Tag: Europe

Why Is the World So Nightmarish?

The phrase, “La Belle Époque” (French: “The Beautiful Era”) refers to the atmosphere in Europe and especially France, the high point of which lasted from 1900 to 1914, with the outbreak of World War I. The whole era was characterized by the phrase, “la douceur de la vie” (French: “the sweetness of life”). People of the time would say that if you weren’t alive then, they could not communicate how charming life was at the time.

The sinking of the Titanic in April, 1912 is the symbolic catastrophe that heralded the end of the era. Anyone who watched Downton Abbey would perhaps remember the opening scene, which depicts the newspaper announcing it with a screaming headline.

The great masterpiece, Journey to the End of the Night (French: Voyage au bout de la nuit, 1932), describes the whole world around World War I as a nightmarish battlefield of previously unseen scope. Céline’s protagonist, Ferdinand, travels the world, from battles in Europe to Africa, then to New York and Detroit’s Ford assembly line before returning to France, finding that the nightmare is global and inescapable.

Céline died within 24 hours of Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway is famous for the quote from The Sun Also Rises (set in the 1920s), “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills.”

The question is how could we ever explain complete evaporation of the sweetness of life and transformation into such a nightmare, culminating into the world of today.

Lastly, think of the point made in Sebastian Haffner’s The Meaning of Hitler, how Hitler fit into this nightmarization of the world. Haffner writes:

It is impossible for a serious historian to maintain that without Hitler world history in the twentieth century would have taken the course it has taken. It is by no means certain that without Hitler a second world war would even have taken place; it is quite certain that if it had taken place it would have taken a different course — possibly even with different alliances, fronts and outcomes. Today’s world, whether we like it or not, is the work of Hitler. Without Hitler there would have been no partition of Germany and Europe; without Hitler there would be no Americans and no Russians in Berlin; without Hitler there would be no Israel; without Hitler there would be no de-colonization, at least not such a rapid one; there would be no Asian, Arab or Black African emancipation, and no diminution of European preeminence. Or, more accurately, there would be none of this without Hitler’s mistakes. He certainly did not want any of it.

(The Meaning of Hitler, Harvard University Press, 1979, page 100)

No-one has yet captured how the nightmarish feeling of 2025 is itself downstream from the preceding era.

India: Deep History

In his lectures, Professor Amartya Sen, the Harvard Nobel Prize in Economics winner, mentions Sir Mortimer Wheeler, Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India. Wheeler wrote, while reporting on the excavation of the Indus Valley Civilization (of India), that the plumbing and sewerage were advanced, in some ways surpassing modern equivalents.

Sen’s larger point is that history is characterized by phases of rise and fall and not just classes and class struggles à la Marx.

Consider the following depiction of the East India Company, from The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company (also subtitled The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire) by William Dalrymple.


On 28 August 1608, Captain William Hawkins, a bluff sea captain with the Third Voyage, anchored his ship, the Hector, off Surat, and so became the first commander of an EIC vessel to set foot on Indian soil.

India then had a population of 150 million — about a fifth of the world’s total — and was producing about a quarter of global manufacturing; indeed, in many ways it was the world’s industrial powerhouse and the world’s leader in manufactured textiles. Not for nothing are so many English words connected with weaving — chintz, calico, shawl, pyjamas, khaki, dungarees, cummerbund, taffetas — of Indian origin. It was certainly responsible for a much larger share of world trade than any comparable zone and the weight of its economic power even reached Mexico, whose textile manufacture suffered a crisis of ‘de-industrialisation’ due to Indian cloth imports. In comparison, England then had just 5 per cent of India’s population and was producing just under 3 per cent of the world’s manufactured goods. A good proportion of the profits on this found its way to the Mughal exchequer in Agra, making the Mughal Emperor, with an income of around £100 million,* by far the richest monarch in the world.

The Mughal capitals were the megacities of their day: ‘They are second to none either in Asia or in Europe,’ thought the Jesuit Fr Antonio Monserrate, ‘with regards either to size, population, or wealth. Their cities are crowded with merchants, who gather from all over Asia. There is no art or craft which is not practised there.’ Between 1586 and 1605, European silver flowed into the Mughal heartland at the astonishing rate of 18 metric tons a year, for as William Hawkins observed, all nations bring coyne and carry away commodities for the same’. For their grubby contemporaries in the West, stumbling around in their codpieces, the silk-clad Mughals, dripping in jewels, were the living embodiment of wealth and power — a meaning that has remained impregnated in the word ‘mogul’ ever since.

By the early seventeenth century, Europeans had become used to easy military victories over the other peoples of the world.

* Over £10,000 million today.

Think of the larger point: what you just read is the story of Indian de-industrialization and its negative results. Ask yourself whether American de-industrialization is something of an echo of this, as manufacturing is offshored.

Songs as Another Kind of Parallel University

Meta Intelligence is a heterodox view of education where formal education (courses, diplomas, universities, fields) are incomplete and limited without adding informal education which is part of your life such as movies, songs, conversations and images (paintings, posters, etc). Your “lifeworld” (Edmund Husserl’s apt coinage) fuses all the kinds of education where the word education means thought-provoking and illuminating. Even personal experience counts such as illnesses or bad marriages! Only via this Meta Intelligence will you achieve a glimpsed “holism.” (Meta Intelligence is that meta-field outside fields, borders and boundaries.)

Take songs.

Think back to Jim Morrison’s classic tune, “Riders on the Storm” which begins:

“Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Into this house, we’re born
Into this world, we’re thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out on loan
Riders on the storm”

This song (by the Doors), expresses in a simple way Heidegger’s notion of human existence as partly governed by “Geworfenheit” which derives from “werfen,” to throw. “Geworfenheit” means “thrownness.” Jim Morrison and his band the Doors are song–philosophers without (probably) being Heidegger’s acolytes. Max Weber, one of the fathers of modern sociology, uses the word “disenchantment” to describe the modern world, “Entzauberung” in German, where “zauber” means “magicality” and “ent” means “removal of,” and “ung” means “condition of being.” The magic here does not mean something like a card trick but rather sacred mysteries, perhaps like the feeling a medieval European felt on entering a cathedral.

Enchantment in the West survived in our notions of romantic love and was associated with the songs and outlook of the medieval troubadours. Such romantic enchantment which is fading from our culture in favor of sex is still celebrated in the classic Rogers and Hammerstein song, “Some Enchanted Evening” from the forties musical and fifties movie, South Pacific.

The song lyrics give you the philosophy of romantic love as the last stand of enchantment:

“Some enchanted evening, you may see a stranger,
You may see a stranger across a crowded room,
And somehow you know, you know even then,
That somehow you’ll see here again and again.
Some enchanted evening, someone may be laughing,
You may hear her laughing across a crowded room,
And night after night, as strange as it seems,
The sound of her laughter will sing in your dreams.

“Who can explain it, who can tell you why?
Fools give you reasons, wise men never try.

“Some enchanted evening, when you find your true love,
When you hear her call you across a crowded room,
Then fly to her side and make her your own,
Or all through your life you may dream all alone.

“Once you have found her, never let her go,
Once you have found her, never let her go.”

Notice that “chant” is a component of enchantment.

One could say that conventional enchantment has been transferred to the world of science and mathematics where a deep beauty is intuited. Professor Frank Wilczek of MIT (Nobel Prize) wrote several books on this intersection of science and the quest for beauty whereas Sabine Hossenfelder of Germany has argued, per contra, that this will be a “bum steer.”

You should sense that like movies, songs give you a “side window” or back door into thinking and knowledge, which should be center stage and not depreciated.

Facing the Global South: Building a New International System by Yang Ping

“If you raise [the development of the BRI] to the strategic level, there are countries where … you will have to lose money and there are countries where you will be free to make money.”

by Thomas des Garets Geddes, Sinification

Dear Everyone,

How to respond to the growing political divide between China and the West marked by partial decoupling, security alliances, and the risk of sanctions, amongst other things, continues to be a major topic of discussion among China’s intellectual elite. As already evidenced in previous editions of this newsletter, opinions vary considerably. Those presented here so far have ranged from Da Wei (达巍) stressing the importance of preserving if not strengthening ties with the West and Shen Wei (沈伟) arguing in favor of reforming the WTO and building up a network of free trade agreements to Ye Hailin (叶海林) emphasizing the need for China to demonstrate its military might to demobilize U.S. allies and Lu Feng (路风) calling for self-reliance and greater assertiveness in the field of tech. A certain amount of overlap certainly exists among these perspectives but the differences are nonetheless striking.

Today’s edition of Sinification looks at a speech made last month by Yang Ping (杨平), head and editor-in-chief of the highly regarded Beijing Cultural Review (文化纵横, hereafter BCR). Yang is also director of the Longway Foundation (修远基金会) which publishes BCR. The foundation describes its publication as “the most influential magazine of intellectual thought and commentary in China” and sees itself as having a key role in helping shape the direction of intellectual debates in China (“议题的设置就是意识形态斗争成功的一半”). Indeed, BCR often republishes old articles at key junctures as so often highlighted by David Ownby’s wonderful Reading the China Dream.

The following are excerpts from an edited transcript of a speech by Yang made at an event hosted by Renmin University’s Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, which was attended by China’s Vice-minister of foreign affairs Xie Feng (谢锋). In his speech, Yang advocates building a new international system led by countries in the Global South (which, of course, includes China) rather than the West. His ideas are not particularly novel but are nevertheless noteworthy in that they represent yet another viewpoint in the ongoing debate over how China should respond to the increasing tensions that characterize its relations with the U.S. and other Western countries. Next week, I will be sharing a somewhat longer piece that proposes a way of protecting China from the growing threat of Western sanctions.

Yang’s speech in a nutshell:

  • “Capitalist politics” are no longer in line with “capitalist economics.” The former now undermines globalization, while the latter supports it.
  • Sanctions, export controls, friend-shoring and alliance-building are damaging the world economy and further alienating China from the current U.S.-led international order.
  • China must respond to this growing trend by building a “new type of international system” with other countries in the Global South.
  • BRI projects should be increasingly focused on achieving this goal and thus allow more room for loss-making endeavors.

Capitalist politics ≠ Capitalist economics

“Since 2022 and the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, our main focus and topic of discussion has been China’s construction of a new type of international system.

“The most important feature of today’s world is the beginning of a separation between capitalist politics and capitalist economics. The capitalist political order and the capitalist economic order do not support each other [any longer].

“We have witnessed two typical manifestations of the separation of politics and the economy and the impact of politics on the economy:

  1. The first is the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States and the West have reached unthinkable, abominable [令人发指] and unimaginable proportions. Under established international rules, it was understood that such sanctions could not possibly occur, but now they have. These include the fracturing of the financial system, the expropriation and seizure of Russian private assets and the freezing of Russian foreign exchange reserves. These are all abominable and unimaginable forms of confrontation. At the same time, the Russo-Ukrainian conflict has led to serious disruptions in global food and energy systems and supply chains, with massive food ‘shortages’ and soaring food prices, particularly in developing countries. Sanctions and political repression [政治打压] have severely disrupted the [world’s] economic order.
  2. The second is the conflict between the U.S. and China. Since the Trump era, the U.S. has been engaged in a trade war against China, mainly by raising tariffs. Basically, this was simply about balancing trade [with China] and used mainly economic means. But under Biden, it [has become] a war that mixes politics with economics. Biden’s strategy towards China can basically be summed up in just a few words: one, friend-shoring, [i.e.] only allowing friendly countries into [parts of] its supply chains; two, alliance politics, [i.e.] continuously forging an alliance system involving NATO, the European Union, Japan, AUKUS and the four Asia-Pacific countries [I assume he is referring to South Korea, Japan, New Zealand and Australia taking part for the first time in a NATO summit last year] and constantly opposing China [不断应对中国]; three, its so-called ‘precision strikes’, [i.e.] its radical crackdown on China’s high tech [industry], especially our chip industry.”

China is being pushed out of the U.S.-led international system

“The information I have seen so far is that the number of Chinese companies included in the U.S.’s ‘entity list’ has risen from 132 under Trump to over 530 now. The scope of such point-to-point [点对点] precision strikes is constantly expanding. With such a political impact on the economy, we can feel the [world’s] economic order being disrupted across the board. The world is moving inexorably in the direction of decoupling. The phenomenon of politics affecting the economy and the capitalist political order no longer upholding the capitalist economic order are extremely striking.

“In such a context, the challenges now facing China are extremely serious and varied. We have the pressures of dealing both with containment in the Indo-Pacific and with the U.S.-led politics of alliances across the world. More importantly and fundamentally China faces the strategic task of building a new type of international system [新型国际体系] … The existing Western-dominated international system used to be one in which we tried hard to blend [so as] to become one with it. During this process, we [sought to] absorb the West’s advanced technologies and management [practices] and thus complete our mission of industrialisation and modernization.

“But once you enter the existing international system, he [who is already inside] does not want to play with you, and even wants to drive you back out. He wants to divide both supply chains and the economic system into two parts [搞成两套] and desperately wants to contain and suppress you. This is not something that can be determined by your own subjective preferences. He has made up his mind: you have already become his ‘fated opponent’ [命定的对手]. He has to suppress you and drive you out of the existing system.”

Building a new international system with the Global South

“It is at this point that China is faced with the task of constructing a new type of international system that is not dominated by the West. In today’s so-called strategic quadrangle consisting of the U.S., Europe, Russia and China, how to construct such an international system appears particularly difficult [逼庂 literally means ‘narrow’ or ‘cramped’ rather than ‘difficult’].

“But if we look a little further south, we will find a vast number of developing countries, the Third World and the countries of the global South. They should be our strategy’s depth [我们的战略纵深]. That is to say, [we should] build a new type of international relations and a new type of international system that has strategic depth and in which China and the countries of the global South are jointly integrated. [This] is, in my view, an important strategic task for China’s international relations in the coming decades.”

BRI projects: Strategy trumps profitability

“For China today, especially for businesses and governments at all levels [within China] that are currently working hard to develop BRI trade, there is a very important point to which they should be alerted or reminded about: the development of the BRI has to go beyond mere business, beyond the general export of [China’s excess] production capacity, beyond the partial thinking of industry and the partial thinking at the regional level, or the simple economic way of thinking of business. The development of the BRI should be considered at the strategic level. That is, it should be included into China’s strategy when thinking about Africa, South America, Southeast Asia and Central Asia.

“If you raise [the development of the BRI] to the strategic level, there are countries where you won’t be able to make money and will have to lose money, and there are countries where you will be free to make money. You have to unite the two within your organic strategy.

“The strategic task of building a new type of international system is, in my view, a strategic proposition that Chinese think tanks and research institutes should pay very close attention to with regards to international relations.

“Time is limited today. I just wanted to make a start here. I hope to receive your corrections and criticisms. Thank you!”

[Subscribe to Sinification]

The recessive importance of the Global South was previously explored by Richard and his partner Larry, with input from Supratik Bose, many decades ago as shown here.

Globalization and Its Nuances

The PBS TV program History Detectives had an episode entitled “Atocha Spanish Silver” where the wreck of the Spanish ship Atocha was described like this:

“In 1985, one of the greatest treasure discoveries was made off the Florida Keys, when the wreck of the Spanish ship Atocha was found. On board were some forty tons of silver and gold, which in 1622 had been heading from the New World to the Spanish treasury as the means to fund the Thirty Years’ War.”

Is this an obvious case of globalization? What about Marco Polo? Rome–Han dynasty China trade in silks? Silk Road and Samarkand? Colombus? Magellan? Vasco da Gama?

All of these cases constitute a kind of harmless kind of “pop globalization” based on exotic voyages and travels.

Consider another such example, perhaps more academic:

“About the middle of the sixteenth century Antwerp reached its apogee. For the first time in history there existed both a European and a world market; the economies of different parts of Europe had become interdependent and were linked through the Antwerp market, not only with each other but also with the economies of large parts of the rest of the world. Perhaps no other city has ever again played such a dominant role as did Antwerp in the second quarter of the sixteenth century.”

(Europe in the Sixteenth Century, Koenigsberger and Mosse, Holt Rinehart Publishers, 1968, page 50)

Debt repudiations in several places in the 1550s are described like this:

“This caused the first big international bank crash, for the Antwerp bankers now could not meet their own obligations.”

(Europe in the Sixteenth Century, Koenigsberger and Mosse, Holt Rinehart Publishers, 1968, page 51)

This sounds like some kind of identifiably global period.

Actually, modern historians define globalization as “price convergence” (i.e., wheat has now a unified “world price,” implying a world market). This rigorous definition is confirmed by and also shows up in the data in the 1820s and may or may not be prefigured by all the Marco Polo and Atocha silver stories, mentioned above.

These episodes in history are not there yet.

One sees wheat prices and other commodity prices converging in the 1820s and thereafter based on railroads, steamships and telegrams.

The classic in this kind of analysis is:

Globalization and History: The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy, by Kevin O’Rourke and Jeffrey Williamson.

Kevin O’Rourke and Jeffrey Williamson present a coherent picture of In Globalization and History, Kevin O’Rourke and Jeffrey Williamson present a coherent picture of trade, migration, and international capital flows in the Atlantic economy in the century prior to 1914—the first great globalization boom, which anticipated the experience of the last fifty years. The authors estimate the extent of globalization and its impact on the participating countries, and discuss the political reactions that it provoked. The book’s originality lies in its application of the tools of open-economy economics to this critical historical period—differentiating it from most previous work, which has been based on closed-economy or single-sector models. The authors also keep a close eye on globalization debates of the 1990s, using history to inform the present and vice versa. The book brings together research conducted by the authors over the past decade—work that has profoundly influenced how economic history is now written and that has found audiences in economics and history, as well as in the popular press.

(book summary)

In everyday language, we associate the word globalization with some ever-increasing Marco Polo phenomena. While that’s not entirely wrong, globalization in the more technical sense begins to show up in the data only from the 1820s. At this point, we begin to see the convergence of worldwide wheat prices, for example. This makes the world, for the first time, a global “store” with unified prices. Here is the technical beginning of globalization. The years 1870-1914 are subsequently the first real era of modern globalization and represent a kind of “take-off” from the first stirrings of the 1820s. World Wars I & II might be seen as globalization backlash.

At this moment in world history, whether Putin’s invasion of Ukraine will constitute a new wave of deglobalization remains to be seen.

Movies As Universities: The Case of So Ends Our Night

So Ends Our Night is a riveting and moving 1941 movie version of Erich Remarque’s classic novel Flotsam (English, German: Liebe deinen Nächsten).

You may remember Remarque as the author of the international best-seller All Quiet on the Western Front, a big success in movie theatres of that time. Thomas Mann generally is considered the premier German writer of the twentieth century, and while that’s true in terms of prestige perhaps, Remarque is a more gripping German author.

Flotsam tells a great story about stateless refugees during the Nazi nightmare circa 1937. (One should immediately sense the resonance in our time with the millions of political and climate refugees, exiles, fugitives, and victim peoples like the Rohingya of Myanmar and the Uyghurs of Xinjiang, China, experiencing cultural genocide. We might extend this list to the Tutsis of Rwanda in 1994, the European Jews of World War II, and the Armenians of 1915 in the Ottoman Empire massacres. One could add the Chinese in Indonesia who experienced a genocidal pogrom in 1965. (Think of the movie, The Year of Living Dangerously with Mel Gibson.)

The movie So Ends Our Night, based on Remarque’s great work Flotsam, shows Fredric March and Glenn Ford playing supremely harried stateless refugees, hounded all through Europe, in a nightmare of life “without a country,” passport, visa, citizenship.

Glenn Ford is only half-Aryan and is in danger of being murdered by the Nazi crazies. Fredric March is not racially endangered, but as an opponent of Hitler’s regime and a dissenter could be murdered for that treason. Both are in a “having no passport” hell.

Between minutes 23 and 24 of this movie, March explains to Glenn Ford’s 19-year-old on the run like he is:

“Individuals or nations, it’s all the same, as long as they’re safe and comfortable they don’t give a hoot about what happens to anybody else.

There’s the misery of the world.

That’s why progress is so slow and things slip back so fast.”

With some reflection, you’ll probably see the deep point March makes about global history and “the way of the world” plainly expressed without camouflaging the truth.

You can learn quite a bit if you ponder this movie conversation, with both refugees sitting under a tree, harried and distressed, in a nightmarish emergency.

Thus, So Ends Our Night can be a movie-as-university for you and feed your meta intelligence.

The Early Universe and the Future of Humanity/Xi Risks Losing the Middle Class

[from The Institute of Art and Ideas]

The Life and Philosophy of Martin Rees

An Interview with Martin Rees

Astronomer Royal and best-selling science author, Martin Rees pioneering early work led to evidence to contradict the Steady State theory of the universe and confirm the Big Bang. His influence then spread to the wider public—knighted in 1992, elevated to Baron in 2005, then giving the Reith Lectures in 2010. Most recently his attention has turned from the early universe to the future of humanity. In this interview, Lord Rees discusses the ideas and experiences which led to such an illustrious career.

Xi Risks Losing the Middle Class

The zero-COVID strategy has run its course

Kerry Brown | Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of Lau China Institute, King’s College London. He is the co-editor of the Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, and author of Xi: A Study in Power.

China is continuing with its tough zero-COVID policy. But the cracks in the economy and a discontent middle class mean that Xi’s Imperial-like governing style is under challenge, writes Kerry Brown.

China’s zero-COVID strategy operates in Chinese domestic politics a bit like Brexit does in the UK. Despite complaints from business networks and broader society about the negative impact on economic growth and citizens’ freedoms, it’s a policy commitment the government is sticking to no matter what.

Of course, no one voted for the draconian lockdowns implemented across China. And, unlike Brexit, the lockdowns are very much in line with expert advice in the country, rather than running against it. The Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC), the main governmental body advising the government over crisis response in this area, said in a weekly update last November that without comprehensive restraints on people’s movement and quarantines on anyone testing positive for the virus, the national health system would soon be overwhelmed with cases, and find itself in the same bind as those in the US or Europe did.

That the words of the experts have been taken so much in earnest is striking for a regime that previously hasn’t been shy to dismiss them. The Xi leadership may be confident in the way it speaks to the outside world, but it seems that it has the same profound wariness in the robustness of the country’s public health as everywhere else. Things have not been helped by clinical trials showing the Chinese vaccines – the only ones accepted in China – are not as effective as foreign ones where the length of protection is in question). On top of this, vaccine take-up by the elderly, the most vulnerable group, has been poor. It is easy to see therefore why the central government might be very cautious. What is harder to understand, however, is why the cautiousness has bordered on obsessiveness.

The Xi way of governing is increasingly almost imperial in style, with broad, high-level policy announcements made in Beijing, sometimes of almost Delphic succinctness.

One scenario is simply about the structures of decision-making in China. This was an issue right from the moment the variant started to appear in late 2019, and local officials in Wuhan stood accused of trying to hush the issue up, delaying reporting to the central authorities till things had already gone on too long. As a result of this, in February 2020 key officials in the city were sacked. But this is unlikely to change the fact that provincial officials are very risk averse under Xi, and that any central direction to manage the pandemic will be interpreted in the purest terms and executed to the letter.

This explains the completeness of the Xian government’s virtual incarceration of its 8 million population after just a few COVID cases at the end of 2021, the first of the more recent lockdowns. It also explains why the traditionally more free-thinking municipal authority of Shanghai and its similarly liberal approach was fiercely knocked back by Beijing last February, to make an example for any other provinces thinking of going their own way. The absolute prohibition on people moving from their homes there, in one of the most dynamic and lively cities of modern China, was perfect proof that if the government could bring about this situation there, it could do it anywhere.

This case study also reveals some important things about the Xi way of governing. It is increasingly almost imperial in style, with broad, high-level policy announcements made in Beijing, sometimes of almost Delphic succinctness, which are then handed down to various levels of government to do as they will. Exactly how and when the discussion amongst Xi and his Politburo colleagues on the best response to COVID happened is unclear. In a world where almost every political system seems to leak incessantly, the Chinese one is unique in maintaining its opacity and secretiveness – no mean achievement in the social media era.

The Communist Party is very aware of how relatively small incidents can mount up and then generate overwhelming force. It itself coined the Chinese phrase ‘a single spark can start a prairie fire.’

Rumors of clashes between Xi and his premier Li Keqiang on the effectiveness of the current response remain just that – rumors, with precious little hard evidence to back them up. Who in the current imperial system might dare to speak from the ranks and say that policy must change is unclear. Scientists should deal in hard facts – but we all know that science is susceptible to politicization. Experts in China have to offer their expertise in a highly political context. A declaration that the current approach is not fit for purpose can easily be reinterpreted as an attempt to launch an indirect attack on the core leader. With an important Congress coming up later this year, at which Xi is expected to be appointed for another five years in power, sensitivities are even more intense than normal. It is little wonder that the COVID strategy status quo settled on last year has not shifted.

Things, however, may well change, and change quickly. China is moving into tricky economic territory. The impact of the pandemic on global supply chains, along with the various stresses domestically on the housing market, and productivity, have shrunk expectations for growth. A predicted 6% in the earlier part of the year now looks overly ambitious. There is a real possibility China might experience a recession. At a moment like this, the government, which after all operates as a constant crisis and risk management entity, might do what it does best and prompt rapid, and dramatic, changes.

The handling of COVID-19 might look like further proof that Chinese politics under Xi is repressive and zero-sum. But even in an autocratic state like the current People’s Republic, the pandemic will not leave politics unchanged.

This doesn’t mean that China’s COVID-19 bind gets any easier. Like the country’s serious demographic challenges, with a rapidly aging population, the only thing the government will be picking an argument with is reality as it proceeds into the future. As with Europe and the US, being more liberal about facing COVID-19 will involve accepting some of the harsh consequences – rising fatalities, particularly for the elderly and vulnerable, and health systems put under enormous stress. In such a huge, complex country, and of enormous geopolitically importance, a misstep could easily lead to huge and unwanted consequences, generating discontent and triggering mass protests in a way reminiscent of 1989. The Communist Party is very aware of how relatively small incidents can mount up and then generate overwhelming force. It itself coined the Chinese phrase ‘a single spark can start a prairie fire.’ One such spark – the introduction of Marxism into China in the 1910s – led to its gaining of power three decades later.

The handling of COVID-19 might look like further proof that Chinese politics under Xi is repressive and zero-sum. But I suspect that even in an autocratic state like the current People’s Republic, the pandemic will not leave politics unchanged. In particular, the middle classes in cities like Shanghai have had their patience tested in recent months. This is the key group for Xi, the heart of his new innovative, more self-dependent, higher-quality service sector workers in an urbanized economy. Their support remains crucial if Xi is able to steer China towards the moment when it hopes it will become the world’s largest economy. Policies to try to placate them by addressing imbalances, critical environmental issues and improving public health are likely to only increase. Delivery however will be key.

Faced with a potentially life-threatening infectious disease, the Party can throw out injunctions and claim it has been the victim of bad luck. But an ailing economy and no clear signs of the government knowing how to manage this will prove a toxic mixture for it. Xi and his third term in office will be all about delivery. The question is whether, even with the formidable suite of powers he has, he can do this. Governing China has always been the ultimate political challenge. COVID-19 has made that even harder.

World-Watching: The Problem with the Current Russia Sanctions Regime

[from Project Syndicate, by Mohamed A. El-Erian]

There is much debate about the effectiveness of Western sanctions, the Ukraine war’s implications for markets and the global economy, and what the West’s next steps should be. While there are few good options, some are clearly worse than others.

Cambridge — It has been five months since Europe and the United States imposed tough economic and financial sanctions on Russia, a G20 country that was the world’s eleventh-largest economy on the eve of its invasion of Ukraine. While the sanctions have been gradually strengthened in the intervening months, debate rages about their effectiveness, the war’s broader implications for markets and the global economy, and what the West’s next steps should be.

On the first question, although the sanctions have been less effective than Europe and the U.S. had hoped, they also are proving more onerous than the Kremlin claims. Russia’s central bank expects GDP to contract by 8-10% this year, while other forecasters expect a larger fall, together with longer-lasting damage to growth potential. Imports and exports have been severely disrupted, and inflows of foreign investment have essentially stopped. Shortages are multiplying, pushing inflation higher. At this point, the country no longer has a properly functioning foreign-exchange market.

The sanctions would have bitten much harder had the West not opted for a carve-out of Russia’s energy sector, and had many more countries joined the U.S. and Europe in the effort. Because that didn’t happen, Russia has not felt nearly as much pressure as it would have. Moreover, it has been able to continue trading through various side and back doors that will likely become increasingly important as long as the sanctions regime, as currently designed, continues.

Nonetheless, it is only a matter of time before the Russian economy experiences a harder hit. Inventories of imported goods – including many critical technological and industrial inputs – are dwindling fast, and many sectors are becoming less resilient. The cumulative damage to Russia’s economy over time will be significant and long-lasting – a fact that has not yet been fully captured by consensus medium-term forecasts.

The second question concerns global spillovers from the war and the sanctions regime. Most observers agree that Russia’s invasion has increased not just energy insecurity but also food insecurity, highlighting the fallout from the war’s disruption to Ukrainian agricultural exports. But there is still much debate about the West’s use of the economic nuclear sanctions option: the curbs placed on Russia’s central bank and on Russia’s use of the international payments system.

These curbs are far more intrusive than the usual mix of restrictions on sanctioned government and private sector trade and on individuals’ financial dealings. Yet, because they are not subject to any internationally agreed standards, guidelines, or checks and balances, they fall outside the purview of relevant global-governance bodies such as the Bank for International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization.

In a time of war, such oversight might seem like a nicety. But some worry that the sanctions could significantly reduce the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency and the U.S. financial system’s role as the primary global intermediary for other countries’ savings and investments. After all, a growing number of countries undoubtedly now feel more vulnerable to the reach of U.S. sanctions.

But it is impossible to replace something with nothing, which means that no significant loss of dollar or U.S. financial primacy will occur in the immediate future. Rather, the sanctions will lend further momentum to the gradual process of global economic fragmentation, which was also fueled a few years ago by the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. More countries now have even more of a reason to pursue greater financial resilience and inherently inefficient forms of self-insurance.

That brings us to the third debate. With no end in sight for the war, what should the West do next? Fearing the implications for energy prices and the supply of gas to Europe, many in the West are tempted to call for a moratorium on any new sanctions – or even for additional carve-outs. Others, however, favor additional measures to hold Russia accountable for its indiscriminate attacks on Ukrainian civilians.

In any case, maintaining the current sanctions regime is not problem-free, owing to the twin objectives of pressuring Russia and limiting the economic disruption to Europe. Moreover, as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen recently said, it feels as if Russia is “blackmailing” Europe by threatening to disrupt gas supplies at any moment. No wonder the Commission is urging member countries to cut consumption by 15%.

Under the current sanctions regime, the West risks falling between two horses. While easing sanctions could help alleviate concerns about Europe’s economic outlook, this option is a non-starter, given the atrocities that Russian forces are committing in Ukraine. But if the West is serious about pressuring Russia through truly crippling economic and financial sanctions, it needs to bite the bullet and eliminate the carve-outs for energy.

Doing so would undoubtedly have a severe short-term economic impact on European economies and the rest of the world, amplifying the “little fires everywhere” syndrome that I warned about in May. It is therefore critical that governments use their available fiscal space to provide targeted support to vulnerable segments of the population, as well as to fragile countries; and multilateral agencies must support developing countries through aid and a more operational debt relief framework. If done properly, this option would yield better outcomes in the medium and long term than the current strategy.

Muddling through risks bringing about the worst of all possible worlds. It is insufficient to dissuade Russia from continuing its illegal war; it is fueling deeper fragmentation of the international monetary system; and it is not even protecting Europe from a winter gas disruption.

Mohamed A. El-Erian, President of Queens’ College at the University of Cambridge, is a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the author of The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability, and Avoiding the Next Collapse (Random House, 2016).

World-Watching: China Globalization Conference

[from the Center for China and Globalization]

The Center for China and Globalization is proud to announce the full program of their upcoming 8th edition of CCG annual China and Globalization Forum 2022 to be held in online-offline hybrid format in Beijing. Everyone is cordially invited to join the events open to public virtually. All sessions open to public will be broadcast live. You will be able to access the sessions on Zoom:

Tuesday, June 21st

09:00-10:00—Forum Special Online Program I: Advancing the 2030 Agenda in Uncertain Times: Sustainability and the Quest for China–U.S. Cooperation – Fireside Chat with Sec. Henry M. Paulson, Jr. and Mr. WANG Shi (王石)

10:30-12:30—Ambassadors’ Roundtable: Global Recovery in Post-Pandemic Times: Trends, Challenges, and Responses

14:00-16:00—China–Europe Roundtable: China–Europe Economic Cooperation: Moving Forward with the Global Quest for Sustainability

17:30-18:30—Forum Special Online Program II: History at a Turning Point: Pandemic, Ukraine, and the Changing Relations between China, Europe, and the United States–Dialogue with Historian Niall Ferguson

20:00-21:30—Forum Special Online Program III: Realigning the U.S.–China Trade and Economic Relationship: Inflation, Tariffs, and the Way Forward – China–U.S. Think Tank Dialogue

Zoom:
Webinar ID: 894 5641 9097
Passcode: 566991

Once you’re admitted into the Zoom meeting, your camera and audio will remain off. Simultaneous interpretation of both English and Chinese languages will be available by selecting the language pane.

Agenda

Monday, June 20th

09:00-10:00—Forum Special Online Program I: Advancing the 2030 Agenda in Uncertain Times: Sustainability and the Quest for China–U.S. Cooperation – Fireside Chat with Sec. Henry M. Paulson, Jr. and Mr. WANG Shi (王石)

Host

WANG Huiyao (王辉耀), CCG President, Vice Chairman of China Association for International Economic Cooperation (CAFIEC)

Speakers

Henry M. Paulson, Jr., former U.S. Treasury Secretary, Founder and Chairman of the Paulson Institute
WANG Shi (王石), CCG Senior Vice President, Founder and Honorary Chairman of China Vanke Co., Ltd., Founder of C-Team

This program will also be livestreamed on the web via the Baidu links and social media platforms below:

English language
Chinese language

Social Media
Youtube
Twitter
Facebook

10:30-12:30—Ambassadors’ Roundtable: Global Recovery in Post-Pandemic Times: Trends, Challenges, and Responses

Chair

WANG Huiyao (王辉耀), CCG President, Vice Chairman of China Association for International Economic Cooperation (CAFIEC)

Opening remarks

LONG Yongtu, CCG Chairman; former Vice Minister of Commerce
LIN Songtian, President of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, former Chinese Ambassador to South Africa
Siddharth Chatterjee, UN Resident Coordinator, United Nations in China

Participants

(in alphabetic order by country): 
Rahamtalla M. Osman, Permanent Representative of African Union to China
Graham Fletcher, Ambassador of Australia to China 
Paulo Estivallet de Mesquita, Ambassador of Brazil to China 
Nicolas Chapuis, Ambassador of European Union to China 
Laurent Bili, Ambassador of France to China 
Djauhari Oratmangun, Ambassador of Indonesia to China 
Luca Ferrari, Ambassador of Italy to China 
Raja Dato Nushirwan Zainal Abidin, Ambassador of Malaysia to China 
Clare Fearnley, Ambassador of New Zealand to China 
Signe Brudeset, Ambassador of Norway to China 
Moin ul Haque, Ambassador of Pakistan to China 
Luis Quesada, Ambassador of Peru to China 
José Augusto Duarte, Ambassador of Portugal to China 
James Kimonyo, Ambassador of Rwanda to China 
Alenka Suhadolnik, Ambassador of Slovenia to China 
Siyabonga Cwele, Ambassador of South Africa to China 
Bernardino Regazzoni, Ambassador of Switzerland to China 
Arthayudh Srisamoot, Ambassador of Thailand to China 
Ali Obaid Al Dhaheri, Ambassador of UAE to China

14:00-16:00—China–Europe Roundtable: China–Europe Economic Cooperation: Moving Forward with the Global Quest for Sustainability

Chair

Andy Mok, CCG Senior Fellow

Participants

(in alphabetic order)
Joseph Cash, Policy Analyst, China–Britain Business Council (CBBC)
CUI Hongjian, CCG Non-Resident Senior Fellow and Director of the Department of European Studies at the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS)
Vivian Ding, CCG Senior Council Member, Founder and CEO of WeBrand Global
FENG Zhongping, Director of Institute of European Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS)
Allan Gabor, President of Merck China
Archil Kalandia, Ambassador of Georgia to China
LENG Yan, CCG Senior Council Member; Executive Vice President of Daimler Greater China
LIU Chang, Vice President of Knorr-Bremse Asia Pacific
Steven Lynch, Managing Director, BritCham China
Dario Mihelin, Ambassador of Croatia to China
Leena-Kaisa Mikkola, Ambassador of Finland to China
MIN Hao, CCG Senior Council Member; Founder, Chairman, and CEO of the Nanjing Easthouse Electric Ltd.
SUN Yongfu, CCG Senior Fellow; former Director-General of MOFCOM Department of European Affairs
Joerg Wuttke, President of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China
ZHOU Yanli, CCG Advisor; Former Vice Chairman of China Insurance Regulatory Commission
Helen Zhu, CCG Senior Council Member; Vice President of Sanofi China

This program will also be livestreamed on the web via the Baidu links and social media platforms below:

English language
Chinese language

Social Media
Youtube
Twitter
Facebook

17:30-18:30—Forum Special Online Program II: History at a Turning Point: Pandemic, Ukraine, and the Changing Relations between China, Europe, and the United States–Dialogue with Historian Niall Ferguson

Speakers

Niall Ferguson, Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University
WANG Huiyao (王辉耀), CCG President, Vice Chairman of China Association for International Economic Cooperation (CAFIEC)

20:00-21:30—Forum Special Online Program III: Realigning the U.S.–China Trade and Economic Relationship: Inflation, Tariffs, and the Way Forward – China–U.S. Think Tank Dialogue

Moderator

WANG Huiyao (王辉耀), CCG President, Vice Chairman of China Association for International Economic Cooperation (CAFIEC)

Speakers

(in alphabetic order)
Craig Allen, President, US-China Business Council (USCBC)
Wendy Cutler, Vice President, Asia Society Policy Institute; former Acting Deputy U.S. Trade Representative
JIN Xu, President, China Association of International Trade (CAIT)
Adam Posen, President, Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
Jeremie Waterman, President of China Center and Vice President, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
YI Xiaozhun, former Deputy Director-General of World Trade Organization, former Vice Commerce Minister

Tuesday, June 21st

09:30-12:30—China Globalization 30 Roundtable Experts Roundtable: China and Globalization in the 21st Century (Chinese language livestream, not available on Zoom)

Chair

Mabel Miao, CCG Secretary-General

Discussants

(in alphabetic order)
CHEN Zhiwu, Director of Asia Global Institute, Professor of Business School, Hong Kong University
DA Wei, Professor and Director of Center for International Security and Strategy, Tsinghua University
DONG Guanpeng, Vice President of China Public Relations Association, Dean of School of Government and Public Affairs, Communication University of China
GE Jianxiong, Director of Institute of Chinese Historical Geography, Fudan University
GU Xuewu, Director of Center for Globalization, University of Bonn
HU Biliang, Executive Director of the Belt and Road Institute and the Institute of Emerging Markets, Beijing Normal University
LI Xiangyang, Director of Institute of Asia-Pacific and Global Strategy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS)
LIU Guoen, Dean of Institute for Global Health and Development, BOYA Distinguished Professor, Peking University
LIU Junhong, Director of Globalization Center, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR)
SU Hao, Director of Center for Strategy and Peace Studies, China Foreign Affairs University
XIE Tao, Dean of School of International Relations and Diplomacy, Beijing Foreign Studies University
XUE Lan, Dean of Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University
WANG Huiyao (王辉耀), President of Center for China and Globalization; Dean of Development Research Institute, Southwest University of Finance and Economics
WANG Ning, Zhiyuan Chair Professor, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Foreign Member of the European Academy of Sciences
WANG Yiwei, Professor of School of International Relations, Renmin University of China
WANG Yong, Director of Center for International Political and Economic Studies, Peking University
WU Xinbo, Dean of Institute of International Studies, Director of Center for American Studies, Fudan University
WU Zhicheng, Vice President of the Institute of International Strategic Studies, Party School of the Central Committee of CPC (National Academy of Administration)
YANG Xuedong, Senior Professor of Political Science, Tsinghua University
ZHANG Shuhua, Director of Institute of Political Science, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS)
ZHANG Xudong, Professor of Comparative Literature & East Asian Studies, NYU
ZHANG Yunling, Member of Presidium of Academic Divisions of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS)

This session will also be livestreamed on the web accessible via this Baidu link (Chinese language only, no simultaneous interpretation).

World-Watching Energy: Gas Future Demand

Future of EU Gas Demand

[from E3G, by Euan Graham, Kamila Godzinska]

The EU is implementing an ambitious package of measures to reduce its reliance on Russian gas, targeting both supply and demand. REPowerEU will accelerate the EU’s move away from reliance on gas imports over the next decade.

When it comes to U.S. gas exports, while this will lead to an increased reliance on liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the short term, the outlined strategy doesn’t imply any long-term LNG market growth. The U.S. can supply Europe with sufficient LNG without building new infrastructure. New findings show that, with clean technologies and energy efficiency, EU gas demand will decline before newly proposed projects are actually completed — 15-20 years — and long payback periods mean LNG export projects may never recover the capital investment.

[LNG projects timeline]
Indicative construction and payback timelines for new LNG terminals, contrasted to additional LNG demand set out in REPowerEU. LNG demand between 2025 and 2030 reflects the potential of increased action on demand-side as set out by E3G.

Read the full briefing [archived PDF] on the future of EU gas demand.