• Tipping the Balance Between Global Rivals

    Seeking to understand how trade policies fueled China’s rise and continue to determine geopolitical winners and losers.

  • The Economic Weapon: The Growing Use of Sanctions as a Tool of War

    The war in Ukraine has put economic sanctions in the global spotlight. In his book, Nicholas Mulder traces the first use of sanctions back to the Peloponnesian War, but says that it was only in the globalizing world of the 20th century that sanctions moved to center stage. Ironically, as the use of sanctions has surged, their chances of success have plummeted.

  • China Has a New Global Development Initiative, but Who Will Actually Benefit from It?

    China is a major player in world affairs, representing the second-largest economy in the world after the United States. A year after assuming power in 2012, President Xi Jinping announced the creation of the so-called Belt and Road Initiative, a massive infrastructure project designed to increase investment and promote economic development in many of the world’s poor nations. In the past year, Xi has advanced another idea – the Global Development Initiative.

  • Chinese Subsidiary of British Investment Bank Now Includes Communist Party Committee

    British bank and financial services giant HSBC, a longtime presence in East Asia, has become the first foreign lender to install a Chinese Communist Party committee in its investment banking subsidiary in China.

  • Sanctions Are Crippling Russia's Economy: Study

    Researchers at Yale University say the Russian economy is suffering massive damage due to Western sanctions, despite Moscow downplaying the effect.

  • Europe’s Energy Choice

    Russia’s war in Ukraine and the disruption of Russian gas exports to Europe has triggered an energy crunch, with price spikes unlike anything seen since 1973. And the situation will get worse before it gets better. Responding to the immediate energy crisis in the right way will help to address the broader climate challenge. Authorities must both buffer the shock of the gas crunch in the short term, and accelerate the transition to clean energy in the long -term.

  • Anti-Israel Activists Co-opt American Tragedies to Target Israel

    Prominent anti-Israel groups and individuals have sought to tether American issues such as gun violence and limits on abortion rights to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, doubling down on anti-Zionist tropes and false accusations against the state of Israel.

  • Global Supply Chains Remain Resilient in the Wake of Natural Disasters

    International trade links bind countries together in ways that are difficult to untangle following a crisis. While many U.S. policy makers are calling for reshoring and nearshoring to combat trade disruptions caused by COVID-19, new research suggests retrenchment of global supply chains is unlikely to happen in the post-pandemic context.

  • Calls Rise in Congress to Designate Russia a State Sponsor of Terrorism

    As Russian attacks on civilian sites are reported on a near-daily basis, pressure is mounting on the Biden administration to officially designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.

  • Rare Earths in Australia Must Be About More Than Mining

    REEs are a group of 17 metals—15 elements from the lanthanide series and two chemically similar elements, scandium and yttrium. Each has unique properties vital for a range of commercial and defense technologies, including batteries, high-powered magnets and electronic equipment. China’s rare-earth production exceeds that of the world’s second-largest producer, the U.S., by more than 100,000 tons per year. The U.S. still relies on China for most rare-earth imports. In some cases, like heavy REE processing, China has 100 percent control of the market.

  • Americans Feel More Threatened Than Britons by China's Rise

    Americans were more likely than people living in the UK to feel threatened by China’s growth as a world power, a new survey shows.

  • Examining Scenarios of U.S.-China War Over Taiwan

    For years, U.S. policy has been to effectively deter a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait while preparing for contingencies in the event of a Chinese attack. More recently, top officials from President Joe Biden’s administration have repeatedly warned against Beijing’s use of force to alter the status quo.

  • Don't Cut Research Ties with China: U.K. Academics

    A new study involving more than 80 U.K.-based academics from a range of disciplines and institutions finds a resounding appetite for continued collaboration with Chinese colleagues, despite acknowledged tension over security concerns.

  • Germany: Far-Right AfD Conference Halted Amid Ukraine War Infighting

    After struggling at recent state and federal elections, the far-right party failed to agree on its new foreign policy stance, particularly over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The party conference in Saxony broke up early.

  • The Risk of Russian Cyber Retaliation for the United States Sending Rockets to Ukraine

    U.S. rocket shipments to Ukraine will not trigger Russian cyberattacks against the United States. Russian is too focused on attacking Ukrainian systems and defending their own networks to mount a response to the weapons shipments.