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 […]
Popular protests are growing and multiplying: from Arab spring, Occupy Wall Street, Indignados, Maidan, populist votes, to the yellow vests, Iraq, Algeria, demonstrations against global warming, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Venezuela, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia… The streets are on fire, the markets are faltering and the only explanations being given are poverty, increasing disparity, taxes – “the […]
Between a USD-pegged currency (the HKD) and the reaffirmation of its Chinese nature after its handover in 1997, Hong Kong lies right at the heart of the famous trade war between the United States and China. This context largely explains the island’s economic difficulties, creating the conditions for the well-known troubles. A longer-term perspective also […]
European Tourism 2020-2030: The improbable alliance between tourism and protectionism Contrary to the feverish dreams of officials in Brussels and our capitals, fuelled by the prospect of an exponential growth in the global flow of tourists, the EU will soon cease to be the world’s main tourist destination. We anticipate that, in 2025, Europe will […]
Uncovering false evidence is one of the missions of the GEAB team. At a time when the European Elections campaign is slowly starting to take off, bringing the migration issue in the forefront, it seems appropriate to take a more detached look at this subject. No, migration flows from Africa to Europe are not expected […]
If we first look at the number of driving forces, there are a large number, and although some are well known and clear, others are more obscure and less well understood: Society: growing real and perceived inequality It seems that in most countries, the gap between extremely rich and poor has been growing in the […]
The latent financial crisis, the invention of a new world monetary system, the world being shared between China and the United States, American military withdrawal, European disintegration, civil wars and border tensions, the reorganisation of the world map; we don’t know where to look first in the gigantic global reshuffle that is underway. The common […]
On February 15 we drew a parallel between the US-Chinese “trade” negotiations and the historic treaties on world-sharing, such as Tordesillas or Yalta, ideas which now seem to interest some other analysts (The Conversation, February 27, 2019). Here is what we mentioned on this topic in our last GEAB bulletin: ‘Of course, there is also […]
A symptom of the complete opening up of the market by the Commission that poses a threat to European food security is the acquisition of agricultural land by foreign investors, particularly Chinese investors. Indeed, the investments of the Middle Kingdom in foreign agricultural lands have jumped up in recent years. They totalled at least $94 […]