South Pacific

Forecast Tracker: 2020 Year-End Review

(click to enlarge) Scale: Hit, Partial Hit, Inconclusive, Partial Miss, Miss Global Economic dysfunction will be the main driver of the international system in 2020. Economic stress does not simply flow from whether the economy grows or declines by a percent; it arises from shifts in the pattern of economic behavior. This in turn affects […]

Daily Memo: Duterte’s Threats, Pakistani Attacks

Philippine threats. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is threatening, yet again, to scrap Manila's pivotal Visiting Forces Agreement with Washington if the U.S. doesn't deliver...

Daily Memo: Brexit Buzz, Deceptive Economic Data

Hope for a deal. Optimism is growing that the European Union and the United Kingdom will reach a post-Brexit free trade deal, potentially by...

Daily Memo: Threats of Retaliation in the Middle East

Israel prepares for attack. Israel successfully carried out a series of air defense tests involving its short-range Iron Dome system, medium-range David’s Sling, and...

Daily Memo: Trade Deals, from Europe to Asia

EU still united on Brexit. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will travel to Brussels within days to meet with European Commission President Ursula von...

Daily Memo: Assemble the Fleet

Revived 1st Fleet. The United States has confirmed plans to establish a naval fleet dedicated to the Indian Ocean basin and peripheral chokepoints in...

Daily Memo: US Tariffs on Chinese Goods, Russian Weapons in the Kurils

U.S. tariffs. U.S. President-elect Joe Biden said Tuesday that he won’t quickly do away with U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods – and rather that...

Daily Memo: US Liquidity, Chinese Manufacturing

U.S. liquidity. The U.S. Federal Reserve will extend until March 31 four emergency liquidity programs that were set to expire at the end of...

The Geopolitics of Vaccine Distribution

The American pharmaceutical firm Pfizer, in collaboration with German firm BioNTech, surprised the world when it announced that its coronavirus vaccine showed 90 percent...

The World’s Largest Trade Pact

(click to enlarge) Judging solely by its headline figures, the newly inked 15-member Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – by most metrics the world’s largest...

Daily Memo: China Airs Its Grievances With Australia

14 points of disagreement. A day after Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian listed seven points of disagreement with Australia – ostensibly as justification...

Daily Memo: Risks of Debt Contagion in China

Chinese corporate debt troubles. Two Chinese state-linked enterprises said Monday that they would not be able to meet upcoming onshore bond repayment obligations. Defaults...

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