Tag Archives: foreign policy

The EU and National Sovereignty

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Poland enacted a law at the start of the year that lowered the mandatory retirement age of all of its judges from 70 to 65.  This resulted, among other things, in the required retirement for 27 of the nation’s 72 Supreme Court judges (a too-big Court, anyway IMNSHO, and they ought not be replaced, but that’s a separate story).

The ruling Law and Justice (PiS [Prawo i Sprawiedliwość]) party says the changes are necessary to a justice system they say is controlled by an untouchable “caste” of judges steeped in communist-era mentality.

The European Union has demurred.

The Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice said Friday that Poland must delay implementation of a law that came into force earlier this year requiring early retirement for nearly 40% of the court’s judges. Poland could face fines if it doesn’t comply, but more significantly such a move would represent an unprecedented threat to the authority of the bloc’s top court.
The Polish judges sent into retirement must be allowed to return to work, the ruling said.

That supposed threat to the ECJ may, in fact, be the crux of the matter: the EU must reign supreme over the member nations.

Whether retiring the judges is a good idea or not is a good idea or not, it’s an internal, domestic affair for Poland to decide.

Joining the EU plainly requires the surrender of a potful of national sovereignty far beyond such outward looking matters as national borders, trade rules, and the like.

Drift

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Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, had some thoughts on how the US should interact with today’s People’s Republic of China.  Among other things, he wants three key areas of disagreement to be accepted and…managed.  (I’ll leave aside his blithe, and erroneous, assertion that the “trade war” between the PRC and us is our doing and not the PRC’s.)

The most realistic option for the future is to focus on managing the two countries’ major disagreements. This approach has worked for four decades when it comes to Taiwan.

No, that’s a demonstration of the utter failure of “managing the two countries'” disputes.  That approached has contributed to the Republic of China’s expulsion from the UN Security Council and from the UN altogether.  It has contributed to the PRC’s threats and political near-dominance of the RoC.

Management is also likely to be the best approach for the South China Sea. As with Taiwan, “final status” issues are best left vague.

And by extension, the supposed optimal approach to the PRC’s harassment of Japan and Japanese islands in the East China Sea as the PRC pushes to seize that water.  Again, no.  All “management” has done so far in the South China Sea is lead to acceding to the PRC’s seizure of islands owned by the nations rimming the Sea, or owned in disagreement only with others of the rim.  All “management” has done so far is lead to acceding to PRC militarization of the islands it has seized from those nations and to routine harassment of shipping passing through international waters around those seized islands and aircraft overflying them.

In other domains, the US will simply have to accept China for what it is. China will continue to maintain a large (if somewhat reduced) state role in the economy and a closed political structure.

Again, no.  The PRC as it is, is a nation that routinely steals other nations’ companies’ proprietary information, that demands “sharing” of technology and other proprietary intellectual property as a condition of doing business inside the PRC, and that demands those companies install “back doors” to allow the PRC government ready access to those same tech and IP materials.  All “management” does here is meekly accept the PRC’s economic dishonesty.

Hass’ proposals amount to drift into surrender.  This is unacceptable.

Decisions

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In a Wall Street Journal article Monday, Google’s MFWIC, Sundar Pichai, defended his decision to support the People’s Republic of China with a Google “search” engine that’s carefully compliant with PRC censorship requirements.

What interests me this time, though, is this bit:

Mr Pichai…played down the idea that the Project Maven decision was made only based on employee feedback. He said Google has also listened to experts in ethics and artificial intelligence.

Project Maven is a DoD program intended to develop artificial intelligence for American national defense purposes—including, yes, an improved ability to kill our enemies when they attack us.

Pichai’s rationalization of his decision to turn his back on our national defense doesn’t matter. Our enemies are developing AI and will use it against us. Pichai’s decision only potentiates those enemies’ relative capabilities.

Don’t be evil.  That used to be Google’s motto.  How is it evil to help our country defend itself?  How is it not evil to help our enemies, even if without AI support (other than “search” AIs)?

Now the corporate motto, handed down from parent Alphabet, is Do the right thing.  How is refusing to help our nation defend itself a right thing?  How is helping our enemies a right thing?

Sundar Pichai knows the answers to these questions full well.

Doing Business with the PRC

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The People’s Republic of China is stepping up their corporate espionage.

Starting November 1, police officers will have the authority to physically inspect businesses and remotely access corporate networks to check for potential security loopholes, according to the regulations released Sunday by the Public Security Ministry. Police will also be authorized to copy information and inspect records that “may endanger national security, public safety, and social order,” the rules said.

And

The new regulations also reinforce requirements on censorship and surveillance laid out in the cybersecurity law.

And to steal company secrets and classified information, and to plant malware for future use.

This is just one more reason for businesses to stop doing business with PRC companies or inside the PRC.  Lose market share?  What’s the cost of having all your secrets stolen, PRC domestic companies set up in competition based on those secrets, and then you, having been milked dry, being tossed aside?

What’s the cost to the security of your home country?  Oh, wait—that’s that patriotism that companies like Alphabet so deprecate.

Free Trade in North America

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With a Mexico-US trade agreement in nominally in hand (our two nations’ legislatures have ratify it, and our own Progressive-Democrats in the Senate are already saying #NO, #RESIST, and too many Republicans are acquiescing, though), Mexico wants Canada to join the agreement.  Mexico’s President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador, after speaking with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau:

There is still time to achieve a trilateral agreement[.]

And

We hope they reach that understanding so that it will be a trilateral agreement.

Certainly, Canada’s joining an agreement would be good, but first the Canadians have to get serious in their negotiations.  President Donald Trump already has offered a tariff-free régime, and Canada won’t even discuss it.  Trudeau and his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Christia Freeland, steadfastly are demanding their protectionist tariffs—dairy, for instance—remain in place.

Update: They’re in. Now it’s necessary to convince Progressive-Democrat and self-serving Republicans in the Senate to ratify the deal.