East Asia

In the second in our series on Asia’s navies, Mingi Hyun looks at the South Korean Navy’s blue-water naval ambitions.

An alleged halt in rare earth element exports to Japan put world governments on notice. Did China push too hard, too fast?

Economic ties between Russia and South Korea are flourishing. But nuclear worries still complicate ties with Pyongyang.

The Diplomat's inaugural student essay contest winner Calvin Wong writes about Chinese economic growth - and wins a trip to Japan to help us cover the APEC summit.

Dmitry Medvedev’s decision to visit a disputed island chain piles the pressure on a Japanese government already wrestling with China.

The Chinese decision to build and dispatch a hospital ship is a leaf right out of the US Navy’s soft power playbook.

The Diplomat speaks with Korea analyst Scott Snyder about the North Korean leadership succession and what to expect under a Kim Jong Un regime.

China’s past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results, says former British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind.

The Diplomat speaks with Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, about the ongoing COP10 conference.

In this first in a series on the region’s navies, The Diplomat looks at how to measure naval power—including the US and China’s.

Seoul’s move to fully join the Proliferation Security Initiative is welcome. But it’s China that really needs to be on board.

China could yet become a superpower. But a surging economy can’t mask social strains that only political reform can address.