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Global Translations comes to you this morning from Singapore or, more precisely, from a prefabricated quarantine hotel within the main city-state convention center. The vibe is Orwellian Chic. Preparations are underway here for the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s top security summit and the World Economic Forum in August. More about these events in the Globetrotters section.
ANTONY FLASHES OF LUCK – JOHN KERRY, NOT SO MUCH
President Joe Biden will sign secretary of state Antony BlinkenThe physical visit to Brussels, with a virtual appearance before European national leaders, on Thursday, during a European Council summit. Call it the last stop at Biden’s Tour Save Democracy. Mutual goodwill is clear, but the list of topics is long: so don’t expect detailed results from the negotiations on Covid, climate, trade, China, Russia and strengthening democracy.
Context: Guide to forms on the chairman of the board Charles Michel. Biden’s appearance also occurs when Brussels has been five years since it was hit by terrorist attacks. Michel was Prime Minister of Belgium when the bombers attacked.
EU-CHINA TRADE AGREEMENT ON LIFE SUPPORT: Beijing hit back against EU sanctions imposed Monday on human rights abuses in Xinjiang, targeting EU officials, diplomats, ambassadors and non-profit organizations, including the Alliance of Democracies Foundation, with retaliatory sanctions. The hit list includes Reinhard Bütikofer, head of the European Parliament’s delegation to China.
Unexpected counter strike: China’s top diplomatic priority is to create a division between Brussels and Washington. After the bitterness of last week USA – China meeting in Alaska, China’s choice to open another battle front with the EU is a gift for Blinken. Three of Europe’s largest political groups, representing almost half of the European Parliament, have already said they will not ratify the EU-China investment agreement. As they believe that China is promoting genocide, in addition to sanctioning its colleagues, the business is sinking faster than the Titanic. Stuart Lau has more Details.
The lesson of trade and politics: China went from a source of transatlantic division to unity in just a month, and proved to democracies that when they work together they can (sometimes) outperform China.
Although most European leaders include Angela Merkel and Emmanual Macron remain skeptical about a Cold War-style containment of China, they now have their own reasons for hardening their position, in addition to Biden and Blinken’s request. “It is not a question of siding with America, but of defending European sovereignty against an aggressor,” he said. Benjamin Haddad, who runs the European Center of the Atlantic Council.
BUT DEMOCRACIES THAT REJECT CHINA PUT GLOBAL CLIMATE PROGRESS AT RISK: China brought together ministers from around the world on Tuesday to discuss the climate – including governments that launched sanctions against it just a day earlier.
While both the US (via John kerry) and China (with Xie Zhenhua) attended Tuesday’s mini-summit, there was no individual superpower meeting. “Geopolitical clouds are spreading to the climate agenda,” Li Shuo, a Greenpeace policy expert, told my colleague Zack Colman. China Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying attacked countries that “came together against China”, but still noted that the climate was a “common challenge facing humanity”
Big practical problem: when leading American and Chinese diplomats are not speaking well, how can hundreds of low-level technical officials on both sides work together effectively and at high speed? What if the G-2 is not setting the course for a new global climate deal – as it did before the month-long summit in Paris in 2015 – is the COP26 summit in November in Glasgow bound to fail?
The next step – difficult goals for 2030: Japan will announce a bolder target for 2030 ahead of the June G-7 summit, and the United States is expected to announce a new 2030 target in April, ahead of the next big climate meeting, convened by President Biden. The EU has already agreed to reduce its emissions by 55% from 1990 levels, by 2030.
BIDEN KNOWS THE WORLD
WINNING FRIENDS AND INFLUENCING ISLANDS: Further evidence that climate and geopolitics are blending came through an enigmatic declaration on a new US aid structure for small, low-population island states, launched by the National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Director of the National Economic Council Brian Deese.
What did they say: The “new framework for economic cooperation” was “designed to strengthen US collaboration with these island economies to address Covid-19’s economic challenges, promote economic recovery, respond to the climate crisis and promote shared long-term interests.
What they meant: The Biden government is preparing to buy the love of small countries deeply affected by climate change and now from Covid – after years of China moving forward in these relations.
Interesting moment: The new structure was announced the day before Samantha Power, Appointed Biden to lead the United States Agency for International Development, had the chance to report to the Senate. Power told senators on Tuesday that China is using its economic weight in often “predatory” ways against small countries, justifying “urgent, immediate and well-resourced attention”.
NORTH KOREA – MISSILES OR NOT, BIDEN STILL WANTS TO SPEAK: Suspicious NoKorean missiles fired over the weekend involved minor weapon systems not covered by the UN Security Council’s test ban, two senior officials told reporters Tuesday.
MEET THE BLOB – 16 SENIOR EMPLOYEES COME FROM TWO CONSULTING COMPANIES: WestExec advisers, aligned to Democrats, and the Albright Stonebridge Group provided groups of senior security officials and diplomats. Theo Meyer guides you all names and their connections.
ISRAEL – DEMOCRACY DEAD: With almost 90 percent of the votes counted, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and its religious and nationalist allies failed, for the fourth time in two years, to win a parliamentary majority. His opponents were expected to win exactly half the seats in Parliament, giving them the chance to elect a new president. Netanyahu’s Likud party is once again the largest party, but is likely to decrease from 36 to 30 seats (from 120). The maker of kings can end up being Mansour Abbas, whose Islamic Ra’am party is expected to win five seats. Another election may be at stake.
GLOBAL RISKS AND TRENDS
COVID – SLOVAKIA MAY BE THE FIRST GOVERNMENT TO FALL VACCINE ERRORS: Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová called the prime minister of the country, Igor Matovič, to resign on Tuesday and end the political crisis sparked by his unilateral decision to buy the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine from Russia (like neighboring Hungary). Čaputová said after having already accepted the resignation of the country’s Minister of Justice, Mária Kolíková. Siegfried Mortkowitz reports.
COVID – MEN MASTER THE FORCES PANDEMIC TASKS: Men outnumber women by three to one in 225 Covid government task forces worldwide, according to data released by the UN and the University of Pittsburg’s Gender Inequality Research Laboratory (GIRL). ONE Covid-19 Global Gender Response Tracker Tool covers committees from 137 countries, including 26 countries where there was no female representation.
CLIMATE – HOW TO PUT THE SPEAKER IN ZERO ZERO PROMISES: Former Vice President of the World Bank Rachel Kyte argues “we need applicable international rules, independently judged and based on science, free from the influence of industry – think a World Anti-Doping Agency with teeth. “
RECOVERY OF FEATURED WORKS
NAME: Jennifer Harris is joining the Biden White House as Senior Director of International Labor and Economics at the National Security Council and the National Economic Council
🎧 Listen to Harris in the most recent Global Translations podcast season on how the U.S. economy can add jobs and compete with China.
DEBATE – SHOULD GIG WORK BE PERFORMED BY THE GOVERNMENT?
GLOBETROTTERS
WEF – SINGLE BUBBLE WRAP SUMMIT: We are moving towards a lean World Economic Forum, from 17 to 20 August. Nothing is fixed, but the WEF is looking at about 1,500 official delegates, based on the 2,561 room Marina Bay Sands Resort, which also has a 1,300,000 square foot convention center. A 1,400-square-foot suite with a “dedicated butler” is selling for about $ 1,000 a night this weekend. Considering that a single bed in a three-star hotel in Davos costs $ 900 a night during the WEF, you can imagine what the increase will be like in August.
Without quarantine: WEF delegates will be exempted from serving Singapore’s “14 days stay at home” notice upon arrival, but there is a price: segregation from the local community during the trip. This means that anyone who plans to be in Singapore as a parasite of the WEF (about two-thirds of the people who actually come to Davos for the WEF) will find themselves struggling to be relevant, because there will not be a mix between official and unofficial events. Here is the Singaporean Minister of Health Janil Puthucheary explaining the protocols.
Vaccination: WEF staff and event officials will be vaccinated prior to the event, and delegates who are not vaccinated will be under stricter testing regimes. Masks and Singapore’s Trace Together app will be required
Be careful what you wish for: A minor and more tightly controlled WEF it sounds like a dream for CEOs and global leaders who usually arrive in Davos: it would be an even more elitist and unsurprising encounter. But this type of event ends up with the media and is in danger of being a failure while journalists are looking for pandemic-related scandals.
Time is important: WEF is advancing in August, not to mess with American and European holidays, but to present itself at the UN General Assembly, at the G20 and COP26 conferences.
JOURNEY OF REVENGE: Morning consultation last consumer survey it shows wealthy graduate holders and young adults are preparing for summer vacation once the pandemic is under control.
NOMINATED – MEET THE NEW EU DIVORCE MEDIATOR: Richard Szostak, 42, is a Polish-British national duo charged with shaping the logistics of the New EU relationship with Britain.
UNDER THE FIRE – DAVID CAMERON, FOR ALLEGEDLY BREACHING THE OWN ANTI-SLEAZE RULES: The former British Prime Minister may face an investigation by allegedly violating anti-lobbying rules that he brought several years ago.
BRAIN FOOD
BOOK – IN THE BOMB EXPLOSION, in Karen Northshield. Five years ago, Northshield was returning home to visit his family in the United States when one of the bombers in Brussels detonated his explosives beside her. Her heart stopped three times in the following days: she spent several years recovering in the hospital, having undergone 60 operations. For all of this, Northshield and other victims received less than $ 40,000 for their medical expenses, from the Belgian authorities whose several errors contributed to the death toll that day.
PODCAST – “BABEL: TRANSLATING THE MIDDLE EAST”: Jon Alterman (CSIS) This week’s podcast focuses on the stories of five Syrians whose lives were destroyed by a decade of war, including a survivor of torture, a journalist and survivors of brutal sieges
Thanks to the editor Ben Pauker, Nahal Toosi, Stuart Lau
