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The Trade Trap
Book

The Trade Trap

How To Stop Doing Business with Dictators

Mathias Döpfner
Simon & Schuster, 2023
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Eloquent
  • Engaging
  • Insider's Take

Recommendation

In this page-turner, publishing titan Mathias Döpfner lays out a bleak view of the world. China and Russia have fully embraced totalitarianism, he notes, and they want to bring Europe and the United States into the autocratic abyss. Döpfner, head of global media giant Axel Springer, makes a compelling case that the West must choose between appeasing Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping and stopping the strongmen. The West has already ostracized Russia, but China – factory to the world, crucial export market and major investor in US Treasury bonds – presents a far more difficult challenge.

Summary

Across the globe, democracy is losing ground.

Freedom House reports that democracy is in decline: Just 20% of humans live in nations that the think tank describes as “free,” while 40% dwell in states defined as “not free.” This trend has been heading in the wrong direction for years. Freedom House says the number of global democracies has declined for 17 years in a row, and it says the world has fallen into a “long freedom recession.”

The most obvious harbingers of democracy’s reversal are Russia and China. For a time, Westerners sincerely believed that by increasing economic ties with Moscow and Beijing, rulers there would embrace democratic values. Instead, both nations have grown more autocratic. The liberal world order is teetering, and autocrats sense weakness and press their advantage: Russia invaded Ukraine, and China has imprisoned Uyghurs in camps.

The West was wrong to deepen its ties with China.

The United States and Europe welcomed China into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, a move that has backfired spectacularly. In the two decades after China joined the WTO, its economic output as a share of global GDP soared...

About the Author

Mathias Döpfner is chairman and CEO of Axel Springer SE, which is the largest digital publisher in Europe and owns Politico, Insider and Morning Brew. He also serves on the boards of Netflix and Warner Music Group.

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