Latest Articles about Foreign Policy
![](/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Japanese_Foreign_Minister_Fumio_Kishida_Meets_with_Chinese_State_Counselor_Yang_Jiechi.jpg)
China Dictates Terms for Sino-Japanese Relations During First Japanese Foreign Minister Visit in Four Years
Japanese Foreign Minister Kishida Fumio’s official visit to Beijing from April 29 to May 1, the first trip to China by a Japanese Foreign Minister since November 2011, represented renewed effort to mend the frayed relationship between Asia’s two most powerful countries (South China Morning... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Tsai_s_Cabinet.jpg)
Team Tsai Ing-wen: a Who’s Who of the New Cabinet
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen took office on May 20 with no shortage of challenges ahead. Her inaugural speech focused on five specific areas: transforming economic structures; strengthening the social safety net; addressing social fairness and justice; promoting regional peace, stability and cross-Strait relations; and contributing... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Xi_Jinping_visits_Yichun_Heilongjiang.jpg)
Xi Visits China’s Northeast, Emphasizes Revitalization, Environment and Food Security
Chinese President and Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping has visited China’s northeastern most province of Heilongjiang. The visit, on May 23–25, included a number of towns along the border with Russia. Xi’s inspection visits are not just a prime photo opportunity. This is his... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Petro_Poroshenko_01.jpg)
Ukraine Insists on International Police Mission in Donetsk-Luhansk
The top leaders of Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine (the “Normandy Group”) conferred by telephone on the night of May 23–24, at Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s initiative. Poroshenko sought an endorsement of Kyiv’s proposal for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Surkov.jpg)
Surkov-Nuland Talks on Ukraine: A Nontransparent Channel (Part Two)
*To read Part One, please click here. US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland held talks, in Moscow, with Russian presidential advisor Vladislav Surkov, on May 17–18 (see Part One). According to the United States government’s official account of the meeting, the talks focused on... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Nuland.jpg)
Surkov-Nuland Talks on Ukraine: A Nontransparent Channel (Part One)
Informal discussions are sputtering along between Washington and Moscow over implementation of the Minsk armistice in Ukraine. This bilateral process originated in May 2015 as an accompaniment to the Barack Obama administration’s decision to seek Russia’s “help” on Syria. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Savchenko.jpg)
Euphoria in Kyiv and Soul-Searching in Moscow After Prisoner Exchange
Nadezhda Savchenko, a Ukrainian air force helicopter pilot, was captured by Moscow-backed separatist forces during fighting in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, in the summer of 2014, and ended up in a Russian jail. Savchenko was serving in Donbas as a volunteer soldier with... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Vladimir_Putin_-_EDM_May_23__2016.jpg)
The Futility of Dialogue With Putin
The need to keep the channels of dialogue open with an unpredictable Russia is taken as an absolute imperative by many Western politicians. But they are often surprised when this tactic backfires. The foreign ministers of the member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Normany_Format_Meeting__Berlin__May_11_-_2_-_EDM_May_20__2016.jpg)
Normandy Meeting Aborts Ukraine’s Proposal on OSCE Police Mission
Russia, Germany, France, and Ukraine held an expanded meeting of their foreign affairs ministers and senior staffs on May 11 in Berlin (the “Normandy” format). Two overlapping issues topped the meeting’s agenda: possible “elections” in the Russian-controlled Donetsk-Luhansk territory, and policing those proposed elections to... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Normany_Format_Meeting__Berlin__May_11_-_EDM_May_20__2016.jpg)
Ukraine Develops Its Case Against Elections in the ‘People’s Republics’
The “Normandy” powers’ (Ukraine, Germany, France, Russia) latest meeting, in Berlin, on May 11, which failed to address Ukraine’s concerns, has stiffened Kyiv’s refusal to go along with local “elections” in the Donetsk and Luhansk “peoples’ republics” (DPR, LPR). That territory is Ukrainian de jure... MORE