♪♪ >> Hello, and welcome to "GZERO World."

I'm Ian Bremmer, and today we are looking at tough months ahead for Europe.

An escalating Russia-Ukraine war has mobilized almost all of Europe to Kyiv's cause, but it's also destabilizing the region, bringing with it economic, political, and social challenges that will last long after the war is over.

And let's face it, who knows when the war's going to be over.

Out of this climate of fear and instability, the far right has become resurgent, making political gains in many national elections.

And then there's China, intent on reshaping the global order in its favor.

It's a lot to chew on, and chew I shall with German diplomat Christoph Heusgen.

He served as his country's ambassador to the United Nations and is now chairman of the Munich Security Conference.

Later, a closer look at German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's controversial trip to China.

Don't worry, I've also got your "Puppet Regime."

>> Good luck to you, and don't forget the middle class.

>> How could I forget King Charles?

>> But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

>> Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

Taking the time to listen helps us provide customized banking and wealth-management solutions.

More on our clients at firstrepublic.com.

Additional funding provided by... ...and by... >> In the dark of night, late last September, in a heavily trafficked section of the international waters of the Baltic Sea, the surface began to bubble.

Seismographs in Sweden reported a powerful disruption under the sea floor.

Was it Carl Bildt?

No.

Seven hours later, reports came of another disturbance.

Photographs emerged of gigantic blooms of methane gas erupting from below.

They were visual proof of severe pressure drops at the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipelines.

They run between Russia and Germany.

These explosions were no accident.

>> Tonight, sabotage at sea.

That's what President Biden is calling the leaks and explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines.

>> More than a month later, the gas leaks have been plugged, but the flow of speculation, conspiracy theories and blind accusation is unabated.

And that's because apart from confirming that sabotage did indeed occur, the European investigators have yet to point the finger at any specific saboteur.

Some experts think it was Russia blowing up their own pipelines to worsen the winter prospects of an already energy-starved Europe.

But backing up that suspicion has proved a surprisingly sensitive task for European officials, who have long been wary about sharing intelligence amongst member nations.

EU member states "have their own agendas," is how one Danish researcher recently put it.

Denmark, Germany and Sweden have all launched separate investigations and each inquiry is shrouded in secrecy.

In fact, a Swedish prosecutor has already signaled that his country won't join a larger EU investigation.

For a continent that has shown such solidarity in uniting against Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the tight-lipped response to the Nord Stream attack is jarring, to say the least.

The timing isn't great either.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has become more erratic as his battle losses in Ukraine mount, posing a greater security risk to Europe as a whole.

Add to that mounting food and energy prices, not to mention a weak euro, and it's looking like a really tough year on the continent.

And don't sleep on Xi Jinping and a rising China keen to rebalance the global power structure in his favor.

So how will Europe face these challenges?

I'm joined by German diplomat Christoph Heusgen, and he served as the German ambassador to the United Nations.

He's now chairman of the Munich Security Conference.

Here's our conversation.

Ambassador Christoph Heusgen, so nice to have you on "GZERO World."

>> Thank you very much, Ian, for having me.

>> No, it's great to see you in New York.

And first thing we have to talk about is the Russia war, and we're about nine months in now.

Give me first your take on how you think this is going on the ground for the Europeans, for the Russians, quick view.

>> Well, how much time do you have?

First, on the war itself, it's going very badly for the Russians.

They don't advance anymore.

Actually, they have to withdraw from some parts.

The Ukrainian military is much more motivated, better trained, better led, and the Russians have problems.

What the Russians have turned now is to see if they can undercut the readiness of the population to support this war.

They're destroying infrastructure.

This is, by the way, war crimes.

They're destroying infrastructure, they're destroying electricity and everything, but they totally miscalculate the Ukrainians.

They miscalculated at the very beginning.

Their resolve to fight back to defend their country is unbroken.

They will continue to do that.

Even the ethnic Russians that the Russians pretend to protect from the Ukrainians, they're the toughest ones because they see what Russia does to the area where they live or lived, yes.

>> Where they live.

>> Mariupol or Kherson, all this is destroyed by the Russian.

So this is going to go on, number one.

Number two, the support for Ukraine continues to be very positive.

I want to say American leadership has been key, providing weapons to Ukraine.

But it took some time for us Germans to do that.

But the Ukraines appreciate all the quality of our weapons, of some others.

So we support that.

Again, I believe this will go on for some time.

Putin is not ready to give in.

Zelenskyy will continue to fight.

So Putin tries also to undermine the resolve of the supporters of Zelenskyy.

This is why he comes up with threats of the use of nuclear weapons.

Everybody's scared, and this is why he's very active in the global south, to spread his narrative.

It's the West that is responsible for the high energy price or the high price of grain.

So he's using that.

I think that Putin is determined to see this through.

I don't see right now that he's ready to give in.

So he will continue.

As I said before, he thinks that the West is weak and that also Ukraine at some stage cannot withstand the aggression by Russia.

He's wrong, I think, but the problem is the human suffering continues.

>> Where is the West weaker?

Is it among the Europeans with the economic hardships this winter, next year, difficulties on energy?

Some governments that seem like they might waiver, the Italians for example, even the Germans perhaps, or the United States, where you start to see both on the progressive left and the MAGA right, some shakiness about why you'd want to spend all this money on a war that's very far away?

>> Putin watches this very carefully.

>> Sure.

>> Of course, he hopes for this.

He hopes that after the midterms in the U.S. or after elections in other countries, this resolve to support Ukraine will weaken.

So far it's not happening.

We have seen in Italy where you have a kind of populous government that the new prime minister stands firm on it.

In Germany, we have polls while they say yes, we are suffering and higher energy prices, but the resolve is still there to support Ukraine.

But there's no guarantee if you -- We will have a very tough winter in Europe with the high energy prices.

There may be some -- The support may be lessening.

We do have parts in Europe where the pro-Russian propaganda actually is setting in and is selling.

But overall, I think we stand firm.

>> But what's the area that you're most concerned about in terms of wavering over the next 6, 12 months, let's say?

>> Well, it's what I said, energy prices.

If governments -- >> So it's Europe where that happens?

>> It's Europe, yeah.

No, it's Europe.

It's Europe.

It's when energy prices go up that there may -- And if governments don't succeed in having targeted support to those small businesses, to those people who have low salaries, all of a sudden are confronted with high energy bills, there may be some opposition.

But overall, I think this will hold.

In the U.S., I think that having talked to congressmen and senators from both aisles, my impression is the support for Ukraine will be there.

There is of course during the election campaign, there is some talk about, "Well, why should we support Ukraine?

We should rather put the money on the," I don't know, "the U.S.-Mexican border or something."

But overall, my impression is that the support for Ukraine is firm.

>> Now, a quote from you, which is, "The end of Putin's regime is going much faster."

How much is that wishful thinking?

How much are there actual indications that there is a level of weakening of Putin's own regime internally?

>> You see that there are cracks.

You see that it's not as coherent as it was before.

The military is criticized heavily also from the establishment.

You have seen that hundreds of thousands of Russians have fled the mobilization.

People are not happy.

Putin promised that there will be no general mobilization.

Basically, he went through it at the beginning.

He took people from the outer regions of Russians, minorities.

Now it arrived in Leningrad.

It arrived in Moscow.

So there is some uneasiness.

I would not say it's at a turning point, but remember, there is a certain history in this country.

Khrushchev was replaced, Gorbachev was replaced.

So if this continues and people see how their living standard is going down, this may change, but it's not going to happen in a few weeks.

>> It's not near term.

>> It's near term because at the same time, what you have seen over the years is that Putin has systematically basically killed opposition leaders or poisoned.

He has really stopped all NGOs from working, and the media, the Russians are indoctrinated.

And you see this even in places, even in my own country, you have places in Berlin where they have a strong Russian community and they believe the Russian narrative.

>> Now, I have to ask you about the Nord Stream pipelines.

Nord Stream 1, Nord Stream 2 cost billions of dollars, billions of euros to build.

Russian pipelines, they of course weren't operational, but suddenly they blew up.

It's been several weeks, several different investigations going on by the Europeans.

We have heard nothing.

If you had to put your money on it, who actually was behind it and why?

>> Well, there are several options, of course.

You look at the different countries and you see what would be the motivation behind it and how it's difficult to say.

I would say countries that have always been against it, from "the West," so to speak, if they would be caught blowing up the pipeline, this would really create huge tensions within "the West."

>> The coalition.

>> The coalition, so my guess is it was the Russians.

I think that they just to destroy, to demonstrate what they can do, what they're ready to do to destroy infrastructure.

But this is just my guess.

>> If we get no indication, no evidence of that from the investigations over the coming two, three, four months, would that change your view?

>> No, because I know that objectively it's going to be very, very difficult to do this research.

You have it, I think a hundred meter below the surface, you see something blown up.

It will be very difficult to find out, but maybe at some state they find out what the explosives are, where you can put it.

But even there you cannot be sure that one didn't use the explosive of somebody else.

>> I'm going to be devil's advocate.

If it's that difficult to figure out who it was, then your initial argument about why the traditional actors that really don't like these pipelines wouldn't do it starts to decrease.

>> Well, we'll see.

I think it's also with timeline, in the end it's not that important.

So I don't think that this will make then in the end, make a big difference when we find out.

>> The reason I think it's interesting and important potentially, and I want to know your view on this, is because if it turns out that it was the Russians and they are blowing up these two pipelines and in international waters, by the way, and there's no consequence for it, well, then why wouldn't they keep doing it?

So there is that, right?

>> No, there is that.

And this brings me to one point, which is very important and this is accountability.

We see Putin committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, what they have been doing from day one.

Even when you see how they take population out, when they make young people being adopted there, it's close even to genocide.

So I think we need to work very hard on accountability because if we don't somehow succeed to bringing those people to justice who were responsible for this, this may be other people who have, again, ideas to do it.

And I think we have to defend the international rules-based order, the Charter of the UN, and if we allow this, we are going to end up in the jungle.

>> So when we talk about China, of course, as you and I are speaking right now, your German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is literally on his way.

It's going to be his first trip as chancellor to meet with Xi Jinping and he's also bringing a number of German CEOs with him.

That's a very different message than some in the German government, like the foreign minister, would want him to deliver.

It's also a very different message than you're hearing from the United States right now.

Talk about what the German chancellor is thinking when it comes to the China policy.

>> I don't know what he's thinking.

I can only tell you my assessment of the situation.

Number one, I believe it's important that a German chancellor talks to the Chinese president.

Is now, a few weeks after the party congress, the right moment to do it?

One can doubt it.

Is it at a time where everybody in Germany, outside Germany is warning Germany from getting dependent again on one country, like our dependency energy on Russia, our dependency on trade on China?

Is it the right signal to send the CEO group with the chancellor?

I have doubts that this is the right thing to do at this stage.

>> Now, just before the trip, there was a big announcement about Cosco, a major Chinese state-owned organization, that is taking a big investment stake in the Port of Hamburg, where of course German Chancellor Scholz was previously mayor.

Again, thoughts on does he not see China as a strategic competitor?

Is he not worried about it?

And certainly his view is very different than that of the Biden administration.

Where do you think Germany is going on China?

>> No, again, this is something that one wonders why this is happening right now, right after the party congress, which made it clear that we have a different China, we have a totalitarian China.

There is no more diversity in the standing committee.

It's all one line.

And basically Xi has returned to the age of Mao Tse Tung as the strength that he shows.

So at this stage, to do this deal sends I think the wrong message.

The argument is it's not the harbor, it is part of the harbor and only part of one part of the harbor.

But still it sends the wrong message.

It sends the message that we just pay a price for overdependency on one country and now we enter into a relationship with another country, where we know that they use economic leverage for political gains.

So therefore, it's a questionable decision.

>> Okay.

Before we close, we've talked about Russia, we've talked about China.

We haven't talked so much about the German government itself and how you see them performing vis-a-vis the EU as well as for the German people.

Anything that surprised you in this first year from Scholz internally?

>> Well, first of all, I must say the start was a very promising one.

They really kept everything secret when they did their negotiations.

Usually things are leaked to improve your position.

So they were off to a very good start, but now -- >> The coalition building.

>> The coalition.

The coalition building, it's a coalition of Social Democrats, of Greens and the liberals, which usually it should not -- They're not a natural match.

So they were off to a good start.

But now with the pressure mounting, with difficult decisions to be made on several issues, you see how this construction is cracking and the atmosphere is not the best.

You have criticism no longer being only voiced internally, but publicly, and that's not good.

We don't need at a time where these kind of challenges that we face, energy price rise, inflation in general, war in Ukraine, we need a German government that has a strong coherence.

>> And in terms of Germany's relationship with the EU, do you think that that is mostly aligned with where it was under Merkel?

I mean, certainly the EU seems to be getting stronger over time.

Do you buy that and do you think that Germany's role in it is unchanging?

>> Well, Germany in general knows that Germany cannot cope with the challenges we have worldwide by ourself.

We need the European Union, we invest in the European Union.

But of course in the European Union, difficult decisions are taken.

And this has been always the case that then you argue with the commission, with the commissioners and see what is the right outcome.

I think this hasn't changed.

We need a strong European Union and this is what the government is committed to.

>> Christoph Heusgen, thanks so much for joining us.

>> Thank you.

♪♪ >> As Christoph and I discussed, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's visit to China has ruffled more than a few feathers, not to mention Christoph's.

For more on that, here's "GZERO's" Alex Kliment.

>> It was a short trip that's been long on controversy.

With a visit that lasted just 11 hours, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz became the first leader of a G7 nation to visit China in three years.

In a bid to bolster commercial ties between the two countries, Scholz traveled with some of the captains of German industry, the heads of companies like Volkswagen and Deutsche Bank.

China has been Germany's biggest trading partner for the past six years, doing nearly $250 billion in commerce last year alone.

But as Scholz touched down in Beijing, his trip seemed out of touch with his own people.

A recent poll found an overwhelming majority of Germans want to reduce economic ties with China.

Even some members of Scholz's own government opposed the trip.

Before he left, his foreign minister warned of the geopolitical dangers of becoming dependent on Chinese commerce the way that Germany once became dependent on Russian energy.

Scholz has also come under fire for going to China alone.

At a time when the European Union is trying to craft a more unified policy towards China on issues like trade, technology and human rights, critics suggested it would've been better for Scholz to go to Beijing with another powerful European leader, perhaps French President Emmanuel Macron.

But Janka Oertel, an expert on EU-China relations, says that's easier said than done.

>> The problem about this visit was not necessarily that it wasn't done jointly with other European leaders, but that it was done against the advice of other European leaders.

>> In an op-ed published ahead of his meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping, Scholz wrote that while Germany must avoid overdependence on China, his country also cannot and should not seek to decouple from Beijing entirely.

So what did Scholz actually get out of the meeting?

>> So it was more of a start of a conversation rather than something that could deliver something very, very concrete.

>> Concrete or not, Scholz did seem to bring home one important win, getting President Xi on the record opposing the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

>> [ Speaking German ] >> Interpreter: President Xi and I agree that nuclear threats are irresponsible and highly dangerous.

By using nuclear weapons, Russia would cross a line which the world community drew together.

>> A reassuring reminder that nuclear Armageddon is still a no-go for China and Europe, but in the long term, a productive and balanced relationship between Germany and China will still require finding common ground on much, much more than that.

For "GZERO World," I'm Alex Kliment.

♪♪ >> And now to "Puppet Regime," where Britain's new prime minister is finally getting settled in at 10 Downing Street.

>> [ Sighs ] Finally, all settled in here.

Number 10.

It sort of feels just like home only smaller and cheaper.

[ Cellphone rings ] Hello?

>> Hi there, Rashid.

Salaam alaikum.

>> Uh, it's Rishi, and I'm Hindu.

We say namaste.

>> And I'm a guy from Delaware.

Ha!

Now, listen, I just want to wish you good luck.

It's an exciting moment for diversity and exclusion.

Rashid, you're the first U.K. prime minister ever, ever to come from the billionaire class.

>> Indeed, Wall Street is finally getting the representation it so richly deserves.

>> Gosh darn right.

Well, good luck to you.

And don't forget the middle class.

>> How could I forget King Charles?

[ Laughs ] Cheers.

Okay, now let's see here.

[ Cellphone rings ] Hello?

>> Namaste, Rishi.

>> Ah, namaste, Modi-ji.

>> I am so proud that a son of India is now ruling the British.

>> Yes, it's a great moment for us all.

>> I understand you want to stabilize the U.K. economy.

>> Sure.

And as you know, we would love to do a trade deal with India.

>> Great.

So you will give us the Koh-i-Noor diamond back?

>> Of course not.

We can't just go around returning colonial treasure.

That would empty out the entire British Museum.

>> You call that a museum.

I call it the world's largest active crime scene.

[ Grunts ] [ Cellphone rings ] >> Hello?

>> Hello, Rishi.

>> [ Sighs ] Hello, Boris.

What can I do for you?

>> No, no, it's what I can do for you.

>> But what do you mean?

>> Let me be your eyes and ears among the common folk.

>> The common folk?

>> Yes.

As a humble mere member of the 1%, I'd like to offer you, a member of the .00001%, some advice on how to address the hoi polloi.

>> I don't want your advice, Boris.

How much worse can this get?

[ Cellphone rings ] Hello?

>> Rishi, how's it going?

It's MBS, a fellow unelected, young billionaire.

>> Uh, wrong number.

>> "Puppet Regime"!

>> That's our show this week.

Come back next week and if you like what you see, or even if you don't, check us out at gzeromedia.com.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

Taking the time to listen helps us provide customized banking and wealth-management solutions.

More on our clients at firstrepublic.com.

Additional funding provided by... ...and by...