As major powers intensify their efforts to secure critical minerals, a new wave of resource nationalism is sweeping the globe. Resource-rich countries are seeking to capitalize on the rivalries to capture more value from their mineral wealth as global mineral supply chains and value chains are reconfigured.

Quotas may seem appealing to EU politicians under domestic pressure. In reality, however, they are a counterproductive move that will hurt European consumers, damage multilateralism and deliver none of the lasting industrial security Europe claims to seek.

The Belt and Road Initiative is over ten years old now, and in Pakistan, there’s less to show than what each side promised in the 2010s. Midway through the next decade, what will come of the lofty ambitions of each growing nation?

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, though 25 years old, is now a major hub for nations that have grown in influence since the turn of the century. Could it be the NATO of the future, or something entirely different?

The Pinglu Canal gives landlocked southwestern China faster, cheaper access to the sea and offers maritime ASEAN a new route to European markets through China’s freight rail network. Its benefits can flow both ways, from Vietnamese exporters reaching inland China to new momentum for the Beibu Gulf region, while also showcasing China’s engineering capacity.

The China-EU trade consensus has meaning beyond a list of commodities, tariffs and various restrictions. Two of the world’s largest trading powers have chosen to engage inside the rules instead of maneuvering outside them. It’s an example that quietly draws a bottom line for global trade.

The renminbi is back at the center of debates about global macroeconomic imbalances. With China’s merchandise trade surplus widening to $1.2 trillion in 2025, and with its manufacturing sector becoming increasingly dominant, the near-consensus among financial and economic commentators is that the renminbi is significantly undervalued. The implication is that China should let its currency appreciate sharply, thereby shrinking its surplus, easing competitive pressure on manufacturers elsewhere, and helping rebalance the global economy.

For most of the past four decades, China’s direction of travel was clear: everything was moving forward. The country’s per capita GDP was barely $300 at the start of the 1990s. But its cities would soon fill with skyscrapers, highways, and subways. Families that once worried about having enough food would buy apartments, cars, and smartphones. Children would go to universities their parents could scarcely have imagined attending. In the space of a generation, China joined the World Trade Organization, hosted the Olympics, built the world’s largest high-speed rail network, and became a central engine of the global economy.

China and the Asia-Pacific are projected to out-earn the U.S. within ten years, but that doesn’t mean America is going out of business. Will financial power follow the money?

Economic warfare in Europe has stranded Russia in the global market, but has yet to produce a reduction in its ambitions. Yet the EU is seeking to expand penalties with no clear outcome in hand.