EU calls crisis summit after failure of Greece bailout talks - Financial Times

June 19, 2015 at 1:07pm

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Last updated: June 19, 2015 12:19 am
EU calls crisis summit after failure of Greece bailout talks
Peter Spiegel in Luxembourg

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis gives a press conference at the end of a eurozone finance ministers meeting at the European Union Council headquarters in Luxembourg on June 18, 201
Yanis Varoufakis
The eurozone’s leaders have been summoned to an emergency summit in Brussels in a last-ditch effort to prevent Greece from defaulting on its debts and potentially crashing out of the EU’s common currency after finance ministers failed to agree a deal to release desperately needed bailout aid.
Donald Tusk, the European Council president who convened the summit of eurozone heads of government, said the finance ministers’ failure on Thursday evening meant it was now time to “urgently discuss” the Greek crisis “at the highest political level”.

Alexis Tsipras, Greek prime minister, has long sought to negotiate a deal with his fellow leaders, and some eurozone officials said they remained hopeful that Mr Tsipras — who has privately told EU leaders he wants to reach a deal — will agree to creditors’ terms on Monday despite four months of resistance.
“The key emergency is to restore a dialogue with adults in the room,” said Christine Lagarde, the International Monetary Fund chief who attended the session.
Although Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, presented a new proposal for a “deficit brake” to automatically cut spending across the board if the government’s budget went into the red, eurozone officials said the plan mimicked existing EU rules and was dismissed by those in the room.

Instead, fellow ministers vented their frustration at Mr Varoufakis for the stalemate. According to two officials present, Benoit Coeuré, the European Central Bank board member responsible for crisis issues, warned that the uncertainty over Greece’s future had become so severe he was unsure Greek banks would be able to open on Monday.
A senior Athens banker said that nearly €2bn in deposits had been withdrawn from Greek banks from Monday through Wednesday of this week. The Greek central bank late on Thursday night requested an unscheduled conference call of the ECB governing council on Friday to get approval for additional emergency loans to keep Greek banks afloat.
Mr Coeuré’s warning was first reported by Reuters. The ECB declined to comment.
But after a four-hour meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Luxembourg, Greece’s creditors expressed their exasperation in unusually sharp terms, saying the two sides were no closer to an agreement. They insisted that Athens must become more serious in presenting a credible reform plan to access the €7.2bn in aid remaining in the bailout programme.
Mr Varoufakis blamed fearmongering by the preceding government, unreasonable demands from creditors, and inappropriate warnings from the Greek central bank for causing the spike in withdrawals, which have sparked fears of a full-scale bank run. He rejected the idea of imposing capital controls to slow the deposit flight.


“A monetary union that has accepted capital controls is a monetary union that has accepted that it has failed in its duty to preserve the free flow of capital,” Mr Varoufakis said.

In depth: Greece debt crisis
Greece debt crisis
The Syriza government is facing resistance to its plans to tackle the country’s massive debt burden

According to people briefed on eurozone planning, Greece’s central bank could request that Mr Tsipras legislate for capital controls if no agreement is reached at the Monday night summit, called for 7pm.
Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister who chaired the ministerial gathering in Luxembourg, for the first time acknowledged that time had run out to disburse rescue funds to Athens before the bailout programme closes at the end of the month.
Instead, Mr Dijsselbloem said that any agreement would now need an extension of the programme into July — the third extension in six months — heightening the risk that Greece will default on a €1.5bn loan repayment due to the IMF in less than two weeks.
“It is unthinkable the implementation [of reforms by Greece] and then disbursement would also take place before the end of the month,” Mr Dijsselbloem said.
Greek debt crisis: Key dates on road to a possible Grexit
EU/IMF inspectors in Greece as eurozone exit fears grow...epa03316123 An illustration showing a Greek flag projected onto a Greek one euro coin in Schwerin, Schwerin,†Germany, 24 July 2012. International creditors will on 24 review Greece's troubled austerity programme at a time of renewed concern about the country's future in the eurozone. The new conservative-led coalition government is scrambling to come up with 2.5 billion euros (3 billion dollars) more in savings to meet the target of 11.5 billion euros set by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for 2013 and 2014. Among the measures recommended by the Center of Planning and Economic Research (KEPE) pension cuts worth an estimated total of 5.1 billion euros. EPA/JENS BUETTNER
The five-month stand-off between Athens and its bailout lenders may be entering its most critical phase.

If a deal is reached and an extension agreed, among the options being discussed by creditors is using €10.9bn in existing aid previously set aside to recapitalise Greek banks and redeploying it as normal bailout funds that Athens could use to pay its upcoming debts. Athens faces €6.7bn in bond repayments in July and August.
But Mr Dijsselbloem made clear that no extension would be granted unless a deal were struck on economic reforms. Athens has vociferously rejected the creditors’ compromise plan because of cuts demanded in public sector pensions and tax increases on electricity.
Mr Dijsselbloem rejected Mr Tsipras’ continued demands that any agreement include debt relief. Several officials believe the Greek premier will be unable to sign a deal without some kind of debt restructuring; eurozone officials said leaders were prepared to offer the promise of future writedowns, but not as part of the current deal.
“The logical order of things is that we reach agreement on the terms of the . . . fiscal measures, reforms, first before we look to the future,” Mr Dijsselbloem said of Greek proposal for debt restructuring. “This Greek proposal is part of their vision of the future.”

Divorce Greece in haste, repent at leisure - Financial Times

June 17, 2015 at 10:48pm

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June 16, 2015 5:56 pm
Divorce Greece in haste, repent at leisure
Martin WolfMartin Wolf

The outbreak of the first world war was, we are told, greeted with confidence and jubilation by the peoples of Europe. Something similar seems to be happening after years of economic crisis and political turmoil in Greece. A growing number of people feel that enough is now enough. The strident views expressed in these pages by the Italian economist, Francesco Giavazzi, are shared by many in high office. Meanwhile, Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, accuses Greece’s creditors of “pillaging” his country.

Olivier Blanchard, the International Monetary Fund’s sober chief economist, indicates that a deal might still be reached. But many are beginning to long to see the knot cut. Whatever game the Greeks thought they were playing, their government may now just desire an end to the humiliation. Similarly, whatever game the eurogroup may have been playing, it may now just want an end to the frustration. If so, Greek default, exit and devaluation could be fairly close.
Would euphoria then last? I fear not. The assumption of some in the eurozone is not only that the Greek case is unique, but that the disaster those sinners so deserve would improve the behaviour of everybody else. But the currency union would also no longer be irrevocable. New crises will occur. When they do, confidence in the union would be less than complete after a Greek exit. The programme of Outright Monetary Transactions, announced by the European Central Bank in 2012, might need to be implemented, to calm nerves. But it could fail. Self-fulfilling speculation could force even more divorces.
Some argue that Greece at least would be far better off after a default and exit. It is indeed theoretically possible that a default to its public creditors, combined with introduction of a new currency, a big devaluation (accompanied by sound monetary and fiscal policies), maintenance of an open economy, structural reforms and institutional improvements would mark a turn for the better. Far more likely is a period of chaos and, at worst, emergence of a failed state. A Greece that could manage exit well would have also avoided today’s plight.
Podcast


As Greece heads closer to a default, how are the markets reacting and what would happen if the Tsipras government failed to reach a deal with Greece’s creditors? Patrick Jenkins, FT financial editor, discusses the potential fallout with Ralph Atkins, Martin Arnold and Caroline Binham.
Neither side should underestimate the risks. It is also crucial to avoid the contempt so characteristic of the frayed nerves caused by failing negotiations.
Fecklessness may be a grievous fault, but grievously have the Greeks answered it. As the Irish economist, Karl Whelan, points out in a blistering response to Mr Giavazzi, the Greek economy has suffered a staggering collapse. From peak to trough, aggregate real gross domestic product fell by 27 per cent, while real spending in the economy fell by a third. The cyclically-adjusted fiscal balance improved by 20 per cent of GDP between 2009 and 2014 and the current account balance improved by 16 per cent of GDP between 2008 and 2014. The unemployment rate reached 28 per cent in 2013, while government employment fell by 30 per cent between 2009 and 2014. Such a brutal adjustment would have shredded the politics of any country. (See charts.)
Martin Wolf 1
Europeans are now dealing with Syriza because of this calamity. But they are also dealing with Syriza because of the refusal to write down more of the debt in 2010. This was a huge error, made far worse by the subsequent collapse of the Greek economy. Indeed, the vast bulk of the official loans to Greece were not made for its benefit at all, but for that of its feckless private creditors. Creditors, too, have a duty to take care. If they are careless, they risk big losses. If governments want to save them, their own taxpayers should be told to pay up.
Greece has also already made significant reforms, including to its pension arrangements and business environment. But backtracking on such reforms would indeed be a huge mistake, as the eurogroup and IMF argue.
Martin Wolf 2
Given all this, it is tragic that the breakdown might occur now, after so much pain has already been suffered. It is not too late to reach agreements aimed at promoting reform, minimising additional austerity and making debt manageable. That would also be in everybody’s long-term interest. The parameters of such a deal are also clear: a small primary surplus in the short run, a decision by the eurozone to pay off the IMF and the ECB, accompanied by long-term debt relief, and a strong commitment to bold structural reforms by the Greek government.
Whether it likes it or not (understandably, it does not) the European Central Bank is a central player. It will have to decide when it can no longer treat the credit of the Greek government as collateral against emergency liquidity assistance to Greek banks. If Greece cannot reach a deal on the release of funds, the ECB seems likely to cut the banks off. That would then trigger controls on withdrawals. This might be accompanied by a scheme for circulation of deposit receipts, or ultimately by messy introduction of a new currency.
Martin Wolf 3
Right now, however, the aim must still be to cool down and secure a deal. Yet, in the current mood of anger and recrimination, reaching one now seems ever more unlikely. That would not be the end of the story, however. Europeans will be unable to walk away. Whether Greece stays inside the euro or leaves, much the same challenges will arise. The Europeans would still have to admit that they would not get much of their money back; and they would still have to help avoid a Greek collapse.
It might be a relief to divorce a difficult partner. But the partner will still exist, even after this monetary marriage is over. Greece will remain strategically located and even inside the EU. Neither the Greeks nor their partners should imagine a clean break. The relationship will continue. It will just be poisonous. If, tragically, that fate cannot be avoided, it will have to be managed for a very long time.
martin.wolf@ft.com

Four games the Greeks may be playing - Financial Times

June 16, 2015 at 10:07pm

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June 15, 2015 4:12 pm
Four games the Greeks may be playing
Gideon RachmanGideon Rachman

When the radical left won power in Greece in January much was made of the fact that Yanis Varoufakis, the new finance minister, is an academic economist. Many expected that Greece’s negotiating strategy would display a new subtlety and brilliance, now that it was guided by the co-author of Game Theory — A Critical Introduction .
Yet, a few months on, Greece is running out of friends and money. As a debt default looms, even some sympathetic commentators are baffled by the Athens government’s actions.

So what game are the Greeks playing? Here are four possible hypotheses:
Game 1: they are bluffing and they still think they can win. The Tsipras government may still believe that the EU will not ultimately tolerate the break-up of its most important project — the European single currency. The loss of political prestige would be too enormous; the risks of financial contagion too great. But the EU will not make serious concessions until the moment that it really believes that Greece is about to crash out of the euro. So some evidence of chaos and panic in Athens may actually be necessary to convince the EU that the end game is approaching.
Game 2: they are bluffing and they are only now realising that they have miscalculated. Alexis Tsipras and his Syriza party are newcomers to the high politics of the EU. They won election in January believing that they could win the argument against “austerity” and find like-minded friends across Europe. The past few months have been a painful education in the realities of European politics. Mr Varoufakis’s theories have not worked out in practice, leading him to lament the absence of “a skilled game theorist on their side”. But Syriza’s belated realisation that it must largely accept the terms of its creditors — or quit the euro — has come perilously late.
Game 3: this is all about retaining power at home. The erratic negotiating style of the Greek government betrays the chaos in Athens. In part, this is a reflection of the inexperience and lack of resources of the Syriza team. But the party may also be trapped by the internal politics of Greece. Syriza is a coalition and the hard left of the party is likely to split off if Mr Tsipras is seen to accept austerity in return for a new agreement with Greece’s creditors. The broader electorate may also be none too impressed. Cutting a deal might therefore mark the end of Mr Tsipras’s political career.
Game 4: Greece actually wants to leave the euro. Among the academics and politicians who have advised Syriza there are undoubtedly some who have always believed that Greece ultimately has to leave the euro. They think that their country can only escape its downward economic spiral if it repudiates some or all of its debt — and they know that the price of that is likely to be ejection from the euro. What is more, once Greece is out of the euro, a new, floating currency might help restore the country’s competitiveness. Some in Syriza also believe that the euro and the EU in general are inseparable from the “neoliberal” economics that they reject.
In depth

Greece debt crisis
Greece debt crisis
The Syriza government is facing resistance to its plans to tackle the country’s massive debt burden
Read more
The difficulty is that Syriza came to power against the background of opinion polls showing that a large majority of Greeks want to stay inside the euro. So it is crucial for the Greek government to construct a narrative in which Syriza is seen to make a genuine effort to stay inside the single currency — only to be ejected by unreasonable foreigners, led by the Germans.
Which of these games is actually being played in Athens? I suspect that elements of all four are playing out. Even now, decision makers in Athens must be hovering between options one and two — convinced at one moment that the EU will ultimately cut a better deal, fearing at another that no such deal will emerge.
Some of Mr Tsipras’s apparently erratic behaviour — such as promising to make a payment to the IMF and then delaying it — also reflect his political difficulties at home. And while the group of Syriza thinkers who actually want Greece to leave the euro may be in a minority, their number will surely grow as the crisis intensifies.

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The uncertainty about what is driving Athens is only amplified because a parallel set of questions can be asked about the motivations of Brussels and Berlin. It could equally well be argued that the German government is bluffing, in the expectation of Greek capitulation; or that the team around Chancellor Angela Merkel has miscalculated in expecting the Greeks to “behave reasonably”; or that the German government, like its Greek counterpart, is trapped by domestic politics; or, finally, that there are many in Germany, particularly in the finance ministry, who now actively want to force Greece out of the euro.
Uncertainty on one side of the negotiating table only increases the uncertainty on the other side. If both sides think that the other side’s calculations are shifting, then it is harder to make a reasoned assessment of what needs to be done to secure a deal.
Unfortunately, the “game” that is currently under way between Greece and its creditors looks less like a sophisticated exercise in a Cambridge seminar room than the scene in Rebel Without A Cause, in which two cars race towards a cliff — and each driver waits for the other’s nerve to crack first. In the movie, the scene ends with one of the drivers plunging over the edge.
gideon.rachman@ft.com

Thaw in US-Cuba relations heightens business expectations - Financial Times

June 17, 2015 at 12:04am

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June 15, 2015 11:09 pm
Thaw in US-Cuba relations heightens business expectations
John Paul Rathbone

There is a new entry among Cuba’s roll of important dates. Alongside Fidel Castro’s 26th of July movement and the January 1 1959 “triumph of the revolution”, there is now December 17 2014.
That was the day when Barack Obama and Raúl Castro, the US and Cuban presidents, announced that they wanted to normalise bilateral relations and end more than 50 years of cold war enmity.

To be sure, communist Cuba was already changing. After formally becoming president in 2008, Mr Castro began a tentative economic liberalisation process to boost the country’s flagging economy — especially urgent now that Venezuela’s growing crisis jeopardises the $1.5bn of aid it sends every year.
But the December 17 announcement lit a bonfire of expectations among US businesses — even if Cuba’s $80bn economy, for all its exotic allure, is much the same size as the Dominican Republic’s.
“There is a new sense of excitement, of US companies coming to look and thinking of starting seed businesses,” says one long-established European investor in Havana. “It makes sense. Start small, learn how the system works and then see how it all goes.”
So, how might it all go? US and Cuban officials have warned that expectations are too high. “Prospects [in Washington] for lifting the embargo in the short term are dim,” cautions Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue think-tank.
The notion that US businesses and tourists might soon turn Cuba into a Disney-style communist theme park with McDonald’s outlets spread along Havana’s seafront is also unlikely; Havana has run its own government for 56 years and is proud of its sovereignty.
Furthermore, even if the US embargo were to end overnight, the island still faces an “internal embargo” — the thicket of Soviet-style bureaucracy and centralising socialist attitudes that makes doing business difficult.
“All of Raúl’s economic reforms involved decentralisation, which is good, as Cuba needs that,” says Rafael Hernández, editor of Temas, a state-published cultural magazine. “The problem is this . . . has not happened.”
(top to bottom) Raúl Castro meets President Obama, Pope Francis and President Putin©Reuters; Getty
Diplomatic flurry: (top to bottom) Raúl Castro meets President Obama, Pope Francis and President Putin
Still, change is coming to Cuba, however slowly, and one way to mark the changes is to travel back to Pope John Paul II’s 1998 visit. “Do not be afraid,” he said. “May Cuba, with all its magnificent potential, open itself to the world, and may the world open itself to Cuba.”
Today, Cubans appear less afraid. Activists are still hounded, but there is a willingness among many to speak their minds, and some official tolerance too.
One sign of this is the continued existence of news website 14ymedio.com, set up by dissident journalist Yoani Sánchez — even if limited internet access means few of Cuba’s 11m people can read it.

The world has also begun to open up to Cuba. Before December 17, there were only 35 enquiries from foreign investors about Mariel — the $800m port and free trade zone on Cuba’s northern coast, built by Odebrecht, a Brazilian construction company, and operated by Singapore’s PSA. “After December 17, there is talk of 300 enquiries,” notes Emilio Morales of the Miami-based Havana Consulting Group — although how many of these enquiries turn into actual investment is another matter.
French President Francois Hollande (left) shakes hands with retired Cuban leader Fidel Castro during a private meeting in Havana, Cuba, May 11, 2015©Reuters
Fidel Castro with François Hollande in May
The embargo, whose removal requires settling tricky issues such as $7bn of US nationalisation claims, puts a brake on US businesses. It can also put a brake on third-country businesses, too.
“We have to be entirely self-financed,” comments one European resort operator. “The new US approach has been ‘that may be no longer illegal, but it is not necessarily legal either’ — which makes financing problematic.”
Lastly, Cuba is opening to the world, albeit slowly. The Communist party is torn between letting reforms rip and maintaining control. Little surprise that results are disappointing — as was tacitly recognised by Mr Castro, who wants to deepen reforms, increasing the chances of an economic “soft landing” in 2018, when he says he will retire as president.
“Dealing with the internal embargo is one of Cuba’s biggest challenges,” says Pedro Freyre of US law firm Akerman. “The state might want to let small businesses grow . . . but then it often taxes, regulates and clobbers them.” One sign of ambivalence is the emphasis on state-sanctioned co-operatives, rather than the 500,000 self-employed workers.

Cuba also suffers from limited bandwidth to deal with foreign interest. That is as true of Havana’s stretched tourist capacity as it is of Cuban officials with sufficient authority to make decisions. Mariel’s six approved projects, for example, required approval from the Council of Ministers, the highest authority.
Even so, there is strong business interest in Cuba’s so-called “knowledge economy”, especially biotechnology. A handful of large foreign corporates — such as Canadian miner Sherritt International, and France’s drinks maker Pernod Ricard and telecom’s group Bouygues — set up profitable businesses years ago. So too, more recently, have émigré mom-and-pop entrepreneurs from Miami.
Even if the US embargo ends, an ‘internal embargo’ remains — a thicket of Soviet-style bureaucracy
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At Miami discount store Ñooo! Que Barato! (or “Wow! How cheap!”) Cuban-Americans can buy school uniforms for relatives’ children. The island’s recent flowering of private restaurants and hotels — mostly refurbished private homes — is also largely financed by Cuban-Americans, who remit up to $2bn annually to relatives.
The message from foreign businesses in Cuba is that the island is a potentially exciting market for anyone content to wait for uncertain and long-term returns. In the meantime, a word of caution about the surge of private foreign interest in Havana property, where purchases are possible only via a resident Cuban partner, who then has legal title.
“The outsider takes all the risk,” says one European businessman. “I’ve heard as many unhappy as happy stories.”

Distinctive ways to use Twitter for success in the workplace - Financial Times

June 14, 2015 at 11:33pm

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WORKING SMARTER June 14, 2015 12:59 pm
Distinctive ways to use Twitter for success in the workplace
Emma De Vita


If you still measure your success on Twitter by the number of followers you have or Tweets you post, you are not as good at Twitter as you think you are. The most effective users adopt more sophisticated methods, according to new research.

Salvatore Parise of Babson College and Eoin Whelan of the National University of Ireland interviewed 205 Twitter users at five businesses over five years. They discovered that the most efficient users were those who cultivated
a deliberately small but diverse network that challenged their way of thinking or alerted them to new ideas. That led them to more creative and better solutions to work problems.

What made them so good at using Twitter was the distinctive way they used it. Their approach was highly selective, preferring quality over quantity. They followed a maximum of 100 tweeters, picking about a third from completely unrelated fields, or who had very different views to their own, or were even people they did not like.
“One software programmer designing user interfaces followed interior design and architectural design Twitter accounts, since it helped him in the creative process, even though the system interface he was developing had nothing to do with homes or art,” says Prof Parise.
Expert users only followed people after a period of “listening” to colleagues or industry leaders on Twitter, found using hashtags for particular subjects of discussion. They perhaps used an app such as TweetDeck. They did not follow tweeters recommended by Twitter nor did they follow their own followers. They also pruned their followers regularly, often dumping them all.
The most effective Twitter users, however, were the ones who took the time to absorb the ideas they found and work out how they might be of practical use to their work or organisation.
“It’s not just about using the technology but it is also how they used their absorptive capacity,” says Dr Whelan. He refers to the ability of these users to limit how much information they took in, taking time away from their screens to digest what they had come across. “They had a tendency to switch off and find a way to think about things deeply, even if it just meant sitting down and having a cup of coffee.”
They passed on discoveries to colleagues. Some used in-house company blogs, while others contacted colleagues direct with discoveries.
As one respondent put it: “I try to sift through all the Twitter content from my network and look for trends and relationships between topics. I then put my analysis and interpretation on it.” Some even set up webinars and training sessions to share Twitter tactics with colleagues. Many used Twitter to find and introduce themselves to new contacts before following up with face-to-face meetings.
Neither Prof Parise nor Dr Whelan is a big user of Twitter. But Dr Whelan says the research has nudged him to read more widely: “It is about exposing yourself to different views and cross-pollinating ideas.”
workingsmarter@ft.com

What's the Magna Carta? 10 Surprises on Its 800th Birthday - National Geographic

June 15, 2015 at 12:17pm

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What's the Magna Carta? 10 Surprises on Its 800th Birthday


What's the Magna Carta? 10 Surprises on Its 800th Birthday
The document that laid the foundation for democracy was sanctioned by Britain’s worst monarch, "Bad King John."
Picture of a man examining the Magna Carta
For three days this past February, the British Library in London brought all four original surviving manuscripts of the 2015 Magna Carta together for display. T




The 800-year-old sheet of parchment that is the Magna Carta is often hailed as one of the world’s most famous historical documents because it laid the foundation for the rights and freedoms on which modern democracy rests.


On Monday, Queen Elizabeth will preside at a celebration at Runnymede Meadow alongside the Thames River, where John, King of England, affixed his seal to the medieval document in 1215. A.E. Dick Howard, a constitutional law professor at the University of Virginia and author of The Road from Runnymede: Magna Carta and Constitutionalism in America, will be there among dignitaries from around the world. “My children would never forgive me if I didn’t go,” he said in an interview from London, where he has been lecturing on the Magna Carta since late May. “It will be like a lawyers’ Woodstock.”

Fittingly, the forecast, as it was for the 1969 rock concert, is for rain.

Ten facts about the Magna Carta that may surprise you:

1. The Magna Carta, written in Latin, was not originally designed as a lofty statement of principles.

The goal was more immediate and practical. It was a peace treaty negotiated by a despotic king to quell a rebellion by 25 barons, who were tired of paying high taxes to fund his reign and forced him to negotiate.

2. Magna Carta was drawn up during the reign of Britain’s worst king.


King John is remembered as Bad King John. His dastardly deeds, too numerous to count, include imprisoning his wife, starving opponents to death, and murdering his nephew. He imposed high taxes and seized property to pay for expensive foreign wars. As if being a tyrant weren’t enough, he was singularly untalented. Despite massive tax hikes to fund his armies, he failed to regain the continental lands he had lost. When British scholar Nicholas Vincent was asked by the Daily Telegraph if Bad King John was deserving of the name, he said, “No. He was much worse than that.”

No other British king since has been named John.


Picture of painting of king john signing magna carta
King John signs the Magna Carta in an undated painting. In reality, medieval documents were authenticated by seal, not signature. The document celebrates its 800th anniversary this year.
PHOTOGRAPH BY CORBIS
3. Within 60 days of sealing the document, King John tried to kill it.


Two months after sealing the Magna Carta, the king asked the Pope to nullify it. The Pope complied, and issued a papal bull calling it “illegal, unjust, harmful to royal rights and shameful to the English people.” 

4. The Magna Carta might have been forgotten but for King John’s nine-year-old son.  

Henry III, King John’s son, assumed the throne after his father died of dysentery in 1216. Within months of his death, in 1217, the Magna Carta was reissued in his name to broker peace with the barons. When Henry turned 18 in 1225, he reissued the definitive Magna Carta himself.

5. The Magna Carta’s most important sections remain in English law today.

Clauses 39 and 40, the most significant and best-known sections of the 3,550-word document, established the rule of law as a fundamental principle: No one, not even the king is above the law. They also ensured basic individual rights and guaranteed justice and the right to a fair trial. 

6. The original was also larded with local political deal-making.

An agreement to remove fishing weirs—fish traps—from the Thames and Medway Rivers was written into the text, as well as agreements allowing merchants to travel freely abroad and internally in England except in time of war. Sir Robert Worcester, chairman of the Magna Carta 800th Anniversary Commemoration, said these clauses aimed to placate business-minded barons.

“Removing the weirs was vital to protecting the commercial interest of the City of London,” he said. The document also got a running 13th century start on women’s rights, Worcester said, by prohibiting the remarriage of widows without their consent. 

7. Early on, the Magna Carta’s significance was not always recognized.

Even Shakespeare missed it. In his play The Life and Death of King John, Shakespeare mentions neither the Magna Carta nor the balance of power between the king and the noblemen that it established. 

8. Later, great world leaders saw its importance as a symbol of liberty.

The Magna Carta’s core principles are fundamental to other historical documents. Thomas Jefferson incorporated its concepts in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Mahatma Gandhi cited it in a farewell letter published when he left South Africa in 1914, noting that it confirms “there should be no legal racial inequality between different subjects of the crown.”

Echoes of the Magna Carta also are contained in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. Nelson Mandela cited the Magna Carta in a famous speech in 1964 while on trial for sabotage—a capital offense in South Africa.


9. Only four copies of the 1215 version remain today. 

And there are fewer than two dozen copies of various 13th century versions. Another was discovered earlier this year in a Victorian scrapbook in the town of Sandwich, on the southeast English coast.

The only copy in private hands was bought in the 1980s by Texas billionaire and former presidential candidate Ross Perot, who paid $1.5 million for a 1297 version and loaned it to the National Archives in Washington. In 2007, Perot sold it at Sotheby’s to David Rubenstein, billionaire financier and philanthropist, for $21.3 million. It remains on display at the National Archives.


10. The Magna Carta’s history is so long and complicated even Britain’s prime ministers sometimes get it wrong.

In an appearance on David Letterman in 2013, Prime Minister David Cameron flubbed a quiz about British history, and failed to recall the English translation of Magna Carta. It means “Great Charter.”

“You have found me out. That is bad, I have ended my career on your show tonight,” Cameron told Letterman.

Not quite. In last month’s election, Cameron surprised opponents and won enough votes for a second term in office.

Follow Laura Parker on Twitter.

Virtual Reality Star Wars Will Be a Thing - TIME

http://time.com/3919759/star-wars-virtual-reality/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fcurious_capitalist+%28TIME%3A+Business%29

Ben Geier / Fortune June 12, 2015  

Lynne Kosky (L), Victoria's Minister for Public Transport and Minister for the Arts has a lightsaber battle with an actor dressed as Darth Vader during a preview to the 'Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination' exhibition at Scienceworks on June 2, 2009 in Melbourne, Australia.
ILM is building a VR lab

If you love Star Wars, you’ve seen the incredible work that special effects company Industrial Light & Magic does in creating amazing characters and special effects. Now, the company founded by George Lucas wants to make the cinema experience even more immersive by bringing virtual reality technology into the mix.

The project is called the ILM Experience Lab, and will put viewers directly into the world of their favorite films, USA Today reports.

“ILMxLab is all about us leveraging our skills across all platforms,” Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy told the newspaper. “It’s the Wild West out there with new frontiers, and we’re all figuring out these new tools. Today, technology is in search of content. But we can bring an emotional experience to that technology.”

The first products this new division creates are expected to be related to Star Wars and debut later this year. The next film in the Star Wars franchise, The Force Awakens, debuts in December.

Stanislav Petrov’s real life restaged - Financial Times

May 16, 2015 at 8:58pm

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May 15, 2015 5:59 pm

Stanislav Petrov’s real life restaged

Tom Shone

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A Russian colonel who averted nuclear apocalypse is the latest to play himself in a style of filming that is part documentary, part method acting

©Juliet Butler/AlamyStanislav Petrov, retired lieutenant colonel in the Soviet military

When Danish film-maker Peter Anthony first came across Stanislav Petrov, the lieutenant colonel in the Soviet air defence forces who in 1983 averted imminent nuclear apocalypse when he refused to give credence to signals of a US attack, the 67-year-old colonel was living in a small, squalid apartment block 90 minutes outside Moscow. He reached it via dirt roads. Outside, derelicts clutched vodka bottles, walking barefoot despite the –10C temperatures. The stairwell to the apartment stank of dog’s urine. In the living room, a disused sink sat next to ripped furniture. “It was a bum’s apartment,” says Anthony, but for a small closet in which was hung a blue parade uniform decorated with medals; in a drawer was a stack of fan letters from American schoolchildren, plus one from Kevin Costner thanking him for what he had done.The colonel himself — unshaven, possibly a little drunk, and looking as if he hadn’t eaten in days — was at first reluctant to talk about what had happened on the night of September 26 1983, when Soviet satellites mistakenly detected five US ballistic nuclear missiles heading towards the USSR. His story had long been a source of embarrassment to the Russian military. Everyone was afraid of taking the blame for what had happened. In the bunker outside Moscow where Petrov was stationed, alarm bells had sounded, electronic maps flashed; a back-lit red screen flashed the word “LAUNCH”, but Petrov, acting on what he would later call “a funny feeling in my gut”, thought the alarm a false one — five seemed too few for a full-scale attack, and there was still no corroboration from radars on the ground. He refused to confirm any incoming strike and a retaliatory one that would have likely killed somewhere in the region of 200m people was averted.

“The first thing I told him was, ‘I really want to go into your personal story,’” says Anthony. “He said, ‘That will never happen. I’m a Russian colonel. I do not talk about emotions.’ He was also a little evasive about what happened in 1983 because he was still afraid of what the army might think, and of the old KGB machine sending him to the gulag.”
Anthony found that Petrov’s answers to camera were frequently contradictory, or else they downplayed the events of 30 years ago — he’d say, “Oh, it was nothing special, this sort of thing happened a lot more on the American side.” Off-camera, however, he inveighed against the Soviet army and its failures. Returning for round two of filming, Anthony hit upon an unusual method somewhere between traditional documentary film-making and a kind of method-acted documentary. Reminding Petrov of a conversation he’d had the night before with his translator, Anthony would reshoot it, feeding the colonel cues to remind him of what he had said, asking for another take if he didn’t get what he wanted — in effect, shooting his film as if it were a narrative feature.

At times the film-makers seem engaged not in making a movie of Petrov’s life, but in plotting his life as if it were a movie

Combining thrilling re-enactments of what happened in 1983 (lots of radar-lit silhouettes, shouting, handheld cameras, and pounding score reminiscent of the latest Jerry Bruckheimer production) with present-day footage in which Petrov goes on a quest to meet Kevin Costner, the finished feature, The Man Who Saved the World, has picked up both awards and some criticism at the film festivals where it has shown, starting impassioned debates about the relationship between documentary art and truth. The two “quests” that make up its narrative — Petrov’s cross-country trip to meet Costner, his favourite actor after his role in the Cuban missile crisis drama Thirteen Days, and his tearful reunion with his mother at the film’s end — wouldn’t have happened but for the film-makers’ urging, and yet this involvement goes unacknowledged. At times the film-makers seem engaged not in making a movie of Petrov’s life, but in plotting his life as if it were a movie.

Meeting Kevin Costner on ‘The Man Who Saved the World’ set

“When we have shown this at festivals they ask, ‘Is this a feature film, a narrative feature or a documentary?’” says Anthony. “The only thing I know about documentary is you’re not supposed to lie. I don’t even call it a documentary, I just call it a movie. I wanted to make this like a big feature film, like a superman story mixed with an emotional story about a man who lost everything. I wanted scale. I grew up on big epic movies like The Deer Hunter, and I think that because we’ve seen so many films, the way people speak and the way they act in movies has come to seem natural to an audience, even though it’s not, even though they’re being manipulated with music. So I used a lot of music because I wanted it to seem very ‘fictional’. What people have to understand is this is not a story about a drunken alcoholic who lost his wife, it’s about a man who saved the world from nuclear war, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime story, a larger-than-life story.”
Either way, the film looks certain to further the debate about the relationship between art and truth started by such documentaries as Andrew Jarecki’s recent HBO series about millionaire Robert Durst, The Jinx (2015), following which Durst was arrested on murder charges; Rithy Panh’s The Missing Picture (2014), which uses small clay figurines and dioramas to depict Panh’s experiences in Khmer Rouge labour camps; and Joshua Oppenheimer’s Oscar-nominated The Act of Killing(2012), for which Oppenheimer persuaded several admitted and unpunished executioners responsible for the deaths of at least half-a-million Indonesian communists in the mid-1960s to re-enact their murders in the style of their favourite movies — donning costumes and make-up to enact a kind of grisly psychopathic camp, complete with big production numbers and climaxing with a dance to the song “Born Free”.

“In The Act of Killing we created a documentary of the imagination which documents not the killings themselves but the way the perpetrators have lied to themselves,” says Oppenheimer, whose new film, The Look Of Silence (2014), records a series of confrontations between a man and those in power in Indonesia who may have had a hand in killing his brother. In both films, the camera is an active presence: goading the murderers to boastful confession, or else protecting the subject from possible retribution. “Both my films are interventions in which the film-making process itself generates the primary drama,” says Oppenheimer, who points to Jean Rouch, the originator of cinéma-vérité, whose films — including Moi, un Noir (1958) and The Human Pyramid (1961) — ask the participants to act out their own lives for the camera.
“The first thing that happens when you point a camera at someone is they start to stage themselves,” says Oppenheimer. “The film-maker usually has a choice. Do I try and get past that self-consciousness as quickly as possible — so they are acting quote-unquote ‘naturally’ — or do I record the fact that they are trying to stage themselves? It becomes a kind of excavation. We live in a time when we are constantly staging ourselves and our friends for anonymous others on social media, who we hope will admire us or follow us. We’re constantly performing.”
Nevertheless, it is perhaps telling that in both The Act of Killing and The Man Who Saved the World, a departure from strict fly-on-the-wall methods was necessary, or went hand-in-hand with the task of overcoming the resistance of subjects hardened by repressive regimes in the Soviet Union and Indonesia. Vérité turns out to be a poor tool for penetrating ideology. “It’s like an onion”, is how Peter Anthony describes the process of trying to unravel the grumpy and frequently drunk Colonel Petrov. “You want to peel off all these layers and get to the middle.” And what did he find? At times reluctant to act out conversations for the cameras, Petrov gradually warmed to the process. Indeed, according to one of the film’s producers, Jakob Staberg, after spending some time with a German experimental theatre troupe, who heard of Petrov’s story and took him on tour with them as part of an anti-war theatre piece, “[Petrov]came back very different.

“Before, he would shoot a scene and complain, ‘I’m not an actor’, when he thought Peter was being too demanding. After he came back from playing theatre, he would say, ‘OK Peter, now my character, I would say this . . .’ and have long discussions about how he should pronounce different words. His late wife used to be a projectionist screening 35mm films in a military base. He loved going to the movies. Maybe that’s one of the reasons he became a part of our film. He got to be the star of his own movie. The Russian actor playing him as a young man said, ‘His acting is better than mine.’ He had tears in his eyes.”
As such, Petrov’s “performance” owes less, perhaps, to the methodologically precise films of Jean Rouch and more to Audie Murphy, the teenage US soldier who in January 1945 secured himself the congressional medal of honour by mounting the burning carcass of a tank and gunning down a phalanx of Germans, and then acted it out again in cinemascope for Universal’s 1955 film about his exploits, To Hell and Back . The film, which recreated the beaches of Anzio, Italy, and the battlegrounds of Sicily and Germany in Washington state, is little watched today, although Murphy haunts Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds in the form of the (fictional) character of Fredrick Zoller, a German sniper obliged to star in a biopic of his own life produced by Joseph Goebbels.
One thinks, too, of the 1930 film People on Sunday, in which Berliners played themselves in a drama based on their own lives, or Roberto Rossellini’s resistance drama, Rome, Open City (1945), filmed in the still-smouldering ruins of bombed-out Rome, featuring sequences that, in the words of critic James Agee, were “as shatteringly uninvented-looking as if they had been shot by invisible newsreel cameras”. Many mistook it for a documentary about the real thing.

“The line is always blurry,” says Errol Morris, whose classic 1988 documentary The Thin Blue Line uncovered the wrongful death sentence passed on a Texas drifter by means of a series of meticulous Philip-Glass-scored re-enactments, and is widely seen as the film that moved away from the vérité-like methods dominating America’s direct-cinema movement in the 1970s, and opened the creative toolbox for documentary film-makers thereafter. “When I started out, this idea that you have a greater claim on truth because you are hand-holding the camera, or not lighting anything, struck me as abhorrent. Style does not guarantee truth. Nothing guarantees truth. Truth is a quest. You are being given evidence and being asked to assess that evidence, and there is more and more evidence out there. To me, the watershed moment was [the 2004 prisoner abuse scandal] Abu Ghraib, because you have soldiers recording images with cellphones, or small digital cameras, and those images — because of the internet — could be sent around the world instantly. Not just one copy but an unlimited number of copies. I’m always fascinated by the fact that the commanding officer tried to collect all the photographs and burn them. He was completely missing the point. We are in the 21st century.”
In other words, everyone is a master of vérité now. In the age of Donald Rumsfeld’s “unknown unknowns” and Stephen Colbert’s “truthiness”, the documentary film-maker, confronted with the ubiquity of reality TV and CCTV imagery, must own up to the inherent artfulness of the documentary form — the manipulative intent behind every camera — in order to interrogate the fictions by which we live, or else be caught peddling them uncritically. Re-enact by all means, but above all, be transparent about it. “Anything goes,” says Morris. “I don’t think there should be any limit on. I think it should be unfettered but the underlying goal should be the pursuit of truth.” What truth that turns out to be — dramatic, documentary, shocking, redemptive, or some mixture therein — remains up to the talent and inclination of the film-maker.
Colonel Petrov hasn’t seen The Man who Saved the World yet, but his living conditions have vastly improved thanks to a string of awards from Germany — the German Media Award in 2011, the Dresden peace prize in 2013 — and occasional bundles of cash sent to him, via a fixer, from the film-makers. “He doesn’t trust the banks,” says Anthony. “He’s had a hard life. He’s 75 now. He goes up and down. He has good days and bad days. But they’ve started to celebrate him in Russia now. Before, most Russians didn’t know he existed.”

The 10 Qualities of Exceptional People - TIME

June 11, 2015 at 4:12pm

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http://time.com/3915152/qualities-exceptional-people/

Sherrie Campbell / Entrepreneur June 10, 2015   

The exceptional focus on who they are internally



Counter to what many believe, accolades are not really what success is about. To be rich is to have money and status, but to be wealthy is to have physical, emotional, mental and spiritual wellness plus financial abundance. Exceptional people are those who seemingly have it all. They have monetary success along with a deeply felt happiness and satisfaction in life. The truly exceptional focus on cultivating their inner worlds and the more soft-spoken qualities of their character because they know to be wholly successful, it takes being a really good human being.

1. Grace.

Grace is that dignified elegance about a person’s appearance, movement, personal style or behavior. To be graceful is to be strong and assured in who one is and to move gently within that energy.

Exceptional people live with a sense of inner elegance and are graceful even amidst a challenge. They are able to handle themselves in a noble and ethical manner. They hold good posture, their energy has a mystery, softness, strength and cleverness to it. They are vulnerable yet self-assured.

Grace is the undeniable quality of the depth of their personal wisdom.

2. Kindness.

Kindness comes naturally to exceptional people. It is consistent in how they treat, think about, and speak to others. They are genuine and come from a sensitive place. Although being kind may be perceived as weakness or vulnerability by others ,exceptional people understand that kindness is one of their strongest influences.

Exceptional people are kind, even to those whom they do not care for. They are aware they can love someone even if they do not like them. If they can’t say something nice, they have the control to remain quiet.

They believe there is no other human quality that will get them further in life than that of kindness.

3. Composure.

Composure is the beauty of self-control. Exceptional people accept that life is always going to bring its challenges and are aware that without a sense of composure it is too easy to allow conflict in situations and relationships to unnerve them. They embrace the concept of less equals more.

Exceptional people understand the less they react, defend, explain, become fearful or controlling, the more command they have over a situation. Having composure allows them to stand tall with resilience in the face of loss and challenge. They are also mindful to not be boastful about their success.

Composure allows them to maintain a certain stillness in the face of life’s changes.

4. Fearless.

Exceptional people are willing to dare greatly in life. They know it takes courage to love fully, to change themselves when necessary, to feel deeply, to take risks even when it’s scary and to chase their dreams with passion and an unwavering tenacity.

They are aware that to become courageous they must do courageous things. The exceptional understand it is not the loudness of their words but the depth of their character, to keep going no matter their circumstances, which makes them thrive.

5. Poised.

Because exceptional people are self-loving they naturally possess a quiet confidence. Their self-awareness, dedication to self-development and personal growth provide them the knowledge to succeed at nearly anything they seek.

Because of their life experiences and inner depth, they can be certain positive things will happen in their lives because they depend upon themselves to have the information and willingness to do the work necessary to get to their result.

6. Deliberate.

Exceptional people are clear and persistent in who they are, where they are headed and what they want from their life and relationships to be happy. In being deliberate other people know where they stand with them. The exceptional get what they want in life because they are clear in saying what they want.

Exceptional people use each challenge life brings to positively refine themselves. This refinement keeps their lives clear of negativity. Being deliberate keeps them pointed in the direction of their dreams, connected to their true loves and to living genuinely as who they are.

7. Intelligent.

For exceptional people, intelligence is about knowledge but even more so about emotions. In being aware of their own emotional patterns they are endowed with the flexibility to handle challenge and change, allowing them to unlock smart solutions to their problems.

With a well-rounded intelligence the exceptional carry themselves in a stately and unafraid manner. They live with a sense of security knowing there are a multitude of choices available in life, so there is no need to be reactive. In being emotionally grounded they have the ability to keep their eyes on the bigger picture turning obstacles into opportunities.

8. Unassuming.

Exceptional people do not see life as being all about them, in fact, they prefer to celebrate the accomplishments of others as much as their own. They are proud of who they are but have no need to add histrionics to their success. Most of the time they prefer being in the background, working hard and allowing their success speak for itself.

The exceptional are sensitive and want the best for everyone. They do not see themselves as above others as they are secure enough in themselves that the trap of comparison doesn’t interest them. They enjoy their lives and do not feel entitled to more without the commensurate work to back it up.

9. Truthful.

People gravitate towards what is real. Exceptional people are simple, upfront, gentle, but direct in the “being” of who they are. They are content to live life patiently, and know how to wait well. For them life is about being authentic and following their heart and nothing else.

The truly exceptional are people others can depend upon as they have no ulterior motives. They are relationship oriented not agenda oriented and believe that the truth is the only path to success and deep intimacy. Because they are truthful their personalities are not set up on pretenses. Who they are does not change from person to person or situation to situation. They are who they are and their priority in life is to be forthcoming.

10. Loving.

There is nothing more appealing to others than to be in the presence of a loving person. The truly exceptional know they must love themselves in order to have endless love to give. For them love is a verb and it is expresses itself through loving kindness, touch, their smile and sense of inner joy and vitality.

Exceptional people are warm towards others and kind to themselves. There is nothing they wouldn’t do to help and this loving approach is taken into every area of their life from career to parenting. Further, they apply love as a form of discipline and set boundaries when necessary. They are clear there will be times when the only way another person can learn and grow is for them to either have to withdraw their love, or to set boundaries around it to protect their generous nature. They know that for them to remain loving they must protect their heart and put themselves first in negative situations.

Through life’s experiences exceptional people have come to accept that some people can stay in their heart, but not in their life.

To be truly successful in life it is the understated qualities of success which are sustaining. To possess any one of them will increase the experience of a person’s success exponentially. The truly exceptional know that who they are internally is the most powerful marker of their influence on the world.

This article originally appeared on Entrepreneur.com.

Jack Ma thinks World War III will be a good thing - CNBC

June 11, 2015 at 12:34pm

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Everett Rosenfeld | @Ev_Rosenfeld
Tuesday, 9 Jun 2015 | 4:23 PM ET
CNBC.com


World War III is coming, but it will be a good thing, according to one of Asia's richest men.

Jack Ma, founder and executive chairman of Alibaba Group, said Tuesday that the Internet and its various platforms will usher in a wave of global conflict. It will not, however, pit countries against each other, but instead will see the likes of China and the U.S. teaming up to defeat societal ills.
"The third world war is going to happen, and this war is not between nations," Ma said during a speech hosted by the Economic Club of New York. "In this war we work together against the disease, the poverty, the climate change—and I believe this is our future."


Alibaba Group Executive Chairman Jack Ma.
Ma said working to incite such a conflict is his life's passion, and Alibaba's mission of globalizing e-commerce can help.
"It's not about the money, it's about the dreams," he said of the Internet's future.

Alibaba, the massive Chinese e-commerce firm, is working to expand its international presence, and Ma is touring the U.S. this week to pitch his platform to American businesses. Although some have suggested it could potentially bring its marketplace to the U.S. as a direct competitor to the likes of Amazon, others remain skeptical that such a move could work.

Read MoreAlibaba earnings beat estimates
Ma, however, emphasized that his company is not analogous to Jeff Bezos' Internet giant.

"From the American point of view, Amazon probably is the only business model for e-commerce, but no, we are different," he said, explaining that Alibaba does not buy, sell or even deliver products—nor does it have any inventory or warehouses.

Instead, Ma pitched Alibaba as a way for small businesses to find success in the global digital marketplace, and he called for American firms to get involved.

"We show great respect for eBay and Amazon, but I think the opportunity and the strategy for us is helping small business in America go to China, sell their products in China," he said, adding that the Chinese middle class is already about the size of the American population, and it continues to grow.

Ma said Alibaba's new tactic will present just as much of an opportunity for Americans looking to expand their customer bases as it does for his own attempts at building a global empire.

"China has been focused on exporting for the past 20 years, and I think in the next 10-20 years China should be focusing on importing. China should learn to buy, China should spend the money, China should buy a lot of its things globally," he said. "And I think that American small business, American-branded products, should use the Internet and go to China."

Ma focused squarely on e-commerce during his Tuesday address, but his company has other important irons in the fire. Alibaba struck a number of deals to bring its cloud computing operations to the world—a challenge to not only Amazon, but also Google and Microsoft.

Read MoreAlibaba in big push to take on Amazon in cloud
The company—which posted strong earnings in May—is also looking for other ways to profit from the U.S. market, with reports suggesting the firm invested in hot startup Snapchat, and Ma's well-documented Hollywood ambitions.

Reports earlier this year indicated that Ma lost his title as China's richest man, as his estimated fortune of $24.5 billion lost out to an energy magnate. But that man, Li Hejun, lost as much as $15 billion last month—so Ma may well be his country's richest again.

Either way, the title likely means little to Ma: He told CNBC in November that he dislikes the super rich status that Alibaba's historic $25 billion IPO afforded him.

Read MoreJack Ma is tired, and doesn't like being rich
"People say, 'Well Jack, rich people is good.' Yeah it is good, but not the richest man in China. It's a great pain because when you're (the) richest person in the world, everybody (is) surrounding you for money," he said at the time. "Today when I walk on the street, people look at you in a different—I want people to see this is entrepreneur, this is a guy who is having fun of himself, and I want to be myself."

In fact, Ma said Tuesday that in "another life" he would have chosen to keep his company private, as his life has become "much worse" since that record-breaking offering.

Suu Kyi’s China trip a symbol of Myanmar power shifts - Financial Times

June 10, 2015 at 1:40pm

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June 10, 2015 3:33 am
Suu Kyi’s China trip a symbol of Myanmar power shifts
Michael Peel, Bangkok and Tom Mitchell, Beijing

Aung San Suu Kyi’s first trip to Beijing is not quite a historic piece of Nixon-to-China diplomacy. But it is a fresh sign of the former political prisoner’s pragmatic preparations for power — and a symbol of the interests she shares with the Middle Kingdom’s rulers at a rocky point in Sino-Myanmar relations.
Analysts say the visit, which begins later on Wednesday, is an effort by the two parties to show they can do business together ahead of likely big gains this year for Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) in landmark Myanmar elections billed as cementing the country’s transition from military dictatorship.


China is a big investor in Myanmar and prizes the access it offers to the Indian Ocean, but tensions have emerged in areas ranging from the suspension of a large Beijing-backed dam project to conflict spillover at the countries’ shared border.
“This trip fills in a blank for both sides,” said Yun Sun, a senior associate at Washington’s Stimson Center think-tank. “If Aung San Suu Kyi were not to visit China, it would leave a spot on her credentials. And if you are China, you want to have at least a superficially good relationship with the potential future kingmaker of Myanmar.”
The Nobel peace laureate will spend five days in China at the invitation of the Communist party. Beijing has yet to confirm reports from Myanmar of talks with President Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, prime minister.
Ms Suu Kyi’s long-flagged visit comes months before nationwide elections in Myanmar, the first since the military dictatorship of almost half a century stepped down in favour of a quasi-civilian government in 2011.
Ms Suu Kyi’s trip comes weeks after Thura Shwe Mann, a former Myanmar junta number three who is now the speaker of parliament’s lower house, met President Xi in Beijing, noted Christian Lewis, an associate at Eurasia Group, the political risk analyst.
“The sequence of visits likely reflects the fact that Beijing sees Shwe Mann as the strongest candidate for Myanmar’s next president, but recognises the rising power and influence of Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD in legislative politics,” Mr Lewis said.
China’s relations with Myanmar were never better than when Ms Suu Kyi was a prisoner for 15 years in her own home and her then pariah state relied on its northern neighbour for investment and diplomatic support.
But Myanmar’s political opening has brought cooler relations with China, as gratitude for Beijing’s support mixes with anger at perceived abuses of its political and economic dominance.
Public protests led Myanmar’s government to stop work in 2011 on the Chinese–backed Myitsone dam in the north of the country, while villagers in the country’s north-west have faced violent security force crackdowns during years of rallies against the Chinese-operated Letpadaung copper mine.
China [will] want to have at least superficially good relationship with the future kingmaker of Myanmar
- Yun Sun, senior associate at Stimson Center
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China's own grievances were highlighted when its military last week launched rare live-ammunition exercises in a border region, close to where the Myanmar army is fighting with rebels on the other side of the frontier. Myanmar’s bombing of rebel positions had earlier spilled into China, killing villagers.
Perhaps the most sensitive aspect of Ms Suu Kyi’s visit is her status in the west as a pro-democracy figurehead of the kind jailed by China. Her fellow Nobel peace laureate, Liu Xiaobo, the only Chinese winner of the honour, is serving an 11-year sentence for “inciting subversion”.
But US and European observers hoping for a ringing critique of Beijing’s policies are likely to be as disappointed as they are in Ms Suu Kyi's reluctance to speak out for Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya people.
She has tended to avoid anti-Chinese rhetoric and, unlike many of her fellow Nobel Prize winners, has shied away more generally from condemning alleged human rights abuses around the globe.
“She certainly doesn’t want to be seen as anti-China, and I don’t see anything that suggests she actually is,” said Thant Myint-U, a historian and author who has worked with Myanmar’s government on its peace process to end more than 60 years of civil conflict. “Her concerns have always been very domestic.”