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...read about where the money went after colonization ended.

As colonization gradually ended after World War II, colonizers largely fled newly independent countries in Asia and Africa, and their money fled as well. A new article [[link removed]] by historian Vanessa Ogle begins to answer the question of where that money — termed, amazingly, “funk money” — actually went. Like the former colonizers themselves, many of whom were not eager to return to their metropoles and live life in a non-aristocratic class, only some funk money went to the colonizers’ countries of origin. Instead, Ogle finds, much of it went to offshore tax havens, jurisdictions that vastly expanded their wealth and tax evasion operations in the decolonization period. Most tax havens were former colonial dependencies and offered investors similar status — and independence from government oversight — to what they enjoyed as colonizers. That flow of funk money was instrumental in creating the tax haven system that today shields so much shady capital from any regulatory gaze.

There’s a lot of sanctions in this neighborhood — you should pay us to protect you

The US last week held its national thumb up to the rest of its national fingers and shook them for emphasis as it made Sudan an offer [[link removed]] it couldn’t refuse. When Sudanese protests forced the overthrow of longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir and began a transition to democracy, the new government inherited crippling US sanctions against the country stemming from Bashir’s support of al-Qaeda. In a visit to Khartoum last week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo offered to revoke those sanctions for the new government — in exchange for $330 million.

The State Department presented the $330 million as a compromise, as US courts declared Bashir’s regime culpable for over $10 billion in damages caused by al-Qaeda during the period his government supported the group.

Sudan’s new government is struggling to establish itself, overcome decades of mismanagement by Bashir, and contain an expanding COVID-19 crisis, and all those efforts are severely hampered by ongoing US sanctions. The country may have no choice but to pay.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] Don’t look here (do look here)

The thing about the mass availability of information in the digital age is that when information is unavailable, it’s noticeable. When Buzzfeed investigators noticed [[link removed]] that Chinese mapping service Baidu Maps had some tiles missing in its maps of Xinjiang province, they figured that it wasn’t a random data problem. Instead, as they soon confirmed, the missing tiles held state infrastructure the Chinese government wished to hide: military bases, power plants, and, crucially, concentration camps for ethnic Uighers.

Buzzfeed located 428 sites believed to be associated with the Uigher detention program using this method. Of those, 268 were either constructed or expanded since 2016, when the government’s campaign against Uighur Muslims kicked into high gear.

The camps were made easier to identify because they need to be near existing infrastructure, both to bring electricity and other amenities to the camps and to limit the distance that detainees have to be transported. This means that many towns in Xinjiang have camps on their outskirts, as part of the background of daily life.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] DEEP DIVE The international politics of COVID-19: Part II

This week, we’ll finish up our coverage of the journal International Organizations’ special issue [[link removed]] on COVID-19 and its effects. More articles from the issue (including one on health diplomacy by Midnight Oil alumna Tanisha Fazal) are forthcoming, but today we’ll take a look at political scientist Daniel Drezner’s article [[link removed]] discussing COVID-19’s effects on the international system overall.

Many have portrayed the COVID-19 pandemic as a system-altering shock, something that will leave the world forever changed. Drezner, however, gazes down from the heights of wherever it is that political scientists consider the basic interactions of states ( Walnut Hill [[link removed].], in Drezner’s case) at a disease that has killed over half a million people worldwide and says, basically, “enh.” Rather than foreseeing a massive shift in the structure of international relations, Drezner predicts that COVID-19 will result in the opposite: a greater entrenchment of existing international power structures.

To make his case, Drezner looks at the history of disease and world politics. What he finds is that, while pandemics have caused major changes in international relations in the past — such as when the Antonine Plague of 165 A.D. ended the territorial expansion of the Roman empire or when smallpox and measles hastened the European genocide of native population in the Americas — those effects have lessened over time. Since Napoleon, developments in science and public health have increased the capacity of states to cope with pandemics and lessened their impacts on international politics. The influenza pandemic of 1918, for example, was basically forgotten in popular history until COVID-19, despite its massive demographic effects, because states had the ability to absorb the losses it produced. By the time SARS came around in 2003, it was contained quickly enough to barely be a blip on China’s remarkable economic expansion.

Drezner sees that trend continuing today. Despite stumbles, some major, by both countries in their COVID-19 response, it does seem that the US and China will exit the pandemic as the most powerful players in the international arena, same as they entered the crisis. Though the pandemic has upended the US economy, it has not appreciably diminished US economic power, which it has demonstrated through the Federal Reserve offering other central banks access to dollars and propping up liquidity within the US.

While China has gained plaudits for controlling the virus before the US, its attempts to grow its international profile through international pandemic response have largely backfired, Drezner argues. The personal protective equipment and other material aid China has distributed to other countries has often been poorly made, and allegations that China bullied the World Health Organization into unduly praising its early pandemic response make both the country and the WHO look bad.

Indeed, the pandemic has not even produced a major shift in economic competition between the US and China. Early in the pandemic, Drezner points out, the Trump administration pursued its trade deal with China rather than pressing China on public health cooperation. The resulting trade deal remains in place, even as rhetoric between the two countries has again grown heated.

Ultimately, it is unlikely that COVID-19 will cause a transformation of the international system on its own. Instead, like in so many crises, the default result will be increased power for those who already hold it. In this age, shaking up the balance of power requires political organization rather than simply waiting for nature to have its say.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] SHOW US THE RECEIPTS

Charles Maynes wrote [[link removed]] about the fate of Soviet-era statues that came down in Moscow during Russia’s post-Soviet transition in the early 1990s. Many statues memorializing oppressive figures like Soviet secret police founder Felix Derzhinsky now reside in Park Muzeon, a collection of former icons from whom Russia has moved on. Former city officials Maynes spoke to (and indeed Maynes himself) are quick to point out that the statues were removed only after a city ordinance was passed to that effect, but, nearly 30 years on, no one else Maynes spoke to seemed to remember or care about the process that brought the statues to Park Muzeon.

Kendyl Salcito argued [[link removed]] that police departments should stop using tear gas as a weapon against protests. Though tear gas is usually presented as a “less-than-lethal” weapon, in fact it can have lethal effects, particularly in the COVID-19 era. Exposure to tear gas accelerates COVID-19 symptoms so much and makes people so susceptible to infection that the American Thoracic Society urged a moratorium on its use during the pandemic. Even once the threat of COVID-19 has passed, however, tear gas will remain a form of collective punishment, which, as Salcito pointed out, is banned in wartime under the Geneva Conventions.

Rebecca Kanthor reported [[link removed]] on the sudden cancellation of ShanghaiPRIDE festival, which was canceled two weeks ago when organizers cited “safety” concerns. Shanghai’s gay pride festival, China’s flagship pride event, had been running uninterrupted for 12 years. Organizers have long faced interference from local and national authorities, and since the cancellation some of them have reportedly been detained by police. ShanghaiPRIDE attendees speculated that the moves against the festival may presage a wider crackdown on LGBT people in China.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] WELL PLAYED

In this coffee company’s defense, they [[link removed]] did market test “Concentration Camp Inventor” brand coffee but people found it off-putting.

* Cackles [[link removed]] in All-Volunteer Force*

The World Bank has long used its Doing Business Report to shame countries for having the temerity to institute regulations that prevent companies from doing things like cooking their books. Welp [[link removed]]!

Can’t argue with this [[link removed]] logic. It’s all there in the name!

The official name might be the Popular Mobilization Forces, but everyone would call them the Fashd [[link removed]].

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Great Power Competition is: “I think we should really look at it through the lens of uh… competition." — a real life security expert.

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Critical State is written by Sam Ratner and is a collaboration between The World and Inkstick Media.

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With an online magazine and podcast featuring a diversity of expert voices, Inkstick Media is “foreign policy for the rest of us.”

Critical State is made possible in part by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

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