Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Ukraine Crisis Grows Curiouser and Curiouser

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Annaleena Baerbock, Biden adminisration, China, democracy, deterrence, Eastern Europe, energy, European Union, Germany, human rights, Italy, Mario Draghi, NATO, natural gas, Nordstream 2, North Atlantic treaty Organization, Olaf Scholz, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Phase One, Poland, Russia, sanctions, sovereignty, Taiwan, tariffs, The Wall Street Journal, Trade, trade war, Ukraine

The longer the Ukraine crisis lasts, the weirder it gets. Here are just the latest examples, keeping in mind that new developments keep appearing so quickly that this post might be overtaken by events before I finish!

>What’s with the Chinese? Toward the end of last year, (see, e.g., here) I’ve been worried that President Biden’s Ukraine policy would push Russia and China to work more closely to undermine U.S. interests around the world – a possibility that’s both especially worrisome given evident limits on American power (Google, e.g., “Afghanistan”), and completely unnecessary, since no remotely vital U.S. interests are at stake in Ukraine or anywhere in Eastern Europe.

In the last week, moreover, numerous other analysts have voiced similar concerns, too. (See, e.g., here and here.)

But just yesterday, The Wall Street Journal published this piece reporting on Chinese words and deeds indicating that Beijing opposed any Russian invasion of Ukraine. You’d think that China would welcome the prospect of significant numbers of American military forces tied down trying to deter an attack by Moscow on Ukraine, or on nearby members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), or getting caught up in any fighting that does break out. The result of any of these situations would be an America less able to resist Chinese designs on Taiwan forcibly.

It’s unimaginable that Chinese leaders have forgotten about these benefits of war or a continuing state of high tensions in Ukraine’s neighborhood. But according to the Journal, Beijing has decided for the time being that it’s more important to avoid further antagonizing the United States on the trade and broader economic fronts – specifically by helping Russia cushion the blows of any western sanctions. China is also supposedly uncomfortable with the idea of countries successfully intervening in the internal affairs of other countries – because of its own vulnerability on the human rights front, and because it regards foreign (including U.S.) support for Taiwan as unacceptable interference in its internal affairs, too (since it views Taiwan as a renegade province).

Not that China isn’t already acting to prop up Russia’s economy – specifically agreeing earlier this month to buy huge amounts of Russian oil and gas. But if Beijing has indeed decided to go no further, or not much further, the potential effectiveness of western sanctions on Moscow would be that much greater. It would also signal that the Biden adminisration has much greater leverage than it apparently realizes to use tariffs to punish China for various economic transgressions – e.g., failing to keep its promises under former President Trump’s Phase One trade deal to meet targets for ramping up its imports from the United States.

>Speaking of sanctions, the Biden administration view of these measures keeps getting stranger, too. The President and his aides have repeatedly insisted that the best time for imposing them is after a Russian invasion of Ukraine, because acting beforehand would “lose the deterrent effect.”

But this reasoning makes no sense because it – logically, anyway – assumes that the sanctions that would be slapped on would achieve little or nothing in the way of inflicting economic pain powerful enough either to induce a Russian pullback or convince the Kremlin that further aggression along these lines wouldn’t be worth the costs.

After all, pre-invasion sanctions would be taking their toll while the Russians were fighting in Ukraine, and until they pulled out or made some other meaningful concession. The Biden position, however, seems to be that in fact, during this post-invasion period, they’d be taking scarcely any toll at all – or at least not one significant enough to achieve any of their declared aims. If that’s the case, though, why place any stock in them at all at any time?

>One reason for these evidently low Biden sanctions expectations is surely that, at least for now, the administration isn’t willing to promise that the potentially most effective punishments will be used. Nor are key U.S. allies.

Principally, last Friday, Deputy National Security Adviser Daleep Singh told reporters that banning Russia from the global banking system would “probably not” be part of an initial sanctions package. And Germany keeps hemming and hawing about ending the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline project even if Russia does invade.

The Germans – and the rest of Europe – are now acting like they’re taking seriously the need to reduce their reliance on Russian natural gas (which currently supplies some forty percent of their supplies of this fossil fuel. But Berlin has still not committed to cancelling its plans to buy even more gas from Russia via the recently completed Nordstream channel. (The pipeline isn’t yet in use because the Germans are in fact dragging their feet on final regulatory approval.) Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has declared that Nordstream is “on the table” for her if the Russians move militarily. But nothing even like this non-promise has been made by Prime Minister Olaf Scholz. And last Friday, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said he opposes including energy in anti-Russia sanctions.

>The final puzzle: Although Poland is a linchpin of NATO’s strategy for preventing any Putin aggression beyond Ukraine, the European Union has just moved a major step closer to cutting the country off from the massive economic aid it receives from the grouping, and indeed has already frozen $41 billion in CCP Virus recovery funds it had previously allotted to Warsaw.

The decisions stem from Poland’s alleged backsliding on commitments it made to protect human rights in order to join the EU, but blocking these resources isn’t exactly likely to strengthen Poland’s ability to aid in the effort to contain Russia, and Ukraine itself is hardly a model democracy (see, e.g., here and here) – all of which can’t help but scramble the politics of the crisis in Eastern Europe yet further. And all of which should be added to the already impressive list of paradoxes, ironies, mysteries, and curiosities that everyone should keep in mind whenever they hear about the future of Europe, the global liberal order, world peace, and human freedom itself being at stake in Ukraine.    

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Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Biden’s Anti-China Coalition is Flunking an Olympian Test

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allies, Australia, Beijing Olympics, Biden, boycotts, Canada, China, European Union, Germany, Indo-Pacific, Italy, Japan, multilateralism, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, semiconductors, South Korea, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Winter Olympics

One of President Biden’s main foreign policy aims has been to create an international coalition to resist continually mounting belligerence by China, and to curb the massive, decades-long flows of foreign capital and technological knowhow that have done so much to strengthen and enrich the People’s Republic. And whatever promise is held by this anti-China strategy has become vitally important lately because of Beijing’s intensifying intimidation campaign against Taiwan, whose autonomy has become a vital U.S. interest due to its world leadership in semiconductor manufacturing processes.

That’s why it’s so discouraging to report that, as of this morning, so few of the allies on which Mr. Biden is counting have been willing even to take so limited a step as joining the U.S. diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics scheduled to be held in China’s capital Beijing in February.

Australia and the United Kingdom signed on this morning. And a bit later, so did Canada. But so far, that’s it. According to this Reuters article, Japan is considering not sending cabinet members to the Games but South Korea isn’t even thinking about this step. The New York Times reports that New Zealand had previously decided not to send any officials to China but cited CCP Virus-related health concerns as the reason; that the European Union’s (EU) European Parliament has passed a resolution backing a boycott barring “verifiable improvement” in China’s human rights situation, but one that’s non-binding; that the EU’s separate policymaking arm has declined to support the U.S. action; EU member France is hiding behind this EU skirt so far; fellow EU member Italy has said it’s not on board; and Olaf Scholz, the new leader of another EU member, Germany, clearly doesn’t want to be.

It’s not that joining the American initiative will produce any meaningful changes in China’s behavior. Indeed, official foreign participation in and attendance at Olympics isn’t exactly the norm.

It’s true, moreover, as The Times mentioned, that many of these countries and the EU collectively have imposed human rights sanctions on China; that some have begun thinking about how to shield their economies from Beijing’s power and influence (see, e.g., here and here); and that some have begun to increase their own defense spending in response to China’s own buildup and provocations (see, e.g., here and here), or become more active militarily in the Indo-Pacific region (see, e.g., here).

At the same time, boosting military budgets and even sending warships on port calls and other East Asian missions is a far cry from credibly pledging to come to the U.S.’ and Taiwan’s aid if China moves against the island. (It’s also important to note that an American military response, or at least a prompt one, is far from certain, either, since the United States is not yet obliged by treaty to come to Taiwan’s defense.)

And if countries are reluctant to take even a symbolic step like diplomatically boycotting the Beijing Olympics, which doesn’t even entail further sanctions, can they really be counted on to enter hostilities against China?

President Biden is fond of saying that “America is back” in its role as free world leader following an alleged Trump administration abdication. But leaders by definition need followers, and when it comes to confronting China meaningfully, it’s not clear right now that he has many that are reliable.

Im-Politic: In Case You Still Doubt It’s a China Virus

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China, China virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, decoupling, elites, globlalism, Hong Kong, Im-Politic, Iran, Italy, pandemics, Taiwan, The Epoch Times, Trump

Yesterday’s RealityChek post explained why Americans looking for current domestic scapegoats for the sluggish China Virus outbreak response are barking up the wrong tree. But despite the predictable criticisms from globalism- and political correctness-happy elites and the Mainstream Media journalists who follow their cues, the search for foreign scapegoats is absolutely legitimate – primarily because one country above all has unmistakably earned the title: China.

Skeptical? Then check out this editorial from The Epoch Times. As it compellingly demonstrates, “Where Ties With Communist China Are Close, the Coronavirus Follows.”

More specifically, although the editorial writers note that numerous drivers lie behind COVID19’s spread, “the heaviest-hit regions outside China all share a common thread: close or lucrative relations with the communist regime in Beijing.”

One reason I found the editorial especially important was its explanation for the virus’ concentration in Italy. Some convincing explanations for high levels of Italian mortality rates have come out, but I’ve yet to run across any material on why China Virus became so common in Italy to begin with. The Epoch Times spotlights some major reasons:

“Italy, the most heavily affected country outside China as of March 10, was the first (and only) G-7 [“Group of 7” – an official organization of the world’s seven biggest economies] nation to sign onto the PRC’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, also known as One Belt, One Road). In an attempt to prop up its weakening economy, Italy has also sought to capture the Chinese market for selling its luxury goods….

“Italy also has signed scores of sister-city agreements with China, with the cities of Milan, Venice, and Bergamo included among them. These are the areas hardest-hit by the virus.”

China ties also seem largely responsible for the coronavirus’ outsize impact on Iran:

“The Iranian regime has had a comprehensive strategic partnership with China since 2016, and its ties with Beijing began years before that. In violation of international sanctions, Iran has imported embargoed materials from China, while continuing to sell oil to the PRC. The Islamic Republic allowed flights in and out of four major Chinese cities until the end of February.”

And reinforcing the case for a vital Iran-China connection is this Wall Street Journal piece. It reports that the Iranian city of Qom, which Iran’s government calls the country’s COVID19 starting point, has been the site of numerous infrastructure projects built by Chinese engineers and technicians as part of that Belt and Road program.

As the Times notes, even South Korea’s government – whose comprehensive and seemingly testing program has garnered widespread global praise – seems to have set itself up for China Virus troubles “for refusing to ban Chinese tourists at large and instead only barring entry for those who recently traveled to Hubei Province, the epicenter of the epidemic in China.”

Don’t forget, moreover, that one big reason surely has concerned South Korea’s long surging economic relations with China – which assembles lots of high-value manufactured goods containing numerous South Korean parts and components. The same goes for Japan, another coronavirus hotspot.

The Epoch Times‘ conclusion is also borne out by the experiences of two other places with extensive economic relations with China that seem to have the disease contained: Hong Kong and Taiwan. (And I don’t mean to suggest that the latter isn’t a “country.”)

The city, located right next to another China Virus epicenter, Guangdong Province, has basically shut its border with the People’s Republic. Taiwan “began to board planes and assess passengers on Dec. 31, 2019, after Wuhan authorities first confirmed the outbreak. In early February, Taiwan banned entry to foreign nationals who have traveled to the PRC.”

Of course, now that the virus has spread far beyond China, government authorities need to focus on more domestically focused strategies – although plugging remaining foreign travel gaps, as President Trump approved in his otherwise unsuccessful Wednesday night Oval Office address, can certainly be justified in many circumstances.

Moreover, China’s primo role in not only the coronavirus outbreak but the previous Bird Flu and ongoing Asian Swine Flu episodes indicates that there’s something about China that makes it particularly (if not uniquely) plague-prone. As a result, further curbs on commerce with the PRC seem imperative even leaving aside (as no one should) Beijing’s recent threat to cut off shipments of vital medicines and their chemical ingredients to the United States. In other words, keeping the focus on China’s responsibility will help American leaders keep and intensify their focus on desirable, broader economic decoupling.

And China’s disgraceful effort to place blame for the virus on the United States amounts to a major additional reason to spotlight the above transnational coronavirus links.

“Blame games” in politics and policy are often condemned, and surely they’re often wrongheaded or overdone. But they also serve the valuable purpose of clarifying thought, accurately identifying problems, and – as suggested above – speeding the discovery of effective solutions. That’s why The Epoch Times editorial gives me more reason than ever to keep calling the coronavirus the China Virus – and why the same should go for all Americans.    

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: More Globalist Fantasies from The Times’ Friedman

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Africa, China, climate change, Cold War, democracy, Europe, global norms, global order, global warming, globalism, human rights, international institutions, Italy, migrants, migration, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, The National Interest, The New York Times, Thomas Friedman, World War II

Thomas Friedman’s New York Times column today shows that the uber-pundit continues to perform a crucial dual public service. He both articulates as clearly as possible the usually unspoken assumptions underlying the globalist foreign policy approach pursued by the establishments of the two major American political parties for decades, and (unwittingly, to be sure) he reveals how childish they are. 

In his discussion of the African migrants crisis faced by Italy and other countries of southern Europe, Friedman once again credits “global cooperation and rule-making” with making “America, Europe and the world as a whole steadily freer, more stable and more prosperous since World War II.”

As I’ve pointed out, these successes owed not to any institutions-based “liberal global order” but to the American power and wealth that underwrote the defense of Western Europe, Japan, and South Korea and the recreation of a functioning international economy (until the Cold War ended, of course, one confined to the bounds of the non-communist world).

But what distinguishes today’s article – and pushes it into the realm of fantasy – is the author’s claim that this order and its institutions and procedures have “managed the key global issues after W.W. II — like trade, migration, environment and human rights….”

How do we know this is fantasy? Because Friedman himself emphasizes here that the migrants crisis remains out of control. Moreover, the world trade system is proving woefully unable to handle the challenge of China’s predatory government-private sector hybrid economy. The management claim, meanwhile, is sure hard to square with Friedman’s own nearly innumerable warnings that climate change is about to destroy the planet unless dramatic steps are taken immediately.

And although the world is unmistakably freer than before World War II, again it’s been American power – not any set of worldwide institutions and rules – that’s been primarily responsible. Further, a major elite commentator meme nowadays of course is that freedom has taken some important hits lately – e.g., because of the rise of allegedly authoritarian populists on both sides of the Atlantic, because Russia’s post-Cold War experiment with genuine democracy proved so short-lived, and because China’s widely anticipated evolution toward greater political (and economic) openness never even got started.

I’m also grateful to Friedman for creating another opportunity for me to explain why dismissing the importance of international institutions and rules does not amount to dismissing the importance of international cooperation in addressing the varied and important worldwide problems that transcend borders.

As I’ve most recently written in my June National Interest article on the superiority of a genuine America First foreign policy, there’s no reasonable question that in order to deal with pollution and disease and climate shifts (whether man-made or not, they can create terrible common problems) countries will need to meet and figure out how to respond jointly.

But since the agreed-on solutions will not affect every country equally, or benefit every country equally, it will be vital for the United States to push for the measures that most effectively promote and preserve its own interests. Further, since Washington will not be able to count on persuasion solely or even largely to accomplish this goal, it will need to make sure that it possesses the only other advantages capable of shaping the outcomes favorably – power and wealth. Accept no substitutes.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: New Evidence that Greece’s Former Prosperity Really was Built on Sand

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bubbles, consumption, Europe, Eurozone, France, Greece, incomes, Ireland, Italy, Spain, {What's Left of) Our Economy

A new Pew Research Center report is a gold mine of information that I’ll be returning to in the next few days and weeks. But given the intensification of the Greece crisis this weekend, it seems especially important to note briefly what it shows about that country’s experience in the Eurozone. It’s especially revealing on how the easy access to credit made possible by Greece’s membership created one of history’s most stunning examples of false prosperity.

Among other statistics, Pew’s study of global incomes over the last decade presents figures on the shares of many national populations that could be classified as “high income” in 2001 and 2011. And the Greece numbers are mind-blowing. In 2001, 10.8 percent of Greeks belonged in the category with family per person income (or consumption) of $50 or more per day. (These figures are expressed in 2011 dollars adjusted for differences in price levels across countries.) By 2011, this share had more than doubled – to 23.8 percent. Moreover, the share of “upper middle income” ($30-$50 per capita per day) Greeks by this measure increased from 49.8 percent to 54.2 percent.

Even given the relatively low base from which Greek incomes began, it has to be significant that the only other countries in Western Europe that saw anything close to this progress were the continent’s other problem debtors. In Italy, for example, the high income share of the population just about doubled, from 17.1 percent to 34.8 percent. Spain saw 18.4 percent to 27.3 percent growth in this category, and the numbers were 21.2 percent to 36.2 percent in Ireland. (Pew did not present any figures for Portugal.)

Among economically and financially healthier Western European countries, oil rich Norway’s high income residents rose from 56.3 percent of the population to 77.2 percent, while the comparable numbers for France were 27.3 percent and 37.9 percent.

Moreover, Greece was a major out-performer in the Upper Middle class as well. In Italy, Spain, and Ireland, this group fell as a share of the population from 2001 to 2011. Ditto for France.

In case you’re wondering, the United States is one of the few wealthy countries studied that saw a decline in its share of the population living on more than $50 per day between 2001 and 2011 – from 58.2 percent to 55.7 percent. The Upper Middle class increased only from 31.4 percent of the American people to 31.9 percent. And therein hangs many a tale, as I’ll be reporting.