ITK Daily | May 24

Global Street Smarts.

Happy Wednesday.

Here’s today’s ITK Daily.

To be ITK, know this:?

TJT: Kishida more likely to call election as Zelenskyy’s G7 visit boosts support

SCMP: Will Japan’s Kishida call snap election amid G7 success, improved South Korea ties?

+ The successful summit in Hiroshima may tempt PM Kishida to lock in improved ratings, say, analysts, amid an overall ‘feel-good sensation.’

+ Japanese have also witnessed a better relationship with South Korea, at a time when the actions of neighbors China, Russia, and North Korea are worrying many people.

As G7 host, Japan schools the world: Amid challenges from Russia and China, the Indo-Pacific has replaced Europe as the central theater of global politics.?Walter Russell Mead

+ "The Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima, Japan, over the weekend was unusual. It mattered."

+ The declining relevance of the group reflects important changes in the global pecking order. When Canada joined in 1976, member countries were responsible for 62% of global gross domestic product, according to the World Bank. Today, the combined G-7 share has fallen to 44%, and it continues to shrink.

+ "There were two points Mr. Kishida wanted to impress on his fellow leaders."

+ "The first is that the world faces a challenge from China and Russia that is both unified and urgent. This is a reality that Japan can’t ignore."

+ "China and Russia are neighbors of Japan. Japan has territorial disputes with both countries dating back to World War II. Russia and China have stepped up their naval cooperation in the Sea of Japan."

+ "Japan had another point to make... Zelensky was the only European head of government from a non-member state invited to Hiroshima...The guest list from the Indo-Pacific was much longer."

+ "The message couldn’t be more pointed. While Japan cares about Ukraine and sees a deep connection between Russian action in Europe and Chinese moves in its neighborhood, the Indo-Pacific has replaced Europe as the central theater of global politics."

Zelenskyy gives master class in diplomacy at G7: From India to France to Japan, Ukrainian leader woos key players in 30 hours.?Nikkei

India builds soft power in Afghanistan, bypassing Pakistan: Donation of 20,000 tonnes of wheat to transit through Iranian port.?Nikkei

China’s war chest: How the fight for semiconductors reveals the outlines of a future conflict: US efforts to stifle China’s chip industry are thought to be part of a wider plan to hinder Beijing’s preparations for war.?Guardian

China fears Japan’s chipmaking curbs go further than US restrictions: FT reports new export rules could encompass equipment for making older-generation semiconductors.

China’s new US envoy arrives to a nearly impossible task: thawing relations: Xie Feng’s landing follows Biden’s prediction of a “thaw” in bilateral ties.?Politico

+ China’s new ambassador to the US = Xie Feng

+ Xie previously served as vice foreign minister and is the successor to Qin Gang, who left Washington in January to become China’s foreign minister. While Xie is a career diplomat and specialist in US-China relations, he lacks Qin’s close ties to the Chinese senior leadership.

+ The Chinese leadership’s choice of Xie may signal a preference for a less-caustic interlocutor in order to ease bilateral antipathy.

+ Xie has his own record of wolf warrior-style diplomacy. In his previous role as the foreign ministry’s commissioner in Hong Kong, Xie decried foreign criticism of the territory’s often brutal police response to pro-democracy protesters in 2019 and blamed that unrest on shadowy “foreign forces.”

+ Xie led a frosty meeting with Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman in July 2021 during which he scolded her for what he said was the administration’s “highly misguided mindset and dangerous policy” toward China.

+ “Wolf warrior diplomacy doesn’t go over very well in Washington and I’d be very surprised if he was more of a wolf warrior rather than a problem solver,” said Susan Shirk, former deputy assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration.

Bloomberg: China’s new ambassador to US says relations face ‘serious’ challenges

+ Xie Feng arrives from Beijing as the US expects better relations.

+ Previously Beijing’s top diplomat in Hong Kong during protests.

China’s fishing fleet embroiled in rising tensions with US: FT reports Washington has cracked down on Beijing’s vessels over illegal fishing and ‘grey-zone operations’ in the South China Sea.

How Biden could “thaw” US relations with China?Ryan Hass

+ In recent days, however, there are indications that both countries might be working their way out of their bitter moods toward each other. Both sides have resumed contact at senior levels and signaled plans to further strengthen bilateral exchanges in the weeks ahead. During a press conference at the Group of Seven summit, Biden predicted a near-term “thaw” in relations with China.

+ If it occurs, such a thaw likely will be driven by mutual self-interest. Biden has consistently emphasized the need to lower risk in the U.S.-China relationship and compete responsibly without veering into conflict. Xi faces mounting challenges, including but not limited to softening economic growth, rising youth unemployment, mounting international wariness of China’s political economy, and simultaneous strains between China and virtually every developed economy.

+ Washington and Beijing also share an interest in laying the groundwork for productive leader-level exchanges when Biden and Xi are together at the Group of 20 in India in September and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders meeting in San Francisco in November.

China and Russia, targets at G7 summit, draw closer to fend off West: Beijing and Moscow are holding visits this week as alarm grows in China that Western countries backing Ukraine are turning their attention to Asia.?NYT

+ “China is ready to double down on its relationship with Russia following the G7 summit because the central theme of that summit comprised not only Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but also China and how the West should deal with it,” said Alexander Korolev, a senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales in Australia, who studies Chinese-Russian relations.

Russian tourism in Europe has changed since the conflict in Ukraine: Only the wealthiest Russians are visiting European Union countries today, while middle-class tourists have almost entirely disappeared.?Le Monde

Reuters: France's Macron to meet OpenAI's Sam Altman at Elysee

Reuters: France bans short-haul flights where trains are available

Sunak pledges UK’s long-term support for Ukraine: FT reports the UK premier’s comments are the latest sign West is prepared to support Kyiv through conflict with Russia.

Boris Johnson is in the US to try and shore up Republican support for Ukraine: Johnson attended a private lunch in Dallas, Texas, to meet two dozen of the state’s leading conservative figures, including politicians, donors, and captains of industry.

Reuters: IMF says UK is no longer heading for a recession in 2023

Erdo?an wins support from Turkey’s election ‘kingmaker’: Politico reports Sinan O?an’s endorsement pushes Turkish president closer to second-round victory on Sunday.

CNBC: Pasta prices have surged, prompting crisis meetings in Italy and calls for a strike

+ Pasta prices rose 17.5% in March and 16.5% in April, according to Italy’s ministry of business which cited Istat data.

+ The jump is double that of Italy’s consumer price index figures, which climbed 8.1% year-on-year for April and 8.7% for March, according to Refinitiv data.

Italian ire at Ireland’s plan for health warnings on wine: The Times reports Rome reacted furiously to Irish legislation announced this week requiring all wine and spirits to carry a warning that alcohol consumption risks liver disease, fatal cancer, and danger to fetuses during pregnancy. The law will come into force in 2026.

Could BRICS rescue Argentina’s economy??Right-wing presidential candidates tout a commitment to the West, but a severe financial crisis could necessitate a shift.?Al Jazeera

AMLO says what’s yours can be his in Mexico: The President ignores the law to expropriate property when it suits his political purposes.?WSJ - Editorial

Reuters: Canada did not ignore intelligence on Chinese meddling, report says

WP: Canadian appointee rejects probe into China election interference; opposition blasts decision

Canada inquiry into China election meddling claims ruled out: BBC reports Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has backed a special rapporteur's recommendation to hold public hearings into foreign meddling in elections.

NBC News: Ron DeSantis will launch his presidential bid with Elon Musk

+ The Florida governor will announce he is running for president on Twitter Wednesday evening in a conversation with Musk.

+ It will be moderated by David Sacks, a tech entrepreneur who is a Musk confidant and DeSantis supporter.

This is a punk, right?

DeSantis calls in Musk to launch White House campaign: The Times reports Trump challenger now has access to tech chief’s 140m Twitter followers.

The 2023 Axios Harris Poll 100 reputation rankings: This survey is the result of a partnership between Axios and Harris Poll to gauge the reputation of the most visible brands in America, based on 20 years of Harris Poll research.?Axios

An MIT verdict on artificial intelligence: In an important new book, two leading economists survey 1,000 years of tech history to discover the likely impact of AI.?Adrian Wooldridge

+ In an important new book, two leading economists survey 1,000 years of tech history to discover the likely impact of AI

+?In Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity, they look at a millennium of technological innovation to understand the likely impact of AI.

+ The answer they come to is not cheerful — though they’ve reached that conclusion by way of an irritating Brahmin populism.

+ Throughout history, powerful elites have seized control of new technologies and used them to enrich themselves and extend control over their subordinates.?

+ The authors concede that technological progress is often the work of challengers to the status quo.?

+ Technologies and their makers were eventually co-opted by the ruling class.

+ Countervailing forces can come along and redirect technology from elite enrichment to creating shared gains.?

+ In Acemoglu and Johnson’s view, the digital revolution has already been hijacked by self-seeking elites.?

+The book proposes an interesting set of policies to produce a better version of the future: Provide government subsidies to develop more socially beneficial technologies; refuse to give patents to technologies that are aimed at worker or citizen surveillance; eliminate tax incentives to replace labor with machines; break up the big tech companies that enjoy market shares not seen since the days of the American industrialists John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie; repeal Sector 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act that protects internet platforms against legal action or regulation because of the content they host; and impose a digital advertising tax.

+ The authors rightly worry about the way the Chinese government is using the digital revolution to monitor and repress its people.?

+ But what about India? Thanks largely to Nandan Nilekani, a tech billionaire and chairman of Infosys Ltd., India has introduced the world’s biggest biometric ID system that provides 1.3 billion Indians with a digital identity.

+ The internet is now used as much to tempt us to buy stuff we don’t need as it is to democratize information. The emancipatory power of AI will surely be limited and distorted in the same way.

+ There is nothing inevitable about the direction of technology. Powerful people can direct it towards narrow interests rather than the common good.?Clear-sighted coalitions of the concerned can lead it in more enlightened ways. Time may be running short given the pace of AI’s advance but there is still time to save ourselves from digital slavery.

Bloomberg: Netflix tells US consumers to stop sharing accounts

Apple, Broadcom strike multibillion-dollar chip deal: WSJ reports the iPhone maker is extending a chip-supply agreement, while it has been trying to bring more such work in-house. Many of the chips will be made in the US.

WP: Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit sells assets, shuts down

Having access to cheap money makes going to space easier...

JPMorgan makes one of biggest bets on carbon removal: WSJ reports the bank will invest more than $200 million to purchase credits from several companies, boosting an industry that has removed only small amounts of carbon.

WP: Ford will include AM radio in 2024 models, reversing decision

Need an example of keeping US elected officials happy?

Here ya go...

The little-known unintended consequence of recycling plastics: Breaking down plastics can generate polluting microplastics that wind up in water or the air, one study finds.?WP

+ The research adds to growing concerns that recycling isn’t as effective of a solution for the plastic pollution problem as many might think. Only a fraction of the plastic produced gets recycled: About 9 percent worldwide and about 5 to 6 percent in the United States, according to some recent estimates.

Why are people pretending to live in a Wes Anderson movie??The filmmaker, known for symmetrical composition and whimsical colors, has inspired social-media creators to document their own lives in his style.?WSJ

Asteroid City review — Wes Anderson whimsy with Lynchian weirdness?The Times

Wes Anderson has gone mad?Bilge Ebiri

+ There has always been a method to Wes Anderson’s madness, but Asteroid City reminds you that there is also a madness to his method. And that, ultimately, is what makes him a great artist.

Here is a recap of the professional golf storyline for the last 12 months:

2022... Big money, Saudi Arabia, LIV Golf, geopolitics

2022... Small money, Mission Viejo, PGA, public courses

Enjoy the ride + plan accordingly.

-Marc?

Marc A. Ross | Chief Communications Strategist @ Caracal

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