Author Archives: Luke Austin
Luke Austin has recently completed his MA with distinction in Governance and Global Affairs at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). He wrote his master’s dissertation on the levels of consistency and contradiction between actual policy-making and political discourse in the framework of EU-Russia relations. Luke also holds a BA in Japanese and Russian from the University of Leeds. He has previously interned for the Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) in Moscow.
Luke Austin
May 23, 2025
Asia and Pacific, Latest Articles, Security and Defence, Uncategorized
If negotiations between Tokyo and Washington do not terminate positively,, there is the risk that their economic interdependence between Japan and China will increase to the point that former becomes dangerously vulnerable to geopolitical shocks, as was the case with Germany and Russia in the leadup to the latter’s invasion of Ukraine.
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Luke Austin
October 11, 2023
Asia and Pacific, Latest Articles
Japan and Hong Kong share deep-rooted commercial and cultural ties. Hong Kong’s younger generation appear to hold a much more favourable view of Japan than their forebears.
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Luke Austin
August 10, 2023
Asia and Pacific, Latest Articles, Uncategorized
The future of UK-Japan relations appears promising. With bilateral trade increasing again alongside far-reaching advances in security cooperation, this appears to be a trajectory that will not terminate anytime soon.
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Luke Austin
June 22, 2023
Asia and Pacific, Latest Articles
Amidst a deteriorating global security environment punctuated by ongoing crises such as the fourth Taiwan Straits crisis and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Japan-South Korea bilateral relations have entered a new period of détente and relative calm.
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Luke Austin
March 14, 2023
Asia and Pacific, Latest Articles, Security and Defence, Uncategorized
The potential trajectory of Japan's possible nuclear path could be shaped by the aspirations and policies of not only potential adversaries such as North Korea, China and Russia, but also those of its own allies.
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Luke Austin
February 6, 2023
Asia and Pacific, Latest Articles
While increasing tensions in the Indo-Pacific stemming from fears over the PRC’s increasingly threatening posture towards Taiwan, the global economic disorder generated by Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine and approval ratings plummeting for the Kishida administration may preoccupy the Japanese government for the time being, it is highly likely that Japan's Afghanistan policy will be of largely economic, and less geopolitical nature.
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Luke Austin
January 4, 2023
Asia and Pacific, Latest Articles
While both sides have outlined proposals for a peace treaty in 1998 and again in 2019, any hope for an agreement over the Kuril Islands was dashed following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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Luke Austin
November 14, 2022
Asia and Pacific, Economic Development, Latest Articles, Uncategorized
What sort of trajectory have contemporary Japan-Haiti relations followed, and which factors have defined their development?
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Luke Austin
August 19, 2022
Asia and Pacific, Counter-Extremism, Latest Articles, Security and Defence, Uncategorized
Abe's assassination is an entirely unprecedented event has led the Kishida administration to face an epistemological insecurity which could well shake Japan and its very post-war identity as a democratic state to the very core
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Luke Austin
July 1, 2022
Asia and Pacific, Latest Articles
One key U.S. ally enjoys unexpectedly calm bilateral relations with Iran: Japan. This is especially the case in terms of bilateral trade relations.
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