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The article surveys social and political conditions in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States current during 2010. It is noted that the political power-sharing entered into by prime minister Vladimir Putin and president Dmitry Medvedev has functioned well, though the two have not developed a plan for political succession in 2012 when their terms in office end. A number of topics are addressed including Russia's recovery from the global economic crisis of 2008-2009, improved relations between the United States and Russia, and a revolution in Kyrgyzstan in April 2010.

In this article the author examines events that took place in Russia and in the Commonwealth of Independent States during 2009. The central focus of the article is on the continuing shock to the Russian political and economic system of the global financial crisis of 2008-09 and the subsequent world-wide recession. The impact on the Russian economy was so severe that it put stresses on the semi-democratic administrations of prime minister Vladimir Putin and president Dmitri Medvedev. Relations with Asia improved, as did relations with the United States under president Barack Obama.

The article presents the response of Yu-Shan Wu, research fellow and director of the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica, professor of political science at National Taiwan University and convener of political science at the National Science Council, to a commentary of Professor Wing Thye Woo to his article "Chinese Economic Reform in a Comparative Perspective: Asia vs. Europe, that was published in the December 2002/March 2003 issue of "Issues & Studies." Wu believes that there is a need for the Convergence school to explain the policies derived from their position that resulted to a poor performance in Russia. Wu compares resultant economic reform in China and Russia, arguing that it succeeded in China and failed in Russia.

This article views China's economic reform in a comparative perspective. It sets out with the significant phenomenon of China's rise and Russia's fall in the 1990s. The literature is reviewed. Two main approaches are identified: the non-institutional and the institutional, with the latter holding sway. Culture, stage of economic development, international environment, and pre-reform system are the four non-institutional factors; all are found wanting in terms of explaining the performance difference between Asian and European transition economies. The institutional factors are reform philosophy, speed of reform, property rights restructuring, and role of the state--the last two of which constitute an effective analytical framework. It is argued that China's de facto privatization and active developmental state have proven more effective than Russia's de jure privatization and weak democracy in promoting growth and achieving stability. China and Russia are treated as representing two modes of exit from state socialism and two distinct development patterns. The duel between the two harks back to the competition between East Asia's capitalist developmental model and the West's neoclassic economics. China's better transition performance proves the effectiveness of the East Asian model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of the "strategic triangle" has been conventionally applied to the relationship among the United States, the Soviet Union, and the People's Republic of China (PRC). In actuality, there has also existed a mini-triangle among Washington, Taipei, and Beijing. The first part of this paper explores the various positions in a strategic triangle, ranks these roles in terms of desirability, differentiates between endogenous and exogenous factors, and identifies three sets of derivative relations based on exogenous factors. The paper then reviews the historical patterns of interactions within the great strategic triangle and the mini-triangle, as well as explores the impact of the former on the latter. The third part concentrates on the post-Tiananmen permutations of the dual triangles, evaluates the PRC's position after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and explains U.S. behavior during the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait mini-crisis in view of the structure of the mini-triangle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]