Taiwan’s January 16th presidential election will likely bring Tsai Ing-Wen’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) into power. The DPP has promised investments in defense along with democracy-strengthening measures that respond to the concerns of protesters in the 2014 Sunflower Movement (China Brief April 9, 2014). With... MORE

Taiwan’s presidential election is slowly but surely approaching its end, entering the last week before voters cast their ballots on January 16, 2016. Taiwanese elections are rarely uneventful, and this time they promise quite a shake-up of the domestic political environment. The leading opposition party,... MORE

Barring an upset of momentous proportions, Taiwan’s opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is expected to defeat the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) or Nationalist Party, during presidential elections scheduled for January 16. The latest polls by the popular Taiwanese TV station TVBS show the DPP candidate and... MORE

Taiwan’s Elections Editor’s Note: Ahead of Taiwan’s presidential and legislative elections on January 16, we have devoted a number of this issues’ articles to the question of what cross-Strait relations will look like and how Taiwan’s ability to defend itself—a key strategic issue for the... MORE

Aman Abdurrahman has become arguably the most influential extremist ideologue in Indonesia today. A former Salafist preacher, Abdurrahman has become the foremost promoter of the Islamic State in Indonesia from his cell in the country’s so-called “super-maximum security” prison. His reputation among local Islamic State... MORE

In 2009, the image of Chinese ministers asleep at their desks at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen was taken as a metaphor for the world’s torpid movement on environmental issues. With the results of the recent Paris Conference on Climate Change showing... MORE

As China deepens its economic and strategic relations with Pakistan, and makes diplomatic in-roads with Nepal and Myanmar, it is worth examining an issue that continues to mar Sino-Indian relations. The China-India border dispute has long stirred tensions between Beijing and New Delhi, in spite... MORE

This is part one of a two-part series examining China’s arms trade. China is one of the world’s top small arms producers, and the products of official arms companies such as Norinco (北方工业) make regular appearances in conflicts around the globe. In 2014, Chinese arms... MORE

When the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) collapsed in December 1991, its integrated military-industrial complex was shattered and split up among 15 newly independent countries. Ukraine received many significant assets, including top-notch fighter and aircraft plants as well as the USSR’s most advanced shipyards... MORE

Southeast Asia is not generally seen as an area of Russia’s core vital interests. But given the priority of Moscow’s Asian pivot, it is an important area both in terms of strategic issues and economic opportunity. Nevertheless it seems that once again Moscow has missed... MORE