REGION

Asia-Pacific

Research organized by country and region.

Global System & Power

BRICS, Pix and rare earths: Brazil between monetary autonomy, US–China competition and the political crisis of 2026

A documented, 40-source economic and strategic investigation of Lula's BRICS currency proposals, US complaints about Pix, the revised USGS Brazilian rare-earth reserves, completed USAR–Serra Verde takeover and US-backed offtake, the Brazilian 2026 election and testable claims of diplomatic pressure.

Strategic Transitions

Afghanistan after the aid-state: territorial consolidation, fiscal recomposition and the social limits of post-2021 stabilization

Five years after the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan combines stronger territorial control and domestic revenue collection with falling per-capita income, shallow finance, mass returns, restricted female education and employment, and growing dependence on regional corridors.

Strategic Transitions

Hong Kong's institutional-financial transition: deeper Mainland integration, global capital intermediation and the narrowing margin for policy autonomy

Hong Kong is becoming more tightly integrated with Mainland China's financial, technological and spatial systems while retaining a separate currency, capital account, tax regime, customs territory and common-law commercial architecture. Its future value depends on whether deeper integration creates more flow than it removes jurisdictional differentiation.

Strategic Transitions

North Korea's post-pandemic transition: state re-centralization, military-industrial expansion and external reorientation

North Korea has emerged from the border-closure shock with stronger state direction, recovering trade and industry, deeper Russia ties and a more institutionalized two-state posture, while household welfare, hidden military flows and the exact scale of nuclear capabilities remain difficult to measure.

Strategic Transitions

Taiwan's semiconductor-centered political economy: democratic consolidation, external surplus and strategic exposure across the Strait

Taiwan's AI-led export boom and semiconductor concentration increase its global economic importance while imported energy, rapid aging, divided government and cross-Strait military pressure make resilience a problem of infrastructure and institutions as much as technology.

Global System & Power

China: state formation, industrial scale and the transition from investment-led growth to a mature economy

China's present economic power rests on a long history of state capacity, a twentieth-century revolutionary rupture and an extraordinary post-1978 industrial transformation; by 2026 the central problem has shifted from building capacity to allocating income, capital and risk across an aging, highly productive but increasingly imbalanced economy.

Global System & Power

India: demographic scale, institutional continuity and the unfinished transformation from agriculture to high-productivity employment

India combines civilizational depth, colonial institutional legacies, post-independence state building and a post-1991 market acceleration; in 2026 its central economic problem is converting exceptional demographic and digital scale into mass productive employment, urban capacity and higher productivity.

Global System & Power

Indonesia: archipelagic state formation, commodity upgrading and the challenge of converting scale into productivity

Indonesia's modern economy was shaped by maritime trade, colonial extraction, post-independence state building and a post-1998 democratic decentralization; in 2026 its central challenge is to turn a vast domestic market, mineral endowments and infrastructure investment into higher productivity without recreating commodity dependence or regional fragmentation.