| | | | Slaughtered Khashoggi a casualty of "brutal paranoia" at the House of Saud | | The machinations behind last month's gruesome killing of Jamal Khashoggi are the subject of today's extensive exposé by David Ignatius, a colleague of the slain journalist at the Washington Post, based on interviews Ignatius conducted with "prominent Saudis and U.S. and European experts, in the United States and abroad.
The "anxious and aggressive" deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) has been attempting to thwart perceived threats to his own power from within the large royal family ever since his father King Salman's accession to the throne in 2015. "What's haunting about this tale of family rivalry is that it helped breed the paranoia that led to Khashoggi's death."
MBS's "suspicion of perceived enemies and desire for absolute control" inspired "a secret program for kidnapping dissidents" who would be detained at "interrogation sites."
"Khashoggi's provocative journalism and his ties to Qatar and Turkey had offended the increasingly autocratic crown prince" and he fell victim to "the vortex of rage and lawlessness" at the hands of "a team sent from the royal court in Riyadh." But since the killing was organized by "a special cell within the royal court," "no hard evidence has emerged" directly inculpating MBS. Unless further evidence is disclosed, it may well be "impossible to prove a connection."
"The brutal paranoia of MBS's royal court in Riyadh recalls Baghdad in the days of Saddam Hussein," writes Ignatius. "The spotlight cast by Khashoggi's killing gives Saudi Arabia, and the United States, a last chance to check a slide toward Hussein-like despotism from overwhelming the region."
"The United States, as the kingdom's key ally, has an obligation to calm this family feud before it does any more damage to Saudi Arabia and the world."
| | "We're going to make a great deal with China." | | President Trump has said in a new interview with The Wall Street Journal that it's "highly unlikely" he'll postpone the tariff increases on Chinese imports time-tabled for January. This remark comes just ahead of his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at this week's G20 summit in Buenos Aires.
And, WSJ reports, "Mr. Trump suggested that if negotiations don't produce a favorable outcome for the US, he would also put tariffs on the rest of Chinese imports that are currently not subject to duties." The anticipated meeting between the US and Chinese leaders "comes amid escalating trade tensions that have weighed on stock markets in both countries. That has heightened pressure on both sides to show progress; US and Chinese officials have been speaking for the past few weeks."
"Here's the bottom line: We're going to make a great deal with China," said Trump. | | "There is No Grand Bargain with China." | | "Don't believe the hype," argues Ely Ratner for Foreign Affairs. An agreement reached at the G20 "will be a tactical pause at best, providing short-term relief… but having no material or long-lasting effect on the slide toward a high-stakes geopolitical competition between the United States and China."
"The days when the world's two largest economies could meet each other halfway have gone."
Why? "Over the course of his first five-year term, Xi passed up repeated opportunities to avert rivalry with Washington. His increasingly revisionist and authoritarian turn has instead eliminated the possibility of a grand bargain between the United States and China." As a result, Ratner argues, "there are no serious prospects for Washington and Beijing to resolve other important areas of dispute, including the South China Sea, human rights, and the larger contest over the norms, rules, and institutions that govern relations in Asia. Nothing Trump and Xi agree to in Argentina will substantially alter this course."
"The United States should not shrink from strategic competition with China," Ratner writes. But "[c]ompetition does not mean confrontation, much less war. The United States should sustain dialogue with China to manage potential crises and seek opportunities for cooperation on areas of common interest, such as climate change. Washington's focus, however, should ultimately be on making the United States its best and strongest self."
| | Will the fate of the Uighurs be a pawn in Trump-Xi talks? | | Amid growing outcry against the repression and mass detention of the ethnic minority Uighurs by the Chinese government, there is hope that their fate will be a matter of importance in the Trump-Xi meeting at the G20. US attention to the issue may be a double-edged sword, however.
"Even as supporters of the Uighur cause welcome the renewed prominence of human-rights rhetoric in regards to China," writes Sigal Samuel for The Atlantic, "they also fear that US officials may be instrumentalizing it as part of a broader anti-Beijing offensive that has grown to include accusations of everything from cyber theft to election meddling."
In other words, if the treatment of the Uighurs becomes merely one bargaining chip in a larger agenda, the issue may be dropped in favor of other concessions. While the US State Department and members of Congress are contemplating punitive actions against the Chinese government, Samuel argues, "Trump, for his part, has signaled that he'd rather be done with punishing Xi. Although the two leaders' rapport deteriorated with the trade war, their old friendship may soon get back on track. Trump this month called Xi a 'great guy, great man from China.'"
| | Thousands of US Lives, Billions of Dollars at stake in Climate Policy | | "One of the largest economic costs from unchecked climate change in the United States will arise from premature deaths," writes James Temple for the MIT Technology Review in his analysis of the recent National Climate Assessment.
"Economic damages from premature deaths due to high heat alone could reach $141 billion a year, under a scenario assuming high greenhouse-gas emissions. While the dangers are often little appreciated, heat waves kill more Americans than hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes combined."
"Increases in extreme temperatures could lead to more than 9,000 additional premature deaths annually in just 49 large cities by 2100" as the vulnerable fall victim to increasing temperatures.
"Those costs and deaths, however, could be drastically reduced if the world makes rapid progress in cutting greenhouse-gas emissions by shifting to clean energy sources," Temple writes—tens of thousands of lives hang in the balance. | | Be the Global Briefing Editor! | | | | Hello loyal newsletter readers, Fareed here. Are you (or is somebody you know) eager? Ambitious? Do you have a passion for foreign policy? Are you a great reader of all things international? Can you write and edit well? If you answered "yes" to all of the above, please apply to be the next editor of this newsletter. | | | | | | |
