The US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s 22 April statement to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government suggests a significant shift in US policy towards Bank Swap Arrangements (BSAs), the international role of the Fed, and indeed the extent of the central bank’s independence.[i] Comments that must be understood in the context...Read More
Marginalisation of Multilateral Crisis Finance? Since the 2007-8 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) the Global Financial Safety Net (GFSN) has both significantly expanded and diversified. This has seen a steep decline in the IMF’s share of international liquidity crisis funding capacity, which also includes Bank Swap Arrangements (BSAs) and Regional Financial Arrangements—such as the European Stability...Read More
The 2025 ASEAN Summit In his opening remarks at the 46th ASEAN Summit (Kuala Lumpur- 26-27 May) Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, the current ASEAN chair, announced that he had written to President Trump, formally requesting a special USA-ASEAN summit[1] to negotiate the new tariff regime on behalf of all ASEAN member states. He...Read More
From 8.00 on 1 August Thai citizens with smartphones (58m.) can register for the 10,000-baht (US$280) digital wallet handout through the Thang Raj App (Government Way – see below). The wallet – worth about 2/3 of the average national nation income – is available to Thais age 16 or older with incomes under US$23,000 and...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
What the USA has labelled the Indo-Pacific (I-P) has become a central arena in the USA’s conflict with China. A conflict that has rapidly developed over the last 5 years from a trade dispute to a broad and increasingly ideologically based attempt to counter and constrain China at all levels. This is seen by the...Read More
The contemporary geopolitical world is unipolar, with the US (aided by its Western allies) attempting to impose a specific ideological polity on the rest of the world. The analysis developed in this paper is that such an absolutist political approach is dangerous to the peaceful stability of the world order and fails to appreciate the...Read More
The USA’s long-awaited ‘Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity’ (IPEF)[1] was released on 23 May at the Tokyo meeting of the Quadrilateral Dialogue (Quad). The IPEF complements the ‘The Indo-Pacific Strategy of the United States’ (Executive Office of the President 2022) launched on 11 February and the two documents have much in common, which reflects the...Read More
The USA’s long-awaited strategy for the Indo-Pacific (I-P) was released on the 11th of February (Executive Office of the President 2022), it contains few surprises. The stated goal is to work toward a free, open, connected, secure, and resilient region by anchoring the United States’ interests and values more firmly within it. This is set...Read More
The UK’s successful rolling out of its vaccination programme, the attendant government and media hype, not least with respect to how our ‘world beating’ science, technology and enterprise culture ‘beat the virus’, should not be allowed to gloss over the UK’s extremely high Covid death rate and the extent to which this reflects the government’s...Read More
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