november11–24, 2019 | newyork 17PresidentXiWillBeOurStalinLAST YEAR,Xi Jinpingdeclaredhimself
presidentforlife.Thisyear, heputhisarmy on
a permanentwarfootingandef fectivelystaged
a five-monthbattleinHongKong.Morethan
a millionUighurMuslimsare imprisonedin
concentrationcampsinwesternChina,and
HanChineseofficialsare beingsenttothe
regiontolivewiththeprisoners’wives.A
social-creditsystemmonitorsyoureverymove
andgivesyoubonuspointsforreadingthe
president’s writingdailyonyourphone.Byat
leastoneestimate,Chinawillgrowpast the
U.S.astheworld’s biggesteconomy assoonas
2020.Otherspredict it’lltake a decadeortwo
longer, butXiwillstillbeinpowerthen,too.TheTradeWarWillBeOurColdWarINTHE’50S,they hadtousethewordcold
becauseit wasa differentkindofwar. Thisone
willbe,too,andperhapsasdisruptive.Already
thisyear,a third ofAmericanfarmers’income
camefrominsurancepaymentsandTrump-
administrationbailoutmoney tomake upfor
profitslost fromthetradewar. Andthere are
muchmoreintensepressurepointsyet tobe
pressed,giventhat most ofourpharmaceuti-
cals(andiPhones)aremadeinChina.Protest Movements Will Boom
and Become Harder and Harder
to Understand^2019 is the 30th anniversary of 1989, that
iconic year when the Berlin Wall fell and citi-
zens came out en masse throughout Eastern
Europe to topple dictatorships. In 2019, we
have again seen mass protests breaking out
across the world, from Hong Kong to Moscow,
Tbilisi to Belgrade, Santiago to Prague. But
unlike in 1989—and unlike the Arab Spring or
the“colorrevolutions”oftheearlyaughts—it’s
hard to see what these protests have in com-
mon. Some are demanding the right to vote;
others focus on corruption or even smaller,
tactical goals. They don’t articulate them-
selves as part of a global story in part because,
in the current moment of populist authoritari-
anism, the challenges are much more compli-
cated than they used to be. It’s not just a mat-
ter of democracy against dictatorship because,
these days, it’s much harder to define a gov-
ernment as democratic or dictatorial. Many,
such as Serbia’s, offer a semblance of political
rights: The protests of 2019 find it harder to
gain traction than those against Milosevic in- In the Czech Republic or Georgia, the
country’s richest men control the government,
but the political system remains plural. Even
in Moscow, censorship, compared to the
USSR’s, is thinner, while freedom of move-
ment is a given. Ideologies, too, have become
more liquid. The Chinese Communist Party is,
well, not terribly communist. So it’s harder for
protesters to define their own narrative in
opposition. If the rulers of the 20th century
were stolid and slow like Arnie in the original
Terminator, today’s regimes can transform
like T2. Going forward, protests will shape-
shift, too. —PETER POMERANTSEV
We Will Never Know If a Movie
Is a HitALL OF THE ENTERTAINMENT we used to con-
sume in more independently quantifiable ways—
via TV ratings, box office, album sales—has
moved to streaming, where we just have to trust
Netflix or Spotify or Apple to tell us how popular
it is, and they will almost certainly lie. Netflix
occasionally releases random stats about how
many people watched something, and they usu-
ally strain credibility. In June, it claimed 30.9 mil-
lion watched a new Adam Sandler movie in its
first three days, which would have made it one of
the biggest openings in history if it had been
released in theaters. And we never know how suc-
cessful any movie is when it’s released on for-pay
VOD (via iTunes, Amazon, or your cable box)JAN 03
China
becomes the
first nation to
land on the
dark side of
the moon.
JAN 09
Threedaysof
tradetalksin
Beijingend
withoutany
resolution.
J
A t of
fu s in
Zi e
ends with 68
people shot; a
few days
later, tens of
thousands of
protesters
pour into the
streets of
Venezuela to
contest the
reelection of
Nicolás
Maduro.JAN 17
Netflix
announces
that You, a
drama it lifted
from Lifetime,
is “on pace”
to be viewed
by 40 million
“accounts.”