GEOPOLITICS & WORLDS
Il 2022 difficile per Joe Biden. Bruce Wolpe per The Strategist: The new year is well underway for US President Joe Biden. It’s not pretty. The Russians are coming at Ukraine. The pandemic is not under control; America this year will come close to one million dead from Covid-19. Inflation is at a 40-year high. Biden’s sweeping legislation on social programs and climate change is dying in the Senate. He has been unable to unlock the shackles on voting rights legislation, angering his base of black voters that helped sweep him into the White House. At 42%, Biden’s job approval is the worst of any modern president—save for Donald Trump. The November midterm elections look like a disaster, with the Republicans all but certain to take over the House of Representatives, and perhaps the Senate as well. There’s already talk the House Republicans will impeach Biden in 2023. (Spoiler alert: they will.). Biden’s year of living perilously
USA, Qatar e l’approvvigionamento energetico globale. Joseph Stepansky, Al Jazeera: Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani is set to visit the White House this week for his first in-person meeting with US President Joe Biden, as analysts say the Gulf country again finds itself uniquely situated to play a critical role in United States foreign policy. Topping the agenda on Monday’s meeting, according to the White House, will be efforts to ensure “the stability of global energy supplies”, a not-so-veiled reference to fever-pitched tensions with Russia over Ukraine that could see Europe seek new avenues for its hefty natural gas needs. Qatar’s emir set for first White House meeting with Biden
Xi e Biden, visioni opposte sulla politica economica. David Uren per The Strategist: Xi Jinping and Joe Biden both face major political events in the closing months of this year and want economic conditions to be as favourable as possible, but the two have taken opposite tacks on the desirable course of interest rates. Beijing and Washington take opposite tacks in attempting to avoid economic crisis
La Cina e il mercato immobiliare. Henry Storey, The Interpreter: The events of the latter half of 2021 show that Beijing is willing to tolerate significant economic pain to deleverage its property sector. For the Chinese Communist Party, the financial and social risks posed by the current state of the real estate sector are existential. At the end of the second quarter of 2021, the sector’s official outstanding debts were worth approximately US$5 trillion – a third of China’s GDP. Several creative off-the-books capital raising techniques employed by property developer Evergrande and others mean that this figure is likely significantly higher. Banks are heavily exposed, with property comprising 27 per cent of China’s total lending. China’s “common prosperity” is a Catch-22
La crisi in Ucraina e la posta in gioco per Pechino. Minxin Pei, Project-Syndicate, The Strategist: Beijing may be 6,500 kilometeres from Kyiv, but the geopolitical stakes for China in the escalating crisis over Ukraine’s fate couldn’t be higher. If Russia invades Ukraine and precipitates a drawn-out conflict with the United States and its Western allies (though a direct military confrontation is unlikely), China obviously stands to benefit. America will need to divert strategic resources to confront Russia, and its European allies will be even more reluctant to heed US entreaties to join its anti-China coalition. How China views the Ukraine crisis
Sulla crisi russo-ucraina (e dintorni): Bermet Talant, The Interpreter: Last week, the United States and NATO predictably rejected Russia’s demands of never allowing former Soviet countries, namely Ukraine and Georgia, to join the alliance. In this seemingly impassable diplomatic confrontation, Kremlin can still use intimidation to pressure Ukraine and the West for concessions under the Minsk agreements, a peace settlement brokered by Europeans to end the war in the Donbas, which is now in its eighth year and has kılled an estimated 14,400 people. Why Ukraine and Russia can’t agree on autonomy for the Donbas –
Si complica la situazione nel Mar Cinese Meridionale e crescono le insofferenze verso Pechino. Gregory Poling, East Asia Forum: The situation in the South China Sea continues to deteriorate — military tensions are rising, Southeast Asian states are losing space to exercise their rights, fisheries are sliding closer to collapse and China is undermining its goal of regional and global leadership. Facing regular coercion, China’s neighbours are growing increasingly disillusioned about its long-term intentions and, alongside international partners, are strengthening their objections to Beijing’s claims. Beijing’s self-sabotage in the South China Sea
Come evolveranno le relazioni bilaterali tra Cina e Filippine ? Richard Javad Heydarian, East Asia Forum: Over the past five years, bilateral relations between China and the Philippines, a United States treaty ally, have undergone a tremendous transformation. In the words of a top Chinese diplomat, what we have witnessed, especially under Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, is a ‘golden age’ in bilateral relations. But in his twilight months in office ahead of the May 2022 presidential elections, the Filipino president — who is constitutionally confined to a single six-year term in office — has adopted a dramatically divergent tone on China. How will Duterte’s successor deal with China?
La competizione tra Australia e Cina nel Pacifico Meridionale. Graeme Dobell per The Strategist: Follow the dollars to see what worries Australia about China in the South Pacific. The cash flows to Melanesia from an alert and alarmed Australia: the partnership to electrify 70% of Papua New Guinea; a fibre-optic cable from Honiara to Sydney, and then a similar cable network around PNG; $2 billion to buy a phone network; $580 million for ports in PNG; and up to $1 billion to create a constant over-the-horizon radar view of Melanesia. The Australian government’s Pacific ‘step-change’ got going in 2016, quickly becoming the ‘step-up’ because the bureaucracy preferred to see it as evolution not change. Australia has added an infrastructure dimension to its role as the largest aid giver in the islands. Canberra’s version of ‘dual use’ is where island needs meet our strategic denial instinct: infrastructure from us to stop China getting in. The dollars and sense of Australia’s China challenge in the South Pacific
La drammatica situazione in Myanmar e l’ASEAN diviso. Roshni Kapur, The Interpreter: The United Nations emergency relief coordinator Martin Griffiths has warned in recent months that Myanmar faces a worsening humanitarian crisis, including mass displacement and a dire need for food and aid for civilians. Talk of civil war has even escaped the lips of usually cautious officials. Much of the world continues to look to the Association of Southeast Asean Nations to resolve the tensions in Myanmar following the February 2021 coup. However, ASEAN members remain divided on the role the grouping should play since the military takeover. Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen drew criticism this month for meeting Myanmar’s military ruler Min Aung Hlaing in Naypyidaw after ASEAN had taken the unprecedented step to exclude the general from its summit last October. Hun Sen also claimed last week that Myanmar would be welcome at ASEAN should it make progress on a peace plan, only for Malaysia to quickly reject the idea. ASEAN and Myanmar: No sign of progress
La Corea del Nord ha testato, domenica, un missile balistico a medio raggio. Al Jazeera: North Korea has confirmed it fired a Hwasong-12 “mid-range ballistic missile” on Sunday, the first time it has tested a weapon of that size since 2017. Japan and South Korea both detected the launch of the suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) on Sunday morning, the seventh weapons test this month. North Korea says Sunday test was Hwasong-12 missile
In Sudan. Al Jazeera: Sudanese security forces have killed a 27-year-old protester during anti-coup demonstrations in the capital Khartoum, a group of medics reported. “Mohamed Yousif Ismail … has been killed during the attacks by the security forces on today’s (January 30th) prodemocracy protests in Khartoum, after sustaining a chest trauma,” the Central Committee of Sudan Doctors (CCSD) posted on social media on Sunday. Security forces kill demonstrator as Sudanese defy protest ban
Mali, la Francia denuncia la presenza del russo Wagner Group nel Paese. France’s foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has accused Russian private military contractor Wagner Group of plundering Mali’s resources amid heightened tensions between Paris and the country’s military government in recent weeks, including over the fate of European forces deployed in the region to fight armed groups. The US army last week estimated hundreds of Wagner personnel were in the Sahel state, but the country’s ruling army has denied this. French FM accuses Russian mercenaries of ‘despoiling’ Mali
In Egitto. Al Jazeera: An Egyptian court has sentenced to death 10 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood group for coordinating and planning attacks on the police, the state-news agency MENA has reported. The identities of the defendants were not revealed and it was not possible to determine how they had pleaded to the charges. Egypt court sentences 10 to death on charges of planning attacks
UAE. Intercettato un missile dallo Yemen durante la visita del Presidente israeliano. Al Jazeera: The United Arab Emirates said it had intercepted a ballistic missile fired from Yemen as the Gulf state hosted Isaac Herzog on the first-ever visit to the country by an Israeli president. The Emirati defence ministry said on Monday that the missile was intercepted and destroyed, adding that its debris fell on an uninhabited area. It did not say whether the missile was targeting the UAE’s capital Abu Dhabi or Dubai, the Middle East’s business and tourism hub. UAE intercepts Houthi missile as Israeli president visits
The Global Eye è pubblicato in collaborazione con The Science of Where Magazine
