A year since Trump was elected president, the US may never go back to looking what it was. A few days into the Saudi “purge”, the kingdom has little semblances with even its recent past. And the “Downing Street” has ceased to exude the power and authority associated with it. Is the political landscape across the globe changing in indelible ways?
‘You can’t always get what you want’
After the election of Donald Trump a year ago, many liberals in the US said that they won’t normalise Trump. “But one lesson of this year is that we don’t get to decide what normal looks like,” writes Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times.
“But this nightmare year has upended assumptions about the durability of the rules, formal and informal, governing our politics. There’s a metaphysical whiplash in how quickly alarm turns into acceptance and then into forgetfulness. It was astonishing when Trump installed Steve Bannon as his chief strategist, a man who had previously run a white nationalist tabloid; now it feels like ages ago that he was even in the White House. (He’s been gone less than three months.)”
“In this administration, crassness has become a weapon, annihilating social codes that once restrained political behavior, signaling that old standards no longer apply.”
“In moments of optimism I think that this is just a hideous interregnum, and that in a brighter future we’ll watch prestige dramas about the time we almost lost America while members of the current regime grow old in prison. But in my head I hear the song that closed out Trump rallies like a satanic taunt or an epitaph for democracy: ‘You can’t always get what you want’.”
Welcome to ‘Salman Arabia’
If two things could be said with utmost certainty about Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, they would be that he is much more McKinsey than Wahhabi — much more a numbers cruncher than a Quran thumper, writes Thomas Friedman in The New York Times. If MBS did not exist, the Saudi system would have had to invent him. “Somebody had to shake up the place.”
“But here is what I don’t know for sure: Where does his impulse for rapid reform stop and his autocratic impulse to seize all power begin?”
“He is replacing Wahhabism as a source of solidarity with a more secular Saudi nationalism, one that has a strong anti-Iran/Persian/Shiite tenor. And that is taking him to some dangerous places. To confront Iran, M.B.S. got the Sunni Prime Minister of Lebanon, Saad al-Hariri, to quit his office on Saturday while on a visit to Riyadh, and blamed Iran and its Shiite allies for making Lebanon ungovernable — and for a missile attack from Yemen. Lebanon, which had forged a relatively stable balance among Sunnis, Christians and Shiites, is now shaking. M.B.S. also led a Gulf effort to isolate Qatar for being too close to Iran and to crush Iran’s influence in Yemen — and crush Yemen in the process. It’s overreach, and there seems to be no one around to tell him that.”
He is worried, Friedman writes, that his advisors “will push M.B.S. into a war abroad and at home at the same time, and we could see Saudi Arabia and the whole region spin out of control at the same time. As I said, I’m worried.”
Britain’s shaken leader and ‘seriously unserious’ government
Britain’s Conservative party has become “seriously unserious” about government and its “nominal” leader is just too overawed by her problems, writes Rafael Behr in The Guardian. “Trouble piles up at the prime minister’s door with the intensity of a macabre circus: one scandal stumbles into the next, then in comes another, and another, each tripping over the one before; ridiculous without being funny,” he rues.
“Journalistic convention uses ‘Downing Street’ to describe a power base that holds opinions, makes decisions, imposes the prime ministerial writ. That rhetorical device is now misleading. The Georgian houses still stand but, beyond that, it is hard to know what “Downing Street” means or wants any more. The election did not just rob May of a mandate. It shook her confidence, fractured her will and clouded her horizon. She battles on from a profound sense of public duty, but the impression across Whitehall and in Brussels is that she can manoeuvre only in tactical pigeon-steps. She has reached that morbid state of rolling crisis where success is defined as making it through the day.”
“There is no government ‘machine’ worthy of the name, and on many issues no government line to defend. In two weeks, the chancellor will deliver a budget of punishing fiscal constraint, while public patience with austerity is spent. Philip Hammond has made enemies enough on his own side for daring to see Brexit through the lens of financial stability, not Eurosceptic theology. He is certain to be attacked by one Tory faction or another. Can he count on the prime minister’s support? Would it even help?” he asks.
Maybe not a total authoritarian, after all
Contrary to what has mostly been written so far of Xi Jinping’s power consolidation by planting his close allies in key party positions, Adian Yao writes in The South China Morning Post that despite the centralisation of power, Xi will not be a “total authoritarian in decision-making”. “Xi has managed, over the years, to assemble some very smart and capable people, who are able to provide practical economic advice,” he writes.
“Putting this power to good use will be a key focus of Xi’s second term and beyond. With a much secured power base, Xi’s priority will shift from political consolidation (via anti-corruption) to multifaceted reforms designed to realise the grand visions that he sets out for the nation in the ‘China Dream’.”
“Among these, economic and financial reforms will be a key focus for investors. Given the importance of these reforms, we think Xi himself will likely take charge of major policies going forward.”
“Through the various ‘reform’ committees he established in recent years, Xi will be actively involved in designing and managing these policies, in our view. And by placing more of his confidants in provincial and ministerial roles, Xi can also ensure the quality of execution will be improved from preceding years.”
If Trump cares to note
Trump’s 12-day trip to Asia is brimming with opportunity, only if he gets himself to stop bothering about impressing critics with headlines, and pays instead due regard to major political and strategic tends that are now converging, argues Douglas H. Paal in The Japan Times.
“The first such trend is the decline of the U.S.-led unipolar world order that has prevailed since the end of the Cold War and the reemergence of great power rivalries. China, Russia, Europe and the Middle East are all headed in new directions and America no longer has the capacity it once did to influence them. The Trump administration needs to abandon its complacency and pursue competitive coalition-building.”
“The second major trend that should be informing the Trump administration’s Asia policy is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s consolidation of power. By not designating a successor to Xi, the Communist Party of China’s recent 19th National Congress has opened the way for him to serve a third term.
With so much political capital, Xi now has the scope to adjust his stance on domestically sensitive issues, according to China’s longer-term interests and his own.”
“As it stands, it seems that Trump is hoping to impress critics with headlines about what are actually small-bore accomplishments. But there are historic opportunities ahead. Trump’s Asia trip is the ideal moment to begin to seize them.”