Letter from the Editors

Welcome to the July 2021 issue of The Diplomat Magazine!

Anniversaries are important – not only for what they tell us about the past, but for what the remembrance tells us about the present, and the rememberer’s desired future. Some anniversaries get celebrated, some are marked by days of mourning, and still others are quietly buried. But whether we remember them or not, key events and trends from the past are still shaping the Asia-Pacific region today, for better or for worse.

Seventy-five years after the U.S. began testing nuclear weapons in the Pacific, the Marshall Islands stands at a new crossroads as a rising generation of Marshallese press for recognition, restitution, and, most of all, for justice. As Jon Letman, a Hawaii-based freelance journalist, writes, the nuclear tests carried out by the United States in the Marshall Islands set the stage for the nuclear age to follow, but the tests “were of greatest consequence to the people whose homeland was selected for the detonations, which proved to be catastrophic to the health, environment, and well-being of the Marshallese.”

This month marks another key anniversary as well: July 1 marks the 100th birthday of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In our next article, Anthony Saich, the director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School, investigates how the CCP has changed since its humble beginnings at a small meeting in Shanghai. Would the party’s founders recognize the CCP of Xi Jinping?

Russia is a minor player in Southeast Asia, but it gets more bang for its ruble there, writes Dr. Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington, D.C. The region may be peripheral to Moscow’s main security interests, but it does provide opportunities to further various Russian geopolitical aims, from undermining the U.S. network of alliances via cooperation with Thailand and the Philippines, to promoting authoritarian-led governance with ongoing support for the junta in Myanmar. With its engagements across Southeast Asia, Russia reminds us it remains a power with global interests and reach.

Finally, the Mongolian People’s Party marked its 100th anniversary year with a triumph, cruising to victory in the June 9 presidential election. The MPP now controls both the legislative and executive branches of Mongolia. As Marissa Smith, a Mongolia country expert and research associate at UC Berkeley, and Julian Dierkes, an associate professor in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia, explain, the MPP’s consolidated controls will bring with it pressure to level the playing field for other political players, to keep Mongolia’s democracy alive and well.

We hope you enjoy these stories, and the many more in the following pages.