| | | | Chinese President Xi Jinping has executed his vision of an expansive Chinese state, but the downsides of that model are becoming apparent, Elizabeth Economy writes at Foreign Affairs. Directives to local governments have been met with resistance, party interference has hurt private firms, and Belt and Road projects have raised concerns abroad over business practices.
All of that has weakened China's economy and spooked the international community, Economy writes. (One piece of supporting evidence, on the latter point: Europe is eyeing Chinese investments more skeptically, Le Monde reports.)
The answer, Economy writes, is for Xi to dial things back, offering a "level playing field" to foreign multinationals and easing up on repressive policies toward Chinese citizens. Economic growth at home and influence abroad may hang in the balance. | | Europe Splits Over Saudi Arabia | | In a sign that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is weathering the fallout of Jamal Khashoggi's murder, Europe's resolve to hold him accountable is weakening, Julien Barnes-Dacey writes at the European Council on Foreign Relations. While Germany maintains a tough stance (and a ban on arms sales to the kingdom), the UK has split off, choosing warmer relations in the hopes it can work with Saudi Arabia to solve Yemen's civil war.
It means the "post-Khashoggi European unity on Saudi Arabia is collapsing." It also might be a sign of what the Financial Times has pointed out: that Europe is getting more comfortable with the Middle East's strongmen, generally. | | | President Trump has brought a maximalist diplomatic style to the Oval Office, applying maximum pressure and maximum engagement befitting his personality, as Georgetown Prof. Matthew Kroenig pointed out on GPS. That style has failed, Ariane Tabatabai argues at Foreign Policy.
With North Korea, Trump's "fire and fury" pressure campaign was working, but he eased up too quickly after last year's summit in Singapore, giving Pyongyang no reason to deliver concessions. With Iran, Trump has had the opposite problem: He's been "so maximalist that [Iran] is not inclined to negotiate," with anti-Iranian sanctions and rhetoric too indiscriminate to push a specific outcome, Tabatabai writes. Pressure campaigns work when they focus on specific objectives, she argues, and Trump's haven't.
Jeffrey Robertson makes another point about Trump's style, at the Lowy Institute: His "diplomacy" can't work, anyway, because as a politician, he doesn't have the kind of track record with his foreign counterparts that career diplomats build over time. Diplomats develop that with each other over their careers, which is why diplomacy is best left to them, rather than to presidents. | | The Fight Over Huawei Turns to Central Europe | | The Trump administration has had mixed success in pressuring allies to ban Huawei from building 5G networks, and that war is now being fought in Central Europe, Philip Heijmans writes for The Atlantic, as the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia have voiced different opinions on Huawei and its threat level.
The Czech Republic, in particular, offers a reminder that decisions about Huawei can come down to domestic politics, as President Milos Zeman (a fan of Chinese business investments) and Prime Minister Andrej Babis (who has called Huawei a threat) have squared off over the issue.
It's also a test for American diplomacy in a region where right-wing politics are more prevalent than elsewhere in Europe and where the Trump administration has sought inroads. | | Will Agriculture See a Data Boom? | | World agricultural output has risen steadily in recent decades—wheat production, for instance, has risen from 2.268 tons/hectare in 1990 to 3.421 in 2018, according to OECD data—but Luiz Amaral of the World Resources Institute points out we'll need big changes in agriculture to meet the world's rising demand for food.
His answer: Data. Big data has hit other sectors, but farmers and agribusinesses still don't have advanced methods to gather data on things like fertilizer usage, irrigation, and seed types to improve their outputs. That's changing, as investment in ag-tech jumped 29%, to $10.1 billion, in 2017, he points out. Apps and data-measuring services could meet the challenge, if they can be scaled up. | | | | | | |
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