CFI.co Blog

Some 2,980 puppets have gathered in Beijing to applaud President Xi Jinping in an annual choreographed ritual that goes by the name of National People’s Congress (NPC) – a misnomer on at least two counts. Over the course of ten days, President Jinping and his close associates pull the strings and have their initiatives duly rubberstamped by adoring acolytes. It is, arguably, the world’s greatest non-event and showcases, if anything, China’s continued subjugation to a tiny clique of potentates.

Although it is all about people’s this or that in China, no actual people other than the aforementioned 2,980 puppets are allowed to partake in the NPC’s farcical proceedings. The scene at the Great Hall of the People is straight out of a Orwellian book or movie: hordes of identically dressed automatons, bursting into applause at just the right moment whilst the powers that be torture them mercilessly with vacuous speeches about their past, present, and future accomplishments – fictitious or otherwise.

If this is how the country that wishes to lead the world is ruled, the global outlook is grim indeed. This year, the puppets showed excitement at President Jinping’s ruthless suppression of civil liberties in Hong Kong, the last vestiges of which have now been swept aside. The ‘one nation, two systems’ myth has been exposed for what it always was: a farce.

Earlier this week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed his frustration with China’s inability to understand the meaning of both democracy and the rule of law – concepts alien to the Middle Kingdom. China has amped up the pressure on Mr Trudeau to release Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of telecom giant Huawei arrested at Vancouver International Airport in December 2018 on suspicion defrauding multiple banks to hide her company’s busting of US sanctions against Iran.

To solve this potentially embarrassing issue, the Chinese government promptly arrested two Canadians and proposed a swap. To his credit, Prime Minister Trudeau has refused to reward this thuggish behaviour and insists that the courts deal with Ms Wanzhou. He has tried to explain the principle of separation of power between the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of democratic government to the Chinese – without any discernible effect. His words, repeated ad nauseam, simply do not register in Beijing where only the executive counts and all else is subordinated to it.

China attempts at convincing the world that it is right, and everybody else got it wrong, are becoming tiresome. The country bungled its response to the novel corona virus and covered up its mistakes with lies and a clampdown on what really transpired during the lockdown.

China may be a large and increasingly powerful country; it also sorely lacks the self-confidence that is required for any form of government other than an authoritarian one. China is scared of booksellers, artists, students, and thinkers in general. Its government doesn’t want people to use their brain: they should merely consume, be grateful, and shut up. That, by the way, also goes for those 2,980 string puppets assembled in Beijing.

In one sense, the economic impact of the corona pandemic is helpful to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson: the depth and scope of the flash recession are such that any fallout from the country’s imminent departure from the European Union will seem trivial by comparison. Nobody could have foretold that Brexit’s doom component would be overshadowed by an even darker cloud.

The negotiations over a post-departure trade deal between the European Union and its wayward neighbour have also been eclipsed by the pandemic. Those talks are not progressing smoothly. A stalemate beckons with the UK possibly dropping deeper into the abyss.

There are a great many stumbling blocks but the most formidable one remains the status of Northern Ireland which is supposed to remain in the union for all practical intents and purposes with a new trade barrier emerging between the six counties and the British mainland. This is to become the EU’s external border. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement that re-established the peace in Northern Ireland precludes any checks along the border with Ireland proper.

Whilst the pandemic rages, talks between Brussels and London have been conducted by video conference with both parties now and again publicly expressing their frustration. EU Chief Negotiator Michel Barnier complained that his counterpart asks for a ‘Canada-style’ trade deal only to add a shopping list of demands to their initial request.

For their part, the British team says that the EU fails to display a measure of pragmatism, tabling demands that cross the great many red lines laid down by Prime Minister Johnson. One of those British no-no’s involves the European Court of Justice (ECJ). London does not wish to be subjected to its rulings. That seems fair enough at first glance. However, the addenda to an off-the-self barebones trade deal, such as the one requested by the UK, pries open access to the EU’s common market – the union’s most prized asset. That, the EU insists, requires ECJ oversight and adjudication of the inevitable disputes that will arise.

Whilst almost nobody was looking, the talks bogged down and a trade deal seems unlikely to emerge before the end of the transition period on 31 December. In Brussels, few seem to care. Officials are busy putting the finishing touches on a major initiative to help member states deal with the Corona Recession. Brexit is yesterday’s news. The EU has moved on. The UK may wish to do so too: it is time for that buccaneering spirit and British pluck we heard so much about to put in an appearance.

Slowly and ominously, as the chronicle of a death foretold, the epicentre of the corona pandemic is moving south of the border. Today, the World Health Organisation (WHO), down but far from out, issued a stark warning that after developed countries have managed to flatten the curve and start emerging from lockdown, the virus is now spreading in poorer countries, cutting a swath through societies along class divisions.

Earlier this week, Brazil passed the United Kingdom and progressed to third place on the global corona infection ranking. Only the United States and Russia are ahead of the South American country with its underwhelmed president and overwhelmed public health services. One day after this news broke, Brazil registered the highest number of corona deaths and infections so far.

In a few weeks’ time, President Jair Bolsonaro sacked one health minister and had another one resign in disgust. The latter one, Nelson Teich, likened the federal health ministry to a ship cast adrift in a perfect storm and feared the pandemic may claim well over 150,000 lives over the next months.

Mr Teich’s predecessor, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, was summarily fired after questioning the president’s refusal to obey social distancing rules. Whilst the pandemic rages and mass graves are being dug, Brazil’s politicians – not usually standard bearers for propriety in public policy – hurl accusations at each other, losing sight of a suffering nation.

According to the country’s statistics agency, the Brazilian economy may shrink by as much as a tenth this year. The Corona Recession could herald the arrival of yet another ‘lost decade’. However, neither the health emergency nor the economic meltdown is being discussed in Brasília.

Sometimes described as a Trump on steroids, President Bolsonaro still doesn’t seem to comprehend the gravity of the situation: he declines to use a face mask, keep his distance, and refrain from ordering a national lockdown which, he says, would cripple the country’s already rickety economy.

Meanwhile, the government of Mexico admitted that it had probably underestimated the number of corona deaths by an order of magnitude. There too, the president kept hugging his adoring fans until quite recently whilst he dismissed warnings of public health officials as ‘alarmist’ scare mongering.

Absent a public information campaign, popular knowledge about the disease and its transmission is limited, leading to all sorts of wild theories. Mexican health workers report being shunned, threatened, and abused on their way to work by passers-by. Almost 50 attacks against health workers have been recorded by police.

With the sole exceptions of Chile and Uruguay, no Latin American country is equipped to handle a major public health crisis. Both political determination and proper healthcare funding are found lacking. The cost is calculated in human lives.