US-China rivalry might lead to infrastructure development and be beneficial for the global economy
Since the beginning of 2020, humanity has been shadowed by the fear and panic of COVID-19, which might cause one to neglect some subtle but significant changes in the world. In November 2019, Washing, a non-member of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the China-led infrastructure project, launched its “Blue Dot Network” (
BDN
) with Australia and Japan. This project is “a multi-stakeholder initiative...
As the OPEC+ deal has expired, Russia and Saudi Arabia remain at odds, though the United States offered encouraging words that production cuts might be negotiated
The Russian-Saudi feud over oil production has destabilized the market even as the industry faces anemic demand and the potential for a
legion of layoffs
because of the coronavirus pandemic.
On the heels of plummeting prices, the market
rallied April 2
after US President Donald Trump, perhaps prematurely, announced via Twitter that...
Arms Control Today conducted a written interview in early March with Anatoly Antonov, Russian ambassador to the United States on issues including the current status of U.S.-Russian strategic security talks, the future of New START, talks on intermediate-range missile systems, engaging China in arms control, and President Vladimir Putin’s proposal for a summit of the leaders of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.
Arms Control Today conducted a written interview in early March...
Everyone knew that at the beginning of the epidemic, China tried to keep everything confidential and not tell anyone what was happening. Now, after realizing the actual scale, they changed their behaviour. Today, Russia, America and the rest of the world do not reduce the severity of the virus. Authorities restrict communication between countries and quarantine those who have been in contact with infected people. Companies have reduced or stopped travel, people have postponed their holidays, and...
... to tackle the pandemic is intriguing. Having left the European Union and fully restored British sovereignty, London has set about pursuing its own "national" strategy here too—an approach that included minimal social distancing and a refusal to close restaurants, bars and night clubs. This was done in the hope that elderly people would stay at home, while the rest of the country would catch the virus and thus develop an immunity to it. In the end, President of France Emmanuel Macron ...
... hydrocarbon resources and the Northern Sea Route became the top priority, while in the mid-2010s, those issues were partially eclipsed by Moscow’s new confrontation with Washington and a sharp decline in relations with its NATO allies.
China is thousands of miles away from the Arctic, so its interests in the region differ widely from those of Russia. They primarily stem from China’s position as one of the two leading global powers of the twenty-first century, and, on a more formal level, as a ...
... licence is not itself a solution to the problem. This much was clear before the pandemic began with the case of North Korea. Even though the UN Sanctions Committee
approved
applications for humanitarian exemptions, a host of problems arose—bank refusals, supplier delays, delays at customs, etc.
Christian Wollny:
Coronavirus Reveals Cracks in European Unity
Individual exemptions will have no effect without significant systemic changes introduced at least for the period of the pandemic.
The greatest ...
... coronavirus?
Everyone knows that the virus is at its most dangerous when contracted by elderly people. But in everyday life, it’s not the pensioners who suffer the most from the pandemic, but the youth. Yes, of course, there have been more than twenty thousand deaths around the world – these deaths have almost exclusively been of the elderly and the very elderly. But the pandemic has changed the lives of tens and even hundreds of millions of young people, and to a greater extent than the lives of any ...
... transactions throughout the world. The American economy gains tremendous benefits while providing a favourable financial infrastructure for the whole world. But there are also problems. The first is the use of financial leadership for political purposes. The USA is the largest initiator of economic sanctions. Unlike any other country, the United States can afford to effectively impose sanctions regimes beyond its borders, effectively implementing them extraterritorially. Secondly, the colossal possibilities ...
As the Western philosopher George Santayana said, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
The controversial “Thucydides trap” argument has sparked a heated debate since 2013, when President
Xi Jinping
of China told a cluster of western guests: “We must all work together to avoid Thucydides’ trap.” Later, this concept was elucidated by Professor Graham Allison in his articles, talks and famous book
Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’ Trap
. So, what...
