Source: Radio New Zealand
New Zealand and other liberal democracies need to band together against the rise of modern kleptocracy, a top American journalist and historian says.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Applebaum told Guyon Espiner on 30 with Guyon Espiner how today’s dictators aren’t just seizing power, they’re stealing unimaginable wealth and hiding it in Western banks.
Kelptocracy – meaning to “rule by thieves” – is a form of political corruption where leaders make themselves rich and powerful by stealing from the people they rule.
Applebaum discusses a rise in modern kleptocracy, where there is a striking degree of theft and wealth.
“You know, Hitler and Stalin were not billionaires. Most modern dictators are billionaires, and we don’t even know how or why they are billionaires,” Applebaum said.
“… All of them [Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin] have secret funds, secret palaces [and] secret sources of income that we don’t know about.”
Applebaum believes Russia paved the way for this modern dictatorship where there is a “marriage between great wealth and great power”.
She said there is a class of Russian oligarchs who learned how to use Western financial systems such as offshore tax havens, anonymous shell companies and anonymous investments to keep their money secret.
“Essentially, they learned how to steal money from Russia, to export it out of the country, to hide it in various places in Europe and America, or maybe New Zealand [and] Australia, and then to take it back into Russia and to use it as a way of both building comfort for themselves and their family, but also as a way of gaining power,” Applebaum said.
“They bought up companies, they bought people, they bought influence and that’s how they rule.”
Historian & journalist Anne Applebaum speaks to Guyon Espiner via remote link for ’30 with Guyon Espiner’ season 4. RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
She said US President Donald Trump has been imitating what Russians and other autocrats in converting political power to financial power. For example, his company World Liberty Financial has been accused of giving favours to people who have invested into it.
“There are some odd coincidences. People who’ve paid money to his company being pardoned or having their investigations dropped if they’re if they’re being investigated by the US Justice System, or countries who’ve paid in being granted various, you know, being granted various kinds of advantages,” Applebaum said.
She said while Trump appears to want to be an autocrat, the system doesn’t easily allow him to do so.
For example, when Disney suspended production of the late-night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live! after pressure from Trump’ administration, people boycotted Disney. It resulted in the show returning after a week.
“There are a lot of different ways that people are now working to push back. I’m hoping actually that Congress, that particularly the Senate, but also even the House of Representatives, will begin to crack particularly as people see how unpopular this is.”
Applebaum said countries like New Zealand and Australia should work together against autocracies.
“I mean, you know, the most important point is that the autocracies think globally. They think about, you know, Iran helps Venezuela. You know, China’s watching what goes on in Belarus. And I think democracies need to think like that too,” she said.
“You know, we need, we need lines of connection between liberal democracies all over the world, on on specific issues, not merely through existing institutions. You know, the European Union is not going to do it by itself, but working, working around this, just working together to solve the same problems.”
She said we owe it to our fellow citizens and children to continue to fight to fix what is wrong with out system and fight back against those who want to destroy it.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
