ISDP Voices

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan on August 2 is an explicit demonstration of American resolve in the Indo-Pacific and commitment to the U.S. allies and partners throughout the region. Unsurprisingly, it has generated extensive controversy and poked China in its Achilles’ heel, eliciting a multitude of warnings and actions (from economic coercion […]

It took barely a decade to turn the NATO security assessment on its head. The NATO strategic concept, a binding document that lays down the very reason for its existence, predicts the future course of action for the world’s oldest and longest military alliance. In the third edition of the NATO Strategic Concept adopted in […]

From the perspective of Japan’s global health diplomacy, its commitment to the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) Facility has been of significance in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. COVAX is a vaccines pillar of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, and co-led by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi, the Vaccine […]

The war in Ukraine will have far-reaching consequences beyond European security. For many politicians and experts in Europe the possibility of a full-scale attack on a sovereign country as Russia launched on February 24 on Ukraine, had for long been ruled a remnant of the past. The wake-up call to a new reality could not […]

Despite their relative economic and strategic insignificance, the Kuril Islands, especially the southernmost part of the chain, known in Japan as the Northern Territories, have long played a decisive role in determining the state of Russian-Japanese relations. More than a piece of territory, the islands hold immense symbolic value for both parties, and to leave […]

Joseph Zen is a well known and beloved cardinal of the Catholic Church in Hong Kong. He has served as the sixth Bishop of the city. In 2006 Zen was appointed Cardinal by the Pope and has been outspoken on issues regarding human rights, political freedom and religious liberty. His strong ties with the pro-democracy […]

Seen from a Russian-Chinese perspective, in many ways Ukraine and Taiwan are similar. Both nations are ethnically, socially and culturally deeply connected to their main adversary. Both are democracies, eager to break out of the Communist mold and become vibrant capitalist economies. Both look for support from the West, especially the US, and have considerable […]

On April 21, 2022, Peter Sands, Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM or the Global Fund) paid a courtesy visit to Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa. Hayashi praised the role of the Global Fund for combatting the three major infectious diseases in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. […]

Introduction The global energy transition towards renewable resources requires the mass deployment of battery storage technologies. Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are expected to play a crucial role due to their superior energy density over alternative forms of battery technologies. In terms of applications, Li-ion batteries are already widely used for large-scale stationary energy storage, portable electronic […]

In order to understand another’s perspective we often say ─put yourself in his/her shoes ─but we are not putting ourselves in Kim Jong Un’s shoes when North Korea announced their difficulty over Covid-19 crisis on May 12 for the first time, as many across the world are naively ingesting whatever North Korean news outlets are […]