In The News

European Luxury Brands Challenge Chinese Pirates

Jonathan Watts November 4, 2005
Centuries ago, China exported its luxurious silks out to the world on camel caravans over the meandering Silk Road. Now, Chinese venues like the Silk Market in Beijing offer counterfeit luxury goods to tourists at a fraction of their legal cost. In the past decade, the Asian giant has become the source of seventy percent of the world’s counterfeit products, frustrating foreign businesses and...

Romancing the Globe

Ibsen Martinez November 1, 2005
Approximately 2 billion people around the world tune in on a regular basis to watch Latin American soap operas known as “telenovelas.” While Hollywood and the US television industry are often seen as the defining forces of cultural globalization, the success of telenovelas is a global phenomenon that is being celebrated as “reverse cultural imperialism.” The plotlines of telenovelas usually...

International Migration: Brain Drain or Brain Gain?

Caglar Ozden October 31, 2005
The surge in globalization since the end of World War II has been fueled chiefly by an international exchange of goods and capital rather than people. There are signs, however, that international migrants are playing an increasingly important role in globalization as the world enters the twenty-first century. What are the costs and benefits of this new wave of migration? The principal cost of...

China’s Next Big Boom Could be the Foul Air

Jim Yardley October 31, 2005
China’s rise has both staggered and threatened the rest of the world. Sometimes the portrayal of China's military power as a threat has been exaggerated. An announcement by a top Chinese environmental official last week, however, introduced a statistic that is true cause for anxiety. Pollution levels in China could more than quadruple in the next 15 years if China does not slow its energy...

Global Europe

Gordon Brown October 27, 2005
As European leaders meet at Hampton Court, British chancellor of the exchequer Gordon Brown writes about a need for a drastically new approach to the EU. After all, the EU was founded to make intra-European trade successful and to integrate the economies of the member countries, not specifically to deal with challenges from outside economic competitors. Brown argues that many of the EU's...

English Butler Leads China's Latest Cultural Revolution

Jonathan Watts October 26, 2005
The austere refinement and discreet assistance long associated with a traditional English butler is now a commodity available globally. In the past decade, Robert Watson has taken his business – training aspiring manservants in ettiquette, wine-tasting, table-dressing and other skills – to numerous continents. Watson's latest expansion is in the Far East, where Chinese authorities have...

China, India Superpower? Not so Fast!

Pranab Bardhan October 25, 2005
Every day, countless commentators prophesize the ascendance of the world's next superpowers, China and India, the two "Asian giants" shaking off their ancient slumber and rising to the call of the 21st century. According to popular punditry, their place in the firmament of globalization's success stories is already guaranteed. Yet economist Pranab Bardhan argues that a much...