September 16, 2022: Global News Roundup
Regional alliances in the spotlight as strain on international system grows
The Global News Roundup collects news stories from entirely international (non-US) media sources on variety of pressing global political and economic issues and events.
Regional alliances took center stage across multiple arenas this week as they come under increasing pressure to manage the tumultuous global landscape. Russia confronted some serious military setbacks in eastern Ukraine, and other countries in the region took advantage of the moment to advance their own interests. Azerbaijan moved to recapture disputed territory also claimed by Armenia, placing the EU, Russia, and Turkey in a rather precarious position. Armenia, which is a member of a Russian-led regional military alliance called the Collective Security Treaty Organization, asked Russia for assistance, while Azerbaijan just recently announced plans with the EU to double natural gas exports via the Trans-Anatolian pipeline. Turkey entered into an alliance with Azerbaijan last year, and also relies heavily on Azerbaijani oil and gas exports. By Thursday, as Russia and the UN brought pressure to bear on both countries, a temporary ceasefire was agreed. Hopefully it holds.
In Poland, which has become an increasingly pivotal NATO ally since the Ukraine war broke out, the lower house of parliament passed a bill this week demanding US$1.3 trillion in WWII reparations from Germany. “The combative stance towards Germany, often used by PiS [the Law and Justice party] to mobilize its constituency, has strained relations with Berlin. It intensified after Russia invaded Ukraine amid criticism of Berlin's dependence on Russian gas and its slowness in helping Kyiv”, reported Reuters. A commentator in the Rio Times this week argued that Warsaw is actively challenging Berlin for influence: “The Polish-German geostrategic rivalry for influence over Central & Eastern Europe (CEE), which is a significant proxy theater for their larger rivalry over the future of the EU as a whole, has returned as a result of the latest US-provoked phase of the Ukrainian conflict.”
Pro-war forces across Europe and the US seized on Russia’s weakness in eastern Ukraine to beef up support for more arms deals and increased arms production: “US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced this week a meeting of senior national armaments directors from allied countries [the US-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group] to make long-term plans for supplying Ukraine and rebuilding their own arms reserves”, reported the Phuket News. It was further announced this week that Ukrainian President Zelensky will be the headline speaker at an annual meeting of US defense contractors later this month in Austin, Texas. Last Friday, several EU member states (Greece, Romania, Poland, and Lithuania) proposed changes to the European Union’s debt rules that would permit them to spend more on arms and other military equipment, “to help accommodate the military investment needed after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.” On the back of recent calls from former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for an EU-wide army and air defense system and recent proposals for the EU to offer military training to Ukrainian forces, as well as calls this week for Germany to send tanks and more military equipment to Ukraine, some European allies are starting to ask hard questions about EU militarization and Germany’s future trajectory.
Chinese President Xi made his first foreign trip since the beginning of the pandemic, heading to Samarkand, Uzbekistan for the annual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. In addition to shoring up relations with Kazakhstan (a major partner in China’s Belt and Road Initiative and an important supplier of petroleum products, steel and iron ore, and agricultural goods), Xi met with Russian President Putin, Indian Prime Minister Modi, and Iranian President Raisi, among other regional leaders. One major outcome of the meeting was the development of a “road map” for full Iranian membership in the SCO. Accession to the group is expected before the next meeting is held in 2023. Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev “cited the rapidly growing interest of nations in closer involvement with the SCO and said that it served as an example of how a “deep crisis of trust at the global level” can be overcome by parties willing to do so. He also stressed the scale of the group, which accounts for roughly half of the world’s population and a quarter of global GDP.”
(Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi during a meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan September 15, 2022. Alexandr Demyanchuk/Sputnik/Pool via Reuters. Original on Al Jazeera, here.)
Things I’m keeping an eye on:
1. Russia’s next move? Russia has already targeted power stations and a dam this week since news broke of their losses in Ukraine, perhaps indicating an incoming wave of targeted strikes on critical infrastructure as Putin seeks to regain his footing. I don’t want to speculate much, though; the situation is highly unpredictable and many details around recent events remain unclear…
2. Oil politics: Even as Russia lost ground in eastern Ukraine, the US and EU faced setbacks of their own as the oil price cap plan proposed by the G7 last week was abandoned. This back and forth dynamic—with the Russia exploiting US and EU vulnerabilities in energy markets, and the US and EU exploiting Russian military vulnerabilities, each hoping that the other side blinks first—is what I previously termed the “unbelievably stupid, cruel, and dangerous game of chicken” being played by the Great Powers in this proxy war.
3. Right-wing coalitions gaining ground in European elections: Sweden’s left-leaning Social Democrats and their coalition lost power this week to a right-wing bloc that includes the Sweden Democrats, which has historical affinities with neo-Nazi groups in Sweden and claimed victory in part because of its anti-immigration agenda. Here is an interesting commentary from the CCP-backed Global Times on the Swedish election.
4. Semiconductor supply chain shifts: US efforts to cut China out of it’s semiconductor supply chain, which have intensified as US-China tensions heat up, appear to be causing some worry in China owing to Chinese reliance on US-based Nvidia for new and powerful chips used to run AIs (GPUs, or graphic processing units). The US also invited Mexican officials to join the semiconductor investment effort set out in the recent US CHIPS act. Mexico accepted the invitation.
5. Taiwan: The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a bill this week—the Taiwan Policy Act—that would strengthen diplomatic and economic ties with the island: “Described by its sponsors as “the most comprehensive restructuring of US policy towards Taiwan” since Washington normalised relations with Beijing and cut official ties with Taipei in 1979, the bill, if it eventually passes, could elevate the island’s status close to that of a formal diplomatic ally.” Needless to say, China will most certainly view this as a major provocation and escalation of current tensions.