“Open and complex space, we are for dialogue between different ideas – There are no unique sources for an analyst”
We cannot look at the political sustainability of the world with the eye of fear. If, as Ken Heydon writes for East Asia Forum, for Liz Truss China is more of a threat than a systemic competitor, the strategic field choice is clear: no one is excluded in turning the opponent into the enemy.
There has been much political shortsightedness in recent decades about the need to adopt appropriate rules for a radically changing world. On December 11, 2001, China’s entry into the WTO changed history.
The crises of the past three decades should have taught us that historical processes should be governed together as much as possible. The prospect of a G-zero world evoked by Ian Bremmer is not politically sustainable. The world cannot be reduced to a competitive arena between democracies and autocracies; international relations cannot become the site of permanent exacerbation of conflict and provocation.
Someone told me that “not all cats are gray.” Well, the value of democracy does not escape the writer but, equally, it should not escape that liberal democracies are experiencing a very deep de-generative crisis: at the same time, no one is claiming that autocracies are idyllic places. Contradictions belong to the world and cannot be eliminated. That is why, in the already present future, dialogues, negotiations, political-strategic vision are needed: as much as possible, outside the simplifying logic of talk shows.
(by M.E.)
TOPICS
- (Blue economy) September 9, 2022. Anagha P., VIF. Over the last decade, the concept of blue economy, which refers to sustainable economic development through proper utilization of marine resources, has become widespread including in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). Impact of Climate Change on the Blue Economy of the Indian Ocean Region: Case Study of the Fisheries Sector
- (Climate finance) September 7, 2022. ADBI. There is a vital need for climate finance narratives to focus on the qualitative aspects of money flowing in, along with increasing the quantum of financial flows. Financing Climate Targets: A Study of Select G20 Countries
- (Cybersecurity) September 9, 2022. Sameer Patil, ORF. Cyber-sanctions have emerged as a preferred tool for Western governments to deter cyberattacks emanating from their adversaries’ territories. As they implement such sanctions, however, these states face various challenges one of which is the difficulty in attribution. Moreover, the sanctions have only partially curbed the malicious cyber activities. Yet, the regime continues to expand, and many allies of the United States are emulating its practice of imposing cyber-sanctions. This paper makes an assessment of the practice of cyber-sanctions among western countries, and their effectiveness in containing cyber mischief. It also discusses the applicability of this coercive tool for India and the policy issues that are likely to emerge. Assessing the Efficacy of the West’s Autonomous Cyber-Sanctions Regime and its Relevance for India
- (Digital & Health) September 9, 2022.
- (Digital & Tech) September 1, 2022. Angela Sagnella, Korea Institute for International Economic Policy. The purpose of this brief report is to sketch the current characteristics of the digital divide in Latin America, especially following the effects generated by the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, in an attempt to understand its crucial aspects and possible outlooks. In this regard, South Korea-Spain future cooperation on digitalization in Latin America will be discussed, as the two countries – by virtue of the long diplomatic tradition that unites them – are developing new horizons of cooperation to fill digital gaps in Latin America. Digital Divide in Latin America and Opportunities for South Korea-Spain Cooperation
- (Digital & Tech) September 8, 2022. Stephanie Carvin, CIGI. Democracies are, and should be, loud: protest and demonstration are an essential part of free speech and public engagement. That such protests are noisy, cause inconvenience, and disrupt politicians is a normal part of the cut and thrust of politics. Online Conspiracies, Extremism and Rage Fuel Threats to Democracy
- (Digital & Tech) September 10, 2022. Samir Saran, ORF. 2024 is a decisive year for democracy and the liberal order. 1.8 billion citizens in India and the United States, who together constitute nearly 1/4th of the world’s population, are going to elect their governments in the very same year. This will be the first such instance in a world increasingly mediated and intermediated by platforms, who will be crucial actors shaping individual choices, voter preferences, and indeed, outcomes at these hustings. It is therefore, important to recognise these platforms as actors and not just benign intermediaries. Accountable Tech: Will the US take a leaf out of the Indian Playbook?
- (Geo-energy) September 10, 2022. Akhilesh Sati, Lydia Powell, Vinod Kumar, ORF. Since early 2021, crude oil prices doubled, coal prices quadrupled and natural gas prices (in Europe) increased by over seven times. Between January 2020 and April 2022, the World Bank’s energy price index increased by over 76 percent and crude oil prices increased by 350 percent in nominal terms, the largest increase for any equivalent two-year period since the 1970s. In real terms, coal and European natural gas prices have reached all-time highs and remain substantially above their previous peak in 2008. High Energy Prices: The West joins the Rest with Subsidies and Handouts
- (Geo-energy) September 8, 2022. Sergey Vakulenko, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Russia and the West have each landed powerful blows on their opponent this month in their ongoing energy war. The Flaw in the Plan to Cap Russian Oil Prices
- (Global agriculture) September 7, 2022. Joseph W. Glauber, David Laborde, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Recent studies project that based on current trends, governments around the world will likely provide over $240 billion in agricultural support by 2030. The support is provided in many ways, including border measures such as tariffs that provide market price support and income subsidies based on production, input use, or fixed factors of production such as land that provide income support to producers. Repurposing Global Agricultural Support
- (Multilateral sanctions) September 2022. Rediscovering the work of Margaret Doxey through an exploration of new multilateral sanctions. Multilateral Sanctions Revisited | McGill-Queen’s University Press (mqup.ca)
- (Political negotiation) September 7, 2022. Amelie Theussen, Zhiru Sun, DIIS. New study develops a method for measuring the development of students’ political negotiation skills in simulation games. Assessing negotiation skill and its development in an online collaborative simulation game
WORLDS
- (Afghanistan) September 9, 2022. Shivam Shekhawat, ORF. This August, the Interim Taliban Administration (ITA) completed a year in Afghanistan after taking over last year. The withdrawal of foreign troops, enabled by the signing of the Doha Peace Agreement between the United States (US) and the Taliban ultimately resulted in the fall of Kabul. Since the disintegration of the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, the insurgent group has been flailing to govern the country, if at all its actions can fall under the ambit of ‘governance’. The banking crisis in Afghanistan
- (Australia) September 10, 2022. Xunpeng Shi, East Asia Forum. With energy prices at historically high levels, all eyes are on governments. Disruptions in energy supply chains due to the war in Ukraine have prompted countries to look toward energy sources they had begun to shift away from — China has increased its coal production and Japan will return to nuclear — to secure their energy supply. Australia gasses up energy security concerns
- (Chile) September 2022. CIDOB. El contundente rechazo en el plebiscito a la propuesta elaborada por la Convención Constitucional en Chile ha puesto en jaque al proceso que arrancó en 2019 para dar respuesta a las masivas protestas ciudadanas. El resultado de este ejercicio participativo sin precedentes no ha recibido el apoyo popular esperado y se abre un periodo de incertidumbre en el que el presidente Boric y el conjunto de la clase política deben construir mayorías sólidas que den respuesta a demandas sociales inaplazables. El rechazo aboca a Chile a un proceso constituyente incierto
- (China) September 11, 2022. Xinhua. Given China’s economic resilience and pivotal position in the global economy and supply chains, those banging on about decoupling from China are just having a pipe dream, a Thai banker said. Interview: Decoupling from China is just a pipe dream, says Thai banker
- (China) September 9, 2022. Manoj Joshi, ORF. Politically, everything seems to be going smoothly for Xi Jinping in his bid for an unprecedented third term at the 20th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress which will begin on October 16. However, even as politics remains at the forefront in China, the country is besieged by a sea of troubles. Crises abound in China ahead of Party Congress
- (China – Tanzania) September 11, 2022. Xinhua. Tanzania’s Zanzibar President Hussein Ali Mwinyi on Saturday awarded 21 members of the Chinese medical team with medals for their one-year stellar medical services in the Zanzibar archipelago. Tanzania’s Zanzibar awards medals to Chinese medical team for service
- (Darfur) September 7, 2022. Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik. The Juba Peace Agreement of October 2020 has not pacified conflicts in Sudan, and has instead actually created new alliances between armed groups and security forces. After decades of marginalisation, conflict entrepreneurs from the periphery are now shaping Sudan’s national politics and undermining the country’s potential to return to democratic transition. Insecurity in Darfur could escalate and contribute to further destabilisation of the country. International donors should pressure these conflict entrepreneurs to relinquish power. They should also prudently promote projects to foster peace in Darfur at the same time. The Spoilers of Darfur
- (Ethiopia) September 7, 2022. Crisis Group. Renewed fighting between a federal-Amhara-Eritrea coalition and Tigray’s forces has shattered a tenuous months-long truce. The reversal heralds a return to one of the world’s deadliest conflicts. International envoys should keep pressing the Ethiopian parties to renew the truce and begin formal direct negotiations. Avoiding the Abyss as War Resumes in Northern Ethiopia
- (Europe) September 8, 2022. Bruegel. Europe’s energy system faces unprecedented physical and institutional stress. Jeromin Zettelmeyer sits down with Simone Tagliapietra and Georg Zachmann to discuss the causes of the problem, and what solutions could be offered. Simone and Georg present their recent paper ‘A grand bargain to steer through the European Union’s energy crisis’, where they argue an integrated European approach and a coordinated plan is essential to address the crisis. Re-revisiting The European Union’s energy crisis
- (India – UK) September 9, 2022. Harsh V Pant, ORF. The long battle for the British premiership has now ended with Liz Truss formally taking over as the new prime minister of a nation that is reeling under a slew of crises—political, economic and diplomatic.The Truss Factor In India-U.K. Relationship | ORF (orfonline.org)
- (Iran) September 6, 2022. Cornelius Adebahr, Carnegie Middle East Center. In Iran’s southwest Khuzestan Province underground aquifers have been depleted and the nearby Karkheh dam is at record low levels. 700 kilometers to the northeast, gaping sinkholes have emerged, with the ground in parts of the province sinking at the alarming rate of 25 centimeters annually. A Wilting World
- (Iran) September 8, 2022. Dore Gold, JCPA. Since the start of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the West, Tehran has managed to create an impression that it has kept to the terms of the various agreements that were reached, and it was the West and, above all, the United States which violated past agreements. There were two purposes to pursuing this diplomatic strategy. Tehran’s Mounting Violations of the Iran Deal and Its Accelerating March to A Nuclear Weapons Arsenal
- (Israel – Palestine) September 11, 2022. Kobi Michael, INSS. The recent bus attack in the Jordan Valley represents an additional facet of the Palestinian resistance ethos that is shaped in the spirit of Islamic Jihad in collaboration with Hamas and with Fatah’s al-Aqsa Brigades, and with the encouragement of Iran and Hezbollah. Israel’s strategy of conflict management, which has led to a rise in the number Palestinian casualties and detainees, and the ensuing reverberations in the social media, intensifies the resistance ethos. Israel is approaching the point where it has realized the potential of this strategy, and the current norms will have to change. The Bus Attack in the Jordan Valley: The Ethos of Resistance Increasingly Shapes the Palestinian Campaign
- (Japan – South Korea) September 1, 2022. Gyu-Pan Kim, Korea Institute for International Economic Policy. With the launch of a new Korean government in May 2022 that places importance on future cooperation with Japan, cooperation between Korea and Japan in the so-called economic security field, including semiconductors, is expected to emerge as a new cooperation agenda. However, the agreement in the “Economic 2+2” meeting between the U.S. and Japan suggests that it will put a significant pressure on the Korean government as competition intensifies in the semiconductor sector between Korea and Japan in the future. Japan’s Semiconductor Strategy and Implications for Korea
- (Kenya) September 8, 2022. Crisis Group. On 5 September, Kenya’s Supreme Court upheld Deputy President William Ruto’s victory in the 9 August presidential election. The decision concludes a hard-fought electoral campaign that, despite high stakes, was peaceful and transparent, showing the strength of the country’s institutions. A Triumph for Kenya’s Democracy
- (NATO) Pere Vilanova, CIDOB. El nuevo concepto estratégico de la OTAN, aprobado en la cumbre de Madrid de junio de 2022, pretende dar respuestas al “desajuste” estratégico que vive la organización desde el final de la Guerra Fría y la desaparición de la URSS. Sin embargo, ha sido precisamente Rusia, con su desafío de invadir Ucrania, la que ha reforzado una cohesión transatlántica que llevaba tiempo buscando puntos de reencuentro. OTAN 2022, el nuevo concepto estratégico
- (Russia) September 8, 2022. Zsolt Darvas, Catarina Martins, Bruegel. In the second quarter of 2022, Russia recorded its highest ever current-account surplus, primarily due to a record-breaking trade surplus (Figure 1). This partly reflects higher fossil-fuel revenues resulting from higher prices, which have helped finance Putin’s war. Russia’s huge trade surplus is not a sign of economic strength
- (Russia – West) September 8, 2022. Valdai Discussion Club. The conflict in Europe will increasingly become local and of direct interest to its main participants. To the same extent, the rest of the world will move precisely towards non-participation in one way or another, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Timofei Bordachev. How the World Is Overcoming the Divide Between Russia and the West
- (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) September 9, 2022. Russia has a realistic view of the situation and understands that some Central Asian states have a cautious attitude to the special military operation in Ukraine and do not support all actions by Moscow. Under the circumstances, Russia will not speed up the SCO’s transformation into a military-political coalition, writes Alexander Vorontsov, Head of the Korea and Mongolia Department, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. What to Expect From the SCO Summit in Samarkand
- (South Korea) September 2, 2022. Hyunsoo Kim, Jungu Kang, Hyeyoon Keum and Jae Wook Jung, Korea Institute for International Economic Policy. This study examines the status and characteristics of Korea’s servitization of manufacturing and its impact on business performance and exports. In particular, we focus on servitization in manufacturing, which can be seen as a part of servicification in manufacturing. It is the phenomenon of manufacturing firms producing more services as final goods and provide them to the market with their products. Looking at the status of servitization in the manufacturing sectors focusing on the service sales generated by manufacturing firms, the servitization in manufacturing in Korea has gradually increased. Sales in service sectors, which stood at 4.5% of the total sales of manufacturing firms in 2012, surged to 15.9% in 2017, and then decreased to 6.9% in 2019. Based on the stylized fact that servitization in manufacturing in Korea has gradually increased, we empirically analyze the effect of servitization in manufacturing on the business performances and exports. The result suggets that the servitization in manufacturing is progressing in the direction of improving firm’s productivity, profitability, and exports. The Export Effect of Servitization of Manufacturing
- (Turkey) Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik. In a remarkable development for Turkish politics, six opposition parties signed a joint manifesto at a public ceremony on 28 February. The document outlines plans to abolish the executive presidential system and restore rule of law and civil liberties under a “strengthened parliamentary system”. The successive concentration of power in President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s hands has culminated in a hyper-presidential system without meaningful institutional checks. The opposition parties are determined to reverse this process by offering the electorate an alternative political platform supported by a single presidential candidate. If their cooperation generates a pre-electoral alliance for the upcoming elections, the opposition camp dubbed the “Table of Six” has a reasonable chance of defeating Erdoğan and his governing bloc. The Opposition Alliance in Turkey: A Viable Alternative to Erdoğan?
- (Turkey) Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik. Despite inflationary headwinds and contrary to most central banks, Turkey’s Monetary Policy Committee surprises with another rate cut. Jens Bastian and Berk Esen see this as a calculated political move. Ahead of Turkey’s 2023 elections: Will risky rate cut yield support for President Erdoğan?
- (UK – China) September 11, 2022. Ken Heydon, East Asia Forum. As the new UK Prime Minister, Liz Truss intends to designate China as a ‘threat’ rather than simply a ‘systemic competitor’. Her designation is consistent with the latest United Kingdom defence review, which calls China ‘the biggest state-based threat’ to the country’s economic security. China sanctions might ferry the UK into hot water
- (USA) September 9, 2022. Michael Karpman, Genevieve M. Kenney, Stephen Zuckerman, Urban Institute. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress passed several laws to protect and expand health insurance coverage, including a requirement that states receiving a temporary increase in federal Medicaid funding cannot disenroll people from Medicaid during the public health emergency. This requirement had the potential to improve continuity of coverage, especially in states that had adopted the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion before the pandemic began. Full-Year Health Insurance Coverage Increased for Nonelderly Adults in Medicaid Expansion States between 2019 and 2022
- (USA) September 8, 2022. Wendy Castillo, Urban Institute. Some data are available on the 325,149 known students enrolled in public schools in US territories and commonwealths—including Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands—but there are significant amounts of missing and incomplete data for other territories and commonwealths, such as the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of Palau. The lack of widely available data means it is difficult to understand the conditions and quality of education in these areas. And without comprehensive data for every US territory and commonwealth, policymakers and advocates cannot measure the magnitude of inequities and cannot directly help vulnerable students. Which Students Are We Counting? A Descriptive Analysis of Student Characteristics and Data Availability of US Territories and Commonwealths
- (USA) September 9, 2022. Lawrence J. Korb, Center for American Progress. As the United States approaches the start of its next fiscal year, defense spending will soon approach a whopping $1 trillion. To understand how this came about, it is important to go back to the start of the Trump administration, in January 2017. The Case for Reducing Defense Spending
- (USA – China) September 1, 2022. Jaichul Heo, Korea Institute for International Economic Policy. Recently, the intensification of U.S.-China strategic competition, spread of COVID-19 infections, and the Russia-Ukraine war are disrupting the global supply chain and increasing instability in the global economy. The resulting instability in the supply of semiconductors, medicines, food, and energy is leading to an economic downturn, and the U.S., China, Japan, and EU are actively pursuing strategies to strengthen economic security. The key to recent economic security is the U.S.-China strategic competition. Because the United States is re-tightening economic-security links that were loosened in the post-Cold War era to counter China’s economic rise. And the concept of recent economic security largely includes the elements of economic statecraft, economic resilience, and building mutual trust. Geopolitical Risk in the Era of U.S.-China Strategic Competition and Economic Security
- (USA – China) September 9, 2022. Martin Chorzempa, PIIE. China’s technological ambitions have raised longstanding concerns about its use of investments abroad to access sensitive technologies, data, and infrastructure, particularly those with military implications. Accordingly, Chinese investments in the United States are far more likely to undergo government scrutiny than those from other countries. The United States scrutinizes investments involving China more than any other country
