“Ça se propage comme un cancer”. En quelques années, l'Asie du Sud-Est est devenue l'épicentre d'une industrie cybercriminelle de 40 milliards de dollars. Plus de 200 000 personnes seraient contraintes de participer à des opérations de fraude en ligne dans ces centres de “cyber-esclavage” modernes. Analyse d'un phénomène qui redessine – et élargit – les contours du crime organisé transnational. En se promenant le long des frontières du Myanmar, du Laos et du Cambodge sur Google Earth Pro, on distingue nettement l’expansion fulgurante de ces centres d’arnaque qu’on compte par dizaines : là où s’étendaient des terrains vagues en 2020,… […]

Stronghold North America The United States, Canada, and Mexico will benefit from the US Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA), as US trade with its neighbors is forecast to grow by $466 billion in the coming decade. Faced with a combination of economic pressure and national security concerns, the Biden administration has adopted a new focus on industrial policies with a more protectionist bent, such as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The result is a more influential regional manufacturing footprint with direct investment into strategic industries.China Trade Dynamics Persistent trade tensions and… […]

Support for Taiwan is not only motivated by ideological commitment to democracy, but also because Taiwan is strategically important. If China seized Taiwan, it would hold both sides of the Taiwan Strait, demanding sovereignty over the international shipping lanes between. This has already happened in the disputed Spratly Islands, where China issued new maritime rules that certain types of foreign vessels had to notify the Chinese maritime authority before sailing through. The annexation of Taiwan would embolden the PRC to claim the South China Sea and parts of the Indo-Pacific region. This would give Beijing control over 60% of the… […]

India-China relations is at one of its lowest points, India-Russia defence engagement strives to sustain its strategic rationale, Russia-China alliance is on an upswing, while India-United States strategic partnership continues to exude a positive arc. As the virtual Foreign Ministers’ meeting of the Russia, India, and China grouping (RIC) concluded, its relevance in the new geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific calls for a reassessment. The international system is encountering an uncertain balance of power, with the United States not exhibiting the kind of overwhelming influence it used to, and China’s rise across the military and economic dimensions creating regional and global disruptions. While the… […]

China is sharply critical of the US-India-Japan-Australia quadrilateral security dialogue (the Quad), and the recently launched Australia-US-UK agreement (AUKUS), charging that these evolving security groupings are destabilizing Asia and the world.  Per Beijing, “closed and exclusive cliques” (搞封闭排他的小集团, gao fengbi paitai de xiao jituan) like the Quad stem from the US and its security partners’ lingering “Cold War mentality”(冷战思维, lengzhan siwei) as opposed to China’s self-proclaimed non-hegemonic approach to world affairs that follows the path of “peaceful, open, cooperative and common development.” (和平发展、开放发展、合作发展、共同发展的道路, heping fazhan, kaifang fazhan, hezou fazhan, gongtong fazhan de daolu). (Global Times, May 19; FMRPC, March 23;… […]