Russia Sours on Trump, But China Is Thrilled

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From David Remnick of the New Yorker:

If you talk to people in Moscow now, there’s a lot of buyer’s remorse. There was an order sent down to Russian television, “enough with the celebrating about Trump!”

From the Wall Street Journal on the White House barring disliked reporters from a briefing last week:

China Gloats as Trump Squanders U.S. Soft Power

To Chinese propagandists, the widely criticized White House move was a cause for glee—and another example of Donald Trump playing into China’s hands. For almost seven decades, the U.S. has championed a liberal order in the Asia-Pacific….Today, America’s ideological shift, part of a populist backlash to globalization, threatens to undermine Washington’s position in a region it transformed.

To the extent that the Trump White House closes the country’s borders to immigrants, raises the specter of trade tariffs, or impedes the operations of a free press—even when those restrictions have no equivalence in the repression that Chinese journalists suffer—it creates an opportunity for Beijing.

So Russia put in all this work to elect Trump, and the big winner is…China. Nice work, Vlad.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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