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Event Recap

Sep 16, 2020

Event recap | Western society at the crossroads, part II: Smart partnerships in a changing world

By GeoTech Center

On Wednesday, September 16, 2020, the Atlantic Council's GeoTech Center hosted an expert roundtable about AI and its rapid ascendance to the next playing field for great power competition between the United States and China.

Cybersecurity Digital Policy

New Atlanticist

Sep 15, 2020

Don’t believe the SWIFT China sanctions hype

By Brian O’Toole

A major Chinese state-owned bank, the Bank of China (BOC), in July urged its banks to switch away from SWIFT toward a domestic messaging system because of the threat of US sanctions. Don’t take the warning at face value however, as Beijing’s primary motivation is to promote its own domestic system, rather than any real fear of a SWIFT cut-off.

China Economic Sanctions
gtc photo of sun peaking through a large rock formation

GeoTech Cues

Sep 15, 2020

Open societies must create a grand strategy framework for data, sensemaking, and trust

By James Schmeling (Guest Author) and David Bray, PhD

Open societies are at a series of crossroads requiring intentional choices for the decade ahead. These choices are forced by new technologies, improvements in data capabilities, and changes in geopolitics globally. While human nature has not changed, the number of people on Earth has changed–up from 1.6 billion people on the planet in 1900, to 2.5 billion in the 1950s, to 7.8 billion in 2020.

Cybersecurity Digital Policy

In the News

Sep 15, 2020

Younus in Dawn: Absent innovation

By Atlantic Council

Economy & Business Pakistan

New Atlanticist

Sep 15, 2020

Mike Pompeo: ‘The tide has turned’ on global perceptions of Chinese threat

By David A. Wemer

Years of US campaigning against China’s unfair economic practices and aggressive diplomacy, coupled with the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, has “awakened” the world to the threat Beijing poses to international security and the global economy, according to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

China Coronavirus

Five Big Questions

Sep 15, 2020

Five big questions as America votes: South Asia

By South Asia Center

The next US administration will need to confront a slew of regional challenges, including China’s growing political and economic clout; a resurgence of majoritarian politics; strained India-US relations; the impending Afghanistan peace process; and post-COVID-19 reconstruction.

Conflict Coronavirus

In the News

Sep 15, 2020

Busch in The Hill: Congress should retire, not reform, the Generalized System of Preferences

By Marc L. Busch

Marc Busch writes that the United States' Generalized System of Preferences has surpassed its usefulness and that signing bilateral free trade agreements presents a better path forward.

Economy & Business Trade and tariffs

GeoTech Cues

Sep 15, 2020

Why data governance matters: Use, trade, intellectual property, and diplomacy

By Pari Esfandiari, PhD, Gregory F. Treverton, PhD

Global data and internet governance represents a scattered, multi-stakeholder, bottom-up, and driven by loose coordination among various players. Data governance can be thought of as incorporating a triangle of individuals and their privacy, nation-states and their interests, and the private sector and its profits. Its current status and prospects might be thought of along several lines of activity, which are interrelated but, for the sake of clarity and with some danger of oversimplification, are discussed in the following different sections: privacy and data use; regulating to police content; using antitrust to dilute data monopolies; self-regulation and digital trade; intellectual property rights; and digital diplomacy.

Cybersecurity Digital Policy

New Atlanticist

Sep 14, 2020

IDB president warns of a looming COVID debt crisis in Latin America, but also highlights opportunities

By David A. Wemer

Actions taken throughout the region to control not only the pandemic, but also “the spread of poverty [and] the spread of unemployment,” have “increased debt to households, to governments, and to businesses,” Moreno explained, while the restrictions of movement and commerce imposed to curb the spread of the virus will make it more difficult for Latin American economies to cope with this debt once the initial phase of the crisis is over.

Coronavirus Future of Work

Strategic Insights Memo

Sep 14, 2020

A global strategy for China

By Jeffrey Cimmino, Matthew Kroenig, Barry Pavel

Over the past two years, the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security has hosted a series of strategy consortium meetings with small groups of experts and officials to discuss a comprehensive US and allied strategy for China. This paper provides a brief preview of an Atlantic Council Strategy Paper to be released this fall. Strategic […]

China Coronavirus

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