Global Courant
Xi meets Blinken
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with China’s leader Xi Jinping as the two countries try to lift relations out of a deep cold that has raised global concerns about the growing risk of conflict between them . The talks show that both countries recognize the stakes of their rivalry.
Xi’s decision to meet with Blinken indicated that he was uncomfortable with the escalation of tensions. He struck a sympathetic note at the start of their 35-minute meeting, praising the two sides for making progress on a number of unspecified issues during Blinken’s two-day visit to China.
“This is very good,” Xi said. But he also alluded to grievances, saying he hoped Blinken would “make more positive contributions to stabilizing China-US relations.”
Blinken, the first US secretary of state to visit Beijing since 2018, said he urged “direct engagement and sustained communication at higher levels.” He said he pressured China to open a military-to-military communication channel — which the US says is critical to preventing crises in the seas and airspace around China — but was rebuffed.
The Blinken-Xi meeting could pave the way for a meeting between Xi and President Biden. But it’s unclear whether high-level diplomacy can change the trajectory of relations.
Differences: The rivals also tried to show that they don’t compromise on key points. Their disagreements include Taiwan, the growing footprint of the Chinese military, the development of advanced technologies, the Russian war in Ukraine and human rights.
China’s view: Pressure may mount on Beijing to stabilize ties due to China’s deteriorating economy. Xi may also want to stabilize the relationship as he seems keen to cast himself as a world statesman.
Other diplomacy: Germany and China resumed government talks this week after a three-year pandemic hiatus.
A Russian assassination attempt
In 2020, Russia attempted to assassinate a CIA informant on US soil, apparently willing to cross a border the country had previously avoided. The failed plot represented a brutal extension of President Vladimir Putin’s campaign of targeted assassinations and led in part to the expulsions of the CIA chief in Moscow and his Russian counterpart in Washington.
The informant, Aleksandr Poteyev, had been a Russian intelligence official more than a decade earlier. He had released information that led to a years-long FBI investigation that in 2010 ensnared 11 Russian spies living under deep cover on the East Coast. The US arrested and expelled 10 of the 11 Russian spies.
Putin had long vowed to punish Poteyev, who had been resettled in Miami by the CIA under a program designed to protect former spies. After Poteyev used his real name to get a fishing license and register as a Republican so he could vote, Russia forced a Mexican scientist to find him. But the scientist failed the operation, was arrested, and then passed on the details of the plan to American investigators.
Other news about Russia and Ukraine:
Aleksei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, is facing new charges of extremism, which could extend his sentence by 30 years.
Many of the weapons donated to Ukraine by other countries have decayed to such an extent that they were considered fit only for spare parts. Ukraine has also paid hundreds of millions of dollars for weapons that have not been delivered.
The housing crisis in New Zealand
The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted housing markets around the world, but few countries have taken such a turn as New Zealand, which plunged into recession last week.
House prices there rose nearly 50 percent during the pandemic as people took advantage of low mortgage rates and relaxed lending rules. But in November 2021, the central bank embarked on one of the most aggressive interest rate tightening cycles in the world to address rising inflation.
Since then, prices have fallen 17.5 percent, wiping out more than $6 billion in household wealth by some estimates.
Background: Housing has traditionally been scarce and of poor quality. Homes in New Zealand are among the least affordable in the world.
Politics: The housing crisis is at the top of the agenda this year in the run-up to the national elections. Calls to address the problem became more urgent in February, when major storms and flooding damaged thousands of homes in the North Island.
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In the musical “The Light in the Piazza”, two tourists travel to Italy in the 1950s. In a revival, a New York theater company has cast Asian actors in two leading roles. The move is an attempt to highlight the musical’s exploration of otherness—an otherness that some Asian Americans often feel.
Buenos Aires’ thriving restaurant scene
Inflation in Argentina has passed 100 percent and the street value of the peso fell by about 25 percent in just three weeks in April.
A surprising side effect: the restaurant scene in Buenos Aires is booming. Middle and upper class people eat out to get rid of their pesos quickly before they lose more value. In April, restaurant attendance there was 20 percent higher than at its all-time high in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic began. Restaurateurs and chefs put their income back into new restaurants.
But the boom is, in a sense, a facade. Even though people in the capital seem to be enjoying themselves, they don’t know if their money will be worth anything tomorrow. And in much of the country, many ordinary people are just passing by.
