| | | | Is Trump Drawing More Immigrants to the Southern Border? | | Writing at Foreign Affairs, Randy Capps argues that for all its hostility, President Trump's immigration rhetoric may be drawing more people to seek entry into the US through its southern border.
"Trump's incendiary rhetoric about the 'invasion' at the border has only advertised how easy it is to come to the United States," he writes, as the president's "promises to build a wall and bar asylum claims, among other things, have generated a sense of urgency to make the journey before conditions become even harsher." As news reports continue to showcase chaos, Capps' point accompanies a domestic debate about the nature of the crisis and who's really to blame. | | What is America to do, now that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sided with Russia and purchased its anti-aircraft missiles in the face of US warnings? Turkey's potential "defection" is a major problem, Walter Russell Mead writes in The Wall Street Journal, urging Washington to focus on the "long term" and hope Turkey will come around, even as it gets comfortable partnering with Russia and seeks economic ties with China.
Turkey has sabotaged its strategic alignment with the West, Simon A. Waldman writes in Haaretz, but Erdogan's move is also a clear loss for the US. As Jonathan D. Caverley, Ethan B. Kapstein, and Srdjan Vucetic recently wrote for Foreign Policy, America's F-35 fighter jet program (which Turkey snubbed in buying Russian anti-aircraft missiles) is akin to China's Belt and Road Initiative—a powerful tool for US influence around the world. It's one a NATO ally just spurned. | | Pressure's on for Xi to Compromise | | | As Chinese President Xi Jinping faces a trade war with the US and a protest movement in Hong Kong, he's under some pressure to compromise on both fronts, Minxin Pei argues in the Nikkei Asian Review.
Caving to US demands might be "humiliating," but doing so could prevent a total decoupling of China's economy from America's, he writes, while a "Tiananmen-style crackdown in Hong Kong would definitely spell the end of 'One country, two systems.'" It's difficult to know what Xi will do, Pei writes, but in each case, concessions are the safest play. | | In Italy, Headlines Outlasted the Migration Wave | | That's what the London School of Economics, the University of Venice, and Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera find in a new study, which examines Corriere's Facebook page in 2018. The number of new immigrants into Italy plummeted in 2018, but "the amount of content about the subject increased," and immigration-related stories drew the most engagement, the study finds.
That's partly because anti-immigrant Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini was able to "force" himself and the issue into headlines, by delivering speeches and staging controversies, according to The Washington Post's Anne Applebaum, who contributed to the study. It also suggests the news industry's revenue model may be fanning populism, as outlets face a profit incentive to cover what draws engagement and clicks.
As Fareed has pointed out, populism has outlasted the legitimate policy crises that generated it; the study implies ongoing attention paid to those crises is part of the reason why. | | Religious Restrictions on the Rise | | Religious restrictions rose worldwide, the Pew Research Center finds in a new study, as in 2017 "52 governments—including some in very populous countries like China, Indonesia and Russia—impose either 'high' or 'very high' levels of restrictions on religion, up from 40 in 2007."
Based on survey respondents' accounts of conditions in their countries, the report offers a nuanced picture of religious tension worldwide. While the decade saw aggregate increases in limits on religious freedom, government favoritism of religious groups, and hostilities related to religions norms—such as "honor killings" or harassment of women for violating religious dress codes—it also saw a drop in tension and violence between religious groups. | | | | | | |
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