South Korean President Yoon declared martial law and then had to rescind it once the National Assembly voted it down.  Impeachment motion failed to pass the National Assembly leading to continued demonstrations in the country calling the president to resign.  At the moment, a political stalemate seems likely to linger as the president refuses to step down.

In this episode, our special guest Prof Youngho Cho of Sogang University in Seoul, Republic of Korea, discusses his research on why South Korea's presidential system is plague by a tit-for-tat political witch hunt.

This episode is a chat from what we have learned in our study tour of Taiwan.

We chat about the plausible foreign policy implications of the results of the 2024 US elections.

The US election has finally occurred and the Republicans seem like the big winner -- winning the presidency, the Senate, and in line to win the House of Representatives.  

We discuss Prof Yuen Yuen Ang's article on the clash of the US and China as that of two gilded ages rather than clash of civilizations.  We then talk about the polls just a few days before the US presidential election and how the election is still too close to call.

Recommended reading list:

https://www.noemamag.com/the-clash-of-two-gilded-ages/

Luebbert, Gregory M, Liberalism, Fascism, or Social Democracy: Social Classes and the Political Origins of Regimes in Interwar Europe (New York, NY, 1991; online edn, Oxford Academic, 31 Oct. 2023), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195066104.001.0001, accessed 3 Nov. 2024.

Rogowski, Ronald. 1999. Commerce and Coalitions. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203518588-26/commerce-coalitions-trade-affects-domestic-political-alignments-ronald-rogowski

In this episode we discuss reports that North Korean soldiers are fighting in Ukraine.  We then talk about an essay published by the Royal United Services Institute about the possible of betrayal of Ukraine and why this betrayal is likely to happen.  We discuss the Foreign Affairs article about the problem of depopulation that the world is facing today and what this means.  Lastly, the snap election in Japan backfired for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party as it lost its parliamentary majority.

Is Musk offering money to voters considered vote buying?  Months after the presidential election, the new Indonesian president is finally sworn in.  Donald Trump apparently worked in a MacDonald's for a day, but did he really?

We chat about Nick's research presentation at the Southeast Asia Research Initiative seminar on the implications of great power rivalry on Southeast Asia and then examine whether there is validity in the concern that the United States is losing its position of influence in Southeast Asia to China as other global issues drags America's attention to the region.

We examine the implications of the conflict in the Mideast to our region and discuss a recent essay in Foreign Affairs that calls for a change of approach to US Mideast strategy.  The Khalistan movement has supporters in NZ that are holding a referendum on Sikh independence.  Then the sad news of the sinking of the RNZN survey ship in Samoa while doing a survey of the seabed.