Analysis and commentary on geopolitics, foreign policy, diplomacy, security, and global governance. This category examines how states pursue their interests, manage conflicts, build partnerships, and shape the evolving international order.
From Suitcase Traders to Industrial Parks For most of the last three decades, the China-South Africa economic relationship followed a familiar script: China arrived to buy raw materials — chrome, manganese, iron ore, platinum group metals — and, increasingly, to build the state-backed infrastructure that region needed, from power plants to rail lines. China has […]
Tariffs were supposed to be the policy that the courts finally reined in. Instead, they have become the policy that keeps reinventing itself. Every time one legal avenue closes, the Trump administration has opened another, and the result is a tariff regime that looks less like a single emergency measure and more like a permanent […]
A One-Day Emergency Law Just Became a Permanent Nationalisation On 16 July 2026, ownership of British Steel formally passed from China’s Jingye Group to the UK government. Outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer called it a move that “safeguards a vital national capability.” Within 24 hours, Beijing’s Ministry of Commerce issued a rebuke, saying it “firmly […]
The Crisis That Was Supposed to Break the Oil Market On 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel launched coordinated airstrikes on Iran under Operation Epic Fury, targeting nuclear sites, military infrastructure and senior leadership; Iran’s Supreme Leader was among those killed. Iran’s response arrived within days: the Revolutionary Guard Corps began attacking and […]