Online Exclusives
Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has dismissed China’s 10-week unilateral ban on fishing in “most parts of the South China Sea,” claiming the ban encompasses Vietnamese waters and violates the country’s sovereignty over the Paracel archipelago.
China is taking its most significant action to directly pressure North Korea since Pyongyang’s current cycle of rhetoric against South Korea and its allies began: Two of China’s largest banks announced they were enforcing international sanctions on the North.
India recently commissioned its first squadron of the Russian-built MiG-29K, ending a 30-year hiatus in expanding the country’s fleet of naval fighter planes.
South Korea has been investing in advanced air warfare technology that is dramatically enhancing the country’s capabilities of deterring possible attacks and aggressive actions from North Korea.
New reports and studies paint a picture of North Korea as a more disorganized, corrupt and chaotic society than is generally imagined. They describe a country whose leaders and population are far more aware of reports from the outside world than the popular stereotype suggests.
