Brad Glosserman - The Japan Times

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jun 22, 2003

TAIWAN: A Political History, by Denny Roy. Cornell University Press, 2003, 255 pp., $18.95 (paper). With international attention focused on Iraq and North Korea, the Taiwan problem has vanished from the headlines. It won't go away, however; geography and politics guarantee that. Put this break to productive...

COMMENTARY

Jun 15, 2003

'Propaganda' effort reflects U.S. image

HANOI -- I just wrapped up a 10-day speaking tour for the U.S. State Department after participating in the department's Public Diplomacy (PD) program, which sends folks to speak to universities, think tanks and public forums. The trip took me to the Russian Far East (Vladivostok and Sakhalin) and Hanoi,...

COMMENTARY

Jun 5, 2003

For Russian Far Easterners, future lies in Northeast Asia

YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK, Russia -- The Russian Far East is a vast territory of 6.2 million square kilometers. Although it is about one-third the size of the United States, it has less than 3 percent of the U.S. population. Largely neglected by Moscow, some 10 percent of the population has left in search of...

COMMENTARY

May 22, 2003

Donald Rumsfeld making big waves

SEOUL -- U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is the man the world loves to hate. The blunt-speaking former wrestler has managed to infuriate U.S. friends and allies, declaring the nations of "Old Europe" irrelevant and undermining British Prime Minister Tony Blair on the eve of the Iraqi war by...

COMMENTARY

May 18, 2003

A regime to quell nuclear fear

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- Any real solution to the North Korean nuclear crisis will ultimately be a "grand bargain" with military, economic, political and diplomatic components. Fashioning that deal will require aggressive and creative thinking. The lack of trust in Pyongyang and Pyongyang's lack of trust...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

May 11, 2003

Koreans make good moves

THE KOREAN DIASPORA IN THE WORLD ECONOMY, edited by C. Fred Bergsten and Inbom Choi. Washington D.C.: Institute for International Economics, Special Report 15, January 2003, 180 pp., $25 (paper) In recent years, increasing attention has been given to the social and economic role of diasporas -- communities...

COMMENTARY

May 10, 2003

The purpose of U.S. power

HONOLULU -- President George W. Bush declared victory in the war against Iraq last week. Anyone expecting the president to bask in success would have been surprised by the speech: Bush made clear that Iraq is merely one campaign in the ongoing war against terrorism. A perfunctory reading of the administration's...

COMMENTARY

May 4, 2003

Roh's middle way to reform

HONOLULU -- South Korea's new president, Roh Moo Hyun, hasn't had much of a honeymoon. Since taking office two months ago, he has had to navigate a nuclear crisis with North Korea. To do that, he has had to work closely with the United States, a difficult assignment in the best of times, but one that's...

COMMENTARY

Apr 26, 2003

An opportunity for APEC

HONOLULU -- The rapid spread of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, is a compelling demonstration of the need for a truly global health network to fight future epidemics. The particulars of this outbreak also highlight the role that the Asia-Pacific region will have to play in this effort. The...

COMMENTARY

Apr 13, 2003

Thailand seeks an advantage

HONOLULU -- Southeast Asian politicians and business professionals continue to insist that China's rise is "an opportunity, not a threat" to their future. That sounds a lot like whistling past the graveyard. The Chinese market is so big and has such a wealth of human and material resources that conventional...

COMMENTARY

Mar 31, 2003

U.S. coalition unnerves allies

SAN FRANCISCO -- Although the United States didn't go to the United Nations for explicit authorization of an attack against Iraq, the Bush administration never abandoned attempts to craft a multilateral coalition in support of those efforts. But this government's view of "multilateralism" differs from...

COMMENTARY

Mar 17, 2003

Pyongyang is playing for the long term

HONOLULU -- Throughout the unfolding "noncrisis" on the Korean Peninsula, Pyongyang has stayed a step ahead of the rest of the world and appears to be dictating the pace of events. Avoiding a real crisis requires figuring out what North Korea wants and then devising a solution that meets those needs,...

COMMENTARY

Mar 9, 2003

Bush will need a quick victory over Iraq

HONOLULU -- Last week U.S. President George W. Bush laid out his vision for the Middle East. For the most part, the text read like any other: It was a stump speech designed to drum up support for "regime change" in Iraq.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Mar 9, 2003

All eyes on Russia's Far East

RUSSIA'S FAR EAST: A Region at Risk, edited by Judith Thornton and Charles E. Ziegler. Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, University of Washington Press, 2002, 498 pp. (paper). The Russian Far East is a land of contradictions. It is a vast territory of 6.2 million sq. km., roughly one-third...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Feb 23, 2003

Going for the least-worst option

CASE STUDIES IN JAPANESE NEGOTIATING BEHAVIOR, by Michael Blaker, Paul Giarra and Ezra Vogel. Washington D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2002, 170 pp., $12.50 (paper). Mercifully, we are long past the time when a book like this focused on a Japanese exceptionalism that bordered on cultural...

COMMENTARY

Feb 22, 2003

Best policy Seoul can buy?

HONOLULU -- The unmaking of a hero is never pretty, but the fall of South Korean President Kim Dae Jung has been especially ugly. The statesman leaves behind a shredded legacy and he, like many of his predecessors, is but one step ahead of the prosecutor. Even his Nobel Peace Price has been tarnished:...

COMMENTARY

Feb 13, 2003

No shortage of reasons why South Koreans dislike the U.S.

WASHINGTON -- Opinion polls from around the world show increasing numbers of people believe that the United States is arrogant, unilateralist and indifferent to key concerns of other nations -- even friends and allies. There is a rising belief that the U.S. has become a source of international tension...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Feb 2, 2003

Analyst urges Russia to look West

THE END OF EURASIA: Russia on the Border Between Geopolitics and Globalization, by Dmitri Trenin. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2002, 351 pp., $24.95 (paper) If nations were people, then Russia would have post-traumatic stress syndrome. Over the past decade, the former...

COMMENTARY

Jan 30, 2003

Making waves over foreign policy 'realism'

HONOLULU -- One of the advantages of living in Hawaii is that you get to spend weekends at the beach. I spend mine with the Grizzled Old Vet, a longtime observer of East Asia who has spent a lifetime straddling academia and the minefields that litter the Beltway. Between waves, the Gov (as I will call...

COMMENTARY

Jan 16, 2003

Japan plods path of isolation

HONOLULU — Japan continues to be the odd man out in Northeast Asia. While the other states in the region have been forging ties and building networks with each other — even North Korea — Japan has lagged behind. Tokyo could be marginalized in its own neighborhood. That risk has motivated Japanese...

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