United States of America eSeries: What’s Next for Germany?

What’s Next for Germany?

Posted by :

View this email in your browser

Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good

Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Subscribe here.

September 28, 2021

What's Next for Germany?

On Sunday, German voters gave the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) an edge over outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel's once-dominant Christian Democratic Union (CDU). But as Merkel prepares to leave power after 16 years, what will come next?

In the near term, protracted negotiations are likely, observers agree. Noting that it took five months for Merkel to form a government after the 2017 vote, a Guardian editorial comments that given the shaky, pandemic-dominated moment, faster would be better this time.

More broadly, political coalitions are getting more complicated, as Germany's major parties have slipped in popularity. Berlin is often run by "grand coalitions" consisting of the two largest vote-getting parties, Alim Baluch notes at The Conversation, suggesting that figures to change moving forward.

At Der Spiegel, a quindeca-bylined analysis article observes that "there is no clear election victor," after the SPD took 25.7% to the CDU's 24.1% (gathered along with a regional sister party). The results signal that "[t]he era of strong, big-tent parties is over—as is the era of stable, two-party coalitions. Most of the future governing coalitions will likely include three parties, making the search for compromise even more difficult than it has been in the past."

Meng and the Michaels: A China–Canada 'Prisoner Swap'?

In what SupChina's Lucas Niewenhuis calls an "apparent prisoner swap," Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou has returned to China from her house-arrest in Canada. (Meng was kept there at America's behest, over alleged US-sanctions violations.) Beijing has freed Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, whom it had arrested thereafter.

The saga has pointed to a bold strategy by China, Chris Buckley and Katie Benner write for The New York Times: to arrest foreigners and use them as leverage. But it also raised questions about America's commitment to the rule of law under President Trump, after he suggested he might intervene in her case to help secure a US–China trade deal.

As Meng was treated to a "hero's welcome" covered live by Chinese state TV, per Niewenhuis, the moment was loaded with national pride: "She was arrested because of a rising China," state news outlet Xinhua tweeted. "So was her release!"

Will AUKUS Push Europe to Go It Alone?

As others have said, the new security partnership between the US, UK, and Australia (known as AUKUS) might nudge Europe closer to military self-reliance. In recent years, Paris has urged its EU brethren to stop counting on a fickle US as a security guarantor, and a Financial Times essay concurs that the Franco–American dustup over AUKUS will bolster President Emmanuel Macron's calls for European "strategic autonomy."

But that phrase remains ill defined, France itself still relies on US support for some of its foreign military operations, and integrating European allies' battlefield equipment could take years, Henry Foy and Sam Fleming write for the FT. Still, as the US turns its attention to China's rise, it's clear Europe is no longer America's top priority. "It will take time, but it will happen," former French ambassador Sylvie Bermann tells Foy and Fleming, of Europe breaking its reliance on US military strength. "Because in fact the Americans don't care any more about us."

The US and Russia: More Similar Than You Think

Fiona Hill, the US diplomat and Russia-policy expert who became an inadvertent star of former President Donald Trump's first impeachment trial, writes for Foreign Affairs that the US and Russia have come to share important commonalities—and that Russian President Vladimir Putin seized on them to meddle in US politics in 2016.

"[O]ver time," the two countries "have become subject to the same economic and social forces," Hill writes. "Prior to the 2016 U.S. election, Putin recognized that the United States was on a path similar to the one that Russia took in the 1990s ... decades of fast-paced social and demographic changes and the Great Recession of 2008–9 had weakened the [US] and increased its vulnerability to subversion. Putin realized that ... the United States was beginning to resemble his own country: a place where self-dealing elites had hollowed out vital institutions and where alienated, frustrated people were increasingly open to populist and authoritarian appeals. The fire was already burning; all Putin had to do was pour on some gasoline."

For President Joe Biden, Hill writes, the best way to deal with Russia and its meddling is to drive an international agenda against populism and to "restore trust in government and to promote fairness, equity, and justice" at home.

China's Relationship With Japan Is Still Complicated

Has China moved on from Japan's invasion during World War II? The infamously brutal occupation has left scars, but at The Spectator podcast "Chinese Whispers," host Cindy Yu and guest Dylan Levi King detail a complicated relationship.

Despite the history of enmity, Japan has been the "soft power of choice" for many Chinese citizens, with its culture and entertainment remaining popular. As China turned nationalistic during Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, Japan became something to rally against; today, Yu and King say, the relationship remains nuanced, even if Japan has declined to acknowledge parts of its WWII past.