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François Heisbourg Profile picture
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30 Mar, 5 tweets, 2 min read
Notwithstanding Macron's use of the word, it never was an "alliance" in the sense that Russia would side with China against Vietnam in the SCS, or that China would support Russia in its Georgian or Ukrainian ventures. If it had tried to be, it would have broken down. 1/
It is a strategic partnership in which the two parties have free hands to do what they want to do (eg Russia in Crimea, China in SCS...). China benefits from access to Russian military know-how, energy and not having to worry about Russia siding with US "à la Mearsheimer" 2/
Russia has piece and quiet on its long Eastern border. Both bolster each other at the UN and have a framework for managing Central Asian issues. It's not frictionless nor competition-free. But it may well be more stable than a partnership among equals à la Hitler-Stalin: 3/
When a relationship is this unequal (🇨🇳=3xdefence spending, 8×GDP, 10×population of 🇷🇺), there is little room for miscalculation. In a way, the parallel here is 🇺🇲🇨🇳Nixon-Mao, with deep mil+intel cooperation (eg US SIGINT in Xinjiang) and siding with Khmer Rouge vs Hanoi. 4/
So it may get bumpy on occasion, but it's more resilient than a set-piece alliance between peers. Note: the state of European-Russian relations is hardly material to the Russia-China strategic partnership, contrary to @EmmanuelMacron 's hopes./.

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More from @FHeisbourg

François Heisbourg Profile picture
9 Jan
PANDEMIC'S PROGRESS ( thread
1. GLOBAL: This is possibly the darkest moment up to now, with ca 16K daily deaths worldwide. At this rate the 2 million toll will be reached by mid January. Remember: undercounting is the norm
2. SEASONAL OR NOT? Much hope is placed in Europe,US 1/
...on pandemic's supposedly seasonal nature because of SARSCoV-2's propensity for cool temperatures. Fact is that in Brazil, it's definitely not winter & pandemic is running amok as badly as it did a few months ago, at +1K daily deaths, breaching 200 K level on 8 JAN. 2/
3. VARIANTS: B117 variant probably explains the pandemic's rampage in UK with +1.3K daily deaths. What is less clear is whether insufficiently detected B117 (and/or South African V2) outside of UK & RSA are already playing a role, or not, in pandemic's ongoing global surge. 3/
Read 8 tweets
François Heisbourg Profile picture
29 Jun 20
My take on French municipal elections THREAD:
1) a resounding defeat of President's party: not a single victory of note by "En Marche!". This is a personal setback
2) conversely, the no less resounding victory by Macron's PM at Le Havre is a big problem for Prez who can... 1/5
...hardly fire such a popular figure; but with such a popular PM, the President will inevitably be cramped in a way which will weigh on 2022 elex. And of course, Édouard Philippe can jump ship.
3) massive abstention (close to 60%) is in part a reaction to Covid mismanagement: 2/5
electors were called to vote in 1st round on 15 March as pandemic was picking up; this was widely seen as an unnecessary risk which was duly punished at this deferred 2d round. But low participation is also a sign of deeper democratic crisis.
3/5
Read 5 tweets
François Heisbourg Profile picture
8 Apr 20
THREAD 1/5 Superb report on UK much of which could be applied word-for-word to the pre-March French situation: Special Report: Johnson listened to his scientists about coronavirus - but they were slow to sound the alarm | Article [AMP] | Reuters reuters.com/article/us-hea…
Both countries have similar populations & centralised top-down healthcare systems. Both had well-developed pandemic plans (largely related to interhuman transmission of H5N1 avian flu). Having been involved on the French version, I agree with the assessment that these plans...2/4
...were close to what we have been going through. People who now say this couldn't have been foreseen are wrong: it was. But we failed to maintain adequate stocks of PPE (France built up a stockpile early on but didn't renew it) & both failed dismally in our testing strategy 3/4
Read 5 tweets
François Heisbourg Profile picture
4 Apr 20
HOW NOT RUN A CRISIS
France isn't the only country to be facing a shortage of masks. Even China was caught barefaced when the then-"Wuhan virus" broke out in that city. Indeed, France shipped masks+PPE to Wuhan (quietly because China wanted it that way: no geopolitics) 1/9
But there were several ways to handle such a problem. France had an acute mask shortage because its big buffer stocks (1.7bn FFP2s & surgical masks) built up to face a pandemic had not been renewed from 2011 onwards, whereas the risk of a pandemic figured prominently in its...2/9
...national security assessments (spoiler: I was involved). In a big crisis, one normally should have dealt with the issue as follws: 1.the country has a big shortage of masks (stick to the truth); 2. We have to give priority to the health carers (easy to understand) 3/9
Read 9 tweets
François Heisbourg Profile picture
7 Mar 20
A back-of-the-enveloppe thread on the spread of #COVIDー19:

1) HUBEI province (ca 60 million people) has had close to 3000 deaths. It still has an active caseload of ca 20 K patients & some 130 new cases a day, & ca 30 daily deaths. So I expect up to 3500 deaths, assuming...1/9
...a winding down of the epidemic there by end March. If,stress IF, the rest of the world became like Hubei (0.8%of world population), the death toll could be of ca 400 K with a cumulative number of cases of ca 8 million.This possibly sets the outer bounds of a Covid pandemic 2/n
Of course, active measures in the world may prevent Hubei-scale outbreaks so this is unlikely to happen (conversely, late but tough measures in Hubei have also limited Covid's spread in that province).

2) GOOD NEWS though in rest of mainland China ( minus Hubei, HK,Macau): 3/n
Read 9 tweets

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