Emerging and developing markets are competing to attract outside investment and playing an even greater role in the global economy.
A trilogy of corruption and bribery cases centered around Uzbekistan’s telecommunications market have reverberated through international courts, highlighting just how severe the global risks can be of deciding to pay off politically connected elites in even the most closed and far-off countries.
While the COVID-19 epidemic has spread along the routes of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), those same corridors are being used to provide medical support as Beijing attempts to position itself as a global leader in healthcare—a move which Chinese President Xi Jinping calls the “Health Silk Road.”
Historically, Kazakhstan’s economic potential has been constrained by geographic extremes and uneven development. To address these challenges, the government has emphasized investment in transportation networks and urban economic centers, achieving steady growth and reducing inequality as a result, yet some risks remain.
The development of the Millennium Highway, which links China to Russia through Mongolia, has catalyzed changes extending beyond Mongolia’s aspirations for national, regional, and global connectivity. Through a series of local interviews, this new study by Dr. Alexander Diener and Dr. Batbuyan Batjav explores the intended and unintended consequences of Mongolia’s efforts to build paved roads where none existed.
Questions of economic development, military power projection, political influence, and global economic suzerainty form the backdrop for what is emerging as a global competition centered on the most economically dynamic region of the world—Asia. And infrastructure development is at the center of that contest.