Mid-Week Updates, No 7
Hu, Xi, Markets, Ukraine, Twitter, and yes, Rishi Sunak
When I got home last Friday night after an excellent Stromae concert in Vancouver, I scrolled as usual through my Twitter feed. Nothing remarkable at the end of the week until I got stuck watching the video where former Chinese leader Hu Jintao (president from 2003 - 2013) was apparently forcibly removed from China’s Communist Party Congress. I watched and re-watched it, you can see a full version here. It was jaw dropping material and despite the many expert explanations that Hu was unwell or maybe had tested positive for Covid or whatever, the man himself had no intention of leaving the stage.
Whether this was orchestrated ahead of time or if there was indeed a real-time dispute over the folders in front of the leaders (with names of the new leadership to be voted for) it was clear that it was the man in the middle who more than benefitted. As if he needed to further consolidate his immense power, Xi Jinping put another finishing touch to an era by visibly dispatching and humiliating a former leader who actually lived up to the principle of ‘collective leadership’ with term limits. In a way Xi not only removed the past by getting rid of Hu, but he also ditched the future by ‘retiring’ the one man most expected would succeed him, Premier Li Keqiang. If there was any doubt left, Xi is now firmly in control. He trashed Deng Xiaoping’s plans to never again have an unrestricted, personality cult driven emperor: the Mao Zedong experience was not to be repeated ever again. Xi will be with us for a long time and so will his art of ongoing political drama to stay ahead of any power challenges. Any move, any comment that can test his leadership will swiftly be dismissed and suppressed. Xi will ensure that we can all see it.
And for good measure, it does affect all of us. Xi is everywhere. Yesterday Dutch news revealed that there were two Chinese police stations operating in The Netherlands. I will leave it to your imagination to determine how many similar police operations are currently active in the US and Canada.
Ukraine
Russian Defence Minister Shoigu’s call with western defence ministers earlier this week warning that Ukraine was ready to detonate a ‘dirty bomb’ underlines the increasing desperation in Moscow. It also highlights that it may actually be Russia itself that is ready to start throwing nuclear waste around the battlefield. As insane as these initiatives from Putin and his team may sound, resolve in the West is coming under pressure. The threat of Republicans to scale back support for Ukraine if they win the mid-term elections is one thing, a group of ‘progressive’ Democrats writing a letter to Biden to start negotiating with Moscow for peace is quite another. Yes, they retracted the letter yesterday, but it goes to show you that Putin has fertile ground across the political spectrum to tap into. Gary Kasparov had this to say about it:
Yes, it will happen this week. By Friday if all goes well Elon Musk will become the owner of Twitter. The company’s stock is trading close to the purchase price and after some turbulence the Tesla stock is gaining strength again. The past few months were only a prelude of things to come. Remember, Putin also has a direct line to Musk.
Markets
We have seen a remarkable recovery in the stock markets over the past week, despite the ongoing poor economic data and deepening recession fears. If I look around me there is a similar gloomy sort of atmosphere where investors move slower and more cautiously. And: revenues for most of the tech companies I see on a weekly basis are under pressure. Google’s parent Alphabet reported less than impressive numbers and the decline in ad revenues it reported is a strong indicator of where we are going to be for a while. Tomorrow Amazon and Apple will report and provide some key insights as to where we are headed.
Sunak
And yes finally, no more Liz Truss updates. The man who started his career as a spreadsheet wizard at Goldman Sachs is now residing at 10 Downing Street. With that Rishi Sunak can get going with stabilizing the British economy and retaining chancellor Jeremy Hunt is probably a first wise move. In addition to that, Sunak has two major things on his plate.
First, he will need all his personal skills to reunite his party and do the same to convince the average Brit he is there with them and for them, despite the harsh economic medicine he is about to administer. That may be a tall order as the somewhat nerdy former hedge fund manager may not instantly connect with Joe and Jane Bloggs. Secondly, as referenced above, the Ukraine crisis is sliding into an ever more dangerous phase. The new prime minister will need a Churchillian mindset to take on and navigate the worst international crisis since World War II. He has the poise and wit to succeed, let’s hope he can pull it off.