Fareeds MHI Global Briefing

Remainers and Brexiters should ally against draft Brexit

Chaos reigns at Westminster and the British pound took a tumble as both Remainers and Brexiters react negatively to UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s negotiated draft agreement with the European Union. A wave of cabinet resignations was capped off today by the resignation of the official “Brexit Secretary” himself—Dominic Raab. Those who resigned seemed to have concluded that “…it is easier to be on the team that accuses the prime minister of failing to deliver majestic herds of unicorns than it is to be stuck with a portfolio that requires expertise in unicorn-breeding,” writes Rafael Behr for The Guardian. Brexit has been a wild ride so far, exhilarating at first for those who wanted it, terrifying for those that didn’t. But the party is drawing to a close. The music has stopped. The place is strewn with cigarette butts and empty beer cans. The black bin bags are being passed around. The faces still in the room are wan and haggard. They know that there is nothing left to do but survey the damage, count the cost. Is it any surprise that the last wreckers in cabinet are making excuses and heading for the door? The phenomenon of both Remainers and Brexiters rejecting May’s draft is an uneasy one: “Pro-Europeans in parliament understandably feel queasy about forging an unholy alliance with… English nationalists,” Philip Stephens writes for the Financial Times. “Some say that the talks were doomed from the outset” but “that is patently not so,” Stephens argues. The EU’s chief negotiator “offered access to the single market. Mrs May, eager to draw red lines to impress her Brexiters, ruled it out.” “Mrs May presents a false choice between her deal and Britain walking over the cliff edge to Brexit.” Parliamentarians should “back a referendum — a vote offering an informed choice between the status quo and what everyone can now see is available outside the EU. Plebiscites are rarely a sensible form of democracy. They turn to tyranny when people cannot change their minds.”

Will ASEAN be caught between US and China?

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong warned today at the conclusion of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit that Southeast nations may have to choose between the US and China: “I think it’s very desirable for us not to have to take sides, but the circumstances may come when ASEAN may have to choose one or the other. I am hoping that it’s not coming soon.”Lee’s remarks highlighted a deep sense of unease in the region, where concern is growing about being caught in the middle of escalating economic and security rivalry between the two powers. US President Donald Trump’s absence from the two high-profile Asian summits this week – Asean and also Apec in Papua New Guinea – has raised questions as to America’s right to be a leader in the region, at a time when China is angling to supplant it. But Pence said the US saw Asean as an “irreplaceable strategic partner”.In a veiled swipe at China’s rising military strength in the South China Sea, he said: “We all agree that empire and aggression has no place in the Indo-Pacific. “Let me be clear, though: our vision for the Indo-Pacific excludes no nation. It only requires that nations treat their neighbours with respect, and respect the sovereignty of our nations and international rules and order.” The ongoing trade war between the two countries “would hurt the superpowers but it would be more ominous” for Southeast Asia, writes Derwin Pereira for South China Morning Post.  “The choice would no longer be between capitalism and communism: it would be between two versions of capitalism, each determined to prove the other aberrant.” The region’s “more autocratic states would veer towards China, while their democratic counterparts would look to the US,” but, Pereira argues, “any hope that the US-China trade war will encourage Asian democracies to embrace the US is misplaced.” China has modernized its military “to recapture historical space lost to the imperial West… It may succeed, or it may not.” Meanwhile, “Asean nations, which have no common defence policy, will have to choose which side of the Sino-American military contest to be on. Their economic instincts will help them make choices, but there is no knowing which side will prevail.”

Will Turkey benefit from Khashoggi?

Saudi officials have charged 11 people in connection to the killing of Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey. The saga has put Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who “has stifled dissent, in an unusual role—that of a defender of human rights and a free press,”Krishnadev Calamur writes for The Atlantic.“Under Erdoğan, the government has crushed dissent and dismantled the free press. Yet on the Khashoggi case, it has emerged as the clearest voice for justice—clearer even than the West.” “So what does Turkey hope to get out of this? Two main things: the undermining of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and an end to the Riyadh-led blockade of Qatar,” Calamur suggests. The indictments have arguably weakened Turkey’s influence since they neither implicate top Saudi officials nor suggest that the killing was premeditated (though five people were charged with murder). Nevertheless, Erdoğan may stand to benefit. “Saudi Arabia’s Western allies are so keen on the Khashoggi story going away that they are likely to offer Ankara incentives to stop pointing the finger” at the Crown Prince, Calamur writes. He adds that “Ankara can also extract major political concessions from the Arabs”—”an end to the Saudi-led Arab blockade of Qatar,” which remains one of Turkey’s major financial benefactors.

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