Multipolar View
Summaries of analysis published by non-Western institutions. Each summary links to the original publication, states the institution's relationship with the state and notes the blind spot of the reading separately. Summaries convey the institution's view, not that of Talay Insight.
IGeo-Economics & Chokepoints
Policy Center for the New SouthMoroccoEnglish
A Reading from Rabat: Cross-Border Payment Infrastructure Is Splitting into Three Blocs
The policy brief of 17 September 2026 from the Policy Center for the New South reads cross-border payment infrastructure no longer as a technical question of efficiency but as a geopolitical race in which three separate trading spaces are taking shape. On the China-centred wing, mBridge has moved from 164 transactions and a volume of 22 million dollars in 2022 to 4,000 transactions and 55.5 billion dollars in 2025, with the renminbi's share as the routing currency at around 95%. The withdrawal of the BIS from the project in 2024 shifted the initiative's weight further towards the Chinese side. CIPS has more than 1,700 international members across 190 countries and territories, and its daily transaction volume exceeds 180 billion dollars. China settles up to 60% of its cross-border receipts and payments in renminbi; that share was 10% in 2017. Against this, the renminbi makes up only about 3% of global SWIFT payments and 8% of trade finance; the total commitment under the swap lines the PBoC has established with 40 central banks is around 500 billion dollars.
17 September 2026 · Asia-Pacific
Institute for Security Studies (ISS Africa)South AfricaEnglish
A Reading from Pretoria: The Africa Group Seeks to Move Tax Rule-Making from the OECD to the UN
The analysis published in ISS Today on 11 September 2026 recounts the negotiation of the Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, which African countries are pursuing at the UN, as a calculation of winners and losers. The core issue is institutional rather than technical: whether rule-making authority stays with the OECD, made up of 38 developed economies, or passes to the UN, where every member state has a vote. It argues that the OECD-G20 two-pillar solution set out in 2021 and backed by more than 140 countries has not kept its promise to tax multinational companies where they earn their income. According to the text, the negotiations are roughly halfway through the formal timetable; alongside the framework convention, the co-chairs have put into circulation draft texts of two additional protocols, on cross-border services and on the resolution of tax disputes.
11 September 2026 · Sub-Saharan Africa
IEEJ (Institute of Energy Economics, Japan)JapanEnglish
Hormuz in its sixth month: the stock buffer is thinning for Asian importers
Koyama describes the Hormuz crisis as the first event in which oil and LNG supply were cut simultaneously and on a large scale, and characterises it as the largest supply disruption in the history of international energy markets. According to the piece, the understanding between the parties did not last: on 30 August the US struck military facilities in Iran for the first time since the end of July, and Iran retaliated against US bases in the region.
4 September 2026 · Asia-Pacific
SETATürkiyeTurkish
The real risk in the EU carbon border levy is uncertainty, not cost
Sönmez argues that the main challenge of the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism stems not from cost but from uncertainty in its relationship with multilateral climate frameworks. The mechanism draws its legitimacy from the Paris Agreement, yet its scope and implementation criteria are set entirely within the EU's own institutional processes.
3 September 2026 · Europe
ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute (Fulcrum)SingaporeEnglish
ASEAN after the Gulf crisis: from oil security to grid security
The authors note that the Gulf crisis has exposed ASEAN's dependence on the Middle East: the Philippines sources 95 per cent of its oil imports and Vietnam 49 per cent of its gas imports from the region. Electricity demand in the region rose 60 per cent between 2015 and 2025 and is expected to grow by 4 per cent a year until 2035.
2 September 2026 · Asia-Pacific
IIIKinetic Conflicts & Defence
Middle East Council on Global AffairsQatarEnglish
The Gulf caught between two straits: Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb as a single front
According to Al-Jaber, by seizing Mocha, Dhubab and Perim Island under the direction of the Revolutionary Guards, the Houthis have turned from an insurgent movement in Yemen into a strategic actor able to threaten Bab el-Mandeb directly. The author argues that Iran uses the two straits not as separate fronts but as a single maritime space that squeezes the world economy from east and west at the same time.
13 September 2026 · Middle East and North Africa
China-US FocusChinaEnglish· state-affiliated
The view from Beijing: the US has no exit plan in the Iran war
Zhang argues that US policy in the Iran war, which began in February 2026, has been driven by improvisation, contradictory messaging and the lack of an exit plan. He contends that even within the administration there is disagreement over the war's aims, and writes that Iran's nuclear and military capabilities serve as deterrence in a region dominated by the US–Israeli military presence, so that Washington has misdiagnosed Iran.
7 September 2026 · Americas
SETATürkiyeTurkish
A Red Sea security architecture that is institutionally dense but selective on the ground
Demirtaş does not see the Multinational Maritime Defence Alliance, founded in Riyadh on 30 July with 14 founding members, merely as a response to the Houthi threat; he regards it as an institutionalised product of the regional security network. Türkiye is one of the alliance's founding members. Ankara also signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan on 7 August; the author describes it as the first Article 5-type commitment Türkiye has undertaken outside NATO.
3 September 2026 · Türkiye and Its Neighbourhood
IVMacro Policy & Sovereign Debt
Valdai Discussion ClubRussiaEnglish· state-affiliated
The long arm of the dollar: what the Adani case says about US jurisdiction
Timofeev examines the 275 million dollar settlement the US Treasury reached with Adani Enterprises on 18 May. The company imported LPG presented as originating in Oman and Iraq but actually sourced from Iran; all 32 transactions, totalling 192.1 million dollars, were paid in dollars. The author stresses that even when a transaction takes place entirely outside the US, payment passing through an American bank's correspondent account gives the US jurisdiction.
15 September 2026 · South Asia
Arab Center Washington DCUS (Arab perspective)English
The human and political cost of US aid cuts across the Arab world
Asi argues that the abrupt and unplanned US cuts to foreign aid are causing preventable deaths in the region's fragile societies. According to the data she cites, UNFPA was cut by 377 million dollars; the US funded 60 per cent of the agency's operations in Yemen. In Yemen 21 million people depend on external aid; the US gave Yemen 768 million dollars in 2024, half of the humanitarian response. Since the start of 2025, 453 health facilities have closed in Yemen.
10 September 2026 · Middle East and North Africa