John Menadue

Japan has been reeling ever since 8 March when US President Donald Trump met with South Korea’s national security adviser Chung Eui-yong and announced, to the world’s surprise, that he would accept the offer to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Until then, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was confident that he was ‘managing’ Trump well, starting with the meeting in Trump Tower on 17 November 2016 that made him the first foreign leader to meet with the then president-elect. This was followed by the meeting in Washington, DC on 10 February 2017 and golf and dinner in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, when North Korea’s missile launching forced an impromptu news conference pledging US–Japan solidarity against North Korea. 

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With concerns about Italy’s public debt growing, Italian populists have taken a page from US President Donald Trump’s playbook and threatened to blow up the eurozone if they don’t get their way. The European Union must resist the temptation to engage in a dangerous game of chicken.  
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Let’s call it the “China syndrome”. This describes a condition that is a bit compulsive and not always rational.

Australia’s response to China’s continuing rise mixes anxiety, even a touch of paranoia, with anticipation of the riches that derive from the sale of vast quantities of commodities.

Economic dependence on China is two-edged and potentially policy-distorting. (more…)

The annual meeting of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum – dubbed as “Russia’s Davos” – on May 25, which traditionally promotes foreign investment in the Russian economy, ended this time around as a major political event signaling a renewed bid by President Vladimir Putin for détente with the West.   (more…)

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In a remarkable and somewhat unprecedented rebuke of the US administration, India’s Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj has announced that India will not respect unilateral U.S. sanctions on Iran and will recognize “only the UN sanctions.” Bound to raise tensions with Washington, India’s brave decision reflects both India’s political evolution and the primacy of her own national interests. It’s also another setback for the White House’s hawkish anti-Iran policy, which has already alienated key European allies who are struggling to preserve the Iran nuclear deal without the United States by offering Iran a package of incentives in the near future. Adding real bite to her major policy announcement, Swaraj then went on to meet Iran’s visiting Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is seeking to shore up global sanctions-busting support through a flurry of diplomatic trips. (more…)

Scorching report on poverty finds ‘systematic attack on welfare program’ will leave millions deprived of food and healthcare.  (more…)

The country’s most right-wing government since Mussolini is determined to test the euro’s limits. (more…)

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PUTRAJAYA: Wan Azizah Wan Ismail’s childhood ambition was to become a doctor and cure disease. Now that she is Malaysia’s most powerful female politician, she says her mission is to improve women’s rights. (more…)

The United States has a China problem—and pundits and politicians are making it worse. China is an increasing problem for the United States. But the latest reactions and assumptions about China among America’s political-media leadership class hold every prospect of making China-related problems much worse. How can this be? It involves the familiar tension between short-term political shrewdness and longer-term strategic wisdom. (more…)

Iranian president to be hosted in Qingdao next month as Beijing and Moscow-led bloc looks to protect business interests. As European companies react with trepidation to the Trump administration’s efforts to blow up the Iran nuclear deal, pulling out of business deals in the face of looming sanctions, Chinese and Russian firms wait in the wings.  

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