When Taiwan entered a film in the Tokyo Film Festival last month, there was no sense of an impending diplomatic incident. On the surface, relations between Taiwan and China had rarely been better, and for more than 10 years, the Japanese festival has welcomed films ''made in Taiwan''.

After a week of overcast skies, the weekend in Seoul, South Korea, promises to be sunny and warm. That is a much deserved respite for a city as the G20 Seoul Summit drew to a close and a global contingent of bureaucrats, ministers, presidents and prime ministers, demonstrators and putative saboteurs head home.

Vietnam and Japan on October 31 issued a joint statement on the comprehensive development of strategic partnership for peace and prosperity in Asia during Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s visit to Vietnam.

Imperial edicts in medieval China typically ended by exhorting lowly subjects to “tremble and obey”; from all available evidence, the edicts had just the desired effect.In the modern era, however, China’s muscular assertion of its recently acquired economic and political might to get the rest of the world to “tremble and obey” may have run its course and is beginning to face a global pushback.

During the past few years, Beijing has talked of projecting its soft power, its cultural influence. But that was either a feint or was destined to be a flop. Instead, China is now exercising its influence in the world of hard power, where it makes other countries behave in the way it wants -- and this is especially apparent in the seas surrounding China's 14,500km coastline.

South Korea's hosting of a G-20 economic summit in November will mark something of a turning point in the country's diplomacy traditionally focused on resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis and managing relations with four major regional powers...

Cross-Strait relations between China and Taiwan took a dramatic and historic turn with the recent signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA).

Cross-Strait relations between China and Taiwan took a dramatic and historic turn with the recent signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA). The trade liberalization deal will create closer economic linkage between Taiwan and China, but beyond increasing the flow of goods across the Taiwan Strait, there are serious political and public diplomacy aspects tied up in the trade pact.