By Marc Herzog.

FPC Research Associate Marc Herzog explores the development of Turkey's Foreign Policy and its response to the Arab Spring, setting out the challenges faced and those still to come.

Download FPC Briefing: Weathering the crazy seasons (310 kilobyte PDF)

By Verity Robins.

China has woken up to its drug problem, but it is failing woefully in trying to tackle it. Nestled between two major heroin-producing regions, the Golden Triangle (Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam) and the Golden Crescent (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran), China has long been a transit path for drugs headed toward the rest of the world. Along an ever-expanding network of routes that lead to China's international seaports, domestic heroin use is soaring. No longer just a transit country, it now has a sizable user population of its own. The rise in domestic heroin addiction has had disastrous social consequences, with an increase in Chinese drug cultivation and organised criminal activity, as well as a rise in intravenous drug use and a spiralling HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Full text 

By Dr Tim Summers.

Tim Summers explores recent economic transformation in China and makes the case for greater engagement with the countries less well-known regions beyond traditional investment markets.

Download Engaging with Inland China (290 kilobyte PDF)

Carlos Bellini, Daniel Lledo, Thiago de Aragao

Download 2009 Elections in Latin America (140 kilobyte PDF)

This report presents an evaluation of the legislative elections in Argentina and their impact on the Presidential succession of 2011, as well as an evaluation of the Presidential candidates in Uruguay, chosen through their parties' primaries. The Presidential election is scheduled for October 2009.

Joshua Cooper Ramo

Supported by Hill & Knowlton

February 2007

Download Brand China (260 kilobyte PDF)

In this new report, from the author of the widely discussed paper 'The Beijing Consensus', Ramo argues that China's national image, and the misalignment between China's image of itself and how it is viewed by the rest of the world, may be its greatest strategic threat. It argues that alongside its other reforms, China needs a 'fifth transition' if the trust and understanding necessary for the next stage of its development are to be achieved.

This paper has been kindly supported by Hill & Knowlton.

Christopher J Forster

April 2006

Download China's Secret Weapon (320 kilobyte PDF)

Preface by Lord Charles Powell of Bayswater

The Wall Street Journal reported recently how foreign-invested R&D centres in China have almost quadrupled to 750 over the last four years. The Foreign Policy Centre report bears this out with statistics showing that China is now ranked third in the world for total R&D spending. It estimates that by 2010 China will have the same number of science and engineering graduates as the United States. The idea that China is a sweat-shop economy is very dated. Instead it is a growing challenge to the previously comfortable technological lead of the Western countries.

Further information 

Date: Wednesday 14th May 2008, 9.30-3.30pm

Speakers included:

• Boris Nemtsov, Former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia
• Ed Lucas, The Economist and Author of 'The New Cold War: How the Kremlin Menaces Both Russia and the West'
• David Clark, Chair, The Russia Foundation
• Akhmed Zakaev, Prime Minister, Resistance Government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
• Tony Wood, Writer & Author
• Andrei Piontkovsky, Executive Director, Centre for Strategic Studies, Moscow

Taking place only days after Dimitry Medvedev formally took over as President of the Russian Federation, this Chechnya Peace Forum and Foreign Policy Centre event focused on what is happening in Russia today, with sessions on democracy and politics, civil liberties and the rule of law, Russian policy in Chechnya and the Caucasus and Russian influence on the world stage.

Download the full programme at: http://www.chechnyapeaceforum.com/upload/home_text_13.pdf

Download the Invitation (50 kilobyte PDF)