Weekend Box: China’s Economy Out of Service, Africa Coups & more
Welcome to The Weekend Box, Audley’s weekly round-up of interesting or obscure political, business and cultural news from around the world.
Image credit/US Army Africa from Vicenza, Italy/License
AFRICA COUPS: THE IMBALANCE OF POWER
Recent military coups in Gabon and Niger have followed those in Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso, prompting questions about what links them. Coup leaders’ rhetoric has been predominately about rejecting imperialism and neo-colonialism. Some commentators, like Arikana Chihombori-Quao, former African Union permanent representative to the US, have called it the early stages of an “African revolution” against neo-colonialism, a reaction to the West’s “plunder of the continent’s natural resources.”
These countries were once French colonies and retained strong links post-independence. As Islamist radicalism and terrorism spread across the Sahel, accelerated by lawlessness and an outflow of weapons from Libya, France maintained significant numbers of troops in the region leading counter-terrorism operations with local forces. Economically, French trade links have endured, partly through these countries still using the CFA franc – guaranteed by France and pegged to the Euro – as currency. This requires 50% of their foreign exchange reserves to be held in France. Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea share some of the lowest ranking in the UNDP’s Human Development Index, lending some credence to claims of exploitation.
However, another country actively involved with all these countries’ juntas prompts more questions: Russia. Anti-French sentiment in the region grew just as Russian influence did, with Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenaries aggressively replacing France as suppliers of security forces. In return, they secured lucrative assets such as gold mines. Prigozhin’s suspicious death has not seen this Russian influence wane: the Kremlin has replaced him with new management as it consolidates influence, assets, and the means to control migration flows towards Europe.
Other local countries worry about this contagion, with Nigeria leading stern warnings from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to reinstate Niger’s former leader or face armed intervention. But with allies and new partners, the coup leaders are enjoying new impunity.
Image credit/Kremlin.ru/License
CHINA’S ECONOMY: OUT OF SERVICE
This week, in a reversal of a long-held view, Bloomberg Economics has reported that China’s economy is far from eclipsing that of the United States. In fact, it will be two decades before China’s GDP is even a competitor, and even then, it’s marginal. This slower growth path and China’s stuttering economy has been blamed on weak population growth and the aftershocks of a strict COVID-19 lockdown. Global markets were also rattled this week by an announcement that in August the service sector activity in the world’s second-biggest economy fell to its lowest level in eight months, due to a lack of demand and a slump in housing sales (property makes up nearly 30% of Chinese GDP).
This is no doubt eroding President Xi Jinping’s image at home and abroad, with rumours swirling that he was given a dressing down by party elders at an annual gathering this summer. The president has also been mysteriously absent, with no-shows at the G20 this week (an event he has attended in the past) and at Brics, a business forum where he was billed to speak. For him, the next few months will be a battle to restore economic confidence, while the battle for influence in Asia wages on.
In his push for South-East Asian diplomacy, President Biden announced a new Strategic Partnership Agreement with Vietnam this week to rival similar arrangements the country has with Russia and China. Vietnam’s relationship with the latter has frayed in recent months over a long-standing territorial dispute over parts of the South China Sea. This incidentally caused the Barbie movie to be banned this summer in Vietnam for featuring China’s controversial ‘nine-dash line,’ which represents the country’s controversial maritime claim to the area. With the US making friends with former foes and China ruffling its neighbour’s feathers, President Jinping faces enormous economic and diplomatic tests.
Image credit/MEAphotogallery on Flickr/License
BJP INVITING CONTROVERSY
A culturally charged political row broke out in India earlier this week, following the issuing of an invitation to a G20 dinner from the “President of Bharat.”
Bharat is the Hindi word for India. Both names are used within official documents, such as passports, and the constitution assumes their joint use.
The controversy stems from the invitation’s break with convention. Hitherto, invitations issued by Indian constitutional bodies have always referred to India when the text is in English, and Bharat when the text is in Hindi.
Speculation is rife that the ruling BJP party wants to ditch the term “India,” which some MPs see as a name imposed on the country by colonial powers. (India is itself an ancient Greek word to describe the land around the Indus). Such a move would certainly chime with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s particular brand of nationalism.
In response, one opposition MP pointed to the “incalculable brand value built up over centuries” of the name India and thought Modi’s government would be foolish to dispense with it so casually.
Political commentators wondered if the use of Bharat may have a more immediate tactical relevance. Opponents of the BJP recently formed INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance). Some thought this a masterstroke as it will lead to generating endless headlines such as “Modi opposes India.” Modi’s motivation may be more about countering opposition moves rather than a genuine desire to erase the name ‘India.’
As its hosting of the G20 shows, the geopolitical significance of the country currently known as India is growing each year. So, while its name might be in doubt, what is clear is that it will be a serious player on the world stage over the coming decades.
A RIGHT ROYALTY PAIN
The rise of streaming has been revolutionary for music listeners. Although in the case of Spotify, which is infamous for being stingy with royalties, music-makers have had less cause for celebration and more for revolt. Now, rival platform Deezer has joined forces with Universal Music Group (UMG) to offer a more lucrative streaming model for musicians.
The streamer and the music multinational are introducing what they have described as the “first comprehensive artist-centric streaming model,” reportedly increasing royalty payouts by 10%. Given the controversy that Spotify’s compensation model has generated over the years, paying rights holders for their share of streams from the total number in a given market, Deezer and UMG’s sounds like a step in the right direction; at least, on the surface.
Musicians may well take issue with the fact that artists with a minimum of 1,000 monthly streams and 500 unique listeners, whom they call ‘professional artists’, will be compensated twice as much for streams of their music as less popular artists.
The model will also double compensation for ‘active’ streams, i.e. when a user has sought out an artist’s song to play, versus streams enabled by Deezer’s algorithm. Altogether, less-established artists who hope to get a boost with help from the algorithm will be much worse off.
The latter feature, and the decision to demonetise “non-artist noise audio,” suggest Deezer are trying to outshine Spotify on royalties while also working around a different problem that has plagued their rival: AI-generated music, which exists purely to rack up streams.
However, it seems there’s work to be done yet if Deezer are to nip this problem in the bud and turn a profit by 2025 as they’ve pledged to do, while also keeping artists happy.
Image credit/Squonk11 on Flickr/License
APOSTROPHES: NOT WRITTEN IN 'STONES
Ten years ago, struggling to adapt to a digital age, the bookshop founded by Tim Waterstone and then named ‘Waterstone’s’ dropped the apostrophe from its name. Among the outraged - or perhaps the only outraged - was the Apostrophe Protection Society, an organisation whose mission is ‘to preserve the correct use of this important, though much misused, item of punctuation.’
The society was launched in 2001 but closed in 2019 on the death of its founder, John Richards. Earlier this year, with permission of Richards’ son, it was relaunched by language enthusiast Bob McCalden. McCalden looks to be a more liberal leader of the society, reversing his predecessor’s opinion that ‘the Barbarians [had] won’ and instead stating:
“Language changes. And that is exactly an area of language that changes. That is a brand name. And if Waterstone’s [sic] wanted to change their branding, that’s fine. That is their prerogative. There will be things that change like that that I am entirely comfortable with.”
As the Audley Intelligence team recently wrote, language is an evolving entity. But it’s an interesting stance from someone choosing to renew a society designed to ‘champion the use of the apostrophe’. You’d be forgiven for thinking he might take any opportunity to lament the loss of an apostrophe – to protect it, as the name suggests.
But perhaps McCalden is just more pragmatic in his views on apostrophe preservation. He must have his reasons. What they are, its - sorry, it’s - hard to tell.
And that’s it for this week. I hope you found something of interest that you might want to delve into further. If so, please get in touch at cwilkins@audleyadvisors.com.
For now, that’s The Weekend Box officially closed.