Why Many Indonesians Think Jokowi Fumbled Chinese High-Speed Rail Diplomacy, Even As It Nears Completion
May 27th, 2023
Via China Global South, commentary on why many Indonesians think Jokowi fumbled Chinese high-speed rail diplomacy: The China-backed high-speed train that runs from Jakarta to Bandung, two main cities in Indonesia, is nearing completion, and is slated to begin serving the public in August this year. But after about a decade of planning and construction, […]
Read more »Nusantara: Building A New “Green” Capital From The Ground Up
May 21st, 2023
Indonesia is attempting to build a green, walkable city from scratch. It’s a big, bold idea championed by Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo and motivated, in part, by the fact that the capital Jakarta is sinking. And yet only 15 months before Widodo’s deadline to inaugurate the nation’s replacement capital, bulldozers are still clearing acres of […]
Read more »Indonesia’s EV Dream Crashing Into A Lack of Lithium
May 16th, 2023
Via The Asia Times, an article on how Indonesia is importing a fraction of the lithium needed to crank up EV battery production with no clear new source in sight: Delivering a speech on the sidelines of last year’s G20 Summit, President Joko Widodo pointed to lithium as the one crucial element Indonesia still needed […]
Read more »How Big is China’s Footprint in Southeast Asia’s Telecom Sector?
May 10th, 2023
Courtesy of The Diplomat, an article on the extent to which Southeast Asia’s governments are willing to engage with Chinese firms, and the risks they perceive in doing so, vary widely: Because telecommunications play a pivotal role in the collection and transmission of information, geopolitics and national security are often inseparable from more mundane commercial […]
Read more »The Geopolitics of Technology in Indonesia
May 4th, 2023
Courtesy of The Diplomat, a look at the geopolitics of technology in Indonesia, where there are signs of sharpening strategic competition in technology-intensive sectors such as battery manufacturing, clean energy, and data centers: When we think of tech in Indonesia, the first thing that usually comes to mind are homegrown unicorns like GoTo and Traveloka, […]
Read more »19 Countries Express Interest in Joining BRICS
April 27th, 2023
Courtesy of RANE Worldview, a report on growing interest amongst countries to join BRICS: What Happened: South Africa’s ambassador to BRICS (the informal bloc of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) said 19 countries had expressed an interest in joining the bloc, which will meet in Cape Town on June 2-3 to discuss enlargement, […]
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.