Among the things Trump got right during his first residency in the White House was slapping Congress and the American public upside the head with a two-by-four to finally wake them up and realize that the Communist Party of China (CCP) is not a benign force in the world. This time around, Trump has the advantage of a Congress and an American public nearly unified in their opposition to the CCP, which should make it easier to ramp up the pressure on Beijing, particularly given the Republicans’ clean sweep of the Executive and Legislative branches.

Trump’s “subtlety of a Mack truck”-driven approach to foreign policy stands a good chance of backfiring vis-à-vis American businesses, however, as many of them continue to feed from the Chinese teat. Tens of thousands of American businesses continue to manufacture, import from and/or export to China despite the many hardships associated with COVID-19, the downturn in the Chinese economy and the crackdown on foreign businesses in recent years. Their voices will undoubtedly be heard at the White House as Trump attempts to tighten the noose on Beijing.

Trump’s cabinet and other nominations to date provide ample evidence that he is intent on burning the place down — so why stop at America’s borders? The foreign policy patch-up job Biden attempted to complete over the last four years — during which, many European governments, in particular, silently wondered whether an agreement with Washington was worth the paper it is printed upon — will be quickly eviscerated. An unvarnished foreign policy whose core is nationalism, protectionism and a zero-sum approach to engagement is sure to delight friend and foe alike.

Is China ready for four more years of Trump?

Beijing is certainly ready, with a list of countermeasures aimed at the American government and American businesses. US businesses in China are going to find operating there even more unpleasant for the next four years. The CCP may also be expected to attempt to strengthen its bilateral relationships around the world as America retreats and will undoubtedly find heightened levels of interest, especially in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. The newly inaugurated mega-port in Peru is emblematic of how Beijing continues to use its Belt-and-Road infrastructure projects to strengthen its economic and diplomatic relationships. Trump’s re-election meshes nicely, also, with Beijing’s policy of self-reliance and the Made in China 2025 policy.

But the degree of economic, political and diplomatic malaise in China will also be impacted by Trump’s second term. The Chinese economy could be significantly smaller than official statistics suggest. It is spending more and more to produce less and less. Most of its natural resources are in decline, its workforce is shrinking, Xi’s dictatorial rule has prompted increasing domestic uneasiness, its economy is under growing pressure, and its Asian neighbors are ever ore alarmed by China’s aggressive actions in the region — and they are reacting to it. 

China is exhibiting classic signs of a peaking power. Xi’s crackdowns at home and increasing aggression abroad. The military buildup during peacetime is unprecedented. And China is much more willing to extend its security perimeter and to strengthen its alliances with some of the world’s most detestable regimes.

The Chinese word for crisis (wēijī) contains characters that signify danger (危) and opportunity (机), and Trump 2.0 represents both. Xi will want to use the next four years to de-emphasize China’s many domestic challenges and re-emphasize its growing stature in the world. If one envisions a cessation of the Ukraine and Israel/Gaza/Lebanon/Iran wars in 2025, Xi will feel he has more latitude to further strengthen China’s relationships with Russia, Iran, and Israel. Similarly, he is likely to feel more emboldened to introduce new initiatives to ingratiate China with a broader array of governments in areas where progress has been less pronounced, such as regarding climate change and natural disaster relief.

It seems doubtful that Trump will choose to embrace areas of possible collaboration with China, but we can expect a heightened degree of generalized competition, with an increased potential for conflict. Trump’s presidency will coincide with 2027 — the year Xi has targeted for the Chinese military to be ready to invade Taiwan. Trump will likely be tempted to cut some sort of deal with Xi (as he is so transaction-oriented) to essentially cede Taiwan to Beijing in return for something of substance for America. One can only speculate what that might be, but what seemed impossible only a few years ago seems increasingly possible, if not likely, now.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The View From China on Trump 2.0 appeared first on Fair Observer.

China is facing its largest economic crisis in 40 years, a period over which the West experienced multiple crises and learned how to forecast and navigate them a little better each time. Lacking experience, the Chinese government and people are uncertain how they may resolve the underlying economic issues. The present actions, even if clumsily executed at times, are better than the inaction of the past eight months.

China makes moves in equity and financial markets

In concert with real-estate sector initiatives, Chinese financial regulators triggered a 30% stock market rally last month by encouraging banks to lend to listed companies so they could buy back stocks and allowing qualified institutions to secure low-interest loans from the People’s Bank of China to purchase shares. Retail investors also borrowed heavily to buy shares, and there are rumors of some even selling their apartments in the hope they would reap the windfall of a lifetime. The rally has been fragile, but more reforms and stimulus are to come.

If the China Securities Regulatory Commission committed to improving the quality of initial public offerings (IPOs) and the accuracy of earnings reporting, governing bourses more rigorously and cracking down on corruption, China’s capital markets would expand swiftly and supply much-needed capital to businesses and investment options for citizens. It was fine to use state-owned enterprises to trigger recovery, but Beijing must give private investors more confidence to invest in capital markets for the present trend to turn into a bull run.

The Chinese government can adapt to the role of capital markets regulator, rely less on intervention and allow companies representing China’s present and future growth — such as privately owned technology and service firms — to list. They must disincentivize those who see IPOs as one-off capital-raising events without long-term obligations to investors and others who bribe listing authorities and accounting firms to help create illusions of value while obscuring risks and liabilities.

Beijing must reform its capital markets to augment the strength of its manufacturing sector, which in itself cannot compensate for the role real estate fulfilled in the past of driving domestic growth and retail investment. China’s recent stimulus focus indicates Beijing does recognize it must reform its financial systems, especially its capital markets, and China may be on the cusp of a capital markets revolution.

The fundamentals are compelling. China has more banking assets and foreign exchange reserves than any other country. Its bond, stock and insurance markets are second only to the US. Despite quality and governance issues in its capital markets, Chinese equities do not reflect the strength of an economy whose factories contribute more than 30% to global manufacturing. Chinese equities are arguably the most undervalued in the world, and with Chinese households holding less than 8% of their assets in shares (as opposed to the US average of 48%), retail investors will be a crucial spur in any expansion of capital markets. The Chinese government values social stability above all else, and as only radical capital market reforms can ensure Chinese households’ share portfolios are not exposed to inordinate risks, it is likely to undertake such reforms, which in turn will attract foreign portfolio investment.

It is a misconception that one man makes all economic decisions in China and that the state acts as a monolith, deaf to the masses. There appears to be an intense debate in Beijing on how to best restore confidence and growth, and if an initiative from one part of the government fails, another will launch an alternative. In the West, governments change swiftly while policies are usually slow to change. In China, administrations change slowly, yet policies may change swiftly once the government understands an issue.

Targeted stimulus can help

On the other hand, Western politicians and regulators frequently announce policy changes by speaking directly to the public, explaining the reasons and benefits. In China, the government tends to reveal initiatives incrementally as it instructs its own numerous, far-flung institutions regarding new policies’ functions and how cadres should implement them. Now, more than ever, the leadership needs to talk directly to the people and explain how the multiple new and upcoming stimulus packages will benefit individual citizens.

Recent stimulus measures applied in individual cities may be harbingers of national policies to come. The Beijing city government, for example, is offering to reimburse money spent by lower-income households and retirees on apartment renovations, particularly to accommodate those with diminished mobility and disability needs. Many in the wider population share the anathema under which the government holds direct cash handouts, seeing them as a weakness of developed economies causing low productivity and competitiveness. Yet the state needs to offer reimbursements for extra health and education costs until it has reformed these sectors and lowered their cost to citizens.

If the Chinese government issued time-constrained, non-transferable vouchers to its citizens to help them pay for essential services, it would boost consumption significantly and release some of the money householders now hoard for future welfare needs. Basic medical care and education are free or at least inexpensive in China, and these have been extended to even the most remote regions and are better than those offered by most developing countries. But the costs of more complex medical treatments increase exponentially and are out of reach of the majority of Chinese people.

The Chinese government has begun reviewing the status of the 170 million domestic migrant workers and should begin allowing those employed gainfully to transfer their hukou (residency permits) to the towns where they presently work beyond the few recent experiments in selected cities. In becoming residents, these former migrants would benefit from local health and education services, motivating them to buy homes and generally consume more. Domestic migrant workers save more than city residents because they must pay for the social services local residents receive gratis. Such a move would add at least 1 trillion renminbi ($140 billion) annually to the national GDP.

Over 900 million Chinese people earn less than $300 per month. With some coastal cities possessing an annual per-capital GDP of over $35,000, the income disparity is striking. On the other hand, China’s developmental potential is considerable. Perhaps the current administration needs to reflect on the capacity for political and social risk of their predecessors and apply some of their radical thinking to today. There are a few signs the leadership is at least trying to do so: The slogan for the current slew of stimulus measures is “bold and steady,” a phrase used by Deng Xiaoping in the early years of economic reform.

China’s geoeconomic position is precarious

The air of geopolitical insecurity among ordinary people will take more than a recovering economy to change. Foreign direct investment is 7% of what it was pre-pandemic, and foreign business travelers and tourists are few. Throughout the lead-up to the US elections in November, Republicans and Democrats have threatened even more punitive tariffs and strategic containment when referring to China. Chinese people are beginning to understand how politically isolated they have become from a West that once treated their country with respect or at least curiosity and whose businesses were keen to realize the economic opportunities it offered.

Hope that the European Union will not follow the US in trying to block China’s economic growth is also waning. Chinese people think the EU’s choice to place tariffs on Chinese EVs is unjust, revealing to them the harsh reality that Europe is as much, if not more, a trade fortress as a source of global partnerships and prosperity. They point to the fact that European automobile companies have been dominant in China until recently and that three foreign companies — Volkswagen, Tesla and Toyota — remain in the top ten domestic sedan manufacturers. It is reasonable to hope, however, that as the Chinese economy recovers, foreign investors will return and more companies will come to take advantage of China’s growing consumer market.

Some early signs of economic recovery are encouraging. At 1 trillion renminbi (6% of GDP) the stimulus to date is the largest in China’s economic history and is just the beginning. The government is likely to do more, now that it seems to know it has no choice but to fuel confidence and consumption wherever it can. It understands this is needed to prevent a deeper downturn this year and avert a full-blown economic crisis in the near future.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post China Watch: Beijing’s New “Bold and Steady” Economic Stimulus appeared first on Fair Observer.

India and China are major regional powers in Asia and among the fastest-growing economies of the 21st century. Despite being neighbors, a stark contrast exists between their domestic policies, political systems, foreign policies, market economies, ideologies etc. Before acknowledging their present disputes, it is necessary to consider their initial relationship and ambitions.

India was under British colonial rule for nearly two centuries, declaring independence on August 15, 1947. It constructed a democratic political structure influenced by the Western states. Conversely, China faced a two-decade-long civil war between Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1927 to 1949. The CCP gained complete control of mainland China and proclaimed the resulting People’s Republic of China would be based on Marxist ideology.

India was among the first non-communist countries to recognize the legitimacy of the new Chinese state. These two new states set in motion a favorable bilateral relationship. This era of brotherhood was publicly endorsed by the slogan, “Hindi Chini bhai bhai” (“Indians and Chinese are brothers”). However, this positive relationship would not last long.

India and China’s rising tensions

As early as the 1950s, suspicion and distrust grew between the nations surrounding China’s interest in Tibet, a buffer land between India and China. In 1951, China annexed Tibet. Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai attempted to ease tensions by signing the Panchsheel Pact in 1954. Then in 1959, the Chinese government denounced the McMahon line, the border between India and Tibet (China). China started claiming the Indian territory of the Aksai Chin Plateau, and the India–China relationship further deteriorated when India discovered a Chinese road in the region. 

Border disputes arose between the nations, leading to the 1962 Sino–Indian War. The conflict ended with India’s defeat and China capturing areas of the Assam plains in northeast Aksai Chin and Demchok in northwest India. Relations worsened still when India gave refuge to the Dalai Lama, a spiritual and temporal head of Tibet, and China aided Pakistan’s war efforts against India. Historians can trace periods of skirmish and negotiation alike to the 1960s.

In 2017, a major confrontation took place in Doklam, Bhutan. This area is claimed by both China and Bhutan and is an important juncture for all three nations, including India. While India accused China of building an illegal road in Bhutan’s territory, which caused security concerns for both India and Bhutan, China accused India of intrusion in its territory.

What started as a border dispute soon spilled over into foreign policy, dictating bilateral and multilateral relations as well as forming alliances. Asia, specifically South Asia and Eastern Asia, has become a testbed for both India and China to flex their power and influence. The pro-Chinese governments of India’s neighbors — Pakistan, the Maldives and now even Bangladesh — pressure India to change its 1984-esque “Big Brother” attitude. Similarly, China is surrounded by pro-Indian governments — Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines — which cooperate with India militarily.

China has undertaken its Belt and Road Initiative and invested extensively in building sea routes to foster infrastructure development in other nations. The goal is to increase trade and trade relations with Asia. Meanwhile, India collaborates with the United States, Australia and Japan in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (or Quad) to counter China’s presence in the Indian Ocean. The Quad’s goal is to unify a multilateral coalition to resist Chinese influence, which could embolden other nations to join and counterbalance China’s dominance.

China has made many such advances to keep India under check. With this rise of Chinese dominance in market and international politics, India has become a major element to balance Chinese regional power.

International relations in the 20th century evolved with the start of new alliances and multilateral engagements. To make these intertwined relations more prominent, globalization connected national economies, forcing even the socialist nations to open their markets for trade. In the 21st century, any action taken by states unilaterally impacts other international players as well. As major regional powers, the fastest-developing economies and two of the most populous countries in the world, India and China have undeniably become crucial international forces.

The rift between India and China that started with border disputes and ideological differences is now a matter of international concern, with both equilibrating one another. Border issues are in themselves complicated problems faced by majority nations, solutions to which are never secure for both parties. Given the current international arena, ambitions and geopolitical nature of the power struggle, even if the border crisis were solved, a permanent settlement between India and China is infeasible for the foreseeable future.

Cooperation is still possible

Rup Narayan Das, author of the book, India-China Defence Cooperation and Military Engagement, describes India and China’s defence cooperation as a “complex mix of conflict and cooperation.” Having no mutually delineated Line of Actual Control (LAC) and differences in perceptions of the LAC, alternative periods of skirmishes and negotiations are common. But to bring stability in the border regions and foster understanding, India and China signed a Border Defence Cooperation Agreement on October 23, 2013. Under this agreement, neither side can use military strength to attack the other, and both sides must share information about their weapons and combat operations, among other things.

The 2020 Galwan Valley confrontation, which killed 20 Indian soldiers and an undisclosed number of Chinese soldiers, revealed the persisting atmosphere of distrust between the armies. Fortunately, communications through diplomatic and military channels have made steady progress to solve the Western border issue, said Senior Colonel Wu Qian. In light of the recent exchanges, External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said that about 75% of the “disengagement problems” with China have been sorted out. Likewise, Qian said that the troops have “disengaged on the ground at multiple locations in Eastern Ladakh,” including the Galwan Valley.

India and China are also part of different international groups that quintessentially demand collaboration: BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), G21 and the United Nations. As BRICS continues to grow and challenge Western economic dominance, especially the hegemonic position of the US dollar, a faltering of India–China cooperation would be detrimental to BRICS’s development. India initially contributed to the SCO and helped it increase its international reputation; but as it sees the organization being China-dominated, India has been decreasing its participation.

With increasing globalization and the common concerns of mankind, India and China have emphasized the need to shift from traditional technologies to green technologies, electric vehicles, low-carbon urbanization and adaptation. Many regard the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol agreement as most appropriate for international cooperation. While these organizations provide a forum for dialogue and cooperation, they also lead to discontent and competition. One long-standing issue is the matter of getting India a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, as well as China’s objections to this goal. China has caused delays and indecisiveness in the UN by skipping summits, opposing proposals and disagreeing.

Expanding trade can bring economic prosperity

Economic cooperation is one of the most important areas for India and China to agree upon. After all, the trade relationship is expanding; it amounted to $113.83 billion in bilateral trade in the 2023 fiscal year.

“We feel that the economic relationship with China has been very unfair and very unbalanced. We don’t have the same market access there, while they have much better market access in India,” Jaishankar said at the Global Centre for Security Policy in Geneva.

Notwithstanding the colored balance of payment (BOP), India and China’s economic relationship complements the other nation. Where China excels in cost-effective manufacturing, India specializes in cost-effective design and development. India offers China a populous market for its many products, and China has emerged as India’s largest trade partner in recent years. Although both countries have become investment destinations, bilateral investment has yet to grow.

In May 2014, China invited India to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). As of August 14, 2024, 48 projects (25 sovereign and 11 non-sovereign) have been approved for $10.45 billion financing. The New Development Bank (NDB), which established its office in Shanghai, opened its India Regional Office in Gujarat International Finance Tec-City in June 2022. India is the biggest borrower in NDB, with 19 projects approved with a commitment of $6.92 billion as of August 31, 2022. With an increasingly integrated economy and a symmetrical BOP, India and China’s relations can prosper and negotiations can be more effective.

In contemporary international relations, cooperation and fallouts are an inevitable phenomenon. India and China are no exceptions. The commendable aspect of the India–China relationship is their mutual respect for communications and negotiations. Despite the antithesis between their prevalent ideologies and their role in the balance of power, the two have mostly maintained stable bilateral relations with short periods of squabble. They must now maintain the status quo in international politics. While alliance or friendship are not possible options in the international arena, stability and collaboration are expected and attainable.

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Can India and China Overcome Old Disputes for Practical Cooperation? appeared first on Fair Observer.

Periods of inactivity and revival have marked the Quad’s journey. After its initial formation in 2004, the Quad went dormant for several years before reviving in 2017. The Quad’s resurgence in recent years reflects the changing geopolitical landscape and the growing alignment of interests among its members

One of the most significant shifts in the Quad’s focus has been China’s increasing role as a strategic adversary. Although the initial formation did not explicitly aim to counter China, shared concerns about China’s assertiveness have become key factors in the Quad’s recent activities. This alignment on the China issue among the four partners has strengthened the group’s cohesion.

Future prospects and challenges

The Quad has also expanded its agenda to include a wider range of public goods and initiatives. While this expansion demonstrates the group’s versatility, there are concerns about the potential overextension of its focus. Careful calibration and agenda management will be critical for the Quad’s effectiveness in the coming years.

Looking ahead, the Quad faces several challenges and opportunities. The political commitment of each of the four members remains crucial, especially considering the potential for leadership changes through democratic elections in each nation. The group must also navigate the balance between securitization and maintaining its focus on providing regional public goods.

The question of institutionalization looms large for the Quad’s future. Decisions about whether to establish a formal secretariat or maintain a more flexible structure will impact its operations and regional perception. Furthermore, the Quad’s integration with other regional organizations and government agencies among the four partners presents challenges and opportunities for enhanced cooperation.

The Quad’s evolution reflects the dynamic nature of Indo-Pacific geopolitics. Its ability to adapt to changing regional priorities and challenges has been key to its resurgence and continued relevance. As strategic competition with China remains a significant driver, the Quad must balance this focus with its broader agenda of providing public goods and fostering regional cooperation. Delivering tangible benefits to the region and navigating the complex web of bilateral and multilateral relationships in the Indo-Pacific will likely shape the grouping’s future.

As the Quad enters its third decade, its flexibility and responsiveness to regional needs will be crucial in determining its long-term impact on the Indo-Pacific strategic landscape.

[Peter Choi edited this podcast and wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/podcast are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The Quad’s Evolution From Providing Public Goods to Security Cooperation appeared first on Fair Observer.

The Quad is a grouping of four major Indo-Pacific democracies: the United States, India, Japan and Australia. It was relaunched in 2017 to counterbalance China’s growing influence by promoting a free and open Indo-Pacific through cooperation in security, infrastructure and trade.

Despite this ambition, the Quad faces significant limitations. Critics argue it remains a “talking shop,” where dialogue seldom leads to concrete action. Additionally, some members have limited bilateral experience working together, which hampers effective collaboration.

South Korea was notably absent when Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe first conceived the Quad in 2007. Abe’s vision was geographically focused; he pictured a rhombus with its corners in Japan (north), Australia (south), the US (east) and India (west). The idea was to cover ground and secure critical shipping lanes. This left South Korea, located in the middle, outside the equation.

Yet, South Korea has considerable strengths. South Korea and Japan, are the only two economic powers in the region that can plausibly compete with China in building infrastructure rapidly and at scale. South Korea is also a strong defense partner of the US, with a technologically advanced military boasting half a million active personnel — ten times the size of Australia’s. Moreover, South Korea is a leader in global industries like shipbuilding, memory chips and electric vehicle batteries, making it not just a regional player but a global one. Most importantly and obviously, it is a vibrant democracy. For all these reasons, it merits membership in the Quad.

The broader context is the growing security threat posed by China, which seeks to control sea lanes in the East and South China Seas and use its economic power to influence its neighbors. While it makes sense for South Korea to join the Quad, it is unlikely to make provocative moves against China, its largest trading partner and greatest military threat, without a security guarantee from the US. Ultimately, the Quad (or Quint) seems destined to evolve into a military alliance.

[Anton Schauble wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Live: Can South Korea Be Useful to the Quad? appeared first on Fair Observer.

There is no clear agreement on the Quad’s purpose. Is it a group of friends, or a security alliance? If it serves any purpose, it’s because these democracies, neighboring China, feel the need to unite. While wary of China, they claim not to be forming an alliance to contain it.

If that is the logic, excluding South Korea seems illogical. South Korea, sharing a border with North Korea and with China nearby, is more vulnerable than any Quad member.

Why is South Korea not in the Quad?

It’s important to note that the Quad is originally a Japanese concept. Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe envisioned it as a platform for future economic cooperation. India, the US, and Australia were key trading partners for Japan, and protecting sea routes to them was essential. This required international cooperation.

From Japan’s perspective, this still makes sense. However, the broader purpose of the Quad has shifted. In 2017, the group “rebooted” and rebranded itself with the slogan “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” — opposing China’s attempts to claim the East and South China Seas as its territorial waters. But if that’s the goal, why exclude South Korea? Or, for that matter, countries like Vietnam and the Philippines, whose maritime sovereignty China threatens?

The AUKUS deal, which includes the US, UK, and Australia, further complicates things. It suggests the US and Australia are moving toward alliances based on cultural ties rather than democracy. Britain has little role in East Asia today, yet it was included while regional powers like France were not. However, Anglo unity doesn’t have to clash with democratic solidarity. The US and Australia could deepen ties with Asian democracies, and including South Korea in the Quad would be a vital step.

Why the Quad needs South Korea

South Korea is more than just one more adversary of China that could cooperate in military matters. Including South Korea is a matter of defining the Quad’s identity. If the grouping aims to be a significant regional actor, it needs to inspire a sense of purpose. Right now, it looks like a ragtag team with little justification beyond each actor’s personal interest. The Quad needs an identity. Democracy is the obvious defining characteristic of the grouping, but if that is the case, South Korea must be involved. If South Korea remain excluded, observers may wonder whether something other than democracy is the real criterion.

There some flies in the ointment, though. South Korea has strong security ties with the US but is economically dependent on China, its largest trading partner. Joining the Quad could strain this relationship, especially since China has a history of using economic pressure to influence political decisions. In 2017, China’s boycott over South Korea’s decision to host the US THAAD system heavily impacted South Korea’s economy.

Another issue is the historical animosity between South Korea and Japan, stemming from Japan’s 35-year occupation of Korea. Many Koreans still harbor resentment for Japan’s actions during World War II, though tensions have eased since Abe’s tenure.

South Korea is more physically threatened by China than any current Quad member. The threat of a Chinese or North Korean invasion overland is a real danger (and one that has already occured, during the Korean War). For Japan, an island nation, the possibility of a Chinese naval threat to the homeland remains somewhat more theoretical. So, South Korea may hesitate to take a strong stance on issues like maritime freedom. However, due to its ties with the US from the Korean War, South Korea is even more integrated into the US security network than Japan. Will it be willing to join an alliance likely seen by Beijing as anti-China?

For now, it’s unclear. But South Korea’s inclusion would make sense. Both South Korea and Japan have strong infrastructure development sectors and, together, could offer an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. What the Quad needs is a clear identity that other nations can buy into. Without this, it will inspire neither moral nor strategic trust.

[Anton Schauble wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Talks: Now Is the Time to Invite South Korea in and Turn Quad Into Quintet appeared first on Fair Observer.

One year into the food vendor’s sentence, now-President Tô Lâm’s political fortunes changed dramatically. On August 3, the former top security official was unanimously elected as Vietnam’s next Communist Party General Secretary, the most powerful position in the country. It was the culmination of his meteoric political rise, facilitated by the death of his mentor and longtime party boss Nguyen Phu Trong, in July. Pledging to build on his predecessor’s legacy, Tô Lâm made it clear that he will continue prioritizing the anti-corruption policies and security measures that defined his tenure at the Ministry of Public Security. 

However, as Bui Tuan Lam and the other 160 Vietnamese political prisoners have come to realize, Tô Lâm’s extrajudicial definition of a security threat includes public dissent, civil liberties, and even lighthearted comedy. 

Born on July 10, 1954, Tô Lâm has always prized security. After graduating from the People’s Security Academy in 1979, he held various law enforcement roles until his elevation to the Ministry of Public Security in 2016. There, he defined himself as an excellent political enforcer, leading an impressive anti-corruption campaign under Trong’s direction. Together, Lâm and Trong’s “Blazing Furnace” campaign targeted over 20,000 government officials in 2023, a dramatic increase from previous efforts. 

“Tô Lâm was appointed one of five deputy chairmen of the Central Steering on Anti-Corruption that was the spearhead of Trong’s blazing furnace campaign,” Carl Thayer, an emeritus professor of politics at the University of New South Wales, told me. “As Minister of Public Security, Tô Lâm was also responsible for the harassment, intimidation, arrest and imprisonment of political and civil society activists.”

To General Secretary Trong, Tô Lâm’s role in Hanoi as an enforcer quickly became apparent. In Lâm’s first week at the Ministry, the former law enforcement officer oversaw the brutal suppression of protests against Formosa Ha Tinh Steel, the company responsible for arguably the worst environmental disaster in Vietnamese history. 41 protesters were arrested, including activist Hoang Duc Binh, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison for advocating on behalf of local fishermen affected by the disaster. 

Two years later, Tô Lâm’s Ministry of Public Security significantly expanded government surveillance powers. The Law on Cyber Security, passed by the National Assembly in 2018, required telecommunication providers to record and store their users’ private data, including “full name, date of birth, place of birth, nationality, profession, position, place of residence, contact address.” Despite widespread condemnation and international outrage, the law continues to undermine Vietnamese civil liberties and online privacy. 

It’s not just democratic organizers and human rights advocates who have been targeted under Tô Lâm’s security regime. Le Trong Hung, a former middle school teacher, was arrested in 2021 after challenging General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong to a nationally televised debate. Another teacher, 43-year-old Bui Van Thuan, was also arrested that same year and sentenced to nearly a decade in prison for publicly criticizing the Communist Party. Even Lâm’s own police officers, such as Captain Le Chi Thanh, have been prosecuted for exposing corruption within the Ministry of Public Security. 

Tô Lâm’s self-styled campaign to root out “corruption” and enhance state security also coincidentally targeted political opponents within his own party. “Tô Lâm used the Investigative Police Department of the Ministry of Public Security to gather evidence of corruption by the President Vo Van Thuong, the Chairman of the National Assembly Vuong Dinh Hue, and the Permanent member of the party Secretariat Truong Thi Mai,” says Thayer. “These were the three most powerful figures in the leadership under General Secretary Trong. All were pressured into resigning in turn.”

Since taking office in August, General Secretary Lâm has moved quickly to solidify his position on the international stage. Last week, the Vietnamese leader visited Beijing to meet with China’s Xi Jinping, marking his first official overseas trip. The visit came nearly a year after Vietnam upgraded its diplomatic relations with both Japan and the United States. However, this continuation of former President Trong’s “Bamboo Diplomacy” should not be interpreted as a sign that Lâm intends to govern as a carbon copy of his mentor. Tô Lâm’s particularly abysmal human rights record distinguishes him as a unique threat to civil liberties and basic freedoms, further cementing a decade-long trend of increasing censorship and political persecution in Vietnam.

[Ting Cui edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Civil Liberties at Risk Under Vietnam’s Tô Lâm appeared first on Fair Observer.

Located in the South Pacific, the islands became a part of France in 1853. French arrivals — including many deported prisoners — lived alongside the native Kanaks. During the 1970s and 1980s, the Kanaks saw population growth that boosted their share of the electorate and, thus, their political aspirations. They have advocated for increased autonomy and even independence from France.

Many Kanaks are discontented because they feel excluded from the territory’s recent economic growth, driven by the expansion of the nickel industry. This industry has made many French entrepreneurs rich and employed a new population of workers from Southeast Asia but largely left the natives behind.

The Kanaks’ population growth stagnated, even declining between 2009 and 2014. They now constitute 41% of the island’s population, well short of a majority. However, they have increased political influence because the electoral law restricts voting to Kanaks and others, including the island’s ethnic French population, who have been in the islands for a long time; it excludes the new French arrivals and Asian workers who have come with the nickel boom. Now, the government in Paris has threatened to change this settlement with a proposal to extend voting rights in provincial elections to French residents who have lived on the island for at least ten years.

The French government acknowledges the Kanaks’ aspirations for local autonomy but maintains that the proposed changes are a matter of fairness. The ‎Élysée argues that individuals who live in New Caledonia and contribute to its economy should have a say in its governance. Some New Caledonians do support this perspective, arguing that all island residents, not just its indigenous population, should determine the island’s future. Yet disgruntled New Caledonians have taken to the streets, with some even going as far as erecting barricades and looting to show the government their discontent.

The latest chapter in a long history

The current political crisis is not an isolated incident. It is the latest manifestation of long-standing tensions between the Kanaks and the French government over the island’s future. These tensions have erupted into violence before, notably in the 1980s and 1990s, when clashes between Kanak independence activists and French security forces resulted in significant unrest.

The Nouméa Accord of 1998 was the culmination of a series of agreements reached in the late 1980s and 1990s. This accord outlined a path towards greater autonomy for New Caledonia and included provisions for three referendums on independence. The first two referendums, held in 2018 and 2020, resulted in narrow victories for the pro-France side. However, the pro-independence Kanaks boycotted the third referendum in 2021, citing concerns about the process’s fairness due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their community.

These most recent proposed changes to voting laws have reignited the debate over New Caledonia’s future and its relationship with France. The Kanaks perceive these changes as a betrayal of the Nouméa Accord’s spirit, which they believe paved the way for their eventual independence. The French government, on the other hand, maintains that the changes are necessary to ensure fair representation for all residents of the island.

Strategic importance and economic value further complicate the situation in New Caledonia. The island holds 10% of the world’s nickel resources, a critical component in the production of batteries for electric vehicles and other technologies. This makes New Caledonia a valuable asset for France, both economically and geopolitically.

What will the ‎Élysée do next?

President Emmanuel Macron, leading the French government, has expressed his commitment to fostering dialogue and finding a political solution to the crisis. In June, he decided to halt the proposed reforms. Yet Paris’s long-term goals for the island territory remain uncertain.

Kanaks continue to deeply distrust the French government’s intentions. They view the suspended proposed voting law changes as the latest attempt to undermine their aspirations for self-determination and maintain French control over the island.

The situation in New Caledonia serves as a reminder of the ongoing challenges faced by indigenous populations around the world in their struggle for self-determination. It also highlights the complex and often fraught relationship between former colonial powers and their overseas territories. As the global community watches, the people of New Caledonia and the French government must chart a path forward that respects the rights and aspirations of all involved.

The views expressed in this article/podcast are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Making Sense of the Trouble in New Caledonia appeared first on Fair Observer.

In June, Alex Gloy drew our attention to events in what many project to be the next flashpoint: the South China Sea that may forebode things to come.

He came across remarks posted on Twitter by Frenchman Arnaud Bertrand, a prominently followed commentator on geopolitics and economics. He recently described at length the implications of an important speech given by the Chinese Defense Minister, Dong Jun, at the Shangri-La Dialogue Conference in Singapore. Alex shared Bertrand’s analysis with us. It serves as a prelude to looking at how pure geopolitics may presage deeper changes in economic relations. In this case, the gap highlighted exists between East and West, with the implicit understanding that the truly emerging divide is between the West and what, despite its geographical ambiguity, we call the Global South.

“Some interesting points made by China’s defense minister on the South China Sea at the Shangri-La Dialogue. On ‘freedom of navigation’ exercises by the U.S. he makes the point that in decades ‘there’s never been one incident where civilian ships had their freedom of navigation compromised’, despite the fact that ‘over 50% of global shipping and 1/3 of cargo ships go through this region.’

So he asks ‘why does freedom of navigation always become an issue? Why is it always brought up? Some big powers are increasing their military presence in this area, in particular strengthening and deploying more military assets. So what is their purpose? Are you coming here for peace or stirring up troubles?’

On the current tensions with the Philippines he says the issue started in 1999 when ‘the other side illegally grounded their desolate landing ship on [the Second Thomas Shoal]’. He says that ‘At first, they promised to tow this away, and then we reached some other agreements for humanitarian reasons. We agreed that they could send supplies to personnel on this ship, and we reached several agreements. All the previous administrations and the current administration also recognized this agreement, but recently they started not recognizing it at all. This is a unilateral reneging of their promise.’

He compares the Philippines’ current actions in the Second Thomas Shoal to ‘deliberate bumping’ where ‘passerby hit a vehicle by himself and then played the victim to blackmail the driver of the vehicle’. He says ‘it is a deliberate action and is trying to make an issue of this kind of incident. I think this is blackmail and hijacking rules… I think this is not even morally right.’

After reflecting on it, I think this speech by China’s Defense Minister at the Shangri-La Dialogue is probably much more important than how it’s been analyzed to date.

I wonder if it’s not China’s version of the era-defining speech that Putin gave at the Munich Security Conference in 2007, in which he warned the West that they couldn’t make a mockery of Russian security interests and renege on their promises forever. Putin’s speech was widely dismissed at the time, so much so that the year afterwards in 2008 Ukraine and Georgia were invited to become NATO member-states. We all know what happened afterwards…

The Chinese Defense Minister’s speech was eerily similar, warning several times that ‘our tolerance has limits’, describing in minute details how its security interests in Taiwan and the South China Sea are being challenged and how previous agreements are being violated. And sadly the response so far is also eerily similar, with China’s position being widely dismissed…

The US is of course going to dismiss it because they love nothing more than to divide and conquer: tensions in Asia against their primary geopolitical rival is exactly what they’re after. But if I were an actor in the region, just like if I had been a European leader back in 2007, I would pay a lot of attention to this and work extremely hard to set up and maintain a regional security architecture that accommodates everyone’s interests.”

Alex undoubtedly remembers that back in 2007 and again in 2008, the two most significant European leaders, Germany and France, sought to play a mitigating role in what was shaping up as a direct challenge between the US and Russia. Jacques Chirac, in his final months as President, continued to favor closer ties with Russia. He was faithful to the Gaullist tradition. In defiance of then-US President George W Bush, the man he resisted when the US insisted France join the “coalition of the willing” to invade Iraq, Chirac dared to sympathize with some of Putin’s concerns. He was especially sympathetic about NATO expansion.

Chirac’s successor, Nicolas Sarkozy, continued a cautious approach. He attempted to balance the importance of a cooperative European-Russian relationship and NATO’s role in European security. Significantly, in 2009, Sarkozy reversed De Gaulle’s bold decision in 1966 to withdraw France from NATO’s integrated military command.

After Bush’s intervention at the NATO summit at Bucharest in 2008, in which he promised to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European leaders successfully argued for a more cautious approach. However, they failed to overturn or influence the intentions of the US. The summit decided on a policy of strategic ambiguity by postponing any immediate membership action while keeping the door open for future consideration. The world knows, thanks to a leaked memo from then-US ambassador to Moscow William Burns to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, that Bush’s gambit crossed “the brightest of redlines” and would likely lead to war. Subsequent history informs us that Burns’s memo had no effect on US policy in Ukraine.

With these historical events in mind, and those that followed with a coup d’état in 2014, the failed Minsk accords and Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, there is room for concern about the spark that could ignite World War III. Betrand concludes his analysis of the situation in Asis with these remarks, which highlight the parallel between the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and what may await us in Southeast Asia.

“Asia should learn from Europe’s most consequential mistake in generations and not do the exact same thing, victim of the exact same playbook… For instance, with regards to the Philippines, I am astonished how alone China is left to deal with the issue. A cardinal concept of ASEAN, and the most important objective of the association, is that no member is to be used by an external big power for the purpose of great power politics.

And here you have the Philippines obviously being used by the US, with

a) the addition of 4 US bases on their territory and

b) the US giving unilateral support to the Philippines in their territorial disputes.

Yet other ASEAN countries are largely silent on this: what gives?

Also, specifically with regards to the Spratly islands, they’re claimed either as a whole or in part by not only the PRC and the Philippines but also by Vietnam, Malaysia and the ROC. Why are the others not saying anything when the Philippines unilaterally tries to annex islands in violation of previous agreements? Why is China left alone to push back against this and somehow presented as the aggressor?

It’s again quite similar to the situation in Europe a few years ago, where the region didn’t push back on the transformation of Ukraine into a Western bulwark against Russia, knowing full well how provocative and potentially dangerous it was. At the end of the day, if you don’t look after your own region’s security interests and leave a vacuum for this, the US will fill it in a way that fits their own interests… and given its overarching objective of containing China, this is akin to letting the fox guard the henhouse…”

Alex then offers his own warning in the guise of a conclusion.

“It seems we are moving towards an unavoidable confrontation over Taiwan, with both China and the US taking steps requiring countermeasures from the other side, triggering further escalation. Now, the US doesn’t like to confront its major adversaries directly, instead using proxies. After having listened to Glenn and Atul on Japan, I cannot shake the feeling that Japan will be drawn into this to do the “dirty” work for the US. Would be interested if anyone was willing to share their thoughts.”

Join the debate

Money Matters…, is dedicated to developing this discussion and involving all interested parties.

We invite all of you who have something to contribute to send us your reflections at dialogue@fairobserver.com. We will integrate your insights into the ongoing debate. We will publish them as articles or as part of the ongoing dialogue.

*[Fair Observer’s “Crucible of Collaboration” is meant to be a space in which multiple voices can be heard, comparing and contrasting their opinions and insights in the interest of deepening and broadening our understanding of complex topics.]

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Crucible: Money Matters in a Multipolar World, Part 7 appeared first on Fair Observer.

The details of NATO’s agenda for the summit were revealed at a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Prague, Czech Republic. NATO will drag its members into the US Cold War with China by accusing it of supplying dual-use weapons technology to Russia. It will then unveil new initiatives to spend US tax dollars on a mysterious “drone wall” in the Baltics and an expensive-sounding “integrated air defense system” across Europe.

But the main feature of this event will be a superficial show of unity to try to convince the public that NATO and Ukraine can defeat Russia and that negotiating with Russia would be tantamount to surrender.

On its face, that should be a hard sell. The one thing that most Americans agree on about the war in Ukraine is that they support a negotiated peace. When asked in a November 2023 Economist/YouGov poll, “Would you support or oppose Ukraine and Russia agreeing to a ceasefire now?,” 68% chose the “support” option. Only 8% chose “oppose” while 24% chose “not sure.”

While President Biden and NATO leaders hold endless debates over different ways to escalate the conflict, they have repeatedly rejected negotiations, notably in April 2022, November 2022 and January 2024, even as their failed war plans leave Ukraine in an ever worsening negotiating position.

The endgame of this non-strategy is that Ukraine will only be allowed to negotiate with Russia once it is facing total defeat and has nothing left to negotiate with. This is exactly the surrender NATO says it wants to avoid.

Defying the UN Charter “for peace”

As other countries have pointed out at the UN General Assembly, what the US and NATO are doing is prohibited by the UN Charter. Their rejection of negotiation and diplomacy in favor of a long war they hope will eventually “weaken” Russia is a flagrant violation of the “Pacific Settlement of Disputes” that all UN members are legally committed to under Chapter VI. As it says in Article 33(1):

“The parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.”

But NATO’s leaders are not visiting Washington to work out how they can comply with their international obligations and negotiate peace in Ukraine. Quite the contrary, in fact. At a June meeting in preparation for the summit, NATO defense ministers approved a plan to put NATO’s military support of Ukraine “on a firmer footing for years to come.”

The effort will be headquartered at a US military base in Wiesbaden, Germany and involve almost 700 staff. Some describe it as a way to “Trump proof” NATO backing for Ukraine, in case former President Donald Trump wins the election and tries to draw down US support.

At the summit, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wants NATO leaders to commit to providing Ukraine with $43 billion worth of equipment each year, indefinitely. Echoing George Orwell’s doublethink that “war is peace,” Stoltenberg said, “The paradox is that the longer we plan, and the longer we commit [to war], the sooner Ukraine can have peace.”

NATO hasn’t learned from Afghanistan

The summit will also discuss how to bring Ukraine closer to NATO membership. This move guarantees the conflict will continue, since Ukrainian neutrality is Russia’s principal war aim.

As Ian Davis of NATO Watch reported, NATO’s rhetoric echoes the same lines he heard throughout 20 years of war in Afghanistan: “The Taliban (now Russia) can’t wait us out.” But this vague hope that the other side will eventually give up is not a strategy.

There is no evidence that Ukraine will be different from Afghanistan. The US and NATO are making the same assumptions, which will lead to the same result. The underlying assumption is that NATO’s greater GDP, extravagant and corrupt military budgets and fetish for expensive weapons technology must somehow, magically, lead Ukraine to victory over Russia.

When the US and NATO finally admitted defeat and withdrew their forces from Afghanistan in 2021, it was the Afghans who had paid in blood for the West’s folly. The US–NATO war machine simply moved to its next “challenge.” It learned nothing and made political hay out of abject denial.

Less than three years after the rout in Afghanistan, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recently called NATO “the most powerful and successful alliance in history.” That Ukrainians are reluctant to throw away their lives in NATO’s dumpster fire is a promising sign for the country’s future.

In an article titled, “The New Theory of Ukrainian Victory Is the Same as the Old,” Mark Episkopos from the Quincy Institute think tank wrote, “Western planning continues to be strategically backwards. Aiding Kyiv has become an end in itself, divorced from a coherent strategy for bringing the war to a close.” He concluded that “the key to wielding [the West’s] influence effectively is to finally abandon a zero-sum framing of victory…”

This was a trap set by the US and UK, not just for Ukraine, but for their NATO allies as well. By refusing to support Ukraine at the negotiating table in April 2022, and instead demanding this “zero-sum framing of victory” as the condition for NATO’s support, the US and UK committed a grave misdeed. They escalated what could have been a short conflict into a protracted, potentially nuclear, war between NATO and Russia.

Turkish leaders and diplomats complained about how their US and British allies undermined their peacemaking. France, Italy and Germany squirmed for a month or two but soon surrendered to the war camp.

How NATO can truly bring peace

When NATO leaders meet in Washington, DC, what they should be doing, apart from figuring out how to comply with Article 33(1) of the UN Charter, is conducting a clear-eyed review of their mission. They should examine how an organization that claims to be a force for peace keeps escalating unwinnable wars and leaving countries in ruin. The fundamental question is this: Can NATO ever truly strive for peace? Or will it always be a dangerous, subservient extension of the US war machine?

We believe that NATO is an anachronism in today’s multipolar world. It is an aggressive, expansionist military alliance whose inherent institutional myopia and blinkered, self-serving threat assessments condemn us all to endless war and potential nuclear annihilation.

There is only one way NATO could be a real force for peace. It must declare that, by this time next year, it will take the same steps that its Soviet counterpart, the Warsaw Pact, took in 1991: It must finally dissolve what Secretary Austin should’ve called “the most dangerous military alliance in history.”
However, the population that is suffering under the yoke of militarism cannot afford to wait for NATO to give up and leave on its own. Our fellow citizens and political leaders need to hear from us all about the dangers posed by this unaccountable, nuclear-armed war machine. We hope you will join us, in person or online, in using the occasion of this NATO summit to sound the alarm.

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post We Need to Challenge NATO’s Insidious War Summit in Washington appeared first on Fair Observer.

Nervous and demoralized, she asked, “What am I doing wrong?”

“You’re ignoring everything I’m teaching!” the instructor snapped, clearly exasperated. “Did you divide the face you’re drawing into equal thirds for eyes, nose and mouth? No? And where are the horizontal and vertical lines you need to build symmetry?”

Now Taty felt even worse. “I don’t feel the portrait if I do it your way,” she complained. “I need to start with the person’s eyes. I need to feel I’m with the person, looking into their soul.”

The instructor turned out to be a kinder man than Taty initially thought. “OK, make a drawing of me, and do it your way,” he said. “If I like what you do, I won’t ask you to change.”

To everyone’s surprise, including his own, he loved the results. Taty earned her expressive style, and even now, she still starts her portraits by painting her subject’s eyes. She has come a long way since those days in her native Ukraine. She’s learned a great deal in the United States and honed her artistic skills over decades of work.

But traveling to the US was not an easy decision. It took aggravations great and small to make her family depart for the Western world.

Leaving Soviet censorship and antisemitism

Taty’s parents had both done well under the Soviet regime that prevailed in Ukraine in the 1960s and ‘70s. Taty’s mother was no mere doctor in the Russian Army — she was an esteemed surgeon. Her father, an engineer, was in high demand for his ability to solve the government’s complicated engineering problems.

But life was far from perfect for the young artist and her family. A small but real annoyance for Taty was censorship. The Soviets censored all Impressionist art. She wasn’t allowed to view it on the grounds that it was anti-socialist.

Antisemitism was a bigger factor in their decision to emigrate. The treatment of Jews in Soviet Ukraine was terribly prejudiced. Taty was born to a Ukrainian mother and Jewish father; to avoid the fierce racism, her parents gave her her mother’s surname, Horoshko, at birth instead of her father’s German-Jewish surname, Bronzaft.

As the family kept their Jewish heritage concealed, attending synagogue was out of the question. A particularly noxious result of Soviet antisemitism is that Taty’s parents feared she might inadvertently reveal their Jewish roots. For security, they raised her to believe she was Egyptian.

Taty recalls one painful moment from her school days. A teacher approached her best friend, a pure-blooded Ukrainian, and told her to disassociate with Taty. “Her family can be a potential traitor to the Soviets,” the teacher reasoned. Additionally, other school children would regularly search for Jewish surnames in the class journal and mark them as targets to bully.

Starting a new life in the US

The decision to leave Ukraine was a difficult one. Taty’s parents knew that if they became émigrés — people who emigrate, often for political reasons — they’d lose their homeland and all their possessions. They would be forced to start over with no more than $300 cash. But ultimately, they knew they had to move. Taty and her family became political refugees when she was 15, and sought a fresh start in the US.

When they reached US shores, young Taty was astonished by the kindness they encountered. They spent their first year in the state of Michigan, where both parents quickly found jobs. When they arrived in the city of Flint, Jewish refugee supporters rented an apartment for them. They provided the family with not just furniture, but sheets, towels and decorative paintings. Taty had never experienced such generosity from strangers.

The following year, they moved to New York, where they still live. Taty was quickly accepted at the Parsons School of Design. This bolstered her love of painting and got her more experience than she had in her Ukrainian academy.

Taty’s powerful art supports veterans

Now in her 60s, Taty has made a personal discovery. “In the last few years, my art has a new purpose,” she says. “Always before, I thought that being a philanthropist meant you had to be super wealthy. But now I’ve learned that my voice through art can be louder than just money.”  

Taty co-founded Portrait of Freedom, Inc. This organization supports veterans, first responders and their families through art. She often donates as much as half of the proceeds from her sales.

With war raging in Ukraine, her old home is part of her life once more. Moved by the sacrifice of Ethan Hunger Hertweck, a US soldier who gave his life fighting for Ukraine’s freedom from Russia, Taty created a new portrait. “I painted his portrait because I wanted to show that he wasn’t just a statistic, that this is a real person who gave his life for what he believed in,” she stated.

Taty painted the portrait as a gift to Hertweck’s family. She worked rapidly, completing it in one 24-hour period. “I stood at my easel, looking at photographs of Ethan. I stared at his eyes and then I used my iPad to take close-up photos of his eyes,” she commented. “These zoomed-in photos on my iPad are far bigger than in the original photo. I look at the enlarged photos and I see a window to his soul.”

Taty’s art has an incredible effect on its beholders. “I sent a picture of the portrait to [Ethan’s] mother, and as we were texting back and forth, we realized we were both crying,” she said.

Her portraits are so much more than paint on canvas. She captures the essence of her subjects, starting with their eyes and metaphorically connecting with their souls. Her art is a powerful voice for freedom and humanity.
[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post This Ukrainian Artist Makes Surprisingly Powerful Art Starting With Eyes appeared first on Fair Observer.

The Dragon in the Room

Why is love in the air for Australia and Japan? 

The answer is simple: China. 

The Middle Kingdom has taken an increasingly assertive posture in the Indo-Pacific. Beijing has made “historical claims” on the Senkaku islands claimed by Tokyo. It has increased its military maneuvers in the South and East China Seas, building artificial islands and bases. Closer to Canberra, China has intensified maritime activities in the South Pacific islands. It has even signed a pact with the strategically located Solomon islands. Such actions have fuelled insecurity in Tokyo and Canberra.

On the economic front, new realities have emerged. After the economic liberalization in the Deng Xiaoping era, China grew rapidly. Given the gigantic Chinese market, most Asian countries wanted to prosper from the China story. Trade increased exponentially.

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China-Japan trade grew dramatically as well. In 2021, China was Japan’s biggest trade partner and the trade volume crossed $370 billion. China-Australia trade grew too and reached $245 billion in 2020. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, the country began to weaponize trade and bully its trading partners into submission. When Australia called for an independent probe into the origins of the COVID-19 virus, Beijing responded with a range of strict trade reprisals against Australian imports. Naturally, this made policymakers in Tokyo and Canberra cautious. They are attempting to change their trading patterns and rely less on China.

Strange Bedfellows

A century ago, Australia feared “economic infiltration” and racial takeover by the Japanese. In 1901, Australia implemented its White Australia Policy to exclude non-white immigrants and keep Australia a European nation. In World War II, both Japan and Australia were locked in a bitter conflict in Papua New Guinea. Mutual suspicion ran high and bilateral relations reached the nadir. In those years, Australia increasingly looked towards the US and Western Europe for identity, inspiration and security. It did not want much to do with its near abroad full of ragtag Asians. Much of Asia, especially Japan, saw Australia as a genocidal white outpost in their neighborhood.

In the 1950s and 1960s, mutual suspicion decreased. Both Japan and Australia were worried about a rising Indonesia. They shared concerns about Indonesian strongman Sukarno who was one of the founding fathers of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). As American allies, Japan and Australia were naturally concerned about Sukarno’s nationalist assertions and NAM.

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As a result, Intelligence cooperation between Japan and Australia slowly grew. This was accompanied by a commerce treaty signed in 1957 between Tokyo and Canberra. Gradually, closer economic ties decreased historic suspicions. Japan became Australia’s largest trading partner from the late 1960s onwards to 2007 when China replaced it. Additionally, Japan and Australia were also part of the American security architecture in the region. The US-led hub and spoke system contained the communists in the region during the Cold War. 

Unpacking the Updated JSDC 

As pointed out earlier, the new JSDC signed by Tokyo and Canberra comes at a time of rising Chinese ambition. Xi’s China seeks to extend its sphere of influence in Asia. Beijing’s rising influence comes at the cost of regional powers who do not subscribe to the Chinese worldview. They are anxious and want to oppose China. As a result, Asia is profoundly fractured. 

In this new geopolitical scenario, the JSDC makes sense. It builds local capacity to counter China. Japan and Australia do not entirely have to rely on the US to maintain peace and stability in the region. Both countries are deepening their military partnership. They are increasing interoperability, intelligence sharing, military exercises and defense activities on each other’s territories,

The two powers further seek to build on the Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) signed in January 2022. Besides Australia, the US is the only country with which Japan has signed the RAA. Japan also has an Acquisition and Cross-servicing Agreement (ACSA) with Australia. This agreement allows reciprocal provision of supplies and services between their defense forces. They are also collaborating in space, cyber and regional capacity building.

Will the Tokyo Olympics Increase Japan’s Soft Power?

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The JDSC marks a shift in traditional Japanese reluctance to act proactively on military matters. In the last few decades, Japan punched under its weight in military issues. This was primarily due to its war-renouncing constitution. The updated JSDC reflects the internal debate in Japan over the role of its military and the country’s role in the world. Various Japanese strategists have called for revising Japan’s National Security Strategy. They are pushing for Japan to take an active regional role. Moreover, policymakers in Canberra are also stepping on the gas. Australia is on a shopping spree for military technologies from nuclear-powered submarines to unmanned aircraft and hypersonic missiles.

The JSDC’s focus on intelligence cooperation is significant because both Japan and Australia have formidable geospatial capabilities in electronic eavesdropping and high-tech satellites. Experts believe that such intelligence cooperation will also provide a template for Japan to deepen intelligence cooperation with like-minded partners.

Secure Economics and Regional Dynamics

Japan and Australia now recognize that economics is closely tied to security. In this new deglobalizing world, words like friendshoring and secure supply chains have come into play. OPEC+ has cut oil production despite repeated US requests and sided with Russia. The US and the UK first supplied vaccines to their own populations before giving them to Europe or Asia. China used personal protective equipment for its people during the COVID-19 pandemic. For this reason, Tokyo and Canberra want to set up a secure economic relationship in what the Pentagon calls a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world.

The Russia-Ukraine War has hit Japan hard. The country imports most of its energy. Supplies from Russia’s Sakhalin-2 project have stopped and Japan faces an energy shortage. Rising energy prices have increased its expenses and increased input costs for its products. Therefore, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has made energy resilience a priority. In this context, Australia is a reliable and valuable energy supplier to Japan. Already, Canberra is Tokyo’s biggest supplier of LNG and coal. Both countries seek to deepen this relationship.

Both countries have further announced an Australia-Japan critical minerals partnership. These minerals include rare earths that are crucial in clean energy technologies like solar panels, electric vehicles and batteries. These could well be the oil of the future. Japan as a leader in many of these technologies and Australia as an exporter of minerals might have a win-win long term relationship on the cards.

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The US also figures prominently in the updated JDSC. Japan and Australia have asked Washington to fill in the gaps for sustainable infrastructure needs. This is part of the role the Quad — the US, Japan, India, and Australia — seeks to play in countering China’s Belt and Road Initiative. 

To counter China, Japan and Australia also support ASEAN’s centrality in the Indo-Pacific. They have also reiterated their desire to implement the 2050 Strategy for Blue Pacific Continent through the Pacific Islands Forum. This initiative seeks to develop cooperation with Pacific Island countries in critical infrastructure, disaster recovery, and maritime security. This is a multilateral play to counter the Big Brother model that China follows and provide assistance for smaller countries from medium-sized powers they trust. Japan and Australia share concerns about Myanmar and North Korea as well.

In the new world order that is emerging, regional powers are assuming more importance. The US is tired after two decades of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. It cannot write a blank check for Indo-Pacific security and single-handedly take on China. Therefore, the US is leaning on allies to step up. This makes the updated JSDC important. In the words of Professor Haruko Satoh of Osaka University, “Strengthening the Japan-Australia partnership is crucial for the US-led hub and spokes security system in Asia.”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post A New Fusing of Japanese-Aussie Synergies in the Indo-Pacific appeared first on Fair Observer.

You can find below how three authors from three different generations in three different locations wrestle with issues pertaining to Buddhism, religion and society that are still relevant today.

Steven Elleman: Did the deification of Buddha represent an ancient process of co-opting?

Srinivas Reddy: I think the rise of worshiping Buddha like a god reflects the move from a strictly monastic tradition to a more popular religion for the general public. Older well-established practices of ritual and praise were hard to eliminate and so they were gradually incorporated into Buddhist practice. Also the idea is that we do not worship the Buddha as a human god but rather an outward manifestation of the internally realized Buddhist truths.

Elleman: In this context, did Buddhism represent a process of opting out of Hinduism, i.e. when Buddhism was starting out did it actively oppose Hinduism or did it just go its own way, avoiding and circumventing Hinduism altogether?

Reddy: There are indeed some aspects of Buddhism that critique Hinduism, or rather elements of brahmanical culture, particularly caste and the Vedas, but the important thing to keep in mind historically is that there were multiple diverse traditions within what we commonly call Hinduism, and also several other “non-Hindu” traditions circulating at that time alongside early Buddhism. It was a rich and diverse religious landscape. Later on one could argue that Hinduism co-opted Buddhism, which is one reason why Buddhism died out in India. In the modern context, Ambedkar did indeed opt out of Hinduism in favor of Buddhism because it did not enshrine a doctrine of caste.

Elleman: Did Buddhism have a typical pattern of social organization, and how did it contrast with Hinduism? Forgive me for the comparison, but Protestantism and Catholicism really come to mind, where Protestantism was a reaction against entrenchment, centralization, and ossification in Catholicism. It feels like one of the ways it “fought back” was to be flat and decentralized compared to Catholicism.

Reddy: As in the previous question, Buddhism did critique the prevailing social structure of Hinduism, particularly in regard to caste divisions, so in that sense it was a movement reacting against the rigidity of brahmanical social norms. But again, this was not Buddhism’s raison d’être. Buddhism opened up previously inaccessible forms of knowledge to various communities, particularly merchants. Like many reform movements however, Buddhism evolved to include many of the hierarchies and structures that it once critiqued.

As you said, I do think we’re in a similar situation these days vis-à-vis capitalist systems, and I think the lesson from Buddhism is two-fold: first, the need to  focus on developing your individual self and reforming your daily practices; and second, to be wary of becoming the thing you want to change.

Steven Elleman’s reflections on Srinivas Reddy’s answers

Professor Reddy, 

Wow, thank you for such a thorough, thoughtful response. 

This definitely helps. To provide a bit more context, I believe we’re in an era framed by a secular religion that we might call “State-Sponsored Objectivity.” Just like religions before it, Objectivity makes universal claims about the world, but unlike Christianity, its sins are of omission instead of commission. It abstains, and in abstaining it pretends to remain neutral, but at its root it establishes a false dichotomy with damning implications. Objective, distanced, neutral, become the new good. Subjective, close, biased, the new bad. And just like in times past, we’ve been gaslit into believing that insight comes externally, rather than internally. 

In each of these historical periods (Buddhism, Reformation, and the secularized, objectivized present) a broad realization emerges of our collective gaslighting. I suspect one major catalyst of this is the new avenues of diffusion. Perhaps it was trade and merchants with the rise of Buddhism. The printing press during the Reformation. And today’s internet. 

Forgive me for my idealism (delusions of grandeur?), but by looking at history and applying its lessons to the present, perhaps we may detect an opportunity to figure out what’s next, what may be an alternative to State-Sponsored Objectivity? What are philosophies needed for a Post-Truth world, where “Truth is dead” joins “God is dead”?  This is a theme I’ve thought a lot about and would love to develop it in a dialogue. No pressure to join if this feels a bit too idealistic, but I think it would be invaluable to have your particular vantage point. History never repeats itself, but it rhymes, and perhaps Buddhism follows the same rhyme scheme? 

I’m including Atul and Peter in this conversation because I believe Fair Observer is seeking to offer us this kaleidoscopic sense of the world where subjectivity and different vantage points are valued. But we  still tend to express these things   in the language of Objectivity and the trappings of BBC’s supposedly neutral eye. Could we need to develop a different vocabulary? Then again,a different vocabulary requires a different guiding philosophy. 

All the best,
Steven 

Peter Isackson’s Reply to Steven Elleman’s Response

Steven,

Many thanks for initiating this back and forth with Srinivas after his unambiguously “enlightening” and supremely enjoyable talk. This supplementary dialogue perhaps highlights the limits of Zoom-style educational endeavors, where questions and even answers are emptied of their human content (i.e. subjective, sensory meaning, or deeper social sense). 

I expect you may not be aware of the fact that my very first article in Fair Observer – which Fair Observer’s founder and CEO, Atul Singh, pushed me to write – was the result of a spontaneous exchange on the Oxford Alumni LinkedIn discussion group. I contested Atul’s representation of religion. Atul pressed me to cogently pen an article in which I might express why I thought he was wrong for publication. 

Thinking back on it today, in the light of what you have just expressed, I was contesting an example of what you call the religion of Objectivity. It was something Atul had gleaned from Neil de Grasse Tyson’s pontifications on his updated version of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. It sounded like science, so it must be objective (i.e. true)!

One thing to take away from this dialogue, thanks to Srinivas’s explanations, is something that has always been known across many civilizations, but which is too complex for the religion of Objectivity (which is also the religion of corporate media) to handle. Any and every religious tradition encompasses a spectrum of human activities from the purely mental to the most formally executed and often meticulously controlled physical rituals. At the purely sociological level, all religions incarnate the idea of “religio” (literally tying people together in Latin), but with variations from loose and voluntary to legally constraining. Call it community building. They all include a serious approach to ethics that spans the Buddhist idea of individual mindfulness (that correlates in some ways withChristian or Augustinian conscience… which only in recent centuries became focused on the emotions of guilt and shame) to the acknowledgement of formal laws. Buddhism’s major distinction may be that it refuses to formulate any of its recommendations or even strictures as laws (though perhaps Srinivas will inform us that some Buddhist traditions do precisely that). 

The Judaic and Isamic traditions insist on the primacy of the law enshrined in scripture. St Paul’s formulation of Christianity announced the abolition of “the (Hebrew) Law,” preparing the terrain for Augustinian conscience. But the social vocation of pre-Reformation Christianity, partially compelled by the feudal system that had something of a caste element to it, progressively built up a parallel set of ritualistic imperatives that effectively took on the force of “law” in the Hebraic sense. That is what Luther protested against, spawning a movement that ended up proclaiming there is no collective law (“the priesthood of all believers”). 

This subsequently evolved from a principle to become a doctrine. In that sense, it followed the pattern Srinivas mentioned: “becoming the thing you want to change.” The uncomfortable cohabitation of competing doctrines inevitably led to some seriously violent conflict (130 years of religious wars), decimating the population of entire regions. It was all based on the opposition between competing doctrines, all of which, by the way, had the pretension of being someone’s “law of the land” according to the apparently rational but ultimately explosive compromise of cuius regio, eius religio that left the question of an established religion to the discretion of the local monarch or lord. 

The reaction to that fundamentally unstable status quo was the emergence in 1648 of the nation state as the unique framework for collective identity. The state replaced religion as the ultimate binding force in society. Logically enough, to fill the gap after the marginalization of theology, it produced the Enlightenment, which supposed the possibility of purely rational laws governing not only the functioning of the state but also public morals. These rational laws could only be based on empirical principles uncontaminated by subjectivity. Thus was the ideology out of which todary’s religion of Objectivity was born. It’s worth noting that though it relied on grand principles – such as Jefferson’s famous “all men are created equal” – it didn’t exclude largely shared personal feelings about the inferiority of other admittedly “useful” races.

Interestingly, all societies recognize but apply diversely a wide range of co-existing laws: natural laws (or what are deemed the laws of nature), formal (constitutional) laws, some variations on common law (e.g. case law), religious laws (depending on the religion) and the laws of decorum. PC or the implicit code of “politically correct,” for example, is a new set of prescriptions that some people feel has or must have the “force of law.” The real problem at the core of Objectivity is that the notion of law, which can be organic, has been reduced to the idea of constraint and prohibition. This has always been an implicit but not always dominant factor in the behavioral laws of specific religions (e.g. Judaism, Islam, Mormonism, Jainism…). In any case, the borderline between moral laws and imposed rituals in every society will always be ambiguous.

I may be wrong, but one of the lessons I drew from Srinivas’ talk was the desperate need we have of understanding what religions (including Objectivity!) share and what those common traits tell us about human society itself. Not with the aim of establishing some kind of syncretic truth, but of helping to build what Steven calls “this kaleidoscopic sense of the world.” Beyond that is the other big issue: the individual and the cosmos. Society will always stand somewhere between the two.

Since my very first article in Fair Observer was about religion, I still hope that at Fair Observer we can find a way of building a kind of open think tank (but a tank with no walls) that deals with religion and society, metaphysics, ethics and philosophy in their interaction with geopolitical events and purely social and economic phenomena. Publications like Aeon feature articles on these topics, but they tend to be academic, i.e. knowledgeable and informative, but cold & distant, according to the norms of Objectivity.

Perhaps we could use your reflections on the religion of Objectivity as a starting point. In any case, this discussion is already a model of how dialogue can be productive. Which makes me think of David Bohm, who promoted true dialogue. Though an incontestably “Objective” scientist (an influential theoretical physicist) he was also inspired by Krishnamurti’s version of Buddhism.

Many thanks, Steven, for pushing this forward.

Warm regards,
Peter   

Srinivas Reddy’s Conclusion

Thank you all…lots to mull over indeed! As the Buddha urged, we must keep questioning and refining our thoughts, just as a goldsmith assays gold by melting, forging and polishing.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post An Open Conversation on Buddhism appeared first on Fair Observer.

In recent years, radical Islamists have been on the ascendant in a land historically known for tolerant Sufi Islam. Arguably, the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus in 1990 set in motion an inexorable trend. Now, the separatist movement that wants an independent Kashmiri state has been supplanted in many places by those who want union with Pakistan or even an ISIS-style caliphate.

In such an environment, calling out sexual predators in Kashmir is not easy, especially if perpetrators are Islamists. Victims are often targeted by Islamists for being ‘pro-state’ (read pro-India) and disloyal to the Kashmiri cause.

In this edition of The Interview, Fair Observer talks to Mantasha Rashid. She is the founder of Kashmir Women’s Collective (KWC), a gender advocacy group. In October, 2018, KWC named “multiple men in Kashmir – from political analysts, media personalities, editors, journalists and bureaucrats, to political workers – of sexually inappropriate behaviour.”

As Severyna Magill noted then, “KWC members [were] individually and collectively vilified by a smear campaign, insidiously circulated by the friends of those named.” KWC KWC received a torrent of threatening emails and messages attempting to silence them. 

Here, Rashid speaks about what inspired her to start KWC, its mission and purpose. She goes on to explain the origins of #MeToo in Kashmir, the major milestones accomplished by KWC, patriarchy and religious conservatism in Kashmir, excesses by Indian security forces, the politicization of gender-based violence in Kashmir, and the complications that arise when women speak out.

Vikram Zutshi: What was the inspiration behind KWC and what are key milestones in its journey? 

Mantasha Rashid: KWC is inspired by Combahee River Collective, a black women’s organization from the 1970s that worked to address racism and sexism against black women in the US through intersectional feminism. 

While doing a master’s program on gender and sexuality in the US, I realized that we needed to have such an organization in Kashmir. We started in 2016 and registered as a trust in 2017.

From the outset, KWC has been providing legal and psycho-social support to victim-survivors of violence in Kashmir. We also do capacity building, training workshops for students, police, teachers and religious preachers on the issues of gender rights, sexual abuse, harassment at workplace etc. Hence, the focus is educational: we provide support services and advocacy on issues pertaining to gender. 

 Zutshi: How did #MeToo start in Kashmir? The journalists and writers in your #MeToo allegations have stayed studiously silent. Is there another list of offenders that KWC plans to release? Also, do you see any chance for due process to take its course and bring perpetrators to justice?

Rashid: #MeToo is not indigenous to Kashmir. As you know, it is a global movement. KWC began after an informal discussion about the #MeToo movement in our KWC office. Volunteers who were young girls revealed some disturbing details. They told us about prominent men hiding their marital status and luring young girls on the pretext of marriage or guidance in career, internships, academic references etc into inappropriate relationships. When we asked them as to why young girls like them did not shame these men in public, they replied that if they revealed their identity, their families would not accept their revelations and, once their experience became publicly known, their families would be shamed. Kashmir is a small, closed and conservative society where social consequences for women who speak out can be serious. On hearing this, we felt that KWC could act as an interface between these young girls and society. It would collect the stories of these girls and publish them while safeguarding the identity of the girls themselves.

We decided that under no circumstances shall we reveal the names of these girls. The girls reposed their trust in us. They gave us their narratives on the condition that we would protect their identities. The status, credentials or political association of these men were of no consequence to us and we can say with certainty that it didn’t matter to those girls either. 

Our #MeToo movement was centered on women’s experiences and did not pay any heed to the accused men’s families, professions or politics. Unfortunately, some people tried to taint us as pro-state and pro-India voices. Had that been the case, the list of names we compiled would not have officers from state and central services, journalists and even a woman who was the aunt of a girl and had abused her since childhood.

When you ask if we intend to release any more narratives, we would say no. We could not release a few narratives because many women were threatened and withdrew their consent. They apologized for letting us down but their wellbeing is our primary concern.

Zutshi: How many cases of sexual violence do you attribute to Indian security forces? Did any of the victims receive justice? 

Rashid: There are some cases in public knowledge like Kunan Poshpora. A few like that of bride Mubina have been documented by Nyla Ali Khan and in the book edited by Urvashi Butalia’s edited book, Speaking Peace: Women’s Voices from Kashmir. From what I know, no convictions have been made so far in any cases involving Indian security forces.

Zutshi: How is KWC tackling endemic issues like domestic abuse, sexual violence and mental health conditions? How challenging has it been to get institutional support for your efforts? 

Rashid: It is immensely challenging to hear the stories of abuse and violence at any time of the day, through messages and phone calls as well as in person too. Also, we are a network of volunteering women who do their respective jobs and professions. This makes it quite hard for us. Burnout and time management stress are common. 

My PhD is about violence against women and its findings clearly show that these issues are neither recognized nor understood through the lens of gender-based violence. Instead, they are seen as aberrations, or as individual cases in isolation. A larger policy and action framework is missing despite there being a women’s police station in Srinagar. Its functioning will baffle you as the police focus is on mediation even after clear incidents of physical violence in marriage and even dowry.

As far as institutional support for KWC goes, thus far we have never approached any institution for any support. We have not taken any government or private funding. A few of us donate our time and some money to support and run KWC. We are a non-partisan and objective group with absolutely no political or religious affiliation. We have a few lawyers and counselors who volunteer their services for our network. We refer cases that come to our attention from time to time to these specialized volunteers after our primary intervention. 

Zutshi: How does the ingrained conservatism of Kashmiri society prevent victims from speaking out? What could be done to make the process easier for them? 

Rashid: Kashmir is a closed society and the political conflict has only added to social insecurity. Whenever an issue of gender-based violence or the rights of any minority group are referred to in any social context, it is perceived through the regional political binary lens. The nuances and even facts are often stripped out, reducing the issue to a pro-state or pro-separatist view. 

This is dangerous for any discourse. Such a binary lens shrinks the space for any genuine voice of support or advocacy for gender or minority rights. Also, patriarchy is a global reality, just its manifestations are varied and diverse for different cultures. Even in the US, for example, there are different wages for men and women for the same work. For that matter, black, hispanic, and white women have different experiences because patriarchy is often clubbed with racism.

How will things be easy for women in Kashmir? I think through women’s education to begin with and a lot more social change thereafter. You may find it surprising that an SUV-driving woman who earns no less than nearly $1,900 (Rupees 150,000) per month (a relatively high figure in Kashmir) comes to seek support from us at KWC. Her problem is that her husband is uninterested and neglectful, both financially and emotionally. The lady has no option but to seek a divorce. However, she and her parents are in a fix because she has three sisters who are yet to be married. If this lady divorced her husband, that could potentially cause problems for her sisters in finding suitable grooms.We have a big challenge: how do we deal with such societal attitudes? And it is not an isolated case, such archaic stigmas are widely prevalent in Kashmiri society. 

A lot needs to be done both at an institutional level and at the community level by taking major stakeholders on board. It may come as a surprise to you that, even though a shelter home for women in distress is mandated by legislation on domestic violence, it does not exist on the ground. In its absence, we have housed women in our KWC office for months altogether. There’s a lot that needs to be done. 

Zutshi: Finally, what role does the decades-long Kashmir conflict play in enabling predators and what are some possible solutions?  

Rashid: In a political conflict any issue is dovetailed to anti-state and pro-state, anti-freedom movement or pro-freedom movement narratives. It is nearly impossible to break free of these larger regional political narratives and advocate for any social cause. However, we at KWC largely feel that we have achieved our objective. We simply wanted to create a space in public discourse where these sensitive issues of discrimination, bodily violation, and violence against women are accepted, recognized and  addressed seriously.

Whether women  or girls took their cases to courts, received apology, or their allegations were contested was the second step which didn’t directly concern KWC. Our job was just to be a platform for stories of young Kashmiri girls, to shield them and to protect their identity. 

Sadly, the fact remains that no institutional actions were initiated against the accused by their respective offices. They did not even investigate serious allegations and check on their facticity.

#MeToo is not only a women’s issue but a societal issue of dignity and safety of half the population. Data from the World Health Organization (WHO) reveals that “across their lifetime, 1 in 3 women, around 736 million, are subjected to physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner or sexual violence from a non-partner – a number that has remained largely unchanged over the past decade.”

The reason for such alarming WHO numbers is that largely power is disproportionately titled in favor of men. #MeToo was a symbolic gesture of channelizing women’s rage worldwide to tilt this power imbalance, however little its outcome may have been. I strongly feel that #MeToo was necessary and many more such movements are essential for progress.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post It Is Taboo to Talk About #MeToo in Kashmir appeared first on Fair Observer.

In March 2022, the two leaders met for the first time in Kandahar, the traditional hub for the Taliban. Today, the Haqqanis and Kandaharis are jostling for pole position. Unknown to most outside Afghanistan, these two factions have irreconcilable political agendas rooted in two mutually exclusive interpretations of Islamic governance. Both timeworn interpretations have their fanatical adherents, which makes not only compromise but also dialogue difficult.

The Haqqanis see their leader as a caliph. Hence they have given him the title of khalifa. The Kandaharis refer to their boss as the leader of the faithful. Hence, he goes by the title amir al-mu’minin. This seemingly minor difference in their titles is a big deal. The Haqqanis are universalists who see their big boss as a potential, if not real, leader of all Muslims. The Kandaharis are satisfied with creating a pure Islamic emirate in their region and do not have pretensions to world domination.

What Is the Significance of the Haqqani-Kandahari Meeting?

The meeting in Kandahar revealed that the Taliban’s factional politics had reached the point of no return. Unable to agree upon sharing power, a civil war between the Taliban factions is inevitable. Both camps are powerful enough to challenge the other’s ambition of dominating the national scene completely.

Interestingly, as the group continues to disappoint its regional backers, the chances of a foreign mediator settling the Taliban’s internal division are slim. Last September, Pakistan’s chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency traveled to Kabul to force Haqqanis and the Kandaharis to come to a power-sharing caretaker administration. Notably, the mediation of the ISI chief produced more division than harmony.

For now, it seems that the Taliban lacks political maturity and capacity to avert prolonged internal division. Given the structural and political differences of the caliphate and the emirate,  the future of Taliban governance depends on how the fight between the Kandahari and Haqqanis plays out.

What is an Emirate, What is a Caliphate and Why is it a Big Deal?

In Islamic political litreature amir al-mu’minin is a nominal title given to persons in command of particular aspects of Muslim affairs.  The caliph, however, is the title given to the Prophet’s successors. This leader is in control of the Islamic ummah’s political structure.

The amir al-mu’minin was first used to refer to the second Islamic caliph, Omar ibn al-Khattab. Prophet Mohammad’s successor and first caliph, Abu Bakr As-Siddiq, was not called amir al-mu’minin. The term caliph, khalifa in Arabic, is used to describe someone who is authorized by the majority of the Muslims as the successor of the Prophet and the four rightly guided caliphs: Abu Bakr, Omar, Othman, and Ali. Many Muslims believe that the administratiive and governance model in Medina under the first four successors of Prophet Mohammad, known as the Rashidun caliphs, put  Islam on the path to greatness and purity.

Historically, restoring the caliphate gained momentum among various Islamic movements in the early 20^th century following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. In retrospect,  the nostalgia for reestablishing the caliphate emerged in response to political decay and civilizational degeneration in the Islamic world. Like any other Islamic religious concept, the difference between the amir and the caliph dates back to early periods of Islam.

Since the collapse of the Durrani Empire and the emergence of the modern state of Afghanistan in the late 19^th century, Pashtun tribal leaders and the monarchs have titled themselves as amirs. Amir Dost Mohammad Khan (1826–63), Amir Shir Ali Khan (1863 to 1879) and Amir Abdul Rahman Khan (1880–1901) are three famous examples.

Since the caliphate has a universal political and ideological implication, none of the rulers of Afghanistan dared to call themselves khalifa because the title would have implied being in charge of Muslim affairs across the Islamic world.When the Ottomans were around, this claim would have been challenged because the sultans in Istanbul were regarded as the rightful caliphs. In recent years, Saudi Arabia saw itself as the rightful leader of the Sunni Muslim world and Afghanistan’s leaders shied away from taking their patrons on.

What Lies Ahead for the Taliban?

According to Islamic historical references, the caliphate is a dynastic governing entity. The Haqqanis are aware of the historical connotations and political implications of calling their leader the khalifa or the caliph. In the Emirate of the Kandahari Taliban, power and leadership can be passed from one individual to another who satisfies their specifications. The Haqqanis do not meet them.

Given the history of rivalry between southern and eastern tribes of Afghanistan’s Pashtuns, the Haqqanis would never become amir al-mu’minins. The Kandahari Taliban rightly consider themselves as the founders of the emirate, leaving the Haqqanis with no option but to go rogue, declare a caliphate and claim the leadership of Islamic ummah.

As the Haqqanis consolidate power in Kabul, the structural and organizational distinctions between emirate and caliphate are useful to understand how the two factions of the Taliban will conduct themselves in Afghanistan, the region, and the world. They also help anticipate the different threats the world faces from various factions of the Taliban. 

The Kandahari-led Taliban are orthodox Hanafi Muslims with a tribal mentality whose ultimate aim is to establish an Islamic state in Afghanistan, dominated and governed by Pashtuns. The Haqqani group, on the other hand, follow a  transnational jihadist ideology. Its ultimate aim is to unify all Islamic movements under a single Islamic caliphate, a goal previously pursued by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The Haqqanis’ aspiration of establishing a caliphate is based on the resources and network they built during the anti-Soviet jihad project. Their base lies in the largely ungoverned territories on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. While the Haqqanis maintained symbiotic relations with the Kandahari Taliban throughout the so-called “Global War on Terror,” they used this time to build and deepen relationships with other Islamic militant groups in South Asia. Since the Haqqanis are in a position of power, the support they command in the region provides them with a comparative advantage vis-à-vis the Kandahari-led Taliban.

The pace at which Haqqanis are consolidating their power in Afghanistan makes it a matter of time before they become the dominant faction within the Taliban. Once that mission is accomplished, the Haqqanis will establish the Islamic Caliphate by Afghanistan as the capital and become the patron of all terrorist organizations worldwide. If history can tell us anything, any form of a Taliban-led and dominated government in Afghanistan threatens regional and global peace, and a caliphate led by the Haqqanis even more so.

(This article was edited by Contributing Editor Tabish Forugh.)

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The Caliph v The Emir al-Mu’minin: Which Islamic Model of Statehood Will the Taliban Adopt? appeared first on Fair Observer.

When a Muslim jihadist is framed as a terrorist while his white blue-eyed Christian counterpart is celebrated as a liberating hero; when Western countries can invade Iraq without being held accountable while their Russian rival is internationally demonized for similar actions; when an exclusive club can own and trade weapons of mass destruction while others are deemed too irresponsible to manage a nuclear program, it should be clearthat the very notion of morality is broken. It is the end not of history, but of the romanticized anthropocentric Renaissance ideals. The argument here is not about whether occupying a sovereign country like Ukraine is right or wrong – that is not even up for debate – but rather about who gets to shape the truth.

The Truth Has Been Canceled

The Russian invasion of Ukraine shocked people’s minds and recalled memories of horror scenes from the 20th century’s two world wars. Instead of running to rescue their European peers, NATO countries preferred to opt for double standards and hypocrisy, imposing a regime in which Russian gas, oil, coal, and wheat are welcomed to heat and fuel Europe, and the Moscow population is deprived of essential banking services, western brands, and international mobility. It is as if the West is only interested in marketing itself as sympathetic to Ukrainian civilians by depriving the “evil” Russians of their dose of McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and Chanel rather than stepping in with diehard military field action.

Another key response has been to silence Russian media outlets like Russia Today and Sputnik News across NATO countries and their allies. Any information coming from Volga country has either been labeled as misleading propaganda or completely banned from broadcasting and suppressed from social media platforms. During warfare, both camps routinely use misinformation as an aggressive weapon. Nevertheless, what is occurring during this crisis is a never-before seen level of intellectual guardianship over the populace. As if the average Joe is judged too obtuse to look at the two sides and form his own opinion. To add insult to injury, Meta even declared last week that it would permit one-way hate speech toward Russian soldiers on Facebook and Instagram.

In our post-truth world, ostracism and cancel culture became a weapon in the hands of those who control the flow of information through media and social media platforms. They choose who gets a voice and space for expression and who gets silenced and banished from the public sphere. Where some see accountability and the protection of oppressed and minority rights, others see censorship and ideological despotism. The tyranny of a single narrative, even when predominately righteous and morally motivated, remains inherently unethical and historically calamitous.

As an Arab, I can only feel baffled by a West religiously preaching freedom of speech and giving the Middle East long lessons and even assessing scores on access to information and state-inflicted censorship. As a journalist, who has been trained in balance, impartiality, and fact-checking, I am deeply disturbed when reputable media institutions intentionally choose to obscure certain items in the news and promote others. Every media or social media organization has the right to pick its own editorial line and guiding principles. Then again, shouldn’t we all abide by a common Voltairean deontological dictum stipulating that “I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to death your right to say it?”

The Honorable White Mercenary 

The end of ethics is a phenomenon that can be sensed in all aspects of how the West deals with global conflicts and interests, like a corrupt cop who only condemns practices that clash with his agenda. For example, why didn’t anyoneimpose sanctions on Saudi Arabia over bombing Yemen? Gucci, Nike, and Mercedes did not withdraw from that Gulf market. No one publicly pressured them to close shop. Similarly, why did the West demonize Iran and Venezuela for years and is now suddenly interested in compromising with them to respond to potential petroleum shortages? The immoral league that rules the world is no longer even trying to hide its dubious duplicity.

The epitome of these immoral actions is visible in   the Western powers shameless incitement of their civilian citizens to volunteer with the Ukrainian foreign legion, comprising over twenty thousand combatants. Countries like Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Canada openly encouraged their compatriots to enlist in the holy neo-crusades against the new tsar of Russia. Now, imagine if an Arab country was at war and the League of Arab States invited fighters to resist the enemy. Would they be called saviors or terrorists? Would Western political and media discourses celebrate them as heroes or condemn them as threatening mercenaries? The recent conflict has revealed that the rules of the game and its semantics apply differently depending on skin color, religion, race, and country of origin.

Many Arabs have not been very supportive of NATO’s actions in Ukraine, not because they admire the megalomaniac blood-thirsty ruler of Russia, but because they stood in the first row of the altar of history and saw ethics being slaughtered at the gates of their cities. They do not like Putin. They like the idea of Putin challenging western hegemony. Sorry Fukuyama, history is alive and thriving. It is even organically manufacturing Chinese, Russian, and violent extremism anti-theses to counter the sinister unipolar narrative dominated by the United States and its allies. What has ultimately perished in the lot is our collective ability to abide by the fundamental deontological ethics of humanity: impartiality, neutrality, unity, and universality.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The Russia-Ukraine War Shows History Did Not End, Ethics Did appeared first on Fair Observer.

30 April 2022

To: H.E. António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General

CC:H.E. Ambassador Barbara Woodward, Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the UN and President of United Nations Security Council

H.E. Ambassador Federico Villegas, Permanent Representative of Argentina and President of United Nations Human Rights Council

Excellencies,

We are writing this letter to express our grave concern about the escalation of violence targeting the Hazara Shia communities in Afghanistan. We are writing to demand your immediate action to address these targeted attacks, which can amount to crime against humanity, and when taken together, constitute an act of genocide. We believe the persistent and deliberate campaign of violence against the Shia Hazara community in Afghanistan requires an urgent and coordinated response by the United Nations and the international community.

On April 19, 2022, a high school and an education center in a Hazara neighborhood in West of Kabul, Afghanistan were bombed, killing and maiming scores of school children. The next day, an attack on a Shia Hazara mosque in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif was bombed, killing thirty one  and injuring eighty seven worshipers attending prayers during the holy month of Ramadan. Local reports, however, indicate a much higher level of casualties. Another mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif was also attacked on the same day and in the same manner, killing and injuring dozens. On April 28, two explosions targeting civilian mini-buses in Mazar-i-Sharif killed at least eleven and wounded at least eighteen Hazaras. On the same day, five Hazara miners traveling in a civilian passenger car were stopped and shot dead in Samangan province.

While terrorist attacks such as the last week’s horrific attacks on Sufi Mosques in Kunduz and Kabul provinces continue to affect civilians throughout Afghanistan, the attacks on Hazaras represent a pattern in recent years that target Hazara-Shia mosques, schools, education centers, public gatherings, sports clubs, public transports, and even maternity hospitals. In the first six months of 2021 UNAMA recorded 20 deliberate attacks against the Hazara ethnic group, resulting in around 500 civilian casualties. The Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP), an affiliate group of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), claimed responsibility for most attacks, including recent incidents in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif, although perpetrators have not claimed responsibility for some attacks.

Residents, observers of Afghanistan, and international human rights groups have raised constant concern about such a growing trend of targeted violence against Hazaras. In October 2021, after a series of attacks on Shia Hazara mosques in Kunduz and Kandahar, that killed and wounded hundreds, Human Rights Watch characterized the attacks as “designed to spread terror and inflict maximum suffering, particularly on Afghanistan’s Hazara community.” The statement highlighted that “[t]he numerous attacks targeting Hazaras amount to crimes against humanity, and those responsible should be brought to justice.” 

In May 2021, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) called on the Afghan government and the international community to consider the Hazaras as a “population at risk of war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing or genocide”. In July 2021, Genocide Watch issued an emergency warning for Afghanistan, stating, “The Hazara religious minority is a portent of an approaching genocide.” In August 2021, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum issued a similar statement underlining the risk of genocide against Hazaras in Afghanistan.

Hazaras have a long history of persecution in Afghanistan at the hands of state and non-state actors such as the Taliban and other extremist groups. This history and recent events align with the warning factors of mass atrocity crimes that the United Nations identified in the 2014 Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes.

The return of the Taliban to power has made the Hazaras more vulnerable and subject to increased violence. On August 19, 2021, Amnesty International released a report documenting the Taliban’s targeted attacks against Hazaras and called the group responsible for the “brutal massacre of Hazara men” in Ghazni and Daykundi provinces. Since coming to power in August 2021, the Taliban forcibly removed hundreds of Hazara families from their homes and villages in Helmand, Uruzgan, Daykundi, and Balkh provinces. This is compounded by the Taliban history of brutality against the community, including massacring thousands of Hazaras in Mazar-i-Sharif (1998), Bamyan (2001), and Zabul (between 1996 and 2001).

In January 2022, following its report on Afghanistan, the UK Parliament’s House of Lords Select Committee on International Relations and Defence established a bi-cameral and cross-party inquiry team on the situation of Hazaras in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The report stated that “The Hazaras have a long history of suffering state persecution on both ethnic and sectarian grounds.”

Following these most recent attacks targeting Hazaras in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif, human rights groups and officials in the international community, including The UN Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan Richard Bennett, expressed concerns about these “targeted attacks on  Hazaras”, and called for “immediate investigation and accountability” to “end such human rights violations.” Similar statements of condemnation and calls for action have been made by special representatives and Ministers of Foreign Affairs in the EU, Sweden, Norway, and Canada. Afghanistan’s diplomatic missions to the UN and in many countries in Europe, North America, and South Asia also expressed concerns and demanded immediate international attention to attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructures in Afghanistan, particularly in Hazaras and Shia communities.

However, more must be done to protect the Hazaras in Afghanistan, especially by the United Nations. Thus, we, the undersigned group of intellectuals, academics, human rights, media, and civil society activists from Afghanistan and around the world, urge the United Nations to take immediate actions addressing human rights situation of the Hazaras in Afghanistan, and adopt appropriate measures to protect the community against risks of genocide and crimes against humanity. We urge you to:

• Call a special session of the United Nations Security Council to discuss, as matter of urgency, the situation of the Hazaras and adopt a resolution ensuring that the community will be protected against such heinous targeted attacks;
  
  
• Call for a special session of the United Nations Human Rights Council to discuss and address the ongoing genocidal attacks on Hazaras, and work to prevent such atrocities and bring the perpetrators to justice;
  
  
• Launch an immediate investigation into the targeted killing of the Hazara and Shias in Afghanistan, and use instruments under the international law to address and put an end to the perpetual killings of Hazaras;
  
  
• Request the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Situation in Afghanistan to collect and publicize substantiated information relating to grave violations of international human rights law, including breaches of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide committed against the Hazaras;
  
  
• Request UNAMA and the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Situation in Afghanistan to submit a special report on the situation of Hazaras identifying urgent and practical measures to protect the community against targeted attacks and mass atrocities.

Sincerely,

1. Dr. Sima Samar, Former Chairperson of Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission
2. Shaharzad Akbar, Former Chairperson of Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission
3. Dr. Nasir A.  Andesha, Ambassador, Afghanistan Mission, Geneva,
4. Naseer A. Faiq, Charge d’Affaires, Afghanistan Permanent Mission to the United Nations, New York
5. Dr. Abbas Farasoo, University of Melbourne, Australia
6. Dr. Ali Karimi, University of Pennsylvania, USA
7. Dr. Arif Sahar, Sheffield University, UK
8. Dr. Dawood Rezai, Legal Scholar, Canada
9. Dr. Elham Gharji, University of Coimbra, Portugal
10. Dr. Farkhondeh Akbari, Monash University, Australia
11. Dr. Hadi Hosainy, Texas Christian University, USA
12. Dr. Hasan Faryaar, Carleton University, Canada
13. Dr. Humaira May Rizayee, Hazara rights activist, UK
14. Dr. Kambaiz Rafi, University College London, UK
15. Dr. Mejgan Massoumi, Lecturer & Fellow, Stanford University, USA
16. Dr. Melissa Chiovenda, Zayed University, UAE.
17. Dr. Niamatullah Ibrahimi, La Trobe University, Australia
18. Dr. Omar Sadr, University of Pittsburgh, USA
19. Dr. Omar Sharifi, American University of Afghanistan/University of Minnesota, USA
20. Dr. QasimWafayezada, Kanazawa University, Japan
21. Dr. Rabia Latif Khan, SOAS University of London, UK
22. Dr. Sardar Hosseini, University of Ottawa, Canada
23. Dr. Timor Sharan, Associate Fellow, London School of Economics, UK
24. Harun Najafizada, Journalist, UK
25. Jalil Benish, PhD Candidate, Ryerson University, Canada
26. Jawad Raha, Former Diplomat, USA
27. Kawa Jobran, University Lecturer, Canada
28. Metra Mehran, Fellow, New York University, USA
29. Mohammad Asif Ehsan, Attorney, USA
30. Mohamad Musa Mahmodi, Fellow, Yale University, USA
31. Munazza Ebtikar, PhD Candidate, Oxford University, UK
32. Musa Zafar, PhD Candidate, Fiji National University, Fiji
33. Ofran Badakhshani, Chairman of Gilgamesh Foundation, Brussels
34. Said Sabir Ibrahimi, Non-resident Fellow, New York University
35. Sameer Bedrud, former diplomat, Canada
36. Sanjar Suhail, Publisher and Founder, Hasht-e-Subh  Daily, Afghanistan
37. Sayed Madadi, Reagan-Fascell Fellow, National Endowment for Democracy, USA
38. Shoaib Rahim, American University of Afghanistan/The New School, New York
39. Tabish Forugh, Democracy Activist and Contributing Editor at Fair Observer, USA
40. Wadood Pedram, Human Rights Activist, Canada
41. Zaki Daryabi, Publisher and Founder, Daily Etilaat-e- Roz, Afghanistan
42. Zuhal Salim, Former Diplomat of Afghanistan to the UN, USA.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Appeal to the UN to Protect Hazaras in Afghanistan appeared first on Fair Observer.

I am not an expert on comparative religions, I simply consider myself more of a curious outsider who critically observes the characteristics of each religious practice in India and develops his own impressions.

Old Goa — Basilica of Bom Jesus — Holiest Church for Catholics in India

In early January 2016, the 1970 IIT Bombay batch had its sapphire reunion, an event to celebrate 45 years of our graduation, in Goa. As part of our tour, we visited the Basilica of Bom Jesus, where St. Francis Xavier’s sacred relics lie. Incidentally my high school was named after him. The church was majestically built in the colonial Portuguese days. But the visit was more akin to a tour of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan — people in organized groups following a guide speaking in hushed tones with no shoving and pushing going on. 

To be honest, the fact that the saint’s body has remained intact did not make a great impression on me. All throughout my school days, there was always an undercurrent of resentment in our mandatory Moral Science class taught by Jesuit Fathers. This might have been due to the fact that the Portuguese and the British imposed Christian faiths on Indians who were primarily Hindu and Muslim. Those feelings from over 50 years ago came flashing back to me as I walked through the basilica. 

Amritsar, Punjab — Golden Temple — Holiest Gurdwara for Sikhs in the World 

In 2016, we visited the Golden temple twice – first around 10pm on August 26 and then again on the following morning. The temple was surrounded by a large water-filled moat and at night it really glowed like a large Golden structure. There were literally thousands of devoted visitors; more than 95% were Sikh men, women and children. We were all asked to cover our heads, wash our feet and walk barefoot. The caretakers, called sevadars, were polite but quite stern and kept people in check. We saw the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy religious scripture of Sikhism, being ceremoniously taken from the inner sanctum, called Harmandir, to the Akal Takht, the seat of power, for the night. Dozens of religious Sikhs wanted to touch the Palkhi, the carrier in which the Holy Book was placed, in order to get blessings. Walking around the entire square was a memorable experience. 

The following morning, we stood in a long line to get into the inner sanctum and were able to partake in some excellent sweet halwa given to everyone as prasad, an offering to the gods. I found remarkable that during our two visits to the Golden Temple, no one ever asked for alms. Also, considering the large crowds, the place was remarkably clean. Most of the services and management at the temple was conducted by Sikh volunteers. This was an exceptional feature not seen at other religious places we visited. I was really touched by the selflessness shown by the Sikh community.

Varanasi aka Banares, Uttar Pradesh — The Holiest of the Seven Sacred Cities in Hinduism and Sarnath — One of The Holiest Places for Buddhists 

From the Golden Temple in Amritsar we made our way to the ancient city of Varanasi, which many Hindus deem the holiest of cities. We arrived in the city on August 28. Just a couple of days earlier the Ganga River had flooded over its banks making it impossible to climb down the ghats, its flight of steps. Our day started with a chaotic drive through the heart of dirty Varanasi towards the famous Kashi Vishwanath Shiva temple. After parking the car, we walked over a mile through narrow and shockingly filthy lanes. It was sad to see the emaciated cows eating garbage and plastic wrappers. To call a cow “holy” and then treat the poor animal in such a disgusting manner is almost criminal.

At first the police guards outside the Kashi Vishwanath temple would not allow Monica and myself to enter the temple. Luckily our guide intervened and we could visit the temple on condition that we left our US passports with the inspectors. Before entering the temple, we had to buy some items for the puja, an offering to the gods, in order to make the merchant who was guarding our shoes and other belongings happy. The Shiva Mandir’s inner sanctum was rather underwhelming with all the worshippers hustled in and out within minutes. The place was unkempt and not up to my expectations. Or maybe it was just my skepticism about religion that made me focus on the negatives. 

In my opinion, Varanasi takes the first prize in being the filthiest city in India with little or no civic sense. But to my great surprise whenever we mentioned this fact to the locals, they looked amazed and pointed out that the city had never had an epidemic of malaria or plague like other Indian cities. Even many of the educated folks sincerely believed that Ganga Maiya, which literally means Mother Ganges in the Hindi language, took care of all these issues as a divine matter. 

The next day we visited Sarnath, only about 13 kilometers from Varanasi. It remains one of the holiest places in Buddhism. The temple receives an extremely large number of tourists from Southeast Asia and particularly the Sinhalese Buddhists from Sri Lanka. Unlike Hindu temples, the Buddhist place of worship was austere, clean and neat. There was an aura of peace and quiet we had never experienced on previous occasions. We also stopped by the Dhamek and Chaukhandi Stupas – one of them erected by Emperor Ashoka who ruled in the 3^rd century BCE. These commemorative monuments are massive structures and a real archeological rarity. 

Jaipur to Ajmer to Visit Pushkar — A Rare Hindu Brahma Temples and the Holy Muslim Ajmer Sharif Dargah 

We continued our 2016 pilgrimage through North Central India to Jaipur, Rajasthan. On August 31 we reached Pushkar about 14 kilometers from Ajmer and walked for quite a while to one of the five most sacred dhams, pilgrimage sites, at the Pushkar Lake. The Brahma temple that we visited was built in the 14th century. According to legend, there are only a few Brahma temples in India because the god’s wife, blinded by jealousy, cursed him that he wouldn’t be worshiped anymore on earth. At this site we had quite an unpleasant adventure with the pujari, the temple priest in charge of the puja. When we refused to pay the entire big sum of money he had asked for to perform the ritual, the priest attacked us claiming that our children and grandchildren would suffer as a result. Needless to say, I gave in to his request, but the whole experience left me quite disillusioned with the significance of religious ceremonies.

After Pushkar, we drove to Ajmer Sharif Dargah of Moinuddin Chishti, a revered Muslim shrine visited by over 100,000 pilgrims a day. Despite being quite crowded, the place was surprisingly clean like the Sikh Golden Temple. My late mother- and fatheri-in-law who were Hindus, used to send money through their Muslim servants to offer a chaddar, a sheet offered in devotion, at the Ajmer Sharif Dargah. In honor of their beliefs, my wife requested one of the Muslim priests to conduct a short prayer ceremony and asked him about the charge. Unlike the aggressive Hindu priest at Pushkar, the Maulvi replied that we could offer whatever sum we wished. For an offering of 2,000 rupees, they prepared an elaborate wicker basket with flowers and fruits and I had to carry it on my head into the inner sanctum of the Dargah. It was an interesting and enjoyable experience. We also saw a huge pot in which rice and dal were cooked. The food was to be distributed to the poor outside the Dargah. 

Tirupati via Hyderabad — Tirumala Venkateswara Temple — Holiest Temple in South India 

On September 1 we flew to Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh. After checking into the hotel, we visited the fanciest Sari Palace in town. So, while chatting to the shop owner, we accidentally learned that it would be rather difficult to do a Tirupati Temple Darshan without prior approval from a local official. But everything has a price in India. We were informed that if we gave a substantial baksheesh, a tip, to a certain individual, we would be given immediate access to the world-famous Tirumala Venkateswara Temple’s inner sanctum. For this  special visit, called darshan, women have to wear a sari or a long plain churidar dress, with tight fitting trousers, while men wear a dhoti and angavastram, a long sarong and a shoulder cloth. 

So we purchased the necessary clothes and then patiently waited for a call in our hotel room. At around 9.30pm an inspector with the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Department with the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) announced he would be our guide and was willing to take us for a very special darshan that same night. We quickly dressed with the right apparel and followed him. Everything about the temple was highly organized in a businesslike manner.  We cut across huge lines of pilgrims because of our  special dispensation and were allowed to stop and observe the deity of Lord Venkateswara for well over five minutes, whereas others were hustled out with no more than 30 seconds of darshan. 

All of this special dispensation came at a heavy price. The next day we were asked to give the inspector who had arranged our visit, a princely sum of 10,000 rupees. Our driver got visibly upset because we were treated as “foreigners.” He claimed that we had been overcharged and that the inspector had taken full advantage of our ignorance. Later that day we also visited a couple of other temples and everywhere the business approach was the same. It felt more like going to a shopping mall than to a temple. No wonder that the TTD Trust receives over $30 million just in admission tickets and the sale of laddus, sweets, generates a staggering revenue stream exceeding $10 million. All other donations are probably 100 times more than the numbers mentioned above. The TTD trust does run several universities and claims to conduct many charitable activities. 

Bombay — Zoroastrian Atash Behram — The End of Our India Pilgrim Tour 

When Islam came to Persia, some Zoroastrians fled to India. Since then, members of this community have been called Parsis in honor of the land of their origin. In Bombay, I decided to complete our pilgrim tour by visiting all four of the holiest Parsi fire temples called Atash Behrams, which means the fire of victory. This is the highest grade of a fire that can be placed in a Zoroastrian fire temple as an eternal flame. The other two lower graded fires are Atash Adaran and below is the Atash Dadfah. These three grades signify the degree of reverence and dignity these are held in. 

As I mentioned at the beginning, my wife was raised as a Hindu and non-Parsis are not allowed to enter these places of worship, therefore on September 4, 2016, I visited on my own the Banaji Atash Behram (AB) on Charni road in Bombay, followed by the Wadiaji AB in Dhobi Talao, then the Anjuman AB also in Dhobi Talao and the last Dadyseth AB in Fanaswadi, Chira Bazaar area. 

What came as a great shock to me was, unlike all the other crowded temples we had visited, the ultra neat and clean Atash Behrams were almost empty and there were more priests than lay people. I am a 67-year-old senior citizen, but the vast majority of the Parsis praying in these temples appeared to be much older than me. All the Hindu, Christian, Sikh and Muslim places of worship were teeming with young children, whereas in the Atash Behrams I didn’t see any. It is a known fact that the Parsis are a dying breed in India. With our intolerance of not admitting any non-Parsis into our fire temples and the most outrageously offensive policy of disbarring a Parsi female who marries a non-Parsi in India from entering our fire temples and treating her children likewise, the Zoroastrian Parsi population will continue to diminish rapidly. Now there are only 53,000 Parsis remaining in India and about 110,000 worldwide. At this rate, Parsis will be wiped out in 50 to 75 years unless the orthodox extremists lose their stranglehold on the fast-declining community. 

More Confused Than Ever 

Indian society is quite religious. In daily life, religion often plays a big role in people’s lives. Many people make pilgrimages to holy sites and places of worship to thank god/gods, seek blessings and make wishes. I went to places of worship in a spirit of curiosity. I wanted to see if there was something about religion that I had been missing over all these years.

One striking thing occurred to me. There is great spiritual energy among the people who go on pilgrimages. Each of them have their own hopes, desires and beliefs. Yet while the places of worship appeared to be lush with cash, the poor do not seem to benefit from this wealth. Their religiosity benefits the places of worship and the custodians of such places. 

As I said earlier, I went on this pilgrim tour with an open mind. I hoped to escape my state of “confused atheism,” achieve a deeper understanding of the religious practices and, as a result, become a better person. However, the two weeks of traveling the length and breadth of India increased my disenchantment and disillusionment with religion. Thanks to my 2016 pilgrimage, I remain even more of a confused atheist.

(This article was edited by Senior Editor Francesca Julia Zucchelli.)

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post A Confused Atheist’s Pilgrimage of Indian Holy Sites appeared first on Fair Observer.

Economic Collapse, Not Foreign Conspiracy Led to Fall

Khan claimed there was a foreign conspiracy to oust him. He tried to subvert both the parliament and the judiciary to cling on to power. Yet his claims of a foreign hand in his ouster appear overly exaggerated. In three years and eight months as prime minister, Khan was known more for headlines than for results. He was vocal on the incendiary Kashmir issue where he sought US intervention. Khan was in the limelight for visiting China for the Winter Olympics and for visiting Russia even as Russian troops invaded Ukraine. For all his flirtation with China and Russia, Khan did little to hurt US interests in the region. In fact, Khan was a middleman between the US and the Taliban that led to the Doha Agreement. He facilitated the peaceful takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, allowing US troops to withdraw from the region.

The real reason Khan was voted out of the prime minister’s office is his lack of competence in economic matters. Inflation has run persistently high and stood at 12.7% in March. Not all of it is Khan’s fault. Commodity and energy prices have been surging. However, Khan’s government presided over the greatest increase in public debt in Pakistan’s history. The nation’s debt went up by over $99 billion (18 trillion Pakistani rupees). This unleashed inflationary pressures in the economy and caused the economy to enter free fall.

Pakistan’s foreign currency reserves dropped dramatically. On March 25, these reserves were $12,047.3 million. By April 1, they had fallen to $11.32 billion, a loss of $728 million in a mere six days. The Pakistani rupee also fell to a record low of 191 to the dollar.

What Next for Pakistan?

After the ouster of Khan, PML-N leader Shahbaz Sharif has taken over. He is known as a competent administrator. Political analysts believe that Sharif would pivot Pakistan toward a traditional foreign policy vis-à-vis the US and Europe. His government has already resumed talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It will try its best to avail the remaining $3 billion under the IMF’s $6 billion loan program more speedily to stabilize its foreign exchange reserves and strengthen the rupee.

Political uncertainty was roiling markets. They might settle now that a new government is in charge. Pakistan faces a tricky situation, both politically and economically. Khan still has ardent supporters and the country is divided. The economy is perhaps at its lowest ebb at a time when the risk of a global recession is running high. To navigate such a critical period, a coalition government formed by an alliance of seasoned politicians might be a blessing for Pakistan.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Why Did the Pakistani Parliament Pass a Vote of No-Confidence against Imran Khan? appeared first on Fair Observer.

FO° Insights is a new feature where our contributors make sense of issues in the news.

Katerina Manoff on the No-Fly Zone Issue and More

Hi, I’m Katerina Manoff and I’m a Ukrainian-American nonprofit leader and writer and I am also a volunteer in the war effort focusing on media work and supporting the Ukrainian Air Force.

What is a no-fly zone?

We’ve all heard the term no-fly zone. You may also hear terms like air superiority or air dominance. These terms refer to the same broad concept: the idea of controlling the sky. The party who is dominant in the air can protect its own ground troops while attacking the troops, supply chains and critical infrastructure of the enemy. The other combatant literally cannot fly out because they will be shot down if they do. Hence, no-fly zone.

To gain air dominance you need the full arsenal tools, which include fighter jets in the sky and medium and long range missile defense systems on the ground. Ukraine is vastly outnumbered in the sky. Depending on how you count military equipment, Russia has anywhere from six to ten times as many air defense weapons, both in the sky and on the ground. That was at the beginning of the war. With Ukraine losing many of its weapons in battle and not really having a way to replenish those, the differential is even greater.

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Can Ukraine repel Russian forces without a no-fly zone?

The situation is pretty dire. Ukraine’s Air Force does not have the tools that it needs to repel Russian attacks, and the US and NATO are refusing to provide or sell these tools. When we hear about Ukraine successes on the ground — you know — tractors towing tanks or Ukrainian troops having higher morale or retaking dozens of villages, we have to put that into context. Unfortunately, these stories don’t mean very much in the big picture, unless Ukraine’s allies change their current policy of refusing to provide air defense support.

Why has a no-fly Zone been rejected?

I think there are two answers. The first is that it could be just another symptom of a bumbling reactive foreign policy. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been a threat for years, if not decades. The West has bungled its response to his aggression in Georgia and Syria as well as his takeover of Crimea. If we think back to Syria and then US president Barack Obama’s infamous red line, we can see this is not just a problem with the current administration. This is also not just a Ukraine problem. Rather, it’s a deeper leadership failure in the United States. America is acting based on principles of fear and appeasement of dictators.

The other answer could be that this US policy towards Ukraine might be very calculated. Washington could have made a conscious decision to let Putin slowly destroy Ukraine and weaken Russia in the process. If this is the case, then US President Joe Biden and his advisers are purposely giving Ukraine just enough aid to keep fighting and keep bleeding the Russians, but refuse any substantive help that could actually end the war and help Ukraine win.

Wouldn’t a no-fly zone start World War III?

Fears of World War III play right into Russia’s hands. If we use fear of nuclear war as an excuse to allow mass murder, rape and torture, and let war crimes go unpunished, that just emboldens Putin and other dictators to keep going, to conquer more lands and to kill more people.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been saying for weeks that if the US and NATO are afraid of nuclear war, they don’t need to enforce a no-fly zone themselves. They can just give Ukraine the tools needed to do the job. If Ukrainian pilots and soldiers are flying the planes and operating the missile defense systems, then NATO is not entering the conflict directly.

What should the West do to help Ukraine?

The West needs to figure out a way to get Ukraine the fighter jets and missile defense systems it needs. This is the only way the war can end. Current policies such as economic sanctions, humanitarian aid and military support in the form of other types of weapons are all useful and should continue. However, it is important to recognize these steps for what they are: secondary policies that cannot end the war without filling the primary need for air defense.

The current US policy is really the worst of both worlds. The US should choose one way or another. Either Washington should actually support Ukraine and provide the weapons needed to win the war, which are fighter jets and medium and long range missile defense systems. Or, if Washington is not willing to do so, the Biden administration should be honest about its intentions and not leave Ukrainians hanging, waiting for aid that’s never going to come.

(This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.)

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Making Sense of Ukraine’s Call for a No-Fly Zone appeared first on Fair Observer.

Although South Korea has reduced its prior strict contact tracing policies, the percentage of critically ill patients is less than the country’s last peak in December 2021. The key question now is what the South Korean public thinks about the government’s COVID-19 response.

Getting the Public Behind the Fight on Misinformation

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South Korea’s 2020 national assembly election was internationally praised for balancing ease of voting amid pandemic restrictions and provided a blueprint for other countries, with President Moon Jae-in’s administration largely praised for its efficient response to the pandemic. South Korea even allowed citizens who have tested positive to cast a ballot at the polls once they recovered, even if voting had officially ended. 

However, with cases rising in late 2021, evaluations of the Moon administration’s handling have soured, although still hovering around 40% — the highest in the country’s democratic history for an outgoing president and similar to his vote share in 2017. Yet Yoon and the Democratic Party’s Lee Jae-myung, both polling under 40% in the run-up to the election, declined to outline any pandemic response plan until November, when there was already a shortage of hospital beds — likely a result of the government’s “living with COVID” plan. 

Similarly, minor candidates have not presented clear COVID-19 policies. Even beyond the “living with COVID” strategies, candidates have not shared concrete plans to build back infrastructure after the public health crisis. 

To understand South Korean evolving perceptions of COVID-19 policies, we conducted a pre-election web survey of 945 South Koreans on February 18-22 via Macromill Embrain using quota sampling on gender, region and age. We asked respondents to evaluate on a five-point Likert scale the following statement: “I am satisfied with the South Korean government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak.”

We found, at best, mixed support for the government’s response, with overall disagreement outpacing agreement — 43.6% versus 35.8%. As before, perceptions deviate on party identification, with supporters of the ruling Democratic Party (DP) largely satisfied with the response (64.8%), while supporters of the main conservative party, the PPP, are largely dissatisfied (71.4%). 

Supporters of the two smaller parties, the progressive Justice Party and the center-right People’s Party, showed responses that were more mixed, perhaps because candidates had not emphasized COVID-19 policies in campaign rhetoric. Regression analysis finds that women and older respondents are more supportive of COVID-19 policies, while after controlling for age, gender, education, income and political ideology, supporters of the DP were still more likely to evaluate pandemic policies favorably while PPP supporters were less likely to do so. 

Noting this partisan divergence, we next wanted to identify whether views on COVID policy may have indirectly influenced support for one candidate over another. Regression analysis finds that even after controlling for demographic factors and party identification, satisfaction with COVID-19 policies negatively corresponds with voting for Yoon and positively for Lee. 

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However, we also found that views of COVID-19 policies largely correspond with evaluations of President Moon’s job performance, questioning whether these measures were driving evaluations of Moon or whether perceptions now may simply be picking up sentiments regarding Moon irrespective of the actual policies. Further analysis shows that including evaluations of Moon’s performance in our earlier statistical models results in the COVID-19 evaluation failing to reach statistical significance. 

Whereas COVID-19 policies helped Moon Jae-in’s party in 2020 win a clear majority in the national assembly, our evidence suggests evaluations now may have contributed to an anti-incumbency vote even as both of the major candidates lack clear policy prescriptions related to the pandemic. Regardless, President-elect Yoon will need to address a changing COVID-19 environment amid a fatigued and divided Korean public.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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March 7: Unity

Like many voices in the West, The Economist appears delighted by one of the effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The title of a current article contains the self-congratulatory message: “Russian aggression is prompting rare unity and severe reprisals.” The New York Times made the same point with its own more melodramatic rhetoric. “In a few frantic days,” a trio of Times reporters wrote, “the West threw out the standard playbook that it had used for decades and instead marshaled a stunning show of unity against Russia’s brutal aggression in the heart of Europe.” 

Unity is stunning, and The Economist’s “severe reprisals” are the icing on the cake that demonstrate the West’s vaunted ability, according to The Times, to respond “on a global scale and with dizzying speed.” So why is beleaguered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy now complaining about not getting the support he expected?

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The suffering of the Ukrainian people and their president’s complaints apparently haven’t dampened the West’s penchant for self-congratulation. Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister, writing for The Washington Post, goes further in summing up US optimism: “It’s too early to think in these terms, but a NATO that perhaps also has Sweden and Finland as members should be ready to invite both Ukraine and Russia to join.” 

It’s the dream of every politician inside the Beltway and nearly everyone in Arlington and Langley: the evocation of a new Europe enthusiastically and harmoniously united under the US military leadership. Bildt nevertheless concludes on a note of appropriate humility and even a dose of realism: “But before we get there, much will happen, little of which we can foresee today.”

Harvard University also noticed the phenomenon, which it describes as “a much-needed wake-up call for Europe.” In the interest of offering some much-needed perspective, Harvard mobilized two serious thinkers for a panel discussion. The noted theorist and professor of international affairs, Stephen Walt, argued that “the war in Ukraine has in some respects dispelled a whole series of liberal illusions that misled many people during the post-Cold War period.”

This remark is particularly apt at a time when the entire US establishment, led by a Democratic administration that has been obsessed by the Russian threat since losing the 2016 election to Donald Trump, is currently using the power of the media to recreate a dangerously bellicose Cold War atmosphere.

Walt’s analysis dares to call into question the major assumptions inculcated by US media in its presentation of the stakes of the current crisis. He unveils some of the “liberal illusions” that other less charitable analysts might more appropriately call a case of systemic, voluntary blindness. Among the illusions he cites “the idea that a major war could never happen again in Europe, and that the spread of economic interdependence and the expansion of NATO would mean that ‘eventually all of Europe would be a vast zone of peace.’”

These were essentially acts of faith shared by every administration and promoted by the massive security state and military-industrial for the last 30 years. They stemmed from the neoliberal conviction that a stable American economy required a system based on subsidizing an industrial core focused on military technology that was also indirectly coupled with the consumer market. The military side, through the global presence of US armed forces, guaranteed unencumbered access to the resources required to produce the technology. The military also served as the initial outlet for the technology’s use.

This rational system supposedly respectful of free markets that was launched in the aftermath of World War II rapidly turned into a “liberal” version of a new version of state socialism with global reach. It imperceptibly acquired the attributes needed to build a modern hypertechnologized hegemon. 

Alas, its very scope and several of the mistakes it produced along the way made the formerly invisible model of state socialism visible to critics. It became increasingly clear that the institutions of a democratic nation had become dominated by a financial and political elite. They even had a name, “the 1%.” They banded together to fuel, manage and monitor the system they had put in place. Politics was redesigned to meet their needs rather than those of the people.

Liberal Orthodoxy at the Service of State Socialism

The world has seen three contrasting models of state socialism in the past century, as well as a fourth and highly aggressive one — fascism. That one was thankfully eliminated at the end of the Second World War, discredited for providing a model that was too in your face. Fascism’s focus on military technology and the media’s role in disseminating nationalistic propaganda nevertheless provided models that influenced the other versions of state socialism. The three other more solidly built models are those of the Soviet Union, the US and China.

The Soviet model ultimately failed because it was frozen into an ideology crafted in the 19^th century that took no account of an evolving world. The American model gradually took form, initially as a reaction to the particularly aggressive version of laissez-faire capitalism that emerged in the late 19^th century. Its taming began in the 20^th century with the anti-trust movement. 

Eschewing any form of collectivist ideology, the US model subtly and nearly invisibly imposed its collectivist nature through its understanding of the power of media and the birth of the “science” of public relations, pioneered in the early decades of the 20^thcentury by Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays. These consultants worked in the darker shadows of the corridors of political and economic power. Unlike Marx and Lenin, they were cleverly prevented by their handlers from being seen on center stage as they honed the powerful ideology that undergirded the new American version of state socialism. They and their ideology remained too invisible to criticize.

The new ideology nevertheless didn’t go unnoticed. Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky engaged a valiant effort to articulate criticism of it in their book “Manufacturing Consent.” And they did so with great precision. But their thesis focusing on the oppressive power of the media at the service of a corporate and governmental oligarchy became known only to a marginal segment of the population. 

The new ideology nevertheless didn’t go unnoticed. Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky engaged a valiant effort to articulate criticism of it in their book “Manufacturing Consent.” And they did so with great precision. But their thesis focusing on the oppressive power of the media at the service of a corporate and governmental oligarchy became known only to a marginal segment of the population. The media it criticized predictably ignored it, ensuring the invisibility of the true structure of a system of state socialism. 

In traditional centralized power systems — and this is true in many nations even today — the lack of cultural influence of their media forces them to resort to direct censorship. In an evolved system in which the media has attained a superficial image of autonomy, government censorship serves no purpose because it can count on the media to self-censor. Indeed, any attempt to censor calls attention to what the government prefers people simply to ignore.

China has turned out to be a special case. With the Communist Party running the government, it is archetypically a socialist state. But it has learned some of the lessons provided by the US example, including the admiration of personal wealth stemming from the traditional Chinese celebration of prosperity.

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Because many Westerners have traditionally labeled Chinese culture “inscrutable,” American establishment strategists, attracted by the dynamics of the Chinese economy but repelled by its political culture, appear to be floundering about in their quest to categorize the evil they desperately want to see as the essence of a perceived powerful rival. It was easy for Americans to dismiss the Soviet Union as a relic of a 19^th-century worldview. In contrast, China’s state socialism is oriented toward the future, notably with its emphasis on technology and proactive concern with infrastructure. 

Moreover, in too many ways, China’s state socialism resembles the US version, which means criticizing China might invite self-criticism. Worse, instead of placing all its faith in the ruling class as the US does with its trickle-down economics, China factors into many of its policies the needs of the entire population. That, as Edward Bernays might remark, gives it a certain PR advantage.  

At the Harvard event, the Atlantic Council’s Benjamin Haddad represented a point of view more consistent with the optics of the US security state. But, in contrast with The Post’s editorialist, he noted that “something much deeper is happening in Europe that will have really long-term consequences.” He has dared to express the heterodox view that, instead of perceiving an increased need for NATO, Europe may now be calling into question its traditional acceptance of US leadership.

As such debates continue in the US, the Ukrainian people and President Zelenskyy appear to be losing patience with NATO and the US, who have expressed their undying love for the country while refusing to save it from a situation they created. They may be well placed to appreciate Stephen Walt’s observation that “powerful countries often do pretty horrible things when they feel, rightly or wrongly, that their security is being endangered.” The US and NATO are more worried about their own security than Ukraine’s. On that, they are in total agreement with Vladimir Putin.

Why Monitoring Language Is Important

Language allows people to express thoughts, theories, ideas, experiences and opinions. But even while doing so, it also serves to obscure what is essential for understanding the complex nature of reality. When people use language to hide essential meaning, it is not only because they cynically seek to prevaricate or spread misinformation. It is because they strive to tell the part or the angle of the story that correlates with their needs and interests.

In the age of social media, many of our institutions and pundits proclaim their intent to root out “misinformation.” But often, in so doing, they are literally seeking to miss information.

Is there a solution? It will never be perfect, but critical thinking begins by being attentive to two things: the full context of any issue we are trying to understand and the operation of language itself. In our schools, we are taught to read and write, but, unless we bring rhetoric back into the standard curriculum, we are never taught how the power of language to both convey and distort the truth functions. There is a largely unconscious but observable historical reason for that negligence. Teaching establishments and cultural authorities fear the power of linguistic critique may be used against their authority.

Remember, Fair Observer’s Language and the News seeks to sensitize our readers to the importance of digging deeper when assimilating the wisdom of our authorities, pundits and the media that transmit their knowledge and wisdom.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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In a new article for Foreign Affairs bearing the title, “Enemies of My Enemy: How Fear of China Is Forging a New World Order,” Beckley makes the case that having and sharing an easily identified enemy is the key to effective world government. The Cold War taught him that “the liberal order” has nothing to do with good intentions and being a force for good. Instead, it thrives on a strong dose of irrational fear that can be spread among friends.

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As the Republican presidential candidate in 2000, George W. Bush produced these immortal words: “When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly who they were. It was us vs. them, and it was clear who them was. Today, we are not so sure who the they are, but we know they’re there.” Probably unwittingly, Beckley echoes Bush’s wisdom. “Today, the liberal order is fraying for many reasons,” Beckley writes, “but the underlying cause is that the threat it was originally designed to defeat—Soviet communism—disappeared three decades ago.”  Unlike the clueless Bush, Beckley now knows who the “they” is. It’s China.

History has moved on. China can now replace the Soviet Union as the star performer. Bush proposed Islamist terrorism as his coveted “them,” but that ultimately failed. The terrorists are still lurking in numerous shadows, but when President Biden withdrew the last American troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, he definitively delegitimized it as a threat worthy of spawning a new Cold War. And now, even while Russia is being touted as the best supporting actor, the stage is finally clear to push China into the limelight.

Today’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Shared enemy:

A powerful nation whose negative image can be modeled by another powerful nation in such a way that its name alone inspires fear, to the point that it may be generously offered to governments of weaker nations on the pretext of forming a profitable alliance

Contextual Note

For Beckley, US hegemony needs China’s help. Now that the Middle Kingdom has now achieved the status of a high-profile enemy to be generously shared with obedient allies, the liberal order may thrive again, as it did during the Cold War. For Beckley, it is China, not Donald Trump, that will “make America great again.”

Some may find Beckley’s historical logic slightly skewed. He explains that the modern liberal order was “designed to defeat … Soviet communism.” If it was “designed,” what does he have to say about the designer? Who indeed could that have been, and what were their real motives? Could it have been the Dulles brothers, whose combined clout in the Dwight Eisenhower years allowed them to dictate US foreign policy? More alarmingly, Beckley seems to be suggesting that without a pretext for paranoia, the liberal order would not or could not exist.  

Beckley is probably right but for reasons he might not appreciate. The idea of needing an identifiable enemy stands as a purely negative justification of the liberal order. But Beckley has already dismissed the idea that it is all about bettering the world. He seems to underestimate the need ordinary Americans have to think of their country as a shining city on a hill, endowed with the most powerful military in the history of the world whose mission is not to maraud, destroy, displace populations and kill, but to intervene as a “force for good.”

It’s not as if social harmony was the norm in the United States. The one thing that prevents the country from descending into a chaos of consumer individualism, or from becoming a nation populated by angry Hobbesian egos intolerant of the behavior of other egos, is the ideology that Beckley denigrates but which politicians continue to celebrate: the “enlightened call to make the world a better place.” Americans would fall into a state of despair if they no longer believed that their exceptional and indispensable nation exists as an ideal for humanity.

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But recent events have begun to shake their faith in what now appears to be a manifestly not very egalitarian democracy. Increasingly oligarchic, if not plutocratic, American society remains “liberal” (i.e., free) for those who control the growing mountains of cash that visibly circulate among the elite but rarely trickle down to meet any real human needs.

As the defender of an idealized liberal order, Beckley is right to assume that, with so many factors undermining the American consensus, the cultivation of a shared enemy may be the necessary key to maintaining that order. Fear has always had the unique virtue of diverting attention from serious and worsening problems. Between income inequality, climate change and an enduring pandemic punctuated by contestable government mandates, people’s attention definitely needs to be diverted.

Historical Note

Michael Beckley is certainly very knowledgeable about China. He admires Chinese civilization and many of its accomplishments. He also believes a war between the United States and China is far from inevitable. Moreover, he is a realist. He admits that, as many people across the globe affirm, the US represents the biggest threat to world peace. At the same time, he believes “that the United States has the most potential to be the biggest contributor to peace.” He lucidly notes that “when the United States puts its weight behind something the world gets remade, for better or for worse.” But, having said this, he eludes the implicit moral question. If both the better and worse are possible, the rest of the world should be the ones to decide every time its reality is “remade” whether that remaking was for the better or the worse.

As Pew studies show, most people outside the US appear to believe that American initiatives across the globe over at least the past half-century have been predominantly for the worse. Beckley himself cites Iraq and Vietnam as egregious examples. But, ever the optimist, he sees in what he calls the ability of the “system of US alliances” to create “zones of peace” the proof that the worse isn’t as bad as some might think.

Beckley recognizes that alliances are not created out of generosity and goodwill alone. In his influential book, “Super-Imperialism,” the economist Michael Hudson describes the workings of what is known as the “Washington Consensus,” a system of economic and military control that, in the decades after World War II, managed, somewhat perversely, to miraculously transfer the immense burden of its own debt, generated by its military adventurism, to the rest of the world. The “Treasury-bill Standard,” an innovation President Richard Nixon called into being to replace the gold standard in 1971, played a major role. With the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, Hudson notes that “foreign governments were obliged to invest their surplus dollars in U.S. Treasury securities.” It was part of a complex financial, diplomatic and military system that forced US allies to finance American debt.

Beckley’s  “zones of peace” are zones of dependence. Every country that participated in the system found itself forced to hold US Treasury bonds, including China. They thus had an interest in maintaining the stability of a system that dictated the flow of money across the globe. To a large extent, that is still the case. It explains why attempts to dethrone the dollar are systemically countered, sometimes violently through military action (as in Libya, to scotch Muammar Gaddafi’s plans for a pan-African currency).

None of that worries the eternal optimist Beckley, clearly a disciple of Voltaire’s Pangloss. He believes that — even while admitting the US has “wrecked the world in various ways” — its “potential” for peace trumps the reality of persistent war and that its “capability to make the world much more peaceful and prosperous” absolves it from the wreckage it has already produced. 

From a cultural point of view, Beckley is right. Americans always believe that what is “potential” trumps what is real and that “capability” effaces past examples of incapable behavior. That describes a central feature of American hyperreality.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Fair Observer Devil’s Dictionary.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post An Expert Explains Why We Need a New Cold War With China appeared first on Fair Observer.

The statement that Putin signed with Chinese leader Xi Jinping confirms their overlapping interests, their joint insistence on the right to do whatever they like within their own borders, and their disgust over the destabilizing nature of various US military actions.

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There’s much high-flown language in the statement about democracy, economic development and commitment to the Paris climate goals of 2015. But the timing of the statement suggests that it’s really about hard power. Putin didn’t travel all the way to Beijing and Xi didn’t meet with his first foreign leader in two years just to hammer out a general statement of principles. Putin wants China to have his back on Ukraine and is supporting Chinese claims over Taiwan and Hong Kong in return.

This isn’t an easy quid pro quo, given that the two countries have long had a wary relationship. In the past, Russia eyed China’s global economic ambitions with concern, and a certain type of Russian conspiracy theorist worried about large numbers of Chinese moving into the underpopulated Russian Far East. Before Putin took over, China was uncomfortable with the political volatility of its northern neighbor. After Putin, Beijing was not happy with the Kremlin’s military escapades in its near abroad.

But that is changing. “For the first time in any of Russia’s recent aggressions, Putin has won the open support of China’s leader,” Robin Wright writes in The New Yorker. “China did not back Russia’s war in Georgia in 2008, or its invasion of Ukraine in 2014, nor has it recognized Russia’s annexation of Crimea.”

The geopolitics of the new relationship between China and Russia is certainly important. But let’s take a look at what’s really fueling this new alliance. Quite literally.

Fossil Fuel Friendship

Inside the Arctic Circle, just across from the bleak military outpost of Novaya Zemlya, Russia has built the northernmost natural gas facility in the world: Yamal LNG. More than 200 wells have been drilled to tap into the equivalent of 4 billion barrels of oil. Nuclear-powered icebreakers clear the port of Sabetta for liquefied natural gas tankers to transport the fuel to points south. Russia also plans to build a train line to ship what it expects to be 60 million tons of natural gas per year by 2030.

Russia can thank climate change for making it easier to access the deposits of natural gas. It can also thank China. Beijing owns about 30% of Yamal LNG. The Arctic is quite far away from China’s usual Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects. Yamal is also an increasingly perilous investment because melting permafrost puts all that infrastructure of extraction at risk. But China needs huge amounts of energy to keep its economy growing at the rate the central government deems necessary.

That’s why so many of the BRI projects involving Russia are centered around fossil fuel. At the top of the list is the first Power of Siberia pipeline, which opened in 2019 to pump natural gas from the Russian Far East into China. A second such pipeline is under consideration, which would connect China to… Yamal LNG.

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At the moment, the natural gas from the Russian Arctic supplies consumers in Europe. With a second Power of Siberia pipeline, Russia could more easily weather a boycott from European importers. Yamal, by the way, is already under US sanctions, which has made Chinese financial backing even more essential. China is investing a total of $123.87 billion in the three phases of the Power of Siberia project, which is more than any other BRI oil and gas investment and four times what China spends on energy from Saudi Arabia.

But these are not the only Belt and Road connections between the two countries. Five of the top 10 BRI mining projects are in Russia, including a $1.8 billion coal mining complex. China is also investing in an Arctic free trade zone and upgraded rail and road links between the two countries.

Let’s be clear: the bear and the dragon don’t see eye to eye on everything. As Gaye Christoffersen writes in The Asan Forum: “China focused on infrastructural projects useful for importing Russian natural resources, while Russia focused on developing industries in resource processing. The two sides failed to reach a consensus. Later, China insisted, as a Near-Arctic state, on equal partnership in developing the Northern Sea Route, while Russia demanded respect for its sovereignty and rejected China’s Arctic claims. They are still in disagreement despite joint efforts.”

But the basic relationship remains: Russia has energy to sell and China is an eager buyer. In a side deal that coincided with their recent Olympic statement, for instance, China agreed to purchase $117.5 billion worth of oil and gas. “Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil producer, announced a new agreement to supply 100 million tons of crude through Kazakhstan to the Chinese state company China National Petroleum Corporation over the next ten years—while the Russian energy giant Gazprom pledged to ship 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year to China through a new pipeline,” writes Frederick Kempe at the Atlantic Council. Talk about greasing the wheels of cooperation.

A Future Eastern Alliance?

Putin hasn’t given up on Europe. He still has friends in Victor Orban’s Hungary and Aleksandar Vucic’s Serbia. Europe remains the biggest market for Russian oil and gas. And both NATO and the European Union continue to attract the interest of countries on Russian borders, which means that the Kremlin has to pay close attention to its western flank.

But the Ukraine crisis, even if it doesn’t devolve into war, could represent a turning point in contemporary geopolitics.

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping share a great deal in common. They are both nationalists who derive much of their public legitimacy not from an abstract political ideology, but from their appeals to homeland. They have a mutual disgust for the liberalism of human rights and checks on government power. Despite their involvement in various global institutions, they firmly believe in a sovereignist position that puts no constraints on what they do within the borders of their countries.

But perhaps the most operationally important aspect of their overlapping worldviews is their approach to energy and climate.

Both China and Russia are nominally committed to addressing climate change. They have pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, though they both resort to some dodgy accounting to offset their actual emissions and meet their Paris commitments. China is more serious in terms of installing renewable energy infrastructure, with solar, wind and other sources responsible for 43% of power generation. Russia’s commitment to renewable energy at this point is negligible.

But both remain wedded to fossil fuels. It’s a matter of economic necessity for Russia as the world’s largest exporter of natural gas, the second-largest exporter of petroleum and the third-largest exporter of coal. Fossil fuels accounted for over 60% of the country’s exports in 2019; oil and gas alone provide well over a third of the federal budget. All of this is in jeopardy because a good number of Russia’s customers are trying to wean themselves of fossil fuel imports to cut their carbon emissions and to decrease their dependency on the Kremlin.

But not China. Despite its considerable investments into renewable energy, Beijing is still a huge consumer of fossil fuels. Chinese demand for natural gas has been rising for the last few years and won’t peak until 2035, which is bad news for the world but good news for the Russian gas industry. Oil consumption, which is more than twice that of natural gas and is rising more slowly, will peak in 2030.

Coal is still China’s largest source of energy. “Since 2011, China has consumed more coal than the rest of the world combined,” according to ChinaPower. “As of 2020, coal made up 56.8 percent of China’s energy use.” In 2020, as Alec MacGillis points out in a New Yorker piece, China built three times more power-generating infrastructure from coal than the rest of the world combined, and it continues to mine staggering amounts of the stuff. Despite all the domestic production, however, China still relies on imports. Because of trade tensions with Australia — the world’s second-largest exporter of coal after Indonesia — China has increasingly turned to Russia to meet demand.

In other words, Russia and China are positioning themselves to use as much fossil fuel and emit as much carbon as they can in the next two decades to strengthen their economies and their hegemonic power in their adjacent spheres—and before international institutions acquire the resolve and the power to hold countries to their carbon reduction promises.

Yes, other countries are slow to abandon fossil fuels. The United States, for instance, relies increasingly on natural gas for electricity generation to compensate for a marked reduction in the use of coal. Japan remains heavily dependent on oil, natural gas and coal. So, Russia and China are not unique in their attachment to these energy sources.

But if the world’s largest consumer of fossil fuels teams up with one of the world’s largest producers, it doesn’t just discomfit NATO generals and the trans-Atlantic establishment. It should worry anyone who believes that we still have a chance to prevent runaway climate change by 2050.

*[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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I’m boycotting these games in Beijing. Doing so does not come easy for me. As a life-long sports enthusiast, I have always looked forward to the Olympics. Watching the world’s preeminent athletes compete on the world stage and rooting for my own national team and others who seem to defy the oddsmakers never failed to excite me. As a kid, I even once dreamed of becoming an Olympic competitor myself. (Alas, my 1.7-meter frame was simply not up to the task of throwing the shot put or discus on the world, or any other, stage!)

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Here in the United States, NBC television is broadcasting the Winter Olympics, devoting at least six hours per day of coverage. Traditionally, its broadcasts dominate the ratings as Americans gather in front of their TV sets and computer and phone screens to watch and cheer on US athletes. I will be cheering on our athletes, too. But I won’t be watching.

The IOC’s Charter

I will not watch these games because they betray the very values enshrined in the IOC’s charter and its definition of “Olympism.” That is, it “seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example, social responsibility and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.” It further states its goal “to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.”

Based on its charter, the IOC should have flatly denied China’s petition to host the 2022 Winter Games. How could the IOC have been so blind to its values in awarding the games to Beijing? How was it possible to allow China to host the Olympic Games when the government of the People’s Republic of China has systematically persecuted, incarcerated, shackled and tortured up to 2 million Uyghurs, sterilized their women and sought to snuff out their Muslim faith? Uyghurs, a Muslim-majority, Turkic-speaking people, have inhabited China’s western Xinjiang province for at least 1,000 years.

But the suffering of the Uyghurs at the hands of an overbearing, intolerant Beijing isn’t a one-off. The Chinese have been doing largely the same thing for decades to the people of Tibet, effectively carrying out a campaign of cultural genocide.

Several years ago, the world again witnessed China’s notion of “respect for universal fundamental ethical principles” and “promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.” Beijing-directed henchmen attacked the people and institutions of Hong Kong, decimating the last vestiges of democracy in the enclave. The government has been arresting and trying any and all opponents, dissidents, journalists and human rights advocates unwilling to buckle under Beijing’s iron-fisted, authoritarian order.

More recently, the world has observed Beijing turn its aggression to the island of Taiwan, the lone democratic outpost today within China’s one-party, one-man “Asian Reich.” Taiwan presents an unquestionably complex and difficult issue. But the inhabitants of Taiwan have embraced democracy and the freedoms that come with it. Resolving Beijing’s differences with the island and its people with menacing and aggressive behavior — dozens of mass warplane incursions, repeated threats and belligerent bombast — cannot possibly lead to a solution. Rather, a threatened invasion of the island would not only likely crush its democracy, but also inject enormous instability in Asia and torpedo the global economy in a manner unseen since World War II.

To the IOC, however, none of this mattered. Its president, Thomas Bach, and even UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres traveled to Beijing for the opening ceremony of the games with nary a word about China’s abysmal human rights policies in Xinjiang, Hong Kong or Tibet. Instead, the IOC wants to see another “successful” games, which typically means an Olympics that makes money. Lots of it.

The IOC, NBC and Sponsors

Enter the American media giant, NBC. For exclusive broadcast rights to the Olympics through 2023, the network has paid the IOC $7.75 billion. That comes out to roughly $1.8 billion for the Beijing Games alone, or about 20% of the cost of the games. Tragically, revenues trump rights for China and for the IOC.

One would think that with that kind of leverage, NBC and the IOC’s numerous sponsors and advertisers — globally recognized names like Allianz, Toyota, Bridgestone, Panasonic, Coca-Cola, Airbnb, Intel, Proctor & Gamble, Visa, Samsung and others — would have stood up to the IOC, explaining the harm to their brands of awarding the games to Beijing.

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And what about NBC itself? The Chinese government has imposed restrictions on journalists covering the games. The sort of 360-type coverage that is traditionally featured in its coverage of the Olympics — not just the events themselves but also the athletes, their lives and backgrounds, the host country and its people — is being severely restricted. One Dutch journalist has already experienced China’s intolerance, having been dragged away while reporting live on camera.

Are the dollar earnings so great that NBC will sacrifice its journalistic ethics and responsibilities, all while other members of the profession suffer under Beijing’s crackdown on truth and free journalism?

China is not Nazi Germany. But Germany in 1936 was not yet the depraved hell of human suffering — the tens of millions of destroyed lives of Jews, Slavs, Roma and so many others — that it would become under Nazi rule. But we might have seen it, given the way the Nazis and Adolf Hitler engaged in over-the-top self-promotion and outward, sensational displays of Aryan superiority and Nazi rule.

The IOC, NBC and their many sponsors and advertisers have given China center stage to arrogantly parade and shamelessly hawk its own brand of unyielding, intolerant authoritarian rule. In China, the power of the state, its ruling Communist Party and great leader, XI Jinping, vitiate Olympism’s concepts of “social responsibility and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles” and “basic human dignity.”

If they won’t recognize this contemptible undertaking for what it is, I will. I will miss the world’s best athletes and the great ritual of the world coming together for 17 days to celebrate individual struggle and achievement. I won’t be watching these Winter Olympic Games.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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The Complex Role of Racism Within the Radical Right

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CVE measures have been criticized for many reasons, but the declared emphasis on preventing political violence has been crucial and justified: The only significant threat that “Islamist” extremism can pose to Western societies has been violence. However, this article is not about jihadist-inspired violent extremism. Instead, as national policymakers subsequently sought to apply their CVE strategies to the rising threat of right-wing extremism, multifaceted threats of far-right movements and challenges have emerged.  

No Thought Police

When in the mid-2010s the far-right threat could no longer be ignored, Western governments expanded their CVE programs to respond to the new threat environment. This response was guided by the conviction of convergences between different forms of extremism and governments’ intentions to avoid accusations of double standards.

However, applying such an ideologically neutral lens has hampered a holistic threat assessment and the development of effective prevention and intervention measures. In particular, the adoption of preexisting CVE terminologies, principles and programs to counter the far right has created blind spots by focusing mainly on violent extremism.

The unprecedented risk of far-right terrorism and political violence cannot be overstated, but how can we move toward a broader threat assessment beyond the focus on violence, which characterizes current P/CVE strategies in several countries, including Australia? Australia’s national CVE program, Living Safe Together, for example, was set up to prevent and counter violent extremism, defined as a person’s or group’s willingness “to use violence” or “advocate the use of violence by others to achieve a political, ideological or religious goal.” Similarly, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation recently emphasized that it “does not investigate people solely because of their political views.”

From a law enforcement perspective, focusing on violent (or otherwise criminal) acts appears appropriate in a democratic society where dissenting, even radical, political ideas should not be unduly curtailed or criminalized. However, the line between political views and advocating violence is often difficult to draw. This poses a challenge for combating (violent) extremism of any kind, not only but especially on the far-right of the political spectrum where violence against the “enemy” is often an integral element of the political ideologies.

Research on far-right online spaces, from Facebook and Twitter to alt-tech sites such as Gab, consistently finds not only occasional calls for violence, but also high levels of What Pete Simi and Steven Windisch refer to as “violent talk” — messaging that cultivates, normalizes and reinforce hatred, dehumanization and aggressive hostility toward minority groups and the “political enemy.”

While stressing the “important distinction between talking and doing,” Simi and Windisch argue that “Violent talk helps enculturate individuals through socialization processes by communicating values and norms. In turn, these values and norms are part of a process where in-group and out-group boundaries are established, potential targets for violence are identified and dehumanized, violent tactics are shared, and violent individuals and groups are designated as sacred…. In short, violent talk clearly plays an important role in terms of fomenting actual violence.”

Identifying calls for violence linked to real-life plans to commit violent acts and violent talk that advocates violence is both challenging and crucial. However, the focus on violence in countering the far right tends to overlook other threats that are specific to radical or extreme right-wing movements.                   

Community Safety

The 2019 terror attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand, by an Australian far-right extremist sent shock waves around the world, but it has had particularly severe and lasting effects on the sense of physical safety among Muslim communities, especially in New Zealand and Australia. For many, it has been a painful reminder that anti-Muslim hatred can lead to violence.

When asked about far-right activities in Australia, Adel Salman, president of the Islamic Council of Victoria, stated: “Muslims feel threatened. We don’t have to look back to the very tragic events in Christchurch to see what the results of that hatred can be.” A recent large-scale survey among Australian Muslims confirms these community fears, with 93% of respondents expressing concerns about right-wing terrorism.

While Australia has seen incidents of far-right violence in the past, none of these acts have ever been classified as terrorism. However, the reemergence of radical and extreme right-wing groups and their actions in the 2020s, while mostly non-violent, has nevertheless given rise to significant safety concerns among communities targeted by the far right. This has had tangible effects on these communities.

Our research found, for example, that far-right mobilization against a mosque in a regional town of Victoria fueled fear of personal safety among the Muslim communities. Many felt so intimidated that they would no longer leave the house alone or after dark; some even questioned their future in Australia.

Similar public safety concerns exist among many targeted communities. For example, after a series of anti-Semitic incidents, including verbal abuse and swastika symbols displayed near a synagogue, a representative of the Jewish community in Canberra stated in a 2017 New York Times interview that “For the first time in my life, I don’t feel safe in Australia. I have little children who don’t feel safe playing outside.”  

Such community concerns around public safety are not caused by violence or advocating violence by far-right networks but by public expressions — such as online, graffiti or postering — of exclusivist views of white supremacy, racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism or homo- and transphobia. These community perspectives have hardly been taken into account in the current violence-centered threat assessment of right-wing extremism and radicalism.

Mainstreaming Hatred

When representatives of communities targeted by far-right mobilization speak about these threats, they often do not clearly differentiate between manifestations of hatred such as racism, anti-Semitism or homophobia and deliberate political actions of far-right groups or individuals. For their lived experience, it seems to make little difference as to whether the abuse or threat is perpetrated by someone who is affiliated with a far-right network or not.  

When I interviewed an LGBTIQ+ community representative for a study on far-right local dynamics, for example, she noted experiences of transphobic abuse in the streets and that many in her community would avoid certain public places for fear of being subjected to such aggression. Although the locally active white nationalist group was described as holding particularly aggressive homophobic and transphobic views, the problem was portrayed as a societal one — it was not about the political ideology but the public climate of exclusion and intimidation.

This points to a second underappreciated factor in the current far-right threat assessment: its potential to mainstream exclusivist, hateful and dehumanizing sentiments. A literature review on extremism and community resilience concluded that far-right movements “exert disproportioned levels of agenda-setting power as they manage to attract high media attention through their message of fear and anger.” Christopher Bail referred to this as the “fringe effect” in his study of anti-Muslim fringe organizations in the US that, he suggests, “not only permeated the mainstream but also forged vast social networks that consolidated their capacity to create cultural change.”

The potential to spread exclusivist, hateful messages from the fringes into the societal mainstream needs to be considered when assessing far-right threats, even when there is no use or advocacy of violence. The risk of promoting exclusivist sentiments toward minority communities and fueling social division poses a significant threat to a pluralistic society, especially given that significant segments of the population already hold negative views on certain groups and may, under certain conditions, be receptive to some of these narratives pushed by the far right.

Undermining Democratic Norms

Strengthening commitment to democratic values has been a central piece in some national governments’ strategies to combat right-wing extremism. However, such an emphasis tends to be absent or underdeveloped in national contexts where countering extremism focuses on political violence. Here, the problem of far-right mobilization undermining democratic norms and processes is not a common feature in the public debate.

If it is mentioned at all, it is presented as a process of advocating ideologies that contradict liberal democratic principles of equality. Researchers have argued, for example, that far-right discourses tend to “challenge the fundamentals of pluralist liberal democracy through exclusivist appeals to race, ethnicity, nation, and gender.”

But far-right actions may also be able to influence democratic decision-making processes. When far-right groups held a series of disruptive street protests against a local mosque application in an Australian suburb, our fieldwork suggests that these protests may have influenced the local council’s decision on the mosque planning permit. The council deferred the case to avoid making a “contentious” decision, as one study participant maintained, adding that a small group of far-right protesters sought to “intimidate” councilors to vote against the mosque.

Another community representative interviewed for our study explained the council’s deferral with a reference to the previous far-right street protests: “You wouldn’t want to say yes [to the mosque application], because that’s when the trouble would start again.” The far-right protesters did not engage in a legitimate form of democratic deliberation about the local mosque; instead, their actions seemed to undermine the democratic process by creating a climate of intimidation.

Beyond Political Violence

The threats that far-right movements can pose to liberal democratic societies are complex and manifold, and they certainly include the risk of political violence and hate crimes. But the potential of the far right to cause serious harm to communities and the democratic order goes beyond the use or advocacy of violence.

Strategies to prevent and combat right-wing extremism need to acknowledge this complexity. A focus on terrorist acts and violence makes sense in the context of combating jihadist-inspired violent extremism, which has never had the capacity to threaten the stability of democratic principles and institutions, to spread its ideologies into the societal mainstream or to create widespread concerns around safety so that people were too scared to leave their homes.

Without downplaying the threats of any form of violent extremism, there is a need for more nuanced and holistic approaches to assess, prevent and counter right-wing extremism. This would require us to take into account the capacity of far-right mobilization to create fear in many parts of our communities, spread divisive and socially harmful ideologies, and undermine the legitimacy of democratic norms and institutions. There are no quick fixes, and this article is not the place to propose a comprehensive strategy.

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What is clear, though, is that the answer does not lie in the repression or criminalization of dissenting, radical political views. Instead, preventing and countering the far right should pay more attention to the concerns of targeted communities and take action to support and empower these communities. This is also related to the need for effective anti-racism and anti-homo/transphobia programs, which have been central components of government strategies to prevent the proliferation of right-wing extremism in several Western countries.

Our efforts against far-right ideologies is also a struggle for democracy — a struggle US President Joe Biden recently called “the defining challenge of our time.” Given the prevalence of far-right assaults on democratic principles and institutions, strengthening citizens’ commitment to democracy and human rights should be considered a key element in a holistic strategy to counter the far right. This would require a much stronger role of civil society actors in this commitment for a democratic culture as well as a more place-based focus on supporting local pro-democracy community initiatives.

None of these considerations are new. They have all been tried and tested in other countries, such as Germany, where the comprehensive federal program Live Democracy! forms a crucial element in the government’s commitment to combating right-wing extremism. Every national context is different, of course, but far-right threats go beyond political violence in all societies.   

*[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post A Focus on Violence Creates Blind Spots in Assessing the Far-Right Threat appeared first on Fair Observer.

Making Sense of Vladimir Putin’s Long Game

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The authors imply that the same impulses motivate the Russian people, and that the president is leading a popular movement. Nothing could be further from the truth. Putin is an opportunist, a kleptomaniac, a thug and a mafia boss. If he were leading a popular movement, he would allow free elections. But he does not, preferring killing, poisoning and imprisoning anyone who dares to stand against him. Vladimir Putin is motivated only by survival.

Restoring Greatness

The current crisis revolves around Ukraine, which Putin contends is not only an integral part of Russia but more resonantly the site of the original Kingdom of Rus and the wellspring of the Russian peoples. Incidentally, the word “Rus” is cognate with “rower” and most likely refers to the Vikings who came to the region from present-day Sweden in long boats. In 882, Kyiv was taken by Prince Oleg who established the first Rus dynasty.

This conquest is embedded in Russian consciousness, and many Russians consider Kyiv and the surrounding lands as an essential part of the motherland. However, over a long and complicated history, Ukraine has had many different rulers. For generations, Ukraine and Russia have had separate identities, and even Joseph Stalin, at the end of World War II, insisted that Ukraine was independent and should be granted separate membership with a vote at the UN. Most Ukrainians have always longed for independence from Moscow’s rule.

A stronger influence on Putin’s and many Russians’ thinking is the humiliation wrought by the Germans in 1917 with the enforcement of the Brest Litovsk Treaty. In 1917, Vladimir Lenin was determined to get Russia out of the Great War at any price. The Germans exacted crushing terms and took the Baltic states, Ukraine and Belarus from Russia. It was a disaster.

Fast forward to 2022, and the borders of that treaty are almost identical to the current borders of NATO, plus Ukraine and Belarus. If Ukraine were to join NATO (or the EU), then from Putin’s point of view, Moscow would be back at its lowest point of the past 200 years and, worse, Germany would have prevailed after all.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union still actively haunting the Kremlin’s collective consciousness — President Putin called it the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century” — many Russians have sympathy for the contention that the West has taken unfair advantage of Russia’s weakness and betrayed alleged promises made to Mikhail Gorbachev at the end of the Cold War regarding NATO’s eastward expansion. Putin is naturally determined that the final act — Ukraine’s absorption into the West — does not happen on his watch.

What is more, he thinks he has identified an emotional, nationalistic issue which he can use to divert the Russian population from his failures. But Russia is, in fact, on the back foot, trying to avoid another humiliation, not restoring its greatness.

Weakness and Decline

Looking south, Russia has lost many of the territories it gained during the wars with Turkey and Iran in the 19^th century. Armenia and Azerbaijan have not joined NATO, but Georgia would like to. Here too, Putin is trying to fend off more humiliation.

Moving east, the Taliban victory in Afghanistan is another disaster for the Kremlin. One of the main reasons, or the least bad option at the time, for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 was to halt the rise of militant Islam that threatened to infect the Muslim states of the USSR, principally Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. You can bet Moscow is worried sick about the effect on its near abroad and the possibility of the Chechens, Dagestanis and Tartars rising up again with Taliban support. 

Even farther east, Putin is on dangerous ground. Just over 8 million live in the Far East Federal District, which, at nearly 7 million square kilometers, makes up over 40% of Russia’s territory. The regional capital Vladivostok sits on land taken from China in 1860 and is regarded by Beijing as one of the lost territories, along with Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Migration from China into the region has been an issue for decades, prompting nationalist nightmares of a Chinese takeover.

Putin may be cozying up to China, but from a position of weakness. Russia cannot cope with a hostile Beijing that may eventually want to recover territory, or more. Putin may be pursuing friendship and alliances with China but he is dancing to Xi Jinping’s tune.

Vladimir Putin’s failures have led Russia into economic and national decline. The population is shrinking and is projected to drop to 135 million in 2050 from today’s 146 million. Russia’s GDP is about $1.7 trillion, lower than Italy’s and minuscule compared to the US at over $20 trillion. The economy is wholly dependent on oil and gas exports in a decarbonizing world. Moreover, it is laden with punitive sanctions. There is not one single Russian company that has any sort of global presence to rival the likes of Coca-Cola, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Volkswagen, Samsung or Rolls Royce.

Still Dangerous

Much is made of the bungled reform of the Russian economy after the fall of the USSR, but Putin has now been in power for over 20 years and has done nothing — in fact, worse than nothing — to rectify matters. Instead, he has enriched himself and his henchmen enormously. Putin is now one of the richest men in the world, with critics estimating a fortune of some $200 billion. Meanwhile, GDP per capita in Russia is a little over $10,000 per annum, ranked 81^st in the world by the World Bank, below China.

Putin has one overriding motivation — to stay in power. His crimes are so enormous that he fears terrible retribution should he ever lose his grip. Like all totalitarian dictators, he knows that he can only be replaced by whoever kills him.

Putin has to play a skillful hand. He is diverting attention to overseas adventures and playing on Russian emotions. Moscow cannot possibly hope to win a conventional war, being massively outgunned by the West. Even the UK outspends Russia on defense, and Russia’s $48 billion military budget is puny compared to the $768 billion allocated by Washington.

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But Putin is still dangerous; he plays dirty and asymmetrically, using cyberattacks, election interference, irregular forces and acts of terrorism. Even a dismembered and impoverished state can wreak havoc. Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and Iran’s missile attacks on Saudi oil facilities are recent examples.

Russia is in a weakened state and becoming ever weaker. There is no grand plan for the restoration of imperial greatness or even the USSR. The game is survival and Putin’s own skin — and fortune. The West can play this game too. We have long experience of dealing with bullies, megalomaniacs and totalitarians. China too is watching carefully, and President Xi knows where his advantage lies.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post For Vladimir Putin, Survival Is All That Matters appeared first on Fair Observer.

How Deep Are the Roots of Democracy in Southeast Asia?

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When the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) declared Min Aung Hlaing persona non grata at the leaders’ summit back in October, it resulted in the quick release of over 5,600 political prisoners. However, it also precipitated resistance to ASEAN’s plan for a non-violent ceasefire. This was characterized by the rejection of the request by ASEAN’s envoy to Myanmar, Dato Erywan Yusof, to meet Aung San Suu Kyi and other detained leaders. With more verdicts pending, what will ASEAN’s next steps be?

Bitter Pill

It is easy to berate ASEAN for its delayed response to the February coup and to what has now become a humanitarian crisis, with nearly 1,300 dead, 200,000 displaced and 3 million in need of assistance. However, the immediate move by the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom to enforce economic sanctions on Myanmar has not produced the hoped-for results.

Although economic sanctions affect many industries across the country, such as the military conglomerates Myanmar Economic Corporation and Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd, they have done little to nudge the military leaders toward a ceasefire. Instead, repression and bloodshed intensify by the day.

The inefficacy of economic sanctions is a difficult pill to swallow, but it forces us to confront two realities. First, the military leaders assign very low importance to economic growth vis-à-vis the pursuit of their political agenda. In this crisis, the main focus of the military leaders is to right what they believe is wrong, namely nurturing a “true and disciplined democracy” based on the claim that the landslide NLD win in November 2020 was rigged.

The verdict against Aung San Suu Kyi is an indicator that despite a persistent international backlash, the economy has taken a backseat and will continue to be compromised if it means that the junta can legitimize its position.

Economic and travel sanctions like those implemented by the European Union, the US Treasury, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, among others, will limit the movement of the military leaders and hold businesses in a tight chokehold. As the fight for survival continues, economic sanctions will only cause the skyrocketing of prices on goods most people will no longer be able to afford. Along with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this will only help to drag half of Myanmar’s population into poverty in 2022.

Secondly, curtailing Myanmar’s dealings with global actors like the US, the EU and the UN is not as fruitful as many would like to think. To offset the newest round of sanctions, Myanmar’s military leaders have linked arms with superpowers on the other side of the political spectrum, like China and Russia. Therefore, the remaining challenge for ASEAN is to develop a non-violent strategy that can bring a quick end to the bloodshed while making room for negotiations aimed at giving the people of Myanmar a say in their own future.

From 1988 to 2021

Despite the suppression of the 1988 uprising, when a military junta again seized power, and the ensuing crackdown on civil rights, then-Burma was admitted to ASEAN in 1997. The move was not without controversy, with continuing international pressure to make the admission contingent on democratic concessions from Yangon, but geopolitical and economic considerations drove ASEAN’s decision. Unsurprisingly, Myanmar’s accession opened a new set of challenges for the bloc, especially vis-à-vis its non-interference principle.

The policy discourages states from intervening in the internal affairs of fellow members, including criticism of state actions against its citizens, and condemns those perceived to be in breach of the non-intervention principle. It also denies support to any rebel group seeking to destabilize the government of a neighboring state, providing political support and material assistance to members to counter disruptive activity. To put it broadly, the non-interference policy means that all member states tend to take a hands-off approach when it comes to the national affairs of their regional counterparts.

As a result, one of the main criticisms faced by ASEAN over the decades has to do with its delay in interfering in regional emergencies, like the 2015 Rohingya crisis that was later identified as ethnic cleansing by the United Nations. Thus, it was only by 2005 that ASEAN arrived at a collective consensus to bar Myanmar from the 2006 chairmanship to void a boycott by the West, with the US and the EU condemning the military’s refusal to implement democratic transition and release Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who won the 1990 election but was placed under house arrest instead of assuming office.

The association’s silence on its member states has become a significant liability for ASEAN’s reputation. Seeking to enhance the bloc’s international standing and to attract financial support and foreign investment, ASEAN nations finally had a common cause to intervene for the sake of regional stability. Myanmar’s eventual agreement to give up the chairmanship that year also meant the bloc was effective in keeping the military leaders updated on its incremental steps in having a more active approach for the sake of the social and economic stability of all member states.

Fast forward to February 2021, and both Myanmar and ASEAN find themselves in a near-identical predicament. After international criticism fueled lengthy discussions that lasted over two months, ASEAN reached the Five Point Consensus as its action plan. The surprise election of Dato Erywan Yusof as the bloc’s special envoy for Myanmar outside the original list of nominees followed, demonstrating not only the internal divides within the bloc but also indicating that Yusof was the only sound choice for ASEAN to earn the trust of all stakeholders and to make decisions with required caution.

These moves show that extensive efforts have been taken in order for ASEAN to reach a consensus with the Myanmar leaders and, more importantly, for ASEAN to ensure Myanmar was still included in the process. The Five Point Consensus is a gradual strategy that offers a way for ASEAN to begin negotiations with the Myanmar military through diplomatic engagement and respecting the hard-fought national independence of other member states.

Middle Ground

To find a middle ground, Yusof has proposed measured, non-violent strategies that would begin with humanitarian assistance and policy guidance through the ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance Centre, followed by a more substantive discussion with the junta in exchange for full access to all parties. ASEAN is currently playing a calculated game of push-and-pull. The military leaders need their relevance in Myanmar politics to be acknowledged, which ASEAN has already indirectly provided; in response, the junta’s lack of cooperation and reciprocity to the consensus protocol provided room for ASEAN to plan its next step. 

In comparison to the economic sanctions, by barring Myanmar’s representatives from this year’s summit, ASEAN has taken a more calculative approach in allowing the junta to consider the consequences of non-cooperation. Simultaneously, ASEAN‘s secretary general, Dato Lim Jock Hoi, stressed that humanitarian assistance “should not be politicised.” At the end of the October leaders’ summit, His Majesty Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah reiterated that “Myanmar is an integral part of the ASEAN family and their membership has not been questioned.”

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Despite repeated urgency for stronger action, ASEAN recognizes that coercive strategies are not effective in seeking a final resolution. As much as this is a race against time, it is also unproductive to rush political negotiations that can result in more harm than good. It is clear that ASEAN has moved beyond its non-interference principle and is exercising both caution and effort as the sole moderator in this crisis. Ultimately, continuous criticism can only achieve so much.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post ASEAN’s Myanmar Strategy, Slow But Steady appeared first on Fair Observer.

In South Korea, on the other hand, the Green New Deal is a policy reality. In 2020, the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) put its version of a Green New Deal at the center of its platform. When South Korea held its parliamentary election that April in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, that platform helped propel the liberal DPK bloc to a landslide victory and a legislative super-majority. Emboldened by this victory, the liberal Moon Jae-in administration officially made the Green New Deal a part of government policy several months later.

Water World: Is Climate Change Driving Our Future Out to Sea?  

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It wasn’t the first time that a South Korean government tried to address these problems. “When we heard about the Green New Deal in 2020, I asked myself, ‘Haven’t we seen this policy before?’ We had a pretty similar policy in the Lee Myung-bak administration that was called Green Growth,” remembers Lee Taedong, a political scientist at Yonsei University. Beginning in 2008, the conservative Lee Myung-bak government had indeed promoted a green stimulus program that addressed the twin crises of climate change and economic stagnation.

For President Moon’s government, which took office in 2017, the Green New Deal was not just an electoral ploy. South Korea was facing a reputational crisis. Successive governments had stressed the importance of addressing climate change. But the country was, as of 2018, the seventh-largest emitter of carbon in the world.

“South Korea is the ninth-largest consumer of energy in the world, and 95% of that energy is imported from outside,” notes Hong Jong Ho, an economist at Seoul National University. “It has the highest nuclear power plant density in world and the lowest renewable proportion among the 38 countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.”

Contributing to South Korea’s dirty profile was its export of coal-fired power plants. “Along with Japan and China, South Korea was a lead financer of coal projects, mainly in Southeast Asia,” explains Kim Joojin, the managing director of the Korean NGO Solutions for Our Climate. “Because of abundant financing, countries like the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam had a lot of new coal-fired power plants in their future that were really straining the global carbon budget.”

Korean climate activists have worked hard to narrow the gap between the government’s rhetoric and its actual behavior. A key part of Korea’s climate action community are young people. “It’s limited how much pressure we can exert, as youth, on the government,” points out Kwon Yoo-Jung, an activist with Green Environment Youth Korea (GEYK). “But we have to communicate that we are aware of the financing of coal-fired plants abroad and we’re not proud of it and it has to stop, even though the government is not doing this in front of us but in other countries.”

Thanks to a sustained campaign of civic activism, the South Korean government finally announced this year that it would no longer finance overseas coal-fired plants. The Moon government also pledged in the lead-up to the Glasgow climate summit that it would, by 2030, reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 40% below 2018 levels on the way to becoming carbon neutral in 2050. It has also promised to increase wind and solar energy production by more than double by 2025.

One of the chief sticking points in the country’s overall energy transition, however, has been South Korea’s singular focus on rapid economic growth. In the early 1960s, South Korea’s per capita GDP was comparable to that of Ghana or Haiti and 40% of the population lived in absolute poverty. But in the space of little more than a single generation, South Korea became a wealthy country and, by 1996, had joined the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Fossil fuel, almost all of it imported, was an essential ingredient of that economic success.

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Today, the country struggles to define a different kind of economic success and a different approach to energy policy. South Korea’s Green New Deal is the latest attempt to square the often-conflicting demands for growth and environmental action. It has proved to be simultaneously an inspiration for other countries and a lightning rod for criticism of Korea and the Moon administration.

Origins of the Green New Deal

In 1998, the Kim Dae-Jung administration began to organize South Korea’s first serious response to climate change with a top-level committee on the topic and a comprehensive national plan. Not much came of it. It wasn’t until a decade later that Korea became more proactive.

Lee Myung-bak had built a reputation as the head of Hyundai’s engineering and construction division. As mayor of Seoul, he developed a new profile as something of an environmentalist when, among other things, he removed an old elevated highway in the capital to restore an old waterway. Nicknamed the “bulldozer,” Lee entered the presidential office with the potential to combine both economic growth and sustainability.

Shortly after becoming president in 2008, Lee unveiled his “Green Growth” program. “Lee Myung-bak’s policy vision was one of Green competitiveness,” explains Lee Taedong. “He wanted to make South Korea the seventh-largest economy by 2020 and the fifth-largest by 2050.” The new president also pledged considerable government funds — 56.9 trillion won or about $60 billion — for the mitigation of climate change and the securing of energy independence. Another $30 billion was allocated to creating new engines of economic growth, while $30 billion more went into improving quality of life and enhancing the country’s international standing.

The Green Growth program aimed to decouple growth and carbon emissions by reducing fossil fuel use, expanding green infrastructure and growing the economy, albeit sustainably. Expanding nuclear power was a key part of the Green Growth plan, to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and lessen the country’s reliance on imports. Nuclear energy currently provides between one-quarter and one-third of the country’s electricity.

Lee also imagined that South Korea could become a green growth leader in the international community. He attracted the Global Green Growth Initiative, an intergovernmental development organization, to establish its headquarters in Seoul in 2010. That same year, the UN organization devoted to assisting the Global South in addressing climate change, the Green Climate Fund, also set up shop in Seoul.

Central to the Green Growth program was separating growth from its usual connection to increased carbon emissions. “Some European countries achieved decoupling of economic growth and greenhouse gas emission,” Lee Taedong explains. “Those that engaged in an emission trading system are more likely to achieve decoupling.”

South Korea under Lee Myung-bak did not, however, achieve decoupling. The country’s economy grew modestly during his five-year term, but its greenhouse gas emissions also continued to rise. Nor did the Green Growth plan achieve much in the way of economic equity. “One big part of Green Growth was the aim to create jobs,” Lee Taedong continues. “However, there is no measure or report of how many jobs were created.”

Another criticism of the Green Growth initiative was all the money that went into construction projects. “We spent a lot of money,” Lee points out, “but we didn’t get a lot of environmental goods from it. For the future, we need to consider how we steer these stimulus funds to make sure that we build up real green infrastructure.”

Elements of the Green New Deal

South Korea’s most recent parliamentary elections took place in April 2020. The ruling DPK, along with its partner Platform Party, won 180 out of the 300 seats. With the Green New Deal as a centerpiece of its platform, the DPK increased its parliamentary delegation by 57 seats and gained a legislative supermajority.

The ruling party’s Green New Deal manifesto contributed to its electoral success. “The key concepts of the Green New Deal manifesto were to achieve carbon neutrality and achieve a carbon-zero society vision by 2050,” explains Kim Joojin. “It promoted market mechanisms including RE100 [a global initiative bringing together the world’s most influential businesses committed to 100% renewable electricity] and allowed more renewable energy producers to supply renewable energy to more consumers. It prohibited coal financing by public institutions. It talked about reforming the power sector and how that sector has not been helpful in terms of renewable energy deployment, which is still an ongoing problem.”

In July, after considerable discussion of the need for a pandemic-related economic stimulus, the government announced the Green New Deal as official policy in July 2020. But, as Kim points out, the new initiative was not focused on climate issues. It devoted only $65 billion to the reduction of carbon emissions by about 12 million tons by 2025. “That’s about $5,000 per ton,” he says. “The current price of carbon is $33 ton, so reducing carbon emissions was not really part of the discussion.”

Instead, the focus was on infrastructure — such as zero-energy buildings, restoring ecosystems and creating safe water management systems — as well as Green innovation with renewables, electric vehicles and other Green technologies. “My intuitive sense is that it’s really a repackaging of already existing policies,” Kim continues. “So, there was a lot of criticism coming from the public, especially young people, who were asking, ‘Is it a Green New Deal or a Grey New Deal?’”

The price tag for the program is 73.4 trillion won or about $62 billion. The funding is thus less than what the earlier administration devoted to the Green Growth initiative.

Another key element of the program is the creation of 659,000 jobs by 2025. Lee Taedong warns that the Green Growth initiative didn’t follow through on its job promises. “We don’t want to see the same outcome from the Green New Deal. If we don’t see clear evidence, this policy won’t be worth very much,” he suggests.

The Green New Deal is part of a larger government stimulus package that includes a “Digital New Deal” and a stronger social safety net. It is intriguing that the Korean government separated out the environmental component of its stimulus package from the equity elements and the high-tech digital projects. It is also interesting that, although the investments into digital infrastructure are less than half of those going into the Green New Deal, they were projected to create many more jobs (903,000) by 2025.

Many environmental activists in Korea view the Green New Deal as necessary but insufficient. Six youth organizations held a press conference two months before the government released the program demanding that the government detail how South Korea would reach net carbon zero in 2050, that it protect and retrain workers in carbon-intensive industries, and that it create a mandatory educational curriculum for climate change and the environment. In addition, the groups demanded that the government phase out coal by 2030 and increase the share of renewable energy.

When it was launched, the Green New Deal reflected only a small portion of these demands. Still, one of those youth groups, the Green Environment Youth Korea (GEYK), participated in a video commending the Korean Green New Deal. “We considered the Green New Deal a milestone,” explains GEYK activist Kwon Yoo-Jung. “We wanted our youth to understand why it was so important, to make sure that they understand that it’s a Green New Deal not a Grey New Deal.”

Korea’s Overall Energy Picture

Lee Myung-bak had hoped that his Green Growth program would catapult South Korea to the very top ranks of the global economy. By 2020, South Korea had risen from 16^th place to the 10^th spot, just ahead of Russia. The country hadn’t become the seventh-largest economy in the world as Lee had hoped, but it was still an impressive achievement.

That growth was accompanied by increased carbon emissions, which peaked finally in 2018. Traditionally, Korean economic growth has been associated with heavy industry: car manufacturing, shipbuilding, steel production. And that industry has drawn heavily on the energy derived from fossil fuel.

Currently, Korea is home to three of the largest oil refineries in the world, all located near the zones of heavy industry in the southeast: the SK energy complex in Ulsan, the GS-Caltex refinery in Yeosu and the joint project of Aramco and Hanjin also in Ulsan. South Korea also has three of the top seven coal-fired power plants in the world at Taean, Dangjin and Yeongheung. These and other facilities have helped make South Korea a leader in the production of fine particulate matter (PM) — a key element of air pollution — with the highest PM2.5 concentration in the OECD.

These fossil fuel interests form a powerful lobbying force in Korean society that has made a transformation of the energy infrastructure very difficult. “The industry-related stakeholders, including academics in government, are very powerful, their lobbying power is very strong,” notes Hong Jong Ho.

This is not just a domestic problem. South Korea has also been a key player in promoting fossil fuels around the world. Until recently, it was financing coal-fired power plants, particularly in Southeast Asia. Its shipping yards also produce many of the vessels that transport fossil fuels. For instance, South Korean companies have a virtual lock on the production of liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers, manufacturing 98% of them in 2018 and securing 94% of orders so far this year.

“The Korean Export-Import bank provides a lot of money for oil and gas financing,” explains Kim Joojin. “In fact, it’s 13 times higher than coal financing.” South Korea is no longer financing overseas coal projects, but it didn’t join the 20 countries that agreed in Glasgow to end public financing of all overseas fossil fuel projects by the end of 2022. Earlier, the Asian Development Bank made a similar pledge, so Korea is increasingly out of step with the region as well. “There’s a discussion in Korea as well as in Europe about whether gas can be considered Green, and behind that is a strong gas lobby,” Kim continues. “COP26 struck a critical blow against coal. The next climate discussion will be gas.”

Given the power of fossil fuel interests, it’s not surprising that South Korea has such a dismal record of incorporating renewable energy into its overall electricity generation. “In 2020, renewables in South Korea were only 7.2% of its energy,” explains Hong Jong Ho. “The OECD average is over 30%. Germany and the UK are close to 50%, while Denmark and Austria are around 80%. Even Japan and China are close to 20%.”

Most of South Korea’s electricity production is derived from coal, liquefied natural gas and nuclear energy. “South Korea has the highest nuclear power plant density in world,” Hong continues. “Korea is the only OECD country with over 90% of its electricity coming from the traditional three sources (nuclear, coal, natural gas).”

Moon Jae-in ran on an anti-nuclear energy platform but has since embraced nuclear power as a way to reduce carbon emissions and maintain economic growth. But nuclear energy is not carbon-neutral. When factoring in the entire life cycle of a nuclear power plant — construction, operation, transport of spent fuel, decommissioning — such facilities produce three to four times as much carbon emissions as solar panels across their life span.

Another important aspect of Korea’s energy market is the pricing. “The energy market is so distorted,” Hong Jong Ho points out. “No country in the OECD has this type of energy price system. The government totally controls the price of energy.” Electricity is generated by the Korean Electricity Power Company (KEPCO), whose six subsidiaries effectively form a monopoly and which favors through its pricing the coal, gas, and nuclear facilities. The market power of KEPCO keeps the prices of renewable energy inflated and discourages the entrance of private actors into the renewable sector.

The overemphasis of coal, gas, and nuclear also has employment implications. “If you can expand the renewable energy sector alone, we can create a lot of jobs in the coming years,” Hong continues. “Compared to nuclear or coal, the renewable sector can create many more jobs.” According to his calculations, a moderate transition scenario would create 24,000 jobs by 2050, an advanced scenario would generate 270,000 jobs, and a 100% renewable future would create 500,000 jobs. In comparison, about 490,000 Koreans are currently employed directly and indirectly in the auto sector.

The resistance to renewables doesn’t come only from the coal, gas and nuclear lobbies. Farmers are often uncomfortable with on-shore wind power while fisherfolk are often opposed to off-shore wind. It’s not just a question of livelihoods. It’s often a question of values.

“The older generation, including my parents, endured prolonged poverty in the 1960s,” Hong recalls. “Their goal was the modernization of Korea. They all know that fossil fuel and nuclear have been the driving source of energy to have the rapid economic growth in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. They are so accustomed to this idea of supply-oriented, centralized generation. On the other hand, renewable wind and solar are very different, with distributed generation and an emphasis on demand management, energy efficiency and reducing energy consumption. This is an idea very different from what the older generation has become accustomed to.”

Hong laughs when he thinks about how his parents view his work. “Whenever I talk to my parents, my father scolds me. ‘Your idea is wrong,’ he says. ‘How can wind and solar generate enough electricity to continue to power our economic growth in Korea. That’s absurd!’”

The focus on overcoming poverty, dealing with political disruptions and ensuring that Korea becomes an advanced industrialized country has meant that “Koreans generally focus on the present,” Hong adds. “The future is not something they have the presence of mind to consider. But the climate crisis is a long-term problem that requires a consistent policy to be successful.” Still, the situation is changing. “The Korean people are slowly trying to understand the circular relationship between economy, climate and jobs,” he continues, “and familiarize themselves with the virtuous cycle between climate, economy and more employment.”

One hopeful sign is a statement on June 5, 2020, from 226 local government heads — mayors and provincial governors — that declared a climate emergency and called for a transition to a sustainable society. Since there are only 229 local autonomies in Korea, this list represents virtually all the heads of local governments.

“Irrespective of political party or whether they’re liberal, conservative, or progressive, they all joined together to say that the climate emergency is a critical issue,” Hong points out.

Overseas Coal Financing

Over the years, South Korea has financed coal-powered plants in India, Morocco and Chile. But it has focused on Southeast Asia where it financed three projects in Indonesia and seven in Vietnam. This kind of financing was long considered a natural extension of South Korea’s own coal-powered industry.

But that picture began to change about four years ago. Civic pressure on industry and government was enormous. “There were ads in publications with global circulation, like one that said, ‘President Moon, is this really Korea’s idea of a Green New Deal?” Kim Joojin recalls. “And there was one in the Financial Times that read, ‘Samsung, make the right call on coal.’ There were demonstrations in front of big institutions.”

Young people were a major part of that civic pressure. Established in 2014, the Green Environment Youth Korea (GEYK) is an organization of around 60 youth activists who are working to ensure that youth are at the forefront globally to press for climate justice. In a busy district of Seoul, they participated in a campaign of chalk painting on the sidewalk devoted to phasing out coal as well as a social media campaign that bombarded key players — Hanabank, KEPCO, the Blue House — to communicate that citizens were not happy with their policies. Back in 2017, they were involved in a coal-ending bicycle trip from the city of Cheonan to Dangjin, where the largest coal plant in the world at the time was located.

“This plant was not something to be proud of,” says GEYK activist Kwon Yoo-Jung. “It was something to be ashamed of given the impact of the coal-fired plants on community health.”

In 2017, debate over coal financing began in the Korean parliament. “In 2018, two Korean pension funds announced that it would make no new coal commitments,” Kim Joojin continues. “In 2020, KEPCO, the national utility finally decided to no longer sponsor coal projects. Samsung said it would not do any more coal financing in the future. Also that year, there was a national debate around the Korean-financed projects in Indonesia and Vietnam. Those projects eventually went forward, but close to 100 financial institutions committed to not financing coal projects. Coal became a no-go zone in our financial sector.”

As part of their activism, GEYK members went to the areas overseas where the coal plants were planned under the banner, “People Live Here.” South Korean activists linked up with residents in Indonesia who were protesting the plants. “Due to the impact of the coal plant emitting so much air pollution, they can’t continue their way of living,” Kwon Yoo-Jung notes. “This is a moral question as well. Local residents had no say in the decision-making process, even though they suffer all the impact from the project. The community faces severe health issues. People are moving out of village.”

Furthermore, she explains, the coal-fired plant in Indonesia will soon become a “stranded asset,” because electricity from solar energy will be cheaper to produce than electricity from coal three years after the plant comes on line.

The pressure campaign culminated in April 2021 at a summit convened by US President Joe Biden when Moon Jae-in announced no more coal-financing projects in 2021. It was part of a trend. “Japan made a similar announcement at the G20 in the United Kingdom the following June,” Kim Joojin notes. “At the UN General Assembly in September, Xi Jinping said that China would no longer finance coal. There’s some discussion about how specific these commitments are and what they will cover, but the heads of the state of these economies were saying that coal financing was wrong.”

As a result of these announcements, “Indonesia and Vietnam had to dramatically cut their coal portfolios, especially new coal projects,” he adds.

Phasing out coal is an integral part of reforming Korea’s energy sector. The official date for a phase-out is 2050, though the National Council on Climate and Air Quality, chaired by former UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon, has recommended an earlier date of 2040 or 2045. “Five years ago, there was not much discussion of whether coal is the right thing to do,” Kim continues. “There were 11 coal-fired plants commissioned in 2016-17, and seven began construction. But then came efforts from provincial governments, and the social license of coal power dramatically changed.”

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“The reality is that our government can provide a more ambitious coal phase out, for instance, in the 2030s,” he points out. “But what’s bogging down our government is how to compensate the already made investments. The same discussion is taking place in Germany around coal phase-out, but here in Korea, at least there is practically no coal mining.”

Korea has made a commitment to net zero carbon in 2050. But with such a large coal portfolio, meeting the goals in the near term will be difficult. Cutting carbon emissions by 40% by 2040 “relies on overseas offsets and carbon sinks that are not considered policies with the most environmental integrity,” Kim notes.

With its Green New Deal, South Korea is addressing both climate change and economic equity. But the effort is not yet commensurate with the challenge. Quoting Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, a poet from the Marshall Islands who addressed the UN Climate Summit in 2014, Kwon Yoo-Jung concludes: “We deserve to do more than just survive. We deserve to thrive.”

*[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The Myths and Realities of South Korea’s Green New Deal appeared first on Fair Observer.

Japan used Taiwan during the Second World War as the launching pad for its aggressive operations in Southeast Asia. At the end of the war, with the Japanese defeated and Mao Zedong’s communists in control of mainland China, Mao’s rival, Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Kuomintang, fled to Taiwan. This put the dissident government out of Mao’s reach. Chiang declared his government the Republic of China (ROC) in opposition to Mao’s People’s Republic of China (PRC). For forty years a single-party regime ruled Taiwan following Chiang Kai-shek’s initial declaration of martial law in 1949.

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Because the United States had defined its post-war identity as anti-communist, Taiwan held the status of the preferred national government in what was then referred to as “the free world.” The fate of Taiwan — still referred to by its Portuguese name, Formosa — figured as a major foreign policy issue in the 1960 US presidential campaign that pitted John F. Kennedy against Richard Nixon. The debate turned around whether the US should commit to defending against the People’s Republic two smaller islands situated between continental China and Taiwan.

In short, Taiwan’s history and geopolitical status over the past 150 years have become extremely complex. There are political, economic and geographical considerations as well as ideological and geopolitical factors that make it even more complex. These have been aggravated by a visible decline in the supposed capacity of the United States to impose and enforce solutions in different parts of the globe and the rise of China’s influence in the global economy.

Complexity, when applied to politics, generally signifies ambiguity. In the aftermath of the Korean War, the Eisenhower administration established a policy based on the idea of backing Taiwan while seriously hedging their bets. Writing for The Diplomat, Dennis Hickey explains that in 1954, the US “deliberately sought to ‘fuzz up’ the security pact [with Taiwan] in such a way that the territories covered by the document were unclear.”

Following President Nixon’s historic overture in 1971, the US established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. This led to the transfer of China’s seat at the United Nations from the ROC to Mao’s PRC. The status of Taiwan was now inextricably ambiguous. US administrations, already accustomed to “fuzzy” thinking, described their policy approach as “strategic ambiguity.” It allowed them to treat Taiwan as an ally without recognizing it as an independent state. The point of such an attitude is what R. Nicolas Burns — President Joe Biden’s still unconfirmed pick for the post of US ambassador to China — calls “the smartest and most effective way” to avoid war.

Recent events indicate that we may be observing a calculated shift in that policy. In other words, the ambiguity is becoming more ambiguous. Or, depending on one’s point of view, less ambiguous. There is a discernible trend toward the old Cold War principle of brinkmanship. A not quite prepared President Biden recently embarrassed himself in a CNN Town Hall for stating that the US had a “commitment” to defend Taiwan. The White House quickly walked back that commitment, reaffirming the position of strategic ambiguity.

This week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken appeared to be pushing back in the other direction, threatening the Chinese with “terrible consequences” if they make any move to invade Taiwan. Blinken added, the Taipei Times reports, that the US has “been very clear and consistently clear” in its commitment to Taiwan. 

Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Consistently clear:

In normal use, unambiguous. In diplomatic use, obviously muddied and murky, but capable of being transformed by an act of assertive rhetoric into the expression of a bold-sounding intention that eliminates nuance, even when nuance remains necessary for balance and survival.

Contextual note

If Donald Trump’s administration projected a foreign policy based on fundamentally theatrical melodrama that consisted of calling the leader of a nuclear state “rocket man” and dismissing most of the countries of the Global South as “shitholes,” while accusing allies of taking advantage of the US, the defining characteristic of the now ten-months-old Biden administration’s foreign policy appears to be the commitment to the old 1950s Cold War stance known as brinkmanship.

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In November, the CIA director, William Burns, comically threatened Russia with “consequences” if it turned out — despite a total lack of evidence — that Vladimir Putin’s people were the perpetrators of a series of imaginary attacks popularly called the Havana syndrome. This week, backing up Biden’s warning “of a ‘strong’ Western economic response” to a Russian invasion of Ukraine, Security Adviser Jake Sullivan was more specific. “One target,” France 24 reports, “could be Russia’s mammoth Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline to Germany. Sullivan said the pipeline’s future was at ‘risk’ if Russia does invade Ukraine.” This may have been meant more to cow the Europeans, whose economy depends on Russian gas, than the Russians themselves.

These various examples have made observers wonder what is going on, what the dreaded “consequences” repeatedly evoked may look like and what other further consequences they may provoke. The US administration seems to be recycling the nostalgia of members of Biden’s own generation, hankering after what their memory fuzzily associates with the prosperous years of the original Cold War.

Historical Note

Britannica defines brinkmanship as the “foreign policy practice in which one or both parties force the interaction between them to the threshold of confrontation in order to gain an advantageous negotiation position over the other. The technique is characterized by aggressive risk-taking policy choices that court potential disaster.”

The term brinkmanship was coined by Dwight Eisenhower’s Democratic opponent in both of his elections, Adlai Stevenson, who dared to mock Secretary of State John Foster Dulles when he celebrated the principle of pushing things to the brink. “The ability to get to the verge,” Dulles explained, “without getting into the war is the necessary art…if you are scared to go to the brink, you are lost.” Eisenhower’s successor, John F. Kennedy, inherited the consequences of Dulles’ brinkmanship over Cuba, the nation that John Foster’s brother, CIA Director Alan Dulles, insisted on invading only months after Kennedy’s inauguration. This fiasco was a prelude to the truly frightening Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, when Kennedy’s generals, led by Curtis Lemay, sought to bring the world to the absolute brink.

When, two years later, Lyndon Johnson set a hot war going in Vietnam, or when, decades later, George W. Bush triggered a long period of American military aggression targeting multiple countries in the Muslim world, the policy of brinkmanship was no longer in play. These proxy wars were calculated as bets that fell far short of the brink. The risk was limited to what, unfortunately, it historically turned out to be: a slow deterioration of the capacities and the image of a nation that was ready to abuse its power in the name of abstract principles — democracy, liberation, stifling terrorism, promoting women’s rights — that none of the perpetrators took seriously. Threats and sanctions were features of the daily rhetoric, but the idea at the core of brinkmanship — that some major, uncontrollable conflagration might occur — was never part of the equation.

The Biden administration may have serious reasons for returning to the policy of brinkmanship. The position of the United States on the world stage has manifestly suffered. Some hope it can be restored and believe it would require strong medicine. But there are also more trivial reasons: notably the fear of the administration being mocked by Republicans for being weak in the face of powerful enemies. 

Both motivations signal danger. We may once again be returning to the devastating brinkman’s game logic illustrated in Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove.”

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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China, the Bogeyman of the New Cold War

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White, emeritus professor at the Australian National University, tends to a policy of national accommodation regarding China and its apparent inexorably growing influence in all aspects of world affairs. Therefore, he has not found a trip-wire that generates bolder positioning against Chinese activities and is unlikely to do so in the future.

Jennings, executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), takes the position that Australia needs to have trip-wires with China and that Canberra should show early robustness to demonstrate it will take action to protect its current way of existence.

Two Schools

The accommodation and assertion schools of thought both have valid components.

When China’s policy shift over Australia became publicly apparent, the accommodation school urged the Australian government to exercise caution and demanded ministerial contact to remedy the financial damage done to export income by Beijing. Negligible attention was paid to other demonstrations of Chinese influence and control exerted through Australian institutions, notably via universities, despite the strength of evidence published by the ASPI and by researchers such as Clive Hamilton in his 2018 book, “Silent Invasion.” Concern about the economic consequences declined, with exporters finding alternative markets following the May 2020 Chinese sanctions through their market adjustments. This leaves the main line of opinion focusing on various thresholds for tougher Australian policy toward China and analysis of the intent of the United States and its own ability to deal with Beijing.

For the assertion school, Australia’s policy needs to be clear and firm, with more elaborate military arrangements with like-minded countries to deter China and politically strengthen the international system. The favorable rules-based order continues to provide the basis for cooperation between the European Union, the US and countries in South and Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

With pushback against China, its approach is likely to shift from growing its appeal to pressing its influence. A 2021 survey by the European Think-Tank Network on China (ETNC) about the standing of Beijing’s soft-power and influence in 17 European countries shows that European states are disinclined to listen to China and actively deny it leverage from its soft-power investments and economic importance.

Our response to China will have to both measure against those of other international friends and press ahead where it must. But it will also draw on nationally coalescing factors that create an acceptable and comprehensible foundation for national resistance.

Australia is not mono-cultural, nor has it the satisfaction of a core religious, ethnic or aspirational identity. Additionally, it has weak internal cohesion on common values that can mobilize national efforts to project influence sufficient to comfort the country about its security.

Looking at “Sacred Values”

“Sacred values” are not only what drives people and groups into, for example, collective defense or violent extremism. They also drive people in negotiations to settle conflicts. Sacred values, those generally not tradeable against pecuniary or operational sustainment, will drive Australian policy on China. Such values include the conception of human rights, the role of the individual within society, liberty and the rule of law, and political participation in setting laws.

When asked to trade-off sacred values in a deal with a peace dividend, research shows that people typically react with a hostile “backfire effect,” plus an increased commitment to these sacred values, in addition to higher potential for protective violence or preparation for it. Researchers Scott Atran and Jeremy Ginges show evidence for this.

The role of sacred values is applicable to all regions and levels of discord and has been so demonstrated in controlled experiments. Sacred values are also layered, in that limited trade-offs for assured security can take place — depending on the nature of the threat, of course. Dismissal of sacred values fails.

Sacred values relate to group emotion and identity and are used by political leaders to mobilize their constituents to shape acceptance of policy changes and action. This point is made clear in the 2019 book by Barry Richards, “The Psychology of Politics,” which uses psychoanalytic ideas to show how fear and passion shape the political sphere in changing societies and cultures. The use of “sacred values” language also discredits adversaries during political debate. This may well later befall Australian business lobbies because sacred values arguably matter more than money.

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When our government uses sacred values rhetoric, it will incite what researcher Morgan Marietta calls a “valorisation effect,” whereby the political leader using sacred rhetoric is seen as principled and determined. There can be no other way to respond to the breadth of the challenges posed by the China issue.

Jennings says the China threat is not tolerable on a structural and national autonomy basis. White implies that the China threat is tolerable on the basis of trade, income and employment and that we should adapt to its new geopolitical environment.

This debate is not yet settled in the Australian political world. There are many other issues in play. For example, what do Australia’s Southeast Asian friends think? Are Australia’s European allies thinking along the same basic lines? But we will get to use sacred values sooner than we expect. This is because China has not indicated that it intends to cease or decrease its foreign policy activity, which is seen by many states as both malignant and dangerous.

Research on “sacred values” in political negotiations shows that a lack of outcome options, inappropriate negotiating procedures and poor recognition of emotions set in a context where sacred values are in play typically cause poor results. China’s diplomatic rhetoric and methods directed at Australia embody these factors.

How will a possible future shift in Australia’s foreign policy position, as a result of Chinese pressure, be seen by the public and presented by the political class, especially if there are sacred values involved? Nichole Argo and Jeremy Ginges write about the management of this question in their essay titled, “Beyond Impasse.”

As the China debate continues, we can ask these questions: What are the current declared values we attach to foreign policy regarding China? Are the values “today’s values” or are they values linked to future goals, thereby allowing their adjustment by political leaders in the course of circumstance? Can we concede to China on one value alone, and would doing so be a tool to protect other values?

Clarification

The Australia/China question has further evolving factors to watch. We need to observe the rhetorical framing and content of any future dialogue with China and assess this not only against our values and interests, but also against the set we assess to be held by our allies in their dealings with Beijing. How are the indicators of Australia’s sense of self and identity being used or indeed being created by our political and public leaders? In view of the world economy, our region and our needs, what appears to being traded-off in caution toward China? Is our strategy on China nationally or sectorally driven? If sectorally, what is the level of reference to sacred values in the promotion of, for example, education exports over responses to China’s territorial and political acquisitiveness in the Pacific?

So far, Australia does not have a clear path and must choose between one of two directions: trade and money or values. The choice is clarifying. The big issue for the government is to create a wider and convincing range of responses to China. To do so means consolidating a national position around how hard to pin down Australian values. This matter deserves attention. It requires the absorption by Australia’s various identity communities of a robust set of values and principles that commonly define the country and its citizens’ rights, responsibilities and expectations.

So far, the policy over China has largely been reserved for expert strategists. For a nationally effective response to the threat of an unfavorable fundamental change in circumstances caused by China, sacred values need to be found, clarified and called on as required to bolster policy resolve.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Finding the Source of Australian National Strength in the China Context appeared first on Fair Observer.

Fiji’s Women Are Living the Reality of Climate Change

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Climate change, as the skeptics like to remind us, does occur naturally. Analysis by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that temperatures during the last interglacial period, which began 130,000 years ago and lasted somewhere between 13,000 and 15,000 years, were 0.5˚C and 1˚C warmer than in pre-industrial times and up to 2˚C or even 4˚C warmer during the mid-Pliocene Warm Period, around 3 million years ago. But while there are natural processes in place, the pace of climate change over the past century has demonstrated the devastating effect of anthropogenic activity on the delicate balance of life on Earth. 

The Seas Are Rising

What is significant about the IPCC assessment is that during the last interglacial period, sea levels were likely between 6 meters and 9 meters higher, possibly reaching 25 meters during the mid-Pliocene. That may sound farfetched, but modeling suggests a 2.3-meter rise per 1˚C of warming. Globally, the average sea level has already increased by 0.2 meters since the late 19^th century, starting at a rate of 1.4 millimeters a year from 1901 to 1990 and accelerating to 3.6 millimeters a year between 2006 and 2015.

This spells disaster for the coastal areas. A study published in Environmental Research Letters earlier this year suggests that, even with no net global emissions after 2020, “the carbon already in the atmosphere could sustain enough warming for global mean sea level to rise 1.9 (0–3.8) meters over the coming centuries,” meaning that currently, anywhere between 120 million and 650 million people — or a mean of 5.3% of the world’s population — live on land below the new tide lines. 

Even if warming is kept under the upper limit of the Paris Agreement of 2˚C above pre-industrial levels, multi-century sea level rise can reach 4.7 meters, threatening the livelihoods of double the number of people, the authors assess. In 2019, the IPCC estimated that this number could reach 1 billion by 2050. The panel predicts a rise of anywhere between 0.29 meters and 1.1 meters by 2100 relative to 1985-2005, depending on emission rates. A paper published in Nature concluded that if we stay on the current emissions course heading for 3˚C warming, we will reach a tipping point by 2060, with the Antarctic ice sheet alone adding 0.5 centimeters to global sea levels each year. 

According to the authors of a 2019 study on sea-level rise and migration, rising waters are predicted to be the “most expensive and irreversible future consequences of global climate change, costing up to 4.5% of global gross domestic product.” A 2018 projection by C40, a network of mayors of nearly 100 global cities, estimated that a 2˚C rise could affect 800 million people in 570 urban centers by mid-century. As the authors of a 2021 study summarize, “Although there is large variability in future sea level projections, due, for instance, to the uncertainty in anthropogenic emissions, there is consensus on the potentially catastrophic worldwide impact of SLR.”

A 2˚C rise puts land that houses over half the population of Vietnam and Bangladesh and over 80% of those living in the island nations like Kiribati, Tuvalu, the Bahamas and the Marshall Islands below the tide line. The Maldives, with 80% of its 1,200 atolls not even reaching 1 meter above sea level — the world’s lowest terrain, with its highest elevation point of just 2.4 meters — is particularly at risk; there is literally nowhere to hide. In May, the minister for the environment, climate change and technology, Aminath Shauna, told CNBC that if current trends continue, the island nation “will not be here” by 2100. “We will not survive. … There’s no higher ground for us … it’s just us, it’s just our islands and the sea.”

Water, Water Everywhere

It is clear that Alisi Rabukawaqa, project liaison officer at the International Union for Conservation of Nature, she has given this a lot of thought. When I ask her about the reality of climate change in what many would consider to be a tropical paradise — her native Fiji — she doesn’t stop talking for nearly 10 minutes. She remembers a time when devastating cyclones were “lifetimes apart.” Now, category 5 storms are a regular, looming threat. 

“And if it’s not cyclones, it’s the drought. And if it’s not the drought, it’s the saltwater intrusion that’s impacting where people plant; and if it’s not that, it’s seeping into drinking sources and boreholes from outer islands,” she tells me from a Fiji so hot, everyone is bracing for another cyclone.

While for most communities affected by sea-level rise and saltwater intrusion relocation is still “further down the line,” traditional land ownership laws mean that you can’t just pack up and move anywhere you like, even if, unlike in the Maldives, there is higher ground. In 2017, the government’s National Development Plan identified over 830 vulnerable communities, 48 of which were in urgent need of resettlement. The plan was developed a year after Tropical Cyclone Winston, which hit Fiji in February 2016, significantly affected around 350,000 people. That is a high number by any standard; here, it’s more than a third of the population. 

“Fiji is a small place relatively, so all those things combined, it’s made us more vulnerable,” Rabukawaqa says. “In the past, it was just the issue of development, thinking of proper development, like, How do we do this right? How do you ensure it’s sustainable? Reforestation. Those seem like simpler times.”

Saltwater intrusion is what is having a major impact on the coastal community of Barishal in Bangladesh, home to Kathak Biswas Joy, district coordinator with Youth Net for Climate Justice, member of the advisory team with Child Rights Connect and the founder of the non-profit Aranyak. It was his work on children’s rights that made him realize that “in Bangladesh, everything is related to climate change.” As it exacerbates existing inequalities, driving migration from the countryside — where salinity and flooding are destroying farmland — to the coastal cities, child labor and child marriage become ever more commonplace. 

So does disease. Increased salinity has been linked to numerous problems during pregnancy and child mortality, hair loss and skin diseases, dysentery, hypertension, risk of miscarriage and changes in menstrual cycles as well as difficulty with maintaining hygiene. The deadly dengue fever, already the “fastest growing vector-borne viral disease in the world” as a result of a warmer, wetter climate, has ravaged Bangladesh alongside the COVID-19 pandemic. In a country where water is everywhere, it seems to bring as little relief as it did to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ancient mariner.

Rabukawaqa echoes this sentiment. In a nation that depends almost entirely on the ocean, the traditional and cultural relationship with it is turning from “a beautiful, loving, caring one … into one where the ocean is suddenly becoming our enemy. And we don’t want it to be that way.”

On Your Doorstep

If you think that Alisi Rabukawaqa’s and Kathak Biswas Joy’s problems are far from your world, think again. While nine out of 10 top large countries at risk from sea-level rise are located in Asia, no place is safe. Many of the world’s most vibrant cities already face a considerable threat from flooding by as early as 2030 — less than a decade from now. Climate Central, a nonprofit, has used data from “peer-reviewed science in leading journals” to map areas most at risk over the coming century. While the creators warn that the mapping is bound to include errors, its scope of doom is frightening. 

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If global warming is not halted, cities as diverse as Bangkok, New Orleans, Lagos, Rio de Janeiro, Hamburg, Yangon, Antwerp, Basra, Dhaka, New York and Dubai may see entire neighborhoods submerged. On average, coastal residents experience a sea-level rise of around 8 millimeters to 10 millimeters a year for every 3-millimeter rise in sea levels due to subsidence — the slow sinking of land that occurs in river deltas that can be exacerbated by the extraction of resources like groundwater and oil. 

Tokyo, for example, sank by 4 meters over the course of last century, Shanghai, Bangkok and New Orleans by 2 meters. The Thai capital, built on what is known as “Bangkok clay,” saw the water-logged areas it sits on drained to accommodate for agriculture and urban expansion, making flooding a recurring problem, exacerbated by a six-month-long rainy season. 

In Shanghai alone, China’s financial hub that sits in the Yangtze River estuary surrounded by lakes, nearly $1 trillion of assets are at risk as a result of rising waters, according to analysis by the Financial Times. The Pearl River Delta Economic Zone, which generates 20% of China’s GDP and 3.8% of global wealth, is one of the areas most at risk of sea-level rise. In May, China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment estimated that its coastal waters were 73 millimeters above “normal” average for the period between 1993 and 2011, with temperatures 0.7˚C above the 1981-2010 range.

In Venice, the aqua alta, or “high water,” usually occurs between autumn and spring caused a combination of tide peaks, sirocco winds and the lunar cycle. The city that encompasses some 100 lagoon islands has been threatened by water for centuries, but according to city data, Venice had experienced as many inundations over 1.1-meters aqua alta levels in the last two decades alone as over the whole of the previous century. The 2019 flood that submerged 80% of the city, killing two and causing devastating damage to historical landmarks and $1 billion of losses, saw the second-highest water level in its history.

Mozambique, with one of the longest coastlines in Africa that spans 2,470 kilometers and is home to 60% of the population, is in danger of losing an estimated 4,850 square kilometers of land surface by 2040, according to an assessment by USAID. With 45% already living below the poverty line, 70% currently depend on climate-sensitive living conditions. According to a 2021 study published in the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, 20% of the population relies on fishing as the main income, contributing some 10% of the country’s GDP, alongside 5% brought in by tourism.

Coastal erosion and increasing extreme weather events like Cyclone Idai, the deadliest storm in the history of southern Africa, and Cyclone Kenneth, that hit Mozambique in 2019, threaten all of this — as well as the country’s fragile ecosystems like coral reefs. Idai and Kenneth caused $3.2 billion worth of damage; at around 22% of the country’s GDP, that’s about half the annual budget. 

If the current projections are correct, 12 of India’s coastal cities may be under 1 meter of water by the end of the century. Mumbai, the country’s economic capital, and Kolkata, India’s third-largest city built in the lower Ganges Delta, rely on drainage systems dating back to colonial times. Consequently, Mumbai experiences floods every year these days. According to IPCC assessment, Kolkata warmed more than any other studied city between 1950 and 2018, by 2.6˚C — ahead of  Tehran’s 2.3˚C and Moscow’s 1˚C — and may see its one-day maximum rainfall rise by 50% by 2100. 

While the United Kingdom is not exactly known for sunny climes, the Albion has been experiencing record-breaking rainfall, more frequent storms and flooding, at a cost of £1.4 billion a year in damages, or around £800 million per flood, according to government figures. With the temperature already a degree warmer than a century and a half ago, storms like Desmond, which caused £1.6 billion worth of devastation in 2015, may become 59% as likely. 

In the Thames floodplain, London’s iconic locations like Tower Bridge, Hampton Court and the London Eye are at risk by 2050. Earlier this year, flooding in central London influenced Queen guitarist Brian May’s decision to pack up and leave, one of the more high-profile climate refugees escaping the rising seas.

In its latest report published in September, the World Bank suggested that as many as 200 million people could be displaced as a result of climate change, an upgrade from its 2018 figure of 148 million. The Institute for Economics and Peace put the number of climate refugees at 1.2 billion. While it is difficult to predict how people will respond to the new circumstances over the coming decades, analysis by Brookings suggests that of the 68.5 million displaced in 2017, approximately one-third was on the move due to “’sudden onset’ weather events — flooding, forest fires after droughts, and intensified storms.” 

Conflicting studies on migration flows demonstrate just how difficult it is to model human behavior in the face of crisis. But we are highly adaptable and can move relatively freely (in the absence of border restrictions). In the animal kingdom faced with loss of vital habitats and fragile ecosystems, up to a third of all the world’s species can go extinct as a result of climate change by 2070, or more than half under a less optimistic emissions scenario. It is a tragedy the scope of which merits its own elegy. 

A Drop in the Ocean

To quite literally stem the tide, many countries are adopting new technology in the hope to secure their future. China launched its “sponge city” initiative in 2015, with the aim to absorb and reuse 70% of rainwater by 2030; some 30 cities are taking part in the scheme, including Shanghai. Egypt’s historical city of Alexandria, where landmarks like Cleopatra’s palace and the famed lighthouse are in danger of submersion, has opted for widening its canals and rehousing people living alongside them. 

The Netherlands, a third of which already lies below sea level, has been building flood defenses for millennia, and now prides itself on one of the most advanced systems in the world, including the giant sea gate of Maeslantkering that protects the harbor of Rotterdam. Last year, Venice managed to hold back the waters for the first time in 1,200 years with the help of the €7-billion flood barriers that have been under construction for nearly two decades. 

Farmers in Bangladesh are turning to the centuries-old practice of floating farms, while Mumbai has been working to conserve its mangroves that can help absorb the impacts of cyclones and dissipate flooding. 

The Maldives is planning to start the construction of the Dutch-designed Floating City in 2022, a first of its kind, to complement the artificial island of Hulhumale and its City of Hope, a reclamation project that is currently home to around 100,000 people. Miami is set to spend at least $3.8 billion over the next four decades to fund storm pumps and 6-foot-tall sea walls to protect against a once-in-five-years storm surge. 

The Thames Estuary 2100 Plan has been developed to “protect 1.4 million people, £320 billion worth of property and critical infrastructure from increasing tidal flood risk” as well as “enhance and restore ecosystems and maximise benefits of natural floods” and enhance “the social, economic and commercial benefits the river provides.”

This is all good and well, but if we don’t halt the warming of the planet, all this effort will be but a mere drop in the ocean in the long run. 

I ask Rabukawaqa how she feels about all these high-tech, high-cost efforts to keep back the waters. As a scientist, she thinks technology has a place, but says that in this instance, it’s not enough: “If we are going to look for and promote new technology that only results in us mining and extracting more from our lands and, in our case, most likely our oceans through deep-sea mining, it makes absolutely zero sense.” Across Fiji, there is widespread extraction of materials like sand and gravel, as well as copper and bauxite ore, which is only compounding the existing problems. “Maybe it’s not profitable, the way we are living and moving on this planet,” she says. “We need to move slower in this world.”

The Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow — home to the Industrial Revolution — was hailed as the “’last, best chance’ to keep 1.5˚C alive.” With much fanfare and squabbling over minutiae, the summit closed with its president, Alok Sharma, reduced to tears by India’s last-minute watering down of commitments on phasing out fossil fuels. On the same day, India’s capital New Delhi experienced levels of pollution that forced it into lockdown. While it is already one of the world’s most polluted cities, the symbolism of the timing is hard to dismiss. 

Just as it is most at risk to sea-level rise, Asia — including Australia — is the world’s biggest consumer and producer of coal, accounting for three-quarters of the global total. With India setting its net-zero commitment to 2070, China to 2060 and the US announcing that it is unlikely to bolster its COP26 pledges to reach net-zero by 2050 in the coming year, it feels like a losing battle for low-emitters like Fiji and Bangladesh. Biswas Joy is disappointed that world leaders ended up blaming each other instead of coming up with a concrete plan for climate financing for developing nations. “It is not a relief — it is our needs,” he says. “We are not begging.”

“We deserve to continue to exist. But our existence really depends on everyone in the world coming to agree,” echoes Rabukawaqa. Both feel that their futures have been traded for profit margins. With just three Pacific Island leaders present in Glasgow vis-à-vis over 500 fossil fuel industry representatives, it is an unsurprising sentiment.

According to Climate Action Tracker (CAT), the Glasgow agreement has left a major credibility gap, with the planet still on course to produce twice as many emissions by 2030 as are necessary to keep the temperature rise below 1.5˚C. Without long-term target amendments, CAT calculates that we are on course for a 2.4˚C increase by the end of the century based on pledges alone. Projected warming under current policies is 2.7˚C. The most optimistic scenario, if all pledges are implemented, still has us on course for 1.8˚C by 2100. 

Does all this mean that our future is out at sea? Both Biswas Joy and Rabukawaqa are hopeful. There were good things that came out of COP26, like the deforestation pledge and the fact that decades of activism by small island nations — or large ocean states, as they like to call themselves, Rabukawaqa jokes — have finally moved the needle on fossil fuels. Biswas Joy plans to continue his activism — and vote, when he is finally old enough. “Tomorrow, we come in, we try again,” says Rabukawaqa. “It’s big work.” But for her, “Optimism is not a choice. We have to do this.” She laughs, contagiously.   

*[Correction: An earlier version of this piece stated that Cyclone Idai alone caused $3.2 billion worth of damage in Mozambique in 2019. This article was updated at 16:45 GMT on December 13, 2021.]

*[With thanks to Oliver Matikainen for his help with fact-checking the article.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Water World: Is Climate Change Driving Our Future Out to Sea?   appeared first on Fair Observer.

These sanctions have contributed to isolating North Korea from the rest of the world. The country has not entirely welcomed this isolation. Despite longstanding suspicions of outside influences, Pyongyang has shown considerable interest in engaging with the West and with the global economy more generally. Economic sanctions have severely limited this interaction.

It’s Time to Act, Not React, on North Korea

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There is currently little political support in the United States for lifting sanctions against North Korea. Despite claims to the contrary, the Biden administration has settled into the same de facto policy of “strategic patience” adopted by the Obama administration. The new administration has not even reversed the Trump administration’s redesignation of North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism.

In general, the US views economic sanctions as a tool of leverage to bring North Korea back to the negotiations table around its nuclear weapons program. The experience with Iran, for instance, suggests that if the pain of economic sanctions proves sufficiently high, a country will be more willing to restrict its nuclear program. Sanctions can then be reduced in a phased manner as part of a nuclear deal like the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

But economic sanctions haven’t played that role with North Korea. They didn’t deter Pyongyang from pursuing a nuclear weapons program, nor have they been subsequently responsible for pushing it toward denuclearization. Unlike Iran, North Korea has been under sanctions for nearly its entire existence and it doesn’t have a strong international economic presence that can be penalized. It has been willing to suffer the effects of isolation in order to build what it considers to be a credible deterrence against foreign attack.

US sanctions policy has demonstrably failed. Is a more credible policy possible or likely?

The Range of Sanctions

There is some controversy over whether North Korea is the most sanctioned country in the world or only the fifth on the list. This debate, stimulated by a report by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, has revolved around a single point. If North Korea isn’t the most sanctioned country in the world, then there is room to apply even more sanctions against it.

Even if the US and North Korea have practically no interaction — no diplomatic relations, no commerce, few informal ties — some political actors in Washington would still like to pile on additional sanctions against Pyongyang. It’s unclear what purpose these additional sanctions would serve: purely punitive, one more stick to push Pyongyang back to negotiations, or an effort to precipitate some form of regime change.

Before addressing the utility of the current sanctions regime, let’s take a look at the different categories of prohibitions that the US and the United Nations have adopted against North Korea. In addition, South Korea, Japan, Australia and the European Union have imposed their own sanctions against the country.

Economic sanctions against North Korea cover trade, finance, investment and even North Korean workers in foreign countries. The earliest of these were imposed by the United States after the Korean War of 1950-53, when Washington imposed a total trade embargo on North Korea and also froze all North Korean holdings in the United States. In the 1970s, the US tightened these restrictions by prohibiting the import of any agricultural products that contained raw material from North Korea. The United States also prohibits any exports to North Korea if they contain more than 10% of US-sourced inputs. There are some minor humanitarian exemptions to these sanctions.

Between 2004 and 2019, in the wake of the failed Agreed Framework of the Bill Clinton era, Congress passed eight bills that further restricted economic and financial interactions with North Korea. On the financial side, the US has effectively blocked North Korea from participating in the American financial system but more importantly from engaging in any dollar-based transactions. Secondary sanctions target any countries that conduct business with North Korea, which further limits the country’s access to the global economy.

Because North Korea remains on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, it does not enjoy sovereign immunity from prosecution for certain acts such as torture and extrajudicial killing. The United States is further obligated by the stipulations of this regulation to oppose any effort by North Korea to join the IMF or World Bank.

A rather lengthy list of individuals and entities have been singled out for sanctions, from high-level officials and directors of banks to trading and shipping companies to specific vessels and even non-Korean business people.

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The United States is not alone in imposing sanctions against North Korea. The UN Security Council has passed about a dozen unanimous resolutions that ban trade in arms, luxury goods, electrical equipment, natural gas and other items. Other sanctions impose a freeze on the assets of designated individuals and entities, prohibit joint ventures with these prohibited entities and restrict cargo trade with North Korea.

Japan has also imposed sanctions, largely as a result of North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests. “These measures freeze certain North Korean and Chinese assets, ban bilateral trade with North Korea, restrict the entry of North Korean citizens and ships into Japanese territory, and prohibit remittances worth more than $880,” reports Eleanor Albert.

South Korea, Australia and the EU also maintain their own sanctions against the country.

The Problems With Sanctions

Regardless of whether North Korea is in fact the most heavily sanctioned country in the world or whether there is room to levy even more sanctions against Pyongyang, the obvious conclusion is that sanctions have not worked to change the country’s behavior. If anything, sanctions have achieved the opposite effect.

In the face of a hostile international community, North Korea became ever more convinced of the necessity of building a nuclear weapons program. Once it acquired those weapons, it has decided that they represent the single most important deterrent against foreign intervention. On the economic front, North Korea has forgone the benefits of formal participation in the global economy and has developed various strategies to raise capital through black-market and grey-market activities.

North Korea also routinely evades sanctions. On the energy front alone, according to Arms Control Today’s coverage of a UN assessment, “In the first nine months of 2020, North Korea ‘exceeded by several times’ the annual 500,000-barrel cap on sanctioned imports by receiving at least 121 shipments of refined petroleum products. The panel also found that North Korea exported 2.5 million tons of coal during the same months via at least 400 shipments through Chinese territorial waters.”

The dream of a “perfect sanctions regime” that chokes off all economic interactions with North Korea is illusory as long as there are actors willing to engage the country. China, because it does not want a collapsing nuclear power on its borders, is willing to keep its fraternal ally on life support. Despite this design flaw, sanctions advocates are always coming up with a better mousetrap. They offer “smart sanctions” and “targeted sanctions” to direct punitive measures at those in power. They propose new enforcement mechanisms, like the Proliferation Security Initiative, to ensure more effective implementation of sanctions. These are often very sophisticated initiatives. But still, the mouse avoids the mousetrap.

The expectation that North Korea will eventually surrender its nuclear program or experience some form of regime change also flies in the face of the evidence of 70 years of experience. If North Korea has defied these expectations for seven decades, why should we expect that capitulation is right around the corner?

Not only have sanctions failed to achieve their intended effect — a non-nuclear North Korea, a more law-abiding regime — they have produced the opposite. In addition to acquiring nuclear weapons, North Korea has been forced to rely on obviously illegal means to generate funds — smuggling, counterfeiting, traffic in illegal products. It has further concentrated power in the military. It has been further cut off from international contacts that could potentially expose the country to other ideas and practices. The result has been a much more isolated, parochial, defensive, militaristic country.

Sanctions, in other words, have produced a vicious circle. The tighter the sanctions, the more North Korea becomes a country that requires sanctioning.

The current US approach is transactional. If North Korea promises in negotiations to behave a certain way and then follows through on its promises, the US will reduce sanctions. On several occasions, this approach has produced certain results. The US lifted certain sanctions as part of the Agreed Framework in the 1990s, then as part of the six-party talks in the 2000s. But any progress along these lines was eventually reversed.

It’s not that the logic of this transactional approach is flawed. Rather, there is a deep divide between the United States and North Korea that renders such an approach problematic.

First, there is a profound asymmetry. US sanctions policy is directed by a number of different actors — the president, Congress, the Treasury Department. And some of these sanctions follow from or otherwise contribute to international sanctions, requiring different authority for their suspension.

But North Korea is extremely hierarchical. The leader has unilateral authority to direct policy, even overruling the military if necessary (as was the case, for instance, in the promotion of the Kaesong Industrial Complex over military objections that the territory was strategic in nature and should not be given over to an inter-Korean economic project). The United States must abide by the legal requirements embedded in sanctions policy and legislation; the North Korean leader can, with a simple edict, create the law.

Second, there is a gap of trust between the two countries. Both sides have made promises that the other side argues have not been upheld. This makes any future promises that much more difficult to be believed. North Koreans generally don’t appreciate the disputes that arise between the executive and legislative branches in the United States — as they did over the implementation of the Agreed Framework provisions in the 1990s — and view the breach to be a result of bad faith rather than politics.

Third, there are certain assumptions in the transactional approach that are not shared. Essentially, the US views North Korea as a mule that can be pushed one way or another through a policy of “carrots and sticks.” Sanctions are a big stick; removal of sanctions is a big carrot.

But North Korea views itself as an autonomous, independent actor. Self-determination is one of the most important elements of the country’s ruling philosophy. It does not look kindly upon foreign entities that treat it as an unreasonable animal that must be pushed and pulled. The transactional nature of the negotiations around the country’s nuclear program fails to take into account this fiercely independent approach.

Beyond Sanctions

It is not easy to do away with US sanctions against North Korea. As Jessica Lee points out in an article for The Diplomat, “none of the economic sanctions against North Korea have a sunset clause, so they are difficult to amend or remove.” Presidential waivers are possible, but presidents are generally reluctant to invoke such waivers because of congressional pushback and the generally negative perception of North Korea in US public discourse.

The most immediate task is to consider a range of exemptions to the current sanctions to ensure that the international community can help avert a humanitarian disaster in North Korea. Even the UN special rapporteur on North Korean human rights, Tomas Ojea Quintana, has argued for such a relaxation of the sanctions regime in order to safeguard the livelihoods of ordinary citizens.

Beyond the humanitarian crisis, however, the US should consider more radical approaches to North Korea that go beyond sanctions.

Donald Trump, the former US president, was willing to consider this more radical approach, in part because he was more taken with grand gestures and foreign policy spectacles than with day-to-day political calculations. He attempted the top-down approach of engaging directly with Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader. But Trump frankly didn’t understand the terms of engagement and, when frustrated by North Korea’s apparent lack of reciprocity, fell back on the default policy of applying even more sanctions. The virtue of Trump’s approach was that it established, at least on the surface, a measure of symmetry between the two sides: two “deciders” sweeping aside the procedural requirements to hammer out a deal. But, in the end, Trump wasn’t willing to abandon the underlying carrot-stick mentality.

No US administration has seriously considered the “Chinese option” of undertaking a break-through agreement with North Korea comparable to the Nixon-Kissinger approach of the 1970s. Such an approach would reduce and eventually eliminate economic sanctions in order to facilitate North Korea’s engagement with the global economy in the expectation that it will become a more responsible global actor, which China has in fact become (certainly in comparison to its Cultural Revolution days). Constrained by the rules of the global economy, nudged away from illegitimate and toward legitimate economic activities, and cognizant of the importance of preserving new trade ties, North Korea would still possess weapons of mass destruction — as well as a considerable conventional military — but would be less likely to consider using them.

The US took such a radical move with China in the 1970s in order to gain a geopolitical edge with the Soviet Union. It could do the same with North Korea today in order to gain some leverage over China.

The major objection, of course, is that the US would unilaterally give up a powerful tool of influence by removing sanctions on North Korea. But, as has been detailed above, sanctions haven’t been effective. Instead of more coercive sticks, perhaps the United States should consider better carrots.

To persuade North Korea to reduce its nuclear weapons program, the US should consider offering something akin to the Agreed Framework but substituting renewable energy for the civilian nuclear power plants of that deal. With Chinese and South Korean cooperation, the US could offer to help North Korea leapfrog to an entirely different economy independent of fossil fuels. It was, after all, the huge jump in energy prices in the late 1980s and early 1990s that helped to precipitate North Korea’s agricultural and industrial collapse, from which it has never really recovered. A new energy grid that eliminates the country’s dependency on imported energy would be of great interest to the leadership in Pyongyang.

The current standoff between North Korea and the rest of the world is based on two fundamental misconceptions. North Korea believes that its nuclear weapons program provides it with long-term security. And the rest of the world believes that economic sanctions will eventually force North Korea to give up that program. The two misconceptions have generated a series of failed agreements and failed negotiations.

The US, in particular, must consider instead a different kind of approach based not on bigger sticks, but better carrots that can give North Korea what it really wants: engagement with the global economy on its own terms based on a stronger and more self-sufficient domestic economy. A more prosperous North Korea that is no longer backed into a corner would be a benefit to its own citizens, to the overall security of the Korean Peninsula and to the international community more generally.

*[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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Uncertain Times in a World Without American Hegemony

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The central message of “The Limits to Growth,” the result of the work of an international team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is that “The earth’s interlocking resources — the global system of nature in which we all live — probably cannot support present rates of economic and population growth much beyond the year 2100, if that long, even with advanced technology.”  

Common But Differentiated Responsibilities

Fast forward four decades, and nothing has fundamentally changed. Quite the contrary: The dramatic rise of China over the past 30 years is to a large extent owed to spectacular growth rates. According to Professor Richard Holden at the University of New South Wales, from the early 1980s to today, “China’s annual GDP has grown from US$361 billion to US$14,720 billion. That’s a nearly 41-fold increase, or a rate of 13.2% a year. Over the same period the US economy grew from US$5.96 trillion to $20.94 trillion, a growth rate of 4.3%.”

One of the most important consequences of economic growth has been a substantial reduction in the number of poor. In fact, comparative studies on inequality by Branko Milanovic and others show a significant decline in global and between-country inequality. This is to a large extent the result of the rise of China.

As the authors of a recently published study note, the decline in global inequality “is mainly due to fast economic growth in China, which has progressively approached the global mean in income. This has narrowed inequalities between countries by significantly improving the living conditions of hundreds of millions of people.”

At the same time, however, poverty persists in many parts of the developing world. And if Jason Hickel, the noted author of “The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions,” is right, this is unlikely to fundamentally change in the near future. Hickel’s assessment is rather disheartening. Taking living on $1.25 a day as an “aspirational target,” he concludes that it would take a century to eradicate poverty at current rates.

At a “more realistic — but still very low — $5 a day,” it would take “an epochal 207 years to eradicate it.” If this is not depressing enough, Hickel notes that reaching the $5 target would mean that “global GDP would have to increase 175 times.” So much for the limits to growth.

Hickel’s argument is all about inequality and the fundamental unfairness and injustice inherent in the international system. Nowhere is this most evident today than when it comes to climate change and global warming. In a 2020 study, Hickel analyzes a wealth of data to quantify national “contributions” to cumulative CO2 emissions “in excess of the planetary boundary” defined as 350 ppm; last year, emissions stood at over 412 ppm.

The findings are striking. As of 2015, the global north was responsible for 92% of emissions. China certainly has a point when it insists on the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective responsibilities” enshrined in the UN Convention on Climate Change.

Hickel’s approach is grounded in the principle of “equal per capita access to the atmospheric commons.” This is one of the main principles behind the notion of climate justice. Climate justice concerns both the question of responsibility for climate change and its impact on different, particularly underprivileged and vulnerable populations, such as the poor, the elderly and women. As UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has noted, “as is always the case, the poor and vulnerable are the first to suffer and the worst hit.”

Treadmill of Production

This brings us back to The Limits of Growth. Its central idea is the recognition that the assumption of the limitless potential for economic growth, which informs both market liberalism and Marxist materialism, is a highly dangerous chimera that needs to be abandoned. Unfortunately, this idea never gained much traction — and that is putting it mildly. Instead, growth continues to be propagated as a panacea, nowadays in sustainability garbs.

Richard Holden’s article on the slowing down of China’s growth rate makes the point, noting the importance of the Chinese market for the country down under: “The more China’s per capita GDP grows, the greater its demand not just for iron ore and coal but also wine, lobsters, beef, education and overseas holidays.”

In a similar vein, a recent Bloomberg article focusing on the repercussions of China’s falling birthrate stated: “To ensure economic growth doesn’t slow in line with the population drag, Beijing will need to undertake a challenging shift in its growth model, rapidly increasing spending on pensions and health care while maintaining a high-level of corporate and state investment in order to upgrade its vast industrial sector.” In this way, China would be able “to propel global demand for commodities in the coming decades, while its gray consumers become a vast market for multinationals, with a huge pool of pension savings targeted by global finance companies.”

This is what it means to be caught in what Dean Curran, from the University of Calgary, calls the “treadmill of production” — a state where the “constant search for economic growth leads to advanced economies being stuck on a ‘treadmill,’ where their well-being is not improved by economic growth, yet the impacts of this pursuit of growth causes massive, unsustainable environmental damages.” It follows the same logic that has informed the message propagated by advanced northern capitalist countries for decades, and which, these days, makes China an attractive model for a growing number of developing countries.

Yet, as Hickel notes, today, China is on the brink of surpassing its “fair share” boundary and is well on its way to becoming a net contributor to climate breakdown.

There is widespread agreement — at least among ecologically-minded scientists — that economic growth is among the major causes of global emissions and, consequently, climate change. In fact, in its 2014 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated as much when it noted that between 2000 and 2010, the contribution of economic growth to CO2 emission had “risen sharply.” A scientific study from the same year put it rather laconically: “higher growth rates yield higher emissions.”

A Message No One Wants to Hear

This is, of course, a message nobody wants to hear if for no other reason than that it calls into question the whole development paradigm and, with it, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, which, as Aisha and Partha Dasgupta have provocatively put it, are “in all likelihood unsustainable.”

The focus of the Gupta study is population growth, a second factor few are prepared to raise these days. And for good reasons. As Greenpeace has rightly charged, more often than not, what drives “overpopulation narratives” is nothing more than thinly disguised racism: “Most population control arguments focus on developing countries with negligible environmental impacts, rather than affluent white countries — which upholds white supremacy.”

While true, this argument fails to take into account the dynamics set in motion by the success of the Chinese model and its attraction in developing countries. This model, however, is unsustainable. A recent study by Swiss Re, the world’s second-largest reinsurance company based in Zurich, makes the point. Business as usual, meaning no significant actions taken to drastically curb emissions, would mean that by the mid-century, China’s GDP would fall by a quarter, the US and Europe would see a 10% decline and global output would drop by 18% as a result of climate change.

Growth and development are to a large extent dependent on energy. Energy, in turn, comes to a large extent from fossil fuels, such as natural gas, oil and particularly coal. In China alone, since the beginning of the new millennium, coal production increased three-fold, reaching around 4 billion tons. In fact, this year, coal production is expected to reach a historic high, and it’s unlikely to reverse in the immediate future, resulting in a further increase in the country’s contribution to global warming.

In fact, between 1988 and 2015, emissions from the Chinese coal sector accounted for more than 14% of global industrial greenhouse gas emissions. India, another developing country relying on coal for energy, accounted for less than 2% percent. No wonder India insisted at the recent COP26 summit in Glasgow on watering down the language on coal, changing from “phasing out” to “phasing down.”

Catching up requires growth; growth, in turn, adds to emissions. The case of African development provides a drastic illustration of the resulting dilemma. Projections are that by 2050, the population of sub-Saharan Africa will have doubled. According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the dramatic increase in the size of the working-age population in the region creates “an opportunity for accelerated economic growth thanks to a favourable population age distribution. To benefit from this ‘demographic dividend’, governments should invest in education and health, especially for young people, and create conditions conducive to sustained economic growth.”

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On the basis of the projection of population growth in sub-Saharan Africa by 2100 — a 3-billion increase — the Dasgupta study illustrates what it would entail raising incomes there to the current global average income of 15,000 international dollars: “an increase in the region’s annual output from 3.5 to 60 trillion dollars.”

Garrett Hardin’s 1968 article on the “tragedy of the commons,” or the conflict between the individual and the collective, is among the most cited in the social sciences. Hardin wrote that “it is clear that we will greatly increase human misery if we do not, during the immediate future, assume that the world available to the terrestrial human population is finite.” The immediate future is now. The lesson, however, has still not sunk in. Or, perhaps, it has — and it’s just too painful to digest.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post What No One Wants to Hear About Growth appeared first on Fair Observer.

The choice is straightforward. Boycotting the Games in Beijing offers a rare, peaceful and relatively painless opportunity to send an unmistakable signal of disapproval to the Chinese elite, the people and the world at large.

China, the Bogeyman of the New Cold War

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In 1979, the city of Philadelphia entered a sister city relationship with Tianjin, China. Things have changed since those heady days for US-China relations, when every concession was offered to induce a weak, isolated and impoverished China to join the community of nations that abide by the rules of international law, trade and commerce. At the time, the hope was that China would introduce reforms and liberalize its economy and polity.

This turned out to be wishful thinking. Rulers of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have shown time and again that their main interest is strengthening their rule, revising the international order in their favor, suppression at home and aggression abroad.

Sounding the Alarm

Finally paying heed to the mounting evidence of an aggressive China bent on global dominance, the US administrations led by Donald Trump and Joe Biden labeled China the number-one national security threat. 

China’s actions and ambitions alarm and unite an otherwise deeply polarized US Congress. Growing numbers of China’s neighbors and other countries around the world are joining hands to reduce Beijing’s malign influence on international institutions before it is too late. As Senator Jim Risch, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in March, “The Chinese Communist Party presents an unprecedented threat to not only U.S. values and interests, but also to the free and open international system characterized by individual freedom and the rule of law — something the United States has carefully built over seven decades.”

So, it is interesting that on October 27, a hundred days before the start of the Winter Olympics in February, China’s consul general in New York, Huang Ping, took out a full-page ad in the Philadelphia Inquirer (“Together for a Shared Future”) and the deputy consul general, Qian Jin, wrote a letter to the editor (“Meet in Beijing for 2022 Winter Olympics”). It is a safe bet that other major American news outlets also received similar appeals to boost awareness and attendance at the upcoming Games.

From 1936 to 2022

China’s anxiety to host a successful Winter Olympics is understandable. Consider the 1936 Summer Olympics, which was awarded to Germany in 1931, two years before Adolf Hitler rose to power. Predictably, Nazi Germany used the Games for propaganda purposes, promoting an image of a new, strong, united Germany while masking the regime’s policies of racial supremacy, anti-Semitism and growing militarism.

Eager to impress, Hitler built a new 100,000-seater, track-and-field stadium and six gymnasiums. In the tense, politically charged atmosphere of 1936, the International Olympic Committee, fearing a mass boycott, pressed the German government and received assurances that qualified Jewish athletes could participate and that the Games would not be used to promote Nazi ideology. (These assurances, of course, were largely ignored.) The boycott movement narrowly failed, handing Hitler his propaganda coup and legitimizing his regime domestically and internationally, with 49 nations participating.

China would like to enjoy similar success, hoping that the world will focus on the shiny object (12 new competition venues) and ignore the brutality of the CCP’s single-party rule. But objections are being raised.

On July 27, the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China held a hearing on corporate sponsorship of the Games, questioning representatives from Airbnb, Coca-Cola, Intel, Visa and Procter & Gamble. Senator Jeff Merkley, the commission’s chair, said, “Holding the 2022 Winter Olympics in China and allowing its authoritarian government to reap the rewards in its prestige and propaganda of hosting this globally-beloved event does not uphold the Olympic spirit.” Merkley is right.  

China Will Not Cooperate

Still, some argue that engagement with China is the best path forward and that we need Beijing’s cooperation on issues of mutual interest, such as pandemic control and climate change. The folly of this view is exposed by China’s stonewalling of an independent investigation into the origins of COVID-19; Beijing refuses to provide samples, records, and personnel. Hopes of figuring out how to prevent future, potentially even more catastrophic pandemics remain just that: hopes.

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Likewise, do not expect help on climate change from China, the world’s biggest polluter. Voicing his opposition to the US strategy of competing with China in some areas but keeping an “oasis” for climate cooperation, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said, “surrounding the oasis is a desert, and the oasis could be desertified very soon.” In other words, even on a matter as fundamental as the planet’s future, China intends to push forward with its Sinocentric worldview, no matter the consequences for humanity’s welfare.

The fact is that the CCP has used China’s immense economic, technological, military and diplomatic power not in ways that help its 1.4 billion citizens achieve political freedom or to work constructively with other countries. Beijing intends to perpetuate the CCP’s single-party rule, violate international agreements (the takeover of Hong Kong) and laws (militarization of the South China Sea), commit atrocities in Xinjiang, bully Taiwan and export to other countries its toxic surveillance-state model of controlling its own citizens.

We must not repeat the tragic mistake of 1936. We must deny the CCP the undeserved honor of hosting the Games. We must demand a boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Why Democratic Nations Must Boycott the Beijing Winter Olympics appeared first on Fair Observer.

COP26: Can People Power Save the World?

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The impacts of climate change are no longer just an environmental or political issue but also a complex social problem with immense repercussions for the well-being of women, girls and marginalized groups who already face injustices due to gendered power dynamics and a lack of control over the use of resources. Studies have found that women and girls are 14 times more likely to die or be injured than men due to a natural disaster. They are subject to a number of secondary impacts, including gender-based violence, loss of economic opportunities and increased workloads.

Knowledge and Understanding

Not only are women more affected by climate change than men, but they also play a crucial role in climate change adaptation and mitigation. Women have the knowledge and understanding of what is needed to adapt to changing environmental conditions and to come up with practical solutions.

But their knowledge and expertise are still largely untapped resources. Restricted land rights, lack of access to financial resources, training and technology, as well as limited access to political decision-making, often prevent them from playing a full role in building resilience in the face of climate change and other environmental challenges.

Wealthier nations, which have often used colonialism, territorialism and capitalism as means of defining progress, have caused irreversible damage to the environment, largely contributing to the deterioration of climate worldwide. Today, the Pacific Islands may be a group of nations most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, with some facing possible obliteration.

In 2021, as the fear and uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to be the biggest immediate threat facing the global community, the Pacific region was not spared from catastrophic climatic events. The year began with tropical cyclone Zazu affecting American Samoa, Samoa, Niue and Tonga, and tropical cyclone Yasa landing in Fiji and Vanuatu within the span of a week.

The Pacific is most definitely experiencing more frequent and intense cyclones than ever recorded. For example, Yasa became the most powerful tropical cyclone of 2020, beating Goni with a minimum barometric pressure of 899 mb (26.55 inHg) and a maximum wind speed of 250 km per hour (155 mph). It was also the fourth most intense South Pacific tropical cyclone after Winston (2016), Zoe (2003) and Pam (2015), while Zazu dissipated into an extratropical cyclone.

With this trend of disaster in the region, the need for resource allocation is great. In 2018, Global Humanitarian Overview shows that $23.17 billion in funding was received in worldwide appeals. According to the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Aid Map, $132.11 million was committed to the Pacific in humanitarian aid that year, a mere fraction of the global effort. The Pacific’s biggest bilateral partners continue to be Australia and New Zealand.

The United Kingdom’s pledge of £290 million to help countries prepare for climate change is welcome. However, past pledges by wealthier industrialized regions have failed us. For example, the commitment to raise $1 billion in climate funding has not happened and continues to be discussed at COP26. These resources are crucial for the countries and people most vulnerable to climate change.

Lived Realities

The lived realities of women in the communities are often silenced given the limited representation women have in decision-making. The stories we do not hear are of those most impacted by climate change, stories that affect the livelihood and well-being of communities. At the Women’s Fund Fiji, our goal is to shift the power imbalances that prevent the full participation of women, girls and marginalized groups by providing equitable and flexible access to resources that will help women’s and feminist groups, networks and organizations better respond and adapt to the climate crisis.

The women in the rural remote communities of Fiji are among the most vulnerable groups of people battling climate change in the world. Women in Namuaimada Village in Rakiraki specialize in harvesting nama (Caulerpa racemosa) — an edible seaweed, also known as sea grapes, which is found in shallow waters near the reef. The harvesting of nama is done mainly by women, who go out in fishing boats to the reefs during low tide and spend about four hours harvesting the seaweed.

According to the Women in Fisheries Network report funded by Oxfam and the Women’s Fund, women are expert fishers in the coastal zone and the dominant sellers of seaweed, crustaceans and mollusks, with many fishing for household needs and selling the surplus contributing to the income and livelihoods of their families. With rising ocean temperatures, the production of these onshore and coastal marine resources will continue to decline, eventually causing loss of income and increased food insecurity for the fisherwomen.

The assumption that only the livelihoods of coastal women are affected is debunked as we investigate the plight of the fund’s grantee partner, Naitasiri Women in Dairy Group, who are already experiencing the onset of climate change and exacerbated natural disasters creating both short-term and long-term hurdles to their work. The group of 31 women dairy farmers located in the interior of Fiji’s main island of Viti Levu run family-owned dairy farmsteads and are shifting social norms like patriarchy and contributing to decision-making epicenters in a male-dominated industry.

Floods and tropical cyclones have continually disrupted their farm infrastructure and their ability to supply milk to the Fiji Dairy Cooperatives Limited, the nation’s main dairy organization that purchases their milk on a contractual basis. With temperatures expected to continue to rise, their cattle will face greater heat stress. In hotter conditions, lactating cows feed less, leading to a fall in milk production. If climate change continues along the current trajectory, these women will be faced with income reduction and may not be able to support their families or maintain their current independence. 

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This is the unfortunate reality faced by women of Fiji specifically and women of the Pacific at large. Under the guise of the technical and scientific study of climate change and climate-induced disasters, the voices of women in all their diversity are often not heard. Our experiences of the many challenges we face as a group of the population that is most vulnerable are not necessarily accounted for when decisions relating to climate change are made.

This year, leaders of just three of the 14 Pacific Island states made it to the discussions to Glasgow due to COVID-19 restrictions, making it “the thinnest representation of Pacific islands at a COP ever,” according to Satyendra Prasad, Fiji’s ambassador to the United Nations. Given that international negotiations are still, in the words of Britain’s former Energy Minister Claire O’Neill, very much a “blokes’ space,” women’s groups are left to bear the brunt of shrinking spaces and resources when it comes to mitigating the challenges of the climate crisis in the Pacific.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Fiji’s Women Are Living the Reality of Climate Change appeared first on Fair Observer.

Taiwan Becomes a Point of Strategic Ambiguity

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While President Joe Biden said in an October town hall that the US was committed to defending Taiwan, his administration later walked back his statement as it clashed with Washington’s official policy of strategic ambiguity vis-à-vis Taipei. Strategic ambiguity, or not publicly declaring how the United States would react in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, has guided US-Taiwan relations for over 40 years.

The policy has recently come under scrutiny as relations between Tapei and Beijing continue to deteriorate and as the prospect of an invasion, according to some analysts, becomes more likely.

Chinese Ambitions

Admiral Philip Davidson, who led the US Indo-Pacific Command until April, testified in March to the Senate Armed Services Committee that annexing Taiwan is “clearly one of [China’s] ambitions” and that the threat will likely materialize within six years. Taiwan’s defense ministry reported last month that Beijing would be able to launch an attack against the island with minimal losses by 2025.

Despite sending nearly 150 fighter jets, alongside nuclear-capable bombers and anti-submarine aircraft, into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone in early October, coinciding with the anniversary of the declaration of the People’s Republic of China, President Xi Jinping said that Beijing was committed to pursuing peaceful unification with Taiwan. According to John Culver, a former CIA analyst, Xi has framed unification as a requisite to achieving the “China Dream” by 2049, adding that Xi may take risks that his predecessors would not in order to secure unification.

Taiwan is likely not prepared for a Chinese invasion. It spends just over $11.5 million on defense. This, as former Deputy National Security Adviser Matt Pottinger notes, is an amount similar to that of Singapore, which has a population a quarter of the size of Taiwan’s and lacks the existential threat facing Taipei. Pottinger added that Taiwan neglected national defense for the first 15 years of the 21^st century, spending too much on equipment that would be quickly destroyed in an invasion.

The readiness of its military was also called into question by a Wall Street Journal article published last month reporting low-quality basic training and a widespread unwillingness to defend the island. The article quoted US Marine Colonel Grant Newsham as stating that while Taiwan’s military has well-trained troops and “superb officers,” it lacks adequate funding and could benefit from more training with the US and its allies. The Wall Street Journal also reported that many Taiwanese expect the US to intervene in case of kinetic military action by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

While the US supports Taiwan through arms sales, it remains committed to strategic ambiguity. Instead, the US Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific, a policy document declassified near the end of President Donald Trump’s tenure, recommends that the United States “enable Taiwan to develop an effective asymmetric defense strategy and capabilities that will help ensure its security, freedom from coercion, resilience, and ability to engage China on its own terms.”

While the framework has not been formally implemented, the Biden administration has not replaced the document, and officials within the administration have acknowledged a degree of continuation of Trump-era policies vis-à-vis China and Taiwan.

Constant Reminder

As Washington readies itself for escalation with Beijing, others are less convinced that rising tensions between China and Taiwan will result in violence. Project 2049 research associate Eric Lee, for instance, argues that the threat is “nothing new,” and that the growing perception of China as a threat to the United States is what has led to greater alarm regarding Taiwanese-Chinese relations.

According to Bonnie Glaser, former head of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, China’s aim is to prevent Taiwanese independence, not to seek forceful unification. She adds that every leader since Mao Zedong has projected determination to unify Taiwan with the mainland, and that while some Chinese have come to believe that time is no longer on China’s side and that it should use force to compel unification, Xi has resisted such pressures. The latest five-year plan that came into effect in 2021 describes China’s policy vis-à-vis Taiwan as a “peaceful development of cross-strait relations.”

Those who believe that China is unlikely to use kinetic action against Taiwan think that it will instead pursue unification using economic and political means. Taiwan is heavily reliant on China’s economy: Beijing is Taipei’s largest trading partner, which gives the mainland leverage over the island. China has isolated Taiwan by pressuring countries not to sign free trade agreements with Taipei and has pushed for the island’s exclusion from the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, two major trade agreements in the Indo-Pacific Region.

China has also restricted tourism to Taiwan and has pressured international businesses to label the island as a Chinese province. Taiwan also faces a brain drain to China as hundreds of thousands of well-educated Taiwanese opt to work on the mainland instead of their home country, with Chinese firms offering double or triple the wages available on the island.

Glaser argues that China’s goal is to “constantly remind” the Taiwanese of its increasing power to instill a pessimism about Taiwan’s future and deepen cleavages within its political system. While pursuing unification through this gradual, nonviolent approach will likely take longer than kinetic action would, it will also be less costly and risky for the Chinese government.

As tensions between Taiwan and China grow, the possibility of a Chinese invasion is considered by some as more imminent than ever before. Taiwan’s military is not prepared for kinetic action against the PLA, and calls to assist Taiwan by increasing arms sales and conducting joint exercises with its military are consequently growing in the US.

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However, not everyone is convinced that the Chinese government will pursue unification through violent means. Some argue instead that Beijing is more likely to use economic and political coercion to achieve unification. Regardless of the means, the Chinese government will likely continue to pursue unification with Taiwan as it is a crucial step toward the Chinese government’s future dreams.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Will the US Maintain Its Strategic Ambiguity Toward Taiwan? appeared first on Fair Observer.

Any serious journalist should understand that China’s past has already been rewritten by its government. This is something every government everywhere in the world does as a matter of routine. In other words, presenting as worrying news the idea that President Xi Jinping is doing something unusual (and dishonest) by rewriting the past only makes sense if you believe your own government doesn’t rewrite its own history.

But this is not merely one of the silliest articles about history ever published in a serious journal, it is also a profoundly inane article about China, a subject that merits everyone’s attention today. In an era that increasingly resembles the Cold War of the 1950s, The Times appears to treat its journalists as hacks who have been given the task of rewriting not just the meaning of history, but also the significance of observable current events. Even the most banal ritual of the Chinese government serves as a pretext to inspire fear, indignation or hate rather than reflect on the evolution of power.

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In the original Cold War, The New York Times and the rest of the media focused exclusively on Russia’s Soviet Union. Today, even though The Times is still committed to echoing CIA-inspired propaganda about Russia, China has become the principal target.

Buckley’s subtitle reads: “A new official summation of Communist Party history is likely to exalt Xi Jinping as a peer of Mao and Deng, fortifying his claim to a new phase in power.” Framed in this way, it sounds as if Xi’s claim would amount to a serious distortion of history. Buckley implies that Xi is a narcissistic Donald Trump-like upstart, or perhaps a Nero or Caligula, a deeply flawed historical non-entity intent on using the power associated with the position to project the unjustified image of a transformative leader.

The problem is that most serious observers of China, including historians, whether approving or disapproving his policies, consider Xi to represent a new phase of Chinese leadership, on a par with Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. Moreover, this is at a moment in history at which China has already become a dominant power, which was not the case for either Mao or Deng.

Buckley finds particularly objectionable the claim in an article from Xinhua, the official news agency, claiming that “Xi Jinping is undoubtedly the core figure mastering the tide of history.”

Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Tide of history:

A dead metaphor used by all leaders who want people to believe that some indescribably powerful force justifies all the decisions they are making

Contextual Note

Buckley is right to signal that this is pure propagandistic rhetoric, especially when it asserts that Xi is “mastering” the tide of history. Only the moon can be said to master the earth’s tide, and even then it isn’t a question of mastery but influence. The tide of history is something else again. But the journalist’s complaint doesn’t focus on the predictable and standard rhetoric of propaganda. Instead, it serves as a pretext for developing its own propaganda. Buckley sees this as an illustration of Xi’s hubris. It’s all about Xi, not about China.

Buckley concentrates his indignation in sentences such as this one: “The resolution is likely to offer a sweeping account of modern China that will help to justify Mr. Xi’s policies by giving them the gravitas of historical destiny.” The complaint that this is an attempt at justification is certainly true, but the idea Buckley expresses concerning “destiny” is foreign to Chinese culture. It is a Western import that makes little sense to the Chinese. The US is the nation that justified a genocidal campaign against the native population in the name of “manifest destiny.”

In traditional Chinese culture, the closest approximations of the Western notion of destiny are mingyun, meaning a right attributable to circumstance, and yuanfen, meaning “destiny, luck as conditioned by one’s past.” The Chinese version of the West’s divine right is the concept identified by Mencius as tian ming, or the mandate of heaven attributed to rulers and emperors.

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None of these concepts correlate with the Western and more specifically American idea of destiny, a force that empowers a nation or a person to embody what is assumed to be the moral meaning of history. Xi’s propaganda cites the “tide of history” with a Marxian nuance — the triumph of the working class — but in the background is the central idea in Chinese culture, of harmony rather than conquest. Tides advance and recede, following the logic of yin and yang. Buckley’s idea of “the gravitas of historical destiny” imposes a Western interpretation of a unidirectional movement on Chinese culture.

Buckley cites various Western experts to prove that Xi is violating the true notion of history. He cites the former Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd, who is particularly well qualified to comment because he “speaks Chinese and has had long meetings with Mr. Xi.” Rudd correctly mentions Xi’s “ideological framework which justifies greater and greater levels of party intervention in politics, the economy and foreign policy.” Putting words in Rudd’s mouth, Buckley oddly calls this authoritarian move “Mr. Xi’s conception of history.” No, it’s Mr. Xi’s conception of power.

On the same topic, Le Monde’s Beijing correspondent, Frederic Lemaitre, demonstrates what an informative rather than a purely polemical article might look like. Instead of dwelling, as Buckley has obsessively done, on the presumed betrayal of his artificial idea of what history should be, Lemaitre explores numerous facets concerning the current historical significance of the event. He notes that in contrast with two previous official histories of the party, this version “is less about the past than the future.”

The article then examines a long series of issues that provide perspective on the context of this attempt at reframing of the Communist Party’s history. Lemaitre focuses particularly on Xi’s maneuvering within the party and China’s rivalry with the United States. He doesn’t seem to find illegitimate Xi’s claim to historical significance. 

Historical Note

Throughout his article, Chris Buckley riffs on the idea of history as something he imagines to be a domain of pure, abstract truth rather than an inevitably imperfect product of human narrative. If not written by presumably independent Americans, China’s crime is to have an official version of history. Nothing like that could happen in the freest nation of the free world: the US.

“In creating a history resolution,” Buckley writes, “Mr. Xi is emulating his two most powerful and officially revered predecessors.” Xi is also emulating every US government throughout its history that has always insisted that slavery and genocide were just the inevitable though regrettable collateral damage of the drive to embody democratic ideals.

Buckley fears that Xi’s “resolution will present the party’s 100-year history as a story of heroic sacrifice and success, a drumroll of preliminary articles in party media indicates. Traumatic times like famine and purges will fall further into a soft-focus background — acknowledged but not elaborated.” The parallel with the treatment of genocide, slavery and persistent racism in the US long after the abolition of slavery is too obvious to dwell on. Didn’t Senator Tom Cotton call slavery a “necessary evil” in his bid to prevent the teaching of the history of slavery from being “elaborated” in the 1619 Project?

Buckley cites “an assistant professor at American University who has studied Mr. Xi and his father.” He complains that Xi is “someone who sees that competing narratives of history are dangerous.” Buckley apparently thinks nothing like that could ever happen in the US, a nation where “27 states have introduced bills or taken other steps that would restrict teaching critical race theory or limit how teachers can discuss racism and sexism.”

The US has always had a problem with history. Compared to Europe, a nation created only two and a half centuries ago simply hasn’t had enough history. At the same time, it has had too much, with its permanent tendency toward violence and civil conflict. That may help to explain Buckley’s confusion.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post On China, The Times Avoids Substance to Promote Propaganda appeared first on Fair Observer.

Liberalism was supposed to reign supreme. In the grand battle of ideas, Marx had lost out, Hegel had won — or so his American acolyte, Francis Fukuyama, claimed. Fukuyama proclaimed that the “end of history” was at hand, and the cognoscenti and would-be cognoscenti on both sides of the Atlantic enthusiastically applauded.

COVID-19 Is a Wake-Up Call on the Shortcomings of Globalization

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Three decades later, the world is in disarray. The attacks of September 11 were a drastic reminder that not everybody was sold on Fukuyama’s utopia. The financial crisis that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers and, with it, the house of cards built on a derivatives market that had spun out of control exposed the irrationality of rational behavior — taking more and more risks simply because everybody else did so. Finally, COVID-19 has demonstrated how quickly the beautiful world of ever-expanding consumer choices, sustained by cheap labor in remote parts of the world, can grind to a screeching halt.

Benign Hegemon

It is too early to tell whether or not global turbulences have reached a point of no return. The prospects are not great, and that has a lot to do with the United States. There is a strong sense that America’s hegemonic position, which it assumed after World War II, is on the wane and, with it, the country’s “commitment to promoting a liberal international order.” Or, perhaps, the United States suffers from a severe case of “leadership fatigue” and no longer wants to play the role of the “benign hegemon.”

The notion of the benign hegemon is derived from hegemonic stability theory, popular among some experts in international relations. The theory posits that order and stability in world affairs crucially depend on a Great Power capable of sustaining them and willing to do so. As Stephen Kobrin, of the Wharton School, has recently put it, “A stable, open economy requires a hegemon, a dominant power who can provide some of the necessary public goods, absorb costs, and order the system.”

Although this pertains particularly to international economic relations, it can be applied to other areas, such as international security. Order and stability require, among other things, that the hegemonic power formulate and underwrite the rules that define and govern the interactions between states in the international system. This was the case in the second half of the 19^th century when Great Britain assumed this role, providing and guaranteeing global public goods such as free trade, capital mobility and the British pound, backed up by the gold standard, as the global reserve currency.

The system came to an end with World War I. The conflict left Britain weakened and largely unable to reassume its prewar role. The interwar period was characterized by turmoil and crises, paving the way for the rise of autocratic regimes, committed to establishing a new order on the ruins of the old one. They accomplished the latter, but the new order was not theirs to create. The new hegemonic power that emerged from the war was not Hitler’s Germany but the United States, which filled the void left by an exhausted Great Britain.

This was anything but a natural transition. In fact, for most of the interwar period, the United States had refused to get entangled in international affairs. America’s retreat from internationalism after World War I was epitomized by Congress’s refusal to join the League of Nations — and that despite the fact that the league had been the brainchild of US President Woodrow Wilson.

Isolationism went hand in hand with protectionism. Throughout the 19^th century and way into the beginning of the 20^th, the United States boasted some of the highest tariffs in the world. The culmination was the infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which had a devastating impact on international trade and contributed to the Great Depression. It was not until the United States entered the war against Nazi Germany that it assumed the role commensurate to its position as the economically and militarily by far strongest power in the world.

Alternative Options

The failure of the most recent G20 meeting in Rome to arrive at a meaningful common position on global warming and climate change ahead of the COP26 in Glasgow is further proof that the United States is no longer in a position to fill this role. Instead of leading, President Joe Biden blamed China and Russia “for any disappointment over the level of commitment by G20 leaders to fight climate change.” This is not to deny that Biden has a point. But given the enormity of the impact climate change is bound to have on the natural environment and life on this planet, it is little more than an exercise in passing responsibility.

Biden’s remark, however, does address a serious issue, namely the role of China in a rapidly changing world. A few weeks ago, Chinese coal production reached new historic highs, amounting to an estimated 4 billion tons for this year. Accelerated coal production is supposed to alleviate energy shortages that have threatened to slow down the country’s growth. Unfortunately, emissions-wise, coal happens to be one of the worst sources of energy.

A new study on the impact of carbon dioxide emissions on coastal areas predicts catastrophic devastation as a result of rising sea levels for some of the world’s megacities, particularly in India, Indonesia, Vietnam and China — all major coal consumers. Given the concentration of China’s population in a string of coastal cities, one might assume that it has a particular interest in combating climate change. In theory, this would entail an active involvement in global governance, a proposition that China has been more than reluctant to embrace, presumably because it would entail directly challenging the United States.  

At the same time, however, China has launched major initiatives, such as the foundation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and particularly the One Belt, One Road initiative. Together with China’s massive engagement in Africa, these projects leave the impression that they are part of a comprehensive drive designed to establish China as an alternative to the United States.

This might herald the emergence of a new system, no longer dominated by one power but multipolar, and certainly very different from the one established after World War II. For, as Princeton’s John Ikenberry has noted a few years ago, “there is no liberal internationalism without American and western hegemony — and that age is ending.” With the decline of the United States and the parallel rise of China, countries have the option to “seek alternative patrons rather than remain dependent on Western largess and support.”

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The end result might very well be a bifurcated world order, on the heels of a period of instability and turmoil, or what Ian Bremmer and Nouriel Roubini have called a “G-Zero” world, one without clear leadership and global cooperation. Bifurcation means the coexistence of competing systems that follow fundamentally different rules. This can already be observed in the realm of economic governance.

Olga Petricevic and David Teece have recently warned of a “noticeable defiance of the principles of classical economic liberalism and the rule-of-law” by Russia and China. The Chinese “alternative model of governance,” they note, “is deploying coordinated protectionist trade and investment policies and government intervention aimed at accessing and acquiring foreign intellectual property, thereby influencing the global economic and innovation system.” Its success is likely to inspire imitation and attempts to jump on the bandwagon, resulting not only in bifurcation but in polarization reminiscent of the Cold War period.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Uncertain Times in a World Without American Hegemony appeared first on Fair Observer.

Of Human Bonds: Between Sex Work and Trafficking

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In Indonesia, there is no official data recorded about sex workers. As a result, these individuals do not have the same chance of receiving the same state benefits as other citizens. As reported by the United Nations Population Fund (UNPA), one example is Mirna, a 30-year-old sex worker. She struggles to pay her bills due to meeting fewer clients. She also does not have access to food aid from the local government as she does not hold an ID card for Jakarta, the Indonesian capital.

Sex Work and Violence

There is no explicit law in Indonesia that prohibits prostitution, making the trade of sex for money technically legal. Yet, as The Economist reports, “some local governments have used an ambiguous ‘Crimes Against Morals’ law to ban sex work in their districts.”

Many sex workers experience barriers when reporting violent crimes against them. These range from social shame to charges for engaging in prostitution. Those who work in the trade, particularly women, are often vulnerable to extreme violence. They face the risk of rape, assault, harassment or death, and the victims are usually blamed.

The National Women’s Commission has collected data on violence against sex workers. As of 2018, “violence in the public domain reached 3,528 cases (26%), where sexual violence was ranked first with 2,670 cases (76%).” This was “followed respectively by 466 cases of physical violence (13 %), 198 cases of psychological violence (6%), and special categories, namely trafficking (191 case, 5%), and 3 cases related to migrant workers.” According to the National Commission on Violence Against Women, three Indonesian women are at risk of sexual violence every two hours.

Budi Wahyuni, the deputy chairperson of the National Women’s Commission, has called prostitution a harsh trade. She has argued that sex work is full of threats of sexual, physical and psychological violence. According to her, violence and coercion go hand in hand with the world of prostitution.

In Indonesia, where the dominant religion is Islam, the issue of violence against sex workers has not received enough attention. Many Muslims in the country consider sex workers to be criminals who violate religious norms and, therefore, should not be accepted by society. This situation makes it difficult for sex workers to receive sufficient state protection and resources, including access to health care.

Research by international agencies such as UNFPA shows that the trade of sex in Indonesia is unsafe. Many pimps cannot guarantee the availability of condoms to protect sex workers, which leaves people at risk of sexually transmitted infections (STI) or HIV/AIDS. Sex workers are also vulnerable to violence by law enforcement officers as well as psychological trauma.

The Indonesian Organisation for Social Change (OPSI), a nonprofit that provides training programs and reproductive education for sex workers, found that in the last five years, many brothels were shut down by local authorities. The closure of these sites has made it difficult for facilitators to conduct health programs for sex workers, including protecting them from violence, trafficking or contracting STIs.

What Can Be Done?

It is clear that more needs to be done to help victims of sexual violence, especially those who work in the sex industry. Three areas deserve close attention.

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First, the anti-sexual violence bill must be signed. “The bill defines sexual violence as physical or non-physical violence that makes someone feel intimidated, insulted, demeaned or humiliated,” Inside Indonesia reports. “The bill acknowledges that sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, forced contraception, forced abortion, forced marriage, forced prostitution, rape, sexual slavery, and sexual abuse are all forms of sexual violence.” By including these terms in the bill and seeking to tackle abuse, the state can better protect sex workers. Most importantly, the bill “includes providing health services and legal assistance for victims.”

Second, the government must educate those who consider trading sex for money to be immoral. Many Indonesians ignore the fact that some people become sex workers out of necessity. For some, selling sex is the only way to put food on the table. As the majority in Indonesia, Muslims can play a key role in helping to change the social narrative around sex work.

Third, the government should learn from New Zealand. In 2003, New Zealand abolished criminal penalties for sex workers and sought to provide access to health services to reduce the risk of HIV/AIDS. Taking this step in Indonesia would help remove the social stigma around sex work and create a safer environment for those who engage in the trade.

In Indonesia, the issue of sex work is still a taboo subject. The “work” dimension of sex workers is considered nonexistent. Apart from the government, few civil society organizations have opened discussions about sex work. Instead of generating debate and addressing concerns, sex workers are shunned by society.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Should Indonesia’s Sex Workers Be Protected? appeared first on Fair Observer.

The West Struggles to Understand China’s Common Prosperity

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As Merchant reports, the National Counterintelligence and Security Center has launched a media campaign “to inform business executives, academics and local and state government officials about the risks of accepting Chinese investment or expertise in key industries.”

Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Chinese investment:

A source of capital that intelligence experts believe may even surpass the capacity of US investment to produce evil effects in the world

Contextual Note

Thanks to the testimony of whistleblower Frances Haugen before Congress, even previously unsuspecting senators now appear aware of the formidable capacity of US companies like Facebook to use the immense power of their monopolistic position and their manipulation of the data they collect to disrupt society, distort politics in a democracy and poison people’s lives. Members of Congress have vowed to discipline, if not dismantle, Facebook. Whether they ever consider that Facebook’s case may be evidence of a broader problem that may extend to the government itself remains to be seen, but it seems highly unlikely that they will make that effort.

The intelligence community and the AP now want us to understand that, where data is concerned, there is a far bigger problem: China. In the past, Americans welcomed Chinese investment in the US. It boosted the economy, created jobs and promoted innovation. All that has changed. They now understand that Chinese investors in the US and Chinese tech workers hired by US companies have only one thing in mind: stealing American intellectual property. 

Thanks in part to the Facebook scandal, many Americans for the first time seem dimly aware of the danger to their well-being posed by giant organizations that control data. These tech giants wield the power to imperil the stability of society as a whole and the individuals who compose it. But because Americans distrust governments more than corporate greed, they logically fear any government that does what Facebook is doing. At the same time, they naively assume that if Facebook and Google are doing it, their government is not doing exactly the same thing, often in collusion with the private firms. 

On the other hand, everyone knows that the Chinese government is doing it, albeit not to make a profit for shareholders but to respond to the needs of its population and consolidate its own power. For Americans, it is far more patriotic to allow private companies to manipulate markets, silently deploy invisible algorithms and deviously extract from an unwitting population the wealth that will enable one of today’s struggling tech billionaires to become a centibillionaire tomorrow. In fact, the US does both.  

Facebook, Google and Amazon clearly have become data-rich powerhouses because, unlike governments, they have never been distracted by the potential social benefit of their products. They focus on financial profit. They may seek to limit the amount of visible harm they do to protect their brand. But the certainty of profit always trumps an incalculable risk of harm. Google admitted this when it finally let go of its original motto, “Don’t be evil.”

The focus on profit allowed these companies to become the uncontested leaders in the domain of data production, manipulation and control. Americans tend to see the fact of endowing private enterprises with a monopoly on harmful activity as the definition of freedom. The firms are free to make a profit, and the general population is free to access their software, apparently free of charge. The consumers pay by invisibly and, therefore, painlessly providing the data that turn them into virtual but voluntary slaves of the tech giants’ sophisticated commercial system. Could anyone imagine a more efficient system? Slaves who don’t find reason to complain work harder.

Compare that with the Chinese model. There are some real similarities between the two. Those who hold power in both cases see the system as an effective means of supervising vast populations and influencing behavior. But the Chinese government is less interested in provoking specific behaviors designed purely for profit. Consistent with Chinese culture, even while consolidating control, the government is guided by the ideal of harmony. It may be authoritarian, but Westerners are wrong to call such a system totalitarian. Just as Americans believe profit is the key to economic development, the Chinese rally around the idea that what is done in the name of harmony is good.

The real difference between the two models lies in the basic motivation. One seeks stability, even at the price of constraint. The other, in the name of freedom, seeks to provoke a form of instability that stimulates consumption and, ideally, addiction. One begins by considering the collective needs of an entire society. The other focuses on the needs of individuals who can afford the price.

Historical Note

The National Counterintelligence and Security Center appears to be preaching for the decoupling not just of the Chinese economy from the US, but of Chinese culture altogether. It nevertheless offers this half-hearted disclaimer: “While the center does not intend to tell officials to reject Chinese investment, it will encourage efforts to control intellectual property and implement security measures.” But the message is clear: Get them damn foreigners out of here. It targets not just investors, but also workers and students.

This complaint is not new. The idea Americans have of Chinese history is that after offering the world silk, gunpowder and tea, China has contributed nothing to the global economy and only seeks to profit from the dynamism of Western economies. China cynically waited for innovative entrepreneurs in the US to produce wonders and then devised a plan to imitate or simply steal those wonders.

The foundational belief held by most Americans turns around the belief that private property is sacred and applies even to language (copyright) and abstract ideas (intellectual property). This is something of a historical innovation, but it contains some serious flaws.

The most obvious flaw in the reasoning has appeared in the saga concerning COVID-19 vaccines. In 2020, Bill Gates led the successful campaign to give priority to protecting the intellectual property generously attributed to pharmaceutical companies over any project seeking to protect the global population. It followed the principle of serving those who can afford it and rewarding those who monopolize intellectual property rights. This policy has led to a prolonged succession of new waves of the pandemic due to predictable mutations.

The AP article mentions “indictments alleging theft of sensitive U.S. information on behalf of China, including vaccine research and autonomous vehicle technology” as examples of the Chinese threat. Some of the millions of people who have died of COVID-19 and many more whose lives or livelihoods have been upset by the pandemic might have deemed the supposed theft of vaccine research a virtuous act — and not only because it was public money that paid for vaccine development.

The other example cited, concerning autonomous electric vehicles, is also illustrative, since the rapid phasing out of cars running on fossil fuel could possibly serve to attenuate an ongoing climate disaster that threatens everyone.

According to the standards of Western law and culture, China is clearly guilty of theft on all counts. But Western media has some serious work to do if we are to avoid a new Cold War. The hope that China will evolve into a Western-style social democracy is as misplaced as it was in Iraq or Afghanistan. The BBC demonstrates a deeper understanding than AP when it helps its readers to understand that “China celebrates ‘harmony’ (hexie) as a ‘socialist value.’” This echoes the permanence of Confucian culture that BBC glosses over as an “ethical system that combined hierarchy, where people would know their place in society, with benevolence, the expectation that those in superior positions would look after their inferiors.”

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Europe experimented with the idea of benevolent dictatorship in the 18^th century and failed, before evolving toward social democracy, more than two centuries and two world wars later. China hasn’t failed yet. Given time, it might evolve to become a social democracy. So might the US.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post China, the Bogeyman of the New Cold War appeared first on Fair Observer.

This security complex is the reason for the increasingly authoritarian tactics employed by the CCP, including the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang intended to suppress Uighur separatism, and the creation of the largest surveillance system in the world to function alongside an Orwellian social credit system to control citizens at microlevel.

Can the Taliban Govern Responsibly?

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The idea is simple: If the CCP controls everything and everyone, then security can always be guaranteed. Within China, this is mostly true. To the best of our knowledge, there have not been any major terrorist attacks within China in recent years, the economy has slowed but not halted, and there are no major social movements or actors who can contest the CCP’s authority. Brutal and authoritarian, the Chinese system of social fascism seems to have achieved its goals.

Security Means Control, Control Means Security

However, problems arise when China attempts to apply this absolute control to foreign policy. When eight Chinese nationals were employed by Zambia’s police force in 2017 as part-time officers, the strategy of exporting China’s authoritarian domestic policy seemed apparent. Zambia is home to major Chinese investment and a sizeable diaspora, prompting Beijing to attempt to exert control over it to ensure security following the same logic used on the mainland.

Zambians reacted with outrage, drawing parallels to European colonization. Ultimately, the officers were forced to resign, prompting Beijing to get more creative about how it imposes power so as not to cause backlash again.

Without a physical police presence on the ground, artificial intelligence provided the answer to Beijing’s needs. By 2019, according to Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, high-tech surveillance systems have been exported to over 60 countries — more than half of which had signed up to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)— deploying traffic cameras and facial-recognition technology. In Zambia, an investigation by the Wall Street Journal revealed that Huawei technicians allegedly helped the government to spy on and track down opposition figures.

It was a win for the Zambian leadership, which hoped to entrench its position further with Chinese support. But even if it did care to protest against China’s schemes to gain greater leverage over the nation, the authorities in Lusaka have little recourse as they are currently $6.6 billion in debt to China.

Of course, China promised Zambia it would be able to pay back this debt with unrealistically explosive growth through infrastructure expansion. But Zambia has struggled to come up with the money and finds itself stuck in what some have characterized as “debt-trap diplomacy,” a strategy of controlling a nation by first overpromising and straddling it with debt, then failing to deliver, refusing to participate in collective restructuring and finally seizing assets.

Some argue that China is simply an exploratory investor testing and prodding the markets, but the strategy has played out across dozens of countries to date, and a study of Chinese landing contracts by AidData, a research lab at William and Mary, reveals that the debt trap is both real and intentional. Chinese contracts include extensive non-disclosure agreements for the borrowing side and are “shrouded in secrecy.”

The authors state that “China is a muscular and commercially-savvy lender to developing countries” which doesn’t allow borrowers to participate in collective restructuring with Paris Club countries, concluding that “Default triggers of the sort we have identified in Chinese debt contracts potentially amplify China’s economic and political influence over a sovereign borrower.”

The strategy playing out in Zambia has resulted in resentment toward China, increased ethnic tensions, debt default and more concessions to China in order to pay back that debt. Not only this, but China’s policy in Zambia has only created a hostile environment for Chinese nationals as well. The fixation with controlling foreign nations through surveillance or debt has not led to an increase in security but instead fostered new forms of insecurity in host nations.

Fueling Insecurity

Pakistan is another example of this security dilemma. Even though China has flagged Pakistan as its key partner in the BRI, it is still being crushed under the weight of its $24.7 billion in debt. Again, Islamabad has downplayed this, stating that there will be great growth eventually if Pakistan keeps following the CCP’s lead, even if it means allowing China to lease the nation’s southern port in Gwadar for the next 40 years to be able to make payments on its loans.

In July, a bus traveling to a construction site in northern Pakistan was attacked by a suicide bomber, killing nine Chinese nationals. In August, Chinese engineers were targeted in a bombing that left two children dead in the port of Gwadar. Previously, in June 2020, gunmen attacked a stock exchange in Karachi, citing China’s exploitative investments in Baluchistan province as motivation for the attack.

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The violence stems again from the unfairness of the Chinese contracts, demanding concessions that don’t benefit the local population but China’s bottom line. In Baluchistan, this means that China is mining resources like copper and gold while the impoverished Baluch people themselves see no dividends from the minerals they live atop of. They see themselves as being stripped of the bounty of their land and having to share their already meager electricity and water resources.

All the while, protests regarding China’s investments in Pakistan have continued, with local communities facing food shortages because of China’s exploitation of resources like fishing.

More Chinese investment, more concessions, more discontent, more insecurity: The more Beijing attempts to straddle its international partners with debt and use this debt to exert control over their assets, making decisions regarding economic development and forcing them further into China’s orbit, the more insecurity is created for both the host nations and the Chinese nationals there.

Making the Same Mistakes

However, China has not learned its lesson and is now poised to double down on its mistakes again in Afghanistan. Just a few weeks before the Taliban seized control of the country in August, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with the head of the Taliban’s political commission, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. The meeting solidified China’s stance on the Taliban: They are the choice of the Afghan people, even if few of the people agree.

The truth is that the CCP is far from considering what the will of the people is, be it in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Zambia. What they care much more about is that the Taliban are the ones in charge and that the group desperately needs aid and international recognition, both of which China can provide. If China delivers on those important factors then, perhaps, Beijing can exert control, secure investments, combat terrorism and possibly extend its domestic crackdown to Uighurs living in Afghanistan.

The process has already begun. A group of Chinese business representatives landed in Kabul in early September. While Afghanistan remains on the brink of a humanitarian disaster, China seems to be looking into the future, to a day when Afghanistan is ready for its first surveillance cameras and debt. So far, Beijing has been among the first to start delivering humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.

It seems to be a match made in heaven, with Afghanistan’s geostrategic position serving as a great asset for the Belt and Road Initiative. Likewise, the nation has sizeable mineral wealth and could provide Chinese manufacturers with a steady source of much-needed materials for manufacturing. Deals have yet to be made between the Taliban and China, but the future looks bright from Beijing’s vantage point.

However, this scenario is only likely to materialize if the Taliban can be trusted and controlled. If history is any indicator at all, they cannot. Instead, the Taliban’s promises to the CCP will follow a long track record of saying what is most convenient to get what the Talibs want, then reneging on their promises as soon as it is safe to do so.

The Taliban did this in their negotiations with the former Afghan government, agreeing to talks, promising that they are looking for a diplomatic solution while waiting for an opportune moment to take Kabul by force. Again, they promised that when they come to power, they would respect women and minority rights but have already curtailed the rights of women and have begun ousting the Hazara from their homes.

Likewise, the Taliban had promised amnesty for all who collaborated with foreign militaries or the former Afghan government but have stated the commitment to return to their pre-2001 use of indiscriminate executions while running door-to-door sweeps for collaborators.

The problem is a lack of understanding — or a desire to understand — on the part of the CCP just who the Taliban are. Just as in Zambia, without considering the nation’s legacy of colonialization, China attempted to impose a police presence. In Pakistan, China’s indiscriminate exploitation of resources causes upheaval. Now in Afghanistan, Beijing makes deals with those who have committed countless barbaric acts of terrorism based on the belief that the Taliban will kowtow if given what they want: recognition, aid and money.

What the CCP fails to understand about its dealings in Afghanistan is that the Taliban are extremists. They believe that those who do not follow their interpretation of Islam are kufr — unbelievers. To them, unbelievers are fair game: They can be lied to, cheated, poisoned, killed; it doesn’t matter, for the unbelievers are going to hell regardless. This is why the Taliban will take what China has to offer, then turn around and open the door for al-Qaeda to train Uighur separatists in Afghanistan.

There are already signs that the Taliban are double-crossing the Chinese. The group’s new chief of army staff, Qari Fasihuddin, holds close ties to the Uighur separatist Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP). The new minister of the interior and current leader of the Haqqani Network, Sirajuddin Haqqani, also maintains close ties to al-Qaeda, which continues to train TIP Uighurs.

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Whether or not these fighters or other Islamists have or will become active in Xinjiang is unknown, especially given China’s extreme censorship around criminal activity. But it is likely that they will pose a security risk to Chinese projects and nationals in Afghanistan just as insurgent groups do in Pakistan.

The reality of China’s alignment with the Taliban is that the Chinese Communist Party is purchasing a false sense of security. Beijing knows the Taliban are in control and believes it can hold them on a leash. What it doesn’t understand is that the Taliban are not pets, and that both China and the world at large are more insecure with terrorists in charge.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post China’s Policy of Illusory Security Is Destined to Fail in Afghanistan appeared first on Fair Observer.

Nature hates a vacuum and, when it comes to war, so does US media that has always viewed peace as a vacuum. Publications like The New York Times and The Washington Post must keep the public focused on the global military mission of the United States. Middle East terrorism is still hanging around, but the idea of deploying a massive military effort to oppose it has been definitively discredited.

Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State are the kind of formless enemies that justify an infinitely prolonged hot war, keeping military activity going. But cold wars are all about an arms race, and terrorist groups simply can’t compete.

Algeria to France: No Thanks for the Memories 

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With the disengagement from the Middle East, some may have the impression that we have entered a period of peace. But Washington’s strategists would panic if they believed there was a real possibility of peace. Like the media, they know that the American public needs to believe in an ongoing noble military mission whose purpose is to vanquish the next formidable enemy of the American way of life.

In the past, it has depended on having a clearly defined ideological rival: first communism, then terrorism. What comes next isn’t yet clear, but the media and the security state know it needs to be put in place, if only to justify the massive and continually bloated military budget.

For the past five years, politicians and media fearful of Donald Trump have spent their energy playing on the Cold War reflex of suspecting Russia. They remember how effective it was in the 1950s and ‘60s. The marketers of the security state understood that the idea of an evil Russia was so deeply implanted in the American mindset that it can still inspire a reflex of both hatred and fear. The Soviet Union disappeared three decades ago, but Russia itself is associated with the idea of something existentially evil. 

Through clever management of the news, the intelligence community, echoed by the media, successfully instilled the idea that Donald Trump was Vladimir Putin’s best friend forever. Now, with Trump out of the picture, at least temporarily, Russia’s feeble and failing economy clearly poses no credible threat to the US. China has thus become the logical and far more credible adversary for anyone imagining an impending war scenario.

The New York Times is accordingly directing the public’s attention to the effort now being made in Washington with a focus on Taiwan: “At the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon, officials are trying to figure out if the longtime American policy of “strategic ambiguity” — providing political and military support to Taiwan, while not explicitly promising to defend it from a Chinese attack — has run its course.”

This week, Daniel L. Davis, a retired lieutenant colonel in the US Army, made the case in The Guardian that war over the defense of Taiwan should be avoided at all costs. “Publicly, Washington should continue to embrace strategic ambiguity,” he recommends, “but privately convey to Taiwanese leaders that we will not fight a war with China.”

Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Strategic Ambiguity:

The normal content of all diplomatic discourse

Contextual Note

President Joe Biden appears to be respecting at least half of Davis’s recommendation. He told the media that he has spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping about Taiwan, and that the two agree they will “abide by the Taiwan agreement.” It consists of having relations with Taiwan but not recognizing it as an independent nation. Strategic ambiguity will remain intact. But is Biden ready to explain to Taiwan that the US has no intention of going to war with China?

Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen is clearly aware of the ambiguity. She warned that the “Taiwanese people would ‘rise up’ should Taiwan‘s existence be threatened.” This is certainly true, but without US backup, rising up may not be an effective response to the world’s second most powerful army. At the same time, she “reiterated a call for talks with China” and admitted that Taiwan is “influenced by Chinese civilization and shaped by Asian traditions.”

Clearly, the US cannot go to war with China over Taiwan. At the same time, the US needs to maintain the idea that a war with China is possible. In the 1950s and 1960s, a militarized economy thrived thanks to the belief instilled in Americans that a nuclear war with Russia was possible, if not inevitable. It was just a question of what minor spark might set it off. This literally was the era of Dr. Strangelove.

In response to China’s breaching Taiwan’s defense zone with 56 Chinese military aircraft, Taiwan’s Premier Su Tseng-chang last week accused China of being “more and more over the top.” Could this be an allusion to Washington’s vaunted policy of its “over the horizon” capacity to intervene in Afghanistan? Or does the expression simply mean “exaggerated” and “beyond the ordinary”? Dr. Strangelove was an over-the-top satire about military decisions that literally went over the brink.

As with everything concerning Taiwan’s situation in the coming months and years, the ambiguity will be more evident than the strategy.

Historical Note

The 1975, Church Committee hearings in the US Senate forced American media to reveal the longstanding complicity between the CIA and the media concretized in Operation Mockingbird. Congressional testimony revealed a carefully structured propaganda campaign run through privately-owned commercial media. Its purpose was to instill the Cold War mentality required to justify an aggressive foreign policy and the unrelenting expansion of the all-powerful military-industrial complex.

It specifically sought to exaggerate the USSR’s destructive capacity while maintaining the public’s belief that the Soviet regime’s unique goal was to undermine, if not physically destroy, the American way of life. A cartoon Superman appeared on TV every day to convince children that the superhero was fighting for “truth, justice and the American way.”

Fast forward to 2016. Following the rock-solid marketing logic of never calling into question a formula that has paid off in the past, much of the Democratic-leaning legacy media, more worried about Donald Trump than Russia itself, began promoting the multiple threads of what developed into the Russiagate narrative.

It appeared to be the easiest means of developing the propaganda required to protect and reinforce the military-industrial complex that some feared that Trump was threatening when he began challenging the “deep state.” Though Trump had no such intention, inciting Americans to think so could only work to the advantage of the Democrats.

This tactic nevertheless encountered a problem of credibility. Not enough people were convinced that Russia was still the evil Soviet Union. Once Trump was gone, the Russia threat definitively lost its sting. Post-Soviet Russia has only negligible influence on the world economy, unlike the Middle East with its historically established virtual monopoly on fossil fuel and its utility for the US as the vector of petrodollars. 

With Russia reduced to insignificance and the Middle East written off the agenda, China has become the only credible candidate to play the role of America’s fright-inducing enemy. China is conveniently run by the Communist Party, like the Soviet Union was. Its features and behavior identify it as an alien economy. It possesses a political system that is clearly autocratic and therefore the enemy of capitalist democracy.

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Everything is falling into place for a new Cold War that will take center stage following the shame-faced exit of the global war on terror. All eyes (including the Five Eyes) are trained on China. In Act I, Taiwan will be the focus of attention, as it was 70 years ago when it was known as Formosa. But China is not the Soviet Union, and the US is no longer an empire sweeping up the spoils of European colonialism. What happens next will be difficult to forecast. We are truly entering an age of strategic ambiguity.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Taiwan Becomes a Point of Strategic Ambiguity appeared first on Fair Observer.

During this time, I have also learned a fair amount about military matters and various weapons systems, because they cost enormous amounts of money that could be put to much better use than killing and maiming people. But also because it’s hard to resist the absurd: The high-performance US F-35 fighter jet — at $1.7 trillion, the most expensive weapons system in US history — that costs $36,000 an hour to fly, shoots itself and can decapitate pilots who attempt to bail out. There are, as well, the $640 toilet seats, the $7,622 coffee maker and the fact that the US Department of Defense cannot account for $6.5 trillion in spending.

What Is the Ruckus Over AUKUS?

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I have also become fairly conversant with the major nuclear arms agreements, and I know what Article VI of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty says (more on this later).

This is a farewell column, so I ask for your indulgence. Having (hopefully) beaten back cancer, I have decided to spend more time with my grandkids and maybe return to my three novels (I have at least one more in my head). But I would like a last hurrah about what I have learned about the world and politics over that last half-century, so bear with me.

Wars Are Bad and Empire Is Delusional

First, wars are really a bad idea, and not just for the obvious reason that they cause enormous misery and pain. They don’t work, at least in the sense that they accomplish some political end.

The United States has finally withdrawn from Afghanistan and is contemplating getting out of Iraq. Both wars were disasters of the catastrophic variety. If anyone in the Oval Office or the Pentagon had bothered to read Rudyard Kipling on Afghanistan (“Arithmetic on the Frontier” comes to mind) and D.H. Lawrence on Iraq (the “Algebra of Occupation” is worthwhile), they would have known better.

But the illusions of empire are stubborn. The US still thinks it can control the world when every experience of the past 50 years or more — Vietnam, Somalia, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq — suggests it can’t. Indeed, the last war we “won” was Grenada, where the competition was not exactly world-class.

Americans are not alone in the delusion of confusing the present for the past. The British are sending the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth and a destroyer to the South China Sea — to do what? The days when Charles “Chinese” Gordon could scatter the locals with a few gunboats are long gone. What the People’s Republic will make of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s nostalgia for Lord Nelson and Trafalgar is anyone’s guess, but Beijing is more likely to be amused than intimidated by a mid-size flat top and a tin can.

The Same Goes for Cold Wars

China is not out to conquer the world. It wants to be the planet’s biggest economy and to sell everyone lots of stuff. In short, exactly what Britain wanted in the 19^th century and the US wanted in the 20^th. The Chinese do insist on military control of their local seas, in much the same way that the US controls its east, west and southern coasts. Imagine how Washington would react to Chinese warships regularly exercising off Pearl Harbor, San Diego, Newport News or the Gulf of Mexico.

Are the Chinese heavy-handed about this? Yes, indeed, and they have unnecessarily alienated a number of nations in the region, including Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Japan. Demilitarizing the East and South China seas would reduce tensions and remove the rationale for Beijing’s illegal seizure of small islands, reefs and shoals in the area. China will have to realize that it can’t unilaterally violate international law through its claims over most of the South China Sea, and the US will have to accept that the Pacific Ocean is no longer an American lake.

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Meanwhile, the Russians are coming! The Russians are coming! Actually, no they are not, and it is time to stop the silliness about Russian hordes massing on the border ready to overrun Ukraine or the Baltic states. What those troops were doing late last spring was responding to a plan by NATO for a huge military exercise, “Steadfast Defender.” Russia is not trying to recreate the Soviet Union. Its economy is about the size of Italy’s, and the current problems stem from the profoundly stupid decision to move NATO eastward. The Russians are sensitive about their borders, with good reason.

We can thank Bill Clinton and George W. Bush for disinterring this particular aspect of the Cold War. Both presidents expanded NATO, and Bush unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) and began deploying anti-missile systems in Poland and Romania. NATO claims the ABMs are aimed at Iran, but Iran doesn’t have missiles that can reach Europe and it doesn’t possess nuclear weapons. The Russians would be foolish to draw any other conclusion but that those ABMs are targeting Moscow’s missiles.

NATO has become a zombie alliance, staggering from one disaster to another: first Afghanistan, then Libya and now the US is pressing NATO to confront China in Asia (which is unlikely — Europeans view China as an invaluable market, not a threat).

NATO should go the way of the Warsaw Pact, and the US should rejoin the anti-ballistic missile agreement. Removing the ABM missiles might, in turn, lead to reestablishing the Intermediate Nuclear Force Agreement, an extremely important treaty from which the US also unilaterally withdrew.

Apartheid Can’t Last Forever

Elsewhere, Israel needs to study some Irish history. In 1609, the native population of what became Northern Ireland was forcibly removed to Connaught in the island’s west and replaced by 20,000 Protestant tenants. Yet now, centuries later, the upcoming census is almost certain to show that Catholics once again constitute a majority in Northern Ireland.

The moral? Walls and fences and apartheid policies will not make the Palestinians go away or cause them to forget that much of their land was stolen.

In the short run, the right-wing Israeli settlers may get their way, just as the Protestant settlers did more than 400 years ago. But history is long, and the Palestinians are no more likely to disappear than the native Irish did. It would save a lot of bloodshed and communal hate if the Israelis removed the West Bank and Golan settlers, shared Jerusalem and let the Palestinians have their own viable state. The alternative? A one-state, one-person, one-vote democracy.

The US should also end Israel’s “special status.” Why are we not as outraged with apartheid in Israel as we were with apartheid in South Africa? Why do we ignore the fact that Israel has nuclear weapons? When Americans lecture other countries about maintaining a “rules-based” world, can you blame them if they roll their eyes? Why is it “illegal” for Iran to acquire nukes when Tel Aviv gets a pass?

We Should Really Deal With Existential Threats More Often

The Biden administration is fond of using the term “existential” in reference to climate change, and the term is not an exaggeration. Our species is at a crossroads, and the time for action is distressingly short.

By 2050, some 600 million Indians will have inadequate access to water. Vanishing glaciers are systematically draining the water reserves of the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush, the Andes and the Rockies. While much of the world will face water shortages, some will experience the opposite, as Germans and Chinese recently discovered. Water is a worldwide crisis and there are few blueprints about how to deal with it, although the 1960 Indus Valley water treaty between India and Pakistan could serve as a template.

There is simply no way that the world can tackle climate change and continue to spend — according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute — almost $2 trillion a year on weapons. Nor can the US afford to support its empire of bases — some 800 worldwide, the same number as Britain had in 1885.

However, climate change is not the only “existential” threat to our species. Somehow nuclear weapons have dropped off the radar as a global threat, but currently, there are major nuclear arms races underway involving China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Russia and NATO. The US is spending upward of $1 trillion modernizing its nuclear triad of aircraft, ships and missiles.

Sanctions Don’t Work

Sanctions, as journalist Patrick Cockburn argues, are war crimes, and no country in the world applies them as widely and with such vigor as the United States. Our sanctions have impoverished North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela and Syria and inflict unnecessary pain on Cuba. They raise tensions with Russia and China. And why do we apply them? Because countries do things we don’t like or insist on economic and political systems that we don’t agree with.

Washington can do it because we control the de facto world currency, the dollar, and countries that cross us can lose their ability to engage in international banking. The French bank BNP Paribas was forced to pay $9 billion in fines for bypassing sanctions on Iran. Yet sanctions have almost always failed to achieve their political objectives.

Self-Determination Is Good

Dear Spanish government: Let the Catalans vote in peace and accept the results if they decide they want to go their own way. Ditto for the Scots, the people of Kashmir and, sometime in the future, the Northern Irish. You can’t force people to be part of your country if they don’t want to be, and trying to make them is like teaching a pig to whistle: It can’t be done and annoys the pig.

If You Displace People, Offer Them Refuge (Then Stop Displacing People)

The US and NATO cannot destabilize countries like Afghanistan, Syria and Libya and then pull up the drawbridge when people flee the chaos those wars have generated.

Similarly, the colonial countries that exploited and held back the development of countries in Africa and Latin America cannot wash their hands of the problems of post-colonialism. And the industrial countries that destabilized the climate can’t avoid their responsibility for tens of millions of global warming refugees.

In any case, the US, Europe and Japan need those immigrants, because the depressed birth rates in developed countries mean they are heading for serious demographic trouble.

Hypocrisy Is Bad 

The world rightfully condemns the assassination of political opponents by Russia and Saudi Arabia, but it should be equally outraged when the Israelis systematically kill Iranian scientists, or when the US takes out Iranian leaders with a drone attack.

You don’t have the right to kill someone just because you don’t like what they stand for. How do you think Americans would react to Iran assassinating US General Mark Milley, the head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff?

Less Exceptionalism. More Diplomacy.

The world desperately needs an international health treaty to confront future pandemics and must guarantee that it includes the poorest countries on the globe. This is not mere altruism. If countries can’t provide health care for their residents, that should be the responsibility of the international community, because untreated populations give rise to mutations like the Delta variant of COVID-19. Ask not for whom the bells toll. It tolls for us all.

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American exceptionalism is an albatross around our necks, blocking us from seeing that other countries and other systems may do things better than we do. No other country accepts that Americans are superior, especially after four years of Donald Trump, the pandemic debacle and the January 6 insurrection in Washington. Who would want the level of economic inequality in this country or our prison population, the highest in the world? Is being 44^th on the World Press Freedom Index or 18^th on the Social Progress Index something we should take pride in? What we can take pride in is our diversity. Therein lies the country’s real potential.

Finally, to Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiation in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” Amen.

Two and Two and 50 Make a Million

Pie in the sky? An old man’s wish list?

Well, the one thing I have learned in these past 50-plus years is that things happen if enough people decide they should. So, to quote that rather clunky line from Pete Seeger’s “One Man’s Hands,” sung widely during the ‘60s peace movement: “If two and two and 50 make a million, we’ll see that day come ‘round.”

And that’s all folks (for now).

*[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Lessons From 50 Years of Covering Foreign Policy appeared first on Fair Observer.

French ire led to the withdrawal of its ambassadors from Washington and Canberra. This was particularly surprising given France’s strong political and security ties — not to mention historical, as America’s oldest ally — to both nations. Inexplicably, President Emmanuel Macron did not recall his ambassador to London, prompting some to posit that after Britain’s withdrawal from the EU, it didn’t matter as much.

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It’s also very likely that Macron, who has been Europe’s strongest advocate on behalf of a stand-alone European defense capability — i.e., less dependence on the US — did not want to alienate Britain in his efforts.

Prenez un Grip!

Leave it to Britain’s blunt-speaking prime minister, Boris Johnson, to succinctly lend some reality to the blow-up among allies. Speaking in Washington, DC, Johnson suggested it was “time for some of our dearest friends around the world to prenez un grip about all this and donnez moi un break” — to get a grip and give him a break. A “stab in the back” was how the French publicly described the situation following the announcement of the agreement.

Johnson has it right. This was not a betrayal of the North Atlantic alliance, nor France’s especially close ties with Britain or America, or its strong relationship with Australia. While there are unquestionably important strategic elements of this deal, it is a commercial one. Australia wanted to boost its naval defense capabilities in the increasingly competitive and dynamic Western Pacific.

France’s conventionally-powered subs would not have been state of the art, requiring periodic surfacing for refueling, and wouldn’t be available until 2035. Moreover, Canberra and Australian politicians had already begun to express reservations over these deficiencies and the exorbitant cost.

Enter the Americans, who apparently invited the British to join. In the world of diplomacy and international affairs, all issues are understood to be open for discussion and negotiation. Business is something else, however. Allies and adversaries regularly compete for business and commercial deals. Governments back their businesses and even add sweeteners from time to time to clinch the deal. It’s understood; everyone does it. It’s business — not personal and not political.

The surprise here is that Paris seemed to be caught unaware of the American-British offer. The French should have suspected others might be talking to the Australians, especially as their own deal was beginning to sour. Their embassies in Washington, London and Canberra, doubtlessly staffed with some of their top diplomats and intelligence and military personnel, should have picked up on it. That is what embassies are for, among other things.

What Is It Good For?

Political sensibilities aside, is this the right undertaking for the three countries? A somewhat qualified answer would be yes. US President Joe Biden has repeatedly made clear America will compete with China in the Western Pacific and around the world. To date, America has shouldered the lion’s share of the security responsibilities in that region, though Japan, South Korea, Australia, Britain and even France also play roles.

Providing the Australians with nuclear-powered subs greatly enhances their own defense capabilities and augments what the US and others are doing to shore up security in the Western Pacific.

It is a genuine security enhancement for the West, giving pause to the Chinese, who themselves possess about a dozen nuclear-powered subs, most dedicated to their ballistic missile submarine fleet. (It is important to note that the AUKUS deal will not provide Australia with nuclear weapons of any kind.)

So, Australian nuclear-powered submarines provide an excellent complement to both American and British nuclear-powered subs as well as those French nuclear submarines deployed to the region. Moreover, while the others deploy their submarines around the world, Australia will likely be confined to the Western Pacific, giving the Western allies a greater presence.

Other Asia-Pacific nations either hailed the deal or remained silent, the latter owing to sensitive trade and other economic arrangements with China they do not wish to jeopardize. After all, they saw what may have provoked all of this, namely China’s unusually harsh response to Australia’s call for an investigation into the origins of COVID-19, including the still unproven lab leak theory.

Canberra was blasted with a torrent of shockingly virulent verbal attacks from Beijing, which then accused Australia of “dumping” its wines on China and imposed daunting tariffs on future imports. The result was a precipitous decline in Australian wine exports to China, down as much as 96% in the final quarter of 2020.

The response shocked the Australians, who have maintained strong and important trade ties with Beijing and had sought to remain out of the US-China wrangling. But that all changed after Beijing’s tough-guy actions. Anti-China sentiment is now at a peak in Australia’s Parliament and among the population. More importantly, the overreaction drove Canberra right back into the waiting arms of its long-time ally, the US. Beijing’s so-called wolf-warrior actions against Australia were uncalled for and most definitely counterproductive.

A Win for Biden and the US

France’s ruffled feathers notwithstanding, the AUKUS deal leverages one of America’s strongest assets in the competition with China, namely its ability to forge alliances and partnerships with nations around the world, based not only on shared interests but very often on shared values. China has no such alliance network — Pakistan, North Korea, Iran and a handful of others hardly amount to what the US has managed in Europe, Asia and elsewhere.

It is perfectly consistent with Biden’s repeated assertion that he will forge stronger ties with our allies and work to strengthen alliance networks. No one should be surprised with this natural evolution, a win-win for all involved.

One Asian nation whose response and views will be critical to US interests is India. India is a member of a new, American-initiated group known as the Quad, comprising Australia, India, Japan and the US. New Delhi has distanced the AUKUS deal from the Quad but otherwise remained neutral in its response, though commentary ranges from strong endorsement to equally strong criticism and warnings of an Indo-Pacific arms race.

The latter may be a bit exaggerated. Australia already has submarines, and soon these will be nuclear-powered, allowing them to remain submerged much longer or even indefinitely, depending on whether their fuel is high or low-enriched uranium. The latter would require surfacing about every 10 years or so to refuel.

But that still leaves the question of France. One might have and, indeed, should have expected some heads up to the French in advance of the announcement. France is a core indispensable member of NATO and one of America’s most important allies.

The countries have already begun to patch up their tiff. Biden and Macron spoke last week and will meet next month when Biden attends the G-20 summit. The US president endorsed his French counterpart’s call for greater European defense autonomy, “consistent with NATO” objectives and obligations. Macron returned his ambassador to Washington.

Nevertheless, Washington would be wise to find some way to include Paris in this deal. If its underlying basis is security and strengthening alliances, then why not include this vital ally? France already possesses significant blue-water naval capabilities as well as genuine interests in the Pacific, with territories in French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna.

Moreover, the French could be brought in to supply or develop the nuclear-power trains for the Australian submarines using low-enriched uranium, which fuel France’s nuclear subs. (Britain and the US use high-enriched uranium.) The use of low-enriched uranium would also help keep AUKUS from potentially running afoul of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It is better to have France on board the AUKUS fleet than not. The most awkward bit: What to do with the added “F”?

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post What Is the Ruckus Over AUKUS? appeared first on Fair Observer.

For Western thinkers, when an entity finds its place in a system, the system’s structured categories serve to situate and ultimately define the substance of the entity. Now that China is subjected to the rules of the global economy, analysts believe they understand it. Influenced by the analytical model inherited from Aristotle’s metaphysics that distinguishes between substance (or essence) and accidence (or variable features), today’s analysts dismiss anything that the system cannot account for as accidents. Accidents can always be corrected in the name of efficiency. 

Despite its manifest peculiarities, for Westerners China has become a member of the tribe. Analysts assess its behavior according to the rules and laws of the tribe. For the past two centuries, beginning with David Ricardo and Karl Marx, Western thinkers have tended to reduce their understanding of social reality to economic relationships. In so doing, they fail to build into their model two dimensions they relegate to the category of Aristotelian accidence: culture and politics.

Does the World Need to Contain China?

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At best, the analysts attribute to culture and politics a supporting role in the great cause of economic organization. They fail to notice that cultures not only differ in the way they treat time, space and social relations but also in how they measure value. In particular, they neglect the value cultures attribute to the individual and collective patterns of behavior that form the basis of political systems. This leads to major errors of interpretation. We can see the result in failed military campaigns, from Vietnam to the Middle East. Similar failures occur in the domain of economics.

As if to illustrate the principle, the European Chamber of Commerce has just produced a report expressing its severe critique of what it sees as the erroneous path China’s President Xi Jinping appears to be taking. The august institution, focused on the logic of trade, believes that some of Xi’s salient measures violate a totally rational rulebook that members of the global economic community must always abide by.

Reuters reports the chamber’s recommendation that “China should abandon a top-level strategy promoted by President Xi Jinping to increase self-reliance, or risk harming innovation and growth prospects,” which clearly implies its opposition to policies such as “common prosperity.”

Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Self-reliance:

In Western thought, a virtue for individuals and a vice for nations

Contextual Note

Addressing the same topic, Stephen McDonell, the BBC’s correspondent in Beijing, offers a slightly different analysis, one that seeks to explore certain cultural factors. McDonell cites some of the salient features of  Xi’s “common prosperity” program. “Under this banner,” he writes, “targeting tax evasion by the wealthy makes more sense, as do moves to make education more equitable by banning private tutoring companies. The ongoing crackdown on the country’s tech giants can also be seen as part of the plan.”

Unlike the European Chamber of Commerce that worries about the violation of capitalist orthodoxy, McDonell acknowledges a certain coherence in the Chinese plan. He cites the historical reality of the “chasm of income disparity” that has provoked Xi’s initiative.

It’s a criterion that has meaning even in the West, where people have been grappling with the realization that modern capitalism, refashioned by the neoliberals since the 1980s, has produced an increasingly obscene and unmanageable wealth gap that appears built into the system’s logic.

Economists such as Thomas Piketty have focused on that question while going beyond mere economics to take on board the cultural and political (or ideological) underpinnings of the phenomenon.

The thought of most commentators on the economy typically stumbles over its own cultural logic. Like the European Chamber of Commerce, McDonell himself fails to make the cultural leap and relies on Western criteria to complete his analysis. He notes that Xi’s authoritarianism allows him to rewrite the rules at any given moment.

Then he asks the $64,000-question Western analysts always consider fundamental: “How can anybody reliably make investment decisions if they don’t know what the ground rules will be in a month’s time?”

Historical Note

McDonell’s question makes immediate sense for his Western readers since the notions of investment and risk are at the core of all thinking about the economy. But in his own potted summary of the history of communist China’s economic ideology, the BBC journalist offers a number of clues that would explain why this question troubles the Chinese far less than anyone in the West. 

McDonell points to the Chinese government’s management of the narrative around its “concept of socialism.” During its phase of integration into the global capitalist economy, the government “put its faith in trickle-down economics.” McDonell then raises a serious question. “So does Xi Jinping really believe in this idea of a communist project?”

In other words, China painfully shifted from Mao Zedong’s totalitarian version of Marxist doctrine to Milton Friedman’s trickle-down economics under Deng Xiaoping, inaugurating a period of prosperity. Does it make any sense to imagine it might shift again, this time to a new version of Marxist egalitarianism?

To answer this question, McDonell delves into the history of Xi himself and that of his father, who was jailed in 1978 for his commitment to economic liberalization. This allows him to puzzle over the question of whether Xi’s apparent conversion to communist ideals is sincere or merely opportunistic. 

In August, the Daily Devil’s Dictionary suggested that Xi’s motivation might simply be the desire to “remake his image as a populist hero at home” in an effort to consolidate his power and ward off the risk of a future winter of discontent. Most commentators now agree that the “common prosperity” reforms are the real thing and not just political rhetoric.

That explains why the European Chamber of Commerce appears worried. It also explains why the BBC is dedicating a three-part series to elucidate “how Beijing is rewriting the rules of doing business and the global implications of this.”

Earlier this month, The New York Times quoted former US government analyst Christopher Johnson, who pertinently observed that “Xi sees doing something on income inequality and the wealth gap in China as vital in this struggle of global narratives with the U.S. and the West in general.” This dimension of the question adds interest to the drama currently playing out in the US Congress concerning President Biden’s $3.5-trillion infrastructure bill.

Some Republicans see this as proof that Biden is a Marxist. If adopted, the bill would contribute to limiting the huge and widening wealth gap, but it would not attempt to reign in the power of finance and Big Tech, as Xi’s plan intends to do. There is a strong likelihood that Congress will reject the Biden plan. Democracy seems to be having trouble competing with autocracy.

There is another irony in this story about China’s goal of self-reliance. In US culture, self-reliance is a core value. It has come to be identified with capitalism itself and has spawned the culture of individualism that dominates the Western world. The myth of the self-made man sums up the spirit of individualistic capitalism.

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Chinese culture has always rejected self-reliance. While it values prosperity as a goal, Chinese culture sees it as the result of a collective effort, not of individual initiative. One achieves prosperity through one’s family and guanxi, or network of relations, but never on one’s own.

The European Chamber of Commerce fears that a nation representing 20% of humanity might decide to go it alone, not because that would be a bad thing in itself, but because it would remove one-fifth of the world’s trade from the global marketplace. They claim it would stifle innovation. But its effect would more likely be to disrupt the thinking of those who see humanity as collections of individual consumers of standardized products. After all, for Western economists, every self defines itself by what it consumes and how it produces profit for others.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

*[An earlier version of this article mistakenly labeled the chamber’s recommendation a reaction to Xi’s policy. Updated: February 15, 2022, at 09:30 GMT.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The West Struggles to Understand China’s Common Prosperity appeared first on Fair Observer.

After four years of Donald Trump’s version of America home alone that framed geopolitics as a dog-eat-dog battle for survival fueled by the ideology of social Darwinism, Europeans expected Biden to inaugurate a new period of America in the world alongside its prosperous friends. They may have imagined something like the TV series, “Friends,” in which a group of carefree, well-off and witty roommates explored the pleasures of living through minor comic conflicts that proved how much they all loved and depended on one another.

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Last week’s shocker was first of all economic. It canceled a lucrative contract Australia signed with France in 2016 for the supply of diesel submarines. Instead, Australia will receive nuclear submarines built with American and British technology. But even more than economic, the move was strategic, leaving the rest of the world to wonder how to react to an initiative that sets the three most significant English-speaking nations on a path of their own. Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, may see it as a life raft for the UK, seriously struggling to emerge from Brexit. In any case, it has seriously upended many of the assumptions related to the “new world order” set in motion by the Bushes, father and son.

The French foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, reacted to the news with “total incomprehension,” especially evident after celebrating, earlier this year, the “excellent news for all of us that America is back.”

Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Incomprehension:

Thanks to a presidential tradition inaugurated by George W. Bush, intensified by Donald Trump and now maintained by Joe Biden, the expected reaction of allies of the United States to any of the unilateral foreign policy decisions made by an American president.

Contextual note

Le Drian went further, describing the move in these terms: “It was really a stab in the back. It looks a lot like what Trump did.” The stab in the back could be shaken off like Monty Python’s black knight as a mere “flesh wound.” But the idea that Biden was the new Trump has frightening implications for every realist in the world of diplomacy.

The Europeans and indeed the rest of the world have begun to realize that Trump may not have been the aberration his Democratic opponents made him out to be. Instead, Trump was the purest expression of the historical logic of America’s foreign policy at any point in time. Once he had left his mark, it became indelible because it perfectly though somewhat exaggeratedly reproduced the underlying logic of the US empire’s view of geopolitics. It appears equally in the fact that President Biden, having promised to return to the Iran nuclear deal and revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, has failed to move on either issues, leaving those much deeper flesh wounds to fester.

Like the situation in Afghanistan, this move not only increases the level of uncertainty about how the forces in place will regroup or what new alliances may form, it has already had the effect of providing fuel to those Europeans who have been debating the merits of creating an autonomous European defense and security system, independent of the US and NATO. The US believes the 27 nations of the European Union will never agree to that, but France and Germany have the motivation to move forward and the US abandonment of Afghanistan has Eastern Europe’s traditionally pro-US nations worried.

Australia’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, called the pact a “forever partnership … between the oldest and most trusted of friends.” He appears to be suggesting that after the English-speaking empire’s abandonment of forever hot wars in the Middle East, a forever Cold War in the Pacific may be brewing. By “the most trusted of friends,” he appears to suggest that English-speaking nations share not only the same language, but also the same imperial, economically aggressive ideology.

But what does it mean to be a “trusted friend” in the world of geopolitics? The Irish philosopher Fran O’Rourke recently explained Aristotle’s concept of three types of friendship, pointing out that only the third type — a “perfect friendship” built on virtue and love — may last forever. “Friendships of pleasure and usefulness,” according to Aristotle, “are only incidental; they are easily dissolved, when the other person is no longer pleasant or useful. True friends wish the good of each other. Their friendship lasts as long as they are themselves good.” The “forever partnership” Morrison envisions would require the commitment to the good. But what he proposes is a friendship not just of utility, which is usual in international treaties and alliances, but of aggression.

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Aristotle would object that nations can never be friends, precisely because they exist as arrangements between groups of people who are not friends. They are political fictions, the result of complex compromises defined primarily by tenuously structured relationships of utility. Only human beings striving for virtue have the privilege of friendship.

The commentators have all understood that the entire purpose of the new alliance turns around the idea of containing China. Framed as a pivot to Asia, it is clearly a pivot against China, with a psychological structure duplicating that of the Cold War against the Soviet Union. Such relationships are defined not by the Aristotelian notion of friendship, but by enmity. Rather than lasting forever, they tend to end very badly for all sides, with only one group of people certain of prospering: the arms industry.

Historical note

The implications of this arbitrary and unilateral move by the Biden administration are likely to be far-reaching. Unless Europe ends up capitulating to the US, this could render NATO obsolete. Looking further into the historical consequences, it might comfort Xi Jinping’s strategy of extending and consolidating the Belt and Road Initiative across the entire Eurasian continent. This would point toward what the historian Alfred McCoy sees as a possible integrated economic entity he refers to — borrowing a term formulated a century ago by the geopolitical thinker Sir Halford Mackinder — as “the World Island.”

There is something eerily logical, perhaps even culturally inevitable about Joe Biden’s initiative. It doesn’t bode well for his presumed intention of bolstering the hegemony the US has enjoyed since the Second World War. In 1992, when James Carville told Bill Clinton not to waste time talking about the position of the US in the world because “It’s the economy, stupid,” he was drawing the consequences of an easily observable trend that Democrats were inclined to forget, that Americans are simply not interested in the feelings, interests or suffering of the rest of the world.

George W. Bush was the first president to fully exploit American indifference by living up to his Texas cowboy image and treating the world stage as his private rodeo. Donald Trump criticized Bush’s policies, not because they were too reckless, but not reckless enough. On becoming president in 2017, Trump showed that, as an imperial power, the US had no need to stick to agreements or rules or curry favor with its supposed allies. Washington still insisted on maintaining a “rules-based order,” but on the condition that it could rewrite the rules at any given moment. He put into action as demonstrably as possible the thinking of the “offensive realist” John Mearsheimer. It consists, as Mearsheimer often insisted, of living up to the image of the “biggest and baddest dude on the block.”

President Biden appears to be seeking a new way of fulfilling the dude’s mission. McCoy sees it as just another indicator of the US empire’s decline. By inciting Europe to assume its own defense now that Europe no longer has the UK to worry about, a scenario may emerge in which the Chinese and the Europeans begin collaborating on a way of managing the World Island.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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One day after Biden’s inauguration, QAnon sympathizer and representative for Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene, introduced HR 57 to impeach the new president on the Trumped-up charge of bribery. As the US withdrawal from Afghanistan proceeded at its telescoped and chaotic pace, impeachment calls came with greater regularity from the Republican Party, with South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham demanding the president’s ouster for the high crime and misdemeanor of “ignoring sound advice.”

It’s a curious turn of events when the Republicans lambaste the current president for implementing the policy of their own party’s standard-bearer and doing so in a dysfunctional manner that was a hallmark of Trump’s tenure. And why exactly are Republicans complaining? They’ve already effectively handcuffed the current president —without the bother of actually trying to send him to jail — by forcing him to deal with the consequences of the actions taken by Donald Trump during his four years in office.

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Sure, Biden has emphasized the few global issues on which he has boldly departed from Trump’s agenda. The new administration dramatically reentered the Paris agreement on climate change. It committed the United States to fight COVID-19 worldwide with a somewhat more generous policy on vaccine distribution. It rescinded the “global gag rule” prohibiting foreign aid for family planning overseas. It signaled the end to US support of the Saudi-led war in Yemen.

But in many other foreign policy areas, Biden has had to operate within the parameters established by his predecessor. On Afghanistan, Iran, immigration, trade and many other issues, Trump implemented radioactive policies that have long half-lives. The Biden administration has been stuck with the job of cleaning up the toxic waste. Worse, in some cases, the president has, for political reasons, decided to live with the mess.

Poisonous Gifts

Afghanistan has been perhaps the most significant foreign policy legacy of the Trump team. In February 2020, the administration negotiated a deal with the Taliban in Doha to end the two-decade war. At the time, about 13,000 US troops provided training, muscle and firepower to a seriously underperforming Afghan army. According to the deal, the last US soldiers would depart Afghanistan in May 2021. By the time Biden took office in January 2021, US forces were officially down to 2,500, although in reality there were about a thousand more American soldiers in the country.

Biden could have scotched the Doha deal, just as Trump threw out so many of the agreements that the Obama administration signed. He could have once again expanded the US military footprint inside Afghanistan, as some of his advisers recommended. But there was virtually no popular support for another surge, and Biden had never been a fan of more boots on the ground. He’d promised during the presidential campaign to end the US war in Afghanistan, so the 2020 agreement served as a useful rationale.

What the new administration was not happy with, however, were some of the consequences of the peace deal, including the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners without a quid pro quo and the ultimate undermining of the authority of the government in Kabul. The radioactive gift from the Trump administration was to rob the Biden team of any real leverage in its implementation of the deal. The most Biden could do was to delay the withdrawal of troops by a couple of months and hope for some kind of power-sharing arrangement between the Taliban and the government in Kabul.

Instead, an emboldened Taliban clearly capitalized on the feelings of abandonment among provincial officials in the wake of the 2020 deal to negotiate the handover of one city after another. Sure, Biden could have begun withdrawing American personnel and Afghan colleagues before the Taliban reached Kabul. But the president would have been blamed for jumping the gun and contributing to the demoralization that hastened the Taliban’s ultimate victory.

Trump’s ill-planned deal — and his determination to pull out all troops by January 15, 2021, regardless of the “sound advice” of his national security team — set up nothing but bad choices for Biden around what was ultimately a necessary military withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Another poisonous gift from Trump has been his Iran policy. Trump backed out of the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018 and tried, with additional sanctions and pressures, to ensure that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) would never be resuscitated.

The Biden administration has promised to find a way back to the nuclear agreement. But it has yet to come up with a formula in its negotiations with Iranian counterparts on eliminating Trump-era sanctions and providing compensation for their impact while at the same time walking back Iran’s moves to expand its nuclear program. In one good sign, Iran recently concluded an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency that preserves previously agreed-upon monitoring.

But there’s no guarantee that the JCPOA can be revived. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is hedging its bets. “We’re putting diplomacy first and see where that takes us. But if diplomacy fails, we’re ready to turn to other options,” Biden has said. If diplomacy fails, Biden will certainly deserve some of the blame, but Trump did what he could to make success as unlikely as possible.

Trade Policy

Iran is not the only country still suffering under the burden of Trump-era sanctions. China was hit with a variety of tariffs and economic sanctions during the Trump years, and it retaliated with trade penalties of its own against the United States.

To get the tariffs reduced, China signed the “phase one” trade agreement in which it promised to purchase $200 billion more US products in 2020-21. Last year, China fell short of its targeted purchases by 40%. Of course, the global outbreak of COVID-19 didn’t help, as global trade in general plummeted. The numbers for 2021, on the other hand, have been better, with Chinese purchases of agricultural products in particular rising sharply.

Significantly, that “phase one” agreement didn’t lift any of the tariffs on Chinese goods, just reduced some of the rates. Tariffs on 66% of Chinese products remain in place, amounting to about $350 billion. That cost the United States around 300,000 jobs, not to mention the $28 billion in subsidies Trump sent to farmers to offset the initial drop in Chinese purchases of soybeans and other foodstuffs.

The Biden administration shows no sign of reducing or eliminating those tariffs. Indeed, it has piled on more economic sanctions against China over its policies in Xinjiang and Hong Kong. It expanded a Trump-era prohibition on US investments into Chinese companies connected to defense or surveillance technology. Meetings between Chinese and American officials have failed to establish common ground on trade or any other issue for that matter.

The bottom line is that Trump helped move the needle in Washington against China, so that anti-Chinese policies now have strong bipartisan support. Biden would have difficulty lifting tariffs and sanctions even if that’s what he wanted to do.

But even where such animus doesn’t exist, like Europe, Biden hasn’t pushed hard to lift penalties. Although this summer the administration finally ended a 17-year trade war with Europe over subsidizing the aerospace sector, Biden has not lifted the tariffs Trump imposed on European steel and aluminum. When asked after the G7 summit in June about these measures, a clearly exasperated president said: “A hundred and twenty days. Give me a break. Need time.”

His response is disingenuous. He could have lifted those sanctions on day one. In fact, protectionism strikes a chord in certain sectors of the Democratic Party, and Biden doesn’t want to lose blue-collar voters. Trump made protectionism great again. Biden is loath to push against this tide.

Immigration

Trump’s protectionism also extended to border policy. He spent much of his four years in office doing whatever he could to cut the numbers of people entering the country and, where possible, deporting people who were already here.

Biden pledged to reverse the ugliest of Trump’s policies. He stopped the construction of the infamous wall on the southern border. He ended travel bans for people coming from majority Muslim countries. He recommitted to protecting the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which covers undocumented young people who came to the United States at a young age.

But Trumpism lives on throughout the US court system. In July, a federal judge in Texas ruled that the Biden administration must stop accepting new DACA applications. In August, the Supreme Court ordered the administration to reinstate Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program, which forces asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico while awaiting a decision on their status. In putting asylum-seekers at risk, the program clearly violates international law.

It gets worse. The Biden administration is not happy with the above rulings and is seeking to challenge them. Yet in other immigration matters, the Justice Department continues to prosecute Trump-era cases.

“Over the past six months, the U.S. government has backed the expiration of certain visas, pushed for tougher requirements for investors seeking green cards, and supported the denial of permanent residency for thousands of immigrants living legally in the U.S.,” Anita Kumar reports in Politico. “Former administration officials and immigration lawyers say Biden’s hands may be tied in certain cases—that the government may not necessarily agree with the specific policy but that the Justice Department may have to defend Trump-era policy because of requirements in law and the time needed to review all the cases.”

Trump didn’t just tie his successor’s hands. He handcuffed them to the throttle of a runaway train.

Not a Rule-Breaker

Trump made some changes that Biden has accepted without reservation. The previous president created a new focus in Asian policy that he called “Indo-Pacific,” which brought together the United States with Japan, India and Australia to form the Quad (not to be confused with the Squad). Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell has continued to prioritize India in the new administration’s containment of China, which had been a major Trump focus (to the extent that he could focus on anything).

The Biden administration has also embraced Trump’s Abraham Accords that secured new diplomatic relations between Arab countries and Israel (but at the expense of Palestine). Meanwhile, Biden shows no sign of attempting to reverse such Trump innovations as establishing the US Embassy in Jerusalem.

Of course, Biden is in a policy space whose parameters were established long before Trump came along with his sledgehammer. Biden is not exactly a rule-breaker when it comes to international affairs. The new administration has increased Pentagon spending and reaffirmed military commitments to NATO and allies in the Pacific. Biden has resurrected the old approach of “strategic patience” with North Korea.

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Aside from some proposed increases in foreign aid, he has largely ignored the global south. It turns out that the new president is comfortable working within the constraints of the status quo ante.

Trump was a true rule-breaker who did manage to do quite a lot in the international arena, where he had far greater leeway to make changes beyond congressional control. Much of that activity was destructive because Trump proved quite adept at smashing things.

Indeed, Trump smashed things — the Iran nuclear deal, détente with Cuba — not just because of a peevish desire to destroy his predecessor’s legacy but as part of a scorched-earth policy to FUBAR the federal government for generations to come. As a result, Biden will spend much of his term picking up the pieces — and that’s a whole lot harder when you’re in handcuffs.

*[This article was originally published by Foreign Policy in Focus.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The Handcuffing of Joe Biden appeared first on Fair Observer.

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The expanded multidimensional collaboration marked meaningful progress in the transition of the US–South Korea relationship from that of a traditional military alliance to a more versatile, modernized partnership. But perhaps even more noteworthy was the joint commitment to strengthening regional governance and championing human rights, especially women’s rights. 

Making a Statement

To begin with, the Biden and Moon administrations reinforced their common vision of promoting regional governance centered on liberal values in the Indo-Pacific. Broad-brush commitments from the 2019 joint statement by the US and the Republic of Korea (ROK) — such as encouraging regional digital transparency and advancing openness, sovereignty and the rule of law in the Indo-Pacific — solidified into more explicit terms during the meeting in Washington.

For instance, both sides agreed to oppose all activities that undermine, destabilize and threaten the rules-based order; uphold freedom of navigation and stability in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait; support open and inclusive regional multilateralism, including the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad); and build clean 5G and 6G telecommunications networks. The allies also established the KORUS Global Vaccine Partnership, a tangible step toward strengthening regional leadership and governance through public health and vaccine distribution.

For Washington, getting South Korea to acknowledge and emphasize the importance of liberal norms in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, as well as demonstrate mutual support for the Quad, was a welcome change. Out of fear of damaging strategic ties with China, its largest trading partner and an important broker of regional diplomacy with North Korea, leaders in Seoul have largely avoided publicly siding with the US on China-related issues.

South Korea’s traditional wariness is based on experience. In 2016, after Seoul deployed the THAAD missile defense system, which China perceives as a vehicle for US strategic surveillance of Chinese interests, Beijing imposed informal economic boycotts against South Korea and cut off bilateral defense talks. Against this backdrop, the Biden-Moon statement from the summit, which contains language that can be viewed as contrary to Chinese interests (such as supporting the Quad and upholding liberal norms around disputed East Asian seas), signaled that Seoul is growing more confident in standing up for its own values and supporting a free and open Indo-Pacific, regardless of Beijing’s preferences and despite the possibility of retaliation. 

Human Rights

In addition to regional governance, human rights marked another issue where Washington and Seoul renewed commitment at the summit. The joint statement comprised several pledges that soundly reflected the alliance’s devotion to human rights. This included expanded financial aid for Northern Triangle countries, commitment to aiding North Korean citizens, support for the ongoing democratic movement in Myanmar, and standing for justice against racism and hate crimes targeting Asian Americans. But particularly eye-catching was the alliance’s unusually strong emphasis on empowering women and enhancing gender equality.  

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The Biden-Moon statement acknowledged “women’s full participation” as the key to resilient democracy and presented several important commitments for women’s empowerment. The two presidents mentioned exchanging best practices to reduce the gender wage gap, empowering women in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and combating abuses against women, including domestic violence and cyber-exploitation.

When it comes to workplace equality, both allies stand well below the average for member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on issues like gender wage gap disparity and female leadership (or the glass ceiling phenomenon), with South Korea ranking last. Tied to this is gender disparity in STEM, which limits greater labor diversification and which has also been a concern for both the United States and South Korea. Violence against women is a challenge both societies face.

These are all vital areas of improvement for both countries to elevate their state of gender equality and overall democracy. The specific mention of these issues in the joint statement is encouraging for women’s rights advocates. 

Falling Short

Despite this promising turn, shared awareness of gender equality issues does not mean much if not put into action. Inconsistent progress on this front has been a problem for both allies. Women’s empowerment was a key goal at the summit in 2015 between Barack Obama and Park Geun-hye. But while the US remained committed to these shared objectives, South Korea fell short. While things have improved in South Korea, with its gender equality ranking rising from 118 to 102 under Moon, the US saw a backslide under former President Donald Trump, going from 45^th to 53^rd place globally, according to the World Economic Forum.

However, under the Biden administration, which prioritizes gender equality, the US will likely make significant progress in the future. Promoting gender equality is an indispensable element of the universal human rights agenda. As two sophisticated democracies championing human rights, both the US and South Korea are responsible for making enduring efforts to empower women. Under any administration ruled by whichever political coalitions, the value of women’s rights should not be undermined. 

On top of striving to tackle gender inequality at home, the US and South Korea should lay out more concrete bilateral initiatives and build a high-level communication channel to discuss progress regularly and hold each other accountable for tangible progress toward their commitments. Gender inequality remains a longstanding obstacle to regional growth in Asia. At the regional level, the US–ROK alliance could revisit and expand on its pledges from the 2020 East Asia Summit regarding women’s economic empowerment and participation in security and peacekeeping issues.

After all, the Biden and Moon administrations’ renewed cooperation on regional governance in the Indo-Pacific and gender equality established a good framework for the US–ROK alliance to expand its influence and spread democratic values throughout Asia. Both sides should make sure to diligently implement the commitments going forward.

*[Fair Observer is a media partner of Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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The radical right has, in the meantime, become obsessed with the lab leak idea. Those of us who have experienced — and survived — coordinated campaigns of abuse on social media recognize the signs: Suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere, people you have never heard of begin to spam your email or social media accounts. Someone has pointed the trolls in your direction, and you start to wonder, who and why?

Someone’s Errands

In the final days of May, “Mikael” emailed me: “So the most likely truth about Corona is a conspiracy idea that is a threat against democracy? What kind of nut are you that is so wrong? Who’s errands do you run?”

The background to his kind email, followed up by another a few days later, was an article published a week earlier in the right-leaning Swedish journal Kvartal. Here, journalist Ola Wong suggested that a report — I happen to be its author — published by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) aims to serve the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In a gross simplification of what the report actually stated, Wong alleged that it “cautions against blaming China” and “goes so far as to claim that searching for an answer to the origin of the virus and the responsibility for its spread basically amounts to a desire to find a ‘scapegoat’. MSB says that this is the hallmark of conspiracy theories and a threat to democracy.”

What I did in my report was provide an overview of how conspiracy theories around COVID-19 are part of what the WHO has branded the “infodemic” — an infected infoscape in which different actors spread disinformation for various purposes, such as to denigrate their political opponents and attack expert knowledge. I distinguish between six areas of conspiratorial imagination in relation to the pandemic: origins, dissemination, morbidity and mortality, countermeasures in politics and public health, vaccination and metatheories.

Both separately or in various combinations, all these six categories have fueled conspiratorial meaning-making. In some cases, they have driven processes of radicalization toward violent extremism, such as attacks against 5G technology, mass demonstrations leading to political violence or disgusting displays of racist stereotypes.

Moreover, as a historian of ideas, I don’t study the root causes of or treatments for a contagious virus that has killed millions across the globe but rather the conceptions and discourses connected to it. In that sense, I am less interested in what really caused the pandemic and more invested in studying how different concepts — for instance about its origins — are used in (conspiratorial) rhetoric around the subject. It is also not my ambition or task to investigate the likeliness of a lab leak or the possibility that the COVID-19 vaccine contains a microchip. So, first of all, Wong — and, as we will see, others alongside him — has failed to capture the basic premises of the report. Just to make my case, the passage Wong reacted to (the MSB report will soon be available in an English translation), reads:

“The question about the origin of the virus and the disease is infected because there is an underlying accusation of guilt. Could anyone who might have known about the existence of the virus also have stopped its dissemination? Was the outbreak of the virus covered up? Was the virus created in a lab or by transmission from animal to human? Questions like these are of course reasonable to ask, but already early on they were connected to what is an attribute of conspiracy theories: to place blame on someone and point out scapegoats. … By calling COVID-19 ‘the China–virus’ a narrative was established in which China was made responsible for the pathogen, disease and in extension its dissemination. In the trail of imposing guilt, racist Sino/Asiaphobic stereotypes were expressed against people with Asian appearance across the globe.”

I then made a parallel to the famous claim made by former President Donald Trump and his followers that climate change is a “Chinese hoax to bring down the American economy” and that, in continuation of this line of thought, COVID-19 now is inserted into the narrative with the twist that it would benefit the Democrats in the 2020 election. I concluded that “in both conspiratorial narratives, scientific expertise is rejected.” Furthermore, I quoted an expert from Yale Medical School (Wong wrongly frames it as my opinion) stating that it is both incorrect and xenophobic to “attach locations or ethnicity to the disease.” I also mentioned that the spread of the virus was blamed on a cabal between the CCP and the Democrats.

Nowhere in the entire report is it ever claimed or even hinted at that it somehow would be wrong or illegitimate to investigate the origins of the virus as a lab leak. It is true that conspiracy theories typically use scapegoating as one of many rhetoric strategies, and that they are, by extension, threatening democracy for multiple reasons. But it is utterly wrong to suggest, as Wong does, that the report somehow alleges that it would be a threat to democracy to investigate the origins of the pandemic as a lab leak or that the report dismissed such claims as a conspiracy theory.

Wong writes: “But if you mention China, you risk being labeled as a racist or accused of spreading conspiracy theories. Why has the origin of the virus become such a contentious issue?” But anyway, “MSB’s message benefits the CCP” and its narrative “that the pandemic is a global problem” (well, isn’t it?) and “not a problem originating from China to which the world has the right to demand answers.”

Chinese Propaganda Machine

Wong identifies such deflection as an outcome of a cunning Chinese propaganda machine, quoting an article that remembers how the US was blamed for the origin of AIDS/HIV in the 1980s in a similar conspiracy mode. Well, had Wong turned a page of the MSB report, he would have found a passage with the heading “The US-virus,” which exactly explains that another conspiratorial narrative about the origin of the virus also exists. Consequently, it would have similarly been completely absurd to state that the report “serves the interests of the US” since it treats the narrative about the “US virus” as a typical conspiracy theory.

But such inconsistencies are of no interest to Wong. Instead, he now delves into the by now well-established “new evidence” (it was always suggested as a possibility) that he claims to have “disappeared from the global agenda” (did it really?) about the lab leak theory. The reason why the theory was suppressed, he argues, was because “The media’s aversion to Trump created a fear of association,” and “Because of the general derision for Trump, the established media chose to trust virologists such as [Dr. Peter] Daszak rather than investigating the laboratory hypothesis.”

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Wong then extensively quotes from science journalist Nicholas Wade pushing for the explanation that “gain-of-function” experiments were carried out in Wuhan and that zoonotic transmission seems unlikely: “What Wade describes is not a conspiracy, but rather an accident for which no one has wanted to assume responsibility.” Wong is obsessed with responsibility and “the day of reckoning” that yet is to come, when China’s guilt finally will be revealed to the global audience. As much as he seems to long for this day when justice will prevail, he implores at the very end of his article to not “let sweeping allegations of conspiracy theories and racism undermine the work to trace the origins of the virus.”

Wong’s article left me puzzled in many ways, almost unimpressed. I did not state anything in my report that Wong purports I did, so it is difficult to understand why a journalist would find it worthwhile challenging the Swedish Civil Contingency Agency with an argument that has no basis whatsoever.

Lab Leak Whispers

Just two days later, Swedish public service radio P1 invited both myself a Wong to come on its morning program to address the question of “What are you allowed to say about the origin of COVID-19?” — stipulating that there is some sort of censorship around the subject. Wong was unable to produce any credible evidence that the CCP ever has called the lab leak theory a conspiracy. There might be, and I am interested to read more about this attribution and its rhetorical function; the Chinese embassy in Washington later used such terminology. During the summer of 2021, however, the topic has repeatedly been treated by the Chinese TV channel CGTN.

At the time when my conversation with Wong was aired on prime-time radio, the fringes of the Swedish radical right had already sniffed out the potential of the story, propelled by the tabloid Expressen, which in bold letters ran the story, “MSB dismisses the lab-leak entirely: follows the line of China.” The article reiterates Wong’s one, but manipulates the content of the MSB report further, alleging that accusations of racism and conspiracy theories stifle the investigation of the origins of COVID-19.

Radical-right agitator Christian Palme posted Wong’s article on one of Sweden’s Facebook pages for academics, Universitetsläckan, which kicked off a wave of conspiratorial debate. Per Gudmundsson, of the right-wing online news outlet Bulletin, stated in an op-ed that the MSB report made him suspicious. Hailing Hunter S. Thompson’s paranoid style of reporting, Gudmundsson alleges that the Swedish Civil Contingency Agency wants to pacify the people with calming messages. He ridiculed attempts to discuss what is reasonable to do when planning interventions and designing counternarratives to toxic disinformation that can act as drivers of radicalization while at the same time execrating Islamist extremism, without any interest in countering it.

Finally, the gross simplifications of Wong’s article had reached the outer orbits of the alternative radical-right media in Sweden, Fria Tider and Samnytt. Fria Tider referenced the controversial Swedish virologist Fredrik Elgh, stating that it is “senseless” that MSB had dismissed the lab leak hypothesis as a conspiracy theory (it did not). Samnytt, in turn, amplified the Chinese whispers started in Kvartal to a completely new level. In its own version of reality, the MSB report was allegedly released in order to prevent any investigation of China (not true). Under the heading “Prohibited to ask questions,” Samnytt states: “the message of the report is that it is not allowed to ask questions about the origin of the virus” (also not true).

Moreover, referring to and quoting Gudmundsson’s article on Bulletin, it goes on to state that “instead of questioning the established truths, the report recommends ‘to be in the present and to plant a tree’” — right quote but wrong context — “or to use other methods to calm your thoughts.” The author of the article is Egor Putilov, a pseudonym of a prolific character in the Swedish radical-right alternative media.

And now back to Mikael. Curious to drag out trolls from under their stones (they might explode in daylight), I answered the first email he sent to me; he replied. Mikael characterized himself as a disabled pensioner (Asperger’s) living in a Swedish suburb among “ISIS-fans, clans, psychopath-criminals and addicts etc. which you most likely have taken part in to create/import.” He asserted to have insights about what is happening behind the scenes related to COVID-19 and that the recent reemergence of the lab leak theory only demonstrated his superiority in analyzing world matters: “If I think something controversial, the rest of Sweden frequently thinks the same twenty years later.”

He recommended I look for knowledge outside the small circle of disinformed and obedient yes-people within the “system.” I must admit that Mikael’s email was one of the friendlier online abuses I have experienced. On the same day, I also received a message from “Sten” titled “C*ck” and containing a short yet threatening line, “beware of conspiracy theories and viruses… .”

What If the Scientists Were Wrong?

As historian and political analyst Thomas Frank eloquently has pointed out, we should expect a political earthquake if a lab leak is indeed confirmed. Frank claims that what is under attack is science itself. Science, we were told, held the answers on how to combat the pandemic. Experts in public health provided scientific evidence for political countermeasures, despised by those who routinely reject science or feel that their liberties have been infringed upon.

If it is proven that “science has failed the global population,” either by accident, by gain-of-function research getting out of control or, worse, by deliberately creating a bioweapon, both scientists and those who rely on their expertise will come under attack and their authority will be seriously undermined, with unpredictable consequences. Why would people have reasons to believe that climate change is real, that 5G technology is harmless or that cancer might be cured with rDNA treatment? Frank posits that what is at stake is a liberal “sort of cult” of science that was developed against the “fool Trump.” Should it turn out that scientists and experts were wrong, “we may very well see the expert-worshiping values of modern liberalism go up in a fireball of public anger.”

Frank and others, such as Wade and his Swedish apologist Wong, allege that it somehow was the media’s fault to cement the lab leak origin as a crazy conspiracy theory just because it was peddled by a president who made more than 30,000 false or misleading claims while in office. When the “common people of the world” find out that they might “have been forced into a real-life lab experiment,” a moral earthquake will be on its way since they will come to the ultimate realization “that here is no such thing as absolute expertise.”

In the end, this will imply that populism was right all along about the existence of an existential dualism between “the people” and the well-to-do, well-educated ruling “elite” minority that creates and manages an eternal cycle of disasters affecting the majority. I tend to agree: This dualism is in fact a strong driver of populist mobilization and one that reoccurs in most conspiracy theories: we, the suffering people, the victims, against them, the plotting elite, the perpetrators.

But I would like to add to Frank’s conclusions, that the (social) media outlets as much as the radical-right propagandists were immediately able to smell out the potential of the lab leak as a typical frame by which “the people” like Mikael, Sten, Martin and Per (more and more of them — all male — have started contacting me directly) could be pitched against “fake science,” government agencies and politicians.

I would say that this, in fact, is the real purpose. In reality, the radical right does not care one bit about the origins of the virus but has discovered a perfect trope with which public distrust in authority can be deepened further. This is the reason why Wong needed to unleash an unsubstantiated attack against the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency. He, as much as Gudmundsson, despises any attempt to provide citizens with tools to decode disinformation and conspiracy theories as to allow informed members of society to judge the accuracy of various claims beyond populist apocalypticism. If media literacy and the ability to detect conspiratorial messages increase, sensationalist media outlets will lose their power.

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One of the three key elements of populism as defined by Benjamin Moffit is a permanent invocation of crisis, breakdown or threat. If this perpetuum mobile is disrupted, the source of populist power is dismantled, which is why Wong and others have to target the firefighters, and why Gudmundsson doesn’t want to hear about how to counter radicalization. The eternal flame of catastrophe is the campfire of populist socialization. Right now, the lab leak theory is a giant burning log providing heat for all these gratifying marshmallows to be grilled and fed to “the people.”

But there might also be other reasons. By pushing the lab leak hypothesis, the radical right makes the case that “Trump was right” about the “China virus” and, if so, he might also be right about the “stolen” election and all other 29,998 lies uttered during his presidency. Moreover, it was the liberal mainstream media’s fault that the lab leak was “buried” (which it never was) because they are all agents of Chinese disinformation (and communism, as we all know, is the great evil of the 20^th century), classical guilt by association. So, in the bigger picture, the lab leak is needed as proof of the infallibility of the great leader in his quest to “drain the swamp.” QAnon will celebrate on the ruins of Capitol Hill.

However, what worries me most is that the lab leak theory is used by the radical right as an attempt to minimize the danger of anti-Asian racism or any other racist attribution and abuse in case of earlier or later crises and catastrophes. Somehow, not only will science be proven wrong and the great leader right, but racism will be defended as a rational and normal reaction to pandemics. Wait, didn’t the Jews poison our wells at one point?

*[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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