TWTW: The World This Week / Episode #35
In France, it's all over but the shouting….America rocks….a revolving door in Beijing…and a big ground breaking in Hanoi….cartoonist Dilem visits Putin in Paradise.
This weekly feature for Andelman Unleashed, explores how the media of other nations are reporting and commenting on the United States, and how they are viewing the rest of the world.
Macron's pyrrhic (?) victory
In France it's all over but the shelling. Several minutes before the witching hour, journalists at BFM-TV knew how France's Counseil Constitutionel, the nation's highest court, would be ruling at 6 pm local time. The nine wise men—including two former prime ministers, its chairman Laurent Fabius, and the moderate rightist Alain Juppé—ruled that President Emmanuel Macron could have his way. Most French men and women would need to work until the grand old age of 64 to snag their full state pensions. That's up two years from the current 62. Both are at or near the lows among advanced economies. And Macron had two weeks to 'promulgate' the new statute for it to become law. He didn't wait that long at all.
By midnight, with France's powerful trade unions refusing to accept his invitation to the Élysée Palace next Tuesday to discuss, Macron launched his plan officially. A Le Monde headline expressed the widespread fear: "After promulgation, Macron hopes to turn the page, [but] the dispute remains." Still, at 8 pm on Monday, the witching hour when all major "allocutions" are pronounced, he will go on nationwide television to explain himself—yet again—to the French people.
Already, however, his presidency is being pronounced dead-on-arrival in many quarters. Macron's leading far-left opponent, Jean-Luc Melenchon, charged him with" "wanting to intimidate all of France in the (dead of) night. Thief of life! Absurd display of arrogance."
Neighboring countries also appreciated Macron's dilemma. "The centrist head of state hopes that the decision of the Constitutional Council will end three months of protests against his pension reform that have brought widespread chaos to France," Adam Sage wrote in The Times of London. "Macron is said to want to promulgate the law this weekend in a bid to shift the political agenda and to start healing the divisions that his reform has exposed in French society."
But for others, there was less here than met the eye. Indeed, the leading German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, ignoring France's contemporary woes, went back into its archives exactly 100 years ago Saturday to focus on the colossal error being made by the occupation of Germany's Ruhr Valley by France after its victory at the end of World War I.
Another decade and Germany's new chancellor Adolf Hitler would be preparing to launch a second world war.
How others see America
America outperforming
London's magazine The Economist believes that "America's economic outperformance is a marvel to behold….Big wheels keep on turning."
"American economic declinism is a broad church. Voices on the right claim that big government has stifled the frontier spirit and that soaring debt has condemned future generations to poverty. The left worries that inequality and corporate power have hollowed out the economy. In a rare display of unity, all parts of the ideological spectrum bemoan the death of American manufacturing and the crushing of the middle class. There is just one snag. On a whole range of measures American dominance remains striking. And relative to its rich-world peers its lead is increasing…."
"The fact that America has problems hardly sets it apart," the magazine continues. "All economies do. The striking thing about America’s is that they have not noticeably slowed down its growth."
But its editors cannot resist one warning. "The country could still undercut its own success….The ugly turn in America’s politics threatens other pillars of success. Highly polarised state governments are starting to endanger the country’s vast unified market, forcing companies to face new choices. Texas, for instance, has banned financial firms from doing business with the state if it deems them unfriendly to the oil industry. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor and a likely candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, has used his office to try and humble Disney in response to the company’s 'woke agenda'….The potential for a greater act of political self-sabotage also looms uncomfortably large on the horizon."
Pilfering secrets
Newspapers around the world were following the leaks of top secret documents by Massachusetts National Guard PFC Jack Teixeira, but no more so than in nations whose closely-held secrets were unmasked in some of these documents.
From Washington, correspondent Kim Jin-myeong and reporter Cho Seong-ho reported in Seoul's largest-circulation daily Chosun Ilbo, "Controversy arose over the war between Russia and Ukraine and what the United States learned from wiretapping the governments of its allies, including South Korea and Israel."
How others see the World
Diplomacy rears its ugly head
The world continues to beat a path to Beijing's door. Macron from a week before was still coping with the fallout of his somewhat intemperate, perhaps ill-considered diplomacy. But now it was the turn of others. Hong Kong's South China Morning Post focused on the visit to Beijing of German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, a guest of her counterpart Qin Gang. The paper reported "China bears 'a special responsibility for world peace' and how it uses its influence over Russia will affect its relationship with Europe."
SCMP Reporter Cyril Ip continued, "The stern China critic described her country’s biggest trading partner as a 'competitor', 'systemic rival' and 'global player that increasingly wants to shape the world order according to its own designs. At the top of my agenda … is our interest in bringing the war on our European doorstep in Ukraine to a swift, lasting and just end,' she said. 'The role that China plays with its influence vis‑à‑vis Russia will have consequences for the whole of Europe and for our relationship with China.'”
At the end of her visit, the Guardian of London's Berlin correspondent Philip Oltermann reported Baerbock as saying, "a confrontation between China and Taiwan would send 'shock waves' around the world. 'A destabilisation would have consequences for all countries, the global economy and Germany. We are watching the growing tensions in the Taiwan strait with great concern.'”
Then it was the turn of Brazil President Lula da Silva, guest of Xi Jinping. O Globo of Brazil correspondent Marcelo Ninio, reported from Shanghai that the trip "was marked by a tone of defiance against the hegemony of the United States, in line with the Chinese government’s defense of multipolarity. In Shanghai, the Brazilian leader delivered an eloquent speech against the use of the U.S. dollar as the dominant currency in the global economy."
The O Globo report continued that Lula "was able to avoid topics that could cause frictions with the host country, such as democracy, human rights, geopolitical tensions, and the most sensitive issue for China, the status of Taiwan, a self-governing island that it considers a rebel province….President Lula’s stance diverges from the tone adopted in Washington: when he visited President Joe Biden in February, the Brazilian leader used his brief stay in the U.S. capital to defend democracy." The Brazilian report concluded with an especially pointed comment: "Some signals have given Western countries the impression of a tilt toward Beijing, starting with the delegation and agenda for the visit to China, which was much more robust than the one to the U.S. in February."
Circling the wagons
Meanwhile on China's periphery, a meeting of G7 finance ministers was shaping up in Japan. Though China is not a member, it was clearly on everyone's minds, particularly Secretary of State Antony Blinken who made a pointed stop in Vietnam en route. Meeting in Hanoi with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Singapore's Straits Times reported Blinken "expressed a willingness to upgrade bilateral ties as the US seeks to balance an increasingly assertive China…. Mr. Blinken told reporters security was among the key components of the two countries’ relations and noted that this was growing, with Washington finalising the shipment of a third naval cutter to support Vietnam’s coast guard."
"Washington and US defence companies have openly said they want to bolster their military supplies to Vietnam – so far largely limited to coast guard ships and training aircraft – as the country seeks to diversify away from Russia, which is currently its main supplier," the Straits Times report continued. "Mr Blinken’s visit was part of a wider US strategy in South-east Asia to build a coalition to counter China and deter any potential action by Beijing against Taiwan."
Finally, for those of us who remember those times a half century ago when the U.S. was unleashing sorties of B-52 bombers on Hanoi, there was the striking symbol of Blinken and his hosts breaking ground on a new $1.2 billion U.S. Embassy complex in the Vietnamese capital.
In active revolt….
Sudan was going up in flames, particularly its capital of Khartoum in a sudden outbreak of a civil war that has hardly captured the world's attention.
Dubai-based Gulf News reported: "Sudan’s main paramilitary group said it had seized the presidential palace, the army chief’s residence, and Khartoum international airport in an apparent coup attempt, but the military said it was fighting back. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which accused the army of attacking them first, also said they had taken over the airports in the northern city of Merowe and in Al Obaid in the west. Airlines have halted flights to Sudan and there have been reports that two people were killed when a shell hit a passenger plane. RSF commander Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo says his troops will keep on fighting until all army bases are captured."
And then there's the motos
Remember two weeks ago when we reported how Parisians overwhelmingly voted to ban the plague of electric scooters from their city? Well, if you have a yen for speed, there's really no place on earth like Ho Chi Minh City. Straits Times Indochina Bureau Chief Tan Hui Yee paid a visit on "a Sunday morning [as] a group of young men are lounging around, Vietnamese style, in plastic half-height chairs on the pavement with milky coffees in hand. They are not there just to shoot the breeze. Dressed in identical blue tops, they trade tips about their latest passion: electric motorcycles."
"They line their motorbikes up and pore over accessories such as tyre lights and remote-controlled seats. The racier modifications can be seen only when these vehicles are turned on. 'My bike can go at 170kmh,' one of the e-motorbike enthusiasts, 43-year-old Nguyen Bao Kanh, tells The Straits Times. 'My dream is to convert one to a super sports bike that can go up to 200kmh.'
"Vietnam is home to more than 60 million motorcycles and the world’s biggest market for electric two-wheelers outside of China. This bodes well because internal-combustion motorcycles are a major source of air pollution in Vietnam." In Ho Chi Minh City, some 40% of the fine particulate pollution is generated by road transport, with 60% attributed to scooters and motorcycles. Just like in Paris, "Vietnamese leaders regularly suggest banning motorcycles in central Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to ease congestion and clear the air," the Straits Times concluded. "But they are forced to backpedal amid public opposition."
Finally, there’s …. Dilem
The great Algerian cartoonist Ali Dilem has put Russia's Vladimir in the happy position of "facilitating [the] military mobilization" of his people—relaxing as he shouts "NEXT" to the hapless individual off-frame to the left faced with a Hobson's choice—Ukraine or the Gulag.
Ali Dilem began his career as a cartoonist with the daily Le Jeune Indépendant in 1990 before joining Le Matin in 1991 and La Liberté in 1996. He also draws for the French program Kiosque on TV5 and is known for his outspokenness against the Algerian regime of Bouteflika, which has led him to face more than sixty trials. Dilem was made a chevalier of France's Order of Arts and Letters in October 2010. He was awarded with the International Press Cartoon Prize 2000. And He is featured by the extraordinary collective Cartooning for Peace.
Here's how Dilem sees himself:
Sadly, Sudan has had more coups (17) in Africa's post-colonial era where 45 of the 54 countries have had at least one. Burkina Faso has had more successful coups (8) than any other nation ('successful' meaning the resulting government remained in power for at lest 7 days!) .... I will be exploring all of this, this week, with Damien Glez, probably Africa's most extraordinary political cartoonist and my latest Unleashed Voice.....Stay tuned!
As for Lula, sadly I believe he is attempting to play both ends against the middle--all too rarely a winning gambit !
You have clearly captured the essence of the argument of this leader of Germany’s Greens !!
d.