The world in 2022: a map to global politics
In 2022 the fault lines of global politics will be tested again. CityAM and the British Foreign Policy Group chart the year ahead.
If the pandemic taught us anything, it is the deep ramifications that one country’s domestic politics have globally. From the future of the French President to continual Chinese aggression, here we map the pivotal moments to look out for this year.
30 January 2022
50th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday
In January 1972, fourteen people were killed and more unarmed civilians wounded by British soldiers during a protest on internment without trial in Northern Ireland, on a day now referred to as Bloody Sunday. The events of 30 January 1972 played a profound role in the Troubles conflict and sparked a decades-long struggle for accountability. It culminated in the 2010 Saville Report which concluded that the shootings were unjustified. While the victims’ families had hoped that the British soldiers involved would face prosecution, the charges brought against the one soldier brought to face trial were formally dropped in July 2021.
The anniversary will be marked by a series of commemorative events in Derry, and will take place against the fraught backdrop of ongoing negotiations between the UK and the European Union over the Northern Ireland Protocol. It is expected that the half-centenary of Bloody Sunday will focus minds on the fragility of the peace in Northern Ireland.
Under the current Protocol, a customs barrier is created with Great Britain down the Irish Sea, a compromise designed to prevent a “hard border” between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Many worry this would aggravate political and social instability. The UK wishes to remove checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and remove EU judicial oversight of the Protocol, while the EU supports the upholding of the agreed Protocol and the maintenance of the integrity of its Single Market. The UK’s Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, has recently assumed responsibility for the negotiations and has sought a “reset” with a “pragmatic approach”.
4-20 February 2022
2022 Winter Olympics
The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics will take place in February, as tensions between China and the West continue to intensify. The Olympic Charter states that the International Olympic Committee’s role is to cooperate with authorities to “place sport at the service of humanity and thereby promote peace”. China, however, is currently facing allegations of human rights abuses against the Uighur community in Xinjiang and is drawing scrutiny for its increasingly aggressive geopolitical behaviour.
The UK government, alongside the United States, Australia, Canada, and several other nations, has announced it will be pursuing a diplomatic boycott of the Olympic Games. That will mean that government officials will not attend, but athletes will still partake in the activities. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson has responded that the Olympics are “not a stage for political posturing and manipulation” and that if needed, China will respond with countermeasures, although it is yet to specify what these may entail.
With just a few weeks left to go, most EU member states are yet to settle on their stance towards the Olympics, and it is unclear as to whether it will be feasible to forge a consensus position across the bloc. For his part, French President Emmanuel Macron has dismissed the prospect of a boycott as “insignificant and symbolic”.
While the Olympic Games are framed as taking place outside of the realm of politics, it is impossible to separate their staging from wider geopolitical circumstances and they have historically more often than not become a battleground for tensions and disputes. The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing are now widely regarded in the West as coinciding with the end of a period of hope and naivety about China’s trajectory in the global community. This reckoning will be weighing heavily on the minds of Western leaders as this year’s competition approaches.
27 March 2022
Hong Kong Chief Executive Elections
Hong Kong’s elections will take place in March, held in the wake of the Chinese state’s dramatic encroachment into the territory. These will be the first Chief Executive elections since Beijing’s controversial “patriots-only” rule came into place, which stipulates that any potential candidates must be screened by a government committee to assess their “love of country”.
Critics argue that the new “patriots-only” rule impinges on citizens’ democratic freedoms and is viewed as part of a wider crackdown by the Chinese government in Hong Kong following the passing of the controversial National Security law in June 2020. The law restricts freedom of speech, increases surveillance and criminalises any acts of “secession, subversion, terrorism or collusion”. This has led to the arrests of pro-democracy activists, the migration of many young residents, and the closure of some media outlets.
No candidates have officially declared their intention to run, but incumbent Carrie Lam is likely to pursue a second term, having begun to turn around her approval ratings after a turbulent time in office. Lam’s fate will be in the hands of just 0.02 per cent of Hong Kong’s population, with the election decided by an election committee of approximately 1,500 pro-Beijing individuals.
These elections follow Hong Kong’s recent Legislative Council elections, which saw a record set for the lowest voter turnout at just 30 per cent, following a campaign by activists to boycott the elections or leave ballots blank. Pro-Beijing candidates claimed a victory and moments later, China declared Hong Kong was entering a new period of “restored order”. Against this backdrop and with the 25th anniversary of the sovereign handover of Hong Kong from the UK to China falling this year, tensions are likely to run particularly high.
10 & 24 April 2022
French Presidential Elections
In April, French citizens will vote for the next President, at a crucial time as the nation hosts the Presidency of the European Council and seeks to navigate its way out of the pandemic. Incumbent President Macron has yet to officially declare his candidacy, but is likely to run against confirmed candidates, Marine Le Pen, Valérie Pécresse and Éric Zemmour. All four candidates sit between the centre and the far-right, with left-wing candidates struggling to gain traction and unlikely to qualify in the first round. Currently, polls suggest that President Macron would win the second round, but with a smaller margin than he did in 2017 against Le Pen.
Marine Le Pen is a long-standing far-right politician, who has sought to bring her party into the mainstream in an attempt to distance herself from the more extremist views of her father. Le Pen, who won 33.9 per cent of the vote in 2017, now faces a new far-right rival in the form of Eric Zemmour from Reconquête – a charismatic TV pundit who has thrown his hat into the ring as an anti-establishment figure. Valérie Pécresse, a compelling conservative French politician from Les Républicains, is seen to present a direct challenge to President Macron, who was intending to fight this election from the “right flank”.
President Macron, a long-term advocate for further European integration, has said 2022 “must be a turning point for Europe”. The convergence of the national elections and the Presidency of the European Council may prove both a blessing and a curse for the current President. Both Le Pen and Zemmour criticised President Macron’s decision to fly the EU flag, rather than the French one, under the Arc de Triomphe, Views of the EU draw a clear dividing line between the candidates. At the same time, the President will be afforded many opportunities to advocate for France’s leadership in the EU and its diplomatic credentials, convening European leaders in March in Paris and building constructive relations with the new German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz. Macron’s enduring interest in muscularising the EU and advancing its economic and foreign policy might mean the outcome of the French national elections will be hugely consequential for France, Europe, and the West.
21 May 2022
Australian Federal Elections
The 2022 Australian Federal Elections will be held on or before the 21st of May. The incumbent Liberal-National coalition government, led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, is seeking to win a fourth consecutive term in office and staring down the challenge of the Labor Party, hungry for power after a decade on the opposition benches.
The Covid-19 pandemic will undoubtedly form the focus of the election, with the Prime Minister hoping to straddle the successes of a comparatively low death toll and a new focus on reconnecting the nation to the rest of the world, after two years of isolation as “Fortress Australia”. However, there are several aspects of the pandemic response that are likely to constrain the coalition’s prospects in the elections. Namely, the decision to allow the states to pursue vastly different pandemic approaches, which has seen a balkanisation of Australia’s federalised system of government, and at various points, pitted states against one another. The pursuit of an uncompromisingly hardline approach to the country’s borders, while keeping the pandemic casualties low, has also left scars for many thousands of Australian citizens abroad and their families at home.
More recently, the lack of preparations for the testing infrastructure needed to support a transition away from a pandemic elimination strategy, and the inconsistent roll-out of booster vaccines, has caused chaos in a nation foisted into “living with Covid-19” for the first time. The Prime Minister will be hoping the Omicron wave will burn out quickly, allowing him to reclaim some grip and reframe the narrative of a country moving boldly into a new phase, as polling currently suggests either a change of government, or a tricky minority result for the coalition party, may be on the horizon.
18 October 2022
BBC’s 100th Anniversary.
October will mark 100 years of the British Broadcasting Corporation, formerly known as the British Broadcasting Company. A series of documentaries on the BBC and its history are planned to commemorate the occasion, alongside special broadcasts of the BBC’s biggest shows, including Strictly Come Dancing, Doctor Who and the Apprentice.
The celebrations will take place as the BBC struggles to adapt to the challenges of modern broadcasting and find a new role for itself in a fragmented media environment. The rise of streaming channels such as Netflix has simultaneously driven up production costs and impacted the BBC’s viewing figures, especially among younger audiences.
The BBC faces increasing public scrutiny for its political objectivity and impartiality. All the while, the UK government has announced a free to the licence fee which forms the bulk of its funding.
8 November 2022
United States Mid-term Elections
On 8 November, all 435 seats of the House of Representatives and 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate will be contested in the United States mid-term elections. The Democrats currently hold a narrow majority in both, although filibuster rules in the Senate have undermined their ability to pass legislation.
Taking place halfway through the election cycle, when the popularity of the incumbent tends to wane, mid-term elections often see the President losing a significant number of seats. The last two Presidents both lost the House to the opposing party. The handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, a sluggish economy, and intensified political polarisation provide a turbulent context against which these elections will take place.
With inflation rates at their highest levels since 1982, Republicans have blamed the Democrats’ spending for what some have dubbed ‘Bidenflation’. After unprecedented economic disruption and state spending during the pandemic, housing, used cars, and food costs are all on the frontline of rising prices, prompting concerns about a cost-of-living crisis. At the same time, unemployment rates fell to 3.9 per cent in December, down from 6.3 per cent in January last year, showing some promising green shoots as America seeks to navigate its way through the difficult winter period.
President Biden’s handling of the pandemic had previously been his top polling strength, but the rise of the Omicron variant – which has torn through the country and produced a record one million Covid-19 cases per day has tested the patience of a population weary from the imposition of restrictions and the ongoing disruption to their daily lives. In pandemic hotspots, hospitals are overrun, key public services remain closed, and thousands of flights have been cancelled.
The current expectation from opinion polling is that the Democrats will lose control of the House of Representatives. But the Senate is expected to be a closer race, with the majority of the 34 seats fairly secure, and the few contested seats in play split evenly between the Republicans and Democrats.
President Biden already faced significant challenges in passing his flagship Build Back Better investment programme, and if the Democratic Party loses control of both the House and the Senate in these elections, this would pose significant challenges for President Biden over the remainder of his term.