Essays

The Dandong Chess Board: Trade, Anti-Corruption, and Russian Visitors

By | May 26, 2024

What are the ambitions of Chinese Communist Party cadre in Dandong in opening up further to North Korea and Russia? And a local anti-corruption update.

North Korea’s Leap Forward in Air Defense Modernization 

By | May 04, 2024

This article analyzes the evolution of North Korea’s air defense capabilities since 2017, focusing on recent advancements and their geopolitical implications.

China’s Ground Game in Dandong and North Korea

By | January 27, 2024

As Sino-North Korean bilateral relations intensify, Adam Cathcart looks at China’s ground game in Pyongyang and Dandong, with a focus on business.

Aura of Criminality: Perspectives of Empire in Japan’s East Asian Conquests, 1932-1945

By | October 04, 2022

In the second part of this series, Jessica Pitcher examines the relationship between Japanese imperial authorities in China and the practice of narcotics trafficking, which “weakened” the inhabitants of the occupied territories while filling government coffers in Manchukuo.

Narcotics, Smuggling and Sex: Perspectives of Empire in Japan’s East Asian Conquests, 1932-1945, Part One

By | June 12, 2022

Empires are often described in grand and abstract terms, but they are also an everyday phenomenon, where the authority of the colonizing state is impressed upon its subjects in myriad ways. Here, Jessica Pitcher examines the role of sex trafficking in the everyday conception of the Japanese empire in Korea.