East Asia

About Centre

The East Asia Centre is dedicated to study and research the domestic and foreign policies of individual countries of the region as well as India’s multifaceted relationships with these countries. With respect to China, the Centre’s research foci are its foreign policy (particularly towards the US, Russia, Central Asia and Asia Pacific), domestic politics, economy, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and India’s relationship with China in all its dimensions. The Centre’s research also focuses on Taiwan, its domestic politics, Sino-Taiwanese relationship and Indo-Taiwanese relationship, Hong Kong and India-Hong Kong relations. Japan and Korea are the other major focus of the Centre, with its research focused on their domestic politics, foreign policy and comprehensive bilateral relationships with India. The geopolitics of the Asia Pacific and the Korean peninsula are also studied in the Centre.

The centre brings out five monthly newsletters: East Asia Military Monitor, Japan Digest, China Science and Technology, Korea Newsletter, and China Military Digest.

China and North Korea: A Puzzle of Sorts?

With its repeated admissions of an ongoing nuclear weapons development programme utilising highly enriched uranium, and with an alarmingly advanced missile launching capability, North Korea is at the fulcrum of a crisis that while raising the spectre of nuclear proliferation on the Korean peninsula also impacts the very foundations of security in northeast Asia. Despite this brinkmanship, a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman assured on May 8, 2005, "our will to denuclearise the Korean peninsula and seek a negotiated solution to it still remains unchanged."

Koizumi’s Visit to India: Forgotten Friendship to Active Partnership

Japan’s relations with India are at crossroads, even as we recently completed 53 years of the establishment of diplomatic ties. The visit of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi recently as part of his four-nation tour which took him to South Asia and Europe proved to be an apt opportunity for both countries to carve strategies to solidify ties for the future. The significance of Koizumi’s visit cannot be understated considering the fact that this is the first visit by a Japanese head of state after a hiatus of nearly half a decade.

Koizumi Visit – Need to Advance Strategic Dialogue and Content

The visit of the Japanese PM Mr. Junichiro Koizumi to Delhi on April 29 is the last in a series of high levels visits that have the potential to fundamentally re- alter India's bi-lateral relations with the major poles of relevance in the post Cold War/post 9-11 global systemic and the challenge will be in realizing the potential that has been agreed to at the highest political level. These visits began with that of Ms. Condi Rice, the US Secretary of State in mid March and this was followed by the Chinese PM Mr. Wen Jiabao in early April.

Redefining the ties

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to India would be noted for three landmark steps: The establishment of a strategic and cooperative partnership, the agreement on the political parameters and guidelines for settling the territorial/boundary issue, and the decision on a comprehensive economic partnership and regional trading arrangement.

Sujit Dutta
April 26, 2005
IDSA Comments

Trade bloc: Can we trust China?

Globalisation and regionalisation of trade and investment are drawing in all countries and becoming an irresistible trend in Asia. China is at the centre of this new structure. Since 1992 in particular, as investments in labour-intensive manufacturing from Taiwan, Hong Kong, the US, Japan, Europe and Southeast Asia have moved in a rising wave though the open Chinese door, steeply raising its trade profile.

Sujit Dutta
April 25, 2005
IDSA Comments

Tug-of-possible-war over Taiwan

On March 7, China unveiled a new Anti-Secession Law in its third session of the 10th National People’s Congress meeting. The law legalizes China to take military action against the renegade province, Taiwan. The full text of the Anti-Secession Law stated a three-point scenario for ‘‘non-peaceful action’’ against Taiwan.

China : Reactions to Iraq Elections

China has not issued any official statement on the recently concluded elections in Iraq. However, in a Press Conference on February1, 2005, to a question on the elections, the Foreign Ministry Spokesman Kong Quan said that: