US and Allied Tariffs Could Democratize China

Posted on March 14, 2025 by admin

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 13, No. 3, March 2025

By Anders Corr

President of the United States Donald Trump speaking at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland. Source: Gage Skidmore via Flickr.

The Chinese Communist Party is reacting to the Trump administration’s revolution in U.S. foreign policy with a full-court press in the media. President Donald Trump’s overtures to Russia’s Vladimir Putin are put front-and-center by Beijing so China can appeal to Europe, which sees Mr. Putin as anathema due to his invasion of Ukraine. And, the CCP is using Mr. Trump’s tariffs, against not only foes like China, but friends like Canada and the European Union, to criticize the United States as returning to the “law of the jungle.” In such a world, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said on March 7, small countries are disadvantaged relative to large countries. However, Mr. Trump’s tariffs against China, if adopted by all U.S. allies, would so threaten China’s economy as to potentially increase public disapproval with the CCP and encourage China’s democratization. This would remove the CCP’s support for Russia, killing the two biggest authoritarian birds with one stone. It is the one policy around which the United States, Europe, and Japan can best unite to bring down America’s traditional adversaries. Continue reading →

The Old World Order Endures

Posted on June 3, 2022 by Assistant Editor

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 10, No. 6, June 2022

President Joe Biden is depicted addressing the nation in the Roosevelt Room. He is flanked by flags with a painting in the background while he speaks into a microphone with one arm raised.

President Joe Biden addresses the nation in the Roosevelt Room, 2022. Source: CNN.

William R. Hawkins
President of the Hamilton Center for National Strategy

President Joe Biden has been using the term “inflection point” in his speeches. At the U.S. Naval Academy on May 27 he said, “Class of 2022, you are graduating at an inflection point not only in American history but in world history. And I mean it. The challenge we face and the choices we make are more consequential than ever. Things are changing so rapidly that the next 10 years will be the decisive decade of this century, because they’re going to shape what our world looks like and the values that will guide it not just for the immediate future, but for generations to come.” Yet, he didn’t lay out what those changes would be. He moved directly to a discussion of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, “A direct assault on the fundamental tenets of rule-based international order. That’s what you’re graduating into.” He then told them “You’ll learn to crew the most advanced ships in the world, train the most elite combat units, conduct undetected submarine missions, fly the most advanced fighter planes. But the most powerful tool that you’ll wield is our unmatched network of global alliances and the strength of our partnerships.”

Continue reading →

Politics in the De-politicised: TikTok as a Source of China’s Soft Power

Posted on December 2, 2021 by Assistant Editor

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 9, No. 11, November 2021

TikTok logo. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Zuza Nazaruk

Last year’s “TikTok war” revealed unprecedented hostility of the US government towards the Chinese tech newcomer. The seemingly innocuous software was developed by ByteDance, a Chinese unicorn company. TikTok is a sister app of Douyin, created for the Chinese market. Both apps allow users to share and watch short videos. In July 2020, then-President Donald Trump accused TikTok of a series of breaches, the most serious of which was sharing user data with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (Levine, 2020). Yet, some experts, including Adam Segal from the Council of Foreign Relations, considered the near-ban a smokescreen to hinder the growth of the most globally successful Chinese app to date (Campbell, 2020). In 2020, TikTok was the most downloaded app globally, with 89 million new users just in the US (Geyser, 2021). To date, 23% of Americans use or have watched TikTok, with an average American user having spent 14.3 hours monthly on the app in 2020 (Tankovska, 2021).

Continue reading →

Solving South Africa’s Youth Unemployment Problem: Expand Small Business in the Education Sector

Posted on October 29, 2021 by admin

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 9, No. 10, October 2021

South Africans and supporters gather outside the South African High Commission in London to support students and protest against police violence. Rachel Megawhat.

Stephanie Wild
University of Cape Town

The problem of youth unemployment has grown in South Africa for years, but now with the global economy having taken an all-time dip, it has emerged even further at the forefront of South Africans’ minds. Policy geared to expand small business creation in the education sector would be a two-for-one win that keeps on giving.

The crux of the problem

According to Stats SA (2021), in the first quarter of 2021, the official unemployment rate was reported as an astonishingly-high 32.6%. While the number of employed and unemployed South Africans remained rather unchanged from the last quarter of 2020, the number of discouraged work-seekers increased by nearly 7% (Stats SA, 2021). This means that the problem has not necessarily worsened between 2020 and this year. However, it persists and reveals a failure to both ameliorate the problem, and a failure to boost morale that results from the problem. Continue reading →

US Trade Leverage Against China: An Interview with the Coalition for a Prosperous America

Posted on October 7, 2021 by admin

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 9, No. 10, October 2021

The image depicts two Maersk-Sealand 40' containers stacked on top of one another. Train tracks are visible in the background.

China Shipping – Maersk-Sealand 40′ Containers, Quebec, Canada, 2018. Source: Wikimedia.

Anders Corr, Ph.D.
Publisher of the Journal of Political Risk

This interview with Michael Stumo, the CEO of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, was conducted between October 5-6 via email.

Corr: Why and when did the Coalition for a Prosperous America begin?

Stumo: CPA started in 2008. Domestic manufacturers, farmers, ranchers and workers agreed that the biggest threat to their well being, and that of the economy, was the large, persistent US trade deficit.

Corr: How is Biden’s ally focus going for him on the issue of trade with China? Is Biden’s outreach to allies helping him on this issue?

Continue reading →