On Jan. 8, Chinese President Xi Jinping strode into a meeting room in Beijing for an unprecedented gathering. The audience was filled with Latin American dignitaries, including three presidents, one prime minister and countless Cabinet members from the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). It was the first official high-level gathering of the China-CELAC Forum, and Xi expressed his appreciation. “Your presence,” he told his audience, “has brought warmth to Beijing in the depth of winter.” Xi vowed to double Chinese trade with Latin America to half a trillion dollars and raise direct Chinese investment in the region […]
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Last week, China and the African Union (AU) agreed on a deal to develop transportation infrastructure across Africa. In an email interview, Ross Anthony, interim director of the Centre for Chinese Studies in Cape Town, discussed Chinese investment in Africa. WPR: How ambitious is the recent memorandum of understanding between China and the African Union on infrastructure development, and how does it compare to previous Chinese investments on the continent? Ross Anthony: The announcements of infrastructure projects involving China and Africa and the actual financing and execution of the projects themselves are very different things. While the deal sounds incredibly […]
Infighting over control of the levers of power rumbles on in Yemen, where last month Houthi rebels forced the resignation of the government at gunpoint. Although it has attracted less attention, the country’s economy is also in increasingly dire shape. If, as is likely, nothing is done to shore up government finances in the coming months, a long-predicted economic collapse is more or less certain. President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi announced his plans to step down on Jan. 22, shortly after his prime minister, Khaled Bahah, and the Cabinet he assembled last November said they were resigning en masse due to […]
China has wasted no time in mounting its own charm offensive to woo India in the aftermath of U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi last week. An India Today headline sums it up: “As Modi hugs Obama, China sends a quick flying kiss.” Beijing’s riposte should remind U.S. officials who continue to bank on India’s suspicions of China not to assume that Obama’s trip was sufficient to reset the U.S.-India partnership. China’s reception for Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who arrived in Beijing this past weekend for consultations with her Russian […]
Just over a week ago, Greece elected an anti-austerity party, Syriza, the first in Europe to take office since the European debt crisis began in 2010. Syriza’s victory sent shockwaves across Europe, despite the fact that it was widely predicted ahead of the Jan. 25 election. Led by Alexis Tsipras, Syriza won 36 percent of the vote, 8 percent more than the ruling center-right New Democracy party, and 149 seats in parliament, just two seats shy of a majority. The biggest element of Syriza’s campaign platform was the promise to renegotiate the terms of Greece’s $268 billion bailout from the […]
On the surface, today’s Germany appears a model of harmony and consensus. Led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is beloved by the citizenry, Germany boasts the eurozone’s strongest economy, which has flourished even during the financial crisis and Europe-wide recession. Merkel, 60, heads up the country’s most popular party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and has no serious challenger in sight. The current “grand coalition,” elected in 2013, is an affable partnership with the center-left Social Democrats; the trade unions and industry get along well, too. Many experts and journalists, such as George Packer in a recent profile in The […]
Russia’s trade with China continues to grow despite the precipitous collapse in the value of the Russian ruble and the unprecedented Western economic sanctions imposed on Russia last year following Moscow’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. Indeed, China’s economic importance to Moscow has increased as Russia’s commercial relations with Europe, the United States and Japan stagnate. Yet the Russia-China economic relationship is imbalanced, with Russia sending mostly natural resources to China and importing mostly Chinese consumer goods. As a result, the two countries will find it difficult to deepen their economic cooperation much further unless it expands to encompass high-value […]
On Jan. 29, in an op-ed for The New York Times, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden announced that the White House would request $1 billion from Congress in its 2016 budget to finance a range of development, security and good governance initiatives in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, often referred to as Central America’s Northern Triangle. The news is a welcome announcement for a region that is suffering from the effects of long-term poverty, inequality and insecurity. Despite the promise of U.S. aid, however, a great deal will have to fall into place for Washington’s new commitment to Central America […]
When Greece first came close to a sovereign default in 2010, the eurozone and even the entire European Union seemed to be at risk of fragmentation. Rather than break up, the currency bloc forged new mechanisms to handle the crisis—and the balance of power on fiscal policy within the EU tilted decisively toward Germany as its economic guarantor. This pattern could now be repeated with regard to European foreign policy. Officials in Brussels insist that the victory of the hard-left Syriza party in last week’s Greek elections does not threaten the eurozone. But they worry that it could contribute to […]
Last month, Japan and the United Kingdom agreed to jointly research new air-to-air missile technology. In an email interview, Yuzo Murayama, professor at the Graduate School of Business at Doshisha University, discussed Japan’s entry into the global defense market. WPR: What defense technologies and capabilities does Japan have to offer on the global defense market? Yuzo Murayama: Japan does not have many globally competitive defense-specific technologies or products. This is because Japanese weapons have not been tested in real battlefield environments due to the past ban on arms exports. There are exceptions, such as submarines that contain unique technologies. However, […]
On Dec. 28, 2013, a 1-year-old boy named Emile died in Meliandou, Guinea, after having fallen ill with a fever, vomiting and bloody stool. Experts now believe that Emile was the first person to contract Ebola in the current West African outbreak. Since Emile’s death, the World Health Organization (WHO) has identified 22,057 cases of Ebola and 8,844 deaths in 9 countries connected to this epidemic, as of Jan. 28. The current Ebola outbreak has caused more illness and death than all previous outbreaks combined, challenged the ability of the WHO and the international community as a whole to respond […]