Cornered by Republican senators, the secretary of state chosen by Joe Biden, his foreign secretary, Antony Blinken, replied that “there are things the Trump administration has done that I would applaud.”
He stressed “China’s toughest approach,” even supporting Mike Pompeo’s charge of “genocide” in his last hours in office.
Blinken’s Trumpist eloquence hides what another candidate for Biden, his “tsar for Asia”, Kurt Campbell, had written in Foreign Affairs a few days earlier: he admitted that the allies do not want to “exclude Beijing, being forced to choose, “and defended China” occupies a place in the regional order “etc.
He even rejected “forming a broad coalition” of democracies against Beijing, as Biden promised.
Also in Foreign Affairs, Richard Haass, who chairs the institution that publishes the magazine, the heart of the foreign policy establishment, warned about Trump’s attack on Capitol Hill:
“A post-American world, which is no longer defined by the primacy of the United States, is coming sooner than expected. Less because of the inevitable rise of others than because of what the United States has done to itself . “
TAKE THE CROWN
In similar calls from the Washington Post (above) and the Financial Times, “China is growing faster than before the pandemic.” According to the Wall Street Journal and Chinese CFO Caixin, “China is the only major economy to grow in 2020”.
And in Japanese financier Nikkei, “Successfully against Covid, China will take the US economic crown years earlier” than expected. From 2028.
ALSO IMPORTANT
In an editorial, Nikkei argued that in the non-polar world, “the multilateral structure should include China, not isolate it.”
And South Korean President Moon Jae-in, at a press conference reported by the South China Morning Post and others, said relations with Washington and Beijing “are just as important to us.”
GEOPOLITICAL STORM
In the German finance company Handelsblatt, “the United States imposes sanctions for the first time on Nord Stream 2”, on the gas pipeline connecting Russia to Germany, 94% ready. Below, “Federal Government [da Alemanha] classifies US sanctions as illegal ”.
On the US Politico website, “With US sanctions, the pipeline threatens a geopolitical storm.”
DORIA THERE
German Süddeutsche Zeitung published a profile of João Doria, “Governor teaches President Bolsonaro to vaccinate”.
HOW RUSSIA WINS
A detailed report in NYT magazine, with a soybean plantation on the border with China (above), showed “How Russia is overcoming the climate crisis” or “can dominate global warming”, with large areas opening up to agriculture, focused on the Chinese market.
The move also opened up the so-called Northern Sea Route in the Arctic to transport Russian gas to Asia, reports Caixin, along with Bloomberg.
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