China’s importance to the burgeoning economies of Southeast Asia has increased remarkably since the mid-1990s [1]. This has been led by dramatic growth in trade already large enough to significantly alter the foreign policy outlooks and priorities of Southeast Asian nations [2]. While Southeast Asia-bound... MORE

For a decade or more there has been active discussion of a security framework, structure, or mechanism for Northeast Asia. The discussions, which intensified over the last half decade, coincided with the Six-Party Talks concerning North Korea’s nuclear weapon program. Many imagined that the talks,... MORE

While Ma Ying-jeou’s landslide victory at the presidential polls has lowered tension in the Taiwan Strait, and injected a shot of morphine into Taiwan's stock market, it is premature and unrealistic to expect a leap forward in Taipei-Beijing ties any time soon. The future of... MORE

On May 17 Zimbabwean Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga confirmed that a shipment of arms aboard the Chinese vessel An Yuejiang had arrived in Harare (The Weekender, May 17). Some sources claimed the cargo was offloaded in the Democratic Republic of Congo and some Angola,... MORE

Ten years of official diplomatic relations between the Peoples Republic of China and the Republic of South Africa have been marked by a multitude of milestones in both countries. From a period of no official ties to limited interaction between the South African and Chinese... MORE

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping arrived in Pyongyang on June 17 for a three-day visit. North Korea is the first destination of Xi’s foreign trip since being made vice president in March, slating Xi at the front of becoming President Hu Jintao’s likely successor when... MORE

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s first foreign trip—only half a month after his inauguration in early May—will include a visit to China from May 23 to 24. Medvedev’s choice of visiting Kazakhstan then China on his first international trip explicates the orientation of Russia’s foreign policy... MORE

On May 20, Ma Ying-jeou was sworn in as the president of Taiwan (Republic of China), in an election that marks the first successive transfer of power in Taiwan’s fledgling democracy since the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won the 2000 presidential election. President Ma’s much... MORE

The explosive growth of China’s links to Latin America in recent years are but the latest developments in a history that reaches back to the Spanish colonial empire in the early-16th century. In some ways the perceived benefits and liabilities have not changed much over... MORE

Less than a week prior to the 8.0-magnitude earthquake in China’s Sichuan Province on May 12, Chinese President Hu Jintao was in Japan for his first state visit as agreed to during Japanese Prime Minister Yasuko Fukuda’s visit to China last December (China Brief, January... MORE