[AMV] #952 Executive deep cleaning

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Op donderdag 21 januari 2021 16:52 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Toen Trump net gekozen was wilden veel van zijn aanhangers een foto van hem in de OP. Kan er nu eentje van Biden/Harris worden geplaatst?

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Op donderdag 21 januari 2021 16:52 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Toen Trump net gekozen was wilden veel van zijn aanhangers een foto van hem in de OP. Kan er nu eentje van Biden/Harris worden geplaatst?

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Op donderdag 21 januari 2021 16:54 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:

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Als het toen niet mocht, waarom nu dan wel? We doen hier niet aan persoonsverheerlijking. Ook niet voor Biden. Het gaat hier over politiek.

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Op donderdag 21 januari 2021 16:58 schreef Szura het volgende:
Overigens kloppen de zetelaantallen in het Huis niet meer in de OP @:tijger_m

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Joe Biden Has a Europe Problem
The new president has a daunting list of foreign-policy challenges. Among the biggest will be managing a longtime ally.


Joe Biden begins his first full day as the 46th president of the United States today with as daunting a list of foreign-policy challenges as almost any of his predecessors. After four years of Donald Trump, the new administration must overcome skepticism about America’s ability to deal with the great tests facing the world, including the rise of China as a 21st-century superpower, the spread of nuclear weapons, and the onslaught of man-made climate change. To this list can be added a new issue: patching up the transatlantic alliance.

Last month, with Biden’s inauguration just weeks away, the European Union and China pushed a new economic agreement over the line. The actual terms of the China Investment Agreement remain unclear—the text is still to be finalized—but the broad outline is simple enough: a deeper trading relationship based on common and apparently enforceable standards. According to the EU, the deal ties Beijing to a new “values-based investment relationship” that will protect labor and environmental standards, and help root China in the rules-based global order. This is Europe fulfilling the global role it has cast for itself as a “regulatory superpower,” exporting and defending its values through its economic size.

Yet this is not how the agreement is seen in Washington. Brussels went forward with the deal despite a very public plea from the incoming administration to hold fire. Four years of Europe-bashing by Donald Trump, it seems, had hardened European hearts in favor of a pointed display of “strategic autonomy.” Autonomy from whom you might ask? The United States is the only answer.

Europe’s refusal to wait until yesterday’s transfer of power in Washington is an indication of the extent to which the world has changed since Biden was last in government. Today’s Europe is not prepared to “consult” the U.S. before signing an agreement of such importance, as Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, requested—and it rejects the very notion that it should have to. Just because the U.S. defends Europe does not mean a kind of Brezhnev doctrine of obedience is in place, the EU argues.

In one sense, then, Biden’s Europe problem is obvious: The continent that the U.S. fought two wars to free, paid to rebuild, and has spent 75 years protecting at great, uneven, and continuing cost is now striking deals behind its back with its main strategic rival. Some ally. In this telling, Trump’s shortsighted and unpredictable malevolence has created the world that he claimed already existed but that, in fact, did not: one in which the U.S. is being taken for a ride by allies that are no such thing.

This deal with China, however, masks an altogether more profound problem for Biden: not European strength, but weakness. For much of the past few years—and particularly the past few weeks—the specter that has haunted the West is one of American decline. In contrast, Europe, embodied by that most unlikely of liberal heroes, Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, had come of age and was the real leader of the free world. Europe had its problems, the argument went, but was showing none of the morbid symptoms on display at the Capitol this month.

While the U.S. clearly does have significant problems to overcome, though, these should not overshadow some of the systemic challenges facing Europe, which may prove in time to be far more serious than those in America.

In 2007, following years of solid growth, the EU’s economy was slightly larger than that of the U.S., according to the World Bank, and both were drastically larger than China’s. By 2019, the American economy had grown by around 50 percent, whereas the EU’s had essentially flatlined. China, meanwhile, had all but caught up with the EU. George Magnus, an economist at Oxford University’s China Centre, told me that the trend over the past decade was clear: American resurgence and European stagnation. Since 2010, the U.S. share of the global economy has not only held, but increased, from 23 percent to 25 percent, according to International Monetary Fund data used by Magnus. Europe’s has shrunk from 21.5 percent to 17.5 percent, even including Britain in the total.

If you take Europe’s perspective that economic heft is its own form of might, then it is Europe that is in relative decline, not America.

One notable aspect of the past few weeks is the steady discrediting of Trumpism as a political ideology, but without the cost of an economic revolution that might erode America’s extraordinary strength, at least so far. Europe, meanwhile, even as its second-biggest economy, Britain, opted to leave, has yet to face a moment of crisis, because its decline is not so obvious—a steady, creeping crisis rather than a bombastic one as seen across the Atlantic.

European diplomats are concerned, for example, that the continent—including Britain—simply does not have the industrial or technological base to compete with the U.S. or China. Of the top 50 companies in the world by market capitalization, only three are headquartered in the EU, and only one of those is involved in technology. The U.S., by contrast, has 34, 10 of which are tech-focused. With Britain’s departure, the EU also has only one university in the top 50 in the world, and has lost the continent’s global financial hub, London. Even the region’s economic engine, Germany, has question marks hanging over it: Tesla, for example, is worth more than all of Germany’s main car manufacturers combined.

On top of this, although the EU has shown admirable political unity over Brexit, it remains a politically weak confederation of states that have hugely different economies and interests, featuring higher levels of economic inequality than even the U.S., with poorer southern Europe lagging far behind wealthy northern countries. It must also now deal with a pesky regional competitor in Britain, whose future remains unclear.

Henry Kissinger once described the newly unified Germany as “too big for Europe, but too small for the world.” In some senses, the same might now be true of the EU: It is strong and united enough to be a pain for its erstwhile imperial overlord, but not yet strong enough to strike out completely on its own.

There are two strategic calculations for Biden to consider, and both are problematic. The first is that the driving force behind this deal was Merkel. Fundamentally, the German chancellor—and Germany generally—does not want to have to pick sides in a conflict between the U.S. and China, according to analysts I spoke with in Berlin and Washington. The country rejects the very idea of a grouping of democracies to contain China’s rise. It does not want a transatlantic alliance on this issue. By reaching an agreement with Beijing, Merkel hopes to avoid this trap. (Nor will her retirement this year necessarily change much. Her replacement as leader of the center-right Christian Democrats, Armin Laschet, is a moderate Merkelite with a history of soft-pedaling criticism of Russia and China.)

The second challenge for Biden is that the EU’s deal with China reveals Germany’s absorption of the French obsession with strategic autonomy from the United States. The inherent danger in this is that it will become self-fulfilling, and Europe could try to achieve economic independence to deal with China while aligning with the U.S. to address the strategic challenge of China’s economic rise. Perhaps Washington will conclude that it’s not particularly happy with this bargain, and seek new international formats to contain China, loosening its commitment to the heavy expense of Europe’s military defense umbrella.

Europe sees itself as one of the three great economic powers on Earth, but is it overplaying its hand? Notably, it persists in promoting engagement with Beijing even when some former proponents of America’s engagement policy with China now argue that it was a mistake, an effort exploited by Beijing to build its own power that did little to westernize or democratize its behavior.

What is remarkable about the EU-China deal, which is supposed to show European strategic autonomy, is how unstrategic it appears to be. At first glance, it seems little more than a tactical opening for certain sectors in Europe. The agreement’s defenders have—correctly—said that the deal does not stop the EU from taking measures against China should Beijing not uphold its side of the bargain. Yet an extraordinary naïveté (or, more cynically, a PR spin) appears to be running through the document. The press release welcoming the agreement contains much about the values and commitments that China has signed up to for the first time. It even carries the claim that China has agreed to make “continued and sustained efforts” to uphold international rules against “forced labour,” a reference to Beijing’s ongoing crackdown on Uighurs in Xinjiang. It’s hard to know what’s worse: including such feeble language on slavery or ignoring it.

And the early returns are not great. In the days after the deal was announced, China launched a fresh crackdown on prodemocracy protesters in Hong Kong and sent out invitations for a controversial “17+1” meeting between itself and an alliance of Central and Eastern European states, among them EU member states. Is China already dividing and ruling?

That other great German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, once remarked that it was always better to be “one of two in a world of three.” Has Europe forgotten this advice? The bloc has many strengths, and has proved over time to be far more resilient than many of its critics dare admit—principally those in Britain who seemed to write it off as they pursued Brexit. But it also remains fundamentally weaker than either the U.S. or China, and risks being left behind by both.

Beijing’s goal, Henry Kissinger writes in On China, is not a decisive clash of forces, but “the patient accumulation of relative advantage.” Who out of China, the U.S., and Europe is most obviously accumulating relative advantage and enhancing its strategic position?

Europe may wish that it did not have to choose between the U.S. and China, but it might not be able to avoid it. Being in a two with a volatile America might well prove a better choice than being cast alone in the duopoly to come.

For Biden, meanwhile, the choice is easier because there isn’t one: His administration will engage and try to rebuild the transatlantic relationship. In the longer term, the greater challenge, however, might prove to be not European independence, but European weakness.

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Op donderdag 21 januari 2021 17:09 schreef Monolith het volgende:
Opiniestuk in the Atlantic over de transatlantische relatie:
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https://www.theatlantic.c(...)biden-europe/617753/

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Op donderdag 21 januari 2021 17:22 schreef Eyjafjallajoekull het volgende:
Ik denk heel eerlijk gezegd dat Biden ook niet bepaalde zaken echt kan stoppen. Met name China en klimaat. Ook zal Noord-Korea nog steeds een issue blijven.

China kan nog een beetje onder de duim worden gehouden door hen nieuwe chip technieken te onthouden. Maar dat is enkel een paar jaar.

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Op donderdag 21 januari 2021 17:13 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:

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Altijd interessant hoe Amerikanen sterk en zwak zien en wat ze denken dat een ally moet zijn

Maar het is een feit, de relatie is veranderd. Biden of Trump is in dat aspect niet eens zo belangrijk, er is een shift gekomen in de relatie maar ik denk dat de auteur voorbijgaat aan het feit dat die shift er onder Obama al was en wel vanuit de VS, het was Obama die het zwaartepunt van zijn buitenlandse politiek naar Azie verlegde.

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Op donderdag 21 januari 2021 17:30 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:

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Biden zal, naar ik verwacht, Obama's focus overnemen, en in die focus was Azie belangrijker dan Europa.

Dankzij Trump is het nu zo dat China de bovenhand heeft in zowel de regio als in de handelssituatie met de VS dus dat gaat Biden nog hoofdpijn opleveren en de zorgvulgdig opgebouwde coalitie via de TPP ligt compleet in de puin met als ironisch toppunt dat China mischien toetreed tot de TPP.

Nieuwe chip technieken worden echter niet in de VS ontwikkelt en de VS zal het steeds moeilijker krijgen om de druk te behouden op andere landen in de regio die een stuk dichter bij China liggen.

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Op donderdag 21 januari 2021 17:30 schreef Monolith het volgende:

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Nou ja, uiteindelijk is de EU niet alleen een blok dat bedoeld is om de interne harmonie te bevorderen, maar ook vooral om een handelsblok te vormen naar buiten toe. De afhankelijkheid van de EU van China en de VS waar het aankomt op technologie lijkt mij ook best een dingetje voor de toekomst.

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Op donderdag 21 januari 2021 17:31 schreef Eyjafjallajoekull het volgende:

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Dat laatste zou goed zijn want nu hebben wij er last van. ASML mag geloof ik zijn 5nm chip machines niet naar china exporteren. Wel oudere machines.

AI en quantum computing zijn trouwens ook nog twee wildcards. China investeert momenteel veel meer geld in AI dan de VS.

Grote kans dat beide nog niet echt volwassen technieken worden in Bidens periode echter. Want dat zijn wel echt game changers.

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Op donderdag 21 januari 2021 18:33 schreef Ulx het volgende:
[ twitter ]

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“It has been an honor to serve as the Senate Republican leader and fight for Californians who far too often do not have their voices heard in the Capitol,” Grove said.

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A spokesperson for Grove said the senator "realized that it was an incomplete thought" and deleted the tweet.

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Hours After Biden Inauguration, Federal Agents Use Tear Gas in Portland

Protesters who spent months in the streets over racial injustice and inequality said they don’t expect immediate change from President Biden, who they declared “will not save us.”

PORTLAND, Ore. — Protesters in the Pacific Northwest smashed windows at a Democratic Party headquarters, marched through the streets and burned an American flag on Wednesday in a strident challenge by antifascist and racial-justice protesters to the new administration of President Biden, whose promised reforms, they declared, “won’t save us.”

In Portland, Ore., lines of federal agents in camouflage — now working under the Biden administration — blanketed streets with tear gas and unleashed volleys of welt-inducing pepper balls as they confronted a crowd that gathered outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building near downtown. Some in the crowd later burned a Biden-for-President flag in the street.

Another tense protest in Seattle saw dozens of people push their way through the streets, with some breaking windows, spray-painting anarchist insignia and chanting not only about ICE, but the many other issues that roiled America’s streets last year under the administration of former President Donald J. Trump.

“No Cops, Prisons, Borders, Presidents,” said one banner, while another proclaimed that the conflict over racial justice, policing, immigration and corporate influence in the country was “not over” merely because a new president had been inaugurated in Washington, D.C.

“A Democratic administration is not a victory for oppressed people,” said a flier handed out during the demonstrations, during which protesters also smashed windows at a shop often described as the original Starbucks in downtown Seattle. The communiqués used expletives to condemn Mr. Biden and “his stupid” crime bill, passed in 1994 and blamed for mass incarcerations in the years since.

Hours after the inauguration of Mr. Biden, federal agents in Portland used tear gas and other crowd-control munitions to disperse demonstrators who had gathered to protest the harsh arrest and detention practices wielded by federal immigration authorities under the Trump administration.

Mr. Biden has signaled that immigration is going to be a key issue of his presidency, using some of his first executive orders on Wednesday to end construction of the border wall and bolster the program that provides deportation protections for undocumented immigrants who were brought into the country as children.

The conflict in Portland capped a day of demonstrations in the liberal city, where different groups of protesters either decried Mr. Biden or called for activism to pressure the new president to take forceful action on immigration, climate change, health care, racial justice and income inequality.

Earlier in the day, a group of about 200 people — a mix of racial justice, antifascist and anarchist activists — marched to the local Democratic Party headquarters, where some of them smashed windows and tipped over garbage containers, lighting the contents of one on fire. “We don’t want Biden — we want revenge,” said one sign, referring to killings committed by police officers.

In a city that has seen months of demonstrations over racial injustice, economic inequality, federal law enforcement and corporate power — and some of the harshest law enforcement responses to such protests — protesters have vowed to continue their actions no matter who is president. “We are ungovernable,” one sign in the crowd said.

In Seattle, about 150 people marched through the streets. Some spray-painted buildings with an anarchist symbol and broke windows, including at a federal courthouse. They chanted both anti-Trump and anti-Biden slogans.

One member of the group handed out fliers to people on the street that said, “Biden won! And so did corporate elites!” The fliers explained that a “Democratic administration is not a victory for oppressed people” and that “Biden will not save us.”

“I came out here because no matter what happens, Biden and Kamala aren’t enough,” said one of the protesters, Alejandro Quezada Brom, 28, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris. He said the new president needs to know that “the pressure’s not off” for progress on immigration and policing reforms.

Seattle police officers followed the group and began to surround it as night fell. At least two protesters appeared to be arrested.

At yet another demonstration in Portland, people gathered to hear speakers who celebrated Mr. Trump’s departure but also called for continued pressure on the new government.

“The fight has just begun,” said Ray Austin, 25. He said that the damage done by Mr. Trump could not be undone by the likes of Mr. Biden and that the nation needed a groundswell of people demanding more.

Speakers at the event called for a Green New Deal to fight climate change, a “Medicare for All”-style health insurance system, overhauls of police departments to address racial disparities and other fundamental changes. But that event was more subdued than others around the city.

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis last May, protesters in Portland mobilized on the streets nightly, much of their ire targeted at the mayor and the police force that repeatedly used tear gas to subdue them. The crowds swelled during the summer after Mr. Trump issued an executive order to protect federal property and agents wearing camouflage brought a crackdown to the city.

Those conflicts have since subsided, but protesters in Portland have continued to mobilize.

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Op donderdag 21 januari 2021 18:40 schreef Sjemmert het volgende:
Goh verrassend... Antifa gaat gewoon door met het afbreken van Portland na Joe Bidens inauguratie. Joe Biden's feds zetten traangas in om de meute uit elkaar te drijven. Onder andere het lokale DNC headquarters en een gerechtsgebouw worden gesloopt door de demonstranten.

Ik vraag me af hoe lang het gaat duren voor de overheid en media het "antifa is maar een idee" mantra door het putje spoelen.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2(...)d-seattle-biden.html