The Straits Times (October 24)
“It will almost certainly turn out that Britain was more powerful—with more sovereignty—when it was part of a large organisation with international clout.” Following Brexit, the UK will likely be isolated, “with far fewer allies. British consumers, workers and entrepreneurs will pay the price.” But the UK’s fall should provide the rest of the world with a valuable lesson. “The sight of Britain’s sudden banishment to a world where you are better off dealing with cousins will be a useful tonic for everybody else.”
Tags: Allies, Banishment, Brexit, Clout, Consumers, Entrepreneurs, Lesson, Powerful, Price, Sovereignty, UK, Useful, Workers
The Economist (October 14)
“The world’s most powerful man” is now clearly Xi Jinping who possesses decidedly “more clout than Donald Trump.” As the U.S. abandons global leadership, Xi’s arrival on the world stage has been welcomed by many. But Xi is not a benign force. “The world should be wary” and “not expect Mr Xi to change China, or the world, for the better.”
Reuters (August 6)
“Watching the slow-motion crash of Britain’s exit negotiations with the European Union is a disconcerting experience. A state that once ran a global empire is looking second-rate.” Realism has all but been abandoned. “The government’s implausible expectations about what it may be able to achieve” reveal a “dismaying lack of historical and strategic understanding about how Britain lost its clout outside the European club more than half a century ago.”
Tags: Brexit, Clout, Crash, Disconcerting, EU, Expectations, Global empire, Implausible, Negotiations, Realism, Strategic, UK, Understanding
The Guardian (June 5)
“Try telling Sepp Blatter we live in a post-American world.” Talk of a “multipolar world” can be overdone. The role of the U.S. in taking on FIFA and deposing its long time leader “is a stark and very public reversal of the familiar narrative of America losing its clout in global affairs. All of a sudden, talk of a post-American world seems less convincing.”
Tags: Clout, FIFA, Global affairs, Multipolar, Post-American world, Sepp Blatter, U.S.
Institutional Investor (April 15)
“As a demonstration of China’s growing economic and political clout, few things rival the launch of the Asian Infrastructure Investment bank, Beijing’s challenge to the U.S.-dominated international financial order…. In the end, only Japan among major economies sided with Washington in shunning the AIIB.”
