Corruption is easy to condemn and hard to understand. In recent months, anti-corruption investigations and reforms have appeared in headlines from China to the United States, often framed as matters of financial stability, market confidence, and state credibility. Public discourse usually treats corruption as economically destructive. Indeed, corruption and bribery are condemned as sins, as Proverbs 29:4 declares: “By justice a king gives a country stability, but those who ar

The determination of sovereignty of the sea isn’t as easy as creating barriers on land, since the sea is always fluid and has an unbounded nature. Unlike land, where barriers can define clear territories, under the continuous flow of ocean, the establishment of maritime borders could be extremely elusive. One of the disagreements that recently came to sharp focus is Japan’s decision to release treated nuclear wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the

This work examines the strategic expansion of Hutchison Whampoa (now CK Hutchison Holdings)—a Hong Kong-based conglomerate often viewed in Washington as a commercial proxy for the People’s Republic of China (PRC), or “the Dragon”—and how its port operations reshaped the geopolitical role of the Panama Canal from 1997 to 2026. The research is based on a long-term case study examining the controversial privatization of the Balboa and Cristobal ports, the associated legal benefi