Putting the AI into Asia

The rivalry between the USA and China has expanded into multiple areas, and without proactive action from Asia’s middle-powers, AI will be next.

The hard fall of soft power

The erosion of American soft power, accelerated by the hollowing out of foreign aid and Washington’s turn to protectionism, marks a retreat from the global influence the United States once had and can only leave the world poorer and more vulnerable to authoritarian aggression.

Tornado Trump

Trump seems determined to take the “Hugo Chavez” option in wrecking a national economy through ideological zeal while holding on to power through a combination of repression and targeted patronage for loyalists.

Be the change we want to see

Complaining about President Donald Trump’s tariff imposts won’t change anyone’s mind, but Australia can take on the leadership role Trump’s America has abdicated – by abolishing, rather than raising, tariffs.

Managing the AI boom

AI could trigger a global productivity boom and national policies to help economies harness the benefits of AI while avoiding the potential political consequences of poorly managed economic change are required.

You make your own luck

If it is to avoid having its luck run out, Australia needs a reform agenda suited to the structure of the Australian economy and its new position in the world.

Free trade or bust

Despite calls for inward economic strategies due to the perceived vulnerability of integrated supply chains, access to international markets has proven to be a form of insurance in times of crisis, responding quickly and efficiently to COVID-19 and energy trade disruptions.

AI in Asia

The scope for AI to reshape economies and drive growth is obvious, but effective, efficient and thoughtful regulation is desperately needed to ensure that the benefits are not monopolised or squandered.

Asia’s demographic challenge

The ageing and shrinking of populations in many parts of East Asia will be a defining part of their economic and social development this century, just as the trade-fuelled economic boom was in the latter half of the previous one.

We will not be assimilated

Fatalism is always intellectually fashionable. Plenty of intellectuals said the Cold War was unwinnable and Russia would crush Ukraine. Similarly, those who believe Asia – and Australia – will inevitably be dominated by China are similarly mistaken.

Man is born free, but he lives in global supply chains

It’s hard to imagine a more thorough stress test for globalisation than the double whammy of a once-in-a-century global pandemic followed by a land war between two of the world’s major commodity producers.

Maintaining a global agenda

Global uncertainties have given birth to pronouncements that range from nonsense to seriously dangerous such as that the WTO is dead and that globalisation has run its full course, but the WTO is not dead, and neither is globalisation.