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US Won’t Have Any Pandas for the First Time in 50 Years

The zoo’s three pandas are set to return to China by December with the expiration of a three-year agreement with China’s wildlife agency that month. It’s not just the US capital. The three other US zoos that have Chinese pandas — Atlanta, San Diego and Memphis — have all either turned over their pandas or will see them return to China by the end of next year.

Although both sides deny politics are at play, China has long used “Panda Diplomacy” to curry favor, reward friends and punish adversaries. And the potential loss of America’s last pandas comes at a moment when ties between the US and China have hit a historic low, with most avenues of cooperation cut off.

“There’s some significance to the fact that all of the pandas in the United States will be back in China by next year,” said Elena Songster, a professor at Saint Mary’s College of California and author of “Panda Nation,” a book about China’s panda policy. “They have a plan. They know what they’re doing.”

The push-and-pull over pandas reflects in part the quirky way they show up in zoos around the world. Zoos don’t get full custody of pandas. Instead, they rent them, signing contracts to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars every year to China.

The US was rewarded with its first pandas after President Richard Nixon normalized ties in 1972 and many other nations followed. A 2013 study found a correlation between uranium deals and panda loans to Canada and France. In 2018, China loaned out pandas to Finland to mark a centennial of Finnish independence.

There are plenty of non-political reasons why the pandas may be going home now. One explanation is that the pandas leaving US zoos are all reaching the age when they would go home anyway. Some pandas’ departure was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic, which also slowed China’s loan system.

Both China and the US have kept open the door to a possible return. That’s in keeping with tentative signs that relations may be reversing their dramatic slide.

EK: Let them keep all the pandas they want so that pandas may not be used for a diplomatic purpose any longer. Why so obsessed with pandas anyway? There are plenty of other animals to see in the zoos.

New York City Tells Migrants ‘You Are Better Off’ Somewhere Else

New York City is planning to distribute flyers to migrants in shelters and at the US southern border that say the city’s resources “have been exhausted” and they won’t get any help finding work, officials said Wednesday.

The one-page flyer, printed in both English and Spanish, warns asylum seekers that “you will not be placed in a hotel,” and that “NYC is one of the most expensive cities in the world; you are better off going to a more affordable city.” The flyer also declares “NYC cannot help you obtain a work permit, and you will not be able to easily find work.”

The flyers contradict some of the city and state’s own recently announced plans to help asylum seekers apply to work legally and find jobs. The city, in partnership with state and federal officials, is conducting a major survey to identify people eligible to apply for asylum and work permit authorizations, and in June opened a legal clinic to help migrants with their applications.

New York’s unique right-to-shelter rule is helping lure many of the migrants, who are in turn urging their relatives to join them, city officials said Wednesday. Adams has taken to the courts to challenge the provision, which requires the city provide shelter for anyone who lacks housing.

EK: Well, they’ve done enough. It’s about time to say no.

McDonald’s Resists EU Push to Mandate Reusable Packaging

Fast-food companies are pushing back against European Union proposals to require all restaurants to use reusable materials for serving dine—in customers, warning that early experiences with reuse aren’t promising.

McDonald’s said that after spending years reducing the use of environmentally harmful plastics in its restaurants by focusing on recycling and recyclable packaging, the EU plan would amount to a reversal.

“We’ve basically eliminated plastic from our restaurants,” Jon Banner, the global chief impact officer for McDonald’s, said in a recent interview. “Now, as a result of reuse, we’re going to have to end up reintroducing plastic to our restaurants with the goal of having it be reused and reused and reused.”

McDonald’s Corp. has experimented with offering reusable cups in several European countries, and says that many of them simply disappear. That’s the case in Germany, where customers who select reusable materials pay a €2 ($2.10) deposit, but only 40% of cups return to restaurants.

In recent years, the restaurant industry has invested heavily in recyclable and biodegradable packaging, and some companies aren’t happy about having to pivot away from that.

“They have built in some parts of Europe very aggressive recycling schemes that have worked, and they’ve educated schoolchildren,” Banner said. “It’s sort of become a way of life.”

EK: Earth’s had enough but McDonald’s too. If it has become a way of life, why don’t customers return the reusable cups? The gap between what people think and what people do… as well as the gap between the hope and the reality.

Finally, There’s More Money Than Fools in China

For years, China’s netizens joked that the country was home to millions of fools with a lot of money. They were called “chives,” a healthy crop that can flourish soon after harvesting, and keep coming up again and again.

This characterization was not entirely unjustified. After all, China’s fervent day traders did propel the stock market to dare-devil levels in 2015. The equally spectacular crash did not seem to leave long-lasting trauma. A few years later, the optimistic rekindled their spirits, raining down billions of dollars onto whatever was trendy, from star managers’ new funds to apple futures.

That audacity has evaporated, however. Three decades after the opening of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the Chinese have become hard-nosed investors. They no longer want to be the fools catching the falling knives.

It’s well-known the Chinese have been hoarding cash since the pandemic. But this behavior started as early as 2018. By then, households had already gone through a rollercoaster ride of excitements and disappointments. In fact, their preference for buying investment products, such as stocks, bonds and trusts, has been on a steady decline since the 2015 crash, according to the central bank survey.

This risk-off mentality creates a big headache for the government, in that it inevitably dampens new policies aimed at boosting market sentiment.

Once bitten, twice shy. The Shanghai Composite Index hovers at around 3,100, more than 40% below its record high in 2007. In the property market, existing home prices have fallen by at least 15% from their peak in more than half of China’s tier-2 and tier-3 cities.

State media likes to scoff at American exceptionalism, criticizing gun violence or racial tensions whenever they are on the news. But with wealth creation, the US is unquestionably exceptional. Households have about 39% of their money tied in the market and only 13% in cash and bank deposits, according to data from the Federal Reserve. They are willing to tolerate uncertainty, because the stock market, over time, rewards those who buy and hold.

Not in China. People have realized that taking risks doesn’t benefit them, at least not in the current political economy. They have money, but prefer sitting on the sidelines.

EK: China is catching up with other established Asian coutnries’ pattern very quickly. Americans being more risk-taking is just their culture.

The US Needs India to Buffer China, and Modi Knows It

The killing of a Sikh separatist in Canada in June, allegedly by agents of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Indian government, has opened a rift between one of America’s closest allies and one of its most vital geopolitical partners. It has also illustrated an unavoidable irony of President Joe Biden’s foreign policy.

Biden aims to bolster a threatened global order by hastening India’s rise. As India rises, however, it will act in ways that sometimes challenge the very order Washington must defend. And if Biden’s team believes, as Asia policy czar Kurt Campbell has said, that the US and India have “the most important bilateral relationship on the planet,” then Washington will probably tolerate a lot of bad behavior to keep that relationship intact.

Today, large swaths of Eurasia are ruled by US enemies — a prickly, bellicose China; a vengeful, violent Russia; an expansionist Iran. India, an increasingly prosperous country of 1.4 billion people, may be the key to holding the balance — and particularly to denying China a free hand on land as it also expands at sea.

India is no less critical as a global manufacturing hub, a contributor to resilient technological supply chains, and a diplomatic leader of the developing world. This is why Biden has so prioritized strengthening US-India relations by hosting Modi for a state visit in Washington, helping make the recent G-20 meeting a showcase for Modi’s leadership, and pursuing deeper cooperation across the board.

Yet Biden doesn’t view India as a prospective military ally; he isn’t counting on New Delhi to rush to America’s assistance in a war with China over Taiwan. The idea is simply that America and India share a vital interest in keeping Beijing from dominating Asia and, perhaps, the world. So the US helps itself by helping India develop economically, mature militarily, and otherwise put its power athwart China’s path to primacy.

It’s not all upside. A US president who initially talked about a great clash between autocracy and democracy has taken a very muted approach to discussing the infringement of human rights, civil liberties and political freedoms in Modi’s India — or the incendiary Hindu nationalism in which his government traffics.

Likewise, India hasn’t done much to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. In fact, it has benefitted greatly from the war, which allows it to obtain Russian oil at discount rates. And if indeed Modi’s men killed Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada in June, his government is emulating the transnational repression associated with harder-edged autocracies like China, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

India opposes Chinese hegemony, but that doesn’t mean it loves American might. New Delhi wants a multipolar system, in which India stands among the great powers, rather than a unipolar system in which Washington and its allies tower above the rest. And as India’s influence grows, it will demand great-power prerogatives — including, perhaps, the right to trample the sovereignty of other democracies by targeting domestic enemies on their soil.

Right now, Modi’s government believes New Delhi holds all the cards. Indian officials have privately said they just don’t believe Washington will do anything to spoil the relationship, given how desperately America needs support against Beijing. They’re probably right.

EK: Strategic alliance for a temporary purpose. Good for now, though.

Google User Data Has Become a Favorite Police Shortcut

EK: There is no free lunch.