Indo-Pacific

“Go forth and set the world on fire”

As the world rages around the raging fires, I have to wonder: Is this the moment where we will finally see the forest for the trees? Why are we continuing to look into a crystal ball, as if the climate crisis is somehow our future, when it’s so glaringly clear that it is our present?

The Pakistani courts strike back

By Fatima Salman

The historic sentencing in December of former dictator and president Pervez Musharraf was a blow to the military’s image and directly questions its unequivocal authority over shaping Pakistan’s political life—even if it is only symbolic. In a rare streak of defiance, the country’s courts are pushing back against a traditionally powerful and popular establishment hoping to inch the country from a seemingly illiberal to a more liberal democracy.

The economic battleground between China and the United Kingdom

By Michael Greenwald

The importance of the Shanghai-London Stock Connect suspension will depend on whether additional policy moves targeting large British firms will follow. In terms of tangible effects, this event causes little economic disruption, but is probably the most symbolically important use of Chinese financial sanctions thus far.