Multitasking is not exactly the strong point of Europe’s current generation of leaders. They have rightly given the eurozone crisis – the central question bearing on the European Union’s future – top priority. But all other important issues – above all, a common foreign and security policy – have been almost completely ignored. And it […]
Officials in Tokyo have known for some time that Japan’s regional foreign policy needs to be revamped. The economic crisis has brought Japan’s export giants to their knees and forced the country’s economy to look at different ways of conducting business. Moreover, the nuclear crisis in Fukushima last spring further intensified Japan’s already acute energy […]
Predictions of the date may differ, but the general consensus on Japan remains the same. In a matter of just three to 10 years, the world’s third-biggest economy may start running out of the savings needed to fund its massive public debt. Is it time to start selling yen, or are the doomsayers off target […]
India’s remarkable growth figures have, however, successfully masked a far less appealing set of statistics which shows that, despite the success of India’s middle class, when you look at government delivery of basic services to the poor, India has been struggling against being hyphenated less with China than with its more desperate and impoverished neighbours […]
As China’s ruling Communist Party prepares for a once-in-a-decade leadership transition next month, it is planning a daunting step – breaking up the monopolies enjoyed by its gargantuan state-owned enterprises. The monopolists have other ideas. One of the most powerful of all Chinese state-owned giants is the power-grid operator, State Grid Corp, led by the politically […]
Mongolia has featured prominently in Western media over the past several months as an important strategic partner for the U.S. “pivot” to Asia. Much of the analysis on U.S.-Mongolian relations has been truncated in that it fails to consider the two states’ relations through the prism of Mongolia’s strategic interests. The end result is an overly […]
It isn’t every day that the finance minister of a major nation mentions a rap star when talking up his economy. But then South Korea (KOSPI) isn’t your average economy and Psy isn’t your usual entertainer. Bahk Jae Wan did that in an Oct. 9 interview. South Korea’s top economic official cited the singer of the global smash hit […]
Two new books — one condemning the culture of liberal piety embraced by the Nobel Peace Prize, the other detailing the global influence of conservative civil society — underscore the dangers of using Big Ideas to try to save the world. Last week’s decision to award the Nobel peace prize to the European Union only […]
It was an important day for Angola, June 20th, 2006. Amid the diplomatic pomp and handshakes of an official visit, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao opened the Luanda General Hospital and had his picture taken peering into a microscope surrounded by officials in suits and medics in white smocks. The capital’s General Hospital, a sprawling eighty-thousand […]
Populist economics is on the rise in Southeast Asia. Politicians have been actively adopting policies that aim to impress upon the poor that governments are doing something, however trivial, to improve their conditions. It is generally a positive development but is it sustainable? Thailand’s Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted as Prime Minister in 2006 but has remained popular […]
looking beyond borders 