Globalisation: The Rise And Fall Of An Idea That Swept The World

It was only a few decades ago that globalisation was held by many, even by some critics, to be an inevitable, unstoppable force. “Rejecting globalisation,” the American journalist George Packer has written, “was like rejecting the sunrise.” Globalisation could take place in services, capital and ideas, making it a notoriously imprecise term; but what it meant most […]

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Downfall Of Chinese Rising Star Points To Xi Power Play

The fall from grace of a rising star in China’s Communist Party sheds light on how a reshuffle of the country’s top officials may play out under the leadership of President Xi Jinping later this year. Sun Zhengcai, 53, the youngest member of the ruling Politburo, was replaced as party chief of the southwestern metropolis […]

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How China’s Arctic Empire Will Upset The Global Balance Of Power

China wants resources to support its growing population, and the Arctic, with its untapped resources, offers those opportunities to mine natural resources. China’s lack of geographical presence in the Arctic has not stopped it laying out its 2017 launch of its Belt and Road Initiative, a massive infrastructure project encompassing 60 countries and designed to boost […]

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Saudis Losing Oil War As Iran Gains Power

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s (KSA) policies toward Yemen, Syria, Qatar, and Iran are failing. But the policy toward Iran shows the kingdom’s desperate attempt to lessen the Islamic republic’s growing power. The KSA is trying to choke Iran’s economy by steeply cutting its own oil output, hoping to halt Iran’s overtures to international businesses. […]

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Making The Most Of A Coup

No state leader likes the thought of putschists plotting to bring him or her down. But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan certainly knows how to make the most out of a coup attempt. In the year since a faction of the military tried to overthrow his administration, the Turkish president has neutralised a large swath of […]

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Japan’s Arms Merchants Are Off To A Rocky Start

When Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government redrew Japan’s self-imposed arms export restrictions in 2014, it hoped to spark a revolution in a domestic defense industry that had been isolated for almost 40 years. In part, it succeeded. In June, Japanese companies such as Fuji and Kawasaki Heavy Industries displayed military helicopters and warplanes at […]

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The Secret History Of The Banking Crisis

The new central bank network created since 2008 is of a piece with the new networks for stress testing and regulating the world’s systemically important banks. The international economy they regulate is not one made up of a jigsaw puzzle of national economies, each with its gross national product and national trade flows. Instead they oversee, […]

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