By Jonathan Power*

Donald Trump is the antithesis of leadership. Walking into the cauldron of the Middle East and denouncing Iran when it had just – almost at the same moment – re-elected as president a man who presided over the deal that de-fanged his country’s nuclear program and whose support is badly needed in fashioning an end to the Syrian war, stabilising Iraq and beheading ISIS was a show of how not to make friends and win people over.

In Saudi Arabia he seemed to act as if enormous amounts of military hardware would be enough to convince its leadership that he was a changed man – as a presidential candidate he had said many harsh words about the country. I doubt if the Saudi Arabians were so quickly convinced that he is a sophisticated leader capable of untangling the criss-crossing of alliances and interests that bedevil parts of the Middle East. The lack of loud applause when he gave his “big” speech tells it all.

What is leadership? First having a blueprint of what one wants to achieve, and that is more than 100+ days in the making. It’s no use trying to say nice things after one is elected. Observers, searching to find the personality and inner convictions of a man who confronts them as the president of the United States, look at the record. After all, for them the stakes are high, and much hangs in the balance. The day after a big speech or a flying visit the question is, is he more than a guy who can knock the heads together of a municipality to be allowed to buy land to build a golf course or new hotel?

We need from the president of one of the world’s superpowers that he knows how to give tangible leadership and perceptive, well-informed, well-thought out and perceptive direction to those many strands of change now afoot.

We need a leadership in every country that knows how to transcend mankind’s divisions, to diminish our most primitive instincts and to enhance our nobler ones. It must have the power of personality that inspires the best of us and takes us onward and beyond what we do so often unsatisfactorily and insufficiently to what we could do if human energies were liberated form the confines of too simple and narrow a perspective. We need to move beyond religion, country, race, language and life-style to what Martin Luther King called the beloved community. “We seek only,” he said, “to make possible a world where men and women can live as brothers and sisters.”

Leadership, we know, is an intangible quality that can only be described as it is observed. But we can list some of the ingredients it needs if it is to have any chance of working in today’s world. It must believe that the application of force is the signature of defeat and that true peace comes from careful compromise where no-one is asked to debase themselves before their opponent. It must be inspirational and take us into the reaches of our best performance, even enabling us to move far beyond what we have achieved before. It must be practical and down to earth, sifting the essentials and concentrating on what really are the priorities of living. It must be moral, selfless and yet convinced of its own purpose and audacity. In the end it must be immensely courageous, for the problems it faces can appear at times quite daunting and overwhelming.

We inhabit a precious but vulnerable planet. We can make the best of it or the worst. We can live by law, respect and a sense of community or we can pull apart from both each other and the habitat of which we partake and live in division and disunity, all the time diminishing the quality and expectation of daily life.

Donald Trump is not a cut of this block. I’m sure if he read what I’ve just written he would pour scorn on it and tell me that I should scrub my memory of what he said when he was a candidate. Indeed he would add that I’d quoted him all wrong and obscured his real thoughts.

If I were Saudi, Israeli, Palestinian, or even the Pope, I wouldn’t take anything at face value. He will use his charm, his speech-writers’ talents, his pretty daughter and beautiful wife to attempt to bowl over the opposition.

Will it work? I don’t think so. He thinks if he smiles a Trumpian smile, signs an executive order or sends off a Tweet, he has done something inspirational. In fact he may have just pulled the rug from under the worthy and the needy.  But this man has little empathy for those on the other side of the fence, whether they be the poor back home or the alienated abroad. The man does not know leadership. [IDN-INPS – 23 May 2017]

*Note: For 17 years Jonathan Power was a foreign affairs columnist for the International Herald Tribune. He has forwarded this and his previous Viewpoints for publication in IDN-INPS. Copyright: Jonathan Power.

By Daniel Uribe*

Ecuador has unilaterally withdrawn from its remaining 16 bilateral investment treaties (BITs). With this decision, Ecuador has concluded the termination of 26 BITs signed by the country since 1968.

The 16 BITS which Ecuador is withdrawing from had been signed with the Netherlands, Germany, Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, the United States, China, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela, and Chile.

The Ecuadorian move is part of similar measures taken in recent years by a growing number of developing countries to withdraw from their bilateral investment treaties. These include South Africa, Bolivia, Indonesia and India.

The President of Ecuador, Mr. Rafael Correa Delgado, stated that the decision to withdraw from these BITs is not sudden, but that it responded to a governmental process aimed at complying with the Constitution of Ecuador adopted in 2008, which recognises the human being and human rights above the power of economic capital.

The withdrawal of Ecuador from these BITs responds to the final stage of a review process that started in 2008, and which had led to the establishment of a joint government-civil society audit commission (known as CAITISA by its Spanish acronym) established by the government in 2013.

CAITISA was composed of government officials, academics and researchers, lawyers and civil society groups. Its objective was to verify the legality, legitimacy and lawfulness of investment treaties and other investment agreements signed by Ecuador, as well as to audit the validity and appropriateness of the awards, procedures, actions and decisions issued by Investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) bodies and arbitral tribunals.

This Citizen Commission has been the first of its nature, and the methodology and composition followed to review and reform the current international investment treaties regime could serve as an “inspiration and model for other countries in the region and world”, according to Ms. Cecilia Olivet, President of the Commission.

During the official presentation of CAITISA’s 668-page Executive Report (in Spanish), Ms. Cecilia Olivet explained the key findings of the report as follows:

1. Concerning the effects of BITs as a tool to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) and development into the country, the report found that such correlation is non-existent as the signing of BITs is not decisive for attracting FDI.

a) According to the report, Ecuador only received 0.79% of global FDI that flowed to Latin America and the Caribbean;

b) The principal sources of FDI that flow into Ecuador are from Brazil, Mexico and Panama, none of which have a BIT with Ecuador;

c) Of the 7 largest foreign investors in Ecuador, only 23% come from a country which has a BIT signed with Ecuador.

2. According to the report, the BITs signed by Ecuador contradict and undermine the development objectives laid down in the Constitution of Ecuador.

– Even though the Constitution mandates the State to regulate foreign investment to ensure it plays a positive role in achieving the national development plan, the BITs signed by Ecuador include clauses that erode the role of the State.

3. The report found that the costs of signing these BITs for Ecuador have been greater than the alleged promises of investment and development that have failed to materialise.

a) Ecuador has faced 26 cases in international tribunals based on the BITs;

b) From those 26 cases, 15 cases have ended in awards. From those 15 cases, the State has been favoured only twice, while the investor has been favoured in the remaining 13 cases (87%).

c) A total of $21.2 billion dollars has been claimed as compensation from Ecuador by corporations for alleged violation of BITs;

d) The total amount disbursed so far by the State amounts to $1.498 billion dollars, equivalent to 31% of education spending, or 62% of health spending;

e) From the total of cases still open against Ecuador, the State runs the risk to be obliged to disburse USD 13.4 billion, which is equivalent to 52% of the General State Budget for 2017.

The report of the Commission recommended to the State to terminate all BITs. It proposed negotiating new investment instruments, such as investment contracts providing restricted investor rights and investor obligations, or new international investment agreements based on alternative model BITs.

Such instruments should restrict the definition of investments, and strengthen the right of the State to regulate for the common good and sustainable development, including by recognising the right of the State to impose obligations to foreign investors, apply performance requirements, secure the fiscal competence of the State, secure technology transfer, and force investors to respect international standards and human rights and the environment, among others.

The Commission also recommended the State not to include investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms in new BITs, and to strengthen the domestic jurisdiction in order to provide judicial guarantees for investors in national courts. These efforts should include the development of a comprehensive national policy on and specific rules for foreign investment, and the creation of one central agency to be in charge of the institutional governance of foreign investment.

President Rafael Correa Delgado stated that in different international forums the country has led discussions on the legitimacy of BITs. He emphasized the leading role of Ecuador in different international processes concerning these issues, particularly the process for the adoption of a binding treaty on business and human rights in the United Nations Human Rights Council. Ecuador was elected Chair of the Open Ended Intergovernmental Working Group that is negotiating the treaty.

The President of Ecuador also highlighted the need to join forces with others to achieve an integral reform of the ISDS system. He noted the need (in a reformed system) for permanent and professional judges, with renowned knowledge and experience in public international law, in order to avoid the strong commercial orientation that characterized the current system.

The experience of Ecuador has also led to discussion on the creation of a Regional Centre for Dispute Resolution in UNASUR, with the objective of providing more transparent proceedings and appeal mechanisms in the ISDS system; this also includes the adoption of a code of conduct for judges.

Finally the efforts of Ecuador are part of a growing global movement to reform the international investment treaties regime. Many countries in almost all regions have started to review their investment treaty regimes. They are seeking a more balanced approach, one that provides rights of investors, but also recognises the right of the State to regulate investments and investors for national interests, development objectives and the rights of their peoples.

For example, South Africa initiated the termination of its existing BITs (when they expire) in recent years, with the objective of safeguarding its right to regulate investments and the right to establish development policies while at the same time protecting investor rights.

Bolivia has also withdrawn from its BITs. India recently announced it would withdraw from 57 investment treaties with the objective of re-negotiating them based on its new model BIT. The newly announced measure by Ecuador to withdraw from its remaining BITS is in line with the measures of these other countries. According to the current Trade Minister of Ecuador, Mr. Juan Carlos Cassinelli, Ecuador is thinking of the re-negotiation of its BITs, on the basis of a new text that contains reforms to the ISDS system (click here).

*Daniel Uribe is a Visiting Researcher at the South Centre. This article originally appeared in SOUTHNEWS (No. 155, 23 May 2017), a service of the South Centre to provide information and news on topical issues from a South perspective.

Earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump said that “under the right circumstances,” he would meet with North Korean President Kim Jong Un, who continues to increase his nation’s nuclear arsenal. With the recent election in South Korea of President Moon Jae-in, who campaigned for renewed negotiations between the two Koreas, the circumstances might indeed be just right.

Kim Jong Un has repeatedly stated that he wants the same thing North Korea’s previous leaders—his father, Kim Jong Il, and grandfather Kim Il Sung—wanted: first, assurance that North Korea won’t be invaded again, and second, electricity for economic development to replace the hydropower capacity the United States destroyed with massive strategic bombing in the first years of the Korean War, which was fought from 1950 to 1953. These were the two demands North Korea made, and the Clinton administration agreed to, in 1994, when North Korea pledged to stop producing plutonium in exchange for nuclear power plants.

North Korea’s president is fully aware that attacking the United States would be tantamount to suicide. In 2000, as President Kim Jong Il told a South Korean newspaper publisher, “[Our] missiles cannot reach the United States, and if I launched them the U.S. would fire a thousand missiles back and we would not survive. I know that very well. But I have to let them know I have missiles. I am making them because only then will the United States talk to me.” Shortly thereafter, during a visit to North Korea by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, he agreed to a moratorium on missile construction.

The 1994 energy-for-weapons agreement worked until the 9/11 terrorist attacks, after which U.S. President George W. Bush claimed that North Korea was part of a so-called axis of evil with Iraq and Iran. Two years later, the United States invaded Iraq. North Korean leaders quite rationally concluded that Iraq’s mistake was not its pursuit of a weapon but rather its failure to build one. They conducted their first nuclear weapons test three years later, in 2006.

The Obama administration largely continued the Bush administration’s hardline approach to North Korea, to even worse results. Not only is North Korea closer than ever to producing an intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach the United States—its people remain mired in poverty thanks in part to a lack of abundant or reliable electricity. Satellite images show a brightly lit South Korea—one-third of whose power comes from nuclear power plants—casting a glare over an almost entirely dark North Korea.

Washington’s continued pursuit of a failed strategy is evidence that it, not Pyongyang, is the irrational actor. Threatening North Korea with military action, as Trump has done, only deepens its leaders’ conviction that they need a sizable nuclear deterrent to protect themselves. By contrast, promising not to attack—and helping North Korea gain access to nuclear energy in exchange for limiting its nuclear arsenal and missile development—gives it reason to stop threatening its neighbors and creates a powerful economic incentive for it to cease exporting missiles and other military contraband.

Constructive engagement is critical for achieving peace on the Korean peninsula and, eventually, freedom for the North Korean people. The failure of the United States to impose democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq stands in marked contrast with the gradual, multi-decade transition from dictatorships to democracy by many other nations around the world, from Europe to Latin America to much of Asia.

Indeed, there is no mystery to how peaceful and gradual regime change occurs. Rising prosperity increases popular demands for freedom and inspires the children and grandchildren of hereditary dynasties to loosen their grip on power. South Korea is no exception. Even though it regularly held elections, that U.S. ally was effectively a military dictatorship until 1987, when a national referendum approved a new constitution that allowed direct elections, including that of the president. Between 1980 and 1990, per-capita income nearly quadrupled, from $1,778 to $6,642.

Conservative hawks who seek a military solution to the Korean problem are not the only ones at fault. Liberal doves who oppose nuclear power are equally to blame. Since the Carter administration, Democrats have sought to restrict access to nuclear energy by poor nations and to punish nations such as India and Pakistan that acquired a weapon after the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT) was ratified, blocking their efforts to scale up nuclear energy production. Democrats have long sought to prevent nations—even those that have already become nuclear-weapons states—from reprocessing spent nuclear fuel because they fear the separated plutonium might be used for weapons, even though the NPT explicitly gives its signatories the right to do so and reactor-grade plutonium is unreliable for weapons use.

As an outsider, Trump has the opportunity to break from both extremes and finally realize the “Atoms for Peace” vision that U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower outlined at the United Nations in 1953, five months after the end of the Korean War. Eisenhower, a former general deeply committed to alleviating the conditions that lead to military conflict, called for nuclear power development to supply “abundant electrical energy in the power-starved areas of the world.” Working through the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United States provided nations with research reactors and the training to use them, while maintaining oversight of weapons-grade materials.

Given Trump’s bellicose rhetoric toward North Korea, his moving to open negotiations with the Hermit Kingdom may seem unlikely. Yet he has frequently criticized the U.S. invasion of Iraq as well as the Obama administration’s handling of North Korea, and he is a professed supporter of nuclear energy. That industry, despite having significant export potential, is currently struggling for survival in the United States against heavily subsidized renewables and cheap natural gas.

In seeking an atoms-for-peace deal with North Korea, Trump can build on humankind’s successes in reducing the threat of nuclear conflict. Thanks in large measure to an agreement negotiated by another Republican president, Ronald Reagan, the United States and Russia have reduced their total number of operational nuclear warheads from 30,000 in the late 1960s to 1,500 today. The CIA estimates that more than 30 nations have the technical capacity to develop nuclear weapons. Only nine have chosen to do so. In short, for more than 70 years, nations have successfully avoided the use of atoms for war. What’s missing now is the expansion of atoms for peace—on the Korean peninsula and beyond

*About the authors:
Richard Rhodes is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning history The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Michael Shellenberger is president of Environmental Progress, a research and policy organization.

Source:
This article was published at Foreign Affairs, and is reprinted with permission.

By Alexia Rauen*

Chile’s Island Territory

Rapa Nui (Easter Island) is renowned worldwide for its enormous volcanic statues, called moai, which resemble human heads. Less well-known is its significant indigenous population, the rapa nui, which have called this south Pacific island home for over a thousand years. This piece will refer to the island as Rapa Nui and the indigenous population as rapa nui, per the recommendations of the Consejo Nacional de la Cultura y Las Artes.[i] The rapa nui lost sovereignty of their island many years ago, when Chile annexed the island in 1888. In recent years, the rapa nui have become increasingly concerned over Chilean migration to their small island. In 2012, Rapa Nui’s mayor asserted that Chileans have begun to outnumber the indigenous locals on the island,^[ii] and while the statistics vary, other estimates find that 40 percent of the island’s population is mainland Chilean.^[iii] Today, many rapa nui contest the legality of the 1888 treaty that bound their island to Chile.^[iv] Just this past week, the rapa nui achieved a significant victory: the commencement of Senate debate on a law that will limit migration to the island.^[v]

A Painful Annexation

The annexation of Rapa Nui is a complex and enraging tale. Its initial annexation was orchestrated by a Chilean navy officer, Policarpo Toro Hurtado, who travelled to the island with twenty Chileans and some French sheep in 1888.[vi] These sheep proved to be an invasive species to the island: during my brief stay on Rapa Nui in 2016, natives frequently expressed the destruction caused by sheep to the island’s topography, pointing to the lack of trees and diverse vegetation. Unfortunately, the same might be said about the people who accompanied them. In a tale that eerily mirrors the murder of the Incan emperor Atahualpa at the hand of Francisco Pizarro, Enrique Merlet, a businessman who held farming interests on the island, ordered the death of the Rapa Nui king, Simeon Riro ‘a Kainga Rokoro He Tau.^[vii]

The oppression of the Rapa Nui seems even more senseless when one considers that Chile has not always expressed a strong desire to maintain the island territory. During a period of economic stress in the late 1930s, Chile offered to sell rapa nui to whomever offered the largest sum, either Germany, England, the United States, or Japan.^[viii] Scholar Grant McCall refers to Chile’s treatment of Rapa Nui as an “ambivalence,” claiming that Chile then and now is unsure of how best to approach ownership of the island.^[ix] He believes that for Chile, this acquisition was a “mistake” as Chile had “no practical use for [Rapa Nui] and, particularly in the 19^th century, had several ranches many times the size of [Rapa Nui] on its own mainland.”^[x]

Rapa Nui Demand Better

The 21^st century has witnessed the indigenous islanders take a bolder stance on their sovereignty over the territory. In 2009, members of the rapa nui community blocked travel out of the island’s only airport in protest of Chilean migration.^[xi] As a result, Patricio Rosende, Chilean Undersecretary for the Interior, approved new legal framework, crafted in part by the rapa nui, to require that each visitor document his or her trip to the island.^[xii] However, the Chilean Supreme Court decided that, as the island is a possession of Chile, Chilean citizens should not be required to complete such paperwork.^[xiii] This ruling did little to discourage the rapa nui who later that year held a referendum on whether to modify the Chilean constitution to limit migration from the mainland.^[xiv] 96.3 percent of the rapa nui population voted for the modification.^[xv] It now falls to the Chilean Senate to follow the will of the rapa nui, a people who have been marginalized and mistreated for too long. If passed, this will not be the first measure of its kind. Ecuador has imposed restrictions on their citizens’ migration to the Galapagos Islands, an Ecuadorian province.^[xvi] Chilean Senator, Eva Von Baer, has highlighted how this law could be a launching point for protecting other Chilean regions affected by an increasingly heavy human footprint; Von Baer referred to Torres del Paine, Chile’s stunning southern region.^[xvii]

It is difficult to imagine a flight from Santiago, Chile to Hanga Roa, Rapa Nui as domestic. The cultural bonds felt between the rapa nui, who in my travels, could point and identify nephews and third-cousins alike, do not extend to Chileans. The Chileans I met regarded the rapa nui with admiration and intrigue. Their mesmerism with this insular indigenous culture contrasted with their rejection of the mainland Mapuche is a disturbing paradox. This being said, it is overdue that the Chileans move beyond mere fascination with the rapa nui and actually act in their best interests. Requiring airline passengers to purchase round-trip tickets is hardly an outrageous imposition, and would allow rapa nui to know duration of stay of non-indigenous visitors.^[xviii] Also, considering the harm invasive species (plants, animals, and humans) have inflicted on the island in the past, visitor declarations should become mandatory. Hopefully, the Chilean Senate will be able to pass constitutional legislation regarding visitation to the island amenable to the Supreme Court. The people of Rapa Nui will sleep easier knowing Chilean migration has been tempered.

*Alexia Rauen, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. Additional editorial support provided by Francisco Ugas, Senior Research Fellow at the Council of Hemispheric Affairs, Jordan Bazak, Extramural Research Associate at the Council of Hemispheric Affairs, and Emma Pachon and Sharri K Hall, Research Associates at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

[i] “Recomendaciones para nombrar y escribir sobre pueblos indígenas,” Consejo Nacional de la Cutura y las Artes, Gobierno de Chile, 2017.

^[ii] Romero, Simon, “Slow-Burning Challenge to Chile on Easter Island,” NYTimes, October 6, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/world/americas/slow-burning-rebellion-against-chile-on-easter-island.html.

^[iii] “Rapanuí exigen control migratorio: 40 por ciento de su población llega del continente,” Cooperativa.cl, March 12, 2017, http://www.cooperativa.cl/noticias/pais/isla-de-pascua/rapanui-exigen-control-migratorio-40-por-ciento-de-su-poblacion-llega/2017-03-12/175749.html.

^[iv] Romero, Simon, “Slow-Burning Challenge to Chile on Easter Island,” NYTimes, October 6, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/world/americas/slow-burning-rebellion-against-chile-on-easter-island.html.

^[v] Muñoz, Gabriel, “Ley de Migraciones: avanza esperada demanda Rapa Nui,” El Ciudadano, March 10, 2017,  http://www.elciudadano.cl/justicia/ley-de-migracion-avanza-esperada-demanda-rapa-nui/05/10/

[vi] McCall, Grant, “Japan, Rapa Nui and Chile’s Uncertain Sovereignty,” in Rapa Nui Journal, Vol. 9 (I) March 1995, The University of South Wales, http://islandheritage.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/RNJ_9_1_McCall.pdf.

^[vii] Ibid.

^[viii] Ibid.

^[ix] Ibid.

^[x] Ibid.

^[xi] “Rapa Nui campaign for immigration regulation, 2009,” Swarthmore College, http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/rapa-nui-campaign-immigration-regulation-2009.

^[xii] Ibid.

^[xiii] Ibid.

^[xiv] Ibid.

^[xv] Ibid.

^[xvi] Kayyem, Juliette, “In Galapagos Islands, influx promotes a harsh migration policy,” The Boston Globe, July 30, 2012, https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/07/29/galapagos-islands-influx-prompts-harsh-migration-policy/HFAWQ3H1J4gWyuOBC4h2SP/story.html.

^[xvii] Muñoz, Gabriel, “Ley de migración: avanza esperada demanda Rapa Nui,” El Ciudadano, March 10, 2017, http://www.elciudadano.cl/justicia/ley-de-migracion-avanza-esperada-demanda-rapa-nui/05/10/.

^[xviii] “Rapanuí exigen control migratorio: 40 por ciento de su población llega del continente,” Cooperativa.cl, March 12, 2017, http://www.cooperativa.cl/noticias/pais/isla-de-pascua/rapanui-exigen-control-migratorio-40-por-ciento-de-su-poblacion-llega/2017-03-12/175749.html.

The US retreats on global security, immigration and trade while globalization’s many connections in developing nations flourish.

By Hassan Siddiq*

President Trump’s bellicosity towards global integration is reducing America’s already waning prominence in a world increasingly defined by interlinkages of hyper-growth developing countries. It’s ironic that thanks to Trump, an oft-repeated mantra of Iran’s former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – “A world without America is not only desirable, it is achievable” – now seems less delusional.

After the Second World War, the United States played a critical role in defining the international economic order and political institutions, taking reins from the British Empire which commanded 21 percent of the global economy a century ago. The US market, comprising about 25 percent of the world economy, has enticed businesses around the world. China’s opening invariably meant supply of low-cost manufactured goods to the US, and India’s liberalization allowed export of software services to American corporations. Spending more on military than the next seven countries combined, the United States leads NATO and is a protector of many allies in the world. Similarly, the US has been a magnet for research and innovation, attracting the world’s brightest from a young age.

It’s no wonder then that globalization became synonymous with Americanization – though the country’s retreat is unlikely to abate the rising tide of globalization that has made developing countries increasingly dependent upon one another for trade, defense, education and even entertainment.

As the largest single market, the US is a coveted trading partner, but rapid growth made China the shining star of international trade in recent decades. A closed economy until the economic reforms of the late 1970s, China became the world’s largest exporter of goods in 2009 and the world’s largest trading nation, importing and exporting a total of US$4 trillion in 2013.

Despite hue and cry, China exports less than 20 percent of its goods to the United States. More than 100 countries count China as their leading trade partner, from India next door to Congo in Central Africa. China’s exports to developing countries alone exceeded US$1.3 trillion last year. In fact, Janus Capital Group, a global investment firm with US$200 billion-plus in assets under management, expects “the intra-Asia trade lane to remain the fastest growing trade lane over the next decade.”

Outside of its home continent, China has expanded its relationship with Africa exponentially, increasing trade fortyfold over 20 years; ditto for Latin America where President Xi Jinping has set an ambitious goal of US$500 billion in trade by 2020. China’s trading success has come from its willingness not only to sell products, but also invest in economic capacity and growth in other countries – launching the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank with US$250 billion lending capability is but one example.

With a determined China doling out US$1.6 trillion on its ambitious One Belt, One Road Initiative, America’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership or Trump’s insistence on rewriting NAFTA might decelerate growth of international trade, but cannot arrest jumping trade volumes among developing countries.

As the largest military power and a founding member of NATO, the United States has led the West in protecting freedom, peace and security around the world. However, the new government in Washington has repeatedly criticized allies for not paying their fair share for defense. “Frankly, Saudi Arabia has not treated us fairly, because we are losing a tremendous amount of money in defending Saudi Arabia,” Trump said to Reuters, in announcing his first overseas trip to Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Vatican before joining a NATO meeting in Brussels and the G20 in Sicily. While Trump was busy chastising Saudi Arabia, Raheel Sharif, former Pakistani chief of army staff, landed in Riyadh to head a 41-nation Islamic Military Alliance set up by Saudi Arabia purportedly to combat terrorism. Some has dubbed it as “Arab NATO.”

On Saudi Arabia’s part, the country went out of its way to welcome Trump, accepting US$300 billion worth of deals and putting together a last-minute summit for the president to address. The financial deal gives Trump leeway to boast recouping some of the military losses he lamented.  At the summit, Trump urged the Saudi-paid Sunni alliance to lead the fight against extremism and the Islamic State, cementing Saudi Arabia’s leadership claim to the Muslim world and sidelining Shiite-denominated Iran. By backing the Islamic Military Alliance, the United States takes a sectarian stance in the region. While the United States itself would take a backseat by letting the alliance lead security affairs in the Middle East, it allows 41 nations to develop new dependencies and potential flows of money, personnel and arms.

France, Europe, and the world breathed a sigh of relief after the French elections gave “centrist” Emmanuel Macron a resounding thirty-percentage point victory over “populist” Marine Le Pen, who hated unbridled capitalism and globalization and pledged to provide government protection for French industries, severely curtail immigration, and abandon the European Union. Yet France is not out of the woods yet.

Such “populism,” really proto-fascism in thin disguise, is fueled by economic stagnation. Although the French economy finally has shown a few signs of life after seven years of “recovery,” it still suffers from a high unemployment rate of greater than 10 percent and youth unemployment of almost 24 percent.

Macron’s program to spur the economy is much better than Le Pen’s plan, which might have sent France and Europe into depression, but it still has too much residual resemblance to that of his successor, Socialist Francois Hollande—over which Macron presided as Hollande’s economy minister. If Macron doesn’t goose France out its long economic sluggishness, Le Pen may come roaring back with a vengeance.

Macron’s economic plan, which his newly chosen prime minister will implement, calls for a corporate tax cut and the easing of France’s strangling 35-hour work restrictions. So far, so good. Yet Macron also flirts with Hollande/Obama-style policies of the left, which involve yet more government involvement in managing the economy and have not jolted France out of the economic doldrums. For example, Macron proposed a $55-billion stimulus plan that offers government rewards to businesses for hiring people from poor suburbs containing many immigrants and government-sponsored youth job training programs (both also presumably designed to attenuate the home-grown terrorist problem).

However, if Macron wants France’s economy to hum, thus helping to stanch the desire of its people to entertain the further isolation and right-wing socialism of Le Pen-style fascism, he must go further to reduce the massive role of the state sector in French society. Employers remain reluctant to hire new permanent employees, because they must pay heavy social security taxes of as much as half a new staff member’s salary.

Macron wants to lower the costs of hiring permanent employees to spur employment by making Hollande’s short-term payroll tax credit to hire permanent. Although this change would be progress, it’s not enough. Although Hollande made mild labor-market reforms, the massively complex French labor law, designed to make firing employees almost impossible, understandably causes employers’ reluctance to make new permanent hires (almost all new hires in France are only for the short-term at low pay) and must thus experience drastic deregulation. And this issue is just an example of France’s larger problem.

The state sector in France is much too large—a whopping 57 percent of the economy―thus making taxes horrendous. Diverting this much private money into the inefficient state sector is a severe drag on French prosperity. If he is serious about restoring economic sizzle and lessening the chance of a future Le Pen resurgence, Macron must take the politically difficult road of wholesale slaughter on the state sector. Either cutting back around the edges or creating even more government programs to give bonuses to hire in blighted areas or training people for jobs that don’t exist will not work. Other French presidents were unsuccessful at pruning the state sector, because it is more difficult to take even inefficient government programs away from people than it is to refrain from giving them the goodies in the first place—for example, Republicans in the United States are having difficulty repealing Obamacare healthcare without replacing it with something else.

The bottom line: To permanently nail the coffin of the Le Pen proto-fascist vampire, Macron must first drive in the stake of radical economic reforms to enable a much freer economy in France to flourish.

This article was published at Huffington Post and reprinted with permission.

In a unanimous decision (TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC), the U.S. Supreme Court gave a kick in the rear to patent trolls. The Verge has this article on the case.

Patent trolls obtain patents not for the purpose of producing an invention or a technology but to license and enforce the patents. In other words, trolls have no plans to actually make the patented product or process; instead, they prefer to lie in wait, letting someone else do the heavy lifting and then suing just as the new creation is about to take off commercially. It is a shakedown process that threatens innovation.

In a nutshell the Court held that venue in patent suits exists where the defendant company is incorporated. Until this decision, a patent troll had great liberty to choose the forum in which to sue an alleged patent infringer and often chose plaintiff friendly locations such as the Eastern District of Texas. Typically, the defendant corporation had no ties with this district, which has been described as a “judicial hellhole.” But a prior appellate court decision held that suit was proper wherever the defendant sold products. So, for example, if Apple sells smart phones in east Texas, it was subject to venue there. No more. (For a discussion of venue in patent troll cases, see my book Patent Trolls, specifically pp. 50-51.)

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has this summary about the import of the ruling:

While today’s decision is a big blow for patent trolls, it is not a panacea. Patent trolls with weak cases can, of course, still file elsewhere. The ruling will likely lead to a big growth in patent litigation in the District of Delaware where many companies are incorporated. And it does not address the root cause of patent trolling: the thousands of overbroad and vague software patents that the Patent Office issues every year. We will still need to fight for broader patent reform and defend good decisions like the Supreme Court’s 2014 ruling in Alice v. CLS Bank.

Agreed. The war against patent trolls is far from over, but TC Heartland certainly improves the situation.

This article was published at The Beacon.

By Elias Vahedi*

Turkey held a referendum on the proposed reforms to its constitution on April 16, 2017, in which the number of positive votes cast in favor of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s reforms amounted to a weak percentage, namely 51.5 percent of the total vote. The referendum results showed that at least about half of people in Turkey were opposed to the way that Erdogan was running the country. This is true because due to conditions created by opponents and proponents of the constitutional reforms during their campaigns, the public opinion had been diverted from the main issue, which was reforming 18 articles of Turkey’s constitution to, among other things, change the country’s ruling system from the current parliamentary one to a presidential system.

As a result, the general atmosphere governing the referendum had become intensely bipolar for and against Erdogan. Perhaps one can claim that a high turnout – that accounted for over 85 percent of eligible voters – in the aforesaid referendum, which had no precedent in Turkey’s political history, was a result of the bipolar atmosphere that governed the Turkish society.

Political map of Turkey’s 2017 referendum

The spatial distribution of positive and negative votes cast in Turkey’s constitutional referendum generally conforms to maps of previous elections. It shows that Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party has more or less performed like previous elections in which it had got most votes in the country’s central regions, including Central Anatolia, and the shores of the Black Sea in north, as well as the Mediterranean coast in south, which are under powerful influence of the party. However, the European part of the country in those regions situated close to the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara are still under the heavy influence of pro-West secular social classes that support the Republican People’s Party (CHP), which is the biggest opposition party in the country.

On the other hand, apart from Şırnak and Bingöl provinces, other Kurdish regions of Turkey, which are located in eastern and southeastern parts of the country, cast their votes for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party. The most striking difference between this and previous elections in Turkey, was demonstrated in the votes cast by people in cities of Istanbul and Ankara. People in these two cities traditionally used to lend their support to the Justice and Development Party and had played a great role in the party’s election wins. However, during this referendum, these two cities also inclined toward the opposition. This unprecedented development triggered different analyses from its outset.

Some analysts believe that the cities of Istanbul and Ankara are major concentration points for Turkey’s opposition parties. Therefore, supporters of opposition parties, who only voted for their own parties during past elections, have said a big ‘no’ to the ruling Justice and Development Party. Other analysts have mentioned other reasons to explain why Turkish citizens in Istanbul and Ankara did not support the government. Their reasons include the fall in votes cast by the Islamist conservative class in these two cities due to mass arrests of tens of thousands of people following Turkey’s failed putsch in 2016; the support lent by some Islamist figures to Fethullah Gulen’s current; and opposition to changes in the constitution by some supporters of the Nationalist Movement Party. They consider constitutional changes to be at odds with a previous agreement between the leaders of the Nationalist Movement Party and the Justice and Development Party.

Such regions as Izmir, which is located in the European part of Turkey, as well as the Kurdish provinces of Diyarbakir, Van and Hakkari, have also opposed the Turkish government’s proposed reforms due to the influence of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party in these regions.

An overall view of Turkey’s 2017 constitution referendum map will show that in 49 provinces located in the country’s center, north and south, except for Ankara and Istanbul, the proponents of constitutional reforms have swayed majority, while in 32 provinces located in the country’s west, southwest, east and northeast, the opponents have had the majority. The noteworthy point about the geographical division of positive and negative votes is that in those provinces where proponents or opponents have swayed majority, the gap between positive and negative votes has been wider than previous elections, which proves intensification of bipolarity between government’s supporters and the opposition.

Erdogan’s all-out faceoff with Europe

European governments have been mounting pressure on the Turkish government in recent years, mostly due to Erdogan’s unilateral policies and also under the influence of dominant rightwing groups in the member states of the European Union. As a result, during campaigns for Turkey’s recent constitutional referendum, European countries barred Turkish officials from taking part in campaign rallies held by the supporters of the Justice and Development Party in various European states.

At the same time, however, supporters of such Kurdish groups as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) were allowed to hold rallies and even some prominent European media went a step further and served Erdogan’s opposition in their campaign effort. Such measures, however, not only failed to benefit the European countries, but caused their efforts to backfire in practice as well. As a result, Erdogan was provided with an opportunity to take advantage of his regular election tactic and ride the tide of anti-Turkey policies adopted by Europe to incite nationalistic sentiments of Turks living in Europe. This incitement had an effect on the mind of Turks in Europe, which was much more powerful than holding of campaign rallies. As a result of the success of Turkeys’ ruling party in riding this tide, the share of positive votes given to proposed changes in Turkey’s constitution reached about 65 percent in Germany and France, while in the Netherlands, which was previously a center of tension against the Turkish government, about 70 percent of participants voted positive for the constitutional changes.|This came despite the fact that other Turks living in the United States and the UK, whose governments generally turn a blind eye to Erdogan’s authoritarian policies, have said no to Turkish president’s proposed changes by a decisive majority. Even in countries that have friendly relations with Turkey, including the Republic of Azerbaijan and Qatar, the opposition had the upper hand compared to supporters of Erdogan. On the whole, more than 59 percent of voters taking part in the referendum outside Turkey voted positive for proposed constitutional changes, which was eight percent higher than positive votes cast inside Turkey.

Unsettling realities for the ruling party

The results of this referendum have revealed a set of realities for the public. Some of those realities, which may not have been very evident on the surface, include:

• Fragility of people’s support for the Justice and Development Party and Recep Tayyip Erdogan;
• Increased possibility of an emerging gap between the Nationalist Movement Party, as supporter of the ruling party, and the Justice and Development Party. It is remarkable that most members of the Justice and Development Party voted negative for the proposed reforms despite a prior agreement between party leaders and the government in this regard. Even within the Justice and Development Party, the dissident section of the party either voted negative or did not take part in the referendum;
• Non-transparent policies and plans formulated by the ruling party with regard to the issue of ethnic tendencies – including Turk-centered nationalists and Kurdish ethnocentric elements – have caused both groups to tilt toward the negative vote; and
• Intensification of differences between supporters of the ruling system and their opponents is another reality, which in addition to increasing political instability in the society will weaken social attachments among various groups of people.

Domestic and foreign outcomes of Turkey’s referendum

The most important changes predicted in the package that contains proposed changes to the constitution include:

• Unlike the previous constitution, there will be no ban on the president’s membership in a political party through people’s direct vote;
• The prime minister post will be phased out in Turkey’s political system and the president will take over the prime minister’s duties as well;
• There will be changes in the composition of the High Council for Judges and Prosecutors, the Constitutional Court of Turkey, the National Security Council, and the Council of Higher Education;
• The president and parliament will be reciprocally able to dissolve and dismiss each other and this will be followed with a request for reelection (both for the parliament and the president). In fact, if the president dissolves the parliament, he will have removed himself from his post as well and, vice versa, if the parliament removes the president, it will be dissolving itself as well;
• The number of parliament’s deputies will increase from the current figure of 550 to 600;
• The minimum age of candidacy for the parliament will decrease from 25 years to 18 years; and
• Every parliament term will be increased from four years to five years and elections for parliament deputies and the president will be held at the same time.

Although the ruling Justice and Development Party is currently facing opposition from about half of Turkey’s population, this is not enough to bar the party from implementing its plans. The most striking step taken by this party has been proposing reforms to the constitution in order to increase the president’s powers with regard to both domestic and foreign policies. According to the latest remarks by the Turkish president, the reforms will enter into force gradually until 2019, when the current presidential term comes to an end.

Under the new constitution, Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be authorized to seek two consecutive terms in office as president. If this happens in practice, Erdogan will remain at the helm of Turkey’s government for 12 more years. As a result, he will have enough time to implement his party plans in the Turkish society and without a doubt, will try to make the most of that opportunity. This is true because the current opportunity that has presented itself to Islamist conservative politicians in Turkey has not had a precedent in the past, nor it is possible to continue into the future if this political current loses power.

When it comes to foreign policy, the government will have a lot of latitude to set its regional policies. This state of affairs will lead to adoption of bolder policies, including cross-border military operations and the likes of that, while at the same time, make it possible for Turkey to take sharp turns in the country’s foreign policy.

*Elias Vahedi
Expert on Turkey and Caucasus Affairs

By Jeremy Black*

(FPRI) — 1917 was a key year in a crucial decade. This was a decade of change, or, rather, transformation; of the destruction of what became old orders; and of the replacement of existing currents and practices.

From the perspective of 2017, possibly the most important changes of the decade came in 1910-11: alongside revolutionary crises in Mexico, Cuba, and Haiti was the crisis and overthrow of the Manchu dynasty in China. There had been a series of such crises in China before, of course notably with the Ming in the 1640s, and the Mongols in the 1360s. What made the crisis of the 1910s different, however, was the replacement of a dynasty by a republic and the difficulty, for the new system, of establishing its legitimacy. Indeed, China atomised, so that, by 1925, it was divided between a large number of independent polities, most of which were under the thumb of warlords and expressions of their power. China’s fragmentation made it vulnerable to Japanese invasion and, ultimately, to a destructive civil war and communist revolution in 1949.

Even with those earlier crises in mind, 1917 was crucial for a number of reasons. Here, we will look at three that were highly significant and where that significance is still readily apparent today: the Russian Revolution, America’s entry into World War I, and the Balfour Declaration and its implications in the Middle East.

The Russian Revolution was a direct consequence of World War I. The Romanov dynasty had seen off previous crises, such as the Decembrist conspiracy in 1825 and, more immediately, the 1905 revolution. In 1913, the Romanovs, like the Hohenzollerns in Germany, and the Habsburgs in Austria-Hungary presided over a society that was industrialising and becoming more prosperous. There were political strains but no sense that these would necessarily cause any breakdown. Moreover, the multi-ethnic character of these empires did not lead to breakdown. Russia had crushed rebellions in its Polish provinces in the 1830s and 1860s, and did the same in Central Asia in 1916.

War itself did not necessarily have to lead to socio-political collapse. Japan, indeed, benefited from its participation in World War I. Britain was hit hard in some respects, and the war led to the breakdown of its rule over much of Ireland. Nevertheless, as with France, Britain became an even more far-flung imperial power as a consequence of the conflict.

For Russia, however, as with Austria-Hungary, Germany, Turkey, and Bulgaria, participation in a major war led to a systemic breakdown. The war had gone badly for the Russians from the outset in 1914. Indeed, it had demonstrated anew the conclusion apparent from the 1904-5 Russo-Japanese War—namely that the best use for the military is to be a presence/threat/deterrent, rather than to be exposed, eroded, or even destroyed by use. The devastating defeat of the attempt to conquer Prussia in 1914 at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes was followed by losses to German advances. In particular, Warsaw and the rest of Russian Poland was conquered in 1915, while, in 1916, the Germans intervened to stop the Russian advance at the expense of the Austrians in the Brusilov Offensive.

Repeated defeats undermined the prestige of the Romanov dynasty which was closely associated with the military. The Western Allies understood this threat, and a major reason for their offensives in 1915-17 was to take pressure off Russia. To an extent, pressure was taken off with the German decision to focus on the Western Front in 1916, but it was not possible to defeat the Central Powers, and the 1915 Gallipoli campaign failed to relieve Russia by taking Turkey out of the war.

Far more than prestige was involved. The war also caused a social crisis, with the pressures and disruptions of war greatly hitting living standards. There was also a major rise in inflation.

The crisis led to the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II in early 1917 and the creation of a reform government under Kerensky. Encouraged by the Allies in the West, Kerensky’s government crucially decided to remain in the war, and thus Germany remained exposed to a two-front war, the strategic crisis it had faced from 1914. However, the war did not go well for the Allies in 1917. The Germans continued to make major gains. In addition, Kerensky’s government faced opposition from a number of political directions and was unable to impose its will. This provided an opportunity for the Bolsheviks to seize power. German intelligence played a major role by assisting Lenin to return to Russia and encouraging unrest in Russia. Indeed, the role of intelligence and secret diplomacy deserves more attention in general accounts of the period. The Germans supported Irish opposition to British rule and sought to stir up Muslim dissidence in the British and French empires. So also with the British search for support within the imperial systems of Eastern Europe, a search that is one of the contexts for the Balfour Declaration as well as for the cause of national self-determination in Eastern Europe.

The Bolshevik revolution created a crisis for the Allies opposed to the Central Powers as it provided Germany with the opportunity to knock Russia out of the war.

This opportunity came from a number of directions. The Bolsheviks regarded the war as an alien, hostile conflict, a war of élites against peoples. The Bolsheviks sought peace and wanted to abandon the alliance with Britain and France. Meanwhile, the Germans continued to advance, and disruption within Russia made resistance more difficult. In the event at Brest-Litovsk, the Bolsheviks accepted a peace treaty that left the Germans with major territorial gains. These provided Germany with the opportunity both to acquire resources, such as Ukrainian grain (potentially obviating the Allied naval blockade) and to fight a one-front war on the Western Front.

In short, the Russian collapse spelled trouble for the Western Allies. Today, that may not trouble enthusiasts for counterfactual history who propose either that German success would have prevented the subsequent rise of Hitler and still worse calamities, or who argue that Germany has ultimately won the contest for Europe in the shape of the European Union. Those views are misguided as they compare markedly dissimilar phenomena. They also underrate the seriousness of the challenge posed by the Germans in World War I—their drive for domination, as well as the particular crisis created for the Allies by German successes in 1917 and early 1918. Aside from Russia, Italy had nearly been knocked out of the war by the Caporetto offensive, and required the transfer of British and French forces to be saved. In early 1918, the Germans launched heavy blows on Allied lines on the Western Front, leading the British to contemplate withdrawal from France.

It was scarcely surprising that American entry into the war became crucial. The German government argued that unrestricted submarine warfare would close the Atlantic, and thus destroy the impact of this entry, but this assessment proved totally mistaken. Indeed, it was an aspect of the militarisation of strategy that did not serve the Germans well at all.

American assertiveness had not matched the potential of national power during the 19^th century, a point amply demonstrated by the rapid and near-total demobilisation after the end of the Civil War in 1865. Spain, America’s opponent in 1898, was scarcely a major power, and did not match the combatants in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5. By 1914, the U.S. had a major fleet, thanks in large part to East Coast political and economic interests, but it lacked a comparable army and was not mobilised for war. This remained the pattern in 1914-16. Interventions in Mexico and the Caribbean in this period enhanced the contrast, as the small American armed forces barely sufficed for those operations. However, as the world’s leading economy, notably in industry and agriculture, and as the most significant of the neutral powers, American participation in World War I was decisive.

It also set a pattern. Although the U.S. disengaged from much of the new international order created in 1919 and did not sustain its intervention in the Russian Civil War or join the League of Nations, World War I had left American policymakers with a degree of concern about developments in Europe that had not been seen in the 19^th century. Moreover, the intervention in Russia launched America into the “Cold War,” a confrontation with the Soviet Union that defined much of American policy, international and domestic, for the rest of the century. Thus, the Russian Civil War and American entry into World War I were closely related.

So also with the relationship between World War I and the Balfour Declaration. Aware of growing nationalist pressures on the imperial states and treating Zionism as one of several nationalisms with which it wished to ally, the British government saw Jews as a key group in Russia. In part designed to win support in Europe, the Balfour Declaration’s promise of a Homeland for the Jewish People was also regarded as a measure that would encourage American backing for Britain.

The Declaration also represented an attempt to reorder the Middle East against the background of the attempt to overthrow the Turkish empire. There was no obvious replacement for Turkish rule. The Ottoman conquest of modern Syria, Lebanon, and Israel in 1516 had been at the expense of the Egyptian-based Mamluk empire which itself, had conquered the region in the 13^th century. There was no sense of native “legitimacy” to contest Britain and France’s interest in constructing a new territorial order. There was also a need to do so, not least to protect Egypt and the Suez Canal from the attack the Turks had attempted in 1915. In this context, the creation of a pro-British Jewish homeland appeared a necessary measure of strategic stabilisation, as useful in the Middle East as in Europe.

Promises were freely made in this period, and some clashed with other aspirations. In 1915, some of the gains that Italy was promised under the Treaty of London were subsequently allocated to Yugoslavia in the Versailles peace settlement. The Balfour Declaration was of longer standing significance because, despite reluctance, Britain allowed significant Jewish immigration and, more particularly, deployed considerable force to suppress the Arab Rising of 1937-9. Alongside ambivalence, British success in the war was therefore instrumental to the eventual creation of Israel.

As this brief sketch makes clear, the consequences of 1917 are important to the deep history of the contemporary world. They deserve widespread attention.

Taking note of the ongoing exhibition at the National Museum of American Jewish History on 1917: How One Year Changed the World, FPRI commissioned FPRI Senior Fellow Jeremy Black to write a reflection on the key events that year that are the focus of the exhibit.  This essay also draws on Prof. Black’s talk, The Great War, the Russian Revolution, and the Birth of the Modern Age, at the New York Historical Society on April 8, 2017, cosponsored by FPRI. 

About the author:
*Jeremy Black, an FPRI Senior Fellow, is professor of history at Exeter University.

Jeremy Black’s books include The Great War and The Cold War.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI

With the prospect of a US-Mexico border wall looming, research and reporting on the ecological impacts of walls is both important and timely.

Reporting in BioScience on such barriers’ known effects on wildlife, science journalist Lesley Evans Ogden describes the potential effects of the proposed structure along the 2000-mile US-Mexico border.

“If the wall is completed, it will create a considerable biodiversity conservation challenge–one unlikely to disappear anytime soon,” she writes.

The threats posed to local populations of species may be dire. Smaller aggregations of animals are often ephemeral and rely on individuals moving between populations to replenish their numbers and genetic stocks. “Local populations blink on and off like Christmas lights,” said the University of Arizona’s Aaron Flesch, who was interviewed for the article. The concern is that, if a border wall prevents migration, isolated local populations may fail to blink back on again.

Research described in the article points to problems even in areas where actions have been taken to allow animal movement. “Even when there isn’t a physical wall or much of a barrier, [border agents] are actively engaged in enforcing the law through patrols,” explained David Christianson of University of Arizona.

These patrols, which may disrupt movement or other animal behavior, often include off-road travel “right in the middle of this endangered species habitat,” said Christianson. Preliminary radio-collar and camera-trap data indicate that some species, such as pronghorn antelope, do not frequently travel near the US-Mexico border.

Perhaps most significant, some research described by Evans Ogden indicates that hardened border barriers may be ineffective in preventing passage by the species they are intended to impede–humans. Jamie McCallum, a consultant at Transfrontier International Limited, and his colleagues from the Zoological Society of London set camera traps in protected areas where 4- to 5-meter steel barriers are already in place. The traps were used to photographically “capture” the presence of mammals along the border.

Animals such as coati and pumas were found in lower numbers near hardened borders, as was expected by the researchers. However, the photographic evidence showed no lower likelihood of finding smugglers or undocumented migrants near border walls. Although more work remains to be done, this could be a sign that walls do little to prevent human cross-border movement. Said McCallum, “I thought it would have at least some kind of trace of an effect, even if it wasn’t a statistically significant finding. But it didn’t appear to.”

A team of astronomers including Carnegie’s Eduardo Bañados and led by Roberto Decarli of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy has discovered a new kind of galaxy which, although extremely old–formed less than a billion years after the Big Bang–creates stars more than a hundred times faster than our own Milky Way.

Their findings are published by Nature.

The team’s discovery could help solve a cosmic puzzle–a mysterious population of surprisingly massive galaxies from when the universe was only about 10 percent of its current age.

After first observing these galaxies a few years ago, astronomers proposed that they must have been created from hyper-productive precursor galaxies, which is the only way so many stars could have formed so quickly. But astronomers had never seen anything that fit the bill for these precursors until now.

This newly discovered population could solve the mystery of how these extremely large galaxies came to have hundreds of billions of stars in them when they formed only 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang, requiring very rapid star formation.

The team made this discovery by accident when investigating quasars, which are supermassive black holes that sit at the center of enormous galaxies, accreting matter. They were trying to study star formation in the galaxies that host these quasars.

“But what we found, in four separate cases, were neighboring galaxies that were forming stars at a furious pace, producing a hundred solar masses’ worth of new stars per year,” Decarli explained.

“Very likely it is not a coincidence to find these productive galaxies close to bright quasars. Quasars are thought to form in regions of the universe where the large-scale density of matter is much higher than average. Those same conditions should also be conducive to galaxies forming new stars at a greatly increased rate,” added Fabian Walter, also of Max Planck.

“Whether or not the fast-growing galaxies we discovered are indeed precursors of the massive galaxies first seen a few years back will require more work to see how common they actually are,” Bañados explained.

Decarli’s team already has follow-up investigations planned to explore this question.

The team also found what appears to be the earliest known example of two galaxies undergoing a merger, which is another major mechanism of galaxy growth. The new observations provide the first direct evidence that such mergers have been taking place even at the earliest stages of galaxy evolution, less than a billion years after the Big Bang.

By Joe Torres

A Catholic priest was feared kidnapped and Christian churches set on fire in the restive Philippine region of Mindanao as President Rodrigo Duterte imposed martial law across the entire Muslim majority region last night.

The move has already drawn flak as being an over reaction from many quarters, including church leaders.

Duterte declared martial law after a group linked with the so-called Islamic State attacked a major city.

The president placed all of Mindanao’s 27 provinces and 33 cities, roughly a third of the country, under martial law for a period of 60 days.

Mindanao is home to an estimated 20 million people.

The martial law announcement came after dozens of fighters from the Maute terror group entered Marawi, a predominantly Muslim city of about 200,000 people, earlier on May 23.

The group, which has vowed allegiance to the Islamic State and has been clashing with security forces in recent months, took over a hospital, a Catholic cathedral, and a Christian school.

A hospital, the city’s jail, and several other establishments were also taken over by the gunmen.

Initial reports received by ucanews.com said Father Teresito Suganob, vicar-general of the Prelature of Marawi, and several staff of St. Mary’s Cathedral, which was set on fire, were taken hostage.

The United Church of Christ in the Philippines also reported that the main building, science laboratories, and library of Dansalan College, a Protestant school, were also set on fire.

Duterte cut short his visit to Moscow after he announced that “units of the Islamic State Group” occupied Marawi and a military operation was ongoing.

The president has repeatedly warned that he would declare martial law to quell security threats in the country, especially in Mindanao.

No need for martial law

Religious leaders and civil society groups, however, said there was no need for Duterte to put Mindanao under military rule.

“Putting the whole of Mindanao under martial law is very dangerous and vulnerable to abuse,” said Alih Aiyub, secretary-general of the Ulama Council of the Philippines.

The Muslim religious leader told ucanews.com that “innocent people might be caught in the crossfire or might be arrested illegally by mere suspicion.”

“Fighting terrorism does not need the declaration of martial law because our existing laws are more than enough to enforce it,” said Aiyub.

Filipinos have been wary of martial law since it was used by former dictator Ferdinand Marcos to remain in power for two decades until his ouster in 1986.

Bishop Jose Collin Bagaforo of Kidapawan in Mindanao said the declaration of martial law could have been limited to Marawi City and surrounding areas “not all of Mindanao.”

Redemptorist Father Amado Picardal, head of the Basic Ecclesial Communities of the bishops’ conference, said declaring martial law across Mindanao while only Marawi was attacked “is either idiotic or an excuse to expand dictatorial control.”

Military rule not justified

Activist groups said the declaration of martial law is not justified and will only invite more problems.

“Duterte is playing with fire if he thinks it is a solution to Philippine problems,” said Jose Maria Sison, founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

Sison, who was detained during Marcos’ rule, warned Duterte not to be another dictator and use the present crisis in Marawi to justify military rule in the Philippines.

Human rights group Karapatan, meanwhile, called for “a deeper investigation” into the Marawi attack, saying that the martial law declaration is “an uncalled-for response.”

“Martial Law will inevitably result in intensified military operations, including aerial strikes, which can kill and affect hundreds of civilians,” said Cristina Palabay, Karapatan secretary-general.

Moro organization Suara Bangsamoro, meanwhile, appealed to the military not to conduct aerial bombings in Marawi to flush out the Maute fighters.

“We call on the Duterte administration to address the instability through talks and diplomatic means,” said Jerome Succor Aba, Suara Bangsamoro chairman.

The Maute group, also known as the Islamic State of Lanao, is a radical Islamist group composed mostly of former Moro Islamic Liberation Front fighters.

Suara Bangsamoro’s Aba said the group aligned itself with the so-called Islamic State after members got “frustrated with the direction the Moro people’s struggle for self-determination.”

“The establishment of a new caliphate and a global Islamic State has become an inspiring goal to the group because of the government’s insincerity in resolving the core problems of the Moro people,” said Aba.

By Elise Harris

After a visit with Pope Francis Wednesday, Ivanka Trump met a group of human trafficking survivors, calling them examples of strength and addressing various legislative ways the U.S. government can help victims.

Ivanka met with a dozen victims of human trafficking from Nigeria and Eritrea. She described them as “remarkable women,” who are “testaments to strength, faith and perseverance in the face of unspeakable adversity and challenge.”

Ivanka is currently accompanying her father, U.S. President Donald Trump, on his first international tour, which also included stops in Saudi Arabia and Israel. Earlier in the day, Trump and Pope Francis had their first highly anticipated meeting.

The encounter between Ivanka and human trafficking victims took place at the headquarters of the Community of Sant’Egidio in Rome’s Trastevere neighborhood.

Founded in 1968 by Italian layman Andrea Riccardi, a historian and former minister in the Italian government, the community focuses their mission on service to the poor and refugees, conflict resolution, and both ecumenical and inter-faith dialogue.

Sant’Egidio is a favorite of Pope Francis, who often praises the community for their work. It has long been involved in campaigns to combat human trafficking – also an important topic for Pope Francis – and has partnered with the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See for several events.

Ivanka thanked the community for their work, which she said “resonates strongly” not just in Italy, “but throughout the world.”

She said that in her meeting with representatives of Sant’Egidio, they were able to discuss several programs “that have been successfully launched and developed over many, many years now.”

These programs, she said, “have provided support and help to those who need it most, whether it’s the elderly or the disadvantaged, and also victims of human trafficking throughout Africa and the whole world.”

“So it was a great privilege to be able to be here and the hear firsthand from these tremendous thought leaders about the work that’s being done, what has worked and what has the potential to work better and to be better executed in the future,” she said, adding that she looks forward to further collaboration.

Ivanka Trump visited headquarters of the Community of Sant’Egidio in Rome. Learn more: https://t.co/3cfk2BrCX7 Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA pic.twitter.com/yr6lw0ITcr

— Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) May 24, 2017

In comments to journalists following the meeting with Ivanka, two women from Sant’Egidio who work with the trafficking victims said it was an “intense” and “moving” encounter.

Some of the women told their stories, including how they were rescued, how their lives have changed and the situations they are in now.

There was “a lot of interest” on the part of Ivanka, they said, noting that she “listened very carefully” to their stories, but also asked questions about possible legislative initiatives on the part of the government to stop human trafficking, specifically when it comes to women.

Trafficking in the Mediterranean and Africa was mentioned specifically, including the trafficking of children, and a strong emphasis was placed on how the process begins in the countries where the victims originate.

According to the women from Sant’Egidio, Ivanka referred to her brief meeting with Pope Francis earlier that morning, telling the women that he is “a great advocate of your stories” of success and integration.

Ivanka then asked the victims what could be done. They said there is a greater need for communication and the sharing of information in their countries of origin, since many women are tricked into a trafficking ring under the false pretense that they will be moving to Europe for legitimate work, in many cases as a cook or maid.

They said that “public campaigns” are needed, because most women “never imagined” they would end up being trafficked.

In addition to the trafficking of persons, organ trafficking was also discussed, as well as the role of religion in ending violence and achieving peace, the freedom of women and the education of children.

In brief comments to journalists, Sant’Egidio founder and president Andrea Riccardi noted that Ivanka made a strong reference to collaboration with the organization’s projects in Africa, specifically in terms of helping to get legal documents for the continent’s “ghost children,” meaning children who are not registered and therefore have no legal identity, making them extra vulnerable and easy prey for traffickers.

Riccardi said Ivanka also showed a strong interest in an initiative the community is currently trying to push forward in Italy to get legal documents for women rescued from forced prostitution.

Before leaving with her father on his first international tour, Ivanka hosted an anti-human trafficking roundtable discussion at the White House May 17. The event gathered a swath of bipartisan lawmakers and representatives of numerous organizations that deal with human trafficking.

According to reports, Ivanka spoke during that discussion about the Trump administration’s efforts to combat trafficking not only in the U.S., but throughout the world, telling attendees that “combatting human trafficking and modern slavery is both a moral and strategic interest domestically and abroad.”

That particular roundtable was a follow-up to a February discussion on the same topic, which was also organized by Ivanka. At the time, President Trump said he would use the “full force and weight” of the U.S. government to fight against trafficking.

Historically, the key dilemma facing Singaporean defence planners has been the question how to build a force and doctrine capable of dealing simultaneously with current security threats, while anticipating future challenges amid limited defence resources.

By Michael Raska*

SINGAPORE’S MILITARY modernisation trajectory projects a gradual evolutionary path. The First Generation (1G) Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), during the 1960s-70s, focused on capability-development of individual services. The 2G SAF reflected a period of consolidation and adaptation from service-oriented strategic thinking toward conventionally-oriented combined-arms warfare (1980s-90s). The 3G SAF (2000s onwards) has been viewed in terms of transitioning towards multi-mission type forces with capabilities ranging from defence diplomacy to conventional warfare against wide spectrum of threats.

In the process, the SAF’s doctrinal orientation and operational conduct has also shifted significantly in its character. In the 1970s, the SAF adopted island-defensive “poisoned-shrimp” strategy, which envisioned high-intensity urban combat to impose unacceptable human and material costs to potential aggressors. In the 1980s, the SAF moved towards a “porcupine” strategy that aimed at limited-power projection in Singapore’s near seas and envisioned a pre-emptive posture by transferring a potential conflict beyond Singapore’s territory.

Planning for Hybrid Conflicts

Since the mid-2000s, the SAF has been developing concepts analogous to a “dolphin” strategy – a “smart” or networked SAF leveraging not only precision fires, manoeuvre, and information-superiority capabilities, but also defence diplomacy in diverse military operations in geographically more distant areas from Singapore.

In doing so, the SAF’s gradual 3G force transformation and its resulting capabilities have continued to qualitatively outpace its neighbours in relative terms. Indeed, one can argue that the 3G SAF transformation process – conceptual, organisational, and technological – that enable joint military operations has matured.

Going forward, however, Singapore faces competing strategic narratives in terms of which types of adversaries and contingencies will prove to be the most consequential in the future. For example, the intensifying strategic competition in the South China Sea may restrict the SAF’s freedom of action in potential future crises or even during peacetime operations.

The SAF will have to learn to operate in contested environments characterised by the presence of sophisticated long-range precision strike assets such as ballistic missiles, submarines, and fifth-generation stealth fighters. At the same time, the SAF is facing non-linear threats ranging from terrorism to cyber and information warfare coupled with increasing internal demographic and resource constraints.

The resulting hybrid security environment make traditional defence planning strategies less effective. Traditional planning procedures begin with certain threat assessments. But when threats are unclear or shifting, planners need to hedge – by preparing for different possible futures, and develop a portfolio of capabilities that can prepare people for a range of contingencies. But hedging is also very expensive, particularly with the increasing costs of advanced weapons technologies.

Strategic Agility

Amid conditions of strategic uncertainty, the 4G SAF will therefore need to focus on institutional agility – developing sets of capabilities to anticipate changing conditions in advance of need, while maintaining core operational readiness. To do so, the SAF must build the next generation of competent and committed leaders of character who improve and thrive in ambiguity and chaos. This means investing in professional military education that shapes strategic culture embracing innovation in complex environments.

Historically, Singapore’s strategic culture has paradoxically served both as an enabler and constraint in the SAF’s military modernisation. On one hand, the SAF has been able to assimilate new technologies, maintain high standards in training, readiness, and professional ethos. At the same time, however, Singapore’s strategic culture has precluded an environment supporting individual “mavericks” challenging the established norms through a bottom-up type innovation, while discouraging failure.

The 4G SAF should therefore leverage on Singaporeans with problem-focused, action-oriented, decision-making styles, while shifting its organisational ethos toward rewarding bottom-up initiative, creativity, assertiveness, practicality, simplification, adaptation, flexibility and tactical improvisation. In short, the SAF has to nurture “institutional mavericks” capable of tackling entrenched barriers to military innovation.

Niche Capabilities & Strategic Partnerships

As military-technological gaps in Southeast Asia narrow, Singapore will also have to search for its niche military-technological innovations to create strategic advantages. In this context, the SAF needs to focus more on mapping trajectories of strategic competition and military innovation in East Asia.

Comparative case studies of military innovation trajectories in different geostrategic settings may help Singaporean policymakers to detect change in new approaches to combat; and prompt a debate on the validity of established strategic paradigms and operational art. For example, the newly established SAF Defence Cyber Organisation should begin with developing operational knowledge and concepts in the context of military action in cyberspace.

Ultimately, the military effectiveness of the 4G SAF will depend on the direction and character of Singapore’s defence diplomacy and strategic partnerships. Strategic partnerships shape Singapore’s external environment, prevent potential risks, dangers and threats, and where it proves impossible to avoid them – provide timely and effective joint responses.

Relying on strategic partners may impose greater foreign policy constraints and external dependencies. While this is so, ensuring future interoperability with select strategic partners may tilt in favour of Singapore’s defence, particularly in the context of potential multiple, cascading crises that characterise hybrid warfare.

*Michael Raska is an Assistant Professor in the Military Transformations Programme at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. Singapore. An earlier version appeared in The Straits Times.

By Michael Lelyveld

China could be setting the stage for another boom-and-bust economic cycle as a result of the government’s campaign to curb financial risks.

Regulators have been sending chilling messages on credit policies to the banking and financial sectors for the past month, threatening them at one point with “the harshest crackdown on financial risks in history.”

Red lights flashed for financing after a speedup in credit-fueled economic growth in the first quarter.

Gross domestic product jumped 6.9 percent during the period, racing ahead of the government’s goal of “about 6.5 percent” for 2017.

The overtopping of the target added urgency to policies at the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) designed to guard against “asset bubbles.”

At a key meeting of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee on April 25, President Xi Jinping sounded a warning that unrestrained financing schemes had gone too far.

“Accurate judgment of potential financial risks serves as a precondition for maintaining financial security,” Xi said, pushing regulatory agencies to tighten their policies.

The PBOC, the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) and other agencies were already on alert after efforts to cap a surge in January lending largely failed due to a flood of “shadow bank” loans.

The authorities have been particularly worried about loans indirectly financed by popular “wealth management products” (WMPs). The high-yielding instruments are sold to investors by banks but then passed on to “entrusted” managers and investment funds to generate the needed returns, masking the risk.

Critics see such schemes as little more than a shell game that could lead to defaults and the collapse of a shadow financing industry valued by Moody’s Investors Service at U.S. $8.5 trillion (58.5 trillion yuan).

Bank balances of WMPs stood at 30 trillion yuan (U.S. $4.36 trillion) at the end of April, the CBRC said.

Much of the unregulated funding has flowed into sectors that the government has tried to restrict, including property speculation and heavily-indebted state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

By late April, entrusted investments were already showing signs of a downturn due to regulatory warnings, Bloomberg News reported.

The crackdown spreads

The crackdown on financial risk has since spread to a host of other areas.

On May 3, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) ordered provincial governments to “examine their financing practices and rectify all irregularities by the end of July,” the official Xinhua news agency reported.

This month, the CBRC told commercial banks to reclassify and revalue their collateral for loans at least once a year.

Regulators have ordered insurance companies “to stop the illegal use of insurance funds” and warned against borrowing for stock speculation, threatening “the maximum punishment.”

Overseas investments by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) will also be subject to stricter auditing, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said.

But the wave of new rules has raised concern that the government’s penchant for administrative measures could be getting out of hand, running the risk of choking off economic growth.

The financing curbs came before the economy showed signs of cooling with reports that April growth of industrial output slipped to 6.5 percent from 7.6 percent in March.

The authorities have been cracking down on financing, the real estate sector, and outbound direct investment (ODI) at the same time, driving the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index down by more than 7 percent from April highs by early May.

In a commentary on May 10, Xinhua acknowledged that “some grumble about ripples from the tightened regulation,” but it slammed profit-seeking investors as speculators “dreaming of a wonderland in China.”

“The ongoing tightening campaign addresses longer term challenges rather than alleviating immediate needs of China’s economy. Investors should adapt to these circumstances and prepare for long-term interests,” it said.

The latest PBOC report on April lending suggests that the pressure on shadow financing is having an effect.

Traditional bank loans rose nearly 8 percent from a month earlier to 1.1 trillion yuan (U.S. $159.4 billion), but all- inclusive aggregate financing fell by 34 percent to 1.39 trillion yuan (U.S. $201.5 billion) as shadow lending slumped, the South China Morning Post said.

An awkward time

The crackdown on financing comes at an awkward time as China seeks maximum publicity for its “Belt and Road” initiative to forge new trade routes with promises valued by Reuters at up to U.S. $124 billion (855 billion yuan).

On the sidelines of the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing on May 14, Premier Li Keqiang assured Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, that China is “capable of maintaining financial market stability and warding off regional and systemic financial risks,” Xinhua said.

Scott Kennedy, deputy director of China studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the strong first-quarter GDP may give the government more room to address financial problems without suffering a major economic setback before the CPC’s 19th Party Congress in the fall.

So far, the financial sector has remained “essentially untouched” by the government’s anticorruption push, said Kennedy.

“It’s the one part of the economy that hasn’t been subject to the anticorruption campaign,” he said. “Whatever the reason, it wouldn’t have made sense to get to the 19th Party Congress without some sort of digging and reform.”

Kennedy cited the influence of Guo Shuqing, who took over as chairman of the CBRC in February, as spurring the shakeup in the financial sector after playing a similar role at the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) in 2011-2013.

As with all of China’s campaigns and administrative controls, the government may face the consequences of overdoing the crackdown, setting the stage for another boom-and-bust cycle.

“If you go too far, you run the risk of strangling the economy, which you obviously don’t want to do,” Kennedy said in a phone interview.

Last week, a CBRC official tempered earlier warnings, pledging that the agency would implement new rules “in an orderly way.”

Banks will be given a “buffer period of four to six months for self-scrutiny and rectification,” said Xiao Yuanqi, head of the CBRC’s prudential regulation bureau.

On Monday, the PBOC-affiliated Financial News said in an editorial that there was “no need to panic” over financial deleveraging. Recent measures were not “a kind of ‘shock therapy,'” the paper said, as quoted by Xinhua.

‘Cut the weeds, trim the grass’

The outlook suggests that the flurry of new regulations and warnings will gradually subside over coming months.

The approach of the critically important party congress with the expectation of senior leadership changes may mean an easing of the financial restrictions sooner than the “long-term.”

“I think this is going to be taken in the same way that other types of reforms are,” said Kennedy. “You cut back the weeds and trim the grass, but you’re not going to fundamentally change the political economy of the system.”

Official commentaries in China have also sounded a note of caution.

“Deleveraging is no overnight task. It will be a gradual process calling for a delicate balance between tightening regulation and avoiding financial turmoil,” Xinhua said in another commentary on May 4.

A similar approach may be taking place with regard to warnings in March that government agencies were drafting rules to bar overseas investment in real estate and other sectors as part of controls to curb capital outflows and alleviate pressure on the yuan.

As China’s foreign exchange reserves have risen slightly in April for the third month in a row and outflows have eased, so have concerns about new ODI restrictions.

But even if regulators succeed in striking a balance between risk reduction and growth in time for the party congress, uncertainties will remain for investment and liquidity.

The recent history of China’s administrative measures suggests that excessive investment and over-regulation are companion forces in creating asset bubbles as investors seek high returns.

Regulators tried to deflate the housing bubble in 2014 but only succeeded in inflating the stock market.

Excess liquidity was then chased into the bond market and outbound investment, and back into the property sector again.

After the crackdown on WMPs and the financial sector runs its course, where will the money go next?

“That’s a great question,” said Kennedy. “There’s certainly plenty of cash in the system that’s got to find some place,” he said.

Authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang are engaged in a province-wide operation that has installed surveillance cameras in the majority of Protestant Christian churches in a region known as “China’s Jerusalem.”

Officials have forcibly entered church buildings to install cameras in some cases where church followers have offered resistance to the plan, and have intervened to cut off water and electricity to others, sources told RFA.

On Wednesday, authorities cut off public utilities to a Protestant Christian church near Wenzhou that refused to allow police to install surveillance cameras on its premises, church members told RFA.

Under the guise of “health and safety” regulations, authorities cut off utilities to the church in Rui’an Gesan village in Zhejiang’s Wenzhou city on Wednesday.

“They came and cut off our church this morning,” a church member who declined to be named said. “It’s because we refused to have surveillance cameras here; they kept ordering us to install them and we kept on refusing.”

“Several of the ladies in the church blocked their access, so they took these measures [against us].”

Video of the standoff showed a number of women grabbing hold of equipment carried by uniformed police, and a worker on a ladder at the top of an electricity pylon, apparently switching off the supply to the building.

Access to water and electricity is controlled by the grass-roots “neighborhood committees” under the ruling Chinese Communist Party, so the church would need the agreement of local officials before being reconnected, the member said.

Stepping up the pressure

Since launching a province-wide cross-demolition campaign in 2015, authorities in Zhejiang have stepped up pressure on Protestant Christian churches, ordering many to install surveillance cameras to enable daily police monitoring of their activities.

Last month, a man was injured in clashes between government religious affairs bureau officials and members of the Banling church in Zhejiang’s Yayang township after more than 100 officials and security personnel tried to install cameras forcibly.

The cutting off of utilities to the Gesan church followed a two-week standoff with the authorities over the requirement, the church member said.

“We didn’t think this was a good idea, because then they would be watching us all the time,” the church member said. “They would be listening in on our Sunday services and on our sermons, so of course this would have a negative impact on us.”

“A lot of churches are having these cameras installed right now, maybe 90 percent of them already have them, and those who don’t are being cut off,” he said.

Authorities issued the church a notification order signed by the health and safety committee of the Nanbin neighborhood committee, according to a copy seen by RFA.

“Major health and safety issues have been detected at your premises, which is used for mass gatherings,” the notice said. “The premises should not be used until these issues have been addressed.”

“Otherwise, further coercive measures will be implemented,” it said.

An employee who answered the phone at the neighborhood committee offices said they weren’t familiar with the situation when contacted by RFA on Wednesday, however.

“My boss isn’t here, so you need to talk with him when he gets out of his meeting,” the employee said.

China’s deteriorating religious freedom abuses have now ranked the country among notorious abusers such as North Korea, Myanmar, and Vietnam, according to a report from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom last month.

China was singled out alongside North Korea, Vietnam and Myanmar as a “country of particular concern,” the group said, calling on the U.S. government to exert diplomatic pressure to improve religious freedom there.

The report said the Communist Party’s had subjected North Korean refugees, Protestants, Catholics, Uyghur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, and Falun Gong practitioners to imprisonment, torture, and, in some cases, even death.

Reported by Yang Fan for RFA’s Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

China is coming in from a position of strength to challenge American primacy in the Asia-Pacific, and the Trump administration needs to abjure the hopeful, hesitant approach of its predecessors.

By Seema Sirohi*

What are Asian countries to make of President Donald Trump’s effusive embrace of President Xi Jinping?

Whether tactical or temporary, the U.S. president hasn’t stopped praising his Chinese counterpart since the Mar-a-Lago summit, calling him “a great leader,” “a very good person,” even “a fantastic person” who is going to help him deal with the threat from North Korea.

Whether Xi delivers on his promise, Trump’s enthusiasm is not infectious, at least not in Asian capitals caught in China’s encirclement strategy and unbridled global ambitions.

Since the U.S. elections and the roll out of Trump’s unstructured presidency, the Chinese have become more emboldened, essentially telling their Asian interlocutors they need to reassess their alliance with the U.S. and adjust to a greater Chinese presence. The Chinese say the U.S. is now looking inward, mired in a million domestic disputes and unwilling or unable to engage with the outside world.

The message is being carried by state-affiliated Chinese think tanks, academics and retired Chinese military officers. While Trump talks about America First, the Chinese message machine stresses how important Asian prosperity and stability are to Beijing. As proof they list Chinese investment pledges all around, from the Philippines to Bangladesh, from Pakistan to Cambodia. And they no longer feel the compulsion to label China’s rise as “peaceful.”

Over the years, the United States has focused on China’s strategic challenge only sporadically, choosing to repeatedly battle Russia instead. In China’s case, American strategists have essentially lived on hope – that inclusion in the international system would alter their outlook, that a thirst for democracy will ultimately destroy the hold of the Communist Party, that an overheated economy will force adjustments, that the lure of capitalism will overpower other instincts, that globalisation will prevail. An addiction to cheap Chinese goods fed this “hope” strategy, obscuring Chinese incursions, acquisitions and ambitions, both economic and military.

During the eight years of the Obama administration, China pushed the envelope further and further, establishing new facts on the seas and declaring an Air Defence Identification Zone that covers a large area of the East China Sea–with no real pushback from Washington. President Obama’s pivot to Asia–later called “rebalance”–was weak and half-hearted.

The question is: will the next four years mark a change? Or will the same hesitant “pivot” continue under another name? The Trump administration has so far said nothing publicly about territorial disputes in the South China Sea, a major marker for those countries at risk of the Chinese “embrace” they do not want.

While senior Trump administration officials–from Vice President Mike Pence to Defence Secretary James Mattis–have travelled to Asia to reassure allies, their message has been undermined by presidential euphoria about the Chinese president. The mixed messaging raises fears about a G-2 condominium, especially after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson repeated Chinese talking points on “great power relations” on his visit to Beijing.

Obama was also enticed by the G-2 idea only to abandon it after a painful learning curve and damaging consequences, especially in U.S. relations with India. If Trump goes down the same path, the uncertainties in the Indian mind will harden.

Some key people in the Trump White House, especially his chief strategist Steve Bannon, “get it.” They realise the real competitor and strategic rival is China, not Russia. But the Kissinger-led establishment rarely allows any straying off the old aspirational policy of trying to absorb China into the international order to encourage its transformation into a democracy while maintaining a favourable balance of power in the Asia-Pacific.

That the policy hasn’t worked is there for all to see. China has exploited the opportunities, become stronger, richer and more aggressive, and is increasingly challenging the U.S. and others. It doesn’t want to be just another part of the global system.

Last week the Senate Armed Services Committee heard from scholars who painted a detailed picture of Beijing’s multifold strategy for a new Eurasian order with China at the centre and the U.S. pushed increasingly to the fringes.

China is already building its military capabilities to prevent U.S. intervention along its maritime periphery, upgrading its nuclear forces to ensure effective retaliation against Washington and trying to establish a permanent naval presence in the Indian Ocean. In addition, China is busy finding ports to support a naval presence along both East and West African coasts.

The timeline for China’s global military presence is estimated to be around mid-century, according to Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who testified in front of the committee. Tellis, who has written extensively about China’s ambitions, presented a picture detailed enough to serve as a rude wake-up call.

Aaron Friedberg, professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, said that the U.S. “lacks a strategy for dealing with an increasingly powerful and assertive China”. What’s there are “the remnants” of a strategy first put into place over two decades ago which are “largely disconnected” and in “varying states of disrepair”.

By contrast, China has a clear strategy, driven by “a mix of ambition, even arrogance and deep insecurity,” according to Friedberg. It’s no longer based on Deng Xiaoping’s advice to the nation to “hide its capabilities, and bide its time”. Under Xi, China wants to write the rules while weakening and breaking America’s alliances.

Both Tellis and Friedberg said the change came with the global financial crisis in 2008. Chinese strategists judged that “the U.S. was declining more rapidly than they had expected, while China was rising more quickly than they had hoped,” Friedberg said.

Tellis said it was a “key moment” for China’s “strategic evolution” and Beijing felt it was a “conclusive” signal that American hegemony was ending. This led to a “more ostentatious display of its expanding ambition.”

To counter China, Washington should take a more robust, forthright stand. Tellis said the U.S. should reject Chinese claims over various maritime features and overturn existing U.S. policy of not taking a position; launch an international public diplomacy campaign against China’s expropriation; consider sanctions against Chinese entities involved in reclamation and construction on the “usurped maritime features;” provide appropriate technology to Southeast Asian nations to monitor Chinese activity in the South China Sea; and declare that the U.S. security guarantees would apply to islands rightly claimed or controlled by its allies.

At the same time, the U.S. should vigorously pursue Freedom of Navigation Operations in both air and sea to challenge China’s claims. “American pushback in the South China Sea is long overdue,” Tellis said. Many will agree. “Most nations in the Indo-Pacific region want the United States to remain the dominant Asian power and are willing to collaborate with Washington toward that end so long as they are assured that it will both protect them and behave responsibly.”

Both Friedberg and Tellis advised that the U.S. strongly support security cooperation among India, Japan and Australia and continue the transformation of U.S.-India relations undertaken by previous administrations. The importance of India goes beyond the “merely abstract geopolitical balancing” today and is an “operational imperative” because China’s capabilities and naval operations could one day interfere with U.S. naval movements from the Persian Gulf or Diego Garcia into the Pacific, according to Tellis.

It is urgent for the Trump administration to grasp the idea that China is coming from a position of strength to challenge American primacy in the Asia-Pacific; Russia, by contrast is playing a weak field successfully. Time to focus on the real challenge?

About the author:
*Seema Sirohi is a Washington-based analyst and a frequent contributor to Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. Seema is also on Twitter, and her handle is @seemasirohi

Source:
This feature was written for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations.

By Sven Milekic

There are concerns in Croatia that Monday’s terror attack in the UK will result in tighter checks – and long queues – on the Slovenia-Croatia border, undermining the tourism industry.

Following Monday’s terrorist attack in Manchester, England, which killed 22 people at a pop concert, Croatian media are speculating that tighter security checks will be reintroduced on the external border of the EU’s passport-free Schengen Area, which separates Croatia and Slovenia.

The main concern is that big queues on the border between Slovenia and Croatia will undermine the hugely important tourist industry.

Igor Tabak, a military and security analyst from the expert website Obris, told BIRN that whiler stricter border controls are possible, they “won’t resolve the issue at hand”, as security checks on borders “fundamentally don’t have a connection” with terrorist attacks like the one carried out in Manchester.

He explained that this is because border controls cannot stop people who already live inside the EU from carrying out such attacks.

[Manchester’s chief suspect was a young man, born to a family of refugees in the UK from Libya, who lived in London.]

According to Tabak, such security measures “can only make life worse for people who often cross the border”, as well as for tourists coming to Croatia, but have “a really small influence on the [type of] terrorism we have witnessed in Belgium, France and in the UK”.

Adopted by the European Parliament in March as a response to the recent increase in terrorist attacks, the EU introduced systematic full security checks for all passengers leaving or entering the Schengen Area in early April.

This caused massive queues on the border between Slovenia and Croatia, however, prompting the border authorities to temporarily stop its implementation.

One concern in Croatia is that long waits on the border may damage tourism, which accounts for some 18 per cent of Croatia’s annual GDP.

The bulk of tourists from Western and Central Europe come to Croatia by cars and buses that pass through Slovenia.

For this reason, the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and his Slovenian counterpart, Miro Cerar, in late April agreed that border controls should switch from systematic to targeted border checks, if the waiting times on the border were longer than 15 minutes.

However, there are still reports that longer waits on the border are occurring.

Although Croatia is not a member of the Schengen Area – like non-member EU states Bulgaria and Romania – it will have full access to the Schengen Information System by June 27, which is a step closer to becoming a part of the area.

Here’s what the media and politicians don’t want you to know about the Manchester, UK, suicide attack: Salman Abedi, the 22 year old who killed nearly two dozen concert-goers in Manchester, UK, was the product of the US and UK overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya and “regime change” policy in Syria. He was a radicalized Libyan whose family fled Gaddafi’s secular Libya, and later he trained to be an armed “rebel” in Syria, fighting for the US and UK “regime change” policy toward the secular Assad government.

The suicide attacker was the direct product of US and UK interventions in the greater Middle East.

According to the London Telegraph, Abedi, a son of Libyan immigrants living in a radicalized Muslim neighborhood in Manchester had returned to Libya several times after the overthrow of Muamar Gaddafi, most recently just weeks ago. After the US/UK and allied “liberation” of Libya, all manner of previously outlawed and fiercely suppressed radical jihadist groups suddenly found they had free rein to operate in Libya. This is the Libya that Abedi returned to and where he likely prepared for his suicide attack on pop concert attendees. Before the US-led attack on Libya in 2011, there was no al-Qaeda, ISIS, or any other related terrorist organization operating (at least with impunity) on Libyan soil.

Gaddafi himself warned Europe in January 2011 that if they overthrew his government the result would be radical Islamist attacks on Europe, but European governments paid no heed to the warnings. Post-Gaddafi Libya became an incubator of Islamist terrorists and terrorism, including prime recruiting ground for extremists to fight jihad in Syria against the also-secular Bashar Assad.

In Salman Abedi we have the convergence of both these disastrous US/UK and allied interventions, however: it turns out that not only did Abedi make trips to Libya to radicalize and train for terror, but he also travelled to Syria to become one of the “Syria rebels” fighting on the same side as the US and UK to overthrow the Assad government. Was he perhaps even trained in a CIA program? We don’t know, but it certainly is possible.

While the mainstream media and opportunistic politicians will argue that the only solution is more western intervention in the Middle East, the plain truth is that at least partial responsibility for this attack lies at the feet of those who pushed and pursued western intervention in Libya and Syria.

There would have been no jihadist training camps in Libya had Gaddafi not been overthrown by the US/UK and allies. There would have been no explosion of ISIS or al-Qaeda in Syria had it not been for the US/UK and allied policy of “regime change” in that country.

When thinking about Abedi’s guilt for this heinous act of murder, do not forget those interventionists who lit the fuse that started this conflagration. The guilt rests squarely on their shoulders as well.

This article was published by RonPaul Institute.

Rick Wayman*

On May 23, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issued a press release celebrating President Trump’s proposed 2018 budget. DOE specifically lauded the proposed “$10.2 billion for Weapons Activities to maintain and enhance the safety, security, and effectiveness of our nuclear weapons enterprise.”

Less than 24 hours earlier, Ambassador Elayne Whyte of Costa Rica released a draft of a treaty banning nuclear weapons. Ambassador Whyte is President of the United Nations Conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination. Over 130 nations have participated in the ban treaty negotiations thus far. A final treaty text is expected by early July.

The draft treaty would prohibit state parties from – among other things – developing, producing, manufacturing, possessing or stockpiling nuclear weapons. The United States has aggressively boycotted the treaty negotiations, and has actively sought to undermine the good faith efforts of the majority of the world’s nations to prohibit these indiscriminate and catastrophically destructive weapons.

No one is surprised at President Trump’s proposed funding for nuclear weapons activities; in fact, it is largely a continuation of the U.S. nuclear “modernization” program that began under President Obama. What is alarming, however, is the tacit admission by the Department of Energy that it is not simply maintaining current U.S. nuclear warheads until such time as they are eliminated. Rather, it is enhancing the “effectiveness” of nuclear weapons by incorporating new military capabilities into new weapons expected to be active through the final decades of the 21^st century.

The draft ban treaty makes clear “that the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons transcend national borders, pose grave implications for human survival, the environment, socioeconomic development, the global economy, food security and for the health of future generations.”

Whether or not the United States plans to join the majority of the world’s nations in a treaty banning nuclear weapons, its policies and programs must reflect the indisputable evidence of the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons use. There is simply no excuse for investing in new nuclear weapons instead of an all-out diplomatic push for true security in a world without nuclear weapons.

A Good Faith Obligation

Article VI of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) obligates all parties to negotiate in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race at an early date. That treaty entered into force over 47 years ago.

The draft ban treaty repeats the unanimous 1996 declaration of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which said, “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

Judge Christopher Weeramantry was Vice President of the ICJ when it issued its 1996 Advisory Opinion. In a paper that he wrote for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in 2013, he examined in detail the concept of good faith in the context of nuclear disarmament.

He wrote, “There is no half-way house in the duty of compliance with good faith in international law.” He continued, “Disrespect for and breach of good faith grows exponentially if, far from even partial compliance, there is total non-compliance with the obligations it imposes.”

The U.S. and numerous other nuclear-armed countries argue that they are in compliance with their obligations because the total number of nuclear weapons in their arsenals has decreased. Quantitative reductions are important, and the progress on this front has been significant over the past couple of decades. However, a nuclear arms race need not simply be quantitative. Rather, what we see now among many of the nuclear-armed nations is a qualitative nuclear arms race, with enhancements of weapons’ “effectiveness” being a key component.

This qualitative nuclear arms race is a blatant breach of the good faith obligation and, according to Judge Weeramantry’s interpretation, likely even constitutes bad faith.

A Ban Is Coming

Regardless of how much money the United States and other nuclear-armed nations commit to their nuclear arsenals, the vast majority of the world’s nations plan to conclude a treaty banning nuclear weapons in July.

Even though such a treaty will not immediately halt nuclear weapons development or diminish the threat that current nuclear weapon arsenals pose to all humanity, it is an important step in the right direction.

The NPT and customary international law require all nations – not just those that possess nuclear weapons – to negotiate for nuclear disarmament. The ban treaty is the first of many steps needed to fulfill this obligation, and will lay a solid foundation for future multilateral action.

Non-nuclear-armed countries must continue to enhance the effectiveness of their diplomatic arsenals to ensure the successful entry into force of a ban treaty and subsequent measures to finally achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.

Author’s note: Generally speaking, the U.S. Department of Energy is in charge of the design, production and maintenance of nuclear warheads and bombs, while the Department of Defense deals with the delivery systems (ICBMs, submarines, and bomber aircraft) and deployment in additional multi-billion dollar budget lines not addressed in this article. For more information on the Department of Energy’s nuclear “modernization” plans, see the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability’s new report “Accountability Audit.”

*Rick Wayman is Director of Programs & Operations at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability and is Co-Chair of the “Amplify: Generation of Change” network for nuclear abolition