Dialogue of the deaf: Europe and China
New Thinking for a New World - a Tallberg Foundation Podcast
12/21/22
•33m
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As recently as September 2021, outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel described economic relations between Europe and China as "win-win.” Within nine months, the EU's de facto Foreign Minister Josep Borrell described EU-China relations as "a dialogue of the deaf."
Geopolitics rarely moves at that speed. Even if by then Merkel was trying to gild her legacy and Borrell often says the wrong thing at the wrong time, there is no doubt that the prevailing view of China in many European capitals has suddenly flipped from growing cooperation to feared confrontation.
What happened? Did President Xi’s hardening approaches—from wolf warrior diplomacy to his “No Limits” commitment to Russia to lecturing Western leaders—shock European leaders? Did American pressure on 5G, Huawei and microchips force a strategic rethink? Can Europe actually afford to confront China?
Andrew Small has answers. A deeply experienced policy analyst, Small is a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, and recently published, "No Limits: The Inside Story of China's War with the West." That book and this conversation explain how and why he thinks that the Chinese challenge is dramatically and dangerously changing.
What do you think?
Previous Episode
Navigating the World, One Charity at a Time
December 8, 2022
•28m
For many, the holiday season is a time of giving, when people think a bit more about those with less, or those affected by war or other calamities. But those problems and the philanthropic urge to do something about them are far greater than something for Dickens' Scrooge to do on Christmas morning after a night of ghostly encounters.
Globally, private philanthropy is big and growing. Nonprofit foundation Giving Tuesday alone is now a worldwide phenomenon that raised more than three billion dollars last month. The impulse to give is global.
But how to know whether your charity is impactful? Whether the money you aim for refugees or cancer research or policy advocacy hits its mark? Much of the non-profit world is opaque on the best of days.
Cue Charity Navigator, a US NGO whose purpose is to bring transparency to philanthropy. Our guest today on New Thinking For A New World is Michael Michael Thatcher, President and CEO of Charity Navigator, which regularly examines and rates 200,000 American nonprofits, aiming to provide objective criteria to guide giving. Today, the US; tomorrow, the world.
What do you think?
Next Episode
Worth Repeating: Who is Vladimir Putin?
December 29, 2022
•38m
As the Russian invasion of Ukraine ebbs and flows, the whole world is watching—and wondering. What does Putin want? How far will he go in his efforts to subjugate Ukraine? Does he have limits? Has he, as Angela Merkel said a few years ago, lost touch with reality? If so, then what?
By the time historians can answer those questions, it will be too late, certainly for thousands of Ukrainians and Russians, and conceivably for the rest of us. Meanwhile, one of the best places to find answers might be in a recently published biography, simply entitled PUTIN by Philip Short.
Short is a British journalist with a long career as a foreign correspondent in Moscow, Beijing and Washington for the BBC, The Economist and The Times of London. He is also an accomplished author, having written biographies of Mao, Pol Pot and Francois Mitterand.
Short recently joined the New Thinking for a New World podcast to discuss how Putin looks at the world, what turned him away from a partnership with the West, and the risk that his war could go nuclear.
What do you think?
This episode was originally published on October 06, 2022.
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