By Mehmet Enes Beşer Southeast Asia is at a juncture as the global decarbonization race is gaining momentum. It possesses an increasing, rapidly urbanizing population, burgeoning energy needs, and exposure to climate change impacts. In its journey towards developing a greener future, it must look towards the latest, mass-market technology. The most revolutionary change in this area has been the ...
One of the most devastating actions of European colonialism towards Africa was the physical removal of cultural heritage from the continent. During the 1897 British Punitive Expedition, the palace of the Kingdom of Benin was looted, and more than 3,000 bronze and ivory artifacts were taken to London. Today, approximately one thousand of these works are in the British Museum, ...
By Orçun Göktürk / President of the Sino-Turkish Studies Center The war launched against Iran following the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on February 28-carried out by Washington and Tel Aviv while negotiations with Tehran were still ongoing-has now exceeded its first month. The operations initiated under Trump’s “regime change in Iran” strategy continue in the face of ...
The war that began on February 28 with US/Israeli airstrikes on Iranian cities continues. The boundaries of the war, both in terms of time and geography, remain unclear. It is likely to prolong and spread… The conclusions from the first act; 1. The US/Israel failed to achieve their strategic objectives regarding Iran (overthrow of the regime, Color Revolution, ethnic uprisings, ...
By Mehmet Enes Beşer China’s economic rebound since the pandemic has been patchy, paradoxical, and sometimes misleading. While macroeconomic metrics—exports, manufacturing production, and state-led infrastructure investment—blink flashes of strength, the foundation of the rebound remains weak. Maybe nowhere is that weakness more evident than in the country’s treatment of its 300 million migrant workers. These workers, who have driven China’s ...
By Mehmet Enes Beşer China has traditionally been defined in the world economy as the “world’s factory” – a manufacturing giant which offered size, velocity, and price discounts to global value chains. With the growth of its market, the script was rewritten: China emerged as a giant market where foreign firms competed with one another to sell their products and ...
By Mehmet Enes Beşer As protectionism rises and the global political system increasingly fragments, with supply chains being disrupted and rearranged, China’s further opening-up stands out as a strong opposing trend. While other economies are heading towards seclusion—hardening markets, curtailing technology, turning to economic nationalism—China is opting for greater engagement with the globe. This is not just an adjustment of ...
By Orçun Göktürk, from Beijing / China I spent 25 days in Taiwan. When I set out from Beijing on the morning of January 2nd and set foot in Taipei, the capital of this island of 22 million people, my mind was filled with the “imminent invasion” and “powder keg” scenarios served daily by Western media. However, the moment I ...
By Mehmet Enes Beşer China’s rise as a world power has unleashed a diaspora spirit of pride throughout ethnic Chinese groups around the world. It can be sensed in Malaysia, which possesses one of Southeast Asia’s largest and most politically powerful Chinese communities, to be precise. China’s economic rise, global economic power, and growing diplomatic assertiveness are met with a ...
When you look at the Mercator map head-on, Greenland appears to sit at the edge of the world, in a remote and marginal location. But take a look instead at Richard Edes Harrison’s maps “The Divided World” (published in 1941) and “One World One War” (published in 1942). According to Cornell University Library’s Digital Collections, published in Fortune Magazine for ...
By Mehmet Enes Beşer China’s rise as a world power has been most visibly articulated in terms of economic growth and technological development. But behind the waves of ports, highways, and 5G is a second power quietly remaking the contours of geopolitics: the military-industrial complex. No longer just an inland base of national defense, China’s state-connected defense industry has become ...
By Mehmet Enes Beşer When China initially made overtures to rejoin the world trade system in 1986, it was as an economic unknown. Its role in international trade was slight, its industry nascent, and its institutions only beginning the transition from a closed command economy to one tentatively open to the forces of markets. The long marathon race that began ...