Global Outlook

The G7 summit of foreign ministers in Japan in mid-April sought to emphasise the need for a unified China policy. However, the diplomatic pronouncements can only gloss over the internal contradictions, but not eliminate them.

The strategic landscape of the Middle East is changing rapidly, but not in favour of the United States as the traditional powerful actor in the region. Continued adversarial US–Iranian relations and regional Arab states’ growing concerns about Washington’s reliability as an ally have widened the arena for Russia and China to expand their strategic footprints in the region.

As global environmental challenges grow, people and societies are increasingly looking to Indigenous knowledge for solutions. Indigenous knowledge is particularly appealing for addressing climate change because it includes long histories and guidance on how to live with, and as part of, nature. It is also based on a holistic understanding of interactions between living and non-living aspects of the environment. .

Labour migration has a long history in the Pacific islands’ region, from the ‘blackbirding’ era at the end of the nineteenth century when islanders came to work in the cane fields of Queensland, until this century when once again islanders came to work in Australia and New Zealand, this time in orchards and horticulture. .

Whatever the flag, Washington would not sell nuclear-powered boats unless it could count on them in war over Taiwan.

The world consists of more players than the US’ allies and friends, and conflict and strife generally occur outside the US’ sphere of influence. That’s why China’s Global Security Initiative diplomacy could present a serious challenge to the US’ diplomatic leadership.