The following will suggest different things to different people:

CANBERRA, Australia—The U.S. is vying to build an internet network in Papua New Guinea to prevent a Chinese telecom firm from doing so, a senior U.S. official said, signaling a widening effort to counter Beijing’s influence in a region Western allies have dominated since World War II.

The acting U.S. ambassador to Australia, James Carouso, said Friday that the U.S., Japan and Australia were preparing to counter a $200 million contract that Papua New Guinea recently awarded to China’s Huawei Technologies Co. to build a cable network connecting the impoverished but resource-rich nation.

“We are working on a counteroffer,” Mr. Carouso told state radio in Australia. “The whole idea is to give alternatives. This is not to say, ‘Don’t do business with China.’ China’s offers are out on the table. It’s up to us to be competitive,” he said.

Many — particularly given today’s global narrative — will view it as yet more evidence of China’s aim to take over the world, and the West’s (and, in this instance, Japan’s) aim to stop them.


Me, I see it as just a tiny glimpse of the phenomenal opportunities to be tapped the world over.


A friend of mine — whom I know to be savvy in business and seasoned as an investor — mentioned to me yesterday that he just doesn’t see much opportunity for gain in the equity markets in the years to come. I understand where he’s coming from, and I make no guarantees. I do, however, see a vast under-developed, rapidly emerging world outside our borders that I fully intend to engage in, as an investor, and as an investment manager (think of the institutions [U.S. and foreign] that’ll be serving those markets, as well as the homegrown opportunities that’ll ultimately emerge in those markets themselves) in the years to come.