Political leaders, policymakers and academics around the world have scrambled to analyze America’s strategic ‘pivot to Asia’ announced formally by US President Barack Obama in November 2011 and detailed by his defense chiefs in January 2012. Not surprisingly, friends and foes alike of US foreign policy have zeroed in on the 900-pound gorilla in the room: Is the pivot, which has in recent months conveniently been renamed a ‘rebalancing,’ really all about containing China?
As the world's center of economic gravity continues to shift to the Asia-Pacific region, the US decision to refocus its foreign policy toward Asia is motivated by both long-term interests and short-term events. By Patrick M. Cronin
Much has been made of the military implications of America's pivot to Asia, especially in the context of perceptions that the US is engaged in an effort to contain China. By Michael McDevitt
With its rebalancing toward Asia, could the US be on a path to conflict with China? Fudan University Professor Wu Xinbo examines China’s response to the new US strategy. By Wu Xinbo
Washington is deepening its involvement in ASEAN in terms of both security and trade. At stake is ASEAN’s vaunted centrality as it negotiates a path between the two big powers. By Donald K. Emmerson
As the US reorients its foreign policy toward Asia, with the attendant redeployment of military assets to the region, fears are spreading that the American pivot is really aimed at containing the rise of China. By Malcolm Fraser
Some who fear that the US rebalancing toward Asia will stoke US-China rivalry also worry that it could lead to an arms race among countries in the region. By Richard A. Bitzinger
Kang Choi examines how South Korea, as a close US ally, views the US policy and how it should be implemented.
While America's allies and partners in Asia have largely welcomed the US decision to shift the focus of its foreign policy toward this region, numerous questions remain about the degree of American commitment. By Noboru Yamaguchi
Beijing's more aggressive stance on maritime disputes in the South China Sea in recent years may signal the first stages of China's effort to wrest hegemony of the Asia-Pacific region from the US. By Nguyen Manh Hung
With Burma chairing ASEAN in 2014, the country will finally become a full member of the alliance it joined uneasily in 1997. By Pavin Chachavalpongpun
China seems to be the only regional power capable of bringing the ever more unstable pattern of Central Asian security under control. By Georgiy Voloshin
As Western forces wind down their military presence in Afghanistan, there are widespread concerns about the country's future security and stability. India has quietly re-emerged as a player in a new iteration of the Great Game. By Ramesh Thakur
Tridivesh Singh Maini and Manish Vaid point to increasingly vibrant trade relations and business interactions between key border areas that could herald the foundations of a lasting Indo-Pakistani reconciliation. By Tridivesh Singh Maini and Manish Vaid
The economic situation in the North is especially bad now, at a time when Kim Jong Un is still consolidating his hold on power. By Young-hoon Lee
Efforts to get North Korea to give up its nuclear program and to resolve the outstanding security issues that plague the search for peace on the Korean Peninsula seem intractable. By Peter Hayes
The murky circumstances surrounding the Cold War abductions of 13 Japanese citizens by North Korea have proven to be a major stumbling block to diplomatic progress in Northeast Asia. By Asger Røjle Christensen
Australian academic Hugh White's new book makes a compelling case for why the US should share power with a fast-rising China. Reviewed by David C. Kang.
Börje Ljunggren, a former Swedish ambassador to China, surveys a range of books that seek to explain China’s economic and political emergence and predict the future, and offers his own insights. By Börje Ljunggren
A new Inspector O mystery by James Church and Mao's part in the Korean War by Shen Zhihua. Reviewed by John Delury.