Will China rule the world? Laurie Taylor talks to Yuen Yuen Ang, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, and author of a study which explores China's unusual route out of poverty. They're joined by David Tyfield, Co-Director of the Centre for Mobilities Research at Lancaster University, and author of new book examining the prospects for an alternative global power regime.
26 June 2018
The Atlantic: Jared Kushner’s Middle East Fantasy
The first fantasy is the notion that the obstruction of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas—who refused to meet with Kushner on his latest trip—can be countered by taking the peace plan “directly to the Palestinian people.” Kushner suggests that Abbas is avoiding him because he’s “scared we will release our peace plan and that the Palestinian people will actually like it.” That’s not likely. Abbas is indeed unpopular with most Palestinians—his approval rating hovers just above 30 percent—but it’s hardly because he’s too hardline on Israel. In our own extensive discussions with Abbas and his negotiating team as White House Middle East advisers during the Obama administration, we found them deterred most of all by the fear they could not sell further concessions to their people, who were seething about years of continued Israeli settlement expansion, land confiscation, and increased limits on Palestinian movement. And that problem is even greater today. In fact, more Palestinians now oppose a two-state solution than support one, and a majority—57 percent—say that such a solution is no longer practical because of Israeli settlement expansion, which now extends deep into the West Bank. Over 35 percent of Palestinians now support a one-state solution—in other words, a single country with an Arab majority and equal rights for all—a solution increasingly appealing to Palestinians under the age of 30. [...]
But Trump has abandoned even the veneer of objectivity. Just last month, he unilaterally gave Israel one of its most coveted prizes in negotiations, recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, without getting anything in return. To make it worse, he then celebrated the unilateral move of the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem—a move opposed by 128 countries at the United Nations—with a big ceremony organized just one day before Palestinians observe the nakba, the catastrophe of their expulsion in 1948. The embassy ceremony was attended by dozens of Republican-only members of Congress and included speeches by evangelical pastors known primarily for bigoted remarks against Mormons, Jews, and Muslims, suggesting the whole thing was more about domestic politics than Middle East peace.
While dozens of Palestinians in Gaza were killed in clashes with the Israeli Defense Forces, the Trump administration chose neither to express sympathy for the Palestinians killed nor to join international calls for Israeli restraint. Trump has, on the other hand, cut financial assistance for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) out of pique that the Palestinians have not given him the requisite “appreciation or respect,” as if humanitarian aid, even when it serves U.S. national interests, should be awarded in return for flattery. His administration has offered unconstrained support for settlements, with an ambassador who has fought against use of the word “occupation” and refers to “Judea and Samaria,” as favored by Israeli settlers, instead of traditional U.S. references to the West Bank. It is no surprise, therefore, that the Palestinians stopped talking to the administration. It is hard to see how the United States under Trump will ever be seen as an honest broker, or be able to go around Abbas, when two-thirds of Palestinians oppose the resumption of contacts with U.S. negotiators and 88 percent view the United States as biased in favor of Israel. [...]
Finally, there is the problem that Israelis under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will almost certainly never agree to the sort of deal that would be necessary to make Palestinian or Arab acceptance even remotely feasible. In the past few years, Netanyahu has stopped even talking about support for the two-state solution, which he first accepted in a highly caveated way in a 2009 speech at Bar Ilan University. A majority of members of the current Israeli cabinet do not even support the creation of a Palestinian state, much less the concessions Israel would need to make to achieve it. And with Netanyahu and his wife the subject of several serious corruption inquiries, the prime minister likely sees his only hope as to keeping that hardline cabinet together to stave off or delay potential indictments. It is far from clear that the Israeli people themselves are prepared to make the major compromises required for peace, including the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of settlers from the West Bank. But it is quite clear that the current Israeli government is not ready to do so. In his interview, Kushner questions whether Abbas has the ability or the willingness to “lean into finishing a deal.” But neither does Netanyahu, and the fact that Kushner only calls out one side is telling. It is itself part of the problem.
openDemocracy: Why Brexit won’t work: the EU is about regulation not sovereignty
I stumbled across its significance of regulation and am only beginning to get a measure of it. Denunciation of the EU’s over-regulation was the starting point of the long campaign against British membership. Now, a revealing analysis in openDemocracy reports staggeringly high rates of popular support in the UK for European levels of regulation. They run at between 70-80% - incorporating large majorities of those who voted to Leave. While the big boys bang on about sovereignty, regular people, women somewhat more than men, prefer regulation. Brexit has a weird, old-fashioned veneer because it is so male-dominated and self-important, giving the issue its end of epoch feel. The campaign against it risks being drawn into similar routines and perhaps recognising the centrality of regulation can help prevent this. [...]
By regulation I don’t just mean high profile financial regulation. I mean its ongoing, background role in ensuring the quality of the air we breathe, the medicines we take, the food we consume and the safety of the flights we board. You could undertake the enormous costs of building custom checks for goods going between the UK from the EU. But what is the point, if you then have to recreate and duplicate inside the UK the entire apparatus of regulations, with their ongoing autonomy from parliamentary 'sovereignty'? The idea that once the UK left the EU Britain could ‘do away’ with regulation from Brussels, because it is mostly unnecessary, has proven to be an utter fantasy. Britain’s wannabe Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, told the BBC, “we will finish up perhaps in an even worse place than we are now because we won’t be free to de-regulate”. But no modern democracy would wish to deregulate. It is not the road to freedom. And as the UK government is learning, public opinion will not let it deregulate. This is a fundamental lesson of Brexit. [...]
If you embrace the Hobbesian, Westminster notion of the state, as Brexiteers do, then power is zero-sum. Either one has it or the other does. In contrast, the powers of regulation are an exercise in mutual collaboration with the aim of collective gain. The process is win-win not win-loose. For for the Anglo-British this cannot define the nature of power, for sovereignty cannot be shared it can only be singular. There are endless examples of this taken-for-granted assumption across the commentariat, both Remainers and Leavers. To take an example at random, Oliver Wiseman, the editor of CapX website, says he prefers "the return of powers from an undemocratic supranational organisation to a democratic national government”. The assumption: that power is something you have or do not have and can be returned. But in many fields there is no such possibility. The power of regulation resides in relationships that are negotiated. The process needs to be democratised but it can't be 'returned'. The underlying premise of Brexit is that sovereignty is simple. It is not. If it ever was, it isn't simple now. It is complex, multi-layered and in the age of corporations no longer something nation states can monopolise over their territory. Hence Brexit cannot be 'Brexit', as in Boris Johnson's call for a "full British Brexit". Sovereignty is no longer a meal we can eat alone. [...]
It seems that the EU has in this way developed over 11,000 regulations, set over 60,000 standards and its different agencies have taken over 18,000 decisions on interpreting regulations and laws. Forrester notes that it could take ten years to incorporate them into British law, if each is accorded scrutiny. This alone shows that a process has been taking place that is beyond the reach and capacity of traditional legislatures. The result was acknowledged by the prime minister in her Mansion House speech in March when she finally set out ambitions for Brexit, “the UK will need to make a strong commitment that its regulatory standards will remain as high as the EU’s”. [...]
The defining ideologist of Brexit is the Daily Mail. It describes the main motive for leaving the EU as, “a deep-seated human yearning to recover our national identity and independence”. Must it be the case, then, that those of us who voted Remain are indifferent to, or have no yearning for, national identity and independence? I think not. I claim that we are more free in a fundamental way as persons - as English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish and British persons - inside the EU. Our liberty is enhanced within it, for all the dangers. You could answer that it is a false binary: that we can enjoy both patriotism and partnership, national identity and international regulation. Indeed, but such an answer takes a side. The spirit of Brexit insists on a single priority. For the Daily Mail our national identity and independence are being lost and must be “recovered”. It sees mass migration and the European Court of Justice and as invaders that have penetrated our national space. It demands they be repelled to save our country and its great institutions. If judges show themselves to be “enemies of the people” and peers of the realm have become “traitors in ermine” they merely confirm how far subversion has reached.
VisualPolitik: POLAND, how is it getting RICH?
Poland was the country that suffered the most from Second World War. However, today things have changed. Poland has been growing uninterruptedly for 25 years and not even the great crises of 2008 and 2009 managed to stop them.
Haaretz: Erdogan Just Became Turkey's New Founding Father
But with Sunday’s victory in both the presidential and parliamentary elections, Erdogan has now arguably achieved the same degree of control and power as Atatürk managed nearly a century ago – especially with the reform that turns Turkey into a presidential system now taking effect.
In March, Erdogan overtook Atatürk as Turkey’s longest-serving leader (the latter died on his 5,492nd day in office). The president’s supporters already worship him like a god. Moreover, he has been shaping Turkish society over the past 16 years in a way like no other Turkish leader since Atatürk’s reign ended in 1938. [...]
It is no wonder, then, that for the past decade, Erdogan has been obsessed with the year 2023, when Turkey celebrates 100 years since the establishment of the Republic. His rhetoric about a “New Turkey” – by which he means an economically successful state that has broken free of what he sees as the shackles of repressive secularism – has the centenary as its symbolic target. And, of course, Erdogan has long coveted reaching the year 2023 in power, thus presenting himself as the “founding father” of the “New Turkey” while the country is celebrating Atatürk, the hero of the Turkish War of Independence. [...]
Erdogan later called the coup “a gift from God” – a comment that observers understood to refer to the opportunity it gave him to go after members of Gülen’s movement. But Erdogan likely also saw it as a chance to boost his historical standing. This explains why the narrative of the “second war of independence,” of the victory against “foreign, occupying forces” during the night of the coup was quickly promoted by the government and its obliging press. On the coup’s first anniversary, the state offered hundreds of overseas journalists luxury trips to Turkey to hear the story firsthand.
Politico: ‘He does not understand what the role of an ambassador should be’
Liebich was far from alone in his assessment of Grenell’s first few weeks on the job. Martin Schulz, the former chancellor candidate and leader of the center-left Social Democrats, said Grenell sounded more “like a far-right colonial officer” than a diplomat in his Breitbart interview; Sahra Wagenknecht, leader of Liebich’s Die Linke, called for Grenell’s expulsion from Germany. Things started off rocky behind closed doors, too, as Grenell clashed with top Foreign Office officials in his first days in the job. The ambassador is, however, reportedly willing to learn from his mistakes and has since worked to tone down his Trumpian rhetoric: He apologized for the Breitbart controversy in a meeting with officials from the Foreign Office, according to someone with knowledge of the encounter, and has kept a lower profile in the weeks since the controversy. Even his Twitter feed has, it seems, been tamer in recent weeks. But here in Berlin, Germans are still watching him very closely [...]
What Germans resented even more, it turns out, was an interview with the alt-right Breitbart published a few weeks later. When Grenell said in the multi-installment interview that it is his goal to “empower” conservatives across Europe, Berlin political types took those comments to refer to far-right populist parties like the Alternative for Germany. In the same interview, Grenell issued strong praise for Austria’s Kurz, whose hard-line immigration policies often put him at odds with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Germany’s Foreign Office soon asked for “clarification” from Grenell, and German politicians began crying foul, calling the interview at best undiplomatic and at worst a fireable offense. Grenell later said his comments had been misconstrued: “The idea that I’d endorse candidates/parties is ridiculous,” he wrote on Twitter. “I stand by my comments that we are experiencing an awakening from the silent majority — those who reject the elites & their bubble.” (The State Department also came to Grenell’s defense, with spokeswoman Heather Nauert saying, “Don’t we as Americans have the right to free speech?”) But even the choice of outlet — Breitbart has made no secret of its admiration for far-right populist parties across Europe — sent a clear message about the kind of audience Grenell seemed to want to reach in his new role. [...]
Since the furor over his Breitbart interview, Grenell has kept a somewhat lower profile, prompting those in Berlin who have met with him since to say he truly seems interested in learning from his early mistakes. Another meeting with Michaelis and others at the Foreign Office earlier this month, shortly after the Breitbart interview came out, was ultimately quite amicable, according to the Foreign Office official. Grenell apologized for the interview, the official said, and explained that he had not intended to cause such a stir. Peter Beyer, a member of Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats and the transatlantic coordinator in parliament, described the atmosphere at the meeting as “friendly and constructive,” but added that it included its fair share of “contentious issues.” What’s most important, Beyer says, is sitting down and discussing things face-to-face: “For me, speaking with each other instead of tweeting at each other is the right way to work together in partnership.”
Politico: What populists get right
But first, what exactly is a populist? So far, there hasn’t really been a single, agreed-upon definition. Pundits have defined it variously as nativism (Viktor Orbán in Hungary), majoritarianism (Jarosław Kaczyński in Poland), anti-elitism (Beppe Grillo in Italy), economic surrealism (Alexis Tsipras in Greece), and of course good-old demagoguery (Donald Trump).
Nor do populists necessarily agree on policy. Some are anti-austerity leftists, others are anti-immigration right-wingers. Take Kaczyński and the Dutch firebrand Geert Wilders. Both are populist politicians who oppose immigration and rail against the EU, but they hold diametrically opposed views on gay rights. [...]
What unites Europe’s populist movements is their refusal to play by the rules of conventional politics. This is more a matter of style than anything else — they are essentially disruptive parties and like to put on a good show — but the idea clearly appeals to a growing number of voters and could lead to concrete changes in our political system of representation. [...]
Populist parties have also made reforming the political system a key part of their agenda, claiming to want to reduce the power of parties, cut down the size of parliaments and curtail lobbyism. Controversially, Poland and Hungary have introduced reforms to reduce the power of elites while tightening their grip on power. Many populists promote direct democracy, such as referenda and citizen’s initiatives. It’s telling that the European Parliament group that unites Italy’s 5Star Movement, the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany, the far-right Sweden Democrats and Euroskeptic UKIP calls itself “Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy.”
Politico: Commission pushes Council to revise migration plan
Commission Secretary-General Martin Selmayr, acting on behalf of President Jean-Claude Juncker, stirred controversy last week by proposing a draft leaders’ statement for the mini summit that was clearly intended for the same purpose: to supplant the draft conclusions on migration issued to national capitals just a day earlier by Council President Donald Tusk.
The move infuriated the Italian government, which was angered at the content of the text, as well as Council officials, who were annoyed by the substance of the statement but also the incursion onto their turf. The Commission text was torpedoed at the behest of German Chancellor Angela Merkel after Italian Prime Minster Giuseppe Conte threatened to boycott the mini summit. [...]
Among the tasty morsels: a pledge of an additional €500 million for the EU’s Africa Trust Fund, money for the next tranche in the €3-billion facility for refugees in Turkey, and a plan for “reception,” or “welcome,” or “disembarkation” centers outside the EU for processing migrants who are rescued or intercepted at sea. [...]
And, in an added bit of grandstanding, the Commission also proposed setting an ambitious target for increasing the numbers of returned illegal migrants: “The European Council calls on the member states to take immediate action to achieve an EU return rate of at least 70 percent by the end of 2019.”
Independent: I work in Brussels alongside the EU Brexit negotiators and I find it incredible how little the UK government understands
Everyone I meet, wherever I am these days, asks me the same thing: “What are the Brits doing?” Even Brits ask me what we’re doing. And I wish I knew what we were doing, I really do. The trouble is that all we’ve received from the British government in the last year and a half has been overused slogans, half-baked threats and undercooked plans. Just one thing has been resoundingly clear from the government: Brexit means Brexit. [...]
As a third country, it has been confirmed by EU negotiator Michel Barnier that the UK will not be in the EU’s crime-fighting intelligence agency Europol or the EU’s satellite project Galileo. It’s not a matter of money – no amount of cash is going to allow Britain to continue being in Europol or Galileo. It’s about trust.
Nick Gutteridge, a journalist in Brussels, recently tweeted a comment from an unnamed EU official who summarised the third country conundrum perfectly. I will quote the entire thing because it is really quite brilliant: “There is not an issue of general distrust towards the UK. That’s not the issue, but the EU is a rules-based system. Why is that? It’s because 28 member states do not trust each other spontaneously; they trust each other because they work on the basis of agreed common rules with common enforcement, common supervision and under a European court that will make sure they all apply the same rules in the same manner. They trust each other because there are remedies available. If you don’t have these remedies, you’re a third country.”
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