US launches ‘all-front’ offensive against China
In the course of 2018 the US launched an offensive against China on multiple fronts.
Jude Woodward
Kim plays a blinder in Korea
The one thing that can be said with absolute certainty about the historic first meeting between North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and South Korea’s Moon Jae-in is that it took place despite Donald Trump’s policies towards North Korea, not because of them.
Trump’s tour of Asia: an emperor with no clothes
By Jude Woodward
Despite the razzamatazz of Trump’s visit to Asia, the verdict of the international news media was unanimous: the trip had simply served to underline the US’s declining influence in Asia; a decline that Trump is blamed for accelerating by ceding leadership to China on the crucial issues of contemporary geopolitics: trade, climate change, development and multilateral agreements.
Japan: Abe’s landslide in seats based on no increase in votes
By Jude Woodward
Shinzo Abe and his right wing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) swept to an outright victory in Japan’s snap General Election at the weekend.
His LDP/Komeito Party ruling coalition won over two-thirds – 313 – of the seats in the lower house of the Japanese Parliament. Taken together with the coalition’s existing two-thirds majority in the upper house, the election delivered a ‘super-majority’ for Abe which potentially allows him to take such steps as changing the Japanese constitution without consulting the opposition parties.
US ‘regime change’ invasions are to blame for the crisis with North Korea
By Jude Woodward
Once again tensions between the US and North Korea over the latter’s nuclear programme have reached a dangerous boiling point, as North Korea carried out its largest-ever nuclear test in early September.
Labour’s new EU policy
By Jane West
Labour’s announcement of its new policy for the Brexit negotiations – that the UK should stay within the Single Market and the customs union for a prolonged ‘transition period’ after formally leaving the EU – is both necessary and welcome. This approach puts the preservation of jobs and living standards rather than the anti-EU ideological shibboleths of the Tory right at the centre of the Brexit discussion.