| | | | Fareed: GOP Has Become the Party of Fake News and Conspiracy Theories | | Just days before the US midterms and it's commonplace to hear that the Republican Party has become the party of Donald Trump. Actually, it's looking more like Joseph McCarthy's party, Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column.
"America has a history of paranoid politics, infused with the belief that there is some hidden conspiracy to betray the republic. But these forces used to be peripheral, voiced by marginal figures. When they seemed to be growing, as with the John Birch Society in the 1960s, mainstream conservatives such as William F. Buckley publicly and forcefully denounced them. Today senior Republicans emulate them," Fareed writes.
"The Republican Party has many good people and good ideas. But none of them matters while it houses and feeds fantasies, conspiracies and paranoia, tinged with racism, bigotry and anti-Semitism. Republicans are now squarely the party of McCarthy, and until that cancer is excised, they should not be entrusted with power."
| | Don't Expect the Democrats to Go Easier on China | | If Democrats secure a majority in Tuesday's midterms, don't expect that to result in a softer stance on China than President Trump's current tough approach, writes David Shambaugh for the South China Morning Post. In fact, the opposite could be true.
"Not only have Democrats and Republicans in Congress found consensus on the underlying rationale and elements of a hardened China policy, but it spans various professional sectors across the country," Shambaugh writes.
"If anything, if the Democrats take control of Congress (or even one house) the policy is likely to become ever tougher—as Democrats will push the Trump administration to be much more critical of China's human rights abuses and increased repression. They may well find a willing administration, as Vice-President Mike Pence's recent speech on China contained numerous criticisms of human rights transgressions."
| | No, Germany Isn't About to Go Off the Rails | | German Chancellor Angela Merkel said this week she won't seek re-election in 2021. But whoever takes over, don't expect a big shift in foreign policy, writes Marcus Walker for The Wall Street Journal.
"What the focus on the European Union's longest-serving leader often misses is how Berlin's stance on major issues—backing bailouts for Greece and other debt-stricken EU members, punishing Russian expansionism, and maintaining its steadfast alliance with the US—tend to reflect Germany's interests and political culture more than who is holding the chancellorship," Walker writes.
"Merkel's personal imprint is clear on some issues—notably her reluctance to close Germany's borders during 2015's migration crisis, which helped spark the political backlash that has eroded her authority. But the fallout from that episode only highlights how seldom she challenged Germany's broader policy-making establishment."
| | Israel Has Turned a Big Middle East Assumption on Its Head | | Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has turned the conventional wisdom about his country's ties with the Arab world on its head. It was once assumed that "only peace with the Palestinians can ensure Israel's acceptance into an angry and hostile Arab world," write Aaron David Miller and Hillel Zand for The Atlantic. But it's clear now that the "Arab street may still oppose Israel, but Arab leaders clearly don't."
"The Arab world's new openness to Israel is driven in part by increasing impatience and annoyance with the Palestinians," they write. "The record of Arab-state betrayal and conflict with the Palestine Liberation Organization is well known. Indeed, with the exception of Egypt, every Arab state that shares common borders with Israel has fought bloody battles with the Palestinian national movement. Today the Saudis and Egyptians are frustrated with a weak Mahmoud Abbas and worried about Hamas. The silence of the Arab world in the face of recent Israeli-Hamas confrontations in Gaza, including the last major conflict, in 2014, which claimed more than 2,000 Palestinian lives, was deafening."
| | Brazil and Mexico: About to Drop the Passive in Passive-Aggressive? | | | Brazil and Mexico have long played a "passive-aggressive diplomatic game," writes Shannon O'Neil for Bloomberg. But the election of the right-wing Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico could see the traditional rivalry turn toxic.
"The biggest clash is likely to happen over Venezuela. The current Mexican government leads in condemning the corrupt authoritarian regime through the 14-member Lima group. But Lopez Obrador may do an about-face—inviting Maduro to his inauguration (he accepted) and reasserting a foreign policy of nonintervention in other nations' affairs. Bolsonaro, in contrast, has pledged to 'do whatever necessary to defeat that government' in Caracas," O'Neil writes.
"Add in the desire of both Lopez Obrador and Bolsonaro to start bilateral relations with the United States on a good foot combined with Trump's preference to divide and conquer in global negotiations and relations, and stepped-up clashes look increasingly likely." | | China: What Happened to All the Babies? | | China dropped its one-child policy around three years ago in an effort to boost the birthrate in the rapidly aging country. It's not really working as hoped, Shannon Tiezzi writes for The Diplomat.
"The number of births in China in 2017 was down by 630,000 compared to 2016," Tiezzi notes.
The reason? A combination of demographics—the "number of Chinese women of childbearing age (15 to 49 years-old) is dropping by at least 5 million each year"—cultural changes, and simple economics.
"China's one-child policy had another unintended consequence: burdening a generation of only children with the sole responsibility of caring for their aging parents. That combined with rising costs of living, particularly in China's megacities, has many young couples wondering if having a child—much less two—is a good financial decision." "Historically, an important factor keeping birth rates in the United States high was immigration, which has brought in young people who desire more children than native-born Americans. But because the overall growth rate of the immigrant population has declined and a larger proportion of migrants now come from Asia than Latin America, births to new arrivals are slowing. Migrants from Asia have lower fertility rates than the native-born population. And fertility rates among Hispanics in America have been falling." | | | | | | |
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