Every year on May 3 – World Press Freedom Day – news producers and consumers pause to reflect on the state of global media. This year, as journalists and government officials gather in Ghana for the event’s 25th observance, attention will turn to the myriad pressures and challenges confronting the profession worldwide, and how official and state-sponsored hostility toward the press is threatening democracy.But these concerns, though certainly valid, are not the entire story.

On April 17, Bloomberg reported that China had overtaken the United States as Vietnam’s largest export market. According to figures cited by the news organisation and tallied by the International Monetary Fund, Vietnam’s exports to China amounted to US$50.6 billion in 2017, compared to US$46.5 billion in exports to the US.If these numbers are accurate, they would represent a significant shift in the triangular relationship between Vietnam, China, and the US.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un seems to be setting the stage for an historic deal with US President Donald Trump that would allow his country, like Myanmar and Vietnam, to reduce its dependence on China and move closer to the West.

Last month, US President Donald Trump’s administration fired the opening salvo in what is quickly shaping up to become a full-blown trade war. While trade friction has long been an issue in the Sino-American relationship, few expected such an escalation, not least because economists widely view trade wars as damaging to all parties. So how did we get to this point, and can we turn back before it’s too late?First and foremost, Trump does not seem to understand how trade works.

Climate change undoubtedly poses a potent – even existential – threat to the planet. But the current approach to mitigating it, which reflects a single-minded focus on cutting carbon dioxide emissions, may end up doing serious harm, as it fails to account for the energy sector’s depletion of water resources – another major contributor to climate change.“Water is at the heart of both the causes and effects of climate change,” a National Research Council report declares.

Indonesia, home to roughly 6 percent of Facebook Inc.'s users, isn't happy with the social-media giant. Officials there are even threatening to shut the service down after its latest egregious privacy scandal.That sounds like an ominous threat - but it's empty. In Indonesia, as across the developing world, Facebook is no longer just a platform for sharing photos and news.

Last month, US President Donald Trump enacted steel and aluminum tariffs aimed squarely at China. On April 2, China retaliated with tariffs on 128 American products. Trump then announced 25% tariffs on another 1,300 Chinese products, representing some $50 billion of exports.

Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, recently noted that the public scrutiny of Facebook is “very much overdue,” declaring that “it’s shocking to me that they didn’t have to answer more of these questions earlier on.” Leaders in the information technology sector, especially in Europe, have been warning of the abuses by Facebook (and other portals) for years.

The world will soon witness a historic test of wills between China and the United States, two superpowers whose leaders see themselves as supreme. In the immediate sense, it will be a battle over trade. But also at stake is the strategic leadership of East Asia and, eventually, the international order. As things stand, China holds a stronger position than many people realise.

When the United Kingdom became the first country in the world to undergo large-scale urbanisation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the process transformed its economy and society. Today, India is facing a similar transformation, only it is happening at 100 time the pace.