Critical Minerals, the Climate Crisis and the Tech Imperium
Critical Minerals, the Climate Crisis and the Tech Imperium

Author: Sophia Kalantzakos

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-02-28

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 3031255771

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This book examines the latest manifestations of resource competition. The energy transition and the digitalization of the global economy are both accelerating even as geopolitics driven by Sino-American hyper-competition become increasingly contentious. The volume brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars, policy makers, institutional stakeholders, and industry experts to analyze not only the transition itself, but also the implications that the need for uninterrupted access to unprecedented levels of raw materials generates. By framing the challenges ahead for global society, governance, industry, international power politics, and the environment, the book asks hard questions about the choices that need to be made to reach net zero by mid-century. Moreover, it sheds light on different facets of the growing risks to what have been global interdependent supply chains in a way that is nuanced, balanced, and practical, thus pushing back on some of the most sensational headlines that breed confusion and may lead policymakers to make more narrow and less effective decisions. The volume is an outcome of “Rich Rocks, the Climate Crisis and the Tech-imperium” a Summer Institute at Caltech and the Huntington that took place in July 2021.

Enhancing ASEAN’s Role in Critical Mineral Supply Chains
Enhancing ASEAN’s Role in Critical Mineral Supply Chains

Author: Sharon Seah

Publisher: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute

Published: 2024-02-27

Total Pages: 38

ISBN-13: 9815203231

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The clean energy transition momentum is gathering pace globally, and in Southeast Asia as well. The transition is dependent on an uninterrupted supply of critical minerals and metals that are essential for the production of low-carbon technologies. The supply of critical minerals is impeded by several constraints. First is the dominance of a handful of countries in both the upstream and downstream parts of the supply chain. Second is the current geopolitical race to secure supplies leading to greater protectionist behaviours, exhibited through export bans and trade impediments. This study focuses on four selected critical minerals which are important to the region. Two criteria are used in determining a mineral having high significance: (1) There are significant deposits of it which can be tapped on to bolster Southeast Asia’s strategic position in the supply chains; and (2) It is an essential input in industries and sectors of importance in Southeast Asia. The four critical minerals examined in this study are: copper, nickel, bauxite (alumina), and rare earth elements (REEs). The study makes three recommendations to enhance ASEAN’s role in the critical minerals supply chains. The first addresses the insufficiency of investments in early-stage exploration and exploitation of critical minerals and, in the process, calls for an embracing of circular economy principles. The second appeals for investments at all stages, including in technology to tap into downstream activities beyond refining and purification, and in the manufacturing of component parts such as battery cell storage and permanent magnets. The third calls for improvements in sustainability management in the mining sector, which is generally extremely environmentally and socially damaging to communities.

The Comeback of Industrial Policy
The Comeback of Industrial Policy

Author: Alessandro Gili

Publisher: Ledizioni

Published: 2024-03-05

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13:

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Industrial policies are the key element underlying today's geopolitical scramble and a pillar of national security. Reacting to Western weaknesses and bottlenecks in the global supply chains, highlighted by multiple shocks such as the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and the recent Israel-Hamas war, the US in first place and the EU later have started to introduce new industrial legislation aimed at making up for lost ground with respect to other industrial powerhouses, such as China. Besides being policy tools to accelerate the green and digital transitions, however, the US Inflation Reduction Act and the Net Zero Industry Act, as well as the US and the EU Chips Acts, entail subsidies, local content requirements and export controls targeted at strengthening the domestic industrial base for critical technologies, fostering strategic autonomy and de-risking from excessive foreign dependencies. This race poses risks for the weaponisation of industrial policies and fragmentation of international trade and also potentially jeopardises technological development. How can we strike a balance between economic security and efficiency? Which sectors are the most critical and which ones are the leading global powers pursuing? What will the consequences be for global value chains and international trade? Is it possible to reach an agreement on rules for a new level playing field to prevent economic competition turning into economic warfare?

The Transatlantic Community and China in the Age of Disruption
The Transatlantic Community and China in the Age of Disruption

Author: Daniel S. Hamilton

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-04-01

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 1040006779

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This volume analyzes what China’s rise means for the transatlantic community in a new age of disruption—an age marked by great power rivalry, technological upheavals, and the diffusion of power. The book explores how today’s conditions—including heightened Western concerns about Chinese influence operations, Chinese efforts to manipulate critical economic interconnections and dependencies, rapid technological advances, the Russia–China entente, and growing linkages between North Atlantic and Indo-Pacif ic security—have forced Western actors to adopt a more differentiated approach. In this great power competition, they must decide how and where to work with China as an important partner, how to address China’s competitive challenges, and how to address China’s efforts to forge a set of norms and institutions to challenge the open, rules-based international system. The book will be of key interest to students and scholars of Transatlantic Relations, International Relations, Global Governance, European Politics, Asian Security, US and EU Foreign Policy, and Sino-Western relations. It will also be of interest to think-tank researchers and policy practitioners.

The Spectre of State Capitalism
The Spectre of State Capitalism

Author: Ilias Alami

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2024-07-25

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0198925204

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The state is back, and it means business. Since the turn of the 21st century, state-owned enterprises, sovereign funds, and policy banks have vastly expanded their control over assets and markets. Concurrently, governments have experimented with increasingly assertive modalities of statism, from techno-industrial policies and spatial development strategies to economic nationalism and trade and investment restrictions. This book argues that we are currently witnessing a historic arc in the trajectories of state intervention, characterized by a drastic reconfiguration of the state's role as promoter, supervisor, shareholder-investor, and direct owner of capital across the world economy. It offers a comprehensive analysis of this “new state capitalism”, as commentators increasingly refer to it, and maps out its key empirical manifestations across a range of geographies, cases, and issue areas. Alami and Dixon show that the new state capitalism is rooted in deep geopolitical economic and financial processes pertaining to the secular development of global capitalism, as much as it is the product of the geoeconomic agency of states and the global corporate strategies of leading firms. The book demonstrates that the proliferation of muscular modalities of statist interventionism and the increasing concentration of capital in the hands of states indicate foundational shifts in global capitalism. This includes a growing fusion of private and state capital, and the development of flexible and liquid forms of property that collapse the distinction between state and private ownership, control, and management. This has fundamental implications for the nature and operations of global capitalism and world politics. This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

China and the Geopolitics of Rare Earths
China and the Geopolitics of Rare Earths

Author: Sophia Kalantzakos

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0190670932

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Resource competition, mineral scarcity, and economic statecraft -- What are rare earths? -- Salt and oil : strategic parallels -- How China came to dominate the rare earth industry

Impossible Citizens
Impossible Citizens

Author: Neha Vora

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2013-03-18

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 0822353938

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Indian communities have existed in the Gulf emirate of Dubai for more than a century. Since the 1970s, workers from South Asia have flooded into the emirate, enabling Dubai's huge construction boom. They now compose its largest noncitizen population. Though many migrant families are middle-class and second-, third-, or even fourth-generation residents, Indians cannot become legal citizens of the United Arab Emirates. Instead, they are all classified as temporary guest workers. In Impossible Citizens, Neha Vora draws on her ethnographic research in Dubai's Indian-dominated downtown to explore how Indians live suspended in a state of permanent temporariness. While their legal status defines them as perpetual outsiders, Indians are integral to the Emirati nation-state and its economy. At the same time, Indians—even those who have established thriving diasporic neighborhoods in the emirate—disavow any interest in formally belonging to Dubai and instead consider India their home. Vora shows how these multiple and conflicting logics of citizenship and belonging contribute to new understandings of contemporary citizenship, migration, and national identity, ones that differ from liberal democratic models and that highlight how Indians, rather than Emiratis, are the quintessential—yet impossible—citizens of Dubai.

The EU, US and China Tackling Climate Change
The EU, US and China Tackling Climate Change

Author: Sophia Kalantzakos

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-14

Total Pages: 153

ISBN-13: 1315298856

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The feeling of optimism that followed the COP 21 Paris Conference on Climate Change requires concrete action and steadfast commitment to a process that raises a number of crucial challenges: technological, political, social, and economic. As climate change worsens, new robust leadership is imperative. The EU, US and China Tackling Climate Change examines why a close collaboration between the EU and China may result in the necessary impetus to solidify a vision and a roadmap for our common future in the Anthropocene. Kalantzakos introduces a novel perspective and narrative on climate action leadership through an analysis of international relations. She argues that a close EU-China collaboration, which does not carry the baggage of an imbedded competition for supremacy, may best help the global community move towards a low carbon future and navigate the new challenges of the Anthropocene. Overall, Kalantzakos demonstrates how Europe and China, already strategic partners, can exercise global leadership in an area of crucial common interest through their web of relations, substantial development aid, and the use of soft power tools throughout the developing world. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental politics, international relations, climate change and energy law and policy.