In The News

China's Businesses Boom, But Its Brands Don't

Rob Gifford July 25, 2011
China is the world’s factory, yet other countries supply most of the designs. Chinese brands aren’t flowing along with the “Made in China” labels on products. “A key problem for Chinese businesses is a comparative lack of legal protection,” explains Rob Gifford for NPR. For China to move toward innovation, with corporate research and development, it must develop intellectual property rights to...

Is France on Course to Bid Adieu to Globalization?

Pierre Haski July 21, 2011
The French have long been critical of globalizing forces that disrupt their nation’s economy or threaten their identity. Calls for démondialisation, or deglobalization, has emerged as a leading issue in the French presidential campaign. Intense opposition to engagement with the world builds among the left and right, along with alarm about the global debt crisis, structural youth unemployment and...

The Ticking Food Bomb

Nayan Chanda July 8, 2011
The globe confronts a perfect storm of challenges this century: climate change, rising inequality, limited fossil fuels and a growing population that put pressure food and water supplies. If population expands to 9 billion as expected, food demand will double by 2050 even as the rate of growth in the agriculture sector declines. Nations, fully aware, recognize that food shortages and price hikes...

WTO Says Chinese Restrictions on Raw Materials Break Rules

Stephen Castle July 8, 2011
Under World Trade Organization rules, countries engaged in global trade can’t suddenly turn protectionist. The WTO agreed with a 2009 complaint from the US, Mexico and Europe that ”Chinese quotas, export duties and license requirements put in place a discriminatory system for the sale overseas of industrial raw materials widely used in the steel, aluminum and chemicals industries,” reports...

Global Race on to Match US Drone Capabilities

William Wan and Peter Finn July 6, 2011
Wars usher in new technology, and “U.S. military successes with drones have changed strategic thinking worldwide and spurred a global rush for unmanned aircraft,” report William Wan and Peter Finn for the Washington Post. China is ramping up drone research and production, preparing for export. The tiny aircraft cost less than 1/10th of a fighter jet, but requires a network of satellites and...

Microsoft Strikes Deal With China's Biggest Search Engine Baidu

Censorship is part of the deal July 5, 2011
Microsoft has entered a deal to provide English-language results for China’s biggest search engine, Baidu, and also comply with the Chinese government’s demands for censorship. The deal opens the huge, growing Chinese market to floundering Bing – but could also alienate users in China and elsewhere who support absolute internet freedoms. Google remains the globe’s dominant search engine, reports...

Asia Matters for America

Satu Limaye June 28, 2011
US workers and politicians rail about jobs lost to Asia. But Asian-US interactions in education, immigration, investment, tourism and trade produce US jobs and income, explains Satu Limaye, director of the East-West Center in Washington. He created Asia Matters for America, an online map that relies on US government data to show exports, as well as their growth and percentage of total trade,...