China’s apparent attempt to pull off a cyber heist of critical medical and laboratory data occurs against the backdrop of duelling narratives about the origins and handling of COVID-19. These two issues highlight Asia’s new era of cyber and information warfare. Read Here – The National Interest
China should prepare for more inflammatory comments from US President Donald Trump and his team as relations between the two countries come under increasing pressure due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the economic recession it created, according to observers. Read Here – South China Morning Post
The pandemic is amplifying the risk of a world-wide food-price spike, which would trigger outright crises in many developing countries. Governments must therefore work together to address disruptions to food supply chains and prevent food protectionism from becoming the post-pandemic new normal. Read Here – Project Syndicate
The threat of a great decoupling is a potentially historic break, an interruption perhaps only comparable to the sudden sundering of the first huge wave of globalisation in 1914, when deeply intertwined economies such as Britain and Germany, and later the United States, threw themselves into a barrage of self-destruction and economic nationalism that didn’t […]
Kissinger, now approaching his ninety-seventh birthday, no longer inspires such widespread loathing. As former critics crept toward the political center and rose to power themselves, passions cooled. Hillary Clinton, who, as a law student at Yale, vocally opposed Kissinger’s bombing of Cambodia, has described the “astute observations” he shared with her when she was Secretary […]
The Boxer Protocol was an unequal treaty that recognised the right of foreign powers to station troops in China. Many believe it precipitated the fall of the Qing dynasty. The memories are bitter. But China today is the world’s second-largest economy, and a global power that is feared by others. It cannot continue to be […]
COVID-19 will trigger a sharp drop in household incomes in Middle East and North African (MENA) countries that are fragile and in conflict situations, such as Afghanistan, Djibouti, Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan, and Somalia. As export earnings suffer and social distancing reduces domestic activity, incomes will decline—especially for informal and low-skilled workers, including within large internally displaced […]
By many measures, 2020 is looking to be the worst year that humankind has faced in many decades. We’re in the midst of a pandemic… The world economy is in free fall, with unemployment rising dramatically, trade and output plummeting, and no hopeful end in sight. A plague of locusts is back for a second time […]
When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite, in October 1957, Washington finally understood that the Soviet Union was not solely a formidable ideological antagonist but also a technological and military rival… The COVID-19 pandemic may be China’s unlikely Sputnik moment. Read Here – Foreign Affairs
The era of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, launched with the promise of largesse, is now likely to go down in history as a period of unprecedented belt-tightening. The 34-year-old known as MBS, already set on reducing his kingdom’s dependence on oil, has now found the insurance offered by the precious commodity pulled out […]
