#Economic Diplomacy

[whatisdiplomacy]

What is economic diplomacy? What kind of influence does economic diplomacy have on foreign direct investment (FDI)?

[yohane23]

Zambia-Rwanda Bilateral Ties: why Zambia needs to open a mission station in Kigali?

[phoenixyfriend]

AU ask: Satine Lives

send me an au and i’ll give you 5+ headcanons about it

I think she deserves a cool facial scar. As a treat.

Running with the Rebellion. She's too powerful a symbol to be allowed to take her seat as Duchess back, especially if she decides to work with Bo-Katan; pacifism may be incredibly important to her, but there is a limit to how far you can push someone before they engage in self-defense, and even as ardent a pacifist as Satine will rally her people to survive the Empire. With her and Bo working together, they can do a lot... and that's why the Empire will absolutely not allow either of them to become leader of Mandalore again. (So it goes to Korkie, who the Empire believes is little more than a puppet. They think they know about his little violations of the law, and so they miss the big ones, like smuggling force-sensitive children and O66-survivors away from the Empire.)

She doesn't know Obi-Wan is alive, because Bail forgot to get permission to tell her, until 10 years post-RotS... when Bail invites her to greet "Ben" and Leia on their return to safety on Alderaan. She promises to visit him, if there's a chance.

(She doesn't. Instead, he visits her. Satine is far more likely to be tracked to Tatooine than he is, after all.)

She still doesn't pick up a blaster, though; canon gives us some pretty solid evidence for her PTSD preventing her from being any use at it. However, she's very convincing and is very good at getting on-the-fence politicians on the Rebellion's side... and donating credits, rations, and transports to the cause. (Some even donate weapons. She... tries to ignore that part. She lets it happen, but... it hurts.)

[spynorth]

every time i see someone mention the sims i think of playing medieval total war as a kid (one of my favorites) and accidentally marrying my daughter to her brother (my finger slipped! it was supposed to be to a really loyal general) and i was like oh frick oh frack. its ok. just play it cool. but then the inquisition showed up and shit got real so i executed them before the dreaded secret could be found out bc i thought that it would like ??? fix it?? but the son who had been my heir before i disinherited him for the accidental incestuous marriage guy was like oh man nows my chance and he spilled my secret and it went to hell and the french took over and i lost.

[eelhound]

"[Van] Jackson 

Since the 1970s, America had repeated military buildups in response to perceived threats. Whether it’s the Soviet military buildup, or the War on Terror, there have been multiple periods where we do these large-scale buildups. This is why America’s military is so ginormous. We have done that under conditions where we don’t raise taxes in four different instances since the 1970s, and because we don’t raise taxes and spend so much on the military, we have to bring in large amounts of foreign capital to finance it. And so, you create global imbalances when you’re the giant sucking machine sucking foreign capital into your economy.

The result of that is not just global imbalances, which produce things like the Asian financial crisis, but it also produces imbalances in our own economy, too. It creates real estate bubbles. So, this is a giant volatility machine to the global economic order and the financial pipes that bring the capital to us. We know it’s a giant volatility machine. It’s driven by high risk financial instruments and speculation, and all of this is pretty destabilizing, in a financial and creating bubbles sense, but it also creates a system where all of these developing economies in Asia have to suppress labor rights to be competitive in the export market because their models of development rely on exports. This system that we perpetuate in the name of supporting military primacy, and military primacy is supposed to in turn support the system, prevents domestic redistribution and balanced capital labor relations in these other Asian economies and countries.

And so, not only are we creating conditions where labor rights get repressed, and imbalances in other countries, it creates systems of kleptocracy and oligarchy, which is rampant in Asia — not everywhere, but it’s pretty prominent. It’s structural violence, and structural violence is what gives way to greater political insecurity, and makes countries need Chinese capital. Chinese capital spreading around Asia is one of the things American foreign policy is so worried about, but we’re creating conditions that we don’t like, and then we do things that worsen those conditions.

[Nathan J.] Robinson 

Yes, it seems ultimately kind of self-defeating, even though we might say that what lies beneath the rhetoric of freedom and openness is the desire to pursue dominance and hegemony, or what the U.S. would call 'U.S. interests.' Ultimately, I think one of the conclusions of your work is that our current approach is not actually leading towards a world where the United States gets everything it wants, but, in fact, is putting not only other people but also ourselves in quite a bit of danger. 

Jackson 

Yes, the thing that Washington has to wake up to, and that I’m worried that it will not because it has incentives not to, is that the requirements of peace and primacy are deeply at odds with each other. Peace requires a certain degree of economic interdependence, regional cohesion, inclusivity in various ways, and above all, military restraint. Primacy requires the opposite of all of that. It requires the formation of rivalry and geoeconomic blocs. It requires containment against your rising rival, arms racing, and weapons proliferation.

It’s patently obvious that by pursuing primacy, we’re making ourselves the enemy of what remains of the Asian peace. It’s that insistence on primacy, coated rhetorically as openness, that is undermining the sources of the Asian peace. The preservation of stability the past 44 years is something that we somewhat take for granted in Washington, and we shouldn’t because it’s eroding rapidly, and Trump was simply a very vibrant data point along a larger trend line. And so, we’re not on a good track."

- Van Jackson being interviewed by Nathan J. Robinson, from "Why This Foreign Policy Expert Thinks Americans Dangerously Misunderstand China." Current Affairs, 16 May 2023.

[quotesfrommyreading]

How did we get to this point? The origin story of Taiwan most familiar to Americans begins in 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist forces, locked for years in a civil war with Mao Zedong’s Communists, were defeated. Along with much of his remaining army, Chiang fled to Taiwan and set up a government-in-exile called the Republic of China. That government was recognized by the United States. But within a few years of Richard Nixon’s 1972 Cold War opening to Beijing, the U.S. formally switched diplomatic recognition to the People’s Republic. Ever since, Taiwan’s status has been cloaked in ambiguity. The U.S. acknowledges Beijing’s claim to Taiwan without recognizing its sovereignty over the island. To help deter a Chinese effort to seize Taiwan by force, the U.S. has pledged to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself.

That origin story explains Taiwan’s curious geopolitical status, but it leaves a lot out. When Chiang fled to Taiwan—with roughly 2 million Chinese from the mainland—there were some 6 million people already living on an island that was just emerging from 50 years of Japanese rule. Most of the people living on the island when Chiang arrived could claim roots in Taiwan going back hundreds of years. They had their own languages and culture. So too did the island’s many Indigenous groups, such as the Amis, the Atayal, and the Paiwan. To subjugate the island, Chiang killed and imprisoned tens of thousands over decades—a period known as the White Terror. He set up a military dictatorship under the leadership of his Chinese nationalist Kuomintang Party (KMT) and, from this offshore platform, vowed to reclaim mainland China.

Taiwan is different now. With its broad boulevards, glass towers, military monuments, narrow side streets, night markets, and ample signs in English, Taipei today presents an ambience of blended cultures: Chinese, Japanese, Western, and distinctly Taiwanese. Bubble tea, a Taiwanese invention, is everywhere. But consider what it was like to grow up in the shadow of Taiwan’s postwar history, and you can better understand the profound ways in which younger generations have been remaking the island’s politics and identity.

Emily Y. Wu is a professional podcaster who blends a focus on youth culture with an urgent concern for Taiwan’s political present. (One of her shows is called Metalhead Politics.) She is among dozens of Taiwanese I spoke with during the past year, first on Zoom, then in person in Taipei. Wu was born under KMT martial law in 1984. Her family did not come over with Chiang; they had lived in Taiwan for generations. “Chiang Kai-shek brought China over,” she told me. “I grew up always knowing that there was this alternate history: It was Taiwanese history, which was not taught in school.” Students were taught Chinese history and geography under the presumption that the KMT would one day govern China again. Mandarin was spoken in class, and speaking Taiwanese was discouraged. Wu recalled Lesson 9 of her childhood textbook: “ ‘Hello teachers, hello students, we are Chinese!’ ”

But a movement for democracy was building. “We grew up hearing these names, knowing that there was a group of activists, scholars, lawyers that tried to imagine a free Taiwan,” Wu explained. Many of those people were members of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which currently governs Taiwan. In 1987, the KMT lifted nearly 40 years of martial law. Wu’s political consciousness was shaped by the protests, marches, and hunger strikes that led to Taiwan’s first true presidential election, in 1996.

By the beginning of the 21st century, Taiwan was becoming ever more democratic—and ever more Taiwanese. The school curriculum changed: Taiwan’s distinct history was taught, as were Taiwanese languages. Taiwan also began to celebrate its Indigenous population. After the election of President Ma Ying-jeou, in 2008, links of trade, investment, and travel helped reduce tensions with China. Ma was from the KMT, and the party’s Chinese heritage and its ties to Taiwan’s business elite eased the way to détente with Beijing. But many Taiwanese, particularly the young, feared that forging too close a connection could ultimately give Beijing leverage over Taiwan. In 2014, in what became known as “the Sunflower Movement,” named for the flower that served as a symbol of hope, students occupied the Taiwan legislature to oppose a free-trade agreement with China. After a tense standoff, they succeeded in stopping the deal. They also helped propel a political wave that in 2016 brought the election of the DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen as president.

As Taiwan was becoming more democratic, China was becoming more autocratic. And as Taiwan was becoming more Taiwanese, China was becoming more fervently nationalist. After the ascent of Xi Jinping to the head of the Communist Party, in 2012, Beijing shifted from incentives to coercion. Xi’s government proved adept at bullying companies and entire countries to stop doing business in Taiwan and to recognize China’s narrative of sovereignty. Xi also began escalating crackdowns on China’s periphery—in Xinjiang province and in Hong Kong.

  —  Taiwan Wants China to Think Twice About an Invasion

[panicinthestudio]

US-China Tensions: Threat Inflation and Balloon Deflation, February 8, 2023

When a Chinese spy balloon was spotted over the U.S. last week, Americans reacted the only way they know how: by shooting it out of the sky with a missile. But why do we keep insisting that China is our sworn enemy? We’re talking through all of this with Jessica Chen Weiss, the Zak Professor at Cornell and Senior Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute Center for China Analysis, and John Glaser, adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and host of Cato's Power Problems podcast. We discuss America’s reflexive urge to escalate even the smallest threat, why our geopolitical position is actually way more secure than we’re led to believe, and whether we might figure out a way to share the world stage with China.

The Problem With Jon Stewart Podcast

[carlocarrasco]

I Love Israel: The enduring partnership of Israel and the Philippines discussed

I Love Israel: The enduring partnership of Israel and the Philippines discussed

Recently, the Manila Times had a virtual interview with Israel’s Ambassador to the Philippines Ilan Fluss. Content of that interview was published online by the newspaper and it sure contains lots of details about the strong ties between Israel and the Philippines. To put things in perspective, posted below is an excerpt from the article of the Manila Times. Some parts in boldface… The Manila…

[uglyandtraveling]

Explore 2024's top passports that open global doors and the struggles of the world's weakest passports in our latest rankings guide.

[teachanarchy]

Our Evolving Foreign Policy | Power and Politics in US Government 30 of ...

[darnellafrica]

Ethiopia 🇪🇹 To Recognize Somaliland As Independent Nation

Ethiopia 🇪🇹 will regain access to the Red Sea after agreeing to recognize Somaliland as an independent nation.

As part of the deal, Somaliland plans to lease a 20-km (12.4-mile) stretch of land along its coastline to Ethiopia to establish a marine force base, Abdi said at the signing.

With a population estimated at over 120 million, Ethiopia is the most populous landlocked country in the world. […]

Somaliland President Abdi said the agreement included a statement that Ethiopia would recognize Somaliland as an independent country in the near future.

Somalia 🇸🇴 is outraged by this deal, as Somaliland is considered a breakaway province from the country.

The fact that Ethiopia 🇪🇹 is bypassing Somalia 🇸🇴 diplomatically could signal trouble in the future, as Ethiopia 🇪🇹 intends to send troops to secure the route.

Somalia 🇸🇴 will probably try to avoid a war with Ethiopia 🇪🇹 & appeal to the African Union as well as the United States 🇺🇸 for support their claim over Somaliland.

If Somaliland can secure diplomatic recognition from Ethiopia 🇪🇹, they can use that as leverage to secure recognition from other countries on the continent.

[yohane23]

PAN AFRICAN DIARIES: ANGOLA: A Trade Giant Zambia has not Utilized Much

[impriindia]

Strategic Diplomacy: Unleashing The Positive Force Of Economic Strength On Global Relation

Session ReportRahul Soni IMPRI Impact and Policy Research Institute‘s Center for International Relations and Strategic Studies, IMPRI Impact and Policy Research Institute, New Delhi, conducted online training course on Diplomacy and Foreign Policy. Day 4 of the session covered the theme Effects of economy on foreign policy wherein Prof. Prabir De developed into strategic…

[kesarijournal]

India's Astrological Forecast: Navigating the Mars Mahadasha (2025-2032)

As India approaches the Mars Mahadasha from September 6, 2025, to September 6, 2032, an intriguing astrological phase unfolds, promising a period marked by transformation and challenges. This forecast delves into the implications of Mars’ transit through various houses in India’s Vedic Astrology charts – the Ascendant, Navamsha, and Dashamsha – specifically focusing on public sectors, economic…

[jaideepkhanduja]

Breaking Borders: Pakistan and India Resume Cross-LoC Trade and Travel Amidst Diplomatic Shifts

Breaking Borders: Pakistan and India Resume Cross-LoC Trade and Travel Amidst Diplomatic Shifts #PakistanIndiaRelations #CrossLoCTrade #DiplomaticShift #KashmirPeace #RegionalCooperation #SouthAsianDiplomacy #CeasefireAgreement #EconomicRevival #Security

In a landmark development that has reverberated across geopolitical landscapes, the news reported by Dawn, a prominent Pakistani English-language newspaper on November 16, 2021, carries the title “Pakistan, India agree to restore cross-LoC trade, travel.” This pivotal announcement underscores a transformative diplomatic stride as the two nations grapple with the intricate and longstanding…