This photograph by Ananth Krishnan, China correspondent for The Hindu, shows worshippers in front of the Id Kah mosque, in Kashgar, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, PRC before Friday prayers.

This issue opens with four short pieces on contemporary issues. The first one encompasses the region as a whole, tackling an issue of planetary scope: climate change. The other three are a trio of interconnected works that have a much tighter focus, zeroing in on one country in the northeast corner of the continent, North Korea. Still, given the nature of North Korean politics, the discussions in these three contributions have implications that flow across borders, most directly to South Korea, but beyond that as well, thanks to the way that developments in Pyongyang are shaped by, and in turn shape, international affairs throughout and beyond East Asia.

This set of contemporary-minded essays begins with So Young K...

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