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Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good

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November 18, 2021

Revenge of the Autocrats

Western democracies can criticize and sanction all they want, Anne Applebaum writes in a long Atlantic essay: The world's autocrats are doing just fine.
 
The likes of Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Alexander Lukashenko, Nicolás Maduro, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Bashar al-Assad have proven resilient, Applebaum writes. Lukashenko has extended repression beyond Belarus's borders; Assad and Maduro have been willing to see Syria and Venezuela become failed states, just to stay in charge. China's repression of ethnic Uyghurs has been chilling. Impunity has been a through line.
 
"Unlike military or political alliances from other times and places," Applebaum writes, "the members of this group don't operate like a bloc, but rather like an agglomeration of companies—call it Autocracy Inc. Their links are cemented not by ideals but by deals—deals designed to take the edge off Western economic boycotts, or to make them personally rich—which is why they can operate across geographical and historical lines." All the while, they prod liberal democracies with political manipulations.
 
In the West, progressives "fail to understand the brutality of the zero-sum competition now unfolding in front of us," Applebaum warns, calling for vigilance not only against provocations that have crept closer to the world's robust democracies—but against democracies becoming more like their autocratic competitors.

Can Xi Take His Place in History?

Observers have noted with some alarm the heavy hand Chinese President Xi Jinping has taken in shaping his country—but after the Communist Party passed a resolution enshrining him as author of a critical new phase in China's history, Katsuji Nakazawa writes for Nikkei Asia that in truth, "the references to Xi in the resolution on history are but declarations of what he intends to do. The historic changes have yet to come." 
 
Speculation about those changes has been anxious, Nakazawa's included. Xi seems to want to overtake past leader Deng Xiaoping, whose reforms and opening enriched the country, Nakawa suggests; to do that, he may need an iconic achievement, such as invading Taiwan. "Xi is still halfway down the road to his goal of overtaking Deng," Nakazawa writes. "This means anything could happen, be it in internal or external affairs, until that goal is reached."

Time for the Fed to Change Course?

With inflation spiking in the US, Martin Wolf writes for the Financial Times that the Federal Reserve should abandon its claim that such price bloating is "transitory" and instead turn swiftly toward "monetary sobriety." Wolf writes that across the world, "[a]ll the big central banks are still largely locked into policy settings introduced in March 2020, at the peak of the Covid-induced panic." 
 
At The Wall Street Journal, Judy Shelton shares Wolf's view that the Fed is stuck in the past, but Shelton identifies that past as a different one: 2018–2019, when low interest rates accompanied economic growth without the negative consequence of inflation. Shelton concurs that the goal of economic expansion, at least insofar as it's achieved through low interest rates and Fed asset purchases that pump new money into the economy, may need to be sacrificed for stability.

Workin' 9 to 9

China's "996" work culture—the practice of working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days of the week—continues to draw headlines. At The MIT Technology Review, Siyuan Meng writes that burned-out workers (in the tech sector, in particular) have taken to criticizing 996 culture online and to cataloguing the expected or practiced work hours at various companies. That trend, in turn, has been met with censorship. 
 
Of course, others have adopted a different form of protest: The "lying flat" ethos that some Gen-Zers have embraced, as a demonstration that China's work pressures simply aren't worth living up to.

Has Sweden Closed Its Doors, Politically?

James Traub, who detailed for Foreign Policy in 2016 how Sweden was meeting Europe's migrant influx with open borders and open arms, revisits the subject and concludes that five years later, a country that once prided itself on welcoming foreigners has changed. Sweden has struggled to integrate immigrants into its workforce, Traub writes, and even the center-left Social Democrats have taken a harder line on immigration politics, while moderates sometimes sound like the right wing. 
 
"Sweden is no longer a welcoming country and does not wish to be seen as one," Traub writes. "Of course, Sweden remains an enormously prosperous, relatively egalitarian, and quite safe country. It is rather some deep Swedish impulse that has died. Sweden asked too much of itself. … It changed cherished values to survive."