Category: China
By 2030, the balance of power in space will have shifted. China is catching up with the USA at an alarming rate, making orbit and the Moon the new strategic battlefields. In the face of this Star Wars, Europe and the other emerging powers risk being relegated to the background. The clash of the Chinese […]
CBDC, critical materials, digital industries, green energies, electric cars… China leads the way The transition to CBDCs adds another layer of digitalisation, and will put further strain on markets under pressure. This reform of the monetary system relies once again on the digital tools that are already at the heart of our economic and political […]
While two elections capture the world’s attention – the European elections in June and the US presidential election on 5 November – there are other elections on the international calendar that also merit our scrutiny to spot the subtle signals of a changing world landscape. The beginning of the year was marked by the Taiwanese […]
Egypt lies at the crossroads of trade routes, providing a link between two major regions: North Africa and the Arab countries. This strategic geographical position puts Egypt, in North Africa, in direct contact with the Middle East, while at the same time bordering one of the world’s most important shipping routes, the Suez Canal. These […]
By January 1st, 2024, Argentina was expected to become a member of the BRICS bloc, alongside Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates[1]. However, Milei’s election as President abruptly reversed the country’s diplomatic trajectory, with a very marked pro-American shift, embodied in the desire to dollarise the economy. Such a choice implies […]
Similar to the gradual movement of continents, the reshaping of the global order is a protracted and gradual phenomenon when examined on a monthly scale. While marked by intense clashes that give rise to mountain ranges and definitive separations resulting in straits, seas, or oceans, geopolitical plate tectonics unfolds over an extended period. Between the […]
With the subprime crisis (2007/2009), the rescue plans for banks and financial institutions reached such dizzying heights that we did not expect to see them again any time soon. Since then, the global debt clock has continued to churn out figures that are just as crazy… Between the Covid crisis (2020/2021), the Afghan debacle (2021), […]
Anticipation means always looking a little further ahead and striving to think the unthinkable. So, when all the signs point to destruction, to collapse, we need to remain clear-headed so as not to overlook the elements of renewal, the signs of creation. Joseph Schumpeter and his theory of creative destruction is useful in this regard. […]
To be fair, political anticipation requires us to look back at past forecasts. This is what the LEAP team does every August by delving into the GEAB archives. This year, we went back to 2017 to rediscover our anticipations on China’s global power. While China’s position on the world stage is complex in relation to […]
China’s economy weakened further in August 2021 after a fresh Covid outbreak curbed consumer spending[1]. To relaunch the economy after the Covid-19 crisis, the country continued its old-style supply boost by starting state sponsored projects and reinforcing factories to produce more and more. Yet, as data has shown, internal demand in China has not risen […]
The new military alliance between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States (AUKUS) illustrates nothing more than a reheating of the Cold War between China and the West. In this barely concealed confrontation, blocs are beginning to take shape: in the West, an Anglo-Saxon bloc in the midst of an attempt to recompose itself […]
As Biden puts the kibosh on US anti-China rhetoric – by reversing Trump’s actions against TikTok and WeChat,[1] for example – our team anticipates that a far more fundamental systemic rivalry will soon become evident: that between the UK and China. And make no mistake: the forces at play are far less unbalanced than they […]
The price of the 2nd most traded commodity (oil being number one[1]) is soaring. At a time of recovery and infrastructure plans, and illustrating the “back to basics” trend, iron ore is the object of all sorts of lusts. While some incumbent interests prefer to optimise their margins by letting prices rise, others are working […]
By 2030, the International Space Station may have become the first space museum of the late 1990s, when everyone tried to work together. By prohibiting the Chinese from boarding the ISS in 2011,[1] the US compelled China to go its own way. As a result, like during the Cold War years, the next stage of […]
In the US-China war trap which has deepened in recent years, with Joe Biden’s arrival in the White House and his strategy of rallying a camp of “allies” around America in order to “contain” Chinese power,[1] Europeans may be tempted to believe that the Western camp will eventually win. This feeling is reinforced by the […]
Material wealth: give nothing away Tomorrow’s world will be digital, that’s for sure. But not before it has been regulated, organised and controlled. As things stand today, there are too many dangers hanging over this ecosystem – soon to materialise, as we see in this issue – for us to entrust our goods and wealth […]
As the media heralds the Democrat candidate’s victory, the western world is living through another of the great illusions that we described last month: under Biden, America is back on top and the world has been saved! And the good news keeps on coming, what with the discovery of a miracle vaccine that the American […]
Remember! Back in 2017 we anticipated that Saudi Arabia would soon be selling its oil in yuan? This was a highly provocative hypothesis at the time, since the country was then one of the two pillars of the petrodollar system.[1] Two years later, it became clear that export flows of Saudi oil were making a […]