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International Relations

18
Jul

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB): WB/IMF Threat or Complementary Solution?

It’s not even a matter of debate that China’s political influence has gone up tremendously, not just in the Asia-Pacific region but globally as well, with China reaching out in a meaningful manner to pretty much all geopolitical players, including African nations. However, this political influence frequently comes with a price tag, one that can

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11
Jul

Looking at China Through a BRICS Lens

The initial term “BRIC” was coined by the chief economist of Goldman Sachs (Jim O’Neill) back in 2001 and referred to the world’s four most important emerging markets: Brazil, Russia, India and China. As of 2010, South Africa (the “S” dimension of BRICS) was added to the equation and right off the bat, it’s important

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10
Jul

Intellectual Property Rights in China: From International Obligations to Conflict of Interests

One of the most widely used arguments when discussing the various episodes involving trade tensions between the United States and China has been the fact that billions of dollars are lost each year due to IP rights not being respected properly. On the one hand, you have China’s post-2017 commitment to stricter enforcement, with measures

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08
Jul

Could China Win a Trade War Against the United States?

In light of the (relatively) recent concerns surrounding the possibility of trade tensions between China and the United State escalating in a dramatic manner, a lot of observers are undoubtedly asking themselves whether or not a trade war can actually be won. So, could China win a trade war against the United States? Yes. Could

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06
Jul

China – India Relations: From Common Economic Goals to Geostrategic Concerns

China, with its population that exceeds 1.4 billion and India, with a population that exceeds 1.3 billion and is getting close to the 1.4 billion milestone, represent the world’s #1 and #2 nations by population and at the same time, countries that have grown tremendously from a GDP perspective and are poised to maintain their

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05
Jul

China and Taiwan: Economic Strength vs. Geopolitical Vulnerabilities

As an analyst, one cannot help but be prudent when describing the relationship between China and Taiwan… or, to be more precise, relationships (plural) because, frankly, it’s very difficult as well as sub-optimal to treat the Chinese-Taiwanese status quo in a uni-dimensional matter. The most straightforward approach, in this author’s view at least, is seeing

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05
Jul

Is China Still an “Emerging” or “Developing” Country?

Whenever there is a lot of money involved, even aspects such as national pride become less important and the issue of whether or not China should be considered an “emerging” or “developing” country is perhaps a textbook example. Think of it as Asian “Realpolitik” or, in other words, China’s way of trying to get the

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04
Jul

The Belt and Road Initiative in a Nutshell

Up until 2016, it was called the OBOR (One Belt One Road) Strategy, whereas nowadays, we refer to it as the BRI (Belt and Road Initiative). To avoid misunderstandings, the word “one” was eliminated from the equation and “strategy” was replaced by “initiative” to avoid making other geopolitical players suspicious. Regardless of the name we

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04
Jul

China’s Leadership Role(s) in a Potentially Multi-Polar World

Whether we like/accept it or not, the world is moving toward a multi-polar leadership framework as opposed to the US-centric one we have today. Why? Simply because there are many forces pushing the world in such as direction rather than there just being one reason which explains everything, forces such as: The United States itself

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23
Jun

China and Globalization: From Generational Opportunity to Systemic Risk

In the Western world, globalization has many enemies and the reasons are not hard to understand. In light of the fact that many Western companies decided to either outsource or move to countries with lower workforce costs altogether, many domestic employees who thought the could count on job security were left vulnerable. To give you

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