Letter From the Editors

Welcome to the November issue of The Diplomat Magazine.

Across Asia, we see the raising of historical issues as grenades to lob against neighbors for past sins, but also for present irritations. The past may be weaponized as needed, but the devices are decidedly products of the present. Whether the crisis between Japan and South Korea, Democrats’ rethinking of decades of continuity in U.S. Asia policy, the ongoing saga of the South China Sea, or the decision to relocate Indonesia’s capital, the specters of the past haunt the present.

Relations between Japan and South Korea, Jennifer Lind writes in our cover story this month, have always fluctuated between “comity and crisis.” Lind, an associate professor of government at Dartmouth College, argues that to really understand the present downturn in Tokyo-Seoul relations we need not just look to the past – to the demons of history and festering wounds – but we must take into account the politics of the present.

As 2020 approaches, candidates vying for the Democratic Party’s nomination to face off against Donald Trump are working hard to define and distinguish themselves. As Van Jackson, a professor at Victoria University of Wellington, writes, “None give any indication that they seek to revolutionize or entirely overturn the U.S. approach to Asia.” But there are divergent schools of thought regarding foreign policy emerging. While their Asia policies may not matter much for the election itself, the outcome of the election matters a great deal to how the United States proceeds in Asia.

Then Carl Thayer, emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales, tackles the neverending story of the South China Sea. This summer, a China Geological Survey ship entered Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone accompanied by a bevy of other vessels, including Chinese Coast Guard ships, in violation of international law. As Thayer explains, the ensuing diplomatic standoff has been slow to emerge in public, through its roots stretch back to the 1990s.

Lastly, journalist Nithin Coca explains the rationale behind Indonesia's decision to move its capital from Jakarta, on the island of Java, to East Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo. When the news first broke internationally, many jumped to conclusions and linked the capital’s move to matters of climate change and rising sea levels. But, as Coca explains, the decision to relocate the functions of the central government rests more firmly in unfinished matters of centralization and the intended legacy of Indonesia’s first “outsider” president, Joko Widodo.