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Tesla CEO Elon Musk steps out of a vehicle, during his visit to China, in Beijing, China, April 28, 2024, in this screen grab taken from a video.
Beijing gives Blinken cold shoulder, extends warm welcome to Musk
Last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a high-profile visit to China, marked by terse talk and some tough symbols. Two days ahead of Blinken’s arrival, China launched a submarine-based ballistic missile test, and as he departed, the Chinese air force flew jets over the Taiwan Strait. Beijing was not amused by the US Congress passing a supplemental spending bill last week, including billions in military assistance to Taipei.
In contrast, Tesla founder Elon Musk's surprise visit starting Sunday was all smiles. Musk posted to X about the honor of meeting Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who heralded Tesla as a pillar of US-China economic cooperation. Tesla has sold more than 1.7 million cars in China since it entered the market a decade ago, and its largest factory is in Shanghai.
Musk wants to roll out Tesla’s Full Self-Driving technology in China before Chinese automakers deploy similar capabilities. Musk is also seeking approval to transfer data collected in China to the US to train algorithms for FSD tech. Market watchers called the unexpected visit "a major moment for Tesla" as the company struggles with layoffs and slumping sales.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives at the Beijing Capital International Airport, in Beijing, China, April 25, 2024.
Blinken meets with Xi, but no breakthroughs
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken brought up concerns over China's support for Russia with his counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing on Friday, before meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Blinken’s visit is largely meant to advance the mutual goal of stabilizing the relationship, and Xi said he wants to be "partners, not rivals" with the United States.
As Blinken landed in Shanghai for the first leg of his trip earlier this week, the Biden administration signed bills providing Taiwan with $8 billion in military aid and starting a process that could result in a ban of the popular video app TikTok in the US unless its Chinese owner, ByteDance, sells. The day before, the State Department released its annual human rights review, which criticized Chinese treatment of Muslim minorities.
Once he landed, Blinken pressed Shanghai Communist Party Secretary Chen Jining on treating US companies fairly. Meanwhile, he told students at NYU’s Shanghai campus that the cultural ties being built between both countries are of utmost importance.
Despite the many possible pratfalls during the first leg, China’s response has been fairly milquetoast. Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said, “We hope that the US side will respect the principle of fair competition, abide by WTO rules, and work with China to create favorable [trade] conditions.” Hardly “Wolf Warrior” stuff, and Wang said Friday that ties are “beginning to stabilize.”
Graphic Truth: Are Canada and the US narrowing the gender pay gap?
Despite lofty rhetoric about equality from politicians in Washington and Ottawa, the US and Canada are trailing behind several of their G7 counterparts (though both far ahead of Japan) when it comes to progress made in narrowing the gender pay gap over the past two decades or so, OECD data shows.
Women working full-time in the US make 84 cents for every dollar men make, according to the Census Bureau. Canadian women make 88 cents for every dollar men make, per the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
Since 2002, the gender wage gap — defined as the difference between median earnings of men and women relative to median earnings of men — has declined in the US from 22.1% to 17%. During the same period in Canada, it declined from 24% to 17.1%.
Are the US and Canada doing enough to narrow the gender pay gap?
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen meets Chinese Premier Li Qiang at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, April 7, 2024.
EVs, economics, and a warning from Yellen in China
During her weekend visit to Beijing and Guangzhou, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen emphasized that the US-China relationship is on a "more stable footing" – but there are still imbalances to address.
Chief among them: China's industrial overcapacity and its effects on the global economy. Yellen and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifengagreed to kickstart formal talks to address China’s growing overproduction of electric vehicles and solar panels, which the US says is distorting global markets and undercutting American jobs.
“We can only make progress if we directly and openly communicate with one another,” Yellen said. Chinese Premier Li Qiang called for a market-oriented view of production capacity, including cooperation in the green and low-carbon energy transition and a potential partnership to address environmental challenges.
Tough talk on Russia: Yellen dropped the diplomatic gloves when it came to Beijing’s economic and military partnership with Russia.
"We've been clear with China that we see Russia as gaining support from goods that Chinese firms are supplying to Russia," she declared, warning of "significant consequences" for any material support lent to Russia’s war efforts against Ukraine.
We’ll see if this changes China’s tune like it did after Russia’s invasion in 2022, when US officials say their strong warnings prompted Beijing to walk back plans to provide military equipment to Moscow.Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets with China's President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, November 6, 2023.
Are China-Australia ties boomeranging back?
Anthony Albanese is the first Australian prime minister to visit Beijing since 2016, as both sides signal their readiness to work on their long-running rift. At a meeting on Monday in the Great Hall of the People, Chinese President Xi Jinping said, “the China-Australia relationship has embarked on the right path of improvement and development” after years of trade spats and accusations of political meddling.
As the satirical Australian series “Utopia” illustrates, Canberra has to walk a fine line. China accounts for over a third of Australian trade, and is willing to use that leverage in political disputes. In 2020, when then-Prime Minister Scott Morisson called for an investigation of China’s role in the origin of the COVID-19 virus, Beijing slapped import restrictions on Australian agricultural products. Those remain in place, despite the thaw.
Australians clearly feel threatened by China, after allegations of political interference led Canberra to ban foreign political donations in 2017 and Huawei communications technology in 2018. In a poll this year, 75% of the population say they see China as a military threat in the coming years.
The visit with Albanese seems further proof Beijing has accepted that its aggressive diplomatic tack in the late 2010s was unsustainable. It also bodes well for the summit between Xi and President Biden at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting next week in San Francisco, though the Taiwanese elections in January still loom large in the US-China dynamic.FILE PHOTO: Guyanese Military members line up before Britain's Prince Harry laughs arrives for an official visit of Georgetown, Guyana December 2, 2016.
Venezuela and Guyana border dispute
As if Europe’s colonial-era mapmakers haven’t already bequeathed us enough wars. Now the long-running border dispute between Venezuela and its eastern neighbor Guyana is heating up again.
Guyana says Venezuela is sending troops to the frontier, while Caracas says Venezuelan voters will get to decide unilaterally whether to annex Guyanese territory.
At issue: The western two-thirds of Guyana, known as Essequibo, is a jungle terrain inhabited by 250,000 people. The dispute began with a 19th century map that gave the region to Guyana — at the time a British colonial possession — rather than to Venezuela, which maintained earlier Spanish claims to the area. Several international efforts to resolve the dispute since then have failed, and the issue is currently before the International Court of Justice.
But Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro rejects the court’s jurisdiction. He plans instead to put the question of annexation to Venezuelan voters in a plebiscite on Dec. 3.
Why now? Because there’s oil there, lots of it, following massive discoveries by ExxonMobil over the past decade. Maduro has his eye on those reserves, which would bring Guyana’s 800,000 citizens one of the swiftest windfalls of oil wealth in history.
But he may also be playing domestic politics. He recently tried to tar the Venezuelan opposition as national traitors for supposedly advancing a US-backed plan to scuttle the vote — an assertion the opposition vociferously denied.
Los Yanquis are in the area. Any forceful attempts to seize Guyanese territory could spark a crisis that quickly draws in the United States — since 2020, Washington has run joint naval patrols with Guyana.
Industrial engineer and former lawmaker Maria Corina Machado holds up a Venezuelan flag as she reacts to the vote count after Venezuelans voted in a primary to choose a unity opposition candidate to face Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro in his probable re-election bid in 2024, in Caracas, Venezuela October 23, 2023.
Oil exports or no, Maduro won’t let Machado win
Just two weeks after sealing a historic election pact with the opposition, the Venezuelan government announced Monday that it would suspend “all effects” of opposition primaries, thereby jeopardizing a six-month pause of US sanctions on Caracas’ oil.
The decision comes just days after strongman President Nicolás Maduro called the contests a “fraud” — but he’s really afraid of the winner, popular opposition leader María Corina Machado. The election deal was supposed to lift a ban on her and other opposition figures holding office until 2030, but state harassment evidently continues. Fortunately for the ordinary Venezuelans brave enough to go out and vote in an opposition primary, organizers say they destroyed the voter sheets, making state retribution more difficult.
So, will the US keep buying Venezuelan oil? Washington said it would swiftly shut off the taps if Caracas doesn’t follow through with its democratic commitments, but as we wrote earlier, leverage is limited. If Maduro’s options are keeping oil revenue and losing power, or accepting sanctions he’s survived for a decade to stay in control, which do you think he will choose?
Risa Grais-Targow, Eurasia Group’s director for Latin America, says the US will likely find discretion to be the better part of valor under these circumstances. Before snapping back sanctions, she continues, “the US will still wait and see if Maduro takes steps toward allowing candidates to participate in the general election, even if the ruling yesterday seems to go in the other direction.”Model of natural gas pipeline and Finland flag, July 18, 2022.
Another Baltic pipeline whodunnit!
NATO on Wednesday pledged a “determined” response if recent damage to a critical pipeline linking two of its members is found to have been deliberate.
Earlier this week, the Balticconnector undersea gas and data pipeline between Finland and Estonia suffered interruptions in what local authorities suggested was an intentional attack.
The 100-mile-long pipeline, which traverses the Baltic Sea, opened in 2019 to better integrate Baltic energy markets. It can send gas in either direction between Finland and Estonia depending on their needs.
Finland is NATO’s newest member, having joined the defense alliance in April. The country halted Russian gas imports after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, making the Balticconnector its only source of the fuel, which accounts for about 5% of Finland’s total energy mix.
Investigators are reviewing recent ship activity in the region. Russia on Wednesday mused that it was “disturbed” by the incident. If a state actor is suspected, NATO will have to determine a response that is firm but proportionate.
The incident comes, of course, barely a year after the apparent sabotage of the Russia-Germany Nord Stream gas pipeline at a Baltic Sea location about 500 miles southwest of the Balticcoonnector. That mystery remains unsolved.