Technically speaking, the U.S. State Department is the foreign policy arm of the United States. But increasingly, the U.S. Defense Department has taken a leading role in conducting foreign policy on its own: primarily through providing security assistance to countries around the world, sometimes contrary to State’s recommendations. This will come as no surprise to Central Asia watchers, who have …

After spending hundreds of billions of dollars over the past two decades acquiring oil, natural gas, coal and other mineral resources around the global, food-related sectors are becoming the new favorite of China’s overseas investment. It is estimated that over the past five years, China’s overseas food-related M&A topped $20 billion. This includes Shuanghui International’s $4.7 billion takeover of American …

Bloomberg Shanghai unveiled a package of measures designed to stem a surge in property prices in the metropolis, underscoring how regulators in top-tier cities are shifting gears in an economy where housing has been a brake on growth in recent years. The local government will tighten approval criteria for non-resident homebuyers, raise down-payment requirements for some second homes and ban …