Week in Review: Europe and America React to Brexit, the Islamic State Attacks Turkey, China Cuts Off Taiwan, and Much More

Week in Review: Europe and America React to Brexit, the Islamic State Attacks Turkey, China Cuts Off Taiwan, and Much More

PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP/Getty Images, Getty Images, GREG BAKER/AFP/Getty Images, ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images

Week in Review: Europe and America React to Brexit, the Islamic State Attacks Turkey, China Cuts Off Taiwan, and Much More

All you need to know about everything in the news this week

July 2, 2016

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Highlights:

Reorganizing the EU after Brexit

  • In the wake of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, the German and French foreign ministers are pushing for the integration of a core Europe.
  • “Under the slogan ‘flexible Union,’ initial steps are being taken to establish a ‘core Europe,” wrote German-Foreign-Policy.com. “This would mean an EU, led by a small, tight-knit core of countries, with the rest of the EU member countries being subordinated to second-class status.”
  • In a position paper titled “Re-Found Europe,” German Minister of the Economy Sigmar Gabriel and European Parliament President Martin Schulz called on the EU to “more than ever” “act as a unified governing force.”
  • As our free booklet Germany and the Holy Roman Empire explains, this development is history repeating itself in dramatic fashion.

    • After Brexit, Germany is America’s best friend

  • “As one special relationship falters, another may beckon,” wrote Financial Times. “The British vote to leave the EU could hasten a changing of the guard among Washington’s European allies, with Germany replacing the UK as its most important partner.”
  • “Henry Kissinger’s famous question about ‘Who do I call in Europe?’ has now been settled. The answer is that we call the German chancellor’s office.”
  • This development is not a purely post-Brexit phenomenon—Brexit has only accelerated it.

    • Russo-Chinese cooperation lurches forward

  • The unprecedented strength and depth of ties that Russia and China forged in 2014 made the Moscow-Beijing alliance undeniable. Russia’s struggle under Western sanctions made that alliance questionable. But Alexander Gabuev, the Russian chair in the Asia-Pacific program at the Carnegie Moscow Center, warned that despite Russia’s economic trouble, and despite some hype and exaggeration from Moscow and Beijing, the partnership between Russia and China is still formidable and growing stronger.

    • China’s relations with Taiwan

  • Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen, elected in a landslide vote on January 16, has made good on her vows to reject the “One-China” principle and to push for full-blown Taiwanese independence from China.
  • Beijing responded by ending its diplomatic contact with Taiwan.
  • Will this crisis escalate to war? What does it reveal about the United States?

    • Other news:

  • Aside from exposing the leadership void in Europe, “Britain’s departure from the EU has made Germany far more powerful than it should be,” wrote Foreign Policy.
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin lifted a ban on tourism to Turkey after his first talks with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan since the November downing of a Russian warplane plunged relations into crisis.
  • Richard Posner, a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, said he “sees absolutely no value to a judge of spending decades, years, months, weeks, day, hours, minutes, or seconds studying the Constitution, the history of its enactment, its amendments, and its implementation.”

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