Publication

This piece provides a summary of the articles in the Comparative Connections issue of January 2013, which reviews security issues in the Asia-Pacific region throughout 2012. News on the Korean Peninsula looked less promising after Pyongyang defied the international community by conducting another missile launch. ASEAN leaders managed to demonstrate greater unity, but there were no signs the territorial disputes in the South China Sea were closer to resolution. Hopes for genuine reform in Burma (Myanmar) soared. Meanwhile, leadership changes were the order of the day in the North Pacific, promising to strain relations between Japan, South Korea and China, and perhaps with the new leadership team in Washington as well.