Several Southeast Asian leaders were feted by Russian President Vladimir Putin at last week’s Belt and Road Forum in Beijing as part of his pivot to Asia, elevating the importance of the region’s political centrality and economic vitality to Russia’s Indo-Pacific strategy. This was Putin’s second official foreign trip since the International Criminal Court issued an...Read More

The European Union’s call to investigate Beijing’s use of state subsidies in the production of Chinese electric vehicles, along with the possibility of tariffs on EV exports to Europe, comes as Chinese carmakers diversify their manufacturing of EVs into Southeast Asia. Chief among Chinese EV makers’ prospective hubs is Thailand. The country has by far the largest automobile...Read More

The European Union’s (EU) regulation on markets in crypto-assets (MiCA) brings crypto-assets, crypto-assets issuers and crypto-asset service providers under a harmonized legal framework covering this sector for the first time.  Given the global nature of crypto-markets, it is anticipated that EU-level regulation should be a more effective governance structure than has been the case with...Read More

The unveiling of Japan’s US$490 billion fiscal stimulus package in November coincided with the announcement by the UK Department of International Trade of a new export strategy. This is committed to boosting exports to an annual £1 trillion ($1.35 trillion) by 2030, from the current yearly £600 billion. While the two policy measures were wholly separate events, their...Read More

Several decades ago, East Asia became the epicentre of superpower rivalry during the Cold War. Following a stalemate war in Northeast Asia’s Korean peninsula, in the early 1950s, military and ideological rivalry shifted to the Indochina peninsula and broader Southeast Asia in the 1960s. READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE: SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST.Read More

China energy’s crisis has been making global headlines these last few weeks with many Chinese regions, suffering energy deficits. Soaring demand in the aftermath of the global pandemic for energy, from the country’s giant industrial sector and higher-spending households, has collided with tight supplies of imports due to ongoing coronavirus restrictions amid government efforts to...Read More

Although the EU has not yet provided details of the sources of finance for its Global Gateway program, nonetheless, EU Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen has said stated, in general terms, that the EU will look to develop these sources to “connect institutions and investment, banks and the business community”.  In practical terms this is...Read More

The rollout of China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) across the northern half of the Mediterranean Sea is typically portrayed in strikingly polar opposite terms depending on the political source. Western think-tanks and Washington/Brussels-centric media regularly depict the BRI as a plot by the Chinese Communist Party to ‘undermine European unity’, ‘divide the transatlantic alliance’,...Read More

Since leaving the European Union, the government of the United Kingdom has pivoted toward Southeast Asia and its regional bloc, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), recognizing it as one of the key dynamic economic regions of the world. The U.K.’s new partnership with ASEAN fosters an environment supportive of increased trade flows, secure...Read More

The NATO communique issued yesterday (see here) addresses China as a security threat to the West for the first time. However, within the text there is relatively little on China (vs Russia) other than reference to it being a “systemic rival”, mirroring earlier EU wording on its relations with China. Interestingly there’s no mention of the...Read More