True North Humanist Perspective - April 2015
Lia Tarachansky
Third of a three-part series. For the first two see March, April issues
Ex-Chancellor Schroeder criticizes Merkel’s Russia policy
German leader urges West to stop sabre rattling toward Russia
28 March 2015
rt.com
German ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has slammed Angela Merkel’s policy toward Russia, saying he understands Moscow’s foreign policy concerns and sees no reason to fear a possible Russian threat in Eastern Europe.
Schroeder, the chancellor of Germany from 1998-2005, fully recognized Russia's concerns, which are linked to the growing isolation of the country. “The Warsaw Pact ceased to exist with the end of the Soviet Union, while NATO not only survived, but also has extensively expanded to the East,” he said in a Saturday 28 March interview with Der Spiegel. (More)
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China's Xi defies expectations
Xi is the mother of all boat rockers
By Felicia Sonmez, Kelly Olsen
Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party, was widely viewed as a compromise candidate between rival factions when he took office two years ago Saturday, winning approval from both influential former president Jiang Zemin and Xi's predecessor, Hu Jintao.
At the helm of a party whose prime goal is ensuring its own continued rule, Xi was expected to continue the leadership's risk-averse approach — but instead, experts say he has confounded expectations by presiding over a far-reaching anti-graft campaign and a harsh crackdown on activists, sending shockwaves through the ranks of the party elite and civil society alike.
"If anybody had had any inkling of what was going to happen, he would not have been picked," said Minxin Pei, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College who has written two books on contemporary Chinese politics.
After the death in 1976 of Communist China's founding father Mao Zedong — who was at the centre of a huge personality cult — the party became deeply conservative politically, Pei said, with its innermost circle selecting top leaders who would respect a new set of norms.
There was to be a consensus-based decision-making process, a respect for the physical safety of other party members and — crucially — no strong leaders.
"Both Jiang and Hu were in that mould," Pei said, noting that other than Xi, the six remaining members of the party's elite Politburo Standing Committee "are people who will not rock the boat".
But Pei added: "In the case of Xi, they've got the mother of all boat-rockers. The people who picked him must be regretting bitterly that they picked somebody who turned out to be completely different." (More)
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