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Yukio Satoh, Former President of the Japan Institute of International Affairs and Permanent Representative of Japan to the United Nations from October 1998 till August 2002, writes, “The time has come for the governments of Japan and the United States to articulate better the shared concept of extended deterrence, nuclear or otherwise, in order to assure the Japanese that deterrence will continue to function under changing strategic circumstances and with technological developments.”

Leon V. Sigal, Director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council, writes, “Pyongyang’s basic stance is that as long as Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul remain adversaries, it feels threatened and will acquire nuclear weapons and missiles to counter that threat. But, it says, if Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo move toward reconciliation, it will get rid of these weapons. Whether North Korea means what it says isn’t certain, but the only way to test it is to try to build mutual trust over time by faithfully carrying out a series of reciprocal steps that starts now.”

This article by Jia Xijin, Associate Professor at the NGO Research Center at Tsinghua University, and Zhao Yusi, Project Assistant of NGO Research Center at Tsinghua University, summaries several articles on the impact of China’s economic stimulus package on environmental protection organizations. The report concludes, “Obviously this investment plan will build the confidence of civil society environmental protection organizations… In China today civil society organizations are trying to both expand the role of environmental protection and provide rational guidance and the smart exchange of ideas to the public.”