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      Your Tuesday Briefing: Biden Travels to Kyiv

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      Also, another earthquake strikes Turkey and Syria.President Biden and Volodymyr Zelensky visited St. Michael’s monastery in downtown Kyiv.Daniel Berehulak/The New York TimesBiden’s surprise tripPresident Biden took a nearly 10-hour train ride from Poland to Ukraine’s capital to show the U.S.’s “unwavering commitment” to support Ukraine.As air-raid sirens sounded, Biden strolled in the sunshine and visited a monastery in downtown Kyiv with his host, President Volodymyr Zelensky. Biden promised $500 million in additional military aid but did not talk about the advanced weaponry that Ukraine was appealing for.“One year later, Kyiv stands,” Biden said during a news conference with Zelensky just four days ahead of the one-year mark of Russia’s invasion. “And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands.”Biden’s first trip to Ukraine since the war began was shrouded in secrecy. The U.S. alerted Russia about his plans hours before he arrived in Kyiv. Two reporters traveling with Biden agreed to keep details embargoed until the trip was over. Biden was in Kyiv for less than six hours before the Secret Service whisked him out of the city.Today: The contest between Biden and President Vladimir Putin will intensify when the two leaders deliver speeches, several hours and hundreds of miles apart. Putin will deliver a state-of-the-nation address in Moscow. Biden will speak in Warsaw.On the front line: While Russia has relied on prisoners and mercenaries to do some of its fighting, all ranks of society have been mobilized in Ukraine. Among them was a couple who shared a trench on the front line — and died in it.Xi Jinping is trying to keep Russia close and also repair ties with Western powers.Pool photo by Alexei DruzhininWill China help arm Russia?As Russian state media reported that China’s most senior foreign policy official had arrived in Moscow, Beijing bristled against the U.S. claim that it was poised to give Russia “lethal support.” Such a step would be a major shift for China and would transform the war into a struggle between three superpowers.China accused the Biden administration of spreading lies. “It’s the U.S., and not China, that has been incessantly supplying weapons to the battlefield,” a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said, “and the U.S. is not qualified to issue any orders to China.”The State of the WarPortending a Global Rift: Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said that China is strongly considering giving military aid to Russia, a move that would transform the war into a struggle involving three superpowers.Western Support: Nearly one year into the war, American and European leaders pledged to remain steadfast in their support for Ukraine amid worries about how long their resolve will last.Harris’s Comments: Vice President Kamala Harris declared that the United States had formally concluded that Russia had committed “crimes against humanity” in its invasion of Ukraine.A Russian Mole in Germany?: A director at Germany’s spy service was arrested on suspicion of passing intelligence to Russia. German officials and allies worry just how deep the problem goes.Beijing defended its ties to Moscow and insisted that it was a neutral observer trying only to coax Russia and Ukraine into peace talks. While China has supported Russia in nonmilitary ways, sending it weapons would deeply alarm the U.S. and Europe at a time when Beijing is trying to rebuild global ties after years of pandemic isolation.President Biden has stressed to Xi Jinping, China’s leader, that any such move would have far-reaching consequences. The warnings to China revealed that the Biden administration believes Beijing is close to crossing the line.What’s next: A Kremlin spokesman said that the Chinese official, Wang Yi, may meet with President Vladimir Putin while in Moscow.Many people are traumatized from the earlier quake.Clodagh Kilcoyne/ReutersAnother earthquake strikesA powerful new earthquake shook southern Turkey and northwestern Syria, two weeks after a powerful double tremor killed more than 46,000 people and left more than a million homeless. Here are updates.The 6.3-magnitude quake struck yesterday afternoon in Hatay Province in Turkey, an area that had already suffered widespread damage from collapsed buildings.The new quake spread panic among survivors, many of whom are staying in tents or sleeping in their cars because they remain too scared to go inside any buildings. A district mayor said that people were trapped under the debris: “People are screaming for their lives.” In Syria: People were hospitalized after being hurt in stampedes, the state-run news media reported. In rebel-held territory, the White Helmets, a local rescue organization, also reported stampedes and said people had jumped from balconies to escape buildings.U.S.-Turkey tensions: During a visit to Ankara, Antony Blinken, the U.S. Secretary of State, pledged to keep helping Turkey recover. But there were few signs of progress on disputes over F-16 sales and NATO.THE LATEST NEWSAround the WorldAmmar Awad/ReutersTens of thousands of protesters gathered in Jerusalem as Israeli lawmakers prepared to hold the first votes on bills that would curb the judiciary’s power.British police found the body of Nicola Bulley, whose disappearance prompted a national debate over privacy and the treatment of missing women.The U.S. and Canadian militaries have ended the search for the remnants of downed U.F.O.s over Alaska and northern Canada.Other Big StoriesSome pieces are believed to have once been worn by Angkor royalty.Cambodia Ministry of Culture & Fine ArtsCambodia said it had recovered 77 gold relics from the collection of a British art dealer, who died in 2020 and was accused of antiquities trafficking.Deaths in U.S. prisons rose nearly 50 percent during the pandemic’s first year, according to data examined by The Times.A doodle appears to show Leonardo da Vinci’s ideas in deconstructing gravity, long before Galileo and Newton.An alligator was found in a Brooklyn lake. It may have been someone’s pet. OpinionsBig tech companies should be liable for the illegal conduct that their platforms enable, Julia Angwin writes.Nicholas Kristof argues that the U.S. should give Ukraine all of the weaponry the country needs to end the war, despite the risk of escalation.A Morning ReadFabio Bucciarelli for The New York TimesThe Duomo, Milan’s beloved landmark, has needed constant care basically since 1386, when construction began.The cathedral is crafted from rare, pink-hued marble that is particularly fragile. Now, climate change and pollution are adding to the challenges of preservation.ARTS AND IDEASNurse burnoutThe pandemic made nursing even harder in the U.S.: Nurses are burned out and exhausted. Some have left the profession. About 43 percent are considering it, according to a recent survey by the American Nurses Foundation.“It’s hard to talk about mental health,” said Kathleen Littleton, one of several trained nurses who spoke to The Times about their challenges. “In nursing, sometimes it’s frowned upon when people say, ‘Oh I feel so burned out.’ It’s almost like a shameful way to approach it.” She now works for an insurance company.Today’s burnout could make for long-term shortages. There’s still high interest in the field, but fewer experienced nurses mean fewer opportunities for students to get in-hospital training. That, in turn, leads to nursing schools not producing enough graduates to fill the gap.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookArmando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.These coconut-stuffed pancakes are enjoyed along the western coast of India.What to ReadIn “Every Man a King,” class and racial divisions collide as a Black ex-cop investigates a kidnapping in New York City.What to Watch“All Quiet on the Western Front” won seven BAFTA awards, including best film. Read our review.HealthUse this guide to avoid harmful chemicals in beauty products.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Got rid of (four letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you tomorrow. — AmeliaP.S. The Times won three George Polk Awards, two for its coverage of the war in Ukraine. I’d love to hear from you. You can write at briefing@nytimes.com. I read every note. More

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      Competitor or adversary? The west struggles to define its relationship with Beijing

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      Competitor or adversary? The west struggles to define its relationship with BeijingChina, the US’s most vital trade partner and its main long-term competitor, presents the country with a sticky ‘pacing challenge’ If you want to solve a problem, it helps to be able to define it, but when it comes to a problem like China, western leaders have been struggling to find the right words.Liz Truss sought to designate China as a “threat” to Britain, but did not stay prime minister long enough for that to become established policy. Her successor, Rishi Sunak, has opted for the less combative “systemic challenge” but he is under pressure from backbench MPs to follow Truss’s path and call Beijing a “strategic threat”.Sunak has made clear he does not want the UK to be out of step with its allies on the issue, most importantly the US. In Washington, meanwhile, China designation is a delicate and evolving art.China ‘spy balloon’ wakes up world to new era of war at edge of spaceRead moreThe delicacy was apparent when a Chinese balloon sailed over the continental US earlier this month. The US declared the high-altitude airship and its payload to be designed for spying and shot it down once it was safely over the Atlantic. The secretary of state, Antony Blinken, cancelled a long-planned trip to Beijing to address bilateral tensions, but at the same time stressed that channels of communication would be kept open and that the US remained keen on a meeting when conditions allowed. Blinken may meet his counterpart, Wang Yi, as soon as this week, at the Munich security conference.The theme of US-China policy towards the end of the Trump administration was an all-encompassing decoupling, in which China was presented in mostly adversarial terms. Joe Biden has preferred to talk about “stiff competition”. His administration’s national defence strategy paper deemed Russia to be an “acute threat” while China was portrayed as the US’s only long-term “competitor”. In recent weeks, the official catchphrase for Beijing has been the slightly nebulous “pacing challenge”, suggesting the US is the world’s constant frontrunner with China ever closer to its shoulder.The problem with categorising China is that there are multiple aspects to its global role as it expands its presence on the world stage. For that reason, Democratic senator Chris Murphy has warned against digging up old cold war rhetoric.“You can’t use the terminology that we used for our conflict with the Soviet Union for our conflict with China,” Murphy told Foreign Policy. “It is apples and oranges. We had virtually no trade relationship with the Soviet Union. Our most vital trade relationship is with China. So I do worry about a bunch of Cold Warriors and Cold War enthusiasts thinking that you can run a competition with China like you ran a competition with the Soviet Union. It’s not the same thing.”With this in mind, Blinken has adopted a Swiss army penknife multi-tooled approach that is “competitive when it should be, collaborative when it can be and adversarial when it must be.”Washington is acutely aware that it has been complacent in its competition with China for global clout, having assumed that better US technology and its democratic model would win the day, only to find that African countries and other parts of the global south were sitting on their hands when the US called for support in the UN general assembly. Last year an old Pacific ally, Solomon Islands, signed a security pact with Beijing, denying entry to a US Coast Guard cutter not long after.The Biden administration now plans to beef up its diplomatic presence in the Pacific, reopening some shuttered missions. It has set up a “China house” in the state department to coordinate analysis and help counter China’s message around the world. On Wednesday, the deputy secretary of state, Wendy Sherman, summed up the new US approach as Washington takes on the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the contest for hearts and minds in emerging economies.“It is not to say that the PRC can’t invest or that you should toss them out,” Sherman said at the Brookings Institution. Instead, she said the message will be: “Have your eyes wide open”.“Understand what you’re getting, understand what rules apply, what the norms are. Give us a chance, see what we have to offer. Let us compete and help you develop as a country in the ways that you choose,” Sherman said.As for collaboration with China, she said there was little choice other than to work with Beijing to address the climate emergency.“There is no doubt that we cannot meet the climate challenge without engagement with the PRC,” Sherman said. “It’s just not possible because we are both such large emitters and historic emitters.”At the same time, there are plenty of fields in which the US and China are adversaries. The balloon affair has just added another layer to a constant, escalating intelligence struggle between the two powers, in which Beijing has scored some remarkable successes in recent years, stealing designs for the F-35 fighter jet for example. Chinese hackers also stole the personal details of 22 million federal workers – current, former and prospective.Fears of China’s technological capabilities led Biden to introduce draconian export restrictions on semiconductors in October of last year, in an effort to strangle China’s microchip sector. It came close to an economic declaration of war, but Republicans in Congress are still trying to depict him as “soft on China”, calling on him to ban the TikTok app as a threat to national security. Some red states are considering bans on Chinese nationals buying land.It is in the military arena of course where the stakes are the highest and the risks of a competitive relationship becoming adversarial are greatest. Last week, the Pentagon informed Congress that China now had more missile silos than the US. It was an eye-catching claim, though most of the silos are empty and the US retains a substantial superiority in submarine and airborne launchers. China is estimated by the Federation of American Scientists to have 350 nuclear warheads. Even if that number tripled, as the Pentagon predicts it will, it will still be less than a fifth of the US stockpile.China’s long-term threat will depend ultimately on whether it is developing its military clout simply to deter or to attack, across the Taiwan Strait in particular. At the end of January, the head of US Air Mobility Command, Gen Mike Minihan, told other officers that his “gut” told him the US and China would be at war by 2025. It was an estimate quickly disowned by the rest of the Pentagon leadership, who shied away from such expressions of inevitability.US officials say that Xi Jinping is watching Russia’s military debacle in Ukraine with concern and maybe recalibrating his options. Opinions differ within the administration on how seriously Xi takes his pledge to reunite China, another reason it has wavered over the right terminology.There is agreement for now however that repeatedly deeming China to be a threat risks making matters worse, shaping policy in such a way that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.TopicsChinaUS foreign policyBiden administrationUS politicsAsia PacificXi JinpingfeaturesReuse this content More

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      China Returns to Davos With Clear Message: We’re Open for Business

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      Emerging from coronavirus lockdown to a world changed by the war in Ukraine, China sought to convey reassurance about its economic health.DAVOS, Switzerland — China ventured back on to the global stage Tuesday, sending a delegation to the World Economic Forum to assure foreign investors that after three years in which the pandemic cut off their country from the world, life was back to normal.But the Chinese faced a wary audience at the annual event, attesting to both the dramatically changed geopolitical landscape after Russia’s war on Ukraine, as well as two data points that highlighted a worrisome shift in China’s own fortunes.Hours before a senior Chinese official, Liu He, spoke to this elite economic gathering in an Alpine ski resort, the government announced that China’s population shrank in 2022 for the first time in 61 years. A short time earlier, it confirmed that economic growth had slowed to 3 percent, well below the trend of the past decade.Against that backdrop, Mr. Liu sought to reassure his audience that China was still a good place to do business. “If we work hard enough, we are confident that growth will most likely return to its normal trend, and the Chinese economy will make a significant improvement in 2023,” he said.Mr. Liu, a well-traveled vice premier who is one of China’s most recognizable faces in the West, insisted that the Covid crisis was “steadying,” seven weeks after the government abruptly abandoned its policy of quarantines and lockdowns. China had passed the peak of infections, he said, and had sufficient hospital beds, doctors and nurses, and medicine to treat the millions who are sick.A clinic waiting room in Beijing in December. The Chinese government announced a broad rollback of its zero Covid rules earlier that month.Gilles Sabrie for The New York TimesHe did not mention the 60,000 fatalities linked to the coronavirus since the lockdowns were lifted, a huge spike in the official death toll that China announced three days ago.Mr. Liu’s mild words and modest tone were in stark contrast to those of his boss, President Xi Jinping, who came to Davos in 2017 to claim the mantle of global economic leadership in a world shaken up by the election of Donald J. Trump in the United States and Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.Since then, the United States and Europe have united to support Ukraine against Russia, leaving the Russians isolated with the Chinese among their few friends. Russia’s revanchist campaign has raised questions among Europeans about whether China might have similar designs on Taiwan, and escalated security concerns among the world’s democracies.Mr. Liu steered clear of political issues like the war in Ukraine or China’s tensions with the Biden administration. But he did say, “We have to abandon the Cold War mentality,” echoing a frequent Chinese criticism of the United States for attempting to contain China’s influence around the world.But it is China’s demographics and economic growth that are raising the biggest questions among businesspeople. The decline in population lays bare the country’s falling birthrate, a trend that experts said was exacerbated by the pandemic and will threaten its growth over the long term. The 3 percent growth rate, the second weakest since 1976, reflects the stifling effect of the government’s Covid policy.“The Chinese are worried, and they should be,” said Evan S. Medeiros, a professor of Asia studies at Georgetown University. “The entire international business community is way more negative about China over the long-term. A lot of people are asking, ‘Have we reached peak China?’”Children playing in the village square after school in Xiasha Village in Shenzhen, China, in November. China’s population has begun to shrink, the government announced on Tuesday.Qilai Shen for The New York TimesProfessor Medeiros, who served as a China adviser in the Obama administration, said, “For the past 20 years, China has benefited from both geoeconomic gravity and geopolitical momentum, but in the last year it has rapidly lost both.”The signposts of China’s economic weakness are everywhere: the government announced on Friday that exports fell 9.9 percent in December relative to a year earlier. “China has an export slowdown, construction is in crisis, and the local governments are running out of money,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, professor of political science at Hong Kong Baptist University. “China needs the world: to boost its economy, to accompany the return to more normalcy.”Mr. Liu laid out a familiar set of economic policies, from upholding the rule of law to pursuing “innovation-driven development.” He insisted that China was still attractive to foreign investors, who he said were integral to China’s plan to achieve the government’s goal of “common prosperity.”Lianyungang port in China’s eastern Jiangsu province. The government announced on Friday that exports fell 9.9 percent in December relative to a year earlier.Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“China’s national reality dictates that opening up to the world is a must, not an expediency,” Mr. Liu said. “We must open up wider and make it work better. We oppose unilateralism and protectionism.”But China’s delegation was a reminder of how the government has sidelined some of its own best-known entrepreneurs as it has reined in powerful technology companies. Jack Ma, a co-founder of the Alibaba Group, used to be one of the biggest celebrities at the World Economic Forum, holding court in a chalet on the outskirts of Davos. Now shunted out of power, Mr. Ma is absent from Davos.Instead, China sent less well-known executives from Ant Group, an affiliate of the Alibaba Group, as well as officials from China Energy Group and China Petrochemical Group. Unlike other countries, notably India and Saudi Arabia, which plastered buildings in Davos with advertisements for foreign investment, China has been low-key, holding meetings at the posh Belvedere Hotel.After his speech, Mr. Liu, who has a command of English and holds a graduate degree from Harvard, met privately with business executives. Some expected him to be more candid in that session about the challenges China has faced.Mr. Liu did not meet top American officials in Davos, though he will meet Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in Zurich on Wednesday. Martin J. Walsh, the labor secretary who is at the conference, said he welcomed China’s return. “China’s in the world economy,” he said. “We need to engage with them.”Mr. Liu speaking on Tuesday.Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThough Mr. Liu, 70, has a significant international profile — having led trade negotiations with the Trump administration — China experts noted that he is not in Mr. Xi’s innermost circle. He is also no longer a member of the Chinese government’s ruling Politburo, though analysts said he retained the trust of Mr. Xi.When he spoke at Davos in 2018, Mr. Liu’s speech was among the best attended of the conference. This year, however, about a quarter of the hall emptied before Mr. Liu spoke, after having been packed for a speech by Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission.The difference in crowd sizes reflected the reshuffled priorities of the West, now focused on exhibiting unity against Russian aggression.Ms. von der Leyen, who celebrated that solidarity in her remarks, did not exactly warm up the audience for Mr. Liu. She accused the Chinese government, in its drive to dominate the clean-energy industries of the future, of unfairly subsidizing its companies at the expense of Europe and the United States.“Climate change needs a global approach,” she said in a chiding tone, “but it needs to be a fair approach.”Mark Landler More

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      Putin Is Onto Us

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      As the Russian Army continues to falter in Ukraine, the world is worrying that Vladimir Putin could use a tactical nuclear weapon. Maybe — but for now, I think Putin is assembling a different weapon. It’s an oil and gas bomb that he’s fusing right before our eyes and with our inadvertent help — and he could easily detonate it this winter.If he does, it could send prices of home heating oil and gasoline into the stratosphere. The political fallout, Putin surely hopes, will divide the Western alliance and prompt many countries — including ours, where both MAGA Republicans and progressives are expressing concerns about the spiraling cost of the Ukraine conflict — to seek a dirty deal with the man in the Kremlin, pronto.In short: Putin is now fighting a ground war to break through Ukraine’s lines and a two-front energy war to break Ukraine’s will and that of its allies. He’s trying to smash Ukraine’s electricity system to ensure a long, cold winter there while putting himself in position (in ways that I’ll explain) to drive up energy costs for all of Ukraine’s allies. And because we — America and the West — do not have an energy strategy in place to dampen the impact of Putin’s energy bomb, this is a frightening prospect.When it comes to energy, we want five things at once that are incompatible — and Putin is onto us:1. We want to decarbonize our economy as fast as we can to mitigate the very real dangers of climate change.2. We want the cheapest possible gasoline and heating oil prices so we can drive our cars as fast and as much as we want — and never have to put on a sweater indoors or do anything to conserve energy.3. We want to tell the petrodictators in Iran, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia to take a hike.4. We want to be able to treat U.S. oil and gas companies as pariahs and dinosaurs that should pump us out of this current oil crisis and then go off in the woods and die and let solar and wind take over.5. Oh, and we don’t want any new oil and gas pipelines or wind and solar transmission lines to spoil our backyards.I understand why people want all five — now. I want all five! But they involve trade-offs, which too few of us want to acknowledge or debate. In an energy war like the one we’re in now, you need to be clear about your goals and priorities. As a country, and as a Western alliance, we have no ladder of priorities on energy, just competing aspirations and magical thinking that we can have it all.If we persist in that, we are going to be in for a world of hurt if Putin drops the energy bomb that I think he’s assembling for Christmas. Here’s what I think is his strategy: It starts with getting the United States to draw down its Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It is a huge stock of crude oil stored in giant caverns that we can draw on in an emergency to offset any cutoff in our domestic production or imports. Last Wednesday, President Biden announced the release of 15 million more barrels from the reserve in December, completing a plan he laid out earlier to release a total of 180 million barrels in an effort to keep gasoline prices at the pump as low as possible — in advance of the midterm elections. (He didn’t say the last part. He didn’t need to.)According to a report in The Washington Post, the reserve contained “405.1 million barrels as of Oct. 14. That’s about 57 percent of its maximum authorized storage capacity of 714 million barrels.”I sympathize with the president. People were really hurting from $5- and $6-a-gallon gasoline. But using the reserve — which was designed to cushion us in the face of a sudden shut-off in domestic or global production — to shave a dime or a quarter off a gallon of gasoline before elections is a dicey business, even if the president has a plan for refilling it in the coming months.Putin wants America to use up as much of its Strategic Petroleum Reserve cushion now — just like the way the Germans gave up on nuclear energy and he got them addicted to Russia’s cheap natural gas. Then, when Russian gas was cut off because of the Ukraine war, German homes and factories had to frantically cut back and scramble for more expensive alternatives.Next, Putin is watching the European Union gear up for a ban on seaborne imports of crude oil from Russia, starting Dec. 5. This embargo — along with Germany and Poland’s move to stop pipeline imports — should cover roughly 90 percent of the European Union’s current oil imports from Russia.As a recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., noted, “Crucially, the sanctions also ban E.U. companies from providing shipping insurance, brokering services or financing for oil exports from Russia to third countries.”The U.S. Treasury and European Union believe that without that insurance, the number of customers for Russian oil will shrink dramatically, so they are telling the Russians that they can get the insurance for their oil tankers from the few Western insurance companies that dominate the industry only if they lower the price of their crude oil exports to a level set by the Europeans and the United States.My sources in the oil industry tell me they seriously doubt this Western price fixing will work. Russia’s OPEC Plus partner Saudi Arabia is certainly not interested in seeing such a buyers’ price-fixing precedent set. Moreover, international oil trading is full of shady characters — does the name Marc Rich ring a bell? — who thrive on market distortions. Oil tankers carry transponders that track their locations. But tankers engaged in shady activities will turn their transponders off and reappear days after they’ve made a ship-to-ship transfer or will transfer their cargo into storage tanks somewhere in Asia for re-export, in effect laundering their Russian oil. Oil in just one very large tanker can be worth roughly $250 million, so the incentives are enormous.Now add one more dodgy player to the mix: China. It has all kinds of long-term, fixed-price contracts to import liquefied natural gas from the Middle East at roughly $100 a barrel of oil equivalent. But because President Xi Jinping’s crazy approach to containing Covid — in recent months some 300 million citizens have been under full or partial lockdown — China’s economy has slowed considerably, as has its gas consumption. As a result, an oil industry source tells me, China has been taking some of the L.N.G. sold to it on those fixed-price contracts for domestic use and reselling it to Europe and other gas-starved countries for $300 a barrel of oil equivalent.Now that Xi has locked in his third term as general secretary of the Communist Party, many expect that he will ease up on his lockdowns. If China goes back to anything near its normal gas consumption and stops re-exporting its excess, the global gas market will become even more scarily tight.Last, as I noted, Putin is trying to destroy Ukraine’s ability to generate electricity. Today more than one million Ukrainians are without power, and as one Ukrainian lawmaker tweeted last week, “Total darkness and cold are coming.”So add all of this up and then suppose, come December, Putin announces he is halting all Russian oil and gas exports for 30 or 60 days to countries supporting Ukraine, rather than submit to the European Union’s fixing of his oil price. He could afford that for a short while. That would be Putin’s energy bomb and Christmas present to the West. In this tight market, oil could go to $200 a barrel, with a commensurate rise in the price of natural gas. We’re talking $10 to $12 a gallon at the pump in the United States.The beauty for Putin of an energy bomb is that unlike setting off a nuclear bomb — which would unite the whole world against him — setting off an oil price bomb would divide the West from Ukraine.Obviously, I am just guessing that this is what Putin is up to, and if the world goes into recession, it could take energy prices down with it. But we would be wise to have a real counterstrategy in place, especially because, while some in Europe have managed to stock up on natural gas for this winter, rebuilding those stocks for 2023 without Russian gas and with China returning to normal could be very costly.If Biden wants America to be the arsenal of democracy to protect us and our democratic allies — and not leave us begging Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela or Iran to produce more oil and gas — we need a robust energy arsenal as much as a military one. Because we are in an energy war! Biden needs to make a major speech, making clear that for the foreseeable future, we need more of every kind of energy we have. American oil and gas investors need to know that as long as they produce in the cleanest way possible, invest in carbon capture and ensure that any new pipelines they build will be compatible with transporting hydrogen — probably the best clean fuel coming down the road in the next decade — they have a welcome place in America’s energy future, alongside the solar, wind, hydro and other clean energy producers that Biden has heroically boosted through his climate legislation.I know. This is not ideal. This is not where I hoped we would be in 2022. But this is where we are, and anything else really is magical thinking — and the one person who will not be fooled by it is Vladimir Putin.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Your Tuesday Briefing: Rishi Sunak to Lead Britain

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      Plus Chinese markets react to a stronger Xi Jinping and young Chinese pursue quiet dissent.“We now need stability and unity, and I will make it my utmost priority to bring my party and country together,” Rishi Sunak said yesterday.Aberto Pezzali/Associated PressRishi Sunak to lead BritainRishi Sunak, who lost to Liz Truss just under seven weeks ago in the contest to lead Britain, will become prime minister today.Sunak, 42, prevailed in a chaotic Conservative Party leadership race yesterday after Penny Mordaunt, his remaining rival, withdrew. Sunak, the former chancellor of the Exchequer and the son of Indian immigrants, will be the first person of color to lead Britain.His immediate challenge: reunite his deeply divided party and rebuild its reputation. Some Tories view Sunak as Boris Johnson’s political assassin — his resignation from Johnson’s cabinet in July led to his boss’s fall and Britain’s political upheaval. And Conservatives lag behind the opposition Labour Party by more than 30 percentage points in polls.Sunak faces profound economic challenges, especially a cost of living crisis. Britain is also reeling from the self-inflicted damage of Brexit and of Truss, whose free-market economic agenda, featuring sweeping tax cuts, upended markets and sunk the pound.What’s next: While Sunak’s warnings about inflation and his fiscal conservatism may have cost him the post in September, his accurate assessments may help undo the damage left by his predecessor. India: Indian news media celebrated his historic ascension, but people were more focused on celebrating Diwali.Reaction: Calls are growing for a broader political reassessment. “I think we should have had a general election because of all the mistakes the previous two prime ministers made,” one woman told The New York Times.A Beijing vegetable market last month. China’s economy has already been dragged down by its commitment to “zero Covid” policies.Gilles Sabrié for The New York TimesMarkets react to Xi’s consolidationInvestors unnerved by Xi Jinping’s power grab — and the state-heavy agenda of China’s top leader — sent Chinese shares tumbling yesterday.In Hong Kong, share prices plummeted more than 6 percent, reaching 13-year lows as traders dumped huge numbers of shares. In mainland China, markets fell nearly 3 percent, even though Beijing puts heavy pressure on institutional investors not to sell during politically fraught moments. And the renminbi dropped to a 14-year low against the dollar.The heavy selling was particularly striking given that the Chinese government said the economy grew 3.9 percent in the three months that ended in September, from the same period a year earlier. The data, released yesterday, was stronger than expected but still fell short of Beijing’s target of 5.5 percent for this year.Analysis: Xi has put a premium on politics and security — and a stringent “zero Covid” policy — even at the cost of slowing economic growth and employment.Details: The nosedive in financial markets was particularly focused on the shares of Chinese internet companies, which have been a key target of Xi’s campaign to strengthen the Communist Party’s economic control.Background: During last week’s Communist Party congress, Xi pushed out longtime economic policymakers like Premier Li Keqiang and Wang Yang, an architect of the free-market economic boom in southeastern China.A protestor hung banners openly bashing Xi Jinping from Sitong Bridge, in central Beijing.Dake Kang/Associated PressYoung Chinese quietly dissentThis month, a demonstrator unfurled two banners on a highway overpass in Beijing, denouncing Xi Jinping as a “despotic traitor.”China’s censors went to great lengths to scrub the internet of any reference to the act of dissent, prohibiting all discussion and shutting down many offending social media accounts.But the slogans didn’t go away, my colleague Li Yuan writes. Instead, young Chinese, frustrated with censorship, repression and Xi’s “zero Covid” policies, have used creative ways to amplify and spread his message. They graffitied the slogans in public toilets and used Apple’s AirDrop feature to send fellow subway passengers photos of the messages, even though they’re forced to remain anonymous — often from one another.In doing so, members of a generation known for toeing the government line are overcoming their fear of the repressive government, their political depression and their loneliness as political heretics in a society that espouses one leader, one party and one ideology.Context: The protester, who is now viewed as a hero, was last seen being detained by the police. He’s being called the “Bridge Man,” a reference to the “Tank Man,” who stood in front of tanks during the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing in 1989.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificAustralia’s government will release its budget today, Reuters reports. Growth is expected to slow as inflation cuts into consumer spending.North Korea and South Korea exchanged warning shots along a disputed sea boundary, The Associated Press reports.Around the World“They are not preparing to exit now,” a top Ukrainian official said yesterday, of Russian troops. “They are preparing to defend.”Nicole Tung for The New York TimesThere are growing signs that Russia’s occupation government in Kherson is preparing the city for fighting ahead of a possible Ukrainian counteroffensive.Math scores fell in nearly every U.S. state, a sign of the pandemic’s toll.Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s president, and conservative lawmakers are trying to criminalize incorrect election forecasts after polls underestimated his support. The presidential runoff is on Sunday.Other Big StoriesThe first formal peace talks between Ethiopia’s government and Tigrayan rebels are scheduled to begin today in South Africa.Top U.S. executives are heading to a major business conference in Saudi Arabia, despite the Biden administration’s misgivings.OpinionsIn a short documentary, Maria Fredriksson asks: Should Sweden’s tax agency let an Indigenous Sami woman deduct her reindeer-herding dog?Ellen R. Wald, the author of “Saudi, Inc.: The Arabian Kingdom’s Pursuit of Profit and Power,” explains why OPEC is cutting oil production.Noam Shuster Eliassi, a comedian who lives in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, lived through a terrorist attack. She realized that not everything can be funny.A Morning ReadPolitical scientists say the pattern shows how white fear of losing status shaped the movement to keep Trump in power.Annie Mulligan for The New York TimesIn the U.S., the white majority is shrinking disproportionately fast in districts represented by Republican lawmakers who refused to accept Donald Trump’s defeat.Their constituents also lagged behind in income and education. Rates of so-called deaths of despair, like suicide, drug overdose and alcohol-related liver failure, were notably higher as well.Lives lived: Ngo Vinh Long was the most prominent Vietnamese in the U.S. to campaign against the war in Vietnam. He died at 78.CLIMATE FOCUSWhy attack a painting?On Sunday, climate activists in Germany threw mashed potatoes on a painting by Claude Monet, “Grainstacks.” The action came just days after activists in London threw tomato soup on “Sunflowers,” a painting by Vincent van Gogh.The attacks on art, intended to draw attention to climate change, have drawn widespread reaction online. Neither painting was harmed — an intentional choice by the activists. Still, many worried about the paintings’ safety and described the form of protest as misguided.But the dramatic tactic may have a lasting impact, Andreas Malm, the author of “How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire,” argues in a guest essay for the Opinion section. The tactic has historical precedent, he says: Even though paintings are hardly responsible for the climate crisis, the point is to “create enough disorder to make it impossible to ignore the ongoing climate breakdown.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookLennart Weibull for The New York TimesIf you can boil water, slice an onion and use a strainer, you can make niku udon, a Japanese beef noodle soup. It’s Kenji López-Alt’s go-to weeknight dinner.What to Read“The Pachinko Parlor” is a powerful story of dislocation and self-discovery set in Tokyo.The CosmosA solar eclipse will be visible today across Europe and Asia. Here’s how to watch.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Tall and thin (five letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. Vox named Zeynep Tufekci, a Times Opinion columnist, to its inaugural list of 50 people working to make the future better.The latest episode of “The Daily” is on election denial in the U.S.You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      Markets Are Ready for Stability in U.K. Government

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      Investors appeared heartened by the prospect of Rishi Sunak, Britain’s former chancellor, becoming prime minister — but he must still solve huge economic problems.The front-runner.Isabel Infantes/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMeet Britain’s (likely) new leader After weeks of turmoil, British politics appears headed for some stability, as Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor of the Exchequer, is poised to succeed the ill-fated Liz Truss as prime minister. The British pound and government bonds rose a bit on the news — but the economic problems that trouble the country aren’t likely to be cured quickly.Sunak has the numbers, with over 164 Conservative Party lawmakers backing him for prime minister as of Monday. (Conservative Party rules require candidates to have at least 100 pledged supporters to be considered.) The only remaining challenger, Penny Mordaunt, trails with roughly 90 pledged supporters, she says. But the clock is ticking. She has until 2 p.m. London time on Monday to reach the needed support threshold.Sunak’s most potent challenger was Boris Johnson, the former prime minister who was ousted after his own cabinet ministers — including Sunak, then chancellor — quit in protest over a series of scandals. Johnson pulled out of the race on Sunday, despite claiming to have the support of 102 lawmakers (with the BBC estimating he had just 57 public backers).Investors expect relative predictability from a Sunak government. During the race for prime minister this summer, Sunak defended his plans for higher taxes as fiscally responsible, compared with Truss’s promises of tax cuts to spur economic growth. The markets’ virulent reaction to Truss’s plans, which led to sweeping efforts by the Bank of England to prop up the government bonds known as gilts, suggest investors favor a less revolutionary approach, like what Sunak has promised.Investors appear particularly relieved that Johnson — a notably divisive figure in Britain and abroad, who still faces a parliamentary inquiry into whether he lied to lawmakers about breaking Covid lockdown rules — is out of the running.But Britain still faces enormous challenges. The Bank of England remains likely to raise interest rates to tamp down inflation that has reached 10 percent; Britain is still facing a huge cost-of-living crisis, owing largely to soaring energy costs; and homeowners face significantly higher mortgage payments. On Friday, Moody’s downgraded Britain’s credit rating outlook to “negative” from “stable,” citing weak growth and “unpredictability” in policymaking.Sunak must also corral a Conservative Party that has splintered into several warring factions. Hard-right lawmakers favor cracking down on immigration and taking a hard line against the E.U. over the checking of goods crossing the trade border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. He may also face rebellion from Johnson loyalists who blame him for the downfall of the former prime minister.HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING Tesla cuts prices for key models in China. The electric carmaker has reduced the baseline prices for the Model 3 and the Model Y by as much as 9 percent, Reuters reports. The move appears to be tied to slowing demand in China, the world’s biggest E.V. market, and growing competition from domestic rivals.The Trump family business goes on trial on Monday. The Manhattan district attorney’s office has accused the Trump Organization of tax fraud and other crimes, focusing on undeclared perks for executives. Among the star witnesses of the trial will be Allen Weisselberg, the company’s former C.F.O.Japan struggles to prop up the yen. The currency continued to slide against the dollar on Monday, despite what investors suspect was another intervention by the Bank of England to curb volatility. Japan is in a difficult bind because it is trying to maintain ultralow interest rates, which could bolster the yen, to spur economic growth.Chip makers struggle with tighter U.S. restrictions on China. YMTC of China has reportedly asked American employees in key roles to leave, to comply with new rules from Washington that require U.S. citizens to get permission to work at Chinese fabrication plants. And TSMC of Taiwan is said to have stopped work for a burgeoning Chinese semiconductor start-up.Brace for a potential “tripledemic” this year. With pandemic lockdowns mostly in the past, experts predict a resurgence in Covid cases this winter — along with more traditional outbreaks of flu and, perhaps, of respiratory syncytial virus. “It’s going to be a rough winter,” one infectious disease specialist told The Times.An “even more dominant” Xi China released third-quarter economic data on Monday, laying bare the deep challenges facing the country days after Xi Jinping was appointed to an unprecedented third term as leader.Gross domestic product in the world’s second-biggest economy grew 3.9 percent compared to the same period last year. That is higher than expected, but short of the full-year target of 5.5 percent — China’s lowest annual target in three decades. The authorities unexpectedly delayed publication of the data last week.Financial markets tumbled. The Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong closed down more than 6 percent at a 14-year low on Monday, reflecting anxieties about the worsening economy, and after Xi stacked Communist Party leadership positions with loyalists. Chinese tech stocks listed in the U.S. are the worst performers there premarket, led by the e-commerce companies Pinduoduo and JD.com. Xi’s move to tighten control was widely expected, but it underscores his ambition to accelerate China’s rise as a military and technological superpower, despite the potential economic damage, write The Times reports. That could have big implications for business.“He was dominant already and is even more dominant now,” Dali Yang, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, said of Xi. A newly energized Beijing is likely to remain defiant in the face of international criticism of its hard-line behavior. It still wants to become the pre-eminent military force in the region and to assert its claim over Taiwan. At the congress, Xi said China would promote its own initiatives to solve global development and security problems.Unchecked power could slow economic growth. Xi’s exceptionally stringent approach of imposing mass lockdowns and quarantines to eradicate Covid-19 outbreaks has throttled consumer spending and hit supply chains. The hugely important property market is also in a slump after he sought to curb speculation in the sector.The geopolitical divide between the U.S. and China is widening. President Biden has waged a crackdown on China’s access to U.S. technology — in particular, chips and chip production — and the threat of Russia-like economic sanctions looms. Some of the Western world’s biggest corporations are now evaluating how to reduce the business they do in China. Goldman Sachs, though, hasn’t closed the door. On Monday, it announced a joint venture in China to boost investment in local infrastructure-related real estate assets.Critics come after S.B.F. for his stance on crypto rules Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the crypto exchange FTX, got skewered by his crypto colleagues after proposing voluntary digital asset standards to better protect consumers last week — and he’s still reeling from the experience. “Whelp, that was an interesting few days,” the billionaire wrote on Twitter on Sunday, responding to complainants denouncing him as “S.B.F. — The Regulator.”Industry insiders are growing wary of S.B.F. The head of a sprawling global empire mostly built beyond the reach of U.S. regulators, the 30-year-old billionaire has donated about $40 million to various PACs and candidates in the 2022 election cycle and become a fixture on Capitol Hill. Some advocates for decentralized finance have grown increasingly concerned about Bankman-Fried’s high-profile support for a newish Senate Agriculture Committee bill on digital assets, which they feel could set back the DeFi movement. Bankman-Fried also got into hot water for suggesting that DeFi adopt “know your customer” mandates to appease authorities. Opponents say this would undermine the decentralized crypto ethos, and would force DeFi firms to adopt rules associated with traditional finance. Some users and influential industry voices, meanwhile, have called for a boycott of FTX.The crypto exec relented after the onslaught. S.B.F. thanked his critics for their input, which he used to revise some of his proposals. Among the most prominent was Erik Vorhees, the libertarian-leaning founder of the platform ShapeShift, who argued that DeFi should remain distanced from regulatory oversight, as it “transcends humans and their political machinations.”“The devil is in the details,” Kristin Smith, the executive director of the Blockchain Association, an industry trade group representing about 100 companies, told DealBook. The industry agrees that centralized exchanges are ready for regulation, she said, but DeFi is new and nuanced and regulating this area would require more time. Translation: S.B.F. should stop speaking for DeFi.Bankman-Fried thinks congressional action is coming. “It’s important to protect customers and to get federal oversight,” he wrote in an email to DealBook, adding that it’s equally important that code remain free. There’s still “some chance” that a narrow crypto bill that leaves DeFi untouched gets congressional approval after the November election, he predicted. “I think that, if it’s well-drafted (which I’m optimistic it will be!), it would make sense to pass it this year.”“This is a moment of truth for education. How we respond to this will determine not only our recovery, but our nation’s standing in the world.” — Miguel Cardona, the secretary of education, warning that a pandemic-fueled drop in the math and reading scores of U.S. students has deeper economic and societal implications.The week ahead What’s on the agenda this week? It will be a busy one for earnings — big banks in Europe, plus Big Tech in the U.S. We also have interest-rate-setting decisions and economic data releases.Tuesday: The Saudi Arabia-sponsored “Davos in the Desert” begins. Despite tensions between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. over oil, many U.S. executives still plan to attend.Wednesday: Meta reports earnings. An advertising slump and new privacy rules from Apple (which reports on Thursday) are expected to have eaten further into its revenue, which in the second quarter dropped for the first time since the company went public.Thursday: Credit Suisse presents a plan to fix itself. A broad strategic review is set to conclude with a restructuring that will likely involve thousands of layoffs and an overhaul of its investment bank. Elsewhere: The U.S. reports third-quarter G.D.P., and it’s rates decision day for the European Central Bank.Friday: deadline day for Elon Musk and his $44 billion Twitter deal. Last week, the Washington Post reported that he planned to cut Twitter’s staff by as much as 75 percent after taking the company private. In Asia, the Bank of Japan wraps up a two-day rate-setting meeting where no change in policy is expected.THE SPEED READ DealsMagic Johnson is reportedly in talks to buy a minority stake in the Las Vegas Raiders N.F.L. team. (Semafor)The banks tasked with financing Elon Musk’s bid for Twitter are expected to keep the $13 billion worth of debt on their books and try to sell it later, rather than immediately booking a $500 million loss. (WSJ)Amazon will take a stake in the parent of Hawaiian Airlines as part of a cargo-hauling deal. (Bloomberg)PolicyThe Republican National Committee sued Google, accusing it of directing the party’s political emails to users’ spam folders. (Axios)The White House is hoping that plans to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve will spur new domestic oil production, but energy companies are skeptical. (WSJ)Best of the restIsraelis and their adopted feral dogs — what could go wrong? (WSJ)“Rebranding is hard but there is no excuse for disemvowelling.” (FT)The British economy is reeling, but the country’s whisky makers are having a banner year. (NYT)We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com. More