Global Covid-19 vaccine procurements today are not equitable at all. While some high-income swiftly-acting countries hoarded effective and safe vaccine doses sufficient to cover their whole population more than three times, other low-income countries did not have any.This contagious disease, if not ended at the same time all around the world, will emerge again and again every time a country opens its border.

The conflict between the United States and China may be the issue of most importance as well as interest to the world, prior to COVID-19. This conflict between the two countries is appearing not only in the economic sector, but also in various field such as politics, diplomacy, and military affairs. Such competition between the two countries is likely to escalate further as multilateral systems such as the WTO are threatened and protectionism intensifies in the post-COVID-19 world...

The U.S.-China relationship over the past four years can be summarized into actions by the U.S. and reactions by China. Assuming that such nature of the U.S.-China relationship will continue, it seems important to predict the newly launched Biden government’s China policy in advance. So far Biden has disclosed only a few details about his plans for U.S.-China relations...

Over the past several decades, the six member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have implemented economic policies for industrial diversification to lessen severe dependence on the oil industry. Such policy efforts have been driven by their awareness of macro-economic and structural risks from heavy volatilities in international oil markets in terms of fiscal and trade sectors. For instance, the drop in international oil prices reduces export performance in the oil and natural gas sectors, which in turn results in a decline in the stability of fiscal revenue...

Celebrating the Paris Agreement’s fifth anniversary, the United Nations and other parties hosted the Climate Ambition Summit on December 12, 2020. The summit heard announcements from 75 leaders, including 45 relating to new and enhanced NDCs, 24 net-zero emissions commitments, and 20 new adaptation and resilience plans. Pledging climate ambitions for a low carbon economy and carbon neutrality do not guarantee their achievement...

In Japan, the challenges posed by its low birthrate and aging population expanded rapidly with the collapse of the bubble economy in the early 1990s, and in March 2011, energy and environmental problems such as power supply shortages and nuclear radiation issues occurred in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Fukushima nuclear accident. Also, with the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in January 2020, digital transformation has emerged as a social challenge...