Geopolitics

• [New] A stable pro-European UK with a revived, strong, democracy and politics - demonstrated over several years - might in a generation be able to re - join the EU but not in the next decade.
• [New] Despite the current pandemic situation affecting the globe, geopolitical tension has significantly increased in the Middle East and Turkey and will likely continued till the end of 2021.
• [New] With a forthcoming change of presidency in the US, a new relationship with the EU and a seat at the World Trade Organization, political uncertainty will be another factor for businesses to contend with through 2021.
• Many are hoping that when Trump - one of the most divisive US presidents in the past century or more - leaves office, the historically elevated levels of partisanship in US politics will at least begin to subside.
• Other primary drivers of global geopolitical risk in 2021 include great power competition among the US, China, and Russia.
• Some specific areas to watch in 2021 include the unpredictable future of Canada's minority government, Europe's continuing political dysfunction and simmering U.S.-China trade tensions.
• 2021 will be a year marked by political change, especially in the U.S. where the incoming Biden Administration's plans for infrastructure spending, climate change mitigation, and cannabis deregulation could meaningfully impact a number of themes' trajectories.
• The UN declared 2021-2030 the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, signalling a strong political commitment to restoration for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
• From the change in the US Administration to the rolling out of the COVID-19 vaccine, the social, economic, and political changes will continue to happen in 2021.
• While the carbon border adjustment mechanism will face political and legal difficulties within the EU, it may prove difficult to implement and could be challenged at the WTO (where it already faces opposition from the US, China and Russia).
• From India banning TikTok, the US threatening to delist Chinese firms, to Australia creating supply chains around rare earth minerals that block out China, technology was at the forefront of global politics in 2020.
• The political structures of China will change considerably in the next few decades and will reveal the divergence between the open and closed elements of its society.
• Facebook Protect, a security monitoring platform offered to political officials during the 2020 US elections, will be offered to more people in 2021.
• Risks for 2021 - a year of lower tail risks and more predictability, but the potential risk of bubbles forming - Geopolitical risks will remain omnipresent, notably the China-US and China-RoW tensions.
• Since Joe Biden's victory in the US presidential elections, rival political factions in Iran have struggled over who might lead potential negotiations with Washington.
• The EU should seize the opportunity of U.S. interest in closer collaboration on China and offer a ten-point agenda for an EU-U.S. dialogue on China.

Last updated: 17 January 2021