Author: c.kwan

Taiwan is seeking to be included in this month’s World Health Assembly, organized by the World Health Organization. China claims sovereignty over Taiwan under its “One China” policy. Taiwan has a self-ruling government. Since President Tsai Ing-Wen of has taken office, China repeatedly blocked Taiwan’s participation in international organizations to prevent Taiwan from having any international visibility or influence.

As China’s world influence grows, Taiwan’s attempts to participate in international organizations will be difficult.

North Korea has successfully launched a ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan. This has hasten the time estimated that North Korea could develop an intercontinental ballistic missile from five years to one year. The missile is the most advanced that the world has seem from North Korea. It flew for about 30 minutes.

It is interesting timing on North Korea’s part. South Korea has just put in place a new liberal President, Moon Jae-in, who favors dialogue with North Korea.

“We keep our door open for dialogue with North Korea, but we must act decisively against North Korean provocations so that it will not miscalculate,” Mr. Moon was quoted as saying by his office. “We must show that dialogue is possible when the North changes its attitude.”

The United States, Japan, and South Korea has condemned the attacks. There is an urgent UN Security Council meeting request from these three nations.

It will be interesting to see how the new South Korean government act in the UN and in response to North Korea’s actions.

Israel and China have come to an agreement to bring Chinese construction workers to Israel. However, the Chinese specifically bans their workers from working on West Bank settlements. Israel’s construction in the West Bank settlement is viewed as illegal by the international community. This deal represents the Chinese expanding their influence but also their desire to not be involved in the Israeli-Palestinian affairs.

China has been slowly building its network of information and trade and expanding its influence in world circumventing the United States’ influence. China has created extensive networks, developed the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and established centers to trade the RMB.

Under Xi Jinping, the principal aim of China’s overseas push almost seems to be drawing a world where America is circumvented, marginalized, and dreamed away…The door to liberty has been found – through, as one African diplomat at a 2014 conference I attended in Beijing put it, subtly, carefully, and very deliberately staking out areas where China knows the United States can complain, but not intervene or shout too much.

However, North Korea’s provocative actions have drawn the United States’ attention back to the Asia-Pacific Region, when there has been a waning interest in foreign relations from the new administration.

Officials might be taking more serious actions and clamping down on North Korea because “North Korea has taken aim at China’s Achilles’ heel – its desperate search for strategic space where the United States will leave it alone.”

North Korea celebrated their founder’s birthday over the weekend and showed off their new missiles in a parade. The regime launched a missile test that failed.

What is playing out, said Robert Litwak of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, who tracks this potentially deadly interplay, is “the Cuban missile crisis in slow motion.” But the slow-motion part appears to be speeding up, as President Trump and his aides have made it clear that the United States will no longer tolerate the incremental advances that have moved Mr. Kim so close to his goals.

The new administration has taken a harder stance with North Korea. As Trump learned from China’s President Xi, Chinese and North Korean relations are “complicated” and China does not have absolute influence over North Korea. However, China is threatening to cutoff financial and energy supplied to North Korea, according to the White House.

It seems that North Korea is trying to give off the sense that trade is too late as a bargaining chip. North Koreans point to the example of Libya’s el-Qaddifi giving up his nuclear program only to ousted by the United States and its allies and consider him a “sap.” This shows that North Korea has no plans in giving up its nuclear program.

China has been retaliating against South Korea economically for agreeing to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD) with the United States. As BBC points out, China is South Korea’s largest trading partner. China has set up several trade barriers, such as stopping travel agencies from selling South Korea tour packages, banning the sale and distribution South Korean TV shows, and not allowing South Korean entertainers to perform in China. In addition, China has close down almost all of Lotte Group’s supermarkets. Lotte is a target for China as it has offered land for the deployment of THAAD.

In response, South Korea has filed a formal complaint with the WTO that China has been treating South Korean companies with unfair practices.

“The agency [Korean Agency for Technology and Standards] asked the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) committee to deal with three trade barriers imposed by Beijing as specific trade concerns. WTO member countries can request the TBT committee to review trade policies taken by trading partners as to whether they impede imports of certain goods.”

If the WTO finds that China has been impeding the imports from South Korea or makes a judgement against China, how will they be able to stop China from banning South Korean imports?

China’s bans does not seem to stop South Korea from cooperating with the U.S on the THAAD deployment, especially now with the threat of North Korea looming over the region. As Tony Zhao, a fellow from the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy, shares with BBC:

“Threats of economic sanctions are part of coercive diplomacy, but they may not be useful in addressing the Thaad issue…These forceful measures would likely be seen as a sign of disrespect and a direct threat to South Korea’s interests – which could ultimately push South Korea to bolster its military alliance with the United States.”

Due to North Korea’s recent actions, some in Japan is advocating Japan to gain the ability to launch offensive attacks. This is a rare attitude in Japan, as most Japanese are pacifists because the aftermath of World War II. Japan is forbidden by their Constitution, written by Americans after World War II, to have an army to attack. Its military forces are only allowed to act in defense to a threat. The Japan-U.S Security Treaty provides for protection for Japan from the United States. Interestingly enough, the bilateral treaty makes several references to the the U.N charter and the Security Council. Such as Article V in the treaty:

Each Party recognizes that an armed attack against either Party in the territories under the administration of Japan would be dangerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional provisions and processes. Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall be immediately reported to the Security Council of the United Nations in accordance with the provisions of Article 51 of the Charter. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.

According to the article, “Acquiring strike capability might be legally permissible under international law, but it will be difficult to sell to the Japanese public.” It seems the international law binding Japan to be unable to act on the offensive, is its own Constitution and the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty.

If Japan has the capability to launch offensive attacks, it is almost certain that China, North and South Korea, and other countries in the region will have issues.

 

This is one of the projects that I worked on when I was in Poland. We interviewed Ukrainians and Poles to see the perspective on the Ukrainian employment in Poland. It is not as comprehensive as we would have like, we would have like to ask a question about Syrian refugees but limited to our topic on employment in Poland.

It seems that the people we interviewed have a positive view of Ukrainians in Poland. It is important to point out that we were mostly in an university setting and most of the people that we came across are educated. We did not have access to the different demographics that we initially wanted to interview.

Thanks for watching!

It appears that the UN sanctions and the reprimand of the UN Security Council had proven fruitless in their efforts to stop North Korea. This latest missile launching coincides with US- South Korea joint military exercises and the opening of the National People’s Congress in China. Initially it was thought that one of the missiles was an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the U.S. Three of the missiles has landed in Japanese territory.

The new Trump administration and the US-South Korean military exercise have provoked North Korea. “North Korea “will never remain a passive onlooker to the new U.S. administration overtly revealing its intention to put military pressure on [North Korea] and invade it while crying out for ‘peace by dint of strength,’ ” the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported in a statement it attributed to the Foreign Ministry.”

It seems there is no good way to stop North Korea. The Security Council’s warnings and sanctions is ineffective as North Korea is just escalating their testing and at a higher frequency. China, the only country with any pull with North Korea, with their coal import ban only instigated this action.