Hedging without coordination? The Cambodian Government’s Policies Toward Vietnam
Memo #369 By: Thearith Leng – thearithleng2011 [at] gmail.com Hedging, a mix of bandwagoning (political deference) and balancing (varying forms of defiance), has become a popular concept to explain how small Southeast Asian states manage their relations with larger countries. Cambodia’s policies toward its more powerful neighbor, Vietnam, display such a mixed approach. But in […]
Hong Kong’s Fishball Revolution: A Shift in Protest Culture?
Memo #364 By: Justin Kwan – justin.kwan [at] alumni.ubc.ca The “Fishball Revolution,” triggered when police cracked down on unlicensed street hawkers in Mong Kok during the Lunar Year, attracted international media attention to Hong Kong. The demonstrations were the largest since the 2014 Umbrella Movement, but more importantly, reflected potentially significant shifts in Hong Kong protest […]
The Thai Military, Coups, and the False Hope of Professionalism
Memo #362 By Jacob I. Ricks – jacobricks [at] smu.edu.sg Thailand is one of the most coup-prone countries in the world, having experienced no less than 19 coup attempts since 1932. The prevalence of military interventions casts doubt on whether Thai politicians will ever be able to reign in their armed counterparts. One prominent response to this […]
The Invitation-Only Zone: The True Story of North Korea’s Abduction Project (A “Behind the Book” Interview with Prof. Robert Boynton)
Memo #360 By Robert S. Boynton – robert.boynton [at] nyu.edu At the September 2002 Pyonygyang Summit between the heads of Japan and North Korea, Kim Jong-Il apologized to Koziumi Junichiro for some “rogue” North Korean agents that had abducted Japanese nationals during the 1970s and 1980s. This sparked saturation media coverage and amplified the voices […]
Taiwan’s 2016 elections: An exercise in generational change
Memo #359 By J. Michael Cole – jmichaelcoleintaipei [at] gmail.com More than ever before in Taiwan’s history, political contention is not defined by ethnicity. A clash of generations, rather, is shaping the positioning of the two leading parties in the 2016 elections. The opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has understood, and then embraced, this shift […]
Where are the voices and the interests of rural Lao women in ASEAN?
Memo #356 By Carly Teng – c.teng [at] alumni.ubc.ca The primary focus of ASEAN has been on economic development, with some attempts since 2014 to include “women’s economic empowerment” through support of female entrepreneurship in its member countries. ASEAN’s recognition of the need for women’s economic empowerment is necessary, but not sufficient to advance women’s rights, especially […]
Permanent Neutrality Debate in Mongolia
Memo #355 By Mendee Jargalsaikhan – mendee [at] alumni.ubc.ca Since September 2015, when President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj and his foreign policy team launched a campaign both domestically and abroad to institutionalize a “permanent neutrality” status, foreign policy pundits in Ulaanbaatar have been intensively debating whether or not Mongolia should enact such a policy. Beijing and Moscow have committed […]
Preparing for Taiwan’s Future? KMT’s Keys for Reducing the Margin of Defeat
Memo #354 By: Justin Kwan – justin.kwan [at] alumni.ubc.ca In one of Taiwan’s latest opinion polls, Kuomintang (KMT) Presidential Candidate Eric Chu is projected to only have 20% of national support, a distant second place for a party that has traditionally dominated Taiwan’s political scene. While the party’s chances of winning the upcoming January election look […]
Taiwan’s Elections: Tsai Ing-wen’s Race to the Finish
Memo #353 By: Justin Kwan – justin.kwan [at] alumni.ubc.ca While the historic meeting between Ma Ying-jeou and Xi Jinping, the first between the leaders of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, has been described as Beijing’s way to “pre-emptively constrain the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] ahead of its likely victory,” its effect on the upcoming […]
Non-government path of engagement with North Korea
Memo #351 By: Avram Agov – avram.agov [at] gmail.com The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is widely perceived as isolated and rogue state with nuclear weapons. The political standoff on the Korean peninsula begs the question: to engage or not to engage? The answer is: this is not the question, particularly in the humanitarian field, which is […]