Economics & Business Archive

Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Chinese leaders have struggled with an age-old problem: how to feed a growing population with a small amount of arable land. Despite the country’s agrarian beginnings and the ideological importance of the farmer in Maoist thought, nagging concerns about efficiency, food security and sustainable agricultural development have never been fully resolved. Even as China has dazzled the world with its technological progress in cutting-edge fields like artificial intelligence, renewable energy and bioengineering, to the government’s dismay, China has been slow to make similar advances in farming despite boasting the […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, and associate editor, Omar H. Rahman, discuss the state of trans-Atlantic ties, against the backdrop of Washington visits by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. For the Report, James Borton talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about how networks of “citizen scientists” are using technology to help raise awareness about the environmental costs of development in Vietnam. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get […]

In his staunch defense of multilateralism delivered to the U.S. Congress earlier this week, French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his hope that the United States would not in fact leave the landmark Paris agreement on fighting climate change, as President Donald Trump has declared. Macron’s appeal to the need for active American leadership underscores only one of the obstacles to an effective global response to this urgent environmental threat. Some of these challenges are inherent in the mechanics of a long and overdue transition to lower-carbon forms of energy. Others are due to political decisions made by global economic powers, […]

The Kremlin has created a three-dimensional strategy involving intimidation, undermining the Western-engineered global order and creating and protecting markets for the sale of Russian weapons that is designed to strengthen the country politically and economically. Near the end of a recent report on the resurgence of both the Islamic State and al-Qaida in Libya was an almost offhand mention of Russian special operations forces active along the country’s border with Egypt, helping provide weapons to Gen. Khalifa Haftar, whose forces dominate eastern Libya. This seemingly minor fact is, in reality, emblematic of important trends in Russia’s revanchist foreign policy. When […]

Earlier this month, India’s new foreign secretary, Vijay Kashev Gokhale, visited neighboring Bangladesh for meetings on issues ranging from Rohingya refugees to the sharing of water supplies. New Delhi and Dhaka also signed a memorandum of understanding to build an 80-mile oil pipeline that would allow oil to be exported to Bangladesh. India’s efforts to deepen ties with Bangladesh are part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious “neighborhood first” foreign policy initiative. In an email interview, Michael Kugelman, the deputy director of the Asia Program and senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, discusses […]

On Sunday, Paraguayans picked a new president and vice president, along with every member in their country’s Congress. There was a lot at stake, starting with the credibility of the voting itself. Paraguay was mired in political turmoil last year after Congress considered expanding presidential term limits—a move that worried many people who had lived through Alfredo Stroessner’s 35-year dictatorship, which came to an end in a military coup in 1989. So the smooth electoral process on April 22, overseen by the Organization of American States and the European Union, should serve as reassurance, both to Paraguayans and to a […]

On March 21, the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda held snap elections less than a month after they had been called by Prime Minister Gaston Browne, and 18 months before the constitution required them. Browne’s Antigua and Barbuda Labor Party routed the opposition, paving the way for the prime minister to continue with an ambitious reform program that aims to turn Antigua and Barbuda into an “economic powerhouse in the Caribbean.” The election also overturned a centuries-old communal land ownership system on Barbuda, opening the door to private ownership and development on an island that was devastated by Hurricane […]

Unless you’re Rip Van Winkle, you probably already know that next month, international attention will be on the world’s two acute nuclear weapons cases: Iran and North Korea. May 12 is the deadline for U.S. President Donald Trump to decide if he will continue to waive sanctions against Iran as part of the seven-nation nuclear agreement signed in 2015. And all month long, teams in Washington and Pyongyang will be planning an unprecedented summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, with the North’s nuclear program the main item on the agenda. There are at least two ways […]

In early April 2016, fishermen in Vietnam began noticing something alarming: Dead fish were washing up on the shores of several provinces. Days turned into weeks, and the dead tuna and mackerel kept coming, joined by clams and even one whale. It turned out to be the largest environmental disaster in Vietnam’s history. Fishermen lost their livelihoods, and some people fell ill after eating fish that had apparently been poisoned. But at first the government kept quiet about the cause of the mass fish kill. Authorities limited coverage of it on state media and arrested hundreds of people who participated […]

For a man stepping down after half a century at the apex of Cuba’s government—first as the island’s longtime defense minister and vice president, then as president—Raul Castro was in good humor last week, looking relaxed and happy as he handed the presidency to his designated successor, Miguel Diaz-Canel. Departing from the prepared text of his valedictory speech in Havana, Castro cracked jokes, reminisced about the revolution and quipped that he planned to travel more, “since I’m supposed to have less work to do.” There were no big surprises at the National Assembly meeting that installed Diaz-Canel as the first […]

President Donald Trump surprised almost everyone, including his closest economic advisers and both free trade advocates and protectionists in Congress, when he announced last week that the United States would consider rejoining the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the huge Pacific Rim trade pact that he withdrew from days after taking office. Trump had heavily criticized the TPP, the signature economic deal of the Obama administration, even calling it the “rape of our country” during the 2016 presidential campaign. In light of such statements, most observers believed the Trump administration intended to pursue only bilateral free trade agreements, if any at all. As […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about the production and trade of arms around the world. Between 2014 and 2017, Germany’s government approved some $31 billion in weapons sales, including almost $18 billion to countries outside the European Union and the NATO alliance. Under Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany has become one of the top five arms exporters in the world by volume, despite major domestic opposition to the sale of German weapons. In an email interview, Sophia Besch, a research fellow at the Center for European Reform and an expert on German defense and security policy, […]

MEXICO CITY—For the past three years, protesters have staged a monthly demonstration outside the office of Mexico’s attorney general. The participants, most of them impoverished farmers from the southern coastal state of Guerrero, include the parents and loved ones of the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College who, in September 2014, were abducted after they hijacked buses for a political protest in the city of Iguala. Mexican authorities have said the abductions were carried out by corrupt municipal police officers who handed the students over to drug traffickers. But the case is still mired in controversy, with families […]

The 105 cruise missiles that the United States, France and the United Kingdom fired at Syria late last week, in response to another suspected chemical weapons attack by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, deepened the divide between Western powers and Russia over how to approach the next stage of Syria’s war. But amid divisions playing out both at the United Nations and on the ground in Syria, China sits in a precarious and uniquely advantageous position. As an actor that strictly denounces the use of chemical weapons and upholds the principle of nonintervention, Beijing condemned both the chemical attack outside Damascus […]

Last month, Armenia’s National Assembly elected onetime Prime Minister Armen Sarkissian as the country’s next president, replacing the long-tenured Serzh Sargsyan as head of state. It was the first presidential election since a 2015 constitutional referendum that was designed to shift power in Armenia from the presidency to parliament and, mainly, the prime minister. For the first time, Armenia’s president was selected by the National Assembly, rather than by popular vote. While presidential votes have typically been contentious affairs in Armenia, Sarkissian’s election was initially met with comparative shrugs, and not just because the real power will now shift to […]

Almost a month after voters went to the polls in the first round of elections, Sierra Leone has chosen a new president. Julius Maada Bio, the candidate for the Sierra Leone People’s Party, secured 51.8 percent of the vote in the March 31 runoff against Samura Kamara of the ruling All People’s Congress. Maada Bio, who lost in the first round of 2012’s presidential race, was sworn in as president on April 4. This is not the first time Maada Bio has led Sierra Leone, as he was the military head of a transitional government for three months in 1996. […]

On April 1, Bahrain announced that it had made a huge discovery of offshore oil and gas in the Persian Gulf that far exceeds its current reserves. Drilling by two U.S.-based firms confirmed that the Khaleej al-Bahrain basin may contain more than 80 billion barrels of shale oil and around 13.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. For the cash-strapped government in Manama, which has faced a mounting fiscal deficit and nagging social pressures, the news came as a major relief. While just a minor player in the oil market today, Bahrain actually gave birth to the industry on the […]