Asia News

The Daily Signal delivers Asia-Pacific news with reporting and conservative commentary on regional security challenges, U.S. military alliances, China containment strategy, Taiwan defense, North Korea threats, economic competition, and America’s vital interests in the Indo-Pacific region.
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  • opinion

    Japanese Prime Minister’s Pearl Harbor Visit Will Further Reconciliation
    Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced he would travel to Pearl Harbor later this month, the first Japanese leader to do so. Abe commented he would accompany President Barack Obama to “pay tribute [and] comfort the souls” of those who died from both countries during World War II. He emphasized his intent to “send messages…
    Bruce Klingner
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  • news

    Euthanasia Deaths Hit Record High in Belgium. Why That Matters for the US.
    A record number of people died last year under Belgium’s 13-year-old euthanasia law, according to an oversight commission. In 2015, a total of 2,022 Belgians were legally euthanized. In 2002, the first year the practice was legal, 24 people died by euthanasia. Since the law took effect, a total of 12,762 people officially have been…
    Kelsey Bolar
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  • opinion

    US Security Benefits When Japan, South Korea Share Intelligence
    South Korea recently announced it would restart negotiations with Japan for a military and intelligence sharing agreement. Washington should encourage this growing security cooperation. Moon Sang-gyun, spokesman for South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense, said Sept. 27 that North Korea’s “nuclear and missile threats are escalating by the day, so our security situation is becoming…
    Bruce Klingner
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  • opinion

    US Right to Affirm Necessity of Missile Defense in South Korea
    During Wednesday’s bilateral ministerial meeting, Secretary of State John Kerry underscored Washington’s resolve to defend our South Korean ally against missile attacks. The biennial “2+2 meeting” (secretaries of defense and state with their South Korean counterparts) took place in the shadow of an escalating North Korean nuclear and missile threat. Kerry vowed that the U.S….
    Bruce Klingner
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  • opinion

    Major Attack on Indian Army in Kashmir Puts South Asia on Crisis Footing
    Indo-Pakistani tensions have been heightening over the last several months, but Sunday’s attack on an Indian army base in Kashmir that left 17 soldiers dead has put the region in crisis mode. The attack took place near the Line of Control that divides Indian and Pakistani Kashmir and marks the most deadly attack against Indian…
    Lisa Curtis
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  • opinion

    Doing Business in Asia: It’s Complicated
    On June 23, The Heritage Foundation welcomed a delegation from the Asia Pacific Council of Chambers of Commerce (APCAC), a forum of 29 American Chambers of Commerce spanning the Asia–Pacific. APCAC members manage trade volumes in excess of U.S. $400 billion, and direct investments of more than U.S. $200 billion. This year’s group included business…
    Jessica Liang | Olivia Enos
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  • opinion

    Asian-American Students Suspect Discrimination in Ivy League Admissions
    Any day now the U.S. Supreme Court will hand down its decision in Abigail Fisher’s discrimination suit against the University of Texas at Austin. However the justices rule in that case, more lawsuits challenging schools’ discriminatory admissions programs are likely to come. In May, the Asian American Coalition for Education and 130 other Asian-American groups…
    Elizabeth Slattery
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  • opinion

    Troubled Waters Ahead for US and China in the Asia-Pacific Region
    This summer promises to be a turbulent one for the Asia-Pacific region. As the recent Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore made clear, the United States and China are each promoting a distinctly different view of the regional situation. The United States continues to reiterate the need for regional stability, while China fundamentally perceives the South China Sea as…
    Dean Cheng
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  • opinion

    Despite Rising Tensions in Southeast Asia, US Still Projecting Uncertainty
    There is a lot going on in Southeast Asia. The United States has conducted another freedom of navigation operation in the area of several disputed islands. The American Aegis destroyer USS William P. Lawrence sailed within 12 nautical miles of the artificial Chinese island built atop Fiery Cross Reef. Because Fiery Cross Reef began as a…
    Dean Cheng
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  • opinion

    Bank of Japan May Further Increase Asset Purchases This Month
    For almost a year and a half the Bank of Japan has been purchasing assets at around 7 trillion Yen (roughly $64 billion) a month, mostly in the form of Japanese government bonds, in an attempt to boost inflation and the economy. The Bank of Japan now respectively owns assets equivalent to over 77 percent…
    Riley Walters
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  • news

    White Man Tells College Kids He Identifies as Asian Woman. Here’s What Happened.
    Can someone change his gender identity? What about his racial identity? And what about his height identity? Those are the questions one man posed to college students in Washington state.
    Daily Signal Staff
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  • opinion

    We Need a President Who Will Lead in Asia
    Whoever occupies the Oval Office in 2017 will face security threats around the world—including in Asia. Stability in Asia is currently being threatened by North Korea’s growing military capabilities, China’s increasingly aggressive behavior, historical animosities, and rising nationalism. Withdrawing from the world and raising the isolationist drawbridge didn’t work in the 1930s and wouldn’t work…
    Bruce Klingner
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  • opinion

    South Korea and Japan Resolve ‘Comfort Women’ Issue
    South Korea and Japan reached a landmark agreement Monday to settle long-standing divisive issues resulting from Japan’s 1910-45 occupation of the Korean Peninsula. The most emotional and complex topic was that of women forced into sexual slavery, euphemistically known as “comfort women.” Japan had asserted that the issue, included compensation, had been settled during the 1965…
    Bruce Klingner
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  • opinion

    Energy and Security in Japan
    In October, a delegation of researchers from The Heritage Foundation had the opportunity to travel to Japan for a week. It is clear from their time there that Japan has a keen interest in increasing its energy diversity and making sure that experts are knowledgeable about the security changes and challenges in the region. Through…
    Riley Walters
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  • opinion

    South Korea Looks To China for Help With Aggressive North Korea
    South Korean President Park Geun-hye traveled to Beijing this week to attend events commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. She met with Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss North Korea—both the regime’s recent provocations and the nascent effort at inter-Korean reconciliation. Both leaders warned North Korea against committing further provocations….
    Bruce Klingner
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  • opinion

    North and South Korea Step Back From Precipice of War
    SEOUL, South Korea – After marathon talks, North and South Korea have reached an agreement to defuse the rising tensions, which had created the potential for a military clash along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Both Koreas can claim they achieved what they wanted. But, as with any development on the Korean Peninsula, the agreement will…
    Bruce Klingner
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  • opinion

    Prime Minister Abe Atones for Japan’s Past Actions
    Prime Minister Shinzo Abe commemorated the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II by releasing a highly anticipated statement to make amends to Japan’s neighbors. Abe went further than many would predicted even recently in acknowledging Japan’s wartime actions. Most notably, he included several key phrases from statements by his predecessors, including aggression,…
    Bruce Klingner
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  • news

    Japanese and South Korean Ambassadors Identify Strategies to Combat North Korea’s Growing Power
    Through its continuous work to build, deploy and sell nuclear weapons and its general belligerence toward the rest of the region, North Korea is putting pressure on nearby democracies. Those democracies should put the pressure right back on the hermit kingdom by opposing its missile development and sales and exposing its appalling human rights record….
    Diana Stancy
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  • opinion

    China, US Keep Their Defenses Up at Asian Security Conference
    Dean Cheng, senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center, has been in Singapore, where he was a guest at the region’s premier security conference, the Shangri-La Dialogue. With the close of the events here in Singapore, Southeast Asia and regional security analysts are busily mulling over this year’s Shangri-La Dialogue. The Dialogue…
    Dean Cheng
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  • opinion

    Japanese Pension Fund Hacked
    Following a trilateral defense meeting Saturday of the U.S., Australia, and Japan, the Japan Pension Service (JPS) was hacked. The personal information of over 1.2 million Japanese people was apparently stolen from the pension management system. Ninety percent of the information that was stolen was names, birthdates, and the Japanese equivalent of Social Security numbers….
    Riley Walters
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