US and China Could Be Closer to a Hot War Than You Think

US-China relations suffered a double blow over the past week in the shape ofPresident Trump’s steel tariffs and China’s lurch to one-man rule. The growing danger? A trade war could turn into a real one, Gideon Rachman argues in the Financial Times.

“As the two countries slide towards confrontation over trade, territory and ideology, so the sense of grievance on both sides is likely to increase. The Chinese and American presidents are both nationalists who frequently stoke feelings of wounded national pride. Mr Trump has claimed the world is laughing at America and that China has raped the US. [Xi Jinping] has promised to preside over a ‘great rejuvenation’ of the Chinese people — that will finally bury the ‘century of humiliation’ that began in 1839, when the country was invaded and partially colonized,” Rachman writes.

“In the pre-Xi era, Chinese leaders and academics liked to stress the mutual dependence between their country and the US. The conventional argument was that China’s rapid development was taking place in the context of a US-dominated world — and therefore there was little point in challenging America. But this Chinese version of liberal internationalism is no longer common in Beijing. More recently, Chinese intellectuals have begun to argue that ‘the US-led world order is a suit that no longer fits…’”

Team Trump Tried a New Diplomatic Trick. It Worked

The Trump administration did something unusual with its North Korea diplomacy, and isn’t getting the credit it deserves for doing so, argues Kori Schake in The Atlantic. It got out of the way.
 
“[F]or an administration that has not distinguished itself in supporting America’s allies, it has let South Korea take the lead and have the limelight. The administration allowed South Korea to determine whether scheduled US-South Korea military exercises would occur around the time of the Olympics. It was South Korea who brokered the deal with North Korea. It was South Korea standing in front of cameras at the White House announcing the president’s acceptance,” Schake writes.
 
“It would certainly have been a stronger message had the president or the national-security adviser been standing next to America’s South Korean allies when they made the announcement, but it still merits notice that an administration often tin-eared to allied concerns allowed itself to be guided by an ally’s initiative.”

• Iran’s leaders won’t be the only ones interested in whether President Trump tears up the nuclear deal. Kim Jong Un will be watching closely, too, writes Daniel Larison in The American Conservative.

“The post-deal treatment of Iran is hardly a ringing endorsement of the benefits of making an agreement with the US and its allies. Trump wants to renege on the deal anyway because it did not force Iran’s complete surrender. That bodes ill for what Trump thinks a ‘good deal’ with North Korea would look like. Once the US reneges on the JCPOA, North Korea will have another very big reason not to trust any US promises made during negotiations with them.”

May Needs to Take Away the Welcome Mat

British Prime Minister Theresa May told the country’s Parliament on Monday that Russia was “highly likely” behind the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal. Oliver Bullough writes for The Guardian that it’s time for Britain to get Moscow’s attention. That means hitting wealthy Russians where it hurts.   “Poisoning one ex-spy in Britain might be a one-off, an exceptional act of retribution. But if the Kremlin has poisoned a second ex-spy in Britain, that looks like a policy,” Bullough writes.   “If US assistance is not forthcoming, the government needs to work with our European allies. It is a shame that so much of our diplomatic capital has been squandered on Brexit, instead of being held back for something important.   “But acting alone is still possible. South-east England is a favorite playground of rich Russians. They keep their houses here, their children here, they float their companies on our stock exchange and they don’t make a secret of it. You’re not rich in Russia without being friends with Putin – in fact, there is a remarkably close correlation between the two groups – so if May’s government wants to send a message to the Russian president, it could cancel the visas of the members of his inner circle and, perhaps, try out the potency of its new ‘unexplained wealth orders,’ by freezing their property. Then it should dismantle the mechanisms with which they launder their money.”

It’s Getting Hot Up There

The Arctic is one of the least regulated places on the planet – and one of the richest in untapped natural resources. As the climate heats up, so is the great power race to exploit those resources, notes Kristina Spohr in the New Statesman.   “There is an enormous amount at stake. In 2008, the US Geological Survey estimated that the Arctic holds 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil, and 30 per cent of its natural gas. That is worth about £12 trillion (about $17 trillion) in today’s prices, roughly equivalent to the entire US economy. In other words, the prospect of an unfrozen Arctic Ocean opens up the remarkable riches of the North Pole,” Spohr writes.   Leading the charge? China and Russia. “As the climate changes, its ice-scape will become a seascape. And a region that did not belong to anybody will be divvied up – through co-operation or conflict, or perhaps a mixture of both. What may prove to be the new world order – a new multipolar system of international politics – is taking shape there, as Russia and China seek to challenge an American hegemony that, in their view, has lasted for too long. “Both think big. But Xi’s China has far deeper pockets and operates with much greater diplomatic shrewdness than Putin’s Russia. This combination of vision, money and finesse is nowhere to be seen in the Western world – certainly not in Trump’s Washington.”

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France’s far-right National Front is rebranding. The problem? Its new name,Rassemblement National (National Rally), “carries echoes of a dark past,” James McAuley reports for the Washington Post. A Nazi past, to be precise.   “Like other Nazi-allied parties during World War II, the ‘Rassemblement National Populaire’ saw the war — and the experience of occupation — as a chance to cleanse and purify France from within. It was no stranger to overt anti-Semitism and open admiration for Nazi Germany. “The party used a logo featuring elements of the Nazi swastika, displayed on a similar red backdrop. One of the earliest members of the ‘Populaire,’ Roland Gaucher, went on to co-found the National Front with Jean-Marie Le Pen.”