ING global economic outlook 2023 December 2022 forced the government to be more active on the foreign policy front as we saw in its attempts to moderate the Russia-Ukraine and EU talks. 3 On the lookout for more political unrest We saw unusual and potentially serious cases of civil unrest in both Iran and China towards the end of 2022. The exact triggers for the protests were different but were broadly related to human rights. They drew global attention, of course, because of the great personal risk the participants were taking. Those demonstrations are perhaps reminiscent of the 'Arab Spring' pro-democracy protests in 2010. Those came just a couple of years after the Global Financial Crisis. Right now, the world is battling with high inflation and particularly high food costs. There are enough examples throughout history where economic crises and sharp hits to disposable income have triggered unrest and that will be high on people's minds in 2023.