More state-controlled firms join strike against Belarus president

German chancellor calls for 'national dialogue' as Belarusians turn up pressure on President Alexander Lukashenko.

AL JAZZERA 8/18/2020

People support striking workers of Atlant household appliances maker [Sergei Gapon/AFP]

More state-controlled companies and factories have joined the strike in Belarus, turning up the pressure on President Alexander Lukashenko to step down after winning an election they say was rigged.

Tuesday's walkouts strengthened the strike that began on Monday, encompassing several large tractor factories in Minsk, a huge potash factory in Soligorsk that accounts for one-fifth of the world's potash fertiliser output and is the nation's top cash earner, state television and the country's most prominent theatre.

The development marked the 10th day of unprecedented mass protests against election results that handed Lukashenko his sixth term with 80 percent of the votes, while his top challenger Svetlana Tikhanovskaya apparently received only 10 percent.

"The authorities should understand that they are losing control. Only Lukashenko's resignation and punishment of those in charge of rigging and beatings [of protesters] can calm us down," head of an independent miners' union Yuri Zakharov told The Associated Press news agency on Tuesday.

"The people said their 'no' to Lukashenko, and we will not back down. The strike will continue and grow until he steps down."

Lukashenko on Monday dismissed the strikes as insignificant and said he would not cave in to pressure, but appeared nervous as dissent grew.
An envoy resigns

Also on Tuesday, the Belarusian ambassador to Slovakia, Igor Leshchenya, said he had handed in his resignation after coming out with a statement in support of the protests.

In a video released on Saturday, Leshchenya expressed "solidarity with those who came out on the streets of Belarusian cities with peaceful marches so that their voice could be heard".

He said he had been shocked by the reports of mass beatings and torture of protesters and accused Belarusian law enforcement of restoring the traditions of the Soviet secret police.

Leshchenya, the first top government official to support the protests against Lukashenko, said in an interview on Tuesday that resigning after that was "a logical move".

The mass protests, which drew hundreds of thousands of people, have continued despite a brutal response from the police, who in the first four days of demonstrations arrested almost 7,000 people and injured hundreds with rubber bullets, stun grenades and clubs. At least two protesters died.

On Tuesday, nearly 1,000 people gathered in front of a theatre to support its troupe who gave notice en masse after the director, Pavel Latushko, was fired for siding with the protesters.
A 'coordination council' forms

Tikhanovskaya left the country for Lithuania in a move her campaign said was made under duress.

On Monday, she announced she was ready to act as a national leader to facilitate a new election.

Her top ally, Maria Kolesnikova, said on Tuesday that a "coordination council" is being formed to represent the people and negotiate the transition of power.

The council will figure out the best way for the transition of power, "be it new elections or some other option", she said.

Lukashenko, who has run the ex-Soviet nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist since 1994, called the launch of the council an attempt to seize power.

"We see it unequivocally: it is an attempt to seize power," he said, adding that he would take measures against those who join the council. "We have enough of these measures to cool down some hotheads."

Lukashenko has run the ex-Soviet nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist since 1994 [Tatyana Zenkovich/EPA]

Western officials refused to recognise the Belarusian election as free or fair and criticised the country's authorities for their violent crackdown on protesters.

In Brussels, European Council President Charles Michel said an emergency summit of European Union leaders would convene on Wednesday to discuss the election and crackdown.

Last week, the 27 EU foreign ministers decided to start drawing up a list of people who could face sanctions resulting from their involvement in the violence.
Merkel, Putin talk

German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, according to her spokesman Steffen Seibert.

"[Merkel] underlined that the Belarusian government must refrain from violence against peaceful protesters, immediately release political prisoners and enter into a national dialogue with the opposition and [civil] society to overcome the crisis," Seibert said.

In its statement, the Kremlin said Putin warned Merkel against foreign interference in Belarus.

Moscow also said it expected the tense situation in its neighbour and ally to soon calm down.

'No more fear!': Belarus president heckled by striking workers (2:32)

REPORTING FROM RUSSIAN NEWS AGENCY TASS

RUSSIAN NEWS AGENCY RU TASS
19 AUG, 03:28
Detentions reported during unauthorized rally near Minsk tractor plant
Earlier on Wednesday one of the strike coordinators told TASS that several workers who earlier took an unpaid leave of absence were detained near the front gate of the enterprise where they came to support their colleagues

© Natalia Fedosenko/TASS

MINSK, August 19. /TASS/. Two people were detained during an unauthorized mass rally on Wednesday morning near the entrance to the Minsk Tractor Works, Belarusian Interior Ministry Spokeswoman Olga Chemodanova reported on her Telegram channel.

READ ALSOOpposition leader Tikhanovskaya calls on Europe not to recognize Belarusian election

"This morning, on August 19, an unauthorized mass event was held near the entrance to the Minsk Tractor Works. Its participants were preventing the plant workers from entering their workplace. <...> In order to intercept the illegal actions, the police pushed back the crowd and detained the two most active participants of the event," the statement reads.

It is also noted that one of the detainees is an unemployed resident of Volkovysk (a town in the Grodno Region of Belarus). The administrative procedure has been started against the detainees due to the violations of the order of organization or conduct of mass events.

Earlier on Wednesday one of the strike coordinators Sergei Dylevsky told TASS that several workers who earlier took an unpaid leave of absence were detained near the front gate of the enterprise where they came to support their colleagues on strike. According to eyewitnesses, among those who came to support the strike were not only the workers on leave but also Minsk residents, some of whom were also detained. The plant’s press service reported that the enterprise is functioning and refused to comment on the events beyond its gate.

In Belarus, where the presidential election was held on August 9, mass protests of those disagreeing with the election results have been continuing for over a week. In the early days the rallies were accompanied by clashes between protesters and law enforcement forces. According to the republic’s Interior Ministry, over 6,000 people were detained while dozens of policemen and protesters were injured. According to the final results of the Central Election Commission, incumbent president of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko got 80.1% of the vote. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya who was considered his main opponent, came second with 10.12% and later refused to recognize the election results. To date, a number of large enterprises have been holding rallies demanding a new election and a probe into the actions of the security forces, as incited by the opposition.

Lukashenko vows authorities will ‘deal with’ protest pressure at factory entrances

The Belarusian leader thanked workers who did not join the strikes

© Andrei Stasevich/Pool Photo via AP


MINSK, August 19. /TAS/. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has thanked workers who did not join the strikes and promised to "deal with" those protesters who wait for and converge on laborers at factory entrances.

READ ALSO Detentions reported during unauthorized rally near Minsk tractor plant

"Threats against and attacks on factory workers - that worries us too," he emphasized at a meeting of the Belarusian Security Council on Wednesday. "Before and after the working day, they have to pass through a corridor lined by aggressive crowds at entrances, [who are] just like the Gestapo. I just want to tell these workers that [I] express my gratitude to them and ask them not to bury their heads in the sand. You, workers, are the masters at this plant, and we will deal with those protesters who wait for you at the entrance," BelTA news agency quotes the president as saying.

Belarus held its presidential election on August 9. According to the Central Election Commission’s final data, incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko won 80.10% of the vote, whereas Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who was considered his key rival, garnered 10.12% of the ballot. Subsequently, she refused to recognize the outcome of the polls.

After the results of exit polls were announced late on August 9, mass protests flared up in downtown Minsk and other cities, which spiraled into clashes with police. The protests continued for several days and, according to the Interior Ministry, over 6,000 people ended up in custody.

Against this backdrop, workers at large enterprises have expressed their dissatisfaction with the situation and have held rallies demanding new elections and a probe into police actions. The opposition has been pushing factory workers to strike.

Lukashenko's survival game: What happens next in Belarus?

President Alexander Lukashenko's crackdown on anti-government protesters stoke fears of a Ukrainian scenario in Belarus.

by Mariya Petkova
8/19/2020

Despite the growing opposition against his rule, Lukashenko has remained defiant [Sergei Gapon/AFP]

When Belarusians came out on August 9 to protest what they saw as a mass falsification of the presidential elections, Marat Mikhal knew that a violent police crackdown was imminent. It had happened before.

In December 2010, after President Alexander Lukashenko claimed 80 percent of the votes in the presidential election amid allegations of vote-rigging, protests erupted in the capital Minsk but were swiftly suppressed by police forces.

The events of that year affected Mikhal, who was then just 16 years old, and politicised him.

Ten years later, as a young adult, he came out in the streets of Minsk to protest Lukashenko's fifth re-election, despite the heavy police presence. He was arrested, severely beaten and held in detention for several days.

The violence, however, did not deter Mikhal and many others from continuing to protest against Lukashenko.

"My relatives urged me [not to join the protests again]. But if not me, then who would? So I went out to protest despite [the warnings]," Mikhal told Al Jazeera.

On August 16, he joined more than 200,000 people who gathered in central Minsk for what some say has been the largest opposition demonstration in the recent history of Belarus.

Meanwhile, workers at various state factories and institutions announced strikes in solidarity with protesters, while videos of members of the security forces announcing their resignations circulated on social media.
Lukashenko's defiance

Despite the growing opposition against his rule, Lukashenko has remained defiant.

He has rejected calls to hold new elections and has instead proposed to amend the constitution in order to redistribute executive power.

VIDEO

No more fear!': Belarus president heckled by striking workers (2:32)

He has also reached out to Russia's President Vladimir Putin to request help, which has stirred fears of possible Russian military intervention, similar to the one in Ukraine in 2014.

But according to analysts, what happens next in Belarus will be determined not just by decisions made in Moscow, but also by the resilience of protesters like Mikhal and their ability to maintain mass mobilisation on the ground.

Although Lukashenko is seeking help from the Kremlin, he is not on the best of terms with the Russian leadership.

In recent years, the Belarusian president has shifted between anti-Russian and anti-Western rhetoric, trying to exploit Russian-EU tensions to secure oil and gas price discounts from Moscow.

In pursuing this strategy, Lukashenko is said to have incurred Putin's resentment.
A rejected union

Earlier this year, Moscow announced that Belarus would start paying for Russian oil and gas at global prices after the Belarusian president resisted Russian pressure to go forward with a union between the two countries.

In 1999, Lukashenko had signed an agreement with then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin for the creation of a political and economic union, where the two countries would have common political institutions, economic policies, and currency.

The agreement was never fully implemented, but close ties to Moscow ensured the flow of cheap Russian oil and gas, which propped up the country's economy and precluded the need for privatisation of state-owned enterprises and political opening.

In the 2010s, as the Russian economy was hit by the slump in oil prices and Western sanctions, the Kremlin found it difficult to sustain subsidies for Belarus and sought to change this arrangement.

Opposition supporters take part in a protest rally in front of the parliament building in Minsk [Tatyana Zenkovich/EPA]

In response, Lukashenko pursued closer relations with the West, which led to the European Union lifting most sanctions on Belarus.

From Moscow's perspective, a union with Belarus would have justified the continuation of subsidies, but Lukashenko saw this as a direct threat to his power.

Before the August 9 vote, the Belarusian president repeatedly accused Russia of supporting the opposition.

On July 29, the Belarusian authorities arrested dozens of Russian citizens, claiming they were mercenaries from Russia's best-known private military contractor, Wagner, who were preparing a plot to destabilise the country.

As it became clear that the crackdown was not effective in suppressing the protests, Lukashenko switched to anti-Western rhetoric.

He has since accused the opposition of planning to join NATO and the European Union, ban the Russian language, and establish an Orthodox church independent of the Moscow Patriarchate - policies that Ukrainian nationalists have pursued since 2014, angering Russia.

Since the elections, he has also had at least two phone calls with Putin to discuss Russian assistance in case of a "foreign threat".

On August 18, he spoke for a third time with the Russian president, who informed him of his conversations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron regarding the situation in Belarus.

The same day, Russian media reported that an aeroplane belonging to the Russian security service FSB and previously used by FSB director Alexander Bortnikov had landed in Minsk, but no details were provided on any formal meeting between Lukashenko and Russian officials.

A Ukraine scenario

While Lukashenko's about-face has provoked fears of a Ukrainian scenario in Belarus, a Russian military intervention does not seem to be forthcoming.

According to Anton Barbashin, a research fellow at the Atlantic Council, apart from the Kremlin's dislike for the Belarusian president, what also makes such a scenario unlikely is the fact that any military action would be very costly for the Russian leadership.

Belarus president claims he is willing to share power (5:18)

It would mean further deterioration in relations with the West and more heavy sanctions.

Although Lukashenko is trying to stir fears of anti-Russian sentiment and actions by the opposition, the Belarusian protests have not adopted any nationalistic narratives that would alienate the Russian-speaking communities in the country and encourage local support for Russian military action, Barbashin said.

And while Belarus falls within the Russian sphere of influence and regional security calculus, it has no major Russian military base, unlike the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine, which was annexed by Russia in 2014.

In Barbashin's opinion, an "Armenian scenario" is more likely than a Ukrainian one.

In 2018, a nationwide protest movement toppled Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan after he sought to remain in power despite previous pledges to step down.

Although Sargsyan had warm ties with Moscow, the Russian government did not oppose the protests, which had not expressed any anti-Russian sentiment.

Lukashenko addresses his supporters gathered at Independent Square of Minsk [Dmitri Lovetsky/AP]

Belarusian protesters and opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya have repeatedly emphasised that they do not want a "Maidan" in Belarus, referring to the protest movement in Ukraine in 2013-2014.

At an August 18 news conference of the coordination committee for the transfer of power, formed by Tikhanovskaya's campaign, its members expressed commitment to maintaining close relations with Russia.

Similar sentiments have been voiced by protesters who, unlike their Ukrainian counterparts, have not raised the EU flag during rallies or called for Euro-Atlantic integration.

Mikhal told Al Jazeera that he does not want Belarus to become a battlefield for the Russia-EU standoff and hopes that his country will be able to maintain neutrality and good relations with both.

Fear of prosecution
Although military intervention from Russia remains unlikely, Lukashenko's resignation is also far from certain.

According to Aleksey Bratochkin, a historian and lecturer at the European College of Liberal Arts in Belarus, what is making his exit more difficult is his fear of prosecution.

During his 26-year rule, many crimes have been committed that could lead to criminal investigations, including the forced disappearances of a number of politicians, businessmen and journalists who had been critical of his presidency.

"There are many claims against Lukashenko from various political groups. He is not a president who would retire peacefully," Bratochkin said.

Although pressure from the streets has increased since the August 9 vote, the foundations of Lukashenko's rule still seem intact.

While there have been some resignations among low-ranking officials and members of the security forces, no significant defections from the political elite have taken place, Bratochkin said.

Lukashenko has also rejected negotiations with Tikhanovskaya, calling the formation of the coordination committee "an attempt to seize power" and threatening its members with legal action.

The elites
There is also continuing heavy security presence in Minsk and elsewhere in the country, which is raising fears that the president could resort to violence again at any time.

According to Katia Glod, a London-based scholar and consultant on former Soviet countries, Lukashenko's current strategy is to protract the political process and wait for the protests to dissipate.

VIDEO Belarus president says Putin ready to help 'ensure security' (2:50)

To counter his intransigence, the opposition would have to find a political insider who has more authority and standing to lead negotiations with him and his elite, she said.

"[The elites] know that Lukashenko has some compromising materials against them. They understand that if they defect, they would lose their economic [benefits]," Glod said.

"They would not do it, unless there is someone very credible and strong who can persuade them and give them certain guarantees," she said.

In her view, pressure from the EU in the form of sanctions and refusal to recognise Lukashenko's government could also encourage negotiations, but ultimately the outcome of the current standoff will be determined by the opposition movement's ability to find allies within the political elite and sustain mass mobilisation.

According to Mikhal, there is such a society-wide consensus against Lukashenko's rule that the protest momentum is unlikely to slow down.

"In 2010, the society swallowed [the falsification of the vote], but today it is no longer the same society. It has matured politically", he said. "The current situation will only end if there is handover of power."

Belarus opposition sets up council; Lukashenko decries 'attempt to seize power'

FINALLY SOME FOLKS FIGURED OUT THE NEXT STEP AFTER PROTESTS

CREATE AN ORGANIZATION OF DUAL POWER


Andrei Makhovsky

MINSK (Reuters) - The nascent political opposition in Belarus set up a council inside the country on Tuesday, a move President Alexander Lukashenko denounced as an attempt to seize power 10 days after an election that has triggered mass demonstrations.


Many of Belarus’s major opposition figures are either in jail or in exile, including presidential candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled the country after the vote her supporters say she won.

Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets, braving a crackdown by the authorities, to demand Lukashenko resign.

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Olga Kovalkova, Tsikhanouskaya’s representative at a press conference to launch the new opposition council, said she expected Tsikhanouskaya would soon return to Minsk, to act as a guarantor in a negotiated transition of power.

“We are operating solely through legal means,” Kovalkova said. “The situation is critical. The authorities have no choice but to come to dialogue. The situation will only get worse.”

Earlier, in televised remarks to his Security Council of top brass, Lukashenko described the planned opposition council as “an attempt to seize power” and promised “appropriate measures”.

Since official results declared him the election winner with 80% of the vote, Lukashenko seems to have underestimated the strength of public anger in a country suffering economic hardship and a coronavirus epidemic that he has dismissed. At least two protesters have been killed and thousands detained.

There have been increasing signs that the burly former Soviet collective farm boss is losing his grip on the country he has ruled for 26 years, with workers going on strike at state factories long seen as bastions of his support.

After videos appeared on the internet showing some police officers throwing their uniforms into dustbins, the Interior Ministry acknowledged on Tuesday that some police had quit.

“We will not judge the small proportion of police officers who have today left the service out of personal convictions,” it said in a statement. It pleaded for others to stay at their post, saying the public would be left unprotected if “the entire police force today takes off its badges”.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko chairs a meeting with members of the Security Council in Minsk, Belarus August 18, 2020. Andrei Stasevich/BelTA/Handout via REUTERS

Earlier on Tuesday, Lukashenko awarded medals “for impeccable service” to law enforcement officials who have helped crack down on protesters.

Among senior figures to speak against the government was Pavel Latushko, who served as ambassador to Poland, France and Spain under Lukashenko before becoming head of the country’s most prestigious state theatre last year. He was sacked after expressing outrage at the abuse of detained protesters.

“In the life of every person there comes a line that cannot be crossed,” he told Reuters on Tuesday in Minsk. “That moment came for me when I saw people coming out of prisons, talking about the violence against them. I became ashamed.”

The entire troupe of actors resigned en masse on Tuesday in solidarity at Latushko’s Janka Kupala National Theatre, where Culture Minister Yuri Bondar met them on stage. One by one, the actors slammed down a resignation letter and shouted “go away”. Hundreds of protesters outside cheered as the actors emerged.

SHAME

Tsikhanouskaya, a 37-year-old political novice who emerged as an unexpected consensus opposition candidate after better-known figures including her activist husband were jailed or barred from standing in the election, has issued calls via the internet to followers to rise up but remain peaceful.

“All of this outrageous, unfair lawlessness shows us how this rotten system works, where one person controls everything,” Tsikhanouskaya said in a video on Tuesday. “One man has kept the country in fear for 26 years.”

For his part, Lukashenko says the protests are being stirred up from abroad. The official Belta news agency released a video calling protesters “bought-and-sold scum, prepared to sell their own mothers for $20”. Lukashenko told his Security Council that the army had gone on full alert at the western borders, describing “internal problems” as part of an external threat.

Attention is firmly focused on how Russia will respond to the biggest political crisis facing an ex-Soviet neighbour since 2014 in Ukraine, when Moscow intervened militarily after a friendly leader was toppled by public protests.

Culturally, politically and economically, Belarus is the ex-Soviet republic with the closest ties to Russia, including a treaty that proclaims a “union state” of the two countries with a Soviet-style red flag. But Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Lukashenko have had a difficult personal relationship.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and EU foreign policy chief Charles Michel spoke to Putin by telephone on Tuesday. The Kremlin said Putin warned all three against foreign meddling in the affairs of Belarus.

The EU is gearing up to impose new sanctions on Belarus officials. European diplomats say the situation in Belarus is different from Ukraine’s six years ago, in part because the Belarus opposition is not necessarily seeking to loosen ties with Russia, merely to get rid of Lukashenko.

Additional reporting by Natalia Zinets in Kyiv; Writing by Peter Graff and Matthias Williams; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Mark Potter

'Dual Power,' Then... and Now? - The Bullet - Socialist Project

https://socialistproject.ca › 2019/08 › dual-power-then-and-now

Aug 29, 2019 - The dual power merely expresses a transitional phase in the ... in the Dual Power scenario – the seizure of state power by soviet-type organs of ...

Lenin: The Dual Power - Marxists Internet Archive

https://www.marxists.org › archive › lenin › works › apr

It consists of the proletariat and the peasants (in soldiers' uniforms). What is the political nature of this government? It is a revolutionary dictatorship, i.e., a power ...

Missing: ORGANS ‎| Must include: ORGANS

Bipartisan Senate Report Offers Strongest Evidence Yet that Trump Lied to Mueller

What you need to know about the new intelligence committee report on Russian interference in 2016

By ANDY KROLL

US President Donald Trump (L) and Russia's President Vladimir Putin arrive to attend a joint press conference after a meeting at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, on July 16, 2018.
Yuri Kadobnov/AFP/Getty Images


WASHINGTON — Clocking in at nearly 1,000 pages and drawing on three-and-a-half years of work and more than a million documents, the latest report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is perhaps the most complete accounting yet of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election to damage Hillary Clinton and help elect Donald Trump.

The report is the fifth and final volume of the Senate intelligence committee’s attempt to understand what the Russian government did, what the Trump campaign did, the actions taken by each side’s representatives, and why. The report is a bipartisan product. Members of the committee’s Democratic and Republican staffs compiled the report. Fourteen of the committee’s 15 senators from both parties endorsed the report. (The lone dissenter was Sen. James Risch (R-Ida.). Risch didn’t dispute that Russia disrupted American democracy but complained that the final report didn’t say the committee “found no evidence” of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government. More on that later.)

Here are the key takeaways from the report.

Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race was not “fake news” or a “hoax,” as the president’s allies have claimed. It was real, widespread, and continues to this day


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The Senate intel committee’s report is unequivocal about this, writing that “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian effort to hack computer networks and accounts affiliated with the Democratic Party and leak information damaging to Hillary Clinton and her campaign for president.” The Kremlin’s aim, the report says, was “to harm the Clinton Campaign, tarnish an expected Clinton presidential administration, help the Trump Campaign after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, and undermine the U.S. democratic process.”

In a supplemental document, Senators Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), emphasize that the committee’s findings on Russian interference aren’t a backward-looking document. The committee’s report, instead, should be seen as an “alarm bell for the nation,” they write, “and for those preparing to defend the nation against current and evolving threats targeting the upcoming U.S. elections.” They go on to say that Russia is “actively interfering again” in the 2020 election and that Trump associates are “amplifying” those efforts.

“It is vitally important that the country be ready,” the Democratic senators conclude.

Trump’s one-time 2016 campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, “represented a grave counterintelligence threat.”

Manafort, a globe-trotting political consultant who had worked for a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine, served as Trump’s campaign chairman for only a few months. However, Manafort’s place in the upper rungs of the campaign and direct access to Trump “created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign,” the Senate report says.

The Senate report highlights at least two of Manafort’s direct conduits back to Russia. One was a longtime business associate named Konstantin Kilimnik, who is described in the Senate report as “a Russian intelligence officer.” (The Mueller report stopped short of calling Kilminik a Russian agent, saying that he had “ties to Russian intelligence.”) The other was an oligarch named Oleg Deripaska, who had ties to the Kremlin and who had employed Manafort as an adviser.

“Taken as a whole, Manafort’s high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services, particularly Kilimnik and associates of Oleg Deripaska, represented a grave counterintelligence threat,” the report states.

The FBI should’ve been more skeptical of the dodgy Steele Dossier.

During the 2016 campaign, a former British spy named Christopher Steele was hired first by a Republican outfit and later by Democratic Party lawyers to dig up dirt on Trump. Steele went on to file various reports about Trump and Russia — some dealt with possible financial entanglements, others touched on possible blackmail material possessed by the Russians, even the existence of the supposed “pee tape.” Some of Steele’s research was later cited in sealed applications to surveil a fringe adviser on the Trump campaign named Carter Page.

In the years since, however, Steele’s research has come under intense criticism, including in a recent report by the Justice Department’s inspector general. The Senate intel committee report is similarly critical of Steele’s work, saying it “lacked rigor and transparency about the quality of the sourcing.” The Senate report also undercuts the existence of incriminating evidence, or kompromat, that involves Trump, stating that the intel committee “did not establish that the Russian government collected kompromat on Trump, nor did it establish that the Russian government attempted to blackmail Trump or anyone associated with his campaign with such information.”

The Senate report also chides the FBI for giving the Steele Dossier “unjustified credence, based on an incomplete understanding of Steele’s past reporting record.” The report goes on to say, “The Committee found that, within the FBI, the dossier was given a veneer of credibility by lax procedures and layered misunderstandings.”

The Senate’s report documents the many contacts between the Trump campaign, Trump Organization, and Russian officials, making abundantly clear why U.S. law enforcement agencies perceived a potential counterintelligence threat and opened an investigation into the Trump campaign. The FBI’s credulous use of the Steele Dossier doesn’t undermine the case to scrutinize Trumpworld’s Russian contacts, but it does reveal shoddy practices by the Bureau and the need for reform inside intelligence and law enforcement agencies.






Trump potentially lied to Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigators about his communications with Roger Stone about WikiLeaks.

The Senate report directly contradicts a key piece of President Trump’s written testimony as part of Special Counsel Mueller’s criminal investigation.

In his responses to Mueller’s question, Trump claimed he didn’t recall discussing WikiLeaks with his former political adviser Roger Stone and wasn’t aware of Stone having mentioned WikiLeaks. Trump went on to say that he had “no recollection of the specifics of any conversations I had with Mr. Stone between June 1, 2016 and November 8, 2016.”

The Senate’s report flatly contradicts this. “The Committee assesses that Trump did, in fact, speak with Stone about WikiLeaks and with members of his Campaign about Stone’s access to WikiLeaks on multiple occasions,” it states.

Trump’s failure to recall any interactions with Stone during the height of the 2016 campaign is also belied by various contacts between Stone and the Trump campaign documented in the Senate report. The report says the Trump campaign learned about the release of the now-infamous Access Hollywood tape an hour before its release. During that time, the report says, Stone told an associate of his, right-wing writer and conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, to tell WikiLeaks to “drop the Podesta emails immediately,” referring to a trove of emails stolen by Russia from the personal account of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta. WikiLeaks published the Podesta emails only half an hour after the Access Hollywood tape was published.

The report also shows that Stone even helped draft pro-Russia tweets for Trump to use in the summer of 2016. On July 31, 2016, the report says, “Stone then emailed Jessica Macchia, one of Trump’s assistants, eight draft tweets for Trump, under the subject line ‘Tweets Mr. Trump requested last night.’ Many of the draft tweets attacked Clinton for her adversarial posture toward Russia and mentioned a new peace deal with Putin, such as ‘I want a new detente with Russia under Putin.'”

Despite “a breathtaking level of contacts between Trump officials and Russian government operatives,” Senate Republicans insist there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

One of the longest-running debates over Russian interference in the 2016 election was whether Trump or anyone in his orbit colluded with Russian officials to hurt Clinton and win the election.

The Senate intel committee’s report documents numerous instances in which people close to Trump solicited and encouraged the help of individuals with ties to the Kremlin. “The Committee’s bipartisan Report found that Russia’s goal in its unprecedented hack-and-leak operation against the United States in 2016, among other motives, was to assist the Trump Campaign,” the report states. “Candidate Trump and his Campaign responded to that threat by embracing, encouraging, and exploiting the Russian effort.”

The report goes on to say:

Trump solicited inside information in advance of WikiLeaks’s expected releases of stolen information, even after public reports widely attributed the activity to Russia, so as to maximize his electoral benefit. The Campaign crafted a strategy around these anticipated releases to amplify the dissemination and promotion of the stolen documents. Even after the U.S. government formally announced the hack-and-leak campaign as a Russian government effort, Trump’s embrace of the stolen documents and his efforts to minimize the attribution to Russia only continued. The Committee’s Report clearly shows that Trump and his Campaign were not mere bystanders in this attack — they were active participants. They coordinated their activities with the releases of the hacked Russian data, magnified the effects of a known Russian campaign, and welcomed the mutual benefit from the Russian activity.

It also highlights how members of the Trump campaign “sought, explicitly, to receive derogatory information” at a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting “from a Russian lawyer known to have ties to the Russian government, with the understanding that the information was part of ‘Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.'”

THEY BELIEVE THEIR LYING EYES
Despite all of this, Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), James Risch (R-Ida.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), and John Cornyn (R-Texas) concluded in a set of additional views attached to the Senate’s report that “After more than three years of investigation by this Committee, we can now say with no doubt, there was no collusion.”

Bipartisan Senate Report Shows How Trump Colluded With Russia in 2016

y Jonathan Chait 8/18/2020

Photo: Mikhail Klimentyev/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images

Throughout the Trump era, the Senate Intelligence Committee has walked a careful line. The Republican-controlled committee has taken Russian interference seriously and conducted at least somewhat bipartisan investigations, occasionally infuriating Trump and his allies. Perhaps to soften the blow, the committee surprisingly released a damning 966-page report on Russian measures and the counterintelligence threat in the middle of the Democratic convention. And its Republican members covered themselves by insisting, preposterously, that its contents vindicated Trump.

“We can say, without any hesitation, that the committee found absolutely no evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with the Russian government to meddle in the 2016 election,” claimed acting chairman Marco Rubio.


That assessment is so bizarre that it has no relationship to the report at all. One could debate whether the report contains proof of collusion, depending on how you define the terms “proof” and “collusion.” But evidence of collusion? Well, there is unquestionably a whole lot of it.

Since the Mueller report came out last year, Trump and his minions have insisted it found no evidence of collusion. In fact, Mueller explicitly wrote that he was not investigating collusion at all. (“We did not address ‘collusion,’ which is not a legal term. Rather, we focused on whether the evidence was sufficient to charge any member of the campaign with taking part in a criminal conspiracy.”)

Unlike Mueller’s tightly circumscribed criminal probe, the Senate Intelligence Committee report did investigate collusion. The most important evidence of collusion has either already been exposed (Trump officials taking a meeting with a Russian agent offering Vladimir Putin’s help with the campaign) or happened right in front of our eyes (Trump going on television to ask Russia to steal and publish Hillary Clinton’s emails). The real question is how extensively or tightly Trump’s campaign managed to coordinate its activity with Russia. And while it lacked the broad-ranging investigative powers Mueller could have used if he wanted, the Senate Intelligence Committee turned up damning evidence.

The primary locus of Russian interference was Russian hacking of Democratic emails and then leaking them in order to benefit Trump’s campaign. Two Trump advisers seem likely to have been involved in this scheme: campaign manager Paul Manafort and outside adviser Roger Stone.

Manafort had previously run a pro-Russian presidential campaign in Ukraine before signing up with Trump (for free). His business partner, Konstantin Kilimnik, was and is a Russian intelligence agent. “On numerous occasions, Manafort sought to secretly share internal Campaign information with Kilimnik,” the report finds.

The committee concedes it “was unable to reliably determine why” Manafort shared this information. However, it concluded that “some evidence suggests Kilimnik may be connected to the GRU hack-and-leak operation related to the 2016 U.S. election.” It also found “two pieces of information” that “raise the possibility of Manafort’s potential connection to the hack-and-leak operations.”

The report redacts all the evidence connecting both Kilimnik and Manafort to the hack-and-leak operation. But these aren’t anonymously floated claims by hostile elements. This was a report issued by a Republican-controlled committee that had no incentive to make Trump look guilty.

Manafort hardly dispelled the suspicions. Rather than coming clean with investigators, he bought a burner phone to communicate with Kilimnik and his former partner, Rick Gates. And he used a technique called “foldering” (writing the draft of an email, and inviting his partner to read it, before deleting it) to communicate surreptitiously. “Manafort’s true motive in deciding to face more severe criminal penalties rather than provide complete answers about his interactions with Kilimnik is unknown,” the committee concludes, “but the result is that many interactions between Manafort and Kilimnik remain hidden.” There is extensive circumstantial evidence that Manafort was playing the same role in the United States that he played in Ukraine — managing the campaign of a pro-Russia candidate on behalf of the regime-linked Russian oligarchs who paid him — but stymied the probe at its end point.

Stone, likewise, served as Trump’s link to WikiLeaks. This allowed the campaign to help steer the leaks for maximum advantage. When Trump’s campaign learned about devastating recordings of the candidate boasting about sexual assault in October, Stone told his contact, Jerome Corsi, to get Julian Assange to “drop the Podesta emails immediately.” (WikiLeaks did so.)

Stone also spoke at length with Manafort, and the next day spoke with Trump, and then drafted tweets for Trump to send, expressing a desire for friendlier relations with Russia (i.e., “I want a new détente with Russia under Putin”). Trump never sent those tweets, but the sequence of events strongly indicates Stone’s belief that Trump’s foreign policy toward Russia was linked with Russia’s campaign assistance.

The committee did not establish a quid pro quo. But Stone, like Manafort, did not cooperate. Instead, he lied to investigators. Trump also lied (in written answers to Mueller) about his conversations with Stone. You can say this is a lack of proof, but it is certainly not a lack of evidence of collusion. The evidence is extensive.

In a court of law, any defendant is entitled to a presumption of innocence. In the court of public opinion, the rules work differently. All the evidence points to the conclusion that Trump colluded with Russia and persuaded his top lieutenants to cover up their guilt. The traditional investigative technique of exposing a corrupt organization by flipping the mid-level staff against the boss doesn’t work when the boss has the power to pardon them and is shameless enough to use it. But the bipartisan Senate report has laid bare enough of the reality that was clear all along: They acted guilty because they were guilty.

Factbox: Key findings from Senate inquiry into Russian interference in 2016 U.S. election

Mark Hosenball 8/18/2020

WASHINGTON (Reuters)t - Below are key findings of the U.S. Senate intelligence committee’s final report released on Tuesday about Russian efforts to influence the 2016 U.S presidential election in which Republican Donald Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The bipartisan report, three-and-a-half years in the making, found Russia used Republican political operative Paul Manafort, the WikiLeaks website and others to try to influence the 2016 election to help now-U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign.

Russia has denied such interference.

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN

“The Committee found that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian effort to hack computer networks and accounts affiliated with the Democratic Party and leak

information damaging to Hillary Clinton...”

“Moscow’s intent was to harm the Clinton Campaign, tarnish an expected Clinton presidential administration, help the Trump Campaign after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, and undermine the U.S. democratic process.”

PAUL MANAFORT

Paul Manafort, Trump’s one-time 2016 campaign chairman, engaged with a “Russian intelligence officer” named Konstantin Kilimnik and Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, with whom it said Moscow coordinates foreign influence operations.

“On numerous occasions, Manafort sought to secretly share internal Campaign information with Kilimnik...

“Manafort’s presence on the Campaign and proximity to Trump created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign.

“Taken as a whole, Manafort’s high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services, particularly Kilimnik and associates of Oleg Deripaska, represented a grave counterintelligence threat.”

CONTINUED INTERFERENCE EFFORTS

Russian interference in U.S. politics has continued at least until January 2020.

The panel “observed numerous Russian-government actors from late 2016 until at least January 2020 consistently spreading overlapping false narratives which sought to discredit investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 elections and spread false information about the events of 2016.”


Manafort and Kilimnik specifically sought to promote the claim that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 election.

WIKILEAKS/ROGER STONE

WikiLeaks published thousands of emails hacked from Clinton’s campaign and a top aide, sparking extensive negative media coverage about the Democratic nominee before the 2016 vote.

“WikiLeaks actively sought, and played, a key role in the Russian influence campaign and very likely knew it was assisting a Russian intelligence influence effort...”

“Trump and senior Campaign officials sought to obtain advance information about WikiLeaks’s planned releases through (Republican political operative) Roger Stone. At their direction, Stone took action to gain inside knowledge for the Campaign and shared his purported knowledge directly with Trump and senior Campaign officials on multiple occasions.

“Trump and the Campaign believed that Stone had inside information... The Committee could not reliably determine the extent of authentic, non-public knowledge about WikiLeaks that Stone obtained and shared with the Campaign.”

STEELE ‘DOSSIER’

The committee found the FBI gave “unjustified credence” to a “dossier” of purportedly damaging information about Trump’s dealings with Russia prepared for Clinton Campaign lawyers by former British spy Christopher Steele.

CRIMINAL REFERRALS

The Committee made referrals to law enforcement about “potential criminal activity” it uncovered but an annex about these referrals was redacted in total.


Reporting By Mark Hosenball; Editing by Arshad Mohammed and Dan Grebler

IT'S CHEAPER THAN COAL

Explainer: Cleaner but not clean - Why scientists say natural gas won't avert climate disaster
Valerie Volcovici, Kate Abnett, Matthew Green


(Reuters) - Natural gas produces half as much carbon dioxide (C02) when burned than coal, but that doesn’t make it harmless. Climate scientists say that rising production of natural gas is emerging as one of the biggest drivers of climate change, and that plans for industry expansion could hobble efforts to stabilize the Earth’s climate.

FILE PHOTO: Pressure is released from a natural gas well on the property of Harlen Rowe in Salyersville, Kentucky, U.S., February 28, 2020. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston/File Photo/File Photo

The U.S. energy industry plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars building pipelines and terminals in coming years to ramp up exports of natural gas in supercooled liquefied form, known as LNG.

In January 2020, the American Petroleum Institute (API), a powerful lobbying group for the oil and gas industry, launched its “Energy for Progress” advertising campaign. The campaign has described natural gas as a “clean” or “environmentally friendly” energy source that has lowered CO2 emissions in the United States. [nL8N2F40CW] It also says that increasing global exports of U.S. gas “offers a solution to help lower the world’s carbon footprint.”

Reuters ran these claims by a dozen scientists and energy experts, and also sought their responses to other questions about the effects of natural gas on climate change.

ISN’T NATURAL GAS BETTER FOR THE CLIMATE THAN COAL?

Burning natural gas produces about half as much CO2 as coal to produce the same amount of energy. It also produces far fewer pollutants that can harm human health.

In the United States, natural gas from the country’s fracking industry has helped drive a dramatic reduction in the use of coal to generate electricity. Overall, U.S. CO2 emissions have fallen 15% from their 2007 peak, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Not all of that reduction can be attributed to natural gas; also contributing were such factors as increased energy efficiency and the growing use of renewables.

ISN’T SOME IMPROVEMENT OVER COAL BETTER THAN NOTHING?

Yes, but to limit the rise in average global temperatures to 1.5C - the most ambitious goal of the 2015 Paris climate agreement - scientists say emissions must be reduced to net zero by 2050, which leaves far less room for use of fossil fuels of any kind.

Emissions globally need to fall by about 7.6% a year between now and 2030 to meet the 1.5C target, according to the U.N. Environment Programme.[nL4N2862JR] Last year, U.S. emissions fell by about 2.9%, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency.


But emissions from the natural gas industry, particularly in the United States, are now growing so rapidly that the sector “is quickly becoming one of the biggest, if not the biggest, challenges to address climate change,” said Pep Canadell, a senior research scientist at CSIRO Climate Science Centre in Canberra, Australia.

In November, a U.N.-backed team of researchers found that the world was on track to produce 70% more natural gas in 2030 than would be compatible with the 1.5C goal.[nL8N27Y2AL]

“Most of the new gas production isn’t supplanting coal - it’s supplementing it. It’s answering demand for new energy,” said Rob Jackson, a professor at Stanford University who chairs the Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists that tracks greenhouse gas emissions.[nL1N2BP17V]
WHAT IS THE DANGER OF METHANE IN NATURAL GAS PRODUCTION?

Climate scientists are concerned about another greenhouse gas that leaks into the atmosphere during natural gas production: methane. Methane has a warming effect up to 80 or 90 times more powerful than C02 over a 20-year timescale. [nL2N2EL21I]

In April, a study published in the journal Science Advances found that the amount of methane being released in the natural gas and oil-rich Permian basin between New Mexico and Texas was double federal estimates. Two further studies, published in July, highlighted the role of the U.S. oil and gas industry in driving a rise in global methane emissions to the highest levels on record.



FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with managers and executives during a visit to the Cameron LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) Export Facility in Hackberry, Louisiana, U.S., May 14, 2019. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week rolled back regulations to curb methane emissions in the oil and gas industry - a move supported by API.[nL1N2FF260]

Many companies say they have been doing more to find and fix methane leaks. API’s website points to industry initiatives and innovations to “capture as much methane as possible.”

WHAT ABOUT GAS AS A TEMPORARY “BRIDGE FUEL” TO A CLEANER FUTURE?

The industry often portrays natural gas as a vital “bridge” to help utilities shift from a reliance on coal-fired power to cleaner sources of energy.

Advocates of natural gas argue that gas-fired power plants can provide continuous electricity, backing up wind and solar operations that run more intermittently. Until batteries or other forms of energy storage become cheaper and more accessible, natural gas should serve as a complement to renewables, they say.

Climate scientists are increasingly concerned, however, that plans to massively expand the industry mean that using natural gas as a “bridge” could end up locking the world into a high-carbon and fast-warming future.


In a report published in June last year, Global Energy Monitor, a San Francisco-based non-profit that analyses the fossil fuel industry, estimated that the oil and gas industry plans to spend $1.3 trillion to build a global infrastructure to boost the trade in liquefied natural gas, with most of these investments planned in North America. Were they all to go ahead, the climate impact of the projects - including the effects of methane leaks - would exceed that of all coal-fired power plants under construction or in pre-construction planning worldwide, the report said.

COULD TECHNOLOGY MITIGATE THE CLIMATE IMPACT OF NATURAL GAS?

In theory, yes. Carbon can be captured and stored underground through a process known as carbon capture and storage (CCS). The oil and gas industry has stressed the potential benefits of CCS technology in tackling emissions.

But the progress of that approach has been slow. Corinne Le Quere, a leading climate scientist at Britain’s University of East Anglia, told Reuters that “the industry and governments repeatedly fail to invest substantially in this technology, with the practical result that gas emissions continue to go straight to the atmosphere.”


Valerie Volcovici reported from Washington, D.C., Kate Abnett from Brussels and Matthew Green from London. Additional reporting by Andrew R.C. Marshall in London. Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Julie Marquis

In the run-up to U.S. election, drilling lobby promotes natural gas as 'clean'CHEAPER THAN COAL
Valerie Volcovici, Andrew R.C. Marshall, Matthew Green


WASHINGTON/LONDON (Reuters) - America’s biggest oil and gas lobby group is ramping up its advertising spending ahead of the November election to persuade voters that natural gas is a climate-friendly fuel, according to ad buying data.



A person views an online advertisement that ran on Facebook and was paid for by the American Petroleum Institute as part of their Energy For Progress campaign to cast natural gas as climate-friendly, in this illustration picture taken August 6, 2020. REUTERS/Mike Segar/Illustration

The campaign by the American Petroleum Institute (API), targeted at younger voters and some tight congressional races, is part of a global battle by the drilling industry to assuage growing fears over the role of natural gas in driving climate change.

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden last month unveiled a $2 trillion plan to transition the American economy away from fossil fuels, including natural gas, if he beats incumbent Donald Trump, who is a drilling advocate. Biden’s plan would support climate litigation against polluters who conceal information about environmental and health risks.

In the three weeks following Biden’s climate announcement on July 14, API increased its spending on Facebook ads to an estimated average of $24,000 a day. That’s about six times its average daily spending in the preceding six months, according to an analysis by InfluenceMap, a non-profit group whose data on lobbying is used by institutional investors.

(See graphic on API Facebook spending here)

Those ads mainly target a younger audience including 25-to-34-year-olds, according to a separate analysis by Bully Pulpit Interactive Media conducted on behalf of Reuters.

Meanwhile, API has spent an estimated $3.1 million on TV ads between Jan. 1 and Aug. 16, according to data from analytics firm iSpot, an increase of 51% over the same period in 2019

GREEN  CAPITALISM 
Exclusive: GM bets on electric Cadillacs and micro-vans to reverse China slide
Norihiko Shirouzu

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - General Motors (GM.N) is overhauling its Chinese line-up with a greater emphasis on electric cars and smart-driving technology to stem a slide in sales after more than two decades of growth in a country that contributes nearly a fifth of its profit.


FILE PHOTO: A new Cadillac XT6 SUV of GM is presented during the media day for Shanghai auto show in Shanghai, China, April 16, 2019. REUTERS/Aly Song

GM’s new China boss Julian Blissett told Reuters it would renew its focus on luxury Cadillacs, roll out bigger but greener sports-utility vehicles (SUVs) and target entry-level buyers with low-cost micro electric vehicles (EVs).

He said new technologies such as EVs and cars with near hands-free driving for highways would play a key role in GM’s China initiatives, which are part of a push to regain momentum lost in the face of intense competition and shifting tastes.

Blissett, who replaced China veteran Matt Tsien this year, spoke to Reuters ahead of GM’s Tech Day event in Shanghai later on Wednesday, where he and Chief Executive Mary Barra are expected to announce some of the new technology and product rollout plans.

“This market is rapidly electrifying. Cadillac is on a path to very heavy electrification. Buick is also going to heavily electrify,” said Blissett, adding that GM’s Chinese brands Baojun and Wuling would also go down the electric route.

“The market is changing dramatically. So the concept of standing still in China doesn’t work.”

GM sells its Chevrolets, Buicks and Cadillacs in China as well as its local brands Wuling and Baojun and has been one of the foreign success stories in the world’s biggest auto market along with Germany’s Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE).

But GM sales have taken a hit, falling to 3.1 million vehicles in 2019 from a record 4 million in 2017.


A slowdown in China’s economy and the resulting weakness in its auto market have been a big factor behind GM’s sales slump, but analysts say competition has become fierce too.

Toyota (7203.T), Volkswagen and Honda (7267.T) have been eating into GM’s business while Chinese automakers such as Geely (0175.HK) and Great Wall (601633.SS) are making better-quality cars that can compete more effectively with the global giants.

GM is also facing competition from Tesla (TSLA.O) while Lynk & Co and Polestar, brands affiliated with Volvo, have rolled out sleek eye-catching designs that Chinese consumers crave.
BACK TO 4 MILLION

In 2017, GM China had a 14.3% share of overall sales of 28.2 million vehicles. By 2019, that had fallen to a share of 12.2% out of 25.4 million cars.

Blissett said the key objective of its strategy was to get back to sales of 4 million vehicles a year as soon as possible.

“Our business is a high engineering cost, high capital cost business, so, without scale, it’s quite difficult to make money. We do need to return to that,” he told Reuters.

He said he could not give a precise timeframe for when GM would hit its goal because of the uncertainty about how fast economies around the world recover from the coronavirus fallout.


Some GM officials have admitted privately that its brands, especially Chevrolet, have been slow to introduce more SUVs in China as they became increasingly popular.

However, both Buick and Chevrolet now have four SUVs each and Cadillac has three, Blissett said.

Analysts have also said the promotion of its top-end Cadillac brand came at the expense of Buick and Chevy sales, and that it failed to match rivals with their sleeker designs.

Blissett said GM would sell bigger SUVs, many of them electric, for its Chevy, Buick and Cadillac brands, though traditional gasoline-powered SUVs still offered GM “huge opportunities” to boost sales in China.

GM also wants to transform Wuling into a brand more focused on micro, electric “people-mover” vans, he said.
ELECTRIC REVOLUTION

“In the next five years, more than 50% of our capital and engineering deployment will go towards electrification and autonomous-drive technology. That should give you an indication where GM is betting on its future,” GM’s Blissett said.

“Chinese consumers are very embracing of technology, be that technology on the phone, be that e-commerce, be that intelligent driving technology, be that electrification. Although Europe and the U.S. have fairly significant plans on a governmental and market point of view, the electrification of cars is going to happen much faster here in China,” he said.

“We intend to be right in the heart of that market. So, we will heavily play in the EV space. And that’s the reason why we are investing as we are.”


Slideshow (3 Images)

GM’s Wuling and Baojun brands have borne the brunt of falling sales over the past two years as lower-income consumers bought fewer cars in the face of slower growth and as competition from Chinese rivals at the entry level intensified.

There are signs of life at Wuling, however, with sales up 9.7% in the second quarter of 2020.

GM hopes its new Wuling MINI EV launched this year, a micro two-door car, and a series of similar cars in the pipeline, will help it win back share. Before EV subsidies, the MINI EV can cost as little as 28,800 yuan ($4,150) for a basic model.
‘WINNERS AND LOSERS’

To be sure, GM has made blunders, such as equipping some compact cars with unpopular three-cylinder engines. That hit GM sales significantly and it had to resurrect a four-cylinder gasoline engine for some models.

Still, analysts said much of the body blow GM’s brands took in China has come from local brands that have significantly improved the quality of their cars and as Japanese and German rivals boosted sales despite a weaker overall market.

Beijing’s emphasis on greener vehicles has also significantly pushed up the costs associated with the designing and manufacturing cars, which have combined to trigger a shake-up of China’s auto industry.

Already, small Chinese brands such as Lifan have gone out of business while French carmaker PSA (PEUP.PA) has scaled back its operations significantly and Renault (RENA.PA), which is in a global alliance with Nissan (7201.T), packed up and left.

“There is a revolution going on in the industry,” said Blissett. “There are also winners and losers in the global brands. The trend is actually for the local brands to lose share if you look at the total trend. Luxury is a gain in share.”


Analysts expect the consolidation in the auto industry to continue unabated in the coming years, with more failures, and also more mergers and acquisitions.

China auto industry expert Michael Dunne said if GM failed to manage its numerous brands in China properly, one might end up becoming a casualty.

“The introduction of Cadillac has had the effect of knocking Buick down a notch in the eyes of Chinese consumers,” he said. “Buick is tilting more towards where Chevy plays, and as a result the two brands are crowding each other and are now throwing weaker punches.”


Additional reporting by Ben Klayman in Detroit; Editing by David Clarke