Political Analysis and Global Affairs

  U.S. imports moved away from China faster than Chinese production disappeared from the goods America buys U.S. tariffs reduced direct imports from China, but Chinese components and production remain embedded in supply chains running through countries such as Vietnam and Mexico. On a working morning in Karachi, Vietnam can appear in front of me as the destination behind a machinery payment. The payment tells me where the money goes, but it cannot identify the origin of every component inside the machine. A motor may have crossed another border before assembly. Tariffs hit China. China stayed in the supply chain. A reader pushed me toward that problem after reading my argument about China's industrial power. He credited Donald Trump with confronting America's dependence on Chinese production more forcefully than other Western leaders. I think Trump deserves recognition for forcing the industrial cost of dependence into American presidential politics. Tariffs changed trade. The ...

  India wants UPI to expand internationally, but the stalled Alipay+ link shows how data control, jurisdiction and strategic trust can complicate cross-border payment connectivity. India wants UPI to travel across borders. Alipay+ could make payments easier for Indian travellers across a large Asian merchant network. Yet New Delhi has stalled the proposed connection over data and security concerns. The dispute reveals an important distinction between trading with a strategic rival and trusting it around financial infrastructure. The Question I Wrote Down I was reading the report about India stalling a proposed connection between UPI and Alipay+ when one point bothered me. I wrote a question on my notepad: Visa and Mastercard also handle transaction data. Why, then, is India particularly concerned about Alipay+? The question became more interesting when I thought about India-China trade. India and China fought a war in 1962. Their soldiers clashed again in the Galwan Valley in 2020,...

  I Thought Replacing My Credit Card Would End the Risk. Bank Alfalah Cardholders Should Know More A few days ago, I looked at my credit-card transactions and saw foreign charges I did not recognize. My first reaction was straightforward. Contact the bank. Block the card and replace it. That sounds like the end of the problem. I had always thought of a cancelled card number as a dead number. Once the bank replaced the card, surely the old payment relationship had ended. My recent experience forced me to examine that assumption more carefully. A modern credit card is not simply the piece of plastic in my wallet. Behind it sits a payment system involving my bank, the card network and merchants with whom I may have previously dealt. Stored-card arrangements and recurring payments make that system less obvious to an ordinary customer. That is where the risk begins. Bank Alfalah publishes its Credit Card Terms and Conditions online in English and Urdu. The bank currently lists th...

  Power-bank limits differ by airline. Karachi passengers should check capacity, cabin-storage and onboard-use rules before departure. At Karachi airport, a power bank looks like one of the least important things in a passenger's bag. Passport, visa, medicines and boarding pass demand more attention. The small battery that keeps a phone alive during a long connection usually goes into a backpack almost without thought. Yet I would now put the power bank on the pre-flight checklist, especially when travelling from Karachi through Dubai or Doha. The reason is simple. Airlines have tightened their treatment of portable lithium batteries, and the rules are not identical. A power bank acceptable on one airline may create a problem on another. For a Pakistani traveller, particularly an older passenger making a long international journey, knowing the rule before reaching Jinnah International Airport can prevent an unnecessary argument at security or the boarding gate. Why Airlines Wor...

Bank Alfalah replaced my compromised credit card, but an important question remains: can old stored payment credentials or Mastercard ABU connections continue after card replacement?   The call from a Bank Alfalah social-media representative came on Thursday morning. I expected to discuss the relationship between my old credit card and the replacement card that followed it. Instead, she told me that I had to cancel my subscriptions with merchants myself. She also told me that Mastercard does not allow what I had been calling a "hard closure." I tried to explain that I was asking a different question. I wanted to know what happened to the payment credentials associated with my compromised card when Bank Alfalah replaced it. That question has become more important than the terminology I originally used. A new piece of plastic with a new card number looks like a clean break. Mastercard's own documentation shows why the digital reality can be more complicated. It Started...

The rule can affect Pakistani passengers flying to Dubai or connecting there for another country. A valid visa may establish your right to seek entry, but flydubai can still require a separate verification before check-in. Pakistani passengers travelling on flydubai may need OK to Board approval before airline check-in. At Karachi airport, the first decisive counter is not always FIA immigration. It may be the airline desk, where a member of staff studies a passenger’s passport and then asks a question the traveller did not expect: “Do you have OK to Board approval?” The passenger may hold a genuine electronic visa. The ticket may also be fully paid, yet the journey can stop before the suitcase enters the airline’s system. I understand why this confuses Pakistani travellers. We usually think of international travel as a simple chain. Obtain a visa, buy a ticket, then go to the airport. Modern travel does not work that way. A government decides who may enter. The airline decides whom ...