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Hunter Biden's crimes won't impact 2024 election
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Will Hunter Biden's tax crimes impact Joe Biden's reelection in 2024?
No, I don't think it will, but certainly it is impacting the continued erosion of US democratic institutions. I mean, this will be used by the GOP to say that, "There's differential treatment between the Biden crime family and the Trump crime family." My personal belief is that these are not equivalent, and I'll be talking about that later in the week. But what that means is the DOJ and the FBI are going to be seen as increasingly politicized as organizations. That's really unfortunate for the US, but it doesn't have much impact on 2024.
How will the EU's AI Act look in practice?
This is an effort by the regulatory superpower, the EU, which doesn't have a lot of big tech companies, and it doesn't have a lot of heavy security or military industrial complex, but it does have technocrats in Brussels, and Margrethe Vestager in particular in charge of competition, riding herd on this, wants to make sure that the EU is the one that gets to set the rules. And they are working really hard on the Americans in the transatlantic conversations with their own Member States to see that it is not going to be a hub and spoke model where individual departments get to regulate, but instead where the EU as a whole sets the rules. Having said that, this is early days and nothing is going to be actually rolled out for a year or two, minimum, absolute minimum, which means this is still a space driven by the tech companies.
Finally, how will the US respond to a possible China-Cuba military training facility?
Well, they won't like it, and maybe they'll try to disrupt it, though they already have all sorts of sanctions on Cuba. So, it's not like you can do much to the Cubans economically. And if the Cubans as a sovereign country want to do business with the Chinese, that includes military engagement, yeah, they're not a democracy, so it doesn't represent the interests of the people, but neither is the UAE or Qatar or Saudi Arabia, and the Americans have bases there. And also, keep in mind, US military capabilities and surveillance on China, a hell of a lot greater in China's backyard than China's abilities on the United States. At the end of the day, it's kind of open competition and the Americans are going to have to compete harder and continue to be stronger. And the CHIPS Act has done that. Maybe we'll see more of that in other areas, too.
The US needs younger presidential candidates
How will China's stance on ex-Soviet countries impact the war in Ukraine? With the US and others evacuating diplomats, will the West take action to end the violence in Sudan? Finally, should there be a maximum age limit for elected US officials? Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
How will China's stance on ex-Soviet countries impact the war in Ukraine?
Not very much. I mean, this was China's ambassador to France saying that the former Soviet republics do not have legal status as sovereign states. By the way, that includes Russia. He clearly was over-exuberantly trying to say that Ukraine isn't really a state. You can be more hawkish than the Chinese line if you're an ambassador. You can't be more dovish, then you're in serious trouble, but this one was pretty embarrassing, and the Chinese foreign ministry actually walked it back pretty quickly. Still though, more interesting is the revealed preference that Xi Jinping has gone quite a long time and still is not reaching out to call or meet with President Zelensky of Ukraine, even though he's very engaged with his bestie on the global stage, Vladimir Putin. That says a lot more about where the peace plan for China is than the statement by this ambassador to France.
With the US and others evacuating diplomats, will the West take action to end the violence in Sudan?
Diplomatic action, yes, though they don't have a lot of influence on the ground in Sudan. That's mostly Egypt, the UAE, the Africa Union. Frankly, it's the East Africa Intergovernmental Organization or Agency for Development. They're the ones that are most important right now in talking, particularly the Kenyan president, who has some personal connection and pretty strong diplomatic capabilities with both sides in Sudan. Also true for my good friend, the Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres. He's doing his best as well. No one thinks that this is going to get resolved easily, because these two generals on the feuding sides, fighting sides, really do hate each other, but fortunately, it's not a civil war. There's not an ideological break here, and the population at large is not bound up in the fighting, and that's frankly why it's 400 that are dead right now as opposed to 4,000 or 40,000. I hope that stays the case. Also, a lot easier to get the diplomats out who are insecure embassies than it is the population at large. A lot more civilians from the West in Sudan across the country who are bunkering in at home and very much at risk than the diplomats who are getting out.
Finally, should there be a maximum age limit for elected US officials?
Oh, I don't know. That's kind of a saucy question, right? Because between Trump and Biden, who are the likely nominees, they're going to be 160 running for president, and that's like 1.6 Kissingers. That's a lot. That's a lot of Kissingers, right? So I don't know. I just kind of feel like they're both too old and yeah, Biden has been, in my view, capable of being president. He's not dimwitted. I've met with him, and he does stutter, and he's slowing down physically. Analytically, he's there, but will he still be there for another five years? I think it's too old. Trump, I always viewed as completely incapable and unfit for office back when he was a Democrat. He certainly didn't change when he switched parties, but he's also too old. I want to see some people in their forties and fifties, even sixties running for president. It's a hard job. It's an enormous amount of energy, and these people are... I guess if you're a woman, you can be a little older than if you're a man, because the life expectancy is longer. So I'd probably shift it a little bit, give the women an extra five, but still, it feels to me like Biden versus Trump is not saying great things about America's democracy around the world, and frankly, a majority of Americans don't want those two to be facing each other, but that's probably what we're going to get.
Why Netanyahu relented to protests in Israel, but France's Macron didn't
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Why did Netanyahu end up backing down to protests in Israel, but not Macron in France?
Well, they are two different countries. But really, in Israel, they hadn't yet pushed the reform through. At this point, Netanyahu hasn't said he is given up on it. He said he's waiting for 30 days. Now, he might not be able to get it through, but still, it wasn't like it was passed and then he said, "Too much. Now, I've got to undo it." Where in the case of Macron, he had already gotten the vote in the upper house. He'd already forced it through, avoiding the lower house through a constitutional measure, which meant that essentially he had already gotten the agreement and then he was dealing with massive demonstrations. Which, by the way, the demonstrations themselves not super popular in France, even though the pension reform is strongly opposed, so I'm not surprised by that.
Should the West be worried about North Korea developing tactical nuclear weapons?
We got two of these complicated questions. Well, I think that the fact that North Korea continues to expand its nuclear program is a deep concern, because they are an enormously impoverished rogue state, and there's no information on what really goes on inside that country, and there's no real effective diplomatic relations that any countries and certainly their adversaries have with them. So the increasing tests of ballistic missiles that we see going on is a concern, is a worry. In fact, the only thing that calmed them down recently was when Trump met with Kim Jong-Un, and then they did the freeze-for-freeze informally. So you didn't have US military exercises with South Korea, with Japan, and you didn't have tests of ballistic missiles from North Korea. Of course, that's gone and now the tensions are greater. Frankly, there should be more engagement between the two sides.
China is going to break up Alibaba into six parts. What does this tell us about the state of Xi's tech crackdown?
I think more importantly is the fact that Jack Ma is back in China and was clearly told by the Chinese, "Hey, we're not going to arrest you. This would be a really good time to come back." So too, the fact that someone who had been under arrest, involved in the semiconductor program has now been released to start working again. This is the Chinese government saying, "Yes, there's state control, but we want to focus on growth and we want effective response to US and allied export controls on semiconductors, so we have to really empower the private sector with state restrictions, but also with state investment. Whether that's going to be effective or not, very open question, but the Chinese are clearly trying to pile all in on their own national champions in this advanced technology space.
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Trump indictment would make GOP nomination more likely
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Would a Trump indictment ruin his re-election efforts or reignite his base?
I think everyone out there on the Republican side thinks that an indictment makes it more likely that Trump gets the nomination. When even Mike Pence, who at this point is trying to really differentiate himself from Trump, is out there saying that an indictment would be politically motivated. It means that everyone understands that they cannot back away from Trump on this issue. Gives him more space, gives him more headlines, helps fuel the politics of grievance, makes him more likely to get the nomination.
How does the ICC arrest warrant change things for Putin?
That's kind of connected to that previous question. Well, he's a war criminal, unlike Trump, but also Russia, China, the United States, none of those three countries actually recognize the ICC as a legitimate body, so therefore, it does undermine the ability of the Americans to say, "You see? You see? You should take this guy and you should arrest him," because the Americans wouldn't tolerate that for their own people. But it obviously is enormously embarrassing in terms of Putin's inability and his regime's inability to reengage with the advanced industrial democracies in the world. Also sends a very clear message from China that this is who they're willing to embrace and embrace very publicly. Big, big divide on the global stage on this issue. Only going to get worse.
What new opportunities are there with South Korea-Japan rapprochement?
It's a big deal. If you look at the G-20, this is the relationship that has been incredibly dysfunctional among advanced industrial democracies, and it now has been patched up. That means that Japanese export controls on semiconductors and inputs for South Korea, no longer there, means that they are reengaging their shuttle diplomacy, means they're reengaging on military and intelligence cooperation, makes it more likely that the South Koreans might be invited to join the Quad, makes it more likely that Japan and South Korea together could join AUKUS. That's really important for America's two most significant military allies in Asia, and going forward, something that the Chinese are going to be quite concerned about.
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