We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
What We’re Watching: China bans crypto, commandos kill Jesús, EU opens anew
China bans cryptocurrency: China has banned financial institutions and payment companies from processing online transactions in cryptocurrencies. The move, which follows an earlier ban on cryptocurrency trading by Chinese firms, is a clear sign of China's suspicion of any digital currencies that it cannot control. In fact, what China really wants is to promote its own digital yuan that would track every single transaction. Other governments would love to do the same, of course, but they don't have nearly as much financial firepower as China. Meanwhile, the news from Beijing made the price of Bitcoin — the world's most prominent cryptocurrency — plunge to its lowest in three months. Who would have guessed just a couple of weeks ago, when everyone was still frantically buying Bitcoin, Etherium or Dogecoin on RobinHood, that all it would take to burst the digital currency bubble would be an Elon Musk tweet and China.
Is Jesús dead? One of Colombia's most famous rebel commanders was reportedly killed in Venezuela earlier this week in an incident that could inflame tensions between the two countries. Seuxis Hernández Solarte — better known by his nombre de guerra Jesús Santrich — was a top leader of the FARC rebel group for decades, and helped negotiate the historic 2016 peace accord that ended a half century of conflict that had killed more than 200,000 people. But the ink was barely dry on the document before Santrich was jailed for returning to the drug trade, and after his release he joined a fresh call to arms among disaffected former FARC fighters. Santrich's own criminal gang says he was ambushed by Colombian commandos who stole across the border, killed him, and cut off one of his fingers before flying off in a helicopter. Colombian officials have not confirmed any of that story yet, but Bogotá has long claimed that Santrich was active in Venezuela, which for years harbored various FARC-affiliated groups.
EU to welcome (vaccinated) tourists: The European Union will allow tourists from non-EU member states that have been vaccinated with EU-approved jabs or considered safe from COVID to visit the bloc this summer. That's great news for tourism-reliant economies such as Greece or Spain which are eager to welcome visitors again from countries like the UK and the US. But other EU member states that depend less on tourists are skeptical — they want to be more cautious, for instance, about mixing vaccinated and unvaccinated groups of people. Either way, Brussels will let each member state decide its own policy, while working to ensure enough jabs are doled out by the fall to avoid getting crushed by another COVID wave. What still needs to be ironed out, however, is the EU-wide vaccination certificate, and whether the UK and the US will reciprocate by allowing EU visitors to go there without restrictions as the bloc (slowly) ramps up vaccinations. Expect a lot of back-and-forth on both issues in the coming weeks.
US donates vaccines to India; Macron v Le Pen; EU tourism
Ian Bremmer answers this week's questions on the biggest stories in global politics:
The United States says it will now donate 60 million COVID doses. Who are they going to?
Well, they're not COVID doses, because we don't want to give people coronavirus. They're vaccines. It's AstraZeneca, which we don't need in the United States. We haven't even approved yet. They are somewhat less effective than Moderna and Pfizer, but they're damned effective and you should take them, and they're going almost exclusively to India. And that is fully appropriate because India, we know about 350,000 cases a day. In reality, if you look at the positivity rates and level of disclosure, it's probably five to 10x that. This is by far the largest epicenter of the coronavirus crisis to date in the world. But they're not going to be getting these doses until probably June. And meanwhile, they're under very serious trouble right now. And there's a lot of recrimination, central government, local governments. The US has been slow. We should've made this announcement frankly a month ago, but I'm glad we're doing it.
Should Macron be concerned about the rise of the right a year out from election in France?
He should be a little concerned because his approval ratings are horrible on the back of the gilets jaunes crisis, and now you've got the coronavirus crisis and yeah, he's not doing well. But that doesn't mean that he's going to lose. He is behind in polls right now to Marine Le Pen a little bit, but in the second round, everyone that isn't pro Le Pen is against Le Pen, and he gets all of those votes and Le Pen gets the core Le Pen votes and she loses. And that is almost certainly what is going to happen. So I wouldn't be all that worried, even though the far right in France, on the back of a lot of Islamic extremism and recent attacks, a lot more than the United States, is a problem.
Is the EU ready to welcome American tourists back? What will that look like?Well, I mean, they're ready to start opening borders to American tourists. There will be vaccine passports certainly, will require that you show that you've had a vaccine, at the very least, that you have a negative test, and Americans will be able to travel to Europe. And I think that's a big deal. About 80% of the countries in the world right now the US is not recommending travel to, and the developing world, much of it around the world is going to take a lot longer to roll out effective vaccines, and never mind herd immunity, just get to the point that you don't have these massive spikes in cases, South America, South Asia, Southeast Asia, India, as I already mentioned. Europe is about two to three months behind the United States. They need the tourism, they need the money. They're going to open the borders, and Americans will be able to travel, showing that they are either immune through vaccine or have taken a negative test. And so we'll get there, and hopefully we'll get a little closer as a consequence.