Beijing’s mask slips

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Nov 28, 2022 View in browser   By Ryan Heath Follow Ryan on Twitter | Send tips and insights to rheath@politico.com WINTER, WEAPONIZED Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Bucharest, Romania, Nov. 28-30, for a NATO Foreign Ministers' Meeting, where Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg will seek agreement to increased shipments of power generators, electricity, clothing and other essential items for helping Ukrainians withstand Moscow's efforts to weaponize winter weather against them. Oil markets will be upended: The meeting comes as the EU begins its first blockade of Russian oil shipments , a move that will generate unpredictable effects on global energy markets — Ukraine is swapping from its role of energy exporter to energy importer — and on the behavior of the OPEC+ cartel which exists to game the markets. EU to U.S. — stop profiting from Russia's war at our expense: The common narrative in Washington is that while Western allies have remained united against Moscow, it's the U.S. that's done most of the heavy lifting, in particular on weapons supplies to Kyiv. While top EU officials have told POLITICO they're okay with that version of events (which tend to minimize the cost and effort of housing several million Ukrainian refugees on European soil), what's tipping them into anger is the double-whammy of the Inflation Reduction Act's protectionist elements, which will hurt European auto-makers at a time when Europe is already bearing most of the burden of higher energy prices. Cumulatively, these problems could tip Europe into recession.   GO INSIDE THE MILKEN INSTITUTE FUTURE OF HEALTH SUMMIT: POLITICO is featuring a special edition of our "Future Pulse" newsletter at the 2022 Milken Institute Future of Health Summit from Dec. 6 to 8. The newsletter takes readers inside one of the most influential gatherings of health industry leaders and innovators solving the biggest global health issues to ensure a healthier, more resilient future for all. SUBSCRIBE TODAY TO RECEIVE EXCLUSIVE COVERAGE .     GLOBAL RISKS AND TRENDS CHINA — DANGER FOR XI, BUT CAUTION IS THE GOLDEN RULE Protests lasted past 2 a.m. in Beijing, and have spread to Wuhan, where zero Covid policies started, among dozens of other cities . Ash Green, the U.K.'s top trade diplomat in China, tweeted videos and photos illustrating the scale of the Beijing protests — seen by Global Insider — but those tweets have since been deleted or made private. Even China's famed censorship system can't control everything — like the sight of stadiums full of maskless World Cup fans cheering their teams, leaving some Chinese wondering why they're locked in their apartments over the country's endless zero Covid approach. Authorities reduced to snatching blank sheets of paper out of the hands of protesters — a symbol they use to represent Chinese Communist Party silencing . No retreat: The People's Daily newspaper, in a front-page editorial on Sunday, said China would "unwaveringly persist" with zero-Covid policies . Local protest in China is not new or particularly rare — but coordinated or cross-sector protest in many cities is essentially unheard of since 1989, Cambridge University China specialist William Hurst explains. Still, Hurst thinks the most likely outcomes is that the protests will fizzle, given the difficulty of maintaining that level of coordination under Beijing's mass surveillance systems. Of all things, it was a deadly fire in Xinjiang that sparked the nationwide protests — nothing to do with the internment and "reeducation" of hundreds of thousands of the Uyghur minority who have lived in western China for centuries. BY THE NUMBERS Chinese GDP: Nomura cut its 2022 growth forecast to 2.8 percent , barely half of Beijing's official target of 5.5 percent. Stocks and energy prices: Significantly down over the past week Covid numbers: Around 300,000 people have Covid in China at the moment — a nearly identical number to the U.S. , but that's still relatively better for China, given it has four times the U.S. population. TAIWAN — PRESIDENT RESIGNS AS PARTY CHAIR: A lot of Taiwan coverage over the weekend misses the main point. The reporting focused on the party of President Tsai Ing-wen — which takes a tough line against Beijing — doing poorly in local elections. The real story is that Tsai resigned as party chair , the sort of penance that's impossible to imagine from Beijing's top brass, which tends to double down on policies that promote a negative public reaction. Also of note: A new third party, the Taiwan's People Party, took control of local government in the district covering Taiwan's Silicon Valley . Taiwan to keep voting age at 20: While 56 percent of those who voted (among a turnout of 53 percent) agreed the voting age should drop to 18, they fell well short of the threshold needed to effect the change. Fifty percent of all voters were needed for the referendum to win: instead only about 30 percent voted yes. Republicans on tour : The International Republican Institute is hosting a study trip in Taipei between leading experts and former officials from Finland, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden, and their Taiwanese counterparts. HOW WASHINGTON CHASED HUAWEI OUT OF EUROPE This story by Laurens Cerulus and Sarah Wheaton is packed with scoops about another victim of China's zero-Covid policies .  Speaking to more than 20 current and former staff and consultants for Huawei, and reporting a previously private speech by the company's founder Ren Zhengfei, Cerulus and Wheaton show how the Chinese tech firm has called time on its global ambitions to pivot to its domestic market. Gone is the company's Brussels office: a multimillion-dollar lobbying operation, which once handed out free smartphones to journalists (POLITICO journalists were barred from accepting the gifts), but is now folded into a Dusseldorf management office. Once the biggest spender at Mobile World Congress and a splashy presence at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Huawei's top execs haven't been able to join conferences in recent years: most couldn't leave China. In 2022, Sweden's Ericsson and Finland's Nokia have overtaken Huawei in market share of new European sales of 5G network equipment. The Nordic duo now control nearly 80 percent of the market. Ann Kiernan for POLITICO VENEZUELA — QUOTABLE "There can be no one-sided concessions or further normalization of a narco-trafficking dictator found to be committing crimes against humanity" — Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on the resumption of talks between the Maduro regime and the Venezuelan opposition, and the signing of a humanitarian agreement to be implemented by the United Nations, which prompted the U.S. to reauthorize Chevron to engage in oil drilling. CRYPTO WARS: Russian President Vladimir Putin has endorsed creating a new system of international settlements based on digital currencies and blockchains, putting him in direct conflict with Russian central bank governor Elvira Nabiullina, who opposes the crypto embrace. Party's over in the Bahamas : The country's economic anchors are tourism and off-shore finance — most recently FTX, the now bankrupt crypto exchange — making up 85 percent of GDP. GLOBETROTTERS HOUSE OF WINDSOR FACE-OFF WITH A SIDE OF KENNEDY  Over the coming week, Harry and Meghan , the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, will be glitzing it up in New York, capping their trip to the Big Apple by receiving the Robert F. Kennedy Ripple of Hope Award on Dec. 6. That will happen in conspicuous parallel to William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales, who will on Dec. 2 be giving out awards in conjunction with the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation in Boston: five $1.2 million "Earthshot Prizes" to innovators in environmentalism. The Wales' might be helping to save the planet, but Amanda Foreman writes that the Sussexes succeed in America because they know how to be "emotionally satisfying at the point of sale" and by applying "a formula that milks two of the biggest obsessions in America today: royalty and identity." This time round, the Wales' aren't allowing the PR battle to be a mere sibling rivalry: They're pulling out big guns, including performances or appearances by Annie Lennox, Billie Eilish, Catherine O'Hara, Daniel Dae Kim, David Attenborough, Rami Malek and Shailene Woodley, among others. The event, recorded at MGM Music Hall at Fenway , will be broadcast on PBS and BBC. NO POST-POWER GRAVY TRAIN FOR TEAM TRUSS: Having Downing Street on your CV usually opens doors, and wallets. Former U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May earned more than $2 million in her first two years out of the top job in British politics. Boris Johnson has had a light but lucrative schedule: The U.S.-born Johnson was paid around $300,00 for a speech to the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers in Colorado Springs, Colo., in mid-October. But Annabelle Dickson has a laugh-out-loud funny story about the perils of being — and serving — a disastrous prime minister. Liz Truss can expect to earn $75,000 or less for speeches, according to one market expert Annabelle spoke to. As for her former staff at No.10: "If I was them I would hide that fact I had ever been in the administration, I wouldn't even put it on my LinkedIn profile," the source said. WINNING, MAYBE: Coleman Adams , son of New York Mayor Eric Adams, is competing in the Albanian equivalent of American Idol , part of what he says is a plan to become an international rap star . DEAD, DEFINITELY: Vladimir Makei, the foreign minister of Belarus, died suddenly, state media announced Saturday. Makei, 64, had attended a conference of the Collective Security Treaty Organization military alliance of post-Soviet states earlier last week and was due to meet Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov today. SCRUTINIZED, AGAIN: French President Emmanuel Macron faces a criminal inquiry over claims he delivered favors for McKinsey, a consultancy . LOUISIANA NON-PURCHASE: Macron will visit New Orleans Dec. 2 , the first French leader since 1976 to make the trip to Paris' former colony, a day after the Biden administration's first state dinner, in his honor. The star performer at that event will be New Orleans native Jon Batiste .   POLITICO APP USERS: UPGRADE YOUR APP BY DECEMBER 19! We recently upgraded the POLITICO app with a fresh look and improved features for easier access to POLITICO's scoops and groundbreaking reporting. Starting December 19, users will no longer have access to the previous version of the app. Update your app today to stay on top of essential political news, insights, and analysis from the best journalists in the business. UPDATE iOS APP – UPDATE ANDROID APP .     BRAIN FOOD SHORT READ: What I learned as Israeli Prime Minister , by Naftali Bennett  FORUM: Journal of Controversial Ideas Thanks to editors Louis Nelson and Andrew Byrne 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 Ryan Heath @PoliticoRyan   Follow us

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