| | | | Trump Should Be Wary About Who's Not In the Room | | President Trump is scheduled to deliver his remarks to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday morning. Chinese President Xi Jinping won't be there, but America is making a mistake if it ignores Beijing's growing clout, suggests Richard Gowan for Politico EU.
"Many developing countries, with strong ties to Beijing dating back to the Cold War, are happy to back its line today, although some are keen to triangulate with the West to retain some independence. The Chinese mission to the UN has also been courting its European counterparts, arguing that the EU has more in common with Beijing than Washington in the current era. European diplomats admit that, when it comes to climate change or trade policy, this is a tempting pitch," Gowan writes.
"China wields financial clout in New York as the second biggest contributor to the UN's core budget and has tried to use its leverage to cut back funding for UN human rights work. American and European negotiators have generally managed to persuade the Chinese to step back from these cuts. But with the US pushing for large reductions to the UN budget in general, and China's financial leverage only likely to grow in the years ahead, Beijing will gain even more power over the UN's purse strings in the future."
| | What We Get Wrong About Strongmen | | | The growing popularity of strongmen leaders around the world is largely rooted in the notion that, for all their faults, at least they get things done. It's time we were disabused of that notion, writes Vance Serchuk in The Atlantic.
"Human rights and civil liberties are all well and good, the reasoning goes, but when the world is on fire, it's necessary for someone to take charge—someone tough. Strongmen may be prone to excesses, but they have the guts to do what needs to be done—and when the alternative seems to be gridlock and stagnation, it isn't difficult to see why these arguments get traction," Serchuk argues.
"Yet the problem with concentrating power is that the appetite tends to grow with the eating. And the more concentrated power gets, the more unaccountable it becomes. Meanwhile, personalized rule almost always subverts the very institutions that provide the real long-term foundation for sound public policy and economic dynamism: an independent, professional judiciary; a free press; apolitical, qualified civil servants, regulators, and security services." | | Forgotten About the Russia-Ukraine Conflict? Ukrainians Haven't | | | The Russian-Ukrainian conflict has long largely slipped from the front pages of newspapers, but continues to smolder, suggests Anne Applebaum in The Washington Post. As it does, it is slowly turning ties between the two countries to ash.
"Thanks to the war, and to their anger at its perpetrators, Ukrainians themselves are choosing to speak Ukrainian—more say they do every year. Thanks to the war, the different regions of this vast country are drawing more closely together," Applebaum writes. "[T]hanks to the war, more Ukrainians also identify themselves as 'European,' in opposition to Russia, and more Ukrainians understand that this 'Europeanness' means they need to be vocal and organized in their desire for change.
"It is ironic that the Russian invasion, originally intended to punish Ukraine's Western-oriented government, has pushed the country in a dramatically different direction." | | Why America Finds It Tough to Quit China | | "The trade fight between the United States and China intensified Monday as the two economic superpowers hit each other with their biggest round of tariffs yet," CNN reports. Still, America will find it hard to quit the relationship, writes Alexandra Stevenson in The New York Times.
"From zippers and rivets on jackets and jeans to the minerals used in iPhones, China makes or processes many of the ingredients that go into today's consumer goods. It has a dependable source of workers who know how to hold down factory jobs. It has reliable roads and rail lines connecting suppliers to assembly plants to ports," Stevenson writes.
"Countries like Vietnam and Cambodia, by contrast, lack China's vast supplier base and dependable roads. More workers have to be trained. Many companies have to start from scratch."
| | Time to Worry About
Saudi Arabia? | | An impulsive Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has left Saudi Arabia looking as unstable as it has in decades, argues Bruce Riedel for Al-Monitor. It's time for the Trump administration to stop issuing blank checks for the Kingdom's "reckless" foreign policy.
"American presidents have not seriously worried about the stability of Saudi Arabia since John F. Kennedy. Now they should. For 50 years the kingdom was predictable and stable. The line of succession was known and clear, crucial in any monarchy for its political health," Riedel writes.
"The Trump administration has given Saudi Arabia a blank check and supports its war in Yemen. The crown prince has been touted by the White House. It's a foolish and dangerous approach." - Are recent Saudi reforms for real? Fareed was joined by Saudi rights activist Manal al-Sharif to discuss the issue on GPS yesterday. Watch the full interview here.
| | President Trump is expected to chair a UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday. Per Reuters: "The topic of the meeting will be nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, a broad issue that allows leaders around the horse-shoe table to raise a variety of subjects from North Korea to chemical weapons attacks in Syria and Britain."
President Trump is expected to host Chilean President Sebastian Pinera at the White House on Friday.
Macedonia will hold a referendum on an official name change on Sunday, which could help open the way for it to join NATO. Cue Russian interference, The Washington Post editorializes. "Moscow's spoiling campaign is another reminder that Mr. Putin views relations with the West in stark zero-sum terms: Any gain by the democracies, however small, is regarded as a mortal threat," the Post argues. | | | | | | |
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