Diplomacy & Crisis News

Chu T'ien-hsin, l'une des écrivaines les plus importantes de Taïwan actuellement, est issue d'un milieu familial qui baigne dans la littérature. Sœur de Chu T'ien-wen, romancière et scénariste, notamment pour les films de Hou Hsiao-hsien, elle est la fille de Chu Hsi-ning, grand écrivain chinois issu (...) / Chine, Littérature, Taïwan - 2023/01

L'artiste britannique Brian Catling, récemment disparu à près de 74 ans, était peintre, sculpteur, performeur, poète. En 2012, il livrait la première partie d'une trilogie appelée à faire sensation : Vorrh. Avec le troisième volume du cycle, Les Divis (2018), qui vient d'être traduit , se termine une (...) / Afrique, Colonisation, Forêt, Fiction - 2023/01

Fréquenter des écrivains fâchés avec les honorables, les respectables, les gagnants d'un monde quelque peu dégoûtant est une émotion vivifiante. Ainsi, découvrir Félix Pyat suscite une certaine admiration tonique, car il fut d'un emportement et d'une obstination devenus rares. Pyat (1810-1889) est un (...) / Politique, Histoire, Littérature - 2023/01

Beijing’s high-risk approach to its economic confrontation with Washington.

How academia bolsters national security.

Image produced by ChatGPT-4o

The United States is considering the creation of a sovereign wealth fund (SWF) — not merely as a financial instrument, but as a platform to project “U.S. economic and strategic leadership internationally.” In an era shaped by China’s expanding presence across the Global South, the question is no longer whether America should compete — but how.

For decades, U.S. foreign aid has faltered not for lack of resources or ambition, but because of the systems through which it was delivered. American capital often disappeared into fragile states plagued by weak institutions, opaque financial flows, and clientelist politics. Monitoring costs soared. Compliance eroded. Conditionality-based lending — the hallmark of the IMF era — imposed reforms without guaranteeing results.

The problem wasn’t intent. It was infrastructure.

Today, programmable finance — smart contracts that release funds only when verifiable conditions are met — offers a new solution to an old problem. This is not merely about managing money better. It is about building a governance platform that operationalizes transparency, accountability, and performance-based funding — without the heavy-handed conditionalities of the past.

Why Programmable Finance Changes the Game

Accountable development in fragile states requires more than political will. It requires enforceable agreements in environments where trust is scarce and institutions are weak.

Programmable finance reverses the logic of traditional foreign aid. Instead of relying on costly external monitoring or ex ante policy conditions, smart contracts embed governance standards — delivery milestones, environmental compliance, procurement rules — directly into the payment system. Funds move only when outcomes are verified.

The result: lower transaction costs, reduced corruption risks, and greater local ownership of results.

For a U.S. SWF, this means enabling competitive, transparent development ecosystems — not controlling projects through donor conditionality, but setting rules that foster local credibility and market-based accountability. It is a model that leverages U.S. strengths: financial innovation, open systems architecture, and institutional design.

Moving Beyond the Limits of Past U.S. Foreign Aid

Past U.S. foreign aid models failed not only because of conditionality-based control mechanisms, but due to deeper structural flaws. First, aid was often fragmented across multiple agencies and contractors, leading to duplication, poor coordination, and blurred accountability. Second, political time horizons in Washington frequently distorted long-term development goals, as funding and priorities shifted with electoral cycles. These systemic weaknesses enabled institutional leakage and weakened recipient governments’ capacity to deliver sustained results.

Programmable finance addresses these failures by consolidating execution within a tamper-resistant, rule-based infrastructure. Rather than dispersing implementation across siloed intermediaries, a U.S. SWF built on smart contracts would centralize execution standards while decentralizing delivery to credible actors. Automated disbursement mechanisms ensure consistency across political cycles, insulating long-term development programs from short-term volatility. Most importantly, the focus shifts from compliance with donor preferences to measurable, verifiable outcomes. In doing so, programmable finance offers not just a technical fix, but a governance innovation — one that disciplines incentives, builds institutional resilience, and restores credibility to U.S. leadership in the Global South.

Success in Parametric Insurance in Kenya vs. Failure in NetEase Blockchain Ventures in China

The Lemonade Foundation’s parametric insurance project in Kenya illustrates how programmable finance can operationalize governance standards in fragile environments. By deploying smart contracts linked to objective environmental data — such as rainfall levels — the system automated payouts to 7,000 farmers during the 2023 drought, eliminating the need for manual claims processing. This reduced transaction costs, mitigated corruption risks, and aligned financial flows with verifiable outcomes — precisely the conditions envisioned in the programmable finance framework.

Critically, this model avoided the pitfalls of ex ante conditionality. Rather than requiring farmers to navigate complex compliance procedures, funds were disbursed ex post through automated verification. The transparent, tamper-resistant infrastructure fostered local trust and expanded access to financial services without the need for external enforcement.

By contrast, China’s NetEase blockchain initiatives illustrate the limits of programmable finance when governance standards are poorly defined or user trust is lacking. Despite leveraging blockchain infrastructure to offer token-based rewards across platforms like Star and Quanquan, these projects failed to deliver transparent or consistent benefits to users. Centralized control over token economies, opaque algorithms, and regulatory uncertainty undermined adoption — and all major projects were abandoned by 2019.

This failure reflects a structural weakness of China’s development model: the deployment of technology without institutionalized transparency or mechanisms for contestability. Without credible governance standards embedded into financial architecture, programmable tools risk devolving into instruments of centralized control — replicating the very opacity they are designed to overcome.

The Strategic Payoff: Governance-Driven Investment at Scale

The failure of U.S. foreign aid has been less about funding levels — and more about institutional leakage. Traditional development models are vulnerable to capture by intermediaries — contractors, consultants, and political elites — who extract value without delivering outcomes. Programmable finance offers a structural solution. By tying disbursements to transparent, performance-based contracts, it minimizes leakage and re-aligns incentives. It enables a governance platform where local actors compete not for patronage, but for credibility.

However, while programmable finance automates enforcement and enhances transparency, it remains susceptible to manipulation at the point of beneficiary selection. Without safeguards, local elites may game the system—registering ineligible or co-opted recipients to capture resources under the veneer of compliance. In such cases, smart contracts risk becoming digitized tools for old patterns of political favoritism. To fulfill its promise, programmable finance must be paired with robust, politically neutral mechanisms for identity verification, decentralized validation, and randomized auditing. Only then can it serve as a truly scalable model of development finance rooted not just in code, but in institutional integrity — one that competes not by replicating China’s approach, but by offering a better alternative.

 

 

Disclaimer: Authored by Mark(Won Min) Seo, with light editing support from ChatGPT (OpenAI). AI contribution: ~10% as assessed by AI.

En 1525, en Saxe, le moine Martin Luther s'insurge contre la vente des indulgences par l'Église pour financer la construction de la basilique Saint-Pierre de Rome. Le prêtre Thomas Müntzer le suit et appelle au soulèvement contre les seigneurs qui exploitent les paysans. Alors que châteaux et (...) / Idées, Histoire, Christianisme - 2023/01

« L'Amérique est déloyale au passé, déloyale au présent et promet solennellement de l'être à l'avenir. » Le 5 juillet 1852, devant six cents personnes, quand Frederick Douglass tient ces propos , l'esclavage est toujours en pratique dans le pays qui l'a vu naître en 1818 d'une mère esclave et d'un père (...) / Esclavage, Racisme, États-Unis (affaires intérieures) - 2023/01

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Les grandes puissances habillent souvent leurs ambitions stratégiques de considérations vertueuses à portée universelle : le droit des peuples, la défense de la liberté, la civilisation. Ces derniers temps, les valeurs de gauche sont volontiers mobilisées au service des objectifs stratégiques de (...) / Impérialisme, Armée, Information, États-Unis, Conflit afghan, Idéologie, Droits des minorités - 2023/01

In Geneva, at the United Nations Square for Human Rights, also known as the “Broken Chair
square”, Sudanese youth mobilized to organize the largest human rights exhibition under the
theme “Save the Civilians in Sudan.” The exhibition highlighted the dire human rights situation
following the war led by the Sudanese army and its allied terrorist and extremist groups. It
exposed the grave violations, inhumane crimes, and war crimes committed by the Sudanese
army against civilians, including the widespread destruction of civilian and vital infrastructure.
The exhibition also shed light on the atrocities inflicted upon the Sudanese people, resulting in
the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians—most of whom were women and children—
and the forced displacement of millions from their homes.

Rows of coffins lined United Nations Square, draped in the Sudanese flag, with images
depicting victims, suffering, and hardship filling the space—creating a striking and solemn
scene. Through this powerful artistic expression, the Future Youth Coalition, in collaboration
with the Sudanese Human Rights Organizations Coalition, aimed to shed light on the critical
human rights situation in Sudan.

The human rights exhibition was held on the sidelines of the United Nations Human Rights
Council session, from March 20 to 22. “A country engulfed in death, with no opportunities for
life—humanitarian tragedy is everywhere. This is the reality of human rights in Sudan after
two years of war led by the head of the Sudanese army,” stated Bashir Al-Samani, President of
the Future Youth Coalition.

The nearly 100 attendees experienced moments of deep reflection and sorrow as they watched
Sudanese youth express their grief for their country. Through powerful imagery, they bore
witness to the profound impact of conflict—scenes of loss and destruction, the suffering of
children, the anguish of displaced families, and the shattered aspirations of a generation. The
ongoing violence has severely impacted livelihoods, destroyed vital infrastructure, and
diminished prospects for the future, leaving many young people facing an uncertain path ahead.

As part of the human rights exhibition, the organizers hosted an open forum to discuss the
human rights situation in Sudan. Speakers from the Sudanese Human Rights Organizations
Coalition and the Future Youth Coalition addressed key aspects of the ongoing humanitarian
crisis, including displacement, summary executions, food insecurity, torture, sexual violence,
and reports of bodies being burned and disposed of in rivers. Photos and videos presented
during the forum offered documented evidence of these distressing events, highlighting the
grave human rights violations committed, particularly by extremist groups allied with the
Sudanese army.

The exhibition was inaugurated by Chair of the Coordination Committee of the Sudanese
Human Rights Organizations Coalition, alongside international human rights experts, senior
representatives of the coalition, and members of the Future Youth Coalition.
At the conclusion of the forum, participants endorsed the statement issued by 90 international
human rights organizations condemning the war crimes committed by the Sudanese army in
the city of Wad Madani.

A state of absolute humanitarian emergency

The ongoing conflict has resulted in severe humanitarian consequences, with an estimated
150,000 deaths and the displacement of over 12 million people. Among those displaced,
approximately 4 million—primarily women and children—have been forced to seek refuge
both within Sudan and in neighboring countries, according to United Nations estimates.
As stated by UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell during a United Nations Security
Council meeting on March 13, “Sudan has become the site of the world’s largest and most
devastating humanitarian crisis.”

Worsening Humanitarian Crisis

As a member of the Future Youth Coalition Sudan, which organized this exhibition, explained
on this occasion, “Since the summer of 2024, cholera, malaria, and dengue fever have spread
extensively, and there is no available medication to treat patients. The needs are enormous, and
healthcare services have become either completely inaccessible or entirely lost due to the
destruction of hospitals and medical facilities from airstrikes, or their looting and occupation
by the army and its extremist allies.”

A Sudanese youth and member of the “What We Want” group, who lost many family members
at the outset of the war, added, “The international community must provide greater
international aid, establish safe humanitarian corridors, and exert pressure on the armed forces
and their allies to stop targeting and abusing civilians.”

The United Nations signals concern

According to the United Nations, approximately 30 million people, or two-thirds of the
Sudanese population, are in need of humanitarian assistance, including healthcare, food, and
other forms of aid. Reports indicate cases of famine in at least five regions of the country,
including the Zamzam displaced persons camp in Darfur. The United Nations has warned of
the potential spread of famine unless urgent funding is received, while the World Food
Program has been forced to suspend its operations due to the intensity of the ongoing
conflict.

The United Nations also warns of the risk of famine spreading without immediate funding
following a sudden reduction in contributions from major governmental donors, a decision that
represents a catastrophic blow to humanitarian aid in Sudan, a country currently under the
control of the Sudanese military and facing one of the most severe humanitarian crises.
According to the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, “Women and children
are at risk,” and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has described the
situation as “the world’s largest humanitarian disaster.”

According to reports from the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry, “A
staggering number of sexual assault cases” have been reported in Sudan, with “the full extent
of these atrocities still hidden due to fear, stigma, and impunity.” The Commission, under the
Human Rights Council, states that the majority of these sexual violence incidents are attributed
to paramilitary groups allied with the Sudanese army.

According to a member of the Forgotten Future Youth Coalition, many of the victims are
children, some of whom are under one year old, as confirmed by UNICEF reports. The
international organization highlighted the widespread use of rape as a weapon of war in Sudan,
with Bara’a Markaz emphasizing, “In my country, rape is extensively used as a weapon of war,
and the world must recognize that thousands of women and children have become victims of
acts committed with impunity. This must end immediately.”

De pénuries en soupçons de conflits d'intérêts, la pandémie de Covid-19 a révélé les failles de deux secteurs associés à la médecine. L'industrie pharmaceutique dont l'histoire montre qu'elle a marginalisé des traitements efficaces, mais peu lucratifs. Et les laboratoires d'analyses médicales qui, après (...) / Médecine, Santé, Industrie, Commerce, Industrie pharmaceutique, Finance, Crise sanitaire - 2023/01

De même que les écoles de commerce enseignent comment utiliser au mieux les moyens financiers ou les possibilités du marché, les nouveaux manageurs apprennent à gérer les êtres humains, ravalés au rang de ressource comme une autre. Ils jouent sur les sentiments (empathie, complicité, plaisir, mais (...) / Capitalisme, Néolibéralisme, Entreprise, Travail - 2023/01

Le 28 octobre 1962, officiellement, l'Union soviétique acceptait de retirer ses missiles balistiques nucléaires déployés à Cuba en échange de la garantie américaine de renoncer à tout projet d'invasion de l'île. En réalité, la crise fut résolue lorsque le président Kennedy envoya, la veille au soir, son (...) / URSS, États-Unis, Nucléaire militaire, Relations Est-Ouest, Diplomatie, Histoire - 2023/01

Depuis l'invasion russe de l'Ukraine, des millions de réfugiés ont afflué en Pologne, et beaucoup y sont restés. Dans ce pays d'émigration, longtemps rétif à l'immigration, les nouveaux venus ont accès au marché du travail et à l'éducation. Mais le système d'accueil polonais, prévu pour être temporaire, (...) / Immigrés, Pologne, Conflit russo-ukrainien 2022-, Solidarité, Société civile - 2023/01

Grands médias : y aller ou pas ? Tous ceux qui désirent changer le monde ont un jour affronté ce dilemme. D'un côté, la nécessité de populariser les luttes, l'extase de la visibilité. De l'autre, la soumission aux normes journalistiques et l'engrenage de la politique-spectacle. / France, Médias, (...) / France, Médias, Audiovisuel, Parti politique, Extrême gauche, Presse, Politique - 2023/01

La résistance à un envahisseur se nourrit de symboles partagés, d'un fond commun affirmant une identité, tout en construisant sa légende au fil des événements. La mobilisation patriotique en Ukraine puise aux sources les plus hétéroclites. Parmi elles, un hymne qu'entonnaient des combattants ukrainiens (...) / Ukraine, Russie, Conflit russo-ukrainien 2022-, Société, Identité culturelle - 2023/01

For some, Pre-2025 Economic Policy has more to do with long term Bad Policy Decisions than Recent Tariff Threats.

The most recent generation of trade policy arose at the end of the Cold War, reaching peak theory in 2000 when the belief that trade would eventually democratize a society was applied via open trade and Free Trade Agreements. The roots of this theory came from the progressive integration of Europe after the end of the Second World War, where former enemy nations tied their industries together in order to deter rational leaders from attacking an industrial base that was interwoven with their own economy. With the admission of China into the WTO, the early 2000s also expanded the European Union greatly as well as produced hundreds of Free Trade Agreements between individual nations, leading to eventual economic blocks and free trade zones.

The idea that trade barriers needed to be reduced worked well in theory, but if you were a smaller country outside of the EU, you were excluded and your economy was paralyzed in the European region without a direct agreement. Larger economies that were able to push for advantage also benefitted greatly. With trade barriers aligned with export policies being used since the 1950s to grow local industry in places in South Korea and Japan, China used trade restrictions to encourage international investment and manufacturing in China in order to access their growing market, while exporting at low cost abroad via the WTO trade liberalisation. This was permitted post China’s entrance into the WTO as many international companies used this situation to increase their own profits while avoiding socially responsible restrictions they faced under NAFTA regulations. Growth in international manufacturing enabled China to fund many government subsidized industries within China, exporting low cost products abroad with the help of China’s government. With the government having major stakes in all local industries, winning a commercial legal dispute against a China supported company was nearly impossible.

The existence of tariffs did not result in a frozen economy in the past. Countries like the United States and Canada did not have a free trade agreement on most goods before NAFTA, and both economies were productive and healthy during those pre-NAFTA years, even moreso than Canada is now over the last ten years. Many American and European trade agreements moved beyond a trade relationship, and were used to give added economic stability to countries bordering places like the United States and European Economic Community. The concept of a Trade War or Tariff War is not akin to a Hot War, and do not merit actions that would be taken to physically harm an offending trade partner or demand strategic support that was given willingly to the detriment of the other’s economy. As a contract between companies in two different nations would not give undue benefit to the party of one nation over the other, neither should the expectations of a more favourable position be expected by one side in a commercial trade agreement. Negotiated trade will be the only viable solution, as strategically detrimental actions will just lead to universal losses.

Before 2025, the post-Covid trade regimes already planned massive shifts as shortages of essential goods coming out of one dependent international source was seen as harmful in the event of future similar disasters. Many international companies moved from a China centered production model and took to the trend of Nearshoring their production closer to their main market. Mexico, who’s economy took a massive hit after China entered the WTO in 2001, is now able to bring back much of the manufacturing for the Americas since losing part of it in the early 2000s. While Mexico and the US are in intense negotiations over USMCA and future trade, the push for 0% reciprocal trade tariffs and an independently fuelled and supplied North America might become a beneficial trade giant if all NAFTA members can work out a mutual strategic trade arrangement with one another.

Challenging the traditional trade relationship needs to be done as a trade dispute, and not use language or actions of hot conflicts. History, location, and cultural ties make trade with certain regional partners inevitable in the worst of times, and attempting to break from this position can run the gauntlet from fantasy to foolish. Many countries wishing to break ties and using overly aggressive language look to be positioning their future fortunes on increased trade with China, but there are signs that China’s economy was already a lot worse off than imagined, with a tariff war with the US straining their economy further. Even if the US and China can come to a positive meeting of minds, China may stabilise at the level of a medium economic power, with a fraction of the economic opportunity of the US market.

Signs that China might become a less viable option when pulling away from the United States can be seen in information on Nearshoring to Mexico and now the US from companies leaving China. Self proclaimed experts on China have also discussed publicly unknown issues going on within China itself, with information being difficult to confirm at the best of times. One of the best measures of how life is for many in China is from accounts from Chinese soldiers who went to fight with Russia in Ukraine. Some of the accounts suggested that the nightmare that is the front line costs most lives, with the nearly $2000 a month pay often never being claimed as most do not survive. One account said that despite being sent into this real life Squid Game horror, he would still have gone knowing what he knows as he has nothing for him to make a life with in China. He warns others not to come, and it is unknown if he survived himself. Most of these accounts now look to be censored by China or Russia, but an economy that produces these scenarios is likely not in great shape. This was a few short years before 2025, and may be the reason why the US has chosen to pressure China on tariffs at this time. For countries hoping to move their US trade relationships towards a China focused option, they will simply tie themselves to a sinking economy over the next generation. Unfortunately, this is exactly the statements made by many G7 leaders in 2025.

Les dirigeants des Émirats arabes unis (EAU) imaginent une société du « tout numérique » dans laquelle un maximum d'usages de la vie quotidienne seraient informatisés. Ils prévoient pour cela d'investir massivement dans les technologies de l'information et de la communication : selon M. Frédéric Szabo, (...) / Armement, Défense, Technologies de l'information, Télésurveillance, Relations internationales, Émirats arabes unis, Commerce des armes - 2023/01

En deux décennies, le poids lourd de la fédération des Émirats arabes unis s'est doté d'importants moyens numériques pour encadrer et contrôler sa population, main-d'œuvre étrangère comprise. Au point, aujourd'hui, d'exporter cette technologie. / Technologies de l'information, Internet, Golfe, Émirats (...) / Technologies de l'information, Internet, Golfe, Émirats arabes unis, Sécurité, Télésurveillance, Défense - 2023/01