Stanley Hoffmann, spécialiste de relations internationales à l’université de Harvard, vient de nous quitter. En 1983, il avait publié dans Politique étrangère (4/1983) un article remarquable sur la pensée de Raymond Aron. Ce texte avait été republié en 2006, à l’occasion du 70e anniversaire de notre revue. Nous vous invitons à le relire.
L’ampleur de l’œuvre de Raymond Aron a toujours fait le désespoir de ses commentateurs – et de ses disciples. On peut s’attendre à la publication de divers textes inédits ; néanmoins, hélas, cette œuvre est désormais achevée. Ce qui devrait permettre d’étudier enfin, en profondeur, la contribution scientifique qu’elle a apportée – de séparer en quelque sorte les deux activités que Raymond Aron a menées de concert et a souvent entremêlées : l’activité proprement journalistique, commentaires d’une actualité qu’il se sentait le devoir d’élucider et d’interpréter, et l’activité du théoricien, philosophe de l’histoire, sociologue des sociétés contemporaines, ou critique de la pensée politique et sociale des grands auteurs.
Oh Mrs Wu, what will you do? Photograph by AFP/Getty Images
Is the Chinese economic model doomed or is the Western business press making much ado about nothing? Last month we witnessed how China’s falling stock markets, and the subsequent inadequate responses from Chinese regulatory authorities, were blamed for subsequent falls in worldwide stock markets. Many analysts scrambled for answers, insinuating that the precipitous decline in China’s stock markets must have had something to do with fundamentals—there must be something seriously wrong with the Chinese economy. An editorial in the Global Times argued that the Western investors’ panic is overdone. “The stock market’s sharp fall is like a fever, but foreign media describes it as a cancer. If so, the market plunge seven years ago would have ended the China model.”
While the jury is still out on whether or not the Chinese economy has cancer, the Global Times editorial does send a correct message: in China, the stock markets have very little to do with fundamentals. Typically, stock markets in China are driven by government announcements of loosening or tightening fiscal policy, and changes to monetary policy. Last year, public announcements by government officials on the health of the stock markets helped drive up share prices to exorbitant levels. Other actions, such as announcing that banks will have to hold smaller reserves in order to free up more money for lending (whether or not companies are in a mood to borrow) has driven stock markets higher.
If stock markets were really driven by fundamentals in China, they would not have risen dramatically over the last twelve months while slower growth targets were simultaneously being announced by Chinese authorities and commodity prices were crashing. Similarly, the fall of China’s stock exchanges (stocks in Shanghai have fallen more than 39 percent since mid-June) have little to do with the underlying economy and more with punters cashing in their gains before the Ponzi scheme collapses. The same panic in the U.S. markets (the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 6.6 percent in August—its worst performance in three years) has very little to do with fundamentals in China, for few U.S. companies have significant profits coming out of China.
Analysts are now blaming a slowing manufacturing sector in China as Western markets continue to decline, and Beijing’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast of 7 percent is also being questioned. Other analysts are probing further into such growth indicators as electricity usage, commodity prices and cement production to arrive at growth rates close to half the target.
Concern over China’s growth (data released this week showed manufacturing sector slowing at the fastest pace in three years) prompted the central bank to cut interest rates and loosen bank lending—measures which again triggered panic in stock markets worldwide. And in an effort to support its manufacturing sector, the yuan has also been allowed to weaken in order to make Chinese exports cheaper to purchase by other countries.
Economists have long argued China needs to move away from an economy driven largely by cheap manufacturing and toward one based on services and domestic consumption. This shift is already happening, as consumption contributed 50 percent of GDP growth and manufacturing approximately 30 percent. Market watchers also argued that the Chinese stock markets are overvalued, yet many were willing to gamble. Despite the recent froth having been taken off the stock markets, many of the 9 percent of Chinese who invest in the stock markets in China have made money, though their earnings will do little to boost domestic consumption spending. The irrational exuberance of the Chinese stock market bubble is in the process of deflating.
But what of the argument that the U.S. markets will further deflate due to disappointing manufacturing data coming out of China? If we hold the other components of GDP constant, even a halving of manufacturing growth will take little off growth, since it only accounts for one-third of GDP and declines could be offset by growth in other sectors, should the Chinese government chose to stimulate agriculture, infrastructure or consumption through a variety of means.
The above sectors are the ones which could come under attack in the next few days, as market analysts try to point to other weakening components of the Chinese GDP as the cause for the fall of worldwide stock markets. Yet, with all eyes on China, how well the Party leadership responds to these concerns with greater transparency and guidance may continue to drive stock market volatility worldwide in the coming weeks.
This past year has seeing the US dollar and the US economy growing steadily after years of anemic progress following the 2009 global recession. Economies like China and Brazil, once the stable economic engines surviving the recession with a few scratches, are now the likely source of a new global economic downturn. The reliability of Chinese economic data has not been stellar, and nervous investors have fled the Chinese market this past month due to fears of a greater crash in the Chinese economy. Emerging markets that depended on Chinese growth in order to profit from raw material exports have been struggling. Economic mismanagement and a dwindling source of revenue coming from exports to China has left Brazil in a perilous economic situation—a situation they assumed was in the past and would stay in the history books.
The shrinking demand in China has affected natural resource economies in different ways. Low oil prices have hit emerging markets hard, and have even dented some otherwise healthy and diverse economies. Canada, an example of a diversified economy based on manufacturing and energy, has been able to weather a low oil price by ramping up manufacturing. With the drop in oil prices and other natural resources due to the slowdown in China, the Canadian dollar has fallen, making Canadian manufactured good less expensive on the global market. While Canada’s manufacturing regions face additional challenges, the low Canadian dollar acts as a cushion to a drop in commodity prices by boosting demand for Canadian goods.
Germany has benefited the most from previous double digit growth in China. Demand in China for high-end German manufactured goods, especially in the automotive sector, has driven much of Germany’s impressive growth over the last few years. Engineering and high-end German products helped build much of China’s transport and infrastructure during its boom. With a slowdown in Chinese growth, Germany’s source of wealthy consumers may be greatly restricted. While Canada offsets its energy sector losses with an increase in manufacturing and exports thanks to a low currency value, the slowdown in China has created a situation where funds leaving China have gone into euros. With investors seeking a safe haven for their funds, the value of the euro was up greatly compared to other world currencies this month. A slowdown in demand for German products and a high euro is creating a barrier to purchasing European goods and services for those outside the region. Even with a high US dollar, the boost in the value of the euro will deter Germany’s other large export market, the United States, from buying its products.
The slowdown in China may not be as severe as many expect, but it is unlikely that demand for German high-end products and engineering services will rebound in China for the next few months. The value of the euro may respond to Germany’s economic slowdown, but if investors keep the euro high, it will be a difficult time to purchase European goods for the rest of us. Expect the European Central Bank to address this challenge if the Euro remains high and demand does not return to a healthy level. In the end, it will really depend on China and whether investors trust the economic data coming out from the government and cushion losses in China by returning to the yuan.
Suite au sondage réalisé sur ce blog, nous avons le plaisir de vous offrir l’article du numéro d’automne 2015 de Politique étrangère que vous avez choisi : « La politique étrangère de l’Algérie : le temps de l’aventure ? », par Jean-François Daguzan.
Longtemps, la politique étrangère algérienne est allée de son train de sénateur. Définie dès les premières années de l’indépendance et marquée par la guerre de libération, la politique étrangère du jeune État s’est caractérisée par l’énoncé d’un ensemble de dogmes dont les gouvernements successifs ne sortirent jamais vraiment. Elle dut bien prendre en compte la fin des blocs et les désillusions de l’après-décolonisation, mais sans jamais se défaire tout à fait des habits d’un certain un âge d’or. La diplomatie fut si importante pendant la période Boumediene qu’elle favorisa l’émergence de diplomates de grande qualité qui furent très actifs dans les organisations internationales. Cette politique étrangère suit un fil rouge : Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
Dès avant l’indépendance, l’actuel président est présent dans les processus de décision : il sera le ministre des Affaires étrangères de Boumediene, et après une éclipse sous Chadli Bendjedid et la transition de la guerre civile, il revient en tant que président et imprime quasiment seul sa marque sur la politique étrangère – jusqu’à ce que la maladie vienne freiner son action. À partir de 1999, Bouteflika n’a de cesse de restaurer l’image de l’Algérie ternie par les années de plomb et il la désenclave politiquement[1]. Mais cette relance va être conduite dans le cadre théorique d’une diplomatie construite par la lutte pour l’indépendance et par les années Boumediene. Les principes définis sous son leadership, et qui sous-tendent encore aujourd’hui la politique extérieure algérienne, sont les suivants : soutien à la décolonisation, non-intervention au-delà des frontières, coopération et multilatéralisme, libération de la Palestine ; Sahara occidental[2].
Aujourd’hui, les printemps arabes et leur cortège de déstabilisations, la mondialisation économique et la crise économique et financière (qui fut un des catalyseurs de la révolte), ont balayé les certitudes. L’Europe, qui paraissait une force en marche, est désormais désorientée. Enfin, la crise libyenne a mis le feu aux confins sahéliens. Tout oblige désormais l’Algérie à une redéfinition de ses choix stratégiques.
Lire la suite sur Cairn.info.
[1]. A. Boukhars, « Algerian Foreign Policy in the Context of the Arab Spring », Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 14 janvier 2013, disponible sur : <http//carnegieenddowment.org/2013/01/14/algerian-foreign-policy-in-context-of-arab-spring/f1xf>, p. 3.
[2]. Voir l’ouvrage fondateur de N. Grimaud : La Politique étrangère de l’Algérie, Paris, Khartala, 1984.
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Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko speaking at the Atlantic Council (2014), via flickr atlanticcouncil
When asked about the UK government’s decision to double the number of Ukrainian troops it would be training, the Defense Secretary, Michael Fallon, supported the move by arguing that the conflict remains “red hot”. And boy, is he right. On August 11th, the Ukrainian government took one more step in the journey leading democracies astray from the straight and narrow: a book ban.
In what reads like a page from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, thirty-eight Russian books were banned from being imported into the country because the government deemed them “hateful” and “separatist” for challenging the prevalent narrative endorsed by Kiev. One can almost imagine Kiev’s new Western-clad and US trained police officers hunting down suspects guilty of smuggling in ‘propaganda’ books.
Even if the military side of the conflict has recently been injected with a new lease of life, the propaganda war never relented. All conflicts involve a war over territory, territory in the form of land; but also territory over hearts and minds. Indeed, the nature of the propaganda campaign waged by the parties in the conflict can tell us about the parties themselves. Through the image of the Ukrainian crisis as it is generally framed by leaders and pundits, it is easy to sniff out which side of the conflict is supposed to correspond to which message. The western region of Ukraine is depicted as being drawn towards EU, the US, and NATO, and everything that they imply: liberal democracy, pluralism, and freedom of expression; while the east gravitates towards Russia, meaning authoritarianism, repression, and an intolerance to dissent.
But, as recent developments in the propaganda war illustrate, this division may not be as clear-cut as it appears on paper. The book ban accounts for just one aspect of Kiev’s multi-pronged assault on the freedom of thought, expression, and press in Ukraine. On August 9th, the government issued a blacklist of Russian actors and films that are banned from being screened on its territory, as they pose a threat to the country’s national security. The ban extends also to French films, more specifically the features that star Gérard Depardieu, who recently acquired Russian citizenship. The law just confirms an on-going state of mind among Ukraine’s officialdom – since the beginning of this year, 376 Russian films and TV series have been denied distribution certificates by the Ukraine State Cinema Agency. In the words of the Agency’s director Filipp Ilyenko, “we scrutinize films and TV series to see whether they violate the law banning popularization of the aggressor state and Soviet-era security agencies or not.”
The same critical attitude extends to media channels. Inter, a TV station owned by the leader of the Opposition Bloc Sergei Levochkin and gas mogul Dmitry Firtash, narrowly avoided having its license revoked after a New Year’s Eve broadcast featuring Russian singers performing a satirical song about the Western sanctions imposed on Russia. The performance was described as “a humiliation for the whole country” by the head of the Ukrainian Security Council, Alexander Turchinov, in language that echoes that of the law passed against communist propaganda, in which one clause states that “the public denial of…the just cause of the fighters for Ukrainian independence in the 20th century insults the dignity of the Ukrainian people and is illegal.”
Among those so called national hero fighters, one can find ultra-nationalist groups like OUN and UPA, who worked alongside the Nazis and carried out acts of mass ethnic cleansing against the Poles and Jews in Ukraine. This effort to downplay the Nazi regime atrocities while magnifying those of Russia, and criminalizing any deviation from the official reading of history, is the exact mirror image of legislation passed by Russia itself in 2014 – only in their version, of course, it is the Nazis who shoulder all the blame while Russian crimes are glossed over.
That Ukraine is passing legislation that echoes that of repressive regimes may be a cause for concern for its Western backers. Mounting accusations that politicians and journalists opposed to the Kiev government have been murdered for expressing their views should certainly set alarm bells ringing. Instead, the official reaction to the 10 opposition politicians and journalists who have suspiciously died this year has been muted and the case files have been classified as state secrets.
The signs coming out of Ukraine are ominous and the silence of its Western backers is deafening, but as the book ban sinks in, observers would do well to remember Ray Bradbury’s line from Fahrenheit 451, itself a work about the criminalization of thought and expression, “If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it.”