ASEAN is ever beset by existential angst. The ‘A’ in ASEAN stands for Angst as well as Association. Regard this as more description than criticism. The Angst-Association of South East Asian Nations always has lots to worry about. Angst and anxiety are rational responses. The questions are constant: can the association hold together? Can it actually […]
Even as India shows no sign of changing its decision to keep off the international conference China has called for later this month to promote its flagship One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative, Beijing has for the first time offered to re-name the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) – a key component of OBOR – to allay Indian objections. […]
For the Chinese, these are uncharted waters. They will have to balance gains to the ruling elites in Islamabad and Lahore with those to the locals in Balochistan, who are more than capable of violently disrupting work on the corridor. If China fails to do so, Pakistan will end up more unstable, not less. Read […]
Even if India’s economy is growing faster than China, it does not mean that India has become economically as powerful as China. While India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was $2.5 trillion in 2016, China’s GDP is nearly five times of that, at $11.4 trillion. That also reflects in the per capita GDP: while it is […]
Even as NATO heads of state prepare to discuss Russia and global terror at their annual summit this month, a deeper issue is haunting America’s allies around the globe: their relative military and economic decline over the past two decades — and the increasingly sharp geopolitical challenges this poses for the United States. Read Here – […]
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson offered perhaps the most comprehensive roadmap of U.S. foreign policy, addressing the nation’s involvement with East Asia, Russia, Africa, and the Western Hemisphere. Read Here – The Atlantic
The future of amphibious warfare looks like a constellation of bots large and small. The main challenge now is getting them to talk to each other Read Here – Defense One
China’s interest in Latin America is both economic and strategic. It was the accelerating Chinese economy’s voracious appetite for raw materials that keyed its entry to the region, a land of plenty when it comes to natural resources. Iron, soybeans, copper, and oil make up the bulk of Chinese imports from the region. In turn, […]
Twenty years ago next month, the British government gave the Bank of England the freedom to set interest rates. That decision was part of a trend that made central bankers the most powerful financial actors on the planet, not only setting rates but also buying trillions of dollars’ worth of assets, targeting exchange rates and […]
Donald Trump is inviting the wrong Asian dictator to meet him in Washington. Instead of focusing on Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte, he should extend an invitation to North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. His comments today that under the “right circumstances” he would be “honoured” to meet with Kim were welcome ones, but he should go even […]
