Mathilde Pak : “Il faut déployer des formations au numérique pour que personne ne reste sur le côté”

Le Monde – 23.09.2020

Marie Charrel

Avec le coronavirus, bienvenue dans un monde sans contact

Travail, santé, industrie… le Covid-19 va intensifier une série de mutations déjà à l’œuvre. Cette numérisation à marche forcée risque de se faire au détriment de l’emploi et des relations sociales.

Un robot serveur dans un restaurant de Séoul (Corée du Sud), le 15 septembre.
Un robot serveur dans un restaurant de Séoul (Corée du Sud), le 15 septembre. LEE JIN-MAN / AP

Il n’est pas doué pour la conversation, mais ses expressos sont réputés du tonnerre. Au Lounge’X, café à l’ambiance mi-industrielle, mi-traditionnelle de Daejeon, grande ville au centre de la Corée du Sud, le robot Baris, de son petit nom, agite son bras d’acier pour remplir les tasses des habitués, plus guère surpris de ce ballet mécanique. Dans le quartier chic de Gangnam, à Séoul, inutile de chercher le serveur dans le restaurant Mad for Garlic : les plats, payés par smartphones, sont servis aux tables par un chariot automatisé. Non loin, au Novotel Ambassador Dongdaemun, le client de l’une des 211 chambres commandant un sandwich au milieu de la nuit voit débarquer un robot aux allures de minibar ambulant. Dans les rues alentours, des voiturettes autonomes sont testées pour livrer achats en ligne et repas à domicile.

Travailler, déjeuner et faire ses courses dans l’une des plus grandes mégapoles d’Asie sans approcher un être humain de la journée : en Corée du Sud, la « société sans contact » ne relève plus de la science-fiction, et elle a pris un peu plus d’ampleur encore avec la pandémie liée au Covid-19. Depuis le début de l’année, le pays a renforcé le recours aux technologies permettant de limiter les interactions pour respecter la distanciation physique. Et le président Moon Jae-in a fait desdites innovations le grand axe de son ambitieux plan de relance de 76 trillions de wons (55,8 milliards d’euros), dévoilé en juin.

Interactions virtuelles
Dans le détail, celui-ci prévoit une série d’investissements pour aider 160 000 entreprises à muscler leurs systèmes de travail à distance, pour connecter 1 300 fermes et villages de pêcheurs à l’Internet haut débit, pour équiper 240 000 étudiants en tablettes, et pour accélérer une série d’inventions telles que robots, drones et véhicules autonomes. Fort de sa longueur d’avance dans le déploiement de la 5G, le pays du Matin-Calme se rêve en leader de l’économie « untact » − un bricolage coréen entre les mots anglais undo (« annuler », « défaire ») et contact.

L’expression a été forgée en 2017 par Rando Kim, spécialiste des tendances de consommation à l’Université nationale de Séoul, pour évoquer l’essor des interactions humaines virtuelles dans la consommation comme au travail, et l’utilisation de robots pour pallier le vieillissement de la main-d’œuvre. « La Corée du Sud était encore un pays pauvre au début des années 1960, elle fait preuve d’une grande capacité à changer très vite », explique Rando Kim. Avant de confier : “Je suis tout de même surpris que l’économie “untact” soit devenue populaire si rapidement. À cause de la pandémie, les gens ont peur de se toucher, et surtout, ils doivent l’éviter”. 

Cette peur de la contagion, pas un continent n’y échappe aujourd’hui. En Europe, aux Etats-Unis, en Amérique du Sud, des millions de salariés ont basculé du jour au lendemain en télétravail et des millions d’entreprises ont adapté leur fonctionnement en catastrophe. Des restaurants se sont mis à la vente à emporter ou à la livraison. Des hôpitaux, comme La Salpêtrière à Paris, ont testé des robots pour permettre aux familles de visiter virtuellement leurs proches en réanimation.

« Nous sommes des animaux sociaux, nous avons besoin du contact physique avec les autres », Olivier Servais, anthropologue

Les logiciels permettant d’organiser des réunions virtuelles ont été pris d’assaut, sans parler de la foison de nouvelles start-up proposant des modules de prise de température par infrarouge ou des machines autonomes assurant la désinfection de lieux publics. « Il devient possible d’imaginer un monde économique – des usines aux consommateurs individuels – où les contacts humains sont minimisés », estime le cabinet McKinsey, dans un récent rapport, citant également le boom des téléconsultations de médecine.

A l’heure où les contaminations repartent en Europe, alors que l’incertitude quant à la possibilité de mettre au point un vaccin rapidement est forte, il est bien sûr impossible de prédire ce à quoi ressemblera le monde d’après. Dans le scénario où le Covid-19 serait maîtrisé au cours de l’année prochaine, il est néanmoins probable que nous retrouvions une partie de nos habitudes d’avant. « Nous sommes des animaux sociaux, nous avons besoin du contact physique avec les autres », rappelle Olivier Servais, anthropologue à l’Université catholique de Louvain.

« Amplificateurs de changements »

Mais pour le reste, la pandémie va sans doute intensifier durablement une série de mutations déjà à l’œuvre depuis plusieurs années. “Les crises sont toujours des amplificateurs de changements”, résume Stefano Scarpetta, de l’Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques(OCDE). La récession de 2008 avait ainsi précipité la désindustrialisation aux Etats-Unis et cristallisé la question des inégalités en Europe. « Celle liée au Covid va marquer l’accélération du capitalisme numérique », estime Daniel Cohen, directeur du département d’économie de l’Ecole normale supérieure. Soit l’autre petit nom de l’économie « untact ».

Outre le recours massif au télétravail, l’expression la plus manifeste de ce basculement est l’envol des paiements sans contact. « Les Français s’y sont massivement convertis pendant le confinement, et ils le sont restés depuis : la crise a servi de déclic”, note Julien Lasalle, secrétaire de l’Observatoire de la sécurité des moyens de paiement, à la Banque de France. Entre juillet et septembre, les retraits de billets aux distributeurs sont en baisse de 10% par rapport à la même période l’an passé, et les paiements en magasin avec saisie du code confidentiel ont chuté de 25%.

« En revanche, les paiements sans contact ont bondi de 65 % par rapport à 2019, favorisés par le relèvement du plafond de 30 à 50 euros, et les paiements par l’e-commerce ont progressé de 25 % », ajoute M. Lasalle. « La même tendance s’observe dans la plupart des pays européens : rarement un basculement aussi rapide des usages n’avait été observé », confirme Gilles Grapinet, PDG de Worldline, premier groupe de services de paiement en Europe.

De même, l’e-commerce a renforcé un peu plus encore son assise : les achats en ligne de produits de consommation courante ont progressé de 45,7 % au deuxième trimestre, selon la Fédération d’e-commerce et de la vente à distance (Fevad). Et ce, au profit des géants américains tels qu’Amazon. “Les petits commerçants s’y sont mis aussi pour compenser la baisse des visites en boutique, nuance M. Grapinet. Le taux de pénétration du numérique dans nos vies a gagné peut-être 3,5 voire 10 ans.”

Du côté des usines, contraintes de fonctionner avec moins de personnel, les robots, imprimantes 3Det autres machines autonomes se sont également rendus un peu plus indispensables encore. Au point de remplacer pour de bon une partie des ouvriers ? L’économie sans contact sera-t-elle une société sans travail ?

Polarisation des emplois

Depuis plusieurs années, déjà, l’automatisation des tâches soulève les inquiétudes, dans l’industrie comme dans les services. D’après l’OCDE, la numérisation pourrait engendrer la disparition de 14 %des emplois dans les grands pays industrialisés ces vingt prochaines années, tandis que 31,6 % des postes seraient profondément transformés. Au risque que cela accélère un peu plus encore la disparition des classes moyennes.

« Mais cela n’a rien d’inéluctable : tout dépend de la façon dont on s’emparera de ces technologies ces prochaines années », souligne Daniel Cohen, qui décrit ces mutations dans son dernier ouvrage, Il faut dire que les temps ont changé (Ed. Albin Michel, 2018). A l’hôpital, les robots remplaceront-ils les infirmiers pour les gestes simples ? Ou bien, en leur libérant du temps, leur permettront-ils de se consacrer un peu plus aux patients, voire de réaliser des tâches jusqu’ici dévolues aux médecins ? De même,  le télétravail favorisera-t-il un meilleur équilibre entre vies personnelle et professionnelle, ou bien accélérera-t-il la délocalisation de postes de cadres vers les pays à bas coût ?

“Cela suppose de déployer des formations et de l’éducation au numérique pour que personne ne reste sur le côté, notamment parmi les petites entreprises”, Mathilde Pak, spécialiste de la Corée à l’OCDE

Deux scénarios sont possibles pour l’avenir, explique Daniel Cohen. Dans le premier, la numérisation à outrance, utilisée pour réduire les coûts, intensifierait la polarisation des emplois et “conduirait à une forme de déshumanisation”, creusant les inégalités. La Conférence des Nations Unies sur le commerce et le développement (Cnuced) s’en est alarmée dès le début de la pandémie : “Le passage rapide à la numérisation est susceptible de renforcer la position de quelques plateformes méga-numériques, prévient l’institution. Le fossé béant entre les pays sous-connectés et hypernumérisés va s’élargir.”

Dans le second scénario, les technologies numériques seraient utilisées en complémentarité des salariés, permettant notamment de pallier le vieillissement de la population active. « Cela suppose de déployer des formations et de l’éducation au numérique pour que personne ne reste sur le côté, notamment parmi les petites entreprises, les autoentrepreneurs et les plus âgés », souligne Mathilde Pak, spécialiste de la Corée à l’OCDE.

A Séoul, au début de la pandémie, des applications mobiles permettant de connaître en temps réel les stocks de masques dans les commerces ont fleuri. Grâce à elles, les jeunes ont réussi à s’équiper en quelques clics. Mais les retraités, eux, ont été des milliers à faire la queue pendant des heures devant les pharmacies de quartier, parfois en vain, car très peu ont su utiliser les applications. Rando Kim, le père de l’économie “untact”, est le premier à en convenir : “Réduire cette fracture est l’un des défis que mon pays devra relever ces prochaines années.” Et pas seulement le sien…

Retrouvez l’article sur le site du Monde.

Antoine Flahault : « Nous sommes peut-être en train d’observer les fondements de ce qui deviendra une deuxième vague »

Antoine Flahault dirige l'Institut de santé globale à l'Université de Genève.

L’épidémiologiste juge préoccupante la hausse des hospitalisations en France et en Espagne, mais souligne que la mortalité reste faible à ce stade en Europe.

Par Yves Bourdillon
Publié le 15 sept. 2020 à 17:21 | Mis à jour le 16 sept. 2020 à 8:39

 

Quelle est votre évaluation de la dynamique du Covid-19 en Europe ?

Nous avons bénéficié d’un répit estival bienvenu, mais constatons effectivement depuis peu une circulation exponentielle du virus en France, Espagne, Royaume-Uni, Autriche, Suisse, etc. Ce qui peut s’expliquer en partie par une politique de tests très intense, sans précédent historique. La notion de nouveaux « cas » manque par ailleurs d’une définition précise, puisqu’elle mêle aujourd’hui des malades plus ou moins symptomatiques et sévères, des cas contagieux mais asymptomatiques, ainsi que des personnes positives au test PCR dans les muqueuses nasales, mais avec une charge virale insuffisante pour les rendre contagieux. Pour autant, la hausse des hospitalisations en France et en Espagne nous oblige à envisager un scénario inquiétant, qui serait le résultat d’un « ensemencement » du virus sur tout le territoire, après une première phase d’émergence de « clusters ».

La fameuse deuxième vague ?

Plus précisément, nous sommes peut-être en train d’observer les fondements de ce qui deviendra une deuxième vague. Ce scénario d’une seconde vague plus homogène sur le territoire et peut-être l’Europe entière impose de s’y préparer, de mettre sur la table toutes les mesures nécessaires s’il survenait à l’automne.

Dans un autre scénario, plus optimiste, au vu du fait que, par ailleurs, cette flambée n’est pas observée partout en Europe, l’épidémie pourrait continuer à se propager seulement sous la forme de clusters, contrôlables tant que l’infection restera limitée aux jeunes de moins de 40 ans, lesquels développent très rarement des complications graves. Ce scénario s’il perdurait tout l’hiver permettrait de faire face comme cet été en Europe sans mesures trop contraignantes.

Comment expliquez-vous le décalage paradoxal entre flambée de cas et stagnation des décès partout en Europe, sauf dans quelques régions ?

En effet, ce décalage me pousse d’ailleurs à ne pas parler encore, malgré la progression des cas depuis presque deux mois, de deuxième vague, dont la définition devrait se restreindre aux situations de hausse importante et concomitante des décès. On ne teste pas non plus de la même manière qu’en mars, au risque que les données bénéficient d’un phénomène de loupe, avec de nombreux cas asymptomatiques. J’irais jusqu’à dire que si cet été on n’avait pas disposé de tests PCR massifs et si on n’avait pas été sensibilisés auparavant par la vague du printemps, on n’aurait seulement pas repéré le phénomène épidémique actuel.

Pourquoi cette différence paradoxale entre dynamique des cas et des décès ? Je ne crois pas qu’une souche moins létale aurait supplanté les autres. Certes les méthodes de réanimation, notamment de ventilation, ont évolué en tirant les leçons du printemps. De nouveaux traitements pour les cas graves, comme la dexaméthasone , s’avèrent aussi efficaces. Cela explique peut-être en partie pourquoi moins de patients décèdent dans les services d’urgence, alors qu’en mars, au moins 20 % des gens hospitalisés pour Covid en mouraient. Mais cela n’explique pas pourquoi beaucoup moins de cas sont hospitalisés qu’au printemps.

Du coup, quelle serait l’explication ?

La raison principale de cette faible sévérité cet été en Europe, c’est l’âge – moins de 40 ans – des personnes contaminées. Les personnes âgées se méfient et se protègent sans doute beaucoup mieux que cet hiver, les jeunes testés plus largement entrent peut-être moins en contact avec des parents à risque, lorsqu’ils se savent positifs. Si tout restait comme en juillet-août, il n’y aurait pas de raison de s’inquiéter particulièrement d’une pathologie moins grave que bien des infections respiratoires virales banales. Toutefois, la hausse soudaine des hospitalisations en réanimation depuis une dizaine de jours en Paca oblige à une vigilance certaine.

Paris et Londres mettent l’accent depuis quelques jours moins sur la prophylaxie du « tout masque » que, de nouveau, sur une restriction des rencontres…

Si on veut freiner l’épidémie, on ne peut jouer que sur deux paramètres : la probabilité d’une part que des cas transmettent le virus, donc en misant sur le port du masque qui, tout seul, n’est pas la panacée, et impose d’être bien porté, le lavage des mains, la distanciation sociale, la ventilation des locaux. D’autre part, on doit diminuer le nombre de contacts entre les bien portants et les porteurs du virus, avec la promotion du télétravail, le moindre recours aux transports publics, la fermeture éventuelle d’écoles, la réduction de la jauge des réunions. Ainsi, les Suédois, souvent présentés comme désinvoltes, avaient fixé très tôt une limite de 50 personnes pour les rassemblements. Le choix n’est donc pas entre le masque et la limite des rassemblements, ce sont deux mesures complémentaires légitimes pour limiter les conséquences d’une flambée épidémique, si elle devait se produire.

Prenez-vous au sérieux la théorie selon laquelle la baisse de la mortalité s’expliquerait par le fait que nous ne serions plus très loin d’une immunité collective ?

Je suis sceptique à propos d’une telle hypothèse aujourd’hui . Aucune enquête de séroprévalence, c’est-à-dire de gens ayant des anticorps, n’établit que nous nous approchons du seuil de 50 à 60 % de personnes déjà infectées à partir duquel, effectivement, le virus ne parviendrait plus à circuler aussi facilement. La proportion de personnes d’ores et déjà immunisées est, selon toutes les enquêtes, de 10 % maximum, sauf dans quelques villes comme Manaus, Bombay ou Bergame. Il n’est théoriquement pas impossible que la proportion réelle soit un peu supérieure, mais l’hypothèse que nous ayons déjà atteint un seuil d’immunité collective n’est pas compatible avec la circulation du virus constatée actuellement dans de larges parties d’Europe. Nous serons peut-être à ce seuil au printemps si l’épidémie est intense cet automne et en hiver.

Yves Bourdillon

 

Lire l’article sur le site des Echos

Bertrand Badré : “Crise : comment repenser le monde d’après dans la finance?”

Ancien directeur financier de la Banque mondiale, Bertrand Badré croit au “capitalisme moral”

BFM Business – 11.09.2020

L’ancien directeur financier de la Banque mondiale, fondateur de la société d’investissement BlueLike an Orange visant à financer des projets susceptibles de générer un impact positif dans les pays émergents, est persuadé qu’un “capitalisme moral” est possible.

Visionnez l’interview sur le site de BFM Business.

Justice and Might

Portrait de Thierry de Montbrial © Bahi

Éditoriaux de l’Ifri, September 1st, 2020

Looking back on the last few weeks, a famous quote by Goethe (from his report on the siege of Mainz in 1793) came to mind: “Better to commit an injustice than to countenance disorder.” In other words, disorder engenders more injustice than it eradicates. But, if one word characterises the world at the end of summer 2020, it is disorder.

The coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the planet, as much through an underlying anxiety increased by contradictory statements made every day, as through the objective economic collapse caused by the steps taken to fight it. Democratic States are struggling to find the right balance between sometimes-hypocritical measures to combat the virus and the search for economic recovery in the fog of an uncertainty that is partly self-sustaining due to all kinds of contradictions.

The case of the United States is particularly noteworthy because the pandemic disorder is superimposed on the deeper one of a (not only racial) social fracture that existed before Donald Trump’s election, but which he amplified as if just for fun. The magic of the 45th President of the United States continues to work, however. He manages to pass himself off to half of his fellow citizens as the saviour of an America devitalized by the Democrats. His opponent Joe Biden is clearly destabilized by the situation as a whole. Trump’s autocratic counterparts, whom he admires so much, have nothing on his mastery of the art of fake news. The bottom line is that the world’s leading power has never seemed more divided since the Civil War. It is more violent than ever, and we do not see spectacular American disorder accompanied by a decrease in injustice. Whatever the outcome of the 3 November election, the United States will not suddenly come together the next day. And a divided America will not become a world leader again. This means that the international system’s disorder is not going away any time soon. Who could believe that it would advance the cause of justice?

Injustice begins with the selective gaze. Human beings are made in such a way that they feel more concerned about the “near” than the “distant”. For a few days this summer, the explosion in Beirut caught the attention of everybody in the world still interested in Lebanon, especially in France, for historical and emotional reasons dating back to the 16th century. Unfortunately, Lebanon has been experiencing a more or less latent civil war for almost half a century, with the only common ground between the communities being the plundering of the common good at the expense of any notion of Lebaneseness. As in other countries (I am thinking particularly of Algeria), its youth was rumbling with revolt long before the tragedy on 4 August, but in vain. And it is unsure whether the terms potential donors rightly set to pull the country out of the abyss will be implemented. In addition, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is now on the periphery of Middle East politics as a whole, as illustrated by the spectacular rapprochement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, another highlight of recent weeks. In the new framework taking shape, revolving around the key interests of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and, outside the region, the United States, Russia and, increasingly, China, Lebanon no longer matters. In absolute terms, this is deeply unfair. Life is cruel to those who do not take sufficient care of themselves and indulge in disorder at best concealed by a trompe l’oeil décor. Here too, “history-in-the-making” reminds us that justice cannot spontaneously spring from disorder.

What can be said about Belarus? If disorder can only engender injustice, must it be deduced that one must give Alexander Lukashenko, one of those potentates who captured a part of the Soviet legacy, free rein to establish a sort of conservative monarchy increasingly out of step with the march of history? The answer is obviously no, for the fact that disorder engenders injustice does not justify preserving any order. Lukashenko has the same problem as all the regimes that, with time, have no other goal than perpetuating themselves — an illustration of Spinoza’s conatus. But if “one” must not give the Minsk dictator free rein, what must “one” do? The answer can only be political. And first of all, who is this “one”? In contemporary international relations, power still matters more than anything else. At most, it might be tempered by international law as expressed in the framework of the UN. Like it or not, “one” consists first and foremost of the States that are most interested in Belarus (other than for appearance’s sake, as is often the case in politics), starting with Russia. The Kremlin can be expected to back any formula allowing closer ties between Belarus and Russia. In the present international context, I objectively see no major player willing to invest in a Minsk Spring.

The dialectic between justice and order, or injustice and disorder, is an ever-recurring question. The news of the day, whatever it may be, can be relied upon to dissertate about it. Undoubtedly, “summer breaks” lend themselves well to such distancing. I began by quoting Goethe but, closer to us, I often think of Albert Camus, about whom much was said earlier this year on the 60th anniversary of his accidental death. Unlike Jean-Paul Sartre, the author of The Plague clearly made a distinction between revolt and revolution. In the most broadly accepted meaning of the term, revolt is above all an emotional attitude towards injustice. From the perspective of action, it is morally superior when expressed in forms of personal or collective commitment based not on hatred and blind violence – as happens in any revolution – but on ethics, necessarily winning in the long term as long as it is not corrupted. Such commitments are winning propositions because, through perseverance, they always meet their kairos, their propitious moment for success. I imagine Camus as a promoter of a philosophy of history that might be called dynamic equilibrium, like a spiral coiling around an axis of an essentially ethical nature. I do not think I am going too far in interpreting the great writer, for whom the world may have been absurd but not to the point of encouraging absurd policies.

This type of thinking is fundamental today, when, as UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres says, the spirit of international cooperation is at its lowest ebb. Violence manifests itself between but also within nations, as we see in countries as attached to the democratic ideal as France or the United States. In the face of disorder, democracies are often handicapped compared to authoritarian regimes. By dint of inefficiency, they can sometimes lose their legitimacy. Authoritarian States have immense vulnerabilities, but in certain circumstances such as the present, time can play in their favour.

I will conclude with an upbeat note on the European Union, which is once again demonstrating its ability to move forward – albeit painfully – with every major crisis. It is, on an already very large regional scale, the only living laboratory of international governance worthy of the name, which allows us to hope that in the long term democracy and efficiency will go hand in hand: economic and social efficiency, but also security efficiency, both from an internal and external point of view.

Democracy without authority is a breeding ground for authoritarianism. How can I not finish with Pascal’s famous thought: “Justice without might is helpless; might without justice is tyrannical. Justice without might is gainsaid, because there are always offenders; might without justice is condemned. We must then combine justice and might, and for this end make what is just strong, or what is strong just.” In this regard, global governance still has a long way to go. So does the European Union.

Download (0.47 MO)

L’autonomisation économique des femmes marocaines au temps de la Covid-19 et d’avant : comprendre pour agir

Policy Center for the New South | 16 juillet 2020

Aomar Ibourk , Karim El Aynaoui , Tayeb Ghazi

La femme représente la moitié de la société. Côte à côte avec l’homme, elle a toujours contribué au développement des sociétés lorsque les facteurs de conversion lui ont permis de mettre à l’oeuvre ses potentialités pour parler simple. Aujourd’hui, cette catégorie de la société marocaine, et mondiale, subit de manière disproportionnée les répercussions de la crise de la Covid-19, sur plus d’un aspect de la vie en société. Ceci est particulièrement vrai lorsqu’il s’agit des domaines de l’autonomisation économique des femmes. Les observations que nous présenterons soutiennent que les effets économiques de la Covid-19 sont exacerbés pour les femmes et les filles, au Maroc et ailleurs. Ils se matérialisent en des pertes d’emplois, en la vulnérabilité qui leur est associée et au travail en danger. L’objectif de ce Research Paper est de mettre en avant l’effet de la crise de la Covid-19 sur la vie des femmes en société, avec un accent sur les retombées sur le travail féminin. Une présentation de la situation des femmes dans le monde sera notre point de départ. Ensuite, nous jetons la lumière sur la situation des femmes au Maroc pendant cette crise. Enfin, nous analysons le préexistant avec, à l’esprit, la conviction selon laquelle la situation des femmes sur le marché du travail ne peut être adressée adéquatement en l’absence de compréhension fine des problématiques d’avant la crise.

Téléchargez cette publication sur le site du Policy Center for the New South.

Volker Perthes: Can the US and Germany finally see eye to eye on China?

Atlantic Council – September 3, 2020

by Roderick Kefferpütz

Chinese and German flags flutter in front of Tiananmen Gate as Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel visits China, in Beijing, China September 6, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer

“Can you trust the American leadership? Isn’t China possibly more reliable than the United States?”

That’s not a line from a Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece, but rather a rhetorical question from Volker Perthes, director of Germany’s most important foreign policy think tank, the Institute for International and Security Affairs, which advises the federal government. Perthes went on to list the Trump administration’s many instances of global disengagement (withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Treaty, and UNESCO) and implicitly answered his own question with a resounding yes.

Something seems rotten in the state of Germany. Having been a central battleground between democracy and communism during the Cold War, the country is embarrassingly quiet in the US-China hegemonic conflict. Under the leadership of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Germany has avoided picking sides. Berlin has shied away from taking a tough line on Chinese human rights abuses and opposes excluding Huawei from its 5G network, while continuing to enjoy the US security umbrella. Germany’s economic interests and political skepticism of the United States have stopped it from joining the fray, but the time could be coming where Berlin and Washington look to join forces again.

Money talks

Germany’s business model is not made for a world in geopolitical disarray. Since the end of the Cold War, Germany has been one of the greatest beneficiaries of the US-led international political and economic order. Living comfortably under the US security umbrella, Berlin has not had to take responsibility for geopolitical affairs, providing it the freedom to focus exclusively on advancing the country’s commercial interests. While the United States was the world’s policeman, Germany became the world’s salesman. Before the coronavirus crisis, overseas revenue accounted for almost 80 percent of Germany’s thirty DAX-listed companies. Germany has consistently run the world’s largest current account surplus and nearly 56 percent of its manufacturing sector jobs are linked to exports. This has made Germany vulnerable to international friction, as geopolitical conflict is bad for business. When I asked a member of the German diplomatic corps about Berlin’s failure to criticize China’s dubious imprisonment of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, his answer was simple: it would endanger our economic interests.

Decoupling from China, as the United States is advocating, is not a feasible strategy for Germany. Its global economic entanglements and dependence makes Berlin unwilling to reduce, let alone cut-off, any trade relations with either China or the United States. Berlin will not join a US strategy to completely decouple from China, especially when the only goal seems to be to keep China down.

Growing mistrust across the Atlantic

Berlin’s reluctance to join the US push against Beijing is also motivated by its deteriorating political relationship with Washington. US-German relations are at a low point, for which both sides are to blame. While many Germans might be asking themselves whether China is a more reliable partner than the US administration, they fail to actually look in the mirror and ask whether Germany is a reliable partner to the United States. Germany is failing to meet its NATO defense spending obligations, it’s not reducing its current account surplus, it’s so far not excluding Huawei from its 5G network, and it is still allowing the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the murder of a Chechen in Berlin, and the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

None of these contentious issues are particularly new. Previous US administrations have continuously tried to push Berlin to act—to no avail. What has changed under the Trump administration isn’t really the substance, but the style. Trump has approached Germany with viciousness, vitriol, and threats. He has expected Germany to blindly follow the US lead as a vassal.

In his recent op-ed, Thomas L. Friedman rightly argues that this approach has alienated rather than encouraged Germany to pushback against China. However, it does not stand to reason that a more diplomatic, outreach-oriented approach would have been any more successful. After all, that approach had been employed by previous administrations without any notable success.

The situation now has reached such a poisonous level that any accommodative move towards the other side by either capital could be considered a concession by domestic critics. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo argues the United States is leading a free democratic alliance against China, but that is not the case right now. In a free democratic alliance, allies would together, on equal terms, discuss the general approach and strategy. Instead, the Trump administration expects allies to blindly do as their told; that’s neither free nor democratic.

Time for a change?

The upcoming US and German elections could offer a window of opportunity to relaunch transatlantic relations, with at least one, if not two, new leaders on both sides of the Atlantic. Many actors in the German political establishment have started to understand—perhaps indeed due to the Trump administration’s aggressive style, but also because of Beijing’s new diplomatic aggression—that new geopolitical realities mean that business-as-usual is not an option anymore with China. The “pro-engagement with China” camp in Germany, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, is on the wane. The need to consider geopolitics alongside economics is gaining traction, as well as the need for more military spending. Simultaneously, the US approach towards Germany should change, as when you treat your allies like vassals, you risk losing them.

The United States and Germany need to find a common foreign policy approach towards China. The goal of such a strategy should not be to keep China down, but rather strengthening democracy worldwide to contain China, which would be a better positive narrative to entice German participation. This can range from establishing a league of democracies, to forming supply chains that evade autocratic influence. Such a strategy wouldn’t engage in full decoupling with China, but instead pursue a two-pronged approach: selective decoupling in areas of high national security, such as 5G, alongside intensive coupling with other states in the world. China’s growth as a global power is partly due to it pursuing such a strategy. Its Belt and Road Initiative is a geo-economic coupling strategy that ensures everybody is connected to, and ultimately dependent on, Beijing. Connectivity is power and the transatlantic alliance needs to counter Beijing with its own geoeconomic networking and attraction strategy, winning hearts, minds, and allies.

Such a strategy could help meet Germany’s economic wishes too. Expanding and intensifying trade, technology, and economic flows with states in Southeast Asia, Africa, or Latin America would help diversify Germany’s economic relations. Japan is a case in point. Tokyo is diversifying its supply chains, enticing companies to reshore production back to Japan, and increasing its economic resilience. It’s not decoupling from China and it seems to be able to continue its economic diversification without incurring any Chinese retaliatory measures. Germany is starting to take a page out of the Japanese playbook. In its recently published Indo-Pacific strategy, the German federal government actively expresses the desire to reduce dependencies via diversification.

After much too long a time, the political climate towards China and Russia is finally starting to change in Berlin. This is an opportunity for the United States and Germany to re-engage and turn Germany from a weak link in the transatlantic alliance to a reliable partner.

Roderick Kefferpütz (@Rkefferputz) is deputy head of unit for strategy at the State Ministry of Baden-Württemberg. He’s a member of the Atlantic Council’s US-Germany Renewal Initiative. The views expressed are his own.

 

Read the article on the Atlantic Council’s website.

Discussion with Bertrand Badré

This week, PS talks with Bertrand Badré, a former managing director of the World Bank and the current CEO of Blue like an Orange Sustainable Capital.

Project Syndicate: In your latest PS commentary, you, Ronald Cohen, and Bruno Roche compare post-war multilateralism and financial capitalism to “various systems of exploitation” throughout history, which “have built empires and amassed great wealth while performing atrociously in terms of human wellbeing and social capital.” The latter systems’ collapse “represented moral progress,” you wrote, “because it allowed for a new era in which human rights and shared prosperity could prevail.” What makes you think capitalism can be “refashioned,” rather than that it will or should be replaced?

Bertrand Badré: It was less a comparison than a reminder and, I hope, a wakeup call. Systems do not last forever. They evolve, collapse, get replaced. If the systems are highly unjust or exploitative, this can be a very good thing. But if they are merely flawed, there is no guarantee that what replaces them will be superior.

I believe that the market economy is the best system we have found to allocate scarce resources – financial, human, social, and environmental – within constraints. So, unlike the empires to which I referred, it does not need to be fully abandoned.

In my view, our best bet is to uphold the market economy’s core principles, while addressing its constraints – market expectations (such as from consumers, investors, or workers) on the one hand, and regulations and citizen expectations on the other – so that it tackles issues like inequality and climate change. If we fail, another system could arise to replace the market economy, and it could leave us worse off. […]

Read the full article on Project Syndicate’s website.

Olivier Blanchard : « Il faut favoriser l’emploi des nouveaux entrants »

28/08/2020 – Le Point

Pour Olivier Blanchard, l’ancien chef économiste du FMI, le plan de relance que va détailler le gouvernement doit remplir quatre missions.

Propos recueillis par 

«Le virus va demeurer une menace constante jusqu’à l’arrivée d’un vaccin. Une menace contrôlée, certes, mais suffisamment forte pour ralentir durablement la croissance. Certains problèmes disparaîtront grâce à la vaccination, donc probablement avant la fin de 2021. C’est le cas de la crise qui touche l’hôtellerie et la restauration, l’événementiel et la culture. Mais il faut que la plupart de ces entreprises tiennent jusque-là et, sans aide, c’est loin d’être évident. Certains chocs vont être, en revanche, plus permanents. Dans l’aéronautique, par exemple. On peut penser que le modèle du tout […]

 

Lire l’article complet sur le site du Point

Trump’s International Economic Legacy

by JEAN PISANI-FERRY

If US President Donald Trump loses November’s election, he will most likely leave an insignificant imprint on some parts of the global economic system. But in several others – especially US-China relations – his term in office may well come to be seen as a major turning point.

PARIS – It would be foolish to start celebrating the end of US President Donald Trump’s administration, but it is not too soon to ponder the impact he will have left on the international economic system if his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, wins November’s election. In some areas, a one-term Trump presidency would most likely leave an insignificant mark, which Biden could easily erase. But in several others, the last four years may well come to be seen as a watershed. Moreover, the long shadow of Trump’s international behavior will weigh on his eventual successor.

On climate change, Trump’s dismal legacy would be quickly wiped out. Biden has pledged to rejoin the 2015 Paris climate agreement “on day one” of his administration, achieve climate neutrality by 2050, and lead a global coalition against the climate threat. If this happens, Trump’s noisy denial of scientific evidence will be remembered as a minor blip.

In a surprisingly large number of domains, Trump has done little or has behaved too erratically to leave an imprint. Global financial regulation has not changed fundamentally during his term, and his administration has flip-flopped regarding the fight against tax havens. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have carried on working more or less smoothly, and Trump’s furious tweeting did not prevent the US Federal Reserve from continuing to act responsibly, including by providing dollar liquidity to key international partners during the COVID-19 crisis. True, Trump has repeatedly spoiled international summits, leaving his fellow leaders flummoxed. But such behavior has been more embarrassing than consequential.

But, Trump will be remembered for his trade initiatives. Although it has always been difficult to determine the real aims of an administration beset by infighting, three key goals now stand out: reshoring of manufacturing, an overhaul of the World Trade Organization, and economic decoupling from China. Each objective is likely to outlast Trump’s tenure, at least in part.

Reshoring looked like a costly fantasy four years ago, and it still is in many respects. As my Peterson Institute colleague Chad Bown has documented, Trump’s chaotic trade war with the world has often hurt US economic interests. But reshoring as a policy objective has gained new life after the pandemic exposed the vulnerability entailed by depending exclusively on global sourcing. Biden has endorsed the idea, and “economic sovereignty” – whatever that means – is now a near-universal new mantra.

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer claims that a “reset” of the WTO has been a high priority for the administration. If so, it has made some headway. The other G7 countries now share the long-standing US dissatisfaction with the WTO’s leniency toward China’s government subsidies and weak intellectual-property protection. There is also a recognition that some US grievances against WTO dispute-settlement procedures (and in particular the so-called Appellate Body) are valid. But whether the battle ends with a reset or the deconstruction of the multilateral trading system remains to be seen.

The major watershed is US-China relations. Although bilateral tensions were apparent before Trump’s election in 2016, nobody spoke of a “decoupling” of two countries that had become tightly integrated economically and financially. Four years later, decoupling has begun on several fronts, from technology to trade and investment. Nowadays, US Republicans and Democrats alike view bilateral economic ties through a geopolitical lens.

It is not clear whether Trump merely precipitated a rupture that was already in the making. He is not responsible for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s authoritarian assertiveness, and he did not devise the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s massive transnational infrastructure and credit program. But it was Trump who ditched his predecessor Barack Obama’s carefully balanced China strategy in favor of a brutally adversarial stance that left no scope for events to take a different course. Whatever the cause of decoupling, there won’t be a return to the status quo.

A Biden administration would also not find it easy to achieve its goal of restoring ties with US allies, like-minded democracies, and partners around the world. Until Trump’s presidency, much of the world had become accustomed to regarding the US as the main architect of the international economic system. As Adam Posen, also of the Peterson Institute, has argued, the US was a sort of chair-for-life of a global club whose rules it had largely conceived, but still had to abide by. The US could collect dues, but was also bound by duties, and had to forge a consensus on amendments to the rules.

Trump’s trademark has been to reject this approach and treat all other countries as competitors, rivals, or enemies, his overriding objective being to maximize the rent that the US can extract from its still-dominant economic position. “America First” epitomizes his explicit promotion of a narrow definition of the national interest.

Even if the US under Biden were willing to make credible international commitments again, its outlook may change lastingly. The former Trump adviser Nadia Schadlow recently argued that Trump’s tenure will be remembered as the moment when the world pivoted away from a unipolar paradigm to one of great-power competition.

It is by no means obvious that if Biden wins, he will be able to restore the trust of America’s international partners. For all its aberrations, Trump’s presidency may indicate a deeper US reaction to the shift in global economic power, and reflect the American public’s rejection of the foreign responsibilities their country assumed for three-quarters of a century. The old belief among US allies and economic partners that Americans will “ultimately do the right thing,” as Winston Churchill reputedly said, may be gone.

In any event, Trump’s peculiar behavior has made it easy for America’s allies to postpone hard choices. That seems particularly true of Europe. A Biden-led US might seem like a familiar partner to most European leaders. But if it asked them to take sides in the confrontation with China, Europe would no longer be able to put off its own moment of decision.

Read the article on Project Syndicate’s website

Vuk Jeremic: “When the EU starts using sharper rhetoric towards the Serbian authorities, the end of the regime will be near”

by Snezana Bjelotomic

The president of the People’s Party (Narodna Stranka), Vuk Jeremic, said yesterday that the change of government in Serbia would come very soon if the European Union started using a political dictionary similar to the one it used towards Belarus.

“Belarus is a bit different from Serbia. The similarity lies in the fact that there is the interest of more than one international factor, the West and Russia, but the balance of power is different. Russia is more dominant in Belarus, while the EU is stronger in Serbia. It is easier to use strong words when you are not a decisive factor in that country,” Jeremic said at a press conference in Cacak.

“We do not advocate revolutionary change or justice, but we want to achieve government change through peaceful and institutional means. We will accomplish this by participating in free elections and social justice will be achieved by respecting the law and with the help of the justice system,” continued Jeremic.

He underlined that the first but not the only big task for his party was to send the “SNS” regime to the archives of history”, and that the adherence to the rule of law should among the most important aspects of all future governments.

“It is clear that the current conformation of the National Parliament will not last for the entire term. In the months ahead of us, the economic and health situation will be much more complex than it is today, so it could happen that new elections will come by very soon,” Jeremic added.

Jeremic concluded that the most important task of his party in the coming months would be to strengthen the internal structures in order to create an organization capable of monitoring all the polling stations in Serbia, ensuring electoral victory and preventing the theft of votes.

(Danas, 26.08.2020)

Find this article on Serbian Monitor’s website

Banque africaine de développement : Akinwumi Adesina réélu président jusqu’en 2025

La Tribune Afrique  |  

A l’issue d’un vote par voie électronique ce jeudi, le Nigérian Akinwumi Adesina a été réélu président de la Banque africaine de développement (BAD) pour un nouveau mandat de cinq ans.

Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina est reconduit président de la Banque africaine de développement (BAD) jusqu’en 2025. Les gouverneurs représentant les 81 pays membres de l’institution dont 54 africains ont procédé à un vote par voie électronique ce jeudi dans le cadre des 55ème assemblées générales annuelles qui tiennent virtuellement ces 26 et 27 août, en raison de la pandémie de Covid-19.

A l’issue de ce vote,  l’ancien ministre nigérian de l’Agriculture a obtenu 100% des votes régionaux -les 54 pays du continent- et 100% des votes non régionaux, précise l’institution.

C’est l’épilogue de huit mois de polémique autour de la présidence de la BAD par le leader nigérian suite au scandale des allégations des lanceurs d’alerte, balayée du revers de la main par l’enquête du Comité d’éthique de la Banque et une revue indépendante dirigée par l’ancienne présidente irlandaise Mary Robinson.

La nouveau mandat d’Akinwumi Adesina prend effet à compter du 1er septembre 2020. Parmi les gros chantiers de ce nouveau mandat, Adesina devra diriger la stratégie d’appui aux gouvernements africains pour la relance économique à travers le Continent après la crise provoquée par la Covid-19. A cet effet, la Banque a lancé en avril dernier une facilité de 10 milliards de dollars destinée à toutes les économies africaines.

Retrouvez cet article sur le site de La Tribune Afrique

Le Global Virus Network publie le rapport du Doherty Institute en Australie sur une technologie microbienne capable d’éradiquer le SARS CoV-2 sur les surfaces

Les résultats corroborent les recherches publiées précédemment par l’Institut de Recherche Médicale Rega de KU Leuven, en Belgique 

BALTIMORE, 27 août 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Le  Global Virus Network (GVN), une coalition regroupant des spécialistes en virologie humaine et animale internationaux de premier plan représentant 55 centres d’excellence et 10 affiliés dans 33 pays, a annoncé que le Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity de Melbourne, en Australie, a publié un rapport sur des tests approfondis confirmant indépendamment les conclusions de l’Institut de Recherche Médicale Rega de KU Leuven, en Belgique, selon lesquelles une formulation BIOPROTECTtm de ViaClean Technologies éradique le SARS-CoV-2 (le coronavirus unique qui cause la COVID-19) sur les surfaces et maintient une activité virucide résiduelle continue pendant plus de six semaines. Cette annonce a été faite aujourd’hui par le Dr. Christian Bréchot, président du GVN.

Les instituts Doherty et Rega ont tous deux utilisé des installations de virologie à haut confinement de pointe pour mener indépendamment des tests approfondis sur une formulation BIOPROTECTtm afin d’étudier ses effets sur l’infectivité du SARS-CoV-2 sur diverses surfaces. La méthodologie standard du test ASTM E1053 a été adaptée pour évaluer l’efficacité virucide des microbicides du SARS-CoV-2 sur des surfaces environnementales. Des scientifiques du GVN au Doherty Institute sous la direction du prof. Damian Purcell, et à l’Institut Rega sous la direction du prof. Johan Neyts, ont démontré catégoriquement que la formulation BIOPROTECTtm élimine le SARS-CoV-2 en réduisant sa capacité à être infectieux et en détruisant son matériel génomique. « Nos études sur de nombreux agents antiseptiques pour les surfaces contaminées par le SARS-CoV-2 montrent que l’activité à long terme de la formulation BIOPROTECTtm est nettement supérieure à celle des agents de décontamination conventionnels généralement utilisés », a déclaré le prof. Damian Purcell, directeur du laboratoire de virologie moléculaire au Département de microbiologie et d’immunologie du Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity de l’Université de Melbourne. Le rapport du Doherty Institute est accessible ici.

Les tests ont été réalisés à la fois dans des conditions « humides » et « sèches ». Dans le test humide, le SARS-CoV-2 a été appliqué sur des disques en acier inoxydable qui ont ensuite été traités avec une solution humide de la formulation BIOPROTECTtm. Dans le test sec, la formulation BIOPROTECTtm a d’abord été appliquée sur des échantillons d’acier inoxydable qui ont alors été exposés à un titre élevé de SARS-CoV-2 46 jours plus tard. Prouvant la longévité de la formulation BIOPROTECTtm sur les surfaces traitées, les tests ont révélé que la présence de la formulation BIOPROTECTtm maintenait la capacité à inactiver le SARS-CoV-2 à des niveaux négligeables.  Les résultats de test de Rega ont également démontré que les disques prétraités avec la formulation BIOPROTECTtm présentaient une inactivation moyenne de 99,7 % du virus SARS-CoV-2. Tous les tests effectués ont été conçus pour se conformer à l’Agence de protection de l’environnement (EPA) des États-Unis et aux normes équivalentes des agences de réglementation d’Europe et d’Australie, afin d’assurer l’acceptabilité et la crédibilité des résultats. « Nous avons testé la formulation BIOPROTECTtm et déterminé qu’elle éliminait 99,7 % du virus SARS-CoV-2 présent, 46 jours après le traitement du matériau testé avec la formulation BIOPROTECTtm », a déclaré le Dr. Johan Neyts, professeur de virologie à l’Institut de Recherche Médicale Rega de KU Leuven. « Ce produit est unique et sa capacité à long terme à éliminer le SARS-CoV-2 dépasse de loin celle des désinfectants conventionnels, ce qui le rend très utile dans la lutte contre COVID-19 »  Le rapport de l’Institut Rega est accessible ici.

« Les résultats des tests réalisés par les instituts Doherty et Rega démontrent clairement que BIOPROTECTtm éradique le SARS-CoV-2 sur les surfaces et assure une protection antimicrobienne résiduelle continue pendant une période prolongée », a ajouté le Dr. Bréchot. « Il est clair que des antimicrobiens efficaces seront extrêmement importants pour contenir la pandémie de COVID-19, étant donné le temps qu’il faudra pour mettre en oeuvre une vaccination de masse et développer pleinement de nouvelles thérapies. Dans ce contexte, nous ne connaissons aucun traitement de surface microbicide qui empêche continuellement la croissance et la transmissibilité de surface du SARS-CoV-2 pendant une période prolongée. Cela représente une avancée significative dans l’inhibition de la propagation de la COVID-19 en empêchant la contamination des surfaces par le virus et en arrêtant la propagation du virus par contact avec des surfaces contaminées. Identifier et explorer des solutions innovantes, et favoriser et faciliter la collaboration entre les partenaires universitaires et industriels, qu’il s’agisse de grandes sociétés pharmaceutiques ou de petites sociétés de biotechnologie, est l’une des façons dont le GVN peut faire une contribution importante dans la lutte contre la COVID-19. »

Une déclaration officielle par le Dr. Robert Gallo et le Dr. Christian Bréchot sur la vérification indépendante par deux centres d’excellence GVN de la technologie antimicrobienne qui éradique le SARS-CoV-2 sur les surfaces pendant plus de six semaines est accessible ici.

Retrouvez l’article complet ici.

Jean Pisani-Ferry : « Le risque d’affaissement de l’économie française est très substantiel »

24 août 2020 – Les Echos

Par Guillaume de Calignon, Renaud Honoré

La reprise économique en France vous paraît-elle bien engagée ?

Contrairement à ce qu’on avait craint, il n’y a pas d’exception française : la chute du PIB a été au moins aussi forte en Espagne, en Italie et en Grande-Bretagne et en mai-juin la dynamique de redressement a été forte. Cependant elle s’essouffle, alors qu’en juillet les niveaux d’activité et d’emploi actif étaient encore inférieurs de 7 % à ceux d’avant-crise. D’ici à la fin de l’année, nous pourrions converger vers une situation d’où le PIB serait inférieur de l’ordre de 5 % à la normale. Ce serait déjà une perte importante, mais ce pourrait être pire si le retour des inquiétudes sanitaires […]

Lire la suite de l’interview (lecture réservée aux abonnés) sur le site des Echos

Joschka Fischer: The End of Western Opportunism

– Project Syndicate

by Joschka Fischer

For the past 50 years, the West has clung to the hope that modernization would automatically transform China into a capitalist liberal democracy. For decades, maintaining this illusion was good for the bottom line, but now the implications of China’s ascendancy have become disturbingly clear.

BERLIN – The confrontation between China and the West is escalating almost daily. The conflict is about technology, trade, global market share, and supply chains, but also about fundamental values. Underpinning this economic and ideological competition is the goal of global predominance in the twenty-first century.

But why is the current escalation happening now? It is not as though the West suddenly had some epiphany about the implications of China’s rise. The fact that China is a Leninist one-party dictatorship is not news, and it did not stop Western countries – led by the United States – from steadily deepening their trade and economic ties with China since the 1970s.

Likewise, China’s leaders have long dismissed outside criticism of their human-rights record and oppression of minorities. Rampant industrial espionage and theft of Western technology and intellectual property are other well-known problems that the West has more or less tolerated for decades in exchange for access to China’s vast market and low-cost labor. Western governments and investors remained sanguine even after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing. No sooner had the dust settled than Western businesses poured into the country like never before.

Through it all, Western leaders assumed that modernization and economic development would lead China eventually to adopt democracy, embrace human rights, and the rule of law. They were wrong. The Communist Party of China has evolved a novel hybrid development model consisting of a one-party dictatorship, a highly competitive economy, and a consumer society.

So far, this approach has been extremely successful. While political power has remained squarely in communist hands, almost everything else has been turned over to the forces of high-tech consumer capitalism. The Soviet Union could not have dreamed of such an innovation in political economy.

The results have been impressive – and, in many ways, unprecedented. Hundreds of millions of people have escaped absolute poverty and joined an ascendant middle class. Just one generation ago, China was a technological and scientific backwater. Today, it is a global leader in many of the critical sectors that will define the twenty-first century – digitalization, artificial intelligence, and quantum and super computers. With China now poised to leave the US behind in many of these domains, it is only a matter of time before it becomes the world’s leading economy across all the metrics that matter.

The reason why the Sino-American confrontation is escalating only now is relatively simple: the end is in sight for the West. Ever since the beginning of industrialization, the West has held an effective monopoly on global power. But now an Asian great power will soon bring an end to Western hegemony as we know it. This is not just about US President Donald Trump’s administration. The growing challenge to Western power will remain long after Trump is gone, and regardless of whether he is gone .

After all, while China has grown stronger, the leading Western power has become relatively weaker. The 2008 global financial crisis played a crucial role in altering both Chinese and global perceptions of the US model. Suddenly, the West’s vulnerabilities were laid bare for everyone to see. And now, the COVID-19 crisis is further exposing America’s weaknesses and domestic fault lines. The floundering US response to the pandemic will powerfully reinforce the global impression conveyed by the 2008 meltdown, as will its confused approach to China.

US policymakers have yet to reach a consensus on the role they would like to see China play internationally. Many in the US foreign-policy establishment want to prevent or delay China’s rise to economic and technological leadership. Yet it is too late for that. What would a containment strategy against a world-leading economy of 1.4 billion people even look like? It could not possibly succeed without inflicting serious damage on everyone else.

That said, it is equally clear that the Western strategy of adaptation, accommodation, and economic opportunism – an approach that has often bordered on naiveté – cannot continue. So, what is to be done?

For starters, the West must shed its illusions about China – both those based on strategic ingenuousness and those grounded in the power politics of a bygone era. The West will have to find a way to live with China as it actually is. That means finding a path between kowtowing and confrontation, with Western values and interests serving as the guide.

For example, trade with China must continue, but under new conditions. China’s ascendency is forcing Western countries to pursue their own industrial policies. Crafting them will require deciding which technologies to share and which direct investments from China to accept.

Read the article on Project Syndicate’s website

Drop Western ‘mental maps’ for Asian new order, says Kishore Mahbubani

Asia Pacific Report – August 27, 2020

Singaporean philosopher, former diplomat and academic Professor Kishore Mahbubani has warned the world is entering a global “Asian new order” and he has called on researchers in the Asia-Pacific region to shed Western dominance of the social sciences.

Speaking as a keynote at the Symposium on Social Science 2020 in Indonesia this week, Dr Mahbubani, author of the recent book Has China Won? The Chinese challenge to American Primacy, told more than 200 participants on the webinar that Asian “mental maps” needed to change to address the new reality.

“The world has changed fundamentally – we must understand that,” he said. “But our problem is that the mental maps that we have to understand this new world, our mental maps given to us by our 19th century, 20th century [social scientists] – mostly Western – cannot guide us in the 21st century.”

This was because the current century would be far different from the two previous centuries, said Dr Mahbubani, a member of the Asia Research Institute.

“What I have tried to do in my writing is to provide a glimpse of what the 21st century will be like.

“And I have also tried to explain why this is relevant to those studying social science.”

As well as his books, Professor Mahbubani has published extensively in leading journals and newspapers overseas such as Foreign Affairs, the National Interest, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

New trends, new challenges
His wide-ranging speech explored new trends in the world, new challenges and new solutions.

“A shift of power to Asia [is taking place] and the 21st century will be the Century of Asia. We need to be very clear about that. There is absolutely no doubt,” he said.

This was not surprising, he said, because for 18 centuries of the past 2000 years, the world had been dominated by two Asia economies – China and India.

“It is only in the last 200 years that Europe and North America have taken over. So the last 200 years of Western dominance of world history has been an aberration,” he said.

“All aberrations come to a natural end. So it is only natural to see the return of Asia.”

The covid-19 coronavirus pandemic was hastening the world change, partly because the most competent countries in dealing with the global crisis had been in East Asia, he said, echoing what he told BBC Hardtalk’s Zeinab Badawi recently.

He said then that the number of deaths per million in East Asia was less than 10 compared to Europe and the US where it was in the hundreds.

‘Top three out of four in Asia’
“Even today, in terms of purchasing power as a measurement, if you look at the top four economies: number one is China, number two is the United States of America, number three is India, and number four is Japan.

“So three out of the top four economies are already Asian.”

Professor Mahbubani also told the live video symposium participants, hosted by the Centre for Southeast Asian Social Studies at the Universitas Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta, that Indonesia would be a “big beneficiary” of this global change.

And in market terms it was much harder.

“Indonesia in 2017 was the 16th largest economy in the world. By 2030 it will become the ninth largest economy, and by 2050 it will be the fourth largest – bigger than Japan.

“That is amazing.”

These were the big changes coming, but the world was still outdated with mind maps being set in the 19th and 20th centuries.

‘Dangerous’ to rely on West
“It is dangerous for us to depend on Western social science to understand the Asian century,” he said.

Professor Mahbubani was critical of the double standards in the United States over corruption when it was illegal for American businessmen to bribe foreign legislators while it remained legal for businessmen to influence lawmakers at home, especially over the privatised health system.

He said he believed that the US had lost its moral compass and its current failure under President Donald Trump to stem the coronavirus pandemic and to deal constructively with China and other countries was a warning to the world.

The country was no longer a democracy, it was a plutocracy.

Climate change was an event greater issue than covid facing the globe.

Professor Mahbubani said the world needed a strong US to balance China.

The stimulating two-day webinar had speakers and research papers from all over Asia, but also included foreign presenters such as Australia’s Dr Daniel McCarthy of the University of Melbourne on “another face of power” and New Zealand’s Professor David Robie of Auckland University Technology on climate change and covid-19 – “redefining the relations between humankind and the environment”.

Selected papers will be published in a book to follow the publication from the first Social Science Symposium in 2018.

The Pacific Media Centre was a partner of Indonesia’s Centre for Southeast Asian Social Studies for this symposium.

Find the article on the website of the Asia Pacific Report

The World Cup Effect: A New Avenue of Thought in Search of an Effective De-confinement Strategy

Policy Center for the New South | June 10, 2020

Aomar Ibourk , Karim El Aynaoui 

We explore a new avenue that could contribute to an effective de-confinement in the context of COVID-19. This phenomenon is known as the ‘World Cup Effect’. We first define this phenomenon and highlight its existence and its possible amplifying effect with regard to the spread of the pandemic, in light of the number of infected cases recorded at the pandemic’s peak, and the duration before reaching its highest level. Based on hypothetical scenarios in terms of the initial conditions at the lockdown exit, we show that under constant probability of infection, the World Cup Effect always results in a higher number of infected cases at peak (Δy>0), and in a shorter period before the peak is reached (Δx<0). Finally, we discuss the elements that can contribute to mitigating this effect. Partial or complete lockdown lifting should be accompanied by the maintenance of social-distancing measures and the use of face masks, limitation of contacts, cautious management of population flows and special control, if not closure, of mass gathering places, including ‘Moussems’, cinemas, stadiums, and schools.

 

Download the full paper on the website of the Policy Center for the New South

L’Etat au Révélateur de la COVID-19

Policy Center for the New South | July 07, 2020

A. Bassou , A. Boucetta , K. Chegraoui , N. Chekrouni , Y. Drissi Daoudi , M. Dryef , K. El Aynaoui , R. El Houdaigui , A. El Ouassif , L. Jaidi , M. Loulichki , M. Rezrazi , A. Saaf

La crise de la COVID-19 aura été tant un point de départ que le révélateur de profonds bouleversements économiques, sociaux, et humains au Maroc et dans le reste du monde. Cette pandémie aura également été à l’origine d’un vent d’incertitude pour les populations, entraînant ainsi de fortes répercussions sur la santé publique, la quiétude de l’humain et sa sécurité. En effet, les dimensions sécuritaire et sanitaire, ainsi que les enjeux posés, ont contribué à la consécration de l’Etat comme seule entité capable de protéger les populations et contrecarrer les impacts négatifs de la crise. L’influence des Etats – qui se caractérisait par un désengagement progressif et leur retrait de plusieurs secteurs clés – se voit ici renforcée par l’idée que seul un Etat social fort, régulateur et doté de moyens importants, est capable de recevoir et d’amortir les chocs. Néanmoins, plusieurs défis se posent aux institutions des pays. Bien que les populations voient leur relation avec l’Etat changer afin d’inclure leurs intérêts et besoins, la question de l’impact et du rôle des collectivités territoriales reste en suspens. En effet, il a été donné d’observer une faible implication des élus locaux et des services déconcentrés dans leur traitement de la pandémie. Une décentralisation inachevée et une déconcentration hésitante sont dans une large mesure la cause de ce phénomène. Il faudra ainsi penser un renouvellement des relations entre l’Etat et les collectivités locales pour parvenir à la formulation de politiques novatrices qui viseraient à réduire les fractures sociales et territoriales. Les Etats se voient également amenés à gérer le flux de l’information à l’ère du digital, où la presse traditionnelle se voit supplantée dans son rôle au profit d’individus souvent véhiculant rumeurs et désinformations à travers les réseaux sociaux. Ces derniers se voient avantagés par leur instantanéité, universalité, mais également grâce au fait qu’ils ne sont pas tenus par l’opinion publique aux mêmes standards que les institutions journalistiques et médias. L’avenir de la communication de crise s’annonce ainsi complexe et multicanal. Elle devra s’adapter à des populations, moyens, et pratiques en constante évolution.

 

Téléchargez le dossier complet sur le site du Policy Center for the New South

La stratégie du Maroc face au Covid-19

Policy Center for the New South | April 30, 2020

Abdelaaziz Ait Ali , Abdelhak Bassou , M’hammed Dryef , Karim El Aynaoui , Rachid El Houdaigui , Youssef El Jai , Faiçal Hossaini , Larabi Jaidi , Mohamed Loulichki , El Mostafa Rezrazi , Abdallah Saaf 

Face à la pandémie du COVID-19, un plan d’action a été établi autour de trois axes : santé, économie et ordre social. Dans chacun de ces champs, le concours des institutions publiques, du secteur privé et des membres de la société civile a permis jusque-là de limiter les dégâts et d’avoir un certain contrôle sur la pandémie.

Sur le plan sanitaire, l’intervention vise une maîtrise de la progression de la maladie pour une meilleure absorption des flux par le système de santé, aux moyens limités et inégalement répartis sur le territoire national. La priorité est donnée à l’augmentation de l’offre en infrastructure sanitaire. Des relais sont également apportés par la société civile, et notamment les établissements hôteliers qui mettent des chambres à la disposition du personnel soignants mobilisés au premier rang face à la pandémie et des personnes convalescentes. Ce processus se fonde sur une politique de communication crédible de la part du ministère de la santé, qui veille à diffuser quotidiennement le bilan d’évolution de la maladie et des recommandations d’hygiène.

Sur le plan économique, face à une conjoncture économique nationale et internationale incertaine, la création du « Fonds spécial pour la gestion de la pandémie du coronavirus », doté d’une capacité de 3% du PIB, et la contribution de différentes entités privées et publiques est à voir comme un mécanisme de mutualisation des risques. Il y a une conscience de l’interdépendance des différents secteurs, qui seront tous affectés, directement ou indirectement. La batterie de mesures adoptées par les autorités se conforme à la nature multiforme du choc qui touche à la fois à l’offre et la demande, sur le marché domestique comme sur le marché international. Ainsi, les aides distribuées aux ménages dans une situation précaire et les aides apportées aux entreprises visent un même objectif de lisser l’atterrissage de l’économie et d’aplanir la courbe de la récession. Le recours au financement externe obéit également à cette approche globale qui vise à prémunir l’économie contre le choc externe qui affecte au premier chef les secteurs exposés sur le marché international et le tourisme et préserver les équilibres externes en compensant une partie du recul des IDE et des transferts courants. Enfin, la politique monétaire vient apporter une réponse transversale en facilitant l’accès au financement pour accompagner les entreprises avec des problèmes de trésorerie et soutenir la demande à travers le report des échéances de crédit.

 

Téléchargez le dossier complet sur le site du Policy Center for the New South

Deporting foreign students: The United States avoids self-inflicted injury

23 July 2020

Peterson Institute for International Economics (Piie)

Sherman Robinson (PIIE), Marcus Noland (PIIE), Egor Gornostay (PIIE) and Soyoung Han (PIIE)

Under congressional pressure and facing lawsuits, on July 14 the Trump administration rescinded an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rule that could have meant the deportation of more than one million foreign students from the United States. The rule, announced on July 6, eliminated temporary exemptions for nonimmigrant students taking all classes online due to the pandemic and would have taken effect for the fall 2020 semester.1

During the 2017–18 academic year, foreign students in the United States spent $45.3 billion a year and directly supported over 455,000 US jobs, according to latest data from the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. Another study by NAFSA: Association of International Educators reports that during the 2018–19 academic year foreign students in colleges and universities in the United States contributed $41 billion to the US economy and supported 458,000 jobs.

Using an economywide simulation model that takes both direct and indirect effects of the ICE policy into account, we estimate in a PIIE Working Paper  that the policy would have cost the US economy up to 752,000 jobs, $68 billion in lost GDP, $18 billion in lost tax revenue, and $46 billion in lost income of nonstudent households in the short run (a shock as soon as the program was implemented). The direct impacts would have been felt most heavily in US cities and towns with colleges/universities, and the indirect effects would have been spread across the country.

For the moment, the United States has avoided self-inflicted injury, but as in the case of the “Muslim ban,” there is no guarantee that the administration will not tweak and reintroduce the regulation.

Deporting foreign students would damage US institutions of higher learning. Foreign students make up roughly half of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) graduate students in the United States. The distributional consequences are complex, but on the whole it appears that American students benefit from the presence of foreign students, through the expansion of programs and the upward pressure on educational standards from their enrollments, as well as the enhanced financial support that the tuition payments of foreign students enable.

The impact differs slightly for undergraduate education. With overall enrollments more fixed than in the case of graduate students, foreign undergraduates crowd out domestic undergraduates. But they also enable universities to raise entrance standards and provide greater financial support for deserving American students. At the margin, the distributional impact is to shift capacity away from students who are wealthy but less smart toward those who are poor but smarter.

The mooted immigration policy would also reduce the size and research productivity of American institutions of higher learning and adversely affect innovation and entrepreneurship. Research demonstrates that foreign students contribute to research productivity measured by either scholarly papers or patents.

Postgraduation foreign graduate students continue to contribute to the US economy as measured by patenting, commercializing or licensing patents, and publishing. There is evidence of greater entrepreneurship as well. One survey of MIT graduates found that foreign-born students account for a disproportionately high share of MIT alumni-founded companies. More broadly, many studies have found that immigrants are an important source of scarce human capital for the United States and restricting their ability to come to the country as students would be short-sighted and damaging.

In addition to all the economic gains, the United States has benefited greatly in terms of soft power from its program of welcoming foreign students. Over a long period, the United States has educated millions of foreign students who have returned to their home countries, largely with warm feelings about their education and the country that provided it. The United States has also trained influential policymakers in many countries who understand and engage easily with the United States. All these benefits would come to an end if the United States were to restrict the number of foreign students coming here.

NOTE

1. The new policy, which was to go into effect in the fall of 2020, stated that “nonimmigrant students within the US are not permitted to take a full course of study through online classes. If students find themselves in this situation, they must leave the country or take alternative steps to maintain their nonimmigrant status.”

 

Read the full article on Piie’s website.

The short- and long-term costs to the United States of the Trump administration’s attempt to deport foreign students

Marcus Noland at the WPC 2017 in Marrakech.

20-11 July 2020

Peterson Institute for International Economics (Piie)

by Sherman Robinson (PIIE), Marcus Noland (PIIE), Egor Gornostay (PIIE) and Soyoung Han (PIIE)

On July 6, 2020, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced modifications to the Student and Exchange Visitor Program eliminating temporary exemptions for nonimmigrant students taking all classes online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning in the fall 2020 semester. Foreign students violating the rule would be subject to deportation. Under public pressure, the Trump administration rescinded the order on July 14. Had the policy been implemented, more than 1 million foreign students studying in the United States could have been deported. The authors use an economywide simulation model to estimate the economic impact on the United States if the policy had been implemented. They find that the policy would have cost the US economy up to 752,000 jobs and $68 billion in lost GDP in the short run. Their estimates are larger than those reported in other studies because they consider both direct and indirect effects of the policy. In the long run, the move would have reduced the research productivity of American universities and adversely affected research, innovation, and entrepreneurship across the economy, in both the private and public sectors.

Download the full paper on Piie’s website.

East Asia’s new edge

24.07.2020

The Financial Express

East Asia's new edge

Death tolls don’t lie. The most striking disparity in COVID-19 fatalities to date is between East Asian countries, where the total number of deaths per million inhabitants is consistently below ten, and much of the West, where the numbers are in the hundreds. For example, Japan has so far reported 7.8 deaths per million, followed by South Korea (5.8), Singapore (4.6), China (3.2), and, most remarkably of all, Vietnam, with zero deaths. By contrast, Belgium now has 846 confirmed deaths per million, and the United Kingdom has 669, followed by Spain (608), Italy (580) and the United States (429).

What accounts for this extraordinary difference? The answers are complicated, but three possible explanations stand out. First, none of the East Asian states believe that they have “arrived,” much less achieved the “end of history” at which they regard their societies as being the apotheosis of human possibility. Second, East Asian countries have long invested in strengthening government institutions instead of trying to weaken them, and this is now paying off. And, third, China’s spectacular rise is presenting its regional neighbors with opportunities as well as challenges.

It’s always dangerous to oversimplify. Yet, the evidence shows that whereas Europeans tend to believe in state-sponsored social security, East Asians still believe that life is composed of struggle and sacrifice. French President Emmanuel Macron is battling to overhaul his country’s pension system and decrease retirement benefits in order to achieve much-needed reductions in budget deficits. As a result, France was convulsed for months by “Yellow Vest” protests. But when South Korea faced a far more serious financial crisis in 1997-98, old ladies donated jewelry to the central bank in an effort to help.

East Asians are aware that their societies have done well in recent decades. But constant adaptation and adjustment to a rapidly changing world is still the norm – even in Japan – and huge investments in public institutions have helped these countries to fulfill it.

Here, the contrast with the US could not be starker. Ever since President Ronald Reagan famously declared in his 1981 inaugural address that, “government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem,” the very phrase “good governance” has been an oxymoron in America. We have again seen the consequences of this mindset in recent weeks, with the weakening even of globally respected institutions such as the US Federal Aviation Administration, the US Food and Drug Administration, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even today, with America beset by multiple crises, no prominent US leader dares to say the obvious: “Government is the solution.”

East Asian societies, on the other hand, retain a strong and deeply-held belief in good governance, reflecting the traditional Asian respect for institutions of authority. Vietnam’s spectacularly effective pandemic response, for example, can be attributed not only to one of the world’s most disciplined governments, but also to wise investments in health care. Between 2000 and 2016, per capita public-health expenditures increased by an average of 9% per year. This enabled Vietnam to establish a national public-health emergency operations center and surveillance system in the wake of the 2002-03 SARS epidemic.

Vietnam’s track record is all the more astonishing given the country’s low starting point. When the Cold War ended three decades ago, and Vietnam finally stopped fighting wars after almost 45 years of near-continual conflict, it had one of the world’s poorest populations. But by emulating China’s economic model and opening up to foreign trade and investment, Vietnam subsequently became one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.

As then-World Bank President Jim Yong Kim pointed out in 2016, Vietnam’s average annual growth rate of nearly 7% over the previous 25 years had enabled the country “to leapfrog to middle-income status in a single generation.” And during the same period, Kim noted, Vietnam had managed the “especially remarkable achievement” of reducing extreme poverty from 50% to just 3%.

The country’s success did not happen in isolation. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Vietnam integrated itself into many of East Asia’s existing regional bodies, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). There, it learned quickly from its neighbors, including China. More recently, Vietnam joined the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, an 11-country trade pact.

China’s spectacular resurgence has naturally heightened Vietnamese insecurity, given that the two neighbors have fought as recently as 1979. But rather than paralyzing Vietnamese policymakers, that insecurity has fostered a sense of strategic discipline and vigilance, which has contributed to the country’s extraordinary performance during the pandemic. China’s rise has had a similar galvanizing effect on some of its other neighbors, including Japan and South Korea.

Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has often cited the former Intel CEO Andy Grove’s mantra that “only the paranoid survive.” Paranoia is usually a negative emotion, but it can also trigger a powerful impulse to fight and survive. A deep determination to battle against great odds may explain why East Asia has so far responded far better to the pandemic than most of the West. And if the region’s economies also recover faster, they may well offer a glimmer of hope to a world currently drowning in pessimism.

 

Kishore Mahbubani, a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore, is the author of Has China Won?

(Public Affairs, 2020).

 Project Syndicate

 

Read the full article on The Financial Express.

La riposte contre le coronavirus affectée par le regain de tension sino-américaine

24.07.2020

RFi

Le président américain Donald Trump et le président chinois Xi Jinping se serrent la main après avoir fait des déclarations conjointes à la Grande Salle du Peuple à Pékin, Chine, le 9 novembre 2017.Le président américain Donald Trump et le président chinois Xi Jinping se serrent la main après avoir fait des déclarations conjointes à la Grande Salle du Peuple à Pékin, Chine, le 9 novembre 2017. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj/File Photo

Par : Sophie Malibeaux

Alors que le Covid-19 continue de se propager dans le monde -en l’absence de traitement efficace et de vaccin-, il aurait fallu un effort de coopération sans précédent à l’échelle de la planète pour enrayer la pandémie. Mais, la guerre économique fait rage entre Pékin et Washington et constitue une entrave à la gestion de la crise sanitaire et économique, qui touche l’ensemble de la planète.

Nos invités :

– Carine Milcent, économiste au CNRS, spécialiste des systèmes de santé, tout particulièrement chinois

– Pierre-Antoine Donnet, ancien rédacteur en chef de l’Agence France Presse, qui a également passé de nombreuses années en Asie, dont la Chine, mais aussi aux États-Unis, auteur du livre : « Le leadership mondial en question- l’affrontement entre la Chine et les États-Unis », aux éditions de l’aube

– Jean-Pierre Cabestan, sinologue, à l’Université baptiste de Hong Kong et chercheur associé à Asia Centre, il a la particularité d’avoir aussi parcouru de nombreux pays d’Afrique dans le cadre de ses recherches

– Clément Therme, chercheur au CERI-Sciences Po, spécialiste de l’Iran, qui a dirigé avec Mohammed Reza Djalili le dernier numéro de la revue « Confluences Méditerranée », sous le titre « L’Iran en quête d’équilibre ».

Ecouter ce podcast sur le site de RFi.

Sylvie Goulard sur le plan de relance : “L’expansion infinie des dettes est une illusion”

26/07/2020

L’Express

“L’Europe va enfin pouvoir marcher sur ses deux “jambes”, économique et monétaire”, Sylvie Goulard, sous-gouverneur de la Banque de France et ex-députée européenne.

afp.com/Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD

Pour l’ex-député européenne, la critique des pays dits “frugaux” est injustifiée car c’est bien leur sérieux budgétaire qui permet aujourd’hui la réalisation du plan de relance européen.

Après les flons flons et les satisfécits de circonstance provoqués par l’accord sur le plan de relance européen de 750 milliards d’euros, le plus dur commence peut-être pour l’Europe confrontée à une récession historique et une explosion des dettes. Pour l’ex-député européenne et sous-gouverneur de la Banque de France Sylvie Goulard, la mise en musique du plan s’annonce aussi périlleuse que son accouchement. Essentielle aussi pour l’avenir de la construction européenne.

Les déclarations triomphantes des chefs d’Etat de l’Union au lendemain de l’adoption du plan de relance européen ne masquent-elles pas en réalité un accord en demi-teinte ?

 

Lire la suite de l’article (réservé aux abonnés) sur le site de l’Express. 

Angela Merkel Guides the E.U. to a Deal, However Imperfect

By Steven Erlanger and Matina Stevis-Gridneff

July 21, 2020 – The New York Times

With her long experience as German chancellor, she shapes a necessary compromise on virus aid for the battered European south. But it’s consensus at a cost.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France after their video news conference at the end of the E.U. summit meeting in Brussels early Tuesday morning. Credit…Pool photo by John Thys

BRUSSELS — After days and nights of rancorous haggling, European Union leaders reached an $857 billion pandemic recovery plan on Tuesday that, for the first time, committed them to borrow money collectively and distribute much of it as grants that do not need to be repaid by the countries hardest hit by the virus, like Italy.

But as the dust settled after the marathon negotiations — the European Union’s longest summit meeting in 20 years — the compromises that allowed Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, whose country holds the E.U.’s rotating presidency, to guide 27 nations toward consensus became all the more apparent, and none were too pretty.

The fissures in the bloc that Ms. Merkel needed to bridge ran up, down and sideways. There were divides between the frugal north and a needy, hard-hit south; but also west to east, between Brussels and budding autocracies like Poland and Hungary that have tested the limits of the bloc’s liberal democratic values.

But allowing the crisis stirred by the pandemic to worsen was in the end considered more dangerous than trimming some of the bloc’s larger budgetary ambitions or even allowing continued challenges to the rule of law.

The compromise that got most attention was between President Emmanuel Macron of France, who pushed for large-scale grants to southern European countries like Italy and Spain hit hardest by the pandemic, and Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands, who pressed for more loans than grants and for structural economic reforms in return.

But how Ms. Merkel mollified the prime ministers of Hungary and Poland, Viktor Orban and Mateusz Morawiecki, may prove more consequential.

Not only was their money from Brussels protected and increased, despite regular questions about the misuse of those funds and efforts to condition the aid on adherence to the rule of law, but she promised to help them conclude bloc disciplinary measures against them for their alleged anti-democratic abuses.

“Prime Minister Orban told me he wants to take the necessary steps and does not want this to hang in the air,’’ Ms. Merkel said early Tuesday about the disciplinary procedure that had been opened against Hungary. “We will support Hungary,’’ she said, “but of course the crucial steps will need to be taken by Hungary.’’

That concession, little remarked upon, may have sealed the agreement, even if it outrages critics who think that Brussels is showing weakness in the face of abuses of bloc laws and values by some Central European member states. And that aspect of the deal may end up being the most contentious in the European Parliament, which must approve it.

The agreement “looks like a disaster for the rule of law,’’ said R. Daniel Kelemen, a scholar of Europe at Rutgers University. “Merkel and Macron were determined to reach a deal demonstrating the E.U.’s ability to respond to the crisis, and they proved willing to keep E.U. funds flowing to autocratic governments in order to close the deal.’’

Still, by tying the recovery fund into the seven-year budget, the first without Britain, they managed to solve two extremely difficult and tendentious problems at once. For all its messiness, there was little doubt that what they had achieved for the bloc was groundbreaking.

Ms. Merkel understood that failure would badly undermine the new leaders of the European Union itself — Council President Charles Michel and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a former member of Ms. Merkel’s government.

Having joined with Mr. Macron in supporting a virus recovery fund borrowed for collectively — a first — she then patiently worked for consensus, understanding the political needs of both Mr. Macron, whose expansive vision for the E.U. remains unfulfilled, and of Mr. Rutte, whose government hangs by a thread, depending on politicians even more tightfisted than he.

Mr. Macron and Mr. Rutte proved themselves two sometimes angry, sometimes emotional leaders of the two main contending groups, and the weekend talks were unusually acrimonious.

With Britain gone, Mr. Rutte and his Austrian counterpart, Sebastian Kurz, have stepped forward to create a bloc of smaller countries, known as “the frugals,’’ which are trying to restrain the big-spending, integrationist ambitions of Mr. Macron and the poorer southern countries.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands led a group of countries, including Austria, Sweden, Denmark and often Finland, that became known as “the frugals.”Credit…Pool photo by Stephanie Lecocq

But while they came to Brussels saying that they were opposed to any outright grants based on collective debt, it was obvious that there would be some once France and Germany pushed for them.

Then the only question — however difficult — was to negotiate an amount and some mechanism to monitor the spending, so that everyone could go home talking of victory.

France and Germany had proposed 500 billion euros in grants; the Commission took that and added another 250 billion in loans; in the end, after intense squabbling, the balance was 390 billion in grants and 360 billion in loans.

Still, that is a remarkable victory for Mr. Macron, who has broken a major taboo on creating collective debt and built a possible architecture for handling future crises — if Ms. Merkel’s successors agree.

For the future of the euro currency, the elephant in the room is Italy, the bloc’s third-largest economy by most measures, and already drowning in debt. Italy is both one of the least reformed economies in the eurozone and one of the hardest hit by the virus.

So while both groups agreed that Italy must be a major beneficiary of funds that do not increase its already sizable debt pile, Mr. Rutte and his group — including Austria, Sweden, Denmark and often Finland — also wanted tough monitoring on the use of those funds. And they wanted member states to have a say in that monitoring, not just the Commission, the bloc’s unelected bureaucracy, which they regard as weak and often blind to abuses.

That could create significant bitterness for the future. But for now, bending to reality, the “frugals’’ in return got the numbers down, got some form of state monitoring and got paid off with higher rebates in the budget.

“Despite all this progress, we should not delude ourselves,’’ said Friedrich Heinemann, research department head at ZEW Mannheim, the Center for European Economic Research. “The lack of competitiveness and low growth prospects in countries like Italy cannot be solved with transfers and loans from Brussels. Only comprehensive reforms of labor markets, public administration and the education and innovation system will help.”

 

Naples, Italy, last month. Italy, the European Union’s third-largest economy, is seen as the member most affected by the coronavirus pandemic.Credit…Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times

Others were angered by the concessions to Mr. Orban, in particular, which may plant the seeds for future conflict.

“Planned sanctions for E.U. member states that violate fundamental rights and the rule of law have been watered down beyond recognition,’’ said Daniel Freund, a German European legislator from the Greens. By now requiring a reinforced majority to impose sanctions, “the whole mechanism is rendered useless.’’

Ms. Merkel clearly decided she needed the fund more and “has always been lenient on Orban,’’ he said. The result, he said, puts leaders “on a collision course with the European Parliament and makes a quick agreement unlikely.’’

 

Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, third from right, with the leaders of the European Council, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia on Sunday.Credit…Pool photo by Francois Walschaerts

Not least, to reach consensus, the E.U. ended up with a smaller post-Brexit European budget, and one that eliminates or reduces spending for some ambitious projects designed to prepare Europe for the future — like in research and climate transition, a fund to promote consensus on carbon goals for 2030 that was slashed by one-third.

Even with the virus, a proposed health fund evaporated entirely. There were also reductions from Commission proposals in other areas of investment, foreign policy and defense.

Ms. von der Leyen called it “a difficult point” and said that such cuts, made in the search for a compromise, are “regrettable, it decreases the innovative part of the budget.’’

“It was all about give and take, so the victims seem to have been the E.U. public goods, which deliver value added to all,’’ said Jean Pisani-Ferry, a French economist, in a Twitter message. “The price of the deal looks high.”

“This is not frugal. This is stupid,’’ said Henrik Enderlein, a German economist who heads of the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, in a Twitter response. But he also applauded the larger deal and the recovery fund. “We shouldn’t be frugal in our judgment,’’ he said. “This is historic.”

As Mr. Enderlein noted, the summit must be considered a breakthrough in a time of crisis when the European Union, now without Britain, could not be seen to fail. European fights about money and budgets are never pretty. But Ms. Merkel more than most understands that for all the talk of European solidarity, the European Union only proceeds when its varied leaders can convince their voters that they have fought the good fight for national interests.

As Janis Emmanouilidis, director of Studies at the European Policy Centre, commented:

“The price of no deal would have been much higher — potentially incalculable both economically and politically at the E.U. and national level.’’

But however important, this deal cannot be the last, he suggested, noting: “We are still at the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis.’’

Steven Erlanger is the chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe, based in Brussels. He previously reported from London, Paris, Jerusalem, Berlin, Prague, Moscow and Bangkok. @StevenErlanger

Find the original article on The New York Times. 

Alliances under stress: South Korea, Japan, and the United States

Marcus Noland at the WPC 2017 in Marrakech.

19.11.2019 – East West Center

by Marcus Noland

HONOLULU (November 19, 2019)—Rising diplomatic tensions between South Korea and Japan are putting American security interests at risk. Yet the United States government appears detached, unable to facilitate a rapprochement between its two allies. This is a critical moment because a South Korea-Japan intelligence-sharing agreement, aimed at North Korea, is due to lapse on 22 November this year.

Anti-Japanese demonstration in Seoul

On Aug. 24 2019, South Koreans in Seoul participated in a rally to denounce Japan’s new trade restrictions. Photo: Chung Sung-Jun, Getty Images.

The current imbroglio has its origins in both the geopolitics and domestic politics of the two Asian countries. Due to their differing historical experiences, nationalism has been captured by different ends of the political spectrum in South Korea and Japan—in South Korea by the left and in Japan by the right. The current combination of a left-wing government in South Korea and a right-wing government in Japan feeds nationalist sentiment in both countries.

At the same time, North Korea has shifted to a less confrontational diplomatic stance. In its 2018 New Year’s message, it appealed to South Korea for Korean solidarity. In order to take advantage of this opening, South Korean President Moon Jae-in began distancing himself from Japan.

In October 2018, the South Korean Supreme Court ruled in favor of compensation for South Koreans who were forced to work for Japanese companies during the period of Japanese colonial rule. One month later, the court ruled that the 1965 treaty that established normal relations between the two countries, and was meant to resolve claims arising from the colonial period, did not cover the issue of “comfort women”—Korean women compelled to sexual servitude by Japanese authorities during the Pacific War—because the treaty did not recognize that Japanese colonial rule had been illegal. One month later, President Moon unilaterally dissolved the 2015 bilateral comfort women accord, which was unpopular in South Korea.

In response to these developments, Japan requested consultations under provisions of the 1965 treaty. When South Korea did not respond, Japan initiated export controls, removing South Korea from its “white list” of countries exempt from security-oriented export regulations. This action disrupted trade in chemicals used in semiconductor production.

It was widely assumed that the Japanese move was motivated by commercial interests because the export controls that were introduced damaged South Korean rivals to Japanese firms. Conceivably, there could have been a national security rationale as well because the move impeded South Korean sales to China, where advanced chips are used in artificial intelligence (AI) and surveillance applications.

South Korea responded by removing Japan from its own “white list” and filing a World Trade Organization (WTO) case against Japan over the export controls. The initiation of the WTO case followed close on the heels of an unrelated WTO case in which South Korea lost to Japan over issues involving pneumatic valves. Apart from the context of deteriorating diplomatic relations, South Korea’s export control filing could also be interpreted as a tit-for-tat move in purely trade policy terms.

Critically, however, the South Korean government followed by indicating that it would decline to renew the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), a bilateral intelligence-sharing agreement between South Korea and Japan. The dissolution of this agreement between two important allies would be a serious blow to American security interests. From an economic and diplomatic standpoint, the question now is whether the Moon government will begin seizing Japanese-owned property in South Korea as a response to the Supreme Court’s ruling allowing compensation for forced labor during the colonial period.

Some have interpreted South Korea’s withdrawal from the GSOMIA as a “cry for help” aimed at the United States. And indeed, normally the United States would have acted with alacrity to bring its two allies together.

If this was the Moon government’s aim, it may have badly miscalculated. President Trump is inattentive, and resolving this issue would require a degree of serious personal involvement in diplomacy for which he has shown little inclination. Indeed, as the impeachment effort proceeds, Trump’s involvement in foreign affairs is likely to grow even more uneven and episodic.

To the extent that the Trump administration has any kind of North Korea policy, it appears to lean toward engaging in diplomacy with North Korea, which would imply distancing itself from Japan. That said, the United States and Japan just reached a minor trade agreement, suggesting that the U.S. administration might feel favorably disposed toward intervening to help its allies reconcile.

So, what can be done? In the short term, it would be desirable to extend the GSOMIA between South Korea and Japan provisionally while the parties attempt to work out their disagreements. The WTO is a useful forum for working out trade disputes in a relatively depoliticized setting. Its protracted processes could actually be a benefit in this case.

Substantively, a softening of Japan in its stance toward North Korea might close some of the gaps between Seoul and Tokyo, but this is unlikely. Politically, a redirection of South Korean protest away from Japan as a country and toward specific Japanese policies, or even toward the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, might modestly turn down the heat or at least form a better basis for moving forward.

Of the three governments, the United States has the greatest room for maneuver, but the Trump administration appears to be missing in action. This lapse could have serious long-run implications for U.S. security interests.

Meanwhile, defense cost-sharing talks between the United States and South Korea are becoming more contentious. This is not only contributing to rising frustration in Seoul but also to a perception among a small but growing constituency in both Japan and South Korea that the United States may be an unreliable partner and that both countries will need to shoulder responsibility for their own defenses against a nuclear-armed North Korea.

The eventual result could be the development of independent nuclear capabilities in both South Korea and Japan, not an outcome that many Americans or others would welcome.

Find the original article on EastWestCenter.org. 

The pandemic in North Korea: Lessons from the 1990s famine

Marcus Noland participated at the WPC 2019 in Marrakech.

08.06.2020 – East West Center

by Marcus Noland

HONOLULU (8 June 2020)—North Korea’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic is oddly reminiscent of the catastrophic famine that overtook the country in the 1990s. Then as now, the onset and severity of the famine caught the North Korean leadership unawares, and their first response was to deny that a problem existed. A look back at how the response played out after the initial denial offers some clues as to how the current regime may respond to the COVID-19 crisis today.

The 1990s famine

In the 1990s as now, North Korea’s political culture discouraged low-level officials from communicating distress to those higher up. Although food-insecurity problems were already emerging in the late 1980s, it may not have been until 1993, when North Korean leader Kim Il-sung’s guerrilla colleague Kang Song-san went directly to the Great Leader with firsthand evidence of the famine, that the leadership began to understand how badly things were going. Even then, North Korea made only hesitant appeals to the outside world for assistance, underplaying the severity of the problem.

Eventually the government reversed course and began exaggerating the distress in order to obtain aid. At the same time, however, North Korea ferociously contested the terms on which aid would be provided, insisting on practices that violated the basic principles of humanitarian assistance. The number of aid workers was limited, their ability to travel was severely restricted, and the government even banned aid workers who spoke Korean. Relief agencies were hobbled in their ability to evaluate need and ensure that relief supplies reached the intended recipients.

At its peak, food aid, in principle, fed one-third of the population, but the North Koreans made offsetting cuts to commercial food imports rather than expanding overall food availability. Freed-up funds were directed to other priorities, including the military.

Parallels with the pandemic

North Korea’s political culture still inhibits the communication of bad news, and it is notable that the government claims that there are no COVID-19 cases despite a variety of indicators that would suggest otherwise. There are unconfirmed rumors of outbreaks, observable disruptions in normal behavior—events cancelled, the wearing of masks, and Kim Jong-un’s disappearance—all possibly undertaken as precautionary measures. General Robert A. Abrams, commander of US Forces Korea has publicly stated that there are COVID-19 cases in North Korea, although he did not disclose his sources of information.

Pyongyang suspended foreign tourism on 21 January and has largely closed its border with China, its major trading partner. Prices are rising, and deprived of revenues from trade, the government appears to be attempting to confiscate foreign exchange, reminiscent of a 2009 botched currency reform.

Despite the decline in trade and all the bad news, the value of the North Korean won is rising on the black market as citizens, fearing expropriation, dump their foreign exchange to purchase physical goods as a store of value. This economic dislocation could be expected to intensify popular discontent, but there appears to be no civil-society organizations capable of channeling mass discontent into effective political action.

The fact that North Korea claims it has no cases of COVID-19 means that appeals for assistance are by necessity tepid and elicit little outside support. China is surreptitiously providing aid, and if Chinese support proves inadequate, it is possible that North Korea might reverse course and exaggerate distress as it did during the famine. The scope is considerable— according to a widely cited study from Imperial College, London, COVID-19 might kill 150,000 North Koreans if left unchecked. This would be equivalent to 1.9 million Americans.

What role for South Korea?

North Korean behavior puts South Korea in a difficult position. Understandably South Korea sees itself as central to events on the Korean peninsula, and the current pandemic would seem to be an ideal venue for North-South cooperation.

But Pyongyang has consistently tried to marginalize Seoul. At the outset of the famine, it secured aid from Tokyo before turning to Seoul. And in 1995, when the first shipload of South Korean rice was sent north, the North Korean authorities, in contravention of an agreement, forced the ship to fly a North Korean flag.

The inter-Korean relationship has always been embedded in broader international politics, and in the 1990s the North Koreans proved adept at splitting coalitions and playing donors off against each other. Washington and Seoul were generally in step in the 1990s, but the gap widened when George W. Bush assumed the American presidency, which coincided with a period of progressive leadership in Seoul.

In light of this history, what might we expect today?

Seoul will see itself as central to the situation and seek to promote its interests. Pyongyang will prioritize relations with other powers such as China, and possibly the United States, in an attempt to marginalize Seoul. It is likely that the North Koreans will try to play donors off against each other and play on South Korean insecurities, especially regarding Chinese influence on the Korean peninsula.

As in the 1990s, the North Koreans will likely exhibit a predilection for material aid—such as medical equipment that can be portrayed internally as a kind of political tribute to the Kim regime—over technical assistance. In particular, the North Koreans will be loath to appear to be taking advice from their South Korean counterparts.

And what about international sanctions?

Today, the pandemic is occurring against a backdrop of comprehensive multilateral sanctions against North Korea, undertaken in response to its missile and nuclear tests. North Korea is rightly being given sanctions exemptions for humanitarian assistance, but any broader relaxation of sanctions is likely to be controversial.

Even before the COVID-19 crisis, some countries were displaying “sanctions fatigue,” showing a lack of enthusiasm about enforcement and quietly tolerating sanctions evasion. This trend is reinforced by evident frustration with the inconsistent diplomacy emanating from Washington. The pandemic is likely to weaken further diplomatic support for the sanctions regime.

History does not repeat itself, but it would not be surprising if many of the same tendencies, witnessed 25 years ago, emerged in the coming months. Recent reports of the demise of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un turned out to be false, but they serve as a reminder of dangerous information gaps, unresolved tensions, and the potential for instability on the Korean peninsula.

 

Find the original article on EastWestCenter.org. 

Women scaling the corporate ladder: Progress steady but slow globally

Soyoung Han (PIIE) and Marcus Noland (PIIE)

Peterson Institute for International Economics
Policy Brief – 20-7
May 2020
Despite steady progress, women remain grossly underrepresented in corporate leadership worldwide. The share of women executive officers and board members increased between 1997 and 2017, but progress was not uniform. Partly in response to gender quotas, the shares of female board members have risen rapidly in some countries while lagging elsewhere. This Policy Brief reports results derived from the financial records of about 62,000 publicly listed firms in 58 economies over 1997–2017, which together account for more than 92 percent of global GDP. The authors conclude that if, as emerging evidence in the literature indicates, gender diversity contributes to superior firm performance, then progress in this area could help boost productivity globally. Policymakers and corporate leaders should consider supportive public and private policies, including more gender-neutral tracking in education, firm protocols that encourage gender balance in hiring and promotion, enforceable antidiscrimination laws, public support for readily available and affordable high-quality childcare and maternity and paternity leave, and quotas.

Josep Borrell : « Je suis profondément préoccupé par le recours croissant aux sanctions contre les entreprises et les intérêts européens »

L’UE dénonce la politique des sanctions de l’administration Trump

Josep Borrell, chef de la diplomatie européenne, a dénoncé vendredi la politique des sanctions de l’administration américaine, estimant qu’elle était contre-productive.

Le chef de la diplomatie européenne Josep Borrell a dénoncé vendredi la politique des sanctions de l’administration américaine, la jugeant contre-productive.

« Je suis profondément préoccupé par le recours croissant aux sanctions, ou à la menace de sanctions, par les États-Unis contre les entreprises et les intérêts européens », a-t-il déclaré dans un communiqué publié en son nom pendant un sommet européen consacré à la relance de l’économie européenne.

« Tendance croissante »

« Nous avons été témoins de cette tendance croissante dans les cas de l’Iran, de Cuba, de la Cour pénale internationale et, plus récemment, des projets (de gazoducs) Nordstream 2 et Turkstream », a-t-il souligné.

Le chef de la diplomatie américaine Mike Pompeo a ouvert la voie mercredi à des sanctions plus dures pour empêcher la mise en service du projet de gazoduc Nordstream 2 entre la Russie et l’Allemagne. Ces sanctions ont été dénoncées par Berlin.

Le projet Turkstream doit lui acheminer du gaz russe en Turquie et en Europe. Il a été inauguré en janvier par les présidents russes Vladimir Poutine et turc Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

« Contraire au droit international »

« Par principe, l’Union européenne s’oppose à l’utilisation de sanctions par des pays tiers contre des entreprises européennes exerçant des activités légitimes », a rappelé M. Borrell.

« En outre, elle considère que l’application extraterritoriale de sanctions est contraire au droit international », a-t-il insisté. L’Espagnol a souligné que « les politiques européennes devraient être déterminées ici en Europe et non par des pays tiers ».

« Lorsque des différences de politique existent, l’Union européenne est toujours ouverte au dialogue. Mais cela ne peut pas se faire contre la menace de sanctions », a-t-il conclu.

 

Jean-Pierre Cabestan : “Peut-on laisser une dictature devenir la première puissance mondiale ?”

Par Brice Pedroletti – le 18 juillet 2020

Entre la Chine et les Etats-Unis, l’escalade des tensions

Washington soumet Pékin à un pilonnage de sanctions pour des motifs politiques, une première. Mais la défense des droits de l’homme sert aussi un autre objectif : ralentir le géant asiatique dans sa quête technologique.

Mike Pompeo évoque les cas de deux citoyens canadiens détenus en Chine depuis 2018, lors d’une conférence de presse à Washington, le 1er juillet.

Mike Pompeo évoque les cas de deux citoyens canadiens détenus en Chine depuis 2018, lors d’une conférence de presse à Washington, le 1er juillet. MANUEL BALCE CENATA / AFP

Un peu plus de deux ans après la guerre commerciale déclarée par le gouvernement Trump à la Chine, les Etats-Unis ont ouvert de nouveaux fronts pour exercer des pressions sur Pékin, au nom des principes qu’ils défendent et au moyen de lois extraterritoriales. L’offensive porte sur des questions politiques – l’autonomie pour Hongkong, les droits de l’homme pour la région du Xinjiang, et l’espionnage pour Huawei et les médias officiels chinois aux Etats-Unis, désormais désignés comme des « missions étrangères ».

« C’est la première fois depuis Tiananmen, en 1989, que des sanctions aussi systématiques sont prises contre la Chine. A l’époque, c’était un massacre. Là, cela punit la répression, mais ce qui est visé, c’est l’affirmation de puissance chinoise. La vraie question est désormais : “Peut-on laisser une dictature devenir la première puissance mondiale ?” », analyse le sinologue Jean-Pierre Cabestan, de l’université baptiste de Hongkong.

Le « blitzkrieg » juridique américain repose sur le Hongkong Autonomy Act, signé le 14 juillet, le Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, signé le 17 juin, ainsi que sur le Global Magnitsky Human Rights Act. Cette loi, originellement destinée à la Russie, étendue en 2016 aux auteurs de violations des droits de l’homme dans le monde entier, cible pour la première fois la Chine. Plusieurs hauts responsables du Xinjiang ayant eu un rôle-clé dans la politique d’internement massif de la minorité ouïgoure sont désormais interdits de séjour aux Etats-Unis, et leurs avoirs, s’ils en ont, gelés par le département d’Etat.

La nouvelle loi sur Hongkong, qui s’ajoute à la révocation du traitement préférentiel réservé au territoire par les Américains en matière commerciale et financière, doit sanctionner les entités et les individus ayant contribué à éroder le haut degré d’autonomie de Hongkong au moyen de la loi de sécurité nationale promulguée par Pékin le 1er juillet dernier. Aucun nom n’a été précisé, mais « tout est sur la table », a signalé un porte-parole du Conseil de sécurité nationale américain.

Ralentir la quête technologique chinoise

Bloomberg a rapporté, mercredi 15 juillet, qu’étaient pressentis pour rejoindre la liste le responsable des affaires de Hongkong au sein du Comité permanent du Parti communiste chinois (PCC), Han Zheng – soit, potentiellement, le dirigeant chinois le plus haut placé jamais ciblé –, ainsi que la chef du gouvernement de Hongkong, Carrie Lam. Le New York Times faisait état, le même jour, d’un plan à l’étude à la Maison Blanche pour interdire de visa les 92 millions de membres du PCC. Une décision toutefois délicate à mettre en œuvre en raison de la difficulté, pour les Américains, de vérifier ce statut pour les membres ordinaires.

[…]

Lire l’article complet (réservé aux abonnés), sur le site du Monde. 

NATO Is Dying

Ana Palacio

15.07.2020

Last December, NATO commemorated 70 years of underpinning peace, stability, and prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic. But cracks in the Alliance are deepening, raising serious doubts about whether it will reach its 75th anniversary. The time for Europe to shore up its defenses and capabilities is now.

MADRID – NATO may be “the most successful alliance in history” – as its secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, claims – but it may also be on the brink of failure. After a turbulent few years, during which US President Donald Trump has increasingly turned America’s back on NATO, tensions between France and Turkey have escalated sharply, laying bare just how fragile the Alliance has become.

The Franco-Turkish spat began in mid-June, when a French navy frigate under NATO command in the Mediterranean attempted to inspect a cargo vessel suspected of violating a United Nations arms embargo on Libya. France alleges that three Turkish ships accompanying the cargo vessel were “extremely aggressive” toward its frigate, flashing their radar lights three times – a signal indicating imminent engagement. Turkey denied France’s account, claiming that the French frigate was harassing its ships.

Whatever the details, the fact is that two NATO allies came very close to exchanging fire in the context of a NATO mission. That is a new low for the Alliance – one that may herald its demise.

Lord Hastings Ismay, NATO’s first secretary-general, famously quipped that the Alliance’s mission was to “keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” The dynamic obviously changed over the subsequent decades, especially the relationship with Germany. But the broad basis of cooperation – a common perceived threat, strong American leadership, and a shared sense of purpose – remained the same.

Without US leadership, the whole structure is at risk of crumbling. It is no coincidence that the last time two NATO allies came this close to blows – during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 – the US was preoccupied with the Vietnam War. In fact, the spat between Turkey and France occurred just days after it was revealed that Trump had decided, without any prior consultation with America’s NATO allies, to withdraw thousands of US troops from Germany.

Germany may no longer be on the front line, as it was during the Cold War, but US forces there still serve as a powerful deterrent to Russian aggression along NATO’s eastern flank. By drawing down those forces, Trump has sent a fundamental message: ensuring European security is no longer a top US priority.

While America’s drift away from Europe has accelerated under Trump, it began over a decade earlier. In 2011, when Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, was touting his “pivot to Asia,” then-US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned that, unless NATO proved itself relevant, the US may lose interest. NATO did no such thing: until last December, its summit declarations failed even to acknowledge the challenges posed by China’s rise. By then, the US had lost interest. And now, under Trump, that disinterest has become open hostility.

Without the US as a rudder, NATO allies have begun to head off in different directions. Turkey is the clearest example. Before the recent squabble with France, Turkey purchased a Russian S-400 missile-defense system, despite US objections. Moreover, it has brazenly intervened in Libya, providing air support, weapons, and fighters to the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan seems confident that his direct relationship with Trump will protect him from suffering any consequences for his behavior. Trump’s decision not to impose sanctions over the missile purchase, beyond cutting Turkey’s participation in the F-35 fighter jet program, seems to vindicate Erdoğan’s reasoning.

But Turkey is not alone in striking out on its own; France has done the same, including in Libya. By providing military support to the Russian-backed General Khalifa Haftar, who controls eastern Libya, to fight Islamist militants, France has gone against its NATO allies. While President Emmanuel Macrondenies supporting Haftar’s side in the civil war, he did recently express support for Egypt’s pledge to intervene militarily against Turkey, which he says has a “criminal responsibility” in the country.

As tensions with Turkey rise, France is more insistent than ever that a European approach to security and defense – one that would be de facto led by France – is vital. The fact that popular support for Macron within France is waning only augments his sense of urgency.

Political motivations aside, Macron has said aloud what few others have acknowledged: NATO is experiencing “brain death,” owing to Trump’s dubious commitment to defend America’s allies. Given that the US drift away from NATO began well before Trump, there is little reason to believe that this trend will be reversed, though it may be slowed if he loses the November election. Unless Europe begins thinking of itself as a geopolitical power and takes responsibility for its own security, Macron argues, it will “no longer be in control of [its] destiny.”

Last December, NATO commemorated 70 years of underpinning peace, stability, and prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic. But cracks in the Alliance are deepening, raising serious doubts about whether it will reach its 75th anniversary. The time for Europe to shore up its defenses and capabilities is now.

Read the article on Project Syndicate.