In The News

Opposition Wins in Myanmar, But Military Still Holds the Reins

Bertil Lintner November 12, 2015
The National League for Democracy, an opposition party in Myanmar led by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has won a landslide victory. The military has pledged to work with Suu Kyi, but has a lock on 25 percent of seats in parliament, enough to prevent changes to the nation’s constitution if none of its representatives go astray, explains journalist and author Bertil Lintner. Suu Kyi’...

China’s New Economic Plan Tackles the Rebalancing Puzzle

Stephen S. Roach November 10, 2015
Early reports on China’s Five-Year Plan outlining the government’s strategic priorities for 2016 to 2020 indicate preparations for slowed yet more sustainable economic growth. The plan involves ongoing transition toward an economy that promotes service industries, private consumption, innovation and entrepreneurship. The plan endorses a diversified economy, emphasizing quality rather than...

Is China the Next Mexico?

Jorge Guajardo November 5, 2015
China’s political and economic transformations should be compared with that of Mexico, suggests Jorge Guajardo, a former Mexican ambassador to China, in an essay for Zócalo Public Square. In the 1990s, during the negotiations for the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement, analysts cheered Mexico’s economic expertise and openness to free trade by the ruling party with its lock on power. “Lost in all...

Big Win by Turkey’s AKP Signals Vote for Stability

Chris Miller November 3, 2015
Turkey’s Justice and Development Party, also known as AKP, won 317 seats in the General National Assembly with Sunday's election– more than expected and more than the 276 needed for a majority, but not enough to change the constitution directly. The results confounded pollsters since AKP failed to win a majority in June elections or form a coalition government. “Confronting renewed conflict...

Beyond Hype and Pomp

Nayan Chanda October 22, 2015
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among many world leaders traveling to New York in September for the annual UN General Assembly meeting: “his principal mission was to sell India to US multinationals and tech titans, and to win the support of Indians overseas,” explains Nayan Chanda, YaleGlobal’s founding editor in his column for Businessworld. India is a vast, young and developing market...

Matteo Renzi, Scrapper in the Swamp

Joji Sakurai October 19, 2015
A challenge for Europe is that many talented, skilled young adults cannot find work. Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi would like to jumpstart the economy by “breaking it open to competition,” journalist Joji Sakurai explains for the New Statesman. Italy confronts “a struggle of allegiances versus globalisation; gerontocracy versus meritocracy; made-in-Italy quality versus stark economic...

The German Lynchmob: Islamophobe Movement Returns With a Vengeance

Maik Baumgärtner, Maximilian Popp, Jörg Schindler and Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt October 15, 2015
Germany’s decision to open its borders to thousands of refugees from Syria has reinvigorated the political party of Pegida, also known as “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident.” Some supporters insist that they are not Nazis, but oppose a system that fails to embrace a strong and unchanging culture; others call the refugees “invaders” and are ready to blockade streets,...