Think-Tanks

Photo released by the official North Korean Central News Agency showing North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. overseeing weapons tests at an undisclosed location in May. KCNA/EPA

Door to North Korea Remains Open Despite Missile Tests

By Alicia Sanders-Zakre and Kelsey Davenport

While Alicia Sanders-Zakre is research assistant, Kelsey Davenport, is director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, which carried this report on May 21, 2019.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN-INPS) – The next steps for U.S. diplomacy with North Korea remain unclear after Pyongyang tested several short-range ballistic missiles in early May. Despite the missile tests, South Korea and the United States urged a resumption of dialogue. North Korea, however, has said little about returning to talks since Chairman Kim Jong Un declared in April that he would give the Trump administration until the end of the year to change its approach to negotiations or face a "bleak and very dangerous" situation.

: J C Suresh; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 22 May 2019

Photo: Indonesian school girls. Source: East Asia Forum

Need to Raise Awareness about Sexual Harassment in Indonesian Schools

By Iwu Dwisetyani Utomo

CANBERRA (IDN-INPS) – A recent Gender and Reproductive Health Study in Indonesia found a surprisingly high degree of comprehension of sexual harassment among Indonesian students and teachers, but there were some worrying differences across various demographics.

The findings suggest the need for more research, education and awareness-raising on sexual harassment in Indonesia, as well as institution-building for reporting and policing sexual harassment.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 26 April 2019

India Between Democracy and Religious Nationalism

By Milan Vaishnav

The following are extensive excerpts from the Executive Summary of a study on 'The BJP in Power: Indian Democracy and Religious Nationalism' published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.The views represented herein are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees. The article refers to the general elections under way in India, the country’s seventeenth held since independence in 1947. Nearly 900 million Indians are eligible to cast their ballots. – The Editor

: Asia Editor; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 14 April 2019

Call for Renewed U.S.-Russian Strategic Dialogue

By Daryl G. Kimball*

WASHINGTON , D.C. (IDN-INPS) – In the latest in a series of expert conferences and dialogues in Moscow and Washington, a group of distinguished U.S. and Russian experts released a public statement calling on U.S. and Russian officials to get back to the arms control negotiating table, with the first order of business being agreement on a five-year extension of the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), as allowed for in Article XIV of the treaty, and talks designed to head-off new arms competition in the wake of the likely termination of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

: Arms Control Association; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 12 April 2019

Photo: The Ohio-class USS Nebraska submarine returns to port in Washington in 2018. The Trump administration is seeking funds to complete development of low-yield nuclear warheads for submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Credit: Michael Smith/U.S. Navy.

2020 Trump Budget Aims to Boost U.S. Nuclear Capabilities

Viewpoint by Kingston A. Reif

The writer is director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at Arms Control Association (ACA). This article appeared in Volume 49: April 2019 of the Association's monthly journal 'Arms Control Today'.

WASHINGTON, DC (IDN-INPS) – .Consistent with the recommendations of the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the Trump administration’s fiscal year 2020 budget request would continue plans to expand U.S. nuclear weapon capabilities.

: UN Bureau; OPINION; 03 April 2019

Image: Map – China’s military base on the Chinese-Afghan-Tajik frontier. Credit: Centre for Eastern Studies.

China Thwarts India’s Central Asian Ambitions

By Micha’el Tanchum*

TEL AVIV (IDN-INPS) – A recent investigation revealed that Chinese troops are stationed on Tajikistan’s south-eastern border, 30 kilometres from Pakistan-administered Kashmir across Afghanistan’s Wakhan corridor. India has unsuccessfully sought to establish its own military base in Tajikistan for over 15 years. The discovery of Chinese troops constitutes a severe setback to New Delhi’s Central Asian ambitions.

Soldiers from the base reportedly wear the insignia of the Xinjiang units of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Central Asia; 03 April 2019

Photo source: Philippine Institute for Development Studies.

Women’s Unpaid Work Needs Factoring In for Fairer ASEAN Economies

By Jose Ramon Albert

This article is abridged from a version that appears in the latest issue of East Asia Forum Quarterly, 'Investing in Women'. Jose Ramon Albert is a Senior Research Fellow at the Philippine government think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS).

MANILA (IDN-INPS) – The Philippines and other ASEAN economies are experiencing stellar economic growth. Frontier technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, such as automation and robotics, the internet of things, 3D printing, blockchain and nanotechnologies are rapidly transforming economies.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 25 March 2019

Photo: President Donald Trump is greeted by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on February 27, 2019, at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi, for their second summit meeting. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

Beyond the U.S.-North Korean Summits in Singapore and Hanoi

By Kelsey Davenport and Alicia Sanders-Zakre

The following appeared in Volume 11, Issue 5 of the Issue Brief of the Arms Control Association. Kelsey Davenport is director for nonproliferation policy, and Alicia Sanders-Zakre, research assistant.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN-INPS) – The second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ended abruptly in Hanoi without any agreement on the next steps to advance the shared goals of denuclearization and peacebuilding on the Korean peninsula. While both Trump and Kim described the meeting [February 27-28, 2019] as valuable and appeared committed to continuing dialogue, the future of the diplomatic process is unclear.

: UN Bureau; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 22 March 2019

Photo: Basantapur Tower, one of the four red towers that King Prithvi Narayan Shah built delimiting the four old cities of the Kathmandu Valley namely, the Kathmandu or the Basantapur Tower, the Kirtipur Tower, the Bhaktapur Tower or Lakshmi Bilas, and the Patan or Lalitpur Tower. CC BY-SA 3.0

Overdue Ban on a Faction of the Nepalese Communist Party

By Ajit Kumar Singh

This article is the fifth in a series of joint productions of South Asian Outlook and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship of the International Press Syndicate. The writer is Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management.

NEW DELHI (IDN) – The Nepal Cabinet during a meeting on March 12, 2019, decided to ban the Netra Bikram Chand-led Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-Maoist-Chand). An aide to Prime Minister (PM) K.P. Sharma Oli stated: "After being briefed by the four security agencies, the Government concluded that the Chand party’s activities were more criminal than political: so it needs to be dealt with accordingly."

: Suresh Jaura; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 16 March 2019

Photo: The first Xi–Modi meeting of 2018 at Wuhan, China in April was a rare one-on-one informal summit. Source: NDTV

Soft- and Hard-Power Challenges in China-India Diplomacy

Viewpoint by P S Suryanarayan

The writer is a Visiting Senior Fellow with the South Asia Programme, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore and the author of 'Smart Diplomacy: Exploring China-India Synergy' (2016). The author’s views are his own and do not represent the position of any institution. A version of this article originally appeared here on RSIS.

SINGAPORE (IDN-INPS) – Buoyed by four summit meetings and the formation of a new people-to-people mechanism in quick succession, China-India engagement appears to be on an upward trajectory. Though challenges remain, it is an opportune moment for the two countries to press ahead towards total rapprochement.