Review of Selected Highlights in 2019: February 2020

There was such a wealth of material in 2019, too much for a reasonable length blog; so a separate, more detailed review of the UK is available, see:

JeremyDainesUK2019Review

If you haven’t looked at my review of 2018 you can access it here:

JeremyDaines2018Review

and then see how my crystal ball gazing, into 2019, actually turned out.

United Kingdom

As I am UK based, the local events in 2019 continued to be dominated, as in 2018, by the withdrawal from the European Union (EU) otherwise known as BREXIT. I described the process as tedious in 2018 and in early 2019, I said I was looking forward to the divorce ending in March 2019, when the UK was scheduled to leave the EU.

Suffice to say the political process dragged on due to the Government losing control of itself and Parliament, allowing anti-democratic politicians to prevent the Government from securing a majority for the necessary legislation.

The Prime Minister at the beginning of the year (Theresa May) resigned having failed to get consensus and the ebullient Boris Johnson was elected as Prime Minister. Against all predictions he succeeded in a revised Withdrawal Agreement with the EU but then failed to get it through the House of Commons, leading to a General Election in December 2019.

An election was considered quite risky; however, it turned out to be decisive as voters had had enough of the anti-BREXIT shenanigans, aided by the Labour Party’s regression to somewhat extreme socialism. This meant Boris Johnson achieved a large majority for the Conservatives and with this, the ability to push his Withdrawal Agreement through Parliament.

It was refreshing to find that a large number of people considered the anti-BREXIT politicians in Parliament to be out of order, as I did. To this extent, in September 2019, I wrote to my MP informing him of what he and other MPs should be doing with respect to the vote to leave the EU (see: JeremyDainesLetterToMP_Sep19).

As I write this, the UK has exited the EU and will transition to full withdrawal by the end of 2020.

Mr Johnson, as a result of the decisive election, probably peaked at the end of 2019. The honeymoon won’t last long. Mr Johnson is an upbeat character talking up a bright future; however, action will have to follow very soon. I’m currently slightly optimistic but won’t be holding my breath. With a large majority, the Government can enact legislation; unfortunately the quality and effectiveness of legislation seems to be on a continuing downward trend. Having no effective Opposition and a large majority is also a recipe for poor legislation.

America

I think it’s reasonable to say that after a fairly politically disastrous 2018, President Trump started to understand some of the aspects of his role, but clearly not others (offering to buy Greenland).

Mr Trump continued to preside over a highly partisan, highly divided country using baseball-bat policies; there’s no possibility of any measured carrot and stick approaches, unless you consider meeting with North Korea’s dictator a form of carrot? As for his (son in-law’s?) recent plan for a Palestinian-Israeli settlement which largely ignores the Palestinians, plus flouts UN and probably International Law, it should end up on the compost heap alongside his plan for North Korea and probably Iran. More on this next year, methinks, particularly if Mr Trump is re-elected.

The primary news item continues to be the trade war with China, which progressed towards an initial agreement in December 2019. The internal investigation into potential Russian meddling in the 2016 US election also concluded, in effect with a fudge (there’s a theme here). Then Mr Trump decided to wield the baseball bat at Ukraine’s President, temporarily withholding funds, in order to try and secure an investigation into an opposition party member’s son.

So, the second item is the impeachment of Mr Trump and the convenient blindness of the Republican Party to their President’s behaviour. At the time of writing, the Republican controlled Senate acquitted Mr Trump and conveniently disallowed witnesses to be called. This can’t be called a fudge; however, the declining quality of government continues to accelerate, which can only end badly, as Rome found out (see: www.history.com/8-reasons-why-rome-fell and choose the political & economic reasons you consider analogous to today).

In economic terms the US has continued to grow, for which Mr Trump claims full credit. Growth may well have been larger had he not instigated the trade war with China, but we’ll skip over that.

Mr Trump’s withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear agreement, together with enhanced sanctions gave rise to a missile attack in Saudi Arabia, shipping disruption in the Arabian Gulf and the loss of a drone. Not to mention a related commercial airline tragedy in early 2020.

Mr Trump appears to have actioned most of the items on his To-Do list. Re-setting China’s business philosophy is commendable; it was unbridled and unfair. Taking a baseball bat to Iran is probably not the best approach and, with the assassination of Soleimani, Mr Trump will need to have his back covered for a long time into the future, as will the majority of Americans. Pressuring for regime change (think Iraq, Syria and now Libya) tends not to be successful; something Mr Trump doesn’t appear to understand. The vast majority of 80 million Iranians would rather not have to suffer for their government’s policies, let alone American sanctions. Republicans don’t appear to be concerned, rather like Mr Putin is unconcerned about Ukrainians or Syrians; it’s about power, not the ordinary people themselves.

Which leads to an unfortunate comparison; Mr Trump and Mr Putin. There are a lot of common elements but fortunately some saving graces for America: 8 years maximum term plus a strong federal republic with highly effective and competitive business. Mr Putin is in a different league; Mr Trump would not survive, let alone get into a position of power within a post-Soviet autocracy.

The big question for Americans, plus the rest of the World, is who will win the Presidency in November 2020? In the meantime expect more disruption from Mr Trump, whilst the rest of the World will be downshifting a gear in the hope of a change in President in 2020, plus a return to “professional politics”.

China

For China 2019 was effectively about trade with America whilst continuing to bolster President Xi’s credentials. You’ll remember that President Xi has already modified the constitution to allow him to preside indefinitely; has cracked down on corruption and (in the process?) probably removed any potential threats to his position (Messrs Putin, Maduro, Assad, take note). Premier league stuff, whilst being the second largest economy in the World, with over a billion people to take care of. Mr Putin & Mr Maduro (amongst a long list of others) can only look on, in awe.

President Xi wants to make China great (again), as does Mr Putin, for Russia. If you were to ask Mr Maduro or Mr Assad, I’m sure they would articulate the same objective for their nations, as has Mr Trump in the past. Coincidence?

Hong Kong had a pretty terrible 2019 largely because of President Xi. My suspicion is that he fears Hong Kong could be the catalyst for public dissatisfaction in the main-land. In true Communist Party manner such a threat has to be controlled by repression, in the process raising the level of public dissatisfaction to a higher level. A wonderful strategy, not.

President Xi would do well to re-visit a real Chinese legend, Deng Xiaoping who (with the exception of allowing the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre), worked for the people and didn’t elevate China into direct commercial, geopolitical or military competition; all of which President Xi has achieved. It generally doesn’t end well for old men who abuse their power. The question is; how long will it take for China to replace President Xi for someone less self-centred and more focussed on ordinary people plus international consensus; rather than trying to put China on a massive pedestal looking down on the rest of the World?

The Communist Party is far more cohesive than, for example Mr Putin’s United Russia party, plus it has a solid ideology under-pinning it. However, even with pervasive oversight, Chinese people are gradually exposing the Party’s failings, dragging it very slowly into the modern era. How long people will accept their leader making himself an Emperor is difficult to estimate; let alone the constraints imposed on them by what is in effect a dictatorship.

The Communist ideology is all but dead; China’s politics is now centred on a belief system headed by President Xi. Power always corrupts; President Xi’s own elevation to near deity reflects this. Historically dictators get toppled by impatient immediate underlings (whether civil or military), think of Robert Mugabe; however, with around a billion subjects, President Xi has a mammoth task constraining ordinary Chinese folks’ desire for representative government and freedom of speech. Continuing to convince people that the Communist Party, which in effect after his elevation, means President Xi, is the only and by far the best form of government; is the main challenge. Interestingly it would appear that Mr Putin is borrowing some tactics from President Xi.

China’s path is unlikely to change in the next year. The Communist Party is adept at controlling its people having developed techniques continuously since taking power in 1949. Rather like the older population in Russia who adapted to Soviet propaganda, older Chinese people remain adapted to Communism. It is the case that old dogs struggle to learn new tricks. Older Russians & Chinese adhere to what their leaders tell them; however, the young are another matter.

It will be interesting to see how Russia, Ukraine and particularly Uzbekistan plus China evolve in terms of government. Corruption is extremely difficult to remove so Russia’s and the FSU nations’ progress will likely be slow, whilst China’s will depend on how well President Xi balances repression versus each person’s gain in wealth. A strange objective for a Communist Party.

Russia

Mr Putin had, what could be described in Russian terms, a successful 2019 overseas but a complicated one, at home. Russia’s modus operandi remains the same as in 2018 because Mr Putin is the principal driver; however, 2019 fortunately didn’t involve any chemical or radio-active assassination attempts in foreign countries.

Overseas, Russia consolidated its position in Syria supporting the Assad family who are also supported by Iran. No need to read between any lines, here. Members of the pseudo-democratic autocratic party, which now includes Turkey, tend to stick together.

Ordinary Russians have no say, or control on what Mr Putin wants to do with the country’s Roubles, or Russia’s impact on the unfortunate people living in Syria, Ukraine or Venezuela. Mr Trump appears to have decided that he won’t be spending any serious money on Syria; Mr Putin has this option available. Ask ordinary Russians if their country should be supporting the Assad family, or Mr Maduro’s disastrous regime in Venezuela and the informed response would be no; but sadly they have no sway over Mr Putin’s misguided power politics. Supporting despots is a strange way of making Russia great again, or instilling fear in other countries.

Domestically, Mr Putin suffered a fairly serious challenge as a result of opposition to the government’s interference in the Moscow Mayoral election in September. As the elderly population passes on and more youngsters come to realise how Mr Putin is repressing their lives, protests will likely continue to grow.

How this plays out in the next few years will be quite interesting to watch, although I’d rather not be a Russian national. Mr Putin is clearly not stupid; however, the longer the power trip, the harder it is to exit stage left, particularly with any credibility remaining.

Speculation on what Mr Putin’s strategy for maintaining, or exiting from power is, got a boost in early 2020, when he announced potential constitutional changes and the entire government resigned. Few Autocrats (or Dictators) plan on stepping down before ill-health forces its hand; it looks like Mr Putin is a standard model, but he might take note of Kazakhstan’s ex-president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who “stepped down” and became the Chairman of the Security Council and, perhaps more importantly (if that’s possible), constitutionally designated Leader of the Nation. I’m quite confident that Mr Putin would gladly settle for such a role in Russia. Watch this space, but don’t hold your breath.

Sadly, if Russia continues to be dominated by Mr Putin, or other subsequent autocrats, it’ll continue as if in the previous century. Interestingly, Uzbekistan appears to have turned away from post-Soviet pseudo-democracy and is slowly inching into the 21^st Century, whilst Ukraine’s people desperately want to achieve normality and are prevented by a corrupt system largely run by oligarchs; which brings us back to Russia.

Venezuela

Unfortunately my optimistic attitude in January 2019 didn’t materialise during the rest of the year.

Mr Maduro succeeded in side-lining the opposition, whilst maintaining the loyalty of the armed forces. The plight of ordinary Venezuelans continues to be dire and clearly isn’t a big issue for Mr Maduro, nor for Russia, Cuba or North Korea who reportedly support him.

The supposedly legitimate President, Juan Guaido, continues to highlight the President’s illegitimacy; however, it would appear there are currently only two resolutions; a coup or an uprising by the majority of Venezuelans to overwhelm the police & military. Both of these options are similarly feared by Venezuela’s supporters; so you can be sure a lot of time and effort is put into preventing such a loss of power. There’s no immediate signs of positive change so ordinary people continue to suffer as a result of misguided, corrupt power, involving the usual suspects.

The European Union

It’s not surprising that within the (now) 27 nations making up the EU that variation and some level of discord, exists. As mentioned in my review of 2018, France’s vision for the EU is somewhat at odds to that of Germany, whilst Hungary & Poland appear to be regressing towards xenophobic, autocratic tendencies. Finland has recently elected a young lady as Prime Minister of a coalition, but the country has been in a fair amount of political and economic turmoil. In France, the President continues to be unpopular as the government attempts to reform unsustainable programmes, particularly pensions, whilst long-running strikes continue.

Further EU expansion is currently on hold; a banking union, though recommended by economists, is frowned upon by the budget prudent northern members, whereas there appears to be a fairly strong move towards reducing carbon, which is good.

The internal frictions will continue, grand plans will be proposed and then left to die. The budget will be adjusted for the loss of the UK’s contribution and negotiations start on the 2021-27 financial framework. All much of a muchness.

Wrap Up

Extreme sympathy continues to be extended to ordinary North Koreans, Syrians, Venezuelans, Yemenis, Iranians, Iraqis, Libyans and Afghans. Your governments have totally failed you. And for those countries supporting the despots in these countries, you are ruining the lives of innocent people for the sake of your own misguided ideologies and ultimately, personal power.

The other, somewhat related, theme is the number of old men sitting at the top of a large number of countries; some competent but most simply wielding power for their own benefit, not for their people. The refreshing and I hope successful antidote being Finland (see www.bbc.co.uk/news ). More on this next year.

To finish; some crystal ball gazing. Climate change will continue to feature heavily (as it should) with the number of old men running countries that deny this issue (e.g. USA, Australia and Russia) becoming more isolated and shown up by a brave Swedish teenager. Fortunately a significant majority have now bought in to the need to change the way we live; the Luddites will be largely out of power within ten years.

I have argued in other blogs that it’s not worth trying to prove, or win the argument about whether humanity is the cause of changes in climate. It’s blatantly obvious that our impact on the World is hugely negative in virtually every aspect.

When you condense this down, this is a fundamental weakness in the Dismal Science (economics, if you’ve forgotten) where the impacts of human activity have been ignored. Economics is, in fact, a totally holistic discipline, but economists either don’t understand this; or if they do, they’ve chosen to ignore it. Policy makers also need to understand this and adapt to factor in all impacts on the World. Sadly this will take quite a long time to achieve. The good news is that there is an increasing ground-swell of people who are driving the need to change the way we live on Earth.

America’s disruption with China, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan will likely continue through 2020 and Syria, Yemen, Venezuela and Libya will likely continue to be dire places to be.

Finally, if you’ve managed to read this far, apologies for the lengthy summary.
I hope you found it of interest, so do leave some feedback.

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If you'd like to read more legacy blogs on climate change, the oil industry, UK and World politics, or just have insomnia, then browse through some of these:

17 February 2020 - This Blog

Review of Selected Highlights in 2019

https://jeremydaines2019summary.blogspot.com/2020/02/there-was-such-wealth-of-material-in.html

17 February 2020

Review of the United Kingdom in 2019

https://jeremydaines2019uksummary.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-united-kingdom-in-2019.html

14 December 2019

The UK December 2019 General Election – Post Mortem Review

https://uk-dec19-election-review.blogspot.com/

7 September 2019

Letter to Jeremy Hunt MP, in September 2019, Regarding Anti-Democratic MPs, NOW INCLUDING Mrs Hunt's Response

https://anti-democratic-mps-letter-sep19.blogspot.com/2019/09/letter-to-jeremy-hunt-mp-in-september.html