China & EM Asia
Highlights China is taking advantage of global chaos to solidify its sphere of influence – beginning with Hong Kong. The crisis is also motivating the European Union to link arms more tightly through a symbolic step toward fiscal solidarity and transfers. US, Chinese, and European stimulus…
Highlights China faces unprecedented socioeconomic challenges but its political response is rigid rather than flexible. The twin political goals of centralization and self-sufficiency bode ill for productivity. Communist Party elites have become more ideological and provincial, less…
Highlights Kim Jong Un’s sickness or death is a matter of speculation and it is best to remain skeptical for now. If Kim dies or is incapacitated, it is a serious concern for North Korean and hence regional stability – and not only in the medium and long term. A North Korean power vacuum…
Highlights The collapse in oil prices supercharges the geopolitical risks stemming from the global pandemic and recession. Low oil prices should discourage petro-states from waging war, but Iran may be an important exception. Russian instability is one of the most important secular…
Highlights The near-term is fraught with risk for US equities and global risk assets. Investors concerned over uncertainty, a slow recovery, and economic aftershocks must also guard against geopolitics. COVID-19 is not a victory for dictatorship over democracies. Democracies face voters and…
Highlights The pandemic has a negative impact on households and has not peaked in the US. But a depression is likely to be averted. Our market-based geopolitical risk indicators point toward a period of rising political turbulence across the world. We are selectively adding risk to our…
Highlights The global pandemic is quickening the decline in globalization. Democracies can manage the virus, but it will be painful. European integration just got a major boost from Germany’s fiscal turn. Stay long the German consumer relative to the exporter. The US and UK are shifting to a…
Highlights China is moving from virus containment to normalization and economic stimulus. The full weight of the virus panic is only now hitting the US public and has not yet peaked. The US – and western democracies in general – have the raw capabilities to manage the virus outbreak. The…
Highlights It is too soon to bottom feed with fears of a global pandemic and “socialist” boom in the United States. China’s government will do “whatever it takes” to stimulate the economy – but animal spirits need to revive for it to work. European political risk and policy uncertainty are…
Highlights China’s economic rebound in Q1 will be delayed due to the coronavirus, which will have a larger negative hit than SARS. New stimulus measures will assist a rebound in demand later this year. Europe remains a geopolitical opportunity rather than a risk. As long as global growth…