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Britain should be congratulated on reaching a Brexit deal with the EU, but beware of the very different world you are entering, international analysts have said.
Outside of Europe, politicians, experts and the media took a short break from Christmas and the pandemic to welcome the end of Britain’s long and tortuous Brexit process, but there was little celebration.
In the New York Times, Mark Landler reflected on how much Britain and the world had changed since the 2016 vote, when a narrow majority of people were “tempted by the argument that the country would prosper by shedding the bureaucratic shackles of Brussels. . ”, Develop new industries and close their own commercial agreements.
But now the world is more protectionist and nationalistic and vulnerable after a pandemic.
“The world is now dominated by three gigantic economic blocs: the United States, China and the European Union,” Landler wrote. “Britain has finalized its divorce from one of them, leaving it isolated at a time when the way forward seems more dangerous than before.”
In that same article, Thomas Wright, director of the Brookings Institution’s Center for America and Europe, cut to the chase: “Becoming a global free trader in 2016 is a bit like becoming a communist in 1989. It’s a bad time. “
In an exhaustive step of the politics behind the story, Linton Besser, the European correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, predicted that Boris Johnson, always the populist, would move with the wind on whether the deal was working.
“The prime minister will continue to tout the advance as long as it is advantageous to do so,” Besser wrote. “So in the not too distant future, when the electoral payoff arrives, he and his allies will find a way, whatever rhetorical contortions are required, to condemn the EU anyway.
The deal will be prosecuted, perhaps by Johnson himself, looking for another chance to wave a smoked herring at those pesky Europeans from atop a stage.
“And that’s because Europe has for decades been a very useful straw man to many in the establishment, including Johnson himself, who paved the way for politics with wildly exaggerated newspaper columns disdaining European cooperation.”
Chinese state media reports on Brexit were viewed more than 140 million times on the Weibo microblogging platform, but they did not appear to post any comments in Chinese.
The state-backed tabloid Global Times said the deal was “a Christmas present not only for the British economy, but also for the global financial market hit by Covid-19.”
The editorial said world markets were still fighting the pandemic and looking for “less chaos.” He praised the “latest desperate efforts” by the British government to secure a deal under so much pressure. “It cannot be denied that a no-deal Brexit would lead to a dramatic change in the life and employment prospects of the British,” he said.
In English, Xinhua said that while the deal “will certainly help avoid the cliff edge of Brexit,” it was not “a Christmas present for everyone.”
Other English-language state media, including CGTN and China Daily, supported an opinion piece by former MEP Jonathan Arnott. Arnott wrote that the last-minute nature of the deal, on Christmas Eve and a week before the deadline, was “impressive, if not surprising.” “The world is changing,” he said, and the way the UK deals with the growing markets of China, India and South America will be “critical.”
“One way or another, it must demonstrate a clear strategy: unless such trade relationships are signed, sealed and delivered, the UK cannot claim to have benefited financially from Brexit.”
Japan’s Finance Minister Taro Aso told reporters that he welcomed the agreement and that “a comprehensive agreement between the two should be highly appreciated.”
New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta also congratulated both parties. “We welcome continued stability and continuity”, she tweeted.
A US state department official said the US was committed to negotiating a comprehensive free trade agreement with the UK. “We support the UK in its sovereign decision to leave the EU, and we look forward to continuing strong relations with the UK and the EU,” they said.
The Times of India reported that the agreement left “critical parts of the relationship to be resolved later”, and WIO News reported that the two parties had “Finally agreed” on a deal, and led by the reassuring comments of the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen, that the two sides “would stand shoulder to shoulder to meet our common global goals.”
However, he also reported on warnings from economists that “leaving the orbit of the EU will continue to harm” the current sixth largest economy in the world.
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