GPF Team

May 19, 2017 The country’s economic problems make it increasingly vulnerable to outside influences.

May 19, 2017 Over the past few decades, China has become famously prosperous, but it has some problems it needs to solve if it wants its prosperity to continue. Its wealth was built on trade, and its trade depends on maritime transportation. The United States, with its powerful navy, controls the seas and could theoretically blockade the sea lanes Beijing depends on.

So China is looking for overland trade routes. These routes could have the added benefit of helping to redistribute wealth to China’s otherwise impoverished interior provinces. First, however, China has to build the requisite infrastructure.

Enter Southeast Asia, the gateway to the Indian Ocean and a region that is ripe for the kind of infrastructure investment Beijing can provide. Perhaps no country in the region stands to gain more from Chinese investment than Myanmar.

May 19, 2017

Jacob L. Shapiro and Xander Snyder discuss the future of Syria, the prospect of US-Russian cooperation in the Middle East, and whether ideology defines geopolitics or vice versa. Click here to sign up for free updates on topics like this.

May 18, 2017 The Southeast Asian nation can provide what many other countries cannot: an alternate trade route to global markets.