Confidence?!

View this email in your browser Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by the GPS team.   December 12, 2018 After "An Epic Waste of Time," Theresa May stays UK Prime Minister Theresa May has survived the no-confidence vote instigated by Conservative party colleagues angered by her handling of Brexit. (CNN) The no-confidence vote has starkly divided the party, reportedly leaving some MPs in tears. (BBC) The no-confidence vote was always going to be "an epic waste of time," writes Jonathan Freedland today in The Guardian.  He says it was motivated by "the belief that a change in party leader can bring about a different Brexit outcome. It cannot," Freedland writes. Party numbers in the Commons won't have changed; the crucial point of the Irish border persists; the EU's positions will not change. "The problem is not May. The problem is Brexit." Can White House rejoin old allies in face-off with Beijing? Trade talks with China resume as the detained Huawei chief Meng Wanzhou has been freed on bail. (Nikkei) But are bilateral US-China negotiations even the best approach to getting the best deal? If President Trump teams up with the very allies he's spurned over the last two years, his administration could actually pull off a "meaningful" trade deal with China, writes Chad P. Bown in Harvard Business Review.  Trump "claims he wants to tackle… theft of American intellectual property, the forced transfer of technology from American firms, and the state-driven nature of the Chinese economy." His self-imposed deadline "for such ambitions sounds absurd" to some. "But they are not entirely out of reach." "Beijing recognizes that the US doesn't have the stomach to put up a big enough fight on its own," writes Brown. So how could the US win? Although it "would be a stunning policy plot twist of the Trump presidency, it is possible that American negotiators could join forces with their previously rebuffed counterparts in Europe and Japan to form a collective front, all pushing for Chinese reform" and "confront[ing] China en masse." The Gilets-Jaunes protest. Cui bono? The political Right is "salivating" at the implications of the French protests against the French government's planned fuel tax, writes Kate Aronoff for Jacobin. To President Trump and right-leaning media, the protests provide grist for the idea that the interests of working people inherently conflict with policies aimed at curbing climate change. However, "[t]he fuel taxes were less the cause of this wave of protests than the straw that broke the camel's back. Macron has overseen a massive transfer of wealth to the country's elites. His tax reforms will leave the bottom fifth of French households worse off as the top 1 percent… reap massive gains." And it is "rural communities" that would suffer from the fuel taxes. "The causes of climate change, after all, aren't French commuters but the one hundred fossil-fuel producers responsible for 71 percent of greenhouse gas emissions since 1988," Aronoff writes. In other words, the working people "hardest hit by Macron-style climate plans aren't the people doing most of the polluting." World leaders gathering this week in Poland for the COP24 meeting on climate policy must be warned "not that climate action is politically toxic, but that coupling it with austerity and handouts to the 1 percent — failing to place blame on the corporate executives who deserve it — is a recipe for planetary disaster." A New Deal for Climate Change Deniers, Too Meanwhile, Michelle Romero and Van Jones write for CNN Opinion, the Green New Deal proposed by Representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is "the smartest, most practical idea in US politics to address two urgent problems: climate change and poverty." "Well-paying green jobs can help lift people out of poverty. American families suffering most also have the most to gain from a Green New Deal that's done right. The price of pollution adds up; it costs too much -- and the poorest pay the most." Moving the Green New Deal forward would be a win "whether you believe in climate science or not. Solar panels don't put themselves up, wind turbines and smart batteries don't manufacture themselves, new forests don't plant themselves. Everything that's good for the planet is a job, a contract, a business opportunity." China's Nuclear Death Watch "For years, as other countries have shied away from nuclear power, China has been its strongest advocate." No more, writes Peter Fairley in MIT Technology Review.  "Officially China still sees nuclear power as a must-have. But unofficially, the technology is on a death watch. Experts, including some with links to the government, see China's nuclear sector succumbing to the same problems affecting the West: the technology is too expensive, and the public doesn't want it." The 2011 nuclear disaster at Fukushima in neighboring Japan served as a warning. Any similar event in China wouldn't just have health and safety implications, it "would call into question the government's competence" and even "delegitimize" it, Fairley writes.   The increasing affordability of solar and wind has also contributed to Chinese distaste for nuclear power. And nuclear faces a serious competitor in coal, which "remains the cheapest source of power in China." What's the problem with China's government and industry edging away from nuclear? "[I]t could mean one less carbon-free option for a world facing the threat of climate change. If China's nuclear ambitions wind down, it may be the nail in the coffin for the technology's viability elsewhere." Share Tweet Fwd unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences  Copyright © 2018 Cable News Network, Inc. A WarnerMedia Company., All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to CNN newsletters. Our mailing address is: Cable News Network, Inc. A WarnerMedia Company. One CNN Center Atlanta, GA 30303 Add us to your address book What did you like about today's Global Briefing? What did we miss? Let us know what you think: GlobalBriefing@cnn.com Sign up to get updates on your favorite CNN Original Series, special CNN news coverage and other newsletters.​   Sign Up for Fareed's Global Briefing