A popular meme in Kenya goes something like this: everytime China visits, we get a hospital. When the US visits, we get a lecture. That’s of course not an accurate picture of the competition between the West and China in the global South, but it does highlight a certain disconnect that can be perceived widely […]
In a week in which most eyes are on the US election, there are other meaningful elections which also merit close examination. On October 27 Japanese voters expressed their pent-up frustration with the growing list of scandals associated with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and ended the party’s near 70-year long rule. LDP and […]
On this week’s episode of Departures with Robert Amsterdam we’re pleased to invite our friend and colleague of many years Jakob Edberg, the co-founder of The GR Company, a government relations consultancy headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, and with offices in Osaka, Seoul, London, and Washington DC. Jakob’s unique perspective on the rapidly evolving leadership role […]
It was just three years ago when the Economist magazine ran a cover story on Taiwan, describing it as “the most dangerous place in the world.” With intensifying competition with China and deteriorating global security following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there are many arguments that continue to support that negative outlook. But that’s not the […]
Formulated by PRC think tanks in the mid-1990s, China’s official slogan of the “peaceful rise” sought to calm Western fears regarding its blossoming economic, military, and political power as the nation resumed an outsized role in global affairs. However the mood did not last long, as in the later years of President Hu Jintao’s administration, […]
As China and the U.S. increasingly compete for power in key areas of U.S. influence across the Middle East and African continent, competition has grown in linear succession, and is increasingly adversarial. Often cynical of Chinese involvement and intentions, the U.S. points to blunders of the Belt and Road initiative, fears of neocolonialism, and the […]
Democracy, in terms of its branding, has had a fairly rough decade. Numerous authors we have had on this podcast have highlighted and explained its global decline, discussed the expansion of nationalist movements which have eaten away at rule of law and institutional integrity, and the frustrating resilience of some of the world’s most established […]
It may just be a smattering of insignificant rocks and reefs along the Nine-dash line between the Philippines and China, but in recent years this area has become the focus of the world’s most complex and dangerous maritime dispute. China’s growing influence and willingness to project its will against smaller neighbors and US allies has […]
In international finance, the difference between what is legal and normal and what is criminal and corrupt is often unclear, a disparity made worse by an overlapping series of laws and regulations which in some cases can put U.S. competition at a disadvantage. These networks of illicit finance, shell corporations, and offshore structures used by […]
Though we often view China’s increasingly activist foreign policy in its trade wars, territorial disputes, and frequent collisions with Western states, less attention is paid to its gradual and quiet expansion of influence in the ‘Stans of Central Asia. But it is here, among the populations of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan […]