Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Subscribe here. November 16, 2021 The Value of the Biden–Xi Meeting US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping have completed a three-and-a-half-hour virtual meeting, and as The New York Times' Steven Lee Myers and David E. Sanger write, no major breakthroughs were achieved.
"That was not the intent," they write, suggesting it's a worthy enough goal to simply deescalate the tone of US–China relations. There may be inherent value, along those lines, in Biden and Xi talking directly, Danny Russel proposes in a Foreign Affairs essay. The two have a longstanding relationship, and leader-level dialogue can restore a fundamental—and personal—aspect of diplomacy between the two superpowers, Russel argues.
"The world is not likely to see a return to the large-scale, ponderous, and protocol-heavy diplomacy of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogues of the past," Russel writes. "The yield of such diplomacy was too small for U.S. officials … Yet the previous administration's experiment with denunciatory diplomacy by presidential tweets or lectern-thumping tirades by the secretary of state was an abject and dangerous failure. Real engagement is a very human mix of relationship building, active listening, persuasion, and creative problem solving. The U.S.-Chinese relationship is in dire need of such diplomacy—particularly at high levels—in order to stem a downward spiral that could lead to war." Europe's far-right populists have largely failed to expand their appeal during the pandemic, suffering electoral setbacks of late. But an energized, anti-vaccine core seems to have emerged on the right wing of European politics: For instance, "[l]ast month, thousands of Italian anti-vaccine advocates mobilized across the country" for protests that culminated as "far-right gangs stormed parliament's stairs," Ryan Broderick notes at Foreign Policy.
Vaccine skepticism and populist politics have coalesced in Central Europe in particular, The Economist writes, as Germany, Austria, and Switzerland remain stuck with vaccination rates around 65%, and there are indications that the remaining holdouts are broadly unwilling to get inoculated.
In Germany, a deca-bylined Der Spiegel article points to the dovetailing of vaccine reluctance and conspiracy-theory politics, warning that such trends—along with government failures—will produce a dangerous "fourth wave" of Covid-19 this winter. The magazine assigns blame in jarring terms: "A federation of imbeciles has ensured that Germany is being hit extremely hard ... Irrational political leaders … have no plan for what promises to be the most dangerous phase of the pandemic yet. ... Meanwhile, a large population of the feebleminded have continued to ignore the dangers presented by the virus and refuse to be vaccinated. Indeed, the untenable situation in Germany's intensive care units is primarily due to this group. ... Once again, it seems it is up to the sensible people to fix everything—because others are either unwilling or incapable." After China Cracks Down on Tech, Investors Look to India China's regulatory crackdowns on Ant Group and ride-sharing app Didi have paved the way for Indian tech ventures to attract more funding, Benjamin Parkin and Mercedes Ruehl write for the Financial Times, pointing to ambitious IPOs, high valuations, and lofty hopes for Indian companies like delivery service Zomato, beauty-products e-commerce firm Nykaa, and payments mechanism Paytm.
"For every dollar invested in Chinese tech in the quarter that ended September, $1.50 went into India, according to the Asian Venture Capital Journal," they note. "India's benchmark Sensex equity index is up 25 per cent this year, the best performer among Asia's large economies, while China's Shanghai SE Composite index is flat over the same period." Still, some investors worry that India's tech ventures haven't had enough time to mature—and that a bubble may be forming. Will Inflation Kill a New Economic Paradigm? Has 2021 witnessed the birth of a new economic paradigm? And if so, can it survive the inflation now dominating headlines?
In the last year, observers have noted increased appetite for major government spending, as Covid-19 relief packages in large economies carried hefty price tags. In light of that, Felicia Wong argues at Foreign Affairs that the world has departed from the 20th century "Washington consensus" of small government and market liberalization, adopting a "new economics" in its place. Wong points to US President Joe Biden's just-enacted $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill and his stalled "Build Back Better" social-spending package as evidence. That the latter has faltered, Wong argues, is less is significant than the fact "that such legislation is now under discussion at all."
Will the big-spending model stick? The current story in global economics—inflation—may hold the answer. Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers warned of inflation as a potential consequence of America's massive Covid-19 economic-relief package, but at The Washington Post, Summers writes that inflation should not preclude the further spending Biden has proposed—an argument Summers also made to Fareed on Sunday's GPS. Unlike direct cash transfers to citizens, such public investments increase the "capacity" of the US economy and thus "will have only a negligible impact on inflation," in Summers' view.
Though inflation has ginned up doubts about Biden's agenda, Paola Subacchi writes for Nikkei Asia that fiscal policy isn't the only thing affected, as inflation has prompted the US Federal Reserve to dial back its asset purchases and stop pumping so much new cash into the economy. |
