Policy Exchange

Comparing US and European China policies of recent years reveals a widening gap. While the Biden administration’s China policy is fixated on competition and national security, and preoccupied with renewing US global leadership, the EU essentially remains open to cooperation with China.

Think20 (T20) invited GIGA President Professor Amrita Narlikar to serve as a Co-Chair of Taskforce 3: Lifestyle for Environment, Resilience, and Values for Wellbeing during India’s G20 Presidency in 2023. T20 is an official G20 engagement group.

In 2023, German and European authorities expect refugee numbers to rise further. Whether existing attitudes towards refugees in Germany can be changed by positive or negative statements made about their further admission in future is discussed in this Focus Global.

The Nicaraguan government’s attack on Catholic priests is bringing the former alliance between the government and the Church to breaking point, while contributing also to the gradual implosion of the authoritarian regime. While the Pope encourages dialogue, the space for civil society has eroded.

Russia’s war against Ukraine has accelerated international competition for influence in Africa. Structural weaknesses and post-pandemic instabilities continue to threaten democratic governance, peace, and development. We present a selective list and analysis of “ten things to watch” in Africa in 2023.

The G20 is now a central forum for solving the current global polycrisis. It has also become a place where Global South governments, like India’s or Turkey’s, seek to acquire and project higher status on the world stage. Policymakers need to understand and embrace this key foreign policy dynamic.

“Ecologisation” is a strategy by which state actors present mismanagement and bad governance as the unavoidable accompaniments to natural disasters. In future, it will be important to acknowledge this strategy’s use so that climate action and human rights cannot be played off against each other.

The war against Ukraine has created possibilities for emerging actors in Africa – such as Iran and Turkey – to scale up their engagement with the continent. This Focus deals with the question of how the changing global dynamics are allowing Iran and Turkey to boost their ties across the African continent.