East Asian Policy

South Korea aspires to become a global pivotal state and aims to play a greater role in the promotion of the existing liberal order. The central axis of this foreign policy is the ROK–US alliance, which will bring Seoul closer to Washington and Tokyo and will likely increase friction with Beijing and Pyongyang during the Yoon Suk-yeol administration.

North Korea’s missile firings aim at proving technological advancement before deploying the weapons in the field units, as well as demonstrating a show of force to the United States and its allies. These costly firings are financed by earnings from illegal cyberactivities and arms sales. North Korea’s nuclear threat has strengthened Seoul–Washington–Tokyo cooperation and has increasingly gained public support in South Korea towards the idea of possessing their own bombs.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has become the world’s most important semiconductor chip manufacturer, thanks to greater trade and investment liberalisation, Taiwan’s pool of high-quality engineers and TSMC’s unique and dedicated model of chipmaking. As TSMC’s dominance is unlikely to be replaced anytime soon, the world’s heavy reliance on “Made in Taiwan” chips will continue to place the democratic island at the centre of the global political economy in the foreseeable future.

On 17 December 2021, Japan granted administrative approval to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) to build a US$7 billion semiconductor chip-manufacturing foundry in Japan. The collaboration between the Sony Group and the world’s No. 1 Taiwanese chipmaker is named Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing, Inc. and will provide foundry service with 22/28-nanometre capability. This joint venture has taken off due to mutual commercial interest and support from the Japanese and Taiwanese authorities.

China’s economic rise in global economic platform empowered by the go-out strategy is its attempt to establish a global presence, through which it develops economic relations by launching China-led development and economic projects. This article focuses on China’s Belt and Road Initiative, in particular the political significance of China’s economic footprints in the Middle East, with a view of understanding the geopolitical tensions between China and the United States.

China’s rapid rise in strategic power extends into the domain of space. That space exploration is bound to continue, but for Beijing, space is ever more important for defence and for growing comprehensive national power to challenge US leadership. China aims to become the dominant space actor by 2049, a status which will encompass both military capability in space, as well as “presence” on key astrostrategic locations within the Earth-Moon system. For the United States, this challenge, although not—yet—a “space race” in the context of Apollo and the US–Soviet space race of the 1960s, looms large and may become significant as China builds astrostrategic power. For Australia, China’s growing capabilities in space, particularly its military space capabilities, are driving new policy development in relation to Australian space capability.

Although unfolding a continent away, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is detrimental to the strategic stability of East Asia, which is already riven by its own unresolved conflicts and territorial control disputes. The degradation of global security norms, the disruption to global energy supplies and the need to pick sides for or against Russia have each contributed to making East Asia’s security a more complex Rubik’s cube to manage. This article examines the implications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Russia–China relations; Taiwan Strait’s stability; Japan’s defence policy; and the Korean peninsula. How and on what terms Russia’s invasion ends will carry another set of impacts and lessons for East Asia. In closing, the lessons of freezing conflicts in East Asia are applied to the emerging situation in Eastern Europe: of an unresolveable and unwinnable war that may become a lasting feature of European security, in the way that unresolved wars over Korea and Taiwan have become enduring realities in East Asia.

After many decades of a relationship defined primarily by commercial ties, Japan and Australia now have a robust security and defence partnership. While making their bilateral relations more all-rounded in the Indo-Pacific era, they also aim to promote a regional order where the United States remains engaged and like-minded nations come together to manage the ever-volatile strategic environment in the wake of China’s rise and US–China strategic rivalry. These tasks are not easy due to strategic complexities; how the two key Indo-Pacific nations respond to each other and to their partners in managing the China challenge while ensuring US commitment to the region will be of deep interest to policymakers and analysts alike.