| | | | Fareed: Liberty and Law Are Under Attack Worldwide. Consider Impeachment in That Context. | | "At first glance, the impeachment proceedings against President Trump might seem to be a specifically and narrowly American matter," Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column. "But if you look around the world, you see this is taking place amid a deeply worrying global trend. In country after country, we are witnessing an unprecedented wave of attacks on the constitutions, institutions, norms and values that have given democracy strength and meaning."
All in the last week, India passed a law that excludes Muslim migrants from fast-tracked citizenship granted to other religions, Israel has headed for a third election as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacks the country's judiciary while facing indictment, Hungary's Viktor Orbán has pushed laws targeting his opposition and disempowering local governments, and former human-rights champion Aung San Suu Kyi defended Myanmar against accusations of ethnic cleansing at the International Court of Justice.
"Across the democratic world, the institutions of liberty and law are under attack," Fareed writes. "If they give way, the fraying democratic fabric of our societies will ultimately tear apart." | | Welcome to the New Tory Era | | Just two months ago, Britain's Conservative Party was on the verge of breakdown. After its largest victory since Margaret Thatcher, things have changed: Prime Minister Boris Johnson, "who diced with the possibility of being one of Britain's shortest-serving prime ministers, is now all-powerful," The Economist writes in its new cover story.
Analysts agree the win has all but delivered Brexit, but another question is what Toryism will become. As Katy Balls writes for The Guardian, Johnson's large majority will give him free rein—any Conservative discontents can be cast aside—but he won by shifting his agenda to appeal (successfully) to Labour voters. "Where there are some longtime Conservative MPs who view Brexit as a route to Singapore-on-Thames, former Labour voters are likely to be more protectionist," Balls writes, noting Johnson's promises of more domestic spending. "Expect more of this in the coming months and years as the Tories adjust to their new coalition of voters."
After abandoning Labour, working-class voters are now aligned with the traditional wealthy Conservative base, The Economist writes, warning of pitfalls for Johnson: "With its mix of blue collars and red trousers, the new [Tory] party is ideologically incoherent," it writes. Johnson "should remember that the Labour Party's red wall has only lent him its vote. The political realignment he has pulled off is still far from secure." | | The US and China Reach 'Phase One.' Will There Ever Be a 'Phase Two'? | | Now that the US and China have agreed to a "phase one" trade deal—which includes, among other things, Chinese agricultural purchases in exchange for President Trump canceling a new round of tariffs and rolling back others—Bloomberg's John Authers writes that along with the UK's newfound Brexit certainty, the US-China deal means the "two most imminent risks for world markets have now been resolved."
And yet, will there ever be a "phase two"? In a Washington Post column, Josh Rogin writes that a relieving tariff pressure will give China even less reason to make larger changes—which few think it will, anyway. Also writing for Bloomberg, Shawn Donnan concludes it was "in the interest of both sides to calm financial market fears and sign up to what amounts to an elaborately disguised truce in their trade war. But it's hard to escape the reality that the broader U.S.-China relationship has been deteriorating … [o]r that there is still a technological Cold War brewing." | | Why Buy Huawei, if China Won't Buy From the West? | | In the West's fitful deliberation over whether to buy Huawei's 5G technology, the Financial Times' Philip Stephens makes a basic argument about reciprocity: "One way … to think about the issue is to ask whether Beijing would allow their companies to embed such technology in China's national systems," Stephens writes. "Any doubts about the answer will have been dispelled this week by the news that the Chinese government has decreed that state entities and public institutions must remove within three years all foreign computer equipment and software."
Stephens echoes a larger point about the emerging tech race with China, made by others including Robert Zoellick (in a speech this month to the US-China Business Council) and Ely Ratner, Elizabeth Rosenberg, and Paul Scharre (in a recent Foreign Affairs essay). It's that the US in particular has taken a zero-sum approach that focuses on limiting China and severing Huawei's market access, whereas it would be better off investing in its own capabilities. "As Mr Zoellick puts it, the way to compete with China is by producing better ideas and smarter technologies, not by bullying and retreating," Stephens concludes. | | Do the 'Neosocialists' Have It Wrong? | | Socialist ideas have gotten more popular, from a wealth tax to breaking up big tech companies, but Jerry Z. Muller throws cold water on them in a Foreign Affairs essay. Household income may have stagnated amid better fortunes at the top, he writes, but the shrinking size of households has distorted the metric. And regardless of inequality, everyone's standard of living has risen: Smartphones and computers were unimaginable a generation ago—now, they're ubiquitous. For these conveniences, Muller argues, we have the despised big tech firms to thank.
To solve new problems, he argues, the necessary innovation "will inevitably come from the private sector. The war against climate change, that is, will ultimately be fought and won in large part by an army of … entrepreneurs large and small, deploying their mage-like powers for humanity's collective defense. Unless the neosocialists have their way, and turn off the engines of innovation just when they are needed the most." | | | | | | |
