{"id":20137,"date":"2020-08-28T12:34:49","date_gmt":"2020-08-28T12:34:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/?p=20137"},"modified":"2024-01-09T13:33:00","modified_gmt":"2024-01-09T13:33:00","slug":"the-week-in-foreign-policy-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/2020\/08\/the-week-in-foreign-policy-14\/","title":{"rendered":"The week in foreign policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re back with the week in foreign policy – exploring what\u2019s happening away from the front pages, and key developments in global affairs that have caught our eye.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fears over an \u2018East-West split\u2019 in the so-called architecture of the internet have ramped up as Western governments, led by America, look to ban Chinese involvement in the construction of their digital comms infrastructure. Peter Foster, in the <\/span>Financial Times<\/span><\/a>, spoke to the head of the National Cyber Security Center, who noted that it looks unlikely that the current, free and open \u2018version\u2019 of the internet will survive. Ciaran Martin said <\/span>Western countries \u201cneed to make sure that our technological development keeps pace with, and outpaces, any competing model. That\u2019s what really matters.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Elsewhere, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a speech to the Republican National Convention – focussed on President Donald Trump officially accepting the GOP\u2019s nomination for the presidency – a controversial move given the office very rarely gets involved in domestic, partisan politics. <\/span>The Telegraph<\/span><\/a> reported that Pompeo praised the President\u2019s foreign policy wins in his speech, and wrote that: \u201cMr Pompeo delivered standard recitations of Republican party claims about the successes of Trump’s “America First” foreign policy against Russia, China and Iran. He said they made his family – wife Susan and son Nick – and all Americans safer. He spoke of the defeat of the Islamic State’s physical caliphate, Mr Trump’s pro-Israel agenda and the president’s determined vigilance to guard against the “predatory aggression” of the Chinese Communist Party.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The crackdown in Belarus continued in earnest this week, as authorities arrested leading opposition figures, who are pivotal in the protests against the President, Aleksandr Lukashenko. Our <\/span>Evie Aspinall<\/span><\/a> wrote a helpful explainer of the situation in Belarus, noting that: <\/span>\u201cDuring the 2020 election, all of Lukashenko\u2019s main political rivals were either exiled or jailed. This included Sergei Tikhanovsky, a prominent blogger who was arrested in May, after which his wife \u2013 Svetlana Tikhanovskaya \u2013 stepped in, becoming the main opposition candidate. On the 9th August, the Central Election Commission announced that Lukashenko had won 80.1% of the vote, and his rival Ms Tikanovskaya had won just 10.12%.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe – the longest serving Prime Minister in the history of the country – has announced his resignation on health grounds. Al Jazeera examines the runners and riders to succeed Abe, including Taro Aso, the 79-year-old Minister of Finance, and Shigeru Ishiba, a \u2018hawkish\u2019 former defence Minister. According to the website, Abe\u2019s resignation speech was hugely apologetic. <\/span>“I have decided to step down from the post of the prime minister,” Abe said, saying he was suffering from the same condition that ended his first term in office. “I cannot be prime minister if I cannot make the best decisions for the people.”<\/span><\/p>\n

In an interesting read from the team at <\/span>POLITICO<\/span><\/a>, it\u2019s clear that the departure of EU Commissioner Phil Hogan has sparked unrest amongst EU officials. The article notes that officials see the removal of Hogan as a sign that commissioners – previously bordering on the unaccountable – are no longer \u2018bulletproof.\u2019 The article notes that: \u201cfor some Commission officials and diplomats, von der Leyen\u2019s approach marks a break with the past: The perception that senior Commission officials could act with impunity, safe in the knowledge that it was almost inconceivable they would be forced out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our Communications & Events Manager, Matt Gillow, explores the stories behind the front pages, in the latest week in foreign policy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}