President of IMEMO RAS. EM Primakova, academician Alexander Dynkin
Photo: Oksana ZUYKO
On Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda, the president of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences. EM Primakov Alexander Dynkin spoke about the most intriguing elections next year and how the war in the Gaza Strip could affect its outcome.
TAIWAN FORK
– Alexander Alexandrovich, it seems that 2024 will be a fateful year for the planet, if only because, first of all, there will be many elections in different countries. And secondly, many crises will come to a climax. What do you expect from him?
– I think the most intriguing event is the presidential elections in Taiwan, which will be held on January 13. The fact is that there are two groups of voters in Taiwan: the local population, who have always lived there, and the Kuomintang movement, which was forced to leave there in 1949 after being defeated by the Chinese communists. At that time, between 1.2 and 1.3 million people moved to Taiwan. These were military personnel, government officials and intelligence agencies.
– Those white Chinese emigrants.
– Yes. But over time, the indigenous population of Taiwan and the newcomers from the Kuomintang stopped getting along. A grassroots party called the Democratic Progressive Party emerged. And she is absolutely pro-American. Today they are the ones in power. But for these elections a third party unexpectedly emerged: the Taiwan People’s Party. And, according to polls, they follow the leader, the ruling party.
Another surprise from this campaign is that a self-proclaimed independent candidate has emerged, Foxconn founder billionaire Terry Gou. And there’s a good chance the new party will invite him. And then, according to the polls, they will have the majority of votes. This will be a completely unexpected result in the elections in Taiwan. Neither the Kuomintang nor the Democratic Party. And the third force.
– If a hot conflict suddenly occurs in Taiwan, will the United States support its supporters? After all, the United States is already helping Ukraine and Israel.
– It was written in the American military strategy that they could fight two medium-sized regional wars at the same time. Then Trump canceled it: he said we would postpone a war. But three? Of course not.
– Maybe China is also not too interested in a military escalation?
– From my point of view, no. And here we must take into account that only 11 countries in the world have a surplus in foreign trade with China. And first among them is Taiwan. Therefore, economic relations with Taiwan are very important for China.
5 QUESTIONS FOR THE UKRAINIAN ELECTIONS
– The elections in Ukraine are the next important event in 2024. However, it is not yet known whether they will take place…
– Zelensky declared martial law until February 14. According to the Constitution of Ukraine, it is prohibited to change the Constitution, hold elections, mass gatherings or strikes during martial law. What will happen next is still unclear. His entourage indicates that Zelensky is reflecting. As far as Moscow can judge, Washington and Brussels tell him that it is necessary to hold elections. The most reasoned position was taken by the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, who said that elections can take place if five issues are resolved: how to give the Ukrainian military the opportunity to vote, how to give refugees the right to vote, how to celebrate elections in the former territories, who will finance the electoral process and how to give free access to the media under conditions of total censorship. These last two questions indicate that the country is gradually turning into a banana republic. If they ask for external funding for their elections, from my point of view, this does not fit any objective.
It is difficult to say today how this story will end. I believe that if forces prevail in Washington that are determined to get out of this conflict, then they should change the president of the war.
AMERICAN DEMOCRATS GO ALL-IN
– And, of course, the year 2024 will be marked by the American elections, which will take place on November 5. Do you agree with those who predict a rematch between Biden and Trump?
– Today everything is going in that direction. When you look at the Democrats, in my opinion, they have a surprisingly short bench. In reality, they are Biden and Kamala Harris, a former California prosecutor. By the way, it turned out to be a pretty weak policy. By current estimates, Democrats won’t have time to promote anyone else, they just don’t have time. And I can’t imagine how Biden, in his current physical condition, can endure a tough two-hour televised debate.
The Republican seat is, of course, longer, but Trump remains the dominant candidate there. His most real competitor is Florida Governor DeSantis. If Trump calls DeSantis vice president, his chances of winning will be very high. In five of the six swing states, Trump continues to lead in the polls. The first Republican primary in Iowa will be on January 15. And, in my opinion, many things will become clear on March 5, when the so-called Super Tuesday will be celebrated, when primaries will be held in a large number of states and 1,026 electoral votes will be distributed. But the difficulty of the forecast lies in the fact that Trump’s trial for electoral interference is scheduled for March 4. It seems to me that the Democrats are going with everything. If Trump is found guilty, voter preferences could swing in one direction or another.
Hamas confused ALL THE PLANS
– The war in the Middle East has completely displaced all other topics from the front pages of the world’s media over the past month and a half. Why is there so much attention given to it when the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis has flared up and calmed down for 70 years?
– The fact is that lately there has been a kind of détente in the Middle East. For example, with the mediation of Beijing, a rapprochement occurred between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Iran. India and Israel strongly emphasized friendly relations. There was a certain détente between Ankara and Tel Aviv. In addition, the India – Saudi Arabia – Israel – Europe transport corridor was announced. But the most important thing, which in my opinion did not suit the Hamas leaders, was that the negotiations on the normalization of relations between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Israel were advancing with the active role of Washington. If the agreement had been signed, Hamas’s role would have been relegated to the periphery.
– So far it seems that there are no obvious winners in this war. Even if Israel occupies the Gaza Strip, what will it do with it then?
“And economically, Israel is suffering great damage. The shekel has already fallen by about 10% and the stock market has plummeted. 350 thousand reservists created a shortage in the labor market in Israel. All direct and foreign investment was stopped. Türkiye supported Palestine. Erdogan waited several days for the situation to become clearer and valued this normalization with Tel Aviv. But then, when he saw the scale of the IDF operation, when he faced massive demonstrations within the country, he had no choice. I think somewhere in the subconscious Erdogan was probably jealous of Israel because Israel was trying to become an energy center in the eastern Mediterranean. Today the gas supply to Egypt was stopped, and it was quite decent, Israel stopped all its offshore gas fields. So there are serious problems here.
– But Palestine suffers even more!
– Since the last war, life there has seriously deteriorated. In 2011, 39% of Gaza’s population lived below the poverty line, in 21 the figure was already 59%. Unemployment is off the charts, people are deprived of their passports, they cannot leave this strip of land 45 kilometers long and 12 or 14 kilometers wide. Summer polls showed a drop in the popularity of Hamas’s formal leader, Ismail Haniyeh, who lives large in Qatar. According to the polls, he is in second place, and in first place is Marwan Barghouti, he is a member of the Fatah Central Committee and has been in an Israeli prison for 20 years. And 12%, Mahmoud Abbas. That is, if you add up the votes, relatively speaking, of Barghouti and Abbas, then they are significantly ahead of Haniyeh’s influence among the Palestinians. Therefore, perhaps Hamas was in a hurry for this.
– We see huge demonstrations in Europe in support of Palestine. Could this result in some kind of revolutionary movement?
– In my opinion, this will depend on the duration of the Israel Liberation Army’s operation in Gaza. If this trade ends in say 3 weeks, then this wave will subside. If it continues another 3 months it will increase, from my point of view. And perhaps this will somehow affect the European Parliament elections next summer.
– Will far-right parties come to power in the EU?
– If we talk about the elections to the European Parliament, I think that the biggest shocks can be associated with Mrs. Meloni, the Prime Minister of Italy. Her opinions are very close to those of Donald Trump and she is a fairly influential person in Europe. She has a bad relationship with Macron. And if the war in Gaza continues for a long time and the migrant crisis continues, then this could benefit politicians like Meloni.
POST-GLOBALIZATION HORIZONS
– Soon IMEMO will hold the traditional “Primakov Readings”. What topics will be the most important there this year?
– In fact, we will hold the ninth Primakov Reading on November 27 and 28 at the World Trade Center. We will have more than 59 experts from 26 countries. We chose the following general theme: “Horizons of post-globalization.” Taking into account that American-style globalization has ended and the post-global world begins. Probably one of the first events of this post-global world was the G20 meeting in New Delhi, where the West failed to push for a confrontational statement, and this largely failed due to the position of Prime Minister Modi. Therefore, we will talk about relations between China and the United States, the Global South, the Middle East, we will talk about Africa, from where we expect very distinguished guests. And we will talk about the Baltic countries, a region that is extremely important for us. As is tradition, the forum will be opened by presidential assistant Yuri Ushakov. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, and the General Director of Rosatom, Alexei Likhachev, await us as special guests.
