Think-Tanks'Press

Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president of Georgia and ex-head of the Odesa Regional State Administration, returned to Ukraine on 10 September at a border crossing with Poland. He had been stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship at the end of July by Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko, supposedly for concealing in 2015 from the Ukrainian migration service that he had been under investigation in Georgia.

Saakashvili returned to Ukraine for political reasons—he wants to challenge Poroshenko’s decision in court and build his own political platform under the banners of de-oligarchisation and fighting corruption. A key role in the political attempt will be played by the Movement of New Forces, a party established by Saakashvili in late 2016.

Saakashvili’s presence changes the political balance in Ukraine. It may exacerbate the conflict between, on one side, Poroshenko, for whom the return of a political opponent is a personal defeat, and Yulia Tymoshenko and Andriy Sadovyi on the other. Both Tymoshenko and Sadovyi helped Saakashvili cross the Ukraine border, seeing it as an opportunity to weaken Poroshenko. Since Tymoshenko is likely to be the main opposition candidate in the next presidential election and has a high level of electoral support (10–12%), Poroshenko may be forced to take some actions to discredit the Batkivschyna party leader anyway. Helping Saakashvili therefore will only be a formal pretext to exert pressure on Tymoshenko and her faction.

After years of economic mismanagement and political strife, Venezuela finds itself in the midst of a political, economic, and humanitarian crisis, due in part to an unsustainable loans-for-oil debtor relationship with China.

The heyday of Chavez’s political dominance during the first decade of the 2000s coincided with Beijing’s dramatic upscaling of its commercial and diplomatic relationship with Caracas.

Over the past decade, China has become Venezuela’s key overseas financial lifeline, providing the oil-dependent economy with over $60 billion in oil-backed loans and tens of billions more in other contracts and investment deals.

Ultimately, Venezuela is faced with the choice of defaulting on its loan and oil shipment agreements or further curtailing government spending on domestic social and humanitarian programs in order to service its debts to China and other creditors.

China may view the chaotic status quo in Venezuela as a safer bet for having its loans repaid and ensuring future oil shipments—not to mention preserving its close state-to-state ties—than a transition to a different, possibly opposition-led government.

During the G20 summit in Hamburg in July, Beijing unexpectedly opened a new frontier of Internet censorship: users of the social network Weibo were prevented from sharing and commenting on posts mentioning Vladimir Putin.

The Financial Times first reported on the story on July 10, concluding that the censorship signaled a golden age of Sino-Russian relations. As Chinese journalist Cai Shenkun told the FT, Putin is the first foreign leader to have the privilege of being shielded from criticism on the Chinese Internet.

Some experts agreed that the ban on undesirable comments speaks to the state of Sino-Russian relations and the unique character of the two countries’ partnership, and that it showed Beijing’s desire not to damage bilateral relations. That said, they could not explain why interest in censoring information about Putin was so short-lived and coincided perfectly with the G20 summit.

With this in mind, the Putin censorship appears to have been an attempt to draw the Chinese people’s attention away from Russian-American talks ( the first meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump ). It’s no mystery why this was done. In the year of a party conference, commentary on any domestic and international developments must focus on Xi Jinping. Preparing a media strategy for the G20 summit, Chinese propaganda organs did all that they could to ensure that talks between Putin and Trump did not eclipse China’s participation in the G20 summit meeting.

Tensions between France and Italy soared in July following the French government’s decision to nationalise shipbuilder Stx/Chantier de l’Atlantique rather than give Italy’s Fincantieri a majority stake, thus reneging on an agreement between Italy and France’s previous government. Diplomatic relations had already been tested earlier that week when President Macron organised a peace conference on Libya without inviting the Italian government that considers itself a key player on the Libyan dossier. The two events, which are unrelated, created a perfect storm among Italians, resulting in some public spats and a queue of French ministers flying to Rome to patch up relations.

Current Franco-Italian disagreements recall the events of 2011, when France and the United Kingdom took the lead in a military intervention in Libya. The Italian government at the time was hampered by political troubles at home was unable to fulfil what could have been a “natural” mediating role for Italy.

The same year as the Libya intervention, French investment in Italy also contributed to the perception of a French conquest of the peninsula.

Contemporary tensions reopened old wounds among Italians who see the French state as protectionist and nationalist, recalling the 2006 attempt of Italian state-controlled energy company ENEL to take over the French-based utility company Suez. The attempt was blocked by the French government, which instead created the state controlled GDF-Suez group in order to keep the company in French hands.