TWTW: The World This Week / Episode #21
The world is horrified by America’s dysfunctional Congress…weaponizing Ukraine…whither China & America…Iran’s hangman…Putin’s gaggle…Benin votes…and a 2023 cartoon.
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.
As for elections, the African nation of Benin weighs in as the first of the year as voters go to the polls on Sunday….stay tuned this week for the riveting results.
How Others See America
Paralysis….and then ….?
The GOP stalemate in Congress over the choice of a Speaker of the House was atop homepages around the world from London to Paris to Singapore for much of the week. But even the final resolution past midnight Saturday morning did little good for the image of American democracy as a beacon for others. With the world looking to the US for leadership in critical areas from Ukraine to paths out of the recession, there was a growing feeling that alternatives were never more urgently needed.
There was a palpable sigh of relief following 15 ballots over four very long days when the Republicans finally managed to squeak through a choice for Speaker. Still, as the leading French daily, Le Monde put it: “The humiliating election of Kevin McCarthy at the end of the House of Representatives is the symbol of a Republican Party captive of the ultra-right.” Washington bureau chief Piotr Smolar, who has followed every twist and turn of this saga, observed:
“Two years ago, to the day, a coup narrowly failed in the heart of the greatest power in the world. Thousands of supporters of Donald Trump (2017-2021) stormed the Capitol…..In this same building, the elected officials from this MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement, despite being a minority within the Republican Party, imposed their law and especially their methods on the new majority in the House of Representatives. They humiliated Kevin McCarthy in historic proportions….despite his appointment as Speaker on the fifteenth ballot, past midnight, after four days of debate and three nights of negotiations. This personal and collective ordeal has drawn a crumbled, weakened party, but above all captive of the ultra-right populist.”
“A scene summed up the ordeal to which the victor was subjected,” Smolar continued. “It's 11 p.m. Friday night. Matt Gaetz sits impassively in the back of the House of Representatives. Around him smoke the ruins of his party. The cameras are fixed on this chosen one from Florida. Republican colleagues surround him, press him, challenge him. By not offering him his decisive voice, Matt Gaetz, 40, has just defeated Kevin McCarthy's election as speaker for the fourteenth time. A final unforeseen twist, when the candidate finally thought to satisfy his obsession, at the end of a path of burning embers.” Smolar’s conclusion? “America has … become a land of political violence, with a growing number of extremists. Some wear suits and ties and sit on Capitol Hill.”
Still, for many there was an even more nagging question—if it took all this sturm und drang simply to elect a speaker, whatever would like ahead when America’s leaders need to reach a consensus or set a reliable and sustainable course on some deeply fractious issues. The German weekly Der Spiegel called the events unspooling in the Capitol, “The next debacle for the Republicans.” Correspondents Roland Nelles and Marc Pitzke asked, “Will Republicans find a way out?”
The Munich-based German daily Süddeutsch Zeitung led its front page with the same photo as Le Monde, its Washington correspondent Peter Burghardt writing, “McCarthy’s election as Speaker of the House of Representatives is not a triumph but a debacle. Parliament has degenerated into a boxing ring and in some corners into a freak show. And still has tremendous power.”
Indeed, it’s the future that many abroad are already worrying about. Charissa Yong, US correspondent of the Singapore daily Straits-Times predicted “a worrying two years of political dysfunction for Washington…tougher battles and brinkmanship ahead over crucial legislation.”
Indeed, there were some taking great comfort in America’s disarray. People’s Daily, the organ of the Chinese Communist Party, reported as the votes continued drag on in Congress, “The House will have to vote on and on until a speaker is elected with a majority of votes,” citing “Jemele Hill, a contributing writer for The Atlantic, [who] tweeted on Tuesday afternoon that ‘what we're witnessing today in American politics is just another brutal indictment of this dysfunctional political system.’” People’s Daily concluded its report, “The divided Congress with Republicans controlling the House is likely to stall Biden's legislative agenda in the next two years.”
How Others See the World
Weaponizing Ukraine
There’s a whole lot of competition going on as to which Western country can out-do the next in terms of helping Ukraine win its war against Russia. So, Louise Nordstrom reported for the French-government controlled France 24 network this week: “A day after France announced [on Wednesday] it was sending Western armored vehicles to Ukraine, Germany said it would do the same. But Germany, the world’s fourth-largest arms supplier, seemed to be playing catch-up in announcing the move on Thursday, after months of dragging its feet on dispatching its stockpile of tanks to an increasingly desperate Ukraine. French President Emmanuel Macron announced his country would become the first in the world to heed Kyiv’s repeated calls for Western-made armored tanks by supplying its lightweight armored combat vehicle.”
“A day later, Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared in a joint statement with the United States that Germany would provide Ukraine with its Marder infantry fighting vehicles as well as a Patriot air defense missile battery,” Nordstrom continued. “But the flurry of moves prompted the question of why such close European allies as Germany and France did not opt for a common approach to arming Ukraine.”
Whither China
Much of the world, certainly Asia, is worried about where China and the United States may be heading. Gabriel Dominguez, a staff writer for the Japan Times worried that “neither side appears willing to compromise on contentious issues…that Sino-U.S. ties will remain fraught, with the rivalry set to intensify this year. Washington will continue to hunt for ways to isolate Beijing politically and further slow its technological rise, while China is expected to keep pressuring Taiwan, buttress ties with Russia and increase its self-sufficiency.
Covid from China….a reprise?
Most immediately there’s also the focus on Covid-19. I recall vividly the date, March 13, 2020, when I came racing back to New York from Paris ahead of draconian shutdowns as the newest challenge to global health—Covid-19—threatened to engulf Europe and America from its origins in China. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, [“the more things change, the more they remain the same”] as the great French critic, journalist and philosopher Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote in the January 1849 issue of his magazine, Les Guêpes (The Wasps). Now, suddenly, China is opening—its own people and the world bracing for the results. As Thomas Hale reported from Shanghai for the Financial Times, bending to widespread protests, “this weekend, Beijing finally dismantles the last of [its Covid quarantine] measures…Around the world, airlines, hotels and luxury businesses are bracing for the return of tens of millions of tourists and their hundreds of billions of dollars.”
At the same time, the FT’s Ryan McMorow in Beijing and Sun Yu in Guangzhou added, “China is increasing monitoring of Covid-19 variants as an unprecedented wave of coronavirus rips through its population, raising alarm around the world and triggering new restrictions on travelers from the country.”
A scary new alliance in Asia
Then there’s the very dangerous neighborhood. The Philippines has a new president, and now China is seeing a new tool for cementing its vise-like hold over the South China Sea that leader Xi Jinping has long viewed as his own backyard. President Bongbong Marcos, son of the Philippines’ dictator who once was a more or less loyal American ally, suddenly appeared last week in China with a warm handshake for a smiling Xi.
As The Straits-Times of Singapore reported, “ 14 agreements aimed at cooling security tensions and boosting economic cooperation, come as both sides strive to mend a relationship hurt after the Philippines sought a 2016 arbitral ruling that invalidated China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea. The Philippines has previously raised concerns over reported Chinese construction activities and the ‘swarming’ of Beijing’s vessels in disputed waters of the South China Sea, an area rich in oil, gas, and fishery resources.” Even more troubling was their joint declaration that “their countries would respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” For China that has long meant, hands off the vast bulk of the seas and islands scattered across this region which encompasses some of the world’s leading trade routes and paths for military vessels.
Iran and the hangman
In Iran, as the Milan-based daily Corriere della Sera points out “the executioner does not stop: two other demonstrators were hanged at dawn.” Greta Priviera wrote “news of the third and fourth hanging of protesters spread on social network.”
“The New Judicial Agency of the Pasdaran has also confirmed the deaths,” Priviera continued, “and announced that were executed at dawn, before prayers. As with the previous cases, Mohsen Shekari and Majidreza Rahnavard were accused of ‘enmity against God’ and, according to activists, they never saw either a lawyer or a fair trial.”
Benin votes
In the first national election of 2023 tomorrow (Sunday), and continuing our theme of chronicling every national election around the world, voters of Benin will elect their new National Assembly. My first visit to Benin was in 1985 when the country was very much a Marxist dictatorship. Today there is again the question whether the country will continue on a path toward democracy or descend into an oligarchical dictatorship, perpetuating the rule of its incumbent President Patrice Talon. Watch for the results Tuesday on Andelman Unleashed.
Putin’s gaggle
Ever wonder about the crowds surrounding Vladimir Putin when he’s presenting his best wishes to the nation or just getting some soft-serve ice-cream? Well, the BBC in London decided to find out. Jake Horton, Adam Robinson & Paul Myers of BBC Reality Check & BBC Monitoring decided to “check some of these allegations [that] the Russian president has a track record of posing at events where some of the attendees are not what they seem.” They began with the base of a widely circulated photo of Putin delivering his New Year’s Eve greetings to his nation.
The reporters “used facial recognition software,” and determined that one woman, for instance turned out to be “a soldier, a citizen, a devout Christian” in several different set piece locations over the past several years…and each “with a 99% match.” Gotcha.
And finally, there’s ….Le Lievre
The brilliant Australian cartoonist Glen Le Lievre has a most imaginative and dark look at the world of 2023 being launched.
And this is how Glen sees himself …. !