Bye Bye Belt and Road? | The Dysfunctional Superpower | Is the Globalisation Recession Here to Stay? | Mexico’s gangs could be the country’s fifth-biggest employer

View online | Unsubscribe (one-click). For inquiries/unsubscribe issues, Contact Us

� � � � � � You Might Like � � � � � � � � � Bye Bye Belt and Road? - Time    Ten years after a freshly inaugurated President Xi Jinping announced the Belt and Road Initiative, China is gearing up to celebrate the decade anniversary of what has been called the "most ambitious" geopolitical project of the century. The sweeping initiative, initially introduced as the "Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road Development Strategy" in September and October 2013, promised to boost connectivity, trade, and cultural exchange along routes loosely inspired by the ancient Silk Road—no small task. But dig a little deeper beyond the headlines, and the numbers start to get strange. Why can no-one agree on total spending? And where are the official Chinese figures? Why isn't there even an officially agreed-upon list of BRI countries? None of this is to say the BRI hasn't been impactful. Chinese projects have, by some metrics, poured more than $1 trillion into addressing global infrastructure gaps faster and with less bureaucracy than their western counterparts, built up invaluable overseas experience for Chinese firms and banks, and provided an undisputable wake-up call on the scale of Chinese ambitions. Continued here The Dysfunctional Superpower - Foreign Affairs    The United States now confronts graver threats to its security than it has in decades, perhaps ever. Never before has it faced four allied antagonists at the same time—Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran—whose collective nuclear arsenal could within a few years be nearly double the size of its own. Not since the Korean War has the United States had to contend with powerful military rivals in both Europe and Asia. And no one alive can remember a time when an adversary had as much economic, scientific, technological, and military power as China does today. The problem, however, is that at the very moment that events demand a strong and coherent response from the United States, the country cannot provide one. Its fractured political leadership—Republican and Democratic, in the White House and in Congress—has failed to convince enough Americans that developments in China and Russia matter. Political leaders have failed to explain how the threats posed by these countries are interconnected. They have failed to articulate a long-term strategy to ensure that the United States, and democratic values more broadly, will prevail. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin have much in common, but two shared convictions stand out. First, each is convinced that his personal destiny is to restore the glory days of his country’s imperial past. For Xi, this means reclaiming imperial China’s once dominant role in Asia while harboring even greater ambitions for global influence. For Putin, it means pursuing an awkward mixture of reviving the Russian Empire and recapturing the deference that was accorded the Soviet Union. Second, both leaders are convinced that the developed democracies—above all, the United States—are past their prime and have entered an irreversible decline. This decline, they believe, is evident in these democracies’ growing isolationism, political polarization, and domestic disarray. Continued here Don't like ads? Go ad-free with TradeBriefs Premium Is the Globalisation Recession Here to Stay? - INSEAD Knowledge    The very foundations of globalisation appear to be under siege. The geoeconomic rivalry between the United States and China is intensifying. The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has ushered in the most perilous geopolitical dynamics since the end of World War II. The lingering effects of the coronavirus pandemic, chip wars and the disruption of global supply chains have led nations to adopt progressively protectionist and inward-looking industrial policies. Amidst this backdrop, the world's biggest economies find themselves more divided than ever. Just consider the recent G20 summit where leaders grappled to find common ground on pressing issues such as Ukraine and climate change. Notably, China’s Xi Jinping missed the summit for the first time since taking power. Meanwhile, Xi and leaders of France, India, the United Kingdom and Russia decided not to attend the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). While they all sent representatives, it means four of the five leaders of the permanent UN Security Council members were not present. These absences underscore the fraying threads of international unity. Continued here Mexico's gangs could be the country's fifth-biggest employer - The Economist    What would it take to tackle Mexico’s criminal organisations? That is a question that successive governments have tried and failed to answer. A crackdown on gangs from 2006 caused them to splinter. Violence increased. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s policy to deal with the root causes of crime is known as “Hugs not bullets”. A new paper published in Science by Rafael Prieto-Curiel, who previously worked in a government department forecasting crime in the capital, suggests a novel answer: stop them recruiting. Mr Prieto-Curiel started by using data on murders, arrests and other variables affecting gangs’ manpower to estimate total gang membership at 175,000. He then estimated how that number might change under different conditions. His work suggests that stopping gangs from hiring fresh recruits is the most effective way to shrink them and reduce violence. If gangs were to take on only half of the 350 to 370 new people they currently need each week, by 2027 membership would be 155,000. If they faced a complete interdiction of new recruits, their numbers would fall to 110,000 by 2027. If counted as a single organisation, Mexico’s gangs are the fifth-biggest private-sector employer in the country, after the likes of FEMSA, a sprawling company best known for its “Oxxo” convenience stores, and Walmart, an American supermarket chain. Between them the two big cartels, Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation, employ over a quarter of the total number of gangsters. By contrast Mexico’s National Guard, a militarised federal police force, has just over 100,000 members. ■ Continued here

You are receiving this mailer as a TradeBriefs subscriber. We fight fake/biased news through human curation & independent editorials. Your support of ads like these makes it possible. Alternatively, get TradeBriefs Premium (ad-free) for only $2/month If you still wish to unsubscribe, you can unsubscribe from all our emails here Our address is 309 Town Center 1, Andheri Kurla Road, Andheri East, Mumbai 400059 - 433006120