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Damages from the hits in Przewodów, a village in eastern Poland near the border with Ukraine.
What We're Watching: Missiles in Poland, Chinese anger at zero-COVID
Who fired those missiles into Poland?
Explosions apparently caused by rockets or missiles killed two people Tuesday in the Polish town of Przewodów, several miles from the Ukrainian border. The incident occurred amid a barrage of Russian missile attacks on critical infrastructure across Ukraine. Poland went on heightened military readiness as some Polish officials suggested the projectiles might be Russian. An investigation is underway.
But the plot thickened early Wednesday when US President Joe Biden said at an emergency meeting on the subject in Bali, where he’s attending the G-20, that preliminary info suggests it’s “unlikely” the weapons were fired "from Russia." This raises the prospect that malfunctioning Ukrainian air defenses could have been responsible, or that the missiles could have been fired from nearby Belarus, which has supported Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Russia, for its part, says it has nothing to do with the incident at all.
The big questions are: Was it in fact a Russian missile or not? If so, is there any evidence the attack was deliberate, as some Ukrainian officials have friskily suggested, or merely a mistake in the fog of war?
The implications are huge — Poland is a NATO member, so any deliberate attack by Russia would raise the prospect of invoking the alliance’s Article 5 collective defense mechanism, in which all members go on a war footing to respond. That, of course, could set in motion an escalation between the world’s two largest nuclear powers.
In the meantime, an Article 4 response is possible: a much mellower undertaking in which the alliance convenes a formal discussion on the incident but doesn’t take military action.
But a big question remains: Even if this incident was a Ukrainian own goal or a Russian mistake, what would NATO’s response be if Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to tweak the alliance with a bite along the Polish border?
Zero-COVID anger boils over in China
Zero-COVID is driving some people to do things they normally wouldn't dare in authoritarian China. On Monday night, scores of residents trying to escape lockdown in the 13-million strong southern megacity of Guangzhou clashed with cops. Although local protests against zero-COVID are fairly common, even in tightly controlled China, this one is significant for two reasons. First, they rarely turn violent, but this time the protesters overturned a police car and tore down COVID control barriers — an act of defiance that could put them behind bars for years. Second, the demonstrators — mostly migrant laborers from China's poorer provinces whose food supplies are running low — apparently reacted to an online rumor that Chinese pharmaceutical companies were faking COVID positive results to inflate case numbers and make more money. A similar conspiracy theory spurred a mass exodus of employees from China's largest iPhone factory two weeks ago. Beijing relaxed some zero-COVID measures on Friday, but the bulk of the policy remains in place — with no end in sight.This was featured in Signal, the daily politics newsletter of GZERO Media. For smart coverage of global affairs that normal people can understand, subscribe here.
North Korean soldiers on a vehicle carrying rockets during a military parade in Pyongyang.
What We’re Watching: Russia buys North Korean arms, EU tilts at windfalls, Indonesians take to the streets
Russia scrambles for weapons
Newly declassified US intelligence claims that Russia is buying millions of artillery shells and rockets from North Korea. If true, this is yet more evidence that a Russian military leadership expecting a quick victory in Ukraine following its Feb. 24 invasion has badly miscalculated both Russia’s capabilities and the intensity and effectiveness of Ukrainian military resistance. The weaponry North Korea is providing is not the high-tech, precision-guided munitions that US and European export controls are designed to prevent Russia from producing. These are basic weapons that Russia appears unable to produce in needed quantities. US intelligence also suggests that a significant number of drones Russia has been forced to purchase from Iran have proven defective. These revelations underscore two important problems for Russia. First, Western sanctions are badly disrupting Russian supply lines, making it impossible for the Russian arms industry to produce the weapons that Russia would need to win the war in Ukraine. Second, while China remains happy to buy Russian oil, it has so far proven unwilling to defy US warnings not to violate weapons and parts sanctions against Moscow.
EU tilts toward windfalls
With energy costs now firmly in the stratosphere, the EU will propose a fresh bloc-wide windfall tax on energy companies. The proceeds of the temporary measure, which EU energy ministers will debate on Friday, would be used to support households and energy-intensive industries struggling amid the continent’s worst energy crisis in half a century. In a twist, the measure will include even renewable energy companies that do not depend on hydrocarbons. After all, these companies have also seen record profits over the past year because all European energy prices are now based on gas prices, which have soared due to post-pandemic supply crunches and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Italy and Spain have already tried versions of these taxes, and Germany last weekend unveiled a $65 billion scheme of its own that depends in part on windfalls. The EU hopes the measure — combined with fresh caps on Russian gas prices and other incentives to cut energy consumption voluntarily — will help the bloc weather its worst energy crisis in half a century. But there are questions about how to structure a windfall tax that is both legal and fair. Now that we’re into the months that end with “r”, Brussels has precious little time to figure it all out. Winter, as they say, is coming.
Indonesians protest fuel price hike
Thousands took to the streets on Tuesday to demand that Indonesia’s government reverse its whopping 30% fuel price hike to cover the rising cost of energy subsidies, which have tripled this year to $34 billion amid soaring global prices. But this is a sensitive political issue in Indonesia, where in 1998 a similar move triggered a public uprising that toppled longtime dictator Suharto. President Joko Widodo — aka Jokowi — has failed thus far to cut decades-long energy subsidies that the state can no longer afford due to its declining oil and gas output, but now felt he had no choice but to introduce the first hike in eight years. The protests are a rare public rebuke of the otherwise popular Jokowi, whose approval rating has almost always been north of 60%. Demonstrators say they won’t go home until the hike is scrapped, but the president — in the middle of his second and final term — is unlikely to back down. One candidate running to replace him in 2024 is hardline Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto — a big fan of the authoritarian rule of his father-in-law, Suharto — who lost to Jokowi in 2014 and 2019.Activists take part in a protest against China's treatment towards the ethnic Uyghur people and calling for a boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, at a park Jakarta, Indonesia, January 4, 2022.
What We’re Watching: Xinjiang at the Beijing Olympics, Boris in deep(er) trouble, Indonesia’s new capital
Selling Xinjiang. Xi Jinping — a man well known for both his grand vision of China’s future, and for his willingness to get large numbers of people to do things they might not otherwise do — said in 2018 that he wanted 300 million Chinese people to participate in winter sports. The Chinese government announced this week that this goal has been met in honor of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, which open in China’s capital on February 4. Multinational companies are consistently impressed by the commercial opportunities created when 300 million people decide to try new things. But it’s an inconvenient truth that most of China’s most abundant snow and best ski slopes are found in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, a place where Western governments and human rights organizations have accused Beijing of imprisoning more than one million minority Uyghurs in re-education camps. In these prisons, critics say inmates have experienced “torture, and inhumane and degrading treatment.” As China’s government opens new profit opportunities in Xinjiang, multinational corporations will face pressure from multiple directions not to invest there.
Boris at the battlements. “In the name of God, go,” Conservative lawmaker David Davis said on Tuesday during an especially heated session of the UK parliament. These words, once directed at former PM Neville Chamberlain over his inept handling of Adolph Hitler, were this week aimed at the current prime minister, Boris Johnson. Now comes news that a dozen other of Johnson’s fellow Tories have sent letters calling for a vote of confidence in him as party leader. That’s a sign we might see the 54 letters needed to trigger that vote in coming weeks. Johnson’s approval numbers speak for themselves: the latest polls show that just 22 percent of British adults say he’s doing “well” as prime minister, while 73 percent say Johnson is performing “badly.” As we’ve written, his problem is not only, or even mainly, that he attends parties he shouldn’t. It’s that controversies over pandemic policies, the (rising) cost of living in the UK, and lingering Brexit bitterness have given rivals within his party who have never much liked him plentiful ammunition to complete his political execution.
Goodbye Jakarta, hello Nusantara. Indonesia passed a new law on Tuesday authorizing the government to relocate the capital from Jakarta to a new city to be built on Borneo island in about a decade. It will be called Nusantara, the old Javanese word for "archipelago.” President Joko Widodo wants to ditch Jakarta because the current capital is too congested, polluted, and flood-prone. But building an entire capital city from scratch in the middle of the jungle — as Brazil and Myanmar have done in past decades — will be no easy feat. First, the government must raise most of the $32 billion budget from private investors. Second, environmental groups oppose destroying precious rainforests that are home to many endangered species. Third, the president’s successor could shelve the entire project. Widodo, who is term-limited, aims for Nusantara to become a low-carbon business & tech hub that will promote sustainable economic growth beyond the main island of Java, where most Indonesians live. Whether that will take the expected 10 years, much longer, or happens at all will depend on the country’s next leader.Jokowi may announce Cabinet reshuffle this week
Indonesian President Joko Widodo is expected to announce as early as this week a much-anticipated Cabinet reshuffle to replace underperforming ministers, including two ministers recently arrested for corruption, and maybe Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto.
Indonesian President Joko may reshuffle Cabinet as early as next week: Sources
He is expected to replace underperforming ministers, including Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto and two ministers recently arrested for corruption.
Solo residents hope for double dose of good works for city
The laid-back Central Java city of Solo was lit up with cheer after unofficial tallies showed the son of Indonesian President Joko Widodo would likely become its mayor.
Son of Indonesian President Joko has big shoes to fill as Solo mayor
The 33-year-old has been willing to listen to residents' complaints, from choked drains to roof leakages.
Jokowi's son-in-law, new Medan mayor, is no stranger to the limelight
Smart, humorous and firm. These traits stand out for people who have come to know Mr Bobby Nasution.