We are potentially entering the beginnings of a new tech age. Politics is fast-tracking a positional clawback. Power is transitioning away from big tech.
This is a tale of two cities reclaiming lost leverage and organising their tech sectors for the systemic struggle between democracy and autocracy.
In Beijing, the Chinese Communist Party is cracking down on big tech. It stopped Ant Financial’s IPO in its tracks, forced Alibaba founder Jack Ma to disappear for several months, placed record fines, investigated its biggest ride-hailing app Didi straight after its IPO, and announced sweeping regulatory changes for the online education sector…
In the midst of the grand systemic conflict between democratic and authoritarian systems, Germany wants to have its cake and eat it too. It wants the American security dividend but also the autocrat’s economic dividend. Berlin is unwilling to antagonise authoritarian governments such as Russia and China, fearing it will hurt its good economic ties and export business.
Nord Stream 2 is a particular case in point. This German-Russian gas pipeline has been a long-standing intra-European and transatlantic soar point. …
A former high-ranking government official in Belarus, Pavel Latushka has witnessed President Lukashenko’s system of power from the inside.
After a sham election triggered widespread protests, he joined the ranks of the resistance to the regime. Now in political exile, Latushka speaks about the struggle to keep the Belarusian pro-democracy movement alive.
The Belarusian protests began before the contested August 2020 election but exploded in size after it became clear that Lukashenko had rigged the results in his favour. Can you explain how the democracy movement emerged and gathered momentum?
Pavel Latushko: Artem Sakov, Dzmitry Popau, Pavel Seviarynets, Aliaksandr Shabalin…
Kermit the Frog put it best when he sang: “It’s not easy being green.” Greens have often been overlooked and undervalued, to say the least.
Today, however, this is no longer the case.
In Germany, the Greens are dominating the political landscape. For the first time in history, the party has put forward a chancellor candidate. Early opinion polls by Germany’s public broadcaster gave the Greens a slight lead over Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union. Having worked for Green Party leaders and served Germany’s only Green state premier, I know the party inside out. …
Climate protection cannot be separated from the battle for hegemony taking place between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. Within the context of this high-intensity geopolitical conflict, climate protection has taken on a well-defined geopolitical dimension. The Franco-German tandem should encourage the European Union to confront this reality, in order to pursue a climate realpolitik that combines cooperation and competition.
Global warming poses a challenge to the planet as a whole. In fact, that goes without saying-greenhouse gases don’t stop at borders. Climate protection thus concerns the global community. And because international cooperation is vital to curbing…
In a world increasingly divided by rising tensions between the US and China, what role do India-Europe relations play? From their democratic traditions to shared interests in technological development, Europe and India have much in common and to gain from cooperation. I spoke with Dr. Jagannath Panda on India’s role in the hegemonic conflict between the US and China, its position on the upcoming climate change negotiations, and the role of democracy in its outlook on the world.
Roderick Kefferpütz: During the Cold War, India was part of the non-aligned movement, refusing to formally align itself with or against any…
Before the pandemic hit, Greens in Germany were on an upward trajectory, reaching historic highs in terms of membership and electoral success. Key to their emergence as the preeminent progressive force in the country was the party’s capacity to set out a forward-looking vision that resonated with society. But as Germany enters a Superwahljahr — with regional elections throughout the year and federal elections in September — where do the Greens currently stand? As Merkel readies to leave office and the pandemic continues on, are the Greens still carrying the political momentum?
It was the classic David vs. Goliath story. A bunch of renegade small time retail traders that got together and took on Wall Street’s big boys, giving the short-sellers a bloody nose. As this story broke, more and more traders got in on the action and joined the bandwagon.
A couple of posts on reddit and you got yourself a herd stampeding on the stock market. Reddit’s Wallstreetbets led to wild gyrations, significantly pushing the share value of stocks such as GameStop upwards. It demonstrated the power of individuals coming together in a group. …
Most recent analyses of US-German relations do not consider the possibility that the two countries simply disagree on many matters of international security. This much was clear as far back as 2003, when Berlin joined Paris and Moscow in public opposition to the US-led war in Iraq, and in 2011, when it joined Moscow and Beijing in abstention from the UN Security Council resolution imposing a no-fly zone over Libya. The United States’ reaction in each case was to more or less ignore Germany, a policy that seldom incurred significant costs. …
The world economy has become the battleground for rivalry between Washington and Beijing. But what geoeconomic game is Europe playing?
“It’s the economy, stupid!” This infamous phrase also holds true for international relations. Over the years, the spheres of security and economy have become increasingly linked. It is the world economy, which has become the central battleground for hegemonic rivalry between Washington and Beijing. Several factors have led to this development, first and foremost the economic rise of China.
The People’s Republic has become an economic magnet slowly displacing the United States. While in the 1980s China’s share of world trade amounted to a meagre one per cent, that figure has risen to about 13 per cent. For more than…
