| | | | |  | | By Ryan Heath | Follow Ryan on Twitter | Send tips and insights to rheath@politico.com It's United Nations Day ! That's officially a time for "hope for global unity." In today's Global Insider, we're instead going to focus on whether the United States is underinvesting in diplomacy. Former President Donald Trump tried to gut the State Department, just as China ramped up its diplomatic presence and commercial links around the world. As Xi Jinping sails into another unelected term running China, the U.S. heads into potentially more political gridlock after the Nov. 8 midterm election. What does each side's diplomatic jousting add up to? DIPLOMACY SCORECARD The Biden administration wanted to increase strength and unity at home in order to project strength abroad. It sounds good — but the rest of the world, especially China, did not wait for America to heal its wounds. Nahal Toosi conducted 50 interviews with current and former officials and foreign affairs specialists, and found that from Panama to Kenya to the Solomon Islands, the U.S. has been outplayed under administrations from both parties. No longer the biggest: China has more embassies ( China has 280 posts compared to 275 for the U.S .), and they're getting physically bigger, too. Read up on British fears about a new fortress embassy China is attempting to build next to the Tower of London. U.S. diplomats are spread thin: Take a joint statement released Friday between the U.S. and Switzerland on quantum computing cooperation: It was signed by the Swiss innovation minister and for the U.S. by Monica Medina, an oceans and environment specialist . During recent U.S.-EU Privacy Shield data transfer agreement negotiations, the point person at State doubled as under secretary for energy and the environment . America's anemic commercial diplomacy capability: Compared to the tight links between the Chinese state and Chinese companies, the U.S. is struggling, with American companies sometimes not even bidding to deliver critical infrastructure in developing economies. Washington has been checked out of major trade deal negotiations for years: There's no trans-Atlantic deal, no British deal, no pacific deal and no broader deal where the U.S. and China are both involved. And that's not about to change. That is not to say the U.S. is absent from these spaces. The U.S. Global Leadership Coalition brings together more than 500 businesses and non-profits who invest in development and commercial diplomacy, because " it's the smart thing to do ." The next stage for action will be rebuilding Ukraine .
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Illustration by Pablo Delcan for POLITICO | Sometimes America doesn't even show up: American ambassador chairs can sometimes sit empty for years. One out of five ambassadorships remain vacant (38 out of 192) nearly two years into this administration. As democracy teeters in Brazil, the ambassador's residence is empty. It's the same story in Rome as the radical right takes charge under Giorgia Meloni, and in Bogota, despite Colombia being probably the closest U.S. ally in the region. In Haiti, the U.S. is weighing military intervention to prevent anarchy — but there's no ambassador on-the-ground. Nor is there in Moscow, as a hot war rages next door in Ukraine. India is in the same boat — despite the country being the world's largest democracy (at a time when President Joe Biden wants to boost democracy) and an often uncooperative partner (see Russia-Ukraine). It took more than four years to confirm a new ambassador to Panama, a country that is a critical trade and migration chokepoint, which has recently switched its diplomatic relations from Taipei to Beijing. The U.S. doesn't now, and has never had an ambassador posted in the Solomon Islands — a location so strategic for the U.S. it's considered the turning point for Allied Victory in the Pacific in World War II. The position covering Honiara is based 870 miles away in Papua New Guinea. There was an embassy for five years in Honiara, but that closed in 1993. Show me the money: Over the past 10 years, U.S. diplomacy and development budgets (emergency funding excluded) have remained static at around $55 billion. Defense spending, by contrast, jumped from around $670 billion to around $850 billion in the coming year. "Leading lawmakers from both parties bristle at the idea that they don't care, but their actions, or lack thereof, underscore that diplomacy isn't a high priority," Toosi writes. PIVOTING BEYOND ASIA If Chinese diplomats lack subtlety, what they have is a system that can handle multiple priorities. For more than three decades, the Chinese foreign minister's first annual overseas trip has been to Africa . Compare that to the lackluster Summit of the Americas earlier in 2022, which neatly captured what many Latin Americans governments feel is a lack of substance in their relationship with the U.S. Brutal but effective: Chinese diplomats can resort to both violent rhetoric and even physical violence — such as beating protestors — so there's no suggestion that they're beating Americans on subtlety. But Toosi reports that there's a hunger for a more consistent American presence on the world stage. "Foreign officials repeatedly told me (often in private) that they are tired of an America that's effectively absent and U.S. pledges that don't survive an election cycle," she said Sunday .
| | | | NEW AND IMPROVED POLITICO APP: Stay up to speed with the newly updated POLITICO mobile app, featuring timely political news, insights and analysis from the best journalists in the business. With a fresh look and improved features, the sleek and navigable design offers a convenient way to access POLITICO's scoops and groundbreaking reporting. Don't miss out on the app you can rely on for the news you need, reimagined. Already a POLITICO app user? Upgrade today! DOWNLOAD FOR iOS – DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID . | | | | | | | | BRITAIN — BYE BORIS With Boris Johnson pulling out of the race to be next U.K. prime minister , the all but certain victor is Rishi Sunak. Sunak is set to become the U.K.'s first British Asian prime minister , as rival Penny Mordaunt withdraws from Conservative Party leadership race. More in London Playbook . After winning five ballots among Conservative MPs, as they whittled down a list of candidates, Sunak ultimately finished second to Liz Truss in their summer battle among the Conservative Party membership for the keys to Downing Street. Watch Global Insider try to explain Britain's mess in under two minutes . John Bolton explains why the "special relationship" keeps ticking despite the chaos . THE RISH DISH — SIX THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT SUNAK — He was born to African Hindu parents of Punjabi Indian descent, which would make him the person of color and first Hindu to lead the U.K. — At 42, he's one week younger than your Global Insider host. — He'd be the fifth U.K. prime minister in a row from Oxford University. — He was a U.S. green card holder (permanent resident) until 2020 and a Fulbright Scholar. — Akshata Murty, Sunak's wife, is a major shareholder and heir to the fortune amassed by her father, a co-founder of tech giant Infosys. — The couple was caught avoiding paying tax on most of their global income earlier in 2022, with Murty agreeing to pay around $25 million to the U.K. Treasury … while her husband ran the department. Sunak's father was a lauded tax collection official and made Member of the Order of the British Empire for his revenue-raising work. GIORGIA MELONI VS. BEIJING Italy's new prime minister has a spicy social media presence, and she's not toning it down in office, as you can see from her embrace of the Dalai Lama on the day Xi Jinping was confirmed for a third term as Chinese Communist Party leader. It was all smiles (forced, no teeth) when Meloni met French President and fierce europhile Emmanuel Macron on Sunday . What Italians are reading about global expectations of Meloni, by Stefano Stefanini in La Stampa, who points out that allies are more interested in her approach to Russia and China than domestic policy. CHINA DECODED XI'S ROCKY ECONOMIC DATA: Beijing finally released its third quarter economic growth numbers today. The economy grew by 3.9 percent over the past year : well below the 5 percent figure traditionally seen as the mark needed to avoid social unrest. The Chinese yuan is at a 14-year low, and stocks have tumbled over the past week in both Hong Kong (down 10 percent) and Shanghai (down 6 percent). Unlike in Britain, investors in China can't throw out a leader. PARTY GROUPTHINK: The new Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee consists of seven men in their 60s: Xi and six close allies. In other words: It's the most unbalanced politburo composition in China's communist history. By stacking the politburo with members of his own faction, CFR's Ian Johnson points out that Xi "constructed a system that makes him look strong in the short run but leaves him no place to hide ."
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Chinese President Xi Jinping, just appointed to another unelected term in office, has installed a collection of close allies on the Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee. | Ng Han Guan/AP Photo | WHO'S UP Li Qiang, Communist party secretary of Shanghai, is now effectively Xi's vice president. Wang Huning, an ideologue and academic who lived in the U.S. three decades ago, is the author of " America Against America ." Zhao Leji is " head of the party's top anti-corruption watchdog , the central commission for discipline inspection, a key instrument in Xi's strengthening CCP and personal control." Foreign Minister Wang Yi was promoted to the politburo despite reaching the (pre-Xi era) unofficial retirement age of 68. The battle to replace him is between former minister Liu Haixing, who studied at France's elite school ENA, and current U.S. Ambassador Qin Gang , who have both been promoted to the 205-person Central Committee. Cai Qi, Beijing party secretary, oversaw the Winter Olympics and Zero Covid. Li Xi is Guangdong party chief, he runs Xi's "masterplan for an economic powerhouse that integrates nine Chinese cities with Hong Kong and Macau." WHO'S DOWN Premier Li Keqiang and Wang Yang, the last remaining checks on Xi. Don't look back: We don't know why the party's former leader Hu Jintao was escorted out of the Great Hall. But it wasn't a sign of respect. This photo shows how current top brass were afraid to even look at Hu during his humiliation . Europe talk vs. action: European Union leaders held secret talks Friday (they were forced to leave their phones at the door) about how to adjust their China relations, but that isn't stopping German Chancellor Olaf Scholz traveling to Beijing Nov. 3, with a business delegation rather than with Emmanuel Macron, who offered to travel together, according to Le Monde . POLITICO's China correspondent Stuart Lau asks if Germany is simply repeating its Russia mistakes in China. RUSSIA — NUCLEAR RISKS AND FALSE CLAIMS G-7 countries have again asked that the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant be handed back to Ukraine , for safety reasons, as the International Atomic Energy Agency is hosting a once-in-five-years ministerial Conference on nuclear power in Washington starting Oct. 26. The IAEA meeting comes amid repeated Russian claims (without evidence) that Ukraine wants to use a dirty bomb . Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has held two calls with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in recent days . Total darkness and cold are on the way to Ukraine . WESTERNERS LINE UP FOR SAUDI 'DAVOS IN THE DESERT' Saudi Arabia has pedaled hard on the international stage to move past the backlash to the state-sponsored murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi — including through expensive events sponsorships, usually in sports . While the kingdom's recent OPEC+ oil price tactics have infuriated Democrats , it seems finance executives, Republicans and other conservative politicians from around the world have less of a problem. Global Insider trawled the 85-page program of the Future Investment Initiative — a key plank of Saudi government rebranding efforts — so you don't have to. There are dozens of top-flight political and finance figures attending, many more than bothered to show up at a September FII showcase in New York during the U.N. General Assembly high-level week. TEAM TRUMP ON-BOARD: American political figures on the program include former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who will speak on global macro finance trends alongside the Saudi finance minister, and Jared Kushner, who's slated to speak alongside former Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi on "peace and prosperity." Anthony Scaramucci is a moderator. Other Republicans speaking include Francis Suarez, mayor of Miami, and former senator Norm Coleman, who is a lobbyist for Saudi Arabia . POLITICS: Globally, there's a long list of current and former office holders on the agenda. Macky Sall, the African Union chair, and president of Senegal is the biggest name. Alongside Renzi, other former national leaders speaking are Stephen Harper and Sebastian Kurz , former conservatives leaders of Canada and Austria, respectively. Former U.K. Chancellor George Osborne will appear alongside ministers from Greece (Adonis Georgiadis) and Finland (Ville Skinnari) and Khalid Al Falih, the Saudi investment minister, who's falling well short of his targets. Saudi Arabia is massively off-track on its 2030 national plan, which includes a goal of $100 billion a year in foreign investment. In the first half of 2022, just $4 billion was received. JPMorgan ($77 million) and Goldman Sachs ($42 million) still made tidy income from banking fees in Saudi Arabia last year, Refinitiv data showed . Boeing is talking with the Saudi government for 80 jets for a new national airline (the company won a $2 billion missile contract in 2020 from the Saudi government ), so it's no surprise to see Michael Arthur, the president of Boeing International, is speaking. Fedex announced a $400 million 10-year investment plan in the country. FINANCE LINE-UP: Bridgewater's Ray Dalio is doing the opening keynote, while the CEOs of JP Morgan (Jamie Dimon), Goldman Sachs (David Solomon) Blackstone (Stephen A. Schwarzman) and HSBC (Noel Quinn) are all on the same panel Tuesday. In other panels you can find crypto kings Sam Bankman-Fried (FTX) and Changpeng Zhao, (Binance); Hani Kablawi, BNY Mellon's international chair; Bernard Mensah, Bank of America's international president; Franck Petitgas, head of Morgan Stanley International; Bill Winters, CEO at Standard Chartered; and Ken Moore, Mastercard's chief innovation officer. TECH: Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud, and Ben Horowitz , co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz; Jack Selby, CEO of Thiel Capital. MODERATORS: Among the top flight brands involved, there's CNN's Richard Quest and BBC's Suzanne Kianpour . One of Kianpour's sessions is on "virtual equality" — a.k.a equality in the metaverse, though there's none on real world equality in the kingdom. CONGRESS MEETS WORLD Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) are urging a boost to USAID's Development Innovation Ventures programs, which they say "delivers a $17 social return for every $1 invested" but suffers from having on a $30 million budget (approximately 0.1 percent of USAID's overall budget). Full letter here .
| | | MERIDIAN BALL WRAP: The Meridian International Center held its 54th annual Meridian Ball on Friday night, the full glam black-tie evening on the D.C. political social calendar. Did we mention the Ferris wheel and carousel? The ball, chaired by Andrew and Heather Florance and Chris and Paige Nassetta, followed a hybrid summit and dinners hosted by ambassadors at their residences SPOTTED: Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-Va.); Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Darrell Issa (R-Calif.); White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci, Steve Ricchetti, Mike Donilon, Mitch Landrieu, John McCarthy, Jon Finer and Carlos Elizondo ; Under Secretaries Marisa Lago and Liz Allen; State Dept.'s Amb. Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley and Dorothy McAuliffe; Ann Stock; Marie Royce; Jim Acosta; Matthew Kaminski; Kaitlin Collins; Kate Bennett; Josh Dawsey; Abby Philip Collins; Bennett Richardson, Nichole Francis Reynolds, Grace Bender, Lisa Ross, Kara Swisher, David Adler, Amb. Stuart Holliday. Also attending: the ambassadors of Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, European Union, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Panama, Philippines, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey and United Kingdom. ALBERTA VS. DAVOS: Danielle Smith , the new governor of Canada's Alberta province, has heard about "some kind of partnership" the previous government signed with the World Economic Forum, and she's sure she doesn't like it . HALIFAX INTERNATIONAL SECURITY FORUM: Topics and agenda for the Nov. 18-20 conference.
| | | | JOIN WOMEN RULE THURSDAY FOR A TALK WITH DEPARTING MEMBERS OF CONGRESS: A historic wave of retirements is hitting Congress, including several prominent Democratic women such as Illinois Rep. Cheri Bustos, House Democrats' former campaign chief. What is driving their departures? Join POLITICO on Oct. 27 for "The Exit Interview," a virtual event that will feature a conversation with departing members where they'll explain why they decided to leave office and what challenges face their parties ahead. REGISTER HERE . | | | | | | | | LONG READ: Bob Woodward's Trump Tapes: The Watergate reporter has released 20 transcripts that he says shows Trump to be an unparalleled danger to democracy. LONG READ: Denise Dresser in Foreign Affairs argues that the West has dangerously overlooked Mexico's democratic backsliding under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. She sees a "militarized twist" on the virtual one-party rule Mexico lived under from 1929 to 2000: "The Biden administration does not seem to fully understand the dangers that loom ahead as Mexico becomes a more insecure, more militarized, and less democratic country." ANIMATION: Silicon Dock is about a group of delusional tech moguls getting drunk on a rainy Dublin afternoon. Animation magazine calls it a " sarcastic animated gem ." Co-creator Kasia Wiśniewska told Global Insider it's worth your time because "it has important things to say about social media, privacy and our modern internet reality." Thanks to editor Louis Nelson, Nahal Toosi, Mark Scott, Stuart Lau and producer Hannah Farrow. SUBSCRIBE to the POLITICO newsletter family: D.C. Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook | Paris Playbook | Ottawa Playbook | EU Confidential | D.C. Influence | EU Influence | London Influence | Digital Bridge | China Direct | Berlin Bulletin | Living Cities | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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