Opinion

  Sunday was the day for festivities and pride in Panama as people there marked the inauguration of newly expanded multibillion dollar Panama Canal that will link the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans and boost the regional and international trade. Currently, some 5 percent of global maritime commercial traffic uses this strategic waterway, which provides a valuable shortcut between North …

  Mohamed A. El-Erian As global financial markets convulse in response to British citizens voting to leave the European Union, the stunning outcome of the U.K.’s referendum provides more questions than answers. As discussed on Monday, the heightened uncertainty, fueled by sudden institutional instability now compounding long-standing economic fragility and financial fluidity, is likely to cause an unprecedented mix of …

The United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union is creating a lot of losers: London’s finance industry. British Prime Minister David Cameron. The pound. The grand cause of European integration. But out of all of the market turmoil and uncertainty will emerge at least one big winner: China. In the short term, of course, China’s struggling economy may take a …

  Sometimes, an economic paper delivers such a disturbing result that you have no choice but to sit up and take notice. That was the case for me, when I saw this new study by Stony Brook University’s Marina Azzimonti. Azzimonti’s disquieting hypothesis is that political partisanship is deterring overseas investment in the U.S. When we think of foreign direct …

  David A. Welch SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS There has been a great deal of commentary recently on Beijing’s strident refusal to participate in the Philippines’ arbitration case and the almost desperate vehemence with which it is preparing to greet the tribunal’s final judgment. This is not terribly surprising, as most analysts agree that the Philippines will win on a …

  Max Walden SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS In late April 1976, a small fishing boat carrying five young Vietnamese refugees sailed into Darwin harbor. Although representing the arrival of Australia’s first “boat people,” the Kein Giang’s landing on Australian shores barely made the newspaper. Boat arrivals during 1976 and 1977 were largely met with similar indifference by the national media …

  WASHINGTON The Leave campaign won the referendum on withdrawing Britain from the European Union because the arguments on which the Remain side relied made Leave’s case. The Remain campaign began with a sham, was monomaniacal with its Project Fear, and ended in governmental thuggishness. The sham was Prime Minister David Cameron’s attempt to justify Remain by negotiating EU concessions …

    The UK has voted to leave the European Union, but the strenuous exit process could take years. Brussels wants an immediate start to it, while London insists it is a new Prime Minister who will negotiate with the EU in October. London’s position doesn’t augur well with sullen Brussels, apparently annoyed by UK’s unprecedented decision to leave the …

    Catherine Putz SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS There are few topics bigger in the region than the question of China. EurasiaNet is running a five-part series addressing different aspects of Chinese engagement in Central Asia. Raffaello Pantucci tackles the overview, writing that “China’s rise in Central Asia marks one of the most consequential changes in regional geopolitics since the …

  When Margaret Thatcher visited the College of Europe in 1988, she joked that a British leader coming to address an elite college of European civil servants was like Genghis Khan being invited to a peace conference. But in what became known as the Bruges speech, Thatcher’s message was anything but hostile. Nobody, she said, can deny that Britons are …