By Yutaka Iimura,Senior Fellow at GRIPS Alliance,Visiting Professor at National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies,Former Ambassador of Japan to Indonesia and to France
On February 20, 2022, at the women’s curling finals, Japan’s Loco Solare lost at a score of 3-10 against Great Britain, and took home the silver medal from the Beijing Olympics.
In early March 2021, Admiral Philip S. Davidson, then commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, sent shock waves in the U.S., Japan, and across the world by telling a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that China could invade Taiwan in the next six years.
A quarter of the low-to-middle-income countries (LMICs) receiving loans related to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have debt exposure to China exceeding 10% of their GDP.