By Wouter Klijn, May 2016, http://www.i3-invest.com/ins-detail/flocks-of-black-swans/
The idea of a Black Swan, as popularised by the investor and philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb, refers to a highly improbable, but nevertheless devastating event and when it comes to investing Taleb argued that it is likely we will see more of these events than has been the case in the past.
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A little remarked consequence of the fact Australia is part of an interconnected world — no longer isolated by geography or tyrannised by distance — is the quantum surge in people and goods crossing our borders.
During the past decade, there has been a 60 per cent rise in international passenger movements and 34 per cent in the number of travel visas issued. Imported sea cargo has increased by 50 per cent and air cargo a staggering 450 per cent, from 6.1 million consignments in 2005-06 to 33.6 million in 2014-15.
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The Investment Innovation Institute convenes educational forums and training workshops to cover investment strategies, policies, risk management and portfolio implementation to a diverse group of investors and asset owners in the Asia Pacific region.
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One of the great difficulties in assessing China’s broader aims and goals is the apparent contradiction between its uncompromising security policy and the accommodating allure of its economic outreach. While aggressively asserting its maritime claims in the Western Pacific, Beijing is simultaneously wooing the world with the seductive vision of a new Silk Road that promises benefits for all who sign up.
If the ambitious goals of Malcolm Turnbull’s just released cyber security strategy are achieved, the document could turn out to be the most important and innovative government strategy yet written.
Its great strength is that it provides a clear plan for harnessing Australia’s transitioning economy to the enabling technology of the internet, while recognising that a secure cyber space is critical to exploiting the benefits of the digital age and to protecting our interests online.
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Calibrated to take advantage of Japan’s rapidly changing political and security landscape Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s call this week for a deeper, closer strategic and defence partnership with Japan is a water shed moment in the bilateral relationship which promises to deliver significant benefits for both countries, although it won’t be risk free.
The culmination of 26 years of patient Australian diplomacy, dating back to former Chief of the Defence Force, General Peter Gration’s, ground-breaking first defence visit to Japan in 1989, Bishop has timed her initiative well. It dovetails neatly with the Abe government’s more outward looking security stance, a response to the burgeoning foreign policy and strategic challenges Japan confronts.
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The simmering strategic rivalry between the US and China is entering a new, and more dangerous phase that will recast the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific region and pose increasingly difficult policy choices for the next government.
After an extended period of policy confusion and vacillation about how to respond to China’s determined thrust into the Pacific and Indian Oceans, Washington is now pushing back with surprising vigour. Blunt warnings about the unacceptability of China’s land reclamation activities in the South China Sea and desire for regional hegemony are flowing thick and fast from the Pentagon along with military assistance to Southeast Asian countries, many of which have had a contentious relationship with the US in the past.
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Dr Alan Dupont speaks with Washington Post correspondent, Simon Denyer.
“China is using its vast fishing fleet as the advance guard to press its expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea, experts say. That is not only putting Beijing on a collision course with its Asian neighbors, but also introducing a degree of unpredictability that raises the risks of periodic crises.
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The Turnbull government has boldly proclaimed that the new defence white paper “is the most rigorous and comprehensive in Australia’s history”. This is not just rhetoric. The white paper articulates a viable strategy for the Australian Defence Force that is potentially transformational and should ensure the ADF is properly equipped to deter and defeat the multiplying defence and security challenges confronting the nation.
What sets this white paper apart is the muscularity of the envisaged defence force, which bears all the hallmarks of Tony Abbott’s persona and hard-nosed approach to defence and national security.
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It’s rare for an Australian Prime Minister to quote from a classical Greek text and even rarer in the context of Australia’s relations with the US and China. But in his recent speech to a prominent US think tank in Washington, Malcolm Turnbull cited the great Athenian historian, Thucydides, in warning of the heightened risk of conflict when a rising power challenges the existing international order and the position of the previously dominant state – the so called Thucydides Trap.
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