The N.E.P. was masterfully designed to bring capital into the state, which it did, and to help it prosper economically. However, some socialists believe it may have gone too far with its free-market economic style and possibly could have lead the Soviet Union into permanently possessing a capitalist economy, which would have destroyed the socialist priority. The original plan, however, was to have capitalism in place until the economy was strong enough to achieve socialism.
After the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, Vladimir Lenin and his party found themselves contemplating what would be appropriate for Russia’s economy which, at this time, was suffering from social challenges. Before the Revolution, there were basically only three classes of people: Peasants, Nobles, and Romanovs. Although certain reforms had been made, the peasants were still treated poorly and taken advantage of by the nobles. At the same time, World War One was taking place which not only negatively effected Russia’s economy but also had a great effect on Russian society as well.The first thing that was put into place was something called “War Communism.” The reason it was called this was because it was meant to be an economic method utilized during the Civil War, but in reality began before the war and remained in effect after the war until 1921. Right away, when the Bolsheviks seized power, Lenin underestimated the problems within the country, not only economically but socially as well. Within the first few months following the Revolution, all that could be changed was changed (Lenin, 5). The most profound of the changes to be made in those first months of the Soviet Union was the taking of private property from the capitalists: farmland, factories, mills, railroads, banks, and other properties with no compensation (Lenin, 5).
Lenin made the mistake of taking what was the current government and its people and diving right into full-blown Communism, not realizing that they all were economically unequipped for such a conversion just yet (Caplan). Along with this, the unemployment rate sky-rocketed. Almost all manufacturing and retail was nationalized and peasants’ harvests were forcibly requisitioned by the state, with the idea that it would all go to the State whereupon it would be evenly distributed. Forced-labor policies were also set into place forcing both civilian and military persons to provide service to the state.
As Lenin said when addressing the problems, as well as the obvious solution of reversion to capitalism, he talks about how the “ unprecedentedly dislocated country is just barely beginning to recover, is only just realizing the full depth of its ruin, is suffering the most terrible hardships-stoppage of industry, crop failures, famine, epidemics” (Lenin). Eventually the Bolsheviks came to realize that Russia was beginning to drown underneath this War Communism from a whole host of circumstances, such as famine, lack of resources, and disease due to malnutrition. With this Lenin admits that “We have risen to the highest and at the same time the most difficult stage of our historic struggle.”
On April 25, 1921 Lenin introduced the Tax In Kind policy, which would replace the “surplus-food appropriation,” or the policy which assigned a certain amount of the peasants’ produce which the State was entitled to. The produce which was collected would go directly to the State and then be distributed to the rest of the country, in order to ensure that everyone had food. It seemed like a valid system, theoretically. However, once it was put into practice, the country soon faced a famine due to the fact that there were too many people and not enough food. The government was helpless to fix this.
The Tax In Kind policy, which would replace the surplus-food appropriation system with a fixed tax (which the peasants would be informed of ahead of time), however, was meant to ease the burdens which War Communism had placed on the peasants and, therefore, improve their motivation to work. As Lenin put it, “The peasants will now set to work on their farms with greater confidence and with a will, and that is the main thing.” The Tax In Kind would not only give the peasants incentive to increase production, but it also gave them the freedom to sell what they produced on the market for profit, something that would not have been allowed under War Communism.
Coincidentally Lenin realized, as Russia’s economy was falling through under the weight of instant Communism, that the peasants made up a majority of the population and although the government had been set up for the Proletariat, the fact of the matter was that only a small percentage of the population (not even 10%) made up an actual population of factory workers and most of the rest were peasantry. Therefore, they would have to be considered in this New Economic Policy because if they weren’t, just as with War Communism, the economy would continue to suffer.
During the 2nd Congress of the Political Education Departments in October 1921 Vladimir Lenin began discussing the New Economic Policy and the need for its immediate application, due to the devastating effects of War Communism. It was concluded that the mistake was made when the Bolsheviks decided to resort right to Communism within the first months of victory, although the goal was to use capitalism as a kind of bridge between the petty bourgeoisie economic policy and the Communist economic policy.
However, that was not the case and as a result Russia experienced acute food shortages, which lead to malnutrition, disease, and death; therefore effecting the working class and peasantry, therefore having a dire effect on Russia altogether. It was decided that the New Economic Policy was more of a “strategical retreat” than anything else. It definitely would not be a permanent thing, but just a way of relieving Russia from the burdens which War Communism had produced and, instead, replacing the procedures of food requisitioning and nationalization of agricultural land with a sort of free-market economy with the allowance of private business.
As stated by Lenin, “economically and politically speaking the New Economic Policy completely ensures to us the possibility of building the foundation of a socialist economy.” It was meant to be based off of the existence of capitalism. Basically it would be a combination of the capitalist economy and the communist politics. Large businesses would still be nationalized, in order to ensure that the “petty bourgeoisie,” or the capitalist Imperialists, would not gain too much power over or get in the way of the growing Socialist society. Lenin believed that capitalism would lead to Imperialism, which is the entity which they had only just eliminated.
The N.E.P. was a way to manipulate capitalism so as to ensure that capital would be a result of labors, but Imperialism would not be able to infiltrate the system and regain power. Aside from the Socialist twist, the New Economic Policy was intended for the Soviet Union to experience a temporary taste of capitalism in order to improve the economy so as to successfully introduce Communism. The New Economic Policy meant restoring capitalism considerably. As mentioned previously, the food appropriation system and food requisitioning policy would be abolished. In return, the peasants would be allowed to sell freely (for profit) that which they had left over after the tax had been collected (that tax would be small and affordable). Foreign trade and the leasing of enterprises would now be permitted as well (Lenin, 64).
The plan of action would be to rebuild and reopen factories which had been left in ruin during the years of War Communism and have the proletariat class re-employed in these factories, which, it was decided, would produce products which could be bought and sold and were useful, those which would improve life and improve the State. As Lenin remarks on this the factories would would be engaged in the production of socially useful materials... not in profiteering, not in making cigarette-lighters for sale, and in other “work” which is not very useful, but which is inevitable when our industry is in a state of ruin” (Lenin, 66).
One of the greatest concerns among the Bolsheviks was “Who will win, the Capitalist or the Soviet Power?” (Lenin, 65). Indeed there was a validated fear of the possibility of the Capitalists taking over and reverting, once again, back to an Imperialist government and economy. As Lenin said in this particular document, “the capitalist, whom we are allowing to come in by the door, and even by several doors (and by many doors we are not aware of, and which open without us, and in spite of us),” (Lenin, 65).
There were two options, according to Lenin: Either the capitalists take over and drive out the Communists or capitalism is utilized by the proletariats and the peasants, while submitting and serving the State (Lenin, 66). There was always the chance that if capitalism overthrew Communism and became the dominant cause there could be, once again, the same old regime that was in previously in power, which would mean that all of the hard work of Lenin and his Party would have gone to waste and, in fact, would be to blame for the fall of Communism and the (technically) welcoming of the oppressive Imperialism, once again.
Something that was greatly stressed in the proposal of the New Economic Policy was “The Principle of Personal Incentive and Responsibility.” As mentioned before, the N.E.P. would mean allowing for free trade among the peasants and allowing them to keep or sell (whichever they preferred) after they had payed the tax, which had been guaranteed to be of a small quantity. Either way, there was a great amount of trust and faith in which the State would be putting into its people. There was an underlying fear, as mentioned before, that capitalism would become too powerful and take over the Communist party and that was, of course, taken into consideration.
The Soviet people were now expected to not only defend the Bolsheviks and the Communist Party, but defend the cause of Communism as well. They were expected to withhold Communist values and fight against the capitalists should they cause an uprising or be deemed as dangerous to the cause. As Lenin put it, “Whoever now departs from order and discipline is permitting the enemy to penetrate out midst” (Lenin, 71). To further ensure that this would not become a problem, the Soviet government discussed many tactics which would be applied in order to keep capitalism under control. During the 2nd Congress of Political Education Departments, which took place on October 17, 1921, Lenin went over some of the facts of these precautions by telling his party that, “Strict, stern measures were adopted, including capital punishment, measures that even the former government did not apply” (Lenin, 71).
Although it is obvious, through deep analysis of his documents and the strong expression of his beliefs in Communism and against Imperialism and capitalism, it would seem to some that there was an almost paranoid anxiety of the capitalists. It’s not just that he acknowledges the dangers of capitalism and the inevitable chance that there will be those who will disagree with Communism, but there is undeniable evidence that this truly was a real fear for him. An example of this paranoia is when he is speaking about how the Soviet people will now have to work side by side with the capitalists, and how they will be hard to pick out of a crowd. But the fact that “They will squeeze profits out of you...” and that “they will enrich themselves, operating alongside of you” (Lenin, 72).
Unfortunately the New Economic Policy would be short-lived because after Lenin’s death in January of 1924, Stalin’s infamous Five-Year Plans were instilled upon the Soviet Union. Immediately the New Economic Policy was abandoned; this would prove to be both good and bad. In a way, N.E.P. had, indeed, improved the Soviet economy, but only back to the levels at which it was during World War One. The peasants were meeting the expectations of the government (therefore, not complying with their part of the agreement on the conditions of the free-market style of economy) which meant that although progress had been made in comparison to the desperity of the days of War Communism, not enough progress was made. In Stalin’s mind, N.E.P had to go!
The New Economic Policy was cleverly created curing a time of dire economic failure, famine, and unemployment. The mistake was made in transitioning straight from Imperialism to Communism, which, according to the basic economic and social laws, cannot happen. As a result, a new approach was made which incorporated the collective effort, capitalism, and service to the State all in one. Naturally the N.E.P. was not intended to be a permanent fixture in Soviet economy or politics, but rather something of a stepping stone, as well as a way to improve the economic state by the utilization of capitalism, but with a Communist twist: despite the free markets and the chance for free trade and sales, the economy would still be subservient towards the State and the main goal of the capital brought in by the N.E.P. would be to strengthen the State, its people, and its party in order to prepare them for the real deal: Communism.
Once again using the wise words of the genius behind this intelligent plan, “We must see to it that everyone who works devotes himself to strengthening the workers’ and peasants’ state” (Lenin, 72). Through his New Economic Policy, we are not only able to get a glimpse into what have been, but we also gain more of an understanding of the devotion, passion, discipline, and, almost, obsession, with the State, its well-being, and, most importantly, the Soviet People.
One has to wonder, however: The New Economic Policy had only three years to develop. What if Lenin were to have lived longer, thus keeping alive the system of capitalism under Communism? This is something that is debated and questioned to this day. Devout Leninists would be obliged, even more than willing, to claim that had Lenin lived perhaps a decade longer the New Economic Policy, among other things, would have thrived and perhaps the minor fallacies would have been corrected. Vladimir Lenin believed that, after having experienced the consequences of instant Communism, a stable, successful economy would be harvested with time, the length of which was unknown and had no limit.
Alfred G. Meyer, (New York: Random House, 1984), 36-48.
Dominick Salvatore, (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1991)
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, , ed. Francis B. Randall, PhD (New York: Simon & Schuster Inc.)
V.I. Lenin, , ed. A. Fineberg (New York: International Publishers)
V.I. Lenin, ed. A. Fineberg (New York: International Publishers)
V.I. Lenin, ed. A. Fineberg (New York: International Publishers)
V.I. Lenin, ed. A. Fineberg (New York: International Publishers)
V.I. Lenin, ed. Yuri Sdobnikov (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965), 133, 214, 366-367.
V.I. Lenin, ed. David Skvirsky and George Hanna (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1966), 21-25, 60-66.
V.I. Lenin, (New York: International Publishers Co., Inc., 1974) 325-329, 640, 650-652.
Nicholas V. Riasanovsky and Mark D. Steinberg, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 484-485.
(New York: Random House, 1984), 36-48.Dominick Salvatore, (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1991)
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V.I. Lenin, ed. David Skvirsky and George Hanna (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1966), 21-25, 60-66.
V.I. Lenin, (New York: International Publishers Co., Inc., 1974) 325-329, 640, 650-652.
Nicholas V. Riasanovsky and Mark D. Steinberg, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 484-485.
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GLAZA, H. M. 2009. Lenin's New Economic Policy: What it was and how it Changed the Soviet Union. [Online], 1. Available:
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We characterize sabotage, exemplified by recent U.S. policies concerning China's semiconductor industry, as trade policy. For some (but not all) goods, completely destroying foreigners’ productivity increases domestic real income by shifting the location of production and improving the terms of trade. The gross benefit of sabotage can be summarized by a few sufficient statistics: trade and demand elasticities and import and production shares. The cost of sabotage is determined by countries' relative unit labor costs for the sabotaged goods. We find important non-monotinicities: for semi-conductors, partially sabotaging foreign production would lower US real income, while comprehensive sabotage would raise it.
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Productive capacities, economic vulnerability and growth volatility in sub-saharan africa.
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Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries, like most developing countries, face major challenges to achieve strong, sustainable, and inclusive growth with the view to reduce significantly persistent poverty and inequality. Many of these challenges results from a high level of economic vulnerability due to simultaneous shocks, notably the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change and the multiplicity of armed conflicts. Hence the need to study policies and means of strengthening economic resilience to shocks. This paper analyzes the effects of productive capacities on the volatility of economic growth in SSA countries when faced with significant vulnerability. The study covers the period 2000-2018 for 43 SSA countries. Using Generalized Method of Moments (GMM), the results show that economic vulnerability contributes to growth volatility in SSA. However, this effect varies according to the performance of productive capacities. Countries with high productive capacities have greater opportunities to mitigate the effect of economic vulnerability on growth volatility. Some specific dimensions of productive capacities (Institutions, ICT) seem to matter more than others. The results of this study provide important recommendations to policy makers.
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Analysis: A New Era of Financial Warfare Has Begun
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The west’s latest actions against russia carry risks for the global system and could provoke china..
Understanding the conflict two years on.
Washington and the West have begun a new phase of financial warfare against Russia and China—a powerful but also potentially risky escalation that, if people aren’t careful, could eventually give Moscow and Beijing exactly the outcome they are believed to be looking for.
How so? Because the unprecedented actions taken at the G-7 summit in June to hand over to Ukraine billions of dollars in profits earned on frozen Russian assets—along with new actions taken against Chinese banks—could begin to undermine the legitimacy of the U.S.-dominated international financial system, some experts say. And that could make Russian President Vladimir Putin and especially Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is said to want to create an alternative renminbi-based financial system, very happy in the end.
At a time when many nations are unsure about whether to do business with Russia and are falling into the debt-enforced embrace of China, the G-7 action sends a message: What was once sacrosanct in international finance may be no longer. A number of sovereign wealth funds, central banks, corporations, and private investors—especially from the smaller countries of the global south that are most vulnerable to sanctions—may well want to hedge against full investment in dollar- and euro-based holdings.
“This decision crosses the Rubicon,” said Ryan Martínez Mitchell, a law professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, by “weakening the norm of sovereign immunity for foreign central banks.”
“Any shift away from a U.S. dollar-based global financial system is not a near-term prospect, but decisions like these do probably add to the constituency that would welcome that kind of future,” Mitchell said. Others agree. “There were many forces pushing for a search for alternatives to [the U.S.] dollar, and this move will give an additional push to those efforts,” said Harold James, a financial historian at Princeton University. “I believe we are at a tipping point in which two worries coincide: one about the likely fiscal path of the U.S. and an unsustainably large burden; the second about seizure of assets, with secondary sanctions possibly being applied to countries that are in a supply chain with China and then indirectly with Russia.”
The “tipping point,” James warns, could come in the form of many countries, even U.S. allies, beginning to move their assets away from the dollar and euro. According to Raghuram Rajan of the University of Chicago, a former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, nations are disturbed by the idea that Russia’s $300 billion in central bank reserves have been inaccessible for more than two years. “Some central banks have started diversifying reserves a little more as a result, including into gold,” Rajan said.
James added: “One sign that I find very telling is how Central European countries, the Czech Republic and Poland, both of which feel very close to the U.S. and who weren’t interested in gold reserves when they felt secure—indeed, the Czech Republic sold its gold reserves the day they entered NATO in March 1999—are now buying large amounts of gold.”
Putin himself spoke triumphantly of this trend in his notorious interview with renegade U.S. newscaster Tucker Carlson in February. Washington’s decision “to use the dollar as a tool of the foreign-policy struggle is one of the biggest strategic mistakes made by the U.S. political leadership,” Putin said , pointing to America’s fiscal profligacy. “Even the U.S. allies are now downsizing their dollar reserves.” At another point, Putin warned other countries that they “could be next in line for expropriation by the United States and the West.”
Wary of the risks of sending a destabilizing message, the G-7 did stop short of actually seizing the Russian assets at its summit in Italy. Instead, it adopted a complex scheme to transfer so-called windfall profits on earnings from frozen Russian central bank securities—the earnings of some $3 billion to $4 billion a year come from investments by Euroclear, the financial services company in Belgium that holds the Russian assets—to supply finance to Ukraine.
It was unprecedented all the same. As a senior Biden administration official described it: “Never before in history has a multilateral coalition immobilized the sovereign assets of an aggressor country and then found a way to unlock the value of those assets for the benefit of the aggrieved party as it fights for its freedom. That’s what happened at this G-7.”
However it’s done, making money off other nations’ assets—even aggressor nations, such as Russia, in total violation of global norms—is a risky precedent. “Once a new sanction becomes seen as effective, its usage tends to proliferate,” said Jon Bateman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “In recent years, creative new uses of export control powers—such as the Entity List and the Foreign Direct Product Rule—have ping-ponged between Chinese and Russian targets, with each country serving as a proving ground for actions later taken against the other.”
Nor did the G-7 leaders stop there. They also indicated that new measures were being considered that might gradually cut Beijing out of the international financial system. While saying in a communiqué that they “recognize the importance of China in global trade” and affirming that they “are not trying to harm China or thwart its economic development,” the leaders obliquely threatened Chinese banks “and other entities in China” with measures to “restrict access to our financial systems.” That could ratchet up the war—and the risks to the system—dramatically.
China has already been quietly insulating itself from financial retaliation over its support of Russia in the past two years, said Hung Tran, a former deputy director at the International Monetary Fund, in a June 21 interview. “The major Chinese banks have been very cautious even in reducing their exposure and dealings with Russia. In place of that, smaller institutions not having any business with any U.S. entity have been set up to handle trade with Russia so that basically Russia-China trade is settled in renminbi and rubles.”
The senior administration official justified the decision to increase pressure on China by saying that “some of China’s actions to support the Russian war machine are now not just threatening Ukraine’s existence but European security and trans-Atlantic security.” The official added that among other “unrivaled policy distortions coming out of China”—meaning its unfair trade practices—Beijing was now openly supplying dual-use components and other economic aid to Russia. “There was unanimous agreement that the Russian military has been sustained by transforming its entire economy into a war machine and because China and other countries have been willing to serve” that effort, the official said.
In a blunt statement during his visit to Beijing in April, Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated these accusations, declaring that China was “powering Russia’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine” as “the top supplier of machine tools, microelectronics, nitrocellulose, which is critical to making munitions and rocket propellants, and other dual-use items that Moscow is using to ramp up its defense industrial base.”
The actions taken at the G-7 summit may well have been necessary. Nearly two and a half years into the war, support for aid from the United States and Europe is flagging, Kyiv’s forces are exhausted, Russia’s economy is still looking fairly robust, and a new anti-Western alignment is hardening between Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, and most recently North Korea. “We are stepping up our collective efforts to disarm and defund Russia’s military industrial complex,” the G-7 leaders said in their communiqué.
This latest approach to squeezing Russia started slowly, even painfully, amid a great deal of tension between the United States and European governments about just how tough to get with Moscow. Immediately following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, none of those governments had a problem imposing the usual economic sanctions—import and export restrictions and the like—and quickly. They took a major step further when they froze Russia’s central bank assets—an unprecedented move against such a large country—in addition to real estate properties, stocks, bonds, and various investments held by Russian oligarchs.
But actually seizing those bank assets was seen as a step too far, especially by the Europeans, who fought off an effort led by the U.S. Congress, and ultimately backed by the Biden administration, to pursue full seizure. That meant tampering with the international financial system itself—the complex postwar network of norms, codes, and laws that has underwritten the greatest surge of prosperity in recorded history and enriched the West. That felt a little too much like playing with elemental fire because it meant threatening the idea of sovereign immunity that is central to the system and because it meant posing increased risks to the holding of dollar- and euro-denominated assets. And having established this precedent, what about China? What effect will the G-7’s warnings have on Xi?
The shot fired in the communiqué could deter Xi from doing even more to isolate China’s ailing economy than he already has—specifically by invading or blockading Taiwan. Or, alternatively, it could mean the beginning of the end of the postwar global economic system if Xi decides to move against Taiwan anyway. Indeed, he could easily gamble that the United States wouldn’t dare do to China what it’s doing to Russia for exactly that reason.
If the United States and West were to respond to an invasion or blockade of Taiwan by freezing and leveraging Chinese assets, the result could be a freeze-up of the whole financial system and a devastating blow to the global economy. In the case of Russia, Washington needed to undergo many months of negotiation with the European Union because the vast majority of Russian assets are held in Europe and there was only about $300 billion or so to freeze. The same is not true of Chinese assets, which are huge and spread all over the world. Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Washington would be able to freeze some $800 billion in Chinese Treasury bill holdings entirely on its own, which is only a portion of some $3 trillion in Chinese-owned sovereign assets overseas. But Beijing could easily retaliate against that nearly $6 trillion in Western investment in China.
As Tran argues, the threat of a kind of financial MAD, or mutual assured destruction, is far too great. In “terms of balance sheet exposures, China has about $3.4 trillion of identifiable international assets at risk of possible sanctions and up to $5.8 trillion of liabilities to, or assets in China of, international investors and companies largely from Western countries. China therefore has plenty of room to take retaliatory actions,” Tran wrote in a 2022 post for the Atlantic Council titled “Wargaming a Western Freeze of China’s Foreign Reserves.”
The deep cross-integration between China and the West is what has led both sides to avoid a complete decoupling of economies, reflecting what former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers once called a “financial balance of terror.” As a result, “there will be more resistance to imposing the scope of sanctions we have imposed on Russia because Western economies are far more intertwined with China’s than they were with Russia’s,” said William Reinsch, a former U.S. commerce undersecretary now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Reinsch notes there is an important “qualitative difference” as well: “The Russian assets being used are those seized from oligarchs who have supported/enabled Putin. There are some Chinese oligarchs, but their relationship with their own government is much different, as is their role in the economy. If you go beyond oligarchs, you get very quickly to seizing sovereign assets, which I doubt the West would do and for which the consequences would be significant.”
But according to some China experts, the latest moves might only spur Xi to further decouple his economy. The “dimmer” that peaceful reunification with Taiwan seems, “the more incentives Beijing would have to reduce vulnerabilities to sanctions in case of a militarized conflict,” said Zongyuan Zoe Liu, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and columnist for Foreign Policy . “China has been diversifying its foreign exchange reserves since the 2000s. While previously the primary motivation was to search for higher returns and strategic assets, now it is also to reduce vulnerabilities to sanctions.”
And while Xi’s dream of a renminbi-based system still “has a long way to go”—the yuan is a distant fifth in global reserve currency holdings—escalating Western moves “may ultimately weaken international law protections for everyone, not only their intended targets,” Mitchell wrote recently for the Quincy Institute. As a result, “intensified weaponization of Western currencies could indeed boost China’s yuan efforts, and, more significantly, provide a major stimulus to plans for a BRICS basket reserve currency. The move would simultaneously improve Beijing’s reputation as an apparently more responsible actor with respect to foreign assets, while also perversely incentivizing it to further experiment with its own nascent unilateral sanctions regime.”
Russia is much more willing than China to blow up the international system. But that doesn’t mean Xi won’t decide he can afford to see that happen as well. As Tran argues, Beijing has been pursuing a “dual-track” strategy of working within the current Western-led trading system “but also wanting to find alternative ways to do this trade without being exposed to dollar sanctions.” Further sanctions could only push Xi further in the radical direction of trying to set up an alternative renminbi-based financial trading system.
“Both sides are kind of upping their ante,” Tran said.
Michael Hirsh is a columnist for Foreign Policy. He is the author of two books: Capital Offense: How Washington’s Wise Men Turned America’s Future Over to Wall Street and At War With Ourselves: Why America Is Squandering Its Chance to Build a Better World . Twitter: @michaelphirsh
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As governor of Minnesota, he has enacted policies to secure abortion protections, provide free meals for schoolchildren, allow recreational marijuana and set renewable energy goals.
By Maggie Astor
Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the newly announced running mate to Vice President Kamala Harris, has worked with his state’s Democratic-controlled Legislature to enact an ambitious agenda of liberal policies: free college tuition for low-income students, free meals for schoolchildren, legal recreational marijuana and protections for transgender people.
“You don’t win elections to bank political capital,” Mr. Walz wrote last year about his approach to governing. “You win elections to burn political capital and improve lives.”
Republicans have slammed these policies as big-government liberalism and accused Mr. Walz of taking a hard left turn since he represented a politically divided district in Congress years ago.
Here is an overview of where Mr. Walz stands on some key issues.
Mr. Walz signed a bill last year that guaranteed Minnesotans a “fundamental right to make autonomous decisions” about reproductive health care on issues such as abortion, contraception and fertility treatments.
Abortion was already protected by a Minnesota Supreme Court decision, but the new law guarded against a future court reversing that precedent as the U.S. Supreme Court did with Roe v. Wade, and Mr. Walz said this year that he was also open to an amendment to the state’s Constitution that would codify abortion rights.
Another bill he signed legally shields patients, and their medical providers, if they receive an abortion in Minnesota after traveling from a state where abortion is banned.
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