In recent years, American politicians have been seeking to challenge China’s status as a developing country Despite building a “moderately prosperous society”, the Chinese economy is still not considered high-income, and parts of the country still face unbalanced development.
Hong Kong’s emerging debate on AI in education lags behind other parts of Asia despite a rich recent history of world-class pedagogical research. If we view AI through technological solutionism, we ignore the importance of localisation and potentially face both regional relegation and redundancy.
Australia’s new national defence strategy focuses on countering its ‘adversary’ on the battlefield, yet its true vulnerability lies elsewhere – on its economic dependence on China. Diplomatic engagement will protect Australia far better than any military deterrence can.
An initially strong draft WHO treaty focusing on rapid information sharing, fair vaccine distribution and relaxing intellectual property rights appears to have been diluted. Failure to forge an agreement and put aside national differences would be a tragedy for which we will pay a terrible price, perhaps very soon.