Superpower — who wore it better this week

Plus: War stories, a chat with monks of Simonos Petras and more [Bloomberg]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a summit experience of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Must-Reads - Is [Ozempic]( (aka Wegovy) coming for Big Food? - Bed bugs vs fleas. [Double yuck](. - [Bonding]( in Edinburgh and Barcelona. - [Venezuela’s]( back in America’s arms. - [War is hell]( for civilians. BRI Over BRICS: For Xi, Smaller Is Better It’s been a bumpy week for Joe Biden. The US president’s dramatic fly-in show of support for Israel was upstaged by the Gaza hospital blast that had the Arab street pointing fingers at Israel — the kind of condemnation that, Marc Champion [says](, is likely to increase rather than decrease as hostilities continue. Washington also vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for “humanitarian pauses” in the military action so aid can be delivered to civilians in Gaza.[1](#footnote-1) Despite being consistent with US foreign policy aims, it was not a good look. Questions are also being raised about whether the US has the economic and military wherewithal to support two embattled friends — Israel and Ukraine — while trying to shore up a threatened Taiwan at the same time. On Thursday night, Biden said he was sending a request for more aid to a US Congress paralyzed by procedural chaos, as Andreas Kluth [describes](. Throw in polls showing [Donald Trump leading]( him in swing states, and the American president’s standing is looking pretty beleaguered. China’s President Xi Jinping, on the other hand, had a more heartening week. He certainly needed it, given the economic malaise Beijing has to deal with (even a pick-up in some data failed to shift concern away from the country’s property crisis). In August, at the BRICS summit in South Africa, his translator was [unceremoniously]( accosted by conference security. His signature Belt and Road Initiative, meanwhile, was looking more like a ball and chain, at least in the eyes of Western critics. This week, however, Xi unveiled a newer, sleeker BRI at a 10-year anniversary party for the initiative in Beijing. It was attended by representatives of some 150 countries. As Karishma Vaswani [writes](, controversy has dogged Xi’s pet project ever since it began: Critics said it was a debt trap for poorer nations who signed up for it, a way to build markets for excess Chinese production and it was a cynical part of Beijing’s empire building. That may all still be true, but, as Karishma says, BRI has also done what the Chinese intended: building roads and the infrastructure of business in countries that needed it. Unlike financing from the World Bank and other Western institutions, BRI money goes straight through economic bottlenecks, and its effects are more immediately visible. Now, says Karishma, BRI is “going to be smaller, greener and more technologically advanced. It will also be more targeted, as Beijing focuses its ambitions in areas where it still feels welcome.” Despite the griping over the decade, Xi benefits from the optics of the Beijing get-together: a kind of United Nations under China. Writes Karishma: “It appears to be a mechanism through which Beijing will collect friendships and alliances that can help buffer it against an increasingly hostile global environment. The West would do well to pay attention to next year’s guest list, to get a sense of who and where Beijing will focus on next.” A Brief Account of the Long, Bloody History of War Atrocities The individual descriptions of Hamas’ horrific assault — grotesque murders of civilians as well as soldiers — will echo for decades, along with the stories that are already emerging from Gaza as Israel takes revenge. In his latest column, Max Hastings [casts his eye]( over centuries of wartime vengeance. “Almost all armed conflicts,” he writes, “degenerate into a contest of rival atrocities. That does not mean that we are all equally guilty — our British and American forefathers were assuredly the (relatively) good guys in World War II and some other places. History merely teaches us how hard it is to wage war with clean hands.” Combatants inflict atrocity for atrocity. And it isn’t over when a war ends. Hatred can wreak havoc as it hangs on tenaciously and irrationally as it is passed along from generation to generation —  memories that outlast death. What else can you do about the enemies who’ve inflicted suffering on your ancestors? Growing up ethnic Chinese in the Philippines, I learned about the 1937 “Rape of Nanjing” in the Sino-Japanese war, which resulted in the death of 200,000. When Japan swept into the Philippines, my grandfather — a newspaper publisher in Manila who was a relentless critic of Japan’s attempt to subjugate China — found himself on the wanted list and had to flee with his family into the jungles outside the city. Some family friends did not survive the war. One, who was pregnant at the time, was bayoneted as she fled Japanese forces rampaging through the capital as the US military returned in 1945. I admire Japan: its economic resurgence, its culture and its cuisine. I enjoy the company of my many Japanese friends. And I know hate is irrational, but it can still creep in, even though the perpetrators of the crimes are long gone; it is the most powerful weapon that individuals have to deal with an irrevocable past. So Max’s concluding words in his deeply personal column resonate: “If we are to preserve any vestige of civilized behavior amid the endemic violence of war, we must continue to strive for the preservation of the innocent, even against all the experience of history.” Telltale Charts “One of this century’s top performing European stocks has fallen back to earth with a thud. The struggles of German life-sciences firm Sartorius AG encapsulate the pain caused to businesses by rising interest rates, fading Chinese demand and the normalization of sales following the pandemic. Thought by investors to be somewhat recession-proof, Sartorius has turned out to be alarmingly volatile.” — Chris Bryant in “[Short-Sellers Sink European Hot Stock While It’s Down.](” “The past two years have seen a return to coal in China that’s quietly been vastly more dramatic than Europe’s … An odd thing has happened, however. Heavy rain over the summer months has finally brought an end to drought conditions that pushed utilization of China’s vast hydroelectric sector to its lowest levels since 2014, as floodwaters flowed from the Himalayas into the network of dams and reservoirs along the upper Yangtze river. At the same time, hectares of solar panels have spread across rooftops while forests of wind turbines have sprouted in the desert and coastal waters. A few months ago, it looked like coal would smash through records in China’s power grid this year. It’s now touch and go whether it will increase at all.” — David Fickling in “[China’s Return to Coal Looks Set to Be Short-Lived.](” Further Reading The fate of [TSMC]( isn’t in its own hands. — Tim Culpan The decline and fall of the [House Republicans](. — The Editors Your [jeans]( are dirty. Very dirty. — Lara Williams Monks, museums and the [art of the deal](. — Howard Chua-Eoan Wall Street [overpays](its bankers. That’s a good thing. — Paul J. Davies Crypto’s finger in [Hamas](. — Lionel Laurent Walk of the Town: In the Country of All Men The monks of Simonos Petras still talk of the time Charles — then Prince of Wales, now King — came to visit. Their monastery is built on a towering crag of rock on the Athos peninsula in northern Greece. Its highest floors have slim wooden balconies that provide astonishing views of the Aegean and of the peak of 2,033 m (6,670 ft) tall Mount Athos, which gives the area its name. Those porches are supported by sturdy but aging staves that jut up and out from the monastery walls. Sometimes, parts of the flooring can wobble. The monastery of Simonos Petras is built on a crag. The peak of Mt. Athos rises in the distance. Photograph by Howard Chua-Eoan/Bloomberg That probably explains what the royal did when the monks invited him out to look at the view: He hugged the walls and did not approach the wooden balustrade. The abbot still smiles about it, and the tale has made the rounds of the other monasteries on both sides of the peninsula. To his credit, Charles has returned several times. Mount Athos is a beautiful but peculiar place. No women are allowed in its territory; and just because you’re a man, you can’t just waltz in. You need a visa. That’s because it is an autonomous region of Greece — technically, the Monastic Republic of Mount Athos, made up of 20 different monasteries with different degrees of religious strictures, with its own capital (Karyes, about 40 minutes by car along semi-finished roads from Simonos Petras) and its own police force. The monastics don’t have cellphones (there are a couple of landlines) and certainly no television or streaming. And while isolated from the rest of the world, Mount Athos exists in a number of dimensions. Its centuries-old history is a living, breathing thing, full of old feuds (see the last few paragraphs of [this column]() and ancient miracles. The liturgical aspect of the island is cinematic — all gorgeous chanting, figures in long black robes flitting from chapel to chapel in the pre-dawn darkness — even though it’s all in Greek. At Simonos Petras, a bell is struck at 7 pm, advising everyone that quiet time has begun and it’s time to go to bed. Everyone gets up before 4 am for the first service of the day: 3 ½ hours of prayer and communion. Yet, it is not completely cut off from the turmoil of the world. When I was there for two nights last week, a few monks had just returned from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and, yes, they left just as the first Hamas missiles were raining down on Israel. One monk I spoke to was quite disturbed by what he saw, and yet he was happy to be back in a world beyond Athos, even if just for a while. He used to be an investment banker for HSBC. Drawdown I’m grateful you’ve come this far with me. Here’s a little tidbit for you. Or maybe not. “I’ll have nothing. I’m on Ozempic but I love this restaurant.” Illustration by Howard Chua-Eoan/Bloomberg Notes: Please send leftovers and feedback to Howard Chua-Eoan at hchuaeoan@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Instagram](, [TikTok](, [Twitter]( and [Facebook](. [1] In his first remarks on the Israel-Hamas war, Xi Jinping on Thursday called for an immediate ceasefire. Follow Us You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Opinion Today newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. [Unsubscribe]( [Bloomberg.com]( [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022 [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( [Ad Choices](