Briefing Archive

In an unusual and potentially momentous informal summit, U.S. President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, will today begin three days of talks at a Californian desert ranch in what are being briefed as wide-ranging discussions on high-level strategic issues. Commentators are focusing on the potential for a personal rapport between the two leaders to emerge, with significant effects on broader relations between the world’s two most important nation states. But the initiation of a major strategic shift is dependent on the two sides overcoming a series of persistent disagreements and managing respective domestic pressures that limit the […]

The recent buzz about Africa’s economic progress and potential has aroused long-overdue interest from investors. While the bullish mood is largely justified, it should not obscure the fact that many institutional, infrastructural and policy barriers limit the scope for transformational growth. One of the most serious is that African markets are not sufficiently open. African countries simply do not trade enough with each other. This has huge consequences for a continent where 15 countries are landlocked and where colonial-era boundaries have produced many small, resource-poor nations that are not economically viable by themselves. Some African countries have begun to address […]

For all the focus on contemporary Iran, relatively little attention is paid to its trilateral ties with Afghanistan and Tajikistan, the geolinguistic remnants of an eclectic series of empires collectively denominated Persian. Since 2005, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made it a point to revive Persian nationalism, contrasting it with the clerical elite’s claim to Islam as the exclusive basis of Iranian identity. Significantly, Ahmadinejad’s nationalist rhetoric was accompanied by a raft of summits, forums and agreements among the three countries, which he called “limbs of the same body,” echoing the 13th-century Persian poet Saadi. Despite the historical echoes, however, […]

Last week, at a joint press conference with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang during Li’s visit to Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel openly disagreed with the European Commission’s plans to impose punitive tariffs against Chinese-made solar panels. The commission has accused China of unfair trade practices that undercut European producers. But Merkel’s concerns for German exports to China took precedence over European Union solidarity, highlighting the difficulties Brussels has faced in forging a unified policy toward Beijing. China has been a strategically important partner for Europe for at least two decades, but the economic crisis in Europe has changed the nature […]

The latest meeting of the leaders of the Pacific Alliance on May 23 in Cali, Colombia, was the best one yet, suggesting that this new economic bloc is an emerging powerhouse in Latin America. The alliance is an effort by Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru to link their economies more closely together through trade, finance and labor market integration to build mutual economic competitiveness. It is one of the most dynamic and potentially significant developments in hemispheric trade relations since negotiations to form a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) broke down in 2003. In the intervening decade, China’s […]