With Nancy Pelosi’s visit last week to Taiwan and China’s response, we decided it was time to turn our attention back to Asia. While Ukraine, Russia, and Europe have garnered an outsized share of the news coverage (for obvious reasons), China hasn’t been sitting still.
I expect we’ll do a survey of the various initiatives and developments within China and vis-a-vis its neighbors and trading partners.
I think we decided last Monday to talk about the latest developments in Ukraine. Topics might include any of the following:
How long can/will the US and Europe continue to supply arms and aid to Ukraine?
What role is Turkey playing in the conflict – mediator, in the case of the purported agreement to allow Ukraine to export grain? Spoiler, in the case of its repeated threats to veto the admission to NATO of Finland and Sweden?
Is there an end game to the conflict? If so, what is it for Russia? Ukraine? the US? the EU? Or is it still to soon to come up with any?
What lessons are China and the US learning from the conflict in Ukraine that might be relevant to a possible conflict over Taiwan in the near future?
Why do a large majority of Russians seem to support the war (aside from not wanting to risk jail by publicly opposing it)? Although it might be a dubious attempt to analyze the Russian national psyche, I think this opinion piece from the 26 July edition of the New York Times isn’t far off the mark (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/26/opinion/russia-ukraine-putin.html?smid=em-share).
I think we agreed to discuss West Virginia v. EPA this week—in which the Supreme Court limited the administration’s regulatory flexibility. If I got it wrong, please forgive!