Fewer than one in 10 of the Western companies that promised to pull out of Russia because of its invasion of Ukraine have actually done so, and most of those remaining are German, reports Simon Evenett, a speaker at Camden’s conference this month on Global Trade and Politics: Managing Turbulence. This was one of the main findings from research Evenett undertook in his position as coordinator of the Global Trade Alert trade monitoring initiative, He is also a professor at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland.

Hefty layoffs of late in the tech sector may be “a rough ride, for sure, for laid off tech talent, especially from abroad, but, for the economy, and eventually even the talent, maybe, just maybe, a harbinger of health.” That’s what another 2023 Camden Conference speaker, Paul Solman, suggested in a recent report for PBS NewsHour, where he has been a business, economics and arts correspondent since 1985.

In an op-ed that touches on many of the themes from the upcoming conference, 2022 Camden Conference speaker Mark Leonard lays out how different the “re-globalization” some are touting will be from the globalized world of yesteryear. So different, with its political and trade fragmentation and emphasis on natural security rather than corporate profits, that the contrasts “far outweigh the similarities.”

Yuki Tatsumi, co-director of the East Asia program at the “peace and security” oriented Stimson Center and a speaker at Camden’s 2019 conference, points in an analysis piece in The Dispatch to three reorienting factors that stand out in the new National Security Strategy issued in late December by the Japanese government: The overt emphasis on China as a threat, acknowledgement of Japan’s intention to develop a counter-attack capacity that was previously viewed as conflicting with its pacifist posture, and a broader definition of national security that encompasses economic security, cybersecurity and space.

As it reopens after three years of Covid-related restrictions, China should adopt the hybrid model of “directed improvisation” that typified policy under China’s post-Mao era leader Deng Xiaoping, Johns Hopkins professor of political economy Yuen Yuen Ang, also a speaker at Camden’s 2019 Is This China’s Century? conference, argues in a recent op-ed in Project Syndicate.

Want to find out about “news avoidance,” the possibility we’re nearing “peak internet,” and hope that the next set of social media sites “will put more emphasis on connections and content that are good for society rather than those that deliver outrage and anger?” Check out the 2023 version of the Reuters Institute’s annual study on “Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions” by 2020 Camden Conference speaker Nic Newman.