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FILE PHOTO: Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni attend a European Union leaders' summit in Brussels, Belgium, June 27, 2024.
Austrian, Hungarian, and Czech far-right form new EU coalition
What is this, a Hapsburg revival? Right-wingers from the political core of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire announced Sunday they would form a new Russia-leaning alliance in the EU parliament. Austria’s Freedom Party, Hungary’s Fidesz, and the Czech Republic’s Action of Dissatisfied Citizens, aka ANO, have committed, but the “Patriots of Europe” alliance needs at least one MP from four other EU member states to become an official faction, which they seem confident of obtaining.
The move draws a clear cleavage in the far-right camp between pro- and anti-Ukraine parties on Europe’s far right. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has forged a pragmatic path to electability by leaning heavily into support for Ukraine and the EU while insisting on hardline immigration policies. It’s paid off for her, but her approaches – and meteoric rise – haven’t sat well with some of the Euroskeptic, Russia-friendly old guard. This new alliance is their play for greater relevance in Brussels, to avoid being overshadowed by Meloni’s new kids on the populist bloc.
What we’re watching: Does Alternative for Germany, recently expelled from Marine Le Pen’s Identity and Democracy faction, join them? AfD won 16% of the vote in Germany during this month’s EU Parliament elections, and their allegiance would elevate Patriots for Europe. That said, the far right is already divided between Le Pen’s Identity and Democracy and Meloni’s European Conservatives and Reformists. Slicing off another piece only helps centrists like European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sleep a little easier.Café Esplanade, a fancy coffee shop that was designed by a celebrated modernist architect and frequented by many from Brno’s once-thriving Jewish community.
Stop with the “1930s” stuff
A few weeks ago, I was standing on a little triangle of clumpy, unkempt grass between two plastic garbage cans and an electrical transformer on a street corner in Brno, the second-largest city in the Czech Republic.
Before World War II, this little patch of grass was the site of the Café Esplanade, a fancy coffee shop designed by a celebrated modernist architect, where the cream of Brno’s once-thriving Jewish community would go to read the papers, chat, and smoke. Later, they would begin to speak in hushed voices about what was going on next door in Germany and Austria.
One afternoon, in August 1939, a few months after the Nazis had taken full control of Czechoslovakia, a mob of Czech fascists, eager to impress their new Aryan overlords, stormed the cafe. They ransacked it, savagely beating the Jews they found there, killing at least one of them. Two years later, most of the survivors would be rounded up and deported to their deaths.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the story of the Esplanade, as a growing number of influential voices tell us that the current situation on American college campuses – where student-run Gaza Solidarity encampments and their supporters have clashed verbally and in some cases physically with some Jewish students and professors – is “like the 1930s.”
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu said it. This week, CNN anchor Dana Bash echoed it. Lots of less prominent voices are making the same comparison now. A woman at the recent United for Israel March at Columbia University told me the school itself had become “like 1939 Germany, and I don’t say that lightly.”
I don’t say this lightly either: Get a hold of yourselves.
There have certainly been incidents of overt antisemitism on college campuses. Some of them have been violent. This tracks a broader rise in antisemitic hate crimes in America, a trend matched by rising Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian violence as well. (Why should we distinguish between Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian violence? Read my friend Hani Sabra’s superb essay on that.)
But the “1930s”?
Let’s take a look at what was actually happening around the time that those Czech fascist goons showed up at the Esplanade.
A fanatically antisemitic government had, for six years already, been in control of the largest country in Europe. It had passed laws to discriminate against Jews, extended those laws to two other countries that it annexed (Czechoslovakia being one of them, Austria the other), and had already begun mobilizing paramilitary forces to destroy Jewish businesses and murder their owners.
There was a massive refugee crisis as hundreds of thousands of Jews tried, mostly in vain, to flee the Third Reich. In Berlin, meanwhile, the government was already readying plans to expel or murder millions more.
Does that really seem like an accurate comparison for 2020s America, where state and local authorities have, by contrast, deployed police to clear and arrest thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters who broke campus rules and, in some instances, harassed Jewish students? Are we really two or three years away from fanatical antisemites taking control of our country and sending the armed forces to beat, rob, and kill Jews? The US House of Representatives this week passed, with overwhelming bipartisan support, a bill to combat antisemitism that is so vaguely worded that it has raised First Amendment concerns. This is not the 1930s.
Many Jews are understandably alarmed and upset by what is happening on campuses across America. The sight of Jews encountering antisemitic discrimination or violence of any kind can trigger a deep fear, rooted in real historical experience. To deny or minimize any of that is its own form of anti-Jewish bigotry. Columbia and other schools are already facing a number of lawsuits over their alleged failure to adequately protect minority groups – including both Jews and Palestinians – during this period.
But the problem with the 1930s comparison isn’t just that it’s historically inaccurate, or that it trivializes and exploits the oppression and murder of millions of people, or that it’s an exaggeration that risks draining words of their urgency and their meaning.
It’s that it further poisons an already toxic, zero-sum discourse and deliberately opens the way to more violence. After all, if we are really in the anteroom of a second Holocaust, don’t existential threats call for extreme measures?
If you think so, let me invite you for a coffee at the Esplanade.
Eyewitness footage shows explosion at military industry factory in Isfahan, Iran.
What We're Watching: Iran weapons depot targeted, fierce battles in eastern Ukraine, Czechs back pro-EU president, McCarthy-Biden debt limit meeting
What we know about the Isfahan attack
In what’s broadly believed to have been an Israeli attack, three drones hit an Iranian ammunition factory in the central city of Isfahan, Iran, on Saturday night. Iranian state media said damage to the site was “minor,” but phone footage suggests that the compound – used to produce advanced weapons and home to its Nuclear Fuel Research and Production Center – took a serious blow. An oil refinery in the country's northwest also broke out in flames on Saturday, though the cause remains unknown. Then, on Sunday night, a weapons convoy traveling from Syria to Iraq was also targeted by airstrikes. US reports attributed the Isfahan attack to Israel – which has in the past targeted nuclear sites in Natanz and hit Iranian convoys transporting weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Indeed, this comes after Russia purchased hundreds of Iranian-made “suicide drones,” which it has used to pummel Ukrainian cities. While the deepening military alliance between Iran and Russia is a growing concern for Washington, it’s unclear if Uncle Sam played a role in the Isfahan hit – or whether Israel, which has to date refused to deliver heavy arms to Kyiv, agreed to carry out this attack in part to frustrate Iranian drone deliveries to the Russians. The escalation comes just days after CIA Director William Burns flew to Israel for meetings with his Israeli counterparts – and as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to Israel and the West Bank this week. Crucially, it highlights the increasing overlap between Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and the longtime shadow war between Iran and Israel.
The battle for Bakhmut
Days after securing commitments from Germany and the US for advanced battle tanks, Kyiv says it’s engaged in “fast-track” talks with its Western counterparts for long-range missiles and military aircraft to provide cover for tanks in action. This comes after a weekend of heavy fighting outside Bakhmut, a flashpoint in eastern Ukraine and a critical supply route for the Russian military. However, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz does not seem to be on board with these arms deliveries – at least for now. Ukraine, for its part, has been targeting train lines around Bakhmut, specifically in villages that are well-positioned to act as hubs for Russia to bring reinforcements into southern Ukraine. Meanwhile, as the Russians pummeled the village of Kostyantnivka on Saturday, Ukraine reportedly hit a hospital in occupied Luhansk, saying it was being used as Russian military headquarters. As heavy fighting continues – and Russia reportedly prepares to call up more troops – Kyiv says it’s having increasing difficulty fending off Russian advances.
Czechs choose "calm"
In a second-round run-off, the Czech Republic elected retired general Petr Pavel as its new president. The pro-Europe, former NATO four-star officer beat populist Andrej Babis, a former PM, reaping 58.32% of the vote compared to his opponent's 42%. Three of the candidates who dropped out after the first-round backed Pavel in a contest marred by threats and disinformation – and cast as a fight between Pavel’s pro-Europe multilateralism and Babis’ populism, which resonated largely with rural voters. Pavel, a former chief of general staff of the Czech military, who vowed to "lead with experience and calm" wants to continue aiding Ukraine in lockstep with the West. Babis, who would have likely adopted many of the same policies as current populist President Milos Zeman, recently said he would not honor NATO’s mutual defense clause, but later walked that back. Even though the role of the president is largely ceremonial, the office still carries weight, including being responsible for choosing the prime minister and the central bank chief. Indeed, Pavel’s win reiterates the country’s pro-Western leanings and will be music to the ears of bureaucrats in Brussels.
Can Biden and McCarthy solve the debt limit crisis?
Newly confirmed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said on Sunday that he will meet President Joe Biden at the White House on Wednesday to try and chart a path on raising the debt ceiling to avoid default. (For context on what the debt ceiling is and why it matters, see this GZERO explainer.) Interestingly, McCarthy said that cuts to Medicare and Social Security – which some fiscal hawks in his party had been pushing for – were “off the table.” Indeed, it’s a good sign that the two are set to meet face-to-face to try and solve a looming catastrophe, but they are still miles apart in finding common ground. Biden, for his part, says he won’t negotiate and that the Republican-controlled House needs to raise the debt limit without preconditions in order to avoid an economic crisis. But McCarthy – who is being held hostage by the far-right faction of his party that nearly torpedoed his speakership bid – can’t make many concessions on increasing the federal government’s borrowing capacity without putting himself at risk of being booted out by his own caucus. While neither side has much political wiggle room, emergency measures put in place by the US Treasury to avoid default will expire in June.
A protester holds a portrait of former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont during a protest in front of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.
What We're Watching: Catalan separatist off the hook, Biden's special counsel, Oz-PNG deal, Czech election, nukes for South Korea?
Spanish justice gives up on Catalan fugitive
After trying for more than five years to bring fugitive ex-Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont to trial for sedition, on Thursday a Spanish judge threw in the towel and dropped the charge. Why? The left-wing government of PM Pedro Sánchez has watered down the crime of sedition so much that it no longer covers what Puigdemont did in Oct. 2017: declare Catalonia an independent republic before skipping town when he was about to get arrested. And why did Sánchez tweak the law? Because he needs the votes of Catalan separatist parties in the national parliament to stay in power (which also explains why he pardoned the other politicians who tried to secede along with Puigdemont.) The judge's decision has big political implications in an election year. On the one hand, it's vindication for the Catalan independence movement, which has been losing steam since its failed secession bid. But on the other, it's a poison pill for Sánchez, whom the the Spanish right has long accused of pandering to Catalan separatists. The PM will get a sense of what Spanish voters think of his Catalonia policy in local and regional elections in late May, a dress rehearsal for a general vote in December.
Biden gets a special counsel, too
US Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday appointed a special counsel to lead the investigation into the discovery of two batches of classified files allegedly taken by President Joe Biden when he was VP. The White House has promised full cooperation. Garland has followed his playbook from a similar probe involving former President Donald Trump, who stashed 300+ classified files from the White House at his Mar-a-Lago pad and gave the Feds a hard time about it. While Garland’s move is unsurprising, the appointment of the special counsel can hurt Biden in two ways. First, it gives Republicans fodder to investigate the president in the House, regardless of Trump's own mishandling of sensitive government information. Second — and perhaps more importantly — it might mess with the Justice Department's own case against Trump and weaken the political argument to prosecute him as a presidential candidate in 2024. Even if the probe ends up not recommending charges for Biden, expect it to drag on for months and for the GOP to make a big stink about the whole thing. On another note, seriously, what's up with US presidents/veeps and classified files? Is it so hard to leave office without taking your past homework with you? Let us know what you think.
Oz & PNG working on security agreement
It's an open market for security pacts in the Pacific. Nine months after China clinched a controversial deal with the Solomon Islands, Australia is negotiating its own with Papua New Guinea and expecting to sign a security pact by June. This comes at a time when the US and its allies in the region are worried about Beijing's growing clout in a part of the world the West has long neglected. The leaders of the two countries promised transparency to contrast with China's secrecy, but so far the Aussies are keeping the details as much under wraps as the Chinese did. Regardless, the talks are quite a milestone for Australia-PNG relations given the messy legacy of Canberra's colonial rule. What's more, striking a deal would be a big win for Australia in its race to counter China because PNG has a lot of natural resources — fossil fuels, minerals, you name it — that Beijing is eager to get its hands on. We'll keep an eye on this in case the deal has any effect on Australia-China ties, now enjoying a warm-ish spell after years of frostiness.
Czech elections: round one, fight!
Czechs vote this weekend in the first round of a presidential election featuring three very distinct frontrunners. Leading the polls is Petr Pavel (“Peter Paul”!), a retired general and former top NATO official who’s running as a safe, Europhile pair of hands and a strong supporter of Ukraine. Just behind him is Andrej Babiš, a Eurosceptic populist agriculture tycoon who was prime minister from 2017-2021. Babiš has been dogged by allegations of corruption, though he was cleared this week by a Czech court. His ANO party, popular with older and more rural voters, remains the largest in parliament. Lastly, economics professor Danuše Nerudová, a progressive on social issues, has highlighted the importance of electing her as the country’s first female president. Czech presidents have limited powers, but they play a role in forming governments and represent the country abroad. Outgoing President Miloš Zeman, an ally of Babiš, fomented controversy throughout his 10 years in power, not least because of his overt sympathies for Russia. No one is expected to win outright in the first round — a runoff will be held in late January.
Wait, why did “Czechoslovakia” split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia 30 years ago? Read our recent explainer here.
South Korea mulls nuclear weapons ... again!
Nuclear rhetoric is heating up again on the Korean Peninsula, but this time the push is coming from South Korea. President Yoon Suk Yeol says that if the threat from the North continues, Seoul could develop its own nukes, or push the US to deploy them. Washington pulled its tactical nukes from South Korea in the 1990s, and it is unlikely to redeploy them. But Yoon isn’t coming out of left field. He has serious public support for developing nukes, and he’s not the first South Korean leader to have such ambitions. But considering the last time a South Korean leader proposed nuclear proliferation was in the 1970s, Yoon is the first one in decades to do so. He was elected last year with a mandate for a tough stance against Pyongyang, which has been amping up its missile tests and even flying drones into the South. Analysts say it’s unlikely that Yoon will actually go down the nuclear route. It’s more likely this stance could trigger China to convince its friends in the North to tone down the aggression, while also possibly push the US to extend its deterrence umbrella to the South.
Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus and his Slovak counterpart Vladimir Meciar greeted by a crowd in 1993.
The Velvet Divorce at 30: How Czechoslovakia did what others couldn’t
Exactly 30 years ago this Sunday, as Yugoslavia was slouching towards Europe’s ugliest bloodletting since World War II, another Slavic hodgepodge state a few hundred miles to the north did something nearly unprecedented in modern history: It broke up … peacefully.
As best anyone can tell, Czechoslovakia is the only country to have dissolved itself without bloodshed since Norway split from Sweden in 1905.
In fact, the greatest act of violence that attended the Czechoslovak breakup may have been on the ice: The Czech hockey team thrashed Slovakia 7 to 1 in their first meeting as independent countries a year later.
So how did Czechoslovakia’s uniquely peaceful split happen, and why?
Czechoslovakia was an odd concoction to begin with. Created from the ashes of the Austro-Hungarian empire at the end of World War I, the country united two peoples who spoke similar Slavic languages but had little common history.
The Czech lands were the wealthy industrial heart of the Habsburg empire, ruled directly from Vienna, and heavily influenced by Germany. Slovakia, meanwhile, was smaller and more rural and had been dominated for centuries by Hungary. Czechs were known for their beer and bread dumplings. Slovaks would show up to a party with plum brandy and goulash.
But the victorious Allied powers in 1918 wanted an economically viable, majority-Slavic state that would diminish the power of the German and Hungarian minorities that still lived in the Czech and Slovak lands. In October of that year “Czechoslovakia” was born.
Things weren’t always smooth. During World War II, Germany dismembered and occupied the “Czech” half of the country, while Hitler granted the Slovaks a Nazi-backed puppet state of their own. Under communism, which began in 1948, many Czechs didn’t like the new regime’s disproportionate investments in modernizing “backward” Slovakia, while the Slovaks bristled at Czech paternalism and resented being ruled from Prague.
And although everyone watched the same – mostly Czech – Christmas movies and rooted for the country’s brilliant ice hockey and soccer teams, a true “Czechoslovak” identity never really took root.
“Czechs and Slovaks lived very different histories,” says Czech-born historian Jacques Rupník, a director of research at Sciences Po in Paris, “and they had very different perceptions of that history – so it wasn’t easy to shape a common project for the future.”
After 1989, urgent questions about that future arose. A federal system that had been largely meaningless under one-party rule suddenly became an existential problem for a democratic Czechoslovakia. How much autonomy would each part of the country really have?
In June 1992, national elections produced two very different leaders, whose ambitions made the split-up inevitable. Czech Prime Minister Václav Klaus was a headstrong nationalist who wanted to ram through free-market economic reforms as fast as possible. His Slovak counterpart, Vladimír Mečiar, was a left-wing populist who sought broad sovereignty within a federal state but wasn’t quite sure how much of the communist system he really wanted to shed, or how fast.
Where was the famous Václav Havel in all of this? The dissident playwright who became Czechoslovakia’s president after leading the “Velvet Revolution” in 1989 resigned in June 1992 rather than preside over an increasingly unavoidable split that he, like most Czechs and Slovaks at the time, personally opposed. That left things entirely to Klaus and Mečiar.
"They didn't have the same reasons or motives for the split," says Jiří Pehe, a political analyst and former adviser to Havel who now heads the Prague campus of New York University, "but in the end they colluded, there was a synergy between the two men."
When compromise on the question of Slovak sovereignty proved impossible, Klaus was eager to cut the Slovaks loose in order to advance his economic reform program more quickly. Mečiar, for his part, was only too happy to get his own state.
After 74 years, the marriage known as “Czechoslovakia” ended in an amicable divorce.
There were some Kafkaesque quirks that followed. For a few years, some sections of the border were unclear, and there was the Moravian farmer whose house ended up in one country, while his barn was suddenly in another. But this was nothing compared to the bloodletting that consumed Yugoslavia in those years.
Why was Czechoslovakia able to avoid the fate of Yugoslavia? After all, both countries were Frankenstein states that rose out of the World War I peace talks.
The biggest thing, says Rupník of Sciences Po, is that in Czechoslovakia neither national group had a large, deeply rooted minority on the other side of the new border. As a result, there were never complicated questions about minority rights like those that fueled wars elsewhere in the collapsing Eastern bloc.
In addition, there were no sectarian or religious divisions between Czechs and Slovaks, most of whom are Catholics if they practice any religion at all.
But personalities and leadership also mattered. “It’s no small thing,” he says, pointing to the Serbian ultra-nationalist president who died on trial for war crimes committed during the Yugoslav conflict, “that Václav Havel was not Slobodan Milosević.”
Three decades later, the two countries – both EU members since 2004 – enjoy close economic, political, and cultural ties. Polls show that Czechs and Slovaks see themselves as the closest of allies. A recent border spat between the two countries over migration was remarkable only because of how rare frictions of this kind really are these days.
But in some ways, it was the breakup itself that made this bonhomie possible, says Michaela Krsková, who has served since 2021 as Slovakia’s first Chief Innovation Officer. “We always felt like the suppressed, repressed younger brother of the Czechs,” she recalls, “and I think that feeling was just going to get worse and worse with time.”
Havel himself ended up worrying about the same thing, says Rupník, who served as one of his advisers in those years.
“He was against the split, but he later said that if Czechoslovakia had continued, this question of the relationship between Czechs and Slovaks would have completely poisoned the politics of the newly democratic state.”
Today, the breakup is seen differently on each side of the border. Polls show Czechs, who dominated Czechoslovakia culturally, politically, and economically, are more likely to see January 1, 1993, as the end of a good thing, while Slovaks view it as the beginning of a better one.
In part, Krsková believes, that’s because it gave the Slovaks the chance, and the challenge, of building their own independent country.
“It was like, ‘Ok we’re on our own now,’” she says. “It was a kick in the butt that Slovakia needed to get its act together and develop its own identity. And that’s something that we’re still in search of – maybe that’s our task for the next 30 years.”
But for all the success of the Czech-Slovak divorce, something important has been lost, says Zuzana Kovačič-Hanzelová, a prominent Slovak journalist who is from a mixed Czech-Slovak family.
After three decades of more limited exposure to each other’s languages and cultures, younger Czechs often don’t understand or speak Slovak anymore.
“We still love each other, and that’s pretty unique,” she says, “but it makes me sad every time I’m in Prague and I have to order coffee in Czech instead of just speaking Slovak.”
There are still traces of disorientation on the Czech side too, says Pehe, of NYU Prague. Even after all of this time, Czech politicians are still in some ways adjusting to the reality that while the Czech Republic is the successor state to Czechoslovakia, it's a smaller, less populous country, with a diminished international standing.
"It's the fate of all of us from Central Europe," he says, "that some of the countries we were born in do not exist any more."
Indian farmers harvest wheat crop in Rajasthan.
Hard Numbers: Indian wheat, Czech worker shortage, Pyongyang airport missile launch, TSA no-mask fines
10 million: India plans to export 10 million metric tons of wheat this year to make up for the shortfall caused by the war between top producers Russia and Ukraine. Wheat prices have hit record highs in recent days amid wider fears of a looming global food price crisis.
2.2: The Czech Republic now has the lowest unemployment rate in the EU, at 2.2%. While that’s normally a good thing, the Czech economy is actually struggling to fill many jobs — in part due to a pandemic-fueled worker shortage.
12.4: Since North Korea doesn’t get a lot of international flights these days, Kim Jong Un has turned Pyongyang’s airport into a makeshift missile launch site. A rocket fired from there on Wednesday blew up after traveling 12.4 miles in less than a minute, reportedly shedding debris over the capital.
644,000: That’s the total amount of fines in dollars issued by the TSA to Americans who violated the federal mask mandate in US airports. Despite many states having recently lifted mask mandates for indoor activities, the TSA wants to keep it in place for US airports until at least April 18.
Eastern European leaders visit Kyiv in unprecedented show of support
With three European leaders visiting Kyiv on Tuesday, that's today, does this signify a stronger EU-Ukrainian alliance? Are Western sanctions against Russia working? With cases surging, got to talk about COVID, is China's zero-COVID policy a complete failure? Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
First, with three European leaders visiting Kyiv on Tuesday, that's today, does this signify a stronger EU-Ukrainian alliance?
Oh, you bet it does. And particularly from the Eastern European countries who, frankly, see this as an incredibly important issue and are trying to get the West Europeans and the United States to do even more than they already have in terms of sanctions against Russia. It's unprecedented for the prime ministers of Poland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic to be heading to Kyiv to support Zelensky while it's being bombed. Certainly it shows that Putin and the success of his military campaign is not bringing any of the fruit for Russian security measures in Europe that Putin had clearly hoped for. Where this all goes in terms of a climbdown, we are not close to that. I'm still very unconvinced that negotiations are going to bear fruit, irrespective of that. But extraordinary statement from the East Europeans today.
Are Western sanctions against Russia working?
Well, they're working in two ways. They're working first to show a unified NATO response to President Putin's invasion of an independent Ukraine. They're also enormously punishing Russia and Putin as a consequence of that. And that does mean that if the Russians choose not to capitulate, if they refuse to remove their troops and allow Ukraine to persist independently, that they are going to suffer and that will create some instability of the Russian regime. Now, I do believe that the Russians are also going to retaliate against NATO in various ways, some economic, some cyber, some disinformation. I mean asymmetric attacks are what the Russians do. That's why this Cold War is more dangerous in some ways than the first Cold War with the Soviets. But, the fact remains, that irrespective of the level of economic sanctions, Putin is still, as of right now three weeks in, bombing the Ukrainians who have over 3 million Ukrainian refugees in Europe as a consequence. In that regard you can't say they're working.
Finally, with cases surging, got to talk about COVID, is China's zero-COVID policy a complete failure?
No, it's not a complete failure. It succeeded enormously for the Chinese for the first two years. After they admitted that they had COVID, they were able to track, to trace, to surveil, to lockdown and they were the economy that got fastest back up to speed while the rest of the world was still locked down and dealing with all of these challenging quarantines. But now you've got a population of 1.4 billion, the vast majority of whom have never gotten COVID, and they're not going to be able to say that for long unless they have massive disruptions to supply chain. As of today, almost 40 million Chinese under quarantined, small percentage, but a lot of people. And for an economy that everyone relies on, the fact that their second largest port is shut down, Shenzhen, is a really big problem.
Zero-COVID is increasingly not working for China. It was our top risk for 2022. This is why. See you all soon.
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Russian airborne troops soldiers at Chkalovsky Airfield waiting to depart to join the Collective Security Treaty Organisation's peacekeeping force in Kazakhstan.
What We’re Watching: Russians in another Stan, Djokovic drama, Mali sanctions, Europe vs anti-vaxxers
Russia in Kazakhstan. Anti-government clashes in Kazakhstan have gotten increasingly violent, with the death toll now reaching 164 after President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev issued a controversial “shoot without warning” order on Friday. What started as a demonstration against a fuel price hike has since turned into a movement protesting government corruption and authoritarianism — with regional implications. Enter Russia, which responded to the pro-Russia Tokayev’s request for help with about 2,500 “peacekeeping” troops and future deployments being planned under the aegis of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the former Soviet Union’s version of NATO. This comes as Moscow has recently amassed 100,000 troops on the border with Ukraine. The Russians will on Monday start talks with NATO and the US about the ongoing situation with Ukraine, but also discuss enhancing security plans with Kazakhstan, whose northern territory is claimed by Moscow. Russia has been clear about what it wants in Ukraine — for NATO to stop expanding further eastward into the former Soviet states. But what does Vladimir Putin want exactly in Kazakhstan, one of the region’s most energy-rich countries?
No-vac Djokovic’s next moves. It wasn’t a political case at first, but it’s become one, fast. Novak Djokovic, the world’s top-seeded men’s tennis player, came to Oz with ambitions to win his 21st grand slam title. But after being denied entry for being unvaccinated and questions about his medical exemption from previously getting COVID, Djokovic took the Australian government to court, challenging deportation. A judge on Monday reinstated his visa, but again the case isn’t going to be open and shut — or game, set and match. The federal government can still cancel the visa for a second time, and in that case Nole will be banned from Australia, and the Australian Open, for three years. Meanwhile, Djokovic, a vaccine skeptic, is set to leave the rundown hotel where he was staying alongside many asylum-seekers also awaiting their future. Still, the question remains: is arguably tennis’ GOAT a victim of politicization, or just entitled? The Australian government’s final decision must be announced by Tuesday if the Serbian star is to play in Melbourne.
ECOWAS vs Mali. In response to Mali delaying its planned election next month, the 15-member Economic Community of West African States has decided to close all borders with Mali and impose tough economic sanctions on non-essential financial transactions, and Malian state assets in West African banks. Mali has been run by a transitional civilian-military government — with the generals calling most of the shots — since an August 2020 coup, followed by a de-facto second power grab nine months later. ECOWAS met the first with a border closure and sanctions package, which it lifted when the junta agreed to share power with civilians and hold elections in early 2022. However, the bloc didn't act after the second coup, and was caught off-guard by the postponement. Mali’s generals, meanwhile, say they prioritize ensuring a peaceful election over a speedy one. No way, say Mali's neighbors, who want a vote ASAP because West Africa needs more stable governments, in part to fight jihadists that have taken control of vast swaths of the conflict-ridden Sahel region.
Political omicron in Europe. As the omicron variant continues to drive cases and hospitalizations up globally, new pandemic restrictions — including vaccine mandates — are stoking fresh political fights in Europe. In France, President Emmanuel Macron is facing strong backlash over his recent comments against anti-vaxxers (and refusal to walk them back). Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Paris on Saturday to protest against Macron’s plans to ban the unvaccinated from bars and restaurants. Macron may have science on his side, but he'll have to tread carefully because the French presidential election is only three months away, and the incumbent needs to maintain his lead over conservative challenger Valerie Pécresse. Meanwhile, the Czech Republic saw a similar mass rally in Prague to decry a vaccine mandate for everyone over 60 due to take effect in March. What's interesting here is that the new Czech government was against the plan when its parties were in the opposition, but now says it might keep the mandate due to omicron. Flip-flopping on such a polarizing issue is not a good start for a shaky coalition in a country with one of the EU's lowest rates of trust in government.