Ian Bremmer

Eurasia Group’s weekly selection of essential reading for the political risk junkie – presented in no particular order, and shared from ForeignPolicy.com. As always, feel free to give us your feedback or selections by tweeting at us via @EurasiaGroup or @ianbremmer.

“China’s Entrenched Gender Gap”

Leta Hong Fincher, New York Times

The employment rate for urban working-age women in China fell to 60.8 percent in 2010– down from 77.4 percent 20 years earlier—a full 20 percent below the 2010 rate for men. As China continues to urbanize, what does this trend mean? Will educated Chinese women increasingly look abroad for work?

“Senate Moves Toward Arming the Syrian Rebels”

Josh Rogin, The Daily Beast

“The U.S. cannot solve every conflict on the planet,” said Senator Marco Rubio at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting to vote on legislation that would arm elements of the Syrian opposition. But even with no Syrian solution in sight, that didn’t stop him from voting in favor of the bill. Will it pressure President Obama to increase American involvement?

“How Taiwan Bungled the Philippine Crisis”

J. Michael Cole, The Diplomat

After a Filipino coast guard vessel fired on a Taiwanese fishing boat and killed a 65-year-old fisherman earlier this month, Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou responded in an aggressive fashion (perhaps because of his 20 percent approval rating). Has he lost the moral high ground—and the upper hand in negotiations— as a result?

“‘Dealing with the Devil’: The Thankless Task of Greece’s Top Job-Cutter”

Eurasia Group’s weekly selection of essential reading for the political risk junkie – presented in no particular order, and shared from ForeignPolicy.com. As always, feel free to give us your feedback or selections by tweeting at us via @EurasiaGroup or @ianbremmer.

Must-reads

“Leaving Bangladesh? Not an easy choice for brands” – Jonathan Faney and Anne D’Innocenzio, Associated Press

The recent tragedy in Bangladesh is a reason for multinationals to take their business elsewhere. The average hourly wage of 24 cents in Bangladesh (compared to $0.45 in Cambodia, $0.52 in Pakistan, $0.53 in Vietnam, or $1.26 in China) may prove sufficient reason to stay.

Scandal has visited the Obama administration, and thanks to the media narrative it’s larger than the sum of its parts. With a talking-point imbroglio after Benghazi, the IRS’s discriminatory practices and the Justice Department’s procurement of Associated Press phone records, the Obama administration and its allies are right to be worried.

But those of us invested in U.S. growth have little reason to fret. The past few years have proved that dysfunction in Washington has almost no effect on America’s attractiveness to investors. As the rates of U.S. Treasury bonds prove, America continues to be the place for investors to park their money. That’s because petty politics don’t control the fate of the country.

In major emerging markets, politicians have to behave to appeal to investors. In capitals like Moscow, Delhi and Pretoria, this is largely an act of optics, but it’s an important one for countries trying to earn the trust of investors who see opportunity, but not necessarily stability. For further proof of developing countries’ precarious position, look to Bangladesh, where a country’s economy has been threatened by its politicians’ negligence before, during and after the country’s latest garment industry catastrophe.

Eurasia Group is posting our favorite political risk articles of the week on Foreign Policy, which I’d like to share here as well.  As always, feel free to give us your feedback or selections @EurasiaGroup or @IanBremmer.

Must-reads 

“U.S. Blames China’s Military Directly for Cyberattacks” – David E. Sanger, New York Times

For the first time, the Obama administration explicitly accused China’s military of responsibility for cyberattacks on American government computer systems. By some estimates, 90 percent of the cyberespionage in the US originates in China. 

Through two years of Syrian crisis, the Obama administration has cautiously dragged its feet as the United States is further enmeshed in the conflict. That’s a sensible platform at home, with opinion polls showing that Americans don’t think the country has a responsibility to intervene. It has strategic merit, too, given that intervention against Bashar al-Assad is an implicit endorsement of a largely unknown opposition force with radical, sectarian factions. 

But the status quo in Syria is breaking down, and Obama’s worst option is to kick the can as the United States inexorably gets dragged deeper into the conflict. It may be politically painful, but it’s time to make a choice: Go all in with a no fly zone — or avoid anything more than diplomatic intervention and humanitarian/non-lethal aid. Here’s why.

Until recently, Obama’s strategy of hesitance and risk aversion was commendable and well executed. As the situation worsened, the United States took minimal, reactionary steps. First, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to put together a formal — and reasonably liberal — Syrian political opposition, but it quickly fragmented because it had no workable ties to the actual rebels doing the actual fighting. Then the United States turned to non-lethal aid for the rebels (including defensive military equipment) as well as supporting Qatar and other countries through intelligence and logistics. Furthermore, in August 2012, Obama drew a “red line” at “chemical weapons moving around or being utilized” by the regime. At the time, it seemed unlikely to come to fruition anytime soon.

Eurasia Group’s weekly selection of essential reading for the political risk junkie – presented in no particular order. As always, feel free to give us your feedback or selections by tweeting at us via @EurasiaGroup or @ianbremmer.

Must-reads

“Lebanon squanders its finest human assets” – David Gardner, Financial Times

Lebanon is losing talent…and electricity. Last year, the country got an average of 11.4 hours of electricity a day.

How do you solve a problem like Korea? Or Syria? Or the euro zone? Or climate change?

Don’t look to Washington. The United States will remain the world’s most powerful nation for years to come, but the Obama administration and U.S. lawmakers are now focused on debt, immigration, guns and growth. A war-weary, under-employed American public wants results at home, leaving U.S. officials to look for allies willing to share costs and risks abroad.

Unfortunately, it’s not easy to build and sustain alliances in a world where America can’t afford its traditional share of the heavy lifting. No wonder then that the Obama administration’s greatest foreign policy successes haven’t depended on such alliances. Withdrawing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan doesn’t require consensus among the world’s powers. President Barack Obama’s single indisputable foreign policy triumph, the killing of Osama bin Laden, needed buy-in only from the members of Seal Team 6.

In Bangladesh, the search for survivors has become an effort to recover the dead. After a garment factory building collapsed in the Dhaka suburb of Savar last week, residents and rescue workers spent days digging through the rubble hoping to save the lives of people caught in yet another Bangladeshi industrial accident. At least 390 people are thought to have died.

This type of accident is all too common in Bangladesh. In November, more than 100 people died in a garment factory fire when workers could not easily escape the building. In 2006, 84 people were killed in a blaze because fire exits were locked.

This is what happens when a $20 billion industry accounts for 3.2 million jobs and 80 percent of a country’s exports. It needs the industry too much, especially when those jobs have helped push female participation in the workplace from 26.1 percent in 2002-03 to a still-insufficient 36 percent in 2010. The globalized economy demands that Bangladesh provide cheap goods, and cheap goods are easier to manufacture when there aren’t strict rules to follow — or at least when they’re not enforced.

Since midway through George W. Bush’s tenure, there’s been a steady hum from the pundit class that America’s best days are behind it. An overreaching foreign policy, rising public debt, and a growing wave of outsourced jobs means that America will soon lose its status as the world’s preeminent power. America was quickly on its way to becoming Rome.

But the American Decline is now over (if it ever really began in the first place).

Compared with other major powers, America’s future is looking brighter than before the financial crisis. The dollar remains remarkably attractive relative to other currencies. This resilience extends to American companies. In a March report, Goldman Sachs found that foreign investors owned a larger percentage of the U.S. equity market than at any time in the 68-year history of the study. The housing market is picking up, and dependence on foreign energy is falling.

Eurasia Group’s weekly selection of essential reading for the political risk junkie – presented in no particular order. As always, feel free to give us your feedback or selections by tweeting at us via @EurasiaGroup or @ianbremmer.

Must-reads 

“Baby milk rationing: Chinese fears spark global restrictions” – Celia Hatton, BBC News

What’s worse than glow-in-the-dark pork? The recent craze in subpar Chinese product safety standards is all about baby milk formula.