India’s Rare Earth Dilemma: Between Chinese Leverage and an Afghan Offer
October 18th, 2025
Via The Diplomat, a look at India’s behavior in regard to critical minerals can be best understood as strategic hedging: Beijing is signaling geoeconomic control over a chokepoint industry by deciding to resume the supply of rare-earth magnets to India on the condition of a written “no-diversion” pledge. This is more than just a contractual detail. […]
Read more »The Taliban Emirate, China, India and Pakistan
October 17th, 2025
Via Geopolitical Futures, commentary on what attacking Pakistan means for the Taliban to try to break out of international isolation: After the United States withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, it was only a matter of time before conflict erupted between the Afghan Taliban and their former patron, Pakistan. One of the ways this manifested was […]
Read more »Chinese Construction Firms Changed The Way They Operate in Africa
October 8th, 2025
Via Asia Times, a look at how Chinese construction firms activate in Africa – less dependent on state funding than before, – are no longer so closely tied to Beijing’s priorities: For most of the past 25 years, Chinese construction companies operating in Africa could count on generous financial backing from Chinese banks. Between 2000 […]
Read more »Chinese Cars for Iranian Copper: How Sanctions Revived Barter Trade
October 7th, 2025
Via Bloomberg, a look at a barter arrangement of Chinese cars for Iranian copper: Every few months, a consignment of car parts rolls off a production line in an industrial town on China’s mighty Yangtze River. The engines and chassis are sent to a different factory to be half-assembled into what is known as “knocked […]
Read more »The China-Russia Axis Is Getting Firmer, and It’s Built on Gas
October 4th, 2025
Via Foreign Policy, a report on how Moscow pivoted to the east a decade ago, but it is now besmitten—or captive. An interesting thing happened late this summer: Russia and China dramatically deepened their energy relationship, less for economic reasons than for geopolitical ones. The ramifications, not so much for energy markets but for international […]
Read more »What Are China and Central Asia’s Shared Interests in Afghanistan?
September 17th, 2025
Via The Diplomat, a report on how – as neighbors to Afghanistan – both China and the Central Asian states have vested interests in the country, desiring a peaceful, prosperous, and stable Afghanistan: Afghanistan is often referred to as the “Heart of Asia” because of its strategic location at the crossroads of Central and South […]
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.