James Forsyth James Forsyth

Risky Business

The Spectator/KPMG conference explored investment opportunities in today’s uncertain geopolitical climate

The Spectator/KPMG conference explored investment opportunities in today’s uncertain geopolitical climate

We live in an age of uncertainty. The predictable threats of the Cold War have been replaced with more nebulous dangers: great power politics might be stable but across large parts of the world instability rules. The Spectator’s ‘Global Risk and Opportunity’ conference in association with KPMG explored the consequences of this uncertain global environment for business.

Andrew Neil opened the event by observing how the all-party desire in America to withdraw from costly foreign entanglements threatened the Pax Americana that has kept the peace since the end of the Cold War. The Conservative MP Malcolm Rifkind, who served as foreign secretary and defence secretary in John Major’s government, offered an overview of the global landscape. He warned that Russia is ‘an authoritarian state’ and that India is a better long-term investment than China because India’s democratic system provides a safety valve for popular discontent. By contrast, in China the only way to get rid of a bad government is through a revolution.

The investment expert Jonathan Ruffer presented an assessment of the prospects for the global economy in the next few years. He began with some peppery assertions, declaring that the credit crunch had been ‘entirely predictable’, that all the speculation about double-dip recessions is ‘largely irrelevant’, and that the eventual result of the policies being pursued by the major economies would be a surge in inflation.

Next, the conference turned its attention to the challenges posed by terrorism and political turmoil. Lord Guthrie, former chief of the defence staff, warned that in the current economic climate ‘no nation, not even the United States, can afford exactly what they’d like’. Lord Guthrie, who has worked as a government envoy trying to ease tensions on the subcontinent, said that he regards Pakistan as the most dangerous place in the world.

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