(3 articles) A BRICS currency replacing the dollar is a ‘ridiculous’ idea, says the top economist who named the group—unless China and India become allies | India Is Pushing Back Against China in South Asia | Iran’s Grand Strategy Has Fundamentally Shifted

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You Might Like � � � You Might Like � � � � � � � � � Don't like ads? Go ad-free with TradeBriefs Premium A BRICS currency replacing the dollar is a 'ridiculous' idea, says the top economist who named the group—unless China and India become allies    In their push to dethrone the U.S. dollar as the world’s largest reserve currency, the BRICS nations—or Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—have been talking up the idea of a common currency for years. But Jim O’Neill, the veteran economist who coined the term BRIC (the group did not originally include South Africa) when he worked at Goldman Sachs in 2001, blasted the plan this week. “It’s just ridiculous,” he told the Financial Times Tuesday. “They’re going to create a BRICS central bank? How would you do that? It’s embarrassing almost.” The BRICS nations will meet for their 15th annual summit next week, but O’Neill, now senior advisor at U.K.-based think tank Chatham House, argued that the group of nations has “never achieved anything since they first started meeting” in 2009 amid consistent infighting. Continued here India Is Pushing Back Against China in South Asia    As the intensifying strategic confrontation between the United States and China dominates many foreign-policy debates, another important competition is quietly playing out. The jostling between India and China for influence in South Asia—from the Himalayas to the islands off the subcontinent in the Indian Ocean—will likely prove crucial to the fate of Washington's strategy to keep the region "free and open" from Chinese coercion. And the good news, at least for now, is that New Delhi—an increasingly close U.S. partner—has been mostly successful in pushing back against Beijing's rising influence across the region. South Asia—comprising Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka—has been a hotbed of Sino-Indian strategic competition for years. New Delhi's concern is that Beijing, with whom it has clashed multiple times along their disputed land border in the Himalayas, plans to spin a web of alliances to encircle India—on land and at sea—and ultimately supplant it as the dominant power over South Asia. Notably, all the region's countries, with the exception of Bhutan, are participants in China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a vast economic plan for investment and infrastructure development. Beijing has also secured access to key ports along the Indian Ocean, including Gwadar in Pakistan, Hambantota in Sri Lanka, and Chittagong in Bangladesh, that have caused New Delhi to worry about a so-called string of pearls strategy aimed at hemming India in. Continued here You Might Like � � � � � � � � � Iran's Grand Strategy Has Fundamentally Shifted    Since the 1979 revolution, Iran's leadership has single-mindedly attempted to dominate the Middle East and drive the United States and Israel out. Throughout, Tehran has relied overwhelmingly on the proverbial stick to do so: trying to subvert the Arab states by blackmail or insurgency while waging a relentless terrorist campaign against the United States and Israel. While those goals haven't changed, the Iranians appear to have altered their grand strategy in a fundamental way. We can never be certain because Iranian decision-making is always opaque, but Iran suddenly seems to have discovered that carrots can be useful tools of foreign policy as well. Almost everywhere you look, Tehran is now offering positive inducements to cooperation and mostly throttling back on its strong-arm tactics. The question now facing the United States is how to adjust its own policy in return. Continued here

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