The Cosmopolitan Globalists have been reading ...

What caught the editors' eyes this week?

Back by popular demand—we’re very pleased you liked it—we share the most interesting articles we’ve come across this week. If you come across an article or a paper that you think we should read and commend to our readers, please don’t hesitate to send it to us.

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Zeihan’s Crisis List

Last week, we read a series of articles by Peter Zeihan titled Life After Trump. He continues this week with a series titled “The Crisis List.” Here are the first two installments:

Life After Trump, Part VI: Russia

This time around the Russian effort will focus on keeping Trumpism alive. … The goal is pretty straightforward: keep America’s most violent citizens as politically active as possible.

Life After Trump, Part VII: The Middle East

If there is one thing most Americans agree on … it is that they want the United States to get out of the Persian Gulf. The challenge is finding a way to do so that also avoids sucking America back …

There is more to come. The list of crises, alas, is long.

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China in translation

We recommend Reading the Chinese Dream, a remarkable site run by David Ownby, a professor of history at the Université de Montréal.

This web site is devoted to the subject of intellectual life in contemporary China, and more particularly to the writings of establishment intellectuals.  What you will find here are essentially translations of Chinese texts that we consider important, together with discussions of related issues and a number of reference tools that can help those interested to navigate the project.

The writers range from staunch CCP apologists to regime critics and democracy advocates.

In Globalization after the Pandemic: Thoughts on the Coronavirus, the liberal intellectual Qin Hui remarks that it is “sobering and frustrating” that democracies have fared so poorly in keeping their citizens alive during the pandemic compared to China:

Must democracies be so incompetent in the face of an emergency? “Live free or die” is certainly timeless and of universal value as a slogan for freedom, and as a choice for some individuals can be admirable. But for human society, survival is more important than freedom (especially high levels of freedom, such as the freedom of getting together to have fun during an epidemic), and jeopardizing public safety for one’s own freedom is contrary to universal values (not just “Asian values”). …

Trump is certainly not blameless for the pandemic mess in the US, but the problem is really more due to of the weakness of conventional democracy in the face of things such as pandemics, and is not simply a matter of a “bad president.” This is something we democracy advocates must seriously face up to. …

What the West should seriously consider is the important flaw in liberal democracy as an institution in the face of the current emergency. Of course you can complain about China’s ineffective control in the early stages of the epidemic that led to its spread elsewhere, but when the virus reaches your shore and takes root, and you can’t control it with the high level of medical care and the national power at your disposition, does it make sense to blame China? Can blaming China resolve the trade-off between the pros and cons of democracy and authoritarianism in this institutional contest? Imagine again the worst-case scenario: what would you do if democracies and totalitarian states were really engaged in biological warfare, or virus warfare, the deliberate spread of an epidemic to an enemy? If you spread your epidemic in a totalitarian state and they can control it completely with extreme measures, and when they spread theirs in your democracies and you wind up in the same mess you are in today, how can democracy be sustainable? Or does the sustainability of democracy depend on the benevolence of its enemies?

Every article on the site is interesting; here are a few of note:

Deng Yuwen, Chinese Statism, the Transitional Nature of Xi Jinping’s Regime, and America’s Response

Wang Shaoguang, “Representative and Representational Democracy”

Wang contrasts the mass line—which he claims has been reinvigorated under Xi Jinping—to electoral “representational 代表性民主” democracy in the West, compromised by the power of corporate lobbyists, the inability of the disenfranchised to influence policy, and the limited number of political alternatives available to voters. This has, Wang points out, led to an overwhelming sense among Western electorates that politicians do not represent them in any genuine sense. At a time when Western democracies are facing unprecedented challenges—from hard-right populist surges throughout Europe to the Donald Trump presidency in the United States—Wang’s argument takes on extra resonance. 

Four Chinese Scholars Discuss the Post-Election United States

Jiang Shigong,  The Critical Decade in the Sino-American Relationship: The New Roman Empire and the New Great Struggle

If we consider the discussion from “why the US lost China” in 1948 to “why it misjudged China” in 2018 as major blunders in US policy towards China at critical periods in its history, then we should look at why the US policy towards China has repeatedly made such huge strategic blunders. …

If the disintegration of the Soviet Union was one lesson for China, allowing China to maintain a clear-headed political consciousness throughout, then America’s decline is another lesson, counseling China to always exercise strategic restraint, overcome the cultural vanity of saving the world, and to maintain constant strategic focus on nation-building, constantly increasing its power, both hard and soft.  Because in a world of international competition, “power is the hard truth.” … Whether it is the disintegration of the Soviet Union or the decline of the United States, the decisive factors are always internal, which means that the result of future Sino-American competition will basically be determined by domestic affairs in China. 

It’s particularly interesting that these essays seem to be written for popular audiences, not specialists or scholars. The asymmetry in the United States’ relationship with the world is striking. We can’t quite imagine a long-form essay in a popular mainstream newspaper—USA Today, say—where the author discusses significant currents in Chinese thought as fluently as these writers discuss trends in American political and intellectual life. Everyone understands American culture better than Americans do theirs.

(But it needn’t be that way; that’s one reason this newsletter exists.)

If you’re fascinated by these essays and want to read more, try China: History and Future, edited by an anonymous exiled Chinese scholar in Europe. It’s entirely comprehensible through machine translation: Try it, you’ll see. (If you’re new to this newsletter and missed our series on the revolution in machine translation, read it here.)

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Why Putin feels vindicated by the pandemic

Moscow saw that democracies were not better equipped to face the virus than autocracies—and that the EU, with its commitment to free movement, was almost philosophically unfit to answer the challenge. …

In some ways, as unpleasant as it may be to admit it, Putin is right. … Russia will only take Europeans—and even Americans—seriously as global partners if they show that they have gotten their domestic arrangements right and ensured that their political systems are sound and sustainable.

How China became a power in the Western Balkans

… China is on the cusp of acquiring real leverage over policy choices, political attitudes, and narratives in some parts of the Western Balkans. While it has not defined this endeavour as following an explicit strategy, Beijing has implemented policies designed to establish a significant presence along key land and maritime routes that run deep into Europe.

The crisis of American power: How Europeans see Biden’s America

Majorities in key member states now think the US political system is broken, that China will be more powerful than the US within a decade, and that Europeans cannot rely on the US to defend them. They are drawing radical consequences from these lessons. Large numbers think Europeans should invest in their own defense and look to Berlin rather than Washington as their most important partner. They want to be tougher with the US on economic issues. And, rather than aligning with Washington, they want their countries to stay neutral in a conflict between the US and Russia or China. …

… although a majority of Europeans are happy with Biden’s election, many do not trust the American electorate not to vote for another Donald Trump in four years. Looking at the results for Europe as a whole, 32 percent of all respondents to ECFR’s poll agree that, after voting for Trump in 2016, Americans cannot be trusted —and only 27 percent disagree with this statement … Most strikingly, 53 percent of German respondents say that, after Trump, Americans can no longer be trusted …

… What Europeans love about the memory of cold war 1.0 is that they were on the winning side; the fear in many European countries is that cold war 2.0 might have a different outcome. The growing mistrust about Washington’s reliability and power is changing the nature of the transatlantic alliance. America’s cold war coalitions took the form of a Catholic marriage. They were meant to be monogamous, with no possibility of divorce. After four years of Trump, the alliance looks like a more casual arrangement—an open marriage in which bringing in other players is the key to not being exploited. Europeans no longer trust America to defend Europe and would express little solidarity with the US if it became involved in a conflict with other great powers. Reading ECFR’s survey, Washington will also have no reasons to trust European publics’ readiness to conduct a joint transatlantic foreign policy. …

There is a great chance for a revival of Atlanticism, but Washington cannot take European alignment against China for granted. Public opinion will have a bigger effect on the relationship than it once did, and needs to be taken into account.

Macron: EU shouldn’t gang up on China with US. See above.

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Just don’t sap our precious bodily fluids

Consider this 2019 analysis of Russian military thought: Concepts and Elements, if you have a bit of time to spare. The author, Timothy L. Thomas, is EUCOM information operations specialist. Chapter 7—“Russia’s Context for Cyber and Information Issues: Nine Thoughts for Consideration”—is especially interesting.

Russian military expert Aleksandr Perendzhiyev, working for the Association of Military Political Scientists, noted that victory is now forged in virtual space as much as on the battlefield. Former Soviet KGB Analysis Directorate Chief Vladimir Rubanov noted that “information space realistically is becoming a sphere of military activity on an equal basis with theaters of military operations on land, at sea, and in aerospace.” As a result the development of information operation troops became another priority, especially since Russia felt it was lacking specific forces on the modern battlefield, where information space was playing an ever-larger role. …

… Modern power, the authors add, rests on an inventory of the following means (or strategy) to wage information war realistically. They are arranged here in three groups: primary information warfare means, information support means, and the regular armed forces. All play different information-technical and information-psychological deterrent roles:

1. Primary: training groups to plan and wage information war; developing information warfare theory and a record of waging it; legal frameworks that allow for information warfare to be waged in peacetime and wartime; development of organized structures for waging information warfare; and the use of world-renowned academics.

2. Support: technical intelligence; specialized intelligence service; navigation aids; electronic warfare capabilities; information-telecommunications network development; high-speed computers and complex software; worldwide internal media centers; human rights organizations; and a movie industry, audiovisual industry, and computer (virtual) games industry.

3. Regular: strategic nuclear forces; ballistic missile defense systems; precision-guided munitions; naval forces; and special forces.

Information warfare is now a preferred method of attack, since it can be used liberally while nuclear weapons cannot. New forms and methods of information’s use will be applied based on 21st century technological breakthroughs. The basis for long term success will be preparing key groups of personnel for waging information warfare. Future information power will be based on preparing young people to compete in information warfare studies, specifically mathematics and physics in high schools. These topics will increase in the number of hours taught by two hours each week. …

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Why Navalny unnerves Russian liberals

Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of Russia’s liberal Yabloko Party, is as dismayed by Navalny as he is by Putin. No to Putinism and Populism, he writes:

The political line of Navalny is populism and nationalism. In my opinion, this was articulated most accurately in 2011 by Valeria Novodvorskaya: She noted that Navalny could become the “future leader of madding crowds, on top of that with a Nazi slant.” Novodvorskaya added: “The fight against corruption could lead to what has already been achieved in Belarus. Lukashenko deceived the people by talking all day and night about a fight against corruption. And he easily won over gullible Belarusians. Meanwhile, the short-sighted intelligentsia supported him, deciding that they would be able to lead him by the nose. Well we can just look at the Belarusian landscape today … Arrests are not some political indulgence. The Bolsheviks also did hard labor in exile, while Dzerzhinsky spent 10 years in prison. Hitler was also imprisoned. Sadly, not for 15 years. Maybe, if there hadn’t been a Second World War … If the crowds follow Navalny, the country in future can expect fascism … The war which is being  waged, … is not by a long shot being waged only against Putin. It is being waged for a non-democratic future of Russia. It is being waged for past communism and future fascism. And Navalny is one of the potential leaders of this new calamity.”

Since then nothing has changed. There is nothing positive in Navalny’s aspirations to participate in Russian politics with the ideas and agenda that he proposes. When neo-Nazis killed human rights advocate Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova in 2009, Navalny organised the “Russian marches”, where strictly speaking attendants incited inter-ethnic hatred and advocated similar murders. Navalny did not conceal this nationalist vector during the war with Georgia, and also when commenting on the war in Donbass (his dialogue with Strelkov-Girkin says a lot). …

This is why everyone should decide for themselves whether to support Navalny or not as a politician. However, the following needs to be understood: a democratic Russia, respect for the individual, freedom, a life without fear and without repressions—all these factors are incompatible with Navalny’s politics. We are talking here about fundamentally different directions. 

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Life’s not so great out of the EU

Amsterdam overtakes London as Europe’s largest share trading center.

Hauliers express fury as exports to EU dropped 68 percent since Brexit

Brexit causing supply problems for small UK manufacturers—survey

Brexit: as half its sales are wiped out, silk firm joins exodus to Europe

Rotting fish, lost business and piles of red tape. The reality of Brexit hits Britain

Brexit woes: small UK distillers struggle to ship gin and whisky to EU

Britain’s economy contracted nearly 10 percent last year

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But it’s not so great in it, either

EU foreign policy RIP

In what is being called “the humiliation” in Europe’s capitals, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell stood silent in Moscow last Friday as Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed the EU as an “unreliable partner” during a joint appearance on live television. The only response Borrell managed to muster to Lavrov’s lengthy diatribe was a pained grin. 

Back in the Brussels bubble, European parliamentarians reacted with outrage and calls for Borrell’s resignation. Belgian MEP Assita Kanko even asked Borrell, a Spaniard, what had happened to the EU’s cojones.

By asking the question, she unwittingly exposed the EU’s dirty little secret: It has none. 

EU’s reputation shredded in vaccine fiasco

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Depressing statistics

One out of every 660 Americans has now died of the coronavirus.

One out of 797 in France.

One out of 823 in Sweden.

One out of 885 in Brazil.

One out of 8756 in India.

One out of 9,000 in Norway

One out of 27,000 in Australia.

One out of 301,553 in China.

One out of 853,658 in Thailand.

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We can’t leave off on that note. Remember: It’s not the best of all possible worlds, but it’s not the worst of all possible worlds, either.