North Korea’s offer of a dialogue is unlikely to elicit a positive response from South Korea which instead is militarily drawing closer to Japan to enhance deterrence.

The conflict over rare earths is not only a consequence of the monopoly amassed by China but is also reflective of the current flux in global power hierarchies.

Kan’s statement about sending the SDF to the Korean peninsula to rescue Japanese citizens and people of Japanese origin in the event of an emergency has raised the spectre of a possible revival of Japanese militarism.

Japan’s adoption of a new defence Guidelines to secure its southern “outlaying islands” closer to China suggests major shift in Japan’s Cold War security policy.

Japan needs to structurally transform domestic demand by focusing on its service sector – medical services, education, environment, and health.

The DPJ has relaxed its earlier rigid position and is no longer demanding that India join the NPT as a pre-condition for the nuclear pact.

India has to calibrate its relationship with China, the US, and countries of East Asia with great circumspection in the wake of the resurfacing of tensions in the South China Sea.

In a strong rebuke to the Kan government, voters deprived the DPJ and its tiny ally of a majority less than a year after the party swept to power.

That the Futenma issue is still a sore subject for the ruling DPJ-led government is reflected in the fact that it has decided not to field a candidate in Okinawa in the upcoming election.