Category Archives: Politics

KORUS: Part of the Heart and Seoul of the US-South Korea Relationship

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 5, No. 11, November 2017

The United Nations, South Korean and American flags are photographed side-by-side against the backdrop of the sky.

The United Nations, American, and South Korean flags side-by-side in Seoul. Source: Flickr.

Bhakti Mirchandani
Senior Vice President at An Alternative Investment Management Firm

South Korea has been an important US ally since 1953.  The alliance is multifaceted, ranging from US military presence in South Korea and coordination on the North Korea nuclear issue to cyber, and from energy to climate change.[1]  South Korea is also the US’s sixth-largest trading partner.[2] Despite the lasting strength of the alliance, the relationship between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and President Trump is fraying under the strain of the North Korean nuclear threat and of renegotiating the bilateral US-Korea free trade agreement (“KORUS “).  President Trump accused President Moon’s government of “appeasement” of North Korea,[3] but ultimately agreed not to attack North Korea without South Korea’s permission.[4]  Trump also threatened to terminate KORUS, which he described as a “horrible deal.”[5]  Beyond the relationship between the two leaders, the position of US Ambassador to South Korea has been vacant since President Trump took office, and South Korean protestors assembled with anti-war signs at an anti-Trump rally outside the US Embassy in Seoul during President Trump’s visit this past Tuesday.[6]

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Good Hombres (and Mujeres): Let’s Modernize NAFTA

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 5, No. 9, September 2017

A gold statue of an angel is photographed against the backdrop of a blue sky. The photograph is taken from below and the angel appears to be on the top of a tower.

Credit: Bhakti Mirchandani.

Bhakti Mirchandani
Senior Vice President at An Alternative Investment Management Firm

Mexico is the U.S.’s third largest trading partner[1] and second largest export destination.[2]    Trade representatives from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico said that they made progress in the second round of NAFTA renegotiations (September 1-5 in Mexico City),[3] with a third round scheduled for September 23-27 in Ottawa, Canada.[4]  President Trump’s August 22nd statement at a rally in Phoenix that the US would “probably end up terminating NAFTA at some point”[5] looms over this progress.  Instead, the administration should acknowledge that withdrawing from NAFTA is untenable.

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Invite Taiwan Navy To RIMPAC Exercise In Hawaii

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 5, No. 7, July 2017

The nose of the guided-missile cruiser USS Princeton (CG 59) is photographed following behind Chinese Navy multi-role frigate Hengshui (572), guided-missile destroyer Xian (153) and replenishment ship Gaoyouhu (966).

The guided-missile cruiser USS Princeton (CG 59) steams behind Chinese Navy multi-role frigate Hengshui (572), guided-missile destroyer Xian (153) and replenishment ship Gaoyouhu (966) while participating in maneuvering drills during Rim of the Pacific, 2016. A Chinese navy fleet, including five ships (the missile destroyer Xi’an, the missile frigate Hengshui, the supply ship Gaoyouhu, the hospital ship Peace Ark, the submarine rescue vessel Changdao), three helicopters, a marine squad and a diving squad with 1,200 officers and soldiers, set sail from Zhoushan to Hawaii to join the RIMPAC 2016 on June 15. It is the second time that Chinese navy has participated in RIMPAC, a multilateral naval exercises led by the USA and held every two years. Source: Picryl.

Anders Corr, Ph.D.
Publisher of the Journal of Political Risk

In 1971, the U.S. started holding international naval exercises in Hawaii, and called them RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific). We invited our closest allies to participate. Now, the U.S. Navy is inviting not only allies, but Russia and China as well. Since a brief thaw in the 1990s, Russia and China are increasingly acting as adversaries rather than responsible international partners to the U.S. Most recently, China seems to have helped rather than stopped North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. It is time to invite Taiwan, not China, to RIMPAC.

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Death of Celebrated Conductor Yan Liangkun Marks End of Era in China

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 5, No. 6, June 2017

Xian Xinghai is photographed in black and white. He is wearing a suit and is seated.

Shanghai, China. Xian Xinghai at about 23 years old in the 1920s. He composed the Yellow River Cantata, a classical work that uses a series of powerful Chinese melodies to evoke the beauty of China and the heroism of the war of resistance against Japan (1937-1945). Source: People’s Republic of China

Arthur Waldron, Ph.D.
University of Pennsylvania

Yan Liangkun, last of the legendary conductors of The Yellow River Cantata (1939) the powerful classic composed by Xian Xinghai in wartime, is dead. With him dies a precious and authentic Chinese revolutionary tradition, that of those who once truly believed. Our house echoed with the music all morning. It filled with tears the eyes of me, a simple white boy from the Boston suburbs, still unable to distinguish the five grains, and prompting all sorts of reflections.

We are drawing very near to the end of an era, when people are still alive who remember the radiant vision of the New China that would arise, somehow from the good land and rivers themselves, of war ravaged China (Rana Mitter tells us 20 million dead). In their imaginations that vision still lives, under the layers of tragedy, personal suffering and disappointment, as what guided them and consumed their spirits when they were young and has never died.  Somehow we must capture this, for these were sincere people, whose love of country was simple and absolutely authentic (though few ever carried a gun: that was for the lower orders).

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Climate Change: Denialism, or Realism?

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 5, No. 6, June 2017

Three men are photographed in suits standing in front of a large poster with the words "EU-China Summit/Brussels 02.06.2017".

EU-China Summit, Brussels, 2017. Source: European Council President via Flickr.

Dave Schroeder
University of Wisconsin-Madison/Naval Officer

Climate change.

This issue is a lot more complex than people suspect for many deemed to be denying the facts.

What many people disagree on in good faith with respect to climate change is not that it’s occurring, nor what the impacts are, or what they may be in the future. Rather, it is what the collective response of the United States should be, and what other concerns — economic, national security, energy policy, diplomatic, etc. — that response should rightly be weighed against.

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