Sensemaker: Democracy update

• Saudi Arabia restored diplomatic relations with Qatar after a three-year stand-off over terrorism and Iran. 
• China withheld final permission for a World Health Organisation mission trying to get to Wuhan to study the origins of Covid. 
• Prosecutors in Wisconsin said they would not charge the white police officer who shot and paralysed Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha last year, even though state investigators found no evidence that Blake was armed.

Western hemisphere. The Rev Raphael Warnock has beaten Kelly Loeffler in one of Georgia’s two Senate runoffs, becoming the first Black Democrat elected to the Senate from the South. As of this writing Jon Ossoff is on course to defeat David Perdue in the other runoff. Assuming a 2-0 result for the Democrats, the state that Trump could not abide losing in the presidential race has delivered a second stunning win for his successor. Biden is now poised not just to preside, but govern. Given a 50:50 split in the Senate with a deciding vote for Vice President(-elect) Kamala Harris… 

• Democrats will control the White House, both chambers of Congress, its agenda, and its committees.
• They won’t have a license for sweeping social or electoral reforms requiring a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority, but anything that can be attached to the annual budget bill stands a good chance of passing into law for at least 10 years under the so-called reconciliation process, which requires only a one-seat majority.
• That means a version of Biden’s $2 trillion clean energy and infrastructure package is likely to be approved, making this a big day for climate activists and maybe even a good time to invest in solar panels.
• But it is already an even bigger day for American democracy. The November election showed Black voters that “winning is possible, and voters showed back up,” said Nikema Williams, congresswoman-elect for Georgia’s 5th district and successor to the civil rights leader John Lewis, who died last year. 

The question: will Williams now be able to steer into law the Voting Rights Advancement Act that bears Lewis’s name and aims to end the voter suppression of which Republicans stand accused in Georgia and elsewhere? It has been blocked in the Senate since 2013 by Republicans who reject the charge.

Quote of the morning: “The other day, because this is America, the 82 year-old hands that used to pick somebody else’s cotton went to the polls and picked her youngest son to be a United States senator.” Raphael Warnock, on his mother.

Eastern hemisphere. Hong Kong police arrested more than 50 pro-democracy activists in a city-wide sweep this morning that ended any remaining pretence of political pluralism in the age of Beijing’s new National Security Law (NSL).

The activists are lawyers, academics, journalists and others who took part in unofficial primary elections last year as part of an effort to win a majority in Hong Kong’s Legislative Council. They’re now accused of subverting state power. Hong Kong’s courts might look kindly on them but the NSL allows them to be tried on the mainland too, where they would face up to life in prison. 

Carrie Lam, the city’s chief executive, warned against the primaries last summer but also said the NSL would only be used against criminals. The reality is a straight fight between Beijing and an opposition now being systematically locked up. For now there’s only one possible winner. In the meantime Hong Kong is among the incoming Biden administration’s first big foreign policy tests. Tony Blinken, the next US secretary of state, says American will “stand with the people of Hong Kong”.

Where? How? With sanctions? We shall see.