Will Costs Continue to Cage Laos’ Regional Connectivity?

January 15th, 2021 by Buavanh Vilavong

This article was originally published in January 2018 by East Asia Forum.

Laos is among the fastest growing economies in Southeast Asia: economic growth has averaged 7.8 per cent over the past decade. Despite the slow recovery of the global economy, the country’s growth rate was 6.9 per cent in 2017 and is expected to be 7 per cent in 2018. This is buoyed by an expansion in electricity production, manufacturing and agriculture, and it occurs despite a slight drop in tourist arrivals.

Merchandise trade in Laos has expanded 20 per cent annually on average over the past ten years. But Laos conducts most of this trade with its immediate neighbours: Thailand, China and Vietnam account for 85 per cent of Lao trade volume. This is primarily because Laos is the only landlocked nation in the region, and being landlocked raises international trade costs by up to 50 per cent. As such, an improvement in transport connectivity is critical for Laos’ development.

Even when landlocked status is put to one side, insufficient transport infrastructure is one of the biggest challenges for Laos. At present, road transport is the dominant mode of transport, constituting 70 per cent of the country’s total freight traffic. Laos has no significant rail or water transport.

Laos has leveraged its geopolitical situation to transform the country’s position from being ‘landlocked’ to ‘land-linked’. The construction of the Lao–Chinese railway began in December 2016. The cost of this mega-project is expected to reach US$6 billion; 70 per cent will be funded by China and the remainder will be funded by Laos. This 427 kilometre railway link is foreseen to be finished by 2021 and will form part of the Kunming–Singapore pan-regional connectivity route, which was 12 per cent complete as of November 2017.

Laos is also working with Vietnam to prioritise the construction of a 600 kilometre rail link between its capital Vientiane and Vietnam’s seaport Vung Ang. This project aims to improve Laos’ access to the sea. Both countries also plan to construct a six-lane highway to connect their two capitals — another mega project that will cost US$4.5 billion.

These projects add to the regional connectedness efforts that Laos has already made with Thailand and Myanmar. The first Lao–Thai Friendship Bridge, which was partially financed by the Australian government, began operations in 1994. Four international bridges over the Mekong now connect Laos’ capital and other economically important cities to Thailand. These friendship bridges now extend to more nations than Thailand: Laos opened its first friendship bridge with Myanmar in May 2015.

Although transport infrastructure is expected to improve thanks to investments in the pipeline (including a railway link from China), Laos was among the world’s bottom 10 in a recent survey on logistics performance. The country’s overall ‘logistics performance index’ (a weighted average of key ease-of-shipping indices) was 2.07 in 2016, which is down from 2.39 in 2014. Laos remained behind all other ASEAN members in almost all aspects including efficiency in border clearance, trade and transport infrastructure and logistics competence. The only areas where Laos did not score last were timeliness and international shipments, in which Laos scored comparably to Myanmar.

According to the Japan External Trade Organization, Laos has the highest logistics costs in the region. It costs US$2500 to ship a 40 foot container from Vientiane to Yokohama compared with US$1200 from Phnom Penh or US$1000 from Hanoi. The cost of transit from Vientiane to Bangkok is US$1700, of which 40 per cent is attributed to clearing customs and transport-related procedures at the Lao–Thai border checkpoint.

This highlights the critical importance of improving not only transport infrastructure but also administrative efficiency in order to better connect Laos to the region and restore growth to its historical average. Hence, customs modernisation efforts are underway particularly in the organisation of clearance procedures. A chief example is the introduction of the UN-designed Automated System for Customs Data, which has reduced the time for customs clearance.

It is essential that the current efforts continue in order to boost customs enforcement and to ensure effective regulation, as trade volumes are expected to increase when the ASEAN Economic Community (which was officially launched in December 2015) begins operating in full swing.

Improved regional connectivity will also help Laos compete internationally. Production networks are becoming a prominent feature of global trade. The associated dispersion of manufacturing across different countries to exploit locational advantages presents opportunities for Laos to tap into segments of regional supply chains appropriate to its level of development. But this will be only be possible if Laos has the necessary connectivity infrastructure.

Laos is already engaged with production networks in food processing and garments. It has also begun to tap into other elements of labour-intensive assembly such as electronics components, lens polishing, medical equipment and automotive wire harness. Laos needs to reduce its logistics costs before it can further connect to entrenched regional networks of production.

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This article is part of an EAF special feature series on 2017 in review and the year ahead.

Buavanh Vilavong is a PhD candidate at the Crawford School of Public Policy, the Australian National University.

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The feeling from Rory Medcalf of the Australian National University was one of breathless wonder.  “The US government,” he wrote in The Strategist, “has just classified one of its most secretive national security documents – its 2018 strategic framework for the Indo-Pacific, which was formally classified SECRET and not for release to foreign nationals.” 

Washington’s errand boys and girls in Canberra tend to get excited by this sort of thing.  Rather than seeing it as a blueprint for imminent conflict with China, a more benign reading is given: how to handle “strategic rivalry with China.”  Looming in the text of the National Security Council’s US Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific (SFIP) is a generous doffing of the cap to Australia’s reckless, self-harming approach towards China.  As an unnamed senior US official (of course) told Axios, the Australians “were pioneers and we have to give a lot of credit to Australia.”  Australian senior intelligence advisor John Garnaut is given high praise for his guiding hand.  When war breaks out between Beijing and Washington, we know a few people to thank.

The SFIP, declassified on January 5, is very much a case of business as usual and unlikely to shift views in the forthcoming Biden presidency.  The timing of the release suggests that the Trump administration would like to box its predecessor on certain matters, notably on China.

In a statement from National Security Advisor Robert C. O’Brien, the SFIP “provided overarching strategic guidance for implementing the 2017 National Security Strategy within the world’s most populous and economically dynamic region”.  The National Security Strategy, in turn, recognised “that the most consequential challenge to the interests of the United States, and those of our allies and partners, is the growing rivalry between free and repressive visions of the future.”  Beijing is cast in the role of repressive force in “pressuring Indo-Pacific nations to subordinate their freedom and sovereignty to a ‘common destiny’ envisioned by the Chinese Communist Party.”

The imperium’s interests, according to the SFIP, must be guarded (“strategic primacy in the Indo-Pacific region”); a “liberal economic order” must be promoted while China is to be prevented “from establishing new, illiberal spheres of influence”.  North Korea is deemed of high importance in terms of whether it threatens the US and its allies, “accounting for both the acute present danger and the potential for future changes in the level and type of threat posed” by Pyongyang.  The US is also to retain “global economic leadership while promoting fair and reciprocal trade.”

One of the “top interests” of the US in the Indo-Pacific is identified in pure power terms: retaining “economic, diplomatic, and military access to the most populous region in the world and more than one-third of the global economy”.  Washington is keen to preserve “primacy in the region while protecting American core values and liberties at home.”  But there is the spoiling presence of China, aspirational superpower, and keen for its bit of geopolitical pie.  “Strategic competition between the United States and China will persist, owing to the divergent nature and goals of our political and economic systems.”

China is ever the cheeky opportunist, seeking to “circumvent international rules norms to gain an advantage.”  Beijing “aims to dissolve US alliances and partnerships in the region” exploiting “vacuums and opportunities created by these diminished bonds.”  With this in mind, US defence strategy should be “capable of, but not limited to: (1) denying China sustained air and sea dominance inside the ‘first island chain’ in conflict; (2) defending the first-island-chain nations, including Taiwan; and (3) dominating all domains outside the first island-chain.”

The document also acknowledges an untidy region of shifting power balances and increased defence spending, which will “continue to drive security competition across the Indo-Pacific”.  Japan and India are singled out for special mention in that regard.  A measure of angst is registered: “Loss of US pre-eminence in the Indo-Pacific would weaken our ability to achieve US interests globally.”

The authors of the SFIP are unashamed about the fistful of principles that will maintain US power, the sort that masquerades in popular language as the “liberal rules-based order”.  Desirable objectives include the US being the “preferred partner” of “most nations” in the region; and that these powers “uphold the principles that have enabled US and regional prosperity and stability, including sovereignty, freedom of navigation and overflight, standards of trade and investment, respect for individual rights and rule of law, and transparency in military activities.”  No wobbling will be permitted; allies will have to get in line.

India, “in cooperation with like-minded countries,” figures as a shining hope.  Its rise is deemed essential, serving as “a net provider of security and Major Defense Partner”.  What is envisaged is a strategic partnership “underpinned by a strong Indian military able to effectively collaborate with the United States and our partners in the region to address shared interests.”

For its spiky anti-China message, the nature of the economic relationship with Beijing is hard to ignore, provided it is conducted on US terms.  The strategy is, to that end, most Trumpian in character, emphasising the need to “prevent China’s industrial policies and unfair trading practices from distorting global markets and harming US competitiveness.”

In what has become a tradition of the Trump administration, the Framework document does not tally with messages from other equivalent national security assessments.  The officials of empire are not speaking with a coherent voice.  The 2019 Indo-Pacific Strategy Report by the Department of Defense, for instance, makes good mention of Russia as a “revitalized malign actor”.  (Pentagon pundits can never seem to give the bear, or their paranoia, a rest.)  Despite tardy economic growth occasioned by Western sanctions and a fall in oil prices, Moscow “continues to modernize its military and prioritize strategic capabilities – including its nuclear forces, A2/AD systems, and expanded training for long-range aviation – in an attempt to re-establish its presence in the Indo-Pacific region.”

The authors of the Framework document are, in sharp contrast, barely troubled by Moscow and, surprisingly, sober on the issue.  “Russia will remain a marginal player in the Indo-Pacific region relative to the United States, China and India.”  Abhijnan Rej of The Diplomat could not help but find this inconsistency odd.  “So Russia is a threat in a public document but not one in a classified one?”

As for India, the 2019 IPSR does much to avoid exaggeration and elevation.  “Within South Asia, we are working to operationalize our Major Defense Partnership with India, while pursuing emerging partnerships with Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Bangladesh and Nepal.”  The Pentagon notes an increase in the “scope, complexity and frequency of our military exercises” with India.  But for all that, New Delhi hardly remains a jewel of defence strategy relative to such traditional allies as South Korea and Japan.

The SFIP, in contrast, makes a bold stab at linking the goals of maintaining US regional supremacy with New Delhi’s own objectives.  This is bound to cause discomfort in the planning rooms, given Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rhetoric on regional multipolarity.  An article of faith in Indian policy on the matter is ensuring that no single power dominates the region.  Another potential concern is the prospect that India is being thrown into the US-China scrap.

Medcalf concludes his assessment of the framework document with his own call for what promises to be future conflict.  “America,” he insists, “cannot effectively compete with China if it allows Beijing hegemony over this vast region, the economic and strategic centre of gravity in a connected world.”  The conflict mongers will be eagerly rubbing their hands.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research.  Email: [email protected]

In recent times India has been passing through the most difficult period of its post-independence history. The most sacred constitutional precept of social  (including inter-faith) equality and harmony is badly threatened, while economic inequality and the grip of a few top billionaires on economy have been increasing like never before. Destruction of environment and bio-diversity are rampant, and the safeguards to protect environment after years of struggle and effort have been dismantled repeatedly. Resistance and dissent are met by increasing repression as well as in various manipulative devices.

In this situation there is need for increasing unity of all people who believe in equality, justice, unity in diversity, inter-faith harmony and wider peace at all levels, protection of environment and bio-diversity. People have to set aside their smaller differences and agree on broader unity on more basic issues and to protect all from the onslaughts of authoritarianism, crony-capitalism integrated with  wider imperialism and neo-colonialism. In other words, all those who believe in justice, equality and protecting environment should be united to protect our country and its people from exploiters, whether they are exploiters from within the country or outside the country, or a collusion of both.

In all times there should be basic unity of all forces of equality, communal harmony, justice and environment protection but in present times of fast increasing difficulties of the country and its people, in times of great disruption of livelihoods and denial of basic health and food needs than before, this need increases all the more. So why the hesitation in achieving more unity and united action?

Some people see a divide among people desiring justice and harmony along the lines of the great struggles led by Gandhiji and Shahid Bhagat Singh during the freedom movement. Both of them, and their close colleagues, were all very great leaders with very inspiring qualities and very memorable contributions. Both were firmly committed to freedom, justice and equality, both were able to very significantly advance this commitment in their own ways. Both were also great social reformers, both fought against colonial rule all their life and yet were great believers in international fraternity. Both were deeply committed to communal harmony.

What, then, were their differences? Most people symbolize Gandhi mainly in terms of peace, which is right. Many people symbolize Bhagat Singh ( and his close colleagues) mainly in terms of violent acts against colonial rule. This is not correct at all. Bhagat Singh clearly said that sometimes in exceptional circumstances a violent act may be justified but the overall and wider commitment is to non-violent struggle. He and his close colleagues asked youth not to resort to guns and bombs but to work among farmers and workers on longer-term basis to resist exploitation and create new systems based on justice and equality. His more senior colleague Ram Prasad Bismil left a similar message to youth in his autobiography.

So actually there is no great divide in the paths of Gandhiji and Bhagat Singh but rather  somewhat different paths of reaching  similar goals. In the context of Bhagat Singh and colleagues the most central theme is justice and while the value of non-violence is appreciated, justice being more central to their thinking, sometimes violence to achieve justice is also all right for them. But for Gandhiji non-violence is non-negotiable and has to be practiced in all contexts.

Both the great men and their followers are entitled to the rationality of their viewpoints. Let us also not forget that Bhagat Singh became a martyr at the age of only 23 and there was greater realization of value of non-violence in his later years which may have increased further with the passage of time. But the more important point here is that these differences are not so great that there cannot be more unity and united action among those who believe strongly in similar objectives of justice and equality , communal harmony and unity in diversity. It makes much more sense to speak of how these two paths can be mutually supportive and complementary in achieving common objectives of justice , equality, harmony and democracy.

Today as India negotiates exceptionally  difficult times  the country needs both Gandhi and Bhagat Singh and India needs the unity of their followers and all those who respect them sincerely to create a country based on justice, equality, harmony  peace, real democracy and environment protection.

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Bharat Dogra is a veteran journalist and author. His recent books include When The Two Streams Met and Man Over Machine.

Featured image is from Countercurrents

China would like the world to believe that the Middle East and North Africa region does not rank high on its totem pole despite its energy dependence, significant investment and strategic relationships with the region. In many ways, China is not being deceptive. With relations with the United States rapidly deteriorating, China’s primary focus is on what it views as its main battleground: the Asia–Pacific. China is nonetheless realising that remaining aloof in the Middle East may not be sustainable.

In assessing the importance of the Middle East and North Africa region to China, the glass seems both half full and half empty with regard to what it will take for China to secure its interests. In the final analysis, however, the glass is likely to prove to be half full. If so, that will have significant consequences for Chinese policy towards and engagement in the region.

Indeed, measured by Chinese policy outputs such as white papers or level of investment as a percentage of total Chinese overseas investment, the Middle East and North Africa region does not emerge as a priority on Beijing’s agenda even if virtually all of it is packaged as building blocks of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

It was only in 2016 that China published its first and only Middle East-related white paper, devoted to the Arab states rather than the region as a whole. Apart from rehashing China’s long-standing foreign policy principles, the paper highlighted opportunities for win-win cooperation in areas ranging from energy, trade and infrastructure, but also technology, nuclear development, and space.[1]

Investment figures tell a similar story. Of the US$2 trillion in Chinese overseas investment between 2005 and 2019, a mere US$198 billion or under 5 per cent went to the Middle East and North Africa.[2]

The region is unlikely to climb Beijing’s totem pole any time soon, given the dramatic decrease in Chinese foreign investment in the last four years to about 30 per cent of what it was in 2016[3] and expectations that Middle Eastern and North African economies will significantly contract as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and sharp downturn in energy markets.[4]

Half Full Rather Than Half Empty

What turns the glass half full is the fact that the Middle East fulfills almost half of China’s energy needs.[5] Moreover, some of China’s investments, particularly in ports and adjacent industrial parks in the Gulf, Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean,[6] are strategically important. What was once primarily a Belt and Road “string of pearls” linking Indian Ocean ports has evolved into a network that stretches from Djibouti in east Africa through Oman’s port of Duqm and the United Arab Emirates’ Jebel Ali port into a near dominant position in the eastern Mediterranean and onwards into the Indo–Pacific.

China already exerts influence in the eastern Mediterranean region through its involvement in ports in Greece, Turkey, Israel and Egypt. It has expressed interest in the Lebanese port of Tripoli and may well seek access to the Russian-controlled ports of Tartus and Latakia if and when it gets involved in the reconstruction of war-ravaged Syria. This was one reason that the Trump administration warned the Israelis that China’s engagement in Haifa, where they have built their own pier, could jeopardise continued use of the port by the US Sixth Fleet.[7]

Asserting the importance of the Middle East, Niu Xinchun, director of Middle East Studies at China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), wrote back in 2017: “The politics and security of the Middle East [are] inextricably related to China. This is the first time in history that China has possessed political, economic and security interests in the Middle East simultaneously.”[8] CICIR is widely viewed as China’s most influential think tank.

More recently, however, Niu has taken what seems like an antipodal position, maintaining that the Middle East does not feature prominently in China’s strategic calculations. In a webinar in May 2020, he said: “For China, the Middle East is always on the very distant backburner of China’s strategic global strategies … Covid-19, combined with the oil price crisis, will dramatically change the Middle East. [This] will change China’s investment model in the Middle East.”[9] Niu emphasised that China considers the Asia–Pacific rather than the Middle East as its primary battleground for differences with the United States.

This shift was part of a game of shadow boxing to subtly warn the Gulf, and particularly Saudi Arabia, to dial down tension with Iran to a point where it can be managed and does not spin out of control.

To ensure that its message is not lost on the region, China could well ensure that its future investments contribute to job creation, a key priority for Middle Eastern states struggling to come to grips with the economic crisis as a result of the pandemic and the sharp fall in oil demand and prices. Middle East political economy scholar Karen Young noted that Chinese investment has so far focused on a small number of locations and had not significantly generated jobs.[10]

Subtle Messaging

Subtle Chinese messaging was also at the core of China’s public response to Iranian leaks that it was close to signing a 25-year partnership with the Islamic republic that would lead to a whopping US$400 billion investment to develop the country’s oil, gas and transportation sectors.

China limited itself to a non-committal on-the-record reaction and low-key semi-official commentary. Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, a “wolf warrior” or exponent of China’s newly adopted more assertive and aggressive approach towards diplomacy, was exceptionally diplomatic in his comment. “China and Iran enjoy traditional friendship, and the two sides have been in communication on the development of bilateral relations. We stand ready to work with Iran to steadily advance practical cooperation”, Zhao said.[11]

Writing in the Shanghai Observer, a secondary Communist party newspaper, Middle East scholar Fan Hongda was less guarded. Fan argued that the agreement, though nowhere close to implementation, highlighted “an important moment of development” at a time that US–Chinese tensions allowed Beijing to pay less heed to American policies. In saying so, Fan was echoing China’s warning that the United States was putting much at risk by retching up tensions between the world’s two largest economies and could push China to the point where it no longer regards the potential cost of countering US policy as too high.[12]

Diplomacy with “Chinese Characteristics”

Nonetheless, China’s evasiveness on the Iran agreement constituted a recognition that the success of its Belt and Road initiative and its ability to avoid being sucked uncontrollably into the Middle East’s myriad conflicts depends on a security environment that reduces tension to manageable proportions and ensures that disputes do not spin out of control.

“Beijing has indeed become more concerned about the stability of Middle Eastern regimes. Its growing regional interests combined with its BRI ambitions underscore that Middle East stability, particularly in the Persian Gulf, is now a matter of strategic concern for China,” said Mordechai Chaziza, an expert on China–Middle East relations.[13]

Reflecting what appears to be a shift in China’s approach to regional security, Chinese scholars Sun Degang and Wu Sike described the Middle East in a recently published article as a “key region in big power diplomacy with Chinese characteristics in a new era”. Sun and Wu suggested that Chinese characteristics would involve “seeking common ground while reserving differences”, a formula that implies conflict management rather than conflict resolution. The scholars said Chinese engagement in Middle Eastern security would seek to build an inclusive and shared regional collective security mechanism based on fairness, justice, multilateralism, comprehensive governance and the containment of differences.[14]

A Blunt Rebuke

But China’s conflict management diplomacy may not go down well with the Gulf Arabs, notably Saudi Arabia, judging by what for Saudi media was a blunt and rare recent critique of the People’s Republic. In a game of shadow-boxing in which intellectuals and journalists front for officials who prefer the luxury of plausible deniability, Saudi Arabia responded bluntly in a column authored by Baria Alamuddin, a Lebanese journalist who regularly writes columns for Saudi media.

Alamuddin warned that China was being lured to financially bankrupt Lebanon by Hizballah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi’a militia. She suggested in a column published by Arab News, the kingdom’s primary English-language newspaper, that Hizballah’s seduction of China was occurring against the backdrop of a potential massive 25-year cooperation agreement between the People’s Republic and Iran. “Chinese business and investment are welcome, but Beijing has a record of partnering with avaricious African and Asian elites willing to sell out their sovereignty. Chinese diplomacy is ruthless, mercantile and self-interested, with none of the West’s lip service to human rights, rule of law or cultural interchange”, Alamuddin charged.[15] She quoted a Middle East expert from a conservative US think tank as warning that “vultures from Beijing are circling, eyeing tasty infrastructure assets like ports and airports as well as soft power influence through Lebanon’s universities.”[16]

Abandoning Saudi official and media support for some of the worst manifestations of Chinese autocratic behaviour, including the brutal crackdown on Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang and the repression of democratic expression and dissident, Alamuddin did not mince words.

Alamuddin went on to assert that “witnessing how dissident voices have been mercilessly throttled in Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang, Lebanese citizens are justifiably fearful that their freedoms and culture would be crushed under heavy-handed, authoritarian Chinese and Iranian dominance, amid the miserable, monolithic atmosphere Hizballah seeks to impose.”[17]

A Hair in the Soup

Further complicating Chinese efforts to nudge the Middle East towards some degree of stabilisation are China’s technology and military sales with no constraints on their use or regard for the potential geopolitical fallout. The sales include drone and ballistic missile technology as well as the building blocks for a civilian nuclear programme for Saudi Arabia, which would significantly enhance the kingdom’s ability to develop nuclear weapons should it decide to do so at some point in future.

These sales have fuelled fears, for different reasons, in Jerusalem and Tehran of a new regional arms race in the region.[18] Israel’s concerns are heightened by the Trump administration’s efforts to limit Israeli dealings with China that involve sensitive technologies while remaining silent about Chinese military assistance to Saudi Arabia.[19]

Washington’s indifference may be set to change, assuming that the recent rejection by the US Embassy in Abu Dhabi of an offer by the UAE to donate hundreds of Covid-19 test kits for screening of its staff was a shot across the Gulf’s bow. A US official said the tests were rejected because they were either Chinese-made or involved BGI Genomics, a Chinese company active in the Gulf, which raised concerns about patient privacy.[20]

The American snub was designed to put a dent in China’s “Silk Road” health diplomacy centred on its experience with the pandemic and predominance in the manufacturing of personal protective and medical equipment as well as pharmaceutics.

A Major Battlefield

Digital and satellite technology in which Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei’s 5G cellular technology rollout is but one component seems set to be a major battlefield. US officials have warned that the inclusion of Huawei in Gulf networks could jeopardise sensitive communications, particularly given the multiple US bases in the region, including the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and the forward headquarters of the US military’s Central Command, or Centcom, in Qatar.[21]

US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker said the United States had advised its Middle Eastern partners in the region to take “a careful look at investment, major contracts and infrastructure projects.” He warned that certain engagements with China could “come at the expense of the region’s prosperity, stability, fiscal viability and longstanding relationship with the United States.”

Schenker cautioned further that agreements with Huawei meant that “basically all the information and your data is going to Huawei, property of the Chinese Communist Party”. The same, he said, was true for Chinese health technology. “When you take a Covid kit from a Chinese genomics company, your DNA is property of the Chinese Communist Party, and all the implications that go with that.”[22]

The rollout of China’s BeiDou Satellite Navigation System (BDS), which competes with the United States’ Global Positioning System (GPS), Russia’s GLONASS and Europe’s Galileo,[23] sets the stage for battle, with countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Turkey having signed up for what is known as China’s Digital Silk Road Initiative.[24] So far, Pakistan is the only country known to have been granted access to BeiDou’s military applications, which provide more precise guidance for missiles, ships and aircraft.[25]

Promoting “the development of the digital service sector, such as cross-border ecommerce, smart cities, telemedicine, and internet finance (and) … technological progress including computing, big data, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and quantum computing,” the initiative will enable China to enhance its regional influence and leverage in economics as well as security.[26] China’s state-owned international broadcaster, China Global Television Network (CGTN), implicitly anticipated US resistance to its Middle Eastern partners being roped into a Chinese digital world when it declared that “a navigation system is like a gold key of your home that should be kept only in your own hands, not others.”[27]

The successful launch in July of a mission to Mars, the Arab world’s first interplanetary initiative, suggested that the UAE was seeking to balance its engagement with the United States and China in an effort not to get caught in the growing divergence between the two powers. The mission, dubbed Hope Probe, was coordinated with US rather than Chinese institutions, including the University of Colorado Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics and NASA’s Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG). It launched from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center.[28]

You Can Run, But You Can’t Hide

A continuously deteriorating relationship between the United States and China is a worst-case scenario for Middle Eastern states. It would progressively reduce their ability to walk a fine line between the two major powers. That would be particularly true if US efforts to force its partners to limit their ties to the People’s Republic compel China into defiance by adopting a more geopolitically assertive posture in the region.

Ironically, the US desire to recalibrate its engagement with the Middle East and a realisation on the part of Saudi Arabia and Iran that their interests are best served by a reduction of tension rooted in an arrangement based on a non-aggression agreement could serve as a catalyst for a new Gulf security architecture. This could involve embedding the US defence umbrella, geared to protect Gulf states against Iran, into a multilateral structure that would include rather than exclude Iran and involve Russia, China and India.

A more multilateral security arrangement potentially could reduce pressure on the Gulf states to pick sides between the United States and China and would include China in ways that it can manage its greater engagement without being drawn into the region’s conflicts in ways that frustrated the United States for decades.

None of the parties are at a point where they are willing to publicly entertain the possibility of such a collective security architecture. Even if they were, negotiating a new arrangement is likely to be a tedious and tortuous process. Nonetheless, such a multilateral security architecture would ultimately serve all parties’ interests and may be the only way of reducing tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran and managing their differences, which would in turn help China secure its energy and economic interests in the region. This reality enhances the likelihood that the glass is half full in terms of China ultimately participating in such a multilateral security arrangement, rather than half empty, with China refraining from participation.

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This article first appeared in Middle East Insights of the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute

Dr James M Dorsey, an award-winning journalist, is a senior research fellow at the Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore. He is also a senior fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University.

Notes

[1] Ministry of Foreign Affairs, People’s Republic of China, “China’s Arab Policy Paper”, 13 January 2016, https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/t1331683.shtml#:~:text=Since%20the%20establishment%20of%20diplomatic,fields%20has%20been%20constantly%20deepened.&text=The%20Chinese%20government%20has%20issued,development%20of%20China%2DArab%20relations.

[2] American Enterprise Institute, “China Global Investment Tracker”, https://www.aei.org/china-global-investment-tracker/.

[3] Agatha Kratz speaking on “China and the Mediterranean Region in and Beyond the Pandemic, German Marshal Fund”, 3 July 2020, https://www.gmfus.org/events/china-and-mediterranean-region-and-beyond-pandemic.

[4] James M Dorsey, “Turning Gulf Security Upside Down”, Insight 238, Middle East Institute Singapore,  6 July 2020, https://mei.nus.edu.sg/publication/insight-238-turning-gulf-security-upside-down/.

[5] Michal Meidan, “China’s Energy Security at 70”, The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, October 2019, https://www.oxfordenergy.org/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Chinas-energy-security-at-70.pdf.

[6] James M Dorsey, “Syria lures but will China bite?”, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 12 June 2020, https://mideastsoccer.blogspot.com/2020/06/syria-lures-but-will-china-bite.html.

[7] Dorsey, “Syria lures but will China bite?”

[8] Niu Xinchun, “China’s Middle East Strategy under the ‘Belt and Road’ Initiative”, Foreign Affairs Review 04/2017.

[9] Niu Xinchun speaking on “How are China’s Relations with the Middle East Evolving During the COVID-19 Pandemic?”, Chatham House, 19 May 2019, https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2721841274725780.

[10] Karen Young, “The false logic of a China–US choice in the Middle East”, Al-Monitor, 30 June 2020, https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/06/false-logic-china-us-choice-mideast-economic-political-power.html.

[11] Ministry of Foreign Affairs, People’s Republic of China, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian’s Regular Press Conference on 6 July 2020,  https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/2511_665403/t1795337.shtml.

[12] “Iran announced a 25-year comprehensive cooperation plan with China. Can China–Iran relations get closer?”, Shanghai Observer, 20 June 2020, (观察家 | 伊朗宣布与华25年全面合作计划,中伊关系能否进一步走近?)https://www.shobserver.com/news/detail?id=264494.

[13] Mordechai Chaziza, “Religious and Cultural Obstacles to China’s BRI in the Middle East”, The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, 12 June 2020, https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/china-middle-east-obstacles/.

[14] Sun Degang and Wu Sike, “China’s Participation in Middle East Security Affairs in the New Er: -Ideas and Practice Exploration” (中东研究】孙德刚 吴思科:新时代中国参与中东安全事务-理念主张与实践探索), Shanghai International Studies University, July 2020.

[15] Baria Alamuddin, “Chinese and Iranian vultures circling over Beirut”, Arab News, 2 August 2020, https://www.arabnews.com/node/1713456.

[16] Danielle Pletka, “Lebanon on the Bbrink”, American Enterprise Institute, 9 May 2020, https://www.aei.org/op-eds/lebanon-on-the-brink/.

[17] Baria Alamuddin, “Chinese and Iranian vultures circling over Beirut”.

[18] Phil Mattingly, Zachary Cohen and Jeremy Herb, “US intel shows Saudi Arabia escalated its missile program with help from China”, CNN, 5 June 2020, https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/05/politics/us-intelligence-saudi-arabia-ballistic-missile-china/index.html.

[19] Mattingly, Cohen and Herb, “US intel”; Timothy Gardner, ”US approved secret nuclear power work for Saudi Arabia”, Reuters, 28 March 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-nuclear/us-approved-secret-nuclear-power-work-for-saudi-arabia-idUSKCN1R82MG.

[20] Interview with author, 8 June 2020.

[21] Interview with author, 10 July 2020.

[22] Middle East Institute, “Shifting Dynamics and US Priorities in the Middle East: A Conversation with David Schenker”, 4 June 2020, https://www.mei.edu/events/shifting-dynamics-and-us-priorities-middle-east-conversation-david-schenker.

[23] Ben Westcott, “China’s GPS rival Beidou is now fully operational after final satellite launched”, CNN Business, 24 June 2020, https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/24/tech/china-beidou-satellite-gps-intl-hnk/index.html.

[24] Belt and Road News, “China’s Global Digital Silk Road is arriving in the Middle East”, 16 September 2019, https://www.beltandroad.news/2019/09/16/chinas-global-digital-silk-road-is-arriving-in-the-middle-east/.

[25] Maria Abi-Habib, “China’s ‘Belt and Road’ Plan in Pakistan takes a military turn”, The New York Times, 19 December 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/world/asia/pakistan-china-belt-road-military.html.

[26] Huang Yong, “Construction of digital Silk Road lights up BRI cooperation”, People’s Daily, 24 April 2019, http://en.people.cn/n3/2019/0424/c90000-9571418.html.

[27] Kristin Huang, “China’s answer to GPS complete as final BeiDou satellite launches”, South China Morning Post, 23 June 2020, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3090186/chinas-global-aspirations-lift-beidou-satellite-launches-orbit?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=share_widget&utm_campaign=3090186.

[28] Jesse Yeung, “The UAE has successfully launched the Arab world’s first Mars mission”, CNN, 21 July 2020, https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/19/middleeast/uae-mars-hope-launch-intl-hnk-scn-scli/index.html.

The Indian intelligentsia has an incredible propensity to swallow the self-serving arguments of metropolitan capitalism that are typically supposed to constitute ‘economic wisdom,’ and nowhere is this more evident than in the case of India’s food economy. There are a plethora of center-page articles in newspapers these days suggesting that Indian kisans (farmers) should move away from producing food grains toward other crops, which is actually a demand that metropolitan countries have been making for quite some time. These countries have a surplus of food grains, and so they want India to import food grains from them to meet the excess of India’s domestic demand over domestic production. This would take the country back to the pre-Green Revolution days, and now members of the Indian intelligentsia are echoing, in various ways, this metropolitan demand to diversify away from food grains.

One of their arguments is that the kisans from the states of Punjab and Haryana are caught in a ‘cereal trap’ where they keep producing cereals that are not very profitable for them and of which the country now has a surplus because they are lured by the provision of a minimum support price (MSP) that reduces their risk. Sometimes the argument is put differently: the Punjab and Haryana kisans have to move away from MSP-supported activities to other more lucrative ones, for which Modi, perhaps precipitately, is providing a way through his three agriculture laws.

This entire position, apart from echoing the demand of advanced countries, and supporting the Modi government implicitly or explicitly, also shows the same contempt for kisans as shown by the government; these intellectuals are of the view that a bunch of ignoramuses cannot see what is good for them, but Modi can. But let us ignore the motives and prejudices of these intellectuals and just examine their argument.

There is no gainsaying that there are massive food grain stocks with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) at present and that this has become a regular feature of the Indian economy of late. But to conclude from this that India grows more than enough food grains for its requirements is the height of folly. A country that in 2020 ranked 94th among 10 7 hunger-afflicted countries, according to the Global Hunger Index, cannot be said to be self-sufficient in food grains even if it has surplus stocks. This is not just an arbitrary judgment. Whenever the amount of purchasing power in the hands of the people has increased, stocks have tended to dwindle, which means that the stock buildup has been caused by a shortage of purchasing power in people’s hands rather than their having as much food as they want.

The solution to the stock buildup, therefore, is to put purchasing power in the hands of the people through transfers and through an enlargement in the scope of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Ironically, doing so would not cost the government anything. If the government borrows say Rs 100 (a little more than a dollar) from banks to make these transfers, and if this amount that comes into the hands of the working people is spent on food grains, then it would come back to the FCI. The FCI, in turn, would repay this amount to the banks from whom it had borrowed for buying food grains from the kisans. As the FCI is part of the government itself, this means that what the right hand of the government would have borrowed from banks (for transfers), the left hand of the government would be paying back (through the FCI); there would be no net increase in the indebtedness of the government as a whole. But because the FCI, though government-owned, is off-budget (it was not till the early 1970s), there would be an increase in the fiscal deficit in the budget, which, however, is utterly inconsequential.

In other words, once the crop has been bought from the kisans, handing it to people rather than holding it as stocks will have no ill effects whatsoever; on the contrary, it is immensely beneficial for multiple reasons: it allays hunger, improves people’s living standards and reduces the cost of stockholding.

We assumed above that all the purchasing power coming into the hands of the people is spent on food grains, but even if a part of it is spent on other goods, it still remains entirely beneficial in a demand-constrained economy. True, the fiscal deficit will go up in this case in an authentic sense and not just spuriously as in the previous case, but this would have no ill effects whatsoever; on the contrary, it would provide a stimulus for economic recovery by increasing the degree of capacity utilization in non-food grain sectors.

But if instead of putting purchasing power into the hands of the people to lift food grain stocks, the land that is currently growing food grains is devoted to some other use, then that would amount to condemning the people forever to mass hunger. Since hunger is because of the lack of purchasing power with the people, a change in land use, from food grains to other uses, can reduce hunger only if the total employment generated directly and indirectly by such a shift is higher than before. Now, even if we assume that employment per acre is the same whether the acre is devoted to food grains or some other crop, such a shift in land use will not reduce hunger, as the purchasing power in the hands of the people will remain the same as before. So the panacea for reducing hunger is not a shift of acreage away from food grains but putting purchasing power in people’s hands. And as for the argument that kisans should move toward agro-processing, that is unexceptionable, but does not constitute an argument for reducing acreage under food grains.

There is, in fact, a very common misconception here. If an acre devoted to producing food grains fetches less income than the same acre devoted to some other crop, then a shift away from food grains is supposed to be beneficial. The misconception lies in the fact that it is not the income earned per acre that matters for society but how much employment is generated directly and indirectly through such a shift (assuming all along that food grains can be imported without any problems at the going prices, which itself is a completely falseassumption in a world of imperialism). If the shift of an acre from food grains to some cash crop for export doubles the income for the landowning kisan but halves the employment generated on that acre, including what gets generated through multiplier effects, i.e., the expenditure of the higher incomes, then there would be a massive increase in destitution in the countryside. This will lead to the landowning kisans losing their higher income since the corporates who buy from them for exporting would bid down their purchase price because of the much greater destitution around. It is therefore not the apparent income gain but the employment effect of a shift of acreage that must be taken into consideration. (And even that is not enough because of imperialist arm-twisting of any country that becomes food-import-dependent.)

If the solution to stock accumulation lies in putting purchasing power in people’s hands, the solution to lack of profitability for kisans in food grain production lies in raising the MSP and the procurement prices for food grains. It would be argued of course that if the MSP and procurement prices are raised, then that would raise food prices for the consumers, but this is a non-sequitur. Procurement prices can be raised without raising issue prices through an increase in the food subsidy. And anyone objecting to such an increase in food subsidy on the grounds that there is a shortage of resources to meet the subsidy bill should remember that any redistribution in society, any attempt to improve income distribution, entails taxing some to subsidize others. Anyone who cries over the peasants’ meager income but is unwilling to advocate the use of fiscal means for rectifying it is being utterly dishonest, merely shedding crocodile tears for the peasants while actually carrying forward, unwittingly perhaps, an imperialist agenda. And all this is quite apart from the fact that what appears at first sight as the easy way to raise peasants’ income, through a shift toward more lucrative cash crops, can make them pauperized when the prices of these crops crash in the world market, as they inevitably would since they are subject to wide fluctuations (from which the MSP system protects peasants).

The peasants gathered on the Delhi border understand all these issues much more clearly than either Modi or the intelligentsia advocating a shift away from food grains. Ironically, it is the latter group who are suggesting that the peasants are ignoramuses!

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Originally from Globetrotter

Featured image is from Pixabay

China’s Mission to Nepal Gains Traction

January 11th, 2021 by M. K. Bhadrakumar

There can be no two opinions that China has huge stakes in Nepal’s stability. The leitmotif of the visit to Kathmandu by the delegation from the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee led by the vice-minister of the international department of the Central Committee Guo Yenzhou needs no explanation. 

Historically, external powers have used Nepal’s porous border to stage covert operations in Tibet to destabilise China. Tibet has radically transformed in the past several decades and if foreign interference continues, as evident from the latest move by the US to legislate the Tibetan Policy and Support Act, it stems from Washington’s containment strategy toward China. 

Beijing will not brook such interference and is seeking out like-minded countries that have experienced the bitter lemons of American exceptionalism. President Xi Jinping’s telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday testifies to the two countries’ firm support for each other on issues concerning each other’s ‘core interests’. A subsequent  commentary by Xinhua speaks for itself. 

To be sure, the CCP delegation’s visit to Nepal has a big backdrop, although Indian analysts with their tunnel vision and zero-sum mindset don’t wish to see it. The delegation travelled to Kathmandu on a ‘damage control’ mission. 

The following elements stand out: China rejects the easy route of ‘divide and rule’ to take advantage of the political and constitutional crisis in Kathmandu. Nor is it prescriptive. The CPC delegation has instead tapped the vast reservoir of goodwill that exists in Nepal toward China to consult all protagonists on the political and ideological spectrum, including the non-communist Nepali Congress, the main opposition party. 

Actually, at a meeting on Tuesday, the visiting delegation transmitted a personal invitation from President Xi to the Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba to visit China as an honoured guest to participate in the historic centenary celebrations of the Chinese Communist Party next year. It is a breathtaking gesture. 

Deuba’s aides cited him as accepting the invitation and responding that the friendship between Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of China goes back decades and nurtured since the premiership of BP Koirala, the founding leader of the party.

The Indian analysts should make a careful note that the Nepalese political class has welcomed the CCP delegation’s goodwill mission. It is both a moment of truth and of introspection for India’s policymakers. Ideally, the CPC delegation might as well have been Yogi Adityanath’s or Nitish Kumar’s mission. How come India lost the plot in its vital relationship with Nepal? What went wrong? Who is at fault? How can India regain its footing? 

Fundamentally, India needs to think through its regional strategies. India needs a stable environment for its own development. A neighbourhood of unstable, insecure states is not in India’s interests. Therefore, regional stability ought to be the top priority. But India aspires to be a regional power. Now, that aspiration entails India’s acceptability, which is directly related to its good-neighbourly policies and its success in projecting itself as an attractive finished product. 

To comprehend the interconnection between all these elements, Pakistan’s analogy can be useful. Pakistan wasted several decades in its obsession with India’s rise. It neglected rare opportunities to make good in life, frittered away resources and lost its sense of priorities in what ultimately turned out to be a wasteful and futile enterprise to debilitate a big neighbour that was much stronger in comprehensive national power. 

Suffice to say, paranoia can cause self-inflicted wounds.  The Chinese mission to Kathmandu must be dispassionately assessed. The Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said in Beijing,

“For a long time, the Communist Party of China has maintained close and friendly exchanges with the major political parties in Nepal, which has played a positive role in enhancing political mutual trust, deepening mutual learning of state governance, promoting cooperation, and consolidating traditional friendship.” 

On the contrary, the route India took has been bullying and it ultimately isolated India. By treating Nepali politicians as shabby buffoons to be pampered one day and collared another day, India badly exposed itself. A belief got entrenched in the Nepalese mind that we are a dangerous neighbour with evil intentions, undependable and far too self-centred and cynical. Tragically, this was despite all the unique advantages India enjoyed as Nepal’s indispensable neighbour. 

Schadenfruede, as Germans call it — deriving vicarious pleasure out of someone else’s misfortune — is never a good thing, be it in the life of an individual or a nation, especially for an ancient civilisation like India with a tumultuous history of moments of shame, humiliation and sorrows as much as success, glory and triumph. 

Now, there is no certainty that the Chinese mission will be an enduring success. Time will tell. Spokesman Zhao summed up the mission this way: “As the country’s friend and close neighbour, we hope relevant parties in Nepal can take into account the national interests and the big picture, properly manage internal differences and commit themselves to political stability and national development.” It is an unpretentious mission focused on Nepal’s stability.   

Intra-party feuds involving personality clashes, vaulting ambitions and sheer lust for power are hard to mediate. When it comes to a communist party, that is even more so. The Chinese commentators have noted that ‘the disputes seem unlikely to be resolved anytime soon’, as the two key figures K.P. Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘refuse to budge.’ The gloomy prognosis is that Nepal ‘may fall into political instability once again only after just two years.’ 

The Chinese commentators acknowledge that the merger of the two communist parties in 2018 (where China played a role) ‘has not yet been fully realised’ and a split may well ensue, which of course, will be detrimental to Nepal’s political stability and the future of the communist movement itself. All the same, another election can only produce a hung parliament and that means Nepal will lapse back to coalition politics and the era of defections and chronic instability may return.  

Beijing does not have false hopes. Having said that, the tidings since Sunday when the CPC delegation arrived in Kathmandu show some positive signs. At a 2-hour meeting with the Chinese delegation, Prime Minister Oli has been cited as saying that Nepal and China have promoted and strengthened the bilateral relations to a new height in recent years and China has been supporting Nepal as a close neighbour and a friend of Nepal. 

Across the political spectrum, there is overwhelming appreciation that Nepal needs Chinese support and assistance. Equally, the communist factions in Nepal hold the CPC in high esteem and the two sides have enjoyed excellent relations. Thus, communist leader Madhav Kumar Nepal’s remarks yesterday are of interest when he said that a split in the Nepal Communist Party can be averted and the rival faction is ‘ready to forget everything’ if Oli accepts his mistakes. 

Make no mistake, while Dahal is reputed to be a mercurial personality, he also has a rare capacity to be flexible. All things considered, the probability is that the Chinese mission may gain traction. It has a creative underpinning in the consensus among the Nepali political elite that the country can ill afford a mid-term election. 

Nepal’s economy has fared relatively well in the past two years and even in the conditions of the pandemic, the momentum is not lost. The foreign exchange reserves have gone up, exports are doing well, remittances from abroad remain substantial and current account position is no longer in deficit. The Nepalese elites are aware that China’s goodwill and continued help can make a critical difference. 

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Featured image: Nepal’s Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli (R) received the vice-minister of International Department of Chinese Communist Party Central Committee Guo Yezhou (L) at Kathmandu, Dec. 27, 2020

A Non-Partisan View of Farmers’ Movement

January 11th, 2021 by Bharat Dogra

The ongoing farmers’ movement in India has evoked strong feelings on both sides. This has been praised to an awesome extent; on the other hand very unfair criticism has been inflicted  on it repeatedly. It will be useful at this stage to attempt an unbiased appraisal of this movement.

Strengths of Movement

The most persistent demand of this movement for the repeal of the three controversial laws is a highly justified demand. This has already been discussed in detail in these columns ( the reader may kindly refer to article titled A Comprehensive Analysis of the Three Controversial Farm Laws by this writer in Countercurrents.org dated December 23  2020). In addition it may be mentioned that while these laws do not have any provision for the taking over the land of farmers, as rightly and strongly emphasized by government representatives, the overall impact of the tendencies promoted by these laws will be to accelerate the trend of farmers becoming landless which is already taking place at the rate of 100 farmers becoming landless every hour. The people of India as well as farmers worldwide have reason to be grateful to the ongoing farmers’ movement in India for giving a timely warning regarding the real trends and intentions of the three controversial farm laws and for leading the strong opposition to them.

Secondly the ongoing farmers’ movement deserves our support for promoting the unity of people and our national unity at several levels. It has promoted  unity of farmers and promoted unity of farmers with  workers. It has promoted regional unity by promoting unity of farmers of various regions, particularly unity at the level of Punjab and Haryana which is very welcome. This movement has promoted unity of various faiths and religions. It has promoted communal harmony at a time when very powerful forces have been trying repeatedly to disrupt it.

Thirdly, this movement deserves much praise for its courage and determination which has been visible ever since this movement started. Along with courage there has been discipline and patience, a commitment to peaceful struggle, a great achievement. This exemplary courage has given a lot of strength to the overall resistance to increasingly authoritarian tendencies in India, as seen in a large number of arbitrary arrests and repression of activists and movements. In a situation of increasing darkness the courage and determination of farmers brings hope.

These three strengths are enough to qualify the movement for our support.

Limitations of Movement

Nevertheless it is important to point out that despite its obvious strengths the ongoing farmers’ movement also suffers from a number of limitations. The landless constitute the poorest segment of our rural population and their number is even higher than that of landowning farmers. What should be the agenda for them? What is the overall agenda for justice and equality for rural areas. This most important issue has not been clear yet despite nearly six weeks of the movement.

Secondly for sustainable livelihoods of farmers and for healthy, safe food, ecologically protective farming along lines of social agro-ecology is most important, ( for details please see Countercurrent.org dated November 25 2020—article titled Social Agro-Ecology is the Key…) but there has been no clear commitment yet from the farmers’ movement  that they want to move away from present day ecologically destructive farming towards ecologically protective  farming. While righting asking for removing penal provisions for stubble burning they should at the same time have said that they are committed to reducing this. While justifiably  asking for retaining subsidized irrigation, they should have said that they will also work for promoting water conservation. On the whole the farmers’ movement needs to come out clearly in favor of ecologically protective farming for protecting sustainable livelihoods of future generations. In addition it should add a women-led social reform effort to its agenda.

Conclusion

If a non-partisan appraisal of the farmers’ movement is required in one sentence, then here it is—the ongoing farmers’ movement is brave, it is needed, it is welcome, its main demand of repeal of three controversial laws is great, but it badly needs to have a wider perspective of justice and ecology.

You cannot create a great and lasting movement by just negating something ( the three bad laws), you also have to clearly and carefully define a much broader agenda of changes which the farming and food system needs and our villages need.

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Bharat Dogra is a journalist and author. His recent books include Planet in Peril, Protecting Earth for Children, Earth Without Borders, When the Two Streams Met in Freedom Movement  and Man Over Machine.

Featured image is from Countercurrents

India says it will go ahead with the purchase of Russia’s S-400 air defense system despite the US sanctions threat, reminding Washington of New Delhi’s independent foreign policy.

“India has always pursued an independent foreign policy. This also applies to our defense acquisitions and supplies which are guided by our national security interests,” said the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Anurag Srivastava in a Friday statement as quoted by Time of India daily.

The ministry further emphasized that while India and the US have a “complete world strategic partnership,” New Delhi maintains “a particular and privileged strategic partnership with Russia.”

The development came after a US Congressional report had recently warned that India’s purchase of the Russia-built S-400 air defense system may provoke American sanctions.

The report, prepared for members of the US Congress to take “informed decisions,” said, “India’s multi-billion dollar deal to purchase the Russian-made S-400 air defense system may trigger US sanctions on India under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).”

Despite its name, the act has been brandished by Washington against allied nations mulling weapons deals with Russia — namely India and Turkey.

This is while Russia’s ambassador to India, Nikolay Kudashev, emphasized recently that both New Delhi and Moscow regarded all sanctions except those imposed by the UN Security Council as illegal.

He also underlined that the proposed deal for supplying the S-400 to India was “advancing well.”

Washington last month imposed CAATSA on Turkey for “knowingly engaging in a significant transaction” with Rosoboronexport, Russia’s major weapons export company, by procuring the same S-400 system.

It further described the measure as a clear signal that the US will not tolerate “significant transactions” with Russian defense and intelligence sectors.

Moscow and New Delhi originally signed a general agreement on the sale of five units of the air defense systems back in October 2016. They signed the contract for the procurement, worth 5.43 billion dollars, in October 2018.

The US has so far made numerous attempts to scuttle the deal, warning New Delhi that the Russian systems could purportedly restrict India’s “interoperability” with American systems. Washington has also hinted that it could subject the Asian country to economic sanctions over the purchase.

Russia announced in February 2020 that it has started the production of a batch of S-400 missile defense systems for India under a deal the two countries reached two years earlier, despite the threat of sanctions by the US against New Delhi over the purchase of the advanced air defense system.

The S-400 Triumph missile defense systems, designed and produced by Russian state-owned company Almaz-Antey, are capable of engaging targets at a distance of 400 kilometres and at an altitude of up to 30 kilometres.

The missile system can destroy aircraft as well as cruise and ballistic missiles. It can also be used against land-based targets.

“The Almaz-Antey concern has begun manufacturing the S-400 systems for India, and Russia will deliver the S-400s to India within the timeframe stipulated by the contract,” Russia’s Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov declared at the time.

Manturov added that training centers had already been set up in India to prepare the Indian operators of Russia’s most advanced long-range air defense platform.

Also in January 2020, a senior US State Department official called on New Delhi to reconsider purchasing the Russian air defense system or face the “risk of application of sanctions” under CAATSA.

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Featured image is from Sputnik/ Sergey Malgavko

In September 2020, the United States Coast Guard (USCG) released a new USCG IUUF Strategic Outlook. The USCG created such a comprehensive position and strategy in reiterating the U.S.’s strong commitment to the war against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, known as IUUF, all over the world. The document recognizes IUUF as the biggest threat to maritime security, even more dangerous than piracy.

The document shows that IUUF has a huge impact not only on fisheries in the U.S. but also on fisheries stocks all over the world. For instance, it shows that 93% of the world’s major marine fish stocks are classified as fully exploited, overexploited, or significantly depleted, and that it also results in tens of billions of dollars of lost revenue for legal fishers every year.

Indeed, IUUF has been a huge threat to all countries all over the world. In Southeast Asia particularly, IUUF has been a major challenge. In Indonesia alone, there are several estimates for how Indonesia suffers from IUUF. It is estimated that Indonesia suffers $3 billion in losses annually from IUUF. Mas Achmad Santosa, CEO of the Indonesian Ocean Justice Initiative (IOJI), an NGO, argues that the huge prevalence of IUUF in Indonesia is because of the economic benefit from IUUF, and weak governance and law enforcement.

During Susi Pudjiastuti’s tenure as Indonesia’s minister of maritime affairs and fisheries, Indonesia took serious measures in combating IUUF. The policy of sinking foreign fishing vessels that conduct IUUF in Indonesian waters was claimed to be effective in reducing IUUF practices in Indonesia. Susi, who left office in 2019, also actively championed globally at many international conferences for IUUF to be recognized as a form of transnational organized crime.

Indeed, international support and awareness to recognize IUUF as a common threat to all nations is necessary to strengthen global efforts in eradicating IUUF. Even though there have been some international conventions and measures in combating IUUF, state-to-state cooperation in any form is also necessary.

Even though the USCG outlook on IUUF does not explicitly mention any particular region as a priority, the South China Sea will surely be one of the most important regions in countering IUUF, considering the huge number of IUUF cases and overfishing in the area. Therefore, it is likely that the U.S. might strengthen cooperation against illegal fishing in the disputed area.

However, many Southeast Asian countries view the outlook with suspicion, especially given the U.S.-China rivalry in the region and other tensions in the South China Sea. Indeed, IUUF in the South China Sea has been a major concern for all coastal states. Overfishing and environmental damage are getting worse and need an immediate response.

Southeast Asian states might worry that the U.S. will use the U.S.-led global effort against illegal fishing to increase its military presence in the South China Sea. Member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) surely do not expect that the U.S. will bring more militarization into the South China Sea to eradicate IUUF in the region.

Instead of increasing its military presence in the South China Sea to eradicate IUUF, what the U.S. should do to help the coastal states in the South China Sea is joint training, capacity building, sharing information, and transfer of technology to detect IUUF in the region. The USCG, therefore, could have more cooperation with the coast guards of the coastal states without immediately increase its military presence in the region and countering IUUF in the disputed area itself. Because considering the sensitiveness of the disputed area, claimant states should secure their territorial claims without any major involvement from other parties.

Yet it seems that U.S. president-elect Joe Biden will still be focusing on the U.S. presence in the South China Sea, following from President Donald Trump’s policy to rebalance China in the region. U.S. strategy has to do it in the right way, by not increasing tensions in the region. Indeed, it is very important for the claimant states that peace and security are maintained in the area while the negotiation of a code of conduct for claimants is carried out. And a more militaristic U.S. approach in dealing with IUUF in the disputed region will only increase tensions in the region.

Therefore, even though more international cooperation and awareness in combating IUUF is necessary, the war against IUUF, especially in the South China Sea, should be done in the right way by having more coast guard-to-coast guard and law enforcement cooperation instead of a militaristic approach.

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Aristyo Rizka Darmawan is a researcher and lecturer in international law at the University of Indonesia and a Young Leader at the Honolulu-based Pacific Forum Foreign Policy Research Institute. His research focuses on the law of the sea and foreign policy in Asia Pacific. He holds a master’s degree in international law from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Featured image: Under former minister Susi Pudjiastuti, the Indonesian fisheries ministry seized illegal foreign fishing vessels like this one and blew them up at sea. Image courtesy of the ministry.

Axed Railway Raises Malaysia-Singapore Trust Deficit

January 11th, 2021 by Nile Bowie

Not long after ringing in the new year, disappointment set in for those on both sides of the Causeway separating Singapore and Malaysia.

On January 1, the two countries announced the termination of a multi-billion-dollar high-speed rail (HSR) that would have directly linked the city-state to Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur.

News of the much-anticipated project’s cancellation came as a blow to frequent travelers who shuttle between the two neighboring Southeast Asian states, with leaders from both sides offering conflicting explanations for why the rail link, once touted by Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as a “game-changer” for bilateral relations, was axed.

According to a joint statement, the two countries were unable to reach a consensus on continuing the project after Malaysia’s government proposed several changes to reduce costs in light of the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Slated for completion by 2031, the rail link would have cost an estimated US$14.9 billion to $19.8 billion.

The 350-kilometer, or 218-mile, HSR would have cut the travel time between the two cities down to about 90 minutes from the more than four hours it now takes by car. According to official estimates, the rail link would have contributed $5 billion in gross domestic product (GDP) to Malaysia and Singapore, as well as create 111,000 jobs by 2060.

With the growth-spurring development project stopped in its tracks, observers say the episode has eroded investor confidence in Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s government, which is under pressure from opposition critics as well as state governments who want the proposed HSR to continue without Singapore’s inclusion.

Under the terms of a legally-binding bilateral agreement between the two countries, Malaysia is required to compensate the government of Singapore for various costs incurred in relation to the HSR, obligations that authorities in Putrajaya have said they will honor. The specific amount to be paid has not been disclosed for confidentiality reasons.

Mustapa Mohamed, Malaysia’s economic affairs minister, recently stated that the total compensation costs owed to Singapore would be “much lower” than the S$270 million ($204 million) spent by the city-state on the project, and that the total costs would be disclosed after the amount was finalized pending an agreement with the city-state.

Though the compensation is “not punitive in nature” but rather a reimbursement, according to the minister, those funds could conceivably become a political lightning rod at a time when spending is needed elsewhere as the country attempts to bounce back from its worst recession ever, amidst a setback for meaningful economic integration.

“What would have been a win-win situation for bilateral relations is now a situation in which Malaysia has missed out on an opportunity to boost its national economy through interconnectivity,” said Mustafa Izzuddin, a visiting professor of international relations at the Islamic University of Indonesia.

After being stuck in limbo for more than two years after the ambitious project was put on hold at Malaysia’s request, the cancellation of the HSR was not entirely unexpected. Key developments related to the rail link played out against the backdrop of major political change across three different Malaysian government administrations.

First announced in February 2013, the two countries signed a breakthrough rail agreement three years later during Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s tenure, stipulating that both governments would take responsibility for developing, constructing and maintaining the civil infrastructure and stations for the HSR within their own countries.

Najib and his ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition were toppled at elections in 2018. The historic change of government saw the HSR put on pause, with then-premier Mahathir Mohamed’s Pakatan Harapan (PH) alliance leading an effort to review major Najib-approved infrastructure projects in a bid to curb mounting national debts.

After taking power, Mahathir said the HSR project was “not beneficial” to Malaysia and that it could cost the country 110 billion ringgit ($27.3 billion), much higher than an earlier estimate of 72 billion ringgit ($17.9 billion) under Najib’s government.

In September 2018, Singapore agreed to Malaysia’s proposal for a two-year postponement of the project.

Deferment of the project saw Malaysia pay S$15 million ($11.3 million) in abortive costs. Mahathir resigned as prime minister in February 2020, leading to incumbent Muhyiddin Yassin’s appointment under the helm of a new government, which requested to further extend the suspension period for the project from May 2020 to December 31.

As recently as November 2020, Malaysian Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz stated that the government intended to proceed with the HSR in light of the “positive multiplier effect” it would have on the economy. But bilateral talks appeared to be falling through by December as Muhyiddin’s government sought amendments to the 2016 agreement.

Among the changes sought were measures to allow Malaysia to appoint local contractors and consultants rather than have tenders be jointly conducted with Singapore as the deal required, and the removal of an assets company that had previously been agreed upon to supply the train system and operate the railway network, on cost-saving grounds.

Ong Ye Kung, Singapore’s transport minister, said in Parliament on January 4 that Putrajaya’s proposal to remove the assets company, which would have been liable to both countries, was the main stumbling block that led to the project’s discontinuation and constituted a “fundamental departure” from the original agreement.

As neither country had experience running a high-speed rail line, the “centerpiece” of the HSR project was for both sides to agree to an “open and transparent international tender” for a “best in class industry player” to run the assets company, said Ong.

“This will minimize the possibility of future disagreements and disputes over the long duration of the project.”

Ong also dispelled suggestions that Malaysia’s proposal for the HSR to connect to Kuala Lumpur International Airport had stoked fears of Singapore losing its aviation hub status.

Instead, he said the main concern was the technical issue of the HSR sharing tracks with the existing Express Rail Link, which runs at half the proposed HSR’s speed.

“Reneging on the HSR agreement may well result in a trust deficit between potential foreign investors and Malaysia,” said academic Mustafa, “and may well also raise the question of whether Malaysia can still be viewed as a trustworthy and reliable partner which can rise above domestic politics.”

The project’s termination on mutual, non-acrimonious terms would not impact bilateral ties given that “relations between Malaysia and Singapore are on an even keel and multifaceted, defined not by the HSR project,” he added, alluding to the two countries’ far-reaching economic ties that span trade, investments and cross-border labor flows.

In a Facebook post, former premier Najib claimed that Muhyiddin’s Perikatan Nasional (PN) government wanted to remove the assets company in order to select vendors for the HSR without the involvement of Singapore, which he described as a departure from his initial vision for both countries to be responsible for the construction of the rail link.

He added that Malaysia’s economy would lose “trillions of ringgit” in benefits from the HSR project and alleged the government would go ahead with a railway line between Kuala Lumpur and the southern state of Johor, claiming that a “crony” private company has already been chosen to be the contractor and operator for the project without any tender.

Malaysia’s economic affairs minister has denied these allegations and said that any form of the project would be carried out on an open tender. Mustapa has said the government plans to conduct a detailed study to explore all alternatives in the wake of the HSR’s cancellation, including the viability of a domestic high-speed rail network.

State governments in Melaka and Johor, where towns and cities in and around proposed HSR stations stood to gain, have urged the government to resume the project, but with the rail service terminating in Johor rather than Singapore, which economists generally agree wouldn’t be financially feasible without passengers from the wealthy city-state.

Carmelo Ferlito, an economist and chief executive officer at the Center for Market Education (CME), a non-profit think tank based in Kuala Lumpur, sees the termination of a rail link between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, which had been one of the world’s busiest flight corridors prior to the pandemic, as a lose-lose situation.

“The future of transportation in Malaysia is rail. It is not efficient or sustainable to travel within via airplanes and roads,” said Ferlito. “A cargo and passenger integrated railroad planned in accordance with commercial principles and fully funded with private capital would create a better system from a financial and environmental perspective.”

Both governments have acknowledged the benefits of a rail link and haven’t ruled out discussions on a new bilateral proposal in the future, though Singapore’s transport minister has said any such talks should begin “on a clean slate” after Malaysia’s recompense is settled. Observers don’t see a rebooted HSR project on the cards anytime soon.

“The current political leadership in Malaysia prefer to develop or enhance the domestic transport network rather than include a neighboring country Singapore in their thinking,” Mustafa told Asia Times. “I can’t see the HSR with Singapore being revisited in the near future. It is as good as dead in the water.”

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Additional reporting by Alysha Chandra.

Featured image: The Malaysia-Singapore high-speed rail project has come untracked. Image: Facebook

Cambodia Demolishes US-built Naval Facility

January 8th, 2021 by Joseph Thomas

For the second time, Cambodia has demolished a US-constructed naval facility at Ream Naval Base, operated by the Royal Cambodian Navy.

The facility, built in 2017, was a relatively small boat maintenance building.

US State Department-funded media outlet Voice of America in an article titled, “Cambodia Demolishes Second US-Built Facility at Ream Naval Base,” would note:

The Cambodian defense minister on Tuesday said that another United States-built facility at the Ream Naval Base had been demolished recently, confirming satellite images released by a think-tank early this week.

The article also noted:

The US Embassy in Phnom Penh on Tuesday expressed its displeasure at the demolition of facilities it had funded at the Ream Naval Base.

“We are disappointed that Cambodian military authorities have demolished another maritime security facility funded by the United States, without notification or explanation,” said US Embassy spokesperson Chad Roedemeier in an email.

US media and the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies who first broke the story have speculated that the move was made in preparations for Chinese-built facilities to take their place, though Cambodia itself has so far denied this.

Inroads by China in Cambodia, particularly if they were military in nature, would further check US attempts to reassert itself in the Indo-Pacific region. It would also provide China a strategic location to protect the passage of vessels engaged in commerce (mainly carrying Chinese-made goods abroad and raw materials back home) especially if progress is made regarding nearby Thailand and the much-discussed Kra Canal or an alternative land bridge that would allow ships to bypass the lengthy trip around Singapore and through the Malacca Strait more than 1,000 km to the south.

Explaining Cambodia’s Undeniable Tilt Toward Beijing 

Whether or not Cambodia replaces US facilities with those built by China, one thing cannot be denied and that’s the hard pivot from West to East Cambodia has made in recent years.

The expanding ties between Cambodia and China have only been spurred further by coercive strategies adopted by Washington in an attempt to halt or reverse this trend. Similar pressure on Cambodia from the European Union has prompted statements from Phnom Penh openly vowing to replace any gaps in trade with further and closer ties with China.

The simmering tensions are best illustrated by an episode in late 2019 mentioned in a Reuters article titled, “Cambodian PM says China ready to help if EU imposes sanctions,” which stated:

China will help Cambodia if the European Union (EU) withdraws special market access over its rights record, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Monday as he announced a 600 million yuan ($89 million) Chinese aid package for his military.

More recently, the EU has continued attaching political obligations to economic relations with Cambodia, only further encouraging greater ties between it and nearby China.

DW in an article titled, “EU to slap sanctions on Cambodia over human rights,” would claim:

The EU “will not stand and watch as democracy is eroded,” the bloc’s top diplomat Josep Borrel said while announcing trade sanctions on Cambodia. The Asian country has been ruled by strongman Hun Sen for 35 years.

The article cites Kem Sokha and his disbanded political party as one key issue the West is pressuring Cambodia over. But what is not mentioned is the extensive US and European support that has created and directed Kem Sokha’s opposition party over the years, constituting foreign interference in Cambodia’s internal affairs, a matter Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen addressed directly, as the article noted:

The nation’s leader Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia since 1985, previously said that the country would “not bow its head” to EU criticism. He also said that it was more important to maintain independence and sovereignty than retaining trade privileges.

While both the US and EU have insisted this pressure is owed to “human rights concerns,” in reality the West has been funding and supporting opposition figures like Kem Sokha within Cambodia for decades in the hope of eventually ousting the current government in Phnom Penh headed by Prime Minister Hun Sen and replacing it with a pro-Western regime.

Snowballing Effect of Multipolarism 

China’s offer of economic trade, investment, military hardware and infrastructure development absent of Western-style political interference has shifted the calculus in Phnom Penh increasingly in favour of its continuous shift from West to East.

What is working in Cambodia’s favour is the fact that China is rising economically both in the region and around the globe. At the same time, the West, who insists on adhering to its dated and coercive brand of foreign policy and international relations, is fading economically and even militarily.

When nations like Cambodia express upon the global stage indifference to Western threats of sanctions and appear able or even willing to replace trade gaps left by Western stubbornness and coercion with greater trade with China, it sends a signal to other nations in the region and around the world that tolerating such stubbornness and coercion is no longer necessary.

As smaller nations once fearful of Western pressure and even retaliation begin slipping out from under the shadow of Washington’s once formidable global hegemony, the process of transforming the world from a Western-dominated unipolar order to a more multipolar world will only accelerate further.

Cambodia’s decision to knock down a rather simple structure shouldn’t have been a news item in the West, but apparently the realization of just how much the US has alienated the region may finally be beginning to sink in.

What remains to be seen is if the US and its European allies can recognize the global tidal changes taking place and can find a constructive place within this new world to work alongside other nations rather than insisting on ruling above them all, a prospect all but entirely relegated to history.

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Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas and contributor to the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Featured image is from NEO

Mass Protests by Indian Farmers

January 7th, 2021 by Sabrangindia

Over the last 22 days of 2020, farmers’ struggle jotted down 28 more protests on India’s map. These are just the bare facts as the final moments of the 2020 resistance included Vehicle Jathas, indefinite strikes and solidarity protests from the grassroot-level workers of India. In all, farmers have been protesting for 37 days at the borders of Delhi, the Indian capital while the countrywide protest has built up over months.

India’s farmers have lived up to the people’s history of this country by once again uniting peasants in a single movement against the oppressive policies of an authoritarian and majoritarian regime. Remember the three laws that farmers have been unitedly protesting were pushed through Parliament without debate with the primary stake-holders: the famers. From allegations of Khalistani intentions to political theories, to Maoist infiltration to the insult of being called the protest of a few, India’s Annadaatas (food growers) have persevered through it all.

On December 19, Sabrangindia brought you the first map. This updated Naqsha (Map) further breaks down this resolve of the Indian farmer, by further charting the movement’s activity into monthly phases of September protests (blue), November protests (red), December protests (green) and January 2021 protests (dark green) to portray the steady and upward growth of farmers’ unrest.

Source: Sabrangindia

Separate categories of ‘Solidarity statements’ (star-marked), ‘Bharat Bandh (December 8, 2020)’ (circled), ‘Workers for Farmers’ (green star-marked) provide a unique view as to how non-agricultural elements of Indian society have pitched in for the farmers’ struggle.

Routes of widespread jathas have also been accordingly mapped.

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Nearly a century after its founding in 1921, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) again trumpeted the ideological contributions of its paramount leader.  The insertion into the Party Constitution of a reference to “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” in 2018 was the first time since Mao Zedong (in 1945) that a sitting CCP leader received such recognition. Unlike Mao’s successor Deng Xiaoping, who famously pronounced that the (political) color of a cat did not matter so long as it caught mice, Xi Jinping donned the mantle of ideological authority once worn by Chairman Mao. Not surprisingly, contemporary observers ponder the continuing relevance of Maoism in post-Mao China.1

The discussion of Xi Jinping’s Maoist tendencies evokes a previous debate, conducted during the Cold War, over the authenticity and import of Maoism itself. Benjamin I. Schwartz introduced the term “Maoism” into the English lexicon in his 1951 book Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao.2 Tracing the development of Chinese Communism in its early years, Schwartz argued that the essence of Maoist ideology reflected practical lessons drawn from the experience of concrete political struggle rather than derived from pure theory. Maoism, Schwartz proposed, was a pragmatic strategy of revolution that (in its initial iteration) grafted useful elements of Marxism-Leninism, most notably a disciplined and hierarchical Communist Party, onto a mobilized peasant mass base.3

While Schwartz described the CCP as “an elite of professional revolutionaries which has risen to power by basing itself on the dynamic of peasant discontent,” he focused not on the social and economic problems that had created the “objective conditions” for discontent, but on “the ideas, intentions and ambitions of those who finally assume the responsibility for meeting them.”4 In other words, Schwartz undertook a kind of intellectual/political/psychological history that situated his subjects in the world of strategic struggle rather than in some disembodied dialogue with the Marxist canon. His primary sources were the writings and speeches of the principal CCP leaders, the official resolutions and other documents issued by the Party, and the unofficial letters and memoirs of a wide range of participants and engaged observers – in Chinese, Japanese, Russian, German and English. Beginning with the co-founders of the CCP, Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, and continuing with subsequent Communist leaders Qu Qiubai, Li Lisan and Wang Ming, Schwartz shows how the Party line shifted repeatedly in tandem with the changing political circumstances of the day and the predilections of paramount leaders. Only in the final two chapters (Chapters 12 and 13) does he address the ascendency of Mao Zedong and his revolutionary strategy.

The discussion of Mao occupies less than 15% of the book, but it was Schwartz’s treatment of Maoism as a distinctive strategic ideology that sparked debate. Schwartz observes that Mao’s rural revolution was forced to deviate from the dictates of Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy after the Nationalists’ crackdown in 1927 cut the Communist Party off from its previous foothold among factory workers in Shanghai and other industrial cities.5 The CCP’s turn from urban proletariat to rural peasantry marked “the beginning of a heresy in act never made explicit in theory.”6 According to Schwartz, then, Maoism originated as an unacknowledged yet highly consequential departure in practice from the strictures of Soviet doctrine. A decade later, however, when war with Japan allowed the CCP to “harness nationalist sentiment to its own cause” there occurred a “profound change in the psychology of the Communist leadership which may itself spring from nationalist sentiment.” The result was that in wartime Yan’an “Mao was now sufficiently self-confident to take the initiative in the field of theoretical formulation . . . intent on proving that developments in China represented a unique and original development in the course of human history.”7

With our twenty-twenty hindsight, Schwartz’s argument about the origins and evolution of Maoism seems commonsensical and incontrovertible. But that was not the situation when his book first appeared. Schwartz’s thesis that Mao’s revolutionary recipe “was not planned in advance in Moscow, and even ran counter to tenets of orthodoxy which were still considered sacrosanct and inviolate in Moscow at the time” directly challenged the reigning “totalitarian model” that depicted the People’s Republic of China as a replica of the USSR.8 His stress on the significance of Maoism as a distinctive ideology not only contradicted the proclamations of Soviet propagandists; it also disputed the firmly held beliefs of many vehemently anti-Soviet scholars. As Schwartz noted, “An immense effort is currently being made by orthodox Stalinist historiography to present the Chinese Communist success as the result of Stalin’s own prescience and masterly planning. It is strange to note that this myth has been accepted and even insisted upon by many who regard themselves as the Kremlin’s bitterest foes.”9

Schwartz’s challenge to a generic “totalitarian model,” applicable to Communist and fascist regimes alike, elicited dissent from its defenders.10 The most acerbic was a series of diatribes penned by Karl August Wittfogel, a former German Communist who had fled Hitler’s Third Reich to become a vocal critic of Communism in both the Soviet Union and China. A professor of Chinese history at the University of Washington, Wittfogel had gained notoriety in the field by accusing fellow Sinologist Owen Lattimore of Communist sympathies at the McCarran hearings on the “loss” of China.11 In Wittfogel’s view, Chinese Communism was a carbon copy of Russian Communism. He rejected the notion that Mao Zedong had been an innovator in any sense of the word; every strategic move and ideological justification that marked the Chinese revolutionary experience, he insisted, could already be found full-blown in Leninism. For Wittfogel, Chinese Communist doctrine did “not exhibit any originality, ‘Maoist’ or otherwise.”12

Mao’s revolutionary road, according to Wittfogel, was Russian designed and Russian engineered. To be sure, Schwartz also credited Lenin with substantial influence on the course of Chinese Communism, but he did not believe that the Chinese revolution was merely the duplication of a familiar Bolshevik blueprint. As Schwartz replied, “Now it is, of course, true that Lenin opened the doors to all subsequent developments of world Communism. This does not mean, however, that he marched through all doors which he opened and that all the developments of Stalinism in the Soviet Union and of Maoism in China are simply untroubled applications of Lenin’s teachings.”13

This early Cold War controversy over the meaning of Maoism, rather than an arcane academic exercise, was actually a debate over the future of the Communist bloc. Schwartz’s contention that Maoism in China (like Titoism in Yugoslavia) reflected a departure from orthodox Russian doctrine anticipated the advent of fissures within the Communist world stemming from disparate national experiences and attendant “isms”: “the fate of doctrine may in the course of time have a profound effect on the relationship among Communist states such as China, Jugoslavia [sic] and the Soviet Union which are not directly subject to each other.”14 Here was a prescient insight that Chalmers Johnson would later elaborate in Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power when he argued that the Chinese and Yugoslavian states’ defiance of Soviet domination was a product of their both having risen to power on the backs of peasant nationalist revolutions.15 By the time that Johnson’s book was published in 1962, the Sino-Soviet split was already a visible fait accompli.

Occurring on the heels of the toxic Congressional hearings on the “loss” of China, the debate over Maoism reflected a deep divide in academic and policy circles.16 Advocates of the totalitarian model such as Wittfogel and some of his colleagues at the University of Washington asserted that Schwartz and his Harvard colleagues, in identifying the existence of an alternative Maoist path, constituted a dangerous cabal that – if not guilty of Maoist sympathies themselves – were at the very least naive about the Communist monolith. In the inaugural issue of The China Quarterly in 1960, Wittfogel’s “The Legend of Maoism” referred to the Harvard scholars as a “‘Maoist’ group” and detailed their inter-connections in a quasi-conspiratorial tone: “Suffice it to say that in substance the ‘Maoist’ thesis was first outlined in 1947 by John K. Fairbank; that Prof. Fairbank was the ‘teacher and guide’ of Benjamin Schwartz who in 1951 coined the term ‘Maoism’ and elaborated on its meaning; that Prof. Fairbank fulfilled editorial functions in the preparation of the Documentary History of Chinese Communism, a collection of documents with explanatory introductions mainly written by Prof. Schwartz and Conrad Brandt and published in 1952; and that in 1958 Prof. Fairbank reasserted the ‘Maoist’ thesis . . . ”17

Even after Soviet advisers had abruptly withdrawn from China following Mao Zedong’s announcement of his radical Great Leap Forward in 1958, Wittfogel continued to dismiss as “fictitious” the suggestion that the CCP might act contrary to the desires of Moscow. To Wittfogel’s mind, the claim that China’s alternative revolutionary tradition had facilitated a tendency toward nationalistic independence, although ostensibly academic, betrayed a nefarious political motive: “This argument, known as the ‘Maoist’ thesis, is historical in form, but political in content.”18 Chiding Schwartz and company for an “inadequate understanding of the doctrinal and political Marxist-Leninist background,” Wittfogel accused them of having concocted a “legend of ‘Maoism’.”19 Former Communist and member of the Frankfurt School of critical theory that he was, Wittfogel assumed the role of doctrinal arbiter: “The authors of the Documentary History, who created the ‘Maoist’ myth in 1951-52, had ample opportunity in subsequent studies of Chinese thought to correct their errors. But instead of doing so, they kept repeating their key conclusions . . . based on an inadequate reproduction of Lenin’s ideas … and on the misrepresentation of Mao’s behavior.”20

The “faulty views” of Schwartz and his colleagues were politically dangerous, Wittfogel contended, because they undermined American resolve to win the Cold War: “Their damaging consequences are not restricted to their impact on purely academic understanding. For the political confusion they have engendered has strongly affected opinion-molders and policy-makers in this country, and has thus hampered the development of a clear, consistent and far-sighted policy for coping with the Chinese Communist threat. In this important respect, these views have done a distinct disservice to the free world . . . . The survival of the free world hangs in the balance.”21

In Wittfogel’s account, the dangers posed by “Maoism” had spread far beyond the ivory tower, yet he looked to the academy for rectification:

It has been said that the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. Today, the ideas which the scholars and opinion-molders hold are no less crucial for the decisions the policy-makers will make. Where, then, we may ask, are the schools, the universities, the foundations and research centers that will determine victory – or defeat – in the present cold war?22

Public intellectuals imbued with the proper political outlook, he suggested, were needed to fill the breach.

With Harvard having allegedly concocted a dangerous “’Maoist’ thesis,” another academic institution would have to produce the antidote. Thankfully, such a remedy was close at hand due to the scholarly efforts of Wittfogel and his cold-warrior colleagues (George Taylor, Franz Michael, Donald Treadgold, and others) who had assembled at the University of Washington’s newly founded Far Eastern and Russian Institute. Wittfogel claimed to speak for the group: “It is vital to our survival that the record be set straight, and a small but growing number of Far Eastern specialists are doing just that. A realistic comparative study of the historical roots of Chinese and Soviet Communism is possible. And such a study enables us to remove the widespread misconceptions regarding the character and intent of the present Chinese and Soviet regimes.”23 Among the many publications by scholars at the Far Eastern and Russian Institute expounding on the totalitarian model, no doubt Wittfogel had in mind above all his own forthcoming Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power.24 Wittfogel’s study attributed the origins of Chinese and Russian totalitarianism to age-old traditions of state domination in both societies.

Irritated by the barrage of criticism directed at him and his colleagues, the usually unflappable Benjamin Schwartz returned fire with a sharp rejoinder entitled “The Legend of the ‘Legend of Maoism’.” “For some years now,” he wrote, “Prof. Wittfogel has been obsessed with the view that Fairbank, Schwartz and Brandt (an indivisible entity) have committed an ‘error’ (not an accidental error!) which has led to incalculably evil results in our struggle with world Communism.”25 Schwartz rejected “Wittfogel’s conception of Marxism-Leninism as a ‘doctrine and strategy of total revolution,’ as a ready-made science of power with established recipes for dealing with all situations – a science which is never surprised by new contingencies.”26 Instead of this formulaic totalism, Schwartz reminded readers that his primary goal in Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao had been to trace the actual process by which Mao gained control of the Chinese Communist movement, creating the conditions for Maoism to become the dominant strategic and policy line within the CCP. The implications of Maoist departures (in practice if not always in acknowledged ideological doctrine) were, moreover, continuing to unfold: “the end of the story is not yet in sight.”27

Schwartz readily acknowledged that in seeking to explain the opaque development of Chinese Communism, “we have all committed errors,” but he emphasized that his own conception of Maoism derived from an effort to understand the lived experience of Mao and his comrades as they groped in fits and starts toward a workable strategy of revolution. As such, his empirical method differed fundamentally from Wittfogel’s theoretically-predetermined mode of scholarship, whose claim for correctness resided in a supposedly authoritative grasp of Marxist-Leninist doctrine. Schwartz called on Wittfogel to discard his superiority complex in favor of a less rigid approach: “It is in fact high time that Prof. Wittfogel overcame the illusion that his particular experiences and his particular ‘theories’ vouchsafe for him some peculiar access to an understanding of Communism not available to the rest of us.”28

Published some seven decades ago, Benjamin Schwartz’s study of Maoism has remarkable resonance today for our understanding of ideology in contemporary China as well as for our methods of scholarship. His grounded yet dynamic conception of ideology –as an articulation of practical strategy on the part of individual leaders with important implications for subsequent political developments – is a useful corrective to arguments that Xi Jinping Thought can be ignored simply because it does not make major theoretical advances beyond Mao Zedong Thought, to say nothing of classical Marxism-Leninism. Xi himself presents his ideas as building on three central principles of Mao Zedong Thought: “seeking truth from facts” (pragmatism), the “mass line” (populism), and “independent sovereignty” (patriotism).29 The core concepts are repurposed to address contemporary challenges. Manifestly motivated by a desire to avoid what he regards as fatal missteps of Soviet leaders from Khrushchev to Gorbachev that led to the eventual collapse of the USSR, Xi – much like Mao at Yan’an – strives to sum up key lessons extracted from the CCP’s own experience as it has departed from the Russian prototype. Benjamin Schwartz was ahead of his day in realizing that Communist leaders were not necessarily more restrained by doctrinal orthodoxy than other politicians. But, he insisted, this did not mean that their ideology or utterances were insignificant; on the contrary, their speeches and writings provide critical insight into the origins and long-term implications of their political strategies.

For Schwartz, in the end the crucial point was less Mao’s doctrinal deviation than the claim to ideological originality on the part of a leader whose concrete political accomplishments had made him confident enough to seek to project his and his country’s influence on the world stage. As Schwartz observed in 1965, this process of asserting the CCP’s ideological independence, first evident in Yan’an, accelerated after 1956 following Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin and Mao’s launch of the Hundred Flowers Campaign, as the PRC gradually distanced itself from the Soviet orbit in favor of declaring an alternative “Maoist vision.”30 Roderick MacFarquhar would describe the events of 1956-57 as “a major turning point in the history of the People’s Republic,” marked by Mao’s advocacy of a “new militancy at home and abroad” that would ultimately result in the Cultural Revolution.31

Schwartz’s characterization of the Maoist vision of 1956 could easily have been written of the work report delivered by Xi Jinping at the 19th Party Congress some sixty years later:

The vision involves not only a conception of the good society of the future but also a sanctified image of the methods by which this vision is to be achieved. Certainly Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist ideology is one of the main sources of this vision, but this does not preclude the possibility that in some of its aspects it coincides with certain traditional Chinese habits of thought and behavior.32 

Xi’s three hour and twenty minute work report touted the value of “Chinese wisdom” and the “Chinese approach” in crafting political solutions for global challenges. As he stated boldly, “We have every confidence that we can give full play to the strengths and distinctive features of China’s socialist democracy, and make China’s contribution to the political advancement of mankind.” Xi took a page right out of Mao’s Hundred Flowers playbook by zeroing in on what he identified as the “principal contradiction” (主要矛盾) currently facing Chinese society; namely, “the people’s ever-growing need for a better life” versus the country’s “unbalanced and inadequate development.”33 Setting a date of 2035, two decades in the future, for the full attainment of “socialist modernization,” the CCP’s paramount leader offered a familiar formula for reaching this future vision: the Communist Party must continue to “lead in everything.”

History does not repeat itself, but contemporary CCP theoreticians and propagandists do comb the historical record for ideological inspiration and legitimation. Studies of the Maoist past are therefore of more than academic interest in understanding current and future political developments. While it would be facile to equate the disquiet generated in the Communist world at the time of Mao’s Hundred Flowers Campaign, in the wake of destalinization and the Hungarian Revolt, with the current disarray in the capitalist world, brought about by Brexit and the Trump presidency, catalytic moments of international disorder do seem to create opportunities for the assertion of an alternative Chinese ideological authority.34Such openings merit systematic comparative attention.

In trying to plumb the enduring importance of CCP ideology, however, the post-Mao China field until very recently has offered few signposts. For nearly four decades after Mao’s death, political scientists largely acceded to Deng Xiaoping’s famous maxim that the “black cat, white cat” distinction did not matter; under the pragmatic imperatives of market reforms, the ideological correctness of the Mao era had seemingly been relegated to the dustbin of PRC history. In reality, of course, Deng’s formulation of “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” carried its own ideological and political implications, as would Jiang Zemin’s “Three Represents” and Hu Jintao’s “Scientific Development Outlook.” But under Xi Jinping, ideology in the PRC has reclaimed an explicit primacy and global ambition that scholars can no longer ignore; from Xi’s articulation of a “China Dream” to his latest “Thought for a New Era,” the project of publicizing and popularizing the “visionary” ideas of the top leader again occupies a commanding place on the CCP’s agenda.35 The astonishing amount of Propaganda Department support earmarked for the study of Xi Jinping’s “theoretical innovations” attests to the priority that the Party puts on this all-out ideological effort.36

Like Mao Zedong, Xi Jinping portrays his vision as a continuation of China’s revolutionary tradition. In his 2020 New Year’s greeting, Xi recalled retracing the route of the Red Army so as to tap into an “inexhaustible source of motivation during our Long March of the New Era.” Xi, like Mao, also stresses his close connection to the peasantry: “As usual, no matter how busy I was, I spent time visiting people in the countryside.”37 Despite this apparent endorsement of revolutionary populism, Xi’s own tightly disciplined governance is actually a far cry from Mao’s tumultuous rule. Xi Jinping’s obsession with Party control is more reminiscent of the leadership style of Mao’s nemesis, former head of state Liu Shaoqi, than of the mercurial Great Helmsman himself.38 Yet Xi shares with Mao a penchant to herald the Chinese experience as a development model with wide reaching application. Even after the stain of the Covid-19 crisis, in his speech before the UN General Assembly in September 2020 Xi Jinping unabashedly hailed China’s “new development paradigm” as a post-pandemic panacea for global recovery.39

Communist parties are prone to portray their ideology as a blueprint for future action, but classic studies of ideology reveal that it is more usefully regarded as a summation of past and present experience: “The pedigree of every political ideology shows it to be the creature, not of premeditation in advance of political activity, but of meditation upon a manner of politics. In short, political activity comes first and a political ideology follows after.”40 As Benjamin Schwartz recognized, when the CCP spotlights the “visionary” thought of its paramount leader, it is presenting an authoritative outline of what it deems to be proven practical political theory.

Benjamin Schwartz’s work has much to teach us not only about the legacy of Maoism and its contemporary relevance, but about research methods more generally. His admonitions against a doctrinaire mindset that makes truth claims based on adherence to theoretical orthodoxy are well worth remembering. If these days few scholars attempt to force their analyses into the old procrustean bed of Marxist-Leninist Theory, other theoretical straightjackets can nonetheless be found in abundance. From Rational Choice Theory at one pole to Post-Modern Theory at the other, social scientists and humanists alike advance arguments on grounds of stale theoretical authority rather than fresh research discovery. While Schwartz’s scholarship was certainly not atheoretical, his theories – like Maoism itself – derived from empirical investigation. Citing a Hunan proverb, Mao Zedong once likened the Chinese revolution to straw sandals; with no preset pattern, they “shaped themselves in the making.”41 Benjamin Schwartz’s Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao adopts a similarly open-ended and responsive approach.

The 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in October 2017 offered poignant reminders that even in heralding a “New Era” guided by Xi Jinping Thought, the CCP self-consciously recalls previous chapters in its eventful past. A banner festooned across the back wall of the auditorium in the Great Hall of the People proclaimed, “不忘初心” (Don’t forget our original intention). To be sure, the Party’s claims to historical continuity are often highly contrived, but its assertions of revolutionary and cultural lineage are nonetheless central to its identity. Xi Jinping himself often invokes the adage “吃水不忘挖井人” (When drinking the water, don’t forget those who dug the well) – a phrase associated with Mao’s legacy. At the opening ceremony of the 19th Party Congress, he called upon delegates to bow their heads in silence to remember the contributions of Chairman Mao and other early leaders of the CCP. Taking a cue from those whose history and politics we study, we too might be advised at this advent of a “new era” to recall the achievements of our own intellectual ancestors.

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Elizabeth J. Perry is Henry Rosovsky Professor of Government at Harvard University and Director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute. She is the author or editor of over twenty books including, most recently, Ruling by Other Means: State-Mobilized Movements (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Her research focuses on the history of the Chinese revolution and its implications for contemporary Chinese politics.

Notes

Roderick MacFarquhar, “Does Mao Still Matter?” in Jennifer Rudolph and Michael Szonyi, eds., The China Questions: Critical Insights into a Rising Power (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018): Chapter 3; Sebastian Heilmann and Elizabeth J. Perry, eds., Mao’s Invisible Hand: The Political Foundations of Adaptive Governance in China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011).

Benjamin I. Schwartz, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951). The Chinese Communist Party itself has always referred to Mao’s ideological contributions simply as “Mao Zedong Thought” (毛泽东思想), in contrast to the “isms” (主义)of Marxism, Leninism, and Stalinism. In coining the term “Maoism,” Schwartz was thus implying a degree of originality and importance that elevated Mao into the pantheon of leading Communist theorists.

Schwartz, 1951: 189.

Schwartz, 1951: 199, 2.

Elizabeth J. Perry, Shanghai on Strike: The Politics of Chinese Labor (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993).

Schwartz, 1951: 191.

Schwartz, 1951: 201.

Schwartz, 1951: 5. For classic statements of the totalitarian model, which presented the framework as equally applicable to Communist and fascist regimes, see Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism(New York: Schocken Books, 1951); and Carl Joachim Friedrich, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956).

Schwartz, 1951: 5.

10 Peter S.H. Tang, Communist China Today (New York: Praeger, 1957); Richard L. Walker, China Under Communism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955); Richard L. Walker, The Continuing Struggle: Communist China and the Free World (New York: Athene Press, 1958); Franz H. Michael and George E. Taylor, The Far East in the Modern World (New York: Henry Holt, 1956).

11 Robert P. Newman, Owen Lattimore and the “Loss” of China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992): 334-335.

12 Karl A. Wittfogel, “The Historical Position of Communist China: Doctrine and Reality,” The Review of Politics, Vol. 16, No. 4 (October 1954): 464.

13 Benjamin Schwartz, “On the ‘Originality’ of Mao Tse-tung,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 3, No. 1 (October 1955): 74-75.

14 Schwartz, 1955: 76.

15 Chalmers A. Johnson, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power: The Emergence of Revolutionary China, 1937-1945 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962).

16 On Wittfogel’s role in the hearings, see Stanley I. Kutler, The American Inquisition: Justice and Injustice in the Cold War (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982): 201; and Ellen Schrecker, No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986): 165.

17 Karl A. Wittfogel, “The Legend of ‘Maoism,’” The China Quarterly, No. 1 (January – March 1960): 76, 73. On the occasion of his sixtieth birthday in 1967, John Fairbank would “confess” to this “conspiracy” by composing some humorous doggerel that concluded with the lines: 

The files, when examined, will demonstrate
That this “Fairbank” so-called was a syndicate
Who were busy writing memos and in other ways
During Benjamin Schwartz’s earlier phase.

John King Fairbank, Chinabound: A Fifty-Year Memoir (New York: Harper and Row, 1982): 448.

18 Karl A. Wittfogel, “Peking’s ‘Independence’,” The New Leader (July 20-27, 1959): 13.

19 Wittfogel, (Jan-March) 1960: 75.

20 Wittfogel, (April-June) 1960: 28-29.

21 Wittfogel, 1959: 17.

22 Wittfogel, 1959: 17.

23 Wittfogel, 1959: 17.

24 Karl A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957).

25 Benjamin Schwartz, “The Legend of the ‘Legend of Maoism’,” The China Quarterly, No. 2 (April – June 1960): 35.

26 Schwartz, 1960: 36.

27 Schwartz, 1960: 36.

28 Schwartz, 1960: 42.

29 Xi Jinpiing, “Uphold and Properly Apply the Spirit of Mao Zedong Thought” (坚持与运用好毛泽东思想活的灵魂) in Talks on Governing the Country (谈治国理政) (Beijing: 2014): 25-31.

30 Benjamin I. Schwartz, Communism and China: Ideology in Flux (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968): 171ff.

31 Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution: Contradictions Among the People, 1956-1957 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974): 317.

32 Schwartz, Communism and China: 171-172; Chris Buckley, “China Enshrines ‘Xi Jinping Thought,’ Elevating Leader to Mao-like Status,” New York Times (October 24, 2017).

33 On the central role of “contradictions” in CCP ideology, see Franz Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970): Chapter I.

34 The historical parallel is far from exact, however: at the 8th Party Congress in 1956, Mao’s Thought was dropped from the Party Constitution.

35 Elizabeth J. Perry, “The Populist Dream of Chinese Democracy,” Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 74, no. 4 (December 2015); Chen Cheng, The Return of Ideology: The Search for Regime Identities in Postcommunist Russia and China (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2016); Zeng Jinghan, The Chinese Communist Party’s Capacity to Rule: Ideology, Legitimacy and Party Cohesion (New York: Palgrave, 2016).

36 That more than twenty major Chinese universities within a week of the 19th Party Congress had alreadyestablished new departments for the teaching of Xi’s Thought is further evidence of its political significance.

37 Full text: Chinese President Xi Jinping’s 2020 New Year speech – CGTN

38 On Liu Shaoqi’s leadership style, see Lowell Dittmer, Liu Shaoqi and the Chinese Cultural Revolution (New York: Taylor and Francis, 1998).

39 Full text: Xi Jinping’s speech at General Debate of UNGA – CGTN

40 Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics (New York, Basic Books: 1962): 118-119.

41 Mao Zedong, “Speech at a Supreme State Conference” (January 28, 1958). Quoted in John Bryan Starr, Continuing the Revolution: The Political Thought of Mao (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979): ix.

A Deadly and Disastrous 2020 for the Philippines

January 7th, 2021 by Mong Palatino

A major volcanic eruption, massive flooding in several regions, surging COVID-19 cases, and a  worsening human rights situation are among the disasters that made the lives of Filipinos more miserable in 2020.

After more than four decades of inactivity, Taal Volcano erupted again in January 2020. Taal, one of the world’s smallest active volcanoes, is located south of the capital Manila. Its eruption covered many towns in ash, displaced thousands in the southern Tagalog region, and disrupted the bustling tourism hub surrounding the volcano and Taal Lake.

Residents were slowly rebuilding their communities when the COVID-19 pandemic arrived not just in the region, but also the country and the rest of the world. President Rodrigo Duterte placed most of the Philippines under lockdown in March to contain the spread of the deadly virus.

The government’s pandemic lockdown is described as among the harshest and longest in the world. Critics assailed the failure of authorities to consider how the lockdown, which included the shutdown of public transportation, would negatively affect the lives of millions of workers and small businesses. Activists say that the militarist framework for enforcing the lockdown led to further human rights abuses. Duterte was accused of ignoring the advice of scientists to prioritize mass testing and contact tracing instead of simply herding people into their homes. Despite months of strict lockdown measures, the Philippines has recorded the second-highest number of COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia.

The government’s pandemic response was so severely criticized by the public that even Duterte’s allies in the Senate signed a letter urging the president to replace the country’s health secretary.

The decision to rely on lockdowns as the default measure in dealing with the pandemic stalled out the Philippine economy, which triggered a record number of job losses. Schools at all levels were not allowed to reopen, commercial establishments did not operate for months, and curfews starting at 8 p.m. led to business closures.

While many are reeling from the impact of the lockdown, lawmakers hastily passed an Anti-Terrorism Law which the opposition described as a draconian measure aimed at stifling dissent. It was during this period that Duterte’s threat to close down media giant ABS-CBN was realized when Congress rejected the broadcaster’s franchise renewal application.

Drug-related killings did not stop even during the pandemic. According to monitoring by human rights groups, Tokhang (anti-drug) operations increased this year. There was also a surge in extrajudicial killings targeting activists, journalists, leftist leaders, and lawyers despite the imposition of hard lockdown regulations in most barangays (villages).

Restrictions on the movement of people were being eased in November when five successive typhoons wrought havoc in the eastern stretch of Luzon, the country’s biggest island. One of the typhoons, Goni, was the world’s strongest this year. The typhoons unleashed flooding, which reached levels similar to the devastation caused by typhoons Haiyan (Yolanda) in 2013 and Ketsana (Ondoy) in 2009. The flooding destroyed houses, crops, and livelihoods in rural communities that have yet to recover from the economic fallout caused by the pandemic. The flooding was blamed on quarrying, logging, and mining activities, which resulted in the denudation of watersheds. In Cagayan province, the release of water by dam operators inundated farms and communities.

Duterte’s absence in coordinating relief and rescue operations was noticeable. Online commenters noted that Duterte was always quick to ask for emergency powers from Congress yet he was conspicuously and consistently absent during the flooding emergency. Duterte retorted that he was regularly briefed about the situation in Luzon while attending other matters in the southern island of Mindanao.

The pandemic tested Duterte’s leadership and it got mixed reactions from the public. Supporters cite Duterte’s high approval rating as proof that the majority are satisfied with his handling of the health crisis. But critics mention the inefficiencies of the pandemic task force led by retired generals as a basis to blame Duterte’s government for the country’s high number of COVID-19 cases.

Guilty or not for exacerbating the suffering of Filipinos in 2020, Duterte is facing a potentially tougher challenge in 2021 as the economic crisis continues to unravel while political parties compete for the support of voters ahead of the 2022 presidential elections. Opposition forces are expected to be more vigorous in pushing for accountability after the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor declared this month that they have found “reasonable basis to believe” that Duterte’s war on drugs is responsible for crimes against humanity.

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Mong Palatino served for two terms in the House of Representatives in the Philippines representing the youth sector.

Talks between farmers and the Centre are all set to take place on December 30 afternoon as the Sanyukta Kisan Morcha sends a letter to the government confirming the appointment on December 29, 2020.

However, they reminded the central government that discussion should focus on:

  1. Modalities to be adopted to repeal the three Central Agricultural Laws
  2. Procedure and provision for legal guarantee, procurement of profitable MSP as suggested by the National Farmers Commission for all farmers and agricultural commodities;
  3. Amendments to the “Commission Ordinance for Air Quality Management in the National Capital Region and adjoining areas, 2020” to exclude farmers from the penal provisions of the Ordinance
  4. Procedure for withdrawal of draft ‘Electricity Amendment Bill 2020’ to protect the interests of farmers.

“A rational solution to the relevant issues would require that our dialogue run according to this agenda,” said farmer leaders.

Additionally, Swaraj India leader Yogendra Yadav sent a video voicing concerns of farmers organisations. The video may be viewed below:

In a press release, the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC) dismissed all rumours of alternate issues to be discussed in the meetings stating that there is no “possibility of any discussion in tomorrow’s talks until the agenda of repeal of the three farm Acts and the Electricity Bill 2020 is taken up first.”

It also asked the Agriculture Minister, whose department talked of making decisions on “issues, logic and facts” in the government letter, to keep in mind that the option of repealing the laws has been his table for the last seven months.

Regarding the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance & Farm Services Act, the Farmer’s Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, the AIKSCC said:

“It is illogical for the government to assert that these Acts benefit farmers. Crores of farmers who know the reality of Companies better than him have been sitting at his doorstep for over a month. The Acts will undermine government mandis, help bind farmers in contracts, create a large chain of middlemen for supervision, supply, etc., input costs, reduce prices, raise farmer debts and lead both to increased alienation from land and suicides.”

Dubbing the laws, ‘Contract Acts’, farmer leaders said they provide for farmers borrowing by mortgaging and for recovery of dues from land. They alleged the government is deliberately misleading the nation by asserting that it will promise MSP and procurement, while its own NITI Ayog Vice Chairman Ramesh Kumar wrote that the government has massive storage problems and has no intention to buy.

Addressing local protests, the organisation hailed nearly 10,000 farmers who assembled in Patna on Tuesday in solidarity the farmers’ struggle. They decried the lathi-charge that took place. Similarly, they thanked the massive turnout witnessed at Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu.

“AIKSCC has hailed all the participating farmers and their organizations for the exemplary discipline they have shown in their peaceful protest, despite repression. With rising BJP propaganda against farmers their fear of losing land and markets to Corporate rises,” said the AIKSCC.

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US Government Role in Thailand’s “Student Protests”

December 30th, 2020 by Tony Cartalucci

This article was originally published in August 2020.

The Southeast Asian Kingdom of Thailand has tilted too far toward China for Washington’s liking. 

The country – with nearly 70 million people and the second largest economy in Southeast Asia – counts China as its biggest trade partner, its largest source of foreign direct investment, the largest source of tourism with China providing more tourists per year than all Western nations combined, and a key partner in developing infrastructure including the already under-construction China-Laos-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore high-speed rail link that will only further cement these ties.

Thailand is also replacing its aging US military hardware with Chinese alternatives including Chinese-made main battle tanks, armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, naval vessels including the Kingdom’s first modern submarines, and jointly developed projects like the DTI-1 multiple rocket launcher system. Thailand and China have also conducted joint military exercises in recent years.

To reverse this trend – the United States is attempting to destabilize Thailand politically and economically – topple the current government and place into power a political opposition led by abusive billionaires who have specifically vowed to roll back Thai-Chinese relations.

This has manifested in protests the Western corporate media has claimed are “student-led” and “organic” despite what are clearly centrally led protests with easily identifiable leaders tied directly to US government funding.

The protests are leveraging a nation-wide network created by US government organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), USAID, and other funding mechanisms to overwrite Thailand’s indigenous institutions with Western-style alternatives across Thailand educational, labor, media, and political spaces.

The protests also have direct ties to US-backed opposition parties including those of fugitive billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai Party and corrupt billionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit of Future Forward/Move Forward Party and even foreign opposition movements the US is funding in China’s territories of Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Thailand’s US-backed Billionaire-led Opposition

Thailand’s political opposition – while portrayed by the Western media as “progressive liberals,” is in fact run by two corrupt billionaires.

One – Thaksin Shinawatra – is a convicted criminal who currently hides abroad as a fugitive. Despite this – he still openly runs his political party Pheu Thai – as New York Times would note in their 2013 article, “Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand Wields Influence from Afar.”

Thaksin also runs a number of nominee parties operating in lockstep with Pheu Thai – including Future Forward/Move Forward Party headed by fellow billionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit.

Thaksin had served as Thai prime minister from 2001-2006 and openly and repeatedly served US interests at the expense of Thailand’s own best interests.

These ties and interests included:

  • In the late 1990’s, Thaksin was an adviser to notorious private equity firm, the Carlyle Group. He pledged to his foreign contacts that upon taking office, he would still serve as a “matchmaker” between the US equity fund and Thai businesses. It would represent the first of many compromising conflicts of interest that would undermine Thailand’s sovereign under his rule.
  • Thaksin was Thailand’s prime minister from 2001-2006. Has since dominated the various reincarnations of his political party – and still to this day runs the country by proxy, via his nepotist appointed sister, Yingluck Shinawatra.
Since being ousted from power in a 2006 military coup, Thaksin Shinawatra has been represented by US corporate-financier interests via lobbying firms including, Kenneth Adelman of the Edelman PR firm (Freedom HouseInternational Crisis Group,PNAC), James Baker of Baker BottsRobert Blackwill of Barbour Griffith & Rogers (BGR)Kobre & KimBell Pottinger (and here) and most recently by Robert Amsterdam of Amsterdam & Partners.

Ahead of Thailand’s 2019 elections Thaksin Shinawatra would create a myriad of nominee political parties in the event one or more of his core parties were disbanded by courts for the obvious fact he is a fugitive and those acting on his behalf are aiding and abetting a criminal.

 

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With consumption, travel and commuting all suppressed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers from the Global Carbon Project calculate carbon dioxide emissions fell a record 7% in 2020. One key driver was lower demand for fossil fuels, including coal, the consumption of which is expected to fall by 8% this year — the largest drop since the end of World War II.

For many in Indonesia’s government, this is no reason to celebrate. Coal is the country’s largest export, and the pandemic has severely impacted Indonesia’s coal industry. The country, which in 2019 was the world’s biggest thermal coal exporter, has seen demand drop in key export markets including China and India. Domestic consumption is also at risk, as electricity demand from coal-fired power plants drops, exacerbating existing concerns around overcapacity.

The Indonesian government’s solution? Support the coal industry, in part by building local demand through a new technology: coal gasification, turning solid coal into the liquid fuels methanol and dimethyl ether (DME) that can replace imported liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

“The Indonesian coal industry is trying to secure their market domestically,” said Andri Prasetiyo, program manager with Trend Asia, a Jakarta-based NGO. “The coal gasification conversation is coming up because global coal demand is decreasing.”

Coal industry advocates and proponents in the Indonesian government say gasification plans will benefit the economy by enabling the use of more domestic energy, preserving jobs and investment in the coal industry. However, critics have raised concerns about the environmental and climate impacts of this coal-based technology, and question the wisdom of government spending on a project with questionable economic viability.

A worker operates an excavator at an open pit-coal mine in Samboja, East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. Image by Kemal Jufri/Greenpeace.

Coal gasification plans attracting major players, big investments

Converting coal into a liquid fuel is not new. In fact, this technology has been around for more than a century. It was a key energy source in Europe before World War II, but was largely replaced by petroleum and natural gas since the 1940s.

It has really only been since the turn of the millennium, after coal electricity generation peaked in Europe and the U.S., that the global coal industry began pushing gasification. To date, large-scale coal gasification exists only in coal-rich but LPG-poor China, but even there it has fallen out of favor due to persistent high costs and growing climate concerns. South Africa also has a small gasification industry that provides fuel for domestic use.

In Indonesia, coal gasification plans are quite far along. State-owned coal miner PT Bukit Asam is looking to build a gasification plant that would start operation in 2023 or 2024, while the country’s largest private coal miner, PT Bumi Resources, plans to invest more than $1 billion into a similar facility. In June, a U.S.-based company, Air Products, announced it was investing $2 billion in what it calls a “world-scale” project in Bengalon, in East Kalimantan province, in partnership with two other private coal giants: PT Bakrie Capital, part of the Bakrie Group that also controls Bumi Resources, and PT Ithaca Resources.

“Air Products will be the owner/operator taking coal and selling methanol back to PT Bakrie Capital,” said Ian Reid, a combustion technology specialist at the IEA Clean Coal Centre, an industry-supported program under the auspices of the International Energy Agency. “Air Products own the Shell and [General Electric] gasification technologies, which represent the majority of gasification installations worldwide.”

It is unclear how emissions or waste from coal gasification plants will be regulated. In 2020, Indonesia passed two sweeping pieces of legislation which included clauses seen as highly favorable to extractive industries. A revision to the coal and mineral mining law was passed in May with strong support from the Indonesian Coal Mining Association. It makes it easier for the industry to extend permits, quadrupled the maximum size of traditional mining zones, and allowed permissions for mining activities in river- and seabeds.

For gasification proponents, however, the biggest and most beneficial change came with the passing of the highly controversial omnibus law on job creation in October. Alongside clauses that lessened requirements for environmental impact assessments, weakened land rights, and eliminated an existing 30% minimum forest area requirement, were regulations that eliminated royalties for coal destined for downstream value-added domestic use — like gasification. The change means less revenue for both Jakarta and local governments, but provides a windfall for miners, and cost savings for gasification plants.

“It shows how powerful the coal industry is, to influence public policy and regulations. They successfully revised the mineral and coal law and the omnibus law,” Prasetiyo said. “It’s a grand policy to help the coal industry survive and generate profits.”

There is potentially more. Indonesia’s parliament is currently debating a new and renewable energy law, with the goal of helping expand alternative energies to help meet Indonesia’s Paris Agreement commitments. But the concern is exactly how “new” is defined.

“Coal gasification is considered part of new energy,” Prasetiyo said. “The discussion is not focusing on wind and solar, but on coal gasification and nuclear.”

Coal barges on the Mahakam river in Samarinda, East Kalimantan. Image by Kemal Jufri/Greenpeace.

The clean coal debate

These regulatory changes, and the government’s robust support for coal gasification plans, have raised concerns that Indonesia will be further locked into its dependence on coal, leading to increased greenhouse gas emissions and the ongoing devastation of landscapes in coal-mining regions of the country.

“This coal gasification project is dangerous,” Prasetiyo said. “It will make it harder for Indonesia to achieve its Paris Agreement commitments, will have no significant benefit for the economy, and will harm the environment because it will result in more coal exploitation.”

Coal advocates say the technology has improved in recent years, and that gasification should be considered a “next generation clean coal technology,” for which both pollution and greenhouse gas emissions would be limited.

“Gasification can meet the pollution criteria of clean coal use with available technologies, even though more process steps are involved for product purification than in petroleum or gas installations,” Reid said. He added he hopes to see this technology used in the Kalimantan facility.

Others are more skeptical that gasification can ever be made clean. Even if the plant itself has pollution control technology, there are numerous venues for leakage due to the long journey that coal must take from mining to gasification, and then all the downstream applications such as chemical plants and vehicles.

“The only way that it would have zero climate impact if there was zero methane leakage from the coal mine, and everywhere that the fuel is combusted there was carbon capture and sequestration, and that was 100 percent effective,” said Jonathan Buonocore, a coal, climate and public health expert at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Ghee Peh, an energy finance analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), a U.S.-based think tank, agrees, saying the technology is inherently dirty.

“You’re crushing 4.5 tons of coal, pressuring it, and eventually you’re going to burn it,” Peh said. “How can that not have a CO2 impact? It’s just a really bad idea for the environment.”

Economically, the plan could also be incredibly costly, requiring significant government subsidies to make the gasification plants cost-effective, and investment in ensuring that downstream chemical plants can accept coal-based fuels in place of LPG. A recent analysis from the IEEFA estimated that the Bukit Asam plant would lose $377 million per year and result in consumers spending more for less energy. And that is beyond the infrastructure costs.

“It’s insane the amount of money they are going to need,” said Peh, who conducted the analysis. “$2 billion for the plant, and then another $1 billion to convert downstream plants, and then the market will be loss-making every year.”

Aerial view of the PT Borneo Indobara coal mine in South Kalimantan, part of Indonesian Borneo. Image by Daniel Beltran/Greenpeace.

Exploring the options

Peh said he would ideally like to see an open discussion, based on the economic and environmental facts, about whether or not coal gasification is a feasible energy source for Indonesia and if government investment would not be better used to support the country’s nascent renewable energy sector.

“Indonesia as a nation does not necessarily have to go down this route,” he said. “Its people deserve an open discussion about all these options.”

Prasetiyo agreed, saying there’s a lot of opportunity to redirect Indonesia away from coal dependence toward a more decentralized, sustainable energy future.

“The decrease of coal prices should be the moment when the government shifts to renewable energy,” he said. “Instead, when coal is facing pressure internationally, they are trying to secure the domestic market.”

At this stage, though, the priorities of the government, and President Joko Widodo, who in October ordered an acceleration of the coal derivative industry, seem to be on making an old energy new, and not on joining neighbors India, China, Vietnam or Thailand in shifting toward renewables.

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Surveys have been conducted into granting town status to Shwe Kokko Myaing village, a controversial China-backed project in Myawaddy Township, Karen State.

The Moei River village on the Thai border, about 16km north of Myawaddy was once a Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) base and now has 10,867 villagers in 1,647 homes.

Work began on the Shwe Kokko new city project in 2017, sparking criticism over its lack of transparency, land confiscations, confusion over the scale of construction, the influx of Chinese money, suspected illicit activity and concerns about the social impact of casinos.

Known as “China Town” or the Shwe Kokko project, the planned new city is reported to be a US$15-billion (19.45-trillion-kyat) collaboration between the Border Guard Force (BGF), a military-backed armed group led by Colonel Saw Chit Thu and formerly known as the DKBA, and a Hong Kong-registered company, Yatai International Holding Group.

A satellite photo of the Shwe Kokko project.

Both Myanmar’s military and government have asked for a suspension of the project after the scale of the construction far exceeded the proposal submitted to the investment authorities.

In 2018, the BGF requested the Karen State government to designate Shwe Kokko Myaing and the 5,260-hectare site as a town. But the state government turned down the request. Shwe Kokko Myaing village covers less than 121 hectares.

“They want to gain town status by combining Shwe Kokko Myaing with other villages. There are forests in the proposed site,” said Myawaddy Township general administrator U Phyo Zaw Ko Ko.

The BGF has submitted a request for town status for more than 590 hectares reaching the Chinese-backed project. Recent land surveys were carried out under the direct supervision of the Karen State administrator.

From rebel camp to town 

In 1977-80, the Karen National Union (KNU) established the Kawmoora camp which played an important role for the armed group, both militarily and financially, by the Moei River to the south of Shwe Kokko Myaing. The base housed the KNU’s 101st Special Battalion, a special unit responsible for protecting the group’s leader, General Saw Bo Mya.

The DKBA split from the KNU, and when Myanmar’s military attacked the Kawmoora camp, the DKBA reportedly assisted the government troops.

There were fierce clashes between 1984 and 1995. Many villagers fled to Thailand and the KNU was forced out of Kawmoora.

Shwe Dingar Myaing Hotel at the Shwe Kokko project. / Htet Wai / The Irrawaddy

This followed Col. Saw Chit Thu’s rise in the DKBA. Shwe Kokko Myaing village emerged as the armed group resettled to the north of Kawmoora.

In 2010, 13 battalions, including the one led by Col. Saw Chit Thu, transformed into the BGF. He was appointed general secretary of the border force and Shwe Kokko Myaing became the BGF headquarters.

Chinese-backed new city

The project is a joint venture between Chit Lin Myaing Co run by the BGF and the Yatai group. The Chinese firm is due to put up the capital and the profits are due to be shared with Chit Lin Myaing Co. on a 70-30 basis.

The project is due to feature international-standard hotels, casinos, luxury villas and other entertainment centers.

The government granted a permit for the construction of luxury homes on 10 hectares with an investment of US$22.5 million (30 billion kyats) but the project has already far exceeded the plans.

Construction work at the Shwe Kokko project. / Htet Wai / The Irrawaddy

Villagers asked the government to control the project due to concerns over an influx of Chinese citizens and illicit activities involving the armed group. The United States Institute of Peace also reported that investors have ties to Chinese criminal gangs.

President Office’s spokesman U Zaw Htay said in July that it is difficult to control projects like Shwe Kokko in ethnic areas due to the involvement of armed groups. The government said it will form an investigation committee.

Land surveys were conducted to designate Shwe Kokko Myaing as a town while the central government has reportedly not mentioned violations of investment regulations and the controversial Chinese investment.

Myawaddy residents have alleged that there is a tacit agreement between the government, military and BGF to proceed with the project. They are also concerned that the BGF will have greater authority if the area gains town status.

Others have said the project is the government’s attempt to regain control of the area from the BGF.

Karen State administrators conduct a land survey. / Tay Zar Aung

To gain town status an area must meet 21 criteria, including having a school, hospital, football pitch, garbage dump and cemetery. There must be at least an administration office, police station and agricultural and livestock offices.

U Phyo Zaw Ko Ko said: “Shwe Kokko meets the requirements with almost all the infrastructure. Even Sukali and Wawlei [other towns in Myawaddy Township] are not as lively as Shwe Kokko. It can become a town. It is up to the Union government to decide.”

Lower House lawmaker U Sein Bo for Myawaddy Township said upgrading the village will benefit residents.

“If it becomes a town, there will be an administrative structure. The BGF may have its own responsibilities but it is under the control of the Ministry of Defence. If there is a civilian administration, there will be more division of responsibilities,” said U Sein Bo.

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Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko 

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US President Donald Trump signed into law on Sunday the historic Tibet bill. US Congress had passed this bill on December 21. The Tibetan Policy and Support Act (TPSA), which supports Tibet in key areas, even includes possible sanctions against Chinese authorities should they try to appoint the next Dalai Lama themselves and calls for building an international coalition to ensure such appointment is only carried out by the Tibetan Buddhist community. The bill has bipartisan support and demands Beijing allow Washington to set up a consulate in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa. Finally, it has safety provisions regarding the Tibetan environment calling for greater international cooperation to monitor this issue besides providing funds.

The Act also allocates $6 million for Tibetans living in India and 3 million for Tibetan governance, as well as $575,000 for scholar exchange programs, $675,000 for scholarships, and $1 million every year for the Special US Coordinator on Tibet. The Act also extends to Taiwan (another hot topic in the region), supporting its participation in United Nations bodies.

China sees such move as interference in its internal affairs and has responded by announcing it could start imposing visa bans against US officials.

In 1995, the Chinese government arrested Gedhun Choekyi Nyima (aged 6 then) who was identified by the Dalai Lama as a reincarnation of the Panchen Lama who is the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism after the Dalai Lama himself. Gedhun Choekyi Nyima remains detained by Beijing, residing along with his family in an undisclosed location since 1995. In light of this incident, there are concerns over the choice of the next Dalai Lama. The current one, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, is now 85 years old. From a Chinese perspective, Tibet is a domestic issue and the current 14th Dalai Lama (exiled in India) is a separatist. The Dalai Lama, besides being a spiritual leader for Tibetan Buddhists, is the Head of state of the Central Tibetan Administration in exile based in Dharamshala, India.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin warned last week after Congress passed the bill, that such “meddling in China’s internal affairs” could harm “cooperation and bilateral relations” between Washington and Beijing. Lobsang Sangay (president of the Central Tibetan Administration), stated that the Act sends a “powerful message” of “justice and hope” for Tibetans.

Over 80,000 in exile Tibetans currently reside in India, and 150,000  others live in other countries, especially the US and in Europe.

On November 23, Lobsang Sangay, Head of Tibet government-in-exile, visited the White House for first time in six decades. In October, the US named Robert Destro as its Human Rights Envoy for Tibet, a post which had been vacant since 2017.

The environmental provisions are clearly aimed at some Chinese projects in the Tibetan region. Retired Indian official Amitabh Mathur stated that after Trump signing the bill, “it’s time for India to also follow suit” blacklisting companies engaged in environmental damage through mining and other actions.

The Tibet issue can potentially increase Chinese-Indian tensions, especially after the Ladakh standoff. Tensions are already high. On December 14, Indian Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat commented that there was Chinese development work going on in Tibet but this should not be a cause for concern because India was “ready for any eventuality”.

China in fact plans to build a historic hydropower project in Tibet on the Yarlung Zangbo River, which also passes through Bangladesh and India. New Delhi is concerned that Chinese activities there could have ecological impacts. Part of the Tibet Autonomous Region, controlled by China, is claimed by India: the Aksai Chin region which is part of the larger Kashmir region claimed by India. India has often been accused by Beijing of using the Tibet issue as a kind of bargaining card.

Tibet is also important for China to access Pakistan (a traditional Indian rival) since Beijing has orchestrated the China Pakistan Economic Corridor infrastructure projects since 2013. The China Pakistan Economic Corridor complements the so-called Western Development plan, which includes Xinjiang, Tibet and Qinghai. One could say that in a number of ways, the Tibetan issue lies at the heart of India-China relations and tensions.

US President-Elect Joe Biden dreams of a great US-India alliance – after the new BECA US-India defence deal, and now such dream might become closer to reality. This new development regarding Tibet might place India in a position to be pressured to strongly support Tibet, further increasing Chinese-Indian tensions. As of now, India has its hands tied, so to speak. Should New Delhi take a clear stand on Tibet now, Chinese retaliation would be sure to follow. However, should the QUAD group (US, India, Japan and Australia) in fact become a kind of Asian NATO or something resembling it – as China fears – would India feel empowered enough to pursue such line of action regarding Tibet in the near future?

For Beijing, its interests in Tibet (as well as in the South China Sea) are essential; should New Delhi meddle into it, Beijing will retaliate. Tensions could then escalate, maybe even leading to a new Chinese-Indian war – ironically over the same border issue of the 1962 war.

Biden is expected to continue pursuing a kind of “dual containment” policy on both China and Russia. Nonetheless Biden has signaled, that the US under his presidency will antagonize Russia mainly, trying to isolate it from Europe as a kind of rogue state – while treating China more “cordially”, so to speak, as a competitor while trying to forge closer ties with India and other Chinese rivals to “counter” Beijing. That being so, Biden would be expected to back off from some of Trump’s policy regarding Tibet. However, the bipartisan support for the bill in the Congress, under the guise of “human rights” and “care for the environment” narrative will pressure him into not backing off. So, as is also the case with Trump’s support for Morocco (Trump’s “parting gift” to his successor, as it has been described), Biden might find himself with his hand tied too, in a way.

Once more, a US move has heightened tensions and may also have created a dilemma for all parties involved.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.

Credits to the owner of the featured image/taken via InfoBrics

Japanese government has approved a hike in military spending to address an “increasingly tough” security environment, as the country struggles under the world’s largest debt and the pandemic-induced economic slump.

Japan’s cabinet approved on Monday the record-high $1.03 trillion budget proposal for the next fiscal year starting in April 2021. The package includes a stimulus for the economy which has been severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic and a hike in defense spending.

The military will receive $51.7 billion for new planes, missiles and aircraft carriers with greater range and power. “We will strengthen the capacity necessary for national defense… in order to keep pace with the security environment which is becoming increasingly tough,” said Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato at a briefing.

Some of the money will fund the development of long-range cruise missiles and warships, as well as an advanced stealth fighter jet by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. with help from Lockheed Martin Corp. Six Lockheed stealth fighters will also be purchased.

Read full article here.

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A Dalit and a Brahmin

December 29th, 2020 by Sophie Michel

This article was written by Sophie Michel, a 12 year old American girl, living in the United States. She is Global Research’s youngest author.

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“I hear the lower castes are finding this lack of monsoons rather difficult for their crops,” droned Aashka’s father at their lavish supper (as usual), in the midst of her father’s normal dull conversing with the other Brahmins.

The table was long and elegant and filled every night with rich Brahmins, such as Aashka’s family.  Most of them were reserved old men, who hardly spoke to Aashka save for reprimanding her that if she kept up her unladylike behavior she’d surely be reincarnated as a stick bug.  Some women were present of course, their faces drawn and lifeless as if no thoughts swam behind their dark eyes and extravagant cosmetics.

“I have heard this as well,” said Priest Sadiva, a burly old man at the end of the table.

“It’s as if they have no idea where to find the food that does exist, for looking at this table, it obviously is present if you know where to look.”  He chuckled at his own joke.

“Dalits, Shudras and Vaishyas are being buried by the cartload.” said Priest Safal, a sour man who Aashka always avoided. “But they wouldn’t have achieved Moksha anyhow; they led lives of great disregard for Brahman, the force that brings us all together.”

Aashka felt a familiar itchy heat rising inside her, as if somewhere inside her, a caged starling was struggling to escape.  You didn’t achieve Moksha in your past life either, she thought to herself.

“That’s unfair, Priest Safal, that really is!” she finally blurted. “They are not trying to starve, and they are decent people, just like any of us.”

Aashka looked around the table, as everyone looked sharply up at her.  The women gasped.

If I’m referring to this lot, I’m not sure the phrase ‘Decent like you’ ‘is very effective, a little voice in the back of her brain piped up.

“Aashka,” said her father harshly. “We have not worked hard in our past lives, studying our faith, to achieve Karma like this, to become the religious leaders to our people and compliment those who are below us.”

Priest Safal’s wife spoke up. “Sahistha,” she said, speaking to Aashka’s father. “Children should  be seen and not heard. I am afraid your daughter has no hope of ever achieving Moksha, letting her soul be liberated with Brahman.  She has a complete disregard for Atman.”

That’s more words than she’s spoken all year, thought Aashka.  Then she noticed her stepmother staring at her with a look of cold resentment and embarrassment plastered to her face.  Aashka’s real mother had become ill and passed away just over two years previously, the day before Aashka’s eleventh birthday.  Her father had married again last spring, and Aashka hated him for it.  Her mother had been the nicest thing about her life.

“Servant, please escort Aashka from the table. Thank you. May Brahma bless you.” said Aashka’s father stiffly, with a note of restrained fury in his voice.

The following morning, Aashka woke to find all the other Brahmins gone, and her father praying.  Aashka found her step-mother at the dining room table, being served breakfast by an ungainly young man who kept stumbling, apparently over his own feet.  Without acknowledging the presence of Aashka, her step-mother nibbled away slowly at her meal.  The young man served Aashka Aloo Paratha (flatbread stuffed with potato) and shuffled back towards the kitchen, tripping on his way out.

“What’s wrong with him?” asked Aashka.

“Aashka!” scolded her step-mother, her eyes widening into her signature “you’re-on-thin-ice” look.

“Sorry,” said Aashka, “Only, why’d he keep falling over himself?”

Aashka’s stepmother looked over her shoulder to make sure they were alone.

“The stupid boy,” she drawled, “is new on the job and very nervous.”

“We should give him some food.”

Aashka’s stepmother did a double take. “Whatever for?”

“Priest Safal said people of lower castes are being buried by the cartload. And he looks very thin. I’m worried,” said Aashka.

“It’s not for us to mingle with Shudras.”

“I know, I know.  Anyway, may I go out?  I must…must pray at the temple for Brahma to forgive me for my er…rudeness last night.”

“Very well.” Aashka’s step-mother went back to her eating with a somber face.  “And you’ll go again later as well.  You have a lot of apologizing to do.”

Aashka set out to town with half her Aloo Paratha still in her pocket.  She ran briskly, but kept her face down, hoping nobody would recognize a Brahmin girl running in such a rushed and improper fashion.  Aashka was not going to pray near the cattle.

The streets were more crowded than usual, as Aashka neared the poorer side of town.  Shudras were holding bowls out, begging for just a bit of rice.  Dalits were lurking in the shadows, eyes full of what they knew to be unrealistic longing.  Aashka put her hand over the warm flatbread in her pocket, tempted to stop right there and give it to the first person who asked.

No, she told herself. You know someone who needs this badly.

She was beginning to stick out like a sore thumb, and she knew it.  Her clothes were too luxurious to be a member of the lower castes.  People turned to stare at her, shocked that she was still healthy and well-fed-looking.  For most people around here had been getting very thin lately, scarily thin. Dalit boys trudged past with their ribs sticking out like knives.  Girls brushed by with legs jutting out under dresses that were so thin it almost looked like they were floating.

You’re almost there, Aashka told herself,  please don’t get all wish-washy.

For Aashka was what her Mama had called a “mirror-girl.”  Anytime Aashka saw other people feeling sad, she would feel almost as bad as them.  Right now, there were a lot of starving, disconsolate people out, and Aashka felt it was almost too much for her as she plowed on.

She finally reached her destination, a tiny hut at the end of the street, and pushed inside.  A baby was crying in the corner, a woman rocked her back and forth in her thin arms.  A boy stood at the door, relieved at Aashka’s appearance.  The boy was Agavoli.

Agavoli was Aashka’s best friend.  “What was your excuse, this time?” asked Agavoli, with an amused light in his eyes.

“I told my stepmother I was praying at the temple, praying to Brahma to forgive me for my dreadful sins.  She ate it up like a kitten to cream,” Aashka smirked.

Again, Agavoli’s eyes lit up, as if a candle burned within them.  Agavoli never laughed.  You had to know him well to figure out that this was his method of doing so.

“What would you do if she found out?  Or your father, if he found out?”

“I don’t want to think about it.” said Aashka, shaking her head.

Agavoli’s mother, Mrs. Tanwar, bustled over, with Diya, the baby girl of the family, in her arms.  “Oh hello, Aashka dear, so good to see your face during this terrible famine,” she crooned.

Diya let out a gurgly laugh, sucking her thumb.

“Mama!”

“Yes, Diya, I’m Mama.  Good!” said Mrs. Tanwar with a weary smile.

Aashka thought back to the day she met Agavoli’s family.  Her mother had died that morning, forehead blazing, whispering to Aashka, “Continue what I started, dear.”  Aashka had begun to weep long and hard, her body convulsing, making more noise than she ever had.  Then she noticed her father, sitting stiffly, not even crying, just shaking his head back and forth, back and forth.

“You monster!” she had cried. “Don’t you even feel?  Well, don’t you!?!?”

And she had ran out, ran, ran, ran until she stumbled into Agavoli, at the time a complete stranger, who had been running in the opposite direction, crying.  Aashka could tell he was a Dalit from the way he was dressed, but against all she’d been taught, she did not back away.

“What’s happened to you?” she asked timidly.

“What’s happened to you?” Agavoli had countered.

Then Aashka had found out that Agavoli’s father had just died, the same as her mother.

“Aashka! Aashka?”

It was Agavoli.

“Oh, yes, sorry.” said Aashka, coming back to the present.  “I have brought you some food.”

“Ooh!” said Agavoli gleefully, “What is it?”

“Agavoli! Manners!” scolded his mother while Aashka simultaneously pulled out her offering and said, “Aloo Paratha.”

“Sorry mother,” said Agavoli, but in a sidetone to Aashka, “May I have it?”

Aashka handed him the flatbread, and with a look of someone who was rather tempted to disobey, handed it to his mother to be evenly divided.

“Eat up,” said his mother, “I’ve got to go now clean the farm stalls out down the street.”

An hour later found Aashka running up her mansion’s steps, breathing hard but trying to look pulled together, as if she’d just come back from praying, not giving food to her Dalit friends.

But when she got in, her father and step-mother were in an uproar.

“You-you…you!” screamed her step-mother in an unbound fashion miraculously out of character.  (Aashka might have even laughed at it if not for the confusion seeping through her, like a thick fog.)

“Never!” wheezed her father madly, “Never will I let you out of my sight again!  Terrible…my reputation…no daughter of mine…”  And with that, he collapsed into a chair.

“What’s going on?!” cried Aashka, alarmed.

“Oh I think you know what’s going on well enough!” shouted her step-mother hoarsely, “Priest Safal saw you conversing with a Dalit boy, that’s what’s going on!”

 Oh noThey’d seen her with Agavoli.  Everything was ruined.  His family would starve without her help.  Oh no!

“W-why was Priest Safal over there?”

“Priest Safal was preaching to a group of dirty Shudras, that’s why!”

Suddenly, Aashka’s father stood up, and grabbed Aashka by the scruff of her neck.  Aashka saw his strong sturdy hand, flying through the air towards her face, saw her step-mother hastily disguising a look of surprise.

 SLAP. SLAP. SLAP

One Week Later

Priest Safal asked, “More deaths by starvation?”

“Oh yes, and the latest is a baby girl,” said Aashka’s father, as he rolled his eyes.  Lately, he had been getting preaching jobs with the lower castes, teaching them the paths to Moksha, which he thought to be a grand waste of time with “people like them.”  Aashka was always being dragged along lately, since she had lost her father’s trust.

“Knowledge – Having a true understanding of all Hindu concepts.  Work – Doing things that are good for your community.  Devotion – Spending your entire life loving Brahma,” she would hear her father say in his deep, leader voice again and again.

But at the mention of a dead baby girl, her ears pricked up with worry.

“What’s the baby’s name?” she piped up.

Her father looked at her warningly.

“Just some worthless Dalit girl named Diya Tanwar.”

“Diya Tanwar?  DIWA TANWAR?!!?” Aashka cried, filling with dread.

Aashka’s father began to turn purple. “I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse us Priest Safal.”

The man waddled away, and then Aashka’s father looked down at her, murderously.

“AND DOES SHE MEAN ANYTHING TO YOU!?”

Aashka hesitated.  Agavoli’s sister was dead.  Agavoli’s sister was dead.

“Actually,” she said, as a lump rose in her throat.  Don’t cry, she told herself.  Don’t you dare.  “Yes she does! She is-was…my best friend’s sister!”

Aashka’s father looked simply livid.  Aashka’s hand flew to the bruises on her face.

“HAVE I NOT TOLD YOU NOT TO MENTION THAT BOY?!” he roared.

“I-I wish I was a Dalit too!”

Aashka’s father went silent. She was reminded strongly of a bomb about to explode.

Aashka looked timidly at her father’s big hands, scared to show her true feelings.

Gogetoutdon’targuejustGETOUT, she told herself.

And she turned on her heels and dashed away to Agavoli.

Six months later

Aashka walked with Agavoli to an empty field.  No sign on it read “graveyard,” but the two of them knew very well that this was where all Dalits were buried.

Agavoli scattered some wildflowers over the meadow and the two of them were silent for a minute as they…remembered.

After Diya died, Aashka’s father had it.  He had sent Aashka out onto the streets with a big basket of food to fend for herself and make sure to not forget ‘Atman,’ the spiritual component of the universe.  Aashka had felt sad at first, which surprised her, but she had known what to do, of course.  She had gone to the Tanwar’s and mourned with them; then they had gotten busy. Traded tears for dried meat to preserve on the walls. Traded sadness for rice. Traded remembrances for cheese that would keep for months. Traded emotions for potatoes.

And nobody seemed to remember Aashka the Brahmin anymore. Upper castes eyes slid from Agavoli to her, disgusted expressions never changing.  Aashka was fine with that.

She prayed every day, whispering to Brahma, “Please believe that I am the good person I claim to be.”

And that was enough for her.

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This short story was originally published on Behind the Curtain.

Sophie Michel is a 12-year-old writer with a social conscience from the United States of America.

China Building Great Wall on Its Soft Southern Underbelly

December 28th, 2020 by Bertil Lintner

Political observers and Western diplomats are confounded over why China, in sharp contrast to its various, proposed connectivity initiatives in Myanmar such as superhighways and high-speed rail lines, is building a high-tech wall along its 2,227-kilometer border with Myanmar.

Is the wall, replete with high-voltage fences, surveillance cameras and infrared sensors, to contain the spread of Covid-19, which is running rampant in Myanmar after an initial period of denial of having any infections? In September, the Chinese border city of Ruili went into near-lockdown after people who had crossed the border from Myanmar tested positive for the virus.

Or is it, as the US-based broadcasting station Radio Free Asia reported in mid-December, to prevent Chinese dissidents from fleeing the country? Or does Beijing aim to contain the cross-border trade in drugs, wildlife products and other illegal items?

Or is it mere muscle-flexing against a weaker neighbor, as Lower House lawmaker Sai Tun Aye suggested in an interview with the Myanmar website The Irrawaddy on November 26: “Our country is weak on all sides. We always experience some kind of bullying [from China].”

China and Myanmar share a long and volatile border. Image: Twitter

While Covid-19 and drug-smuggling cannot be ruled out as motives for building the wall, local sources along the border say they are not aware of any case in recent years of dissidents trying to escape to Myanmar from China.

It is much more likely that China wants to control the possible flow of “anti-state activities” — as any challenge to the supremacy of the ruling Communist Party is usually called — in the other direction.

While most of the border between China and Myanmar’s Shan state is controlled by ethnic armed organizations such as the United Wa State Army (UWSA), the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA) and a local force in the ethnically Chinese district of Kokang, which all have close relations with China’s security agencies, it is a different story in Kachin state in the north.

On November 27, the popular, privately-run but still strongly nationalistic Chinese website Toutiao published a long, unsigned article headlined ”Speaking English and believing in Christ, is Kachin State in northern Myanmar pro-American?”

The article, which has all the hallmarks of state-approved propaganda, points out that the Kachins, called Jingpo in China, are the same people and, erroneously, that the Kachin Hills were once Chinese but “before 1941”, included in the then British colony Burma.

The border areas controlled by the UWSA, the NDAA and the Kokang group are not a problem, the author asserts, because they want to remain part of Myanmar.

The “hidden goal” of the Kachin rebels, though, is independence, the author wrote — and the Kachin people have always been close to the Americans.

They got their written language, based on Roman script, from American missionaries and they fought alongside US forces against the Japanese during World War II. The article has a picture of a statue of a “Kachin ranger” and an American soldier at the US embassy in Yangon.

The establishment of a Kachin state after Myanmar’s independence from Britain in 1948 was done with US and British support, the author claims and, in April 2014, General Sumlut Gun Maw, then deputy commander of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), was “invited” to the United States.

“In recent years,” the author wrote, “The KIA’s ties with the United States have continued unabated.” In fact, the author asserts, a Kachin organization identified as “the Wenbang League”, which is headquartered in Thailand, “is supported by the US Central Intelligence Agency” and wants to establish an independent nation which would include the Jingpo-inhabited areas of Yunnan in China.

“Wenbang” must be the Chinese way of writing “Wunpawng”, a name that the Kachins in Myanmar use to denote all their various tribes. The group is most likely the Kachin National Organization, a political Kachin NGO which does have a presence in Thailand and is made up mainly of Kachin exiles living in Britain and the United States.

Therefore, it is clear, the author writes, that “the Americans want to stir up trouble in southern China using the Kachin as pawns.” Relations between the KIA and the Vatican are also close — the overwhelming majority of the Kachins are actually Baptists — and European and American organizations are involved in helping people in Kachin state who have been displaced because of the war between the KIA and Myanmar government forces.

More worryingly, if the author is to be believed, is that Kachins in Myanmar have “continuously conducted intelligence operations in China and secretly recruited troops and cadres from the Jingpo ethnic group in China.”

That, the author says “is annoying China”, and so is the KIA’s support for the Arakan Army in Rakhine state, which, indeed, was set up with help from the Kachins in 2009. But there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel, the author suggests, as many Kachins now are learning Chinese and Chinese investment is propping up the war-hit economy of Kachin state.

The Toutiao article could be dismissed as ramblings by an ill-informed freelance writer, but the prominence it was given on the website — and positive responses in the commentaries’ column — suggests tacit approval from at least the government’s censors, which monitor everything that is published in China.

It also fits into a broader pattern of concern about the activities of Christian groups and communities on both sides of the Myanmar-Chinese border. Western Sinologists point out that community-based faith movements – whether they are Christian, Muslim, or Falun Gong – are seen as a more serious threat to the moral authority of the ruling communists than political dissidents, who can easily be imprisoned or sent off into exile in the West.

In September 2018, the UWSA’s political wing, the United Wa State Party, issued a statement — written in Chinese and in a language resembling that normally used by Chinese communist institutions rather than hilltribe Wa — instructing all its military officers and administrators to “find out what the [Christian] missionaries are doing and what their intentions are.”

The announcement also banned the construction of new churches and religious teaching in schools in the Wa Hills.

The announcement came after John Cao, an ethnic Chinese pastor and permanent US resident, was arrested in China in March 2018 and, in June, sentenced to seven years in prison for “illegally crossing the China-Myanmar border.”

According to Christianity Today, a US-based website, Cao had helped to build 16 schools that served around 2,000 children in the Wa Hills. With the help of Christians in China, Cao had also been able to bring in 100 tons of clothing and other supplies to the desperately poor region.

Christianity was introduced into the area in the 1920s by American Baptist missionaries and, although not a majority among the Wa, the church has a considerable following. In the early 1970s, the Wa Hills were taken over by the China-supported Communist Party of Burma, but following a mutiny among the mainly Wa rand-and-file of its army in 1989, the UWSA was formed.

United Wa State Army soldiers in a collective salute. Photo: Twitter

The end of communist rule released a Christianity renaissance in the Wa Hills with, at least in the beginning, some Thailand-based American missionaries, some with a military background, playing a vital role.

In more recent years, Cao may be the only “foreign” missionary who made it to the Wa Hills, but many other church workers there are Kachins from Myanmar, which could explain the belief that the Americans are behind it all – and not only for spreading the Christian gospel.

It would be too facile to say that the concerns expressed in the Toutiao article are the only reason for China building yet another wall, but, local sources say, it is certainly a plausible explanation — and a more relevant one than the fear of Chinese dissidents fleeing to Myanmar.

If everything goes to plan, the construction of the wall will be finished by October 2022, which also belies the notion that it is being built to contain the spread of Covid-19.

China wants to secure its soft, southern underbelly which is one of few frontier areas through which “reactionary ideas” and other undesirable, foreign ideas can enter the country.

In future, the long and hitherto porous Myanmar-Chinese border will be fortified and — for the sake of Beijing’s national security — anyone crossing it will be clearly identified and likely closely monitored upon entering China.

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Featured image: A still image taken from a social media video in September, 2020, shows a section of a fence erected by China in the town of Wanding, Yunnan, on its border with Myanmar. Image: Twitter

The Gold Comes Off: A COVID-19 Outbreak in Sydney

December 23rd, 2020 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

Australia has various advantages as an island continent.  It is monumental and only accessible in the most impractical ways.  It is discouragingly far and almost impossible to invade without a huge investment of personnel and material.  The decision to place convicts on the island by the British was audaciously cruel and illogical, setting a precedent for future decisions by Australian governments to send undesirables to distant, inaccessible outposts, at cost.

But distance has not spared the country from the COVID-19 pandemic.  Assisted by human error and misjudgement, quarantine defences were breached as they will no doubt continue to be.  In Victoria, it proved most costly, leading to community transmission in a deadly second wave with a single-day peak of 725 cases in August.  In the largest state in the country, New South Wales, pride was taken at developing a contact tracing system to deal with arrivals from outside Australia. Withering judgment, notably by the Morrison federal government, was cast on hapless Victoria.  New South Wales received gushing praise.

Praising NSW was silly in its unequivocal confidence.  Viruses care little for reputations.  In time, the “gold” standard of NSW containment proved to be gilded. Hit the gilding, and you realise it might be gold leaf.

It came in the form of that will be known in the epidemiological sagas as the Avalon outbreak.  Confirmed cases were found this month at the Avalon RSL and the Avalon Bowling Club in Sydney’s Northern Beaches.  Genomic testing suggests that the strain in the Northern Beaches cluster is a variant of the virus currently circulating in the United States.  According to epidemiologist Catherine Bennett, no one quite knows how this particular international strain found its way into the community.  NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has also confirmed that, “health experts have yet to identify how the cluster was transmitted into the community or how it started in Avalon.”  The event that seeded the virus remains inscrutable.

Politics being what it is, criticism of the Berejiklian government, having the same political stripes of the federal government, was always going to be muted.  The federal government made sure their Liberal counterparts at the state level would not be chastised and sprayed for any errors.  This, despite the public health stumbles regarding the Ruby Princess, a cruise ship with 2,650 passengers who were allowed to disembark when it docked in Sydney on March 19.

That decision proved critical: 900 infections resulted, along with 28 deaths.  The Report of the Special Commission of Inquiry into the Ruby Princess did not mince words: “In light of all the information the (NSW Health) Expert Panel had, the decision to assess the risk as ‘low risk’ – meaning, in effect, ‘do nothing; – is as inexplicable as it is unjustifiable.”  The inquiry also had words on  “the directive to allow passengers to onward travel interstate and internationally after disembarkation on March 19”.  The move “did not appropriately contemplate or comply with the terms of the Public Health Order that came into effect on March 17.”

Berejiklian found herself apologising “unreservedly to anybody who is continuing to suffer, or has suffered unimaginable loss because of mistakes that were made within our health agencies.”  Lessons had been learnt, she declared, and such “circumstances should and will never happen again in New South Wales.”

Abundant criticism has instead been directed at the Labor government of Dan Andrews for quarantine breaches in Victoria that led to a second surge.   When strict curfew and lockdown regulations were imposed on Melbourne, the federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg wished for their lifting.  “More than 1,000 jobs are being lost every day on this premier’s watch,” he spluttered in October.  “The bloody-mindedness is unforgivable.  The stubbornness is unforgivable.”

Even now, the NSW state government is being incautiously proud, assuming that its tracing system is without peer.  In the hyperbolic assertion of Berejiklian, “We do have, I believe, one of the best if not the best contract tracing team on the planet.”  A tedious Morrison continues to toot the claim that “NSW is the gold standard,” having handled the pandemic in exemplary fashion where others “faltered”.

Refusing to adopt the dramatic, and at times draconian policy of the Andrews lockdown formula, especially given the Christmas period, the Berejeklian government is gambling on prowess and precision.  Premier Berejiklian, for instance, has urged people not to use public transport without wearing a mask or frequent a supermarket or place of worship without one.  “It would just be crazy” not to do so.

A more localised containment approach has been adopted, with a focus on the Northern Beaches area.   Residents leaving their home face fines of $1100 unless undertaken for approved reasons.  The area has now been divided for the Christmas period into two zones with slightly different regulations.

For all its self-praise, the government has done much to stifle discussion on flaws in its own quarantine policy, not least its approach to handling the isolation of flight crews.  A degree of latitude has been permitted to airline staff to self-isolate in hotels of their own choice.  Only now has this approach changed, with thirteen crewmembers of an LATAM Chile flight from South American fined $1,000 for leaving their hotel to attend various city venues.  The airlines, for the most part, feel that quarantine conditions are not the province of the state government.  The Australian airline Qantas, for instance, would prefer exemptions for their crew to remain while they manage their own quarantine arrangements.  What could go wrong?

Whatever happens in terms of managing the Sydney outbreak does not detract from the distinct inconspicuousness, if not absence, of the prime minister.  From the start of the pandemic, Morrison has made the states and territories the chief custodians of public health defence.  His biosecurity eye has been stubbornly closed.

As has been pointed out by the veteran journalist Paul Bongiorno, this has been nothing short of a grand abdication of responsibility.  “Early in the pandemic at the first meeting of Scott Morrison’s national cabinet – the rolling summit of the state and territory leaders – according to a source close to the meeting, the states were shocked when the Prime Minister came to the meeting with no quarantine plan.”  It took the promptings of Premier Andrews, backed by other state and territory leaders, to create a state-funded hotel quarantine scheme.

In its interim report, the Australian Senate inquiry into the Morrison government’s approach to the coronavirus found that it “did not have adequate plans in place either before, or during the pandemic.  Not only did it fail to heed warnings prior to COVID-19 about the National Medical Stockpile of personal protective equipment, there were inadequacies in its approach to pandemic planning exercises.”  Specific sectors also suffered, as there was no developed “COVID-19 plan for the [aged care] sector, which was unprepared and ill-equipped to protect the safety of residents when the pandemic hit.”

With such outbreaks, questions will gather, and remain unanswered.  Sounding a touch stringent, but nonetheless relevant, Magda Szubanski suggested that “the only thing preventing this country from having a normal, healthy, prosperous life” was permitting the continued arrival of overseas travellers.  In a remark, she asks the nagging question: “surely the issue is – why do we not have a coherent, tough, effective FEDERAL quarantine approach to international travellers?  God knows we can manage with asylum seekers?”  Certainly something for the prime minister to chew over.

While Andrews will always be saddled with the errors, misjudgements and desperately poor decisions of the initial quarantine arrangements, his critics were unwise to assume the throne of judgment.  Eventually, the riverbanks would break elsewhere.  Other states would have to face a viral surge, their defences and containment measures bypassed and mocked.  As with all absolute measures to seal off a community, breaches will take place and exceptions made.

In all of this, Morrison remains silent on matters that remain within the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth.  To date, there have been no announcements about revising quarantine exemptions for returning diplomats, aircrew or the specially chosen ones.  The prospects for another seeding event remain; the gold has come off the standard.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image is CC BY 4.0/Wikimedia Commons

Cash-strapped Pakistan has returned $1bn to Saudi Arabia as the second instalment of a $3bn soft loan, and is turning to China to help pay the rest.

Saudi Arabia has historically never asked Pakistan to repay its loans.

But earlier this year, the kingdom broke diplomatic norms and pushed Islamabad to repay the $3.3bn loan after Pakistan’s foreign minister admonished Saudi Arabia for not criticising India’s crackdown in Kashmir.

Islamabad sent its army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa to Saudi Arabia in August to solve the diplomatic spat, but he was snubbed and denied an audience with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. 

Last year, Saudi Arabia reportedly strong-armed Pakistan into not attending an Islamic summit that was dubbed the rival of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

‘China has come to our rescue’ 

Pakistan, which has $13.3bn in central bank foreign reserves, could face issues clearing the next Saudi instalment.

Pakistani officials told Reuters that their country planned to give another $1bn, with the help of China.

“China has come to our rescue,” a Pakistani foreign official told Reuters.

A finance ministry official said that Pakistan’s central bank was in talks with Chinese commercial banks. He noted that the option for a debt swap option was also on the table.

“We’ve sent $1bn to Saudi Arabia,” the financial official said, stating that it planned to send another billion next month. The first $1bn was paid back in July.

Although a $1.2bn surplus in its current account balance and a record $11.77bn in remittances in the past five months have helped support the Pakistani economy, having to return the Saudi money is still a setback.

Washington has raised concerns about Pakistan turning to China, fearing it will fall into a debt trap.

In 2018, Sri Lanka handed over its Hambanthota port to China after it failed to repay Chinese loans to build it.

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On the freezing grassland in Siziwang Banner, North China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, a Chinese national flag was placed right next to the re-entry capsule of Chang’e-5 lunar probe, whose epic predawn landing on Thursday provided the perfect climax to China’s latest moon missions—an epic moon sample return mission.

Such a moment recalled China’s first-ever fabric national flag that was unfolded on the moon by the Chang’e-5 lander on December 3, another highlight of the mission.

“These moments would be treasured for years to come, and would always inspire curiosity to seek more space marvels,” said one stargazer.

The safe landing of the long-awaited Chang’e-5 marked a perfect end to its 23-day journey to the moon, bringing back with it a precious parcel containing not just lunar samples, but also the hopes and expectations to advance humanity’s understanding of Earth’s celestial neighbor.

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday early morning sent an immediate congratulatory message after the return of the capsule, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, extended greetings to all members who participated in the Chang’e-5 mission in his congratulatory message.

China’s lunar probe mission Infographic: Deng Zijun/GT

Read full article here.

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First Duterte Crushed Marawi, Now He Is Ignoring It

December 20th, 2020 by Criselda Yabes

Six months after the end of the 2017 battle of Marawi in the southern Philippines, residents were allowed into ground zero for just a few hours to retrieve whatever they could of their possessions destroyed in the five months of fighting and bombing. But they could not return, until today, to their ruined lakeside city, to pick up the pieces of their lives.

Over time, this officially Islamic city in the southern island of Mindanao has turned into a surreal desert of rubble, where vegetation has slowly crept through the shattered houses. Among the few living things were patches of eggplants, squash, tomatoes; an outgrowth of green covered a section of the battle area once occupied by houses.

For more than three years now, the painful memories of that battle, the longest and largest seen in decades of Muslim insurgency, have gradually receded. The gaping wound that remains is the fate of the shrinking land of Muslim Mindanao in this Catholic-majority country.

It turns out that Manila’s promises to rebuild and rehabilitate were mostly empty. After first offering a grand plan to turn the ruins into something akin to Dubai, the task force overseeing the former battle area of 250 hectares has moved at a snail’s pace and has achieved little more than setting up some maritime outposts by the shore. The few mosques that have been rebuilt were completed thanks to private donors.

President Rodrigo Duterte was telling the truth when he taunted the rebels to, “go ahead, do it,” prior to the attack on Marawi. Two millennial brothers of the Maute family, from their hideout in a godforsaken town south of Marawi City, had aligned themselves with Islamic State and recruited hundreds of youths with the promise of creating a new province. They were all killed in the battle, which saw over 1,000 people killed.

All hopes of improving the miserable situation of the nearly 50,000 families who lost their homes have now fallen on the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, or BARMM, that was created in early 2019.

But it too had a slow start in forming a parliament mainly hand-picked by Duterte to make laws in five Muslim-dominated provinces, nearly all considered to be the poorest in the country. Its leaders kept their distance from the task force in the Marawi aftermath, wary of being drawn into allegations of corruption and lack of transparency.

More than anything, the aftereffects of the battle are threatening to explode the ancient issues of land ownership that has been the core grievance raised by generations of minority Muslim Filipinos. With only half of the displaced families able to show registered titles, those who could not “will be left to their own devices ticking toward future neighborhood disagreements, if not rido,” according to a recent BARMM summary report.

Rido is the violent outcome of clan feuds that can erupt at any time; in fact, people thought the Battle of Marawi was just another clan feud when it first erupted, not realizing that it would lead to a siege involving battalions of government troops to defeat pro-ISIS rebels.

As an afterthought perhaps, BARMM has decided to enter the fray, carving out a budget of 517 million pesos ($11 million) for 2021 for Marawi’s rehabilitation efforts. Otherwise, it risked losing the ability to restore governance where others failed before them. It also allotted a further 500 million pesos in 2020, partly to aid victims of the COVID pandemic but mostly for the rehabilitation effort, but is still awaiting reports from field offices as to how the funds were distributed.

The BARMM is racing against time already squandered by a national government that had sweeping powers — but failed to use them — to put Marawi back together under a Mindanao-wide martial law that lasted until the end of 2019.

That would have relieved BARMM of the heavy responsibility of putting Marawi back on its feet. According to BARMM’s confidential summary report “families feel defeated, and they could only swallow their maratabat, or pride, because everyone else is drowned by the insensitivity and slow progress of the rehabilitation.” The failure of the task force could now mean going back to the old power structures, with Mindanao racked once again by warlords, ethnic divides, poverty, and violence.

Two things could have got the ball rolling in practical terms: first, by seeding enough fresh capital to fire the entrepreneurial skills that the Maranao tribe of Marawi is known for, those successful business owners who expanded the city into a commercial hub; second, by decentralizing the main city, and spreading people to nearby towns according to the idea of “build it and they shall come.” Local politicians stopped before it could take off because of petty differences with rival political families.

Today, the only real progress is a major road network fanning out from the former battle area, which is being built thanks to funding from Japan. Earlier this year, the public highways department approved plans for promenades, a market and other structures with grants from China.

But there again, there have been interminable delays, with some projects still awaiting approval and others bogged down in squabbles over procurement. At this rate, it seems the wild greens in the ruins are moving faster than the bureaucracy.

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Criselda Yabes is a journalist based in the Philippines. She is author of “The Battle of Marawi,” her tenth book, which was published in September.

Featured image is from New Eastern Outlook

Between 28 November and 14 December, I visited the ongoing farmers’ protest at the Singhu and Tikri borders between Delhi and Haryana, and Ghazipur border between Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. The agitation began on 26 November as part of a “Delhi Chalo” rally to protest three recently enacted farm laws. As the protests progressed, I witnessed that labourers and people from working class communities started to join the farmers in solidarity. I heard talk of “kisan-mazdoor ekta,” or farmer-worker unity, and the conversations among protesters seemed to be about the rights of both farmers and labourers.  

On 14 December, several members of trade unions were present at the Singhu border. I found a small book stall set up on the road by the Inqlabi Mazdoor Kendra, a workers’ organisation. The subjects of the books ranged from the proletarian class to peasant and industrial revolutions. Four members of Inqlabi Mazdoor Kendra were distributing pamphlets to the visitors. The pamphlets spoke about the unity of farmers and labourers, and contained information about recently passed controversial labour laws as well as the farm laws. “This is the time to unite and show our strength as these farm bills are not only against farmers but also against the labour class,” Nitesh, a member of the Inqlabi Mazdoor Kendra, told me. “We have extended our support to this movement and joined hands with the farmers.”

I also spoke to Shyambir Shukla, a member of central working committee of the Inqlabi Mazdoor Kendra. “We organised protests in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and other places on 5th, 8th and 14th December,” he told me. “There is a huge support coming for farmers from the labour class. This is a movement against the capitalist and fascist approach of the government. We will be fighting together until we get justice.” Shukla added that the Mazdoor Adhikar Sangharsh Abhiyan, a workers’ rights collective which consists of 15 labour organisations, including the Inqlabi Mazdoor Kendra, has given its full support to the farmers.

On 11 December, the Joint Platform of Central Trade Unions and Sectoral Federations/Associations, a joint front of at least ten trade unions, released a press statement which expressed “whole hearted support” and “rock-like solidarity” with the farmers. “The Joint Platform of CTUs and Sectoral Federations/Associations call upon the workers, employees and their unions, irrespective of affiliations, to be ever vigilant and extend our active solidarity to the call of Farmers’ Joint Struggle in the coming crucial period,” the release stated.

Labour organisations have also been protesting against four new labour codes introduced by the Narendra Modi government—The Code of Wages, the Industrial Relations Code, the Social Security Code, and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code. These codes replaced 44 existing labour laws. Together, they diluted and repealed various longstanding legal provisions that ensured the rights and security of workers. They also excluded a large number of establishments from complying with and enforcing labour laws.

“We have been protesting against the labour code introduced by the government. Even on 26 November there were protests across Delhi and other parts of the country against the labour code,” Amjad Hassan, the national secretary of the Indian National Trade Union Congress, a trade union affiliated to the Congress party, told me. “Now we have decided to support the farmers and raise our voice for them and us jointly. Labour organisations from across the nation have started coming to the borders to show their solidarity on the spot for the farmers.”

Trade union members told me that in the initial days of the farmers’ agitation, they were protesting in solidarity in their own localities, in front of district administration headquarters or company offices. But they soon realised that they should join the farmers at the protest sit-ins on the various points along the Delhi border. Since the second week of December, the presence of labour organisations has been increasing at the places where the farmers are protesting. Trade union activists added that workers from Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan have joined the farmers’ protest.

“This farmer movement has given an opportunity to show kisan-mazdoor ekta,” Thaneshwar Dayal Adigaur, the convenor of the Nirman Mazdoor Adhikar Abhiyan, a Delhi-based construction workers’ organisation, told me. “The fight of the working class against the labour code is similar to the protest of farmers against the farm bills. So, we must raise our voice together.”

Farmers’ organisations have welcomed the support of the trade unions. “The ongoing historical struggle against the three farm laws has taken a shape of mass movement,” Vikram Singh, the joint secretary of All India Agricultural Workers Union, told me. “Apart from the other sections of the society, working class is playing a very important role in this struggle. Agricultural workers in the rural India are part of this struggle from very beginning as the impact of the laws is similar for them also. This is the first layer of worker-peasant unity.” Singh said that both workers and farmers are united against the “pro-corporate” policies of the central government. He added that while there have been joint struggles in the past where workers and farmers have come together on common issues, their unity during the farmers’ protest marked a new chapter in history.

“All the mobilisations in last twenty days have seen this unity growing,” he continued. “Workers have understood that this struggle of farmers is not only for farmers but for ensuring food security of India and saving the rural economy. When farmers are fighting against farm laws which will push them to the mercy of brutal market laws and uncertainty, workers are also fighting against the codification of labour laws which puts them in the same situation.”

I spoke to AR Sindhu, the secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions, or CITU, a national trade union. She has been actively protesting at the Singu, Tikri and Ghazipur borders. “The labour codes and farm acts were passed in September at the same time. Trade unions called for protests against the labour codes across the nation on 23 September and it happened successfully. The trade unions supported the farmer’s protests against the farm acts on 25 September too. In that way, the labour class and farmer community both have been together in fighting for their rights and against these laws. The trade unions have been continuously supporting the farmers protests on the ground and have associated themselves with farmers. You can say that sentiment of the labour class is attached to the farmers which is clearly visible at the borders. Now this is a movement for farmers and labour class both because both are integrated with each other.”

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Akhilesh Pandey is a journalist based in Delhi.

Featured image: Trade unions protest in Delhi’s Shaheedi Park. Several trade unions and workers’ organisations have joined the ongoing farmers’ protest against three recently enacted farm laws. SHAHID TANTRAY FOR THE CARAVAN

Why Japan Lags in the COVID-19 Vaccine Race

December 19th, 2020 by Matt Aizawa

For readers who might wish to compare its message with the usual image of a competent Japanese pharmaceutical industry – one that remains among the largest in the world after the US and China, with a world market share of approximately 7% – here’s a recent news item Asia Times asked me to unpack:

Japan-made coronavirus vaccines may not be available until 2022.

Coronavirus vaccines developed in Japan are unlikely to become available for practical use until at least 2022, according to industry officials.

Only one company in Japan is conducting a trial of a vaccine.

Foreign rivals lead the development of vaccines because know-how has been accumulated even in peacetime from the perspective of national security, an official at a major Japanese pharmaceutical firm said.

“We can make a vaccine for another coronavirus pandemic swiftly if we accumulate know-how,” a KM Biologics official said.

The disconnect between past successes and current acceptance of lack of know-how needn’t be all that mystifying.

Industry sources paint the big picture for us:

The pharmaceutical market in Japan has shown small growth rates in the past years. A complex regulatory and pricing process, as well as the regular price cuts, have made it difficult for pharmaceutical companies to introduce new innovative products.

Another reason for the stagnant market is the promotion of generic drugs adopted by the government since 2007 in order to reduce the healthcare expenditures in Japan. The volume share of generics has more than doubled during the last decade and is still on the rise.

This could partially explain why Japan apparently will be relying at first on foreign vaccines, with Pfizer and AstraZeneca both reportedly running tests in the country.

That said, I have additional thoughts addressing the cited news story – including what may be its most provocative sentence, the one about a “national security” angle that is said to have kept the Japanese industry from acquiring know-how.

Does that mean the Japanese government has not been pushing companies to develop such know-how while governments in some other countries have?

My short answer: Yes, but what’s new? This, after all, is post-World War II Japan.

My slightly longer answers:

  • The most cost-effective way to hold down Covid-19 is a mask.  Japan has one of the highest mask-wearing rates and one of the lowest death rates from Covid 19: fewer than 3,000 died in the past 12 months out of a population of 126,000,000.
  • Yes, you still get waves. The current third wave is peaking and cases should drop toward January, but the fourth wave should be in March. But we are not talking millions of cases and hundreds of thousands of deaths as in other countries that cannot keep their masks on. Japan’s strategy of using masks to buy time has worked very well.
  • A 100-yen mask probably has more than 90% efficacy if worn by over 95% of the community. That’s almost as good an outcome you’d get from a messenger RNA-based vaccine refrigerated at minus 80 degrees centigrade and inoculated at 5,000 yen per arm – twice.
  • Unlike Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong, Japan did not experience MERS or SARS. The nation thinks it is a first-world nation that practices first-rate public hygiene. Complacency? Yes, some of that. But common sense says: Wear a mask.
  • National security considerations for a country that retired its last F4 Phantom, a Vietnam-era relic, just last month? Again complacency? Yes, some of that. But common sense, too. It is not the vintage of the jet that counts. In a truly defense-only strategy it is the kill rate of the anti-aircraft missile, whether launched from a stealthy F35 or from a shoulder of an illiterate teenager. Think mask.
  • Japanese scientists would be the first to acknowledge that Japan is behind the front line pharmas of the US and EU when it comes to DNA/RNA based pharmaceuticals. The nation is still allergic to recombinant technology whether it be for food or medicine. Blame that on the Ministry of Education.
  • Japanese medical professionals would be the first to complain that the Health Ministry has a tendency to take its time approving anything new. This is the legacy of thalidomide, HIV-infected supplements for hemophiliacs and other missteps in the past. The nation rewards caution more than it rewards those first across the ever-changing finish line.
  • How a society addresses its technological challenges is revealing. American astronauts discovered that they could not use ballpoint pens (patented in 1888) in low-gravity space; they asked for a new technology. How did the Russian cosmonauts address the issue? Pencils.
  • While we wait for the vaccine, wear a mask.

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A retired Tokyo-based analyst for a major US investment bank, Matt Aizawa now crunches numbers beside a lake north of the city.

Featured image is from https://www.vperemen.com

Health and Wealth in India – Farmers’ Lives Matter

December 18th, 2020 by Colin Todhunter

  • Posted in English @as @as
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Government does away with session citing Covid concerns, but Opposition parties see refusal to hold even a truncated session as means to avoid addressing pressing issues

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The Winter Session of the Parliament has been cancelled this year. It will be merged with the Budget Session next year. The matter came to light when Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prahlad Joshi responded to a letter by Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.

Chowdhury had requested in a letter to Speaker Om Birla, a session to discuss the new farm laws. But Joshi shot down the entire session blaming it on “the extraordinary situation arising out of Covid-19 pandemic” and “the recent spurt in cases, particularly in Delhi”.

Joshi said that the government was inclined to hold the session at the earliest suggesting January 2021 as the start of a combined session.

However, the Shiv Sena feels that this is just an elaborate ploy to avoid discussing important issues. An editorial in the Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamna said, “What kind democratic practice is this? The country will remain alive only if voices from the opposition benches are strong in a democracy. The democratic traditions in Parliament inspire the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi must follow these traditions.” It reminded how even Presidential elections were not cancelled in the US because of the pandemic, “but we are not allowing even a four-day winter session of the Parliament?”

The Saamna editorial chastised BJP members for taking to the streets “for reopening of temples, but refusing to open the temple of democracy”.

The decision to scrap the Winter Session altogether does appear to be odd in light of a session conducted in September despite the pandemic raging on.

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How 70 years of CIA deceit and mainstream media complicity convinced the American public that North Korea was the Bad Guy and the U.S. was the Good Guy—when it was almost always the other way around

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In the United States today, North Korea is the standard reference point for modern-day totalitarianism: a land of darkness that is considered a dangerous security threat because of the development of nuclear missiles capable of striking the U.S.

A.B. Abrams’ new book, Immovable Object: North Korea’s 70 Years at War with American Power (Clarity Press, 2020), shows that the common perceptions in the U.S. of North Korea are mostly wrong.

Though the Kim dynasty has ruled through autocratic methods, it has also adopted rational and at times intelligent policies, which have enabled North Korea to weather unprecedented outside hostility and develop into something of a military powerhouse.

Between July and November 2017, North Korea successfully test-fired three intercontinental range ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and a more sophisticated miniaturized thermonuclear warhead, which demonstrated beyond much reasonable doubt that one of America’s oldest adversaries had gained the capability to strike the U.S. mainland, with U.S. intelligence later confirming the viability of both ICBM designs tested as well as their warheads.[1]

North Korea as such is no military pushover and may be gaining the upper hand in the long war with the United States—which is a source of pride for its people.

Engagement Range of Hwasong-15 ICBM [Source: militarywatchmagazine.com]

Amidst the backdrop of U.S. sanctions, Pyongyang has recently undergone a major construction boom. [Source: 38north.com]

Roots of the Conflict

The conflict between the U.S. and North Korea, or Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), is rooted in North Korea’s defiance of the U.S.-led world order.

The DPRK’s founding father, Kim Il-Sung, was the son of prominent Korean nationalists Kim Hyong Jik and Kang Pan Sok and a leader of the Manchurian partisan exiles in the Soviet Far East who fought against Japanese colonial occupation.

During Japan’s colonization of Korea from 1910 to 1945, it promoted industrialization and built the Suiho dam—the second largest in the world after the Hoover dam—while also developing a draconian surveillance apparatus and repressing political dissent.

The United States followed Japan in its hostility to left-wing, nationalist movements, and construction of a police state apparatus in South Korea, which relied on many former Japanese collaborators.

The U.S. had divided the Koreas artificially at the end of World War II and installed a client regime in the south led by Syngman Rhee, who was flown in on General Douglas MacArthur’s plane after having spent years in exile.

CIA reports from the time showed a stark contrast between Kim and Rhee’s leadership.

Under Kim’s direction, industrial output and state industry increased exponentially in the DPRK, with average salaries of factory and office workers increasing by 83 percent. A successful program of land reform also offered new opportunities for rural farmers, and many benefited from state-subsidized health care and education.

Syngman Rhee (right) waltzes with General Douglas MacArthur. [Source: wilsoncenter.org]

The Rhee government, by contrast, triggered a social rebellion through economic policies that were designed to tie South Korea’s economy with Japan—which the U.S. was trying to build up as a junior partner in the Cold War—along with a heavy reliance on Japanese collaborators and intolerance for dissent.

Before the official outbreak of the Korean War, the Rhee regime, with the support of U.S. military and police advisers, had killed at least 100,000 of its own people, including through the brutal suppression of a left-wing uprising in the southern island of Cheju-do.

In the late 1940s, the Kim regime promoted the peaceful reunification of the Koreas through free elections. The U.S. government blocked these elections because they knew that Kim would win—similarly to Vietnam in 1956 when they knew that Ho Chi Minh would win at least 80 percent of the vote.

Despite a professed commitment to democracy, the U.S. trampled on Korea’s sovereignty in order to fulfill its imperial ambitions in Southeast Asia, which the U.S. had ringed with military bases due to its victory in the Pacific War.

The Korean War

The official narrative maintains that the North started the Korean War by invading South Korea on June 25, 1950. However, Abrams’ account provides strong evidence that it was the other way around.

Bent on achieving what he could never do through the ballot box, Rhee’s forces staged raids into the North, and then on June 25th struck first when they attacked the border city of Haeju. The South Koreans would later amend their claim to state that they had attacked Haeju at a later date as part of a counter-offensive—long after announcing the successful capture of the city.

American government officials at the time were elated by the outbreak of the Korean War–Secretary of State Dean Acheson said that “the Korean War came along and saved us.”

This was because it gave an excuse to prevent major cutbacks in military spending after World War II, and strike a blow at communist China, which entered the war in support of the DPRK.

Furthermore, the United States military used Korea, like Vietnam subsequently, as a testing ground for new weapons systems, including super-bazookas and napalm, or jellied gasoline, which burns the flesh.

The North Korean population also served as guinea pigs for medical experiments on prisoners of war (POWs), and for techniques of germ warfare that had been learned from Japanese war criminals who had been secretly invited to give lectures at the U.S. Army Biological Warfare Center at Ft. Detrick, Maryland, at the end of World War II.

[Source: whowhatwhy.org]

General Douglas MacArthur, who had previously led the war effort against imperial Japan, stated that as one who had seen as much “blood and disaster as any living man,” he had never seen such devastation as that experienced in Korea during the Korean War. “It just curdled my stomach the last time I was there.” Subsequently MacArthur referred to the war as “a slaughter never heard of in the history of mankind.”

According to the Truth Commission that was established decades after the war ended, South Korean (ROK) troops committed six times more atrocities than the North Korean People’s Army (KPA). American troops also torched villages, raped local women, and committed dozens of massacres, some of which were motivated by pure racial bigotry.

Summary executions carried out by the South Korean army under U.S. oversight at Taejon in the summer of 1950. [Source: wikipedia.org]

A fighter pilot, David Tatum, told Time magazine that “I figured if we had to kill ten civilians to kill one soldier who might later shoot at us, we were justified.”

Retreating American forces destroyed cultural relics such as the shrine of Mo Ran bon and the Yen Myen Sa temple of the Buddha in Pyongyang and tortured and mistreated POWs far more systematically than the North Koreans and Chinese.

Painting of American brutality at the Sinchon Museum of American War Atrocities in North Korea. [Source: peacehistory-usfp.org]

The losses North Korea suffered during the war had few parallels in history, with conservative estimates placing the death toll at 20 percent of the population. The U.S. Air Force dropped between 635,000 and 698,000 tons of bombs compared to 503,000 tons dropped on the Japanese empire during the entirety of the Pacific War.

Thatched huts go up in flames after B-26 bombers unload napalm bombs on a village near Hanchon, North Korea, on May 10, 1951. [Source: peacehistory-usfp.org]

In November 1950, a single American firebombing raid on the city of Sinuiju destroyed 2,100 of the 3,017 state and municipal buildings, 6,800 of 11,000 houses, 16 of 17 primary schools, and 15 of 17 places of worship. Eighty percent of the deaths caused by the bombing were women and children, with survivors forced to live in underground caves. The attack was intended to maximize casualties beginning with the use of incendiaries followed by explosives, and time bombs which prevented rescue work.

General Emmet O’Donnell, the head of the bomber command in Asia who formerly oversaw the firebombing of Tokyo, testified that within three months of the war’s outbreak “almost all of the Korean peninsula was just a terrible mess”; as a result of the air campaign “almost everything is destroyed. There is nothing standing worthy of the name.”

In 1953, the U.S. Air Force targeted crucial Yalu river irrigation dams–flooding whole towns and destroying the DPRK’s rice crop which the already malnourished population needed to subsist. One report stated that “the westerner can little conceive the awesome meaning which the loss of this staple commodity has for the Asian–starvation and slow death.” These comments epitomize the horrible human consequences of the Korean War, which ended in stalemate with the country permanently divided at the 38th parallel.

Afterwards, General MacArthur and other military commanders acknowledged that they had underestimated the fighting capabilities of the Chinese and North Koreans whom MacArthur described as “a tough opponent, well led.”

Today, North Koreans consider the Great Fatherland Liberation War a victory, which solidified the legitimacy of the Kim dynasty. In the U.S., by contrast, the Korean War is little commemorated or talked about—largely because it contradicts the nation’s righteous self-conception.

Monument in Pyongyang commemorating Great Fatherland Liberation War. [Source: uritours.com]

The War Continues

After the Korean War ended, U.S. intelligence reports indicated that the Rhee government was actively contemplating launching another attack on the North and had threatened use of the hydrogen bomb.

The Eisenhower administration’s Korea policy under NSC 5702/2, dated August 9, 1957, allowed U.S. forces to provide support for a unilateral ROK military initiative against the DPRK.

By January 1958, the U.S. had stationed approximately 150 nuclear warheads across four different weapons platforms in the ROK, which stimulated development of the North’s own nuclear program through collaboration with the Soviet Union.

Tensions boiled over in January 1968 when the KPA captured a U.S. Navy surveillance warship, the U.S.S. Pueblo—allegedly in coordination with the Vietminh who just seven days later launched the Tet offensive against U.S. forces in South Vietnam.

[Source: usspueblo.org]

Cables since declassified show that the Pentagon was ready to use nuclear weapons to force Pyongyang to comply with American demands over the incident—much as threats to use them had helped to facilitate favorable terms to the Korean War armistice.

In April 1959, when a U.S. Navy aircraft was shot down over the Sea of Japan by North Korean MiG-21 fighters after it had penetrated North Korean airspace, President Richard Nixon in a state of inebriation gave authorization for a nuclear attack that, according to CIA agent George Carver, the military took seriously.

[Source: washingtonpost.com]

Luckily, cooler heads prevailed, though a tense military standoff endured in which the threat of nuclear war remained high.

Proxy Wars

Besides enhancing the threat of nuclear Armageddon, the U.S.-North Korean conflict resulted in proxy wars like in Vietnam, where North Korea dispatched pilots to fly air defense missions for the Vietnam People’s Air Force. Fourteen North Korean pilots were killed.

Former Vietnamese deputy defense minister and former Vietnam War pilot, Tran Hanh, stated: “we found [the North Korean pilots] to be very brave. Their national pride was so high…they feared nothing, even death.”

Kim Il-Sung reportedly stressed the importance of assisting the Vietnamese struggle in a 1965 meeting with a visiting Chinese delegation. He stated: “If the American imperialists fail in Vietnam, then they will collapse in Asia …We are supporting Vietnam as if it were our own war. When Vietnam has a request, we will disrupt our own plans in order to try and meet their demands.”

A number of reports indicate that KPA forces participated in ground battles alongside Vietcong insurgents and that KPA psychological warfare specialists aided the Vietminh. President Kim Il-Sung stressed the importance of fortifications in his discussion with the Vietminh leadership, and instructed them to dig caves and place factories half inside.

Besides the Vietnamese struggle, Kim Il-Sung provided economic and military support to Egypt following the 1967 Six-Day War and during the 1973 Yom Kippur War with Israel, which the United States was heavily supporting.

Also in the late 1970s, Kim’s regime dispatched 1,500 personnel to train and advise the Cuban-backed People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which fought against U.S. proxies allied with apartheid South Africa, and supported the African National Congress (ANC) and South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) liberation forces in Namibia, and Robert Mugabe’s government in Zimbabwe, which was a target of U.S. sanctions.

Kim Il-Sung with SWAPO delegation in Namibia. [Source: asiabyafrica.com]

In 1982, North Korea contributed to Lebanon’s defense after it was invaded by Israel with U.S. backing, and assisted Hezbollah in constructing an underground armory, bunker and communications network that proved decisive in thwarting Israeli war aims in the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah War.

Since that time, North Korea has assisted Iran and Libya—before the 2011 overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi—to develop a nuclear deterrent, and dispatched Special Forces units to Syria to engage jihadi forces backed by the U.S. during its war to topple Bashar al-Assad.

The above policies place in context the unremitting U.S. hostility toward North Korea, and plans for regime change, which are designed to remove a principal supporter of Washington’s global adversaries.

North vs. South

The U.S. first imposed sanctions on North Korea during the Korean War and then expanded them in the 1980s, with the goal of completely isolating North Korea from the world economy.

The DPRK nevertheless remained a strong economic performer compared to other socialist bloc countries throughout the Cold War. This was in part because of the high technical levels of education, even in rural areas, and construction of amazing hydroelectric dams and the deepest underground public railway system in the world, which benefited from DPRK’s experience building underground defenses during the Korean War.

Built in the 1970s, the Pyongyang metro is one of the deepest in the world at 360 feet underground. [Source: wikipedia.org]

While the DPRK quickly rebuilt its infrastructure after the war, South Korea remained one of the poorest countries in the world until Syngman Rhee was forced out of power by student-led demonstrations in 1960.

Under Rhee, 24% of ROK’s Gross National Product (GNP) relied on prostitution that serviced U.S. soldiers who continued to occupy the country. Kim Ae Ran, a 58-year-old former prostitute, said in 2009 that “our government was one big pimp for the U.S. military.”

The South’s economy began to boom in the 1970s under General Park Chung Hee, who provided more adept economic management than Rhee, and benefited from massive injections of Japanese capital.

The former Director of South Korea’s Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), Brigadier General Kim Hyong-Uk, testified to the U.S. Congress in 1977, nevertheless, that it was the North Korean population which “most likely feels less deprived than their southern counterparts,” because there were “no visible gaps between the haves and have-nots [in North Korea].”

These comments help explain the continued viability of the Kim dynasty in a period when the North’s economic output was being eclipsed.

Surviving the 1990s

The 1990s were a particularly trying decade for the DPRK. In 1994, Kim Il-Sung died, and was replaced by his son, Kim Jong-Il. The DPRK had recently lost many of its key trading partners with the collapse of the socialist bloc.

To add insult to injury, the country suffered a series of natural disasters, including devastating floods in the breadbasket provinces in the south and west, which destroyed 1.5 million tons of grain reserves that had been stored underground. As well, 85% of the country’s power generating capacity was lost and around 5.4 million people lost their homes.

Propaganda poster depicting Kim Jong-Il’s leadership during the arduous march. [Source: youtube.com]

Under normal circumstances, the international community would have intervened to alleviate the humanitarian crisis known in North Korea as the “arduous march.”

Rather, however, the Clinton administration pushed for the ratcheting up of economic sanctions and blocked oil from coming into the country in an attempt to sow discontent and facilitate regime change.

CIA agents stationed on the Chinese border offered desperate farmers a bag of rice for cow’s tails in an attempt to further ruin North Korea’s agricultural economy. Without oil or electricity and the use of tractors, cows were being used to plough the local fields, and so their removal was designed to induce starvation.

Deadly Geopolitical Game

The North Korean people had long been pawns in a deadly geopolitical game in which all measures of cruelty were adopted. A parallel was with Iraq, where sanctions designed to undermine Saddam Hussein’s regime led to the deaths of at least 500,000 children.

In the North Korean case, UNICEF and the World Food Program were prevented from providing vitamin A supplementation to children, which resulted in the deaths of at least 2,772 of them.

The impact of the sanctions on medical equipment related to reproductive health was estimated to have killed 72 pregnant women and 1,200 infants in the late 2010s.

The imperative of North Korea’s developing a nuclear deterrent in the face of the sanctions and America’s regime change efforts was recognized by top U.S. officials such as James Clapper, the director of national intelligence under Barack Obama. He referred to the North Korean nuclear program as “their ticket to survival.”

In June 1994, the Clinton administration nearly went to war over North Korea’s nuclear program. The crisis started when Kim Il-Sung’s government refused an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) request to inspect its nuclear facility at Yongbyon because they felt they were being singled out and that the inspection teams would be infiltrated by intelligence agents.

After the U.S. threatened a preemptive military strike, former President Jimmy Carter traveled to Pyongyang, met with Kim, and brokered an agreement in which the DPRK agreed to freeze its nuclear program in return for new nuclear reactors that did not produce weapons-grade plutonium along with oil to help meet its energy needs.

Selig S. Harrison, a State Department official who played an important role in the negotiations, later asserted that, while North Korea had lived up to its end of the bargain and ceased operating the Yongbyon reactor, the Clinton administration failed to adhere to its own commitments, notably by failing to remove economic sanctions which the North saw as crucial to solving its economic problems, especially its food shortage. The Clinton administration further failed to provide promised oil deliveries or fund light water reactors.[2]

Having lost complete trust in the U.S. by this point, North Korea pulled out of the nuclear agreement in 2002 and accelerated its development of a nuclear weapon.

From the Axis of Evil to Trump

The George W. Bush administration poured gasoline on the fire when it designated North Korea as part of its “Axis of Evil,” along with Iraq, Iran, and other alleged state sponsors of terrorism.

[Source: usrussianrelations.org]

The U.S. Congressional Research Service’s East Asia specialist, Larry Niksch, wrote at the time that “regime change in North Korea [was] the Bush administration’s main policy objective,” which was to be achieved through renewed economic pressure through sanctions and interdiction of Korean shipping lanes intended to provoke a collapse of government and, if this failed, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was considering a “broader plan for massive strikes against multiple targets.”

After a brief thaw in Bush’s second term, the Obama administration renewed a hard-line approach, increasing economic pressure and informational war, and launching cyber-attacks—the Stuxnet worm–on the DPRK’s nuclear infrastructure.

Obama’s liberal base largely supported these policies alongside conservatives because they had been conditioned to think of the U.S. as fighting a good fight against an evil Asian communist regime.

For years, the mainstream media had demonized North Korea and broadcast stories of North Korean defectors, who were paid for promoting disinformation about the DPRK.

In 2017, Kim Jong-Un was condemned for assassinating his half-brother, Kim Jong-Nam, at the Kuala Lampur International Airport in Malaysia, though a Malaysian investigation did not find any proof that Kim Jong-Un was involved. The North Korean security services were subsequently accused of torturing to death an American college student, Otto Wambier, though proof was again absent.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright indicated that she had been seriously misinformed by anti-North Korean propaganda and prejudice when visiting Pyongyang in 2000, stating that she had been briefed on what kind of weirdo Kim Jong-Il was, but found him to be well-prepared for their meeting, charming, smart, technically adept with regards to military matters, and well informed.

The public’s stereotypical views about North Korea were reflected in the 2014 Hollywood film, The Interview, Sony’s top-grossing digital release, which adopted “racist images and tropes,” according to one reviewer, and celebrated the gory execution of North Korea’s caricatured leader.

For years, the mainstream media had demonized North Korea and broadcast stories of North Korean defectors, who were paid for promoting disinformation about the DPRK.

In 2017, Kim Jong-Un was condemned for assassinating his half-brother, Kim Jong-Nam, at the Kuala Lampur International Airport in Malaysia, though a Malaysian investigation did not find any proof that Kim Jong-Un was involved. The North Korean security services were subsequently accused of torturing to death an American college student, Otto Wambier, though proof was again absent.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright indicated that she had been seriously misinformed by anti-North Korean propaganda and prejudice when visiting Pyongyang in 2000, stating that she had been briefed on what kind of weirdo Kim Jong-Il was, but found him to be well-prepared for their meeting, charming, smart, technically adept with regards to military matters, and well informed.

The public’s stereotypical views about North Korea were reflected in the 2014 Hollywood film, The Interview, Sony’s top-grossing digital release, which adopted “racist images and tropes,” according to one reviewer, and celebrated the gory execution of North Korea’s caricatured leader.

Abrams’ book is most significant in helping readers to understand the DPRK’s long staying power and in debunking media stereotypes, which have helped validate aggressive regime-change policies.

As much as Americans think that the North Koreans are crazy, North Koreans have far more grounds for believing that the reverse holds true.

They are the ones holding the upper moral hand in a conflict that was started by the United States and needs to be ended by it.

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Jeremy Kuzmarov is managing editor of CovertAction Magazine and author of four books on U.S. foreign policy, as well as an extended essay on the Korean War called “Barbarism Unleashed.”

Notes

[1] Joby Warrick, Ellen Nakashima, and Anna Fifield, “North Korea now making missile-ready nuclear weapons, U.S. analysts say,” Washington Post, August 8, 2017; Jeffrey Lewis, “The Game Is Over, and North Korea Has Won,” Foreign Policy, August 9, 2017.

[2] The U.S. claimed that North Korea violated the agreement by proliferating missile and nuclear technology to Iran, Pakistan, and Syria, and in 1998 North Korea began to test three-stage rockets in an attempt to build its long-range ballistic missile capability.

Featured image is from CovertAction Magazine

Hints Hun Sen Starting to Look Away from China

December 18th, 2020 by David Hutt

When Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen announced this week that his country will order its first batch of Covid-19 vaccines from the United Nations-backed COVAX facility, it was notable that Cambodia’s first inoculations were not coming from China.

“Cambodia is not a dustbin.. and not a place for a vaccine trial,” Hun Sen said in blunt terms during a marathon speech on December 15, adding that he will only trust and accept vaccines approved by the World Health Organization (WHO).

According to reports, Cambodia’s government has so far collected US$48 million in donations, mostly from wealthy tycoons allied to Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), which will go towards the US$200 million needed to purchase inoculations.

The vaccine collection drive comes amid fears a community-transmission outbreak that started late last month may still be spreading.

A first batch of China’s Sinovac vaccines has already been delivered to Indonesia, yet there has been no official comment on whether Beijing will donate doses to its so-called “ironclad friend” Cambodia. This is despite pledges from Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in August that mainland Southeast Asian states would be given priority once shots are ready.

That’s raising questions why Beijing hasn’t rushed to engage in “vaccine diplomacy” with one of its few close regional allies, especially amid an ongoing debate among Cambodian intellectuals about whether Phnom Penh needs to rethink its foreign policy, which has steered closer to China at the expense of the US in recent years.

“Cambodia needs also to rethink its foreign policy approach…It needs to improve its tarnished international image, in particular, by addressing the widespread perception that it is a Chinese proxy,” Kimkong Heng, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Queensland, wrote last month.

In many ways, Cambodia has been here before. Back in 1958, just a few years after it gained its independence, its monarch-cum-civilian ruler Norodom Sihanouk penned an article for Foreign Affairs, entitled “Cambodia Neutral: the Dictate of Necessity.”

First, he argued, Cambodia’s geography, wedged between the much larger Thailand and Vietnam, then on either side of the US-Soviet Union rivalry, and in the vicinity of China, means that the country has no other choice  “but to try to maintain an equal balance” between the more powerful states.

Second, in foreign relations Cambodia favors “neutrality, which in the United States is all too often confused with ‘neutralism,’ although it is fundamentally different,” he wrote. “We are neutral in the same way Switzerland and Sweden are neutral-not neutralist like Egypt or Indonesia.”

For Sihanouk, “neutralism” meant that no formal alliance with one of the superpowers but a strong attachment and support to its causes. Indonesia was resoundingly pro-US and anti-communist throughout the Cold War, although also the architect of the non-aligned movement.

Cambodia’s present-day relations with China also turn on the nuanced distinction between these two terms. According to Phnom Penh, it engages in strict “neutrality” between the US and China, favoring neither and open to both, as its constitution mandates.

Critics of the ruling CPP as well as many in Washington, however, assert that Phnom Penh’s foreign relations are now heavily skewed towards a pro-China and anti-US cause, although not formally allied with Beijing. As in Sihanouk’s day, Phnom Penh now vehemently rejects America’s reading of the situation.

In early 2017, Phnom Penh unilaterally canceled joint military drills with the US and began training instead with China’s armed forces the following year. After the authorities recently knocked down two US-built facilities at the country’s largest naval base, they are now reportedly being rebuilt by a Chinese state-run firm.

Phnom Penh denies constant allegations it will allow Chinese troops to be stationed on its soil, a claim made by senior US officials.

Cambodian navy sailors stand in formation on a Chinese naval patrol boat during a hand over ceremony at Cambodias Ream Naval Base. Photo: Twitter

Cambodia’s reliance on China increased after authorities forcibly dissolved the country’s only viable opposition party in 2017, sent most opponents into exile and then secured a de facto one-party system at the 2018 general election.

This earned strong rebukes from the US, which has imposed targeted sanctions on several Cambodian officials, and from the European Union, which partially cut Cambodia’s trade privileges in August.

In comparison, China’s aid and trade is said to come with “no strings attached”, a characterization critics contest when taking into account big land concessions and domestic economic policies that have been tailored to favor China’s interests.

Yet Beijing has publicly defended Phnom Penh from supposed Western attempts to interfere in Cambodia’s internal affairs. Wherever Cambodia-China relations lie on an axis of “neutrality” or “neutralism”, there is clearly a perception by many in Cambodia that it cannot do without its most loyal foreign ally.

Chheang Vannarith, president of the Asian Vision Institute, a self-described “independent” think-tank, told the Chinese state-run news service Xinhua in late November that “Cambodia and China share the same world view on promoting multilateralism as the basis for peace, security and prosperity.”

Also in late November, Seun Sam, a researcher at the Royal Academy of Cambodia, wrote in a local newspaper that Phnom Penh “should not forget that the US and EU are the biggest markets for Cambodia to sell their products, not China. But China has been a very honest friend who supports Cambodia under all situations.”

The CPP government is often more overt about its lean towards China.  “Cambodia’s development could not be detached from China. Without Chinese aid, Cambodia would go nowhere,” Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong commented a few years ago.

China is now Cambodia’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade worth US$8.53 billion in 2019, and its largest investor for some years, with investments reaching US$9 billion by 2019. By one estimate, China has also provided more than US$6 billion in aid between 2001 and 2021.

The trend is gathering pace. In the first quarter of 2020, 51.5% of all investment projects approved in Cambodia were from Chinese investors, the largest percentage share of Chinese investment in recent years. It fell to 27.4% in the second quarter of this year but that was still a higher share than in most quarters in 2019 and 2018, according to National Bank of Cambodia data.

In mid-October, the two sides signed a free-trade agreement – Cambodia’s first bilateral pact – which took less than a year to negotiate and comes into effect next month. Moreover, if Cambodia’s vital tourism is to begin recovery next year, it will likely be reliant on Chinese tourists, who will be able to travel more freely than Europeans and Americans in 2021.

However, China’s preponderance in trade and investment doesn’t always work in Cambodia’s favor. Bilateral trade skews heavily towards China, which enjoys a large bilateral trade surplus most years.

Locals accuse Chinese firms of only hiring Chinese workers and engaging in land grabs. They also carp Chinese outprice local in property deals. This is most keenly felt in Sihanoukville, a coastal city and hub for Chinese investment, where locals have complained since 2017 that the city is being turned into a Chinese “colony.”

Cambodia’s insistence in 2012 and 2016 that the Southeast Asian bloc tone down its communiques against Chinese aggression in the South China Sea, where it controversially claims ownership of territory already claimed by four regional states, has also made Phnom Penh the source of frustration amongst its neighbors.

There has even been recent talk that Cambodia and Laos, another close friend of China, should be kicked out of the regional bloc because their foreign policies are overly aligned with Beijing’s.

Recent articles have noted that Cambodia’s foreign policy is being shaped by political elites whose views are not in line with the majority of the public, who are more fearful of China’s economic and strategic influence than America’s, according to the 2020 State of Southeast Asia survey produced by the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute.

Indeed, Chinese largesse tends to flow chiefly to Cambodia’s elites, whereas Western aid is largely directed to grassroots organizations, which makes Beijing’s funds more attractive for those in power and, indeed, supports the CPP regime’s survival.

However, sensible voices note that Cambodia can maintain close economic and diplomatic relations with China whilst also improving ties with other states, not least the US. In other words, Cambodia’s current foreign policy problems can be rectified.

It’s unclear why Hun Sen didn’t specifically mention China during his four-hour televised speech this week, with many now guessing whether it was an intentional omission or a ploy to extract greater concessions from Beijing.

Image on the right: Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Photo: Xinhua

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Photo: Xinhua

What’s clear, however, is that the escalating tensions of the US-China-Cambodia “triangle” have hardly worked in Phnom Penh’s favor this year, and there may be a growing realization that conditions could become a lot worse for the Cambodian government in 2021 without a recalibration.

Indeed, a group of US lawmakers last month called on the outgoing Donald Trump administration, and presumably also on the incoming Joe Biden administration, to impose harsh targeted sanctions on dozens of senior Cambodian political, military and business officials.

Biden’s administration, which may or may not go harder on Phnom Penh for its democratic backsliding, at least offers the Cambodian government a reset moment to realign its foreign policy back closer to neutrality than neutralism.

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Featured image: A new China-Cambodia trade pact will not provide Phnom Penh the economic lifeline it needs amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Image: Twitter/Bilaterals.org

Myanmar’s Perennial Ceasefire Talks

December 18th, 2020 by Maung Zarni

Cease-fire and talks for peace are normally welcome news. But the politics in Myanmar is anything but normal, hence such talks do not necessarily signify prospects for peace, ephemeral or lasting.

This week the Spokesperson for Myanmar Tatmadaw or the Military Brig. Zaw Min Tun told Mizzima TV that the Defense Ministry is holding talks via intermediaries with the Arakan Army (AA) which Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) government had officially declared a “terrorist” organization.

Taking to Twitter, a pro-AA Rakhine activist approved the talks, welcoming that there have been no military clashes between the Tatmadaw and AA which has emerged as an effective military and political movement seeking autonomy – and even independence – from the Balkan-like country of Myanmar, with highly diverse ethnic communities.

However, the timing of the talks is suspect. The political proxy of the Burmese military named Union Solidarity and Development Party has suffered a near-total existential electoral defeat at the polls by their nemesis Aung San Suu Kyi and her NLD.

The generals and ex-generals in politicians’ garb are trying to further undermine Suu Kyi’s unpopularity among Rakhine Buddhist voters by demanding a fresh round of elections in the conflict-soaked Rakhine region. The Arakan Army has abducted three ethnically Rakhine NLD MPs for collaborating with the political foe – the victorious NLD.

Earlier Myanmar politicians and military leaders played this triangular political game with Buddhist and Muslim communities as represented by Rakhine and Rohingyas. They tried splitting them through different political and economic sweeteners, keeping the flames of WWII-era communal violence between them alive and exploiting any differences in the region which is the country’s original birthplace of secessionist movements – by Muslim separatists and Buddhist nationalists. Now the military’s “unfinished business” of clearing Rohingya presence in Rakhine has largely been finished – with only estimated 500,000 Rohingyas left languishing as IDPs and in vast open prisons – inside Myanmar the military is now focused on the two new competing threats of Rakhine nationalists’ Arakan Army and Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD party.

Talks do not instill confidence

For the last 30-odd years, I have watched very closely the dynamics – and outcomes – of such talks, and have had significant interactions with those from all sides who have been engaged in cease-fire – previously “internal or domestic peace talks “. And some were my close relations, and some close friends and contemporaries.

What I have come to know intimately about these talks instill in no confidence in me about their concrete and eventual outcome of peace and reconciliation in either Rakhine or any region of the country – with 20 plus different ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) in Myanmar’s peace industry’s lingo. Any optimism – even a remote and cautious strain – is not warranted when it comes to Myanmar cease-fire talks.

The fact that EAOs have divergent – and in some cases – competing or conflicting interests, rationales, and objectives were pointed out by the Euro-Burma Office in a policy brief released in November entitled The Union Peace Accord: Moving Forward after the Election. In my judgment, the fundamental problem lies with the colonial nature of the post-independence state in Myanmar and the correspondent psychological outlook of the dominant ethnic elite, civilians and soldiers (that is, Aung San Suu Kyi and the generals), namely Burmese or Bama whose namesake the country bears.

A cursory glance at the half-century of negotiations is essential in assessing the prospects for peace in Rakhine – and the rest of the country’s outlying regions where ethnic minority communities live among the natural riches, such as teak forests, jade, gold, ruby, and other precious stones and minerals, natural gas and agriculturally fertile virgin land and rivers for billion-dollar hydropower potentials.

In the official publication of the then ruling military and its political wing Burma Socialist Program Party (1964) entitled The Policies and Attitude of the Revolutionary Council towards the Indigenous Races (of the Union of Burma), Col. Hla Han, the head of Myanmar’s military’s “Internal Peace Talks Delegation”, was quoted as saying candidly, in effect, that Myanmar military and political leaders were resorting to the classic colonial divide-and-rule towards the (ethnic) Karens’ revolutionary organization. In Hla Han’s words, “when one group of the Karens formed KCO [Karen Central Organization], we instigated other groups to establish a rival KYO [Karen Youth Organization]. That was the result of our political immaturity among the Burmese.”

The Burmese colonel also admitted to the pervasive presence of the typical Burmese Buddhist cultural chauvinism and ethnic superiority complex vis-a-vis non-Burmese ethnic communities, which make up 30-40 % of the total population of the country.

One year before the publication of this 96-page official policy booklet by the then ruling military junta, with the socialist façade, led by Gen. Ne Win, the state-controlled English language monthly publication The Guardian in July 1963 editorialized the junta’s “peace offer”. It reads, “the Revolutionary Council was solely motivated by the desire to achieve internal peace so that socialism could be built in the quickest time unhampered by civil strife.

Geostrategic Myanmar

The council offered insurgent organizations (particularly the White Flag and the Red Flag factions of the Burmese communist armed movements, the Karen National Defense Organization, various Shan armed organizations including Shan State Revolutionary Council and Shan State Independence Army, the “Kachin Independence Army”, the Mon rebels, the Arakanese National Youths, pro-communist Burmese student activists and so on), a safe passage to come to the talks and also promised them immunity from arrest and hostile action for three days even if the talks failed.

Some of the Burmese communist leaders who decided to “return to the legal fold” and took up the military junta’s peace offer as well as prominent indigenous leaders urged their respective political and ethnic communities to pursue peace with the central state.

In another state-run English-language magazine the Forward on June 22, 1963), one of the founders of modern Burma and Kachin Chief Sama Duwa Sinwa Nawng was quoted as saying, “underground organizations have for many years been demanding the right to negotiate for peace. Now that this right has been granted, there is no alternative for them but to come forward and negotiate with the Revolutionary Council Government”.

The Cold War Containment policy of the West that afforded the anti-communist, but not pro-free market Myanmar military free reign in the way it chose to deal with its internal rebellions is no more. As a matter of fact, the emerging Cold War 2.0 between the increasingly richer and powerful state-capitalist China next to geostrategic important Myanmar and the waning, if the undeclared empire of the US has put Myanmar’s military and Aung San Suu Kyi as two most important stakeholders in decisively advantageous positions vis-a-vis the country’s restive ethnic minorities with nearly two-dozen armed organizations.

The central military and political actors are getting away with the Rohingya genocide as none on the Security Council will point – and has not pointed – a finger to put an end to Myanmar’s institutionalized destruction of Rohingyas as a protected group under the Genocide Convention.

Over the last 50-plus years since the early days of “internal peace talks” Myanmar has seen the tripling and even quadrupling of EAOs fighting for divergent political objectives – some genuinely federated form of a state, while others actively keeping alive their decades-old and, in the case of Rakhine Buddhists as represented by the Arakan Army, the centuries-old dream of regaining sovereignty from the dominant ethnic group Bama or Myanmar.

Civil wars continue

Even as a seasoned watcher of Burmese affairs including the cease-fire talks, it is rather exhausting for me to read the alphabet soup of acronyms of EAOs, Myanmar’s mechanisms or shifting alliances, multiplying, shrinking, or disappearing armed groups.

To be brutally honest, I have long stopped counting my country’s civil war deeds, the war-triggered IDPs (internally displaced persons), or the military clashes between the central military of Tatmadaw and EAOs as well as between the EAOs themselves.

Myanmar’s peace talks began deep in the Cold War isolation of Myanmar – several decades before the UN’ peacekeeping lingo – Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration or DDR – became the mantra in the global peace industry. In those days, no “stabilization units” in western foreign or intelligence ministries, no de-mining initiatives, no “peace fund” or no International Crisis Group, with its central mission of turning old war zones into the free market.

Irrespective of Cold War 1.0 or Cold War 2.0, Myanmar’s civil war will most definitely continue to rage on, at fluctuating intensities, in the foreseeable future. Besides the military leaders and the NLD under Suu Kyi walking sideways politically and strategically, Myanmar military has made the pledge which it is not prepared to honor, which is the military will vacate the commanding heights of power, which it has secured in the constitution of 2008 when the sound of gunfire went silent.

The military has been firmly in control of all organs of the state since the 1962 military coup. Which rational actor in its institutional right mind would voluntarily give up its near-monopoly over power, wealth, and population control? The manageable level of civil war – and the opportunities to be seen to be talking peace – while keeping this strategically beneficial war has been the generals’ golden goose, which reliably lays eggs for the armed forces.

Another round of mandate for five more years of Aung San Suu Kyi’s leadership, rich in rhetoric and short incompetence, straight-jacketed with the amendment-proof constitution, has not made even a slight dent in the structures of state power, where the military holds the lever. The prospects for genuine peace and reconciliation in the internal national politics will not increase when the Myanmar military sits above the law and society.

Against this scenario, Myanmar has witnessed the world’s longest “peace talks” with the continuation of its longest-running ethnic wars.

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A Buddhist humanist from Burma, Maung Zarni is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, former Visiting Lecturer with Harvard Medical School, specializing in racism and violence in Burma and Sri Lanka, and Non-resident Scholar in Genocide Studies with Documentation Center – Cambodia. Zarni s the co-founder of FORSEA, a grass-roots organization of Southeast Asian human rights defenders, coordinator for Strategic Affairs for Free Rohingya Coalition, and an adviser to the European Centre for the Study of Extremism, Cambridge.

Featured image is from AA

Over 1.1 million Rohingyas continue to remain stranded in crowded camps in Bangladesh while the international community fails to provide a resolution to the crisis.

When in 2017 this lower-middle-income, majority Muslim country opened its borders to the Rohingya fleeing ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, they were largely welcomed. Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina stated back then:

“We have the ability to feed 160 million people of Bangladesh and we have enough food security to feed the 700,000 refugees.”

It wasn’t just the government. Many private citizens came forward to offer assistance. Existing data indicates that 86% of residents in Teknaf, which is the closest administrative region to the Rakhine state from which most Rohingya originate, were involved in providing emergency relief and housing to the new arrivals.

In an era when many rich nations have tried to stop the entry of refugees, Bangladesh’s decision to accept refugees in the early days of the crisis could seem puzzling.

A scholar of refugees and forced migration, I spent the summer of 2019 in Bangladesh to understand the forces that shaped this initial humanitarian response.

Faith and morality

My ongoing research indicates that many factors played a critical role in Bangladesh’s political decision to host the Rohingya, including the country’s cultural and religious identity, which centers around ideas of community and responding to those in need.

Interviews conducted with political leaders, NGOs and local volunteers revealed that the shared Islamic faith and the Muslim identity of many of the Bangladeshis and the vast majority of the Rohingya galvanized humanitarian assistance in two specific ways.

First, the Islamic concepts of “zakat,” obligatory charity, which is one of the five pillars of Islam, and that of “sadaqa,” or voluntary charity, played crucial roles in motivating private citizens to offer emergency assistance. Both these concepts emphasize the imperative to give to those in need.

Religious leaders also used these concepts to encourage donations. In her 2019 address to the United Nations, Prime Minister Hasina referred to humanitarianism in Islam to explain her border policy.

Second, the fact that the Muslim Rohingya in particular were being persecuted because of their faith compounded the sense of urgency among those who identified as Muslim to assist the Rohingya.

While the vast majority of the Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh were Muslim, smaller numbers of Hindu and Christian Rohingya who arrived with the influx also received emergency assistance and shelter.

However, not all those who were interviewed invoked religion to explain their actions. A medical volunteer interviewed for the research said, “Why did we respond? Because it was … the moral thing to do, the humanitarian thing to do. Why shouldn’t we? The crisis had literally arrived at our house. How could we even think of turning them away?”

Role of culture and history

A recurrent theme in my research was the emphasis around Bangladeshi culture with its focus on sharing one’s resources with others in need. Furthermore, like many other countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania, which are commonly referred to as the global south, Bangladesh has historically had a fluid border – with Myanmar and India.

People move across these borders for agricultural purposes. Marriages between Rohingya and Bangladeshis have been common, and the local population and the Rohingya are able to understand one another’s languages.

According to a 2018 survey, 81% of respondents believed that the local integration of the Rohingya is possible given that the vast majority of the local population and the Rohingya share many religious, cultural and linguistic practices.

Memories of past trauma

The legacy of a painful past also played a role for many Bangladeshis. In 1971, during Bangladesh’s war of independence from then West Pakistan (now Pakistan) 10 million Bengalis sought refuge in India to escape a campaign of genocide by the then West Pakistan military.

A number of those interviewed for my research underscored the historical memory of this event as being a catalyst for explaining Bangladesh’s decision to open its borders.

Prime Minister Hasina invoked this history in her 2017 address at the United Nations. She talked about her own experience as a refugee following the 1975 assassination of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Known as the “Father of the Nation,” Mujibur Rahman played a key role in Bangladeshi’s independence movement.

A researcher of Bangladesh’s independence struggle stated, “The loss she suffered with the assassination of her whole family except her one sister who was abroad at the time, and the inability to return to her country following the tragedy has had a lasting impact on her life … something about the desperation of those people connected with her on a very personal level and she wanted to do something to help.”

Leadership in uncertain times

In recent years, Bangladesh has demonstrated a growing interest in matters of international peace and security. It has received awards from the United Nations for fighting climate change and meeting goals of its immunization program, and it remains the largest contributor to U.N. peacekeeping operations.

Since 2017, Bangladesh has submitted three proposals at the United Nations General Assembly to address the Rohingya crisis, including in 2019, drawing support from Rohingya activists.

Bangladesh, however, is not a state party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, the post-World War II legal document that defines the term “refugee,” the obligations of states to protect them, including not returning any individual to a country where they would face torture, or degrading treatment.

Instead, Bangladesh refers to the Rohingya as Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals (FDMNs). This means that, officially, the Rohingya do not have a legally protected status in Bangladesh.

Nevertheless, low-and middle-income countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh, which are not state parties to the convention, are among the largest refugee-hosting countries in the world.

Disproportionate burden

However, in recent times, as the Rohingya situation becomes more protracted, Bangladesh is starting to face internal tensions as prospects for repatriation become less likely.

The large refugee population has imposed significant infrastructural, social, financial and environmental pressures and has raised concerns about land insecurity – a serious issue in an overpopulated country.

My research further indicated that the significant presence of international NGOs in the Cox’s Bazar area, home to the world’s largest refugee camp, is impacting the local economy by driving up prices. Local tensions have emerged over government and international aid that has been largely geared toward the Rohingya.

In a change of tone, at a three-day Dhaka Global Dialogue in 2019, Prime Minister Hasina referred to the Rohingya as a “threat to the security” of the region. In 2020, Bangladesh began building barbed-wire fencing and installing watchtowers around the camps, citing security concerns. A restriction on access to high-speed internet in the camps was imposed but recently lifted.

With the emergence of COVID-19 in the camps, additional challenges have emerged. These have included the spread of infection in cramped camps that lack access to water and testing as well as limited understanding about the virus.

Meanwhile, Myanmar’s reluctance to ensure a safe return for the Rohingya, and the realities of COVID-19, have made the prospects of repatriation increasingly dim.

As Bangladesh grapples with the pandemic while serving as one of the world’s largest refugee host countries, it serves as a reminder of the disproportionate responsibility carried by low-income countries of hosting refugees and the challenges therein.

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Credits to the owner of the featured image

Winds of Democracy in the Philippines

December 18th, 2020 by Sonny Africa

What struggles to build a democratic society truly fulfill the aspirations of the people? IBON will briefly share our experience in the Philippine context and look forward to discussions to enrich this from different perspectives. The winds of democracy are blowing strong here.

We can start by affirming the essential character of the Philippine state. It remains as it has always been – political and economic elites inextricably intertwined and using the powers of government to advance their narrow interests. But it may be useful to look at some major developments over the last four decades of neoliberal globalization. This may help clarify authoritarian trends seen today and also point to areas needing particular attention.

Globalization and democracy

The 1980s saw hype about the “end of history” and the supposed triumph of Western liberal democracy with its distinct blend of free markets and private property, civil liberties and human rights, and supposed political freedoms. (Even then, giant China was of course a conveniently disregarded outlier.) Since then, there has been an increase in pluralist electoral democracies enshrining the popular vote for choosing leaders – as in the Philippines upon the fall of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986. (Even Russia started choosing its president by popular vote in 1991.) There has also been a huge expansion in mass media and then the internet which, it was argued, strengthened liberal democracies by democratizing information.

In economic systems, free market policies of neoliberal globalization were promised to unleash economic potential, develop backward economies, and bring prosperity to all. In reality, we’re all familiar with how neoliberal globalization has resulted in greater exploitation, greater destruction of natural resources and the environment, and greater wealth and economic power in the hands of a few. Hundreds of millions or even billions of people exploited, abused and left behind made the rumble underfoot grow stronger as economic crises erupted and deepened.

Elites however twisted this dissatisfaction, went on an all-out disinformation offensive in mass media and the internet, and manipulated elections to rise to power as today’s populist authoritarianisms – the Philippines’ own Pres. Duterte is a case in point. In too many places around the world, demagogues of different degrees are elected and have risen to the top of falsely democratic political systems.

They mostly keep the forms of liberal democratic institutions in place – free elections, the branches of government, mass media, even civil society. But these are wielded self-interestedly, subverted in practice, and any portions particularly inconvenient are carved out. But they are fundamentally authoritarians and we see everywhere the growing use of state violence, against any and all opposition, to protect elite economic interests and to retain political power.

These processes have played out in the Philippines as elsewhere. In our specific circumstances, how do we build a democratic society?

People, most of all

Image on the right is from The STAR/Miguel de Guzman, Fil

The most critical foundation remains people’s organizations with a vision of a democratic society. The Philippines is fortunate to have a long-standing core of this in the mass movement built up over decades. These include the country’s largest organizations of politicized peasants, formal and informal workers, youth and students, women, indigenous people, teachers and academics, and more.

The mass movement combines concrete struggles on immediate concerns with constant education work on systemic issues. Concrete struggles and constant education are both essential to build solid core constituencies for genuinely transformative change for the better.

These organizations are at the forefront of challenging anti-people social and economic policies and countering neoliberal globalization. They are also an army that reaches out not just to their direct constituencies and networks but also communicates to the widest number of people through mass media, social media, and other internet platforms.

They are supplemented by tactical formations and alliances on urgent issues to more immediately reach out to and mobilize the wider public. For instance, the steady assault of the regime on accustomed liberal democratic institutions creates wide opportunity for this. The attacks on senators, congressional representatives, the Supreme Court chief justice, the Ombudsman, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), major broadcast and internet media outfits, civil society, activists and others have stirred wide outrage. This scattered dissent needs to be brought together.

Progressives in government

At the same time, people’s organizations have enough strength and flexibility to also directly engage in traditional elite-dominated governance through elected parliamentarians such as via the party-list system in Congress. Progressive party-list groups have always been among the frontrunners in Congressional elections and already form a solid pro-people bloc in the House of Representatives.

While fully part of the traditional institutionalized political system, progressive parliamentarians remain solidly grounded in people’s organizations and are relentless in challenging the boundaries of the country’s so-called democracy. As real representatives of and from the people, their legislative measures and political work are consistently biased for the people. They seek to deliver concrete benefits while consistently seeking to weaken the economic power and fight the political abuses of self-serving elites.

Through their visible public service, they enable the general public to see that more democratic economic and political policies are possible. But they are also the beachhead of democracy in the authoritarian Duterte government for launching attacks from within. They are valuable for reaching out to other progressives and potential allies within the government, and for organizing efforts to push for democratic changes in the centers of reactionary politics.

Research matters

The superstructures of power are defended not just by sheer violence but by the hegemony of self-serving and reactionary knowledge. We of course give special attention to the invisible power of ideas, values and beliefs in reproducing capitalism and today’s worsening authoritarianism. Among the most important ways to challenge this is with solid research from the perspective of and upholding the aspirations of the people for social justice, equity, and a decent life for all.

The struggle of ideas is one of the most urgent realms of political struggle. Solid research and tenacious advocacy are vital to overcome the dominance of ruling class ideas and values. More and more people must unlearn that oppression is just to be accepted and that the only improvement in our material conditions is what ruling elites will allow.

Solid research is vital to support the campaigns of people’s organizations and of progressives in government. For instance, research on economic issues reveals what changes decades of imperialist globalization have wrought as well as confirms what remains the same. And we know that ideas are meaningless if not transformed into a political force so these need to be formed with or by the mass movement and then taken up by it.

Solid research is vital to credibly challenge anti-people policies and to articulate our new ideas and visions for a more just and democratic society. We challenge capitalism not just because it is exploitative and oppressive but also because it isn’t immutable, can be replaced, and should be replaced. We look to the socialist alternative not just because we imagine it as just, humane and liberating, but also because it is possible and can already start to be built. Research makes our critique potent and also makes our alternative real.

Research is about ideas and we are today facing a deluge. What does it take to be dynamic in the digital age with its endless tsunami of trivialities and information? It isn’t enough that our analysis is correct and that we are credible – to communicate today we have to be real-time, interactive, and nimble with text, photos, graphics, audio, video and animation. And while we will continue to distribute our research, we also have to be ever more accessible not just conceptually but also literally. More than ever, people constantly seek information with a mere click of their finger or a swipe of their thumb.

Democracy in progress

Finally, we all know the value of seeing that oppressive structures can be changed and that what is accepted as ‘normal’ can be replaced. In the Philippines, the most radical flank and most direct challenge to the oppressive status quo are the scattered but growing sites of democratic governance in the countryside. In many rural areas across the country, communities are undertaking examples of how local political and economic democracy can be interlinked to benefit the majority people and not a few elites. These are areas where landlords, agri-business, and mining corporations do not dominate and where people’s organizations have taken control of their communities and their lives. They push the envelope of our democratic struggles.

On a historical scale, there’s no doubt that the world is changing for the better. There’s too much creativity, energy and bravery committed to that for it to be otherwise. Perhaps in fits and starts, or with setbacks big and small – but, still, we’re inexorably moving forward on the back of millions of steps and struggles every day around the world.

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Sonny Africa is the executive director of IBON Foundation.

America, Nepal and the Royal Coup

December 18th, 2020 by Tom Robertson

On 15 December 1960 (पुस १) exactly 60 years ago, King Mahendra ordered the jailing of Prime Minister BP Koirala and other political figures, many of whom the Nepali people had put in power 18 months earlier in Nepal’s first-ever election. 

Ending a decade of democratic experimentation, Mahendra decided to rule the country directly. After his death in 1972 his son Birendra took power. Many of today’s top political leaders cut their political teeth in years of underground opposition to the monarchy.

The U S government at the time noted that Mahendra’s coup was accomplished ‘with great secrecy and superb organisation’. After 1960, the US slowly shifted its approach in Nepal, embracing the monarchy and moving away from democratic reform.

Ten years earlier, the globalisation of the Cold War had forced the US to pay more attention to South Asia. After China turned Communist in 1949 and war broke out on the Korean peninsula in 1950, Asian nations, particularly those near China, became hot spots for Cold War competition between the Soviet Union and China on one hand, and the US led capitalist democracies on the other.

During the 1950s, believing economic progress and expanded political freedoms would inoculate Nepal against communist influence, the U S offered aid programs and supported democratic reforms. As part of this vision, Washington promoted health and agriculture programs but also, in part to counter populist Communist Chinese programs, pushed for economic leveling programs such as land reform.

In the late 1950s, the US grew increasingly concerned as China and the Soviet Union expanded activities in Nepal. A November 1960 National Security document warned that Nepal had become ‘a particularly vulnerable target’.

But the US believed that Nepal’s 1959 election had strengthened the country. Nepal, the National Security document noted, ‘currently enjoys greater internal stability than heretofore, following the introduction of popularly-based parliamentary government’.

The US also thought highly of B P Koirala. A 1960 memo explained, ‘Koirala is intelligent, forceful, respected by his party, and popular with his people.’ He was ‘basically pro-Western and anti-Communist’ and didn’t underestimate the communist threat, showing ‘grave concern’ about it.

The US had a less positive view of Mahendra. He was seen as anti-communist and as a ‘stabilising and unifying force’ but seemed less forceful, and less consequential. An internal memo discounted him as ‘a conscientious man of simple tastes and austere habits … rather naive politically and not particularly forceful as a ruler … awkward socially, and indecisive’. It noted he had advanced some reforms but that ‘he is firmly convinced that a strong monarchy is necessary to insure stability’.

The last lines of an April 1960 US memo raised the possibility of a royal takeover in Nepal, saying the king was not ‘irrevocably committed’ to representative government. But it discounted the possibility: ‘Such a drastic step is not anticipated.’

A week after the coup, on 20 December, 1960, CIA Director Allen Dulles told the National Security Council that the King’s ‘strange coup’ owed to two reasons: Koirala was ‘too progressive’ and had too ‘close relations’ with India. He warned of a more ‘archaic form of government’.

US Ambassador Henry Stebbins met with Mahendra on 21 December, 1960 and cabled Washington to say that the King professed a strong belief in democracy, which he claimed he himself had brought to Nepal. He said he dismissed the Koirala government and imprisoned its leaders because they were guilty of corruption and of aiding and abetting Communism. In a letter to US President Dwight Eisenhower a couple days later, he also blamed poor administration.

Read full article here.

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Featured image: Charge d’ Affaires L. Douglas welcomes BP Koirala to the US Embassy inaguration in 1959. (Source: Nepali Times)

The Life and Death of a Servant of God

December 17th, 2020 by Inday Espina-Varona

Swirls of creamy pearl and lavender, sunset streaks across sky blue, and the pulsing shades of floral bloom flow through the Facebook page of Mary Rose Sancelan. The pastel hues carry psalms of gratitude and faith, and a few cries for deliverance.

A deep faith in God and her brethren on earth rooted Dr. Mary Rose Sancelan to Guihulngan, a city hemmed in by mountains and a narrow strait on the northern flank of Negros island in the central Philippines.

“The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards His flock!” stands out against a soft background of pink and yellow — shy lemon and salmon, bold coral and the warmth of sunlight as it starts to welcome dusk.

“What heals us in this crisis is the humanity in each person. We shall overcome.”

Both messages popped up on July 24 this year as Salcelan, who sometimes served as lone state doctor to 100,000 residents of a poor city, raced to contain the first local cases of COVID-19.

As city health officer, Sancelan was head of the local Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF), which manages the government’s response to the pandemic.

Days earlier, her words were more forceful: “You saved my life O Lord, I shall not die!” And, “from the Heaven, the LORD looks down on the earth!!!” The second passage popped from shades of pink and purple and blue, all mixed in the shapes of desert dunes.

The pandemic severely tested but did not threaten Sancelan’s faith. Nor did another threat that cast a big shadow over the doctor’s life.

Sancelan defeated or, at least, temporarily pushed back COVID-19 after months of perseverance.

The second threat — which vowed death to communists and inexplicably tagged a doctor swamped with public duties as spokesman for the regional guerrilla front of Asia’s longest-running agency — snuffed out the life of a people’s servant and that of her husband.

Two men riding shotgun killed the medical professional and husband, Edwin, also a government worker, shortly before they reached their home at the end of work day on December 15.

The attack came a few hours after the release of the International Criminal Court’s Office of the Prosecutor of a document that touched, among other cases worldwide, extra-judicial killings linked to President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war.

The report found “reasonable basis” to believe Duterte’s campaign may have led to crimes against humanity.

The couple’s blood soaked the earth of Guihulngan as newscasts began reporting the government’s jeers in response to the ICC preliminary findings.

A waste of time, said the office of Duterte.

You can’t touch us, said aides of the man who took out the country from the ICC to evade accountability for killings that have long surpassed the toll of the two-decade Marcos dictatorship.

“I thought it was a welcome news among us peace-loving Filipinos,” said Bishop Gerardo Alminaza, whose San Carlos diocese covers Guihulngan.

“Suddenly, a few hours after, assassins murdered Dr. Mary Rose Sancelan and her husband Edwin. It was brutal, marked by a desire to end the pro-people service of Dr. Sacelan to her constituents.”

Image on the right: Dr Mary Rose Sancelan and her husband, Edwin. (Photo courtesy of Karapatan)

Shadow of death

Mary Rose Sancelan

Bishop Alminaza brought Sancelan’s dilemma public in September last year.

At a forum hosted by the Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform, the bishop warned that red-tagging could brutalize a circle wider than its actual target.

“A medical doctor in the city health office found her name in the list. Fear for her life prevented her to provide health services to 33 barangays (villages) in that city,” said the bishop.

Sancelan then spoke on video.

“I am the only doctor servicing Guihulngan. My workload is very heavy, mostly not just consultations because I also have administrative tasks,” said Sancelan, who would later get badly-needed help with a second city health officer.

The doctor’s calm mien, her soft, liltling tone and accent, made her next words a sudden cold slap.

“I was accused of being JB Regalado, a commander or local head of the CPP-NPA,” the doctor said. Regalado is the nom de guerre of the spokesman of the Leonardo Panaligan Command, which oversees the Central Visayas operations of the New People’s Army.

Sancelan had more than enough reason to worry in September 2019.

Bishop Alminaza’s diocese had already witnessed a bloodbath among sugar workers, rights defenders, church workers, retired government professionals, even lawyers.

Some would die in police-military raids. Officers trotted out the usual “nanlaban” (they fought back) excuse so familiar in the thousands of deaths linked to Duterte’s “war on drugs.” The victims’ kin would later testify hearing them beg for their lives, insisting they were executed.

On the same list that featured Sancelan were the names of Anthony Trinidad and Heidie Malalay Flores. Trinidad, a lawyer, and Flores, a teacher, had been slain after the red-tagging posters spread across the poblacion, or city center, and rural villages.

A month before Bishop Alminaza brought Salcelan’s case to Manila’s attention, the city police chief spoke before a Senate inquiry into the spate of killings of civilians, believed to be state reprisals for a rebel ambush that killed four intelligence agents.

The police officer said five of 15 names on the hitlist of an anti-communist vigilante group called Kawsa Guihulnganon Batok Kumunista (KAGUBAK) had been killed.

Trinidad, number 14 on the list, was felled in a daylight ambush in the city center. Flores was 11th on the list.

Proxy killers

Rights defenders said you could track the killings with the appearance of the red-tagging posters.

Image below: Slain human rights activist Zara Alvarez was also a victim of red-tagging before she was killed in August in the province of Negros. (Photo by Mark Saludes)

The slurs thrown at Salcelan seemed farcical.

As a daughter of another woman government doctor, I knew their work hours went beyond nine to five, beyond a five-day workweek. The desperate poor would knock on their homes at odd hours, bringing gasping children, adults felled by sudden weakness, people wracked with coughs, sometimes a neighbor wounded in a drunken brawl.

Weekends often meant a trek to isolated rural hamlets where people could leave an entire life without seeing a medical professional. Sancelan’s Facebook page showed many such missions, with men and women, the old and the young lining up for treatment.

In many photos, she was the lone doctor. In some, she had volunteers to help. Even without COVID-19, she could not have found the time nor the energy, even if she shared the rebel’s views, to be their spokesman.

But Salcelan couldn’t ignore the threat. Her face was pasted on those posters.

And while the allegation seemed ridiculous, gunmen had already killed a doctor in Guihulngan a year earlier.

Like Sancelan, who was a scholar of Franciscan clergy, Dr. Avelex Salinas Amor, a visiting doctor from Canlaon City, had stuck to his youthful dream of being a doctor to the barrios despite offers of work abroad and in the cities. His killers have not been caught.

Then National Police chief Oscar Albayalde, who would later be forced into early retirement by allegations of his links to a cop network that extorted from suspected drug lords, said he had no knowledge of anti-communist vigilante groups.

Other police and military officers shrugged off charges, saying they could not be responsible for the work of vigilantes. It was a refrain familiar to groups monitoring Duterte’s war on drugs, where “vigilante” killings was thrice the number of the 8,000 “official” operational count.

A crime scene investigator takes the fingerprints of a shooting victim in Manila on Aug. 24, 2020, amid a lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by Vincent Go)

Keeping faith

Pre-COVID, Sancelan bore the burdens of her responsibilities with a trademark wide smile that twinkled even behind heavy black plastic glasses.

“Behind every cloud of sadness is a bigger light of joy!
Thanks Lord for giving me joy in performing my favorite job and that’s sewing people up!
Lacerated wounds on the base of the left index finger and parietal area of the head!”

From any other person, it would sound a bit off, stopping short of gallows humor. But to people who knew “Doc” it represented the droll humor of a hardscrabble community dependent on the corn and coconuts of a poor soil and waters that barely offered enough catch for daily sustenance.

For a few weeks, Sancelan withdrew to deal with the trauma of being red tagged. Kin and friends urged her to flee to safer ground.

But the doctor battled through fear and decided to stay put as a people’s servant.

Aside from her COVID-19 duties, she was also nutrition action officer. That is service with the weight of half of Mount Canlaon, the sacred volcano that straddles the spine of Negros island. The oriental side, which Guihulngan belongs to, has a poverty incidence of 45 percent, double that of the 21.6 percent national average.

Following the murders, the COVID-19 task force issued a statement lamenting “the loss of courageous and dedicated frontliner who was instrumental in placing under control the previous spike of COVID-19 cases in the city last November.”

Sancelan had battled back a new spike of COVID-19 cases in October, which coincided with rising infection rates across the province of Negros Oriental.

“We are confused and shocked (at) of this painful fate befalling our fellow public servants,” said the task force statement, which warned of a “void” in the service.

Guihulngan needed Sancelan like a person needs air.

The task force did not exaggerate the challenges Sancelan faced as medical professional.

There is only one public doctor per 31,000 Filipinos and the national health scales have always been lopsided, with most professionals and resources serving the national capital. Two-thirds of of private and public hospital beds are in the island of Luzon, which includes the National Capital Region.

The World Health Organization cites “regional and socioeconomic disparities in the availability and accessibility of resources.” There are 23 hospital beds for 10,000 people in the capital while the rest of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao have only 8.2, 7.8 and 8.3 beds, respectively.

The Council for Health and Development, a national organization of community based health programs in the Philippines, expressed rage that “impunity knows no bound even at a time when the whole nation is gripped by the pandemic.”

The killers deprived the people of Guihulngan much needed health services especially in this most difficult time, the group warned.

Image on the right: Bishop Gerardo Alminaza of San Carlos speaks before environmental activists at the 6th General Assembly of the Philippine Misereor Partnership Inc. on Feb 26. (Photo supplied via Licas News)

Serving god, serving the people

Sancelan, Bishop Alminaza said, was a Christian who lived Jesus Christ’s most important message: to love your neighbor as you love God.

“This is too much. This is totally unacceptable to allow it to happen to public servants who were working so hard to serve the public interest especially during this pandemic,” said the bishop soon after news of the murders broke out.

“Dr. Sancelan was branded, vilified, red-tagged, and now, executed, by the ruthless pawns of the enablers of ‘systematic killings’ in this country,” added Bishop Alminaza.

“Her only crime, much like the soon-to-be born-infant Jesus in a manger, was her unselfish service to the poor people of Guihulngan—both as a ‘barrio doctor’ and as ‘defender of the poor,’” he added.

Military officers, a year after the Senate hearing that featured the Guihulngan killings, have taken the place of anonymous groups in leading the attacks against perceived enemies of the state.

They have over the last two years named clergy and religious workers, indigenous leaders, legislators, medical workers, journalists, leaders of mass organizations, human rights workers, youth activists, feminists, even global aid charities and UN experts.

There has been no rhyme nor reason, and even less evidence. The military and Duterte reassured Filipinos: they are communists and terrorists because we say they are.

Over four years, some 20,000 have fallen in a drug war that operated on exactly that same worldview. Duterte has now said he will carve a bloody swathe through the body politic, with blanket screaming “the crime of one is the crime of all” covering all dissenters.

In the face of the rising threat to the most basic of human rights, Bishop Alminaza, himself a frequent target of red-tagging, reminded government officials and the faithful in Asia’s largest Catholic majority: “It is a grave omission to remain silent and passive and allow perpetrators to get away.”

“Join me in prayer in the face of unstoppable murders in our diocese. Join me in hope that these killings will soon end. But join me, too, in condemning, in the strongest possible terms, the senseless murder of helpless civilians and dedicated servants of government.”

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Featured image: Protesters call for an end to the spate of drug-related killings in the country during a march in the Philippine capital Manila. (Photo by Jire Carreon)

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The first people in the UK will be getting a Covid-19 vaccine on Tuesday, while in New Zealand, the wait could be for several more months. Here’s the government’s plan to vaccinate Aotearoa.

Mass vaccination efforts against Covid-19 are underway around the world, but in New Zealand the government is asking for patience as the first jabs are still months away.

The first Britons will receive a vaccine tomorrow and the Queen is expected to receive her first dose in the coming weeks. Clinics in Moscow began deploying Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine over the weekend. In the US, mass vaccination is expected to start before Christmas.

Globally, the coronavirus is entering a dangerous phase. The northern hemisphere is headed into colder months spent indoors as well as the holiday period. Over the past week, the United States broke a series of new records, with over 226,000 new cases of Covid-19 added on Friday alone. Hospitalisations have topped 100,000. In Canada, field hospitals are being set up before the arrival of snow.

Covid-19 minister Chris Hipkins has said New Zealand’s first vaccines won’t be administered until the first quarter of next year, March or earlier. One of the reasons for the delay is that the country’s sense of urgency, and its willingness to take risks, is somewhat lessened.

“They are speeding things up in a way we wouldn’t necessarily do here because of the risks they face,” Hipkins told reporters. He added that countries facing “hundreds if not thousands” of deaths daily are willing to skip waiting for the end of clinical trials, something New Zealand won’t do.

The government only confirmed in late November that Covid-19 jabs will be free. There also won’t be any legal requirement that people get the vaccine, however Qantas has already said that it’ll require passengers to show proof of vaccination before letting them on international flights.

Unlike the UK, which was the first western country to approve a vaccine, New Zealand won’t be using emergency provisions to fast-track approval of any of the coronavirus vaccines the country will eventually purchase. As global vaccination programmes gain speed, there will be more evidence for the efficacy and safety of some vaccines than others.

Medsafe, the country’s medical regulator, has already started an approvals process for Covid-19 vaccines. One of the vaccines being looked at is the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine that Britain is rushing to its citizens this week. Early results have shown that the vaccine, which uses a new form of technology, is highly effective.

Hipkins added that an emergency approval from the government for that vaccine, copying the work done in the UK, wouldn’t necessarily speed up delivery. “There is a global issue here where everybody wants the vaccine as fast as we can get it,” he said.

New Zealand expects to eventually purchase five or six different types of vaccines. Some will come through direct purchases from pharmaceutical giants while others will be delivered as part of large international coalitions.

While Hipkins mused last week that a humanitarian argument could be made to ensure the vaccines go first to countries that are hardest hit by Covid-19, he quickly added that New Zealand will be getting its doses as quickly as possible. There won’t be any unnecessary delay, he added.

In the UK, the first wave of jabs have been reserved for the over-80s and care home residents. In the US, authorities have said health care workers and the frail will be at the head of the queue. In New Zealand, the order will be decided by the evidence from a longer approvals process. Border-facing workers and people in aged care homes could be first, but the science will determine the sequencing, said Hipkins.

New Zealand’s vaccine programme will be unveiled later in December, but the government is planning to have a significant supply of vaccine in the country when Medsafe finally provides approval to proceed. As a result of that, purchasing agents are currently scouring the globe for the equipment the country will need to transport, store and administer the vaccines. New orders have already been placed for super-cold freezers needed for the Pfizer injection.

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Relations between China and Australia worsened significantly in 2020, reaching the lowest level in its history. Between spying scandals, fake news and trade tariffs, ties between both countries have diminished, impeding various possibilities for international cooperation. However, the recent agreement that built the largest commercial zone in the world in the Asia-Pacific region opens a new horizon for Beijing and Canberra, which prompts to think about measures to overcome this deep diplomatic crisis.

This year has been extremely difficult for the ties between China and Australia. The most recent escalation of tensions centered on a publication made by a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China on November 30, where the conduct of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan was criticized with the following text: “Shocked by murder of Afghan civilians and prisoners by Australian soldiers. We strongly condemn such acts and call for holding them accountable”. The behavior of the representative of Chinese diplomacy caused outrage in Australia and was considered a serious national offense.

A few days before the virtual incident, on November 27, China had imposed severe trade restrictions against wines produced in Australia. Australian Trade Minister Simon Birmingham called the action “unfair” and said it was part of China’s “deliberate strategy” to pressure Canberra to serve its interests. Regardless of the Chinese intentions, the decision should cause great damage to Canberra, which exports more than 900 million dollars in wine to the Asian country – its main market in this sector.

However, it was not only China that imposed sanctions. Australia has also taken several measures considered hostile by Beijing, such as, for example, blocking ten investment projects, in addition to canceling visas for Chinese students and journalists. As we can see, boycotts are reaching all sectors, not being limited to the economic field.

Since 2012, ties between Beijing and Canberra have been deteriorating. There was an undeniable discomfort in Canberra with the inauguration of Xi Jinping, which meant China’s greater insertion in international politics. The growing Chinese role has bothered Canberra mainly due to the fact that both countries are fighting for the same space of influence in the Asia-Pacific.

Currently, the technological market is the main critical point in relations between China and Australia. Canberra joined the trade war waged by Trump against China in the dispute for control of 5G technology. In 2018, Australia banned Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE from their national 5G network, which Beijing interpreted as an anti-diplomatic act. Recently, Australia has also replicated the American discourse about the “origin of the coronavirus”, endorsing the rhetoric that Beijing would have been negligent in controlling the virus in its earliest days, thus being “responsible” for the effects of the pandemic.

All of these factors have profoundly shaken cooperation projects between Chinese and Australians, but despite the friction, Australia and China maintain close trade relations and divide the geopolitical space of Southeast Asia. As a strong mining country, Australia supplies China with coal and ore on a short sea route. Canberra is also a major food exporter for the Chinese, being, due to the short distance, a point of great strategic importance for the food security of the Asian country.

There is a link of interdependence between Chinese and Australians. Australia depends on Chinese money and China on Australian resources. With a population of about 1.4 billion people, Beijing is increasingly investing in imports to ensure food security for its people and Australia is a strategic partnership in this regard. But Canberra is not the only option available to the Chinese, who have strong relations with South American and African countries in the food production sector. Although the distance makes such relations more expensive, Beijing has enough financial resources to face this problem if relations with Australia become unsustainable. The same cannot be said for Australia. Among developed countries, Australia is the most dependent on China. Still, Canberra is facing its first recession in three decades, being even more economically vulnerable and dependent on Chinese investments.

Given this, how to overcome the crisis in a beneficial way for both sides? Certainly, it is Australia that should give more. As a country economically dependent on China, Australia should not practice some acts that have marked its policy of hostilities against Beijing, such as, for example, the participation in QUAD and FVEY. QUAD is a security quadrangle formed by the US, Japan, Australia, and India, consisting of a “NATO for China” project. FVEY (Five Eyes) is an intelligence cooperation program, where the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom carry out joint espionage operations and share information collected. Recently, a scandal involving Australian FVEY spies on Chinese soil was revealed.

If Australia wants to preserve its economic partnership, it will have to restrain its participation in military cooperation projects with countries that are enemies of Beijing. Likewise, a review of the Australian decision on 5G would be interesting, considering that few countries, even among American allies, have chosen such a way of sanctions against China. Beijing, on the other hand, could mitigate its strong criticism against Australian soldiers and perhaps should ban the barriers to Australian wine. Both countries are currently part of the RCEP, the largest economic bloc in the world, having all the necessary resources to create new strategic partnerships and a future of solid cooperation. In order for this bloc to be strengthened and to reach its full potential, it is necessary that diplomatic tensions between its member countries be eased and that each member prioritize its economic needs over its political choices. Therefore, it is essential for Australia to decide between its economy and its alliance with the West.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Djab Wurrung: Fighting to Save Sacred Trees

December 16th, 2020 by Kim Bullimore

On the same day Victorians were celebrating Premier Daniel Andrews’ announcement of the easing of the 112-day COVID-19 lockdown, the state government oversaw the felling of a 350-year-old tree sacred to the Djab Wurrung people in central Victoria. The tree was destroyed to make way for a multi-million-dollar highway upgrade. 

More than 50 protesters were attacked and arrested by Victoria Police, who weaponised COVID-19 laws by fining at least 40 protesters for failing to comply with COVID-19 measures. A further ten protesters were arrested for obstructing police.

The $672 million Western Highway upgrade between Ballarat and Stawell began in 2013, but work on the Buangor to Ararat section did not begin until June 2018. Work in this section will result in the destruction of more than 3,000 trees, including at least 200 which hold cultural significance to the Djab Wurrung people. Among the trees are traditional birthing trees, to which Aboriginal women have come to give birth for hundreds of generations. The area holds “a deep intimate connection for Djab Wurrung women”, wrote Djab Wurrung woman and recently resigned member of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria, Sissy Eileen Austin, in the Guardian.

When work first began on the section of the highway in June 2018, Djab Wurrung protesters established a Heritage Protection Embassy, calling for the highway to be rerouted and the area protected. According to the embassy’s website, not only are the birthing trees located on sacred women’s country, but they are also part of the songlines, which “connect us to the beginning of time, back to our spirit ancestors, our creators”.

In Aboriginal culture, songlines act as navigational tracks for safe travel across country, while also telling the history of the land, animals and plants. The songs sung along the songlines are the means by which cultural knowledge, values and practices are retained and passed down. The destroyed tree was known to the Djab Wurrung as a “directions tree”, which is a tree planted after the birth of a child where the placenta is mixed with the seed and the resulting tree becomes a source of spiritual guidance and connection to land and ancestors for the child.

The Andrews government has negotiated the highway project with the Indigenous custodians via the 2006 Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Act. But heritage acts and the process surrounding them are seriously flawed. In Victoria, in order to be recognised as the “primary guardians, keepers and knowledge holders of Aboriginal Cultural Heritage” under the Aboriginal Heritage Act, traditional owners must apply to become a “Registered Aboriginal Party”. To be recognised, they must become an incorporated organisation under the 2006 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporations Commonwealth Act and be either a registered Native Title Holder with a Native Title Agreement or a Traditional Owner Entity Group with recognition and settlement agreement as part of the 2010 Victorian Traditional Settlement Act.

The problem with this, notes Deakin University anthropologist Associate Professor Melinda Hinksonin in a 5 November article for Arena, is that it  “ensures that Aboriginal owners and custodians who refuse to participate on these terms will not be recognised”, resulting in them being “excluded from formal processes of consultation”.

Under the Victorian act, the current Registered Aboriginal Party for Djab Wurrung country is the Eastern Maar Aboriginal Corporation (EMAC). EMAC took over the role in February of this year, after Martang—the original Registered Aboriginal Party, which had signed off on the highway extension in 2013—became defunct. In a media statement issued on 28 October, EMAC noted that “despite [the directions tree’s] age and majesty, extensive re-assessments did not reveal any characteristics consistent with cultural modification”. They went on to explain that the EMAC had previously won a significant “realignment” of the highway project, resulting in the preservation of 16 trees, two of which were birthing trees, as well as “marker”, “directions” and “grandmother” trees. But other Djab Wurrung people disagree with this assessment and argue the trees are of cultural significance.

University of Sydney director of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research, Professor Jaky Troy, told the ABC that Indigenous custodians often face a situation of “deciding which child to kill” when taking part in heritage negotiations. Troy, a Ngairgu woman, explained that the Djab Wurrung “were put in a position where something was going to have to go”. That is, traditional owners are forced into making pragmatic decisions in order to save some part of their cultural heritage, while being forced to sacrifice others.

This fact was further highlighted by EMAC’s chair, Jason Mifsud, in the same interview. Mifsud explained that despite earlier advocating for the directions tree to be protected, they were not able to save it because Aboriginal groups are “not negotiating from a position of power”. Instead, “you’re essentially, as a result of the Aboriginal Heritage Act, still the last in line in regards to protecting and preserving cultural heritage”.

In the aftermath of the destruction of the directions tree, prominent Aboriginal activist and Djab Wurrung woman Marjorie Thorpe has won a three-week injunction to stop construction. The case will return to the Supreme Court on 19 November. In the meantime, the Djab Wurrung Heritage Protection Embassy activists are calling for the return of the destroyed tree and are continuing their campaign.

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India’s One-Day General Strike Largest in History

December 16th, 2020 by Prof. Vijay Prashad

Farmers and agricultural workers from northern India marched along various national highways toward India’s capital of New Delhi as part of the general strike on Nov. 26.

They carried placards with slogans against the anti-farmer, pro-corporate laws that were passed by India’s Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament) in September, and then pushed through the Rajya Sabha (upper house) with only a voice vote.

The striking agricultural workers and farmers carried flags that indicated their affiliation with a range of organizations, from the communist movement to a broad front of farmers’ organizations. They marched against the privatization of agriculture, which they argue undermines India’s food sovereignty and erodes their ability to remain agriculturalists.

Roughly two-thirds of India’s workforce derives its income from agriculture, which contributes to roughly 18 percent of India’s gross domestic product (GDP). The three anti-farmer bills passed in September undermine the minimum support price buying schemes of the government, put 85 percent of the farmers who own less than 2 hectares of land at the mercy of bargaining with monopoly wholesalers, and will lead to the destruction of a system that has till now maintained agricultural production despite erratic prices for food produce.

One hundred and fifty farmer organizations came together for their march on New Delhi. They pledge to stay in the city indefinitely.

India’s general strike on Nov. 26, 2020. (IndustriALL Global Union, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Around 250 million people across India joined the general strike, making it the largest strike in world history. If those who struck formed a country, it would be the fifth largest in the world after China, India, the United States, and Indonesia. Industrial belts across India – from Telangana to Uttar Pradesh – came to a halt, as workers in the ports from the Jawaharlal Nehru Port (Maharashtra) to the Paradip Port (Odisha) stopped work.

 India’s general strike on Nov. 26, 2020. (IndustriALL Global Union, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Coal, iron ore, and steel workers put down their tools, while trains and buses stood idle. Informal sector workers joined in, and so did health care workers and bank employees. They struck in opposition to labor laws that extend the working day to 12 hours and strike down labor protections for 70 percent of the workforce. Tapan Sen, the general secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions, said, “The strike today is only a beginning. Much more intense struggles will follow.”

The pandemic has deepened the crisis of the Indian working class and peasantry, including the richer farmers. Despite the dangers of the pandemic, out of a great sense of desperation, workers and peasants gathered in public spaces to tell the government that they had lost confidence in them. The film actor Deep Sindhu joined the protest, where he told a police officer, “Ye inquilab hai. This is a revolution. If you take away farmers’ land, then what do they have left? Only debt.”

India’s general strike on Nov. 26, 2020. (IndustriALL Global Union, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Along the rim of New Delhi, the government positioned police forces, barricaded the highways, and prepared for a full-scale confrontation. As the long columns of farmers and agricultural workers approached the barricades and appealed to their brethren who had set aside the clothes of farmers and put on police uniforms, the authorities fired tear gas and water cannons at the farmers and agricultural workers.

India’s general strike on Nov. 26, 2020. (IndustriALL Global Union, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

The day of the general strike of farmers and workers, Nov. 26, is also Constitution Day in India, which marks a great feat of political sovereignty. Article 19 of the Indian Constitution (1950) quite clearly gives Indian citizens the right to “freedom of speech and expression” (1.a), the right to “assemble peaceably and without arms” (1.b), the right to “form associations or unions” (1.c), and the right “to move freely throughout the territory of India” (1.d).

In case these articles of the Constitution had been forgotten, the Indian Supreme Court reminded the police in a 2012 court case (Ramlila Maidan Incident vs. Home Secretary) that “Citizens have a fundamental right to assembly and peaceful protest, which cannot be taken away by an arbitrary executive or legislative action.”

The police barricades, the use of tear gas, and the use of water cannons – infused with the Israeli invention of yeast and baking powder to induce a gagging reflex – violate the letter of the Constitution, something that the farmers yelled to the police forces at each of these confrontations. Despite the cold in northern India, the police soaked the farmers with water and tear gas.

India’s general strike on Nov. 26, 2020. (IndustriALL Global Union, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

But this did not stop them, as brave young people jumped on the water cannon trucks and turned off the water, farmers drove their tractors to dismantle the barricades, and the working class and the peasantry fought back against the class war imposed on them by the government.

The 12-point charter of demands put forward by the trade unions is sincere, having captured the sentiments of the people. The demands include the reversal of the anti-worker, anti-farmer laws pushed by the government in September, the reversal of the privatization of major government enterprises, and immediate relief for the population, which is suffering from economic hardship provoked by the coronavirus recession and years of neoliberal policies.

These are simple demands, humane and true; only the hardest hearts turn away from them, responding instead with water cannons and tear gas.

India’s general strike on Nov. 26, 2020. (IndustriALL Global Union, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

These demands for immediate relief, for social protections for workers, and for agricultural subsidies appeal to workers and peasants around the world. It is demands such as these that provoked the recent protests in Guatemala and that led to the general strike on Nov. 26 in Greece.

We are now entering a period in this pandemic when more unrest is possible as more people in countries with bourgeois governments get increasingly fed up with the atrocious behavior of their elites. Report after report shows us that the social divides are getting more and more extreme, a trend that began long before the pandemic but has grown wider and deeper as a consequence of it.

It is only natural for farmers and agricultural workers to be agitated. A new report from the Land Inequality Initiative shows that only 1percent of the world’s farms operate more than 70 percent of the world’s farmland, meaning that massive corporate farms dominate the corporate food system and endanger the survival of the 2.5 billion people who rely upon agriculture for their livelihood.

Land inequality, when it considers landlessness and land value, is highest in Latin America, South Asia, and parts of Africa (with notable exceptions such as China and Vietnam, which have the ‘lowest levels of inequality’).

A young man, Avtar Singh Sandhu (1950-1988), read Maxim Gorky’s Mother (1906) in the early 1970s in Punjab, from where many of the farmers and agricultural workers travelled to the barricades around New Delhi. He was very moved by the relationship between Nilovna, a working-class woman, and her son, Pavel, or Pasha.

Pasha finds his feet in the socialist movement, brings revolutionary books home, and, slowly, both mother and son are radicalized. When Nilovna asks him about the idea of solidarity, Pasha says, “The world is ours! The world is for the workers! For us, there is no nation, no race. For us, there are only comrades and foes.”

This idea of solidarity and socialism, Pasha says, “warms us like the sun; it is the second sun in the heaven of justice, and this heaven resides in the worker’s heart.” Together, Nilovna and Pasha become revolutionaries. Bertolt Brecht retold this story in his play Mother (1932).

Avtar Singh Sandhu was so inspired by the novel and the play that he took the name “Pash” as his takhallus, his pen name. Pash became one of the most revolutionary poets of his time, murdered in 1988 by terrorists. I am grass is among the poems he left behind:

Bam fek do chahe vishwavidyalaya par
Banaa do hostel ko malbe kaa dher
Suhaagaa firaa do bhale hi hamari jhopriyon par
Mujhe kya karoge?
Main to ghaas hun, har chiz par ugg aauungaa.

If you wish, throw your bomb at the university.
Reduce its hostel to a heap of rubble.
Throw your white phosphorus on our slums.
What will you do to me?
I am grass. I grow on everything.

That’s what the farmers and the workers in India say to their elites, and that is what working people say to elites in their own countries, elites whose concern – even in the pandemic – is to protect their power, their property and their privileges. But we are grass. We grow on everything.

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This article is from Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Vijay Prashad, an Indian historian, journalist and commentator, is the executive director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and the chief editor of Left Word Books.

Featured image: India’s general strike on Nov. 26, 2020. (IndustriALL Global Union, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Abuse on the Mainland: Australia’s Medevac Hotel Detentions

December 16th, 2020 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

Governments that issue press releases about the abuse of human rights tend to avoid close gazes at the mirror.  Doing so would be telling.  In the case of Australia, its record on dealing with refugees is both abysmal and cruel.  It tends to be easier to point the finger at national security laws in Hong Kong and concentration camps in Xinjiang.  Wickedness is always easily found afar.

Australia’s own concentration camp system hums along, inflicting suffering upon asylum seekers and refugees who fled suffering by keeping them in a state of calculated limbo.  Its brutality has been so normalised, it barely warrants mention in Australia’s sterile news outlets.  In penitence, the country’s literary establishment pays homage to the victims, such as the Kurdish Iranian writer Behrouz Boochani.  Garlands and literary prizes have done nothing to shift the vicious centre in Canberra.  Boat arrivals remain political slurry and are treated accordingly.

Recently, there were small signs that prevalent amnesia and indifference was being disturbed.  The fate of some 200 refugees and asylum seekers brought to the Australian mainland for emergency medical treatment piqued the interest of certain activists.  Prior to its repeal as part of a secret arrangement between the Morrison government and Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie in December last year, the medical evacuation law was a mixed blessing.

While it was championed as a humanitarian instrument, it did not ensure one iota of freedom.  As before, limbo followed like a dank smell.  The repeal of the legislation offered another prospect of purgatory, only this time on the mainland.

The individuals in question have found themselves detained in Melbourne at the Mantra Bell City Hotel in Preston, and the Kangaroo Point Central Hotel in Brisbane.   In the mind of Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul, the conditions at both abodes are more restrictive than those on Nauru.  The medical help promised has also been tardily delivered, if at all.

“My life is exactly the size of a room, and a narrow corridor,” reflects Mostafa (Moz) Azimitabar, who has been detained at the Mantra for 13 months.  Like his fellow detainees, he has become a spectacle, able to see protesters gather outside the hotel, the signs pleading for their release, drivers honking in solidarity.  He sees himself as “a fish inside an aquarium … The whole of my life in this window to see the real life, where people are driving, walking; when they wave to us.  And when I wave back at them.  This is my life.”

When former Australian soccer player turned human rights activist Craig Foster visited Azimitabar, conversation could only take place between a transparent plastic barrier.  “I had to talk with him behind the glass,” tweeted the detainee.  “Several times a day Serco officers enter my room and there aren’t any glasses for them.”

After the visit, Foster described the corrosion of liberties, “this constant theme of the most onerous regulations … constantly chipping away – just taking another right, another right, another right, and making them feel less and less and less human, if that’s possible after eight years.”

The more obstreperous refugees have been targeted by the Department of Home Affairs and forcibly relocated.  Iranian refugee Farhad Rahmati found himself shifted from Kangaroo Point to the Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation Centre (BITA), and then to Villawood.  BITA also received four more from Kangaroo Point in mid-November.

The advent of COVID-19 compounded the situation.  Detainees already vulnerable to other medical conditions faced another danger.  The authorities gave a big shrug.  Shared bathrooms are the norm and are infrequently cleaned.  Hand sanitizer containers are left empty or broken.  The inquiry into the failure of Victoria’s quarantine system that led to a second infectious wave in Melbourne avoided considering the conditions of detained refugees.  Writing in Eureka Street, Andra Jackson wondered if this had anything to do with the fact “that these men, now detained in some instances for six to seven years, have behaved more responsibly that [sic] some returning travellers.”

The government authorities did release five refugees from the medevac hotels last week, threatened by lawsuits testing the legal status of their detention.  On December 14, the 60 men detained at the Mantra were told that they would be moving to another undisclosed location.  The conclusion of the contract with the hotel has the Department of Home Affairs considering its options, and all are bound to aggravate the distress of the detainees.

Alison Battinson of Human Rights for All has a suggestion bound to be ignored.  “Instead of telling the gentlemen that they are going to be moved to another place of detention – that hasn’t been disclosed to them – the more sensible approach would be to release them as per the law.”

The only ray of compassion in this mess of inhumanity has come in the form of a Canadian resettlement scheme.  Nine refugees have already availed themselves of the opportunity; another twenty await their fate.  Australian politicians, as they so often do on this subject, are nowhere to be found.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image: Australian refugees detained at the Kangaroo Point Central Hotel, Brisbane | CNN

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West Papuans: An Indigenous People that the World Forgot

December 16th, 2020 by Survival International

In December 2018, Survival International began receiving disturbing reports from the Nduga region of West Papua. Church leaders were saying that congregations from 34 churches in the Papuan highlands were missing. A violent military operation by the Indonesian army had forced scores of innocent men, women and children to flee their villages in fear of their lives and seek shelter deep in the forest.

Just before Christmas, things took an unexpected and alarming turn. Survival started to receive disturbing photographs of disfigured bodies, horrific wounds and burns, and of strange canisters that the people say had been dropped on their villages. An Australian newspaper reported that the mysterious canisters appeared to contain white phosphorous, an incendiary and chemical weapon, which “burns through skin and flesh, down to the bone.”

The use of air-dropped incendiary weapons against civilian populations is banned under Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. The Indonesian government has categorically denied the use of white phosphorous, with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stating on Twitter that the allegation is “totally baseless, non-factual, and gravely misleading.”

Military operations are frequent in West Papua where soldiers and police kill and torture with impunity. West Papua is the western half of the island of New Guinea, colonised and governed by Indonesia, and distinct from the independent country of Papua New Guinea. The indigenous Papuan peoples under Indonesian occupation have endured extraordinary suffering and oppression since Indonesia took control in 1963. Papua’s tribal people are Melanesians: ethnically, culturally and linguistically distinct from the Malay Indonesians who rule them from Jakarta. The government represses political dissent and attempts to “Indonesianize” Papuans, destroying not only lives but also the astonishing cultural and linguistic diversity of more than 300 different tribes.

The highland tribes live by shifting cultivation and hunting; they also keep pigs. During military raids they are too frightened to go to their vegetable gardens or to hunt. According to an independent investigation by Papua’s churches, during a similar military operation in 1998, at least 111 people died from hunger and disease in three villages alone and women and girls as young as three years old were systematically raped and gang-raped.

In the December 2018 attacks, soldiers were searching for militants from the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), an armed group fighting for West Papua’s independence from Indonesia. The militants had killed an estimated 19 road construction workers in December, believing them to be Indonesian soldiers. In such cases, Indonesian military operations to track down perpetrators disproportionately victimise innocent civilians, who are terrorised, abused, and killed. Even those who escape the army are not safe. Vulnerable villagers, especially the very old or very young, die from exposure and hunger while hiding in the forest.

Despite horrific evidence from the tribes themselves and the appalling history of Indonesian violence and human rights abuses, it has not yet been possible for the alleged use of chemical weapons to be independently verified. International journalists, humanitarian organisations and human rights observers are denied free and open access to West Papua. Survival and other organisations are calling for a halt to the violent and indiscriminate military operation in the Nduga region and for independent investigators, including international weapons inspectors, to be allowed into the area to investigate the alleged use of white phosphorus and other abuses of the civilian population.

As well as the military operations in the highlands, Indonesia’s security forces are brutally repressing peaceful political dissent. In 2018, on December 1, the date commemorated by many as “Papuan Independence Day,” more than 500 peaceful protestors were arrested in cities across Indonesia. On December 31, the Indonesian police and military violently broke up a meeting of the West Papua National Committee (Komite Nasional Papua Barat–KNPB), a non-violent Papuan peoples’ organisation calling for a referendum on the independence of West Papua. More than one hundred police and soldiers stormed and then destroyed KNPB’s office. Nine members of KNPB were arrested and beaten; three have been detained and charged with treason.

West Papuans have described what is happening to them as a ‘silent genocide.’ Its invisibility is, in no small part, due to the restrictions on journalists and the repression of peaceful organisations. The abuse of the Papuan peoples by the Indonesian government is one of the worst atrocities of our times. Papuan voices must be heard; Papuans brave enough to speak out must be protected and the international community must expose and stop the human rights violations that are happening there.

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China appears to have formally restricted imports of Australian coal in favour of both local production and imports from other suppliers, in a move that threatens the $14 billion export industry.

A Monday report in Chinese state media outlet The Global Times says that China’s “top economic planner” has authorised power plants to import coal without restriction — except from Australia. China’s other suppliers include Mongolia, Indonesia and Russia, and it also produces coal domestically.

The goal is ostensibly to “stabilise coal purchase prices”. China is also looking to cut down on its coal use in the push to reduce carbon emissions in coming decades.

However, Wang Yongzhong, director of the Institute of Energy Economy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, drew attention to the political overtones of the move.

Read full article here.

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Featured image is from Pxfuel

What Lessons Can We Learn from Protests in India?

December 15th, 2020 by Dr. Shekh Moinuddin

In the last one decade we are witnessed three major protests in different issues, but the outcome of each protest was the same. The protesters became popular but the issue lost in between the crowd of protesters. The issues are carved to harness more and more crowds irrespective of the issues. The three major protests at least indicate a pattern that we can learn a lesson from protests as well. I am using three major protests to decode the similar outcome.

The ongoing farmers’ protests is the third consecutive popular movement in the last one decade in the country. In the beginning of this decade, during 2011-12, India was witnessed a first media sponsored protests in the name of India Against Corruption (IAC), led by Anna Hazare and his team mates, nowadays everyone related to IAC was enjoying top echelon in the country-from Shri V K Singh to Shri Arvind Kejriwal to Mrs. Kiran Bedi and many more who won Parliamentary election in 2014 and Assembly election of Delhi in 2015 respectively. The protest was well carved and deliberated in their structures and constituents from the first stage of protest to the last stage of protest where you ride on power and become law makers as a part of protest. Later, the myth of IAC was busted that how the protest was politically motivated against, then Congress led UPA II govt. The IAC protest was a media driven protest, when media outlets both traditional media and social media provided extra coverage in the name of people’s issue-corruption. Does corruption end? Or, if it was a protest, then how did the leaders of protests ride into power? The same power they criticized but it was a matter of time, now, they are enjoying the same power. Nothing changed in the war against corruption except someone replaced the someone through a meta-narrative in the sense of IAC, that was carved against Congress led UPA II govt only and only.

The second moment arrived during CAA/NRC protest when suddenly Muslims started agitation and protested against the present BJP led Central NDA government that promulgated an amendment in the Citizenship laws in shape of Citizen Amendment Act, 2019. Which provides a chance to give citizenship to the people of minority communities except Muslims from neighbouring countries in South Asia. The protest started from Jamia Millia Islamia and spread across the cities in the country. With time the protest intensified and Shaheen Bagh’s protest became an epicentre during the protest. However, Shaheen Bagh’s protest was led by females in the majority. During the protest, Bhim Army leader Shri Chandrshekhar Azad emerged as youth icon, later he used the CAA/NRC protest as a major platform to launch himself as the Pan India leader of downtrodden or others.  Moreover, the activist, Shahzad Ali, was among those who sat in the protest against the CAA-NRC combine in Shaheen Bagh and later he joined BJP. The octogenarian, Bilkis Dadi too emerged as one of the faces of resistance during the protest. There are many more who shined themselves during the protest in the name of CAA/NRC. However, the law is very much in their existence but protests rolled down by shadow of Corona, that caused lockdown in the country. In other words, corona became a savage to the politicians and government in various political interpretations. Few people use the protest to materialize the same for personal gain rather than helped to ease the causes that caused inconvenience to many.

The present farmer’s protest can be understood in such an extension that when along with farmers there are many so called political aspirants who want to exploit the protest to be visible across the media or in between crowds. In fact, such personalities neither have sanctity with the protesters nor have any background knowledge in the concerned protest. The case of Mr Yogendra Yadav who has started his political journey with Aam Adami Party (AAP) but he was expelled from the party on political and leadership issues. During the protest, it is difficult to draw a line as to who will lead the protest rather there are many faces that emerged due to the media or else when a face became face of such protest. For example, a protester was beaten by police became headline across the social media platforms and the matter took ugly turn when BJP IT Cell head’s Mr Amit Malviya’s tweet in response to Rahul Gandhi’s tweet in the issue was marked as “manipulated media” by twitter. There were many such instances reported across the social media platform when political aspirants took the protest for their own benefits rather than to enrich the peaceful protest to strengthen democracy.

The point taken is that during protest there are many who have political aspirations and when found the moment to jump in the protest then, therefore he/she exploits the protest for their own purposes. The protests are in fact producing politicians not leaders. However, being a politician, it is tough to suppress your own political aspirations through protests. These three protests made the protesters not the issues for which the protest was organized. We must keep this lesson for ever before joining any protest in the future that is your real intake.

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Shekh Moinuddin  authored four books Media Space and Gender Construction(2010), Mapping Media (2015), Mediascape and the State(2017) and The Political Twittersphere in India (2019). He has been teaching geography to UG, PG and MPhil/PhD students for the last ten years and successfully submitted six funded research projects. His research areas include media geography, social media, digital spatiality, cultural mappings, image-politics, digital shutdown, political economy of digital gadgets, digital loneliness, platform democracy, digital religiosity in India.

Featured image is from Countercurrents

Bangladesh Wins and Loses in China-India Rivalry

December 15th, 2020 by Bertil Lintner

This was originally published in October 2020.

Bangladesh is in the middle of rising Indian and Chinese competition for South Asian influence, a position that could benefit or imperil the Muslim majority developing nation of over 161 million people.

On one hand, Bangladesh enjoys robust strategic ties with India, witnessed in just- completed joint naval exercises with India where the two sides held surface warfare drills in the Bay of Bengal.

On the other, China is bankrolling billions of dollars worth of needed infrastructure projects in Bangladesh, checkbook diplomacy that has helped to pull the two sides closer together than perhaps ever in their modern history.

Which of the two Asian giants has more sway in Dhaka these days is debatable. But with India distracted with a spiraling Covid-19 epidemic and with several unresolved bilateral sore points, China may have an upper hand, one it is now seeking to consolidate to its strategic advantage.

Bangladesh, of course, cannot escape the geographical reality that it is almost completely surrounded by India with a 4,096-kilometer shared border. Robust and cordial ties with India are thus critical for Bangladesh’s economic development and national security.

Most crucially, Bangladesh’s water supply is dependent on rivers that flow into the country from neighboring India. Water sharing issues have badly strained bilateral relations, a conflict that China has sought to leverage to its own advantage.

After failing to secure a water-sharing agreement with India over the Teesta river, the fourth-longest river in the country that flows from India, Bangladesh turned to China to develop a US$1 billion agreement to prevent floods and erosion during rains and water shortages in the dry season.

At the same time, as the Bangladeshi newspaper Daily Star reported on October 7, work on almost all nine China-funded projects worth $7.1 billion is reportedly moving ahead.

Those include a multi-purpose rail and road bridge on the Padma river (known as the Ganges in India) built by the state-owned China Major Bridge Engineering Company, a telecom network modernization program and upgrades to the national power system.

With annual bilateral trade valued at approximately $15 billion, China is Bangladesh’s largest trading partner. Trade with India is only slightly more than a third of that amount.

Dhaka and Beijing also forged a strategic partnership when Chinese president Xi Jinping visited Bangladesh in 2016. On the occasion, Bangladesh formally joined Xi’s Belt and Road infrastructure-building initiative.

The groundwork has also been laid for stronger strategic ties. Bangladesh’s military is now equipped with Chinese tanks, Chinese-built frigates and submarines and Chinese-made fighter jets.

Bangladeshi military personnel receive training in China while Chinese military delegations pay regular visits to Bangladesh, raising antennae in New Delhi.

But China hasn’t gotten everything that it wants in Bangladesh. During Xi’s 2016 visit, the Chinese leader proposed 27 major infrastructure projects under the BRI but so far only nine have broken ground.

Most analysts would argue China’s main interests in Bangladesh are not bridges and electric power systems but rather access to its strategic ports on the Bay of Bengal.

China is keen to build a new deep seaport in Bangladesh, as part of a wider scheme to secure its power and influence in the Indian Ocean. That is seen in China’s investments in the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka, the Kyaukphyu port in Myanmar, Gwadar in Pakistan and the establishment of a naval base in Djibouti, China’s first overseas military base.

So far, Beijing has only received a pledge made in November last year by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina that it may use Bangladesh’s two major ports at Chittagong and Mongla for trade.

Hasina’s commitment to China came just weeks after Dhaka signed an agreement with New Delhi for access to the same ports, including for sending goods to the isolated states in India’s northeast known as the “Seven Sisters.” Those often restive states are connected with the rest of India through a narrow strip of land between northern Bangladesh and Bhutan.

Source: Facebook

At the same time, the Rohingya refugee crisis has hampered China-Bangladesh relations. In June 2019, Dhaka asked for Beijing’s support for what Foreign Minister Abul Kalam Abdul Momen termed “the safe and dignified return of Rohingya Muslims to their own land in Myanmar.”

Currently, there are around a million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, most of them living in squalid camps in the already densely populated nation’s southeast. Momen said that “China has been playing a role in favor of Bangladesh on the Rohingya issue.”

That is highly unlikely, however, given the strategic importance China places on maintaining strong relations with Myanmar, the only country that provides China with direct access via land to the Indian Ocean. Myanmar has made it abundantly clear that it does not want the return of the Rohingyas, who many there consider “illegal migrants” from Bangladesh.

Soon after the August 2017 attacks by the insurgent Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on Myanmar security forces, crude assaults which prompted the Myanmar military’s brutal clear operations that forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas to flee across the border, China showed its hand.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said:

“The Chinese side condemns the violent attacks that happened in Rakhine state of Myanmar [and] supports Myanmar’s efforts to safeguard the peace and stability of Rakhine state.”

Chinese officials have also warned Myanmar’s ethnic armed organizations with which they have contacts to refrain from dealing with ARSA or similar outfits. That’s because China believes they are or could be connected with Muslim militants in Asia, including the Uighurs it holds in vast detention camps in western Xinjiang state.

Indeed, all that Hasina received when she visited China in July 2019 was a promise to send some 2,500 tonnes of rice to the refugees, hardly a superpower overture to help broker a solution to the still vexed issue.

It is also not forgotten in Dhaka that China supported its close ally Pakistan during the 1971 liberation war when the eastern part of the country broke away to form Bangladesh. Dhaka and Beijing did not establish diplomatic relations until 1976.

India, on the other hand, supported the movement and even sent troops and tanks to expel the Pakistan military from what later became the independent country of Bangladesh. Yet today India faces bigger problems with Bangladesh than does China.

India-Bangladesh relations deteriorated last year when India passed an amendment to its citizenship laws which made it easier for non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan to acquire Indian citizenship.

The law was passed after a program to register residents in the northeastern state of Assam, where many illegal migrants from Bangladesh live and work. Many in Bangladesh feared that the registration program and new law could spark an exodus of Muslims in India into Bangladesh.

Hasina denounced both moves and Bangladesh canceled some planned visits by Indian ministers in protest.

Then came this year’s pungent onion controversy. Onions are a staple in Bangladeshi cooking but to meet all of its domestic demand Dhaka imports thousands of tonnes every year from India.

Due to Covid-19 caused shortages, India recently banned the export of onions without informing Bangladesh. It was only after loud protests in Bangladesh that India, at the end of September, allowed some exports of onions — but only to prevent China and another bitter rival, Pakistan, from filling the gap.

It is uncertain whether the recent joint India-Bangladesh naval exercise will improve broader ties. They will certainly irk China. The Indian side sent an anti-submarine warfare corvette to the exercise with the stated aim of taking “measures to stop unlawful activities.”

The only foreign submarines active in the maritime region are China’s. In recent years, to India’s chagrin, Chinese submarines have made increasingly frequent forays into the Bay of Bengal. The anti-submarine aspect of the joint India-Bangladesh exercise was thus likely not lost on Beijing’s security planners.

India and Bangladesh hold joint Bongosagar exercises in the Northern Bay of Bengal, October 2020. Image: Indian Navy 

Despite being especially hard hit by the Covid-19 crisis, India is also competing with China to deliver vaccines to Bangladesh. Here, too, Bangladesh is hedging its bets.

It is considering offers from both China’s Sinovac Biotech and the Serum Institute of India. That could become an important issue as China and India seek to play health politics at a time the virus has devastated Bangladesh’s economy.

The country’s normally booming and export-oriented garment industry has been especially hard hit. Factories are idle and unemployment is rising as the number of recorded infections on October 11 hit 378,266 with 5,524  deaths. Most observers agree the likely actual figures are much higher.

Bangladesh, despite impressive economic growth over the last decade, is still a developing country with the vast majority of its people still living under the poverty line. And it clearly lacks the resources and facilities to handle a health crisis of this magnitude.

Bangladesh thus now finds itself in the vulnerable middle of the region’s budding new Cold War. Faced with its own resource constraints, India is reportedly now looking at the possibility of cooperating with Japan to counter China’s rising influence in Bangladesh.

In December 2017, premiers Narendra Modi and Shinzo Abe established the India-Japan Act East Forum, which, according to a statement issued at the time: “aims to provide a platform for India-Japan collaboration under the rubric of India’s Act East Policy and Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy.”

The forum is focused on specific projects in India’s northeast and the development of connecting infrastructure between the remote area and Bangladesh as well as Myanmar.

Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said last month that the two sides are looking to cooperate on projects in Bangladesh to forge new partnerships “with countries across the Indo-Pacific in the face of China’s growing aggressive and assertive activities.”

The Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies, a think tank, said similarly that India and Japan’s initiatives in Bangladesh are “part of a broader move to activate the Indo-Pacific strategy” of the Quad, namely the budding alliance of India, Japan, the US and Australia.

It’s not clear for now that Bangladesh desires any association with what many see as an overtly anti-China alliance. More likely, Dhaka will continue to walk a tight rope between India and China while aiming to maximize their competing offers of assistance and support.

Everything from onions to vaccines to water and Indian Ocean warfare is in play in Indian-Chinese competition for Bangladesh. Whether Dhaka can continue to strike a fine balance between the two giants could determine if it gets caught in the crossfire or hovers above the region’s budding new Cold War.

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As a people-powered movement that has prevented the Adani company from digging its climate-wrecking coal mine for ten years, the Stop Adani movement stands in solidarity with Indian farmers leading mass peaceful protests against [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi and [Gautam] Adani’s farm laws.

Arguably the largest protests in human history, with organisers estimating 250 million people took part, farmer-led protests erupted in response to three laws passed by Modi’s Government, with farmers concerned deregulation of agricultural markets will favour corporate interests such as billionaire Adani’s agricultural businesses, and make farmers vulnerable to exploitation.

Blatant crony capitalism in India and Australia favours billionaires at the expense of communities, families and the environment. Recent news of a $1 Billion (5000 crore) loan from the State Bank of India to Adani confirms that Modi’s Government is working for corporate interests above all else.

In Australia too, Governments have showered Adani’s coal project with public funds and special treatment, with mass protests stopping a $1 Billion public loan to Adani in 2017.

Governments must act in the public interest by putting farmers, communities and the environment first. The Stop Adani movement will continue to push government decision-makers to act for the public good, and support those campaigning against crony capitalism in India.

Stop Adani spokesperson and Indian-Australian Manjot Kaur said:

“My family in Punjab comes from generations of farmers, the same farmers that are currently protesting against Modi and Adani’s farm laws.

“My father, grandfather, and many before me have been farming wheat on the same land, for generations. My family wants to continue farming for generations to come, but these law changes and climate change threaten our way of life. My grandfather has seen the weather change, seen the river he used to play in become polluted, and struggled against drought.

“Crony capitalism in India is driving Indian farming communities to the brink – from deregulating agricultural laws for big corporates to the State Bank’s 5000 crore (AUD $1 Billion) loan to Adani for their dangerous coal project, a project that will mine and burn coal and bring more climate disasters to Indian farming communities. Farmers that are fighting for their existence are the ones who deserve support from the state bank and protection from the Government, not billionaire coal companies like Adani.”

Central Queensland farmer Simon Gedda said:

“As an Australian farmer in Queensland, I stand in solidarity with the millions of Indian farmers who are pushing back on Adani and the Government’s farm laws.

“It can be tough being a farmer, not only do we battle the elements and increasingly, climate change impacts, but we are now called on to protect farmers rights against billionaire coal barons. This is a fight many Australian farmers understand, and it’s a fight we can’t shy away from.

“Adani and pro-coal Governments are ruining farmers’ livelihoods from India to Australia.”

Amongst other changes, the farm laws could lead to minimum support price (MSP) safeguards being scrapped. MSP guarantees a price for farmers for particular crops, no matter the seasonal outlook.

As the world experiences more droughts, heatwaves, floods and storms from climate change, driven by export coal from Australian coal mines, these farm law changes make Indian farmers even more vulnerable to the seasonal disruptions that will intensify with climate change. Projections estimate climate change will reduce wheat yield in India by up to 23% by 2050.

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Featured image: Farmers’ protest in India. (Source: Green Left)

A major sawmill operation linked to widespread deforestation and corruption in Indonesia has had its legality certification revoked by the licensing authority over allegations of a forged permit, meaning it will not be allowed to export any wood products.

Operator PT Tulen Jayamas Timber Industries (TJTI) had established the sawmill in Boven Digoel district, in Indonesia’s easternmost province of Papua, to process an estimated $6 billion worth of logs anticipated to be cut to make way for the Tanah Merah mega plantation project there. The plantation, earmarked mostly for oil palms, could lead to the clearing of up to 280,000 hectares (692,000 acres) of rainforest — an area nearly twice the size of New York City.

But the multibillion-dollar project has been mired in a litany of controversies, with a 2018 investigation by Mongabay and The Gecko Project showing how permits were issued by an official in jail on corruption charges; Indigenous peoples were coerced into relinquishing the rights to their ancestral lands; and the true identities of the individuals behind the project were concealed behind fake nominees and shell companies in tax havens.

In 2019, allegations emerged that fake licenses had been issued to some of the operators involved in the project. Specifically, the Boven Digoel district investment agency alleged that the environmental license for TJTI’s sawmill was fake. Officials sent a letter to TJTI demanding that it stop operating.

Officials from the Papua provincial investment agency also got involved, alleging that permits for the seven concessions in the Tanah Merah project were falsified at a critical stage of the licensing process. While the permits bore the signature of the former head of the agency, he has reported in writing that it was forged. The allegations were uncovered in a follow-up investigation by Mongabay and The Gecko Project.

Following the allegations, Earthsight, a U.K.-based nonprofit investigative organization, found that the sawmill had been certified under the Indonesian government’s timber legality scheme, or SVLK.

The system, accepted by some of the most stringent market regulators for timber legality, including the EU, is meant to ensure that all parties in the timber supply chain obtain their wood and timber products from sustainably managed forests and conduct their trading operations in accordance with existing laws and regulations.

But with the permits underpinning the plantations and the sawmill suspected to be forged, Earthsight sent an inquiry to PT Borneo Wanajaya Indonesia (BWI), the third-party assessor that certified the sawmill as SVLK-compliant in 2019.

After being notified of the allegations and the stop work order, BWI conducted an audit in March 2020. The results confirmed that TJTI’s environmental permit was faked, thus invalidating its compliance with the timber legality standard. The audit resulted in a suspension of the sawmill’s SVLK certificate for three months to give TJTI the opportunity to prove that the allegation of a forged environmental permit was not true.

TJTI failed to meet the deadline, however, and its SVLK certificate was permanently revoked as of July 17.

“Since that date, the [SVLK] certificate of TJTI has been revoked by us and they’re no longer our client,” BWI told Mongabay. “This is because there were complaints from stakeholders and the complaints have had been proven.”

The revocation of the sawmill’s SVLK certificate means that TJTI cannot legally export timber products, as compliance with the SVLK scheme is mandatory for all timber exports from Indonesia. However, it can still sell timber domestically, even though the sawmill has not begun to operate yet.

Djukmarian, the Boven Digoel district investment agency head, said his office has not yet decided what to do with TJTI’s case, pending instructions from the district government.

“TJTI has ceased to operate since last year until now,” he told Mongabay. “We are focusing on making sure that the company is not operating.”

It’s also not clear whether the government will follow up on the allegations of the forged plantation permits for the seven concessions. Instead, the government has agreed with the companies that have already started operating and cleared forests that they may redo the entire permit process from the beginning to be allowed to keep operating.

BWI said it didn’t look into the allegations of the forged plantation permits because those fell outside the scope of its audit, which was focused solely on the sawmill and its legality.

Djukmarian said his office was powerless to pursue those allegations retroactively.

“I’m sorry but I can’t take further action,” he said. “One of the reasons is because when the permits [alleged to be falsified] were issued, the investment office [in Boven Digoel] wasn’t established yet.”

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Featured image: Deforestation in the Tanah Merah project. Image by Nanang Sujana for The Gecko Project. 

Red-tagging in the Philippines is getting to be quite fearfully alarming. The new wave all started some couple of months ago when certain showbiz celebrities were warned by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff himself to refrain from being too critical of the government. Along with this warning was the  insinuation that they were in one way or another more or less closely associated with the local communist movement and could even therefore be supportive of the activities and operations of the local communist armed group called the New People’s Army (NPA).  

These are all blatant surmises coming from a paranoid government whose massive mismanagement of national affairs is epic due to its unparalleled corruption. People have become extremely dissatisfied and the more courageous ones of the thinking segment have been openly voicing out their legitimate concerns. The government doesn’t like it and the simplest tactical alternative at the most immediate time is to hastily accuse them without any solid evidence of being communists: simply put, red-tagging. And red-tagging Philippine version follows a unique equation that goes like this: 

“If one is critical of the government, s/he is against the government. If s/he is against the government, s/he must be a communist. If s/he is a communist, s/he must be a supporter of the communist armed rebellion. If s/he is a supporter of the communist armed rebellion, s/he must be a terrorist.”

Using “hypothetical syllogism” in formal logic, the shortened equation is:

“If one is critical of the government, s/he must be a terrorist.”

At this very point in time, the Philippine government has stepped up the red-tagging operation by arresting protesting activists while staging street demonstrations and rallies. There are also those falsely tagged as “communist-terrorists” and were already arrested. Within a group of trade union organizers, a journalist was arrested during the International Human Rights Day in the Philippines. She is a former student of mine, ROMINA ASTUDILLO. 

After a police raid during the wee hours of the morning in her home in Quezon City, she and two of her colleagues are now in the custody of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and have been slapped with trumped-up cases in line with the Philippine government’s “Intensified Campaign Against Loose Firearms and Criminal Gangs.” No evidence, no nothing. Just out of the blue. And if the court demands the presentation of evidence, it has been a disgusting practice of both the police and the military to present PLANTED pieces of evidence.

Red-tagging is an old hat. In the US, it was in the ’50s when it was viciously implemented through the diabolical initiative of US Senator Joseph McCarthy and it was the reason why that period in modern US history became known as the Era of McCarthyism. Unabashed accusations sans evidence were issued here and there and those considered to be the most dangerous among the accused were indiscriminately arrested. It was a time of no-holds-barred desecration of human rights  in a nation known to be “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

What is happening now in the Philippines is the same brand of human rights desecration as the government desperately tries to muffle the voices of thinking Filipinos in their fearless initiative to express their most critical views against a government that has not been doing its mandated responsibilities for the interest, benefit and welfare of its constituents, the Filipino people. 

The Philippines is now suffering from an excruciating experience as it continues to struggle amidst the economically debilitating scourge of the so-called “Covid-19 pandemic” and the punitive control of a fascist government out to crush with its diabolical power all fearless efforts of its critically thinking people to create a better social, political and economic milieu for a more sustainable future of the next generations.

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Prof. Ruel F. Pepa is a Filipino philosopher based in Madrid, Spain. A retired academic (Associate Professor IV), he taught Philosophy and Social Sciences for more than fifteen years at Trinity University of Asia, an Anglican university in the Philippines.

Featured image is from The STAR/Miguel de Guzman, File

Diplomacy is always a tightrope but what happens when your old mates turn on your new friends and demand you line up with them?

Today, The Detail looks at the stoush over “the club” – the Five Eyes security agreement – that’s turned ugly, and whether it threatens New Zealand’s independence and relationship with China.

Tension between Five Eyes and China has ramped up over the crackdown on Hong Kong. Last month, the intelligence alliance issued a joint statement criticising Beijing’s imposition of new rules to disqualify elected legislators in Hong Kong.

China responded with the warning: “They should be careful or their eyes will be plucked out.”

New Zealand has also got involved with the row between China and Australia over the doctored image of an Australian soldier holding a knife to the throat of an Afghani child.

Robert Ayson, Professor of Strategic Studies at Victoria University, tells Sharon Brettkelly “quiet diplomacy is over but at the same time every time there’s an opportunity to bash China do we really want to be part of it?”

Ayson explains the history of Five Eyes and how the “world is ripe for intelligence playing a broader role”.

Five Eyes is an intelligence alliance with “common adversaries, common threats, common risks” whose origins go back to World War Two and led to an agreement between the US and Britain to exchange information on signals intelligence. By 1956 Canada, Australia and New Zealand had joined.

Ayson says there are three rings to Five Eyes, the first is the intelligence-sharing, the second is the growth of wider policy areas such as Customs, police and law enforcement. New Zealand Five Eyes ministers regularly attend a meeting of the alliance members with topics ranging from cyber security to co-operation against people smuggling.

The third ring, he says, is the way Five Eyes is being used as a diplomatic community.

“Because Five Eyes symbolises and connects us back to that original commitment to intelligence co-operation, to thinking about common adversaries, it’s easy to see why countries on the other end of Five Eyes statements are going to take some umbrage from time to time.”

Ayson describes a level of trust between the Five Eyes members that each of the participants believes the other four will “safeguard the material that they exchange and that’s a very intimate and close relationship going back decades”.

“That type of relationship and trust is quite rare in international politics and it’s one of the reasons the Five Eyes, the intelligence dimension in particular, remains really quite unique and quite special.”

But he says because Five Eyes symbolises and connects us back to a commitment where we are thinking about common adversaries, it’s easy to see why other countries might take umbrage from time to time.

And – “increasingly we are seeing (us being) drawn into this contest between the United States and China.”

“Probably not enough of us in the broader debates have taken this up and said ‘Do we really want to do this?’ I think it’s a quiet, step by step evolution.”

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Sharon Brettkelly is the co-host of Newsroom’s daily podcast, The Detail.

Featured image: The Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB)’s spy base at Waihopai, near Blenheim, after an attack on it. Photo: RNZ/Supplied taken from Newsroom

Video: Thailand: US Openly Backs Anti-Government Mob

December 11th, 2020 by Brian Berletic

US Senators Bob Menendez and Dick Durbin introduced a resolution openly siding with the anti-government and anti-monarchy mobs in Thailand. 

I have exposed the US government’s funding and backing of these mobs for years – and now the US government has openly sided with them – a possible sign of escalation.

I explain who Menendez and Durbin are – their history of backing US intervention and regime change around the globe – and why Thailand needs to take this threat seriously.

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Sources

US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations – Menendez, Durbin, colleagues introduce Senate Resolution in Support of Thailand’s Pro-Democracy Movement: https://www.foreign.senate.gov/press/ranking/release/menendez-durbin-colleagues-introduce-senate-resolution-in-support-of-thailands-pro-democracy-movement

Senate Resolution (full text):

https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/DAV20G50%20-%20Thailan.pdf

US National Endowment for Democracy – Thailand:

https://www.ned.org/region/asia/thailand-2019/

US National Endowment for Democracy – Board of Directors:

https://www.ned.org/about/board-of-directors/

Bangkok Post – US ‘does not back protests’:

https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1983359/us-does-not-back-protests

Examples: Menendez and Durbin’s Pro-Intervention, Pro-War Statements: 

CNN – Bob Menendez becomes second Senate Democrat to oppose Iran deal:  https://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/18/politics/bob-menendez-corker-iran-nuclear-deal/index.html

Menendez Statement on New Sanctions Against Maduro Regime:

https://www.menendez.senate.gov/newsroom/press/menendez-statement-on-new-sanctions-against-maduro-regime

Dick Durbin Senate.gov – Durbin Slams Trump Administration Decision To Remove 12,000 Troops From Germany:

https://www.durbin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/durbin-slams-trump-administration-decision-to-remove-12000-troops-from-germany

Menendez Statement on Trump’s Dangerous Troop Withdrawal from Germany

https://www.menendez.senate.gov/newsroom/press/menendez-statement-on-trumps-dangerous-troop-withdrawal-from-germany

Dick Durbin Senate.gov – Durbin Presses President Trump To Demand Syria And Russia End Horrific Bombing Of Eastern Ghouta: https://www.durbin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/durbin-presses-president-trump-to-demand-syria-and-russia-end-horrific-bombing-of-eastern-ghouta

The destruction over the past five years of Australia’s mutually beneficial diplomatic and trade relationship with China was probably a successful ’Five Eyes’ information warfare operation,  facilitated by the Australian political class’s own foolish arrogance and ignorance towards China.  Australia is now back in the laager,  an American strategic satellite and odd man out in the Asia-Pacific region and with a weakened economy.  

The address to Federal Parliament by Chinese President Xi Jinping on 17 November 2014 marked a highwater mark in bilateral relations.  Xi was in Australia for the G20 summit in Brisbane hosted by PM Tony Abbott. His theme was that China was committed to peace but ready to protect its interests.

Since then the relationship has gone downhill – first slowly and haltingly, but over the past two years with sickening acceleration. Now the relationship seems irretrievable. For educated Chinese, Australia is now an object lesson in Western arrogance, hypocrisy and betrayal of friendship.  The dinner party has ended in upended chairs, shouts and bitter accusations as both sides angrily walk away.

After the high symbolism of the Xi speech, all seemed well. In 2015 the Darwin Port was leased to a Chinese company for 99 years.  Growing numbers of Chinese students and tourist visitors to Australia were becoming mainstays of Australia’s thriving higher education, tourism and property sectors. China as an Australian export market grew steadily in significance: last year it represented nearly 50% of Australian commodity export earnings. Victoria in 2018 signed a memorandum of understanding with China to work with China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

From the beginning, there were signs that powerful forces were determined to cripple Australian-Chinese engagement: and they have now seemingly won.  The present breakdown is tragic for Australian economic and political interests. Many innocent Australians’ livelihoods are being harmed by our own government’s and political class’s stupidity.  It is hard to see now how the damage done to Australia-China relations may be healed anytime soon.

Controversially, I contend that Australia has over the past six years lived through a textbook experiment of covert foreign policy interference by powerful Anglo-American influences, subtly working through local sympathisers in public life here.  Australian political elites – already culturally predisposed to trust Anglo-American friends, and naive as to their power and guile  – have been persuaded to adopt increasingly adversarial positions against China across a broad front.  This essay can only hint at the breadth and skill of this classic Five Eyes information warfare operation: it would take a book to expose it fully.

Clive Hamilton’s notorious attack on China, ‘Silent Invasion’, was published early in 2018. Hamilton had been China-bashing on the fringes of Australian academe for some years beforehand but was still being generally dismissed as an embarrassing outlier. Andrew Podger’s 21 March 2018 review in the Conversation was typical of the Australian mainstream rebuttal of Hamilton’s views, then considered extreme:

‘Perhaps Hamilton’s book is a useful reminder that we must not be naïve about our relationship with China. But his prescription, premised on China being our enemy and determined to achieve world domination, is precisely the wrong direction for addressing the genuine issues he raises. We should engage more, not less.’

Meanwhile, negative views of China’s agenda, supported by well-funded Canberra think-tanks like Australian Strategic Policy Institute and Lowy Institute, were quietly gaining influence in strategic areas of Australian governance.  Attorney-General Christian Porter, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, backbencher Andrew Hastie and Senator Eric Abetz emerged as vocal critics of China. On the Labor side, Penny Wong and Kimberley Kitching seemed ready to join the pile-on. Others were silent, anxious not to be tagged as ‘panda-huggers’.

In 2018, the influential and US-sympathetic Joint Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade supported Malcolm Turnbull’s Foreign Interference Legislation, pressed by Australian security agencies and aimed principally at China. The law was passed in 2019.

Chinese academics and journalists, even a senior NSW parliamentarian, have been harassed and vilified under its powers.  Now, a further bill will strengthen Commonwealth control over state and university links to foreign governments: again, the prime target is China, and any Australian premiers who may dare to enmesh their states economically with her. Victoria’s and Western Australia’s Labor premiers are particular targets.

On the foreign policy front, Australia, misled by obviously foreign encouraged  street violence against the Hong Kong government, became a vocal critic of China on democracy issues there. Australia criticised alleged human rights abuses against the Uighur ethnic group in Xinjiang Province. But we do not criticise human rights abuses in India and Palestine. Australia conducts repeated naval freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea, in protest against Chinese consolidation of its military control over islands there. Australia supported a bogus US-influenced South China Sea case against China in the International Court of Arbitration, a case bitterly condemned and rejected from the outset by China.

Since 2018, Australia responding to American pressure has banned Huawei from telecom operations here, causing a major rift. The philosophy of economic engagement expounded by Abbott and Xi in 2014 is since 2018 under direct frontal attack. In August 2020, a non-strategic Chinese purchase of a large Australian dairy company was vetoed.  The message had now become, Australia wants to go on profitably exporting minerals and foodstuffs to China but to have as little to do with China as possible at the human level. Chinese students here have been accused of doing the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party, and concerns raised about Chinese influence in our universities.  Chauvinism and Sinophobia in Australia have grown.

COVID-19 caused further major rifts in 2020. Scott Morrison clumsily mishandled a peremptory Australian demand to WHO  – reportedly originating in a request to him from US President Trump – to mount an intrusive international investigation in Wuhan into the origins of the ‘Chinese virus’. China saw that act in particular as a gross act of treachery by a friend.  Morrison never apologised.

The tone of Australian mainstream media commentary on China has by now changed utterly to hostility.  Establishment commentators and leader writers compete on who can season their journalism with the strongest anti-Chinese language. All pretence of objectivity or straight reporting of tensions is gone: this is now advocacy journalism.  Dissenting opinions are discouraged. As media increasingly runs with the ball of Sinophobia, Morrison has began to try to step back. He and Turnbull having started the hares running,  now call unconvincingly for moderation.  Not just the Murdoch Press but the Australian Financial Review is full of anti-Chinese polemic. China is bitterly criticised as seeking to dictate terms to the world. The Western media outside Australia are picking up the cue.  The campaign has taken on McCarthyist, even racist-tinged tones: how dare these Chinese presume to stand up to our Western ‘universal values’ ?

Every Chinese effort to rebut the growing abuse is taken as sign of further Chinese bullying. Their Canberra embassy’s circulated ‘fourteen grievances’  – an effort to list the problem China  has with Australian behaviour towards them as a basis for public discussion –  were  mocked. China is falsely stereotyped as the provocateur and Australia the victim.

Around a few weeks ago, China would have finally decided that Australia could no longer be regarded as a trustworthy and decent partner in dialogue.  They would have given up on Australia. The Brereton Report with its reported SAS murders in Afghanistan was an irresistible opportunity for what the West has offensively labelled ‘wolf warrior’ Chinese diplomacy.  The photoshopped image of a SAS baby murder, illustrating a tweet by a senior Chinese foreign ministry official criticising Australian hypocrisy,  was emphatically condemned by Morrison, who demanded a Chinese apology. China refused.

La commedia e finita.  Australian politicians have swung in behind Morrison, while our traders and growers look on with helpless horror. How can what was a good relationship in 2015 it have degenerated to this in just five years? Senior people in industry and trade – like Morrison’s own COVID recovery adviser Nev Power pleaded on 2 December for a diplomatic solution to ease tensions between Beijing and Canberra. But those who want to see Australia decoupled from China in as many ways as possible stay contentedly silent, looking back with satisfaction on their hidden work of destruction. Australia is safely back in the Five Eyes laager, and those who hoped economic rationality would triumph over global geopolitical exclusion games have been defeated. See this.

Australia’s all-important Asia-Pacific region quietly draws a different lesson from this sad story: the lesson is, do not behave as Australia has done in dealing with China. Treat China with normal diplomatic respect and courtesy, as befits friendly neighbours. Even regional countries that have clashed militarily with China know not to provoke her needlessly, as Australia has done.

Morrison probably sees stoking up anti-Chinese prejudices as a useful distraction from his many governance failures at home: on Robodebt, on COVID-19 preparedness, on bushfires and climate change. Sock the Chinese as if there are no consequences for us.

But the consequences will be great. Australia will be needlessly poorer, more isolated from our region, and more dependent on the uncertain protection of faraway Five Eyes friends. Without a dialogue with China, our necessary engagement with our region will be handicapped. Lee Kuan Yew’s friendly warning – ‘be careful or you will be the poor white trash of Asia’ – comes back now to haunt us.

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Tony Kevin is a former Australian ambassador to Poland and Cambodia, an Emeritus Fellow at Australian  National University, Canberra, and the author of ‘Return to Moscow’ (2017).

“Never Again.”  These words are used with boring, stage managed frequency by political and company figures who should know better.  They title the interim report from the Joint Standing Committee on Northern Australia investigating the destruction of rock shelters at Juukan Gorge in Western Australia by Rio Tinto.  This act of spectacular cultural vandalism destroyed sites 46,000 years old.  The company initially thought it was worth the bill: AU$135 million worth of iron ore.   

The efforts of Rio Tinto were given that more punch as they took place on the eve of Reconciliation Week on May 24.  They were approved through existing mining laws long shaped by wily developers and land users.  The company had previously boasted of its rapport with the local indigenous peoples, including the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (PKKP).  But a bleak picture emerged.  PKKP concerns, according to the company’s statement, “did not arise through the engagements that have taken place over many years under the agreement that governs our operations in the country.”  (Rio was trimming the truth on that one.)  Flaws in the company’s decision making structure were detected.  There was insufficient oversight.  The London-based head of corporate relations, Simone Niven, had little idea what the Juukan Gorge caves were before the blasting took place. 

In October, committee members were told that Rio Tinto had been all too keen to muzzle traditional owners in their efforts to save the rock shelters.  Amply lawyered, the company shot off letters warning that agitators could not speak publicly about their cause.  The PKKP were also told that an application for an emergency halt to the works to the federal government could only take place with Rio Tinto’s permission, and giving 30 days’ notice.  As Carol Meredith, chief executive of the PKKP Aboriginal Corporation recalls, “What we were reminded of by Rio’s lawyers was that we were not able to engage seeking out an emergency declaration that perhaps would have stopped proceedings, because of our claim-wide participation agreement.”

Rio Tinto does not come out shining.  It was found to be strategic and calculating in approaching its mining, taking a “legalistic approach to heritage protection,” and adopting a self-interested approach in relying on “outdated laws and unfair agreements”.  “The evidence before the committee demonstrates severe deficiencies in the company’s heritage management practices, internal communication protocols and relationship practices with the PKKP.”  The company’s own board review had done little to address them.  The commercial incentive remained all-conquering.

The report takes issue with the cobwebbed Aboriginal Heritage Act, a West Australian law from 1972.  The statute is meant to protect and preserve Aboriginal sites, a purpose it serves shabbily.  While section 17 of the current Act makes the destruction, damage or altering to an Aboriginal site a criminal offence, Section 18 provides a route of dispensation for the aspiring cultural vandal.  Breaches of the Act (in other words, damage to the site) will be excused provided the applicant seeks consent from the Aboriginal Cultural Material Committee (ACMC).  The ACMC, in turn, assesses the importance and cultural significance of the site, conveying the notice to the Minister with a written recommendation on how to proceed.  In making a decision, the Minister has full discretion.

A draft bill, acknowledged by the committee, would remove Section 18 of the Act.  The report also recommends that new legislation involve traditional owners in the decision.  A commitment to stay all actions under Section 18 permissions obtained by Rio Tinto is sought till “they are properly reviewed to ensure that free, prior and informed consent has been obtained from Traditional Owners and is current”.  The new legislation should also prohibit agreements “which seek to restrict Traditional Owners from exercising their rights to seek protections under State and Commonwealth laws.”

Gag clauses or restrictions in agreements as deployed by Rio Tinto to stifle protest are also recommended for removal.  Committee members also list a few other recommendations for the mining giant. These include negotiating a restitution package for the destruction of the rock shelters with the PKKP and full reconstruction and remediation of the site “at its own expense, with guidance and oversight from the PKKP, acknowledging Rio Tinto’s undertaken in this regard and the steps taken to date.”

All mining companies currently operating in Western Australia, whether or not on Native Title land are also told to undertake independent reviews of existing agreements between them and the Traditional Owners, while also committing “to ongoing regular review to ensure consistency with best practice standards.”

The predations of Rio Tinto opened up cataracts of condemnation.  Finding individual villainy would be tempting but inaccurate.  The company operates in an industry deaf, and increasingly deafened, to social policy.  A co-authored piece in The Conversation by academics specialising in social responsibility and mining (oxymoronic flair is rife in this field) claims that “community relations departments [in the industry] have seen sizeable reductions.” 

As with other entities driven by free market avarice, mining companies are also cool to the idea of greater protections for Aboriginal heritage sites, policed by federal regulations.  BHP, Rio Tinto, Roy Hill, Woodside and Fortescue Metals have told the inquiry that agreements with traditional owners have generally worked.  Juukan Gorge was merely an aberration.  Such giants remain taken with the fantasy that their arrangements arise from positions of equal bargaining power and adequate resources.  These agreements, according to Jamie Lowe of the National Native Title Council, “enable the pretence that when destruction is authorised, it is what traditional owners would have agreed had legislation given them the right to say no.”   

The Australian parliamentarians are inadvertently right.  This will never happen again, because the rock shelters have ceased to exist.  History and cultural traces, eradicated.  A spot in time, never to be repeated.  Harm caused by the mining industry to cultural heritage will simply continue in new forms, with consent manufactured.  Till the laws are changed and demand for natural resources slides, companies such as Rio Tinto will continue milking and reaping, whatever pull social responsibility has.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image is from Change.org

This article was originally published on June 7.

India was once known as the Crown jewel of the British Empire before gaining independence in 1946. Sadly, like most of the post WWII history, that leap to independence was tainted by a fair dose of propaganda.

Of course many great patriots arose to powerful positions in India during the past seven decades bearing such names as Homi Babha (the father of Indian nuclear science), Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandi (assassinated in 1984 and 1991 respectively)… but so too have British stooges more loyal to British intelligence agendas than their own nations’ well being.

Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, the populist leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party has vacillated between those two extremes, occasionally breaking from Anglo-American pressure to treat China, Pakistan or the New Silk Road as enemies, but more often than not bending to the geopolitical demands of the empire.

Modi’s Green Response to the BRI

A recent case of the latter slavish behaviour can be seen with Modi’s renewed call to counter the spread of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with a strange doppelganger known as the One Sun, One World, One Grid Plan (OSOWOG). This three-phased global plan was first announced in 2018 and promises to transition the world into a single international green energy grid by 2050 in order to meet the COP-21 demands for mass carbon dioxide reduction. Part of the plan also involves creating a ‘World Solar Bank’ to offset the China-dominated Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank and New Development Bank.

The OSOWOG Plan targets a vast region encapsulating two broad zones which basically receive lots of sun light: 1) the Far East of Asia and Middle East and 2) North Africa. In essence, the plan calls for spreading green energy infrastructure across these sun-soaked regions and a generating a new integrated green grid as a way to counterbalance China’s BRI. The first phase calls for enmeshing the Middle East, South Asia and South East Asia into green grids followed soon thereafter by North Africa and then finally, the world. Indian secretary at the Ministry of Culture, Anand Kumar stated: “this would be the key to future renewable-based energy systems globally. Creation of regional and international interconnected green grids can enable sharing of renewable energy across international borders.”

Currently receiving start up capital from the World Bank, the OSOWOG Plan is managed by another entity created during the COP-19 Conference in 2015 and headquartered in New Delhi entitled the International Solar Alliance (an umbrella organization of 66 nations).

According to the project’s Request for Proposal of bids, “the vision behind the OSOWOG mantra is ‘The Sun Never Sets’ and is a constant at some geographical location, globally, at any given point of time”.

This may look nice on the surface, but when one looks at the partners of OSOWOG and the anti-BRI geopolitical dynamics underlying its deployment, it appears that the British Empire’s still-active controlling hand has more to do with the mantra than the presence of the sun’s rays on the earth.

In June 2019, Modi’s International Solar Alliance (ISA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the British Commonwealth of 52 nations of the “former British Empire” which is still headed by Queen Elizabeth herself and of which India is still a member. According to their press release, these nations “agreed to work in partnership to promote the development and scaling-up of solar power within member countries common to both organisations.” The head of the ISA stated: “Together, ISA and Commonwealth will be able to look at country-wide strategies to promote the Paris Agreement on climate change, and Sustainable Development Goals 7 and 13 on clean, affordable energy and climate action.”

Why China’s BRI Works

The fact is that under the ever-growing Belt and Road Initiative, nations which have suffered under decades of neocolonialism and abject poverty have now recognized a tangible hope for sustained growth and freedom from want.

China’s win-win paradigm is premised not on debt slavery as some of the BRI’s detractors maintain, but rather on long term, large scale infrastructure development which simply benefits all participants.

What makes this project so successful is that unlike 50 years of globalization promises that have only created a world of neocolonial debt slavery, China actually gets things done, as 800 million who have been lifted out of poverty in 25 years can attest to. Frustrating the armies of western mathematical economists sitting in their ivory towers, the BRI is not formulaic and uses practices that have some characteristics of “market-driven/capitalism” as well as others that are “socialist/protectionist”.

To put it simply, the BRI defies formalism because reality is not formal. If you care about helping nations become self-sufficient while uplifting the material/cognitive/cultural conditions of the people, then the path to attain those principled goals may take on many forms, but the substance is the same. I would characterize that substance in the simplest terms the following 3-fold way:

1) Have a plan for every nation state and city you wish to cooperate with.

2) Make sure these plans are in harmony with a larger unifying plan that organizes the local and regional parts from the top down.

3) Make sure that the fruits of building these plans are of a type that benefits all players- private, public, rich, poor, agricultural and industrial.

This is the essence of the Belt and Road Initiative.

By building the largest dams, high speed rail grids, electricity programs, ports and bridges in history, concrete, steel, aluminum, iron, tin and rare earths have been used and deployed in amounts far exceeding anything the USA has done in the past 60. These feats require energy. Lots of energy.

But not all energy is created equal.

The Imperial Fraud of ‘Green’ Energy

If we are simply measuring energy as calories, then from a purely mathematical standpoint one can say one calorie of nuclear power, one calorie of coal power and one calorie from a solar farm are equivalent. However, if we assess the quality of the organization of energy, then those three are no longer equal with one gram of nuclear fuel performing the equivalent amount of work as 3 million grams of coal (which itself is exponentially more efficient and cheap than solar power).

While it cannot be denied that China has become a world leader in “green” energy projects, and Xi Jinping speaks of “green power” a lot, the thrust of China’s international projects are not successful due to such forms of energy but rather vast investments into nuclear power, coal, hydro power and natural gas- all of which are considered verboten by the green technocrats in the west preaching a global decarbonization pipe dream for climate offending nations in the developing sector.

For those on the left still hanging onto the misinformed belief that windmills and solar panels can replace “dirty” fossil fuels and nuclear power, it is useful to review Michael Moore’s recent documentary Planet of the Humans which has thrown many an eco-activist in an existential funk since its April 2020 release. [Warning: Moore’s film excellently demonstrates the fraud of green energy, but still falls into the cynical Malthusian belief that ultimately humanity’s only chance for survival is to bite the bullet and wilfully depopulate ourselves].

In spite of its misanthropic narrative, Moore’s film does effectively capture the fact that while wind and solar look good on paper (or in the mathematical fantasy lands of technocrats), the reality is that such energy sources are the very opposite of “sustainable”… as windmills and solar panels cannot be even be created using windmill and solar energy!

Here is where the fraud of Modi’s “Sun Never Sets” Initiative comes in.

By attempting to create a green belt cutting across Mackinder’s World Island, from Asia through the Middle East to Africa, the OSOWOG plan promises to do essentially what the British Empire of yesteryear did to the world for centuries: Ensure no industrial growth, infrastructure or national sovereignty while keeping all nations foolish enough to jump on board in perpetual debt slavery with no means of production necessary to extinguish ever growing debts. This lesson was learned by the earlier Club of Rome promoters of Desertec which promised to convert the Sahara into a solar super hub to power all of Europe forever and which Siemans CEO Peter Loscher stated would be “the Apollo project of the 21st century” in 2009, but which turned out to be a failed boondoggle by 2013 as nations decided their future was best guaranteed by joining the New Silk Road instead.

With COVID-19 being used by the most powerful financial forces on the earth as an excuse to ram through a Green New Deal under the UN’s Global Compact (which has the support of the largest western corporations and banks in the world), it is obvious that OSOWOG is really just another lame attempt to revive the British Empire as an anti-development strategy for the 21st century.

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Matthew J.L. Ehret is a journalist, lecturer and founder of the Canadian Patriot Review.

Featured image is from Wikimedia Commons

An area of natural forest the size of 1,500 football fields has been cleared since January in an oil palm concession in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua by a company that ultimately supplies major traders and global brands.

The deforestation was first detected in March 2020 by U.S.-based campaign organization Mighty Earth, which found 221 hectares (546 acres) of forest cleared in the concession of PT Medcopapua Hijau Selaras (MPHS), a subsidiary of the Jakarta-based Capitol Group. It dated the clearing to between Jan. 11 and Feb. 24 this year.

Mighty Earth flagged the deforestation in its “Rapid Response” reports, but more clearing occurred in the following months.

Using satellite data from Planet Labs and other sources, alongside concession maps, Mighty Earth found further deforestation of 286 hectares (706 acres) from Feb. 24 to June 18. Monitoring by other NGOs and platforms also picked up on the deforestation.

The Earthqualizer Foundation, an environmental consultancy, reported detecting 732 hectares (1,808 acres) of forest clearance inside the MPHS concessions from January to August.

Papua Atlas, a real-time interactive map showing the spread of plantations and roads in the Papua region, identified 680 hectares (1,680 acres) of forest cleared in that same period, with 675 hectares (1,667 acres) constituting primary forest.

Although there’s some variance between the reported figures, they still point to MPHS being responsible for the largest area of forest cleared in Papua this year — the same conclusion reached by Pusaka, an Indonesian nonprofit that advocates for Indigenous peoples’ rights, which carried out its own monitoring in the region.

According to Pusaka, Papua lost 1,488 hectares (3,676 acres) of forests from January to May this year, with the biggest single instance of deforestation — 372 hectares (919 acres) — occurring inside the MPHS concession.

Upon detecting the deforestation, Mighty Earth reported the matter to MPHS’s clients, including Wilmar International, the world’s biggest palm oil trader. Wilmar, whose customers include Unilever, Kellogg’s and Nestlé, among other major global brands, subsequently launched an investigation, asking MPHS to submit its boundary maps as well as maps of those parts of its concession that contain high conservation value (HCV) and high carbon stock (HCS) forest. That mapping was carried out in 2019 to determine areas within the concession that should be exempt from clearing under the terms of most palm oil buyers’ “sustainability” commitments.

Still, Wilmar was able to detect what it called 26 “small sporadic patches” of land clearing, totaling up to 30 hectares (74 acres) that may have occurred inside MPHS’s HCV/HCS areas. To determine the cause of the deforestation, Wilmar ordered MPHS to carry out a ground investigation, which concluded that the clearing was done by nearby communities to develop smallholder oil palm plots.

Wilmar also said that the areas outside the 26 patches that were identified as deforestation by Mighty Earth occurred within parts of the concession that were permitted for development, called “go areas,” as defined by the HCV/HCS assessment.

Mighty Earth campaign director Phil Aikman said these deforested areas were cleared by MPHS and were shown to be areas of high forest canopy cover.

David Gaveau, a researcher who develops and runs the Papua Atlas, said the go-areas “should’ve been declared HCV/HCS zones [no-go areas] because they were primary forests.”

“We are absolutely certain that in this particular case, the estimated 680 ha cleared in MPHS was forest with High Carbon Stock (HCS) and High Conservation Value (HCV),” he told Mongabay.

MapHubs, which works with Mighty Earth on deforestation monitoring, also drew the same conclusion, saying high-resolution satellite images clearly showed the razing of natural forests.

“I don’t think this is a ‘small sporadic patches of land clearing’ Wilmar are referring to,” MapHubs CEO Leo Bottrill told Mongabay. “The 286 hectares [of deforestation] is clearly industrial deforestation.”

Deforestation detected inside PT Medcopapua Hijau Selaras (MPHS) concession in West Papua, Indonesia. Image courtesy of MapHubs.

Due dilligence

Bottrill said the deforestation alert by Mighty Earth in March should have been enough reason for Wilmar to push MPHS to impose a moratorium on forest clearing inside its concession. Instead, he said, Wilmar decided to wait for MPHS to conduct its field investigation, which was supposed to begin in March but was delayed to June due to movement restrictions imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This effectively gave MPHS cover to continue clearing forests months after Wilmar was made aware of it, Bottrill said. It wasn’t until the field investigation was completed in September that MPHS agreed to observe a strict moratorium on further land clearing.

“It should be noted that after Wilmar and other companies buying from PT MPHS were notified in March, PT MPHS went on to clear over 700 football fields of forest but were unable to send someone to the field with a GPS unit and camera to tell their customers if this was forest or not,” Bottrill said. “You can’t ground truth forest if it’s already been cut down.”

Wilmar said a field verification was necessary before the company could make any decision because satellite imagery alone was not enough in the identification of deforestation.

“It must be supported by the correct and updated variables, including boundaries, ownership and more, paired with necessary ground truthing,” the company said in a statement to Mongabay.

Pusaka director Franky Samperante said his organization had carried out ground truthing to confirm the deforestation inside the MPHS concession, and didn’t only rely on satellite imagery. He said that’s how Pusaka came to the conclusion that MPHS had deforested natural forests.

“We did ground checking and took photos using a drone,” Franky told Mongabay, adding that communities living near the concession also told Pusaka that MPHS had started cutting down the forest in January.

‘Go areas’ and ‘no-go areas’

Aikman said the failure of the HCV/HCS study, which was not peer-reviewed, to correctly identify the deforested areas as natural forests left Wilmar without an avenue to file a grievance over the clearing.

“Wilmar was original basing this decision because it assumed that the clearing highlighted in Rapid Response reports was outside the HCS areas identified in the non-peer reviewed HCS study,” Aikman said. “There are too many cases where traders accept the findings of HCS report at face value, without requiring them to go through a peer review report. I have seen several assessments that identify areas as shrub and not forest.”

Aikman said any land clearing activities should be halted until the HCV/HCS assessment has been peer-reviewed, because there have been instances in the past where HCS assessors did not follow the HCS toolkit and therefore failed to classify areas of high carbon stock for protection.

Gaveau agreed, saying no forest clearing should have been allowed before a peer review to check whether the HCV/HSC maps were correct.

“This makes no sense to me,” he said. “Independent evaluators should be allowed to review those HCV/HCS maps before clearing the areas.”

Wilmar said in its response that the assessment had been conducted by MPHS before Wilmar had begun requiring its suppliers to have their HCV/HCS assessments peer-reviewed under an update to its “No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation” (NDPE) policy in September 2019. It also said that, to date, Wilmar is the only palm oil trader to require an independent review of its suppliers’ HCV/HCS assessments.

Aikman said this is a shift “in the right direction,” but added Wilmar still has much to do in terms of transparency in the MPHS case, including publishing the HCV/HCS assessment, relevant maps, and the name of the company that carried out the assessment.

“As the draft HCS report is not public, we can’t verify what Wilmar is claiming is accurate,” Aikman said.

Gaveau noted that the Indonesian government doesn’t allow plantation companies to share maps of their concessions, but it also doesn’t explicitly prohibit them from sharing HCV/HCS maps.

“So they could share those HCS/HCV maps but they don’t want to,” he said. “So, nobody can verify their claims. This is really dodgy.”

Wilmar said it can’t publish the maps and related documents from its suppliers without the latters’ explicit consent, citing strict non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).

“Our objective is to encourage our suppliers to embrace transparency while providing us with the resources to investigate grievances related to compliance to our NDPE policy,” Wilmar said.

A sign indicating a high conservation value (HCV) forest area inside PT Medcopapua Hijau Selaras (MPHS) concession in West Papua, Indonesia. Image courtesy of Pusaka.

No time to wait

Cases like these should prod major traders and buyers of palm oil into behaving more like watchdogs, Bottrill said, adding it should be part of their job to produce routine reports with corresponding maps and make them publicly available.

“Other information cited by Wilmar such as concession boundaries should also be made public,” he said.

Bottrill also warned against companies’ overreliance on HCV/HCS studies to make a decision, given that the assessments are “an overly convoluted and complex process” that can take months to complete while the forest is cut down in the meantime. That’s where independent monitoring platforms and services can come in, helping companies make quick decisions, such as ordering suppliers to halt deforestation once land clearing is detected.

“Our clients can’t wait months for HCV/HCS reports to be released if the land development is already underway,” Bottrill said. “They want to see a map and then make a decision.”

He added that while detection algorithms and satellite imagery are not 100% perfect, to say that natural forest can only be verified by a certified assessor “is a very high bar.”

“This means only organizations with the budget to hire qualified assessors and then granted permission to access private plantations can ascertain whether an area is natural forest or not,” he said.

Adriani Zakaria, executive director of the Earthqualizer Foundation, agreed. “Not everyone has enough money to hire HCV/HCS assessors,” he told Mongabay.

He said companies shouldn’t fixate on whether a part of their concession is a “go area” or a “no-go area,”  and instead see all forests as something that should be protected and not cut down.

“We saw many cases where areas with HCV/HCS were also deforested,” Adriani said. “So we view forests as forests. When there’s a commitment of zero deforestation, then there should be no deforestation. It’s as simple as that. If you’re still doing HCS [assessments], then don’t call it zero deforestation. Because zero deforestation only applies to areas that have already had their HSC assessed.”

Bottrill said the case of MPHS is ultimately “a good example of the growing democratization of deforestation monitoring.”

“Watchdogs, downstream palm oil buyers, and investors can scrutinize deforestation cases irrespective of what companies choose to share or not share about their practices,” he said.

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Featured image: Logs of woods stacked on the side of a road in PT Medcopapua Hijau Selaras (MPHS) concession in West Papua, Indonesia. Image courtesy of Pusaka.

World Economic Forum 2021 Moved to Singapore Due to COVID-19

December 10th, 2020 by Jewel Stolarchuk

The next World Economic Forum (WEF) Special Annual Meeting is being moved to Singapore, given the COVID-19 situation in Europe. The global summit, which brings top leaders in politics, business and academia together, will be held between 13 and 16 May, next year.

This is only the second time in history that the annual meeting is being moved from the Davos ski resort in Switzerland, after the 2002 forum was held in New York as a show of support to the US after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The 2021 forum will also mark the first time the meeting will take place in Asia.

Revealing that the change was made to safeguard health and safety, WEF said on Monday (7 Dec): “In light of the current situation with regards to Covid-19 cases, it was decided that Singapore was best placed to hold the meeting.”

WEF founder Klaus Schwab added that the meeting would be crucial to address global recovery from the coronavirus pandemic which has taken a huge health and economic toll worldwide. He said, “Public-private co-operation is needed more than ever to rebuild trust and address the fault lines that emerged in 2020.”

Read full article here.

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The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) recently arrested two of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi)’s Cabinet ministers.

Maritime and Fisheries Minister Edhy Prabowo and Social Affairs Minister Juliari Batubara were charged with bribery.

The former was accused of being involved in graft tied to the lobster larvae export, while the latter had allegedly received bribes related to social aid distribution.

Both are still holding their ministerial roles.

Previously, two of Jokowi’s former ministers — then-Social Affairs Minister Idrus Marham and Youth and Sports Minister Imam Nahrowi — were also implicated in alleged graft cases.

The arrest of Edhy and Juliari made headlines amid criticism and high expectations for the KPK, as many Indonesians have cast doubts that the new KPK law will curtail the anti-graft agency’s power.

Why did the arrest of both ministers gain nationwide attention?

Tama Satya Langkun, an anti-corruption activist at the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW), told TOC that the aforementioned raids made headlines due to several factors: The decline in the numbers of cases the KPK is handling, the scale of the bribery cases, and the actors and the subsequent impact of the graft cases themselves.

“The numbers of cases the KPK is handling have dropped since three years ago. So far, only seven raids (OTT) have been conducted this year,” Tama stated.

Several days ago, KPK spokesperson Ali Fikri told TOC that people cannot judge the KPK performance based only on raids, as the institution continues to carry out prevention and monitoring tasks.

Tama highlighted that the change in the status of KPK employees can affect how they handle corruption cases involving government ministries due to seniority culture.

However, many Indonesians appear to appreciate what the KPK has done, despite doubts that the new law can weaken the anti-graft body.

Big fish cases

Tama described that the cases implicating Edhy and Juliari are ‘big fish’ ones, as they involve high-ranked officials, the massive possible loss incurred by the state government, and the impact on people’s lives, in addition to COVID-19-related problems that have severely hit many business sectors.

“Take the lobster seed export, for example. The policy affects fishermen who farm lobsters. They cannot get good quality larvae if they are exported,” Tama explained.

Netizens expressed their anger on social media platforms over the alleged social aid graft cases during the pandemic, particularly given that the pandemic has forced companies and business sectors to furlough or dismiss their workers.

Juliari allegedly took Rp 8.2 billion in bribes for the first wave of social aid distribution. For the second wave, the politician reportedly received around Rp 8.8 billion, Kompas reported.

Death sentence not the solution; consistency is key

People have subsequently called for harsher punishments for corruptors, including the implementation of the death sentence as stipulated in Chapter 2 Article 2 in Law No.20/2001.

Those found guilty of corruption may be subject to harsher punishments if their actions are found to affect the availability of funds for disaster and economic crisis mitigation.

However, Tama disagrees with advocating the death penalty against those found guilty of corruption, as there is “no evidence” that implementing such a sentence could deter people from being involved in corruption.

“China imposes the death sentence on corrupt officials, but its corruption index dropped to 87 in 2019.

“Developed nations such as Denmark and other Scandinavian countries do not mete out the death penalty, but they are not corrupt,” Tama said, adding that the most important move in combating corruption is consistency in upholding the law.

Tama cited the implementation of money laundering laws, which cannot be separated from corruption cases. The recovery of state assets amassed in corruption crime is as important as the arrest of those charged with that crime.

“Money laundering is about how to follow the money (trail). We cannot simply feel happy after the KPK or police arrests (certain) people. What about the assets?” Tama stated, wrapping up the interview by saying that stronger law-enforcing institutions, consistency in upholding regulations, and public participation can help to minimise corruption.

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The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is one of the largest in scale infrastructure projects in our history, which was proposed by the PRC as far back as 2013. Its main aim is to link via roads, railways, deep water ports, wharfs and industrial zones all 5 continents and approximately 130 of the world’s nations, which, on becoming a part of the BRI could promote trade and other activities and thus reap substantial economic benefits. The BRI had such a successful start that by 2020, projects worth almost US$4 trillion had already been completed.

Still, the ambitious nature and global scale of China’s economic expansion caused reservations among some participating countries with low and medium GDPs. On the one hand, these nations viewed the initiative as the only source of funds for financing their own infrastructure projects, and on the other hand, they worried about their growing debts to Beijing.

In this context, the reaction to BRI in countries of South East Asia whose economic ties to China are strengthening with each passing day is noteworthy. It is no secret to anyone that some of the biggest projects of China’s global initiative are being implemented in South East Asian countries. In fact, it would suffice to mention the cross-border railway between China and Laos (US$ 6 billion), high speed rail in Indonesia (US$6 billion), the Kyaukpyu deep water port in Myanmar (US$ 7.3 billion) and many others.

One of the leading South East Asian economies, i.e. Malaysia, is no exception to the rule. National and local media outlets, experts and political circles are increasingly more and more focused on China’s infrastructure initiative. This is not surprising as Malaysia is among China’s most important trade partners in South East Asia with the bilateral trade volume of US$124 billion in 2019. At the same time, Malaysia (along with Indonesia) is among top ten countries (the former being in 3rd place) in terms of BRI-related project size and costs (US$160.76 billion).

Closer economic ties between Malaysia and China prompted the two countries to cooperate more within the BRI framework. In addition, the most active period of collaboration between the two nations occurred under the Premiership of Najib Razak (2009-2018), when the Malaysian side signed a number of agreements with China on a number of new infrastructure projects.

Still, after the Malaysian general election, which took place in 2018, when Mahathir Bin Mohamad (who was in power from 1981 to 2003) won, the country’s policies towards the Chinese initiative changed noticeably under his leadership. For instance, Mahathir Bin Mohamad raised issues about terms and conditions of agreements with the PRC that were signed earlier. In fact, later on, several large infrastructure projects were re-examined as part of BRI implementation. The Prime Minister focused his attention on visibly high costs of Chinese infrastructure projects, which is why Malaysia had to shoulder an additional burden while its external debt was already quite high (US$252 in 2018).

The focus of Mahathir Bin Mohamed’s criticism became the East Coast Rail Link project, whose cost increased from $US7 billion to US$10-13 billion (according to different estimates) because of changes in the exchange rate. The project started back up after the government of Malaysia reviewed the terms and conditions of the agreement and re-signed the deal with China on more beneficial terms.

At the same time, one of the larger-scale projects, tied to BRI, “Melaka Gateway”, in the Malaysian state of Malacca (estimated to cost $10.5 billion) was cancelled. It entailed building a deep water port, a cruise terminal, a wharf, elite housing, hotels and other facilities on three artificially-made islands in the Strait of Malacca in order to attract almost a million tourists a year. The project was to span 246,45 square kilometers, while the planned deep water port was meant to compete with the neighboring one in Singapore.

The project Melaka Gateway was first announced by the then Prime Minister Najib Razak in 2014. However, very recently, the government in the state of Malacca terminated the contract with the local Malaysian company KAJ Development Sdn Bhd, which was working on the project together with a large Chinese government company PowerChina International and two port developers because the work on re-cultivating the vegetation on three artificial islands was never completed. One of the main reasons for the delay in construction was the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. In addition, there is an ongoing discussion about excess port facilities in the country. In the opinion of experts, it is a good idea to use the three existing Malaysian ports and not to spread out to new facilities.

Despite certain obstacles, the implementation of China’s BRI project is helping Beijing increase its regional and global influence, especially in those nations of South East Asia that are on board with this infrastructure initiative despite concerns about accruing too much debt hoping in the future to improve their economies thanks to it. In addition, the United States, which at present cannot provide so much funding to the nations of South East Asia is losing in influence to China in the region with each passing year.

As for Malaysia and South East Asian countries in general, it is worth noting that their collaboration with the PRC within the BRI framework is viewed by experts in a positive light but still there are concerns about the growing debt these countries owe to China. Nevertheless, at present, there is no choice as such because of a significant reduction in size of economies all over the world, hence these countries are unlikely to refuse funds that are so necessary and that only China can provide. The PRC, in turn, has substantially increased its leadership positions in South East Asia by the end of 2020.

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Petr Konovalov is a political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Featured image is from NEO

Australia: Exporting Weapons Is a Clear and Present Danger

December 10th, 2020 by Suzanne James

Then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull pronounced in 2018 that Australia should aspire to be in the top 10 military equipment exporters in the world within the next 10 years. Turnbull committed to a $3.8 billion loan scheme for arms manufacturers to bolster their access to international markets.

According to the Australian Department of Defence Export Control Statistics for 2018-2019, the federal government has issued $4.9 billion worth of export permits since, a 67% increase.

More detailed figures on current arms sales to foreign countries are difficult to come by. The Australian government has increased the secrecy, to dangerous levels, enjoyed by private corporations funded by huge sums of public money.

There is also an increasing lack of transparency around where the killing machines, technology and expertise officially — and unofficially — end up.

A ABC 7.30 Report revealed one contract, announced by ASX-listed manufacturer Electro Optic Systems (EOS), is worth $410 million for a single undisclosed customer. The EOS system would be manufactured in the United States, supported by $33 million worth of Australian government bonds. A source told the ABC the undisclosed customer was the United Arab Emirates (UAE), part of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

That coalition is accused of war crimes in Yemen by a United Nations committee of experts, crimes that appear to be an open secret.

The US and Britain have sold arms and provided technical and logistical assistance to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Many ex-Australian Defence Force and ex-Australian Federal Police are in the UAE working as contractors in various support and training roles. The illegal re-transfer and/or on-selling of a variety of firepower in Yemen continues. This is a part of one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.

Last year, the Houthis successfully bombed a Saudi oil field and have amassed an increasingly sophisticated armoury, smuggled in from wherever they can get it. Blaming Iran is the popular line, but they are far from the only source of enemy arms and everybody knows it.

Australia used to send an annual arms report to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which monitors arms transfers globally, but ceased reporting to it in 2004.

The last related Department of Defence report was in 2001 and the secrecy may be compromising our own national security.

Freedom of Information requests are heavily redacted or refused, citing “commercial-in-confidence”. Attempts to hold the government to account are strongly resisted.

If, as it claims, the government is meeting all its international obligations, then why all the secrecy around the proof?

What we do know is that components manufactured in Australia have recently been found in Azad drones in Armenian territory. We also know weapons belonging to international coalition partners — including the Saudis, to whom Australia keeps selling arms — keep showing up in rebel hands in Yemen.

It is a standing criteria under all international law, including the Geneva Convention and the Arms Trade Treaty, that exporting countries must not knowingly sell arms to entities proven to be, or suspected of, committing or aiding war crimes.

Despite years of international outcry, the 2006 Arms Trade Treaty and repeated UN cooperative interventions, there remain major gaps in the post-delivery monitoring by exporting countries, including Australia.

Like the banks, the departments issuing export permissions are allowed to rely solely on their own risk assessments. It is those assessments on which the post-delivery phase of the obligation-critical End User Agreements are based.

Once that ink is dry, the accountability trail goes stone cold.

End game

The Deutsche Welle documentary The End User — Yemen and the Global Arms Trade demonstrates how often weapons are redirected after they reach the intended recipient.

Australia’s defence department claims every export permit is subject to rigorous assessment concerning any risk that the weapons may be used in human rights abuses.  Yet, as The Guardian revealed, Australia is one of several countries still selling weapons to members of the Saudi coalition, who are widely suspected of war crimes.

A former Australian Secretary of Defence believes Australia may be skirting its responsibilities and he is not the only one.

Policing arms shipments is a difficult and complex task. Since the Saudi coalition launched its war in 2015, Yemen has become a site of multiple civil wars, terrorist bombings, assassinations and shootings. Apart from the Saudis, the UAE, Yemeni government troops, Shia, Sunni, Houthi rebels allegedly backed by Iran and al-Qaeda are all involved.

Compliance is difficult enough in a bank — getting full board and executive sign off, verifying decisions, paperwork for the regulators — but in a war zone? Even the UN admits there is massive signature and process fraud, and systems need to be stringent to cope.

Still, while expectations have to be realistic, it’s not like Australia and its allies do not have people on the ground to provide accurate intelligence. Given defence spending is tracking to be 2% of GDP for 2020-21, it’s not like they don’t have the resources.

Monitoring framework

The United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research monitors end-user control systems and their efficacy, in consultation with the UN Security Council and member countries.

Arms exports are subject to an export permit that is risk assessed and issued to the manufacturer by the defence department, and an End User Agreement certifying that no-one will on-sell or transfer weapons to any third party without the seller’s knowledge or consent or, in the case of embargoed countries, not at all.

End User Agreements list receipt and handling certifications and authentications, the legal handling obligations of all parties and agreed post-delivery cooperation. This includes a unilateral commitment to investigate reports of any alleged diversion or unauthorised retransfer.

So here’s the thing: those investigations can be done by either the exporting or importing country itself, or by both in a joint investigation, or by an independent contractor agreed by both countries, who may well be a private defence contractor to either or both countries. The current system allows all three parties with vested financial interests to not only do their own risk assessments, but pick their own auditors as well.

What could possibly go wrong?

It may be this component of End User Agreements more than any other that needs to change to a genuinely independent international body able to investigate completely outside of the commercial circle of interests.

In light of the Brereton report into Australian war crimes in Afghanistan and repeated reports that the country’s arms customers are committing atrocities, perhaps Australia itself has become a clear and present danger, just another country that can’t be trusted to meet its obligations in a war zone.

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Suzanne James is a freelance writer with a background in compliance, risk management, policy frameworks and implementation.

Featured image: Former PM Malcolm Turnbull with US Vice President Mike Pence in 2017. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Myanmar’s Salween Peace Park — A Place for All Living Things

December 9th, 2020 by Karen Environmental and Social Action Network

According to our calendar, the Karen People have lived in our forest home for 2,758 years. Our lands and waters play many important roles in everyday life and in our future prosperity. They are core to the subsistence practices of our communities. Karen territories boast fertile soil, where the ‘Ku’ shifting cultivation system is used to grow vegetables and other foods rotationally, allowing nature to recover. The rivers of our Karen territories, including the Salween, provide a means of reliable transport and trade, as well as a rich source of fish. Our people forage for wild foods like bamboo shoots, banana fruits and flowers, honey, mushrooms, and edible ferns in verdant forests. We peacefully coexist with rare and endangered animals like the Sun Bear. Our communities gather forest materials to build and maintain homes, to make various tools and create art.

The Ancestral Territories of the Karen

Our ancestral territories are a repository for our history, culture, and beliefs. Karen communities are predominantly animist, and our practices and culture are deeply intertwined with and situated within our ancestral territories, which we call Kawthoolei. For our communities, the conservation of nature is vital to the conservation of our own culture. The health of one directly corresponds to the health and prosperity of the other. This is expressed through cultural traditions and taboos that encourage sustainable use of some resources and forbid the harvesting or use of others. They are observed seriously.

We are the best custodians of our ancestral territories. This is demonstrated by the rich biodiversity of Kawthoolei, which is situated in the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot and is of global significance to nature conservation. Many areas in Myanmar have been deforested, with animal habitats destroyed, and plant species lost, but in our Karen homeland healthy populations of threatened and near threatened wildlife can thrive.

Mines, Militarisation and Mega-dams

For decades our culture and Kawthoolei homeland have been under assault. The conflict in this region is one of the longest-running civil wars in the world. Since 1949, a year after Myanmar gained independence from Britain, the Karen have been fighting for political independence from Myanmar. In over 70 years of armed conflict, many thousands of Karen people have experienced genocide, torture, and sexual violence at the hands of the armed forces of Myanmar. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced throughout the course of the conflict, with many fleeing to Thailand or becoming internally displaced peoples.

A Karen medic treating displaced civilians. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

More recently, the main challenges that communities in Kawthoolei face derive from logging, mining, infrastructure projects including road and bridge construction, and a series of government-proposed mega-hydropower dams on the Salween River. Communities also face threats from private agribusiness, logging and mining concessions, which are predominantly granted to outside interests and conducted within Karen ancestral territories without communities’ permission or any form of compensation.

The Myanmar Government’s constitution claims all land, waters, and natural resources for the government. Created without the involvement or consent of indigenous communities, these laws do not recognise the tenure rights and cultural practices of the Karen people. They seek to evict Karen communities from ancestral territories and eradicate traditional forms of ‘Ku’ shifting cultivation. The Myanmar Government’s push for territorial domination and the monetisation of natural resources and land, conducted through military violence, is destructive to the Karen Peoples and our lands.

Mining activities continuously create challenges for our culture, livelihoods and traditional forms of conservation. Common methods of gold mining are disruptive to local wildlife, destroying habitats and poisoning water sources with mercury and engine oil. In parts of Kawthoolei, the sheer amount of soil and silt that have to be moved to access the subterranean gold has led to river sedimentation, reduced access to clean water for drinking and bathing, and damaged aquatic ecosystems. Resultant chemical runoffs and air pollution have also caused health issues, including skin and respiratory problems. Yet gold and stone mining continue and recorded mining activities have increased since the 2012 ceasefire.

Decades of Resistance

Karen communities have resisted these externally imposed destructive development projects since they began during the colonial era. During the time of British colonial control, communities worked together to protest British logging concessions in Karen ancestral territories, and negotiated with local British administrative officers to resolve disputes between them and communities.

Since Burma’s independence, Karen communities have continuously called for the recognition of their rights to their ancestral territories and a peaceful and stable life. This has primarily taken the form of public protests, and the creation and dissemination of reports, documentaries, and songs about the issues of destructive development and impacts of armed conflict that we face.

In recent decades these protests have been primarily focused on the continued presence of the Burmese army in Karen territories, and the threat this poses to communities’ lives and livelihoods. Protests have also resisted Thai and Chinese-backed mega hydropower dams proposed to be built on the Salween River.

Peaceful public protests are an important part of the Karen people’s resistance to mega development projects. (Source: Irrawaddy)

Karen communities have used a broad variety of strategies to resist unwanted and destructive activities in Karen areas. Public protests and marches are conducted annually on March 14th, the International Day of Action for Rivers and Against Dams, while smaller protests are conducted throughout the year against specific proposed development and/or investment projects, and the increased militarisation of the area by the Myanmar Army.

Communities also resist through celebration, gathering together to promote and strengthen Karen culture and history on important days throughout the year including August 9th, World Indigenous Peoples’ Day, January 31st, Karen Revolution Day, and Karen New Year which is on a different day each year based on the Karen calendar.

Our most tangible success from these decades of resistance is the declaration of the Salween Peace Park in December 2018, and subsequent election of its General Assembly and Governing Committee in April 2019.

The People’s Hope: Salween Peace Park

‘A living vision, not just a national park’

The Salween Peace Park is a grassroots, people-centered alternative to the Myanmar government and foreign companies’ plans for destructive development in the Salween River basin.

The Salween Peace Park initiative is committed to preventing destructive development on the river basin. (Source: KESAN)

Instead of massive dams on the Salween River, we propose small hydropower and decentralized solar power. Instead of large-scale mining and rubber plantations, we call for eco-tourism, sustainable forest management, agroforestry and organic farming. Instead of mega projects that create conflicts and threaten the resumption of war, we seek a lasting peace and a thriving ecosystem where people live in harmony with nature.

The Salween Peace Park empowers our indigenous Karen communities to guide local development and conservation in line with traditional knowledge and cultural practices. By basing local governance in the hands of the community, the Salween Peace Park enables the conservation of nature and Karen culture, and the pursuit of a peaceful and stable life for local communities, something that is denied to them by the Myanmar government’s laws and military ambitions.

In bringing the many efforts of communities across the area together into a coordinated unit, the SPP also seeks to upscale and strengthen the voices and aims of its communities. The SPP General Assembly is comprised of representatives from individual communities and Karen governing bodies, allowing communities to voice their opinions and concerns, and support their neighbors to present a strong united front in opposition to the destructive development and militarisation that threatens their everyday lives.

Local governance structures have been established, with power stemming from the grassroots-level upwards, and a charter representing the principles laid out by the SPP’s communities has already been developed. Members of the General Assembly are now working with knowledgeable community members in a series of working groups to strengthen the governing body and develop a series of initiatives to improve the lives of Karen communities inside the SPP. A master plan is also being developed, guided by local communities, to build a roadmap towards achieving their aspirations of peace and self-determination, environmental integrity, and cultural survival.

The new Myanmar government has promised to lead the country toward a devolved, federal democracy, but, so far they have not delivered. The Karen are not waiting idly for this: the Salween Peace Park is federal democracy in action.

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