By David De Cremer and Jess Zhang
In today’s global context, Chinese companies face significant challenges in internationalising their services – not least that posed by contrasting styles of leadership. However, Chinese companies and government are responding to these challenges and changes are happening fast, putting China well on the way to becoming a global giant.
The post-2015 sustainable development goals (SDGs) currently being devised by the international community cannot be fulfilled under the auspices of the public sector alone. Private sector investment will be key to their delivery. However, in order to successfully mobilise the private sector to promote sustainable development, more transparent corporate sustainability reporting is crucial – as James Zhan argues in this article, what gets measured is what gets managed.
By Simon Curtis
The remarkable transformation of the world’s major cities over recent decades has been widely noted as being driven by a restructuring of the global economy. What is less often remarked upon is that the relative empowerment of cities is rooted in a wider transformation of international political order. Below, Simon Curtis argues that as components of a nascent global order, cities have been endowed with new capacities, and are taking on new governance roles. These developments point to the crucial role that cities will play in the future of global politics.
By John Briscoe
Water is a basic necessity – crucial not only for sustaining life, but also for facilitating sustainable economic growth. Below, Professor John Briscoe calls out the hypocrisy of much of the last four decades of rich countries’ policies towards large-scale infrastructural projects in the developing world, and questions what recent game-changing announcements mean for the future of development. Is the hegemony of the Western-dominated World Bank coming to an end?
By Joe Zhang
“If President Xi Jinping wants Chinese people to realise their own ‘China dream’, he must tame the credit monster. Shadow banking is only the shadow, not the monster waiting in the shadows.” Below, Joe Zhang argues that shadow banking is merely the tip of the iceberg, disguising the real, underlying problem: excessive credit expansion.
By Lourdes Casanova and Julian Kassum
This article examines Brazil’s hybrid development model, which combines macroeconomic orthodoxy with certain features of state capitalism, as well as pro-active social inclusion policies. Lourdes Casanova and Julian Kassum identify and analyse the five pillars of the Brasilia Consensus: macroeconomic stability, social programs, domestic demand, state-led industry development and political consensus.
By Usha C. V. Haley and George T. Haley
How did China move so swiftly in capital-intense industries without labour-cost or scale advantage from bit player to the largest manufacturer and exporter in the world? Below, Usha and George Haley argue that subsidies contributed significantly to China’s success.
By Terence Tse, Mark Esposito, and Olaf Groth
While Russia’s growth in the early 2000s inspired confidence in its potential as a global economic powerhouse, falling international oil prices and foreign military exploits have slowed the pace of growth and left Russia’s future uncertain. Below, the authors outline two potential scenarios and argue that only with an innovative long-term strategy focused on developing a science and technology “String of Pearls” can Russia secure its future as a global power.
