🌍 US President Biden cancels historic visit to PNG

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🗺️ AROUND THE WORLD

1. 🇰🇷 South Korea: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in South Korea to expand intelligence sharing between the two countries, and boost cooperation on critical minerals used in electric vehicles.

2. 🇪🇪 Estonia: Sweden and Estonia are the only two EU countries expected to enter a recession this year according to the European Commission. The Commission forecasts the broader EU’s GDP to grow by 1% in 2023.

3. 🇮🇳 India: The main opposition party won Saturday’s election in the Indian state of Karnataka, home to 67 million people. The country’s ruling BJP party had campaigned hard to retain control of the state ahead of India’s general elections next year.

4. 🇨🇴 Colombia: President Gustavo Petro has downplayed the risk of a military coup, after a retired colonel suggested the armed forces should “defenestrate” the president.

5. 🇸🇾 Syria: Attending November’s COP28 climate summit in Dubai? You might bump into Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who’s now received an invite. He’s emerging from more than a decade of international isolation after his brutal crackdown on street protests in 2011.

🇺🇸 US | GEOPOLITICS

US president cancels historic visit to the Pacific

Briefly: President Joe Biden has cancelled his visit to Papua New Guinea (PNG) next week to focus instead on US debt ceiling negotiations back in Washington. He was also due to head to Sydney for a summit of Quad leaders (US, Australia, India, Japan), but that’s now been axed too.

Biden was supposed to sign key security deals in PNG this Monday (22 May), during the first visit by a sitting US President to any Pacific Island country.

And those security pacts should still be signed at some point (they’ve already been agreed in substance). They include:

1. 💪 An agreement to deepen defence cooperation with PNG

2. 🚢 A deal for the US coast guard to help patrol PNG’s vast waters, and

3. 🤝 The renewal of a major security and economic treaty with Micronesia.

But still… like a tourist who’s just tried root beer for the first time, folks in the Pacific will now be left with a pretty mixed taste in their mouth.

Intrigue’s take: We were a bit upset that we had to rewrite this story at the last minute. We can only imagine the despair in PNG and Australia, where officials have long been prepping to host POTUS.

But this is bigger than all that. Many of PNG’s ten million folks will today:

• 🛣️ drive to work on a China-built highway 

• 🏫 drop their kids at a China-built school, and

• 🛬 catch a flight to one of PNG’s China-built airports.

They might also pass one of the sites visited by Chinese President Xi Jinping when he came to PNG in 2018 (one of his three visits to the region).

Folks will then turn on the radio to hear news that the US president has axed a first-ever (and three hour) visit because of turmoil back home. They’ll then turn off the radio and head to an event at PNG’s China-built convention centre.

So you can see the picture the US is helping paint for itself in the region.

An analyst and friend of Intrigue summed it all up for us: “This is such a classic, unnecessary example of exactly how the US shoots itself in the face, and sends Indo-Pacific countries back towards China.”

Also worth noting:

• PNG had just declared a national public holiday for Biden’s visit.

• Last year the US hosted its first-ever US-Pacific Island Country Summit, which was attended by more than a dozen Pacific Island states.

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Today’s briefing is sponsored by Hubspot

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🕹️ EUROPEAN UNION | BUSINESS

Major Microsoft acquisition gets EU approval

Briefly: Microsoft’s $69B planned acquisition of video game maker Activision Blizzard won approval from EU regulators on Monday (15 May). If ultimately successful, the merger will be the largest consumer tech deal in decades.

But that’s still a big ‘if’. The UK regulator blocked the deal last month, citing concerns the merger would limit competition. And the US regulator has likewise sued Microsoft to block the acquisition (the case is scheduled for August).

Intrigue’s take: The divergence between the various regulators highlights duelling challenges in the tech world right now:

1. 😔 Being a multinational ain’t always easy – winning approval for a deal this size requires sign-off from multiple regulatory bodies, each with their own priorities and criteria, and

2. 🧐 Being a regulator ain’t easy either – as tech keeps evolving, regulators don’t want to get caught flat-footed the way they did with social media companies. So they’re heeding the call of duty (sorry).

Also worth noting:

• Microsoft partly won EU approval by promising Activision’s games (like Call of Duty) would be available on all platforms, not just its own Xbox.

• In response, the UK regulator has said it’s standing by its original decision to block the merger. Microsoft is appealing that decision.

👀 EXTRA INTRIGUE

Some intriguing stats about Microsoft, the world’s second largest company (by valuation).

• $198B – Microsoft’s global revenues in the 2022 financial year, in USD

• 75% – the global proportion of PCs running Microsoft operating systems

• $2.317T– Microsoft’s market value as of May 2023, in USD

• 100 million – the number of daily active users on Microsoft’s search engine Bing (a billion-plus folks use Google each day).

🏁 FLAG OF THE DAY

Cyprus has a plain flag, but that’s by design: given the island’s divisions between Turks and Greeks, its 1960 constitution keeps the flag free of any blue or crosses (Greece), and any red or crescents (Turkey). Plus, the olive branches signify peace between the Turks and Greeks.

It’s also one of only two national flags in the world to include the national map (the other is Kosovo). We can dig it.

Our rating: 8.9/10

🗳️ POLL TIME!

Yesterday’s poll: Do you think Thailand’s military-backed government will hand over power to new leadership?

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 📣 Yes, the people have spoken (16%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🎖️ No, the military still holds the cards (80%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🖋️ Other (write in!) (2%)

Your two cents:

• 🎖️ N.S: “Military-based governments do not have a good record of letting go. I’m afraid it’s going to get messy over there soon.”

• 🖋️ J.J.C.W: “I think neither party will give in, that’s what makes the outcome of this election so interesting.”