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. January 9, 2022 On GPS, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET:
First, Fareed argues for a new strategy against Covid-19, in light of Omicron's apparent characteristics.
Early, real-world experiences with the variant suggest it's producing milder illness in the vaccinated, Fareed notes, arguing that as Covid-19 takes on a new risk profile, "we must have different rules across the board for people who are vaccinated. We know from the science and the statistics that they will impose many fewer burdens on the health care system." Masking and mass testing should also be key weapons against the virus, Fareed says.
Given that many Americans remain unvaccinated, Fareed says, it's hard to tell if Covid-19 has really turned a corner with Omicron. "But it does seem that at least for now, for the vaccinated majority, the post-pandemic future has arrived—if we are willing to accept it."
Next: What can we expect from the world in 2022? Fareed gives a preview in conversation with a series of top experts and analysts.
Where is Covid-19 headed, after nearly two years of pandemic conditions? With the arrival of Omicron, has the virus turned a corner? Fareed talks with University of California-San Francisco medical chair Dr. Bob Wachter.
With Russian troops massed near Ukraine, will 2022 bring more war in Europe? Fareed asks Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer and historian and author Niall Ferguson about President Vladimir Putin's real intentions.
Where is the world's other superpower, China, headed in the next 12 months? Elizabeth Economy, author of the new book "The World According to China," joins Fareed to discuss a momentous upcoming year for President Xi Jinping—and what it will mean for the rest of the world.
Finally: How will the economy fare, after a long pandemic slowdown? Fareed talks with Morgan Stanley's Ruchir Sharma about the trends Sharma thinks will define the global economy this year—from a baby bust to fading "bubblets."
Note to readers: Tune into CNN tonight at 9 p.m. ET for the premiere of Fareed's latest special, "The Fight to Save American Democracy." The Capitol attack of Jan. 6, 2021 is behind us, but the threat to US democracy isn't; Fareed examines how, why, and what we can do to avoid a constitutional crisis in 2024. Democracy is under threat—not just in the US, as Fareed will detail in tonight's special—but around the world, as independent ratings of global freedom slide year after year.
In the current issue of Foreign Policy, Fareed and other experts weigh in on what can be done. Former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, for instance, recommends more confidence ("[p]eople rarely take to the streets demanding more autocracy," Rasmussen writes) and that democracies form a global alliance; Eduardo Porter advises working to heal racial divisions and throwing young people of different backgrounds together; and Toomas Hendrik Ilves counsels building resilience against disinformation.
In his own entry, Fareed reminds us that democracy requires its various factions to choose it, rather than work in bad faith to undermine it. "We enter the 21st century asking one of the oldest questions in politics, much older than the Enlightenment ideas that democracy was built on," Fareed writes. "It is a question the ancient Greeks and Romans debated more than two millennia ago: How do we produce virtue in human beings?" Is China Facing a Tech Slowdown in 2022? China has prized domestic technological development in recent years, and although a regulatory crackdown on the tech sector has dampened some expectations, tech is still a big part of China's national strategy. As Anjani Trivedi details at Bloomberg, dominance in industrial robotics is Beijing's latest big goal.
But factors larger than regulation could slow China down, Nina Xiang writes in a 2022 prospectus for Nikkei Asia. The US and China won't completely decouple their tech supply chains, Xiang predicts, but their standoff will deepen, and China may not be able to produce the microchips it needs to leap ahead independently. What's more, many opportunities for technological growth have already been achieved, in Xiang's view.
"To sum up, the next year will see the beginning of a new era of China Tech 3.0," Xiang writes. "The internet boom in the 1990s and early 2000s and the ensuing mobile internet and artificial intelligence boom represented a kind of gold rush, with all the alluvial gold already picked up. Going forward, we can expect muted growth and greater operational hardship." Has Social Democracy Come to Latin America? Latin America has its center-right and right-wing leaders to go along with its strong tradition of leftists in the Marxist mold. But with the election of 35-year-old Gabriel Boric last month as the next president of Chile, Shannon K. O'Neil writes for Bloomberg that another form of governance may get a chance in the region: European-style, center-left social democracy.
It's been said that Boric must respond to younger voters' desire for a state more like Sweden or France; O'Neil writes that history shows economic success is possible under such a model and that Chile is ready for it.
"For Chile to thrive again, it needs to change its thinking and, more importantly, its public spending," O'Neil writes. "A minimal state will no longer bring longer-term stability for investors, businesses or its people. Chile has successfully graduated to high income. Its policies need to catch up. And if Boric succeeds and they do, Chile's new president will have created a new model for Latin America's left, one based on both economic and political inclusion that creates stronger economies and democracies throughout the region. With President Joe Biden promising the US will retain "over the horizon" military capabilities in Afghanistan after its withdrawal, the American national-security commentariat has been atwitter with debate over the merits of relying on drones and distantly based aircraft to achieve global goals. That debate aside, in a Financial Times essay Katrina Manson suggests the future of warfare will involve lots of drones—specifically, low-cost ones available to various countries and groups—and that when it comes to shooting them down, the US is falling behind. Expensive missiles are America's current anti-cheap-quadcopter-drone weapon of choice, but as one officer puts it to Manson, that's "not where we want to be on the cost curve." |
