The annual US-Philippine military exercise Balikatan began on 22 April and will continue until 10 May. Originally planned as a relatively small and bilateral exercise, in recent years it has become the largest of those conducted by the United States in the Indo-Pacific region with the participation of one or more of its allies…

It should be recalled that Pakistan held general elections on 8 February this year, the official results of which were announced a month later. As none of the country’s three main political forces won the necessary majority in parliament, two of them, the Pakistan Muslim League (N) and the Pakistan People’s Party, formed a very tentative coalition to create the institutions of power. The leaders of these parties shared the posts of prime minister and president. The former was filled by Shehbaz Sharif after a six-month resignation, while Asif Ali Zardari, who had held the post from 2008 to 2013, became President…

Someone is persistently creating a situation of general insanity in the world political and information space, in which similar format “impulses” are thrown in from seemingly opposing sides, thereby deepening the line of division between them. A notable contribution to this negative process is made by propaganda, with its regular paranoia sessions by panic-stricken “experts on all issues”…

The topic of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s state visit to the U.S., which took place from April 8 to April 14 and was earlier described in the NEO, deserves another discussion. This is in order to dwell in more detail on one of the centerpieces of this unprecedentedly long trip, which was the guest’s speech at a joint session of both houses of Congress…

From 15 to 17 April, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz led a delegation of three ministers and business representatives on a working visit to China. Since taking office as head of the German government in December 2021, this is his second visit to the leading power of the Asian continent, where the focus of all global processes is constantly shifting. This is a continuation of the tradition of regular contacts with the Chinese leadership established under his predecessor, Angela Merkel. Incidentally, of all Western politicians, she has always received the most praise in China…

In the complex game being played by the major world powers in connection with the Taiwan issue, a remarkable event took place at the beginning of April this year, which attracted the attention of media around the world. This is about a tour of the PRC (or “Mainland China”) by former President Ma Ying-jeou accompanied by a certain Taiwanese youth group. Between May 2008 and May 2016 (i.e., two consecutive four-year terms), Ma Ying-jeou…

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s week-long visit to China, the second in less than a year, which began on 3 April, represents a remarkable development in relations between the world’s two leading powers. Among other things, it is noteworthy because it came almost immediately after the telephone conversation between the two leaders, which was the first contact between them since they met in San Francisco on the sidelines of the next APEC summit in November 2023. In the six months since then, the long process of accumulation of various kinds of negativity in the bilateral relationship has continued…

The Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida paid a state visit to the US from April 8 to 14, accompanied by the Japanese Foreign Minister and Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry. The official part of the visit included three events: talks with President Joe Biden, a “state dinner” and a guest address to Congress. Other, unofficial events included lunches with exchanges of gifts, the planting of typical Japanese “sakura” trees and tending to specimens planted in previous years…

On 21 March this year, Indonesia officially announced the results of the general election held on 14 February, which elected a new President and Vice President, as well as the composition of the central parliament and local governments in all 38 provinces of the country. The official results of the most important part of the single day’s voting, for President and Vice-President, do not differ much from the exit polls published a day later.

In the second half of March (i.e. a month before the actual election process begins), in the midst of the pre-election situation in India, which is monitored more or less regularly by NEO, an event occurred which unexpectedly provoked a rather loud (and negative) international reaction. Of course, the fact of holding parliamentary elections in a country whose role in the current global political processes is becoming more and more prominent cannot but be the subject of external attention.

Two weeks after the meeting of the Chinese parliament, commonly referred to as the “Two Sessions”, held in the first half of March this year, two equally noteworthy forum events were held in Beijing and immediately afterwards in the resort town of Boao (on Hainan Island), attended by Chinese and foreign experts. The main theme of the latter was the implementation of a fundamentally innovative trend in the country’s economic policy, the main provisions of which had been outlined by the Chinese…

From 19 to 23 March, US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, who only took up the post in February this year to replace Victoria Nuland, who resigned, travelled to Japan and Mongolia. In this context, let us make a few preliminary but, it would seem, fundamental observations. First, given Campbell’s initial specialisation (both in his previous diplomatic work and in research organisations)…