Asia Maior Pub Date : 2023-01-01 DOI: 10.52056/979125463667/01

Michelguglielmo Torri

引用次数: 0

Korean peninsula 2020: Overcoming the challenges of COVID-19 朝鲜半岛2020:克服新冠肺炎的挑战

Asia Maior Pub Date : 2021-01-01 DOI: 10.52056/9788833138282/03

M. Milani

引用次数: 0

China 2020: A foreign policy characterized by growing resilience, fading responsibility and increasing uncertainty 中国2020:韧性增强、责任感减弱、不确定性增加的外交政策

Asia Maior Pub Date : 2021-01-01 DOI: 10.52056/9788833138282/02

Silvia Menegazzi

{"title":"China 2020: A foreign policy characterized by growing resilience, fading responsibility and increasing uncertainty","authors":"Silvia Menegazzi","doi":"10.52056/9788833138282/02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52056/9788833138282/02","url":null,"abstract":"[...]following the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013 China’s strategic ambitions sprawled de facto across the Pacific and Indian oceans. [...]we can affirm that its foreign policy «has politically entered the Indo-Pacific without acknowledging it officially».1 The rise of China has coincided with a period during which the reshaping of the international order also reflects North-South inequities, whereby questioning the longer-term position of the Anglo-American and European models of governance. [...]the author is fully aware that such sources cannot but reflect the Weltanschauung and political objectives of the party-state, shedding a positive light on them. China’s foreign policy in the context of COVID-19 With direct reference to the global pandemic, China’s foreign relations in 2020 have been characterized by an attempt to solve a central political conundrum: how to safeguard China’s power in world affairs in ways that will avoid criticism of its authoritarian political system, but which will be in line with its image as a responsible country in the eyes of the West, while also continuing to be a model to the developing world. The outbreak of COVID-19 confirmed to the world a reality that leaves little room for imagination: the second largest economy in the world, perhaps soon to be the first, is still a society in which little or no space for personal privacy and freedom of speech is guaranteed.","PeriodicalId":36510,"journal":{"name":"Asia Maior","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70659432","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Bangladesh 2019-2020: Issues of democracy, disasters, development 孟加拉国2019-2020年:民主、灾难、发展问题

Asia Maior Pub Date : 2021-01-01 DOI: 10.52056/9788833138282/11

Silvia Tieri

引用次数: 0

Pakistan 2020: The PTI government amidst COVID-19 pandemic 巴基斯坦2020:PTI政府在2019冠状病毒病大流行中执政

Asia Maior Pub Date : 2021-01-01 DOI: 10.52056/9788833138282/16

M. Corsi

引用次数: 2

Japan 2020: Abe’s well-laid plans go awry 2020年的日本:安倍精心制定的计划出了问题

Asia Maior Pub Date : 2021-01-01 DOI: 10.52056/9788833138282/04

C. Wallace, G. Pugliese

{"title":"Japan 2020: Abe’s well-laid plans go awry","authors":"C. Wallace, G. Pugliese","doi":"10.52056/9788833138282/04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52056/9788833138282/04","url":null,"abstract":"Like elsewhere, the COVID-19 pandemic caused substantial disruptions in Japan. While generous fiscal spending mitigated the pandemic’s economic fallout, and Japan is poised in 2021 to rebound from its year-on-year 4.8% fall in GDP, there was significant political fallout in 2020. The postponement of the Olympic Games, the Abe government’s perceived inability to tackle the pandemic, and the (re)surfacing of political scandals led to Japan’s longest-serving Prime Minister popularity plummeting. The re-emergence of Abe’s health problems then precipitated his abrupt resignation. This ushered in the premiership of Suga Yoshihide, who promised to enact structural reforms and ambitious digitalization and environmental programmes, while also promising to continue significant elements of Abe’s policy agenda. Internationally, COVID-19 accelerated US-China tensions and, in connection to that, China’s regional assertiveness. This perceived assertiveness as well as China’s political involution and human rights violations in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, in turn, hardened the Japanese government’s position vis-à-vis Beijing. This happened despite Abe’s early 2020 efforts towards hosting a state visit by the Chinese president. Instead, the year ended with a «Quad» meeting at the ministerial level, hosted in Tokyo, rather than an entente with China. At the same time, Japan deepened its «Indo-Pacific» engagement with important European nations as well as the European Union itself. It did so while doubling down on economic security initiatives that strengthened supply chain resiliency and provided telecommunication alternatives to Chinese initiatives, thereby restraining Chinese strategic influence. Security cooperation with the United States – through joint development of weapons systems, such as a new Japanese fighter, and close coordination in space, cyber and electromagnetic warfare – continued unabated in 2020.","PeriodicalId":36510,"journal":{"name":"Asia Maior","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70659396","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 1

Taiwan 2020: Crossroads of COVID-19 international politics 台湾2020:新冠肺炎国际政治的十字路口

Asia Maior Pub Date : 2021-01-01 DOI: 10.52056/9788833138282/06

A. Insisa

{"title":"Taiwan 2020: Crossroads of COVID-19 international politics","authors":"A. Insisa","doi":"10.52056/9788833138282/06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52056/9788833138282/06","url":null,"abstract":"The year 2020 started with President Tsai winning a second term and the DPP obtaining once again a parliamentary majority in the general elections held on 11 January. By the end of the year, Taiwan emerged as one of the few polities able to effectively put the COVID-19 pandemic under control. More impressively, it was able to do so without resorting to lockdown strategies, relying instead on timely decision-making and effective tracing, testing, and treating. Taiwan’s success, in turn, amplified the island’s relevance in Asia-Pacific international politics. Foreign support for expanding its access to international organizations, and especially the WHO in light of the pandemic, reached new heights, but it met Beijing’s vehement pushback. Chinese military pressure, a constant across the Strait since 2016, reached new heights, as the PLA Air Force routinized operations within Taiwan’s Air Defence Identification Zone. The policies of the outgoing Trump administration, which accelerated the freefall of Sino-American relations and continued to dramatically expand the scope of Washington’s relations with Taiwan, further exacerbated cross-Strait relations. The worsening security environment, however, did not hinder a Tsai administration buoyed by the successful management of the pandemic, economic growth, and widespread refusal of China’s strategy for unification among the public. Conversely, the KMT, Taiwan’s major position party, after a brief flirt with populist politics with the failed presidential candidature of Han Kuo-yu, continued to struggle under the new leadership of Johnny Chiang. Post-electoral calls for reforming the party and move its China policy away from the 1992 Consensus did not produce any meaningful change.","PeriodicalId":36510,"journal":{"name":"Asia Maior","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70659890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

India 2020: The deepening crisis of democracy 2020年的印度:深化的民主危机

Asia Maior Pub Date : 2021-01-01 DOI: 10.52056/9788833138282/13

M. Torri

{"title":"India 2020: The deepening crisis of democracy","authors":"M. Torri","doi":"10.52056/9788833138282/13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52056/9788833138282/13","url":null,"abstract":"The following article, focussed on the analysis of the ongoing crisis of Indian democracy in the year 2020, is articulated in two parts. The first, after a synthetic summing up of how the crisis started in 2019, is an overview of the main developments which characterized the struggle against and for democracy in the year under review. The crushing of the anti-CAA/NRC democratic movement, the persecution of minorities, the harassing of NGOs, the attacks on journalists and the continuing repression in Kashmir are summarised. The celebration of the transformation of India from a secular democracy into a Hindu Rashtra through the inauguration of the construction of the Ram mega temple in Ayodhya is remembered. This first part ends by discussing the unexpected rise of the Indian farmers’ anti-government movement in the concluding months of the year. The second part of the article is a case study of the repression of the anti-CAA/NRC movement. It is argued that it was pursued through fascist-like violence on the part of Hindutva thugs, abetted by the police. This culminated in the Delhi riots-turned-pogrom of February. In spite of all, the anti-CAA/NRC movement continued up to the explosion of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, which made the continuation of street manifestations and sit-ins impossible. The analysis continues through the examination of the veritable witch-hunt carried by the police, on the basis of fabricated evidence, against representative members of the anti-CAA/NRC movement and intellectuals known for their criticism of the Modi government. In the conclusion it is argued that the political set-up prevailing in India is not a full-fledged democracy any more. Rather, it is a hybrid system which, below an outwardly democratic appearance, badly conceals its highly authoritarian nature.","PeriodicalId":36510,"journal":{"name":"Asia Maior","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70660317","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Hong Kong 2020: The downfall of «one country two systems» 2020年香港:“一国两制”的垮台

Asia Maior Pub Date : 2021-01-01 DOI: 10.52056/9788833138282/05

Sheldon Wong

{"title":"Hong Kong 2020: The downfall of «one country two systems»","authors":"Sheldon Wong","doi":"10.52056/9788833138282/05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52056/9788833138282/05","url":null,"abstract":"In this watershed year the Hong Kong Special Autonomous Region (HKSAR) was fundamentally reshaped by the concatenation of two major events, namely COVID-19 and the roll out of the National Security Law (NSL). While Beijing had already set in train advanced plans for the «second takeover», with mass protest snuffed out the arrival of the global pandemic provided perfect subterfuge for ushering in the NSL. The law effectively ended the city’s «high degree of autonomy», belying the strategic gamble behind One Country Two Systems (OCTS) that Hong Kong would change China before China changed Hong Kong. As the reification of the central government’s «comprehensive jurisdiction» the NSL acted as a vehicle for the institutional and constitutional repurposing of OCTS towards a system of direct rule, adding to the statute books four capacious new criminal offences qua instruments of lawfare and psychological warfare. Having rolled back the separation of powers through executive capture, co-opting the police and subduing the legislature, a full-frontal assault was launched on the city’s independent judiciary. By the end of the year, OCTS had been hollowed out to the point of existing in name only to legitimise the exercise of raw political power. If not already dead, it was moribund. While reactive measures such as sanctions, lifeboat policies, human rights scrutiny and moral suasion manifestly failed to deter a more assertive Beijing under Xi Jinping from exploiting what it perceived to be a closing window of opportunity to pursue revisionist objectives in Hong Kong, the second handover shaped wider regional and global geopolitics, deepening the strategic competition between China and the US and its allies with some describing events in Hong Kong as the trigger for a «new cold war».","PeriodicalId":36510,"journal":{"name":"Asia Maior","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70659583","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

China 2020: The successful struggle against the COVID-19 pandemic and the Xinjiang question 中国2020:成功应对新冠肺炎疫情和新疆问题

Asia Maior Pub Date : 2021-01-01 DOI: 10.52056/9788833138282/01

F. Congiu

引用次数: 0

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