POLITICO Confidential: Chinese zodiac be damned, American democracy will survive

The best of POLITICO’s coverage selected by Editor-in-Chief Jamil Anderlini.
By JAMIL ANDERLINI
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Dear readers,
I have spent my entire journalistic career in close proximity to spies.
When I first became a foreign correspondent working in Beijing in the early 2000s, my then-boss (who most colleagues believed was himself a Chinese intelligence officer) pulled me aside for a quiet chat. Your phone will be bugged, your computer is bugged, our offices are bugged, you will be followed everywhere and your home will be bugged, he told me.
For the next 17 years, I learned to live a semi-normal life under the constant eye of the Chinese secret police. I even learned some of the evasive tradecraft needed to throw off minders when I wanted to protect a particularly sensitive source. I remember the feeling of elation and relief when I would go on holiday and leave my phone and laptop behind in the knowledge that, for a brief moment, Big Brother couldn’t see exactly what I was doing.
A few times I caught myself taking evasive maneuvers in the most unlikely places to throw off what I thought (thanks purely to habit) was a tail. On a couple of occasions, friends or acquaintances definitely thought I was embarrassingly paranoid.
So it felt a little nostalgic and familiar when I went to London last weekend to watch the heads of the CIA and MI6 — William Burns and Sir Richard Moore — speak in public together for the first time in history, at the Weekend Festival of my former employer, the Financial Times.
I can’t talk about what they said in the private briefing afterwards, but in the public remarks the best line came from Sir Richard when he described Russia’s intelligence services as “reckless” and as having “gone a bit feral” with their sabotage efforts around Europe.
The leaders of two of the most formidable spy services in the world also talked about the growing cooperation between self-declared adversaries of liberal democracy, and especially cooperation between Russia and China.
That was the theme of our excellent story on “dragon-bear” operations in Europe, in which Chinese spies make use of assets previously cultivated by Moscow.
The two spy chiefs also spoke about the ongoing debate over permitting Ukraine to use Western-supplied long-range weapons to attack Russian territory. As the week went on, it was clear this debate has shifted and the Biden administration’s previous reticence has softened considerably.
Back in Brussels, the long-awaited 400-page “Draghi Report,” filled with recommendations from former European Central Bank Governor and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi on how to fix Europe, finally dropped on Monday. POLITICO was the place to turn to understand what “Super Mario” is prescribing.
On Wednesday, I had the delicate diplomatic job of hosting more than 1,000 Brusseleers on behalf of the 15 richest and most powerful industry associations in town. This was almost certainly the biggest “rentrée party” (if not the coolest — that would be POLITICO’s one the week before) of the Brussels “back to school” season and it was an honor to be asked to officiate and interview outgoing Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo on stage.
As he pointed out himself, he may have lost the election in June but he could end up being PM for quite a while longer. That’s because the winners of that vote are struggling to form a new administration and in recent years Belgium has repeatedly broken ITS OWN RECORD for the longest period of any country in history without an elected government.
This was, of course, also the week Kamala Harris and Donald Trump went toe-to-toe on the debate floor in Philadelphia. POLITICO.com had the most incisive and comprehensive coverage of that moment and we called it definitively for the Democratic candidate. The subsequent trolling of Trump by Germany’s foreign office provided much mirth and frivolity on this side of the Atlantic.
Now we enter the deadly serious final weeks before the 60th American presidential election. In the Chinese zodiac, 60 marks the completion of a full cycle of the heavens and was considered in ancient times to be a complete lifespan of a person. I would like to confidently assume that 60 doesn’t mark the end of the lifecycle for American democracy.
Until next week, bon weekend,
Jamil
The tragedy of Liz Truss 
It’s really hard to pity former U.K. PM Liz Truss but this story humanely lays out the hole she’s dug herself into and how a once-promising political career went totally off the rails. The article is built on insider voices in the Westminster circuit and from on-lookers, from the U.S. to France. Read the story. 
‘Dragon-Bear’: How China and Russia’s spy operations overlap in Europe  
This story lays out how Russia and China’s spy operations overlap across the European continent. POLITICO was able to get a top intelligence official to confirm on the record this is now happening. Read the story. 
The great EU Commission puzzle: Who we think will get each portfolio  
A perfect POLITICO story, because no one else has the knowledge we do and no one else would have the nerve to do something this ambitious. People we spoke to while putting this together couldn’t believe we were doing the entire team of commissioners. But we did! Read the story. 
Mario Draghi’s plan to fix a broken Europe already looks impossible
A supreme team effort from our newsroom on the Mario Draghi competitiveness report was capped by this unique analysis that took the story forward with biting insight, and rounded off our excellent set of news stories, commentary and insight. Read the story.   
The UK is backing away from oil 
We got under the hood of a seismic change in U.K. energy policy — the slow end of oil and gas drilling off the Scottish coast, watched with relief by climate campaigners and in horror by unions and many of Scotland’s politicians. Read the story. 
The job no one wants: EU health commissioner  
Having had its moment in the sun during the Covid pandemic, EU health policy is sliding back into irrelevance as issues like finance and defense dominate. So much so that there is no credible candidate to become the bloc’s next health commissioner. The EU’s public health crisis isn’t going away anytime soon — and that spells more work for Dr. Ursula von der Leyen. Read the story. 
EU Confidential: Does Europe’s economy need Mountain Dew?
While Brussels has been obsessed recently with the “Draghi report,” that’s NOT the topic of this week’s episode. We will, however, discuss WHY Brussels is so besotted. (Spoiler alert: It’s because Europe’s economy is broken.)
Host Sarah Wheaton talks to POLITICO’s Carlo Martuscelli and Carsten Brzeski, global head of macro at ING Research, about why the EU is falling so far behind big competitors like the U.S. and China; as well as about the political factors that got us here — and are keeping us stuck. 
We also check in with POLITICO’s chief EU correspondent, Barbara Moens, about the bottlenecks impeding the new Commission leadership; and with senior correspondent Clea Caulcutt in Paris about French Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s biggest challenge since Brexit. Listen to the episode.

Westminster Insider: What’s it like to cover a US election?
Days after the drama of the first U.S. presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, host Jack Blanchard asks senior journalists on both sides of the Atlantic — what’s it really like to cover an American election?
Podcaster and author Jon Sopel reflects on his years covering the White House as the BBC’s U.S. editor, recounting famous televised run-ins with Trump and his predecessor Barack Obama.
The BBC’s Henry Zeffman recalls his own year in the U.S. as a young reporter with the Times, touring the country ahead of the 2020 election.
And POLITICO legends Jonathan Martin, Rosa Prince and Eli Stokols consider how political reporting in the U.S. has changed over recent years as the country’s politics have transformed dramatically before our eyes. Listen to the episode.

Power Play: The Trump thump: Has Harris sealed the deal?
How will the Harris-Trump debate encounter shape the final stretch of the campaign to the Nov. 5 election — and what does it mean for the rest of the world? 
Host Anne McElvoy talks to POLITICO’s Global Editor-in-Chief John Harris, a doyen of debate coverage, about Kamala Harris’ goading of Trump and whether it marks a shift in the campaign. Anne is joined by John B. Emerson, a prominent Californian Democrat, who has raised funds for Harris in her home state. Having served in the Clinton administration before becoming the U.S. ambassador to Germany, Emerson discusses the impact of the debate on America’s allies. Listen to the episode.

A discarded napkin found outside EXKi reveals Ursula von der Leyen’s real thinking. Read this week’s Declassified column.
Caption competition
“When I said I needed a new spin doctor, this is not what I meant.”
 Can you do better? Email [email protected] or on Twitter @pdallisonesque
Last week we gave you this photo:
 Thanks for all the entries. Here’s the best from our postbag — there’s no prize except for the gift of laughter, which I think we can all agree is far more valuable than cash or booze.
“So they are both inside now. When I count to three, we close the door, pack the tent and load it and go,” by Libor Kudláček
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