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US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy meets Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California.
What We're Watching: Tsai in California, Lukashenko in Moscow, no Easter in Nicaragua
After US speaker meets Taiwan's prez, all eyes on China
US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday met Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen in California, the last stop of her trip to the Americas. McCarthy is the most senior US official to meet a Taiwanese leader on American soil since 1979, when Washington officially recognized Beijing – rather than Taipei – as “China.”
The meeting was a bold move by the Taiwanese leader, given that China considers Taiwan part of its territory and is triggered by even the slightest hint of Americans normalizing ties with Taipei. And it definitely won’t help improve the US-China relationship. But so far, Beijing’s response has been more meow than growl.
Ahead of the tête-à-tête in California, China sent fighter jets and naval vessels near the Taiwan Strait, which separates Taiwan from the Chinese mainland. Beijing followed that up by dispatching an aircraft carries and announcing spot inspections of Taiwanese ships.
Still, it wasn’t quite the massive show of force put on by China right after Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan last August. Blame bad timing: Xi Jinping likely doesn’t want to freak out French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, who Xi is hosting this week at a very awkward time for China-EU relations.
Lukashenko’s delicate dance
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko went to Moscow on Wednesday to pay a visit to his ally (?), friend (?), overlord (?), and partner Vladimir Putin. Whenever these two meet, Lukashenko must tread carefully. Since December 1999, Russia and Belarus have been part of a “Union State” meant to deepen economic and defense cooperation between the two former Soviet countries.
But now Putin, frustrated by a war gone wrong, is nudging Lukashenko toward further integration steps that appear to expand Russian power. Lukashenko has good reason to fear that full “integration” would allow giant Russia to swallow little Belarus whole. But he also can’t resist too aggressively, because he has faced pro-democracy protests at home that might have brought down his regime had Putin not come to his rescue.
For this reason, Lukashenko must continue a delicate dance. He allows Russia to use his country as a staging ground for war on Ukraine, and as a location for the Kremlin’s tactical nuclear weapons too, but he still resists Putin’s pressure to send Belarusian troops to join the fight.
Nicaraguan strongman cancels Easter
The Nicaraguan government is banning Holy Week street celebrations as it cracks down on critics amid a spat with the influential Catholic church.
Tensions have simmered between the church and strongman President Daniel Ortega since the anti-government protests of 2018, when his government accused clerics — who were seeking to mediate between the two sides — of supporting the streets. And amid a sweeping crackdown on dissent, Bishop Ronaldo Alvarez, a prominent Ortega critic, was sentenced in February to a 26-year prison sentence for treason, inflaming tensions in the fiercely Catholic country.
Last month, the government suspended ties with the Holy See altogether after Pope Francis called the government of Ortega – a former Marxist guerilla who somewhat unconvincingly reinvented himself as a man of faith 15 years ago – a ‘crude dictatorship’ and compared its repression of Catholics to Nazi Germany.
As Easter Sunday approaches in Nicaragua, it’s fair to ask: WWJD?
Beina Lesanjir, a woman who escaped gender based violence, participates in a traditional dance at the Umoja village, Kenya.
Hard Numbers: A Kenyan “No man’s land”, Nicaragua strips critics, Eastern migrations soar, big money Bible
0: The defining feature of Umoja, a village in northeastern Kenya, is that it has precisely zero men. The town, which bans the Y-chromosome entirely (at least among adults), was set up decades ago as a refuge for women fleeing domestic violence, genital mutilation, or child marriage. Some 40 families now live there.
94: The Nicaraguan government of strongman Daniel Ortega has stripped 94 of his critics of their citizenship. The move, which violates international law, is part of a two-year-long crackdown on civil society in which hundreds of Ortega’s critics or opponents have been jailed or forced abroad.
64: The number of migrants undertaking treacherous migrations from East Africa through Yemen and onward to the Gulf countries has increased 64% over the past year. Women and children make up a large part of the rise along the so-called “Eastern Migration Route.”
50 million: The Bible warns against “love of money,” sure, but if you’ve already got $50 million burning a hole in your robes, you could be the owner of a nearly complete Hebrew Bible from a thousand years ago. The book goes on auction at Sotheby’s in May.
A view shows Batman logo on a box of cocaine, said to be recovered by New Zealand Police.
Hard Numbers: Batman found on cocaine, Disney censors Simpsons, Nicaragua jails priests, Bard flub costs Google billions
3.2: In a possible indication that the Marvel universe is winning, Batman is now on cocaine. New Zealand’s navyintercepted a haul of 3.2 tons of the drug floating in the pacific. Many of the packets were labeled with the Dark Knight’s symbol, evidently a trademark of certain producers in South America.
1: Disney hasremoved one single episode of the current Simpsons season from its streaming service in Hong Kong. They haven’t commented on why, but the episode features a scene where Marge Simpson’s online spin instructor stands before a background that advertises “the wonders of China: Bitcoin mines, forced labor camps where children make smartphones!”
5: A Nicaraguan courthas sentenced five priests to decade-long prison terms for supporting pro-democracy protests in 2018 that the government of strongman Daniel Ortega deemed illegal. Since those protests, Ortega has cracked down severely on civil society, with a particular focus on his one-time allies in the Catholic Church.
100 billion: Google’s parent company Alphabetlost more than $100 billion in value on Wednesday after Bard, its newly unveiled AI-powered chatbot, incorrectly attributed the origin of certain deep space photographs in an advertisement. That weird sound you hear right now is rival AI bot ChatGPT, somewhere deep in the metaverse, laughing its neural networks off.
An armored convoy of pro-Russian troops moves along a road during in Mariupol, Ukraine.
What We’re Watching: Russian military on the ropes, panic-buying in Beijing, Nicaragua out of OAS
Depleted Russian forces?
As Moscow struggles to rack up battlefield wins — narrowing its focus to the Donbas and to building a land bridge to its forces in Crimea — it’s reasonable to wonder just how potent Russia’s military really is. Most media information on the war comes from the Russian and Ukrainian governments, both of which need to sell the idea of Russian military might. The Kremlin needs to maintain troop and civilian morale, and Ukraine needs to woo Western support. But independent military analysts stress the Russians’ current limitations. “Russian [battalions] have taken high casualties in the battle of Mariupol, are degraded, and are unlikely to possess their full complement of personnel,” according to the Institute for the Study of War. As for elsewhere in Ukraine? “Reporting on numbers of [battalions] without additional context and analysis of the combat power of these units is not a useful evaluation of Russian forces,” it said.
Beijing lockdown jitters
After Shanghai, will Beijing become the next major Chinese city to lock down under Xi Jinping's zero-COVID policy? On Monday, authorities in China's capital began testing Chaoyang district’s 3.5 million residents after logging 26 new infections over the weekend. That may not sound like many to those living in the US or Europe, but Beijing wants to avoid what happened to Shanghai, which has been under partial lockdown for almost a month. Some hardline zero-COVID supporters say China's largest city waited too long to make the call, so now it's resorting to extreme methods like fencing off high-risk districts as cases spread. Xi may fear that a long Beijing lockdown could turn into a highly sensitive political issue in the capital just as he seeks a norm-defying third term as president at the 20th Party Congress this autumn. Still, people have begun panic-buying, and the fact that the virus has been circulating in Beijing for days means it's likely to spread outside Chaoyang, Beijing's most populous district and business hub.
Nicaragua quits OAS
What do you do if you're a strongman who keeps failing a pesky regional institution’s democratic sniff test? You leave, of course. That's what Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega did on Sunday by withdrawing from the Organization of American States, which has long pressured Ortega to deliver on his election reform promises. The OAS says his November "re-election" for a fourth term was anything but fair, while the Nicaraguan government claims the institution is a "diabolical instrument of evil." Almost on cue, Venezuela supported Nicaragua's exit from the OAS, which Caracas regards as “an instrument of US imperialism.” Bombastic statements aside, Nicaragua's withdrawal is hardly a surprise. Ortega and the institution have been at odds for years as the country has slid into authoritarianism. But there's a catch: the OAS says that Nicaragua is welcome to leave but cannot do so (formally) for another year because it announced its decision while it was still an active member.Ukrainian soldiers during a funeral for a fellow service member in Lviv.
What We're Watching: Ukrainian war morale, Nicaraguan opposition crackdown, Sinai summit
“On the brink of surviving war”
In wartime, all battlefield reports must be treated with large doses of skepticism. All of them. Propaganda and the “fog of war” are powerful forces. We do know that Russia’s military has captured very few of its most strategically important targets. To varying degrees, Ukraine’s largest cities have suffered terrible, lasting damage and a substantial number of both military and civilian casualties. In addition, a Russian media outlet reported on Monday that the country’s Defense Ministry has acknowledged that 9,861 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine in the past month. If true, that’s more than the number of American soldiers killed during the entire wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. (That report, which can’t be verified, was quickly pulled down, but it squares with Western intelligence estimates.) We’ve already written in Signal about the various problems, including low morale, that may be plaguing Russian soldiers.
What about Ukraine’s soldiers? Not only has Russia’s advance toward Kyiv stalled, but Ukrainians appear to have retaken the offensive in some areas. “Despite heavy fighting, Ukrainian forces continue to repulse Russian attempts to occupy the southern city of Mariupol,” UK defense officials say. The city has faced some of the most intense bombardment of the war. Rather than retreating to defend Kyiv, Ukraine appears to be mounting counteroffensives to challenge the gains Russia has made. Other governments continue to supply Ukrainian fighters with valuable weapons. “We are on the brink of surviving war,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky told Italy’s parliament on Tuesday.
In short, if Ukrainian soldiers – and civilians – begin to believe, rightly or wrongly, that they can successfully repel Russia’s invasion, they will continue to fight aggressively, raising the human and material costs of the operation for Russia.
Ortega vs Chamorros in Nicaragua
Nicaraguan opposition leader Cristiana Chamorro was sentenced on Monday to eight years behind bars for financial crimes related to her media foundation. She was also found guilty of promoting “ideological falsehood” — which in the Central American country is code for saying things strongman President Daniel Ortega doesn’t like. There’s a backstory here: Ortega has a chip on his shoulder with the Chamorros because Cristiana’s late mom Violeta Chamorro beat him in the 1990 presidential election. What's more, her dad — assassinated in 1978 — was a hero of the resistance to the brutal Somoza dictatorship — which a young Ortega fought a guerrilla war against in the 1970s. Going after his critics is nothing new for Ortega, and arresting Chamorro several months ago prevented her from challenging him in last November’s “election.” Still, the lengthy prison term is a big blow to the opposition, who saw Chamorro as the best hope to someday get rid of Nicaragua’s authoritarian leader.
A rare trilateral Mideast summit
Times in the Middle East are changing. Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi on Tuesday hosted Israeli PM Naftali Bennett and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed in Sinai to bolster regional ties at a perilous global moment. A readout from the meeting said the leaders discussed the conflict in Ukraine, global food insecurity, and the energy crisis. What’s more, the three states share concerns over Iran’s nuclear ambitions and nefarious regional activities. They likely want to get on the same page amid ongoing negotiations in Vienna over Iran’s nuclear program. This meeting is the latest development to come from the Trump-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020, which saw Israel normalize diplomatic ties with Bahrain, Morocco, and the UAE. Meanwhile, Egypt, the world’s largest wheat importer, is feeling the burn of food shortages and price hikes because of the war, and Israel says it wants to help.A man, wearing a face mask for protection against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), walks by a mural depicting Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, in Managua, Nicaragua March 30, 2020. Picture taken March 30, 2020.
Nicaragua’s so-called “election”
On Sunday, Nicaragua will hold presidential and legislative elections in which President Daniel Ortega is all but guaranteed to win a fifth term. So, why does the vote even matter? We asked Eurasia Group analyst Yael Sternberg for her take.
Who's Daniel Ortega?
Ortega, now the longest-serving leader in the Americas, first came to power in 1979 as part of a military junta that overthrew the US-backed rightwing dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza. Ortega won elections organized by the military junta in 1984, but lost power in the country's first free elections, held in 1990. He was then democratically elected in 2006 but has since turned increasingly repressive, particularly in the aftermath of massive anti-government protests in 2018. Ortega's running mate is his wife, Rosario Murillo, the most public face of the regime.
What steps has Ortega taken to secure his victory?
The government has imposed nearly impenetrable barriers for opposition candidates to participate in these elections. In late 2020, the National Assembly approved a law prohibiting individuals deemed as "traitors" from holding public office. To date, eight potential opposition candidates have been arrested under this justification. Ortega also named a new Supreme Electoral Council earlier this year that is wholly comprised of loyalists and has helped to put up roadblocks to opposition candidacies and coalitions alike. They have also used fresh COVID restrictions to limit campaign-related events. At the same time, Ortega has cracked down on independent journalists and created his own social media troll farms. Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, said this week that it had shut down nearly 1,500 accounts and pages that were part of a government-coordinated effort to disseminate pro-Ortega propaganda. And lastly, the assembly approved a reform this year limiting the involvement of international election observers, which will severely limit election oversight.
How do these conditions compare to those of previous elections?
The 2016 election was far from free and fair, given the elimination of presidential term limits that allowed for Ortega to participate, as well as the disqualification of the opposition's strongest contender. However, the government has gone much further with this election by disqualifying or arresting every viable opposition candidate on treason charges. What's more, the shadow of the 2018 protests and violent security crackdowns that followed looms large. During those protests, security forces injured hundreds and killed several demonstrators, while the government clamped down on independent media and outlawed protests altogether. In this context, civil society and opposition movements not only face significant deterrents from playing an active role in the election, but also a widespread sense of fear that has not subsided in the aftermath of 2018.
So, do these elections matter at all?
The election will significantly increase Nicaragua's international isolation. The European Union recently joined the US and Canada in imposing targeted sanctions, including asset freezes and travel bans, on Nicaraguan individuals accused of undermining democracy and committing human rights violations. This week, US officials said that the Biden administration is collaborating with international partners to potentially revamp and impose new sanctions in response to this weekend's elections, and to begin a review of the country's participation in the CAFTA-DR free trade agreement. Separately, Congress, which in 2018 prohibited the US from supporting multilateral loans to Nicaragua, is also likely to increase pressure on the Ortega regime. This week, the US Senate approved targeted sanctions on Nicaraguan officials, and proposed initiatives to monitor and address corruption by the Ortega government. Finally, Nicaragua may well be suspended from regional organizations like the OAS, which recently adopted a resolution condemning the government's repressive actions ahead of the election.
Is there likely to be any internal backlash against the authorities?
While the elections could serve as a potential catalyst for popular unrest, the scope will likely be limited by the recent wave of arrests and fear of repression. Moreover, there are few figures to mobilize such discontent; much of the opposition movement has been forced underground or into exile, where it will struggle to be effective or cohesive.
Is a repeat of the 2018 protests likely any time soon?
It's unlikely in the near term, but can't be ruled out entirely, given what is set to be a deteriorating economic outlook and growing popular discontent. The regime is losing multilateral support just as pandemic and hurricane financing wanes, and as the US returns to enforcing sanctions that it suspended during the pandemic. Bear in mind that the economy has already contracted for three straight years due to ongoing political turbulence and the COVID crisis, with low growth projected for this year and beyond. Foreign investment and household consumption have declined, and with mounting financing needs, the government may look to increase taxes or reduce subsidies, neither of which is popular. All of this creates a highly combustible social atmosphere that could test the Ortega government again before long.
U.S. President Joe Biden arrives for the G20 leaders summit in Rome, Italy October 30, 2021.
What We’re Watching: Biden in Europe, Gulf states vs Lebanon, elections in Nicaragua, South Africa & Virginia
Biden's Euro trip. President Joe Biden is on a crucial Euro trip. It began in Rome at the G-20 Summit, where his idea for a global minimum tax rate was broadly endorsed by the group. Biden also visited Pope Francis at the Vatican — a get-together that produced decidedly less scary photos than when his predecessor held a papal visit — and met with France's President Emmanuel Macron to try to smooth over strained relations after the AUKUS debacle, which he now says had been "clumsy." The US president had another face-to-face with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, just a week after Ankara threatened to expel the US ambassador. But there's a domestic component at play too: Biden was hoping to have passed two infrastructure bills, which include money for climate change, before he attended the COP26 meeting in Glasgow, which kicked off on Sunday. Failure to close the deal on Capitol Hill would deal Biden's credibility a heavy blow just at the moment he wants to reinforce the US commitment to climate change reduction goals at this week's summit and to claim, yet again, that America is indeed back! But Democrats continue to wrangle over both what's in the bills and how to pay for them. Meanwhile, only a third of Americans now say that the US is headed in the right direction. Biden was hoping to have the wind at his back as he sailed into Europe. Instead, he is facing a strong political headwind.
Gulf states lash out at Lebanon. Cash-strapped Lebanon is grappling with yet another crisis after Saudi Arabia expelled its ambassador, a move promptly followed by the UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait in solidarity with Riyadh. The trigger? A Lebanese minister had previously criticized the Saudis' involvement in the ongoing war in Yemen, suggesting that the coalition led by Riyadh was the aggressor in a conflict with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels. Indeed, this latest episode reveals that Lebanon — which has long been plagued by sectarian tensions — yet again finds itself in the crosshairs of the Iran-Saudi rivalry. (Saudi Arabia has cut off aid to Beirut since the-Iran backed Hezbollah movement has gained increasing influence in Lebanese political and social life.) But since billionaire tycoon Najib Mikati was appointed Lebanon's PM in September, the US and France have been lobbying the Saudis to soften their hardline approach to Lebanon, which the Gulf views as an Iranian client state, and reinstate aid to the crisis-ridden country, where three-quarters of the population now live below the poverty line. The latest episode shows that despite speculation of a détente between Tehran and Riyadh, deep animosity persists.
Nicaragua's fake election. At the tail end of this week Nicaragua will hold a presidential "election." We're putting that in quotation marks because President Daniel Ortega, who has ruled the Central American country with a tight fist since 2011, has eliminated any serious (and even unserious) competition. He controls the electoral authorities, and since June, his goons have arrested at least a dozen prominent opposition figures. But things haven't been smooth sailing for Ortega, who led the left-wing Sandinistas during Nicaragua's bloody civil war in the 1980s and has since reinvented himself as a business-friendly devout Catholic. Back in 2018 a botched social security reform prompted protests that quickly spiraled into a challenge to his authoritarian rule. Although he crushed the uprising with brute force, rumblings of discontent continue. What's more, the US and other partners in the region are already readying a new round of sanctions in response to what will certainly be a sham vote on Sunday.
ANC feels heat as South Africa votes. South Africans go to the polls on Monday to vote in local elections, which are viewed as the biggest test for the ruling ANC party since the end of apartheid. The ANC, which has won every nationwide election since 1994, could lose control of major cities, including Johannesburg, to the opposition Democratic Alliance and coalitions of small independent parties because many South Africans are fed up with government corruption and dysfunction. Indeed, ongoing power outages are being blamed on a state-owned power utility long suspected of graft, and crumbling infrastructure on years of financial mismanagement by successive ANC-led governments. President Cyril Ramaphosa, an ANC stalwart, has admitted (some) party mistakes, and required all ANC candidates to sign a non-enforceable pledge to improve public services. More broadly, it's also the first time the ANC will face voters since the deadly riots that followed former president Jacob Zuma's conviction for contempt of court last July. Zuma is now on parole while he faces trial for corruption, but he remains immensely popular with the ANC's left wing — and a thorn in the side of his successor Ramaphosa.
A nail-biter in Virginia. The campaign for the 2022 US midterm elections officially kicks off Tuesday, when Virginia votes to elect a new governor in a race widely seen as a temperature check on Joe Biden's popularity after 10 months. Democrats hope that former Gov. Terry McAuliffe wins back his old job so that the purple state does not slide into Republican hands ahead of presidential elections in 2024. But GOP challenger Glenn Youngkin, a millionaire businessman supported by Donald Trump, has caught up in the polls once led comfortably by McAuliffe in a campaign marked by education culture wars. Now both are in a dead heat, and the result will likely be very close. A Youngkin victory would be a big boost for Republicans, who'll gain momentum going into the midterms next year, where the Dems face long odds of keeping control of both houses of Congress. What's more, it would add pressure on Biden to mediate between the moderate and progressive wings of his party to pass a social spending bill, the hallmark of his policy agenda. With his own approval rate plummeting, the president needs a big win that Democrats can sell to voters a year from now.
What We're Watching: Nicaragua's sham election
Nicaragua's fake vote. At the tail end of this week Nicaragua will hold a presidential "election." We're putting that in quotation marks because President Daniel Ortega, who has ruled the Central American country with a tight fist since 2011, has eliminated any serious (and even unserious) competition. He controls the electoral authorities, and since June, his goons have arrested at least a dozen prominent opposition figures. But things haven't been smooth sailing for Ortega, who led the left-wing Sandinistas during Nicaragua's bloody civil war in the 1980s and has since reinvented himself as a business-friendly devout Catholic. Back in 2018 a botched social security reform prompted protests that quickly spiraled into a challenge to his authoritarian rule. Although he crushed the uprising with brute force, rumblings of discontent continue. What's more, the US and other partners in the region are already readying a new round of sanctions in response to what will certainly be a sham vote on Sunday.