Updated

My wife Callista and I just returned from 16 days in Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, and North China.

In Japan, we witnessed a political earthquake. Frustrated Japanese voters tossed out the party that has ruled that country virtually uninterrupted for the past half century.

And in South Korea, we witnessed the simultaneous vulnerability and intractability of the totalitarian North, and visited the museum of a war that should never have been.

It was a fascinating time to be in northeast Asia.

Newt Gingrich is a FOX News contributor and the former Speaker of the House of Representatives. To read his complete column, click here.