Asia’s fast growth rates could falter without massive investment in infrastructure, while China — which looks set to benefit from the U.S. withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact — is readying more lending firepower, the Financial Times reports in a special series on Asian infrastructure and trade. As part of the series, FT emerging markets editor James Kynge explains how infrastructure finance could create new alliances across the region and draws upon Reconnecting Asia’s maps. Read his piece here, and explore the infrastructure ambitions of regional powers through Reconnecting Asia’s “Competing Visions” map series here.
May 15, 2017
The Belt and Road’s expansiveness is a double-edged sword. Chinese officials can highlight individual successes and, pointing to a long roster of participants, they can claim international support. Beneath its global banner, though, the Belt and Road is mostly bilateral deal-making.
May 9, 2017
The polar regions are an important zone for China’s emergence as a global power. China has long-term strategic interests in the Arctic and economic interests are part of the reason why China is drawn to be active there, though not the sole factor. There has been a lot of international debate and media coverage of China’s economic interests in the Arctic; however, relative to the government’s strategic agenda, China’s major companies have been slow to take up the opportunities available to them in the polar regions and are still relatively weak in polar equipment and expertise.
May 9, 2017
How will the Arctic change within our lifetimes? While not a crystal ball, there is a tangible example that is likely to foreshadow the future, at least in part of the Arctic. The formerly perennially frozen Eastern Russian, Alaskan, Canadian and Greenlandic Arctic is beginning to look much more like the Scandinavian Arctic and will likely begin to behave like the North Atlantic in terms of warmer water, species diversity, surface temperature moderation, ship traffic, and commercial potential.
May 2, 2017
Disaster sometimes moves slowly. Naturally, our attention is drawn to fast-moving, visually captivating threats: a raging wildfire, a careening car, a missile test. Terrorist attacks are often designed to tap into these cognitive biases. But some threats grow gradually and out of sight. When they finally materialize and appear urgent, it’s already too late.
Apr 26, 2017