North Koreanization News Today

Over the weekend, large demonstrations broke out in cities across China. The protests followed news, spread rapidly across Chinese and international social media, that a fire in an apartment building in Xinjiang’s capital of Urumchi on Friday had turned deadly, claiming at least 10 lives, possibly as a result of the region’s COVID lockdowns. Throngs of residents took to the

This weekend the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party will effectively give Xi Jinping a mandate to continue as president for life. That is likely to mean a more belligerent foreign policy and more tension with the West. But China faces serious long term problems.

From the blog of Steven Greenberg at The Times of Israel

By Thomas Friedman of The New York Times With his annexation of parts of Ukraine on Friday, Vladimir Putin has set in motion forces that are turning Russia into a giant North Korea. It will be a paranoid, angry, isolated state, but unlike North Korea, the Russian version will be spread over 11 t ...

The party’s response to his travails speaks cynical volumes.

Putin is turning Russia into North Korea.

Biden: Appeasing Putin? Putin’s little PR bluster games shows how much Russia has declined in the global league tables of geopolitical relevance. Why Joe Biden won’t take Putin’s bait. By Alexei Bayer and Stephan Richter, April 24, 2021 Takeaways Electronic hacking or troop movements are the last cards through which Russia can make a mark in international affairs After publicly calling Putin a murderer, President Joe Biden promptly phoned him and proposed a meeting. Biden’s over...