As Japan prepares to host its first G20 leaders’ summit later this month, little remains of the open and cooperative spirit that marked the first such gathering in 2008. But although the United States will most likely continue its protectionist drift, other G20 countries should use the occasion to make a clear case for free trade.
Policy gurus spend too much time with others like them – top civil servants, high-flying journalists, successful businesspeople – and too little time with ordinary voters. If they could become “humble, competent people on a level with dentists,” as John Maynard Keynes once suggested, voters might identify with them and find them trustworthy.
For Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, appeasing US President Donald Trump is not so much a choice as a necessity: he must prove to Japan’s people and their neighbors, particularly the Chinese, that he knows how to keep Trump on his side. But Abe's strategy won't work with a US administration as fickle and self-serving as Trump’s.
Jun 19, 2019 laments the continued US drift toward trade protectionism ahead of the upcoming summit in Japan.
Jun 19, 2019 explains why Poland's ruling party has proven immune to scandals that would have toppled previous governments.
Jun 19, 2019 says that academics and policy wonks nowadays face a problem familiar to politicians.
Jun 19, 2019 has little faith in Shinzo Abe's plan to flatter the US president into behaving like a loyal ally.
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Many on the political left want central banks to play a much larger role in funding public programs directly, based on an approach known as Modern Monetary Theory. But to get what they want, they will have to win the ongoing debate about the economic soundness of their ideas.
Much has changed in China in the three decades since the Tiananmen Square massacre. But the government’s official erasure of an event that has defined China’s modern history shows that much else remains the same.
With nationalist, populist, and illiberal movements continuing to take aim at the foundations of liberal democracy and the market economy, fresh solutions for today's problems are in high demand. For policymakers and experts, though, the challenge is not just to offer answers, but to convey them effectively to citizens.
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