This week, after a 156-day trial, the Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigner and media tycoon Jimmy Lai was convicted of sedition and collusion with foreign or external forces.
Now facing life in prison, Lai was convicted under the country’s National Security Law, introduced in 2020.
During the 2019 protests in Hong Kong, Lai and the media outlet he owned — Apple Daily — regularly presented the views of pro-democracy activists.
It openly criticised the Hong Kong and Beijing governments, and encouraged readers to participate in pro-democracy rallies and protests.
Apple Daily and Lai came to symbolise the democratic ideal of a free press, able to criticise those in power without fear of censorship or sanction.
His conviction represents a major blow to those ideals.
The end of press freedom in Hong Kong?
In the years since the introduction of Hong Kong’s National Security Law, press freedom has slowly been limited. Lai’s conviction symbolises it has now ended altogether.
In 2002, Hong Kong was ranked 18th globally for press freedom in the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index. It fell to 39th in 2005, and then to 73rd in 2019.
After the introduction of the national security law in 2020, a chilling effect soon took hold. Many pro-democracy media outlets and NGOs quickly disbanded.
Hong Kong has now plummeted to 140th place in the world press freedom rankings. Press freedom conditions are “bad” or “very serious”, according to Reporters Without Borders.
However, Lai’s trial symbolises a shift from self-censorship to an official view that certain media outlets are illegal.
It comes across as a clear message from the government that dissenting views will not be tolerated.
The Hong Kong media no longer serves as a vehicle for alternative views and airing of different political positions.
From rule of law to ruled by law
In the common law tradition, it is not uncommon for legislation to contain some degree of ambiguity. This is so courts can consider the “spirit” or “purpose” of the law as they pertain to each unique case. It allows flexibility as circumstances change.
In the 2020 National Security Law, however, what counts as violating national security is left completely undefined. This means virtually anything could be construed as violating national security.
In July 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Committee raised concerns about this law and the lack of clarity around the definition of “national security”.
This ambiguity means Hong Kongers are left in a state of uncertainty over which activities will or will not be perceived as undermining Beijing’s political authority.
Lai’s conviction (along with the conviction of 47 pro-democracy advocates) signifies that one possible definition of “national security” could be anything against Beijing’s agenda.
A blow to public trust in the courts
Lai’s conviction also represents a significant blow to public trust in Hong Kong’s judicial system.
In Hong Kong, judicial independence is constitutionally described in what’s known as the Basic Law. Various articles of this law mention that:
Hong Kong courts are independent and free from interference
members of the judiciary shall be immune from legal action in the performance of their judicial functions
judges shall be appointed by the chief executive based on the recommendation of an independent commission composed of local judges, persons from the legal profession and eminent persons from other sectors.
In reality, however, problems soon become apparent.
The Bar Human Rights Committee – an independent, international human rights arm of the bar of England and Wales – has flagged major concerns regarding the lack of transparency about how cases are assigned within the Hong Kong judiciary.
Tribunal procedures are also separate for national security cases, which are presided over by a designated panel of judges. These judges are selected by the chief executive in consultation with the politically appointed National Security Committee.
Surveys show a significant drop in Hong Kong citizens’ perceptions of the fairness of the judicial system, the impartiality of the courts, and the rule of law. This drop has been observed since the introduction of the National Security Law in 2020.
Lai’s trial symbolises that the public trust and confidence in Hong Kong’s courts no longer exists. In fact, one of the main slogans in support of Lai on social media is “rule of law is dead!”
The end of ‘one country, two systems’?
Lai’s conviction represents a failed attempt to challenge the Chinese political regime.
It shows any action that may be perceived as interfering with the legitimacy of the Chinese government could be deemed as “illegal” and in violation of “national security”.
Yao-Tai Li does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Nolan Fahrenkopf, Research Fellow at Project on International Security, Commerce and Economic Statecraft, University at Albany, State University of New York
In a Nov. 24, 2025, filing by representatives of more than 300 victims and family members, Binance and its former CEO – recently pardoned Changpeng Zhao – were accused of willfully ignoring anti-money-laundering and so-called “know your customer” controls that require financial institutions to identify who is engaging in transactions.
In so doing, the suit alleged that Binance and Zhao – who in 2023 pleaded guilty to money laundering violations – allowed U.S.-designated terrorist entities such as Hamas and Hezbollah to launder US$1 billion. Binance has declined to comment on the case but issued a statement saying it complies “fully with internationally recognized sanctions laws.”
As an expert in countering the proliferation of weapons technology, I believe the Binance-Hamas allegations could represent the tip of the iceberg in how cryptocurrency is being leveraged to undermine global security and, in some instances, U.S. national security.
Cryptocurrency is aiding countries such as North Korea, Iran and Russia, and various terror- and drug-related groups in funding and purchasing billions of dollars worth of technology for illicit weapons programs.
Though some enforcement actions continue, I believe the Trump administration’s embrace of cryptocurrency might compromise the U.S.’s ability to counter the illicit financing of military technology.
For the past 13 years, the Project on International Security, Commerce, and Economic Statecraft, where I serve as a research fellow, has conducted research and led industry and government outreach to help countries counter the proliferation of dangerous weapons technology, including the use of cryptocurrency in weapons fundraising and money laundering.
Over that time, we have seen an increase in cryptocurrency being used to launder and raise funds for weapons programs and as an innovative tool to evade sanctions.
Efforts by state actors in Iran, North Korea and Russia rely on enforcement gaps, loopholes and the nebulous nature of cryptocurrency to launder and raise money for purchasing weapons technology. For example, in 2024 it was thought that around 50% of North Korea’s foreign currency came from crypto raised in cyberattacks.
In February 2025, North Korea stole over $1.5 billion worth of cryptocurrency from Bybit, a cryptocurrency exchange based in the United Arab Emirates. Such attacks can be thought of as a form of digital bank heist. Bybit was executing regular transfers of cryptocurrency from cold offline wallets – like a safe in your home – to “warm wallets” that are online but require human verification for transactions.
North Korean agents duped a developer working at a service used by Bybit to install malware that granted them access to bypass the multifactor authentication. This allowed North Korea to reroute the crypto transfers to itself. The funds were moved to North Korean-controlled wallets but then washed repeatedly through mixers and multiple other crypto currencies and wallets that serve to hide the origin and end location of the funds.
Cryptocurrency is attractive because of the ease with which it can be acquired and transferred between accounts and various digital and government-issued currencies, with little to no requirements to identify oneself.
And as countries such as Russia, Iran and North Korea have become constricted by international sanctions, they have turned to cryptocurrency to both raise funds and purchase materials for weapons programs.
Even stablecoins, promoted by the Trump administration as safer and backed by hard currency such as the U.S. dollar, suffer from extensive misuse linked to funding illicit weapons programs and other activities.
But recent analysis shows that despite enforcement efforts, the cryptocurrency industry continues to lag behind when it comes to enforcing anti-money-laundering safeguards. In at least some cases this is willful, as some crypto firms may attempt to circumvent controls for profit motives, ideological reasons or policy disputes over whether platforms can be held accountable for the actions of individual users.
It isn’t only the raising of these funds by rogue nations and terrorist groups that poses a threat, though that is often what makes headlines. A more pressing concern is the ability to quietly launder funds between front companies. This helps actors avoid the scrutiny of traditional financial networks as they seek to move funds from other fundraising efforts or firms they use to purchase equipment and technology.
The incredible number of crypto transactions, the large number of centralized and decentralized exchanges and brokers, and limited regulatory efforts have made crypto incredibly useful for laundering funds for weapons programs.
This process benefits from a lack of safeguards and “know your customer” controls that banks are required to follow to prevent financial crimes. These should, I believe, and often do apply to entities large and small that help move, store or transfer cryptocurrency known as virtual asset service providers, or VASPs. However, enforcement has proven difficult as there are an incredibly large number of VASPs across numerous jurisdictions. And jurisdictions have fluctuating capacity or willingness to implement controls.
The rewards for rogue nations and organizations such as North Korea can be great.
Ever the savvy sanctions evader, North Korea has benefited the most from its early vision on the promise of crypto. The reclusive country has established an extensive cyber program to evade sanctions that relies heavily on cryptocurrency. It is not known how much money North Korea has raised or laundered in total for its weapons program using crypto, but in the past 21 months it has stolen at least $2.8 billion in crypto.
Iran has also begun relying on cryptocurrency to aid in the sale of oil linked to weapons programs – both for itself and proxy forces such as the Houthis and Hezbollah. These efforts are fueled in part by Iran’s own crypto exchange, Nobitex.
Russia has been documented going beyond the use of crypto as a fundraising and laundering tool and has begun using its own crypto to purchase weapons material and technology that fuel its war against Ukraine.
A threat to national security
Despite these serious and escalating risks, the U.S. government is pulling back enforcement.
The controversial pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao raised eyebrows for the signal it sends regarding U.S. commitment to enforcing sanctions related to the cryptocurrency industry. Other actions such as deregulating the banking industry’s use of crypto and shuttering the Department of Justice’s crypto fraud unit have done serious damage to the U.S.’s ability to interdict and prevent efforts to utilize cryptocurrencies to fund weapons programs.
These actions, I believe, send the wrong message. At this very moment, cryptocurrency is being illicitly used to fund weapons programs that threaten American security. It’s a real problem that deserves to be taken seriously.
And while some enforcement actions do continue, failing to implement and enforce safeguards up front means that crypto will continue to be used to fund weapons programs. Cryptocurrency has legitimate uses, but ignoring the laundering and sanctions-evasion risks will damage American national interests and global security.
Nolan Fahrenkopf is a research fellow at the Center for Policy Research at the University at Albany, which receives grants related to nonproliferation from the U.S. Department of State and Department of Energy.
The year 2025 has not been a great one for U.S.-Chinese relations. Tit-for-tat tariffs and the scramble over rare earth elements has dampened economic relations between the world’s two leading economies. Meanwhile, territorial disputes between China and American allies in the Indo-Pacific region have further deepened the intensifying military rivalry.
This rift has often been portrayed as a clash of opposing ideological systems: democracy versus autocracy; economic liberalism versus state-led growth; and individualism versus collectivism.
But such framing relies on a top-down look at the two countries premised on statements and claims of powerful leaders. What it obscures is that both superpowers are administered by the same kind of professionals: career bureaucrats.
Our research and that of others shows that, despite the ideological standoff at the leadership level, officials in China and the U.S. are shaped by comparable incentives and dynamics that lead them to act in surprisingly similar ways. In other words, when it comes to the women and men who carry out the actual work of government – from drafting regulation to enforcing compliance – China and the U.S. aren’t really that different.
Separated by politics, not practice
That’s not to suggest there aren’t differences in aspects of China’s and the U.S.’s bureaucratic base.
China’s system is more centralized, with a larger civil service of around 8 million employees as of 2024. The U.S. bureaucracy is more decentralized across federal, state and local levels and employs fewer bureaucrats, with around 3 million federal employees in 2024.
Still, comparative research on bureaucracies around the world shows that civil servants act similarly when confronted with complex problems, regardless of political system or policy field.
Bureaucrats in the U.S. and China also navigate changing demands from their political leaders while seeking to gain expertise and progress in their careers.
Managing public expectations
Foreign aid, environmental management and pandemic governance in the U.S. and China provide telling examples of these parallels.
At first glance, the approaches of China and the U.S. to the use of foreign aid may appear as complete opposites. The former established the China International Development Cooperation Agency in 2018. Since then it has expanded and evolved its engagement abroad.
By contrast, the U.S. abolished USAID earlier in 2025, slashed its foreign aid budget, and moved remaining staff members into the State Department.
It would therefore seem that the U.S. and China are on opposing trajectories. Yet, the current moment obscures similarities between foreign aid bureaucrats in the two countries. Their tasks entail satisfying political objectives, overseeing taxpayer-funded projects abroad, and managing domestic public expectations.
The expertise required of these bureaucrats is to increase their country’s “soft power” while avoiding the appearance of wasting scarce funds abroad amid looming domestic needs.
With foreign aid admonished by the Trump administration as wasteful politics, officials in Washington are under unprecedented pressure to pursue financial diplomacy that recognizably serves U.S. interests while supporting foreign leaders whom the president considers allies. This agenda shift moves the U.S. closer to the Chinese foreign aid principle of seeking mutual benefits.
Meanwhile, Chinese aid officials are pivoting away from prioritizing large-scale infrastructure projects and toward a purported “small but beautiful projects” approach that centers on the well-being of beneficiaries. This pivot aligns their thinking with “softer” topics emblematic of U.S. foreign aid until 2024.
The case of bureaucratic responses to environmental pollution scandals is equally instructive. Again, one might expect bureaucrats in the U.S. and China, operating within different governance systems, to approach the problem differently.
In practice, however, bureaucrats in both countries are often motivated by an urge to avoid blame.
Rather than building on policy success stories, they tend to seek to deflect criticism for policy failures onto others. The underlying reason is so-called asymmetric payoffs: Success stories may lead to short-term public acclaim; policy failures jeopardize entire careers.
In China, the anti-air pollution measures introduced in Hebei province, which borders the capital Beijing, provide a prime example of the logic of blame avoidance. When the central government in 2017 urged provincial officials to reduce air pollution by banning coal heating, the officials’ overzealous implementation was motivated by a desire to shield themselves from potential blame from national leadership.
As a result, the needs of Hebei residents were ignored, with schoolchildren shivering in unheated classrooms. Rather than assuming the blame, both national and local officials shifted the focus onto middle-class Beijing residents, who were pilloried in the media for prioritizing clean air over the well-being of others.
Meanwhile in the U.S., the city of Flint, Michigan, had been reeling from decades of industrial decay and financial distress. The state government appointed an emergency manager who implemented cost-cutting measures, including switching the city’s water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River. This change resulted in lead contamination and widespread health impacts, escalating into a national scandal. As in Hebei, all parties – from state regulators to local officials and environmental agencies – blamed each other in an attempt to avoid responsibility.
Careerism as constraint
Parallel bureaucratic behaviors also became apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic. In China and the U.S. alike, public officials worked at the forefront of implementing public health guidelines. The Chinese response was said to benefit from an “authoritarian advantage,” allowing its authorities to impose drastic measures rapidly and comprehensively.
However, evidence-based policymaking was constrained by political preferences and bureaucratic careerism – the drive of officials to prioritize actions that help them get promoted.
It produced similar dynamics to those observed in the more decentralized U.S. setting. In both China and the U.S., bureaucrats were risk averse and anxious not to fall out with supervisors and political leaders.
Chinese bureaucrats faced the same constraints as their U.S. counterparts during the COVID-19 pandemic. Frayer/Getty Images
And much like their American counterparts, Chinese bureaucrats initially scrambled together information from a cacophony of political and expert voices. This indecision blunted their response to the viral outbreak in the decisive early days of the pandemic, even though it was eventually replaced by an official narrative emphasizing efficiency and success. In both systems, bureaucratic delays had detrimental consequences for public health.
An anchor of stability
Amid the heightened geopolitical tensions between Beijing and Washington, it is important to remember that all powers rely on capable administrations to implement political directives. Politics set the tone, but bureaucrats shape reality.
And the modus operandi of Chinese and American bureaucrats has remained strikingly stable over the years – driven primarily by incentives rather than ideology. This similarity is increasingly being reflected by converging leadership styles at the top of each political system.
There is a definite upside to similar bureaucratic behavior. It renders the two superpowers more predictable in periods of increasingly heated political rhetoric.
For national leaders’ proclamations to have any effect, large bureaucratic organizations need to translate political content into national and international action. Not only does this take time and resources, but erratic announcements are dissipated by bureaucratic routines.
And that provides an anchor of stability in volatile times.
While working for the German Institute of Development and Sustainability, Daniel E. Esser received funding from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Heiner Janus works for the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), which receives funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Mark Theisen works for the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), which receives funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Tim Röthel works for the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), which receives funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Federal, state and territory governments have agreed to the biggest overhaul of Australia’s gun laws since the Howard government’s post-Port Arthur reforms, in a response to the Bondi massacre that has claimed the lives of 15 victims so far and one of the perpetrators.
After a late Monday afternoon meeting of national cabinet, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the leaders had commissioned police ministers and attorneys-general to develop options for extensive changes. These include:
accelerating work on standing up the National Firearms Register
allowing for additional use of criminal intelligence to underpin firearms
licensing that can be used in administrative licensing regimes
limiting the number of firearms to be held by any one individual
limiting open-ended firearms licensing and the types of guns that are legal,
including modifications and,
a condition of a firearm license is holding Australian citizenship.
Albanese said, in a statement after national cabinet, leaders had agreed “that strong, decisive and focused action was needed on gun law reform as an immediate action”.
This included “renegotiating the National Firearms Agreement, first established after the 1996 Port Arthur tragedy, to ensure it remains as robust as possible in today’s changing security environment”.
As an immediate priority, the federal government will prepare further customs restrictions for the import of firearms and other weapons. This will include 3D printing, novel technology and firearms equipment that can hold large amounts of ammunition.
Before the national cabinet meeting Albanese said, “People’s circumstances change, people can be radicalised over a period of time. Licences should not be in perpetuity.”
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns earlier flagged that NSW was looking to make changes to its gun laws.
“We need to make sure the firearms legislation in New South Wales is fit for purpose. That does mean restricting firearms for the general public, for the people of New South Wales,” Minns said.
The shootings were carried out by a father and son. The father, Sajid Akram, 50, was killed, while his son, Naveed Akram, 24, is in hospital. The father, who came to Australia in 1998 on a student visa, had a gun licence and six weapons.
Names and details of victims emerged during the day. They included a 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, Alexander Kleytman, and a 10-year-old girl, Matilda. Other victims were Rabbi Eli Schlanger, 41, local Jewish volunteer Marika Pogany, 82, and former NSW police officer Peter Meagher, 78. French National Dan Elkayam and one Israeli national were also killed.
Late Monday NSW Health confirmed 27 patients were receiving care in Sydney hospitals.
In a day of crisis talks, federal cabinet also met, as well as its national security committee.
Albanese declared, “We will do whatever is necessary to stamp out antisemitism”.
But pressed on the recommendations of the government’s envoy to combat antisemitism, Jillian Segal, who reported some months ago, Albanese did not commit to implementing her more radical proposals
Segal on Monday reiterated antisemitism needed to be attacked “through education, through very clear guardrails in relation to what’s acceptable in terms of our laws, through carrying through with prosecutions and penalties, through what’s happening on social media and through community speaking out.
“It means bringing that definition of antisemitism alive through the public sector. It means making sure our immigration settings are appropriate at a state level. I think we obviously need to review gun licenses.”
The Bondi attack attracted attention around the world.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly attacked Albanese.
“Your government did nothing to stop the spread of antisemitism in Australia.
“You did nothing to curb the cancer cells that were growing inside your country. You took no action. You let the disease spread and the result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today.”
Netanyahu made special reference to Ahmed Al Ahmed who disarmed one of the gunmen: “a brave man, turns out a Muslim […] and I salute him”.
Local Jewish leaders condemned what they regard as inadequate past action against antisemitism and called for renewed efforts to combat it.
Josh Frydenberg, former Liberal treasurer in the Morrison government and a leader in the Jewish community said: “our governments, federal and state, our leadership in our civil institutions have not done enough.
“And the questions must be asked, why didn’t they act? Why didn’t they listen to the warnings, including from those who were heading up our intelligence and security agencies like ASIO, who said the rising antisemitism was their number one concern?” Frydenberg said.
The opposition was highly critical of the Albanese government.
Opposition leader Sussan Ley said, “We’ve seen a clear failure to keep Jewish Australians safe. We’ve seen a clear lack of leadership in keeping Jewish Australians safe. We have a government that sees antisemitism as a problem to be managed, not evil that needs to be eradicated.”
Former shadow home affairs spokesman Andrew Hastie claimed the government’s attention on gun reform was “a massive deflection” by the prime minister.
Hastie said the question was why when ASIO had identified Naveed Akram in 2019, his father been allowed to keep six guns.
“Let’s be clear here, it looks like radical militant Islam, who used guns to cut down people, innocent people, during a very significant religious festival, Hanukkah.” Hastie said.
He also stressed the need for screening people’s values as well as their views in relation to antisemitism.
“I want to see people coming to this country who speak English, who support Australian values of faith, reason, inquiry and debate […] we are a Judeo-Christian country, in the sense that that’s the basis on which our democracy works,” he told Sky.
Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Rob Reiner, the celebrated Hollywood director whose diverse filmography was loved by a broad array of audiences, was found dead on Sunday in Los Angeles. He was 78.
Authorities have described the deaths of Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, as suspected homicide. Their son, Nick, has been arrested in relation to their death.
Despite this tragic and shocking news, the many tributes to Reiner that have emerged overnight have celebrated the evident warmth, intelligence and humour of the man and his work.
From my perspective, Reiner’s career stands as one of the clearest demonstrations of a director moving fluidly across genres while maintaining a consistent worldview.
Whether they were romantic comedies (When Harry Met Sally…, The American President, The Sure Thing), thrillers (Misery), courtroom dramas (A Few Good Men) or coming-of-age fables (Stand By Me), Reiner’s films return again and again to deeply humanist beliefs: that people, however flawed, are capable of growth and connection; that care and empathy for each other is vital; and that cinematic stories can help us recognise this in one another.
Taking comedy seriously
First entering the cultural imagination as Meathead on TV’s All in the Family (1971–79), Reiner’s performances as an actor often concealed his sharp political intelligence beneath blunt humour.
This tension between surface comedy and underlying seriousness would also become a defining feature of his work as a director.
From the outset of his directing career with This Is Spinal Tap (1984), Reiner used comedy as a way of revealing character, contradiction and vulnerability.
This Is Spinal Tap became one of the most influential comedies ever made and my personal favourite comedy of all time.
Often celebrated for its improvisational brilliance and satirical sharpness, I think the film is equally remarkable for its affection towards its characters. It treats the titular band’s absurdity as inseparable from their sincerity.
In doing so, Reiner also helped define a new comedic grammar in the mockumentary format that was incredibly influential for future generations of comedy filmmakers.
Across the late 1980s and early 1990s, Reiner’s extraordinary run of films demonstrated not only technical versatility but an emotional range that was rare among his peers.
The Princess Bride (1987) fused fairy-tale romance, adventure and meta-humour. When Harry Met Sally… (1989) remains one of the great comedic explorations of love, intimacy and relationships in American cinema.
Perhaps most striking was Reiner’s comfort with tonal complexity.
Stand by Me (1986), adapted from a Stephen King novella, looks back on childhood with both nostalgic memory and an acknowledgement of the darkness underneath suburban adolescence. Misery (1990), another King adaptation, examines toxic fandom and obsession in a taut and compelling thriller with splashes of dark humour.
A Few Good Men (1992) brings courtroom theatrics into conversation with questions of authority and ethical responsibility in the military, and gave us two iconic performances from Hollywood superstars Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson.
What unites these films is not a particular style or subject matter, but perspective.
Reiner’s direction often privileged performance and emotion. Even when working within genre frameworks, he never accepted genre as a cage. Instead, he understood the pleasures of genre and how to utilise their tropes to explore broader questions of humanity.
Sincerity as a strength
Politically outspoken and unapologetically engaged, Reiner also never separated civic responsibility from artistic practice.
However, his films resisted dogma. In an industry that often privileges cynicism or ironic distance, Reiner’s work insisted on sincerity as a strength.
If there was a through-line to Rob Reiner’s legacy, I would argue it is a desire for audiences to feel deeply without embarrassment. His films demonstrated that laughter could be one of the most humane forces storytelling has to offer.
As an adolescent cinephile raised in the 1980s and 1990s, Reiner’s work opened my eyes to how important emotional connection was in the pact between audience and film.
His ability to work effectively across genres was due to the masterful and sincere way he made us care for his characters, be they buffoonish rock stars, princes and princesses, military lawyers and generals, or teenage boys facing their first exposure to mortality.
Adam Daniel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Australians have watched on in horror as more details have come to light about the shooters in the Bondi terror attacks.
As people grapple with the tragedy, many wonder how such a thing could have happened in a country that has long prided itself on its tough gun laws.
The 50-year-old father, Sajid Akram, and 24-year-old son, Naveed Akram, had six guns. Police confirmed all of them were registered firearms. The father, who was fatally shot by police, had a recreational hunting licence and was a member of a gun club.
National Cabinet has since committed to a raft of new gun laws, including renegotiating the National Firearms Agreement, caps on the amount of firearms any one person can own and limiting open-ended licensing.
So how easy is it to get a gun in Australia currently, and how might the reforms work?
The laws of gun ownership
Gun control laws vary slightly in each state and territory, but are broadly similar. We’ll look here at the laws in New South Wales.
The first step is to apply for a firearms licence. As part of this, authorities will conduct a background check to ensure there’s no criminal history, including mental health orders or domestic violence charges.
The applicant must also pass the “fit and proper person” test. NSW Police says this test checks someone is “of good character, law abiding, honest, and shows good judgement”.
If these standards are met, a firearms licence is granted.
But in order to actually buy a firearm, people must apply for a “permit to acquire”. This is linked to the specific firearm they’d like to purchase.
If it’s their first gun, there’s a 28 day waiting period before they can have it in their possession. Subsequent guns do not need a waiting period as long as it’s in the same category they already have approval to own.
They must also pass a safety course, with both practical and theoretical components, including a written test.
Firearms, once acquired, must be stored in a specific way. Guns cannot be stored while loaded, for instance, and ammunition must be kept in a separate safe.
Finally, someone must have a “genuine reason” to buy a firearm. These include working as a primary producer, or participating in recreational hunting, among others. They need to prove a genuine reason for each and every firearm purchase. Personal protection is not a a genuine reason.
Applicants need to prove their reason is truthful. This may be proof of membership to a gun club, or a letter with express permission from the landowner on whose property they intend to hunt.
Importantly, if someone holds a firearm licence for recreational purposes, they must compete in a certain amount of competitions each year. In NSW, it’s two to four.
What works well?
Many parts of Australian gun control laws work well.
The genuine reason provisions are particularly useful. By requiring people to engage with the firearm-owning community, it stops so called “lone-wolves” from buying a gun just to have.
My research with gun clubs has also shown members can be a crucial grassroots safety check. They typically look out for each other and check in if there’s a concerning shift in someone’s attitudes or beliefs.
If things seem particularly dangerous, many report fellow members to the police so they can investigate further. The gun owning community also want our communities to be safe.
It raises the question of how engaged the shooter in this case was with his local gun community.
What could change?
While the exact circumstances for these two shooters are still emerging, we know one of the men was known to ASIO (the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation). The guns were registered to the father.
National Cabinet has agreed to a list of measures, including speeding up work on a national firearms register and limiting gun licences to Australian citizens.
They will also move to cap the number of guns a person can own. Western Australia did this earlier this year. Recreational shooters in WA can have up to five firearms, while primary producers and competition shooters can have up to ten.
It’s not uncommon for people to have more than one firearm. Licensed firearm owners in NSW have an average of about four, according to a 2025 report.
While it’s reasonable to examine the working of our current gun control measures, it’s unclear how effective such a measure would be. In the case of the Bondi attack, we need more information about the sorts of guns that were used and how many were used.
Plus, under the current laws across the country, people can’t buy more guns just because they feel like it. They have to prove a genuine reason to own another one.
National Cabinet also decided to limit open-ended firearm licensing.
As it stands, licences are usually not granted for life. Renewal periods differ depending on the jurisdiction, but in NSW most licences are issued for somewhere between two and five years. We don’t yet know if any changes would make these renewal periods more frequent.
But licensing mechanisms, like recent concerns over working with children checks in the childcare sector, only capture what we know has happened. Unless people have already fallen foul of the law, authorities won’t necessarily find any concerning behaviour.
Indeed, authorities have said the Bondi shooter who owned these firearms had “no incidents” with his licence. Renewing it more regularly may have unearthed something important, or it may not have. We don’t know enough about this incident yet to say if such a law change would have been useful here.
If reviews were made much more frequent, that would require a large-scale increase in police resources.
One change that might help would be to actively involve firearms dealers in these legal changes. They have the most contact with those purchasing guns and may have valuable intelligence about how their customers are behaving and thinking.
So while changes in the letter of the law may or may not help monitor firearms owners, we have to ensure it’s implemented effectively too. This means resourcing authorities properly, working closely with communities and making sure legal changes would actually tell us what we need to know to prevent deadly gun violence.
Suzanna Fay has received funding from the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia for a research project in 2018 and the University of Queensland.
A supporter holds a portrait of José Antonio Kast, presidential candidate of the opposition Republican Party, after results show him leading in the presidential runoff election in Santiago, Chile. AP Photo / Matias Delacroix
Chileans have elected the most right-wing presidential candidate since the end of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship over three and a half decades ago.
In a runoff held on Dec. 14, 2025, José Antonio Kast, a Republican Party ex-congressman and two-time former presidential candidate, won just over 58% of the vote, while his opponent, Jeannette Jara, the left-wing labor minister of current President Gabriel Boric, won nearly 42%.
Approximately 15.6 million Chileans were eligible to vote in the first presidential election to take place with mandatory voting and automatic voter registration.
Amid Chile’s expanded electorate, the primary issues of voter concern during this campaign were crime and immigration. An October 2025 poll specifically found delinquency to be the top issue, with immigration, unemployment and health care also marking high.
A campaign banner reads in Spanish: Neither Jara nor Kast will make our lives better, don’t vote, rebel and fight. AP Photo / Natacha Pisarenko
Many commentators have highlighted the stark polarization of this election, with a Communist Party labor minister campaigning against the arch-conservative Kast, who has lauded the Pinochet dictatorship under which his deceased older brother once served. But there is more to the story.
Some observers have drawn comparisons between Kast and other far-right Latin American leaders like Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, Javier Milei in Argentina and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. But Chile is not merely following the same far-right playbook of its neighbors.
In the weeks leading up to the runoff in Chile, both candidates moved toward the center. Jara vowed to expand the prison system to combat rising crime, while Kast – who had previously threatened expulsion of undocumented migrants – softened his tone to say they would be “invited” to leave.
Yet beyond the campaign trail messaging, the results also reflect a structural fact of Chilean politics that mirror political realities of other parts of Latin America, and even globally. In every presidential election since 2006, Chileans have voted out the incumbency to swing to the opposing side of the political spectrum. With candidates barred from consecutive presidential terms, the pendulum has swung back and forth since the alternating presidencies of socialist Michelle Bachelet – 2006-2010 and 2014-2018 — and conservative Sebastián Piñera – 2010-2014 and 2018-2022.
At a José Antonio Kast rally in Santiago on Dec. 14, 2025, supporters wave various flags, including one depicting late dictator Augusto Pinochet. Eithan Ambramovich / AFP vis Getty Images
Boric, a former left-wing student leader, took office in 2022 following a wave of upheaval and popular protests over inequality in 2019-2020. In what was a historic moment, the country voted to begin a process of rewriting its Pinochet-era constitution, which entrenched neoliberal economic policies and limited the government’s capacity to confront inequality. The constitutional convention was made up of directly elected citizens, many of them from grassroots movements.
Yet in a stunning reversal, the progressive constitution – which would have protected rights to nature, Indigenous rights and social rights – was roundly defeated in a plebiscite in 2022. Just over a year later, voters similarly rejected a second attempt to rewrite the constitution, albeit under a process that conservative parties helped shape.
Boric’s approval ratings, already low, suffered from this failed constitutional process. More than the right-wing elections elsewhere in the region, this national context helps to explain Chile’s own conservative turn.
The ever-present discontent of voters
Even as the pendulum has swung back and forth in recent Chilean presidential elections, there are deeper continuities across the different Chilean governments in the 21st century. Important among them is generalized voter discontent with the political system.
This has traditionally been expressed in popular protests, such as the student movements of 2006 and 2011 and the Estallido Social – or Social Uprising – of 2019-2020 that were the largest protests since the return to democracy in 1990 and helped propel Boric to power. Public discontent was also expressed in the overwhelming vote to rewrite the constitution, which passed with 78% of the vote in 2020.
In this Oct. 25, 2019, photo, anti-government protesters fill Plaza de la Dignidad – Dignity Square – in Santiago, Chile, during a nationwide call for socioeconomic equality and better social services. AP Photo / Rodrigo Abd, File
Even though the constitutional process was ultimately rejected by voters, this underlying discontent has not gone away.
One of the recent signs of discontent with the political choices on offer was in the first round of voting on Nov. 16: The third-place candidate was not one of the veteran politicians on the right, but Franco Parisi, a populist economist who has not set foot in Chile in years and who called on his supporters to intentionally vote null – or “spoil” their votes. Discontent has taken many forms – outrage about inequality and neoliberalism in 2019-2020, or unease about economic precarity and crime in the current election. But it has persisted, even as Chile’s political system remains stable.
Some observers have pointed out that, unlike in many places around the world, Chile’s democratic norms are holding strong. The fact that power continues to pass peacefully despite major ideological differences is significant, particularly in light of the long struggle for democracy during the Pinochet regime. Kast’s style, for what it’s worth, is not as bombastic as that of U.S. President Donald Trump or Argentina’s Milei.
Still, his apparent politeness belies what many fear is a coming erosion of rights: the rights of women to bodily autonomy; the rights of individuals] to due process; the rights of workers to dignified conditions. These may well be up for negotiation under the new administration.
Kast, a staunch Catholic and father of nine, is opposed to abortion under any circumstances and has even attempted to ban the morning-after pill. He was a supporter of Pinochet up until the regime’s end, campaigning for the “yes” vote in 1988 that would have seen eight more years for the authoritarian leader after 15 years already in power. Kast has likewise vowed to slash public spending and deregulate the economy, a clear echo of the Pinochet years.
Despite the momentous shift heralded by Kast’s election, though, it is unlikely to change one of the principal challenges of Chile’s democracy in the 21st century: voter discontent and disenchantment. There has been a consistent trend for the government in power to lose popular support and face strong headwinds in Congress from the opposition. For all the celebration happening right now for Kast and his supporters, it is hard to see that changing once the new government takes office in March 2026.
Andra B. Chastain receives funding in 2025-26 from a Fulbright-García Robles research grant in Mexico. She has previously received funding for research in Chile from the Social Science Research Council and the PEO Foundation.
Benin’s coup leaders appear on state TV on Dec. 7, 2025, to announce the suspension of the country’s constitution.Reuters/YouTube
In a scene that has become familiar across parts of Africa of late, a group of armed men in military garb appeared on state TV on Dec. 7, 2025, to announce that they had suspended the constitution and seized control.
This time it was the West African nation of Benin, and the coup was relatively short-lived, with the government regaining full control a day later. But a week before, senior military officers in Guinea-Bissau had more success, deposing President Umaro Sissoco Embaló and effectively annulling the Nov. 23 election in which both Embaló and the main opposition leader had claimed victory. A month earlier it was Madagascar, where a mass Gen-Z uprising led to the elite CAPSAT unit of the Malagasy military ousting President Andry Rajoelina and installing Colonel Michael Randrianirina as leader.
The cluster of coup attempts follows a broader pattern. Since 2020, there have been 11 successful military takeovers in Africa: one each in Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Niger, Sudan, Chad, Madagascar and Gabon; and two each in Burkina Faso and Mali. Benin represents the fifth failed coup over the same period.
The prevalence of military takeovers led United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres to warn as far back as 2021 of a coup “epidemic.”
But can coups, like the pathogens of many epidemics, be contagious? Certainly observers aroundthe world continue to ask whether a military takeover in one country can influence the likelihood of another one happening elsewhere.
Do coups spread?
Cross-national research offers little firm evidence that a coup in one country directly increases the chances of another. And some scholars remain skeptical that such a phenomenon exists. Political scientist Naunihal Singh, for instance, argues that the recent wave’s coup plotters are drawing less from contemporary events than from their own countries’ long histories of military intervention.
In addition, he suggests that any observed regional cluster mostly reflects shared underlying conditions. For example, the countries across the Sahel region that have been the center of post-2020 African coups share a common set of coup-prone pressures: chronic insecurity driven by insurgencies, weak state capacity and widespread frustration over quality of governance.
Likewise, Michael Miller and colleagues at George Washington University, in a broader analysis, contend that would-be plotters pay closer attention to domestic dynamics than to foreign coups when deciding whether to move against their own governments.
As scholars ofmilitary coups, we recently explored the phenomenon and have come to a different conclusion.
Our forthcoming study argues that would-be plotters do indeed pay close attention when contemporaries seize power. A number of dynamics, however, could keep a statistical trend from being realized.
For one, statistical modeling typically requires contagion to occur within a tight temporal window, often 1 to 3 years.
Our findings challenge this approach. A wave of so-called “Free Officers” coups – military takeovers led by junior or mid-ranking nationalist officers, inspired by Egypt’s 1952 Free Officers movement – is a widely invoked example of contagion. The original Free Officers ousted King Farouk and went on to abolish the monarchy and end British influence in Egypt.
However, it took a full six years before a second “Free Officers” coup occurred in the region, in Iraq in 1958.
Rather than blindly follow the lead of Egypt’s coupists, would-be copycats watched closely, took notes and moved only when two factors lined up: the rewards appeared to be worth the risk, and they obtained the ability to make a takeover possible.
In the case of the post-1952 Middle East, the potential “rewards” of emulating Egypt’s Free Officers were not immediately apparent, even in countries with circumstances very similar to Egypt’s.
It wasn’t until the original Free Officers Movement’s leader, Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, emerged as a revolutionary icon in the region that others attempted to emulate his success. Nasser’s status grew further through his anti-colonial sentiments and victories, like his handling of the Suez Crisis of 1956.
As Nasser’s influence grew, the perceived value of a military takeover increased, and Free Officers-inspired plots quickly proliferated against the region’s monarchies. Six years after the Egyptian coup, the first copycat coup succeeded in Iraq, followed by additional successes in Yemen, Libya and Sudan between 1962 and 1969.
A further complication to establishing a firm trend is that the success of one takeover may actually hinder the immediate progress of another. After all, would-be copycats are not the only observers.
Vulnerable leaders and their allies can take cues from coups in other countries to try to mitigate their spread at home.
Thwarted conspiracies in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which were uncovered between 1955 and 1969, demonstrated that while the sentiment to emulate Egypt’s coup was widespread, not all plotters had the capacity to act. Some governments were better prepared to block these attempts. Foreign partners like the United States and Great Britain also played no small role in helping shore up their monarchical allies against coup plots.
Africa’s coup wave
The case of the Free Officers Movement shows that plotters wait for clear signals that a coup is worth the risk. In Africa today, those signals are more immediate, even without a monumental figure like Egypt’s Nasser.
Coupists now see visible domestic support for military takeovers and muted international consequences for those who seize power.
It is increasingly clear to us that the region has seen a large increase in public support for military rule during this post-2020 wave.
Data from Afrobarometer, which has regularly asked about respondents’ positions on having military rule, illustrate this shift clearly.
In the survey wave that ended in 2013, less than 11% of respondents in Benin said they supported or strongly supported army rule. This nearly doubled to 19% by 2021 and has now tripled, with 1 in 3 people in Benin expressing support for military rule. While a majority still opposes military rule, the direction of this change is significant.
These attitudes are reinforced by military leaders’ promises to “clean up” corrupt or ineffective governments. In Madagascar, for example, over 60% of citizens in 2024 said it was permissible for the armed forces to remove leaders who abuse power.
Highly visible images of cheering pro-military crowds in countries like Niger and Gabon further signal that a takeover can gain public support.
International indifference
The international signals are just as important. From the near-absent reaction to the Zimbabwean military’s removal of Robert Mugabe in 2017 to the lukewarm response to Chad’s military takeover in 2021, these cases suggest that international punishment can be temporary or even nonexistent.
The message is reinforced when coup leaders who are initially condemned, like Madagascar’s Randrianirina, later gain acceptance from regional organizations like the South African Development Community. In Guinea-Bissau, attention on last month’s coup has somehow seemed to focus more on President Embaló’s alleged involvement in the coup than on the military’s unconstitutional seizure of power.
And the lessons drawn from international responses involve more than just the seizure of power. Contemporary military leaders are staying in power much longer than their predecessors in the early 2000s, either by indefinitely delaying elections or by directly contesting them.
Although the African Union’s framework specifically forbids coup leaders from standing in elections, there has been virtually no consequences for coupists consolidating their rule via elections in places like Chadand Gabon.
This is not lost on would-be plotters, who see their contemporaries seize and legitimize their authority with minimal pushback.
To some degree, the spread of coups depends on how they are received. And in the case of the recent rash of military takeovers in Africa, the international community and domestic policymakers have done little in the way of stemming that spread.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron take in the view at the UNESCO World Heritage site in Dujiangyan, southwestern China’.Sarah Meyssonnier/AFP via Getty Images
When French President Emmanuel Macron traveled to China in early December for his fourth state visit, the itinerary began with the expected formalities. There was a red carpet reception at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing and high-level talks with President Xi Jinping on trade, technology and Ukraine.
But the defining image of this diplomatic trip did not take place in the capital. Rather, it occurred more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) away in Chengdu, Sichuan province. There, Xi hosted Macron for a rare instance of “no-tie diplomacy,” a term used by Chinese media to describe a relaxed and informal style of statecraft.
Stepping outside the rigid protocols of Beijing, Xi personally guided Macron through the mist-covered mountains of Sichuan. The walk held high significance: It marked the first time Xi has hosted a foreign leader for such an informal sightseeing meeting outside the capital, with an itinerary that included the Dujiangyan irrigation system, a visit to China’s national table tennis team and the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.
Global attention remains understandably fixed on “hard” issues — trade tariffs, the war in Ukraine and nuclear energy. But as a cultural historian of modern China, I believe the choreography of this visit offers a vital window into Beijing’s diplomatic strategy. By foregrounding things like ancient waterways and table tennis, China is deploying a sophisticated brand of cultural statecraft designed to soften the edges of a hardening geopolitical landscape.
The reciprocity of ‘home diplomacy’
The choice to host Macron in Chengdu was not random, but a carefully curated act of diplomatic reciprocity. In April 2024, Macron had invited Xi to his personal retreat in the French Pyrenees, a gesture intended to foster personal intimacy.
During the latest tour, Xi reportedly referenced their previous meeting, telling Macron: “Last year you invited me to your hometown in the Hautes-Pyrénées; I believe this visit will further deepen your understanding of China.”
By bringing Macron to Sichuan, Xi was returning the favor, moving the relationship from the professional to the personal. This reflects a shift in Chinese diplomacy from a “Wolf Warrior” mentality, defined by confrontation and rhetorical aggression, toward a more relational approach with key European partners. By investing time in this kind of provincial visit, Beijing is signaling that it views France not just as a trading partner, but as a nation worthy of deep, personal engagement.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s sightseeing tour recalls that of U.S. President Richard Nixon during his breakthrough 1972 visit to China. Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images
This outreach is especially important at a time when China–U.S. trade tensions remain high, as Beijing increasingly looks to the European Union as a critical component of its broader strategy to counter Washington-led containment efforts.
Governing with the flow
The centerpiece of Macron’s cultural tour in China was the Dujiangyan irrigation system. Built in the third century B.C.E., the UNESCO World Heritage site remains the world’s oldest still‑operating dam‑free hydraulic project.
However, Dujiangyan is more than a tourist attraction; it is a physical manifestation of Chinese political philosophy. Unlike modern dams that block water, Dujiangyan manages it by dividing the flow. It embodies the Taoist principle of wu wei (nonaction) and Xi’s metaphor “to govern water is to govern the country.”
By showcasing this specific site, Xi was offering a subtle lesson in statecraft. The metaphor implies a governance style based on balance, adaptability and working with natural forces rather than confronting them head-on.
In the context of strained international relations, the message to France was clear: Cooperation should not be constrained by rigid binaries between East and West, nor shaped by the logic of containment. Instead, it should follow the natural flow of mutual interests — ranging from trade and climate action to cultural and educational exchange.
Pingpong diplomacy 2.0
If Dujiangyan represented ancient wisdom, the visit to the Sichuan Provincial Gymnasium brought diplomacy into the modern, high-energy arena of sport.
Table tennis holds a mythical place in Chinese diplomatic history. The original “ping-pong diplomacy” of the early 1970s helped thaw the ice between China and the United States, paving the way for President Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 visit. As historian Pete Millwood argues in “Improbable Diplomats,” these athletic exchanges offered a politically safe and publicly palatable setting through which both countries could begin signaling a major shift in diplomatic relations.
French President Emmanuel Macron takes on Chinese table tennis players at Sichuan University in Chengdu on Dec. 5, 2025. Sarah Meyssonnier/AFP via Getty Images
On Dec. 5, Macron tapped into this legacy when he visited the venue of the 2025 ITTF Mixed Team World Cup and participated in an impromptu match. Partnering with French players Félix Lebrun and Prithika Pavade against Chinese stars Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha, Macron engaged in a lighthearted rally that went viral on Chinese social media.
In an era where diplomatic interactions are often scripted and stern, these moments humanize the “other side” for the domestic public, creating a reservoir of public goodwill that leaders can draw upon when navigating difficult political compromises.
Soft power with fur
While the two leaders bonded over paddles, Brigitte Macron, France’s first lady, engaged with China’s most enduring soft-power asset: the giant panda.
“Panda diplomacy” has been a hallmark of Beijing’s foreign policy since the 1950s. The loaning of these animals is a barometer of political warmth; their recall can signal a chill.
The French First Lady visited the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding to see “Yuan Meng.” As the first panda born in France, to parents on loan from China, Yuan Meng is a living symbol of the bilateral relationship between France and China. Brigitte Macron, who is his godmother, helped facilitate Yuan Meng’s return to China alongside his parents in November 2025.
Following Brigitte Macron’s visit, the announcement of a new agreement to send two more pandas to France by 2027 served as a tangible deliverable of the summit.
A giant panda looks on as French first lady Brigitte Macron makes a visit to the Chengdu research base for giant panda breeding. Ludovic Marin /AFP via Getty Images)
The limits of cultural diplomacy
What do waterworks, pingpong and pandas add up to?
Critics might dismiss these events as mere pageantry — a velvet glove concealing the brutal fist of realpolitik. Indeed, a friendly game of table tennis does not resolve the European Union’s concerns over Chinese state subsidies, nor does it bridge the gap regarding China’s stance on the war in Ukraine.
However, dismissing the cultural dimension ignores how China views diplomacy. For Beijing, “friendly atmosphere” is often a prerequisite for progress on substantive political issues.
The Xi-Macron meeting in Chengdu also signaled a refinement of Chinese soft power, moving away from the combative rhetoric of recent years toward a strategy that embraces warmer ties with key European powers like France.
While culture cannot replace hard diplomacy, this Macron visit demonstrates that in 2025, the road to political consensus in Beijing may very well run through the panda enclosure and table tennis arena.
This long-term intent was encapsulated in the leaders’ farewell at Dujiangyan. As they parted ways, Xi joked, “Next time, we’ll see another place.” Macron’s immediate response — “Of course, definitely” — hints that this cultural diplomacy is designed to be an ongoing effort.
Xianda Huang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
When Donald Trump stood on the White House lawn in April 2025 holding a large, laminated poster announcing the first round of trade tariffs to be imposed on different countries, the Trade Policy Uncertainty Index shot through the roof.
Every month, this index, which is overseen by five board members of the Federal Reserve (America’s central bank), crosschecks the frequency of usage of terms relating to trade policy and uncertainty in seven leading newspapers including the New York Times and the Guardian. Here’s the chart since 1960:
Trump’s so-called “liberation day” sparked volatile shifts in the value of financial products and currencies as governments across the world scrambled to respond. The levels of uncertainty were unprecedented – the outbreak of the COVID pandemic was nothing in comparison, according to the index.
In highly complex systems, conditions of uncertainty and even ignorance – where we don’t know what we don’t know – are extremely common. These conditions become even more likely when such systems, such as those which control global finance, are opaque and poorly regulated. Add in a maverick US president and an administration determined to overturn the status quo, and the old, orderly assumptions are thrown out of the window.
Uncertainty is where we don’t know the likelihood of different things happening: we can’t predict, we can’t manage, we can’t control. For many people, conditions of uncertainty result in precarious jobs, insecure housing and rising inequality. Vulnerabilities including mental illness can become even more exposed when life is so uncertain – only serving to accentuate these perceptions of uncertainty.
However, for a lucky few, uncertainty is an opportunity to make a fortune. Financial capitalism thrives off uncertainty and asymmetric information, which may be encouraged by some who can pocket the profit, betting on the unknowns.
In politics too, uncertainty is being capitalised on. Rising economic precarity in the wake of COVID-19 has been linked with increased support for populist parties in many European countries. And this nationalist politics sweeping much of the world reduces the possibilities of transnational collaboration and multilateral regulation.
The Insights section is committed to high-quality longform journalism. Our editors work with academics from many different backgrounds who are tackling a wide range of societal and scientific challenges.
There are real and present dangers in this age of uncertainty. But through my research at the Institute of Development Studies, I have witnessed inspiring innovations that I believe could be applied across other fields of work and life. My latest book, Navigating Uncertainty: Radical Rethinking for a Turbulent World, explores the strategies used to counter uncertainty in fields as seemingly different as corporate finance and pastoral farming, in settings stretching from southern Zimbabwe to the Midlands of England.
The book highlights some surprising commonalities between these different worlds in their use of diverse sources of knowledge, social networks and human interactions. Above all, I believe the loss of the central role of people in today’s complex systems is the greatest danger of all.
Uncertainties of global finance
The 2008 financial crisis can be explained in part by a lack of such human engagement, and the reliance on a trading system where the assumption of control turned out to be highly misleading.
The international financial system involves a multitude of players, each with different sorts of information about the future. In the build-up to the crisis, many new financial instruments were devised to extract profit. The investment banks – Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley – perfected the art of managing the huge amounts of cash generated in the financial system through a range of derivative instruments, including the fateful mortgage-backed securities that triggered the crash. But the bewildering array of acronyms and actors involved meant few actually understood the system and its dynamics.
Who was to blame for the 2008 financial crisis? Video: BBC News.
At the centre of this complex web of financial interactions were mathematical models designed to offset uncertainty and provide control. The notorious Black-Scholes-Merton equation helped manage the transactions that were occurring in ever greater volumes and super-fast speeds, with billions of dollars being exchanged in nanoseconds across high-speed internet links.
However, when you are overly confident in risk-based models within a narrowly defined regulatory system, uncertainties have the nasty habit of creeping up behind you and catching you by surprise. As Andy Haldane, then chief economist at the Bank of England, commented in the aftermath:
The financial cat’s-cradle became dense and opaque. As a result, the precise source and location of underlying claims became anyone’s guess. Follow-the-leader became blind-man’s buff. In short, diversification strategies by individual firms generated heightened uncertainty across the system as a whole.
The crisis was rooted in what Haldane called “an exaggerated sense of knowledge and control”. Since then, there has been much reflection on what went wrong and what to do about it. One response has been to add new layers of regulation, but many argue that this may just hide the underlying uncertainties, as happened before.
The financial system was ill-equipped to respond to the shocks that emerged from the sub-prime mortgage collapse, and precious little appears to have changed since – as was demonstrated so vividly following the announcement of Trump’s tariffs.
Today’s financial system is increasingly reliant on algorithmic models to make decisions, driven by even ever more sophisticated AI applications. The large language machine learning models take accumulated past data to predict the future – but as well as increasing opacity, there is a decrease in accountability. AI offers an illusion of control, and this can be very dangerous.
The reality is that conditions of uncertainty are not unusual, freak occurrences, but the normal consequences of complex systems. So what if the standard assumptions of modernity – planning, management, regulation, control – have to be radically rethought? Is it possible to embrace uncertainty for the benefit of all – rather than denying or ignoring it until it is too late?
For financial systems, Haldane and others have argued that this means rethinking financial network configurations and enabling new practices (requiring new skills) for those involved. A shift from reliance on opaque and highly complex risk-based model algorithms to allowing more human discretion and judgment. Active deliberation on the appropriate responses to inevitably incomplete information in a world where uncertainty, even ignorance, is not only accepted but embraced.
Where can we look for inspiration? I’d suggest that the pastoral systems of northern Kenya and Amdo Tibet in China are good places to start. In both settings, pastoralists – mobile livestock keepers – must manage highly variable climates, and volatile market conditions alongside conflict and political uncertainties to keep their animals healthy and provide for their families. Like the global financial system, pastoralists trade across borders, manage highly variable supply and demand, and interact across networks in real time.
During my research with Kenyan and Chinese colleagues in both places since 2018, we have been struck by how pastoralists expertly live with, and benefit from, uncertainties. I believe that this offers some important lessons for elsewhere in the world – including its centres of global finance.
Livestock markets in northern Kenya
Meet Mohamed Hassan, a livestock trader from Moyale in northern Kenya on the border of Ethiopia. He manages a large and fluctuating trade in livestock – cattle, camels, goats, sheep – buying from producers, dealing with brokers and transporters, and selling animals on to terminal markets in Nairobi and further afield. He explains:
I have connections all over this region and buy cattle from as far as Garissa and Moyale [in Kenya], even Somalia. I transport cattle on trucks and sell on to customers in Nairobi. I also buy up small stock in bush markets around here, and sell to other traders in nearby areas for sale in local towns.
The pastoral areas of the Horn of Africa – from Somalia to Ethiopia to Kenya and beyond – are the centre of a massive international market in livestock. Estimates vary, but each year around US$1 billion in trade in live animals passes through the ports along the Somali coast destined for the Gulf countries, notably Saudi Arabia.
This is an internationalised, cross-border market affected by multiple uncertainties. It requires considerable financing, sophisticated coordination and complex governance arrangements. It operates almost completely informally outside the grip of state regulation and taxation, yet in a highly sensitive geopolitical arena.
Central to this complex international market is a network of traders and brokers who source animals from diverse locations across pastoral regions and organise their transport to and subsequent sale in terminal markets. This requires a great deal of collective skill by traders like Hassan, galvanising different knowledge, connecting people and negotiating trade in real time.
This includes negotiating with border police, customs officials and veterinary officers. One of the key features is the willingness of all parties to accept that the entire system requires a deliberate maintenance of ambiguities around regulation to ensure the flexibility of movement when official rules would prevent it.
These pastoralists in northern Kenya are part of a complex network of traders and brokers. Ian Scoones, CC BY-NC-SA
Brokers – intermediaries in the system with knowledge of the whole network – are relied on by the traders for knowledge about conditions in production areas, prices in different places and connections to markets. They operate in multiple languages and can link producers and traders, measuring livestock weights, recommending prices and preventing fraud.
Connected across far-flung areas, they use kinship and cultural connections to build trust between market players, facilitating effective trade. By offering knowledge, credit and informal insurance, they smooth the operation of the market, reducing sources of uncertainty. Collective arrangements for trading animals also diminish risks and enhance capacities for financing and transportation.
Such markets are always social, connected by trust-based relationships frequently over long distances, but with the end result being an efficient, effective market that can respond to multiple shocks – whether trade bans, price volatility, insecurity or drought.
Unlike with global finance and its addiction to predictive algorithms, the web of interactions between actors in this market are based on close connections among kin and clan groups, rooted in sustained social relations. Facilitated by increasingly robust mobile-phone coverage enabling rapid and secure money transfers, the system is remarkably effective given the volume of exchanges in this informal cross-border trade.
In contrast to contemporary financial systems, this is a system where networks of people keep a close eye on any potential failure, and respond in real time. Uncertainty is accepted, not dismissed or ignored. Informality means that a rapid response to changing circumstances is possible, with everyone contributing to generating reliability. The “human touch” is always present, and there is no opportunity for the system to collapse.
Studies of these livestock markets have highlighted differences between “long” and “short” market chains. While the former are run mostly by men, short market chains are more local, more embedded in local social relations and involve more women, particularly in the sheep and goat trade.
As uncertainties increase, it is these shorter, more locally managed chains that can adjust most rapidly. A much more variegated pattern is emerging, replacing the “big man”-dominated long chains of the past. With more players connected in networks through more diverse and decentralised social relations, the capacity to respond to uncertain events increases.
All this may seem very far from the challenges of global finance, but I believe there are important lessons to be learned. Livestock markets are similarly non-linear and complex, operate internationally and have limited formal regulatory control – yet they remain firmly embedded in social settings. A more social basis for “the economy” and “the market”, rooted in collective, networked responses, is apparent, where responses to uncertainty are central. This contrasts with the idealised image of an individualised, risk management response promoted in mainstream finance and banking systems,
The livestock markets of northern Kenya are facilitated by personal, culturally imbued interactions, while also using technologies that support the efficient and rapid flows of money and information. It is the human touch, involving a range of networked social practices, that is central to grappling continuously with uncertainties.
Buddhist herders in Amdo Tibet
Next, meet Loba Tsering from Dreinag village in the north of Kokonor, in the high pastures of Amdo Tibet, China. Like Hassan, he and his family must navigate many uncertainties. Heavy snowfall and an extended winter can wreak havoc with herding arrangements as people move yaks and sheep from winter to summer pastures at altitudes in excess of 4,000 metres.
Access to land, particularly for winter grazing by Qinghai lake – China’s largest – is increasingly constrained, as land along the lakeshore is divided up, privatised and acquired for tourism development and conservation projects. Markets for yak meat, as well as milk, butter and cheese, are expanding in the lower altitude areas as towns grow and lakeside tourist resorts are established, but in this volatile context new market connections must be found.
Uncertainties are accepted as part-and-parcel of life. As Tsega Norbu, a 40-year-old herder and father of three from Darnama village in the south of Kokonor, explains: “What happened is already in the past, and what is going to happen is unpredictable. All we can depend on is the present, we deal with what is happening now.”
Access to land for winter grazing by Qinghai lake in Kokonor is increasingly constrained. Palden Tsering, CC BY-NC-SA
Uncertainty is central to a Buddhist sensibility governing life. The world cannot be stable and controlled, but is part of a cycle of ongoing change. According to Tibetan Buddhist teachings and practices, uncertainties from whatever source – climatic, economic, political – should never be feared. They are part of how knowledges and experiences are constructed.
Unlike the anxiety and stress that uncertainties may create amid the western ideal of an ordered, regular, stable world, for Loba Tsering and others, there is no such expectation of a linear path. The assumptions of western-style modernity are fundamentally challenged.
But this doesn’t mean that they reject the trappings of a modern life. Mobile phones and internet connectivity, reliable off-grid electricity, functioning transport infrastructure, good healthcare, education for children and commercial market interactions are all crucial for pastoralists living in Kokonor. But these are integrated within an outlook that makes use of ambiguity and embraces uncertainty as part of daily life.
This requires particular skills for generating reliability which, just like for Mohamed Hassan and his fellow Kenyan traders, involve relying on social relations and networks. But in contrast to northern Kenya, where state presence and regulation is limited, in areas such as Kokonor there is much more interaction with state officials and government investment projects. This has implications for how uncertainties are navigated.
Infrastructure development continues apace in Amdo Tibet, with the Chinese state investing in large settlement programmes alongside road and rail infrastructure and conservation projects to protect watersheds. While Amdo Tibet remains a largely rural and very mountainous area, land access is always contentious as different actors – local people, investors, the government – compete for control. This generates heightened uncertainties for pastoralists. However, despite the increasing state presence, whether through local county officials or national-level projects, there is always room for manoeuvre.
Loba Tsering and others make use of this latitude to navigate within often ambiguous, hybrid arrangements around market or land access. Policies coming from the centre are never specified in detail, but provide guidance around broad objectives set by the Chinese state.
This approach to navigating uncertainty is what the Singaporean political scientist and author Yuen Yuen Ang calls “directed improvisation”. It provides a route to responding to complexity and uncertainty that allows flexibility and the possibilities of adaptation, avoiding top-down imposition. It is a combination of central facilitation and local innovation – one that makes use of ambiguity and thrives off uncertainty.
Yuen Yuen Ang on the pros and cons of China’s economic approach. Video: New Economic Thinking.
So, for example, when Loba Tsering and other villagers wanted to secure land for winter grazing to fatten their animals for sale to nearby markets, they had to exploit this flexibility and navigate the uncertainties. Their original winter grazing sites had shrunk, both because of encroachment of urban areas and expansion of the lake, due to increasing snow melt thanks to climate change. This meant that land was scarce and their opportunities for livestock marketing had declined.
First, they approached the local township officials to put their case. They were already connected with some officials who came from the same village, so conversations could start easily. Working together with these representatives, they then approached the county officials.
Although there were limits imposed by central state policies due to environmental regulations and plans for a conservation area, a creative, improvised solution was found through dialogue and deliberation. A two-year compensation for the loss of the winter pasture was offered, and a new area allocated for the landless pastoralists in the village. This ensured their animals could be fed and fattened, allowing new marketing opportunities in the fast-growing nearby towns and tourist resorts.
This was “directed improvisation” in action, with solutions being found that responded to changing circumstances. It is not an isolated example but, as many have commented before, central to the style of centralised-yet-flexible, pragmatic policymaking that China has adopted – an approach that has been central to its rapid economic transformation and poverty reduction following the reform era.
In a highly complex system with many different requirements and operating across a vast geographic area, a singular, designed solution rolled out from the centre clearly will not work. Rather, an approach to economic change that is responsive to uncertain conditions is required, with flexible institutions and governance systems – very unlike the fixed regulatory protocols of global finance.
No standardised blueprint model of either design or regulation will work. Solutions must allow for experimentation and improvisation, and be built on social relations where trust is essential. Once again, it is the human touch that is key.
Rethinking an uncertain world
Despite the very different contexts, the experiences from northern Kenya and Amdo Tibet in China offer some important insights into how to navigate uncertainty in our turbulent times. Could such insights help us avoid the chaos and collapse we saw during the financial crash and following the imposition of Trump’s tariffs? Interestingly, the principles that emerge are similar to those suggested by Haldane and others following the 2007-08 financial crash.
What does this involve? The need to decentralise and rely on social interactions in localised networks. The need to avoid reliance on simple, centralised solutions, whether from algorithmic or state diktats. The need to be careful about relying on top-down imposition of regulations, and to seek adaptive, flexible solutions. The need to develop collective options based on trust-based relations – avoiding either an atomised, individualised response or one emerging from a centralised, dirigiste imposition.
Above all, it highlights the need for the human touch – the social, networked relations that are only possible to develop when people interact with each other and build trust.
What does this suggest for the future? A modernist vision of control – whether through markets or states – towards a singular understanding of progress is clearly inappropriate. Instead, a more flexible, adaptive path is required. This means opening up to alternatives, decentralising activities, facilitating experimentation and improvisation and accepting uncertainty.
Embracing uncertainty and encouraging democratic deliberation is also a route to avoiding the future being captured by those who seek to profit from uncertainty, or who seek to close down options through the populist rhetoric of “taking back control”.
Whether responding to a financial shock, new technologies, land use change, a pandemic or the climate crisis, this requires – as in citizen assemblies and other forms of deliberative democratic practice – diverse people interacting and building trust for collective responses. AI and predictive mathematical models are no replacement in our current age of uncertainty.
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Ian Scoones was a recipient of a European Research Council Advanced Grant for the PASTRES project – Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Resilience: Global Lessons from the Margins (https://pastres.org/). He is the author of Navigating Uncertainty: Radical Rethinking for a Turbulent World (Polity Books, 2024, https://bit.ly/44f9sqe).
