ExxonMobil Stares Down China for Vietnam Gas
December 9th, 2021
Via Asia Times, a report on ExxonMobil’s recommitment to it $20 billion ‘Blue Whale’ gas project despite tacit threats from Beijing: Vietnam’s long-delayed Blue Whale offshore gas development project may be closer to pumping after operator and majority owner ExxonMobil said last week it was working on a final development plan for the field, which sits […]
Read more »How China Wrested Control of the DRC’s Critical Minerals
December 6th, 2021
Via the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a report on how China wrested control of the Congo’s critical minerals: China’s system of bankrolling its state companies may be entrenching great inefficiency in its economy but has delivered it unchallenged dominance in the critical minerals required for advanced technologies. Separate investigations by the New York Times and Bloomberg released in recent […]
Read more »African Nations Make Do as China Tightens Belt and Road
December 6th, 2021
Via Reuters, an article on China’s decreased appetite for BRI financing in Africa: Deep in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, members of the National Youth Service tirelessly swing machetes to clear dense shrubs obscuring railway tracks more than a century old. It’s a distinctly low-tech phase for China’s Belt and Road drive in Africa to create […]
Read more »The Road to Damascus Will Be Paved by China’s Belt and Road
December 6th, 2021
Via National Interest, commentary on China’s long game in improving relations with Syria and the Middle East as a whole: As Damascus’ forces gradually recover more territory, with Idlib province being the last rebel stronghold, Syria is now entering a “postwar” phase. Yet while Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s forces have prevailed on the battlefield, his victory has […]
Read more »The Real Reason China Is Pushing “Digital Sovereignty” In Africa
December 3rd, 2021
Via Rest of World, commentary on the real reason China is pushing “digital sovereignty” in Africa: This June, Senegal’s president, Macky Sall, proudly commissioned the construction of the Diamniadio National Datacenter, about 30 kilometers outside the capital city, Dakar. Sall said the West African country would move all government data and digital platforms from foreign servers abroad […]
Read more »Digital Silk Road: A Platform for Techno-Authoritarianism in China and Abroad?
November 28th, 2021
Via CSIS, a transcript of Congressional testimony of Jonathan E. Hillman Senior Fellow, Economics Program, and Director, Reconnecting Asia Project re: the digital Silk Road: Chairman Merkley, Chairman McGovern, and distinguished Members of the Commission, thank you for holding this important hearing and asking me to participate. This testimony draws from my book, The Digital Silk […]
Read more »Focusing primarily on The New Seven Sisters - the largely state owned petroleum companies from the emerging world that have become key players in the oil & gas industry as identified by Carola Hoyos, Chief Energy Correspondent for The Financial Times - but spanning other nascent opportunities around the globe that may hold potential in the years ahead, Wildcats & Black Sheep is a place for the adventurous to contemplate & evaluate the emerging markets of tomorrow.