Fresh Perspectives
Critical Analyses
Innovative Solutions
All in Asia
An immoral and unresolved legacy of the past military dictatorship, the bear bile industry in South Korea should have ended with the establishment of the post-dictatorship democratic government and transitional justice brought to the captive bears — animal victims of the former autocratic state.
If one looks closely enough at the patterns, prostitution in South Asia inadvertently leads to sex slavery and forced prostitution. In South Asia, there are no comprehensive statistics available to identify what percentage of women in prostitution are victims of sex slavery and what percentage enter the profession voluntarily — a question which quickly becomes a loose assumption based on illiteracy, poverty, loss of traditional livelihoods, and wide economic disparities.
The COVID-19 global pandemic is forcing countries the world over to rethink government spending — reallocating funds from defense and security sectors to other priority areas along public health and economic fronts to contain the spread of the pandemic and manage its effects on the economy. Despite the fiscal strain imposed on New Delhi by COVID-19, the crisis also presents a unique opportunity for India to enhance the country’s defense exports at a point when the country is striving towards self-sufficiency in the sector.
As Asian nations in the Indo-Pacific Rim emerge as potential future powers and enjoy greater global visibility, prestige, and power, great powers in the region have found themselves pressed with the need to pursue more comprehensive foreign policies towards the region. Beijing believes that by merging foreign and economic policy to reshape global infrastructure it can re-shape global trade routes and put China at the epicenter of both Asia and the world economy, making Beijing a global Milliarium Aureum of sorts.
North Korea's foundational ideology, 'Juche', is often loosely translated to 'self reliance', the commitment that North Koreans harvest their own collective success as a means of immunising the state from foreign pressure. Born from Juche, North Korea's wholesale rejection of international engagement has resulted in an inverted, seemingly impenetrable economy bolstered by illicit money and goods.
