Free trade or bust

Despite calls for inward economic strategies due to the perceived vulnerability of integrated supply chains, access to international markets has proven to be a form of insurance in times of crisis, responding quickly and efficiently to COVID-19 and energy trade disruptions.

AI in Asia

The scope for AI to reshape economies and drive growth is obvious, but effective, efficient and thoughtful regulation is desperately needed to ensure that the benefits are not monopolised or squandered.

Asia’s demographic challenge

The ageing and shrinking of populations in many parts of East Asia will be a defining part of their economic and social development this century, just as the trade-fuelled economic boom was in the latter half of the previous one.

We will not be assimilated

Fatalism is always intellectually fashionable. Plenty of intellectuals said the Cold War was unwinnable and Russia would crush Ukraine. Similarly, those who believe Asia – and Australia – will inevitably be dominated by China are similarly mistaken.

Man is born free, but he lives in global supply chains

It’s hard to imagine a more thorough stress test for globalisation than the double whammy of a once-in-a-century global pandemic followed by a land war between two of the world’s major commodity producers.

Maintaining a global agenda

Global uncertainties have given birth to pronouncements that range from nonsense to seriously dangerous such as that the WTO is dead and that globalisation has run its full course, but the WTO is not dead, and neither is globalisation.

Australia takes the scenic route back to normality

As Australia emerges from the COVID pandemic, it must now face new challenges in terms of climate change and economic renewal.

Tokyo’s Olympic countdown

Postponed from last year, the Tokyo Olympic Games are set to kick off in less than a month, although the decision to proceed in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic remains steeped in controversy.

The return of the G7

The G7 is back. A post-Brexit ‘Global Britain’ has ambitions for an international leadership role and has coordinated a call from the Group of Seven advanced economies for reform of global rules.

The uncharted road to recovery

The horrifying scale of the COVID-19 crisis in India should be warning enough that the path of the global health and economic recovery is still unknown.

Bringing Burma back from the brink

Myanmar’s military junta has ditched any effort to put a benign face on the coup it held at the start of February.

Asia and the USA after Trump

Donald Trump’s disastrous Presidency damaged the USA’s relations with its Asian allies, and President Biden has many bridges to rebuilt to contain the rise of China.