What Angela Merkel does next

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Jan 14, 2022 View in browser   By Ryan Heath Send tips and thoughts to rheath@politico.com. Follow Ryan on Twitter. Programming Note: We'll be off Monday, Jan. 17 for Martin Luther King Jr. Day but will be back in your inboxes on Wednesday. Happening Today Ukraine says government websites hit by 'massive cyber attack.' At least 10 websites ceased functioning Friday morning. The government is yet to attribute blame. Question of the day: Is war with Russia more likely, or less likely, after this week's talks? National security adviser Jake Sullivan said he would not be pushed to "put any kind of likelihood on it" before going on to say "the threat of military invasion is high," and noting the U.S. government holds "no illusions" about the situation. "Diplomacy is the more sensible path. The Russians will have to make their own assessment," Sullivan said at a press briefing. It's worth reading the full remarks if you didn't catch them live. Double fault: Djokovic's Australian visa canceled again — now faces three-year ban: Australia's immigration minister overruled a local court, based on new information that the world's No.1 male tennis player Novak Djokovic misled authorities about his travel and compliance with Covid rules when attempting to enter Australia to play the first tennis "grand slam" tournament of the year. He now risks a three-year ban from Australia. While Djokovic plans another appeal, unlike the previous court hearing, his chances of victory are slim: This time his lawyers have to argue the minister has illegally used his broad powers to ban Djokovic. WHAT MERKEL DOES NEXT Global Insider hears that U.N. Secretary General António Guterres has written to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel , asking her to lead a "high-level advisory board" on how to develop and manage global public goods (such as oceans or the ozone layer). Merkel would be providing follow-up to Guterres' "Our Common Agenda" report released in September. Guterres is still waiting for a reply. U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric did not comment by the time Global Insider published. If an advisory position isn't to Merkel's liking, another post some U.N. diplomats are keen for her to fill is that of U.N. climate chief. Patricia Espinosa's term as head of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change is up in the summer. Others who'd love the job include South Africa's former foreign minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane and Nigerian environment chief Sharon Ikeazor . Don't rule out Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley — who got plaudits for her U.N. General Assembly and COP26 speeches in 2021. The inside candidate could be current U.N. envoy Selwin Hart, a climate adviser in Guterres' office. IS BORIS JOHNSON FINALLY DOWN TO HIS NINTH POLITICAL LIFE? Boris Johnson admits he attended a drinks party at his office while the rest of the country was in strict lockdown, and the senior official investigating that party is also investigating two other parties held in Downing Street the night before Prince Philip's 2021 funeral, the Daily Telegraph reported. Three parties in your workplace while the rest of the country was under strict Covid lockdown isn't a great look. He apologized to the Queen this morning for attending the parties before Philip's funeral. Johnson refuses to quit as polls slip further: It is easy to watch Boris Johnson this week and conclude his days are numbered. But here's a reminder of why Johnson's critics will find it hard to topple him: He has a big majority in Parliament and back-to-back elections wins, but mostly because there's no obvious successor. 5 ways this set of scandals could play out, from our formidable London political correspondent Esther Webber. Sue Gray — a name you'll hear a lot next week: Gray is the senior civil servant conducting an inquiry into the Downing Street parties. Former government minister Oliver Letwin wrote in his memoirs that "our great United Kingdom is actually entirely run by a lady called Sue Gray," who for years exercised control over which political advisers ministers could hire, advised on Cabinet reshuffles, drew red lines through memoirs and controlled the pace of the government's responses to freedom of information requests. She can't fire Johnson, but her conclusions make him staying untenable. Your author worked with Gray in the U.K. Cabinet Office from 2004 to 2006 — and was fired by her: So take it from me personally, she knows how to wield a rule book.   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president's ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.     GLOBAL RISKS AND TRENDS CAN WE GET A CLEAR LINE ON WHERE WE STAND WITH RUSSIA? "Our intelligence community has developed information — which has now been downgraded — that Russia is laying the groundwork to have the option of fabricating a pretext for an invasion" — Jake Sullivan, U.S. national security adviser "The meetings themselves in the last couple of days have not led to any large changes in the intelligence picture that we see" around Ukraine. — Adm. Rob Bauer, Netherlands, chair of NATO's military committee PRACTICALITIES: Putin is Threatening a War. Are Russians Willing to Fight It? Plus Evelyn Farkas on why the U.S. must be prepared for war against Russia RUSSIA SANCTIONS TORPEDOED: Senate Democrats on Thursday blocked a GOP-led effort to impose sanctions on Nord Stream 2, a Russian natural-gas pipeline. CATCH UP on a new Inter-Parliamentary Alliance against Kleptocracy NEW PODCAST EPISODE — HOW TO MESS WITH AN OLIGARCH Listen to Global Insider Podcast It's one of the few political problems that unites people across the political spectrum, and across the globe. But how can we actually fight corruption on a meaningful scale? Paul Massaro, adviser to the bipartisan Helsinki Commission in Congress, told Global Insider there's no way to defeat corruption — which may account for 10 percent of global GDP — without exposing money flows. "Everyone is fed up with corruption. Everyone. The question is only will opportunists exploit this frustration to accelerate democratic decline or we will formulate and implement actual policy solutions?" Clarification: In Wednesday's Global Insider, we noted that Myanmar had the most sanctioned individuals designated under bilateral U.S. Treasury sanctions (65), but Belarus had more total designations across multiple sanctions programs (100 sanctioned individuals and entities). h/t Spencer Vuksic WHAT CEOs ARE WORRYING ABOUT There will be a flurry of content in the coming days because next week ought to be Davos week. First up, The Conference Board surveyed 917 CEOs around the world. Highlights from the C-Suite Outlook 2022 report — and full survey results. Inflation jumped from 22nd on CEOs worry list a year ago to first today, with a majority expecting the pressure to last into 2023. America CEOs most comfortable with remote work: 53 percent expect remote-heavy workforces post-pandemic. 681 MILLION The number of Covid-19 vaccine doses sitting unused in the world's poorest countries, according to a calculation by the international humanitarian organization CARE, which is calling for more investments in delivery to ensure shots make it into arms. INTERVIEW — KENNETH ROTH, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH The rights group's 764-page 2022 World Report includes an essay by Roth, the organization's executive director. Roth spoke to Global Insider about what it all means, including his view that it's autocrats who are playing defense today, not democrats. Autocrats aren't really on the rise: "That thesis is too simplistic. Put yourself in the shoes of the autocrat: Life is much more complicated (now). Autocrats are facing a pretty hostile environment. There's really been a remarkable outpouring of popular protests for democracy, in a broad array of countries from Thailand and Myanmar, all the way over to Cuba, Nicaragua, with stops in Uganda and Sudan, Russia, Belarus, Poland." The march of zombie democracies: "Traditionally, autocrats prefer manipulated or managed democracy because they can stay in charge, but they get a degree of legitimacy. Now we've seen a series of autocrats abandon that. It's what China's done in Hong Kong, the Kremlin did it and the most recent elections in Russia, Lukashenko in Belarus, Ortega in Nicaragua: He arrested seven leading opposition candidates. These really are acts of desperation." The rise of grand coalitions for democracy: "It's impressive and new: broad left to right coalitions of parties putting aside their ordinary partisan differences in order to pursue their one common goal of getting rid of the autocrat. It ousted Andrej Babiš in the Czech Republic, Netanyahu in Israel, and it is really the best way to explain why Joe Biden was chosen. He was nobody's first choice, but was seen as the best solution to competing with Trump. And today these coalitions have both Orbán and Erdoğan very much on the defensive." Rating Biden: "Biden really embraced various institutions, but in terms of Biden's vow to make human rights a central principle in his foreign policy, there has been disappointment. There's not a big difference between Biden foreign policy and traditional pre-Trump foreign policy. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Israel, India: There is no visible rights policy." "The biggest shift has probably been on China, which has emerged in recent years as a genuine, not only military, threat, but as so determined to undermine the international system." In 2022, all eyes on … "What could really explode? Myanmar and Sudan. Tigray (in northern Ethiopia) is probably the place where potentially there are the greatest losses (of life)." Punishing Poland: Roth, just back from Warsaw, believes the EU's new tougher funding conditions — which punish Warsaw's rule-of-law breaches — are starting to bite: "It's totally hurting, the government can't deliver on its first promises. So it just shows how this economic leverage is very significant." Warsaw is also slated to pay $18 million a day in fines for breaking EU market rules, starting Tuesday, which will only ratchet up the pressure on the government. CHINESE INFLUENCE OPERATIONS A new report from the French military's Institute for Strategic Research, by Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer and Paul Charon, will likely become a bible for those monitoring Chinese soft power and pitched Beijing as pursuing a Machiavellian strategy. The full version runs to more than 650 pages with 3000 footnotes. What to expect: You'll read about the ideological basis of Chinese operations, the actors who undertake them and the actions themselves. There are case studies looking at Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sweden, Canada and the Covid-19 pandemic. 650 pages in a sentence: Beijing now embraces being feared rather than loved. The report is reviewed here in the Journal of Strategic Security. GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER: Emmanuel Bonne , the French President's diplomatic counselor, hobnobbed in the eastern Chinese city of Wuxi this week with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and President Xi Jinping invited his counterpart from Malta (population 525,000), George Vella , for a visit this year. "Malta has always been a positive force in promoting China-EU relations," Xi said to Vella. "China is willing to work with Malta to jointly safeguard the main direction of cooperation between China and the EU." Food for thought: The marked difference between how Beijing treats various small EU countries (hello, Lithuania) is a reminder that it only takes one trojan horse to infiltrate an EU summit. BEIJING OLYMPICS CHECK-IN: Three weeks out from the opening ceremony, tickets are not yet on sale, and 20 million people are in lockdown. Pressure is beginning to be reapplied to corporate sponsors, including from surprising quarters. Take this essay from Michael Posner who worked with Coca-Cola for more than two decades and now says the company needs to confront China's human rights abuses. A Buzzfeed investigation reveals that big brands, such as Hugo Boss and Tommy Hilfiger, continue to work with a clothing company closely tied to forced labor abuses in Xinjiang. WHAT THE STATE IS SAYING ABOUT GOLDMAN'S DOOMSDAY GROWTH PREDICTION: Could China really drop to 1.5 percent GDP growth in 2022 — the lowest rate since 1976? That's a worst case scenario laid out by Goldman Sachs this week, in a report that was mostly noted for its revision downward of the most likely growth rate: to 4.3 percent. China's Global Times pushes back. Scoring the U.S.—China "Phase One" trade deal on its second anniversary, by POLITICO's resident China Watcher, Phelim Kine. GLOBETROTTERS ANDREW WINDSOR, PRIVATE CITIZEN: Prince Andrew is no longer His Royal Highness and will defend himself at a looming sexual assult civil trial "as a private citizen," Buckingham Palace said Thursday. "With the Queen's approval and agreement, the Duke of York's military affiliations and royal patronages have been returned to the Queen," the palace said. NO PLACE LIKE HOME: A local council in London is planning to change the street names surrounding the site of a new Chinese embassy compound. Left-wing Tower Hamlets Council has voted to consider naming nearby roads and buildings Tiananmen Square, Uyghur Court, Hong Kong Road and Tibet Hill, CityAM reported. SLOW PROGRESS ON AMBASSADOR NOMINEES: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is back to work with hearings on key diplomacy and development nominees, including for director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, and ambassadors to Germany, India, Pakistan, Serbia and Greece. As well they might: The administration and Congress still need to fill 113 critical U.S. national security positions, according to the count of the U.S. Global Leadership Council. Blame for those empty chairs can be split down the middle. Fifty-seven positions are pending Senate confirmation, while another 56 still need an administration nominee.   DON'T MISS CONGRESS MINUTES: Need to follow the action on Capitol Hill blow-by-blow? Check out Minutes, POLITICO's new platform that delivers the latest exclusives, twists and much more in real time. Get it on your desktop or download the POLITICO mobile app for iOS or Android. CHECK OUT CONGRESS MINUTES HERE.     BRAIN FOOD LONG READ: The Great Siberian Thaw, by Joshua Yaffa. BOOKS American Kleptocracy, by Casey Michel. The Enablers: How the West Supports Kleptocrats and Corruption — Endangering Our Democracy, by Frank Vogl. Thanks to editor John Yearwood, Alex Ward, Stuart Lau, Phelim Kine, Mark Scott and Hannah Farrow   Follow us on Twitter Ryan Heath @PoliticoRyan   Follow us

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