Articles

With the future of U.S.-China relations an open question for the incoming Donald Trump administration, many have focused on whether the president-elect's promise to withdraw from negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will enhance Beijing's growing influence in East Asia. But rather than hand-wringing over TPP's ignominious failure, Asia watchers should turn their attention to China's unprecedented $1 trillion strategic gambit: the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, aka "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR). Launched in 2013 as President Xi Jinping's signature initiative, OBOR holds great promise, as well as potential pitfalls, for both China and its neighbors.

What will the new president do about Iran?

While still on the campaign trail, President-elect Donald Trump railed repeatedly against President Obama's "disastrous" nuclear deal with Iran. He pledged to tear up the agreement, or at least amend it substantially, as one of his first acts in office. Yet, for a host of reasons, the nuclear pact concluded between the Iran and the P5+1 powers (the U.S., U.K., Russia, China, France and Germany) last summer is likely to prove more resilient than either the president-elect or his advisers hope.

In his March 2016 speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference, then-candidate Donald Trump promised that his administration would "move the U.S. embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem." Last week, ambassador to Israel designate David Friedman said he looks forward to working "from the U.S. embassy in Israel's eternal capital, Jerusalem." Senior aide Kellyanne Conway has confirmed that the move is a "very big priority for this president-elect, Donald Trump."

Donald Trump’s decision to break protocol and become the first president-elect in decades to speak by phone with a Taiwanese president was either a colossal blunder or a shrewd strategic coup, depending on which Beltway insider you ask. At the least, Trump’s divisive exchange with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has sparked a substantive debate about the nature of U.S.-China-Taiwan relations and the sanctity of Beijing’s version of the “One-China” policy, which codifies China’s inalienable sovereignty over Taiwan and Tibet.

Last week the USNS Bowditch, an unarmed U.S. Pathfinder-class survey ship manned by a civilian crew, was shadowed by a PLA Navy (PLAN) Dalang-III-class salvage and rescue vessel as it operated 50 nautical miles (nm) northwest of the Philippines’ Subic Bay. As the Bowditch maneuvered to recover an unclassified “ocean glider” Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) gathering hydrographic data, a smaller ship was launched by the PLAN vessel to capture the UUV. Just 500 meters away, the Bowditch established radio contact but the Chinese vessel left the area with a simple reply: “We are returning to normal operations.”