NAPSNet Daily Report 8 February, 2008

North Korea-Russia Relations: A Strained Friendship

The International Crisis Group, an independent, non-profit, multinational organization, working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict, writes, “Pyongyang wants Russia to balance China’s growing influence but appears to recognise that Moscow will never provide the level of support it once did. The North has been keen to discuss economic cooperation but has lacked the political will to reform its economy sufficiently for foreign investment, even from a country as inured to corruption and government interference as Russia… there is unlikely to be much growth in bilateral cooperation unless the nuclear crisis is resolved peacefully, and the North opens its economy.”

NAPSNet Daily Report 5 February, 2008

Policy Forum 08-010: An ‘Early Summer’: Sino-Japanese Cooperation in the East China Sea

Sourabh Gupta, Senior Research Associate at Samuels International Associates, Inc., writes, “Nevertheless, with the number of Chinese visitors to Japan exceeding the number of Americans for the first time in 2007 and with China, excluding Hong Kong, ousting the United States as Japan’s top trading partner for the first time in 2007, 2008 might yet play witness to a veritable “early summer” in Sino-Japanese bilateral relations.”

NAPSNet Daily Report 1 February, 2008

NAPSNet Daily Report 31 January, 2008