Today Trends

According to the 2018 Composite Water Management Index report by the National Institution for Transforming India, India is facing the worst water crisis in its history. Approximately 600 million people experience high to extreme water stress. Inadequate access to safe water is estimated to cause 200,000 deaths annually. Yale University’s 2022 unsafe drinking water index ranked India 141 out of 180 countries. Nearly 70 per cent of India’s water is contaminated. By 2030, India’s water demand is projected to be double the amount available as reiterated by the Interconnected Disaster Risks Report in October 2023. The potential scarcity would affect millions and adversely impact the country’s GDP. Groundwater is vital for India’s agriculture , industry and population needs. Groundwater is a primary irrigation source, crucial for food security . In rural areas, groundwater is a primary source of drinking water through community wells and boreholes. Industries depend on it, particularly wh

Since invading Ukraine, Russia has used a combination of incentives and threats to align Central Asian countries with its interests. Russia has also converged with China as an adamant opponent to Western development cooperation programs that they perceive as masked initiatives aimed at infiltrating Central Asia and steering the region to support Ukraine. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are reorienting their multi-vector foreign policy with varying degrees of urgency to strike a balance , distancing themselves from Russia’s aggression while avoiding the Kremlin’s wrath. Meanwhile, often overlooked Afghanistan is poised to demonstrate its influence in the region due to an impending water assess crisis, large-scale migration and increased assertiveness from the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP). Central Asian countries have observed the Taliban’s efforts to solidify its grip on power and Iran’s proxy conflict with Israel with anxiety, revealin

If re-elected, Donald Trump has promised a 10 per cent tariff on all goods coming into the United States — a tax on imports — and a 60 per cent tariff on Chinese goods. That’s not quite the shock to the system of the US Smoot-Hawley tariffs of close to 20 per cent that exacerbated and prolonged the Great Depression in the 1930s, but it’s very close. What made things worse in the 1930s was the retaliation from much of the rest of the world, ratcheting up tariffs and restrictions on global trade. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which later became the World Trade Organization (WTO), was created in the aftermath of the Second World War to avoid a repeat of this beggar-thy-neighbour protectionism that fed rivalry and conflict in the lead up to war. To date, that system has avoided what is called a prisoner’s dilemma outcome — where every nation acts in its narrow self-interest to produce collectively worse outcomes for everybody. But the system is under threat and internat

The World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) 13th Ministerial Conference takes place in Abu Dhabi on 26–29 February. It is expected to include a deal providing transparency and predictability in electronic commerce, endorse an agreement on investment facilitation for development and admit two least developed countries, Timor Leste and the Comoros, as WTO members. Though welcome, these are modest expectations. This is particularly so given the promises from the 12th Ministerial Conference — tackling fisheries subsidies and offering the hope of restoring a ‘ fully functioning dispute settlement mechanism no later than 2024 ’. On fisheries subsidies the differences between parties have been widening. There is also little sign of progress in restoring the dispute settlement mechanism. No progress will be made in the reform of agricultural trade given discord over whether India’s grain stockholding policy constitutes an illegal subsidy. Deadlock in dispute settlement — disabled since December

Fragmentation in global trade is not new. With the slow development of multilateral trade rules at the World Trade Organization (WTO), governments have turned to free trade agreements (FTAs). As of 2023, almost 600 bilateral and regional trade agreements have been notified to the WTO, leading to growing fragmentation in trade rules, business activities and international relations. But until recently, trade dispute settlements have predominantly remained within the WTO. Governments historically used the WTO as their preferred forum but this changed after the WTO’s appellate court, the Appellate Body, stopped functioning in December 2019 because the United States blocked the appointment of new Appellate Body judges. Appeal judges must be nominated by consensus, meaning objection by one WTO Member is sufficient to prevent the Appellate Body from being restaffed. The lack of a functional Appellate Body has stalled the WTO’s dispute settlement system as panel reports can now be app

After expanding by 2.6 per cent in 2022, South Korea’s economy cooled in 2023. Waning global demand for South Korean exports, continuing geopolitical challenges and weakening domestic demand saw growth decelerate to an estimated 1.4 per cent . While economic growth is expected to pick up in 2024, over the long term South Korean economic growth will be weighed down by structural challenges from the country’s changing demographics. Heavily dependent on trade for economic growth , South Korea saw exports and imports decline in 2023. Exports finished down 7.4 per cent with only exports of automotives and ships seeing growth among major export items. Critically, exports of memory chips were down 30.6 per cent for the year, though they began to recover in October. Despite imports decreasing by 12.1 per cent, South Korea recorded a trade deficit for the second straight year for the first time since the late 1990s . Continuing high energy costs and trade with China were among the primar

ASEAN is the world’s economic dark horse and is on its way to becoming a global centre of growth. As ASEAN member states are generally dependent on trade, it is worth examining how its trade developed in 2023. Despite efforts by member economies to promote intra-regional trade, most ASEAN trade was with extra-regional countries in 2023. The percentage of intra-ASEAN trade in relation to member states’ total trade experienced a decline from 22.5 per cent in the first three quarters of 2022 to 21.8 per cent in the corresponding period in 2023. This trend may be attributed to the relocation of production and the shifting of supply chains to Southeast Asia. This development may benefit member states’ economic development but also make them more vulnerable to an increasingly turbulent global market. Despite endeavours to diversify their trading partners, ASEAN member states’ trade has become increasingly focussed on China. According to a recent study, trade between China and ASEAN wi

Under mounting security pressure caused by China’s muscle flexing in the South China Sea and the possibility of Beijing’s economic coercion, Vietnam has adopted a cautious approach to the Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS). The 2019 IPS Report under former president Donald Trump mentioned Vietnam 24 times and regarded it as one of three ‘key players’ in Southeast Asia. In the 2022 IPS Report, current President Joe Biden described Vietnam as one of the ‘ leading regional partners ’ with which the United States aimed to strengthen its relationship with to create ‘collective capacity’ and ‘common action’ in the pursuit of a free and open Indo-Pacific. Vietnam has not yet issued an official statement announcing its support for the US-initiated strategy. In June 2018, the Shangri-La Dialogue’s focus was on ‘shaping the changing security order in Asia’. Vietnam’s Defence Minister General Ngo Xuan Lich made no reference to the term ‘Indo-Pacific’ in his remarks at the summit. Hanoi still shows i

Historically, South Korea has been more of an importer of transnational higher education than an exporter. This is exemplified by the array of international university branch campuses at the Incheon Global Campus. South Korea’s foray into establishing a global higher education presence commenced in earnest only after 1995, when the concept of ‘education as a service’ was formalised following the General Agreement on Trade in Services. Since 2006, the South Korean government has pursued policies to elevate the global standing of its higher education sector. Initial efforts were centred around exporting higher education services and supporting the establishment of overseas branch campuses, coupled with regulatory adjustments. These policies have since evolved and South Korean universities have been encouraged to establish campuses and research institutes overseas. Digital education has become increasingly prevalent in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Post-pandemic initiatives emphas

In Maldives, domestic politics is often significant enough to supersede foreign influence and privilege independent approaches to development cooperation. President Dr Mohamed Muizzu aims to maintain internal support as he strengthens relationships with foreign nations. Since it attained independence from Britain in 1965, the Maldives’ foreign policy has been based on principles of sovereign equality of states, the rules-based international order, non-interference in other states’ internal affairs, diplomacy in problem-solving and friendly relationships with other states. Maldives has made significant progress in democratic governance, making the transition to a multi-party democracy in 2008, and economic development, the country’s rich tourism industry now generating 80 per cent of national revenue. In 2021, Maldives was put in the high human development category in the Human Development Index. But Maldives has continued to encounter economic challenges due to global market c