In The News

The Washington Post: North Korean Ship Seized Off Egypt With Cache of Weapons

Joby Warrick October 2, 2017
A ship bearing the Cambodian flag with a North Korean crew was stopped just before entering the Suez Canal in August. Acting on a tip from US intelligence officials, Egyptian custom agents found more than 30,000 Soviet-style rocket-propelled grenades with removable, non-lethal warheads onboard– the “largest seizure of ammunition in the history of sanctions against the Democratic People’s Republic...

BusinessKorea: Saying Good-Bye to China

Michael Herh September 21, 2017
More than 25 percent of South Korea’s exports went to China as the world’s second largest market in 2013. “However, when the THAAD Incident broke out, excessive dependence on China boomeranged against South Korean companies,” writes Michael Herh for BusinessKorea. China found South Korean products less desirable; for example, Hyundai Motor sales plummeted by 50 percent, and South Korea – despite...

The Globe and Mail: China Used Research Mission to Test Trade Route Through Canada’s Northwest Passage

Robert Fife and Steven Chase September 13, 2017
China used a research icebreaker, the Snow Dragon, to check if Chinese cargo ships could rely on Canada’s Northwest Passage rather than the Panama Canal, reducing delivery time by 20 percent. The report came from Xinhau News Agency, which “also reported that China sent six merchant ships through Russia's Northeast Passage this summer as the world's second-largest economy hopes to take...

Washington Examiner: Trump Administration Waives Jones Act to Get Fuel to Florida Ports

Josh Siegel September 8, 2017
The US Merchant Marine Act of 1920, also known as the Jones Act, is often referred to as a case study in protectionism. Generally the act “prohibits any foreign built or foreign flagged vessel from engaging in coastwise trade within the United States,” explains the Maritime Law Center, noting that the courts have given wide interpretation and the “term applies to a voyage that beginning at any...

The Cairo Review of Global Affairs: The Case for Open Markets

Dany Bahar September 6, 2017
In the aftermath of Brexit and Donald J. Trump’s presidential ascension, a world that embraced globalization and free trade is turning its back on economic and political principles established after the Second World War. Dany Bahar, writing for the Cairo Review of Global Affairs, prefaces his advocacy for more global trade by arguing that protectionism – a policy championed by Trump to revive the...

Wired: The Hard Consequences of Google’s Soft Power

Nitasha Tiku September 4, 2017
Google and parent company Alphabet resist being perceived as a global monopoly in need of additional regulation. Regulators around the globe struggle to keep up with the many high-tech firms that both provide an array of information and collect data on user behavior. The European Union fined Google €2.5 billion for prioritizing its comparison-shopping service in search engine results and expects...

Caixin: Survey Finds Data Don’t Show Full Picture of Overseas Real-Estate Spree

Pan Che August 24, 2017
China invests more in global real estate than other Asian countries, but data do not show how much Chinese money already moves about offshore, reports Pan Che for Caixin. The Chinese government imposed regulations on outward direct investments, including limits on “irrational” investments like sports clubs or entertainment, “to stem capital outflows and prevent the yuan from depreciating further...