Diplomacy & Crisis News

Durant la guerre du Golfe de 1991, les Etats-Unis ont délibérément visé les approvisionnements en eau potable de l'Irak, violant ainsi la convention de Genève sur les lois de la guerre. La récente étude d'un universitaire américain qui a révélé ce crime a été ignoré par les médias. Elle confirme pourtant (...) / Irak, Droit international, Guerre du Golfe 1990-1991 - 2000/10

Aussi loin qu'on remonte dans le temps, les hommes n'ont cessé de scruter l'avenir. Qu'ils observent les astres ou auscultent les entrailles d'un poulet, une même question les angoisse : de quoi demain sera-t-il fait ? Et devins, mages, prophètes, diseurs de bonne aventure de leur prédire des (...) / Droits humains, Économie, Histoire, Idées, Politique, Science, Société - 1978/08

The commercial shipping network sustaining Beijing’s global military reach.

On April 20, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen delivered some notable remarks at Johns Hopkins University. In discussing sanctions on Chinese companies, Yellen noted that, “our goal is not to use these tools to gain competitive economic advantage.” She tried to emphasize that a U.S.-China decoupling was not on the horizon. A week later, on April 27, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan spoke at the Brookings Institution, where he echoed Yellen by saying that the Biden administration is “looking to manage competition responsibly and seeking to work together with China where we can.” But Sullivan also criticized China’s overuse of industrial policy and indicated that U.S. policymakers would respond in kind.

Both Yellen and Sullivan are misguided about China’s views on economic and security policy.

For China, economic issues are security issues. Chinese president Xi Jinping stated in 2014 that economic security is the “foundation” of his “comprehensive security concept.” For Xi, military power protects economic development, and economic growth is critical to national security. Since 2014, Xi has only hardened his position, remarking at the “Two Sessions” in March 2023 that “security is the foundation of development.”

In this, Xi is borrowing from Deng Xiaoping, the architect of the “Reform and Opening-Up Era.” From the late 1970s onward, Deng pursued economic modernization, which used market incentives to support the “Four Modernizations” of agriculture, defense, industry, and science and technology. China’s economy responded by averaging double-digit growth between 1980–2010.

In the early days Xi’s presidency, concepts such as “strategic emerging industries” and “Made in China 2025” were announced. They signaled an inward turn in economic policy, concerning Washington. Chief among these concerns was intellectual property theft and the potential for advanced technology to fall into the hands of the Chinese military.

U.S. policy responded by seeking to blunt the rollout of China’s new economic system. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) began blocking more Chinese acquisitions of foreign technology companies. For example, CFIUS blocked the purchase of Magnachip, a South Korean semiconductor business, by Wise Road Capital, a Chinese company. Capital controls combined with the reformulation of U.S. export controls under the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 signaled an increased focus on U.S. economic security.

The White House also continued the trade war started by President Donald Trump. It maintained those tariffs and passed the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022—a $50 billion dollar investment in U.S. semiconductor manufacturing that aims to revitalize a perceived dwindling lead in the sector.

The Biden administration wants to reduce economic tensions with China and fix underlying problems. But as reported by Politico, Biden officials may have competing ideas. To make matters worse, the Chinese are not returning U.S. phone calls, though Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, is reportedly meeting with the Chinese commerce minister later this month. Hopefully, this meeting will be the prelude to higher-level, follow-on meetings.

But making macro-level improvements in U.S.-China relations begins with reframing the problem. It should be recognized that economics are security are intertwined. For great powers, economics is a foundational element of national power, allowing for the build-up of military capabilities. But it also serves more fundamental security concerns.

China faces major demographic changes and a slowing (but still steady) rate of economic growth. As Beijing grapples with these challenges, technological development is viewed as the sustaining driver of long-term economic prosperity. This makes science and technology imperative to China’s advanced development path, meaning that any policy that attempts to stall or cut-off China’s technological growth is going to make diplomacy especially challenging.

Beijing does not see U.S. economic countermeasures as narrow and limited; it perceives its national interests as being infringed upon. In an anarchical, self-help world, Beijing has no incentive to believe that coercive American economic statecraft will cease. This causes them to engage in an “action and retaliation” cycle, responding with coercive measures of their own.

So what can the United States do?

First, U.S. policy towards China needs more coordination between the security and economic portfolios. Planning and high-level visits should include officials from both areas.

To represent the economic portfolio, we recommend Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who views technology and economics as deeply connected. Raimondo also sees the connection between international trade and the U.S. domestic economy, stating that “we need to continue to do business with China, and trade with China supports American jobs.” Additionally, it is evident from the battery of laws passed in the last year that the Commerce Department will lead the United States in organizing and executing its own science and technology policies and executing U.S. responses to China’s policies. As such, the Department’s secretary is the natural lead on a new approach.

Second, more bilateral meetings need to be set up. Trust can be built with lower-level bureaucrats who can elevate communications to higher levels. In terms of location, a third-party country would allow both Washington and Beijing to maintain some of their pride. Previous meetings at Bali and Geneva indicate the value of a third-country meeting point, as does the Vienna meeting between Sullivan and Wang Yi, director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission.

Lastly, the United States should take more meaningful actions, rather than just verbalize reassurances to China. The ambiguity of state-business relations in China and whether the end-user of technology is a military or commercial one is Washington’s real concern. But too often “national security” is a blanket term. A better route would be to explicitly state the conditions that make something a real national security threat.

In terms of the Commerce Department’s Entity List, clear rules should be established for being removed. Clarifying that transparency on the part of Chinese firms and state organs would go a long way in developing guardrails in a spiraling economic relationship.

Sullivan’s speech rightly emphasized making the economically competitive domain a place of “small yards, high fences.” But this is more of a philosophy than a specific policy. A better policy would view economics and security together, paving the way for real progress in U.S.-China relations.

J. Tedford Tyler is a Foreign Policy Associate at the Charles Koch Foundation.

Kedar Pandya is a Research Assistant at the Texas A&M University Economic Statecraft Program.

The views expressed here by the authors are their own.

Image: Shutterstock.

In 1954, scientists at Bell Labs in the United States invented the first silicon solar panel. By 1978, American firms produced over 95 percent of the global solar market. Yet despite this initial dominance, American firms only produced a paltry 6 percent by 2021. Instead, it is China that controls 70 percent of global production. A similar story can be seen with hypersonic missiles: the technology was initially developed in America in the 1960s, but currently, America has “catching up to do very quickly.” This sort of situation is so common, in fact, that China has a lead in thirty-seven out of forty-four major emerging technologies, according to a report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Despite the United States continuing to spend the most on research and development (R&D) of any nation, the United States is lagging behind in spearheading new technologies. The issue isn’t a lack of R&D spending but rather an inability to implement new technologies or maintain a market edge over other nations. In other words, we are still the greatest innovators in the world, but we cannot successfully commercialize our innovations. The major reasons for this are a shift away from industrial policy to science policy, industry consolidation, and a lack of financing for small and medium enterprises. If we wish to correct course, it is necessary to look at the history of R&D in the United States.

During the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. federal government, particularly the Department of Defense (DoD), played an active role in fostering innovation by being the “first buyer” of many new technologies and encouraging technology-sharing between firms. For example, the first market for transistors was NASA, which bought every transistor in the world in 1962 for the Apollo missions. More recently, NASA used a similar method in its commercial orbital transportation service program (COTS) program, which encourages commercial spaceflight by buying cargo and crew transporters for the International Space Station. One major success of this program has been SpaceX, whose first major success was developing the Falcon 1 for a COTS contract in 2006, demonstrating that the concept is just as viable today as it was in the 1960s. Additionally, the DoD often facilitated knowledge sharing between firms and researchers, especially by using second source contracts—i.e., contracts that stipulated that any new technology purchased by DoD would have to be produced by at least two firms—creating redundancy in the supply chain.

Meanwhile, the majority of research was performed by large corporate laboratories rather than academia—in the 1960s DuPont produced more patents than Caltech or MIT combined. This, combined with an already massive industrial base, allowed the United States to retain a technological edge by rapidly creating a new market for a technology and quickly creating an ecosystem of suppliers. After the initial creation of the market, long-term commercialization and competitiveness were more or less left to the market. Since the United States had a near monopoly on many high-tech products such as semiconductors and solar panels, there was little need for government intervention. However, this created a period of complacency in the 1970s that was quickly ended by foreign competition from Japan in the 1980s.

The competition caused the U.S. government to shift predominantly towards “Science Policy,” wherein academia would provide the bulk of the research, and this research would primarily focus on basic sciences with no immediate application. Essentially, the cost of basic R&D was offset from the company level to the government. Meanwhile, large companies consolidated supply chains, and the implementation of new technology would be left to small firms with little guidance from the government. This approach did initially work in certain sectors. For example, America actually regained dominance in semiconductors in the 1990s. However, it failed in the long term. As of 2021, Intel was responsible for 19 percent of global semiconductor R&D spending but still lost the bleeding edge in chip processes to TSMC and Samsung. The same thing happened in solar panel manufacturing as well: despite the United States outspending Japan in R&D in every year except one from 1980 to 2001, the United States still lost its market share. The focus on efficiency, in short, worked too well. The consolidation in technology supply chains made it difficult for companies to adopt new innovations since it became impossible for smaller firms to test new process improvements and “move them up the chain.” Additionally, the focus on basic research alone meant that rapid commercialization took a backseat, allowing other nations to establish first-mover advantage and maintain it by iterating on already commercialized technology.

From these failures, it can be ascertained that if the United States wants to regain its lead, it will need to shift its research policy back towards having the state to encourage the commercialization of new technology, along with intentionally creating redundancy in supply chains to sustain innovation. However, Washington must go further than either disorganized disbursing of one-time grants or a de facto focus for the DoD. Instead, commercialization should be as focused and institutionalized to the same degree as basic research is today with organizations such as the National Science Foundation.

A good example to emulate in this regard is Germany’s Fraunhofer Society. Founded in 1949, the organization focuses on bridging the gap between research and industry by connecting academics with companies and venture capitalists, or VCs, while funding the scale-up of technology that is too risky for VC firms. This is accomplished through bilateral contract research (a company hiring the institute for a specific research task), spin-off companies founded by Fraunhofer staff, licensing technology to companies, transferring personnel to industry, and “innovation clusters,” where different companies are brought together to establish common standards or otherwise coordinate for mutual benefit. Importantly, 70 percent of the Fraunhofer Society’s funding is generated through industry contracts, IP revenue, or public research. This encourages the organization to be dynamic and entrepreneurial in how they approach problems. A similar approach would work well in the United States—saving taxpayer dollars and attracting talent from both academia and the VC world.

It's worth noting that the Fraunhofer Society already has a branch in the United States and is regarded as “an indispensable promoter of scientific exchange between the USA and Germany.” The process of creating a similar institute for the United States is less daunting of a task than one might imagine, since the U.S. government can consult, acquire personnel, and gain expertise from the American branch with relative ease. Such a policy would also carry the additional benefit of improving relations between Washington and Berlin.

While the United States has been losing its edge in technological innovation, this loss is not an inevitability. By creating an institution for bridging the gap between basic scientific research and commercialization by the private sector, the United States can regain dominance while greatly benefiting the public by allowing for more cutting-edge technology to make it to store shelves. There is already a good “template” for such a system in the form of the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, alongside an existing presence in the United States, so it should be a high priority for America’s science policymakers to implement the model here.

Siddhartha Kazi is an undergraduate student studying Industrial Engineering at Texas A&M University. He has written for The National Interest.

Image: Shutterstock.

Get ready for a China-centered global order. The de-dollarization push, China-centered economic and security pacts along with ongoing efforts to build its sphere of influence, and the geared domestic dominance all indicate the end of Beijing’s traditional policy of “hide and bide.” Global leaders and CEOs flock to China as pilgrims. Macron signed multiple deals with the Middle Kingdom, including some related to deepening military cooperation despite allies’ disappointment and the ongoing war with Russia, China’s strategic partner. Hubristically, the Global Times, a jingoistic state-owned Chinese tabloid, chided South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol for his U.S.-leaning visit as going “against the trend.”

The trend in question is that of China’s rapid ascent in international affairs through multiple fronts, particularly in the realm of trade and economics. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and scholar Hal Brands once sketched out China’s path toward global hegemony through economic power. Clearly, the glaring influence Beijing wields today does not come from its military—studies have long confirmed the notion that strong economic power is influence. Similarly, the Cold War was not simply won by military means, but via economic and ideological strength.

On these fronts, China is winning, rapidly becoming an economic and technological superpower. Just five years ago, the United States was worried about steel overproduction and Huawei. Today, there are concerns over semiconductors, which country is the largest auto exporter (hint: it’s not a Western country), and TikTok, which influences 150 million Americans. The United States increasingly feels passive and defensive in the influence race. The Global South, and regional powers such as Saudi Arabia and Brazil, are increasingly turning to China, praising a country that also happens to be their largest export market.

In fact, as the largest trading partner of over 120 countries, China has become a central hub for global production. Yet the most striking part is, again, the trend. According to the United Nations, in merely twenty years, China has increased its global share in mid-high- and high-technological production (value-added) from a single digit to nearly 40 percent, more than the G7 countries combined, and is poised to reach 50 percent by 2030. Such dominance is accompanied by deprived opportunities for others. Many tradable industries of the United States and others have sharply declined; many of these with economic and security implications. America has also lost its lead in most strategic technologies, according to the top 10 percent cited academic papers. All of this has unfolded ever since China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The result has been a rapid shift in global power distribution in China’s favor, which is a fundamental factor that international relations theorists believe explains global politics and China’s increasing assertiveness and influence. Loss of industries, especially higher-end ones, impacts jobs, fiscal revenue, public goods, technology and innovation, global competitiveness, supply chain security, and economic and political polarization, particularly within civil society at large. The global market, on the other hand, incentivizes Chinese firms to reinvest continuously in technology, quality, and innovation. China is enjoying a breakout in almost every major industry.

The “Leviathan” Created by Global Trade

How did China achieve such power over global production?

The key lies in international trade, which has essentially enabled Beijing to reorganize global production in its favor. New research has pointed out that conventional trade theories based on comparative advantage are quite flawed, since for 90 percent of tradable industries, cost advantage is more applicable. Yet, cost advantage isn’t just low labor prices. As found in the author’s ongoing research, China’s unrivaled cost advantage is actually a “structural competitive advantage,” which arises from its unique economic and political system, gigantic size, and the interactions of all components. These components include state-led mercantilism, massive scale, currency policy, competitive business ecosystems, world-class human capital and infrastructure, technology diffusion and innovation networks, and various institutional and social advantages.

Some scholars have proposed various concepts naming this phenomenon. Terms such as “state capitalism,” “China Inc.,” “predatory trade,” or “brute force trade” have been thrown around. Behind the various terms though, what matters is that “structural competitive advantage” is why few other states, richer or poorer, cannot outcompete China, after it acquires know-how. As an example, the same Tesla electric vehicle models produced in Shanghai with most localized components are 20–30 percent cheaper than those made in Texas or Berlin. Likewise, Apple’s reliance on China has shifted from low labor costs to an unmatched “ecosystem” that can provide product design, components, apps, and more.

More importantly, China’s structural advantage behind its gigantic size of millions of Chinese firms and 900 million increasingly skilled workers is the “invisible hand” and powerful “market force” driving China to dominate most high-value and strategic sectors, with the rapid progress of technology mutually reinforcing each other. This advantage is present regardless of seemingly detrimental issues, such as a slowly aging population or a weak financial system. The resulting organic, competitive Chinese ecosystem can nullify U.S. industrial policies, such as the CHIPS Act, in the longer term. It also extends to advanced fields like artificial intelligence and biotechnology.

As a result of these factors, evaluating trade policy through localized winners and losers—such as a few firms, sectors, or consumers—makes less sense. When viewed as a nation as a whole, the prospect of free trade with China looks grim: it is leading to Beijing’s dominance, given its size, authoritarian nature, and global ambitions, and others’ weakness, dependency, and vulnerability. This reality even contradicts the original conception of free trade: the mutually-beneficial division of labor. Global trade has de facto created an unprecedented leviathan.

American Trade Policy Needs to Aim Big

The worker-centric trade policy of the Biden administration is born of the realization that free trade has failed to deliver for American workers. The United States also has been drawn into a subsidy war in a few “national security” areas whose outcome is uncertain and ignores many important industries—for example, automobiles, machinery, electronics, chemicals, etc. Additionally, Washington pays little attention to how China is deliberately integrating international trade into its grand strategy (e.g., using trade to de-dollarize, support Russia, coerce dissidents, build a new sphere of influence, or rupture the bonds between the United States and its allies).

As in Jake Sullivan indicated in his recent speech at Brookings Institution, the post-World War II free trade regime is unsustainable. This is not only due to the dysfunction of the WTO, but also because its assumptions no longer hold: the major powers are playing mercantilist games. Geopolitical rivalries make interdependence a dimming problem rather than a solution. WTO rules set twenty years ago did not take into account a tightly organized, non-market superpower party-state (hence, “China Inc.”) that also seeks to convert the current order.

Admittedly, the post-World War II economic order has experienced troubles and anomalies. The WTO was supposed to support a greater liberal order by trade. It has notably fallen short. Globalization disproportionately benefits only some, while leaving many behind. Moreover, the order has created an interdependence mess, as illustrated by the effects following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Western sanctions applied in the aftermath, and Xi Jinping’s party-state securitization in China. To top it all off, the existing order does not, despite what adherents claim, particularly favor democracy, but rather mercantilism and autocracy: the top three trade surplus countries in 2022 were China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. Free trade has slid from the one envisaged by Adam Smith and David Ricardo, oriented toward natural liberty and division of labor, to a predicament where one authoritarian, non-market superpower advances its own domination.

The Future is Bleak if the Trend is not Reversed

The United States has realized that expecting China to change course is hard—no one is going to change something that is bringing success. China follows its own agenda: realism and authoritarianism are the foundations undergirding CCP's behavior, with power considered essential and liberalism viewed as an existential threat.

Despite Sullivan’s correct diagnoses, his proposed solution stops at domestic redistribution and subsidies in a few areas, which won’t alter the grander structural market force to reverse the trend in China’s favor. The United States needs a larger, more sweeping strategy for China and trade. With China’s growing economic dominance, the world will be reshaped in an illiberal way, as predicted by scholars such as John Mearsheimer and Charles Glaser. Apart from the realms of technology and the military, this includes shaping global norms and rules detrimental to democracies: as with domestic rule, the Communist Party has no interest in an order upholding liberty, democracy, human rights, or transparency. Instead, its top-down model with leading technologies has shown the capability to undermine the existing order and its values.

It’s Not About Promoting, but rather Protecting Democracy

Not only are prosperity and security being undermined by the growing strength and attractiveness of “the China model,” but so are democratic values, a key pillar in both President Joe Biden’s and President Donald Trump’s 2022 and 2017 National Security Strategies. Today, autocrats around the world resurge, unite and crack down unscrupulously. As democracies continue to lose global market share to China, vital to prosperity and security, many problems they face today will not be reversed. Compared to a China model which attains high-value jobs and builds fancy infrastructure, democracy no longer appears to be the path to modernity and can look chaotic, less able to deliver, and less appealing to citizens, resulting in “existential” legitimacy issues. That is why leading expert Rush Doshi expresses concerns about the possibility of the United States becoming a “big Venezuela.”

Ultimately, it all comes down to what world we will live in—the ultimate end that justifies the means. The right question to ask is, should the United States continue to integrate with China, given this dire trend, and that China is likely to be an economically powerful Soviet Union? Trade shouldn’t be an end in and of itself. Trade should be at the center of U.S. grand strategy, which is oriented to ensure prosperity and security, and protects democratic values through concerted means.

A dire future awaits us should the current trend continue. As China integrates the global economy, more countries will find it too costly to “say no.” Malaysia and Singapore, even Germany and France, already downplay security concerns—careful not to upset the economic ties.

China is rallying countries around the world to “divide and rule,” bolstering autocracies in the fields of economy and technology. To nullify this trend, a bounded economic order may have to be the solution.

Democracies are never immune to external aggressions. Sullivan is right that traditional trade deals are insufficient for modern trade. Yet they are the exact problem that has the United States bleeding and resulting in China grabbing one sector after another.

Therefore, Washington should consider integrating market access provision, the biggest incentive, into the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework soon: there is growing Chinese influence on the framework’s members. Vietnam or Mexico is more complementary to the United States; neither can take away American jobs as massively and effectively. These frameworks are also powerful geopolitical instruments (so perhaps also reconsider the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) that should include those who play by rules (especially emerging democracies). The $600 billion yearly imports from China, a huge political leverage and vulnerable dependency, requires friend-shoring at least, starting from strategic sectors. All in all, the key boils down to the U.S.-led trade bloc.

This is not to say that there is no cooperation or no co-existence. The West and the Soviet Union co-existed and cooperated on global issues during the Cold War. In fact, China is far ahead of the game on climate and already dominates the clean energy industries. Perhaps this is a useful place to start a conversation.

George Yean is a PhD candidate at the Department of Government of Harvard University. His research areas include international economy, technology, security, and grand strategy. He was trained in economics, political science, and engineering, and spent years working for high-tech companies such as Cisco. He can be reached at gyean@g.harvard.edu.

Image: Shutterstock.

The Left’s winning streak in Latin American presidential races screeched to a halt on April 30 with the election of Santiago Peña, an economist and conservative member of Paraguay’s ruling Colorado Party. Peña’s election gives center-right Latin Americans reason to hope that the tide is turning against the socialist wave that has swept through the region in recent years.

Prior to Peña’s victory, five of the last six presidential elections in Latin America have gone to Leftist leaders, many of whom are showing signs of authoritarianism and rabid anti-Americanism.

Colombian president Gustavo Petro purged political moderates from his coalition government the day after he held an international conference to whitewash Venezuela’s criminal Maduro regime. Honduran president Xiomara Castro abandoned Taiwan in favor of Communist China. Brazil’s newly elected president, Lula da Silva, traveled to Beijing to promote the end of the U.S. dollar’s dominance in global trade and later criticized Western support for Ukraine against Russian aggression.

And that was just last month.

Many voters who pulled the lever for these Leftist leaders now realize they chose poorly. Latin American businessmen from the region’s five largest economies, including Colombia and Brazil, withdrew roughly $137 billion out of their countries in 2022. And in 2023, according to sources within the Customs and Border Patrol, Colombians became the second-largest nationality arriving on the U.S. southern border. Capital flight and outward migration are the direct consequences of Petro and Lula’s leftist policies.

But elsewhere, things are starting to shift.

In a blow to leftist President Gabriel Boric, Chileans on May 7 voted overwhelmingly for conservative parties to draft a new Constitution. Upcoming presidential elections in Guatemala and Argentina later this year could see conservative candidates win. Could this be the beginning of a rightward shift in the hemisphere?

From roughly 2012–2018, Latin America saw at least ten pro-business, pro-U.S. presidents come to power. They focused on fixing their country's financial portfolios and strengthening relations with the United States. Except for Peru, which ran through six presidents in six years, all of them finished their terms with a healthier national balance sheet. But that didn’t translate into popularity. Except for Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, most of these conservative presidents ended their term with lower approval ratings than when they began. They were succeeded by far-left candidates.

Among the many mistakes made by Latin America’s conservatives was that they focused too much on policy and not enough on popular messaging. The result was their countries fell prey to brutal disinformation campaigns that fomented organized riots and violent protests. In 2019, a simple four-cent hike in Chilean public transit fares led to violence, the destruction of the country’s infrastructure, and, ultimately, the election of a thirty-five-year-old Marxist. Something similar happened in Colombia.

Digital forensics analysis found that foreign disinformation accounted for at least 30 percent of the online noise during the 2019 Chilean protests. The same blueprint was followed in Colombia in 2021, where Venezuela and Russia interference exacerbated the crisis. These foreign campaigns irreversibly weakened Colombia and Chile’s conservative governments who relied on conventional reelection strategies in the face of an unconventional threat. Both countries saw left-wing governments replace them.

Radical leftist politicians capitalized on these mistakes by using non-state networks to entrench their power. Even after leaving office, autocrats such as Ecuador’s Rafael Correa or Bolivia’s Evo Morales remained powerful. Their on-the-ground, horizontally aligned grassroots movements persistently attacked their successors, allowing them to control the political narrative. The leftist wins in Latin America have led to a geopolitical realignment toward China, Russia, and Iran.

Unfortunately, it is not clear that Latin American conservatives have learned these lessons. The day after he won the presidency, Paraguay’s Peña recognized Latin America’s worst dictators and Russian, Chinese, and Iranian clients in Caracas and Havana.

Should Latin America’s new Right retake and hold power across the region, they will need to adopt a policy vision that embraces individual liberty and economic freedom, while prioritizing national sovereignty and national security. That is not consistent with flirting with China’s neo-imperial ambitions. Half the region lists the People’s Republic of China as its top trading partner, but that doesn’t mean it must acquiesce to its economic coercion. For Latin America, creating distance from China by prioritizing relations with the West and Taiwan, is not just in the U.S. national interest, it’s critical for its own sovereignty and stability.

In sum, mass migration, crime and violence, inflation, poverty, and food insecurity are all on the rise in Latin America. But so is a new conservative consciousness that has been yearning for new leaders.

Paraguay, Guatemala, and Argentina have the opportunity to right the wrong in 2023. With a rising China and other bad actors on its shores, this could be Latin America’s last chance for lasting progress. It’s time for the new Right in Latin America to rise to the occasion.

Joseph M. Humire is the executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society (SFS) and a visiting fellow of The Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for Foreign Policy. 

Image: Shutterstock.

On April 15, clashes between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) broke out in the capital city of Khartoum and in the Darfur region of Sudan. Almost a month later, an estimated 500 people have been killed and thousands of civilians wounded. The war between these two rival military groups comes after months of disputes; the two sides worked together to oust the civilian prime minister in October 2012, but as negotiations over the division of power stalled, it led to increased tensions which escalated into the armed conflict we are seeing today. This fighting has the potential to spill over and spark further chaos abroad. Particularly worth paying attention to is neighboring Egypt to the north.

In the past month, it is estimated that over 90,000 Sudanese refugees have journeyed into Egypt; the real numbers are likely much higher, as thousands are waiting at the border—without shelter, safe drinking water, and reliable food—to cross over. Yet Egypt itself is not the ideal safe haven: it is currently grappling with an economic crisis, severe food shortages, and a devaluation of its currency, the Egyptian pound. Over the past year, Cairo has been borrowing large sums of money from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, further increasing its debt. If Egypt cannot rectify its worsening economic situation, the resulting instability may lead to widespread civil unrest, protests, and an exacerbated humanitarian crisis that could ripple throughout the North African region.

The Conflict in Sudan…

International efforts to halt the conflict in Sudan are well underway, with Saudi Arabia hosting conversations between the two rival factions in partnership with the United States. Talks are set to continue throughout the month of May. Meanwhile, though both the SAF and RSF have called for a ceasefire, the fighting continues. Both groups have likewise proposed several truces since the fighting began in April, but none of them have held. Each blames the other for not adhering to the terms of a truce, suggesting that the likelihood of any success at the negotiating table will be negligible.

As such, the conflict in Sudan continues to rage, displacing over 900,000 people internally, along with an estimated 120,000 crossing borders into neighboring countries such as the Central African Republic, Libya, Ethiopia, Chad, and Egypt. This number is expected to grow significantly in the coming weeks, with United Nations Human Rights Council estimating that as many as 800,000 people could cross various borders in the next six months. Given that Sudan was already home to a diverse population of refugees, and housed as many as 1 million displaced people from other various regional conflicts that have taken place over the past decade, the current crisis easily has the potential to ripple across the region.

As refugees scramble to get out of Khartoum and neighboring Sudanese regions, the majority are fleeing to Egypt in particular, as policies toward refugees in other North African countries, such as Libya and Tunisia, are less than desirable. Although Chad is now accepting small numbers of refugees, it had originally closed its borders due to internal stressors, leaving only the Egyptian-Sudanese southwest border into Argeen and Qustul-Ashkit as the only viable option for refugees fleeing the violence.

…Has Consequences for Egypt

This is quite the turnaround, as up until the conflict broke out Sudan was a major Egyptian economic partner, with trade revenues coming close to $1 billion annually. Egypt had also set forth strategic plans for agricultural investment in Sudan, which have since been put on hold due to the conflict, further hindering any plans for its economic recovery.

As the gateway to North Africa for Western countries, Egypt is a key trading and political partner with many states in the region. The United States’ total bilateral trade with Egypt totaled $9.1 billion in 2021, while EU trade exceeded €37 billion in 2022. In addition to Egypt’s economic value to the West, it also serves a strategic role in the Arab League, assisting in providing regional peace and stability. The country is also known for its vast natural resources, including petroleum, natural gas, phosphates, and iron ore; interest in these resources has only heightened since the war in Ukraine called energy supplies into question.

Yet Egypt itself is in a precarious economic situation, facing record-high inflation. In a conversation with a Japanese newspaper, Egyptian president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi expressed concern that the influx of refugees from Sudan would place an increased economic burden on Egypt. Moreover, there are also security concerns: as thousands gather at the southwest border between the two countries, the chances for terrorism, human and drug trafficking, and smuggling activity are at an all-time high.

The border region between the two countries has a history of violence, with extremist groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda often using the area to carry out illicit activities in the region. Since the border has also been a hub for human trafficking, the substantial increase in refugees increases the odds for extremist group members to cross over into Egypt. In response to this threat, Cairo has dispatched anti-terrorism troops to the border to protect refugees and improve security.

The West Must Act to Prevent Further Instability

Nonetheless, the fighting in Sudan has put the nation at risk of collapse, with Egypt at risk of following suit due to its already fragile economic situation. The potential for increased destabilization and conflict throughout the region must be taken seriously. The international community must assist Egypt in processing and providing for these refugees.

Yet with both sides of the Sudanese conflict having tens of thousands of fighters, foreign backers, and resources, it is difficult to say when this war will end and how many people will continue to be displaced as a result. If peace talks in Saudi Arabia do not go well, this conflict has the potential to mirror other conflicts that have devastated entire regions, such as Lebanon and Syria. Aiding Egypt in its mitigation of the refugee crisis is one step that the West can take to prevent this from happening. The United Nations has pledged $445 million to ease the crisis, which will be sent to countries that are receiving refugees throughout the region. The United States, in partnership with the European Union, should provide direct assistance to Egypt to ensure that both Egyptians and the refugees crossing the border have access to secure food sources. Additional foreign aid should be provided to assist in stabilizing the Egyptian economy, incurring the security of U.S. and EU trading interests through the Suez Canal. These measures could include infrastructure packages and efforts to help stabilize the Egyptian pound.

As the conflict continues, it is imperative that the West take action. Egypt’s economy continues to deteriorate, and external stressors—including and especially the conflict in Sudan—could have monumental destabilizing impacts on the rest of the region, with consequences that could eventually affect both the United States and Europe directly.

As Washington engages both the SAF and the RSF in Saudi Arabia in the coming weeks, it should encourage reconciliation and a more permanent and successful solution. Otherwise, everyone involved will have to confront the consequences of failure: an increasing refugee crisis, additional stress on the Egyptian economy that could push it over the edge, and regional destabilization.

Riley Moeder is a Senior Analyst at New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, focusing her research on drivers of fragility in North Africa.

Image: Shutterstock.

On ne détruit pas un bâtiment d'un simple coup de pelleteuse. Il faut procéder par petites entailles, ouvrir des brèches, frapper de toutes parts. Ce travail de sape fragilise la structure : un infime mouvement de l'engin peut alors provoquer l'effondrement de l'édifice. Il en va de même des (...) / Privatisation, Service public, France, État, Économie, Néolibéralisme, Protection sociale, Société, Transports, Fonction publique - 2018/04

How the country has grown dangerously comfortable brandishing Its arsenal.

Beijing fights to be treated as America’s equal on the world stage.

A Turret from a T-72 tank buries itself in concrete after suffering a catastrophic explosion and separating from its hull.

One of the biggest determinants on how the war in Ukraine will progress is closely tied to the amount of support each side in receiving by way of weapons and ammunition. While Russia is seeking allies to supply it with additional arms while pushing their arms producers to renovate and create more tanks and munitions, Ukraine’s NATO allies are also seeking further production and funding. The limit Ukraine’s allies have is that much of their advanced equipment is running low, even among NATO stockpiles, and require a lot of political support. The creation and distribution of newly formed arms for Ukraine is tied to the national economies of their allies, paid and supported by citizens in those countries. While support for defending Ukraine against Russia has been high, there is always a natural end of these phases of support. The end of these policy honeymoons are often accompanied by dwindling discussions and information on the conflict or issue, no matter how horrific the conflict might be.

The world during 2014 was an example of how some conflicts are given attention, while others are often avoided or outright ignored after a period of time. The conflict in Ukraine in 2014 was not a major event for people outside of Europe after the initial period, even after an airliner was shot down as part of the conflict in the East of Ukraine by an Anti-Aircraft system supplied by Russia. The war in Syria that bled into Iraq did initially receive a lot of attention due to the extreme violence, but even that conflict was eventually ignored, even when refugees in Western countries were being threatened by ISIS fighters in the middle of Western cities. Even natural disasters have been ignored, with Haiti’s natural disaster illiciting a lot of funding without long term solutions, with many still living in temporary shelter many years later. Afghanistan is currently experiencing this lack of policy attention, and the recent earthquake in Turkey and Syria was major news abroad for only about a week it seems.

While the end result of conflict in Ukraine in 2014 and mistakes made in Afghanistan more recently created many of the current problems, the level of attention given to these policy issues are often intentionally managed. This is not done by the degree of importance, but by the advantage an issue might give a small interest group in pursuing their larger goals, even if it has negative long term consequences. This management of attention of policy issues can help a cause, but in many cases it develops into a strategy to ignore serious issues for the sake of unserious discussions. This might be the biggest threat to Ukraine at the moment, but it is also a major threat to many innocent people worldwide when English language media go into their honeymoon management mode, picking and choosing who is saved and who is intentionally given up on. Some might say it is just politics, but if your politics is intentionally hurting others, it is simply negligence.

Après avoir perdu deux guerres contre l'armée russe, le maquis tchétchène compte aujourd'hui une majorité de djihadistes. En réponse, le pouvoir local, allié de Moscou, exalte la tradition soufie et la polygamie. Cette manipulation de la religion n'a pas empêché la recrudescence des attentats. Au grand (...) / Tchétchénie, Caucase, Islam, Religion, Répression, Russie, Relations bilatérales, Police, Terrorisme - 2018/04

At Japan’s G7 summit, we must both defend global order and address global crises.

As others slow, a youthful continent can drive growth.

In five days of fighting that ended with a Saturday night ceasefire, terrorists in Gaza fired more than a thousand rockets into Israel—1,468 rockets to be precise. Thanks to bomb shelters and the Iron Dome missile defense system, the barrage only claimed the lives of two victims inside Israel, one of them a Palestinian construction worker from Gaza. Four Palestinians also died when rockets fell short of the border, hitting homes in Gaza, according to Israel’s military.

This latest round of hostilities is at odds with what Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, described last week as the “fundamental direction and trend of de-escalation that we have supported and encouraged” throughout the Middle East. Before a gathering of experts on regional affairs, Sullivan explained that the positive developments of the past two years were no accident, but “the result of what we have tried to lay down as a comprehensive policy framework.”

By itself, a single flare-up in Gaza does not discredit Sullivan’s broader point. He stressed he was “not pulling out the victory flag” and warned that conflict can resume at any time. Yet a closer look at the violence in Gaza shows that the events of the past few days are part of a trend that runs counter to the White House’s claim that regional tensions have diminished since Biden took office. Specifically, Sullivan underplayed the role of Iran’s clerical dictatorship in stoking conflict across the region and in Gaza in particular.

Israel’s adversary in the latest round of fighting was not Hamas, but the lesser-known and smaller Islamic Jihad. The latter is also a U.S.-designated terrorist organization committed to the destruction of Israel and its replacement with an Islamic state. What makes Islamic Jihad different is the exceptional degree of its subordination to the regime in Tehran. The group is an instrument Iran employs to escalate tensions with Israel on demand.

Tehran does not rely on a single proxy, however. Rather, it seeks to surround Israel with Iranian confederates. There is Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, along with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the West Bank and Gaza. They often refer to themselves the “axis of resistance.” Last month, during the final days of Ramadan, Israel had to contend with near-simultaneous attacks from Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and Gaza. The scale of the attacks was limited, but they underscored that Iran and its proxies can press Israel on four different fronts at once. Tehran calls this “the unification of the arenas.”

Sullivan’s address skirted this dynamic entirely. In his view, one of the administration’s three most important achievements in the region entailed “Ending a war in Gaza in eleven days [in May 2021], then working to keep the peace even as it’s punctuated by periods of heightened tension.”

First of all, Egyptian strongman Abdel Fattah al-Sisi did most of the heavy lifting that led to the May 2021 ceasefire—a role that Cairo played again in this round of fighting.

More importantly, the peace is not being kept. Violence in the West Bank and Gaza has been growing since Hamas and Islamic Jihad launched a wave of attacks on Israeli civilians in March. Iran continues its efforts to arm Hezbollah with precision-guided munitions that can target Israeli infrastructure and population centers more effectively.

The threat that looms larger than proxy wars is Iran’s rapid advance toward a nuclear weapons capability. Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before Congress in March that “Iran could produce fissile material for a nuclear weapon in less than two weeks, and would only take several more months to produce an actual nuclear weapon.” The White House’s response to this problem is to say that it’s all the fault of the previous administration. As Sullivan explained, the administration is “engaging Iran diplomatically regarding its nuclear program, and we continue to believe that it was a tragic mistake to leave the [2015 nuclear] deal with nothing at all to replace it.”

This diplomatic engagement has not reined in the Iranian nuclear program. In fact, Iran took its most provocative steps toward a nuclear weapons capability—such as enriching uranium to 83 percent purity—after Biden took office and made clear he would offer extensive sanctions relief in exchange for Tehran returning to the 2015 agreement.

The clerical regime is also displaying unusual audacity outside the region. Its agents sought to kidnap Iranian-American dissident Masih Alinejad on American soil and assassinate senior officials who served in the Trump administration. British intelligence likewise reported multiple Iranian plots to kidnap or kill enemies of the regime on British soil. Iran also continues to hold both U.S. and British hostages. And it is arming Russia with weapons, including attack drones, that help to devastate Ukrainian infrastructure.

There is one adversary, however, with whom the Iranian regime is now on better terms: Saudi Arabia. In March, China stunned foreign observers by brokering a deal for Tehran and Riyadh to restore diplomatic relations and reduce regional tensions. The Biden administration sought to play down concerns that Beijing had stolen a march on Washington. If the deal promotes de-escalation then it is a good thing, officials argued—a point that Sullivan echoed in his remarks.

In the short term, there may be some actual reduction in tensions, especially in Yemen, where Riyadh and Tehran have been fighting a proxy war since 2015. But their newfound comity is better understood as an expression of the Saudis’ realization that they cannot hold the line against Iranian destabilization of the region if the United States does not engage the threat seriously.

There are good things the Biden administration wants to accomplish in the Middle East. It seeks to “strengthen and expand the Abraham Accords” to include normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Sullivan said. In contrast to his predecessor, Biden has not wavered on the importance of maintaining a small contingent of U.S. troops in northeast Syria to prevent both the resurgence of the Islamic State and, to some extent, the expansion of Iranian power.

Yet if the White House persuades itself that tensions are truly subsiding across the Middle East, it may find itself unprepared for the significant escalation the Iranian regime is planning against America’s allies across the region.

David Adesnik is a senior fellow and director of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Image: Shutterstock.

In a gruesome display of brutality, Russian soldiers recorded themselves beheading a defenseless Ukrainian soldier, sparking outrage and condemnation. The footage surfaces while Russia holds the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) presidency—much to the opposition of Ukraine and its allies. The brazen paradox of an international aggressor presiding over an institution of peace underscores the absurdity of Russia’s UNSC presidency.

The legitimacy of Russia’s UNSC seat has been questioned, in no small part due to the lack of formal approval from the UN General Assembly (UNGA). Russia’s succession of the USSR’s seat in the UNSC is not a result of an automatic operation of law, but rather the result of a political choice—whether logical or not. Despite having never been voted into UN membership by the UNGA, Russia was given the USSR seat in 1991. Article 4 of the UN Charter requires new members to be admitted through an UNGA vote; however, Russia sidestepped this stipulation by claiming to be the sole legitimate successor of the USSR’s UN membership. The tacit consent of Russia’s UNSC seat is now at the forefront of international debate. All successor states of former Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were obliged to be admitted by an UNGA resolution—only Russia was granted silent approval to proceed not according to precedent or law.

The United Nations is also discredited by the mockery that is Russia’s UNSC presidency. Russia at the helm of the UNSC has an internationally-sanctioned channel to disseminate propaganda which risks the UN becoming a mouthpiece. The UN’s credibility helps legitimize disinformation that Russia circulates through “narrative laundering,” whereby Russia cultivates proxies to spread disinformation to mainstream media. By clouding or legitimizing disinformation sources, Russia promotes fragments of false narratives, which aim to discredit Ukraine. Russia’s strategic communication strategies enable it to bring anti-Ukrainian propaganda to the Global South, particularly to Africa and Latin America, to shape public opinion favorably. Such actions undermine the UN and erode trust in its legitimacy.

This is not the first time that the UN is unable to address Russia’s defiance of international law. In 2009, following Russia’s invasion of South Ossetia, Russia vetoed the extension of the UN observer mission in Georgia. This shifted international attention from the invasion and set Russia on a path of continued impunity. Following the 2014 annexation of Crimea, Russia’s UNSC presence ensured that neither a resolution reaffirming Ukraine’s territorial integrity nor action reversing the annexation could be taken. When the Syrian Government used chemical weapons against civilians in 2018, Russia vetoed proposals for a meaningful response to the war crimes to keep President Bashar al-Assad in power. These examples reinforce the continuity of Russian harm to the UN’s mission and illustrate the imperative of UNSC reform. They also highlight institutional risks arising from Russian veto rights in the context of the Ukraine war. If unreformed, the UN’s fate might resemble that of the League of Nations, which failed to prevent World War II due to non-reaction to Germany’s 1939 invasion of Poland.

To reform the UNSC, the UN Charter needs to be amended—amendments require ratification from two-thirds of UNGA members including all permanent UNSC members. Past reform attempts have been an uphill battle; however, there are short-term tools to address Russia’s repeated disregard of the institution’s mission.

First, investigations into the transfer process of the USSR’s permanent seat to Russia should be launched. These investigations operate on the assumption that Belarus and Ukraine, as founding UN members, had an equally justified claim to the seat—a characteristic no other original members share. Second, Belarus should be disqualified from the permanent seat due to complicity in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Third, rules on procedural matters should be invoked and a vote on replacing Russian UNSC representatives initiated. This decision requires a nine-member UNSC majority and cannot be vetoed by permanent members. By referencing Russia’s violations of the UN Charter through its disrespect of Ukrainian sovereignty, these tools can counter Russian disinformation and restore institutional credibility.

Long-term reforms should not be off the table. At a minimum, reforms should allow for temporary suspension of a member’s presidency. The basis for suspension could be an UNSC simple majority vote declaring a member temporarily unfit to fulfill the presiding role. This vote should be held based on a set of criteria, including the invasion of another country. The basis could also be UNGA support of suspension exemplified by resolutions against a UNSC member’s conduct.

Almost eighty years after World War II, the UN faces a similar fate as the League of Nations when it failed to prevent the largest catastrophe of the century. If the UN fails to take meaningful action against Russia, it could spell the end of the institution’s legitimacy and encourage similar future UN Charter violations. The international community must address Russian recklessness, lest Russia escalates its war crimes and hijacking of the international order. 

Svenja Kirsch is a Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. She is affiliated with the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship. She works on the future of European security amid the war in Ukraine and specializes on the future role of NATO and the EU, cyberwarfare, and Europe’s role in great power competition.

Vladyslav Wallace is a Ukrainian-American Belfer Young Leader Student Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Thomas R. Pickering Graduate Fellow at the U.S. Department of State. He works on U.S. diplomacy and foreign policy and specializes in matters related to Eurasia such as human rights and democracy.

Image: Vitalii Vodolazskyi / Shutterstock.com

This week, world leaders will converge in Hiroshima, Japan, to kick off the G7 Summit. This gathering of leaders from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, Germany, Canada, Italy, and others presents a well-timed opportunity to lay the groundwork for an international artificial intelligence regulatory framework.

Unfortunately, AI development isn't even listed on the agenda.

Instead, the spotlight will likely focus on U.S.-China relations, a trilateral meeting about Indo-Pacific cooperation between the United States, Japan, and South Korea, and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, with the overarching theme of the summit revolving around outreach to the Global South and how the G7 can encourage a rules-based order. All are worthy topics, but it looks like the conversation on AI regulation and development is at risk of being sidelined altogether. That would be a missed opportunity to address rapid innovation in AI and its inevitable societal implications.

The G7 should initiate the development of a codified and widely adopted agreement or treaty setting clear rules prohibiting dangerous AI development. This agreement should consider prominent state approaches to AI regulation while addressing industry and open-source development standards as distinct components to AI development. It might encourage the adoption of a risk-based AI regulatory framework, which would limit dangerous AI applications while enabling competition in the AI space. The G7 should also anticipate reluctance from less aligned nations, such as China, and formulate strategies to align international interest in establishing international rules and standards around AI development.

Since the debut of GPT-3, policymakers worldwide have grappled with regulating AI as a groundbreaking technology. Today, industry-led pacts to limit training of large language models (LLMs) beyond GPT-4 provide some respite, allowing for a regulatory catch-up. But this weak, implicit pause on training future LLMs is precarious, and regulators are ill-prepared for the imminent evolution in the AI landscape. The G7 needs to address this and work toward establishing international norms for AI regulation. If they don’t, humanity could reap the consequences.

International norm-setting is urgently needed. A bipolar AI race between the United States and China may lead to a race to the bottom. Due to the extreme uncertainty presented by further AI development, it is crucial to govern the rollout of advanced AI models, allowing international lawmakers and regulators to anticipate and be prepared to address the spillover effects of further AI development.

The growing competency of the open-source AI development community poses a substantial hurdle to regulation. Open-source development blurs the lines of responsibility for different AI applications and makes AI regulations harder to enforce, despite being initially encouraged by tech giants. With such a chaotic approach to AI development, how do we hold AI developers accountable for myopic AI advancement? While many countries are considering how to regulate AI, a risk-based AI regulation framework has been the most pragmatic solution. This approach, which paved the way for the UK’s risk-based AI Framework launched in March 2023, fosters innovation while ensuring the cautious development of AI applications with potentially negative impacts. Under a risk-based framework, AI regulation is considered in the context of specific AI use cases as opposed to curbing AI development unilaterally.  Adopting a risk-based approach allows regulators to mitigate against existential threats presented by underregulated AI development while allowing countries to be competitive in the AI space.

Recent developments, like Italy’s resolved ban on ChatGPT after OpenAI addressed the nation's data privacy concerns, suggest that there are ways to reach a consensus between the AI industry and state regulators. The summit could serve as a platform to explore similar data standards and privacy concerns on a larger scale, providing a path to align AI development with international expectations through multinational agreements.

The genie is indeed out of the bottle. The G7 nations must collaborate on a strategic plan to address emerging norms and suggest an international approach to mitigating the perverse downstream effects of AI. Their focus should be two-pronged: encouraging proactive AI innovation while minimizing negative spillovers instigated by AI. Their ultimate goals should be encouraging all states to engage in a dynamic, collaborative approach to international AI regulation.

Cassandra Shand is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Cambridge and a Young Voices Innovation Fellow. Twitter: @CassandraShand.

Image: Shutterstock.

La situation tchétchène concentre un ensemble de facteurs qui expliquent le degré de violence inouï exercé contre les hommes qui ont des pratiques homosexuelles ou qui sont soupçonnés d'en avoir. Pour échapper à une répression qui, avant les purges étatiques, s'exerce au sein même des familles, des (...) / Caucase, Tchétchénie, Répression, Fascisme, État, Sexualité, Police - 2018/04

Beijing struggles to balance its ties to Russia and Europe.