On Fareed Zakaria GPS
Fareed’s Global Briefing
Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good
October 16, 2022 ... 8:33 AM ... On GPS, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET:
On Today’s Show
As the US leads a campaign to isolate Russia economically, in large part by exploiting the dollar’s international dominance, Fareed warns of an inherent risk in waging this kind of economic warfare.
US President Joe Biden should make clear “that it is only because of the unprecedented nature of Russia's challenge to the rules-based international order that Washington is wielding these weapons and that they will never be used in normal circumstances or for purely parochial interests,” Fareed says. “Wherever possible, Biden should be trying to keep the widest number of countries on board. Otherwise, even if America were to win this struggle with Russia, future historians might remember this as the moment when countries around the world began to reduce their dependence on America, and when Washington lost what a French president once called the ‘exorbitant privilege’ of holding the world’s reserve currency.”
After that: The US is already engaged in a standoff with Russia—so can it manage to also confront China over technology, all against a backdrop of high energy prices and a falling out with Saudi Arabia? Fareed talks with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.
As Chinese President Xi Jinping prepares to receive a historic third term in power, which is expected to be granted at the Chinese Communist Party Congress beginning today, Fareed asks former Australian Prime Minister and current President and CEO of the Asia Society Kevin Rudd about China’s direction under Xi, how he has changed the country’s politics and economics, and what we should expect regarding Taiwan.
Is a recession inevitable? Could we be heading for the much-dreaded stagflation of the 1970s? Fareed talks with CNN Global Economics Analyst Rana Foroohar.
What can we learn from Brazil’s presidential election, in which right- and left-wing populism are facing off? Fareed talks with author, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Distinguished Fellow and former Venezuelan Minister of Trade and Industry Moisés Naím.
Finally: Iran’s demonstrations have been inspiring—but do protest movements work these days? Fareed examines their success rate.
What to Expect From China’s Party Congress
China’s 20th Communist Party Congress, a once-every-five-years event, is expected to grant President Xi Jinping a historic third term in power. As such, Simone McCarthy writes for CNN, it’s “among the most consequential and closely watched party meetings in decades, and will reveal much about the direction of the world’s second-largest economy for the next five years.”
Close China watchers have previewed the event in detail. At the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy’s 21st Century China Center, a collection of expert commentaries examines politburo composition as a yardstick for the power Xi has gained, among other topics.
At the Asia Society Policy Institute, Christopher K. Johnson writes: “(M)any analysts appear to be looking at the new (composition of the Politburo Standing Committee) as an instant ‘win-loss’ barometer of Xi’s influence, despite the fact that he has several other objectives … that he sees as equally important … These include truncating his current, rather clunky ideological formulation—‘Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era’ … formally (acquiring) new titles or honorifics … and orchestrating a substantial down-ballot triumph by his allies on the full Politburo, where the competition for Xi’s probable successor is most likely to take shape.”
Xi on the Merits
In the Western press, predictions have been less common than judgment, as critics have focused on China’s economic hurdles and Xi’s centralization of power. Accusing the Chinese Communist Party of harboring an “obsession with control” that “is making China weaker but more dangerous,” The Economist writes that “(e)ven as Mr Xi strives to make China a superpower, his and the party’s authoritarian urges have isolated it.”
Xi’s concentration of power “formally marks the end of the post-Mao effort to (imperfectly) constrain the power of an individual leader and (again, imperfectly) systematize the process of leadership succession,” Jude Blanchette writes for Foreign Affairs. In Blanchette’s view, that presents a risk—particularly by leaving uncertain what will happen whenever Xi does, eventually, leave power.
Accusing China’s leaders since Mao Zedong of sharing a “paranoia” over domestic and international threats, Susan Shirk argues at Foreign Policy that “Xi’s sense of political vulnerability is reflected in his strivings to impose almost totalitarian social control on Chinese society and eliminate all potential rivals. Security has eclipsed economic development as the (Communist Party’s) defining goal. But this approach to governance could backfire on Xi during his third term. A party that puts ideological loyalty ahead of economic results is not going to retain its popular appeal for long.”
Russia’s Economy, Today and Tomorrow
As Fareed notes, Russia’s economy has fared relatively well in the face of an aggressive Western sanctions campaign.
“While Europe teeters on the brink of recession, Russia is emerging from one,” The Economist writes, citing an upwardly revised International Monetary Fund forecast for Russia. That report still predicts GDP shrinkage this year and next, but less of it than had been projected for Russia in July. Both Russia’s crude-oil and non-energy exports have “held up,” the IMF writes, and “domestic demand is showing some stability.” The fund cites Russia’s “containment of the effect of sanctions on the domestic financial sector.” (The Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies offers a mixed assessment, noting the damage of sanctions and voluntary withdrawal of business and trade.)
But at the London Review of Books, a recent essay by Tony Wood explores a potential longer-term vulnerability for Russia’s economy: the prominence of oil and gas in Russia’s exports, as other countries seek to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels.
Nodding to Thane Gustafson’s “Klimat: Russia in the Age of Climate Change,” Wood writes that for Europe (a major buyer of Russian energy in recent history), transitioning away from carbon fuels was a climate-driven goal before Russia invaded Ukraine. Since then, efforts have been “accelerated. … For European countries, weaning themselves off Russian fuel is proving to be painfully expensive and has contributed to the price hikes. Even so, there’s no going back.”
Is Iran on a Road to Revolution?
As Fareed discussed with Iranian–American author Roya Hakakian on last Sunday’s GPS, Iran’s protests seem to pose fundamental questions about the regime, to a greater degree than past demonstrations did in 2009 and 2019. That quality has commentators asking what the future holds.
“The Islamic Republic is capable of great violence against its citizens,” Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar writes in a Foreign Affairs essay, “but in the absence of a new social contract, their anger and discontent may have no outlet other than further confrontation and rebellion.”
“We’re in a whole new era,” Vali Nasr of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies tells The Signal’s Michael Bluhm. “The leadership of the Islamic Republic understands that its assumptions—that it can sustain stability with no negotiations on a nuclear deal, an aggressive regional presence, cultural hegemony at home, a closed society, and a bad economy—no longer hold. Which reveals a huge threat, because it suggests that they need completely to reinvent the wheel—and that’s not easy for them to do. ... The rest of the Muslim world is watching. They see a revolt of a generation of younger citizens of the Islamic Republic against the hijab and against the compulsory practice of religion. This is a very powerful rebuttal against Islamism at a popular level.”
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