The Alignment Atlas: Introduction

Introduction

The ground is hard on her feet; perhaps it is her age, perhaps her elevation that wears upon her. A refugee, fleeing Lhasa, Tibet, while cameras watch her and border guards pursue her. Nonetheless, 9-year-old Tashi and her family trek their way across the high mountains, where snow leopards den and sherpas march. In Nepal, Tashi will not find relief; she will merely find a life without a nationality, a refugee without status, but such is the cost of retaining culture and tradition- the sacrifice of the very city wherein it was born.

In the humid air of Latin America, construction crews labor under the sun, building roads and bridges, and yet they are of Chinese origin, paid by Chinese policy banks. Such a scene is mirrored in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.

Chinese guns do not rust in the seaspray of the South Pacific, although they are never fired, either. Instead, they sit, precariously close to Australia and New Zealand, but welcomed by a host without a say- the Solomon Islands.

What these scenes have in common is not simply a relationship with China, nor just with the Chinese government’s international affairs. Instead, each of these scenes represents the influence of Chinese power in nations throughout the world, to serve one nation’s purpose. In Europe, information is processed through Huawei wiring and repeaters, through 5G, despite the US’s strong attempts to limit the expansion of such Chinese-originated technology out of security concerns.

Arctic Ledger’s Alignment Atlas observes and analyzes these events, shifts in foreign policy, and the critical nature of not just how one nation acts, but how all nations interact. China watchers may analyze the actions the nation takes in broad strokes, domestically and abroad; however, the devil is in the details; the complexities of the world are often two or three degrees away. Nonetheless, the overarching patterns, the way nations bow and sway towards one power or another, provide a larger picture of the world and who it yields to.

Some nations are like tall trees in large fields; they lean whichever way the wind blows; others are clustered in forests, or sit largely below the surface. Other nations still are the mountains which direct the wind, while the untouched regions of the world- the deep sea, space, and the poles- act as valleys wherein the wind may blow, but nothing will change.

The Alignment Atlas serves as a map of this terrain, with clusters such as the EU, mountains like the United States, and China; with smaller peaks such as Russia still vulnerable to the breeze. To understand which way the wind blows, one must look at a weather vane. To understand which way the world leans, one must look at the map- the Atlas.