The four semi-finalists of the Champions’ League 2021 have been determined this week and it turns out to be:
Qatar despots (Qatar-owned Paris Saint Germain) versus Russian proxy-despot (Abramovich-owned Chelsea)
to play the winner of…
UAE despots (UAE-owned Manchester City) versus Real Madrid.
So, three of four semi-finalists are owned (directly or indirectly) by murderous authoritarian regimes that butcher people like it is going out of fashion.
Why is this not mentioned during commentary?
‘It’s a game of two halves. Much like the torsos of people who disagree with the owners.’
Below is an excellent piece from The Atlantic about the recent US-China high-level meeting in Anchorage, which may come to be seen as the moment the US, and its allies, began to deal effectively with Xi Jinping’s regime.
Thursday night’s very public dustup between United States and Chinese officials in Anchorage, Alaska, during the Biden administration’s first official meeting with China, may have seemed like a debacle, but the exchange was actually a necessary step to a more stable relationship between the two countries.
In his brief opening remarks before the press, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that he and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan would discuss “our deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyber attacks on the United States, and economic coercion toward our allies. Each of these actions threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability. That’s why they’re not merely internal matters and why we feel an obligation to raise these issues here today.”
Blinken’s comments seemed to catch the Chinese off guard. The last Strategic & Economic Dialogue of the Obama administration, in 2016, began with a conciliatory message from then–Secretary of State John Kerry and resulted in a declaration identifying 120 different areas of cooperation.
In response to Blinken, China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, said that because Blinken had “delivered some quite different opening remarks, mine will be slightly different as well.” He spoke for 16 minutes, blowing through the two-minute limit agreed upon in torturous pre-meeting negotiations over protocol. “Many people within the United States,” he said, “actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States.” He went on to say that “China has made steady progress in human rights, and the fact is that there are many problems within the United States regarding human rights.” He also took aim at U.S. foreign policy: “I think the problem is that the United States has exercised long-arm jurisdiction and suppression and overstretched the national security through the use of force or financial hegemony, and this has created obstacles for normal trade activities, and the United States has also been persuading some countries to launch attacks on China.”
As the press began to leave, assuming that the opening remarks were over and to make way for the private discussions, Blinken and Sullivan ushered them back in and challenged Yang, telling him that “it’s never a good bet to bet against America.” Determined to have the last word, Yang and China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, responded again. Yang began by saying, sarcastically, “Well, it was my bad. When I entered this room, I should have reminded the U.S. side of paying attention to its tone in our respective opening remarks, but I didn’t.”
The opening exchange did not appear to materially affect the rest of the meeting. A senior administration official told me that the moment the cameras left, the Chinese side went back to business as usual, working through the list of issues on the agenda, including nonproliferation and Iran. The official told me that the U.S. delegation believed Yang’s opening gambit had been preplanned and was not an off-the-cuff response. The Chinese delegation had come, the official said, with the intention of delivering a public message, which they did in dramatic fashion. China believes that the balance of power has shifted in its favor over the past 10 years, especially during the pandemic, and wanted to play to the audience at home.
For an astonished press, witnessing the exchange was like being present at the dawn of a new cold war and seemed to sum up just how bad the U.S.-China relationship had become. Writing in The New York Times, Ian Johnson warned, “These harsh exchanges will only contribute to the dangerous decay in relations between the world’s two most powerful countries. Both sides seem to be trapped by a need to look and sound tough.”
But this view misunderstands what is needed in U.S.-China diplomacy right now. The meeting would have been a failure if it had resulted in general declarations to cooperate while minimizing competition, a common U.S. strategy when China’s intentions were not as clear. Organizing the relationship around cooperation is theoretically desirable as an end goal but will be unattainable for the foreseeable future, given the unfolding reality of an assertive, repressive China and a defiant America.
Last year, as it anticipated a win for Joe Biden in the U.S. election and then during the transition, China signaled that it wanted to effectively reset the relationship regarding cooperation on climate change and the pandemic. The Biden team saw these overtures for what they were: a trap to get the U.S. to pull back from competing with China in exchange for cooperation that would never really materialize. Biden officials told me that any reset would have been rhetorical only; China would have continued to push forward on all other fronts, including its quest for technological supremacy, its economic coercion of Australia, and its pressure on Taiwan.
Had the Biden administration embraced China’s offer, any agreement would have collapsed beneath the weight of Beijing’s actual behavior, as well as opposition in Washington. Biden would have been forced to adjust course and take a more competitive approach anyway, under less favorable conditions, including nervous allies and an emboldened China.
By skipping this step in favor of a strategy of competitive engagement—meeting with China but seeing it through the lens of competition—the Biden team not only saved time, but it flushed Beijing’s true intentions out into the open for the world to see. In his remarks, contrasting “Chinese-style democracy,” as he called it, with “U.S.-style democracy,” Yang implicitly acknowledged that the U.S.-China relationship is, and will continue to be, defined by a competition between different government systems: authoritarianism and liberal democracy.
The Biden administration understands that a more assertive U.S. approach is jarring to many in the American foreign-policy establishment, which is accustomed to decades of cautious and cooperative engagement in high-level meetings. But friction is necessary, given China’s play for dominance over the past several years. “It is increasingly difficult to argue that we don’t know what China wants,” said the senior administration official, who asked for anonymity so as to speak freely about the meeting. “They are playing for keeps.”
Biden’s priority rightly seems to be creating a greater common cause with allies against China, especially on technology and economics. Sullivan refers to this approach as building a situation of strength, echoing the famous formulation by Truman’s secretary of state Dean Acheson, who made clear that strengthening the Western alliance was a necessary precondition for any talks with the Soviet Union. The U.S. has had considerable success with the Quad, the informal strategic alliance among the United States, Japan, Australia, and India, although the U.S. needs to be far more imaginative and ambitious in getting European nations on board with its efforts to compete with China.
The question after Anchorage is what role should bilateral diplomacy with Beijing play in America’s overall strategy to deal with China. Now that the dramatic public exchange has set a more honest approach for a competitive era, the two sides can progress to a much harder next phase.
The rules-based international order is over. Beijing and Moscow concluded long ago that a world in which China and Russia generally acquiesced to U.S. leadership, as they did in the 1990s and 2000s, was untenable, a Western trap designed, in part, to undermine authoritarianism. They were not entirely wrong about that—many Americans saw globalization and multilateralism as having the desirable side effect of encouraging political liberalization around the world.
The truth is that the United States does pose a threat to the Chinese Communist Party’s interests (although not necessarily those of the Chinese people), while the CCP surely poses a threat to liberal democracy and U.S. interests. Ultimately, Washington and Beijing will have to acknowledge this to each other. That will be difficult for the Biden administration, which is accustomed to assuming that American interests are not a threat to any other government, but broadly benefit all major world powers. It will be even harder for Beijing, which goes to great lengths to conceal its revisionism behind a shield of insincere platitudes.
Such an acknowledgment will allow a truly frank strategic conversation to occur about how these two countries’ systems will relate to each other as they compete. These systems are incompatible in many respects, but they are also intertwined in a myriad of ways. The goals of U.S.-China diplomacy should initially be modest, to avoid unintentional provocations and to facilitate transactional cooperation on shared interests. Eventually, if China’s behavior and the geopolitical conditions are favorable, the two sides could explore broader cooperation and even the possibility of a détente—a general thawing of tensions—but that is a long way off.
Historically, the most volatile periods of rivalry between major powers is in the early stages; think of the late 1940s and the 1950s in the Cold War. The red lines become apparent only through interactions in crises. The greatest risk is for either side to miscalculate the resolve or intentions of the other. By getting real in Anchorage, both sides have taken the important first step toward a more stable relationship by acknowledging the true nature of their relationship.
Tony Blair’s ignorance-driven, religion-undergirded arrogance cost many more lives when he backed George W. Bush’s Second Iraq War, but Boris Johnson’s band of chancers is the crappiest British government of my lifetime. Indeed, it would require competence to kill more than the thousands who are dying needlessly in the UK from COVID-19 as a result of this shambolic government’s non-conduct.
One of the more succinct commentaries on the Johnson administration’s performance to date was posted to a Financial Times comments board today in the form of comparative timelines for the UK and Greece:
Greece
24 February: All school trips to Italy cancelled.
26 February: First coronavirus case in Greece, a woman returning from Milan. The school her child attends closes for 14 days.
27 February: Carnival celebrations and international school trips abroad cancelled.
3 March: Schools with pupils who have come into contact with coronavirus patients are closed.
4 March: Schools, sports facilities, theatres and cinemas in affected areas close.
8 March: Conferences and large public gatherings across the country banned, community centres for the elderly closed. Sports events held without spectators.
11 March: All schools, cinemas, theatres, courthouses, gyms and nightclubs close. Independence day parades cancelled.
13 March: Nationwide lockdown implemented. All shopping malls, department stores, restaurants, bars, cinemas, libraries and museums closed. Only essential shops open. Flights to/from Italy stop.
23 March: All non essential travel banned.
UK
January 29: First coronavirus cases in UK, two Chinese visitors staying in York. Heathrow airport screens all arrivals from Wuhan.
March 11: Liverpool vs Atletico Madrid goes ahead, with 3,000 fans from Madrid attending.
March 15: The elderly and vulnerable are advised to practise social distancing.
March 16: Boris Johnson advises everyone in the UK to avoid pubs, clubs, theatres, non essential travel and to work from home where possible.
March 16-19: Cheltenham festival goes ahead, with an attendance of 251,684
March 18: Schools close to children of non essential workers.
March 20: All bars, restaurants, cafes and gyms ordered to close.
March 23: Nationwide lockdown implemented.
Greece: lockdown 17 days after first case. Total cases on 23 April: 2,463. Total deaths: 125 (population 11 million).
UK: lockdown 52 days after first case. Total cases on 23 April: 138,078. Total deaths: 18,738 (population 66 million).
The best thing in Moscow is the underground system. I didn’t find anything above ground to write home about. In fact the underground is so superior to the overground that I found someone to take me on a tour of it.
On the way to town from Krasnoyarsk airport, I ask the lady from the foreign ministry about the only two buildings I plan to set foot in in this city in eastern Siberia: the hotel, and the conference centre.
‘Beautiful,’ she says.
‘Beautiful?’ I repeat. ‘Do you mean the hotel is beautiful, or the conference centre is beautiful?’
‘Everything is beautiful,’ she clarifies.
We enter the city and I am conscious of the sound of people eating breakfast cereal, loudly, outside the car window. The eating stops and starts again each time we stop and start at a traffic light. After a while I realise that this is in fact the sound of the little nails on the car tires that enable vehicles to have traction on ice.
Arriving at the hotel, the nice lady from the foreign ministry insists on helping me to take my luggage to the room. We enter. ‘Let me see how your view is,’ she says. She pulls aside a curtain and peaks out: ‘Very good.’
Later, I take a photograph that approximates to what she was looking at.
It is thus that I arrive for the XII Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum, of which the 2015 theme is Economic Integration with Asia (Mr Putin, you remember, having fallen out with everyone in Europe).
Since the organisers have invited many more people to speak than there is time for, I am asked to reduce my remarks to a maximum 15 minutes. That equates to about one minute for every thousand kilometres of round-trip travel, but still constitutes top billing. After the Plenary Session, there is a High Level Luncheon, to which very few people turn up. One of those who does speaks loudly into his mobile phone as I am asked to say a few more words.
I am not sure that I understood anything that was going on at the conference.
Possibly, people in business were intimating that the central government does not do much governing.
Fortunately, the bigger point turned out to be that there was time before I left for the foreign ministry lady to give me a tour of key Krasnoyarsk beauty spots.
Paramount among these is a hill with a very small, windmill-shaped church from which Krasnoyarskians enjoy panoramic views of their city.
We were at this Elysium on a Friday, which is one of the days (along with Thursday) when people like to get married, since it allows for the requisite three- or four- day weekend of drinking.
T
Descending to the city, we stopped at the bridge over the Yenisei (one of the Three Great Siberian Rivers, along with the Ob and the Lena), which is so famous that it appears on the 10-rouble note. (That equates, following the latest devaluation, to the 10 pence note.)
Not far from the bridge, the Soviet-era water pumping station is being restored for the benefit of future generations.
At the other end of town, the second-most famous beauty spot in Krasnoyarsk is another bridge. The foreign ministry lady told me that in the summer romantic couples stroll across it in droves.
You just have to try to imagine the droves.
Naturally enough, there was another wedding couple there.
Nearby is a triumphal arch erected in 2003 to celebrate the 375th anniversary of the city’s founding. (This appears to be the first anniversary to be architecturally commemorated.)
The arch will make French people think of Paris. As a British person, my favourite landmark is the iconic Krasnoyarsk time-piece known as Little Big Ben.
There is a train from Krasnoyarsk to Moscow. It takes three-and-a-half days.
I travelled by plane, which takes just five hours. To Moscow.
As I was leaving, I noted in the VIP lounge of Krasnoyarsk airport that management has been quick to amend the map on the wall to include Crimea and its administrative centre, Simferopol. I wondered whether the contractor has yet prepared a piece for the eastern Ukrainian (should I say Western Russian?) region of Donbass.
I hope you find these images of the best sights in Krasnoyarsk useful. Before my visit, Internet searches under terms such as ‘Krasnoyarsk best sights’ failed to elicit anything.
The weekend’s English Premier League soccer results confirm that the team controlled by Malaysian billionaire Tony Fernandes will go down, while the team controlled by Malaysian billionaire Vincent Tan (currently in the league below) will go up.
What makes Third World billionaires waste their money on Premier League soccer clubs?
My working theory is that the habit reflects a desperation for recognition among people whose businesses will never buy them respect. (Actually, Tony Fernandes is a poor example because his Air Asia business is a relatively ‘normal’.)
The typical Third World billionaire who buys a Premier League club does not do something at the office that allows them to hold their heads high in the company of those they would like to be seen with. To wit:
‘So, how did you make your money?’
‘My dad fucked my mum.’
or
‘Well, I got my start robbing a train. Then a I cornered a bank. And now I’m in minerals. It’s important to have good bodyguards.’
or
‘In essence, I gave these guys who run my country a huge bung, and they gave me a licence to print money. So I did.’
So you buy a soccer club. Of course it is also useful to be in London on a regular basis to stash and invest some of your cash, while the UK’s tax laws have been redesigned around the needs of footloose billionaires.
But, in the end, no one will respect you even if, like Abramovich, you win the Champions League.
Uzbek-Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov and partner Farhad Moshiri control 30% of Arsenal. Usmanov has long indicated his willingness to increase his stake in Arsenal to full control but has yet to lay his hands on the shares.
Sheik Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan owns Manchester City.
Mohamed El-Fayed, erstwhile owner of Harrods, still owner of the Paris Ritz, controls Fulham.
Tony Fernandes and Lakshmi Mittal control Queens Park Rangers, who are already relegated. It looked like a good networking opportunity for Tony, founder of Malaysian Ryanair tribute company Air Asia, but will the two still be pals after losing tons of money while achieving nothing?
Vincent Tan, a master of the untendered Malaysian government monopoly concession, controls Cardiff, who are coming up from the division below to replace Tony’s QPR. Other Malaysian billionaires love to hate Vince, but the children of Cardiff momentarily love him. Note that Vince has also signed up to the Gates/Buffett GivingPledge, promising to give away at least half his loot ‘to help address society’s most pressing problems’; (here is his personal pledge). Now that Vince has got his team into the Premiership, he could choose to regard the losses required to stay there as fulfilment of his GivingPledge. What more pressing problem is there than Wales’s lack of a Premiership football team? If other premiership billionaires grasp the angle, Melinda Gates’s phone will be ringing off the hook. Soccer as philanthropy — allowing Third World tycoons to feel better about themselves while watching football. If any of them get the idea from this blog, I would like some tickets please.
European businesspeople who constructed more regular businesses invest in clubs some times, but seem to go for smaller clubs. Amancio Ortega, behind Spanish retailer Inditex, put money into Deportivo La Coruna. Francois Pinault, who controls the likes of Gucci and YSL, also controls the football team Rennes. Delia Smith, of English cookbook fame, has a major stake in Norwich. George Soros does have 10% of Manchester United, but that is a big club run for profit.
Baseline Scenario
About the US economy, mostly. These boys are not too funny (they are economists) but they put in serious hours on this site and it is worth reading. Johnson is a Brit former IMF economist with perspective. Updated daily.
John Kay
About Britain and micro-economic issues. Research-heavy analysis rather than opinion. One of the few people with really clear ideas on bank regulation, but not yet (for me) fully thought through.
Krugman
Posts multiple times a day cos he’s manic. I was at a boring conference with him where he appeared to take frantic notes. Later transpired all he had written on his pad was ‘I need a beer’, about one hundred times. Still got Nobel.
Martin Wolf (FT sub needed)
Particularly good on Europe. During his life, Wolf has fallen in love with — and then become disillusioned by — the Labour Party, the World Bank, and perhaps now globalisation. The constant is his hunger for answers.
The Big Lychee
About Hong Kong. Affiliated with Hemlock, the exquisitely misanthropic, underemployed, billionaire’s gweilo running dog. Original Hemlock files available. Updated every day, because the author has a huge salary and nothing better to do.
Joe Studwell's blog 