Asia-Pacific Archive

Business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month warned that China has overtaken the United States in the development of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, such as fifth-generation wireless or 5G. “There’s almost an endless stream of people who are showing up and developing new companies,” Blackstone’s CEO Stephen Schwarzman told one panel of his frequent trips to China. “The venture business there in AI-oriented companies is really exploding with growth.” The attention on China’s rapidly evolving tech sector has overshadowed another area of competition between Beijing and Washington, which may be moving more slowly but […]

The latest United Nations climate talks held in Poland in December produced surprising progress toward developing the rulebook governing the Paris climate agreement. International negotiators added teeth to the accord by crafting a detailed system to catalogue national emissions, requiring new benchmarks for measuring and forecasting emissions, and mandating public multilateral and technical assessments. Nations will now have to uniformly track their emissions progress and expectations, with scrutiny from other governments and independent experts. But the next obstacle to climate action will be harder to overcome. There is no existing international financial institution capable of mobilizing enough money to finance […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. The U.S. and China held two days of high-level trade talks in Washington last week, just before the start of China’s week-long Lunar New Year holiday. Negotiators conveyed cautious optimism but stressed that much work remains to reach an agreement before the March 1 deadline. Vice Premier Liu He, China’s economic czar, led a Chinese delegation that included central bank governor Yi Gang. The American negotiating team was headed by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and also included Treasury […]

Intense fighting has returned to western Myanmar’s troubled Rakhine state, this time between the military and the Arakan Army, a well-armed ethnic group that advocates self-governance for the region. At least 26 people have died since fighting erupted in December, and thousands of civilians have been displaced, according to the United Nations. The renewed conflict is likely to further complicate the already difficult process of repatriating hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims living in refugee camps across the border, in Bangladesh. In an interview with WPR, David Scott Mathieson, an independent analyst based in Yangon, Myanmar, discusses the Arakan Army’s […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss a framework deal announced by U.S. and Taliban negotiators and the broader implications of an eventual American withdrawal from Afghanistan. For the Report, Anna Pujol-Mazzini talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about Mali’s halting efforts toward transitional justice and reconciliation for a war that began in 2012, amid ongoing fighting in the north and new outbreaks of violence in the country’s central region. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for […]

Shinzo Abe has already outperformed his five immediate predecessors, putting to rest the idea that a Japanese prime minister couldn’t stay in office for more than a year. Now, he is approaching a milestone. He will become the longest-serving prime minister in Japan’s history if he remains in office until November. But Abe is looking beyond that, with a chance to serve out his current term as prime minister until 2021, since he was overwhelmingly re-elected last fall for a third and final term as president of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP. The party can effectively determine the […]