In recent years, the GCC member states have made efforts to shift toward renewable energies, while turning to China as a key partner in doing so. But while that partnership has proved fruitful in terms of investments in renewables, it has also paradoxically alleviated the pressure the GCC countries feel to abandon hydrocarbons.
Who rules the world? In discussions of international politics, the focus is often on states. With the rise of Big Tech, though, some observers have argued that the future of global power will be a story of corporations, not countries. But claims that corporations will dominate the world and surpass states in power are overblown.
Last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted an in-person summit with the presidents of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. The gathering was the latest demonstration of China’s growing geo-economic role in Central Asia, marking what Xi called a “new era” in Beijing’s relations with the region.
At a meeting of South America’s presidents last week, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called for regional financial integration and some sort of mechanism to conduct trade without U.S. dollars. Judging by the number of times in recent months he has suggested something along these lines, it’s a topic on Lula’s mind.
This year’s G-7 summit made it clear the group views China and Russia as threats to the international order and offered insights into how the Western powers plan to counter them. It seems the G-7 approach has three facets: ignore Russian intimidation, economically decouple from China and court nations throughout the Global South.
Across developed countries, aging populations and slowing economic growth are rendering today’s retirement institutions unsustainable. As a result, working longer as societies age is both natural and necessary, meaning that what future generations may look back on as the “golden age” of retirement is now coming to an end.
Bank failures are back in the news, after three of the United States’ 30 largest banks collapsed in the past three months. These bank failures and the policy responses to date have taught us several important lessons about why such crises keep happening in the U.S. and how policymakers can act to break this self-destructive cycle.