Although Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa enjoy significantly more power individually nowadays, as a group they still haven't mastered the methods for transforming their newfound economic prowess into global power.
The West must look ahead to when President Lukashenka is no longer in office and help the people of Belarus develop its civil society.
Though capital controls are generally disliked by economists, they remain popular among countries, as both emergency measures and part of longer-term strategies. If designed correctly, they do not pose a threat to country welfare or to the global economy.
Global trade imbalances result from national policies that stimulate high or low saving or consumption rates, rather than from cultural predispositions to save or spend, making coordinated policy reform crucial to rectifying those imbalances.
Although regional institutions have proliferated in East Asia in recent years, their ability to provide a cohesive governance structure for the region is limited by mutual mistrust among their member states.
International and regional financial institutions need to work together to negotiate a plan to reduce Greece's debt load if they wish to recoup any of their losses and prevent Greece's long-term stagnation.
Recent unrest in China's Inner Mongolia province and simmering resentment of Han majority control in other western provinces suggests that China should give more local political autonomy to ethnic minority groups.
China is promoting the use of its currency for trade and investment, but this will eventually require China to open its capital account and make its exchange rate more flexible—moves that political considerations may block for years to come.
With Brazil’s boom turning into a bubble, policy makers must act now to cool the economy before financial markets impose the necessary corrections in a more brutal way.
Although China has taken positive steps to address the debt burdens of local governments, it remains to be seen how it will repay that debt. Meanwhile, the increase in international trade denominated in RMB is likely being driven largely by speculative demand.























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