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Japan: Indian Imperatives To Enhance Strategic Bonds To A Higher Plane – Analysis

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By Dr Subhash Kapila

Asia’s evolving geopolitics places a high premium on Indian imperatives to enhance strategic bonds to a higher plane during Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Japan on November11-12 2016 for the Annual Summit Dialogue.

In the Asian geopolitical and security environment the historical moment has come which dictates that both Japan and India as contending Powers with China jointly enhance their Special Global and Strategic Partnership so that Asian peace and stability under assault by China’s military rise, is safeguarded. History has placed at this momentous moment two dynamic Prime Ministers in both Japan and India who can drive this process, namely Japanese Prime Minister Abe and Indian Prime Minister Modi. Both together can craft a game-changer in Asian security and stability.

Indian diplomacy should stop pretending that all is well between India and China. In November 2016 the strategic picture obtaining indicates lucidly that China in the arrogance of its newfound overwhelming military power finds itself not only at strategic odds with both Japan and India, but is also engaged in military provocative actions on India’s borders with China Occupied Tibet and in the East China Sea against Japan.

Japan and India are also being subjected by China to China-generated turbulence in their neighbourhoods through its nuclear weaponised proxy states of North Korea and Pakistan.

China clearly recognises that what stands in between China establishing complete Chinese hegemony over Asia are Japan and India. China will try its utmost to drive wedges between Japan and India to divide them as it has done in dividing ASEAN Region over the South China Sea disputes. Japan and India would have to be alert on such Chinese manoeuvres.

China may not succeed with Japan in this direction as Japan has a long diplomatic historical experience to see through such games. China will certainly try to woo away India from Japan by offering inducements of normalisation on the border disputes. India must recognise that China-India military confrontation will out-last the 21st Century as argued in my recent Book: “China-India Military Confrontation: 21st Century Perspectives”.

With the commonality of China figuring as the main military threat to Japan and India, there are logical reasons for capitalising on the strategic convergences that flow from this reality check. Also, flowing from the foregoing are that strong imperatives for Japan and India to enhance their Special Global and Strategic Partnership to substantively higher levels to manage the Chinese menace.

Perceptionaly, Japan long wedded to strategic realism and now liberated by Prime Minister Abe from Constitutional straitjacketing on playing a wider security role would have no problem in enhancing and adding more muscle to the Japan- India Strategic Partnership. The challenge is for Indian diplomacy to break-out from Nehruvian mind-sets that international strategic relationships can be pegged to “Platonic Relationships” devoid of security and political realism.

Prime Minister Modi’s personal dynamism and personal initiatives must come into full play during his forthcoming November 2016 visit to Tokyo and be liberated from advisories from the policy planning establishment which invariably start accounting for Chinese sensitivities.

Prime Minister Modi’s top-most agenda during the forthcoming Summit Dialogue in Tokyo is to make forceful assertions on the South China Sea and that China should respect the ruling of The Hague International Tribunal that China’s claims on the South China Sea are illegal and void.

India needs to recognise that Japan as an island nation feels vulnerable to China establishing military control over the South China Sea through which Japan’s lifelines of trade and commerce traverse. Japan needs all the support to meet Chinese coercion, though Japan is hardly the country with its rich martial traditions to buckle under Chinese coercion.

Coming to the Japan-India Civil Nuclear Deal which would enable Japanese investments in India’s nuclear power generation, India has to exhibit patience and understanding in the processes involved in Japan to get through both political and psychological hurdles. One is confident that Japan under the dynamic leadership of PM Abe will able to swing this Deal ultimately. The Indian media would be well-advised to not to make this issue as an index to the success of PM Modi’s visit to Japan.

Japan and India should ensure that no meaningful ties are maintained with those ASEAN countries that cosy upto China, for whatever reasons on the South China Sea dispute at the cost of ASEAN solidarity against Chinese military adventurism in the South China Sea.

Defence production, defence purchases from Japan and involving Japanese majors in PM Modi’s pet project of ‘Make in India’ military hardware is an important area for Japan-India strategic cooperation. Having been on a diplomatic assignment in Japan for nearly four years, one can vouchsafe that Japanese military hardware backed by their high technology expertise is the best in the world.

Japanese Navy despite numerically lesser in number than the Chinese Navy is by far the most superior Navy in Asia with total indigenous production including helicopter carriers. The entire range of Japanese Navy combatant ships are of indigenous production origin with a record of speedy production schedules.

Indian Ocean is being churned up by China’s intrusive ambitions to affect a substantial presence, courtesy Pakistan. Japan maritime lifelines traverse the Indian Ocean and therefore the scope of Japan-India naval cooperation in the Indian Ocean is endless and fathomless, along with the United States Navy. Japan and India must now graduate to a higher level of naval cooperation in the Indian Ocean than mere joint naval exercises.

Japanese intelligence too is backed by long history of successes and meaningful intelligence liaison and cooperation by India is a much needed imperative, especially when it comes to China coverage.

While on the issue of Japan, it needs to be emphasised that the US-Japan-India Trilateral and the US-Japan-India-Australia Quadrilateral need focussed attention and participation by India as the common denominator in both are Japan and USA with which India is now aligned for all practical purposes. India under the last political dispensation virtually opted out of these strategic purposes as at that time both the Prime Minister and his National Security Adviser were weighed down with the burden of “What would China think and how would China react?” One is tempted to ask as to whether these eminences ever pondered whether China was similarly sensitive to India strategic sensitivities, especially concerning Pakistan?

India should realise that it is high time that the Indian policy establishment sheds this infructuous and illogical millstone around its neck as to “What China would think?” The Indian policy establishment should be more concerned as to how India’s national security interests are best secured against a domineering China which goes to the extremes to shield Islamic Jihadi terrorists of Pakistan in the United Nations.

Concluding, it needs to be re-emphasised that as Prime Minister Modi heads to Tokyo in mid-November 2016 for the Third Summit Dialogue with Japanese Prime Minister, Abe, the burning desire should be to give firm shape and contours to the Japan-India Special Global and Strategic Partnership. Asian geopolitical imperatives demand the same.


Clouds Are Impeding Global Warming, For Now

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Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers have identified a mechanism that causes low clouds – and their influence on Earth’s energy balance – to respond differently to global warming depending on their spatial pattern.

The results imply that studies relying solely on recent observed trends are likely to underestimate how much Earth will warm due to increased carbon dioxide. The research appears in the Oct. 31 edition of the journal, Nature Geosciences.

The research focused on clouds, which influence Earth’s climate by reflecting incoming solar radiation and reducing outgoing thermal radiation. As the Earth’s surface warms, the net radiative effect of clouds also changes, contributing a feedback to the climate system. If these cloud changes enhance the radiative cooling of the Earth, they act as a negative, dampening feedback on warming. Otherwise, they act as a positive, amplifying feedback on warming. The amount of global warming due to increased carbon dioxide is critically dependent on the sign and magnitude of the cloud feedback, making it an area of intense research.

The researchers showed that the strength of the cloud feedback simulated by a climate model exhibits large fluctuations depending on the time period. Despite having a positive cloud feedback in response to long-term projected global warming, the model exhibits a strong negative cloud feedback over the last 30 years. At the heart of this difference are low-level clouds in the tropics, which strongly cool the planet by reflecting solar radiation to space.

“With a combination of climate model simulations and satellite observations, we found that the trend of low-level cloud cover over the last three decades differs substantially from that under long-term global warming” said Chen Zhou, lead author of the paper.

“The key difference is the spatial pattern of global warming”, said Mark Zelinka, LLNL climate scientists and co-author of the study. “Not every degree of global warming is created equal, in terms of its effect on low clouds.”

In response to increased carbon dioxide, climate models predict a nearly uniform warming of the planet that favors reductions in highly reflective low clouds and a positive feedback. In contrast, over the last 30 years, tropical surface temperatures have increased in regions where air ascends and decreased where air descends. “This particular pattern of warming is nearly optimal for enhancing low cloud coverage because it increases low-level atmospheric stability that keeps the lower atmosphere moist and cloudy”, said Stephen Klein, the third co-author.

“Most satellite data starts around 1980, so linear trends over the last three decades are often used to make inferences about long-term global warming and to estimate climate sensitivity,” said LLNL’s Chen Zhou, lead author of the study. “Our results indicate that cloud feedback and climate sensitivity calculated from recently observed trends may be underestimated, since the warming pattern during this period is so unique.”

Global temperature has gradually increased over the instrumental record due to increased greenhouse gas concentrations. But superimposed on this warming are large temperature fluctuations due to natural internal variability of the climate system, as well as influences from volcanic eruptions, aerosol pollution and solar variability. Whereas warming due to CO2 tends to be relatively spatially uniform, surface temperature trends due to internal climate variability and aerosol pollution are highly non-uniform, with trends on one side of an ocean basin often opposing those on the other. Trends computed over short time periods are often strongly influenced by factors other than CO2 and can be highly misleading indicators of what to expect under CO2-forced global warming.

The team emphasized that clouds are particularly sensitive to subtle differences in surface warming patterns, and researchers must carefully account for such pattern effects when making inferences about cloud feedback and climate sensitivity from observations over short time periods.

Serbia: PM Vucic Orders News Blackout On Arms Finds

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By Milivoje Pantovic

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has ordered members of security and state institutions in charge of his safety from going public with any more information on the weapons caches reportedly found in and around Belgrade, Serbian national broadcaster RTS reported on Wednesday.

According to the same report, Vucic did not show up in his office on Wednesday, for the first time since he took office in 2014. His staff did not give a reason for his absence.

Following Vucic’s order, the session of parliament’s Board for the Control of Security Services, which was due to discuss the Prime Minister’s safety on Thursday, has been cancelled.

The order came after police on Tuesday said they had found a new arms stash in a car in a garage in New Belgrade containing 400 grammes of explosives, a detonator, two mobile phones for remote activation of the explosives, a gun and a submachine gun.

Concerns have been raised that the weapons were intended for use against Vucic or his brother, after Interior Minster Nebojsa Stefanovic on Tuesday said the Prime Minister had voiced concerns about the safety of his brother, Andrej Vucic.

On Sunday, at a press conference, Vucic accused the media of “targeting” his brother, an owner of restaurants and a businessman.

Interior Minister Stefanovic said last Saturday that Prime Minister Vucic had been “moved to safety” after police found a large quantities of weapons hidden close to his family home in Jajinci, near Belgrade.

Stefanovic stated on that occasion that police found several hand grenades, a bazooka and large quantities of ammunition for machine-guns and snipers, hidden in the woods.

Miroslav Hadzic, from the Belgrade Centre for Security Policies, a think tank, stated on Wednesday that “this kind of public investigation”, meaning regular public updates on the findings in Jajinci and New Belgrade, was not normal practice in security circles.

“If we bear in mind that in recent months we have repeatedly frightened citizens and the public, saying something will happen, it all creates a suspicion that someone is intentionally producting such situations,” Hadzic told Belgrade-based TV N1.

He said the public was being subjected to a staged dramatisation of events, and that a politicisation of these events would likely follow.

“The perpetrators of [events in] Jajinci are not even identified yet but now they are putting the PM’s brother into the equation. That is another mistake by the police minister, to publicly talk about the weak points of the PM and his brother. That should remain a secret,” he said.

Security experts and analysts say the investigation into a suspected planned attack on Vucic should be conducted promptly and discretely.

Journalist Filip Svarm told BIRN that since Serbia has has direct experiences of political assassinations, noting the killing of late Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic in 2003 , all such threats should be investigated and taken seriously.

“What worries me is that we hear a lot about investigations without real information, so it is looking more like political PR stunt then some serious investigation,” he said.

A former director of the Military Security Agency, Svetko Kovac, said on Wednesday that it was not clear that the arms found in Jajinci were intended for use against Vucic.

“All necessary measures should be undertaken so that it is revealed for what purpose the arms were left in Jajinci, who put them there and for what reason,” Kovac said in a statement on Wednesday to the Serbian daily Politika.
– See more at: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/serbian-pm-orders-silence-on-guns-investigation-11-02-2016#sthash.Tuo8V2Ve.dpuf

China Struggles Under Mountain Of Debt – Analysis

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By Michael Lelyveld

China is trying to dig out from a mountain of corporate debt, but the tools it has chosen may have little effect.

On Oct. 10, China’s cabinet-level State Council issued guidelines for a program to ease the economy’s debt burden by promoting investment in shares of troubled companies.

The debt-for-equity swap plan follows warnings from international financial institutions that China may face a crisis brought on by excessive lending and U.S. $18 trillion (121 trillion yuan) in corporate debt.

The corporate debt load has climbed to 169 percent of China’s gross domestic product, according to data from the Swiss-based Bank for International Settlements (BIS). But that is only part of China’s total debt, which now stands at an estimated 255 percent of GDP.

The warnings serve as a reminder that the government’s credit-fueled attempts to slow China’s slide in GDP growth have been accompanied by a rise in bad debt and problem loans.

In a September report, the BIS said that China runs the risk of a banking crisis in the next three years.

On Oct. 1, the International Monetary Fund hailed the inclusion of China’s yuan in its basket of currencies for Special Drawing Rights, calling it a “historic milestone” for the country that marks its economic progress.

Yet, three days later, the IMF warned in its updated World Economic Outlook that “the economy’s dependence on credit is increasing at a dangerous pace, intermediated through an increasingly opaque and complex financial sector.”

“Dangerous” is a term rarely used in IMF parlance. For a country just admitted to the world’s elite currency club, it may be considered extraordinary.

“The high and rising credit dependence reflects a combination of factors—the pursuit of unsustainably high growth targets, efforts to prop up nonviable state-owned enterprises to preserve employment … and opportunistic lending by financial intermediaries in the belief that all debt is implicitly guaranteed by the government,” the IMF said.

Masking the problems

China’s new debt-for-equity swaps could have a marginal effect on the debt numbers, but it may only mask the problems by increasing the shares of distressed companies held by state banks.

To limit the risk, the government has barred chronic debtors and the most troubled “zombie” companies from taking part in share swaps.

“The program is open only to promising companies with short-term difficulties,” said Lian Weiliang, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) planning agency.

“Loss-making zombie companies will be strictly banned,” Lian said, according to the official English-language China Daily.

State media have stressed the positive aspects of the swap plan.

“This kind of swap is generally believed to benefit both banks and struggling companies,” said the official Xinhua news agency. “They reduce the pressure on companies and free up bank balance sheets, releasing capital for investment.”

But the exclusion of seriously distressed enterprises has raised doubts that the plan will do much to shrink China’s mountain of debt.

“If the program only helps the salvageable companies, then it will do little to solve the problem of the hard cases where most of the debt is concentrated,” said The Wall Street Journal in its “Heard on the Street” column.

“There are no policy panaceas for China’s debt problem—just placebos,” the paper said.

Although details remain sketchy, the government has taken pains to distinguish the plan from a previous swap program launched in the 1990s.

“The government will play a complementary role only,” China Daily quoted the guidelines as saying. “It will not be responsible for choosing which companies are qualified for the program and won’t bear the losses during the swap process.”

Capping debt ratios

Despite the hands-off approach, Lian suggested there could be a cap on the debt ratios of firms participating in swap deals, Hong Kong’s daily The Standard reported.

Last week, the State Council also agreed to establish a “joint meeting system” of 17 ministries and commissions to reduce corporate leverage and organize pilot deals for debt- to-equity swaps, the National Business Daily reported.

The process suggests that government bureaucracy will be deeply involved despite the insistence that it will play only a “complementary role.”

The NDRC has offered no estimate of the size of the program or its target for participation.

“This round of the debt-for-equity conversion program is ‘market-oriented,’ and there is no predetermined scale of the plan,” said NDRC spokesman Zhao Chenxin in a Xinhua report.

The emphasis on a market-driven process and the lack of government guarantees appear to be responses to concerns raised by the IMF.

In a China Daily interview, the IMF’s senior resident representative for China, Alfred Schipke, said the guidelines are a sign that the government “has realized the risks posed by rising debt issues.”

But Schipke also warned that “the challenge lies in the implementation process when it comes to local levels,” the paper said.

The State Council sought to downplay expectations of a big wave of swaps by banks, noting that debts must first be transferred to an “execution agency” for conversion.

Reports named “asset managers, insurers, state-owned asset firms, as well as qualified units at banks” as agencies that would organize swap deals with investor participation.

Role of agencies and investors

What if any role the agencies and investors would have in the management of the companies remains unclear.

Private investment interest may prove to be a particularly weak point in the plan.

Growth of private investment in fixed assets has been weak since the start of the year, reaching a rate of just 2.5 percent for the first nine months. The government’s stance against backing for debt swaps may do little to encourage private investment in new shares.

“The government definitely won’t pick up the tab for any losses,” Lian said, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

With or without the intermediaries of “execution agencies,” the burdens of debt and potential share losses are likely to fall on the banks.

China’s lending spree has already raised international concerns for bank risks.

In September, yuan-denominated loans jumped 29 percent from a month earlier to 1.22 trillion yuan (U.S. $181 billion), largely on mortgage lending, according to the People’s Bank of China (PBOC).

The surge, after more than doubling in August, pushed new loans in the first nine months to a record 10.16 trillion yuan (U.S. $1.51 trillion), Reuters said.

On Oct. 11, analysts at S&P Global Market Intelligence warned that rising corporate debts could force China to recapitalize its banks with an infusion of U.S. $1.7 trillion (11.4 trillion yuan) to cover bad loans.

In the S&P survey of 200 top companies, 70 percent were state-owned enterprises (SOEs), accounting for U.S. $2.8 trillion (18.8 trillion yuan) of debt, Reuters said.

Gary Hufbauer, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, said the debt-for-equity swaps are likely to address only a small part of China’s problem.

“I think the problem is so large that what they’re going to do will be somewhat on the cosmetic side,” said Hufbauer. “I would regard this as a gesture to buy time, basically,” he said.

Too large to convert

One concern is that corporate debt is too large to convert into shares on a large scale without running the risk of diluting share values and crashing the stock market, Hufbauer said.

Typically, debt-for-equity swaps lead to a realization of losses as part of the process.

In China’s case, state banks have resisted recognizing problem loans to SOEs as non-performing for years, keeping the PBOC’s official bad loan ratio relatively low.

In the first nine months of the year, the liabilities of China’s SOEs rose 9.9 percent from a year earlier to 85.3 trillion yuan (U.S. $12.6 trillion), according to Ministry of Finance data.

“Maybe at the end of the day, a lot of this has to be just written off,” said Hufbauer. “That’s not going to be pleasant either, and naturally, every attempt will be made to postpone that unhappy day.”

In September, the government approved the first of the new round of debt-equity swaps, allowing state-owned metals company Sinosteel to trade 27 billion yuan (U.S. $4 billion) of its debt for equity convertible bonds.

The bonds can be exchanged for shares in the company at a later date, Caixin magazine and Reuters reported. The deal is said to cover nearly half of Sinosteel’s debt owed directly to financial institutions.

The plan includes an “initial investment” of 10 billion yuan (U.S. $1.5 billion) from the government’s State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), Caixin said.

India-Myanmar Relations: A Fine Balance – Analysis

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On a recent four-day visit to India, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi attended the eighth BIMSTEC Summit (The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) and the first BRICS (grouping of Brazil Russia India South Africa)-BIMSTEC Outreach Summit, both of which took place in the Indian State of Goa. In addition she was accorded a State visit as State Counsellor, a post she assumed on 30 March 2016 following the landslide victory of her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), in November 2015. Aung San Suu Kyi’s trip highlighted the geo-strategic importance of this relationship, connecting India to its near neighbourhood and beyond, to Southeast Asia. In their joint statement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and State Counsellor Aung Sang Suu Kyi pronounced a shared interest in Myanmar’s democratisation, economic and social development and strongly condemned the common scourge of terrorism.

By Jivanta Schoettli*

Sandwiched between China and India, Myanmar has to pursue a delicate balancing act. In August 2016, Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi chose China as the destination for her first official trip to a major power. This followed a visit she had already made to Beijing in June 2015, then as opposition leader, which was widely interpreted as attempting to repair relations that had been faltering since the installation of a nominally civilian government in 2011. Both visits aimed at overcoming the past when China had supported the military junta responsible for detaining her for more than fifteen years (both in prison and under house arrest). To calibrate Aung San Suu Kyi’s overtures to China, President U Htin Kyaw was sent to India on his first overseas trip in August 2016, also to prepare the ground for the State Counsellor’s recent visit to India.

In addition to long land boundaries with both India and China, Myanmar boasts a 1,930 km coastline along the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. As a result both India and China have been vying for connectivity projects and deepening economic relations. Thus for example China would like to build a rail and road network linking the province of Yunnan with the Bay of Bengal through Myanmar. Meanwhile India has already been working on the Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport Project to connect Kolkata port to Sittwe port in Myanmar. An inland waterway would link Sittwe to Paletwa on the river Kaladan and Myanmar’s westernmost town and from there a road to the border would reach Lawngtlai district in the Indian state of Mizoram. Progress has been slow but most recently India Ports Global Private Limited, a joint venture between Kandla Port Trust and Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, has joined forces with the Inland Waterways Authority of India to take the project forward.

India and China are also both involved in a connectivity project with Myanmar, through the BCIM (Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar) Economic Corridor (EC) seeking to link Kolkata with Kunming, capital of Yunnan and passing through Mandalay in Myanmar and Dhaka in Bangladesh. These ambitious plans reflect in part the geo-strategic ambitions of both major players, India and China. The former hopes to give its landlocked north-eastern states access to the sea, via Kolkata port, and the latter seeks to reduce reliance on the Straits of Malacca as a trade route. Both the governments of Bangladesh and Myanmar have explicitly supported the BCIM initiative, which is technically part and parcel of China’s larger Belt and Road projects and vision. In some parts the BCIM–EC infrastructure already exists and needs upgrading to develop all-weather facilities. However, other sections of the route require heavy investments and are complicated by sensitivities in areas that are insurgency-prone (for instance in the northernmost Kachin state of Myanmar) or where developing connectivity is seen as a strategic risk, for example in terms of enabling Chinese access to India’s Northeast.

One of the three MOUs signed on Aung San Suu Kyi’s recent visit to India included cooperation in the power sector, a key area where India and Myanmar have taken some very preliminary steps. China has already acquired a strong presence and influence in Myanmar’s power sector, although the current NLD government is keen to better leverage its position and resources. For example, it is estimated that Myanmar’s hydroelectric sector has a potential of 100 GW, of which currently only 3 GW has been developed. Hydropower is the government’s hope for clean energy and for addressing its severe electricity shortfall. This is crucial to sustain the country’s economic revival and to deliver the transformative change promised by the NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi in the election campaign. Dams and hydro projects had become a sensitive issue with public opinion and government members unhappy over the degree of Chinese involvement and investments. As a result, projects approved by previous governments have been put under review.

Aside from the economy, Aung San Suu Kyi clearly stated that the government’s number one priority will be peace talks between the country’s military and armed ethnic groups and to bring about national peace and reconciliation following decades of ethnic conflict. India has expressed its support for the 21st century Panglong peace process, named after Aung San Suu Kyi’s father’s efforts to reach an accord with ethnic minorities for a federal state. It has appreciated Myanmar’s cooperation and control over insurgent groups that have been active both in India and Myanmar, such as the National Socialist Council of Nagaland – Khaplan, which proclaims the creation of a separatist state; launched attacks on civilians and security forces and was labelled a terrorist organisation by the Indian government on 6 November 2015. India therefore clearly shares an interest in border security and stability and stands to gain from Myanmar’s peace process.

However, the peace process has been internationally criticised for its criteria of inclusion and the procedures which have been used to exclude potential parties. India too has been blamed for not being more vocal on the issue of attacks on, and representation of, the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, a number of whom live in India as refugees. In fact the recent joint statement is significant for recognising the bilateral importance of the peace process, with India hoping that, ‘as a diverse and pluralistic society Myanmar will be able to find equitable solutions peacefully through consultations among all stakeholders”.

Conclusion

Although it was her first official visit to India, Aung San Suu Kyi was welcomed by Narendra Modi to her ‘second home’, alluding to the time spent in New Delhi as a student in the 1960s, when her mother was ambassador. For her part, Nobel Laureate Suu Kyi conveyed Myanmar’s admiration for India as “the greatest democracy in the world”.

Democracy is rarely invoked by the Indian state as the basis for diplomacy and integration with other countries. However, India is tapping a common heritage of diversity and plurality in the case of Myanmar-India relations and identifying issues where shared values are projected. Thus the recent terror attacks in Uri (India) and Rakhine State (Myanmar) were mentioned together in their statement and the Prime Minister and State Counsellor chose to define and condemn terrorism emotively as a ‘violation of human rights’ and the destruction of ‘innocent lives’. Democratisation and development are both key to Myanmar’s transition from military to civilian government. Achieving a fine balance between them is going to be the country’s central domestic challenge as it is going to be, for India in the honing of its foreign policy towards Myanmar.

About the author:
*Dr Jivanta Schoettli
is Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), an autonomous research institute at the National University of Singapore. She can be contacted at isassj@nus.edu.sg. The author, not ISAS, is liable for the facts cited and opinions expressed in this paper.

Source:
This article was published by ISAS as ISAS Brief No. 452 (PDF)

Russia-China Strategic Alignment: Consequences For Southeast Asian Security – Analysis

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By Ian Storey*

In response to China’s rising power, the United States has strengthened strategic ties with key allies and partners in the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan, Australia, India, Vietnam and Singapore. In contrast, due to regional anxieties triggered by its military modernization and actions in the South China Sea, China has been unable to significantly deepen strategic relations with regional states with one notable exception: Russia.

Under Vladimir Putin, Russia’s paramount leader since 2000, Sino-Russian ties have progressed along a positive continuum. This trend accelerated when Putin began his third term as president in 2012, and especially after Moscow’s relations with the West nosedived following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014. Although economic interaction between Russia and China has faltered, political relations have never been better, due primarily to a convergence of views on major international issues, particularly Sino-Russian opposition to US primacy and the shared perception that they are the targets of US policies of containment and regime change.

Due to the entrenched political positions of President Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, structural problems in Russia’s economy that will lead to greater dependency on China, and growing tensions in US-Russia and US-China relations over international hotspots, the Sino-Russian strategic alignment will likely gain momentum over the next decade. Closer cooperation and coordination between Moscow and Beijing has important consequences for Southeast Asian security, especially in the South China Sea where Russia’s growing diplomatic support and military assistance to China will help Beijing advance its interests.

UNDERSTANDING THE SINO-RUSSIAN STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT

President Putin’s “turn to the east” is largely driven by economic necessity. When the policy was officially announced in 2012, Putin’s aim was to reduce the country’s economic dependence on the West and take advantage of high growth rates in Asia, particularly in China. As the price of oil plunged (Russia’s principal export commodity) and Western sanctions imposed over Russia’s seizure of Crimea began to bite, Putin’s “Asia pivot” was given added urgency.

Although China is at the heart of its Asia policy, Moscow has been disappointed with the development of Sino-Russian economic ties. Trade between the two countries dropped to $68 billion in 2015—30 per cent lower on 2014 and far short of the $100 billion target—as China’s slower economic growth weakened demand for Russia’s natural resources and the devaluation of the rouble reduced Chinese exports to Russia. Russia has expressed disappointment at the trickle of Chinese investment, which Chinese businessmen blame on the country’s inhospitable investment climate. Weak rule of law, endemic corruption and asset-grabbing mean that Russia’s economic prospects are poor without radical reforms which are unlikely given the Putin regime’s vested interest in preserving the current system.1

Russia’s continued economic weakness will deepen its dependence on China for sales of commodities and defence technology.

In contrast to economic ties, political relations between the two countries have strengthened considerably. Since 2012, Putin and Xi have met 15 times and established a close personal rapport. Good personal chemistry is important because within their respective political systems Putin and Xi are the final arbiters of foreign policy. Furthermore, the two leaders’ world views demonstrate a high degree of convergence. Indeed, according to Putin “Russia and China have very close or almost identical views on international developments.”2 In particular, the Chinese and Russian leaders perceive US primacy in the international system to be not only inimical to their national interests but also a threat to regime survival.

A staple in both Russian and Chinese foreign policy narratives is that America is pursuing a policy of containment that is designed to keep them weak and isolated. Underlying these accusations is a shared sense of victimhood; that the West has conspired to deprive them of territory, status and influence during periods of historical weakness—China during the “Century of Humiliation” and Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991—and continues to do so. As evidence, Russia points to the enlargement of NATO membership to include former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact allies between 1999 and 2004, and the imposition of Western sanctions over Crimea. China’s leaders have long accused the US of trying to contain its rising power, and view the Obama administration’s Asian pivot— including the Trans-Pacific Partnership—as merely the latest iteration of this policy. Moscow and Beijing believe that US plans to station anti-ballistic missile systems in Eastern Europe and Northeast Asia—the Aegis Ashore system in Romania and Poland, and the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system in South Korea—are designed to undermine their nuclear deterrents.

According to Chinese and Russian narratives, America’s ultimate ambition is to overthrow their political systems by orchestrating “colour revolutions” such as occurred in several former Soviet states over the past decade. At a summit meeting in Beijing in June 2016, Russia and China gave vent to these concerns when they identified increasingly “negative factors” affecting global strategic stability, including US anti-missile defence systems, unilateral economic sanctions and interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states with the “aim of forging change in legitimate governments”.3

Officially, Russia and China describe their relationship as a Comprehensive Partnership of Strategic Coordination. Neither side views a formal political-military alliance as necessary or even desirable. In any case there are still trust issues that militate against a Sino-Russian alliance. Russia is uneasy about China’s growing influence in Central Asia and still harbours residual concerns that Beijing ultimately seeks to recover territories in the Russian Far East that it ceded to Moscow in the nineteenth century. For its part, China is not comfortable with Russian arms sales to its two main rivals in Asia, India and Vietnam.

Despite these misgivings, the trust deficit between Russia and America, and China and America, is far greater than that between Russia and China. Thus while the two sides eschew an alliance, they have agreed to increase cooperation and coordination in international affairs and support—or at least not oppose—each other on issues affecting their core interests.

Thus, while Russia’s annexation of Crimea violated China’s principle of non-interference and non-support for separatist movements, Beijing did not protest against it and abstained when the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) voted on the issue in March 2014. China has also been broadly supportive of Russia’s military operations in Syria because they share the same goals—the survival of the Assad regime and the defeat of Islamic State—and has joined with Russia in vetoing four US-sponsored UNSC resolutions on Syria since 2011.

In June 2016, Moscow demonstrated its support for Beijing over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea when Russian and Chinese warships conducted coordinated patrols within 24 nautical miles of the Japanese-administered atolls. But it is in the South China Sea that Russia’s support is proving most valuable to Beijing.

MOSCOW, BEIJING AND THE SOUTH CHINA SEA DISPUTE

Recently, Moscow’s stance over the South China Sea has moved from neutrality to tacit support for Beijing. For many years Russia had tried to avoid taking sides so as not to damage relations with its two main Asian partners, China and Vietnam, which contest ownership of the Paracel and Spratly Islands. Russia does not take a position on competing sovereignty claims and has called on the claimants to resolve the dispute peacefully, abide by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and implement conflict management mechanisms.

As Sino-Russian relations have strengthened, however, Russia has deviated from this strict neutrality in support of China’s position. The first indication of this shift occurred in August 2015, when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sided with China by saying that the dispute should be resolved by the claimants themselves without “outside interference”— a veiled reference both to America and the Arbitral Tribunal established in 2013 to hear a case brought by the Philippines which challenged the legality of China’s jurisdictional claims in the South China Sea.4 In the first half of 2016, China launched a concerted campaign to rally international opinion in support of its position that the dispute could only be resolved by the parties directly concerned and that the Tribunal had no jurisdiction. It was in this context that Lavrov stated in April that Russia opposed “internationalizing” the dispute.5 When the Tribunal announced its decision on 12 July—that China’s “historic rights” claims within the so-called nine-dash line were incompatible with UNCLOS—the response from Russia’s Foreign Ministry was anodyne and merely reiterated its existing position. However, at the G-20 Summit in Hangzhou in September, Putin came out in support of China’s decision to reject the ruling.6 This represented a major diplomatic coup for Beijing, as so far Russia is the only major country to side with it over the Tribunal’s award. In contrast, America, Japan and Australia have called on both parties to abide by the ruling. As a quid pro quo, if Ukraine initiates legal action against Russia over the annexation of Crimea, Moscow will expect Beijing to back its rejection of international legal arbitration.

Within a week of the G-20 meeting, five Russian and ten Chinese warships began an eight- day combined exercise in the South China Sea which included anti-submarine, air defence and “island seizing” operations.7 Although the naval drills did not take place in disputed areas, they were widely interpreted as another sign of Moscow’s increasing tilt towards Beijing in the South China Sea.

Of greater importance than Moscow’s diplomatic support over the South China Sea are the benefits China derives from closer defence cooperation with Russia.

During the 1990s, China purchased an estimated US$30 billion of Russian weaponry, including fighter jets, submarines and destroyers.8 But Russian arms transfers to China significantly decreased in the mid-2000s, partly because China had become capable of producing many of its own weapons systems, but also due to Moscow’s annoyance with China for reverse engineering Russian equipment which was then sold on the international market at a cheaper price.

In 2010, however, China and Russia resumed discussions on defence cooperation. Although China’s domestic defence industries have achieved a high-level of self-sufficiency and technical competence, Russia’s arms manufacturers still maintain an edge in certain areas, especially engine, radar and missile technology which Beijing is keen to acquire. After the West imposed sanctions on Russia in 2014, economic imperatives led Moscow to accelerate arms sales negotiations with Beijing.

In 2015, Russia announced that it had agreed to sell the advanced S-400 surface-to-air missile system—designed to destroy enemy aircraft, cruise and ballistic missiles within a range of up to 400km—to China for US$3 billion and 24 SU-35s—Russia’s most advanced air superiority fighter currently in service—for US$2 billion. China is reportedly in talks with Russia to purchase a naval version of the S-400 and Lada-class fourth generation diesel electric submarines.

The transfer of cutting-edge Russian arms to China, and agreements to jointly develop future advanced weapons technology, will likely impact the South China Sea dispute in two ways. First, it will widen the gap in capabilities between China’s armed forces and those of the Southeast Asian claimants. Second, the highly mobile and lethal S-400 could be deployed to China’s artificial islands in the Spratlys during crisis periods, enabling China to exercise greater control of the airspace over the South China Sea. It will also strengthen China’s anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities, thus complicating US military responses to crises in Asia that could undermine US security assurances to regional states.9
<h2

Vietnam is Russia’s most important partner in Southeast Asia. It is a major buyer of Russian arms and energy expertise, and Hanoi has given the Russian military unfettered access to air and naval facilities at Cam Ranh Bay. However, given Russia’s growing economic dependence on China, Moscow’s relations with Beijing will always trump its ties with Hanoi.

Closer Sino-Russian strategic ties are not in Hanoi’s interests. In opposition to China, Vietnam has assiduously promoted the “internationalization” of the South China Sea dispute and supported greater US and Japanese engagement over the issue. Vietnam benefitted from the Arbitral Tribunal’s ruling that China cannot claim historic rights to energy and fishery resources in areas where its nine-dash line overlaps with Vietnam’s 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone. As Russia moves closer to China’s position on the South China Sea it moves further away from Vietnam’s and this could undermine political relations between the two countries. In addition, sales of advanced Russian weaponry to China undercuts the deterrent and operational value of Vietnam’s armed forces. For example, the Lada-class submarines that China is interested in buying from Russia are more advanced than the six Kilo-class submarines Vietnam has purchased from Russia.

For economic and strategic reasons, the Kremlin will want to preserve its close relationship with Vietnam. And given the large amount of armaments Moscow has already sold to Hanoi, Vietnam is likely to be dependent on Russia for spare parts and maintenance for at least the next two decades. However, as the Sino-Russian strategic alignment strengthens, Vietnam will probably move to reduce its dependence on Russia’s arms industry by pursuing closer defence ties with other states, including America—which lifted its arms embargo on Vietnam in May 2016—, Japan, Israel and European countries.

CONCLUSION

Convergent world views, opposition to US hegemony, personal bonhomie and Russia’s economic problems have brought Moscow and Beijing closer together. As the trust deficit in US-Russia and US-China relations widens, the Sino-Russian strategic alignment will likely strengthen.

The repercussions for Southeast Asia will be most apparent in the South China Sea: Moscow will increase its diplomatic support for China’s position, and greater access to Russian defence technology will significantly enhance the capabilities of China’s armed forces to uphold the country’s maritime claims. Over time, Vietnam is likely to diversify its military ties to reduce dependence on Russia.

About the author:
* Ian Storey
is Senior Fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute and Editor of Contemporary Southeast Asia.

Source:
This article was published by ISEAS as ISEAS Perspective No. 59 (PDF)

Notes:
1 Philip Hanson, “Russia’s Global Strategy: Is it Economically Sustainable?”, in Putin’s Russia: Really Back?, edited by Aldo Ferrari (Milan: Ledizioni Publishing, 2016), p. 34.
2 Press Statements following Russian-Chinese Talks, 25 June 2016, President of Russia website < http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/17728>.
3 “China, Russia sign joint statement on strengthening global strategic stability”, Xinhua, 26 June 2016; The Declaration of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the Promotion of International Law, 25 June 2016.
4 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview with Channel NewsAsia, Kuala Lumpur, 5 August 2015.
5 “Beijing seeks Moscow’s support over South China Sea court battle with Philippines”, South China Morning Post, 20 April 2016.
6 “Russia supports China’s stance on South China Sea”, Sputnik, 5 September 2016.
7 “China, Russia kick off joint South China Sea exercise”, USNI News, 12 September 2016.
8 Paul Schwartz, Russia’s Contribution to China’s Surface Warfare Capabilities: Feeding the Dragon (Washington D.C.: CSIS, 2015).
9 Timothy Heath, “How China’s New Russian Air Defense System Could Change Asia”, War on the Rocks, 21 January 2016.

Why Palestinians Want To Sue Britain – OpEd

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Last July, the Palestinian Authority took the unexpected, although belated step of seeking Arab backing in suing Britain over the Balfour Declaration. That “declaration’ was the first-ever explicit commitment made by Britain, and the West in general, to establish a Jewish homeland atop an existing Palestinian homeland.

It is too early to tell whether the Arab League would heed the Palestinian call, or if the PA would even follow through, especially considering that the latter has the habit of making too many proclamations backed by little or no action.

However, it seems that the next year will witness a significant tug of war regarding the Balfour Declaration, the 100th anniversary of which will be commemorated on Nov. 2, 2017. But who is Balfour, what is the Balfour Declaration and why does all of this matters today?

Britain’s Foreign Secretary from late 1916, Arthur James Balfour, had pledged Palestine to another people. That promise was made on Nov. 2, 1917 on behalf of the British government in the form of a letter sent to the leader of the Jewish community in Britain, Walter Rothschild.

At the time, Britain was not even in control of Palestine, which was still part of the Ottoman Empire. Either way, Palestine was never Balfour’s to so casually transfer to anyone else. He was hardly acting on his own. True, the declaration bears his name, yet, in reality, he was a loyal agent of an empire with massive geopolitical designs, not only concerning Palestine alone, but with Palestine as part of a larger Arab landscape.

Only a year earlier, another sinister document was introduced, albeit secretly. It was endorsed by another top British diplomat, Mark Sykes and, on behalf of France, by Francois Georges-Picot. The Russians were informed of the agreement, as they too had received a piece of the Ottoman cake.

The document indicated that, once the Ottomans were soundly defeated, their territories, including Palestine, would be split among the prospective victorious parties.

The centerpiece of the Sykes-Picot Agreement was a map that was marked with straight lines by a China graph pencil. The map largely determined the fate of the Arabs, dividing them in accordance with various haphazard assumptions of tribal and sectarian lines.

The improvised map consisted not only of lines but also colors, along with language that attested to the fact that the two countries viewed the Arab region purely on materialistic terms, without paying the slightest attention to the possible repercussions of slicing up entire civilizations with a multifarious history of cooperation and conflict.

British and French mandates were extended over divided Arab entities, while Palestine was granted to the Zionist movement a year later, when Belfour conveyed the British government’s promise, sealing the fate of Palestinians to a life of perpetual war and turmoil.

Many supercilious promises were being made to the Arabs during the Great War years, as the Arab leadership sided with the British in their war against the Ottoman Empire. Arabs were promised instant independence, including that of the Palestinians.

When the intentions of the British and their rapport with the Zionists became too apparent, Palestinians rebelled, marking a rebellion that has never ceased 99 years later, and highlighting the horrific consequences of British colonialism and the eventual complete Zionist takeover of Palestine, which is still felt after all of these years.

Paltry attempts to pacify Palestinian anger were to no avail, especially after the League of Nations Council in July 1922 approved the terms of the British Mandate over Palestine without consulting the Palestinians at all. In fact, Palestinians would disappear from the British and international radar, only to reappear as negligible rioters, troublemakers, and obstacles to the joint British-Zionist colonial concoctions.

Despite occasional assurances to the contrary, the British intention of ensuring the establishment of an exclusively Jewish state in Palestine was becoming clearer with time. The Balfour Declaration was not merely an aberration, but had, indeed, set the stage for the full-scale ethnic cleansing that followed, three decades later.

In fact, that history remains in constant replay: The Zionists claimed Palestine and renamed it “Israel;” the British continue to support them, although never ceasing to pay lip-service to the Arabs; and the Palestinian people remain a nation that is geographically fragmented between refugee camps, in the diaspora, militarily occupied, or treated as second- class citizens in a country upon which their ancestors dwelt since time immemorial.

What the British, the early Zionists, the Americans and subsequent Israeli governments failed to understand, and continue to ignore at their own peril, is that there can be no peace without justice and equality in Palestine; and that Palestinians will continue to resist, as long as the reasons that inspired their rebellion nearly a century ago, remain in place.

US Federal Judge Notes Refugee Bias – OpEd

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Judge Daniel Manion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has voiced concern over the almost complete lack of Christians among the more than 10,000 Syrian refugees admitted into the United States over the past year.

Judge Manion, an Obama appointee, noted that the administration had reached the “laudable goal” of resettling 10,000 Syrian refugees in the United States.

“And yet,” he wrote, “of the nearly 11,000 refugees admitted by mid-September, only 56 were Christian.”

“It is well-documented,” the judge wrote, “that refugees to the United States are not representative of that war-torn area of the world. Perhaps 10 percent of the population of Syria is Christian, and yet less than one-half of one percent of Syrian refugees admitted to the United States this year are Christian.”

This is especially appalling given that ISIS continues to target Christians in Syria and throughout the Middle East. And as Judge Manion pointed out, “To date, there has not been a good explanation for this perplexing discrepancy.” Up until now, he notes, “many of us remain in the dark as a humanitarian catastrophe continues.”

There can be no moral justification for this kind of disparity. The Obama administration rabidly pursues diversity and inclusion in all of its public policies, but not when it comes to Islamic fanatics committing genocide against Christians—they are sent to the back of the refugee line. The next president must deal with this issue forthrightly, and with celerity.


Pope Francis Reiterates Women Cannot Be Priests

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By Hannah Brockhaus

During a press conference Tuesday aboard the papal plane from Sweden to Rome, Pope Francis said the issue of women priests has been clearly decided, while also clarifying the essential role of women in the Catholic Church.

“On the ordination of women in the Catholic Church, the final word is clear, it was said by St. John Paul II and this remains,” Pope Francis told journalists Nov. 1.

The question concerning women priests in the Catholic Church was asked during the flight back to Rome after the Pope’s Oct. 31-Nov. 1 trip to Sweden to participate in a joint Lutheran-Catholic commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

While there, the Pope participated in ecumenical events alongside Swedish Lutheran and Catholic leaders, including the first female Lutheran archbishop in Sweden, Antje Jackelén. She is the head of the Church of Sweden, the largest denomination of Lutheranism in Europe.

After stating that the issue of female ordination is closed, the Pope added that women are very important to the Church, specifically from a “Marian dimension.”

“In Catholic ecclesiology there are two dimensions to think about,” he said. “The Petrine dimension, which is from the Apostle Peter, and the Apostolic College, which is the pastoral activity of the bishops, as well as the Marian dimension, which is the feminine dimension of the Church.”

Pointing out that the Holy Mother Church “is a woman,” Francis said that the “spousal mystery” of the Church as the spouse of Christ can help us to understand these two dimensions.

“I ask myself: who is most important in theology and in the mysticism of the Church: the apostles or Mary on the day of Pentecost? It’s Mary!” he said.

The Church “doesn’t exist” without this feminine dimension, or “maternity,” the Pope said, because the Church herself is feminine.

Pope Francis did express that he thinks women “can do so many things better than men, even in the dogmatic field,” but he clarified how it is still a separate dimension from that of priests and bishops in the Petrine dimension.

From the beginning of his papacy, Francis has been clear on the issue of women priests, while still emphasizing the unique and important role of women in the Church.

In a press conference returning from Rio de Janeiro on Aug. 5, 2013, he answered the same question: “with reference to the ordination of women, the Church has spoken and says, ‘No.’ John Paul II said it, but with a definitive formulation. That is closed, that door.”

He said that on the theology of woman he felt there was a “lack of a theological development,” which could be developed better. “You cannot be limited to the fact of being an altar server or the president of Caritas, the catechist … No! It must be more, but profoundly more, also mystically more.”

On his return flight from Philadelphia for the World Meeting of Families Sept. 28, 2015, the Pope again said that women priests “cannot be done,” and reiterated that a theology of women needs to “move ahead.”

“Pope St. John Paul II after long, long intense discussions, long reflection said so clearly,” that female ordination is not possible, he said.

Among concerns surrounding the Pope’s trip to Sweden, and the hope for continued progress on the path to communion between Lutherans and Catholics, was the issue of female ordination.

This is alongside other social and ethical issues, such as homosexuality and abortion, which are points of division not only between Catholics and Lutherans, but also within the global Lutheran community.

Transforming Commitment Into Action On Disaster Risk Reduction – OpEd

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Nothing erases development gains as suddenly and severely as natural disasters. Earthquakes, floods, droughts and cyclones wreak destruction, not only across borders but across generations, reversing the hard-won progress of many years in poverty reduction, delivery of essential services, promotion of small business and economic opportunity. Disaster resilience in Asia and the Pacific is mission critical for the success of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The second session of the Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD) in 2015 called for a regional road map to implement the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Asia and the Pacific. On 3rd November, leaders and decision-makers at the Asian Ministerial Conference for Disaster Risk Reduction (AMCDRR) will adopt the Asian Regional Plan for Implementation of the Sendai Framework. The adoption of the regional plan will contribute substantially to integrating disaster risk reduction and resilience into plans to achieve the related SDGs in Asia Pacific- the most disaster prone region in the world.

In the last decade, 1,624 disasters took place in Asia-Pacific. Approximately 400,000 people lost their lives, more than 1.4 billion were affected, and more than half a trillion dollars’ worth of economic damage was caused. Last year alone, disasters continued to undermine development gains, with the region accounting for 47% of the world’s 344 natural disasters, reporting over 16,000 fatalities, and incurring more than US$ 45.1 billion in economic damages, plus even more in indirect losses.

Foremost, strengthening the resilience of countries to disasters underpins all sustainable development activities, especially those involving critical sectors such as infrastructure. As a result of rapid development across Asia and the Pacific, infrastructure is increasingly being exposed to disasters; the 2015 earthquake in Nepal, for example, caused damage and loss equivalent to approximately one-third of the country’s GDP.

The region has accumulated a vast body of knowledge through generations of experience in using the latest scientific advancements to promote resilient infrastructure. ESCAP’s newest institution, the Asian and Pacific Centre for Development of Disaster Information Management (APDIM), will be at the forefront of providing capacity development support in disaster information management in the region, serving as an innovative platform to collectively address common regional challenges.

Second, there are opportunities to bridge gaps in knowledge and capacity for disaster risk reduction between the data, technology and capacity-poor and rich countries, through the use of STI. Despite the immense growth in the access to STI applications in the region there are still a number of countries— particularly countries with special needs—that do not use these applications.

ESCAP’s Regional Space Applications for Sustainable Development (RESAP) initiative provides an excellent foundation for bridging these gaps.  Over the past two decades, RESAP has harnessed the latest advances and provided a platform for space agencies and sectoral stakeholders to access space applications for disaster management and sustainable development. Space-faring countries such as China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Thailand, and Viet Nam have offered related satellite images, information products, and capacity development training to countries of the region.

Taking forward this momentum, ESCAP will host the Asia-Pacific Space Leaders Forum during AMCDRR, to mobilize leaders in space and disaster risk management and facilitate a dialogue on the demand and supply of space information products. Space leaders from the RESAP network will discuss opportunities to develop a new Asia-Pacific Plan of Action for Space Applications 2018 – 2030, and foster greater discussion on the operational needs of end-users, while capitalizing on emerging applications from the space community. The discussion and deliberations at the Forum will provide valuabl additions to regional efforts in disaster mitigation and for monitoring the implementation of SDG goals in the region.

Last, the nature of disasters in the region is increasingly complex with extensive cross-border implications, given that the area shares the world’s two most seismically-active fault lines, three major ocean basins, and many rivers and river basins. Climatic events including cyclones, floods, and entire drought-affected swaths, all of which can cross national boundaries.

Solutions to mitigating these cross-border impacts are most effective at the regional level. The ESCAP Trust Fund for Tsunami, Disaster and Climate Preparedness, for example, is an excellent example of a financing mechanism that has been set up as a regional public good and has ensured the development of an integrated regional early warning system for coastal hazards since 2005. The ESCAP- supported ESCAP/WMO Typhoon committee and the WMO/ESCAP Panel on Tropical Cyclones assists countries with early warning system products and capacity development services highlighting the economic benefits of these shared systems.

The magnitude of disaster impacts in our region challenges us to develop a long-term vision of the pillars of implementation, towards building disaster resilience, knowing that the investments we make now may come to fruition only years after implementation. Well-coordinated UN support to the region can assure timely and robust implementation of both the Sendai Framework and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. ESCAP is already coordinating the work in this area among United Nations entities through the Regional Coordination Mechanism (RCM) and with regional associations through sharing good practices across regions, and by linking regional initiatives to the 2030 Agenda.

These efforts will translate the global commitments on disaster risk reduction into regional actions across Asia and the Pacific and anchor disaster risk reduction at the heart of sustainable development.

*Dr. Shamshad Akhtar is a United Nations Under-Secretary-General and the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

Iran Doctrine In Latin America: Threat To Hemispheric Security? – Analysis

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By Vincent Lofaso*

The United States has intermittently viewed Iran as one of the main threats in the Middle East since the era of the Cold War. Given allegations of Iran’s continued funding of terrorist groups, like Hezbollah, and its allegations of gradually-growing nuclear capabilities, the U.S. fear of the major Middle East player is logical. Even after the 2015 Iran Deal, Washington is continuing to monitor Iran’s actions. While the U.S. media and government have instilled a deep phobia in Americans about the Iranian nuclear threat, most Americans do not know much about the current trajectory of Iran-Latin American relations.

While it is difficult to decipher if Iran poses an external threat to U.S. interests in Latin America, Iranian efforts to diversify itself within the global community is no secret. In Latin America, Iran is generally viewed as an economic partner, harboring a vast amount of wealth and natural resources, including petroleum, natural gas, ores, copper, and lead. On August 21, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif entered into talks with high-level officials from six Latin American countries including Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to promote political and economic ties. According to a report from the Islamic Republic News Agency, “Zarif’s emphasis on accompanying the presence of commercial and economic delegations, representing the private and government sectors, during his regional tours point to the key fact that diplomacy views striking a logical balance between politics and economics is highly necessary”.[i]

The United States government is ostensibly concerned with Iran’s active involvement in Latin America because it wants to isolate Tehran’s economy as much as possible and protect American security interests in the hemisphere. Iran’s expansion of trade in the Americas has brought additional revenues to local governments, which could be used to support Iranian nuclear capabilities as well as terrorist organizations. Historically, the United States has viewed the Triple Frontier between Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay, as a safe-haven for Hezbollah and Hamas agitation, but there have been no recent incidents. For example, in the 1960’s and 70’s, the Triple Frontier first became an economic hub when many Shia-Lebanese and Syrian merchants wanted to make profit through expanding trade. After 9/11, U.S. officials sought to create intelligence programs, reduce criminal activity, and strengthen the rule of law in the region, but these interventionist actions have failed to accomplish this. In addition, “after multiple meetings of the 3+1 Group and years of training and investigation, in 2005, the group announced that “no operational activities [in support] of terrorism have been detected [in] the tri-border area” and in 2012 the U.S. State Department acknowledged that, “No credible information [indicated] that Hezbollah, Hamas, or other Islamist groups [have] used the Tri-Border Area for training or other operational activity”.[ii] Although the United States is predominately focused on issues in the Middle East and elsewhere, Iranian foreign policy towards the region has been much more focused on hemispheric issues. Following the provisional conclusion of the sanctions, Iran has increased its economic relationship with other Latin American nations.

What is The Role of Iran in the Americas?

In the past, Iran has been consumed by terrorist activities in Latin America. In 1992, Hezbollah was responsible for the Israeli Embassy bombing in Buenos Aires, in response to the alleged assassination of Hezbollah’s Secretary General Sayed Abbas al-Musawi. Another example came in 1994, with the bombing of a Community Center in Argentina, Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA), which was an attack by Hezbollah-Iran supporters on the largest Jewish community in Latin America.

Iran has been laying the groundwork for its widening relationship with Latin America and to be an economic partner for some of the players in the region. Iran is in the Americas because of its ability to advance its own economic interests and it seeks unity with its partners in the hemisphere. Foreign Minister Zarif wants to build Iran’s cooperation with Latin America on a ‘whole new level’ by “strengthening political & economic ties”.[iii] After the attacks mentioned above, Iran has repeatedly asserted its innocence to the Argentine nation and throughout the region. Despite Argentinian concern over Iran’s nuclear and terrorist threats, trade between the two nations has not diminished. According to IMF data analyzed by FARS News Agency, “Argentina increased its exports to Iran from $29 million in 2007 to $1.2 billion last year becoming Iran’s second largest trade partner in Latin America”.[iv] Currently, these examples have created hiccups in Iran-Latin America relations, but both sides need to realize that they can create improved relations while simultaneously overcoming the past events of state-sponsored terrorism. Iran also enjoys cordial relations with the members of the Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America, ALBA).

Iran’s Status as an Observer in the Bolivarian Alliance (ALBA)

Iran’s status as an observer in the Bolivarian Alliance has been praised by a number of hemispheric nations, while others have not been so welcoming. Ecuador, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Bolivia have vigorously welcomed Iran’s new influence in Latin America. However, many Latin American nations do not feel particularly comfortable that Iran has been opening embassies, cultural centers, and mosques to expand its influence. Beyond physical reminders of Iran’s presence in the region, Iran has been expanding invisible, covert intelligence operations. For example, “Peru’s southern rural communities are typical targets for launching networks. Front companies in the beef and oil industries in Brazil and Uruguay are used to provide cover for Iranian operatives”.[v] Through these activities, Iran has been able to advance its interests by influencing the ALBA agenda even though it cannot vote on specific issues.

The Iran-Venezuela relationship within ALBA represents an alliance of ideology and economic interdependence. This alliance dates back to the founding of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in the 1960’s along with four other countries. Iran is not only a political ally of Venezuela in OPEC, but it is also an important oil supplier and investor in Venezuelan banking and financial systems. Iran has been cooperating with Venezuela on many projects in South America; “Already a major investor in the $4 billion Ayacucho oil field joint project, Iran agreed in 2008 to invest an additional $760 million in Venezuela’s energy sector. In 2009, Venezuela agreed to invest $760 million in Iran’s South Pars gas field. In late October 2010, as collective sanctions on the Iranian economy started to bite, Venezuela offered an $800 million investment package in Iran’s Pars Field gas sector”.[vi] Venezuela provides Iran with many opportunities to grow its business interests beyond Washington’s current restrictions and the two countries have been long time allies in advancing their socialist agenda.

The Fear Factor: Security Cooperation

When the Western sanctions were placed on Iran, the Bolivarian Alliance opposed the sanctions because it felt that Iran helped a number of nations economically by increasing foreign investment, reducing inflation, and bringing in more natural resources for sustainable development. The Western sanctions affected all these causes, and showed that the West is trying to isolate Iran from the international community instead of integrating them. However, after the Iran deal, Foreign Minister Zarif “acknowledged that the nuclear deal had ‘removed obstacles’ to stronger cooperation between his nation and Latin America. In Tehran, he also said that the country “has always shown that we can win through resistance””.[viii]

Some Latin American countries now feel more independent carrying out their own diplomacy and do not want to be dictated by Washington on whom to align with. Some of these Latin American nations want to open and sustain relations with China, Russia, and Iran; in order to make their voices heard in the global community. It is more difficult for the U.S. to control how Latin American countries go about with their relations with other nations, and the United States simply misunderstands the actual intentions of some of these actors.

Is Iran Challenging the Monroe Doctrine?

Iran is continuing a counterbalance strategy between the Muslim world and Latin America. Currently, it is a simple fact that Iran is looking for other partners to cooperate with as well as opening new diplomatic relations, especially in Latin America. The rise of global markets and the slow decline of U.S. influence in its neighborhood have some Latin American leaders looking apprehensively towards new global trading partners. Iran is trying to find ways to expand its foreign policy, but the conservative, traditional Iranian leadership has prevented Rouhani and Zarif from creating these economic ties with other Latin American countries. However, in the case of Venezuela, Iran does not seem to have enough resources to provide Venezuelan needs, given the current Venezuelan economic crisis. Other Latin American countries, like Brazil, are unwilling to break traditional ties with the U.S., limiting Iran’s influence. Rouhani and Zarif want to shift Iran from a country of ‘cold war rhetoric’ to become a country that can maintain close knit relations with a number of Latin American nations.

Conclusion

The United States must understand that Iran is not in the region only to counter its interests, but it is there to rekindle relations with other like-minded hemispheric countries. The emergence of Iran as an economic partner in Latin America after the lifting of sanctions comes at a time when Iran seeks global allies in its efforts to gain greater influence and at a time when Latin American countries are more willing to look beyond the U.S. for economic opportunities. The traditional fear of Iran by the U.S. needs to be tempered with the realization that a changing Iran has a presence in Latin America that may help the region develop.

*Vincent Lofaso, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

[i] Zia, Mohammad-Karim “Iran has special attitude to Latin America” August 22, 2016 Islamic Republic News Agency http://www8.irna.ir/en/News/82198644/

[ii] Folch, Christine “Trouble on the Triple Frontier” September 6, 2012 Foreign Affairs https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/argentina/2012-09-06/trouble-triple-frontier

[iii] Khan, Tzvi “Iran Renews Ties with Latin America” September 7, 2016 Foreign Policy Initiative http://www.foreignpolicyi.org/content/fpi-bulletin-iran-renews-ties-latin-america

[iv] “Brazil, Iran’s Biggest Trade Partner in Latin America” May 12, 2009 FARS News Agency http://english2.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8809140495

[v] O’Grady, Anastasia, Mary “Iran’s Infiltration of Latin America” June 19, 2016 Wall Street Journal http://www.wsj.com/articles/irans-infiltration-of-latin-america-1466374190

[vi] Heydarian, Javad, Richard “Iran’s Adventures in Latin America” November 18, 2010 Foreign Policy in Focus http://fpif.org/irans_adventures_in_latin_america/

[vii] Berman, Ilam “Iran and the New Monroe Doctrine” September 2, 2016 Foreign Affairs https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2016-09-02/iran-and-new-monroe-doctrine

[viii] “Iran Deepens Infiltration of Latin America” September 27, 2016 The Trumpet https://www.thetrumpet.com/article/14227.2.0.0/middle-east/iran/iran-deepens-infiltration-of-latin-america

India’s Northeast: A Rugged Link To ASEAN – Analysis

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India’s Northeastern region bordering Myanmar plays a critical role in the ‘Act East’ Policy and serves as a potential link to ASEAN.

By Nazia Hussain*

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘neighbourhood first’ and ‘Act East’ policies got a fresh boost with the recently concluded four-day visit to India by Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. The two leaders gave out enough indications they were pursuing a development partnership that would take bilateral ties to a higher level.

Prime Minister Modi said India’s financial commitment of US$1.75 billion is ‘people centric’, meaning the development projects were aimed at the welfare of the people of Myanmar. In fact, Northeast India, sharing a 1,640 km-long land border with Myanmar, holds the key in this development partnership. This makes it imperative to take a close look at this far-eastern Indian frontier and the linkages that can be established through Myanmar to ASEAN.

Revitalising the ‘Act East’ Policy

It has been two years since India announced the transformation of its moribund two-decade-old ‘Look East’ Policy into what is now called the ‘Act East’ Policy (AEP). Incidentally, New Delhi made the new nomenclature, AEP, public during the East Asia Summit held in Myanmar in November 2014.

It is now clear that the AEP holds a prime place in India’s new proactive policy, because it not only looks at boosting commerce, connectivity and cultural ties with ASEAN, but is also looking beyond to South Korea, Australia, Japan, and Mongolia. High-level visits by Indian leaders to these nations since 2014 have shown that it would no more be just lip service.

In consolidating its ties with ASEAN and beyond, India’s Northeast, known for its rugged landscape and constant turmoil from home-grown ethnic insurgencies, is critical because of the geographic contiguity it provides to India and Myanmar. This region of eight provinces with a population of 40 million shares a total of over 5,400 km of borders with five neighbours — Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Myanmar and Nepal — while it is connected with mainland India only by the narrow 22 km Siliguri corridor in the state of West Bengal called the ‘Chicken’s Neck’.

Building Bridges

New Delhi recognises that increased commerce and improved connectivity with ASEAN can alter the currently stagnant economy in India’s Northeast. On the eve of his departure to Laos to attend the 14th India-ASEAN Summit, Prime Minister Modi said, “ASEAN is a key partner for our Act East Policy, which is vital for the economic development of our northeastern region”.

In fact, the Indian Government appears to be going ahead with a new geo-political thinking that looks at the space occupied by the Northeast to be theoretically spreading far beyond the international borders. The fact that the Northeast borders Myanmar, the only ASEAN nation to share a land boundary with India, is a testimony to the region’s importance and critical value in India’s foreign policy priorities. The geographical reality is Northeast India is the bridge between two sub-regions of Asia-South Asia and Southeast Asia.

So far, only a few ideas have moved from the drawing board to the ground and these are the transnational road and rail connectivity projects. Some of the flagship projects under the AEP include the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway, a 1,360 km highway joining Moreh in Manipur (India) to Mae Sot in Thailand through Bagan in Myanmar; Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Facility, connecting Indian ports on the eastern seaboard and Sittwe Port in Myanmar and then through riverine transport and by road to Mizoram (India), thus providing an alternate route for transport of goods to Northeast India; another rail link from Jiribam in Manipur to Hanoi in Vietnam passing through Myanmar, and revitalising the Stilwell Road, linking Assam with China’s Yunnan province.

These infrastructure projects built as a result of the AEP have raised hopes in Northeast India of a better future. Questions, however, are being raised as to how New Delhi would involve the local governments in the northeastern states in taking advantage of the connectivity projects. The people and the governments in Northeast India are major stakeholders in the entire idea of connectivity leading to enhanced commerce.

With dozens of insurgent groups operating in Manipur, one would also expect security to become a crucial part of the AEP because the newly named Asian Highway 1 that connects India to Myanmar via Manipur passes through stretches that are controlled by the rebels. India’s engagement with ASEAN now covers issues like security and counter-terrorism, besides defence cooperation.

Road Ahead with ASEAN

The ties with Myanmar will be very critical for India if it is to consolidate relations and expand trade and connectivity with the rest of ASEAN. Myanmar’s president U Htin Kyaw chose India as the destination of his first state visit after the National League for Democracy (NLD) took over in March. However, it is also a fact that Aung San Suu Kyi made China her first port of call as State Counsellor and Foreign Minister.

Four Memorandums of Understanding were signed between India and Myanmar during President Kyaw’s visit—two of them concerning the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway, one on renewable energy and the other on traditional medicine. In order to give the final push in the Trilateral Highway project, India is constructing as many as 69 bridges in Manipur.

The volume of trade between India and Myanmar is far from encouraging. India’s total investment in Myanmar, for instance, was a little more than US$224 million during the 2015-2016 fiscal year—significantly lower than the investments of other countries in the neighbourhood like China. Significantly, no new Indian investments were made during the first four months of the 2016-2017 fiscal year. According to Myanmar’s Ministry of Commerce, total trade volume between the two nations touched $1.17 billion while the Myanmar-China trade stands at $10.9 billion.

Landlocked Northeast India, with rising unemployment, continued ethnic aspirations, and insurgencies that are still potent despite a number of peace agreements, needs a development corridor. The road and railway link through Myanmar to ASEAN could well provide that corridor and be the turning point. The AEP provides the scope to alter things. In this potential game changer, India’s Northeast could play the role of a catalyst, something the people and the local governments hope for. Whether this awareness leads to the creation of an entrepreneurial class which can usher in progress in one of South Asia’s hottest insurgency theatres remain to be seen.

*Nazia Hussain is a Research Analyst with the Office of the Executive Deputy Chairman, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

China-Pakistan Corridor Against India’s Strategic Interests – Analysis

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By Jai Kumar Verma*

The much touted $46 billion, 3,000-km-long China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) links Gwadar port in the troubled state of Balochistan to China’s restive autonomous region of Xinjiang. The project, which is an extension of China’s ambitious One-Belt-One-Road scheme, passes through Gilgit and Baltistan areas which are part of Jammu and Kashmir which is Indian territory but illegally occupied by Pakistan. Hence, the CPEC is against the geographical and strategic interests of India.

The Official press agency of China Xinhua News Agency, in a clear departure from its past practice, mentioned in December 2014 about the closure of the Khunjerab Pass and in that news item it also stated that Gilgit and Baltistan were parts of Pakistan. Analysts claim that China, before taking up a project of this magnitude, wanted to reconfirm Gilgit-Baltistan as part of Pakistan and wanted to observe India’s reaction which was not severe at that juncture.

China would be constructing several infrastructure and hydropower projects, industrial parks, railway lines and all weather roads and highways in Gilgit-Baltistan as well as in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). CPEC will also reduce by 12,000 km the distance from Middle East from where China imports POL.

Pakistani leaders describe CPEC, as well as the multifarious projects linked to it, as a great economic achievement for the country and claim that it will solve the economic problems and expedite economic growth of the country. The government agencies declare that more than 700,000 direct jobs would be created and the economic growth of the country would be greatly enhanced.

Nonetheless, the Pakistani leadership is worried about generation of funds for the main projects which have to be financed indigenously. The Economic Coordination Committee of the Pakistan cabinet has set up a revolving fund to handle this but analysts claim that the economic condition of Pakistan is in shambles and it will be difficult for the country to create funds for the construction of mega projects.

Economists also assert that although Pakistan would be benefitted by the trade with China, it would be difficult for the country to repay the debt generated because of CPEC. They also doubt Pakistan’s capability to complete its share of projects. The economists also mention that Pakistan is getting loan at a high rate of interest and the terms and conditions of the project which are against the interests of Pakistan are kept secret. A few critics mention that Chinese investments in Pakistan would be akin to the investments of East India Company which later subjugated the country.

There is severe criticism of the project by non-Punjabis as they feel that although the project passes through their areas, the benefits of the project would be usurped by Punjabis.

Tehrik-i-Taliban, an extremist outfit in Pakistan, has already claimed killing of some Chinese in Pakistan. Several separatist outfits in Balochistan are against CPEC and proclaim that it is against the interests of the state and they would not allow this project to be implemented.

A few terrorists attacked the Police Academy in Quetta on October 25 and killed over 60 policemen and injured more than 150 cadets. It appears that an Afghanistan-based terrorist organisation was behind this heinous crime.

Residents of Balochistan also mention that through the CPEC project, the government would settle outsiders in the province thereby changing the demography of the province and the Chinese and the Punjabi-dominated federal government would exploit the natural resources of the state without giving it due compensation.

The CPEC would pass through Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan areas — all of which are anti-government hence there are numerous security-related issues. But China is determined to reach the oil-producing areas of West Asia through Pakistan and the latter’s leadership — isolated in the world arena — is depending heavily on China’s support hence the project would be completed. The Pakistan government has already constituted a Special Service Group (SSG) to provide security to the Chinese in an indication of the tenacity of the Pakistan government. However there are chances that the scope of CPEC is abridged.

Pakistan has alleged that India is assisting Baloch and Sindhi militants who are creating hurdles in the construction of CPEC. They allege that in May 2016, one Chinese worker was killed in Karachi by militants of an India-supported outfit. The Pakistani security agencies also apprehended one Indian businessman Kul Bhusan Jadhav and alleged that he was an Indian agent and was assisting secessionist groups in Balochistan.

Both China and Pakistan claim that CPEC has only economic dimensions but India and the United States appropriately feel that it has more strategic significance. Gwadar would be a future sea port from where China would acquire a stronghold in the Indian Ocean Region. China would also get an access to the Arabian Sea and would minimize the distance to the Strait of Hormuz through which 35 percent of world oil transits.

Linking of Muslim majority Xinjiang province through CPEC would be dangerous for China too, as the Muslim fanatics of Pakistan would start assisting the suppressed Muslims of the Chinese province and the secessionist movement would be strengthened. Pakistani Jihadists would certainly spread Islamic extremism in China.

India also feels that China has already encircled it by inculcating commercial as well as defence relationship with several countries including Pakistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Somalia. CPEC would further strengthen the encirclement.

After completion of CPEC, the Chinese presence would enhance manifold in PoK which would be detrimental for India.

India needs to chalk out a long-term rational policy concerning CPEC — nonetheless it will not be easy as the Indian public is very emotional about its relations with Pakistan and China.

The first option is that India also joins this mega project but it would be difficult as India has to deviate from its old stand and it will be seen as India bowing to the pressure of the China-Pakistan alliance which may not be good for the prestige of the country. Secondly, as the project is against the interests of the country, India must oppose it but it should not lead to open confrontation. Efforts can be made to discourage China from going ahead with this ambitious project, but it will not be an easy task.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit (September 4-5, 2016 at Hangzhou in China), raised the issue of CPEC which passes through PoK. Modi also mentioned about the terrorism which originates from PoK and mentioned that both countries must be “sensitive” to the interests of the other country.

Besides its all-weather friendship with China, Pakistan is also inculcating close relations with Russia. The closeness between Russia and China is also increasing. Hence the possibility of China, Pakistan and Russia axis cannot be ruled out although India signed major defence projects with Russia after the meeting between Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Goa (October 15-16, 2016) — but Indian policy makers must keep this aspect in mind. Besides, India’s relationship with United States is also growing at a fast pace and Russia may like to counter this by inculcating closeness with China and Pakistan.

Indian policy makers should also consider that infusion of $46 billion in Pakistan would boost its economy and a strong Pakistan would be more treacherous for India.

*Jai Kumar Verma is a Delhi-based strategic analyst. Comments and suggestions on this article can be sent to editor@spsindia.in

Prominence Of Turkish And Islamic Factor In Turkey’s Regional Policy – Analysis

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By Hossein Mofidi Ahmadi*

Policies followed by Turkey in the face of regional crises, especially with regard to post-Arab Spring crises, have been always a focus of attention for analysts of regional issues. Recent actions taken by Turkey at a time that can be called the “era of the fall of Daesh,” have been also observed with special sensitivity. Ankara’s actions include establishing new military alliances in Iraq and Syria; dispatching armed forces into Iraq and Syria despite serious protests from both countries; making surprising remarks about the need to leave historical treaties, such as the Treaty of Lausanne, behind; insistence and exerting pressure for serious participation in the operation to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from Daesh; as well as expressing concern about the Shia composition of the Iraqi army or operations by Shia popular forces in Iraq.

It is obvious that remarkable analyses can be offered about changes in Turkey’s regional policy following the Arab Spring, in general, and the aforesaid actions, in particular. One of the factors is Turkey’s long common borders with Syria and Iraq as an objective and geopolitical reality, which when considered along with the presence of failed states in Syria, and to some extent in Iraq, makes it easier to understand Turkey’s security concerns and actions arising from them. An effort to maintain some degree of influence in Syria and Iraq, especially after possible recapture of the city of Mosul in Iraq and the city of Aleppo in Syria by their respective central governments, could be another reason to justify Turkey’s recent actions. The leaders in Ankara also need to incite nationalistic sentiments inside the country. This point becomes important when taking into account that in the period of transition following the recent botched coup in Turkey, recourse to such nationalistic sentiments to boost the country’s national solidarity has been seen as a necessity. The effort made by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to take advantage of national solidarity as a tool under the leadership of the Justice and Development Party to promote his goal of establishing a presidential system in the country is also of importance in this regard.

Concerns about the “Kurdish issue” can also serve as a good factor shedding light on the regional policies adopted by Turkey over the past few years and its behavior in recent months. From this viewpoint, an important part of Turkey’s regional actions in recent years can be analyzed on the basis of securitization of the issue of secessionist Kurds in the country. For example, Turkey’s direct or indirect support for Daesh was mostly aimed at restricting the influence of Kurds both in Syria and Iraq. The relationship between the Kurdish issue in Iraq and Syria and Turkey’s internal security issues has been, and will be, highlighted by Turkish politicians. This point becomes important since it seems that with the fall of Daesh, the Kurdish issue will turn into one of the most important factors influencing competitions, coalition building, and regional disputes. By the way, it seems that Kurds, on the other hand, have no plan to easily give up the historical opportunity offered them through developments that followed Arab revolutions. Within this framework, Turkey’s concern about coalescence of Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s forces in Iraq’s Sinjar region and the Rozhawa region in Syria has been another reason determining Ankara’s recent actions in Iraq.

I personally believe that despite importance of the above facts, an identity-based explanation of recent developments in Turkey’s foreign policy will give a more profound view of those developments. At the same time, such an explanation will include an important part of the aforesaid factors and considerations. It seems that the rise, emergence and role played by three identity layers, that is, Islamic, Turkish, and European / Western, should be considered as the main drivers behind Turkey’s domestic and foreign policies in recent years. For example, recent remarks made by Turkish president in which he described the Treaty of Lausanne as unjustified and unacceptable, should be analyzed within framework of two Turkish and Islamic identity layers of the country (The Treaty of Lausanne was signed in 1923 in which the current borders of Turkey were laid out). In fact, what has come to be known as “Neo-Ottomanism” in recent years is also a product of the joint impact of these two identity layers. These layers served to strengthen the Ottoman Empire, especially during the second half of its rule. In fact, it was due to the impact of these two layers that important parts of Turkey’s society and officials did not accept treaties like the Treaty of Lausanne at the depth of their hearts. Of course, it must be noted that the European / Western layer of Turkey’s identity has made it necessary for the country’s government to accept the ideas, which accompany the notion of the nation-state in modern times. On the other hand, the need to take into account political, security and economic considerations for membership in such Western and European organizations as the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have practically ruled out any possibility that Turkey would try to do anything to change the national borders of regional countries.

Another noteworthy point, which should be taken into account within framework of Turkish and Islamic identity layers as well as Neo-Ottomanism policy of Ankara, is the effort made to boost regional influence of Turkey, including by taking advantage of soft power tools. In fact, changing Turkey’s borders in proportion with borders of the Ottoman Empire is practically impossible, but making an effort to boost Ankara’s cultural and political influence in various geographical regions from Balkans to Yemen has been always on the agenda of Turkish officials. Efforts to support Sunni and Turkmen groups in Syria and Iraq have been in fact undertaken with the goal of preserving and expanding cultural and political influence of Turkey. Another point is that by promoting a more sectarian narration of the country’s Islamic identity layer following developments related to the Arab revolutions, Turkey has been showing its sensitivity about increasing influence of Iran and Shia groups in the region. Turkey, among other things, is concerned about Iran’s rising clout as well as the presence of Shia popular forces in Iraq’s Nineveh province and around the city of Mosul as well as along the border between Iraq and Syria. Turkey’s indirect, and sometimes direct, cooperation with regional coalitions, which aim to curb Iran’s regional influence, can be analyzed within this framework.

* Hossein Mofidi Ahmadi
Researcher at Center for Middle East Strategic Studies

Obscure Dots In AfPak Region: Is There A Pattern? – Analysis

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By Lt Gen P.C. Katoch*

Speaking at the Paul H Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, in Washington DC recently, US Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Adam Szubin said: “We continue to urge our partners in Pakistan to go after all terrorist networks operating in their country. We stand ready to help them. But there should be no doubt that while we remain committed to working with Pakistan to confront ongoing terrorist financing and operations, the US will not hesitate to act alone, when necessary, to disrupt and destroy these networks.”

“The problem is that there are forces within the Pakistani government — specifically in Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI — that refuse to take similar steps against all the terrorist groups active in Pakistan, tolerating some groups — or even worse,” he added.

At the same time, he said Pakistan has been, and remains, a critical counter-terrorism partner in many respects.

General John Nicholson, Commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, also said last month: “There is not adequate pressure being put on the Haqqanis.” (The Haqqani network is an Afghan guerrilla insurgent group using asymmetric warfare to fight against US-led NATO forces and the government of Afghanistan.)

But is Pakistan worried about such periodic ‘warnings’.

Szubin’s statement is well timed — perhaps targeting the Indian Diaspora in the US with respect to the November 8 Presidential election. It certainly is not taken seriously in India — it is not front-page news.

The US stance in recent years is that Pakistan is a big country and also nuclear but they forget that when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in President Barack Obama’s first administration threatened Pakistan to join the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) or be prepared to be bombed into oblivion, Pakistan was as big a country and also nuclear.

The bill introduced by the US Senate Panel to declare Pakistan a terrorist state is also timed in a manner that by the time the deadline comes for Obama to respond, he will only be a caretaker President.

Sure, the US repeatedly exhorts Pakistan to go after the Haqqanis but what about all the other Pakistani proxies attacking India and Afghanistan? All that the US needs to do is put a couple of cruise missiles in the terror hatcheries in Pakistan, as Russian President Vladimir Putin did in Syria, and stop the billions of dollars of aid. Pakistan will be forced to reform unless it wants to continue its nuclear clinging on to China and become impoverished like North Korea.

The US-China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Quadrilateral Coordination Group, seeking to bring the Taliban to join the peace process and the Afghan Government, has been a farce from the very beginning, with Pakistan insincere to the core and China and the US playing along.

At the same time, the recent US-brokered deal with Hezb-e-Islami chief Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Kabul raises many questions — he has well known ISI links and has been recipient of western arms in the past; the timing of him being brought centre stage and what role he is to play.

At the recent Herat Security Dialogue (October 14-15, 2016), the Taliban panelist said the Taliban has no enmity with the Afghan public, only with the US — but then when the US is only in a ‘support’ role to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), why are the Taliban attacking Kunduz and Lashkar Gah so viciously sending hundreds and hundreds of Afghan families fleeing from their homes? Are the Taliban not going for mineral rich areas, playing the China-Pak game, and/or the US game to threaten Russia by posing to take the proxy war into Central Asia?

The undercurrents of the US-Iran détente too are obvious. It is not only Iranian President Hassan Rouhani slamming US presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump calling them a choice between “bad and worse”. The development of Chahabar port is facing hurdles with the US and European banks not easing investments in Iran, which appears to be on design. The international north-south transportation corridor would surely benefit Europe but it certainly is more vital to India, Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia and Russia.

Then there is news of a third round in a week of Iranian C-802 shore-to-ship missiles targeting US Navy ships in the Red Sea from the Yemeni coast — three vessels patrolling the Bab al-Mandeb strait. As per US officials, in response to a previous C-802 attack, the US flotilla hit back with Tomahawk cruise missiles against the Yemen-based radar stations reportedly being operated by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Iran has recently supplied the Yemeni Houthi rebels with C-802 missiles for asserting control over the Bab al-Mandeb strait, as per Israeli intelligence.

As disclosed in 2012 by General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander, NATO, the US had decided in 2001 to take out 7 countries in the next five years — Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and finishing off with Iran. So, what form the US-Iran détente will take and how long it will last is anyone’s guess. That Iran supports Hezbollah and has trained Afghans to fight alongside the Syrian Government is already well known.

The China-Pakistan backing to Taliban is having a mixed fallout for China. Amidst much fanfare, the first cargo train from China’s Jiangsu Province arrived at Hairatan, in Balkh Province of Afghanistan, on September 7, 2016, chugging over the Afghan-Uzbek Dosti Bridge — built in 1988 by the USSR linking Afghanistan with China and Russia.

But the same train is now returning empty from Afghanistan to Uzbekistan on its way back to China because Uzbek authorities — citing security concerns — have forbidden cargo to arrive into their country from Afghanistan via the railway. Uzbekistan wants goods to leave the Afghan border city of Hairatan on ships instead of rail, and cross the Uzbek border via the Amu River, where it can be screened by Uzbek security forces. Only then can the cargo be reloaded onto trains enroute to China.

China has a $3 billion contract to mine copper from Aynak mines in Afghanistan and wants to transport the mined copper through this rail route. But that is the price China has to pay for abetting Pakistani terrorism and itself supporting the Taliban. In terms of trade, Afghanistan too suffers since it wants to export saffron, dried fruit and other goods to China. The agreement for a separate China-Kyrgyztan-Tajikistan-Afghanistan-Iran rail link too was signed in the Tajik capital Dushanbe in December 2014 but this will take time and may also be affected by terrorism.

Zalmay Khalilzad, former US Ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq, recently said that Pakistan views the Taliban as an effective proxy to ensure Pakistani dominance over Afghanistan — Islamabad believes continuing the war in Afghanistan will lead to US withdrawal which would change the balance of power against the current government and in favour of its (Pakistan’s) proxies.

Ultimately, Pakistan seeks the overthrow of the current government in Afghanistan because it is not compliant — and Pakistan knows its double-game is risky, but it believes that the risk is manageable.

Meanwhile, the Great Game in Af-Pak continues — the US countering Chinese and Russian influence in the region and China with her strategic pivot in Gilgit-Baltistan and CPEC (the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor forming a strategic highway to the Indian Ocean) wanting US-NATO out, and to build her energy-based Eurasian Security Architecture linking Turkey and integrate Af-Pak region with China.

Michel Chossudovsky, Professor at University of Ottawa, wrote in his article ‘The Destabilization of Pakistan’ in 2005 that Washington had been planning a scenario of disintegration and civil war in Pakistan for more than five years, US intelligence using Pakistan’s ISI as a go-between had supported Al Qaeda and its various affiliated organizations and “Talibanisation” was the direct result of US-led covert operations.

He went on to say that the US course consisted of fomenting social, ethnic and factional divisions and political fragmentation, including the territorial breakup of Pakistan, dictated by US war plans in relation to both Afghanistan and Iran. Chossudovsky’s analysis may not be entirely relevant with decade-plus having gone by but China’s over-aggressive moves will surely accelerate the Great Game.

So, is there a pattern to the abovementioned obscure dots?

*Lt Gen P.C. Katoch (Retd) is a veteran, Special Forces officer, of the Indian Army.


Russia-China Bonhomie: India Has No Reason To Worry – Analysis

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By Divya Kumar Soti*

Chinese President Xi Jinping recently made an offer of alliance to Russia saying: “The world is on the verge of a radical change. We see how the European Union is gradually collapsing, as is the US economy — it is all over for the New World Order. So, it will never again be as it was before… in 10 years we will have a new world order in which the key will be the union of China and Russia.”

Xi’s July 1, 2016 statement on the 95th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party came within a few days of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Beijing. And the fact that Xi decided to make this offer at the CPC meeting spoke volumes about his sincerity.

Xi was not just doing an exercise in futurology — he went further to articulate the possibility of a concrete military alliance between the two countries: “We are now seeing aggressive actions on the part of the United States, regarding both Russia and China. I believe that Russia and China could create an alliance towards which NATO will be powerless and which will put an end to the imperialist desires of the West.”

While Russia did not immediately react to the Chinese proposal, President Putin — on the sidelines of the G-20 summit held in September at China’s Hanzhou — supported China’s rejection of the Hague Arbitration Court’s Ruling on the South China Sea. Putin called it a “purely legal position”.

In September itself, China and Russia held 8-day-long joint naval drills in the South China Sea which involved “island defence and offence exercises”. China and Russia have been holding such naval drills for a couple of years but this year, the exercises were shifted to South China Sea with Kremlin putting its diplomatic weight behind the Chinese stand against the Hague Arbitration Court’s South China Sea ruling.

After the latest nuclear test by North Korea, South Korea has agreed to deploy the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system angering China which sees the deployment as aimed at altering the strategic balance in the region.

Immediately after this announcement, China’s state-run People’s Daily warned that the US and South Korea will have to pay “a heavy price” for this deployment and promised a “counter-attack”. The Americans had started feasibility studies for deployment of the THAAD system in South Korea in July and at that time the Russian Foreign Ministry had warned that the move will lead to “irreparable consequences”.

Though North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests may have been the immediate triggers, the deployment of THAAD on the Korean Peninsula, in the larger geo-strategic context, may be part of the US counter-strategy to the deployment of Russian Area Denial Weapon Systems focused on NATO forces in Europe and deployment of S-300 surface-to-air missile defence batteries in Iran. The move is synergetic with the higher direction of US policy of shifting its military focus to the Asia-Pacific which is aimed at keeping China boxed in its maritime dilemma.

The recent release by Wikileaks of a private speech given by Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2013, where she talked about the strategy of “ringing China with Missile Defense”, specifies the long thought-out US strategy and tensions with Russia in East Europe and Middle East and exhorts Pentagon to implement these plans rather quickly. Recently, US Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral John Richardson, declared that the US won’t shy away from naval deployments within the range of Russian and Chinese Area Denial Systems like an aircraft carrier killer missile.

While all this transpired in the Indian Ocean theatre, India inked the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) with the United States which many reasonably argued will further degrade Indo-Russian relations and will exhort Russia to tilt towards China’s protégé state in South Asia i.e. Pakistan. However, during President Putin’s visit to India for the BRICS summit (at Goa on October 15-16, 2016), the Russians inked a crucial deal to sell the S-400 missile defence system to India at a time when Indo-Pak tensions are high after the Indian Army announced surgical strikes on terror launch pads in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK).

This creates a very amazing situation. Now Russian air defence systems are deployed on the peripheries of East Europe and in Syria and Iran to keep US air power at bay while in India the S-400 system will keep Chinese air power at bay and will enable India to contemplate expanding punitive and pre-emptive moves against terror infrastructure based in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, or PoK (what Pakistan calls Azad Kashmir) in exceptional threat scenarios. It is notable in this regard that Pakistan still enjoys Major Non-NATO US Ally (MNNA) status while China is building the China-Pak Economic Corridor (CPEC) through PoK.

China will have to factor in this boost to Indian military capabilities which may enable the Indian forces to hit deeper into Pakistan-based terror camps. This transfer will also help lessen concerns in India about chances of the Indian Air Force getting overstretched in a two-front war scenario. It is interesting to note that China is also deploying six battalions of the S-400 system and by transferring the same system to India, Russia has contributed to the conservation of the Sino-India strategic balance. Russia has also proposed to India the transfer of its latest multipurpose Shtorm super aircraft carrier design. This will understandably involve technology transfer to India.

This chain of events suggests that Russia-China cooperation in South Asia and the Indian Ocean Region at large is limited by geopolitical realities which puts India in an envious and dominant position in the new Asian order. While trying to secure its western peripheries in Europe and increasing its footprint in the Middle East to seek access to the sea, Russia would not like to disengage from India, just because New Delhi has tilted towards the United States or to please the Chinese.

In the larger scheme of things, from the Russian point of view, cooperation with the Chinese has obvious limitations and is more useful for sustaining a balance of power in the South China Sea and Western Pacific Ocean — while disengaging from India, the pivotal state of the 21st century, by making a big issue out of US-India LEMOA, would erase the Russian strategic imprint on the southern peripheries of Asia and the Indian Ocean where the Chinese are still in no position to contribute much.

In the coming years, we may witness a scenario in which the US and Russia will compete to woo India and will end up strengthening its military capabilities to the disadvantage of rising Chinese power.

*Divya Kumar Soti is an independent defence analyst. Comments and suggestions on this article can be sent on: editor@spsindia.in

Malaysia’s Navy Deal With China: Meeting A Complex Security Challenge – Analysis

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Beyond geopolitics, the latest revelation of Malaysia’s purchase of Littoral Mission Ships from China needs to be viewed in perspective.

By Koh Swee Lean Collin*

Prime Minister Najib Razak’s current visit to Beijing has been underscored by what the Malaysian leader described as a “landmark decision” – a two-year defence contract to buy and build four Littoral Mission Ships (LMS) from China. This deal might have come across as surprising to many who have long known that Malaysia has customarily operated Western naval equipment. As Najib told the Malaysian media in Beijing: “I call this a landmark decision because before this, we had not bought such vessels from China.”

Such a revelation sparked much speculation about Kuala Lumpur’s further geopolitical shift towards Beijing and consequent ramifications for regional security, especially the United States’ Asia rebalancing strategy. But geopolitics aside, this deal, if it is formally inked and implemented, should not have come across as any surprise. In fact, last year the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) reportedly also mulled Chinese replacements for the aging Italian-made missiles on board its Laksamana-class corvettes.

Persistent Shortfalls

Notwithstanding Malaysia’s sprawling maritime zone that spans from its Indian Ocean-facing peninsular western seaboard, all the way across the South China Sea to the Celebes and Sulu seas off Borneo, the country has long been afflicted by budget and equipment shortfalls.

In the face of such immutable geographical circumstances, what has become more pertinent in recent years has been the increasingly complex maritime security challenges Malaysia is confronted with. Eastern Sabah remains a key focal point – a problem that stemmed from the 2013 infiltration by Sulu militants into Lahad Datu, and most lately, the spate of “kidnap-for-ransom” incidents in the Sulu Sea, involving attacks on Malaysian vessels.

In this regard, the Eastern Sabah Security Command (ESSCOM) has consumed a huge chunk of funding – over RM1.1 billion (about US$263 million) at least had been allocated under the previous state budgets. These do not simply go to purchase of physical surveillance and patrol assets, but also land infrastructure construction, including the ESSCOM Fusion Centre. More recently, with the rising threat from the self-proclaimed Islamic State, Kuala Lumpur also raised its maritime security alert posture along the coasts of peninsular Malaysia.

Not a Strange Purchase

Overall, the Malaysian Armed Forces is no stranger to purchasing equipment from sources outside its traditional Western circles, including Poland and Russia since the 1990s. An interesting example is the Sukhoi Su-30MKM Flanker, essentially a hybrid multi-role fighter jet combining a Russian airframe and retaining some of its baseline native systems with a mixture of South African and Western components.

Viewing today’s cut-throat competition in the global arms market, it has become an imperative for suppliers to meet customers’ demand for “mix and match”, customising platforms according to their needs. This way, the customer is not necessarily beholden to one source.

Of course, this can lead to various problems; for example, it becomes more complicated to integrate systems from different sources together on a common platform. There may also be consequences for after-sales life cycle support, especially concerning logistics.

Neighbouring Thailand is a proximate example to look at this reported LMS purchase from China. Back in the early 1990s, as part of its major naval buildup Thailand acquired several warships from China, including four Chao Phraya/Kraburi-class frigates which were essentially Jianghu-III/IV outfitted with all key Chinese systems. The Royal Thai Navy (RTN) was reportedly dissatisfied with these ships, citing poor-quality systems and frequent breakdowns.

Subsequent buys changed the equation. A pair of Naresuan-class frigates was purchased in the mid-1990s, again based on a modified Jianghu hull but outfitted with mainly Western systems and only some Chinese components. These ships worked fine, and remained the RTN’s principal surface combatant at least until the new South Korean-built DW3000H frigate enters service.

Bangkok appears satisfied – after 2007 it commissioned a pair of Pattani-class offshore patrol vessels, based on Chinese hull but outfitted with Western systems. The lead ship, HTMS Pattani was deployed to the Gulf of Aden in 2010 to join in counter-piracy operations.

Challenging Fleet Rationalisation?

The Malaysian LMS fleet is thus foreseeably not going be a “thorough-bred” Chinese ship with all Chinese systems, but likely a hybrid platform based on a Chinese hull combined with various Western and Chinese components.

In the current climate of austerity – the defence budget allocated for 2017 is US$3.6 billion, a 13% drop from about $4.1 billion the previous year. In the face of pressing operational and technical requirements to address capacity shortfalls to cope with a myriad of complex, evolving maritime security challenges across a vast domain, this “mix and match” approach may constitute a means to diversify supply sources.

However, for the RMN which has been using Western systems, it may take time to familiarise with and assimilate the new platform and its systems in service. Logistics also potentially constitute a long-term challenge to the 15-to-5 Armada Transformation Programme proposed by the navy’s leadership early this year.

The plan envisages reducing the current 15 classes of vessels, averaging 30 years of age and sourced from seven different countries, to five broad categories: 1) Second-Generation Patrol Vessel-Littoral Combat Ship; 2) New-Generation Patrol Vessel (Kedah-class); 3) LMS; 4) Multi-Role Support Ship and 5) Submarine (modified Scorpene; Tun Abdul Razak-class).

Balancing Priorities

For now, what take precedence are addressing the need for block replacement of ageing systems and maintaining at least a critical mass of assets and thus operational readiness in peacetime. Kuala Lumpur will continue to be fixated on eastern Sabah and generally the rising terror threat posed by IS.

This means possibly lesser funds available in future for “big-ticket” purchases but instead, simpler, less expensive yet more useful patrol vessels (especially for the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency).

The Malaysian example is not the first, and likely not the last, where it comes to the tough act of balancing competing economic, political and operational priorities in the process of building maritime forces capacity – especially in the era where new, lower-tier players have emerged amongst the global arms suppliers.

Purchasing arms from China may not necessarily reflect just Malaysia’s geopolitical choice, but more pertinent concerns over day-to-day upkeep of an effective yet cost-conscious force capable of tackling immediate security challenges at sea.

*Koh Swee Lean Collin is a Research Fellow with the Maritime Security Programme at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Arabs Prefer Clinton, But With Trump On Key Issues – Poll

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By Ben Flanagan

Most Arab citizens believe Hillary Clinton to be the best choice for US president — but are aligned with Donald Trump on some of his most controversial stances, a wide-ranging Arab News/YouGov poll has found.

The survey of 3,017 people in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) found that, were they given the chance to vote, 47 percent would snub both candidates — suggesting widespread dissatisfaction with the election frontrunners.

Clinton emerged as the most popular of the two candidates, with 44 percent of Arab respondents saying they would vote for her, and 78 percent saying she would be the best for the Arab world.

The Democratic candidate’s stance on climate change, immigrants in the United States, and US Israel policy found special support among citizens of the Middle East and North Africa, the poll found.

Trump won just 9 percent of respondents’ support in the MENA-wide public opinion survey. But the candidate’s often divisive stance on border controls and abortion proved popular in the region — suggesting the lack of support for Trump has more to do with personality than politics.

Further evidence of this is that people in the region were split equally over the Republican and Democratic candidates’ viewpoints on the issues of the war in Syria and Iran nuclear deal.

Despite almost half the people questioned saying that they would not vote even if given the chance, the Arab News/YouGov US election MENA poll found that there was widespread interest in the Nov. 8 showdown, with 78 percent saying the result would have a direct impact on the region.

“There is little enthusiasm for either candidate but 78 percent believe Clinton would be better for the Arab world if elected as president versus 22 percent for Trump,” said Stephan Shakespeare, the chief executive of YouGov.

“But on abortion and security, the majority of Arab opinion backs Trump over Clinton. It is not unreasonable to assume that this support would extend to other important social issues.”

Trump’s controversial statements, including a proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States, appear to have greatly impacted public opinion in the Arab world.

Almost three quarters of respondents to the poll said they were “dissatisfied” or “upset” with Trump, with just 12 percent saying they are “enthusiastic” or “satisfied”.

The view toward Clinton was more favorable, with 49 percent saying they are “enthusiastic” or “satisfied” with the candidate, compared to the 29 percent who said they are “dissatisfied” or “upset”.

But when questioned about Trump’s key policies — although without the candidate being named — Arab audiences broadly agreed with his stance on abortion and security and border controls.

Nine in 10 said that they did not mind extra border restrictions or measures if they felt their country’s security was under threat from a certain nationality or group. This marks an irony given the uproar over Trump’s remarks regarding Muslims entering the US, some commentators said.

Arab opinion on the war in Syria and ISIS was however more divided.

The Arab News/YouGov poll found that 46 percent of respondents believe the US should send troops to fight ISIS in the region and collaborate closely with Russia on solving the Syrian crisis. But 54 percent said the US should be more involved in the humanitarian efforts for Syrian refugees, arm moderate groups and increase air strikes on ISIS and Syria — but not send in ground troops.

The respondents were similarly split over whether the nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers including the US should be annulled.

Writing in today’s Op-Ed pages, Arab News Editor in Chief Faisal J. Abbas commented on the poll saying that it reveals “interesting findings regarding the hearts and minds of Arabs.”

Abbas argues that when it comes to who the next US president is going to be, there is a growing feeling in the Arab world that actions speak louder than words, regardless of who wins the next election.

Experts based in the United States, commenting on the Arab News/YouGov poll, agreed that there are mixed feelings toward the two US presidential frontrunners within the Arab world.

Andrew Bowen, Global Fellow for the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center in the United States, said that he had heard positive sentiment about both candidates. But business people and policymakers in the Gulf and Egypt, he said, are saying particularly positive things about Trump.

“They view Trump as a change, while they see Hillary as the status quo. They see Trump as a businessman who can shake things up, recast things.”

But Lee Smith, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute in the United States, said that he could see how Trump attracted just 9 percent support in the poll given the candidate’s previous outspoken remarks.

“(In light of) Trump’s comments regarding Muslim immigration … and how many Muslims around the region look up to the United States and admire it, I can certainly see how those comments could come, at the very least, as a surprise,” he said.

Accession Of Jammu & Kashmir: Some Less Known Facts – OpEd

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By Brig Anil Gupta (Retd)*

October 26, 1947 is a red letter day in Indian history since on this day, Jammu & Kashmir — the crown of India — acceded to India and became its integral part from a princely state ruled by the Dogras.

Maharaja Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession (IOA) on this day as was required by the Indian Independence Act 1947. Under this Act, the British Crown decided to grant independence to British India by dividing it into two independent nations — namely Pakistan and India.

The Partition was based on religion on the basis of the two-nation theory propagated by the Muhammad Ali Jinnah-led Muslim League and conceived by the Anglo-Muslim Alliance formed by the British to weaken the Indian freedom movement.

The two-nation theory was flawed right from its conception because it contradicted the very idea of a nation-state. If religion could form the basis of a nation-state then bulk of Europe should have been one Christian state and the Arabian lands would have been a single Muslim country.

Since the western nations, led by Britain, were scared of the potential of a united India, they decided to divide it. Prior to independence, the Indian nation comprised of British India, administered by the Crown, and 569 princely states which were ruled by their hereditary rulers who had accepted the suzerainty and paramountcy of the British Crown.

As per the Indian Independence Act 1947, the princely states were made free from the supremacy of British rule without being granted the status of a nation. They were advised to merge either with India or Pakistan. In order to prevent balkanization of India, the condition of geographic contiguity was laid down.

With the implementation of the Act, the British responsibility of ensuring security of these states ended automatically. The final decision to merge with which nation was vested in the ruler of the state and not the subjects. The merger of the state to either of the two nations was to be considered complete only after the Governor General accorded approval to the Instrument of Accession (IOA) to be signed by the ruler.

There was no provision for conditional merger since the standard format of IOA was uniform for all the rulers as drafted by the States Department of the Dominion of India. The Maharaja laid no pre-conditions/exceptions for the accession of the state to India neither did he demand any special status or special constitutional arrangements.

Maharaja Hari Singh was faced with a few dilemmas because of which he was unable to take a final decision that delayed his signing the IOA.

Firstly, the majority population of the state was Muslim. Secondly, all surface communication to the state was from West Punjab (that was to form part of Pakistan) and there was no direct road/rail connection with India though it shared geographical boundaries with both the Dominions. Thirdly, all major rivers flowing through the state finally drained into the sea via Pakistan.

The strategic location of the state and the British interest in Gilgit Agency also weighed heavily on the mind of the Maharaja. He was also advised by senior leaders in Delhi to withhold accession of his state till the Muslim rulers of Hyderabad, Bhopal and Junagadh disclosed their hand. Mahatma Gandhi visited the state on August 1 to discuss the accession with the Maharaja.

And while Jawaharlal Nehru and the Congress adhered to the provisions of the Indian Independence Act 1947 by refusing the request of the Khan of Kalat and overtures of Nawab of Bahawalpur for accession to India, Jinnah and the Muslim League deceitfully threw to wind the two-nation theory by accepting the merger of Junagadh and offering use of Karachi port to the Hindu rulers of Jodhpur, Bikaner and Jaisalmer states bordering Sindh with invitation to join Pakistan.

Thus, Jinnah had no legitimacy in claiming Jammu & Kashmir based on the two-nation theory and it being a Muslim-majority state.

On August 14, 1947, Maharaja Hari Singh proposed a Standstill Agreement with both India and Pakistan. While Pakistan — in the hope that, under British pressure, the Maharaja will accede to it sooner or later — readily accepted the Agreement, India demanded further discussions before signing it. When Pakistan realised that the Maharaja was inclined towards India, it started creating trouble for the latter firstly by cutting off the supplies of petrol, sugar, salt and kerosene and then stopping trade in violation of the Standstill Agreement.

Pakistan’s real intentions became obvious when it started attacking and raiding the frontier outposts of the state. The Maharaja despatched his emissary Mehar Chand Mahajan to Delhi to meet Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to apprise them of the situation in the state. He also informed them of the Maharaja’s willingness to merge his state with India but Nehru insisted on first the release of Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah who had been imprisoned by the former on charges of sedition.

Sheikh Abdullah subsequently wrote a letter of apology to the Maharaja seeking royal pardon and offering his services to work under the Maharaja for the development and prosperity of the state. He was released from jail on September 29, 1947.

On October 22, the state came under attack of tribal raiders, backed by the Pakistan Army. The beleaguered state forces fought valiantly but could not stop the advance of the marauding invaders. On October 26, 1947, the Maharaja signed the IOA which was approved by the Governor General, Lord Mountbatten.

Mountbatten approved the merger but created confusion by appending a letter that was unwarranted and illegal because the Act did not confer any such power on him. The princely state of Jammu & Kashmir lawfully acceded to India on that day and became its integral part without any pre-conditions.

The decision of the Maharaja was fully supported by Sheikh Abdullah and his party the National Conference. Sheikh was appointed by the Maharaja the administrator of the emergency government of the state.

The Maharaja was subsequently forced to leave the state in June 1949 and Sheikh Abdullah virtually became the head of administration of the state. The accession of the state with the Union of India was ratified by the State Constituent Assembly in February 1954. On October 30, 1956, the State Constituent Assembly adopted the state constitution declaring Jammu and Kashmir as an integral part of the Union of India. Articles 3, 4 & 147 of the State Constitution are irrevocable proofs of the State’s final merger.

Why did Mountbatten create the confusion?

He was working for the Crown to further the interests of the Anglo-Muslim Alliance. The British had a special interest in J&K due to the strategic importance of Gilgit Agency that was critical to the British Empire and the pivot of the ongoing Great Game. Due to lapse of paramountcy, the Gilgit Agency was returned to the Maharaja on August 1, 1947 but the British were unwilling to lose control over the area. Through clever manipulation, the command of Gilgit Scouts was vested in a British officer, Major William Brown, who engineered a revolt and raised the Pakistani flag on October 1.

Earlier in June, Mountbatten visited Kashmir to convince the Maharaja to accede to Pakistan. Since connectivity to Gilgit was via Pakistan, the British were keen that the Maharaja should accede to Pakistan to serve their strategic interest. The British strategy was to use West Pakistan as a base to stop Soviet expansion towards the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf. Maharaja Hari Singh did not show any inclination towards joining Pakistan.

Thereafter, the British Chief of the Pakistan Army, General Sir Frank Messervy, conceived Operation Gulmarg, a military plan for annexation of J&K in case the Maharaja did not accede to Pakistan. The operation order for this plan was dated August 20. The plan was to be implemented in three phases with Phase 1 beginning in September and final multi-directional armed incursions to commence on October 22. As the events unfolded, the so-called tribal invasion was a ditto copy of Operation Gulmarg. However, the Maharaja did not succumb to the British pressure and voluntarily acceded to India thus upsetting the entire game plan of the Anglo-Muslim Alliance.

Jammu & Kashmir’s inclusion in India is final and non-negotiable. A confusion has been created about the status of the state by inimical forces led by Pakistan and the vested interests within and outside the state. The confusion stems from the time-to-time decisions (some amounting to blunders) taken by Nehru and subsequent Congress governments at the Centre and pliable governments in the state.

The need of the hour is to restore the original boundaries of the state as acceded by Maharaja Hari Singh to India on October 26, 1947 as resolved in the Indian parliamentary resolution of 1994.

*Brig Anil Gupta (Retd) is a Jammu-based political commentator, columnist, security and strategic analyst. He can be contacted at anil5457@gmail.com

Xi Visit To Bangladesh: Why Dhaka Sees Beijing And Delhi Ties Through Different Lenses – OpEd

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By Sreeradha Datta*

Arriving at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, Dhaka is always a happy moment for me. It was no different earlier this month when I went as a participant at the South Asia Economic Cooperation conference. A surprising traffic-free ride to the hotel was interspersed with an unlikely silent procession ahead of me. A group of around 50 people, seemingly Chinese and carrying a Chinese flag, marched along the main road to the city which I then realised was to mark the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping visit to Bangladesh, a visit that was happening at that level after a gap of 30 years. Although the President’s stopover at Dhaka, en route to the BRICS Summit in Goa, was not more than 24 hours the city seemed to have left no stone unturned to impress the visiting head of state.

The Chinese delegation’s presence at the same hotel where I and other conference participants were staying was something of an eye-opener as it transformed a friendly hotel lobby area to a near combat zone. Huge larger than life cutouts of both the leaders, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Xi, were splashed across nearly all the main roads of Dhaka not to mention the bright Chinese decorative bulbs that were strung along on both sides brightening up the usually dark roads of the Bangladesh capital. What was particularly distressing for other hotel guests was the attempt to close off public space, including access to the hotel, and even returning to the hotel at night proved an ordeal in the face of Chinese paranoia about their security that had got them to ask the hotel to move other guests out during their stay.

The visit resulted in signing of 27 agreements and MoUs between the two governments involving an amount of over USD 20 billion. There was also some reporting about China waiving off USD 24 billion worth of loans for Bangladesh, which is neither unprecedented nor unusual, given the rapidly deepening bilateral links. Indeed, one has to follow the Sino-Bangladeshi bilateral trajectory to understand how pragmatism triumphs over ideology. China, once reluctant to even recognise the independent nation-state of Bangladesh, now shares a strategic partnership with bilateral trade of over USD 10 billion with more than USD 9 billion in favour of the Asian giant. However, this rather substantial trade gap has never been a bone of contention with Bangladesh and is in sharp contrast to the constant refrains from Bangladesh till sometime back to the trade deficit around USD 6 billion an year ago vis-à-vis India.

China has for long been involved in various infrastructural projects in Bangladesh and 13 of these bilateral agreements covered infrastructure, construction, energy and transportation. The Sino-Bangladeshi joint venture, the 1,224 MW thermal power plant at Banshkali, was formally inaugurated on this visit. While noises about the Indo-Bangladeshi bilateral energy project at Rampal is becoming a subject of growing negative speculation not much protest has been heard over the Banskhali coastal project which has already resulted in death of four locals protesting about the possible adverse effects over their local water and ecological systems thus impacting upon the livelihood patterns of the inhabitants in the area.

It is not difficult to see why India and China are viewed through distinctly different lenses by Bangladesh. In the absence of any historic baggage and resultant absence of a hostile domestic constituency, Bangladesh is able to pursue an irritant-free policy towards China. Its leaders or political parties are not unduly worried about getting uncomfortably close to Beijing. The Chinese refusal to interfere in the domestic debates within Bangladesh and their non-preference of any particular party or ideology has also worked well for Beijing. Its influence and growing leverage over Dhaka is obvious and, presently, the bilateral convergence of interest is wide and encompassing various levels.

On the other hand, the Bangladeshi engagement with India is marred by history and geography-related problems and is a victim of confrontational domestic politics. Although Indo-Bangladeshi ties have seen a breakthrough in recent times, the perceived Indian high-handedness bogey comes to the fore again and again. Bangladesh views China as a reliable partner and India as a close neighbour that offers promise but on which it is unable to repose its total trust upon. As the fleeting but bountiful visit of Xi Jinping reveals, the Sino-Bangladeshi relation receives blanket approval at all levels but the Indo-Bangladeshi engagement lacks similar widespread popular support within Bangladesh. Forty years down the line it is not enough to attribute this gap to our geographic and historic causes alone; indeed there are deeper political fissures that needs to be addressed.

*Dr.Sreeradha Datta is Director, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies (MAKAIAS), Kolkata. She can be contacted at sreeradha@yahoo.com

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