Diplomacy

The Obama administration has made Asia a top priority for U.S. foreign policy. The move has been dubbed "The Pivot," and it has the potential to be one of the most enduring legacies of the Obama presidency.

 The voyage to these remote islands at the center of one of Asia’s most heated territorial disputes is a bone-jarring seven-hour boat ride from one of Japan’s southernmost ports, a long enough journey that the fishermen who brave...

China has been pulled into the center ring of the U.S. Presidential campaign in recent weeks, with the candidates seeking to outdo each other on pledges to harden up on trade, currency, and security. In the Times...

By amending existing law, China will set clear rules for international NGOs to register on the mainland and will strengthen supervision of their activities. Li Liguo, minister of civil affairs, made the announcement at a news conference inBeijing on...

President Obama’s patience with China had been fraying for months, and by November 2010 he was fed up. Meeting with President Hu Jintao in Seoul, South Korea, Mr. Obama warned that if China did not do more to curb...

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta declared on Wednesday that the United States was not trying to contain a risingChina, and he stressed that with patience and effort current tensions between the giant rivals on opposite sides of...

Over the last week Mr Xi has cancelled at least four scheduled meetings with visiting dignitaries, including a Russian delegation, the prime minister of Singapore and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last Wednesday, and the prime minister of...

In his speech Thursday to the Democratic National Convention, President Obama’s mentions of China added up to just a couple dozen words, but they underscored a new and significant role the Asian power is playing in the 2012 campaign.

Thirty-six years after "Great Helmsman" Mao Zedong died of a heart attack, leaving his country briefly rudderless during a time of crisis and uncertainty, the Chinese ship of state is still sailing. But is it still seaworthy? Observers are...

As China’s international profile continues to rise in tandem with its economic and political significance, one might conclude that the Chinese public is likely to expect Xi Jinping to carry a higher profile on the international stage. As the leader...

The Japanese ambassador to Beijing, Uichiro Niwa, and his wife were riding in their limo this week when an unknown Chinese man approached and tore the mini-flag off the hood. There is some debate about whether the limo was blocked...

Includes articles on Bo Xilai and the PLA, the Pacific PIvot, Economic Uncertaintly Its Effect on Politics, and China's Top Future Leaders to watch.

The United States and China have a relatively successful relationship, but their distrust of each other's long-term intentions has reached a potentially dangerous level, says Kenneth Lieberthal, an experienced China expert based in Washington...

Many bloggers have already written about the posturing of certain of our elected representatives on the issue of China-made clothing for US Olympic athletes, using various permutations of the word “idiot” (e.g., Daniel Drezner, “idiocies...

Taiwan regulators have put strict conditions on a bid by a China-friendly media group to purchase the island’s second largest cable TV system as concerns grow that China’s commercial clout is already undermining freedom of the press in one of Asia’s...

Beguiled by undersea oil and gas deposits and the weakness of fellow claimants to the Paracel Islands, China launched a naval offensive to seize the disputed archipelago. To justify its actions, Beijing pointed to history -- notably Ming Dynasty Adm...

If Horatio Alger had spoken Mandarin he would have loved the rags-to-riches tale of garment maker Li Guilian. Chinese President Hu Jintao and fellow Politburo members are loyal customers of her firm,...

The South China Sea dispute between China and some of its South East Asian neighbours – Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei – has reached an impasse. Increasingly assertive positions among claimants have pushed regional tensions to new...

In vetoing a U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria for the third time, China and Russia have tested Western diplomats’ capacity for creative contempt. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton already described their veto as “...

For those who worry about North Korea, the past few months can best be described as a time of quiet despair. Since North Korea reneged on the "Leap Day" food aid deal in March by announcing the test of a long-range rocket (the test later...

Disputes in the strategically important South China Sea proved so contentious here that an annual regional gathering has ended without even a basic diplomatic communiqué, which appeared to have been blocked by China.

(With a blow-by-blow of the Cheng Guangcheng negotiations.) On May 3, the day after an artful deal to end the diplomatic crisis over Chen Guangcheng, China’s now-famous dissident, unraveled spectacularly, Hillary Rodham Clinton followed a scrum of...

After a tense showdown over a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, the closest U.S. ally in Southeast Asia and a rising China now face a new source of potential friction over the alleged corrupt practices of a well-connected Chinese corporation.

The farther away one stands from the Obamacare cases, the more curious they look against the portrait we usually imagine of ourselves. By now, America’s declining place in rankings of global health is so well known at home that it has lost its...

America is not the only great power struggling with how to handle the future of foreigners in its midst. As the Supreme Court indicated in its mixed decision Monday on Arizona’s immigration-enforcement law, the question of how we regard those who...

As Kim Jong-un, the young leader of North Korea, consolidates his grip on power, China is showing signs of increasing frustration at the bellicose behavior of its longtime ally.

China's ambassador to Britain has accused critics of its overseas language and culture training centres of "cold war thinking", after an LSE professor questioned whether universities should host the Confucius Institutes.

This is another fascinating installment in the exercise of Chinese "soft power." For my Big Theory on the nature of Chinese soft power, see this essay and this book. For a few previous installments in the Soft-Power Watch, see this, this,...

China told foreign embassies Tuesday to stop publishing their own reports on air quality in the country, escalating its objections to a popular U.S. Embassy Twitter feed that tracks pollution in smoggy Beijing. Only the Chinese government is...