The Marvel Studios production Black Panther has opened internationally to great acclaim, largely in part to its presentation of the fictional kingdom of Wakanda as an Afrofuturist utopia, an “African country that was never colonized and is the most advanced nation in the world.”
Christopher Walker and Jessica Ludwig penned an article entitled “The Meaning of Sharp Power: How Authoritarian States Project Influence.” In this piece the authors coin a new term, sharp power, for observers of global affairs.
President Donald Trump’s administration and the US Congress have released major documents and passed key pieces of legislation over the course of time that signal the potential for a shift in the US’ “One China Policy.”
At the end of 2017 and the start of 2018, public opinion surveys in Taiwan showed a decline in Taiwanese nationalism. The percentage of people who identify as Taiwanese-only went down, while that of dual-identity (of both Taiwanese and Chinese) went up.
On January 27-28, 2018, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono visited Beijing to improve bilateral relations between the two countries. The Chinese side reciprocated and publicly announced its intention to improve relations with Japan.
The US decision to cut its security aid to Pakistan brings nothing new into US-Pakistan bilateral dynamics. The US had already done that previously when it cut the Coalition Support Funds amounting to USD 900 million for the financial years 2015 and 2016.
In recent years, there are many television series about the power struggle and cooperation between the KMT and the CPC since July 1921 in general and the period from September 1931 to December 1949 in particular.
On January 5, 2018, at Jiji Press’ New Year Party, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that he wants to make this a year that people recognize that the Japan-China relationship improves significantly.
The cross-strait relations trio since Tsai Ing-wen took office shows increasing political confrontation on one hand, and steady economic and improving social relations on the other. The three relations have developed into separate “melodies” following different dynamics.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited India on a six-day official trip in January 2018. Netanyahu’s visit, coming only six months after Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel, is evidence of how quickly bilateral relations are expanding.
