The Red Folder

Archived from June 10, 2024.

Key stories for the week, brought to you by Lindsey Zhao and the Red Folder team.

Reading for the sake of reading sucks. Telling yourself to read to win a round is nice but ineffective. This condensed news brief helps you understand current domestic and international issues, analyze the news, and gives you opportunities to read more.

Publishing since January 2024.

International Stories

4 key international stories for the week:

1) The Newest President of Mexico is a Climate Scientist Evelyn Ding

Claudia Sheinbaum, the newly elected President of Mexico as of last Sunday, is a world-renowned climate scientist. With a PhD in energy emissions and authorship on two reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Sheinbaum is well-suited to apply her science knowledge to tackle Mexico’s enormous environmental problems.

However, there’s just one obstacle: Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO for short.

AMLO is the outgoing president, and to say he is extremely popular in Mexico would be an understatement. Sheinbaum’s political success has been inextricably intertwined with him. In 2000, she first entered politics to become AMLO’s environmental secretary back when he was mayor of Mexico City. In 2018, Sheinbaum went on to serve as the mayor of Mexico City herself. And most recently, Sheinbaum won the presidency with AMLO’s support, campaigning as his protégé and promising that she would continue many of his policies.

Because AMLO played a huge role in Sheinbaum’s victory, he will clearly exert a level of influence over Sheinbaum’s future policies. And what does AMLO want? Under his pro-fossil fuels presidency, he derailed the country’s push toward green energy. Now, during Sheinbaum’s presidency, he will try to further undermine Mexico’s green energy transition.

Yet Sheinbaum’s proposed environmental policies sharply differ from AMLO’s. Claiming that she is independent and takes a more technocratic approach than AMLO, she has pushed forward her own set of policies including investing billions of dollars into green energy initiatives.

Let’s break down how Sheinbaum’s vision differs from AMLO’s policies.

Total Investment

The total quantity a president invests in green energy is emblematic of their level of support for it.

While Mexico invested near $6 billion into green energy in 2017 (before AMLO took office), AMLO cut that to a measly $700 million in 2022, according to the most recent data available from Statista.
Sheinbaum plans to increase investment by a whopping $13.6 billion. This money will go toward transforming the energy grid, including building transmission lines.

Private companies

Private companies are deemed necessary for a rapid switch to renewables, due to their ability to raise capital and innovate. Even though Mexico has not been exactly friendly to them, private companies supplied nearly 60% of Mexico’s total energy demand in 2022, while the state-owned company CFE only supplied 41%.

AMLO discouraged private companies in renewable energy. This is because he personally benefited from the profits from fossil fuel companies through lobbying efforts and corruption schemes. What are some specific policy examples? Under AMLO’s presidency, the Energy Regulatory Commission rejected 213 permits. Furthermore, the government set a 500 kilowatt cap for the amount of energy a private company could generate.
Sheinbaum could reverse AMLO’s suppression of private companies. Broadly speaking, Sheinbaum has already declared her goal for 50% renewable energy by 2030. According to the Mexican Institute for Competitivity think tank, this target is more than double the current 22% energy rate (which fell from its high of 28% in 2021). Because this goal is so ambitious, it will require the private companies to greatly step up where the bureaucracy-plagued state owned companies are predicted to fall short.
What are the policies Sheinbaum could actually implement to allow for increased private involvement? First is reforming the permit process, which can take 5-7 years for a single solar or wind project, making it double the time of other Latin American countries. Second is increasing the generation limit to 1 megawatt (equivalent to 1000 kilowatts), which private companies have already been asking for.

State owned companies

While private companies often take the lead in renewables, sometimes they are held back by misaligned profit incentives. However, state companies simply need to be mandated by the government for them to go renewable. That’s why it’s extremely important for state owned companies to play their part. This is especially true in Mexico — due to the Constitutional mandate, around 60% of the country’s power comes from state owned companies.

AMLO’s policies spent billions propping up state-owned fossil fuel companies, oil firm Pemex and power utility CFE. Pemex has been struggling to stay afloat for years, relying on government financial support. In October 2023, Mexico’s government gave Pemex $3.2 billion to strengthen its financial position. In that quarter, they gave Pemex an additional $4.1 billion for paying off its debts. Furthermore, AMLO slashed the company’s tax rate from 65% to 30%.
Furthermore, AMLO sought to mandate the state company receive a certain market share. In 2022 when CFE supplied 41% of Mexico’s demand, AMLO tried to impose a market share of 54%.
Sheinbaum has realized that spending billions to prop up Mexican state energy companies is unsustainable. In fact, Pemex is the world’s most indebted oil producer with $6.8 billion due next year. Sheinbaum is responsible for helping pull Pemex out of its debt woes. As Alonso Romero, her energy ambassador explains, Sheinbaum intends to make Pemex “enter new markets” and expand to green energy sources as part of a debt renegotiation deal.
These new markets that Sheinbaum refers to could be geothermal energy, a zero-carbon energy source. Mexico’s massive geothermal energy reserves. Pemex workers already have training in drilling techniques that can be cross applied to geothermal. As the president, Sheinbaum could mandate for Pemex and CFE to tap into Mexico’s geothermal reserves. This would allow the massive companies to shake off their debt woes and prepare themselves for the future of green energy.

If Sheinbaum pursues her ambitious vision for solving climate change, she risks losing the support of AMLO and alienating the voters who put her in office. But the climate situation in Mexico is so dire (with Mexico City projected to run out of water by the end of this month) that Sheinbaum has a moral obligation to act.

Only time will tell if Sheinbaum will sacrifice her country’s environment at the altar of political greed.

Read More Here:

2) France and the EU’s Far Right Future Lindsey Zhao

France’s Macron has lost big- and not because his name eerily resembles that of a sweet confection. He’s lost EU parliamentary seats, and that could risk his entire administration.

As the only directly elected body in the European Union, the European Parliament is one of the only ways citizens in the EU have a direct say in who represents them. In a ‘US House’ style, each country is allocated a certain number of Members of Parliament (MEPs) based on the country’s population.

But while in the past, these five-year election cycles were a second thought at best, the European Parliament is proving increasingly important. During the COVID pandemic, they issued massive economic benefits; they placed EU-wide sanctions on Russian gas; and they have adopted ambitious climate change policies.

However, the EU has long been criticized for its lack of transparency, accountability, urbanist policies, and, more recently, euroscepticism. Because of carbon tax policies that have been harming rural farmers, a failure to adequately address record levels of illegal immigration, and even to an extent culture war issues relating to sexuality, gender, and schools, the EU is set to make a sharp turn to the right.

And in the EU Parliamentary elections that happened throughout the continent almost all of last week, in Germany to Austria to France to Spain, that’s exactly what happened.

Here’s the Guardian’s live counting of the vote.

To summarize- the main center-right party, the EPP (European People’s Party), led by President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, maintains a relatively strong majority, with 186 seats out of 720. Far left parties like the Greens and the Renew have lost over a dozen seats in Parliament, a disappointing but predicted result for liberals across the EU. The Socialists & Democrats Party (S&D) have also filled their predicted roles, coming in a comfortable second place with 135 seats. This will be enough to provide the center/center-left with a majority in parliament.

But also as predicted by many political analysts, far right parties in the EU made massive inroads, especially in Austria, France, and Germany. They’ve undoubtedly been rewarded by voters that are tired of the current establishment's various policies, failures, and policy failures. Austria’s far-right Freedom Party has gained the most votes of any individual party in the country for the first time, with 26%.

In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz suffered a huge loss when voters gave his party, the left-leaning Social Democrats, their worst EU result ever, rewarding mainstream conservatives and the extremely far-right AfD Party (Alternative for Deustchland), placing them second in their part of the elections.

You might recall them as the far right party issuing statements so extreme, so strangely Nazi-like, that protests erupted over their policies a few months ago in Germany and which earned worldwide censure. For instance, one former EU Parliament candidate, who has since been pushed off the campaign trail by AfD leadership, expressed his belief that “not all members of the SS [the Nazi paramilitary force] were necessarily criminals.” Another candidate pushed off campaigns is being investigated for receiving money for Russia. Although the AfD has enjoyed a general uptick in popularity, they had the potential to gain even more seats in the EU if it weren’t for many recent scandals.

France is in even deeper water still. French President Emmanuel Macron, who has already seen his popularity slide in recent months, was dealt a devastating blow by France’s own far right party led by former presidential candidate and lawyer Marine le Pen, the National Rally (RN). They gained about a third of all French votes, more than double that of Macron’s own party, Renaissance. The RN is known for their far-right stance on immigration and euroscepticism.

In response, France’s Macron has made a massive gamble. He dissolved the National Parliament and called for snap elections for the national assembly on June 30 and July 7, of this year. This tight timeframe gives his allies barely any room to navigate, and they have criticized this move as a ‘gamble on democracy’.

“This is a very dangerous game to play with democracy and the institutions. I am flabbergasted.”

Raphaël Glucksmann, Socialist party leader

“Dissolving without giving anyone time to organize and without any campaign is playing Russian roulette with the country’s destiny.”

Valérie Pécresse, a senior figure in the conservative Les Républicains party

“We are ready to put the country back on its feet. We are ready to defend the interests of the French people.”

Marine le Pen, leader of far-right RN

Thankfully for the ruling party, it is less likely they will see punishing results in national elections. Many Europeans regard EU Parliament elections as a series of inconsequential protest votes. However, that stance could absolutely shift when it comes to domestic elections, because their impacts will be more immediate and more impactful.

Macron’s goal was to give his party a chance to regain their absolute majority in their national assembly, and their footing- but it may well do the opposite, because it’s giving the RN a chance to win their own majority in government, which would effectively render any action Macron takes as useless for the rest of his time as president. At the very least, he’s hoping if they do gain a majority, it will leave them plenty of time to show their inexperience in governance and turn voters against them for the 2027 presidential elections when Macron is ineligible to run.

Macron’s name may bear a stunning resemblance to the macaron, but he might not find things so sweet in a few months.

Read more here:

3) Beijing’s South China Sea Brinkmanship Justin Palazzolo

China has never been a nation to disguise its hegemonic aims. When referring to the entirety of the South China Sea, Lieutenant General He Lei decried foreign “wolves” that were interfering in their “house”, a clear sign that China views the SCS increasingly as its backyard despite the 7+ other nations that hold claims on it. Official Chinese foreign policy reflects this notion, with the Chinese Foreign Ministry upholding the “nine-dash” map as its SCS claims, despite direct overlap with the Exclusive Economic Zones(EEZs) of the Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Malaysia.

Basing itself largely on arbitrary historical claims, the nine-dash line directly interferes with the UNCLOS agreements which set the international framework for national sea jurisdiction. More specifically, the basis of the conflict focuses on the overlap between China’s SCS claims and the EEZs of the aforementioned nations. EEZs designate a 200-nautical mile zone that extends from a nation’s coastline where a country has exclusive jurisdiction of economic resources within those waters. With 21% of global trade or 3.37 trillion USD running through the SCS and with 10 billion barrels of petroleum and 6.7 trillion cubic feet of liquefied natural gas estimated to lie under the SCS, every single SCS nation sees the integrity of its EEZ claims as a strategic necessity for their economic future; thus it would make sense that China’s actions are not without response.

Though other Asia-Pacific nations have looked to challenge China’s claims, the recent flare-up between China and the Philippines has been the clearest example of these underlying tensions being brought to a head. Beginning earlier this spring, when over 100 Chinese Coast Guard vessels interfered with the resupplying of a Philippine naval outpost on Second Thomas Shoal, China has waged a concerted effort to harass or displace Philippine vessels operating well within their EEZ, ranging from fishing vessels to navy ships. In the past week, China has doubled its vessels on stations in the Philippines with major incidents when Chinese sailors stole air-dropped food supplies for the grounded Sierra Madre at Second Thomas Shoal and then used water cannons to interfere with the medical evacuation of a marine from the Sierra Madre. Philippine fishermen have been denied access to fishing grounds well within the EEZ and supply ships have been rammed by Chinese vessels, with injuries being incurred by sailors on the supply ships. However, the most concerning threat for the Philippines revolves around China’s possible militarization of islands within their EEZ zones.

Starting in 2016, China has built artificial islands and fortified islands in the Spratlys island chain despite a UNCLOS ruling in favor of the Philippines' claims, in practicality shutting down the EEZ and territorial claims of 6 other nations on the Spratlys using their military. Now Beijing has escalated its military exercises around Sabina Shoal and denied Philippine access to the atoll via harassment. Manilla fears that China could be constructing/fortifying another artificial military island within the atoll and replicate their actions from the Spratlys. The Philippines has an excellent reason to suspect Beijing since this possibility would in effect deny the Philippines access to islands within their own EEZ and give China the ability to post permanent garrisons in the region. Ultimately the loss of EEZ control could have severe economic consequences with Vietnam being forced to temporarily halt drilling back in 2017 due to Chinese threats. Furthermore, fishing accounts for 1.6 million Philippine jobs and 50% of the protein intake for the average Filipino, China’s history of harassment and denial of Filipino fishermen is particularly troubling.

Though China has had tensions with other nations in the AIPAC region its current intensity regarding the overlapping SCS claims is almost unilaterally aimed toward the Philippines. Many analysts speculate that this is due to Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. seeking aggressive security ties with the U.S. and other Quad members. While other ASEAN members have had territorial spats with China such as Vietnam, currently, China’s foreign policy is disproportionately more aggressive within the Philippines’ EEZ. Due to this, the risk of escalation and conflict is uniquely high within the Philippines-China tensions. President Marcos Jr. reiterated that any Chinese act leading to the death of a Filipino would activate the mutual defense pact between the U.S. and the Philippines, which the US Department of State reaffirmed. With dozens of sailors already being injured by water cannons or ramming by Chinese vessels, the distinct possibility of war by draw-in remains present for both the U.S. and the Philippines. Furthermore, territorial disputes have historically led to bloodshed in the SCS with 60 Vietnamese sailors being killed during a clash in the Spratlys with China. If such an event happened between the Philippines and China an Asia-Pacific war could envelop the region.

China clearly holds little regard for UNCLOS EEZ demarcations and prefers to only recognize the fences of its nine-dash “backyard”. The Philippines should have recognized that the bounds of diplomatic reason ended when China started citing Han Dynasty history from 206 BC to justify its 21st-century hegemonic claims.