The Curious Case of China and Crossfire
| SEASONED NUTS: QUOTABLE |
|
“Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation.” – Susan B. Anthony “The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball — the further I am rolled the more I gain.” – Ibid. |
| IN A NUTSHELL: MUST READ |
|
China and the United States Sing ‘With or Without You’: World trade is tricky business. It requires a broad breadth of knowledge about international economics and politics. Nowhere in the modern era is the economic relationship more intertwined than with the US and China; some $700 billion in goods and services flows between the two annually. Both countries’ populace have reaped huge benefits, from pulling millions of Chinese out of poverty to providing affordable iPhones and other electronic gadgets to American consumers. But neither country actually wants to continue relying so much on the other. And trade wars can certainly do more harm than good. So it is that a top Chinese economic policymaker is meeting with the Trump administration this week, hoping to head off a potential trade war. China’s President Xi Jinping is focused on his country becoming largely self-sufficient, particularly in high-tech industries. His “Made in China 2025” plan calls for developing global competitiveness in 10 advanced manufacturing sectors now dominated by the West, including commercial aircraft, robotics, 5G mobile phone communications, and computer microchips. No doubt Xi wants to extricate his country from such dependence on American technology, as was seen recently with ZTE. The huge smartphone maker was forced to shut down its global operations after the Trump administration banned the sale to ZTE of vital US-made components. Trump’s strategy for weaning the US off Chinese goods seems to be, in part, to impose stiff tariffs on Chinese-made imports. But in the initial product categories the administration has identified for tariffs, less than half of the goods American companies import come from China. Trade disengagement will not happen quickly. Currently China trails the US significantly in crucial areas like microchips, software design, and high-end precision manufacturing. But Washington may find it extremely difficult to lure factories back that had moved to China, considering Chinese workers are still paid 25% or less than American workers. |
| MIXED NUTS: QUICK TAKES ON WORLD NEWS |
|
– Italy’s financial markets took a tumble Wednesday, reacting to a leaked political document. Leaders of the two anti-establishment parties, the Five Star Movement and the anti-immigrant League party, are in talks about forming a new government. The leaked document suggested both sides shared a desire to radically change Italy’s relationship with the European Union. (NYT) – European foreign ministers are scrambling to contain the fallout from several decisions by President Trump that have split the trans-Atlantic alliance. To begin with, the ministers are meeting in Brussels with the Iranian foreign minister, trying to preserve the 2015 JCPOA that constrained Iran’s nuclear program, after Trump pulled the US out last week. Iran faces the renewal of tough American sanctions, so to keep the deal together Europeans are trying to find ways to provide some of the economic benefits the JCPOA had promised. (NYT) – Fangzheng is a remote town in northeastern China with ties to Japan that go back to the 1930s. The region was part of a Japanese-created puppet state in Manchuria. Some 380,000 impoverished Japanese were sent to live there. When the Japanese Empire collapsed at the end of WWI, thousands were trapped and died. Many Japanese orphans who had survived were raised by Chinese parents. The Sino-Japanese Friendship Garden is a memorial to this tragic period in history and a symbol of the close ties between Fangzheng and Japan. (NYT) – Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s three-day state visit to the UK has ended. During a joint news conference, Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May tried warning her guest “we want to see democratic values and international human rights obligations upheld” as he was dealing with “the extraordinary pressures of a failed coup and Kurdish terrorism.” Erdogan wasn’t having it. He insisted the more than 160 journalists behind bars in Turkey were all terrorist criminals. (The Guardian) More News Reads:
|
| NUTS AND BOLTS: SHOULD READ |
|
Comey’s Clinton Crossfire Conundrum: In Code Name Crossfire Hurricane: The Secret Origins of the Trump Investigation, The New York Times details the background of the FBI investigation, starting the summer of 2016, into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. Operation Crossfire is a reference to a Rolling Stones lyric – “I was born in a crossfire hurricane” – and the name couldn’t have more aptly predicted what was to come. Almost immediately after opening the investigation, two FBI agents were sent to London. Their assignment remained secret until now. It was to meet with the Australian ambassador, Alexander Downer, who had evidence that one of Donald J. Trump’s advisers, George Papadopoulos, knew in advance about Russian election meddling. The agents notified Washington of their highly unusual interview on August 2, 2016, just two days after the investigation was opened. Their report helped provide the foundation for an ongoing case that became the special counsel investigation on May 17, 2017. The extremely secretive Operation Crossfire was in its early days just as the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails was winding down. As it turns out, the two cases have become inextricably linked. Again, the code name perfectly describes a political storm that continues to batter the bureau. The FBI director at the time, James Comey, publicly chastised Clinton, candidate Donald Trump’s opponent, in a news conference in July 2016. Comey announced the Clinton case closed, then reopened it just days before the November election, a decision Clinton says buried her presidential hopes. FBI policy is to not speak publicly about its cases, so damaging evidence being uncovered about the Trump campaign was kept far under wraps. Which makes Comey’s decision to speak publicly about Clinton’s case a conundrum to this day. |
| NUTS IN AMERICA |
|
President Trump has corrected his 2017 sworn financial disclosure statement, filed last June. The statement omitted any reference to the $130,000 hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election. The president’s financial disclosure form released Wednesday included for the first time repayment of $100,000.01-$250,000 to his personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, in 2017. Trump had previously claimed he knew nothing about any payment to Daniels. Cohen had previously claimed he made the payment himself and was never reimbursed. (NYT) |
| SPONSORED NUTS: QUIP |
|
Meet quip, a better electric toothbrush. quip was created by dentists and designers to guide the good habits that matter — starting at $25. Brush heads ($5) are delivered for an automatic refresh every 3 months. Get your first refill free. |
| LOOSE NUTS: FASCINATING NEWS |
|
– Pnut’s publisher has had the good fortune to meet Robert Mueller a couple of times in person before he was selected as Special Counsel. He thinks very highly of Mueller and that the special counsel is as All-American as apple pie and motherhood. Mueller and Trump’s backgrounds are quite similar: “Born just two years apart, raised in similar wealthy backgrounds in Northeastern cities, both deeply influenced by their fathers, both star prep school athletes, both Ivy League educated.” But as this excellent Wired article notes, they couldn’t be more dissimilar. And their paths diverged completely during the Vietnam War, a critically and nationally divisive juncture. (Wired) – We spend more time staring at it than we do looking at our family. We spend more time in bed with it. We feel helpless about it. What is this? Our smartphones. Nautilus explores: “Dear iPhone—It Was Just Physical, and Now It’s Over: I can’t count the number of times I pulled out my phone just for the feeling of unlocking the screen and swiping through applications, whether out of comfort—like a baby sucking her thumb—or boredom—like a teenager at school, tapping his fingers on a desk.” (Nautilus) – “Whole Foods, Whole Prices” has always been the joke associated with the grocery store. This might no longer be the case, as Amazon enters the grocery star wars with sharp blades and prepares to make deep cuts to woo customers to Amazon Prime and Whole Foods. (Reuters) More Fascinating News:
|
