What Actually Mattered This Week: Xi-Biden Summit, Belarus-Poland Border Crisis
WHAT ACTUALLY MATTERED THIS WEEK
My thoughts on some of this week’s biggest news stories:
Presidents Biden and Xi both want a markedly less dysfunctional US-China relationship—and less chance of sudden crisis—than presently exists.
That’s less than a breakthrough. But it’s the logic behind this week’s virtual summit. And a welcome development.
Belarus President Lukashenko is under a lot of economic pressure and he's more than happy to push, use his rogue status to make life unpleasant for the Poles, for the Lithuanians. But the Kremlin is clearly helping him.
The Russians are sitting on a significant amount of cash because energy prices are higher, because Putin feels like he's got a lot of leverage over the Europeans on downstream energy given their problems. And as a consequence, he feels more emboldened to do all of the things that he would normally feel a little bit more cautious about. That includes Belarus.
TRUTHS, DAMNED TRUTHS, AND STATISTICS
Transatlantic inflation:
-via Quartz
THE GZERO WORLD WE’RE JUST LIVING IN
GRAPHIC TRUTH
YOUR GZERO WORLD
On GZERO World, a tale of two very different Koreas. From K-Pop supergroup BTS to Oscar-winner Parasite to Netflix global sensation Squid Game, South Korea seems to be churning out one massive cultural hit after another. And North Korea is taking notice. As South Korea's cultural cachet continues to climb, so does Little Rocket Man's anger. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has called the K-Pop invasion a "vicious cancer" and sees the South's soft power as a direct threat to his rule. Jean Lee, former AP Pyongyang bureau chief and veteran Korea correspondent, speaks with me.
For a longer, more in-depth version of my interview with Lee, check out the GZERO World podcast.
领英推荐
WORLD IN 60 SECONDS
How was my return to international travel?
Were there any breakthroughs at Biden & Xi's virtual summit?
What do I think of US Secretary of State Blinken suggesting that Belarus migrant crisis is an attempt to distract from Russia's increased troop presence near Ukraine?
Find out in this week’s World in 60 Seconds!
Do you like what you’ve seen? Subscribe and stay informed.
BECAUSE THE INTERNET
How the Pandemic is Changing Language
WHAT TO READ THIS WEEK
The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times by Jane Goodall, Douglas Abrams, and Gail Hudson
The coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc, climate change is proceeding apace, and humanitarian catastrophes are unfolding across the world.?Can one feel hope amid such grave circumstances??The Book of Hope argues that one can—and that one must.?Comprising an extended conversation between Jane Goodall, one of the world’s most esteemed naturalists, and Douglas Abrams, coauthor (with the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu) of The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, this timely and uplifting meditation presents Goodall’s four reasons for being hopeful: the boundlessness of human ingenuity, the resilience of nature, the agency of young people, and the irrepressibility of the human spirit.?One of the book’s most important contributions is to explain the differences between optimism and hope, words that may seem interchangeable at first blush.?As Goodall explains, though, the former is “a disposition” that one either has or lacks; the latter, by contrast, is “a stubborn determination” that each of us can nurture.?The former is a passive sentiment: one assumes—or is content to believe—that the world will naturally grow more peaceful and prosperous; the latter is a proactive sentiment: one agrees that the world can become more just and livable, but only through urgent, sustained collective action.?At once an antidote to fatalism and a call to action, The Book of Hope should be on everyone’s reading list.
DEEP THOUGHTS
“A small act is worth a million thoughts.” – Ai Weiwei
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Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media and foreign affairs columnist at TIME. He currently teaches at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and previously was a professor at New York University. You can follow him on?Twitter,?Facebook,?and?Instagram.
Principal Regulatory Advisor at Alberta Energy Regulator (AER)
3 年Assuming Biden doesn’t sleep through these meetings I hope he is well briefed and prepared if América is to demonstrate leadership on these files.
Policy Analyst/Advisor
3 年they should meet frequently and Belarus ought to democratize!