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INTERNATIONAL EDITION | TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2020

Will nations Battered

rise because economy
of the crisis? tests Turkish
Ruchir Sharma
Contributing Writer
president
ISTANBUL

OPINION
After 2000, globalization and surging
commodity prices astronomically
boosted economic growth among na-
tions with emerging economies. Over
the next decade their share of the
global economy nearly doubled, grow-
ing to 35 percent. By 2007, 107 of the
110 developing economies featured in
the Penn World Table were catching up
to the United States in average income,
helping millions to escape poverty. The
celebratory mood was captured in a
popular phrase: “The rise of the rest.”
Then came the crisis of 2008. Trade
and capital flows plunged and com-
modity prices tanked, while slowing
global population growth started to
shrink work forces. Instead of rising
again, developing economies saw their
share of the global economy stagnate
in the 2010s. Half
The pandemic the countries in the
Penn World Table
has created fell behind the
many obstacles United States in
to growth, average income.
but also some Recently hyped
opportunities stars like Brazil
for developing and Russia are
economies. growing slower
than the U.S. econ-
A stubborn recession
and the virus have Erdogan
feeling the ire at home
BY CARLOTTA GALL
Hobbled by restrictions on his tobacco
shop, Ozgur Akbas helped organize a
demonstration in Istanbul last month to
protest what he called unfair rules im-
posed on merchants during the pan-
demic.
“There are many friends who have
shut down,” he said in an interview. “And
some are on the verge of suicide.”
Turks had been grappling with a fall-
ing currency and double-digit inflation
for two years when the pandemic hit in
March, sharply worsening the country’s
deep recession. Nine months in, as a sec-
ond wave of the virus sweeps through
Turkey, there are signs that a significant
portion of the population is over-
whelmed by debt and increasingly go-
ing hungry.
MetroPoll Research, a respected
polling organization, found in a recent
PHOTOGRAPHS BY EDUARDO SOTERAS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES survey that 25 percent of respondents
A soldier last month at the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia has denied that soldiers from Eritrea had entered the Tigray region. said they could not meet their basic
needs. Mr. Akbas said he sees it daily
among his customers.

Old foes joining forces

omy is. With the
exception of China,
“the rest” have fallen off the radar of
the global media and financial mar-
kets.
This would be more disheartening if
it weren’t normal. In most decades
after World War II, developed and
emerging economies grew at a similar
pace. Since nations with emerging
economies tended to have populations
that were growing faster, their per
capita income was in fact often falling
behind. These nations might leap
forward for a decade or two, and possi-
bly rise up an income class, only to
stumble into crisis and find themselves
back where they started.
Of 195 economies tracked by the
International Monetary Fund, only 39
are “advanced,” and most of those
were already advanced by 1945. The
few that rose out of poverty and into
the developed class are celebrated as
“miracles,” such as Japan, South Korea
and Taiwan. Their secret: export man-
ufacturing, which by bringing in reve-
nue from all over the world can sustain
growth rates that would be impossible
in a domestic market alone.
Today, however, manufacturing and
exports are shrinking as forces in the
global economy, so it can be hard to
imagine what would power the next
growth miracles. This explains the
SHARMA, PAGE 11
The New York Times publishes opinion
from a wide range of perspectives in
hopes of promoting constructive debate
about consequential questions.
NAIROBI, KENYA
In Ethiopia, Eritrean units
in Tigray are said to be
rampaging refugee camps
BY DECLAN WALSH
AND SIMON MARKS
As fighting raged across the Tigray re-
gion of northern Ethiopia last month, a
group of soldiers arrived one day at Hit-
sats, a small hamlet ringed by scrubby
hills that was home to a sprawling refu-
gee camp of 25,000 people.
The refugees had come from Eritrea,
whose border lies 30 miles away, part of
a vast exodus in recent years led by des-
perate youth fleeing the tyrannical rule
of their leader, one of Africa’s harshest
autocrats. In Ethiopia, Eritrea’s long-
time adversary, they believed they were
safe.
But the soldiers who burst into the
camp on Nov. 19 were also Eritrean, wit-
nesses said. Mayhem quickly followed
— days of plunder, punishment and
bloodshed that ended with dozens of ref-
ugees being singled out and forced back
across the border into Eritrea.
For weeks, Prime Minister Abiy Ah-
med of Ethiopia has denied that soldiers
ERIT REA Y EM EN
SU DA N
TIGRAY
DJI BOU TI
REGION
Addis Ababa
OROMIA
E TH I OPI A
SOM ALIA
KEN YA 500 MILES
THE NEW YORK TIMES
that has greatly tarnished Mr. Abiy’s
once-glowing reputation. Only last year
he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
for making peace with Mr. Isaias. Now it
looks like the much-lauded peace deal
Children at an elementary school that was damaged this month during the fighting in between the former enemies in fact laid
the Tigray region. Some refugees have been forced back across the border into Eritrea. the groundwork for them to make war
against Tigray, their mutual adversary.
“Abiy has invited a foreign country to
from Eritrea — a country that Ethiopia trean soldiers are fighting in Tigray, ap- fight against his own people,” said Awol
once fought in an exceptionally brutal parently in coordination with Mr. Abiy’s Allo, a former Abiy supporter turned
war — had entered Tigray, where Mr. forces, and face credible accusations of outspoken critic who lectures in law at
Abiy has been fighting since early No- atrocities against civilians. Among their Keele University in Britain. “The impli-
vember to oust rebellious local leaders. targets were refugees who had fled Eri- cations are huge.”
In fact, according to interviews with trea and its harsh leader, President Isa- Mr. Abiy insists that he was forced to
two dozen aid workers, refugees, United ias Afwerki. move his army quickly in Tigray after
Nations officials and diplomats — in- The deployment of Eritreans to the region’s leaders, who had dominated
cluding a senior American official — Eri- Tigray is the newest element in a melee ETHIOPIA, PAGE 4
“People are at the point of explosion,”
he said.
For President Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
who this year had drawn attention at
home and abroad with an aggressive
foreign policy and military interven-
tions, things suddenly came to a head in
November.
The government admitted that it had
been understating the extent of Tur-
key’s coronavirus outbreak by not re-
cording asymptomatic cases, and new
data revealed record infection levels in
the country.
The Turkish lira has been battered by
a record depreciation — down more
than 30 percent against the dollar this
year — and foreign exchange reserves
have been badly depleted. Along with
double-digit inflation, the country now
faces a balance of payments crisis,
Moody’s Investors Service said re-
cently.
The crisis comes as Mr. Erdogan is
about to lose a powerful ally when Presi-
dent Trump leaves office next month.
Turkey is already facing sanctions from
the United States for purchasing a Rus-
sian missile defense system and from
the European Union for gas drilling in
waters claimed by Cyprus. Mr. Trump
had been instrumental in holding off the
sanctions from Washington until this
month.
Mr. Erdogan was notably slow in con-
gratulating President-elect Joseph R.
Biden Jr. on his victory. Analysts expect
a Biden administration to be tougher on
Mr. Erdogan’s sliding record on human
rights and democratic standards.
TURKEY, PAGE 4

Paul McCartney still figuring out love

FROM THE MAGAZINE
But the prolific songwriter
and ex-Beatle admits: ‘It’s
always a splendid puzzle’
BY DAVID MARCHESE
Paul McCartney, like the rest of us, this
year found himself with an unexpected
amount of time stuck indoors. Unlike
the rest of us — or most of us, anyway
— he used that time to record a new
album. The pandemic-induced circum-
stances of its creation may mark “Mc-
Cartney III” as an outlier in the former
Beatle’s catalog, but as its title sug-
gests, it does have precedents: Like
“McCartney” (1970) and “McCartney
II” (1980), the album, released a week
before Christmas, was primarily re-
corded by McCartney alone, with him
playing nearly all the instruments and
handling all the production. “At no
point,” McCartney said, “did I think:
‘I’m making an album. I’d better be
serious.’ This was more like: ‘You’re
locked down. You can do whatever the
hell you want.’ ” Which was a gas, as
always. “What I’m amazed with,”
McCartney explained, “is that I’m not Netting Zero. A new virtual
fed up with music. Because, strictly
speaking, I should have gotten bored events series on climate change,
years ago.”
leading up to COP26.
It seems to me that working on music Understand the challenges. Lead the change.
by yourself, as you did on the new nytclimatehub.com/netting-zero
album, might allow for some insights
about what you do and how you do it.
So are there aspects of “McCartney
III” that represent creative growth to
you?
The idea of growing and adding more
arrows to your bow is nice, but I’m not
sure if I’m interested in it. The thing is,
when I look back to “Yesterday,” which
was written when I was 21 or some-
thing, there’s me talking like a 90-year-
old: “Suddenly I’m not half the man I
used to be.” Things like that and “Elea-
NELSON ALMEIDA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES nor Rigby” have a kind of wisdom. You
Paul McCartney performing in São Paulo, Brazil, in 2019. His new album, “McCartney would naturally think, “OK, as I get
III,” was primarily recorded by the former Beatle alone during the pandemic. MCCARTNEY, PAGE 2

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