Tag: China

World News

BRICS Financial Institutions: A Radical Force or Stabilizer of Neoliberal Hegemony?

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The world’s leading emerging economies, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) banded together as a cooperative forum, presenting a potential counter hegemonic alternative to that of Western powers. At a time of shifting global power relations, BRICS have sought to amplify their political power by working together expand influence to address existing economic conflicts of interests and to strengthen their political power.

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Svalbard Islands: From Moby-Dick to Resource Exploitation. The Legal Struggle for Sovereignty and Strategic Position

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The Svalbard Islands lie in a critical maritime corridor between the Atlantic Ocean and the Arctic Ocean, making it strategically significant for both Europe and global powers. Historically shaped by whaling, hunting, and trapping, Svalbard later became a center for coal mining, science, and tourism. Today, it remains a hybrid space of cooperation and geopolitical tension, increasingly influenced by Russia, Norway, and broader Arctic competition involving global actors such as China.

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Huione, Cambodia, and the Limits of Anti-Money Laundering

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In December 2025, Cambodia’s central bank shut down Huione Group, one of the world’s largest hubs for laundering criminal money. They laundered more than $4 billion since 2021, from “pig-butchering” scams to North Korean cyber heists. Yet Huione was no underground operation. It was a polished, licensed financial institution whose legitimate business masked a vast laundering network. Why did it take so long? The answer exposes an anti-money laundering system built, almost by design, to miss exactly this kind of institution. Huione’s shutdown is being called a victory, but is it real reform, or compliance under pressure?

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(Analysis) Critical Minerals and the U.S.–China Strategic Playbook

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In 2026, the United States and China are advancing competing strategies to secure critical minerals supply chains and strengthen their positions in the evolving international order. This article explores the key developments, policy initiatives, and strategic trends driving the critical minerals race, highlighting how resource nationalism is becoming an important determinant of national power and geopolitical leverage.

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The Nexperia Affair – and what it reveals about Europe and China

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A never-before-used Dutch emergency law, a suspended Chinese CEO, and a Beijing export ban that nearly stopped Volkswagen’s production line. The Nexperia affair turned an unglamorous chipmaker into the flashpoint of an EU–China struggle over strategic industry. China’s swift retaliation revealed just how fragile Europe’s grip on its own industrial base has become, and how readily economic interdependence is now used as a weapon.

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(Analysis): Back After a Decade: Decoding the CCP–KMT Leadership Meeting

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Beyond the usual rhetoric, the restored CCP–KMT meeting after a decade raises questions about Beijing’s cross-strait strategy and what the KMT under Cheng Li-wun is trying to achieve politically.

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Control, Compute, and a Global Open-Source-Offensive: Beijing’s Blueprint for AI Dominance

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The United States and China are increasingly locked in a competition over the future of artificial intelligence, but they pursue fundamentally different strategies. While the US channels massive private investment into the race toward artificial general intelligence (AGI), China focuses on three core pillars: maintaining political control over AI systems, achieving technological self-reliance in semiconductor production, and promoting open-source AI models as global alternatives to Western platforms. Through initiatives like the AI+ program and its latest Five-Year Plan, Beijing aims to integrate AI deeply into industry, infrastructure, and national security rather than concentrating solely on frontier AI research.

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Is Canada Prepared to Defend Its Arctic Sovereignty in a Militarising North?

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This article explores whether Canada is truly prepared to defend its Arctic sovereignty in a region that is becoming increasingly strategic due to climate change and geopolitical competition. As melting ice opens new shipping routes and access to natural resources, global powers like Russia, China and the United States are strengthening their presence in the Arctic.

While Canada maintains a historical and political claim over the region, the country faces significant challenges including major underinvestment, limited military capabilities, outdated infrastructure and so on. The article argues that to remain credible, Canada must move beyond their symbolic presence on the territory and invest in long-term capabilities and consistent engagement in the North.

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Dynamics Behind the EU Referendum in Iceland

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Iceland faces various potential threats and opportunities that will inevitably change the country’s future and strategic independence. The current global shift towards multipolarity and unilateralism represents a serious threat to the autonomy of small states. A valuable option is signing treaties with more powerful states or joining larger international organisations.