Global Asia - June 2021

In this issue

In the cover package of this issue, we have assembled a range of essays on WMD in Asia that have their origin in a workshop organized by the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network (APLN) on Dec. 1-4, 2020. The papers delivered there will be published later as a book. The project was supported by the Asia Research Fund, to which we are grateful. Taken together, the pieces in our cover package lay out the emerging challenges arising from the changing security landscape in Asia. Despite the risks, there are ample avenues for diplomatic engagement and ways to tamp down the potential for armed conflict.
In our Features section, we look at how demographic trends in the region – marked by declining and aging populations in a number of key countries, but also youthful and growing populations in other large countries such as India and Indonesia – will shape policy choices in the coming decades; how the violent border dispute at Galwan in the Himalayas has transformed India’s relations with China; why Australia is lashing out at China, its major trading partner, in a significant rethink of its strategy toward Beijing; and how the new Japanese prime minister succeeded in cementing ties with the US at a summit in Washington in April.
Our In Focus section takes a close look at the summit in May between US President Joe Biden and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, providing both a US and South Korean view of the outcome and why it was so important in strengthening ties between Seoul and Washington. In our Debate section, we examine the pros and cons of patent waivers for Covid-19 vaccines, which has become an important issue as the international community seeks to expand access in the developing world to these life-saving vaccines. Our Book Review section, as always, highlights notable recent works on Asia.

Global Asia Magazine Description:

Global Asia is a quarterly publication of the East Asia Foundation. The foundation, established in Seoul in January 2005, strives to promote peace, prosperity, security and sustainability in East Asia by creating an open and creative forum for the exchange of ideas on regional co-operation and integration, among other goals.
The mission we have set for ourselves with Global Asia is both bold and urgent: It is to provide a compelling, serious, and responsible forum for distinguished thinkers, policymakers, political leaders and business people to debate the most important issues in Asia today.
Global Asia is not a journal with a fixed point of view, or a particular agenda. Our aim is to give voice to the global dimension of what is happening in Asia. In our pages and on our web site, we aim for Asia to speak to the world, and the world to Asia. That is important at a time when this region is playing an ever greater role in world affairs.
There are other fine publications on international affairs. What sets us apart is our focus: Asia. We believe that the world is moving into “the Age of Asia,” to borrow a phrase from one of the articles in the inaugural issue of Global Asia in September 2006. This transformation is not going to occur overnight, but it has already begun.
The region’s dynamic economic growth, stable and accountable political systems, maturing democracies, and evolving sense of community are giving Asia greater weight in the world. These developments will have enormous implications for governments, businesses, societies and individuals across the globe. How that transformation is viewed, and shaped, from within Asia and how it is perceived outside Asia is an essential part of the story we have to tell.
The forces of globalization are having a profound impact throughout the world. And they are being influenced and channeled in different ways in different parts of the world. Ours is the story of Asia’s experience with globalization, and the ideas and debates influencing it. In pursuing our mission, we aim to play a part, however modest, in helping to shape the future of Asia.