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      in US Politics

      Joe Biden’s move to net zero emissions will leave Australia in the (coal) dust | Bill Hare

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      The election of Joe Biden to the White House is likely to see Australia increasingly isolated as the world heads to net zero emissions, with quite fundamental implications for our economy. Let’s have a look at what has happened in the last two months.In September, the European Union proposed increasing its 2030 target from 40% to at least 55% reduction below 1990 levels in order to meet the net zero by 2050 target it adopted in 2019. Critically, the EU has made climate action one of its three main Covid-19 response priorities, so that at least 30% of its multi-annual budget and recovery fund is to be spent on achieving its increased 2030 emission reduction targets and its climate neutrality goal for 2050. These new goals for the EU27 would bring its domestic emissions very close to a 1.5°C Paris compatible level for the period to 2050. The UK has similar goals and ambitions to the EU27.Shortly afterwards, President Xi Jinping announced that China would “aim to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060”, the first time China has acknowledged the need to reach anything close to zero CO2 emissions by mid-century. If it covers all greenhouse gas emissions it would also be very close to what is needed by mid-century to be in line with the Paris agreement’s long-term goal. If this goal covers CO2 only, then China would need to achieve carbon neutrality around 2050 for this to be compatible with the Paris agreement.With China responsible for about a quarter of the world’s emissions, a move to net zero by mid-century has very significant implications for global temperature, lowering the Climate Action Tracker’s end of century projections by 0.2-0.3oC towards 2.4-2.5oC, compared with the previous 2.7oC projection.In October, both Japan and South Korea also announced net zero GHG goals for 2050. Japan’s prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, announced Japan would aim for net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 with several specific measures, including a fundamental revision of its policy on coal-fired power plants. In an important change to Japan’s narrative, Suga emphasised the benefits to economic growth from the net zero commitment, whereas he’d previously characterised it as a cost.Getting to net zero essentially means the phasing out of coal, gas and oilThis was followed two days later by the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, announcing his commitment to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, replacing coal power generation with renewable energy to create new markets, industries and jobs.Taken together, these four countries account for about 40% of global GHG emissions. There is also a large number of smaller countries with comparable net zero emissions commitments that would bring the total global coverage to about 48% of global emissions.What’s notable about all of these announcements is that they were made in the absence of any commitment by the United States and before any US presidential election outcome. China’s announcement in particular seems to reflect a geopolitical judgement by the Chinese government that they intend to move forward with ambitious climate goals even without the US.Arguably, these moves by this set of countries on their own will generate a major global move towards increased ambition and towards net zero by 2050.So where does this leave Australia? These net zero by mid-century moves by its major export markets create huge challenges.In 2019 China, South Korea and Japan accounted for 72% by value of Australia’s exports of LNG and coal: 88% of Australia’s LNG exports; 75% of thermal coal exports; and 51% of metallurgical coal exports. It is notable that none of these countries have focused on natural gas and all have mentioned renewable energy and other technologies, and all recognise that early action on coal is needed.The election of Joe Biden could trip this already major momentum into a landslide towards higher climate ambition. His election means the US will re-enter the Paris agreement, reverse the Trump administration’s rollbacks and make a significant contribution to closing the Paris agreement’s ambition gap with a new 2030 target. If he took the initiative to reboot US action in line with his plan to reach net zero emissions by 2050, Biden could reduce US emissions substantially by 2030.If he is able to fully implement his proposed Energy and Climate Package, and continues to be supported by the existing strong sub-national action in the US, the US could significantly reduce its 2030 emissions, reducing the gap between where it is headed now and a Paris agreement-compatible emission range for that year.Even in the case of delays and challenges to federal action, the efforts of state and local actors, such as the We Are Still In campaign, are expected to continue. A recent study estimated that enhanced action by subnational actors in the US could reduce emissions by 37% below 2005 levels by 2030. Biden as US president may not have control of the Senate (although the vote count on this result is far from over – and may not be resolved until January), but there are workarounds.Biden also has a net zero 2050 goal, which will place the US close to a Paris agreement-compatible emissions pathway. This would further lower the 2100 projected warming by about 0.1°C, and further if America undertook negative emissions action of scale beyond 2050. So the EU, China, Japan, South Korea and the US – about two thirds of the global economy, about half the world’s emissions and close to 75% of our fossil fuel export markets –will have net zero goals for 2050 or shortly afterwards. This is a massive shift.Let there be no misunderstanding about what this means. Getting to net zero essentially means the phasing out of coal, gas and oil, with markets more or less halved by 2030. This is a seismic shift for Australia and it means that it’s very likely that demand for our coal and gas will drop at least as fast as it has risen in the past few decades.It would hardly be a strategy for Australia to follow Poland’s lead and simply start to stockpile coal in warehouses. Diplomatically, Australia will find itself increasingly isolated, even in its own region and in particular with its close Pacific Island neighbours, not to mention the two superpowers, China and the US.Australia needs a forward-looking strategy aimed at taking advantage of its massive natural advantages in renewable energy and the resources essential for the low and zero carbon transition, and one that provides for a just transition for the communities and workforces affected by the rapid reduction in the markets that they have hitherto dependent upon.There is no time to be lost dithering, denying and obfuscating.• Bill Hare, a physicist and climate scientist, is the managing director of Climate Analytics More

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      in Elections

      What will President Biden's United States look like to the rest of the world? | Timothy Garton Ash

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      What is the best the world can now hope for from the United States under President Joe Biden, now that the election has been called for him? My answer: that the US will be a leading country in a post-hegemonic network of democracies.Yes, that’s a, not the leading country. Quite a contrast to the beginning of this century, when the “hyperpower” US seemed to bestride the globe like a colossus. The downsizing has two causes: the US’s decline, and others’ rise. Even if Biden had won a landslide victory and the Democrats controlled the Senate, the United States’ power in the world would be much diminished. President Donald Trump has done untold damage to its international reputation. His disastrous record on handling Covid confirmed a widespread sense of a society with deep structural problems, from healthcare, race and infrastructure to media-fuelled hyper-polarisation and a dysfunctional political system.In a recent eupinions survey, more than half of those asked across the European Union found democracy in the US to be “ineffective”. And that was before Trump denounced as “fraud” the process of simply counting all the votes cast in an election. When the US lectures other countries on democracy these days, the politest likely answer is: “Physician, heal thyself!”. Even compared with the grim period of Vietnam and Watergate, this must be an all-time low for American soft power.Europe has many problems of its own, but set against the record of US regress over the last 20 years, our European story looks like triumphal progress. The same can be said for Australia, New Zealand or Canada. Still more dramatic has been China’s rise, facilitated by years of American strategic distraction.Even assuming that all legal challenges to his election will have been dealt with when the 46th president is inaugurated next January, he will face an almost bitterly divided country, an almost certainly divided government and a far from united Democratic party. Thanks to Trump’s shameless mendacity, millions of Trump voters may not accept even the basic legitimacy of a Biden presidency. His ability to push through desperately needed structural reforms will be hampered, if not stymied, if the Republicans retain control of the Senate.Fortunately for the rest of us, the area in which he will have most freedom of manoeuvre is foreign policy. Biden has immense personal foreign policy experience, as a former vice-president and before that, chair of the Senate foreign relations committee. He has an experienced foreign policy team. Members of that team identify their greatest strategic challenges as the “3 Cs”: Covid (including its global economic aftermath), climate change and China. That’s an agenda on which allies in Europe and Asia can happily engage. Rejoining the Paris climate agreement, which the US formally left on Wednesday, will be an important first step.Nato remains essential for Europe’s security against an aggressive Russia, but the key to winning back disillusioned Europeans will be to offer a new quality of partnership to the European Union. Even before he becomes president, Biden might like to express his appreciation for the way the EU has kept the flag of liberal internationalism flying while the US under Trump was awol. His first presidential visit to the old continent should include the EU institutions in Brussels. (Perhaps an address to the European parliament?) A bipartisan reference back to President George HW Bush’s 1989 “partners in leadership” speech in Germany could be helpful, but applying it now to the entire EU. In this partnership of equals, the US will not always sit at the head of the table. That’s what I mean by “post-hegemonic”.Europeans should do more for their own security, but Biden would be unwise to start by hammering away at the old “Spend 2% of your GDP on defence” theme. The German strategic thinker Wolfgang Ischinger has suggested a good way to reframe the issue: think of it rather as 3% on 3D – that is, defence, diplomacy and development. A self-styled “geopolitical” EU must assume a greater burden in its wider neighbourhood, which means to the south, across the Mediterranean to the Middle East and north Africa, and to the east, in relations with Belarus (currently in peaceful revolt), Ukraine and Vladimir Putin’s aggressive but also fundamentally weak Russia.A new emphasis on the EU will leave the ultra-Brexiters who dominate Boris Johnson’s government in Britain feeling slightly miffed. But the Johnson government does have one good idea, which is to extend the G7 meeting it will host next year to major democracies in Asia.This chimes perfectly with a central leitmotif of the Biden team: working with other democracies. The US already has the Quad format, linking it with Australia, Japan and India. They will be at least as important as the EU and Britain when it comes to dealing with China.If the Biden administration is wise, it will envisage this as a network of democracies, rather than a fixed alliance or community of democracies. Even a “summit of democracies”, reportedly a pet scheme of the president elect, would pose tricky questions of who’s in and who’s out. Think of it as a network, however, and you can keep it flexible, varying the coalitions of the willing from issue to issue and finessing the difficult borderline cases. For example, Narendra Modi’s India is anything but a model liberal democracy at the moment, yet indispensable for addressing the “3 Cs”.On every issue, both the US and Europe should start by identifying the relevant democracies; but of course you can’t stop there. You have also to work with illiberal and anti-democratic regimes, including China. China is the greatest geopolitical challenge of our time. It is itself one of the “3 Cs”, yet also crucial for addressing the other two: climate change and Covid. It is a more formidable ideological and strategic competitor than the Soviet Union was, at least from the 1970s onward, but its cooperation is also more essential in larger areas.In pursuing a twin-track strategy of competition and cooperation, the US has unique strengths. Although the “greatest military the world has ever seen” ended up losing a war against technologically inferior adversaries in Iraq, the US is the only military power that can stop Xi Jinping’s China taking over the Chinese democracy in Taiwan. The US still leads the world in tech, which is the coal and steel of our time. We watch French series on Netflix, buy German books on Amazon, contact African friends on Facebook, follow British politics on Twitter and search for criticism of the US on Google. In the development of AI, Europe is nowhere compared to China and the US.Yet, especially given its domestic travails, the US cannot begin to cope on its own with a China that is already a multi-dimensional superpower. It needs that network of partners in Europe and Asia as much as they need it. So let the world’s democracies stand ready to grasp the outstretched hand of a good man in the White House. What a change that will be. More

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      in US Politics

      A dysfunctional America helps China – but hurts Australia and our region | Natasha Kassam

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      As the US presidential election rolls into its fourth day of counting, Chinese leaders are not necessarily joining much of the world in frantically hitting refresh for updated vote tallies.
      As America edges towards a Biden victory in painful slow motion, there is no sense of urgency in Beijing, which benefits from the prolonged uncertainty.
      Chinese leaders – and many of its citizens – believe the United States is in terminal decline and that President Donald Trump has hastened the inevitable. The troubling story of decay in America paints a different picture in China from that in the rest of the world: the authoritarian model of politics and economics is just as good, if not better, than the liberal democratic model of the “west”.
      The coronavirus pandemic had already started the toppling dominos. China recovered from its disastrous response, wielding state capacity like an authoritarian sword to contain Covid-19. By contrast, the US has surrendered to the pandemic, tragically with a death toll 60 times that of China. The successes of democratic smaller nations, from Australia to Taiwan, barely register in Beijing.
      The four-day election count (so far) and divided polity are seen as further evidence of the wounds in US democracy. So too the increasingly erratic claims made by Trump that undermine US democratic institutions. These are chalked up as wins in Beijing’s column.
      More wins, from a Chinese perspective, are coming, and many in Australia’s immediate region. Beijing has threatened over $5bn exports from Australia. The issue has gained less traction than usual as eyes are glued to the circus that US politics has paraded for four years.
      China has also been extending olive branches across south-east Asia, providing technical assistance and protective equipment in the pandemic and attempting to repair the reputational hit that Covid-19 caused. Many have made deals with China guaranteeing preferential access if a Chinese vaccine candidate is approved.
      This vacuum was left by the US. When it comes to global public health, America has literally left the building. Ensnared in its own pandemic crisis, the world’s largest economy abandoned the World Health Organization. US allies are among the countries that China has promised priority access to vaccines, including the Philippines and Thailand.
      With the US missing in action, Australia has had to go it alone. Canberra has looked to counter China’s efforts, promising more than $500m in “vaccine diplomacy” across the region.
      China may struggle to find these opportunities if Biden is inaugurated. A globalist at heart, he has promised to reposition the US on the international stage and re-join the WHO. Australia should embrace that prospect.
      But for Beijing, the outcome of the US presidential election changes few of its policy settings. The Trump administration’s tough stance towards China is a rare glimpse of unity in a divided country.
      A potential Biden administration would continue to challenge China in most fields, including trade and technology. And any instinct by a potential president Biden to nominate Obama-era officials would need to get past the inevitable China-hawk test if the Republican-majority Senate remains.
      Tough China policy is also good politics in the US – as it is in Australia. Both Australian and American publics have soured on China as more evidence of China’s aggression and human rights abuses have come to light.
      One difference may be that a Biden administration would be better coordinated with partners and allies on China policy. Under Trump, US policy oscillated from praising Xi Jinping to attempting regime change. A stable and consultative approach would be music to Australia’s proverbial ears, as it faces the brunt of China’s economic coercion with little backup or support. Biden could also be convinced to revive the ailing World Trade Organization, though US concerns pre-dated Trump.
      Still, who wins the US election matters much more to Australia than China.
      A weaker United States, led by a president elected in a messy and marginal victory, would only make China more confident. And a new administration, distracted by domestic turmoil, may lack the bandwidth to wake up to the urgent support needed in Australia, and the broader region. A divided America may translate into an isolated Australia. And this, in turn, would embolden China.
      • Natasha Kassam is a research fellow at the Lowy Institute More

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      in US Politics

      Trump finds unlikely backers in prominent pro-democracy Asian figures

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      Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong media tycoon and one of the most prominent pro-democracy figures in the city, waded into the US election in its final days, with an enthusiastic endorsement of the incumbent in his Apple Daily newspaper.“I find a stronger sense of security in [Donald] Trump,” he wrote in an editorial that praised the US president for his “hardline” approach to Beijing.His position is echoed by many in Hong Kong’s increasingly battered pro-democracy movement, across Taiwan and among many exiled Chinese dissidents living in America, including blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng, who endorsed Trump at the Republican national convention.The US president might not seem like a natural ally for pro-democracy campaigners after years of public support for strongmen and dictators, undermining the press at home, and even attacking domestic protesters as “rioters”.At a time of increased hate attacks on Asian Americans he has also used racist rhetoric about Covid-19, describing it as “kung flu” and the “China virus”. Advocacy groups have warned Trump’s language could have dangerous consequences.But Lai and others who want democracy for China see in Trump’s unpredictable approach to foreign policy, and his escalating confrontations with Beijing, their greatest hope of challenging Chinese Communist party rule.“The Trump administration might be the hand that eventually pushes China to democracy,” dissident Wang Juntao, who fled into exile after the crackdown in Tiananmen Square in 1989, told local New York paper The City.In Taiwan a recent poll found that independence-leaning Taiwanese back Trump strongly. 80% of Democratic Progressive party supporters wanted US voters to return him to office, the Taiwan Times reported.These enthusiastic Trump supporters are motivated by the president’s turn away from decades of US engagement with Beijing, rather than his personal politics, said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London.“They are focusing much more on confronting the challenges posed by the Communist party of China than they are focusing on the principles of democracy and human rights,” Tsang said.Since Nixon, US presidents had all “to slightly different extents, belonged to the school of engagement with China”, Tsang added. Trump began his presidency with a similar approach, so keen to strike a trade deal that he held off taking action over human rights abuses in Xinjiang to smooth negotiations.But amid escalating tensions over everything from the coronavirus to the economy and allegations of industrial espionage, he has broken definitively with that tradition, deploying the strongest rhetoric on China since the early days of the cold war.Timeline2020 US election: key datesShow3 November 2020Polling day. However in many states people have been able to vote early either in person or by absentee ballot since September.23 November 2020Washington is due to be the last state to stop accepting and counting votes – they must be postmarked on or before election day, but can be counted if they arrive as many as 20 days afterwards. In practice, however, Washington is among the safest Democratic party states and will have been called for one party or the other long before this deadline.8 December 2020Deadline for states to resolve any disputes over the selection of their electors of the electoral college.14 December 2020The electors meet in their respective state capitals to formally vote for the president and vice-president.6 January 2021The electoral college votes are formally counted in a joint session of Congress. The president of the Senate announces who will be the next president of the United States.20 January 2021The next president swears their oath and is inaugurated in a Washington DC ceremony.Trump has also brought in a series of sanctions over alleged abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, boosted diplomatic and military support for self-ruled Taiwan, and challenged Chinese-owned tech firms operating in the US.For prominent figures like Lai, that has meant support for both his cause, and him personally. When the tycoon was arrested by Hong Kong authorities in August, Trump denounced the detention as “a terrible thing”.Lai’s media empire has even been accused of trying to actively meddle in the US election. He recently apologised for the role the Apple Daily played in a report on Hunter Biden’s alleged Chinese business links.He admitted funds from his private firm had been used to pay for it, but said he personally had “nothing to do” with its commissioning or dissemination.Support for Trump is far from universal among critics of China, however. Kevin Yam, a Hong Kong-based lawyer, is among those who argue that the lure of a hardline stance against Beijing is superficial, and the president’s position on other issues will ultimately undermine everything they are fighting for.“I dispute the very idea that Trump is ‘tough on China’ given his record, and his words and deeds make it hard for him to have credibility when pushing a human rights agenda around the world,” said Yam who laid out his concerns in an editorial for Ming Pao and said he was showered with abuse when it came out.“If an anti-universal values power ‘beats’ another, that’s not a triumph for freedom, it’s just Orwellian Nineteen Eighty-Four-style endless mutual destruction as between hegemons,” he wrote in an English language summary of his argument on Twitter.In the US, another Tiananmen Square dissident, Wan Yanhai is campaigning hard against the incumbent, and says he too has faced verbal abuse and even a death threat, but is determined to continue.“Trump has inflicted major damage on democracy,” he told The City. “You want to fight against the CCP [Chinese Communist party], but you shouldn’t expect one monster to eat another monster.” More

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      in US Politics

      The US election that doesn't count: Guam goes to the polls but votes won't matter

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      Politics is a favourite sport on the streets of Hagatna, where voters are preparing for the US elections.Billboards adorn every street corner and conversations are dominated by candidates and their policies. But when Guamanians go to the polls on 3 November and mark down their preference for president, their “votes” won’t count.Despite being American citizens, an anomaly in US law means the residents of the island, which lies in the Pacific Ocean 8,000 miles from Washington, have no say as to who runs their country.They vote for a local legislature, a governor, and a delegate to the US House of Representatives – a delegate who cannot vote – but their choice for president, marked on the same ballot, carries no weight.Guam’s is a straw poll: a non-binding four-yearly exercise that serves merely as an early barometer for how the rest of the nation will vote.Guam residents are among the 4 million disenfranchised Americans living in US territories who can’t vote for president. And being left out of the election stings.“I am deeply unhappy that as a US citizen formerly residing on the mainland, I have to give up my voting rights for president simply by moving to another part of the US,” James Hofman, a corporate lawyer who moved to Guam from California in 2006, told The Guardian.Guam, “where America’s day begins” – as the island’s slogan goes – is 14 hours ahead of Washington, DC.“It might have some symbolic value, but until there is a direct nexus between our political will and some reciprocal action and engagement by DC it’s not very meaningful,” Hofman said of the straw poll. More

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      in World Politics

      A Counterweight to Authoritarianism, People Power Is on the Rise

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      Despite all the obstacles, Americans are voting in huge numbers prior to Election Day. With a week to go, nearly 70 million voters have sent in their ballots or stood on line for early voting. The pandemic hasn’t prevented them from exercising their constitutional right. Nor have various Republican Party schemes to suppress the vote. Some patriotic citizens have waited all day at polling places just to make sure that their voices are heard.

      Americans are not alone. In Belarus and Bolivia, Poland and Thailand, Chile and Nigeria, people are pushing back against autocrats and coups and police violence. Indeed, 2020 may well go down in history alongside 1989 and 1968 as a pinnacle of people power.

      Some pundits, however, remain skeptical that people power can turn the authoritarian tide that has swept Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro and Narendra Modi into office. “People power, which democratized countries from South Korea and Poland in the 1980s to Georgia and Ukraine in the 2000s and Tunisia in 2010, has been on a losing streak,” writes Jackson Diehl this week in The Washington Post. “That’s true even though mass protests proliferated in countries around the world last year and have continued in a few places during 2020 despite the pandemic.”

      Diehl can point to a number of cases to prove his point. Despite massive popular resistance, many autocrats haven’t budged. Vladimir Putin remains in charge in Russia, despite several waves of protest. Recep Tayyip Erdogan seems to have only consolidated his power in Turkey. And who expected Bashar al-Assad to still be in power in Syria after the Arab Spring, a punishing civil war and widespread international condemnation?

      Could COVID-19 Bring Down Autocrats?

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      Even where protests have been successful, for instance most recently in Mali, it was the military, not democrats, who took over from a corrupt and unpopular leader. Rather than slink out of their palaces or send in the tanks for a final stand by, autocrats have deployed more sophisticated strategies to counter popular protests. They’re more likely to wait out the storm. They use less overtly violent means or deploy their violence in more targeted ways to suppress civil society. Also, they’ve been able to count on friends in high places, notably Donald Trump, who wishes that he could rule forever.

      Pundits tend to overstate the power of the status quo. Autocrats may have the full panoply of state power at their disposal, but they also tend to dismiss challenges to their authority until it’s too late. As Americans await the verdict on Trump’s presidency, they can take heart that the tide may be turning for people power all over the world.

      Overturning Coups: Bolivia and Thailand

      One year ago, Bolivia held an election that the Organization of American States (OAS) called into question. The apparent winner was Evo Morales, who had led the small South American nation for nearly 14 years. The OAS, however, identified tampering in at least 38,000 ballots. Morales won by 35,000 votes. Pressured by the Bolivian military, Morales stepped down and then fled the country. A right-wing government took over and set about suppressing Morales’ Movement for Socialism (MAS) party. It looked, for all the world, like a coup.

      The OAS report set into motion this chain of events. Subsequent analysis, however, demonstrated that the OAS judgment was flawed and that there were no statistical anomalies in the vote. Granted, there were other problems with the election, but they could have been investigated without calling into question the entire enterprise.

      It’s also true that Morales himself possesses an autocratic streak. He held a referendum to overturn the presidential term limit and then ignored the result to run again. He came under criticism from environmentalists, feminists, and his former supporters. But Morales was a shrewd leader whose policies raised the standard of living for the country’s poorest inhabitants, particularly those from indigenous communities.

      Embed from Getty Images

      These policies have enduring popularity in the country. With Morales out of the political equation, Bolivians made their preferences clear in an election earlier this month. Luis Arce, the new leader of MAS, received 55% of the vote in a seven-way race, a sufficient margin to avoid a run-off. The leader of last year’s protest movement against Morales received a mere 14%. MAS also captured majorities in both houses of congress. An extraordinary 88% of Bolivian voters participated in the election. The victory of MAS is a reminder that the obituaries for Latin America’s “pink tide” have been a tad premature.

      The Bolivians are not the only ones intent on overturning the results of a coup. In Thailand, crowds of protesters have taken to the streets to protest what The Atlantic calls the “world’s last military dictatorship.” In the past, Thailand has been nearly torn apart by a battle between the red shirts (populists) and the yellow shirts (royalists). This time around, students and leftists from the reds have united with some middle-class yellows against a common enemy: the military. Even members of the police have been seen flashing the three-finger salute of the protesters, which they’ve borrowed from “The Hunger Games.”

      The protesters want the junta’s figurehead, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, to step down. They want to revise the military-crafted constitution. And they want reforms in the monarchy that stands behind the political leadership. Anger at the royals has been rising since the new king took over in 2016, particularly since he spends much of his time with his entourage in a hotel in Bavaria.

      It’s not easy to outmaneuver the Thai military. The country has had more coups in the modern era than any other country: 13 successful ones and nine that have failed. But this is the first time in a long time that the country seems unified in its opposition to the powers that be.

      Finally, the prospects for democracy in Mali received a recent boost as the military junta that took over in August orchestrated a transition to more or less civilian rule over the last month. The new government includes the former foreign minister, Moctar Ouane, as prime minister and several positions for the Tuaregs, who’d previously tilted toward separatism. Military men still occupy some key positions in the new government, but West African governments were sufficiently satisfied with this progress to lift the economic sanctions imposed after the coup. National elections are to take place in 18 months.

      Standing Up the Autocrats: Belarus and Poland 

      Protesters in Belarus want Alexander Lukashenko to leave office. Lukashenko refuses to go, so the protesters are refusing to go as well. Mass protests have continued on the streets of Minsk and other Belarusian cities ever since Lukashenko declared himself the winner of the presidential election in August. The last European dictator has done his best to suppress the resistance. The authorities detained at least 20,000 people and beat many of those in custody.

      This Sunday, nearly three months after the election, 100,000 again showed up in Minsk to give punch to an ultimatum issued by exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya: Lukashenko either steps down or will face a nationwide work stoppage. Lukashenko didn’t step down. So, people walked out. The strikes began on Monday, with workers refusing to show up at enterprises and students boycotting classes. Shops closed down, their owners creating human chains in Minsk. Even retirees joined in.

      Notably, the protest movement in Belarus is directed by women. Slawomir Sierakowski describes one telling incident in The New York Review of Books:

      “After receiving reports of an illegal assembly, a riot squad is dispatched to disperse it. But when they get there, it turns out to comprise three elderly ladies sitting on a bench, each holding piece of paper: the first sheet is white, the second red, the third white again — the colors of the pro-democracy movement’s flag. Sheepishly, these masked commandos with no identification numbers herd the women into a car and carry them off to jail.
      How many sweet old ladies can a regime lock up without looking ridiculous?” 

      Women are rising up in neighboring Poland as well, fed up the overtly patriarchal leadership of the ruling Law and Justice Party. The right-wing government has recently made abortion near-to-impossible in the country, and protesters have taken to the streets. In fact, they’ve been blockading city centers.

      It’s not just women. Farmers and miners have also joined the protests. As one miner’s union put it, “a state that assumes the role of ultimate arbiter of people’s consciences is heading in the direction of a totalitarian state.”

      Strengthening the Rule of Law: Chile and Nigeria

      Chile has been a democracy for three decades. But it has still abided by a constitution written during the Pinochet dictatorship. That, finally, will change, thanks to a protest movement sparked by a subway fare increase. Beginning last year, students led the demonstrations against that latest austerity measure from the government. Resistance took its toll: Around 36 people have died at the hands of the militarized police. But protests continued despite COVID-19.

      What started as anger over a few pesos has culminated in more profound political change. This week, Chileans went to the polls in a referendum on the constitution, with 78% voting in favor of a new constitution. In April, another election will determine the delegates for the constitutional convention. In 2022, Chileans will approve or reject the new constitution.

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      The protests were motivated by the economic inequality of Chilean society. A new constitution could potentially facilitate greater government involvement in the economy. But that kind of shift away from the neoliberal strictures of the Pinochet era will require accompanying institutional reforms throughout the Chilean system. A new generation of Chileans who have seen their actions on the streets translate into constitutional change will be empowered to stay engaged to make those changes happen.

      In Nigeria, meanwhile, the recent protests have focused on an epidemic of police killings. But the protests have led to more violence, with the police responsible for a dozen killings in Lagos last week, which only generated more protest and more violence. Activists throughout Africa — in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and elsewhere — have been inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement to challenge police brutality in their own countries. Accountable governments, transparent institutions, respect for the rule of law: These are all democratic preconditions. Without them, the elections that outsiders focus on as the litmus test of democracy are considerably less meaningful.

      The Future of People Power

      People power has caught governments by surprise in the past. That surprise factor has largely disappeared. Lukashenko knows what a color revolution looks like and how best to head it off. The government in Poland contains some veterans of the Solidarity movement, and they know from the inside how to deal with street protests. The Thai military has played the coup card enough times to know how to avert a popular takeover at the last moment.

      But in this cat-and-mouse world, people power is evolving as well. New technologies provide new powers of persuasion and organizing. Greater connectivity provides greater real-time scrutiny of government actions. Threats like climate change provide new urgency. Sure, authoritarians can wait out the storm. But the people can do the same.

      Here in the United States, periodic demonstrations have done little to push the Trump administration toward needed reforms. Nor have they led to his removal from office. Trump delights in ignoring and disparaging his critics. He rarely listens even to his advisers. But the four years are up on Tuesday. The American people will have a chance to speak. And this time the whole world is listening and watching. Judging from the president’s approval ratings overseas, they too are dreaming of regime change.

      *[This article was originally published by Foreign Policy in Focus.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      The Perils of Federalism in Time of Pandemic

      by

      Germany is a federation, and so are Belgium, Spain and Austria. Switzerland is a confederation — something of a federation plus. Federations consist of relatively autonomous entities, like states in the US, states and territories in Australia, provinces in Canada, Länder in Germany and Austria, cantons in Switzerland. Until recently, these institutional arrangements posed relatively few problems. With COVID-19, this has very much changed.

      Take the case of Switzerland, which is composed of 26 cantons, 20 of them so-called full cantons and six half-cantons (for historical, particularly religious reasons). In the west of the country, people speak predominantly French, in parts of the south, Italian, and the rest, German. Cantons differ not only in terms of language spoken but also in territorial size and the size of their populations.

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      Zürich and Bern have relatively large populations, while some of the cantons in the center of the country — what in German is called Innerschweiz, or inner Switzerland — have populations equivalent to small or medium-size cities. Yet no matter the size, they all jealously guard their autonomous position within the confederation, particularly with regard to the federal government.

      Proud Heritage

      The Swiss are proud of their political heritage and treasure their independence, particularly with respect to the European Union. They insist that Switzerland represents an idiosyncratic case in Western Europe, whose particularities, above all its system of direct democracy, does not jibe well with the rest of Europe. This largely explains why the Swiss have repeatedly rejected membership in the European Union even if they have agreed to adopt a large part of EU regulations — a logical consequence of the fact that the EU represents Switzerland’s most important market.

      Until a few days ago, COVID-19 appeared to have been contained in Switzerland. And then, suddenly, the number of daily infection rates skyrocketed, a surge “as steep as the Alps” as the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel put it. At the beginning of the pandemic, infection rates were particularly dramatic in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino and in the French-speaking cantons of Geneva and Vaud. All of these cantons have a large number of daily commuters from neighboring Italy and France. This time, it is the German-speaking cantons that are most dramatically affected — and not because of German commuters. The sudden upsurge in infections has primarily been the result of the way different cantons have dealt with the COVID-19 crisis.

      I speak from experience. We live in the canton of Vaud in the southwestern part of Switzerland. Here, the cantonal authorities mandated the wearing of masks in stores, supermarkets and enclosed public spaces in early summer. It took the canton of Geneva a few more weeks to follow suit, but it did. A few weeks ago, when I had to go to Switzerland’s capital, Bern, I thought I was in a different world. Most people appeared not to have heard that there was a pandemic. At the train station, in supermarkets and in other public spaces I was among the few customers to wear a mask.

      The situation was similar in other German-speaking cantons, including Zürich, Switzerland’s largest city. The reason: Different cantons had different security regulations, and these regulations were considerably laxer in Bern than in Geneva. It was not until the dramatic upsurge in infections a few days ago that the federal government issued new directives, making it mandatory to wear masks throughout the country. Too little, too late. In the meantime, the German government has declared all of Switzerland a risk zone, dissuading German tourists from visiting the country.

      This, of course, is highly ironic. In recent days, Germany has gone from one record to the next when it comes to new infections. As has been the case in Switzerland, the second wave is sweeping over Germany, setting off alarm bells. And, once again, federalism has proven to be a serious impediment to confronting the challenges posed by the pandemic. Already in early September, a report by Germany’s foreign broadcasting service Deutsche Welle noted that every state was “doing its own thing.” It went even further, raising the question of whether or not federalism was impeding “sweeping measures in the pandemic.”

      The answer was a tentative yes, which by now has been fully confirmed, given the massive increase in new infections. A few days ago, a text on the website of Die Tagesschau, Germany’s premier TV news broadcaster, raised the question of whether or not federalism had reached its limits. Ironically enough, it was Bavaria’s strongman, Markus Söder, who came out in favor of strengthening the position of the federal government. Bavaria has traditionally been most adamant in defending its autonomy within the federal republic. With COVID-19, taboos are no longer taboo, or so it seems.

      Borderless Autonomy

      The reality is that, in a federation, the constituent entities maintain a significant amount of autonomy, just like any sovereign state, but, at the same time, there are no borders between the units. People are free to travel from a lax unit to a strict one without controls, in the process potentially infecting people. This seems to have been the case in Switzerland in the wake of a yodeling musical staged before 600 spectators in the canton of Schwyz, which turned into a superspreader event. As a result, Schwyz, one of these miniature cantons in Innerschweiz, experienced a huge surge in infections that threatened to overburden the local health services. The spectators carried the virus to other cantons in the region, contributing to the upsurge in infections.

      Australia has shown that there is an alternative, even if a draconian one. In March, Tasmania closed its borders to the mainland, requiring “all non-essential travellers arriving in the island state … to self-isolate for 14 days, with penalties for those who did not comply of up to six months in jail or a fine of up to $16,800.” A prominent victim of these drastic measures was Australia’s leading radical right-wing populist, Pauline Hanson, who was unable to join her daughter who she suspected had caught the virus.

      In July, Victoria and New South Wales, Australia’s two most populous states, closed the border between them, following a dramatic outbreak of COVID-19 in Melbourne, Victoria’s capital. Until today, the border is closed to most people entering from Victoria, with severe penalties for those illegally into New South Wales without a permit, with fines up to $11,000 or jail time for up to six months, or both.

      Embed from Getty Images

      So far, such drastic measures seem inconceivable in Western Europe. Closing the borders with neighboring states, as happened in the spring, poses no problem, even among EU members. Closing the border between different Länder or cantons is an entirely different thing. The only alternative is binding measures issued by the federal government to be followed throughout the federation. This is what the Swiss federal government belatedly did. But in Germany, there is still great hesitation. Given the seriousness of the situation, this seems rather odd, to put it mildly.

      Yet the Germans might have a point. After all, things are hardly any better in France. And France is a unitary state where the government exercises a large measure of control over the country’s subordinate regions and departments. At the same time, however, the French government has been in a position to introduce drastic measures such as a curfew throughout France to curb the advance of the virus. In Germany and Switzerland, at least for the moment, this is unthinkable.

      There is, of course, a third alternative where people actually learn to act responsibly. It is ultimately up to the individual to reduce the risk of infection as much as possible. Unfortunately these days, individual responsibility and a sense of the common good beyond narrow self-interest appears to be in short supply. Blame it on the deleterious influence of neo-liberalism that has drilled into all of us that everybody is on their own, that there is no such thing as a society, as Margaret Thatcher told us, and that we have to learn to live with risks. COVID-19 has exposed the dark side of this ethos without, as it appears so far, having taught us a lesson.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      No Democratic Guarantee in Myanmar and US

      by

      The presidential elections in Myanmar have been set for November 8, just days after the US goes to the polls on November 3. Both countries have a history of keeping minorities in line by blocking their ability to vote and hold office. A brief comparison between the two is enough to illustrate three troubling points: that an established democratic tradition does not necessarily erode such barriers over time, that it most certainly does not guard against the creation of future barriers, and that older democracies may nevertheless use the same voter suppression tactics as younger ones.

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      In November, both US President Donald Trump and Burmese State Minister Aung San Suu Kyi will be seeking reelection for their respective roles. In addition to being heads of state, both are the de facto leaders of their respective parties, and each wields a unique brand of populism. They both have exhibited substantial failings when it on matters of race and ethnicity during their current terms: Trump in his response to the Black Livers Matter movement, and Suu Kyi in her defense of the Rohingya genocide.

      Voter Equality

      What is interesting to note is that the Black Livers Matter movement and the Rohingya genocide both share a dimension of demographic politics. African slaves were first imported to the British colony of Virginia in the 17th century, while the Rohingyas are believed to have arrived with British colonialists starting in the 19th century. Both groups have suffered systemic violence stemming from these histories, the former because of race and the latter because of both race and religion, with their right to vote consistently obstructed. While the Rohingya face outright exclusion, African Americans continue to face voter suppression tactics despite the many strides that have been made toward voter equality in the United States.

      The major difference between these two electoral processes is that November will mark the 59th US presidential election but only the second free vote Myanmar has had in 25 years. It is easy to assume that the US, being the modern world’s oldest democracy, would have a more inclusive voting process than Myanmar, whose shaky democratic transition was interrupted repeatedly by military coups. However, an argument can be made that voting regulations in both countries exclude the demographics judged to be undesirable by political elites, and these regulations evolve over time as a response to the excluded groups’ attempts to overcome them.

      Embed from Getty Images

      There are many ways to restrict voting by demographic. The most obvious would be to deny citizenship, since only citizens can cast their votes in national elections. Other options include making sure the targeted group cannot vote due to fear or inconvenience, that they have no desirable candidates to vote for, or that their votes count less than other votes.

      Both the US and Myanmar have a stratified citizenship system, and they share similarities in their history of denying citizenship as well. In the US, citizens enjoy the most privileges, while neither nationals nor permanent residents can vote or hold office. As an example, Americans born in American Samoa are to this day not considered US citizens, and US nationals like those born in Puerto Rico were not considered US citizens until the Jones-Shafroth Act in 1917. The act superseded the Naturalization Act of 1790 that limited naturalization to “free white persons,” effectively barring Native Americans, slaves and freedmen from obtaining citizenship and the ability to challenge other citizens in the court of law.

      In Myanmar, distinctions are made between full citizens, associate citizens and naturalized citizens depending on various factors. To be naturalized as a citizen, an applicant must also be able to speak one of the national languages well (of which the Rohingya language is not one), be “of good character” and “of sound mind.” The last few requirements are sufficiently vague to allow rejections without justification as well as made-up reasons that are difficult to challenge or overturn. No matter their rank, Burmese citizens are issued color-coded national registration cards, and their privileges are given in descending order.

      No registration cards were issued to the Rohingyas since the 1970s, and since every step in life, from school enrolment to job applications requires identification, it is no surprise that the Rohingya remain one of the most persecuted and most disenfranchised minorities not only in Myanmar, but globally.

      Fear and Bureaucracy

      Despite the protection of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that outlawed disenfranchisement through the use of literacy tests and the requirement of “good moral character” among other criteria, African Americans in the United States still suffer barriers to voter registration and new intimidation tactics around polling stations. The act also does not cover the many ongoing efforts that currently limit voting participation, such as purging rolls, voter caging, gerrymandering and decreasing the number of polling stations. By associating certain party leanings to certain locations and moving patterns, these tactics allow users to exclude demographics deemed unfavorable to their position.

      In Myanmar, the Rohingya were issued specific white cards in 2010 that did not confer citizenship but allowed them to vote, suspected to be distributed by the then-ruling party as a vote-buying scheme. The cards were then revoked before the 2015 elections that led to Suu Kyi’s victory. While the Rohingya who do not hold a national registration card cannot vote altogether at the moment, the tactics used by the Myanmar government also rely on capricious bureaucracy to limit the vote.

      Since the Rohingya have no right to vote and their candidates are barred from standing for election, the comparisons cannot continue beyond the two categories listed above. But the overlap in voter suppression tactics goes to show that a lengthier democratic tradition is not an automatic guard against voter exclusion. Disenfranchisement takes many forms, and it occurs in democracies irrespective of their age. The consequences of voter suppression are no less dire even if they do not result in immediate life-and-death situations — because disenfranchisement is disempowerment. It is nothing less than the deliberate undercutting of a group’s ability to make itself respected and heard.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.] More