BRUEGEL IN BEIJING

The saga of the blind activist Chen Guangcheng in China would be a comedy of errors if it were not so serious. All the players in this political (melo-) drama seem to have forgotten their lines. Chinese, Americans, and Mr. Chen himself seem to have been embroiled in an absurd fable wherein everybody looks like having been duped. All this was a major distraction from the Strategic and Economic Dialogue with China which mobilized the “who is who” on both sides. It is impossible to guess what the agreement was, if there was one. The Chinese lost face (a major drama), the Americans looked foolish and Mr. Chen appeared sometimes as being a manipulator. The official narrative looked surreal, given what was happening behind the usual official smiles and protocol. The American ambassador looked more like a nanny than a diplomat and every place Mr. Chen went became an asylum for the insane and thugs. As ambassador in Beijing I have seen enough of those seedy characters who run the show. The regime looked bad, almost a remake of post-Weimar Germany. The Americans tried to triangulate self-interest and human rights. This was an inglorious week, obliging the Chinese to show their worst side, inciting the Americans to stick to Realpolitik, which is not always that moralistic. It is to be hoped that this unsavory episode can be forgotten and that Mr. Chen and his family might come to the United States. There has been enough cynicism this week to fill a book where almost everybody looks opportunistic or worse. The secretary of state might have played the better role but only the future will confirm. The part played by Gary Locke, American ambassador, remains unclear even as his intentions were obviously good. The American side vowed not to expect a repeat of this incident. Human rights seem really to be a precious metal a la carte! American diplomatic missions seem to have their hands full in China lately. The surreal has become the norm, given the number of Chinese activists who helped Mr. Chen and have already been routed by the police. Maybe the Americans should start preparing proper lodgings for the Bo Xilais and Ai Weiwei since they are at it. We are only witnessing the U-turns of this Chinese-American “new-look” relationship. Too bad that rather than steadily progressing it goes sometimes into rear gear. After all, Tiananmen still shows the scars of 20 years ago, like some political Pompeii. The blind have to stop leading the blind.

CHINESE ROMAN NOIR

China has had its lot of events during thousands of years of  history. The Middle Kingdom was the wonder of the world, before it became its victim.
After the atrocities of the last centuries China engaged in the Long March which led to a situation wherein the Chinese were pawns on the Hegelian chessboard of Mao Zedung.
All this resulted in hunger, cultural revolution and state terrorism, hitting where it hurt the most: in the face of intellectuals and students who were reduced to cheap labour in the countryside.  The foresight of Deng Xiaoping was needed to change the former perverse equation and to change the course radically, leading China to where it stands now, an asymmetrical colossus with too little hard power and a slow awakening of soft power.
Since the last decennium, old ideas are stored for now.  Money rules.
New politicians emerge. The older guys who ruled behind their closed enclaves are being replaced by a younger, more pragmatic generation. Wen Jiabao might be the last of the Old Guard who showed also a remarkable sensitivity to the needs of the people.
Bo Xilai is the son of Bo Yibo, Grand Marcher, confident of Deng Xiaoping,a member of the elite. The wife of Bo, Gu Kailai, is accused of being involved in the murder of Neil Heywood of British nationality. The Bo couple can be considered as aristocrats in the Chinese nomenclature.  Bo has certainly the looks, the brains and a humor which set him apart from the usual grey men of the Politburo.
A strange event occurred earlier this year when a Chinese official, Wanf Lijun, once deputy mayor and police chef in Chongqing, spent 30 hours in the American Consulate in Chengdu, telling what?
Neither the Chinese, Americans nor British are commenting.
All this comes at a time when the new Politburo will make its appearance this fall in Beijing.
Until thent,the current leadership wants stability but realizes too that China is a "singular standing for a plural."
The sea of lights East does not compensate for the alienation and poverty in the Western part..  Wen is concerned in this regard but that the ongoing long march westwards risks to take more time than the 1934 one.
Bo's downfall is one of the many indicators that China is getting trapped in an asymmetric matrix, in which the ambition of a "harmonious society" is slowly giving way to a more complex, individualistic, almost distorted Western model. The latter is furthermore corrupted by the "face" syndrome which leads the Chinese to play poker with a weak deck of cards which does not cover the betting,
The future is unforeseeable in the absence of democracy and a rule of law.  I wouldn't be surprised if China will have to smell the coffee sooner rather than later.  I am confident that Bo Xilai may opt for an Espresso. It might as well be something worse since his fiefdom of Chongqing was not reputed for its mild approach and since le Beau BO has few friends indeed.  Meanwhile Bo Junior can circle Harvard Square in the sports car of his choice!  Maman and her employee Zhang Xiaojun meanwhile are AWOL (in the Tower of London?)

Habemus Papam

The 19th Century won the Olympic gold for dogmas. The  Catholic Church created a firewall of absurd pronouncements which were supposed to protect it from the advancing hordes of secularists.
The Virgin Mary was also on a grand grotto tour, appearing to simpletons who became the spokespersons of generally Delphic "non sequiturs." Why grottoes? Why this "reality show" with a dying breed of shepherds and peasants, nobody knows. There was never room for some tete-a-tete with Einstein or Heidegger.

After this century of incoherence, there followed a century of personalities, inaugurated by Pius XII who saw himself as a Metternich in robes. The succession was equally sociologically interesting. Pope John XXIII was the real Catholic in the flock.  John Paul I was the Michel Piccoli "avant la lettre."  Paul VI was a Saint Germain existential pope.  John Paul XXII was the media pontiff, now we are stuck with Benedict XVI who just loves to be pope. The pope couture is the main beneficiary of the taste of the current pope for dress and decor. Zeffirelli must be in heaven (pun).

The "Habemus Papam" movie by Nanni Moretti (who plays also the role of psychoanalyst) is interesting, a sort of Camusian wandering through the absurd. It is both cruel and deeply humane,  a saga of panic and self-discovery at an unexpected level.  It is strange by the way how the Catholic Church which is besieged by scandal and corruption still has the power to move the masses as well as the power brokers. Stalin's "boutade" about how much legions the pope had, has been proven wrong. The Soviet Union is no longer, while the Vatican continues to rule, even when, at a close look, the wrinkles and decay can no longer be ignored. While the Church has lost a lot of its pertinence, its leader is, since Paul VI began what has become a tradition, travels all over the world.  In the Western world the churches look more often than not like empty vessels, but elsewhere the successors of Saint Peter have made a shrewd decision, replacing absurd theological flip-flops by their presence. From now on, the man overshadows the doctrine. It will certainly be revealing to see who is the successor of the current pope, and to try to understand where this enormous bureaucracy is heading. We speak here of the cardinals, nuncios, banking, real estate, who in the end are able to determine the balance of advantage.  I agree with Christopher Hitchens that God is not great but one should not underestimate the danger which the encounter with religion represents.

Darwin, Galileo and Newton were heroic. They would still be so today but the secular view has taken hold of Western Europe and the Vatican looks like an aberration in the technological tidal wave which unmasks yesterday's lies. The Catholic Church now acts like a colonial power which considers Africa, Asia and the US (which is, strangely enough, largely bigoted) as alternatives for the ground it had to give up elsewhere.  Logically it chooses the camp of the blind on social issues, together with the Islamists and the likes of Uganda & Co. The balcony of Saint Peter better stay empty, as it does in the movie, so that the decay remains hidden and the remaining Christians let their voices be heard. After all, Jesus Christ did not invent "this" church. The latter reinvented him.  Judas, too, is a man for all seasons.

THE REPUBLICAN CIVIL WAR

The Grand Old Party, as we knew it, is no longer. It tried to survive in its former glory through the "beatification" of President Ronald Reagan, but the miracles did not follow. Since then the party has gone downhill, no longer able to come up with a Messiah who could oppose the usual chaos within the Democratic Party with a coherent alternative. President George W. Bush happened to be the wrong man at the wrong time. The pre-election Republican campaign focusing at random, indifferently on voters of all creed and color reveals a party which has lost its direction. Since Senator McCain fished Sarah Palin out of the fishpond in Alaska, the party went in a downward spiral.
Following the Romans, the establishment preferred to hide in the Capitol, leaving the Aventine in the hands of the Tea Party, radio hosts, and evangelicals. Governor Mitt Romney, who is basically a gentleman, is under pressure to downgrade style and content as to avoid the fate of Jon Huntsman, former (Obama) Ambassador in Beijing, who was too patrician for the "Zeitgeist". It is still possible that a race between Romney and Obama might overcome the current mediocre mindset, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Something strange is happening in the United States. Charles Murray in his book "Coming Apart" describes America as coming apart for reasons of class. It is clear that the gulf between privilege and alienation widened and that the fabric of society weakened as a consequence thereof. I do not suggest that the United States is a country in decline -as many commentators do- but it is undeniable that the the three branches of government are deadlocked because they have allowed themselves to become hostages of a populist, partisan tidal wave. President Obama has not been able to apply his eloquence to a disease which worsened after some of his overburdened policies followed the disastrous inroads of his predecessor in countries and conflicts that were unknown to most and bungled by all. Napoleon brought with him a legion of specialists to Egypt. The Americans instead trusted the word of the shady Ahmed Chalabi and from some neo-cons, who are AWOL since those costly, inglorious and sad (in human cost) events. Americans are fed up!
Until now the Republican campaign has avoided talking too much about Iraq and Afghanistan or about the financial crisis which started with the Lehman's debacle on their watch. They dig the Founding Fathers out of the graveyard of mistaken memories, using Jefferson -- who was close to Thomas Paine -- or Hamilton --who was in favour of a strong central government -- for causes which are in contradiction with the ideas of mostly secular or deist ancestors. It would be unfair to generalize, but the fact is that the GOP is dominated (for how long?) by its more reactionary wing. The Democrats have not lived up to expectations either, but they have been generally able to rein in (up to now) the populist plague.
The United States is not used to sharing, negotiating, or dealing with third countries on an equal footing. The Americans are experiencing for the first time that they now have to consider opposite forces, in the first place China, which is an unreliable player. The BRICS are a new headache, which further complicates the workings of the international order. The middle-American is often unaware of the existence of this new global shared governance. Consequently, he does not always pay attention to the enemy who is at his doorstep, be it by a new warfare, spying, hacking, stalking or modernizing armaments. The United States has largely given up on Europe (EU). Sooner or later NATO and the EU risk becoming irrelevant. This does not imply that the American public opinion is obsessed by the East but political thinkers are, and they make innovative and sophisticated arguments in this regard. Both the President and the Secretary of State are aware of the new direction, to the chagrin of the Europeans mostly.
The future Republican candidate has a difficult task seeing what is coming, while realizing the forces that are pushing him.  Intellectual arguments are almost absent from the Republican debate. The (often) amused complicity between intelligentsia and the political domain is a thing of the past. The same phenomenon happened in Europe but is more inconsequential. The thousands of Asian students in America will go back with a sobered view of the American dream Obama had the torch, but he forgot the matches. Romney has the matches but he carries no torch. Religions have occupied the chairs left empty by most intellectuals. The creative individuals, which the US has in abundance, prefer to battle "in camera" rather than in the open, as was the case during the Nixon years. The void is awesome and demagogy rules in the corridors of a power structure which has lost its lustre. The last of the real great commentators, Gore Vidal, is silent and the majority of intellectuals of the new generation seem to be more concerned with building a firewall rather than by engagement. Still there is no reason to be overly pessimistic. Democracy often leads to messy overreaction, fed by freedom of expression. The non democratic world -- China in the first place -- can, rightly so, take pride in almost Herculean achievements, if one wants to believe that Potemkin equals Hercules. The present state of affairs in America is morally worrisome, but this land remains nevertheless the place for invention and creativity. As Churchill said -- I paraphrase -- the country is in need of a prophet with a message, not for a politician groping for a platform.

L'esprit des lois

The killing of Trayvon Martin by a vigilante leaves the United States yet again in shock. Why?
Lately, in Europe and in the United States, we have overdosed on war casualities, random killings, hate crimes, and bullying, but this particular case strikes a cord, unlike any other almost. I wouldn't dare to comment on circumstance or motive, which remain obscure. Any premature judgement would be inappropriate.
This tragedy is special because of multiple reasons. The victim looks "straight at you" and stares at the camera as if it were the sunrise. The killing is certainly in part the result of the saturation which is fed by a real gun culture in many parts of the United States. Besides it lays bare the fact that opposite camps with regard to the interpretation of the Second Amendment of the American constitution remain as infexible as never before. How the right, Tea Party, evangelicals, etc. reconcile a culture of agression with a supposedly Christian agenda remains a mystery to me. The National Rifle Association is a state within the State. Last but not least, the ugly face of racism cannot be ignored. Certain comments were dispicable, independently of what will come out of the inquest.
There is the letter of the law of the land and there is the spirit. We witness yet again the fight between those who adhere to the notion of interpretation (ruling from the bench) and those who adhere to the letter of the constitution.
A Fox News contributor, Geraldo Rivera, insinuated that Trayvon's dresscode (a hoodie) helped to cause his own death. Does he imply that the majority of youngsters in the United States risk their lives if they wear sportsclothes and happen to stand in the way of the likes of Mr. George Zimmerman, a community watch volunteer, whose "credentials" need to be certified?
I realize that many recent events here and elsewhere have had a lethal effect on the beliefs of the majority of law-obiding citizens here and elsewhere. This tragedy cannot yet be directly linked to any verifiable motive: homophobia, political agenda, terrorism and so on. It makes this killing all the more out of the ordinary.
One should be cautious when emotions are raw. One should also consider the sad procession of lonely victims who just happen to be in the wrong place: Tyler Clementi, Matthew Shepard, the honor (how ironic) murders in Islamic countries. President Obama used the right words but behind the rhetoric there has to be a will to suit the action to the word. I still believe in the pertinence of the workings of the American institutions. It would be unwise to rush to judgement, especially in a case which lays bare a fundamental divide in this country over the right to bare arms.
Trayvon Martin will become the face of a cause. Let us not add insult, by prejudging, to grief. As in his too-short life he deserves respect now that he is gone. How does one miss so much total strangers? They take our emotion with them in their shroud.
Good night,sweet Prince !

EUROPE IN WINTER

Upon my arrival in Brussels I was looking forward to detecting some tangible indicators which might show that the worse of the monetary and political crisis was over. Returning to the United States I became, unfortunately, more pessimistic. I fully realize that the present political climate in America is also mediocre. The narrative has been hijacked by the Tea Party and the news from the Afghan/Pakistan/Iran/Middle East Hydra is bad. The disconnect rules at all levels. I do not want to dwell here on the mediocre aspects which result from this socio/moral wreckage but I need to point out that the American downturn is a matter of conjuncture, while the European malaise remains for the unforeseeable time structural if a new set of proper amendments is not made and monitored along the way.

The American economy will recover in time and the political discourse will return to normal. Thinkers abound who will tell you what to do with regard to the missteps which occurred during the last decennium. The ill-chosen strategic priorities can still be reversed. A sophisticated smart power strategy (see Joseph S. Nye Jr’s “The future of Power”) can correct the gross miscalculations that were made under the cover of a half-baked preventive war/coercive democratization doctrine.

The EU has nothing in common anymore with the ambitions of the Treaty of Rome. Cohesion has been displaced by bureaucracies and the pursuit of divergent agendas. The foundation of what was supposed to be more than a single market or currency, a real harmonious concert of nations with transparent institutions and a streamlined foreign and defense policy, is gone. The Greek debacle is more than the sum of its aberrations, it set the clock backwards and became a dangerous wake-up call for feelings, prejudices, dysfunctions which continue to proliferate under the mantle of endless repetitive summits and meetings between partners who were often more unreliable than not. The EU is faceless. Neither Jose Barroso, President of the Commission, Herman Van Rompuy, a decent and intelligent statesman, president of the Council, or Catherine Ashton, the hapless EU high representative have clout. The Franco-German (opportunist) axis rules under the stewardship of the German chancellor and her anti-inflation/austerity mantra. One can question this more dogmatic attitude of Mrs. Merkel. There seems almost no room left for growth for Germany’s partners if they strictly adhere to Berlin’s Diktat. Sometimes a zest of controlled inflation and Keynesian measures can help. This stalemate results in resentment and in unpleasant reminiscences. The EU is becoming an albatross with three flaps (North, South and East) resulting in a loss of balance. After the euro almost expired, we can imagine the next obituary for the Schengen Treaty. The EU External Action Service meanwhile is in hiding, while defense and foreign policy remain the threat of a few rather than the responsibility of all. The United Kingdom must not regret having kept its distance versus all those macro ambitions which looked desirable on paper but became a nightmare when reckoning knocked at the door, bringing with it all the perverse consequences of unregulated immigration and fiscal policies, and one can go on.

The new Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti gives an irrefutable example of how things can sometimes be better managed, sur mesure. Turkey is a different case but Prime Minister Erdogan, who is one of the most astute statesmen of the moment, will certainly choose for the Britsh way, a la carte, in case he were still interested in joining the chorus of Beethoven’s Ninth. The reality is that what was supposed to be, will not be, and that this EU hybrid is becoming rudderless when left in the hands of its present claimers. The “intergovernmental” method has proven its might, to the chagrin of the European Parliament which is nothing but a roving voice in the wilderness. One might regret that former ambitions remain unfulfilled, but the world since the early days of the Common Market has changed. Today Germany is courted, instead of the Commission we knew under Jacques Delors. America, the remaining superpower, has no equal whatever its flaws might be, and it realizes that success will require partners from now on. Richard Haass mentions new networks that involve emerging powers such as China, India and Brazil.

The Iran “unknown” might be a test, but it better not be because the combination of military might and Islamo-fanaticism can make the nuclear cloud even more ominous. The EU will do what it does best, talk and come up with sanctions with more bark than bite. Let us hope that a confrontation can be avoided but let us not be naïve. Behead the snake before it bites, but make equally sure that you are not alone while you attempt to kill it. Obama might have to make a difficult choice at a time of overall war fatigue in the United States. They will leave Afghanistan which will return to where it stood 100 years ago. The public opinion in the US is aware of this costly, useless war, coming on top of the Iraq disaster. There will be few takers for another military operation in a terrain which becomes exponentially more hostile by the day. I am afraid that, unfortunately, in the absence of accountable transparency, there might be no other alternative than a strike against Iranian nuclear installations , with the consequences thereof. Individual European nations might act in conjunction, but the EU risks preferring a coffee break instead.

The EU has mainly soft power and is unable to reverse course on short notice. On top of this disequilibrium The Greek melo drachma might reappear. The random racist killings in Europe are a further indication that there is something rotten in our societies, which requires urgent therapy. It would be yet another poisonous gift if all those tragedies were to lead to populist, right-wing reactions, which start to appear, not only in European (and to a lesser extent, American) public opinion but also in governments and political parties. The last thing we need is a historical repeat.

May be the EU could find a raison d’etre in a more moral repositioning as a consensus builder, rather than as a supra-national imaginated power intra pares, a role in which it failed. The world has lost its moral compass. It is in need of “the great architect”. The part needs to be filled fast, since existing formulae such as the quartet, special envoy have failed; otherwise the winter of our discontent might last much longer than a mere couple of months and the so-called Arab Spring might become a geographical brushfire. Syria is not a show, it is another tragedy. What might follow might as well be apocalyptic if not contained or surgically removed. The EU can read the signs on the wall. Its relative weakness can be its strength because its suggestions do not carry arms. The peacemaker ex machina needs to be found. That is the question ! It reminds me of Churchill’s wicked comment that “one stands for a place – the other sits on it”.

THE CLASH OF GENERALIZATIONS

The Syrian tragedy is confronting us again with a philosophical dilemma. Let us not dwell on the atrocities which leave us silent while we watch one horror story after another. Sometimes I hear the question of how it can be possible that Bashar al-Assad, who has been exposed to Western influence while living in London, could resort to such crimes against humanity. The list goes on. The knowledge of the elementary rules of Habeas corpus does not equal the application thereof. The non-Western world is ruled by some “upstairs/ downstairs” syndrome which allows the leaders to invite Beyoncé upstairs while playing for the gallery downstairs. Nero, too, looked on while Rome was in flames and left the city to its own devices.

By the way, it is not always that easy to claim a monopoly over the rule of law, as the West does, while a decade ago Christian Serbs considered Sarajevo a shooting gallery. I do not want to go back to the most horrendous mass-murder of all times, which was again the achievement of a shifted Christian regime. The denials of Ayatollah Ali Khameenei and of President Ahmadinejad make them only de facto part of the gang which stood trial at Nurenberg. On the other side of the spectrum there is a country like Ruanda which is clawing itself out of the genocidal nightmare of 1994. President Paul Kagame is lifting his country out of a repeat of the Cambodian killing fields.

The world might be more and more globalised--is that necessarily good?--and the social media have already trivialized borders and political talk, which belong more to the Congress of Vienna than to contemporary reality. Our Western “aristo” approach to the rest of the world is biased and self-defeating. There is a need to reach out so that unavoidable outcomes are shared by most rather than bungled by a few. If Iran were to be so politically colorblind and go nuclear it is imperative that the retaliation is fine-tuned and, if possible, agreed upon by most, the neighboring countries particularly. The coalition was in Afghanistan for specific reasons, which are no longer valid. The Taliban is not a pleasant lot, but it is at the end of the day their turf and we should have gotten out after the Tora Bora debacle. Countries have sometimes to exorcise the devils in their midst. We can be seen as humanitarian, rather than as crusaders.

It is time to let clichés run their cycle rather than to feed them, as we do too often, by our own mistakes. Samuel Huntington was right to come up with the concept of “clash of civilizations” but it is wrong to consider opposing (?) ideologies as separated by some Curzon line redux. We live in a galaxy of good and evil and the malignant tumors have to be isolated. This can be done better by more sophisticated means, since most of the contentious areas are not homogeneous. There is no such thing as an Arab world and there is less and less a Western world. The EU financial crisis has opened a Pandora box wherein rather perverse memories and prejudices lay dormant.

The Syrian dictator in Western clothes is no different than his already forgotten Libyan counterpart. A Sandhurst education might lead to a gentleman’s behavior a la carte but the devil does not mind striped suits or English uniforms, quite the contrary. In this contemporary world privilege rules unmatched. Democracies have become messy while the Chinese & Co. play their own version of some political Downton Abbey. I am sure that Bashar dines well, so did Milosevic. Only Hitler was vegetarian. War criminals come in all forms!