Business Insider: Here's what China might do if the US and North Korea went to war

Bilahari: First of all, we should understand China’s bottom line position on North Korea. The Chinese and the North Koreans have never loved each other, and mutual distrust has grown under Kim Jong-un, whose aggressive pursuit of an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear weapon to the continental US has diminished Chinese security – for example, through the deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Air Defence (THAAD) system in South Korea. [...]

There are, after all, only five Leninist states left in the world – China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba and Laos. If the CCP is seen to be complicit in the destruction of a fellow Leninist state, that could – and indeed probably will – give the Chinese people very bad ideas about their own system. [...]

Question: What will China do if North Korea attacks the U.S.?

Nothing. Or nothing much. Some Chinese media – notably the Global Times – said, after Kim Jong-un had threatened to bracket Guam with missiles, that if North Korea started a war with the US, it was on its own. The Chinese know that a war with the US would jeopardise the most core of their core interests – namely, the preservation of CCP rule – because such a war cannot have a favourable outcome for China. [...]

The Trump administration’s approach to North Korea and its actions in other theatres, such as bombing Syria while President Trump dined with Xi Jinping, have done much to restore the credibility of American power. Indeed, President Trump has a valid point when he says that unpredictability is an asset. The US under Obama was far too predictable. [...]

China cannot replace the US as the leader of the current world order for the simple reason that in order to lead an open order, you must yourself be open. Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road initiative is a bold and ambitious vision. But it is not a substitute for the current order because it plainly rests on the foundation of the current order. Can the initiative succeed if the world turns protectionist? Can it succeed if China gets into a trade war with the US?

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Politico: Juncker’s uni-vision for Europe

As has become his tradition, Juncker delivered the speech in English, French and German, and this year’s address offered a detailed policy blueprint for his final two years in office, in which he clearly hopes to shape his legacy. He also put forward his own answer to the debate on the future of Europe that the Commission kicked off in a white paper earlier this year.

The white paper offered up five scenarios, including allowing for a so-called “multi-speed” Europe in which some countries that wanted deeper cooperation could pursue it. But Juncker described his own, personal “sixth scenario,” which in many ways was far more ambitious, with a completed single currency zone, and a single-speed Europe with its foot firmly on the accelerator.

In one of many policy proposals, Juncker called for empowering the recently-created European public prosecutor with authority to enforce common anti-terrorism laws. While it is far from clear how, or even if, such a proposal could be carried out, it showed Juncker is intent on seizing a role for the EU in addressing one of the top priorities of citizens across Europe. [...]

In addition to urging the inclusion of Bulgaria and Romania in Schengen, he addressed the problem of dual food standards — a major concern in the east. The offer of assistance for countries joining the currency zone and the opposition to a multi-speed approach, which many in the east fear will leave them behind, also served as an olive branch. [...]

In many ways, Juncker’s financial and economic proposals clashed sharply with the vision put forward by French President Emmanuel Macron. And in carefully calibrating his remarks about an EU finance minister, and rejecting Macron’s idea of a eurozone parliament, Juncker sided solidly with the more cautious approach of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

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Politico: Bulgarian far right set to shock Brussels

With Sofia taking over the EU’s rotating Council presidency in January, politicians and officials in Brussels are sounding the alarm over the United Patriots (UP) — a group of three far-right parties in Bulgaria’s coalition government. [...]

UP leaders have used racist rhetoric toward Bulgaria’s Roma minority, advocated violence to prevent migrants from entering Europe and publicly expressed doubt that man-made climate change is a problem. [...]

One UP leader, Deputy Prime Minister Valeri Simeonov, once publicly described the Roma as “ferocious apes.” A second leader, Deputy Prime Minister Krasimir Karakachanov, who, as defense minister, will participate in the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council, recently said the EU and NATO should stop migrants entering Europe “by force of arms if necessary.” [...]

Asked by POLITICO about the UP’s rhetoric, Commissioner for Justice Věra Jourová, who is in charge of promoting the integration of Roma communities across Europe, said: “It is absolutely unacceptable … I am nervous about this situation.” She said she is already monitoring the new government’s policy toward the Roma for signs of backsliding and would be in “intensive” discussions with Sofia in the coming months. [...]

In some cases, UP leaders have sought to turn their nationalist rhetoric into action. Earlier this year, Simeonov and Karakachanov, the defense minister who is also leader of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), joined protesters who tried to barricade the Bulgarian-Turkish border to stop ethnic Turks from voting in the election.

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The Conversation: Turkey, the Rohingya crisis and Erdoğan’s ambitions to be a global Muslim leader

United Nations (UN) human rights chief Zeid Raad Al Hussein has called the Rohingya’s plight a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” following a similar statement from UN Secretary General António Guterres. While Western countries have been slow and hesitant to respond, leaders of Muslim-majority countries – particularly Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Pakistan – have sought to place as much international pressure as possible on the Myanmar government. [...]

According to a Turkish government statement, Erdoğan is the first one that managed to get permission for humanitarian aid to enter Myanmar. The Burmese government had, at the peak of the violence, blocked all UN aid towards the Rohingyas. [...]

Since the crisis broke on August 25, the Turkish president has taken several actions to gather Muslim leaders across the world to put pressure on the Myanmar government. On August 31, he spoke with the leaders of Mauritania, Pakistan, Iran and Qatar urging them to join forces to find a way to stop the violence against the Rohingyas. [...]

Turkey’s foreign policy doctrine now promotes what Bilkent University academics Pinar Bilgen and Ali Bilgiç label “civilisational geopolitics”, “an understanding of culture and civilisation as preordained determinants of international behaviour”. [...]

One of the other factors is domestic politics. Indeed, much of Erdoğan’s public posturing on the Rohingya issue is entirely self-serving. The image of a strong Turkey reaching out to Muslim’s everywhere in the world– plays very well at home. During his 15-year tenure as Turkey’s leader, the country’s once-marginalised pious Muslim citizens have become increasingly prominent in media, business and politics.

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Al Jazeera: Is there really a Turkey-Iran rapprochement?

Turkey and Iran both opposed the Saudi-led block's moves against Qatar. In fact, during the initial phase of the crisis, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif paid a rare visit to Turkey to discuss, among other issues, what was happening in the Gulf. [...]

Two issues cause particular concern in Turkey and Iran: the perceived opacity of US policy and the political ambitions of the Kurds. Iran is anxiously awaiting whether the US will switch its regional policy from ISIL-first to Iran-first policy in the near future. Turkey, on the other hand, is disturbed by the fact that it can't figure out the durability of US for the Kurds in Syria and the end goal of this partnership in Syria.  [...]

Iran, too, is concerned with Kurdish political ambitions, particularly those of the Iraqi Kurds. The independence of Iraqi Kurdistan would diminish the status of Iraq - a Shia-majority country over which Iran has a significant level of influence - in terms of population, geography, hydrocarbon wealth, and water resources. An independent Iraqi Kurdistan is also likely to be closer to the West, Turkey, Israel, and arguably Gulf states than to Iran. [...]

Apart from the Kurdish issue in Iraq, Iran and Turkey have other diverging interests. Ankara has been disturbed by the twin processes of the centralisation and sectarianisation of the Iraqi state. In principle, Ankara supports the strengthening of the central government in order to curb the irredentist aspirations of Iraqi Kurdistan, but this could mean the domination of sectarian politics as the Shia groups retain more state power - a trend already in place in the country's security architecture.

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The New York Review of Books: Indonesia & China: The Sea Between

The naming was a reminder of how seriously Indonesia treats its position as the seat of ancient trading empires and location of some of the world’s strategically most important straits—Melaka, Sunda, Lombok, and Makassar. Since he was elected in 2014, President Joko Widodo has made maritime issues central to Indonesia’s foreign policy, building up its navy, arresting dozens of foreign ships caught fishing illegally, and taking a quiet but firm stand on sea rights. Although not a populist vote-winner, the policy is generally approved, particularly by the military, which since the war of independence against the Dutch has seen itself as the guardian of the integrity of the nation and its internationally recognized status. [...]

Although Indonesia has no island disputes with China, its stance on the Natuna waters allies it with the other littoral nations in facing up to China (though the Philippines under President Duterte currently appears to prefer Chinese money to sovereignty over its seas). Last year, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague applied the Convention to rule decisively for the Philippines in its claim against Chinese actions within its EEZ, including driving out Philippine fishing boats, and building structures on rocks and shoals that did not have the status of islands. In doing so, the court rejected China’s claims to the whole sea and by implication the waters of North Natuna.

Do not imagine that the term “South China Sea” ever implied Chinese ownership. It is a Western construction that dates to about 1900. Previously, European maps referred to it as the China Sea, and before that as part of the Indian Sea. When the Portuguese arrived there in the early sixteenth century they called it the Cham Sea, after the maritime kingdom of coastal Vietnam. Other names at various times include Luzon Sea and (by early Arab traders) the Clove Sea. To China it has long been the South Sea and to Vietnamese the East Sea. The Philippines now refers to it as the West Philippine Sea.

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The Atlantic: The Education of Emmanuel Macron

While the initial enthusiasm that drove Macron to victory—and that encouraged me to work as a U.S. representative for his campaign—has faded, there’s little to justify the widespread anger against him. Something deeper is at work. As a Frenchman living in Washington witnessing the rise of Donald Trump first hand, I came to see that, at heart, Macron’s fall reveals the profound challenges that moderate liberals face in a polarized political climate. As he pursues his reforms, he is also trying to reshape French politics, bringing together a coalition of reformists from both sides of the political aisle, elected with center-left votes but governing with a mostly center-right cabinet. But he will have trouble building a lasting base if he is seen only as a moderate technocrat—a fate he escaped during the campaign. His success or failure to hold the center in the face of populists may well shape the fate of liberals across Europe.

Macron’s political gamble succeeded, in part, because of the unpopularity of his chief opponents, the scandal-marred Francois Fillon of the right-wing Republicans party and the divisive Marine Le Pen of the National Front. More importantly, beyond his policy platform, he captured much of the anti-establishment anger sweeping France (and indeed, the world). In January, a vast majority of French voters felt their political leaders were “corrupt”; 49 percent wanted a “strongman that wouldn’t have to worry about parliament or elections.” He pledged to run against the failures of both traditional parties, and was well-positioned to do so: At the age of 39, he had never run for office, and built a party from scratch. Only five percent of the candidates he endorsed were incumbents—most had never run for office.

But Macron is no failure. In addition to getting new candidates elected, he and his allies in parliament successfully passed a bill that sought to make France’s politics more transparent, and roll back the conflicts of interest that have poisoned the country’s institutions for decades, by imposing stricter controls on parliamentary spending. Furthermore, the inexperienced president’s first steps in the international arena, especially his handling of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, were largely hailed as successes. Now with his labor-market reforms, Macron continues to execute on his campaign promises.  [...]

But it’s unclear whether voters will follow him down this path. After all, he captured only 24 percent of the vote in the first round of the presidential election, and benefited from the collapse of the Socialist party after Hollande’s unsuccessful term. As the Socialist share in parliament fell from 295 to 31 seats, orphaned center-left voters turned to him. And yet, Macron’s cabinet tilts to the right, with a prime minister, economics minister, and budget minister, poached from the right-wing Republicans party. His first economic measures, from tax cuts to reduction in housing subsidies and labor market reforms, are drawn from the center-right. Macron may see all this as a way of building a new liberal pole that unites center-left and center-right. But disgruntled voters might see his triangulation as a betrayal. 

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Quartz: Amazon’s takeover of Whole Foods is a fascinating experiment in class identity

Whole Foods has built its reputation on being the fanciest grocery store in all the land, featuring morel mushrooms, emu eggs, and birch water. Amazon, meanwhile, has maintained a remarkably class-free identity—perhaps because of the sheer variety of items it sells. When you see an Amazon box on your neighbor’s doorstep, its contents could include anything: a case of Kraft macaroni and cheese or an assortment of Korean sheet masks; paper towels or silk pillowcases; a pair of Tom’s shoes or a replacement part for a soap dispenser. It’s impossible to draw conclusions about the recipient’s wealth or aesthetics from the box alone. [...]

How and where we spend our money has a great deal to do with class identity, as Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, the James Irvine Chair in urban and regional planning and professor of public policy at the University of Southern California, explains in her recent book The Sum of Small Things. Currid-Halkett argues that a new group, which she calls the aspirational class, has shifted the consumption patterns of the rich. According to her theory, conspicuous consumption—the purchase of highly visible signifiers of wealth and class identity such as cars, shoes, and designer handbags—is no longer in vogue. The aspirational class tends to invest in more subtle, but no less costly, goods and services, from private school tuition to boutique gyms and organic food. The designer handbag has been supplanted by the canvas NPR tote, and heavy bling exchanged for organic almond butter. [...]

Whole Foods branding isn’t just about the desirability of seaweed snacks. It sells a vision of the kind of people who shop there: a group that has collectively decided that organic food is healthier than non-organic; that it’s better to spend money on experiences as opposed to things; and that screen time is a problem. In all of these ways, the Whole Foods identity is about validating certain life choices and—by extension—judging others. New York Times op-ed columnist David Brooks got flak for his much-mocked op-ed about the class signifiers of Italian sandwiches. But he’s correct that retail stores send signals to customers about who is and isn’t welcome with a myriad of features, from the language on a menu to the kinds of magazines stacked in a grocery-store checkout line.

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Al Jazeera: Halimah Yacob named Singapore's first female president

Halimah Yacob, a former speaker of parliament from the Muslim Malay minority, did not have to face an election for the largely ceremonial post originally due this month after authorities decided her rivals did not meet strict eligibility criteria. [...]

Authorities had decided to allow only candidates from the Malay community to put themselves forward for the presidency, a bid to foster harmony in the city-state of 5.5 million people which is dominated by ethnic Chinese.

The other two contenders, Salleh Marican and Farid Khan, were both denied eligibility, having fallen short of a constitutional rule that required any candidate from the private sector to have led a company with shareholder equity of at least 500 million Singapore dollars ($372m). [...]

It was not the first time in the affluent city-state - which is tightly controlled and has been ruled by the same political party for decades - that the government has disqualified candidates for the presidency, making an election unnecessary.

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