless…
American Politics and the World… Post #137: The National Interest and the Trump Interest 21 Nov 201627 Feb 2017 As the Trump administration takes shape, one fact seems unassailable: We have an unprecedented situation in which, step by step, a president’s business interests—past, present, and future—are inseparable from the…
BLOG… Post #104 –Engaging and Apologizing: Two Exercises, Different Results 18 Jan 201627 Feb 2017 The art and wisdom of engaging and apologizing to adversaries was on display in recent days in two very different settings, one in East Asia and the other in the…
BLOG… Post #85: We Apologize 23 Jul 201527 Feb 2017 The following article originally appeared in Global Asia, vol. 10, No. 2 (Summer 2015), pp. 112-117, under the title “'We Apologize': Two Words to Embrace to Right Injustices." Apologies are never easy—not between…
American Politics and the World… Post #76 – TPP: A Deeply Flawed Partnership 4 May 201527 Feb 2017 (Note: A longer version of this post was subsequently published at http://japanfocus.org/-Mel-Gurtov/4318/article.html.) The American people have become used to government trickery in foreign affairs—wars and interventions based on lies and…
BLOG… Post #60 – China’s Triangle Diplomacy 26 Dec 201427 Feb 2017 Back in the days of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, the “strategic triangle” with the Soviet Union and China was the great game. The idea was to play off the…
BLOG… Post #35 – Mr. Xi Goes to Seoul 17 Jul 201427 Feb 2017 China and Korea watchers jumped to attention when it was announced that Xi Jinping would visit South Korea from July 3-4, rather than visit North Korea first. Although the trip…
In the Human Interest - Mel Gurtov 