SEOUL: North Korea fired another round of cruise missiles on Tuesday (Jan 30), Seoul’s military said, extending a recent flurry of tests of weapons that analysts warned could be destined for Russia’s war in Ukraine. This month, Pyongyang has conducted tests of what it called an “underwater nuclear weapon system”,Continue Reading
Getty ImagesA court in Hong Kong has ordered the liquidation of debt-laden Chinese property giant Evergrande.
Judge Linda Chan said “enough is enough”, after the troubled developer repeatedly failed to come up with a plan to restructure its debts.
The firm has been the poster child of China’s real estate crisis with more than $300bn (£236bn) of debt.
But it is unclear how far the Hong Kong ruling will hold sway in mainland China.
The property giant, which has been in hot water with its creditors for the last two years, filed a request for another three months’ leeway at 4pm on Friday.
But Judge Chan turned it down, describing the idea as “not even a restructuring proposal, much less a fully formulated proposal”. Instead she ordered the start of the process to unwind Evergrande, appointing liquidators at Alvarez & Marsal Asia to oversee it.
The liquidators said their intention was to “achieve a resolution that minimises further disruption for all stakeholders”.
“Our priority is to see as much of the business as possible retained, restructured, or remain operational,” said Wing Sze Tiffany Wong, one of the managing directors.
The slowburn crisis at Evergrande has sent shockwaves through the investment community, with its potential impact likened to the collapse of Lehman Brothers at the start of the financial crisis.
China’s property sector remains fragile as investors wait to see what approach Beijing will take to the court’s move.
The decision is likely to send further ripples through China’s financial markets at a time when authorities are trying to curb a stock market sell-off.
Evergrande shares fell by more than 20% in Hong Kong after the announcement, before trading was suspended.
The liquidators will look at Evergrande’s overall financial position and identify potential restructuring strategies. That could include seizing and selling off assets, so that the proceeds can be used to repay outstanding debts.
However, Beijing may be reluctant to see work halt on property developments in China, where many ordinary would-be homeowners are waiting for apartments they have already paid for.
Evergrande has come to symbolise the rollercoaster ride of China’s property boom and bust, borrowing heavily to finance the building of forests of tower blocks aimed at housing the millions of migrants moving from rural areas to cities. It ran into trouble, and defaulted on its debts in December 2021.
Evergrande’s chairman, Hui Ka Yan, hit the headlines for his lavish lifestyle, before it was announced last year that he was under investigation for suspected crimes.
Ordinary Chinese property buyers have limited options to demand compensation, but many have taken to social media to express their frustration about developers like Evergrande.
Big investors have turned to the courts, including in Hong Kong, where Evergrande’s shares are listed. The case that resulted in Monday’s ruling was brought in June 2022 by Hong Kong-based Top Shine Global, which said that Evergrande had not honoured an agreement to buy back shares.
Evergrande’s executive director, Shawn Siu, described the decision to appoint liquidators as “regrettable”, but told Chinese media the company would ensure home building projects would be delivered.
The unwinding is likely to take some time and construction is expected to continue in the meantime.
Most of Evergrande’s assets – 90% according to Judge Chan’s ruling – are in mainland China and despite the “one country, two systems” slogan, there are thorny jurisdictional issues.
Ahead of Monday’s ruling, China’s Supreme Court and Hong Kong’s Department of Justice signed an arrangement to mutually recognise and enforce civil and commercial judgements between mainland China and Hong Kong.
But experts are still unsure whether that agreement will have an impact on Evergrande’s liquidation order.
Derek Lai, the global insolvency leader at professional services firm Deloitte said the liquidator would need to “follow the laws of mainland China”, which could make it hard to take full control of Evergrande’s operations there.
Beijing may want to see mainland building projects completed to meet the expectations of Chinese buyers and investors.
Foreign creditors are unlikely to get their money before mainland creditors.
However, even if Judge Chan’s orders are not carried out in China, the decision sends a strong message and gives a clue on what other developers and creditors may face.
She presides over not just Evergrande’s case, but also other defaulted developers such as Sunac China, Jiayuan and Kaisa.
Last May, she also ordered the liquidation of Jiayuan after its lawyers failed to explain why they needed more time to iron out their debt restructuring proposal.
Moody’s Investors Service was something of a thorn in global policymakers’ sides in 2023. From Beijing to Washington, the ratings giant fired any number of shots across the bows of the biggest economies.
In mid-November, it lowered America’s credit outlook to “negative” from “stable”, pointing to political polarization in Congress as the US national debt topped US$34 trillion. Three weeks later, Moody’s cut its outlook for Chinese sovereign debt to “negative,” citing a slowing economy and a property sector crisis that Beijing has been slow to address.
Now, Moody’s is reminding Asia of the economic trauma 2024 may have in store as China’s slowdown imperils sovereign creditworthiness across the region.
Moody’s thinks the fallout from China’s property troubles on business and household confidence makes hopes for 5% economic growth in 2024 overly optimistic. It sees mainland gross domestic product (GDP) slowing to 4% this year and next.
For an economy at China’s level of development, such a downshift from the 6% growth averaged from 2014 to 2023 will set back living standards. And it will exacerbate the debt troubles Moody’s flagged last month, both among developers and local governments around the nation. It also may spark legitimacy problems for Xi Jinping’s Communist Party.
China’s slowdown “significantly influences” regional economic trajectories via supply chains, Moody’s says. “As these economies’ respective manufacturing bases are smaller in scale and less developed than China’s, the latter will remain at the center of many of the region’s supply chains and an important source of final demand in the near term.”
True, Moody’s argues that “against this backdrop, we expect companies to continue to diversify supply chains away from China to better manage risks around overarching geostrategic tensions, but also in response to longer-term structural trends.”
These “include population aging and policy risks in China – as illustrated in internet platforms and private education sector regulatory changes – as well as the rapid expansion of the middle class in India,” Moody’s says.
“The diversification trend,” Moody’s goes on, “has accelerated in recent years, boosting investment prospects in economies with large manufacturing bases and improving infrastructure such as India, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.”
But such pivots take time to execute. Rerouting trade routes is complicated in the best of times and even more so in relatively tight global credit conditions.
In recent weeks, traders have dialed back expectations for US Federal Reserve interest rate cuts. The People’s Bank of China, meanwhile, has been far less generous about adding liquidity than most economists, analysts and investors expected.
In addition to the “lackluster situation in China,” says Moody’s analyst Christian De Guzman, tight credit conditions are an added headwind for the region.
“This,” De Guzman told CNBC, “is predicated on global liquidity conditions where we really don’t see the Fed easing until the middle of the year. And Asia-Pacific central banks – we don’t see much decoupling [from] global liquidity conditions there.”
It’s not just that China may be less of a global economic engine going forward. In 2023, Chinese imports contracted by 5.5% amid weak domestic demand. That means China’s 5.2% economic growth rate in 2023 didn’t generate much of a tailwind in Asia.
The bigger problem is how China’s financial risks may stress-test a region still dealing with the fallout from the Covid-19 era. In recent years, governments and companies borrowed aggressively to recover from the pandemic.
In its report, Moody’s warns that elevated global interest rates will worsen debt-servicing burdens. The upshot is that gaining access to international capital will become increasingly more difficult for lower-rated governments.
That will be a problem for China as much as anywhere, if not more. It’s sure to have a cooling effect on President Xi’s economy, notes Moody’s economist Harry Murphy Cruise.
“Real estate investment, dwelling prices and new dwelling sales are set to fall throughout 2024 before returning as a modest driver of growth in 2025,” he predicts.
Yet this could reflect wishful thinking if Xi’s team doesn’t act more forcefully this year to repair the property sector, including by creating a credible mechanism to get bad assets off balance sheets. A similar effort is needed to address the $9 trillion buildup of local government financing vehicle (LGFV) debt.
As these headwinds intensify, the Asia-Pacific region’s sovereign creditworthiness in general is deteriorating. These “tight international funding conditions will curb the region’s output,” Moody’s warns.
For its constellation of 25 sovereigns in the region, Moody’s sees GDP growth falling to an average 3.6% in 2024 from 4.2% last year. That, the rating agency’s analysts say, marks the “lowest rate of expansion in a non-pandemic year in at least two decades – reflecting a slowdown in China and broadly lackluster global economic conditions.”
Slower growth, Moody’s adds, will make it even harder for most governments to reduce Covid-era increases in public debt.
“Together with tight domestic labor markets, this will spur many APAC central banks to maintain tight monetary policy and mitigate currency depreciation risks,” Moody’s says. “International financing will remain difficult for lower-rated sovereigns, particularly frontier markets with large external payment needs.”
On Monday, China’s Premier Li Qiang called for more assertive steps to halt the plunge in mainland stocks, which are now at a five-year low. That’s easier said than done as global investors react to deepening deflationary pressures and a festering property crisis many economists compare to Japan’s banking debacle in the 1990s.
Even if the PBOC were to begin easing suddenly — something it’s avoided doing so far — the moves have already been priced in the market, says Eva Lee, head of Greater China equities at UBS Global Wealth Management. Only a much “punchier” monetary response might stabilize the situation, she adds.
Global “passive” funds are becoming far more assertive in hedging China risks. “Their recent selling did amplify the downside pressure,” says analyst Gilbert Wong at Morgan Stanley.
The reason is that “the Chinese government has not yet introduced effective measures to resolve the property turmoil and drive the economic recovery,” says strategist Ken Cheung at Mizuho Bank. This, he adds, has overseas investors continuing to “reduce their risk exposure” amid “bearish expectations” for China’s outlook.
Here, expectations versus reality are becoming a problem for investor sentiment. Generally, Premier Li has “doused” hopes for further support measures, notes Brian Martin, an analyst at ANZ Research.
As Li “trumpeted the nations’ ability to hit its 5% growth target without flooding the economy with massive stimulus,” investors were left fearing Beijing had lost the plot, he said.
Surely, Xi’s inner circle may have valid reasons to be confident about China’s 2024. It’s entirely possible that the economic dashboard Xi’s men are viewing suggests aggregate demand will bounce back sooner than most investors believe.
At the same time, Xi’s party is loath to squander progress made in financial system deleveraging. Beijing’s determination not to reward bad behavior and poor lending decisions is to be applauded. Still, if China’s trajectory is less dire than markets think, Xi’s team is doing a poor job spreading the news.
Even taking a glass-half-full approach to China’s 2023 performance requires an asterisk. “While the economy did beat the official target, it could have scored a higher grade through a more forceful response to the property meltdown and greater commitment to the private sector,” says Tianchen Xu, a senior economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Downward pressure on the yuan also suggests the economy is less vibrant than Beijing’s spin would have investors believe. On Monday, Reuters reported that major state-owned banks are propping up the exchange rate. The rationale, Reuters notes, is to disincentivize traders from shorting China’s currency.
A deeper drop in the yuan might also add to default risks among distressed property developers and intensify selling of China’s A shares. So far this year, overseas funds have dumped upwards of $1.6 billion worth of Chinese equities.
“The PBOC has stepped up its efforts to restrain dollar-yuan through the daily fix lately, and this is keeping a lid on” the exchange rate “at the 7.20 level,” says Alvin Tan, head of Asia FX strategy at RBC Capital Markets. “But I think it should give way to the upside soon.”
In recent days, Tan notes, the PBOC and Beijing’s foreign exchange regulator stepped up to “strengthen market expectation guidance and take actions to correct pro-cyclical and one-way market behaviors when necessary.”
Julian Evans-Pritchard, head of China economics at Capital Economics, says the PBOC’s decision Monday to hold benchmark lending rates steady proves that policymakers “appear to harbor lingering concerns” about the yuan.
“A cut at this stage could trigger additional depreciation pressure, something the PBOC wants to avoid,” Evans-Pritchard says. “Therefore, it may stick to quantitative easing tools for now,” including supplementary lending efforts.
This, too, is part of Xi’s desire not to derail success in building trust in the yuan. A stable exchange rate remains key to making China Asia’s top financial power. As such, Xi appears to care more about a strong currency than rising stocks.
There are also geopolitical threats to consider as US voters choose a new president in November. As US President Joe Biden looks to outflank Republicans loyal to Donald Trump by being tough on China, new sanctions could emerge.
Tensions in the Red Sea and Russia intensifying its Ukraine war could boost energy prices and thus inflationary pressures in the year ahead.
All this puts sovereign ratings across Asia in harm’s way. A bigger trade war is a particular wildcard. As Washington and Beijing face off in the year ahead and related risks become “more prominent,” Moody’s warns, Asian governments will find it increasingly difficult to maintain financial balance.
Moody’s adds that “competition between China and the US is resulting in regionalization of trade and shifts in economic and financial influence” in the longer run. In the shorter run, though, such disruption is another reason for investors to worry about threats to sovereign ratings in 2024.
Follow William Pesek on X at @WilliamPesek
MOE said while Outram Secondary is an “established school with strong educational programmes, the school is located in a mature area where demand for secondary school places is falling”.
Some alumni believe the school’s relocation is for the better.
Old Outramians’ Association Chairperson Erwin Tan, who is from the Class of 1996, said: “The cohort has been on a steady decline for the last decade. I was very worried about a merger or closure.
“So with this announcement that we will be relocating to Sengkang, I think it’s a good thing. The Outramian spirit will continue to live on. So I’m very glad about that.”
School Advisory Committee Chairperson Regina Chong, who is from the Class of 1993, added that it will be a new chapter for the school.
“This chapter will actually benefit the students who will be going to Outram Secondary School. Every generation of Outramians have their own chapter and fond memories of the school,” she added.
To minimise disruption to students, the school will not be admitting new Secondary 1 students in 2025. It will begin accepting new Secondary 1 students from 2026 at its Sengkang campus.
Outram Secondary will operate two campuses until 2027, when the last batch of Secondary 4 students at the York Hill campus graduates.
Before the school moves out of York Hill in two years’ time, teachers and students will open up a time capsule that was sealed in 2006 with items from the school’s rich history.
Former students who are now teachers at the school are optimistic about the move.
Teacher Dawa Sherpa, who is from the Class of 2001, said: “I think that the Outram spirit continues to live. Even though it’s in a different place, it can still stand on its own.”
Another teacher Ismath Banu, who graduated from the school in 2003, said: “The school reminded me that it’s never about individual success. Our success is really a result of the community helping us.”
Getty ImagesSony’s Indian arm has scrapped a planned merger with Zee Entertainment which would have formed one of India’s largest entertainment groups.
The $10bn merger, first announced two years ago, was set to combine more than 75 television channels, film assets and two streaming platforms.
Sony said merger conditions had not been met, but there have been reports of a disagreement over leadership.
In response, Zee said it could take legal action against Sony.
The closing date for the deal had been set as 20 January, but Sony said this was not met “as, among other things, the closing conditions to the merger were not satisfied by then”.
When the deal was originally announced, Zee chief executive Punit Goenka was set to lead the newly-merged company.
However, Sony is reported to have been unhappy with this after India’s market regulator launched a probe into Mr Goenka.
In a statement, Zee said that Sony was seeking a $90m (£70.8m) termination fee as result of alleged breaches of the terms of the merger, but said it “categorically denies” the allegations.
Zee added that “all efforts and steps were taken by ZEEL [Zee] in line with the Merger Cooperation Agreement, approved by its shareholders and all regulatory authorities”.
The company said it was now “evaluating all the available options”.
Zee added it would take “all the necessary steps to protect the long-term interests of all its stakeholders, including by taking appropriate legal action”.
It also said that Mr Goenka has been “agreeable to step down in the interest of the merger and proposals in this regard were discussed”.
When the deal was first announced, the newly-planned firm was set to become a major media player in the country, challenging rivals such as Walt Disney’s Hotstar.
Both firms have operated in India for years and own streaming platforms ZEE5 and SonyLIV. They also have a vast TV following with popular channels such as Sony MAX and Zee TV.
The merger was also seen as key to providing a rival to the planned merger between Disney’s Indian businesses and the media assets of Reliance Industries.
“A deal collapse will have a negative impact on both parties as they were looking at scaling up in the Indian market which is going through a digital disruption and a potential threat of increased competition intensity if the Reliance-Disney deal goes through,” Karan Taurani, an analyst at Elara Capital, told Reuters.
India is becoming an increasingly lucrative market for streaming platforms that are targeting a young digital audience.
The past few years have seen a surge of competition from streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon and Hotstar.
Many Americans feel broken and people are split on immigration and very divisive issues like gender or abortion and go for former president Donald Trump.
His victory in Iowa is proof of this. But the country is doing better than ever. A belief crisis blinds many. The US needs to restore its cultural unity, starting with accepting the reality of a new creeping war that could defeat the nation and smash the world.
Perhaps judging a country from afar is vain and impossible, especially one so openly full of contradictions and blinding lights. These lights make things harder to see than shadows in a dark room – they totally cancel one’s vision.
Yet, America is the hub and the keystone of the present world system and anything happening there has tectonic reflexes elsewhere.
The presidential election in November will sway the course of wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the fate of continents, Asia around China, and Europe around the EU. The world order will be dramatically changed, and perhaps not for the best.
The US presidential election is a global issue, and although we can’t vote and can’t be elected in it, we feel a duty to voice our concerns and offer them to American fellows as a word of counsel. America’s plights are our own plight, as we can’t say we are not Americans.
These elections are actually about Biden and ought to be because he is the incumbent president. But the ex-president and now favored contender in the polls is Donald Trump. Perhaps it is right to start there.
Bret Stephens took an original, critical view of his strengths:
- “Trump got three big things right — or at least more right than wrong. Arguably, the single most important geopolitical fact of the century is the mass migration of people from south to north and east to west, causing tectonic demographic, cultural, economic, and ultimately political shifts…
- The broad direction of the country Trump rode a wave of pessimism to the White House… More than 12% of all adult males had a felony conviction on their record, leaving them in the shadowlands of American life. And there was a palpable sense of economic decline, with fewer and fewer younger Americans having any hope of matching their parents’ incomes at the same stages of life. Far too little has changed since then. Labor force participation remains essentially where it was in the last days of the Obama administration. Deaths of despair keep rising. The cost of living has risen sharply, and while the price of ordinary goods may finally be coming down, rents haven’t. Only 36% of voters think the American dream still holds true, according to a recent survey, down from 48% in 2016. If anything, Trump’s thesis may be truer today than it was the first time he ran on it…
- The question of institutions that are supposed to represent impartial expertise, from elite universities and media… those institutions did their own work in squandering, through partisanship or incompetence, the esteem in which they had once been widely held. How so? Much of the elite media, mostly liberal, became openly partisan in the 2016 election — and, in doing so, not only failed to understand why Trump won but probably unwittingly contributed to his victory. Academia, also mostly liberal, became increasingly illiberal, inhospitable not just to conservatives but to anyone pushing back even modestly against progressive orthodoxy.”
He warns that the appeal to democracy, strongly voiced by Biden last month, could fall flat with moderate voters. Perhaps there is a new and old impatience with the cumbersome and roundabout ways of the democratic process.
It is less effective day-to-day and does not communicate well as one man alone. There is skepticism about trying Trump in court now on charges difficult to understand for most people, like tax fraud or those about the January 6, 2021 “insurrection.”
On these pages, on January 7, 2021, we called the urgency to prevent the return of that “Epiphany” because tolerating the intolerant destroys the basis of a democratic process. In fact, Trump flaunts and breaks democratic rules and conventions, and he has a comprehensive plan to reform all democratic institutions.
His opponents, like Ian Bassin, in ex-president Obama’s team, reportedly argued: “Our democracy rests on a foundation of trust — trust in elections, trust in institutions. And you know what scares me the most about Trump? It’s not the sledgehammer he’s taken to the structure of our national house. It’s the termites he’s unleashed into the foundation.”
Still, Stephen’s arguments may cut little or no ice with people who feel broken without care from anybody.
Stephen astutely writes: “Brokenness has become the defining feature of much of American life: broken families, broken public schools, broken small towns and inner cities, broken universities, broken health care, broken media, broken churches, broken borders, broken government.
“At best, they have become shells of their former selves. And there’s a palpable sense that the autopilot that America’s institutions and their leaders are on — brain-dead and smug — can’t continue… If you’re saying it’s ‘Morning in America’ when 77% of Americans think the country is on the wrong track, you’re preaching to the wrong choir — and the wrong country.”
Americans feel crime is going up, and it is a serious political issue. However, recent FBI data show that violent crime actually dropped nationwide in 2022 while property crime jumped.
The broken people are not only with Trump; they are also with the Democrats, believing sometimes weird theories. They stopped trusting mainstream America. Maybe this is the real heart of the matter. Maybe in America, the social difference is no longer between blue or white collar, that dominated much of the past century.
Rather, it’s about being broken or not. Perhaps most feel broken or that being broken and dealing with broken people is part of their lives. They are branded and scorched in their soul for it and don’t see another chance.
But the United States was founded by people searching for a second chance, a new beginning and redemption. “Broken” is part of the American identity. But these people may feel mainstream society, controlled by the elites, doesn’t give them a second chance.
Then, they think they have to take things into their own hands. But it’s impossible in modern and complex societies. Somebody has to help them out. So, the question becomes: who is going to give them redemption?
Moreover, it is not just about being broken. It is about real divisive issues. The Biden administration’s support for the gender concept, abortion, indiscriminate backing of new immigration from the Middle East (now protesting against Israel, a traditional US darling), and what is felt as a hurried dismissal of conventional culture are all very irksome for many people in the US.
The press may blow out-of-proportion stories of kids being exposed or encouraged to sex changes in schools. Still, the fact that the Democrats do not invite prudence and wisdom is portrayed as a violent upending of old American values. They can’t be just waved away with easy gestures. The Iowa caucus proves they cut a lot of ice with many people. These new cultural sentiments also find little support abroad.
This and the sense of being broken can make a potent political alchemy.
The problem is the issues Trump raises are right. How the Democrats or other Republicans deal with them may not be right. But Trump’s answers so far are equally beyond wrong; they are flimsy. However, if there are no better answers to true issues, even the wrong answers will count.
Still, there is a difference between words and facts. Trump fell at the end because he failed to confront Covid. It was a difficult situation but unexpected disasters make or destroy leaders. The response to the exceptional 2004 tsunami transformed Thaksin Shinawatra from one of the occasional Thai prime ministers to an icon of the country.
The 2008 Sichuan earthquake made grey then-Chinese president Hu Jintao and premier Wen Jiabao popular. Even in the utter destruction of the 2023 Turkish earthquake, with a death toll multiplied by shoddy construction permitted by the government, Recep Tayyip Erdogan eventually took things into his own hands and turned the national mood.
During Covid, Trump had all the elements to fully grasp the moment’s gravity and act promptly. He should have cut flights and direct contact around China. Beijing itself went into lockdown, thus signaling to the rest of the world that it should protect against the spread of the disease abroad. He didn’t. Despite all the relevant information Trump had, he dithered, went into denial and changed his mind repeatedly.
The Covid experience alone may cast doubt on his ability to confront dire, unpredictable situations. In the past couple of years, there have been plenty of them, from Ukraine to Gaza, and President Joseph Biden has always risen to the occasion. In the future, times will be even more difficult. Would Trump be able to cope with them, or will he flop confusedly?
Then it is a twofold issue – Trump per se and the broken people following him or on the left all believing conspiracy theories.
There’s an intellectual belief crisis in America. There are cultural clashes, divides about gender, race, origin and class. This has shaped into tribalism that lost the middle ground where Americans used to meet and get together. This belief crisis makes people deaf to objections about their distorted view of reality. Without a shared view, people from different camps talk past each other.
Perhaps it is also because most people are not clear where we are in history now. There is no end of history or trust in a never-ending story of global liberal markets unfettered by burdensome politics. There is no clash of civilizations, as things turned out to be far more complicated than a few arbitrary lines drawn on a cultural map.
We are not in Cold War II, as the US is apparently reluctant to use this label that would precipitate memories of defense mechanisms unfit for the present situation. As the Pope said, we are in a creeping, crawling world war in pieces.
Perhaps, if we collectively recognize it and acknowledge the drama of the historic moment, we may hope to crawl back to peace. Perhaps Americans, both Democrats and Republicans, should openly recognize it, although the word “war” may start all kinds of troubles in the US inflammable state of affairs.
Trying to be unbiased, we see Biden possibly doing a much better job than he is credited. The economy is booming like in the 1950s. Biden launched a series of plans to push a technological and infrastructure revolution. He is successfully and cautiously handling three conflicts at once (Ukraine, Gaza, China). These plans and this attitude should be continued with or without him.
What is wrong? Inflation and immigration? More should be said and better, but both are very complicated issues that don’t have a simple answer. Incidentally, both fuel the booming economy; labor and investment are necessary now and for future growth.
What is true is that the US works; it is in the middle of massive, positive and tough changes. Some forces seem keen on stopping for some half-baked ideas of power concentration, hiding only a power grab.
This power grab can destroy the US as it is and the world as it is and throw America into unprecedented economic, social and political crisis, opening the gates to Russian President Vladimir Putin ruling the world and a post-USSR ghastly vindication.
David Axelrod stresses that Biden needs to provide a vision for the future of America. He has to say something reasonable about migration and mutual tolerance and set a repetition in communicating that. America is a nation about the future, not the past.
Biden is an old guy, but it’s an advantage; he has a sense of history. Because he’s old and has a sense of time, he can project the US 80 years ahead. It is what the world needs now, to see things together again. Biden or a possible Republican president should work to unite the country.
The US won the Cold War first by succeeding in re-establishing a world “cultural hegemony” with presidents Jimmy Carter (human rights) and Ronald Reagan (economics and liberalism) after the disasters of the war in Vietnam and the 1960s student movements worldwide.
Today, it is the same point. Trump does not establish an American global cultural hegemony; he shatters it.
Can China establish cultural hegemony? It was doing it with the Belt and Road Initiative but it underestimated its complexity and was misguided by minimal economic and low-end political calculations.
The BRI proposed de facto a world before America’s discovery but then with America’s existence and thus against America. Before the discovery of America, the world was torn apart by different worldviews in different areas. The order was kept because the different regions were not in direct contact with each other simultaneously.
With the discovery of America and the Magellan trip around the globe, the world grew with more direct geographic contacts and even shorter time lapses. It needed a unitary worldview and the West provided it over the next 500 years.
Still, China is apparently rethinking its whole approach to the BRI, linking it more consistently with its strategy and long-term plans, as Shi Yinhong, professor of International Studies at China’s People’s University, wrote.
China’s president, Xi Jinping, also offered the US to join the BRI on his November trip to San Francisco. China, of course, doesn’t have the problem of building a domestic consensus. However, exporting cultural consensus from an authoritarian country raises different sets of questions.
If America does not regain its unity, there is a risk of a shattered world without the past geographic and temporary separation. It would be a recipe for chaos starting right at the center of the global system – the US. The effects of the shattering may be incalculable.
This is happening already. Graham Alison warns of the “Trump put”:
Some foreign governments are increasingly factoring into their relationship with the United States what may come to be known as the “Trump put” – delaying choices in the expectation that they will be able to negotiate better deals with Washington a year from now because Trump will effectively establish a floor on how bad things can get for them.
Others, by contrast, are beginning to search for what might be called a ‘Trump hedge’ – analyzing how his return will likely leave them with worse options and preparing accordingly. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s calculations in his war against Ukraine provide a vivid example of the ‘Trump put.’ In recent months, as a stalemate has emerged on the ground, speculation has grown about Putin’s readiness to end the war.
But as a result of the ‘Trump put’, it is far more likely that the war will still be raging this time next year. Despite some Ukrainians’ interest in an extended cease-fire or even an armistice to end the killing before another grim winter takes its toll, Putin knows that Trump has promised to end the war ‘in one day.’
It is the dominant factor in all geopolitics now also because, as the Chinese would put it 不怕一万就怕万一 , which is something like: don’t think of the 99,99% possibility, just be afraid of the 0,01% chance.
In this sense, Trump’s only presence is disruptive, as he promises disruption, and nobody knows what kind of disruption he would bring. He is a total wild card in a world already on the brink of chaos. The problem is not our preferences but the possibility of drastic discontinuity of US policies and the relatively small (but not negligible) chance it could happen.
The combination of these two elements already today creates chaos in foreign politics because people put off choices as a measure of prudence. Still, the American people will vote according to American domestic concerns, dominated by the sentiment of being broken. Here, the split in American society is perhaps deepest.
This essay first appeared on Settimana News and is republished with permission. The original article can be read here.
13 yellow-shirt activists fined B20,000 each for causing disruption
PUBLISHED : 17 Jan 2024 at 18:45
UPDATED : 17 Jan 2024 at 19:07
The Criminal Court on Wednesday dismissed insurrection charges against 32 yellow-shirt activists who led an anti-government protest that shut down Bangkok’s two main international airports in 2008.
Thirteen out of 32 leading members of the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) will still have to pay a fine of 20,000 baht each for the disruption that closed Don Mueang and Suvarnabhumi airports.
The seizure of the airports was estimated to have cost the Thai economy at least 3 billion baht a day in lost shipment value and other opportunities.
“This case will set a precedent for those who love this country and want to fight for justice in the country to hold protests,” Panthep Puapongpan, one of the 32 activists, told reporters after the ruling was read.
Prosecutors can appeal the ruling.
The PAD blockaded the two airports from Nov 25 to Dec 4, 2008, disrupting hundreds of flights and leaving hundreds of thousands of travellers stranded.
The PAD was formed in 2005 in opposition to then-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was overthrown a year later in a military coup. Two years later, he fled the country to escape court cases against him. He returned in August last year.
The PAD protesters in 2008 were attempting to force the resignation of leaders of the Somchai Wongsawat government, who were accused of being puppets of Thaksin.
While the airports were still closed by the yellow-shirt protest, the Constitutional Court on Dec 2 dissolved the three parties of the Somchai government coalition.
The court ruled there was insufficient evidence to prove the defendants had committed insurrection, assaulted officials or obstructed them from performing their duties, or illegally detained any official or disrupted a communications system or air travel services during their protest at the airport.
The protest was also peaceful and the protesters were unarmed, resulting in the acquittals.
Nevertheless, the court ordered 13 defendants to pay a fine of 20,000 baht each for trespassing and violating the emergency decree in force at the time.
They included Maj Gen Chamlong Srimuang, Sondhi Limthongkul, Pibhop Dhongchai, Somsak Kosaisuk, Suriyasai Katasila, Sirichai Mai-ngam and Samran Rodphet.
In a civil case in 2017, the Supreme Court ordered 13 PAD leaders to pay a total of 522 million baht to Airports of Thailand Plc for shutting down the two airports in 2008. The case was closed after the activists were declared bankrupt.
Getty ImagesIndia’s aviation regulator has issued an advisory to airlines after dozens of people took to social media to complain about flight delays and cancellations.
The regulator has asked airlines to cancel flights “sufficiently in advance” and inform passengers about delays in real time.
Airlines have blamed the cascading effect of fog in Delhi for the chaos.
But furious passengers have accused airlines and airports of inadequate communication.
A man was arrested and later released on bail after he was accused of assaulting a co-pilot of IndiGo airlines. The man’s flight on Sunday had been delayed for more than 10 hours. A viral video showed the passenger lunging at the co-pilot as he made an announcement on the plane.
Another video showed passengers eating food while sitting on the tarmac at the Mumbai airport, where their flight from Goa to Delhi had been diverted after hours of delay.
Hundreds of domestic flights have been delayed since Sunday after a thick fog engulfed Delhi, which is home to one of India’s busiest airports. It is also the main hub for major airlines such as IndiGo and Air India.
While fog is an annual occurrence, reports say the situation is worse this year at the Delhi airport due to other factors including parking shortages due to grounded aircraft and a runway being shut for maintenance.
The disruption, which intensified on Sunday, had a cascading effect on Monday and is likely to continue on Tuesday as well.
The weather department has predicted two more days of heavy fog in Delhi and other northern cities.
Since Sunday, several passengers had tagged federal aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and various airlines on X (formerly Twitter) to complain about flight delays. Some said they were forced to sit inside planes without food and water amid lack of clarity about departure times.
On Monday afternoon, Mr Scindia addressed the chaos in a long post on X, blaming the “unprecedented fog” in Delhi on Sunday.
“…Visibility fluctuated for several hours, and at times, dropped to zero between 5am to 9am. The authorities, therefore, were compelled to enforce a shut-down of operations for some time even on CAT III runways (CAT III runways cannot handle zero-visibility operations),” he wrote, adding that the Delhi airport had been asked to “immediately expedite the operationalization of the CAT III-enabled 4th runway”.
Mr Scindia also said that “unruly behaviour” was “unacceptable” and would be dealt with legally.
IndiGo said in a statement that it had referred the assault of its staff member to its independent internal committee for “appropriate action”.
A bulk of the complaints came from people travelling on IndiGo, which is the largest in India in terms of passengers carried and fleet size. The airline said in a statement on Monday that it regretted the inconvenience to customers.
“Cancellation and delays [due to severe fog] had a cascading effect on rotations throughout the day, leading to further impact on operations,” it wrote.
Some opposition leaders, such as Pawan Khera from the Congress and Saket Gokhale from the Trinamool Congress, also criticised the aviation minister and the regulator for operational and communication failures.
Mr Gokhale asked the government to initiate an enquiry into the “operational breakdown” of IndiGo on Saturday and Sunday, alleging that it could not “be blamed solely on the fog in northern India”.
“There are horror tales of travellers from other parts of India who faced the same problems,” he said.
Some of the stories of disruption came from Bollywood celebrities.
Actor Ranvir Shorey posted on X that his IndiGo flight was more than 10 hours late, leaving him in a difficult situation as he had to get back home to his son. He said he would file a complaint against IndiGo.
On Saturday, actress Radhika Apte said she and her co-passengers were locked inside an aerobridge at the Mumbai airport for hours without access to water and toilets after a delay in their IndiGo flight to Bhubaneshwar in Orissa state.
BBC News India is now on YouTube. Click here to subscribe and watch our documentaries, explainers and features.
83% plan to increase investments in digital tools and technology, in particular AI
50% see climate change as biggest driver of operational disruption over next decade
Business leaders are starting 2024 with an increased level of optimism about their organization’s future growth compared to 12 months ago, according to a report released today….Continue Reading
In the days leading up to the water shutdown, Penangites shared images of water-filled containers on social media.
“As a resident affected by this water disruption, I have … (stored) as much water as I can within the limited space of my single-storey terrace house,” said a netizen when asked by CNA on the measures that they are taking to ensure a sufficient supply of water.
Meanwhile, Mr Joel, who lives in George Town, told CNA that he has taken to storing tap water and stocking up on drinking water.
“We will (also) be eating out more at eateries which are open … and (will) pile up our dirty laundries for later,” said the 50-year-old teacher.
A representative from local cafe Halzan noted that many affected people will likely choose to dine out to conserve water.
“We see this as a business opportunity as a lot of households might choose to dine in or take away food, rather than cook at home,” they said.
The cafe operates under a hotel and the representative estimates the hotel’s water storage can sustain the cafe’s business operations for up to two days.
“We have also set aside some water for personal use and (hope that it will be) sufficient to help us get through this period,” they added. “Worse comes to worst, we will serve (our food and drinks) using paper plates and paper cups to reduce the water consumption.”
Some businesses and schools have also instructed their workers and students not to come in during the water shutdown.
Ms Angela – a 37-year-old marketing executive who resides in Penang – told CNA that while her housing estate will not be affected by the water shutdown, her and her husband’s workplaces, as well as their children’s schools, are in the affected areas.
“We have been asked to work and study from home but I am glad that this decision was made as I would prefer the kids to be home … as (our home) isn’t affected by the water shutdown,” she said.
The chief minister had previously mentioned that the shutdown could be considered a state “emergency situation.” However, he stated that as the pipes were at constant risk of rupture due to high water pressure he wasn’t prepared to avoid action.
“I could have closed my eyes and left it to a future candidate for chief minister to resolve the problem,” Mr Chow said to Free Malaysia Today. “But as leader of the state government and chairman of the Penang Water Supply Company (PBAPP), it is necessary for me to do this to prevent more severe losses for the people.”
