Trump’s Putin meeting showed his naiveté, Trump-Putin’s meeting was overhyped, Why Donald Trump Jr.’s handling of Russian lawyer meeting makes things worse, Has China lost its grip on Hong Kong youth?, After Mosul, Islamic State remains a threat
A roundup of global commentary for the July 24, 2017 weekly magazine.
President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, July 7, 2017. Mr.Trump had a second, previously undisclosed conversation with Putin at the summit it Germany.
Evan Vucci/AP
EUObserver / Brussels
Trump’s meeting with Putin showed his naiveté
“The meeting between US president Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit ... confirmed the expected naivete of the American president. But what scared me was Trump’s belief that the West and Russia are equal in their values and goals...,” writes Tomas Prouza. “I did not know whether to laugh or cry when Trump and Putin announced they wanted to set up a cyber security unit, so that election-tampering cybercrimes were ‘under control’. The image this idea brought to my mind was of creating an anti-burglary working group with a burglar who had just cleared out your house.... The real damage was done a bit later in the meeting, when Trump agreed to Putin’s ‘demand’ that the two countries will not interfere in each other’s affairs.”
The News / Mexico City
Trump and Putin’s meeting was an overhyped clash of titans
“After so much hype ..., the meeting between U.S. President Donald J. Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin ... [at the G20 summit in Hamburg] turned out to be much ado about nothing...,” writes Thérèse Margolis. “[W]hat happened in Hamburg seems likely to stay there.... And, while the tepid ceasefire accord ... may not be much to show for a two-hour, 16-minute face-off between the two global titans, at least, it is a good start, and it could pave the way for more significant advances in international diplomacy.”
The Guardian / Britain
Why Donald Trump Jr.’s handling of Russian lawyer meeting makes things worse
“[Donald] Trump Jr stressed that the lawyer [said in an email to be representing the Russian government] was not, in fact, a Russian government official. But he met her believing that she was, and having heard that Moscow wished to intervene in a US election...,” states an editorial. “The incompetence and dishonesty of the Trump administration has a bleakly comic edge. But let no one doubt the seriousness of these developments.... [I]n Hamburg, [President Trump] held his first meeting as leader with Vladimir Putin.... There was no sign of much progress on the pressing global issues.... [S]lowly and inexorably, he is being trapped between a disastrous self-interested flirtation with a ruthless Russian leader and the readiness of the American legal system and its free press to investigate the facts.”
South China Morning Post / Hong Kong
Has China lost its grip on young Hong Kongers?
“Can a one-party communist state win the hearts and minds of those who belong to that same state but have lived in a separate free society for generations? Twenty years after Hong Kong’s reunification with China, that remains a question many would rather avoid...,” writes Michael Chugani. “Is Beijing to blame for alienating Hongkongers with its obsessive suspicion of the opposition?... Or is it simply Hongkongers cannot identify with a country that limits free speech, controls the media, and jails political dissidents?... What I do know is young Hongkongers, especially those born in the digital age, see such things as China’s ever tightening internet firewall as totally alien to them. Maybe the only way to lure them is a changed China.”
Times of India / Mumbai
After Mosul, Islamic State remains a threat
“[M]ilitary setbacks to [Islamic State] should not make anyone underestimate the threat it continues to pose,” states an editorial. “The IS threat stems primarily from its ideology.... [W]estern nations such as France and UK are threatened by lone wolf attacks, armed groups pledging alliance to IS have taken over parts of Marawi, Philippines. India too has not been immune to its influence as young men inspired by its ideology have set off to fight in Syria. And the threat emanating from this ideology is unlikely to abate with IS’s military losses in Iraq and Syria.... [India’s] intelligence establishment has to measure up to the challenge of dealing with the contemporary trend of self-radicalisation through social media. [W]e should live up to the Constitution’s ideals which offer a view that is the polar opposite of IS’s sectarianism.”