https://www.scmp.com/rss/323853/feed Parag Khanna is founder and managing partner of FutureMap, a data and scenario-based strategic advisory firm, and the author of several books, including The Future is Asian: Commerce, Conflict & Culture in the 21st Century. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Recent flare-ups from the Caucasus to the Himalayas are a reminder that “frozen conflicts” are never really so. They are always a trigger pull away from a sudden shift towards violence. This is certainly true with the South China Sea, where there are many fingers on many triggers. China has reclaimed and militarised various rocks and reefs, Vietnam is now doing the same, the US Navy is conducting freedom of navigation operations while supporting the Philippines and Vietnamese navies to assert... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3119298/south-china-sea-how-asian-nations-can-find-peace-and-profit?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3119298/south-china-sea-how-asian-nations-can-find-peace-and-profit?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 27 Jan 2021 17:15:07 +0000 As global society locked itself down, the view took hold in recent months that simultaneous supply and demand shocks meant the idling of global aviation and most shipping vessels. The dominant story of oil prices briefly turning negative added to the impression that transport and global trade were largely standing still. However, the ships plying the world’s oceans play a crucial role in overcoming supply chain bottlenecks in food and medical equipment that have left billions of people in limbo.... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3089243/how-coronavirus-forcing-shipping-industry-make-cybersecurity?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3089243/how-coronavirus-forcing-shipping-industry-make-cybersecurity?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 17 Jun 2020 17:00:16 +0000 At the annual summer academy for University of Turin students held on the campus of Peking University, about 50 Italian business students spend their days learning Mandarin, studying macroeconomics and interning with Chinese companies. They call themselves the “Marco Polos of the 21st century”, a giggling nod to the famed 13th-century Venetian explorer. When asked what their career ambitions are, more than a few share the same goal: to be a country manager for China’s ICBC Bank back home in... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3004114/italy-joining-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-highlights?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3004114/italy-joining-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-highlights?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 01 Apr 2019 14:00:07 +0000 Throughout Asian history, great civilisations have expanded and contracted across vast terrestrial and maritime spaces with only natural, rather than legal, borders separating them. The 20th century, however, witnessed the succession of Japanese imperialism, decolonisation, multilateralism and cold war proxy competition, all of which have left an indelible mark on East Asia’s patterns of interaction. The confluence of these legacies forms the complex backdrop to disputes such as the South China... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2156193/south-china-sea-disputes-must-be-resolved?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2156193/south-china-sea-disputes-must-be-resolved?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 23 Jul 2018 02:00:45 +0000 After a 2016 that will forever be remembered for Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, most commentators have taken it as a foregone conclusion that 2017 will feature yet more populist electoral victories in Europe, to say nothing of the global fallout from Trump’s planned trade policies. Combined with slow global economic growth and rising geopolitical tensions, it is all too easy to assume that the world is going down the same path of nationalism and protectionism that sparked the first... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2060535/no-longer-thrall-western-democracy-asia-turns-technocrats?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2060535/no-longer-thrall-western-democracy-asia-turns-technocrats?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 09 Jan 2017 09:32:24 +0000