Does an Expanded BRICS Mean Anything?
August 27th, 2023
Via Project Syndicate, analysis of by Jim O’Neill – former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management and a former UK treasury minister – on the news that the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) will accept new members, one wonders if the grouping can pose a genuine challenge to the prevailing global-governance institutions: […]
Read more »China’s Rapidly Growing Presence in Central America
August 26th, 2023
Via The Diplomat, a look at how – in the past six years – China’s presence in the region has exploded, with worrying consequences for Central America’s governance norms: Credit: Depositphotos On August 21, Parlacen, the parliament of the six-nation Central American Integration System, voted to revoke Taiwan’s permanent observer status and admit China as an […]
Read more »China’s Africa Strategy: Shifting from Extraction to Investment
August 24th, 2023
Via The Conversation, a look at how China’s Africa strategy is shifting from extraction to investment – driven from the industry-rich Hunan region: China experienced a massive economic boom in the 1990s and 2000s which increased its demand for resource imports, like oil, from Africa. This led to a model of development finance in which China funded infrastructure […]
Read more »Afghanistan, an Energy Eldorado for China?
August 24th, 2023
Via Modern Diplomacy, a report on China’s interest in Afghanistan’s energy resources: August 2021 was a key date for the Asian continent. That month was marked by the failure of the United States in Afghanistan, which, after 20 years of occupation and the fight against terrorism, had to leave the country in haste, leaving it […]
Read more »What Risks Does the Southern Corridor Project Pose for Kazakhstan?
August 23rd, 2023
Via the Central Asian Bureau for Analytical Reporting, an article on the risks that the Southern Corridor project poses to Kazakhstan: The Southern Transport Corridor should not be viewed as a threat by Kazakhstan, but rather be taken as a sign that it is necessary to strengthen Central Asian cooperation and create joint logistics projects […]
Read more »Zimbabwe’s ‘White Gold’
August 22nd, 2023
Courtesy of Foreign Policy, a look at how Harare has Africa’s largest lithium reserves and Beijing is poised to benefit, despite an export ban: The world’s clean-energy transition will be impossible without African minerals—and a degree of resource nationalism from African countries is benefiting China, which has for decades invested in the African green-energy market […]
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.