South East Asia

China: Buying Up Europe

A staggering 40% out of 650 Chinese investments in Europe in the years 2010-2020, according to Datenna [a Dutch company that monitors Chinese investments in Europe], had “high or moderate involvement by state-owned or state-controlled companies.”

When the Chairman of the UK parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Tugendhat, wrote that Chinese ownership of the British microchip plant, Newport Wafer Fab, “represents a significant economic and national security concern”, UK Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng responded that the deal had been “considered thoroughly”. Only after considerable pressure did British Prime Minister Boris Johnson agree to a national security review of the sale.

A Provocative Challenge to Analytical Doctrine

The unintended consequences of analytical doctrine may make us more vulnerable to surprises.

Two recent events, the surprise Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and the massing of Russian troops on Ukrainian borders, have brought to the surface the debate about the role of assessment and analysis in informing policy decisions. In the case of the former, we ask: how could this event not have been foreseen (i.e., why did the analysis not clearly predict it)? In the case of the latter, we are provided with varying estimates of the likelihood of President Vladimir Putin’s malign intentions and his probable timescales for action. Will he invade, or won’t he? By spring or after?

What is behind the protests rocking Kazakhstan?

Protests against fuel price rises have spiralled amid wider political and economic grievances.

As the city hall in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, stood in flames and protesters pulled down the statue of the country’s first President Nursultan Nazarbayev, the image of the post-Soviet country as a beacon of stability in the volatile region disintegrated.

A More Just Drone War Is Within Reach

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan this past August brought an end to a 20-year war. But as a series of recent investigations by The New York Times has underscored, it also marked the beginning of postmortems about what the United States did right and, in some cases, did wrong.

Into the grey zone: how the US could change the game with China and Russia

Washington should take more aggressive “grey-zone” strategies – warfare just short of armed conflict – to tackle China and Russia, according to a group of US military strategists including former defence chief Chuck Hagel.

In recommendations published by US think tank the Atlantic Council last month, the strategists said China and Russia had conducted unconventional offensives against the US, including online cyberattacks, and misinformation and disinformation campaigns.

How Cold War I (US-Soviet) Is Different From Cold War II (US-China) – Analysis

The United States has recently been talking seriously about starting a new Cold War with China. In Cold War with the former Soviet Union which mostly revolved ideological and security spheres, the two sides reached a strategic agreement to replace political threats with military ones. Thus, the former Cold War between the Kremlin and the White House began with an agreement, not a threat.

In the new Cold War; however, there is no such agreement between US and China and due to Beijing‘s economic rise as well as the profound geopolitical changes that have taken place in the Indo-Pacific region in recent years the political and economic threats are turning into military ones.

China’s Soft-Power Advantage in Africa

Beijing Isn’t Just Building Roads—It’s Making Friends

When U.S. policymakers consider China’s influence in Africa, they often think of big-ticket infrastructure development programs such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Over the past two decades, Beijing has spent billions building dams, highways, railways, and ports in countries from Egypt to South Africa.

But those sorts of projects are only part of the story. China’s evolving presence in Africa, including the BRI, is based as much on investment in building social and human capital as it is on giant infrastructure projects. Since the beginning of this century, Beijing has invested heavily in cultivating political,

Russia’s ‘Gas Pivot’ To China Poses Challenge For Europe

Gazprom, Russia’s giant state-owned energy company, is slated to finalize an agreement in 2022 for a second huge natural gas pipeline running from Siberia to China, marking yet another stage in what energy analysts and Western diplomats say is a fast-evolving gas pivot to Asia by Moscow.

They see the pivot as a geopolitical project and one that could mean trouble for Europe.

Known as Power of Siberia 2, the mega-pipeline traversing Mongolia will be able to deliver 50 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to China annually. It was given the go-ahead in March by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and when finished it will complement another massive pipeline, Power of Siberia 1, that transports gas from Russia’s Chayandinskoye field to northern China.

‘Phase One’ US–China Trade Deal Better Than No Deal – Analysis

The ‘phase one’ trade deal between the United States and China entered into force on 14 February 2020. As part of this agreement, China agreed to make structural reforms, open up its financial services and strengthen intellectual property. China also pledged to buy at least US$200 billion in additional US goods and services over 2020 and 2021.