An agreement for Cairo to hand over two Red Sea islands — Tiran and Sanafir — to Saudi Arabia passed an Egyptian parliamentary committee Tuesday, setting the stage for a vote in the house.

Parliament’s legislative committee agreed the treaty after a debate, according to an AFP report.

Parliament’s Defense Committee will also examine the accord before it goes to a general vote. The government has said the islands were Saudi to begin with, but were leased to Egypt in the 1950s.

Opponents of the agreement insist that Tiran and Sanafir are Egyptian. Cairo had made the goodwill gesture on the islands during King Salman’s visit to Egypt in April, 2016.

The Egyptian Cabinet had said that the “determination that the two islands fall within Saudi regional waters is the culmination of a six-year process of studies and 11 rounds of negotiations between the two sides.”

The joint Egyptian-Saudi technical maritime border drawing had determined that the islands fell within regional Saudi maritime waters.

By Osama Al-Sharif*

Syria’s vast Badia region is fast becoming a gravitational field for various players embroiled in the Syrian quagmire, with the Damascus regime funneling its military effort in a bid to secure areas abandoned by Daesh militants.

The 90,000 square kilometer plateau extending from central Syria to the Iraqi borders in the east and to the Jordanian borders in the south has become a valued strategic prize for various reasons.

For the regime it connects Syria’s heartland to Iraq and opens a vital supply line for Iran-backed militias, while offering Tehran a land corridor that reaches all the way to Lebanon and the Mediterranean. It also draws a line for US-backed Kurdish fighters moving on Raqqa, the last important bastion for Daesh in Syria.

In recent days regime forces and their allies have broken through US red lines by advancing north of Al-Tanf base on the Syria-Iraqi-Jordan border triangle, and reaching the Iraqi border for the first time since 2015. This was a major victory for the regime, which has defied coalition warnings and repeated aerial attacks on its convoys. More importantly perhaps is the fact that Syrian government forces have now connected with Iran-backed militias on the other side of the border. Both will attempt to reach the Syrian border town of Bukamal, cutting off Daesh fighters fleeing Raqqa. Russia has celebrated the Syrian army breakthrough and criticized recent US bombings.

In a matter of a few days the regime was able to occupy one-fifth of the Badia region and avoided clashes with US-backed rebels stationed near Al-Tanf. This development raises questions about the credibility of the US strategy in southern Syria and the value of ongoing US-Russian talks to create a de-escalation or safe zone along the Jordan-Syria borders.

Regime advances in the east coincided with aggressive attacks on Daraa province that have not elicited a reaction from the US-led coalition. Damascus wants to evict Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Al-Nusra Front rebels from the old town of Daraa, not far from the Jordanian border. The offensive, which is said to be led by elite Syrian army forces, derails previous Jordanian-Russian understandings to stabilize southern Syria and violates last month’s Astana agreement to create four de-escalation zones in Syria.

So far there has been no reaction from Washington over these latest developments. Russia appears to be accepting, if not supporting, the regime’s recent maneuvers in southern and eastern Syria. For one US regional ally, namely Jordan, the priority now is to defend its long borders with Syria against possible terrorist incursions. On Sunday the Jordanian army gunned down five people who attempted to infiltrate the border from Al-Tanf crossing. Tension in that area has heightened in the past few days. But it is not clear how Amman will deal with the fact that the regime and its Iranian-backed militias are tightening their grip over areas close to Jordanian territory. Amman had announced that it will not tolerate the presence of Daesh or militias supported by Iran near its borders. It now appears that drawing red lines in Syria carries little weight and that players must recalibrate their positions on a daily basis.

Theoretically speaking, the Syrian army’s attempts to extend its control over areas vacated by Daesh should be welcomed. Jordan has expressed its readiness to open its border crossing with Syria near Daraa once the Syrian army takes control. Even the US has accepted a symbolic regime presence at the border point. But regime forces do not act alone. They depend heavily on Iran-backed militias as was the case in Aleppo and elsewhere. With tensions with Iran at their highest point, neither Amman nor Israel will tolerate the presence of Hezbollah and other Shiite militias close to their borders.

Again these developments raise questions about the viability of the US strategy in southern and eastern Syria and why the coalition red line was allowed to crumble. What is the use of having US, British and other special forces in Al-Tanf if regime forces can go around it and connect with Iran-backed militias on the Iraqi side of the border?

The postponement of another round of Astana technical talks last week is an indication that Russia wants to give the regime time to create new realities on the ground. For now the proposal to establish a permanent safe zone in southern Syria, or anywhere else for that matter, appears to be dead or on hold. It is Damascus and Tehran that have imposed their agenda on the ground while Russia is merely a facilitator.

The goal of creating a land corridor connecting Tehran to Beirut through Baghdad and Damascus has come a long way in the past few days. The US-led coalition had done little to prevent it. Now the countries of the region have to live with its dire consequences!

• Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman.

By Saji Thomas

Church leaders in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh have criticized new guidelines on providing sterilization services to traditional tribal groups and are lobbying the authorities to reconsider it.

“The new regulations appear to be disastrous” for impoverished tribal groups, said Father Sebastian Poomattam, spokesperson for Catholic bishops in Chhattisgarh, homeland of several tribal groups.

“For these groups who already face a serious threat to their existence, this new law might further threaten their survival,” he told ucanews.com June 11.

The ruling pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) relaxed a 1979 state law May 26 making access to public provisions for sterilization easier among five traditional tribes in the state.

The law was passed almost four decades ago at a time when the federal government used forced sterilizations to control the population. It restricted sterilization among tribal people whose poverty and ill health resulted in low birth rates.

Father Poomattam said the regulation was important to ensure tribal mothers could only access the service once a leading government official had certified it as a case of emergency.

The recent amendment has relaxed those rules. A government officer may certify the sterilization if the tribal mother simply acknowledged they understood the consequences.

R. Prasanna, the state health services director, justified the government’s decision saying it follows a request from tribal people who were concerned about the health of pregnant mothers.

A recommendation by the federal planning commission said impeding sterilization options to these tribal people was not justified.

Commenting on the impact of the ruling on the size of tribal populations, Prasanna said it “depends on them.” The government is not “forcing sterilization” on tribal people. They can only gain access to the service at their request and once they have understood its effects, he told ucanews.com.

However, Father Poomattam said that if the government were serious about improving the health of mothers and the social situation of tribal people they would provide better health care facilities and amenities.

Father Poomattam said the bishops in the state are calling on the government to revise the amendments that has made sterilization easier among the poverty-stricken tribal people.

Arun Pannalal, president of the Chhattisgarh Christian Forum, said the government should provide the tribal people better health care and educate them to improve their living conditions. Through sterilization, however, “anybody can exploit the new policy to eliminate them gradually,” he said.

The ruling BJP is considered the political arm of groups that want to establish Hindu hegemony in India.

Pannalal and other Christian leaders have accused the BJP for promoting polices that endanger the interests of the disenfranchised, including Dalits, tribal people and non-Hindus.

Father Thomas Kollikolavil, who previously worked as a director of social work for the Jagdalpur Diocese in the state, said tribal people mostly live in interior forest villages, cut off from the mainstream and require special considerations.

“No one can expect them to be aware of the implications of sterilization,” the priest said.

A 2008 report of the Chhattisgarh State Tribal Research Institute said that the state is home to five endangered tribes — Abujhmaria, Baiga, Birhor, Pahari Korwa and Kamar, that together have fewer than 150,000 people, some with fewer than 3,000 people.

Chhattisgarh is India’s most densely Hindu state with 98.3 percent of its 23 million people being Hindu. Muslims account for 1 percent; Christians, mostly tribal people, account for 0.7 percent.

By Benson Zhao

The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation was held in Beijing last month and it made the Belt and Road Initiative a focus again. Among many relevant issues, how Beijing uses propaganda to promote this initiative is a very interesting topic.

In fact, a long time before this forum was held, the Chinese government had already started to build positive expectations for the event, employing its usual top-down approach. On the streets of Beijing, flower beds, colorful flags, and banners showed that an important event was coming to the city. Official media and some non-government sanctioned mainstream web portals unsurprisingly shifted into the Belt and Road mode – news, introductions, and reviews of this initiative made it into the headlines, focusing on the positives as one would expect. In the meantime, a short music video entitled The Belt and Road Is How was being shared on Wechat, the most popular Chinese social media app. In this short video, a group of children with different skin colors sing a song about the Belt and Road in English. Using simple and childish words, it highlights the significance of this initiative and the advantages it will bring to the world. Put into the context of the forum, the song seems natural because it too aims to encourage a positive atmosphere, so that the meeting can be held “successfully,” similar to the many other measures being taken by Beijing.

It is not difficult to envision the original intent and the purpose of this video. The children’s smiles are borderless and their use of English can promote worldwide understanding. Combining a propaganda task with the aforementioned factors, leads to the production of something guaranteed to influence and mislead akin to the resultant Belt and Road Is How. From certain angles, it can be viewed as an innovation, at least for the general public in China. First, children or kids’ songs have never been used for the promotion of the Belt and Road initiative, and are not used much in political propaganda at all nowadays in China. Second, the children singing are most likely English speaking foreigners, which makes the video somewhat novel. We should not doubt that the video’s directors and producers have good intentions and are doing their best to make the video look attractive so that they can fulfill their task well. However, for such an internationally positioned piece, as is evidenced by the language employed and used of the children from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, it is necessary to examine the extent that this video can be accepted by international audiences. Of course, the use of English ensures its understandability and the multicultural nature of the children as represented serves to promote feelings of friendship, equality, and openness. Additionally, the musical melody employed is rather catchy and easy to follow. But this is not all that the audiences should be concerned about.

After the first glance, audiences will realize that it is first and foremost a propaganda video which involves politics and aims to promote the Belt and Road initiative. Though this initiative is primarily based on economic considerations and its implementation is also centered on economic cooperation, few people, including Chinese politicians and scholars, deny its implication in terms of geopolitics. For most people living outside China, the expectation is that they will be indifferent to such direct political propaganda, if not vigilant against or opposed to it, even if it is offered in new or different forms.

Second, the details, ethics, and intentions of involving children in videos of this nature as both actors and audiences can be disputed. Though children and teenagers are encouraged to participate in politics in many countries, it is widely accepted that such participation should mainly focus on knowledge of political process, rather than political positioning. For the majority of politically engaged parents, their preference would be for their children to form their own ideas and political positions based on their own independent thinking. But one can assume that the young actors and singers in this video cannot fully understand what the Belt and Road means, and thus their song just reflects the idea of the authors and the directors of the piece. Put differently, the video is a result of imitation and instillation.

It is worth noting that the producer of this video is the Fuxing Road Studio, an agency which released How Leaders Are Made, 13 What – A Song about China’s 13^th 5-Year-Plan and some other propaganda videos related to the Chinese Communist Party and China’s politics in recent years. This studio is quite mysterious in that it never makes pubic its address or contact information. But it is speculated that this agency has governmental background and is affiliated to Chinese Communist Party organs. What makes it distinct and eye-catching is that it discards the old-fashioned style of China’s foreign propaganda, which can be viewed as being solemn, starchy, and stereotyped. Instead, it uses simple English words and adopts popular multimedia elements such as computer animation and Western style music and dance. All of which aims to better the viewer’s experience and make their propaganda products easier to accept for both Chinese and non-Chinese people.

It is true that such change is unprecedented for Chinese people who have gotten used to traditional political propaganda, and it is no surprise that the videos produced by this studio attracted great attention over a short time. The music video for 13 What got 10 million clicks in just one day. An article in the Foreign Affairs Observer, a Chinese think tank, thinks highly of this “innovation” and argues that this is a “very positive” attempt for improving the state propaganda. This article also mentions that there are hundreds of thousands views to the video for 13 What. However, it misses an important message intentionally or unintentionally. Specifically, that although over 200,000 people viewed this video, there were only 1,600 comments, including 1,200 likes and more than 400 dislikes. Since YouTube users are from all over the world (excluding mainland China), the attitudes of ordinary people are reflected to a great extent in the viewing and response metrics: the number of views, likes, and dislikes. Clearly, this result is hardly successful, or satisfactory. This fact seemingly indicates that any “innovation” in foreign propaganda only applies to the Chinese public. For the public of other countries, such “innovation” as offered in this form brings little change to their ultimate judgment.

What is going wrong? The underlying reason is the divergence between China and the West, and on an even larger scope, the fundamental political institutional and value structures, which can hardly be mitigated by improving the exterior form of Chinese state propaganda. The idea that employing foreign actors who can speak fluent English will make their propaganda internationalized and easily win the recognition of the rest of the world is not realistic. On the contrary, such a bizarre mixture comprised of an underlying Chinese ideology encased in a Western style exterior will probably be viewed as an awkward knock off. It is imperative for the creators of such videos, their executive management structures, and ultimately the Chinese leadership, to understand this.

This is not to say that the Belt and Road initiative per se is negative. Basically, the rationale of this initiative is based on enhancing connectivity and improving trade facilitation, which is in line with the need of many countries along the Belt and the Road. Since its announcement in 2013, many countries have expressed their interest and we have seen some progress made, which has evidenced the significance of this initiative, though such has always been accompanied by skepticism and challenges during the last three and a half years.

Meanwhile, this is not to deny the importance of communication between China and other countries. In fact, such communication can help to promote mutual understanding and reduce misconceptions, which will greatly lower the risks of confrontation and conflict. But the key here is what approach should be used. If judged by the acceptance of the foreign general public, it is almost certain that the political propaganda alternative is not a good one, no matter its form. Compared to these propaganda videos, videos that focus on facts and analysis (both pros and cons) seem to be decidedly more popular. For example, a video on YouTube named How China Is Reviving the Silk Road, which is provided by Now This received 244,000 clicks, 4,000 likes, and only 139 dislikes as of this writing.

Promoting policy coordination is one of the five priorities of the Belt and Road initiative, which shows that the Chinese government attaches considerable importance to communication. However, the correct way to win recognition for their cause is not to use foreign faces, nor Western style techniques, such as rap music, computer animation, or British or American accented English, but rather to use true and verifiable facts.

The video in question can be found here.

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the authors are theirs alone and don’t reflect any official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com, where this article was published.

President Trump’s declaration to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change may contribute to a self-isolation and a geopolitical weakening of the US. While China has cleverly used this opportunity, its energy-climate policies are much more ambivalent than its impressive investments into renewable energy resources suggest.

By Frank Umbach*

US President Donald Trump’s protectionist rhetoric and promises to roll back his predecessor’s environmental policies have translated into reality. He declared on 1 June 2017 that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. This surprised nobody but has worried deeply the global community, nonetheless, about what this means for the future of the global climate governance.

Beyond the political symbolism of Trump’s announcement, however, the short- and longer term impacts might be marginal as many US federal states and US energy companies will continue expanding renewables in the US energy mix and insist on restrictive environmental regulations. Moreover, a withdrawal from the Paris Agreement can only enter into force after November 2020 (when the next US presidential elections will take place).

Political Vacuum for China?

Internationally, most other countries will not withdraw from the Paris Agreement. But Trump’s announcement may contribute to a US self-isolation and a geopolitical shift by strengthening China. Many governments and environmental groups will blame the US President instead for upsetting the global climate mitigation policies and giving up its enshrined target of global warming to increase to not more than 2°C.

The US shift by withdrawing its leadership role in global climate protection policies comes at a critical time as worldwide clean energy investment declined from a record high of US$348 billion in 2015 to just $287.5 billion in 2016 (the solar power sector saw even a 64% decrease in investment), and global surface temperatures reached another record last year (nearly 1 degree Celsius higher than in the mid-20th century).

The political vacuum left by Washington appears to have already been filled by Beijing. China has emerged as a main defender of the Paris climate agreement and for preventing global temperatures from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius. President Xi Jinping used the last World Economic Forum in Davos (Switzerland) in January to fill the leadership role left by the Trump administration.

President Xi presented China as the new guardian of the world’s free trade and rescuer of the world’s climate protection policies.

China has made, undeniably, huge efforts to reduce the role of fossil fuels in its energy supply. It has dramatically expanded its investments in renewables for economic, environmental and energy security reasons. It has become the world leader in production of solar panels and batteries. In 2016, its combined new electricity generation from hydro, wind and solar power came to 153 TWh, surpassing the growth in fossil fuel generation (111 TWh). It nearly equalled Germany’s total generation from renewables (186 TWh). By investing $103 billion in 2015 (compared with just $44 billion in the US), its electricity generation from renewables rose to 25 percent of its consumption.

China’s Leadership in Renewables – The Overlooked Dimensions

China has also bolstered its dominant position in the global renewables industry by increasing its foreign investments in clean energy – to more than $32 billion in 2015. But China’s overall objective for its expanding overseas investments is to create new markets for its renewables technology exports. Last January, Beijing announced that it would spend more than $360 billion on its renewable energy sector, which it expects will create more than 13 million jobs.

The expansion of these overseas investments is linked with the shrinking opportunities for Chinese companies in its home market, forcing them to expand abroad in order to make commercial profits, creating jobs and becoming world champions in their industry sectors. These industrial and economic policies are also part and a pre-condition of China’s geopolitical ambitions to rise to its ancient role of a “Middle Kingdom”.

If so, this will weaken the US as well as other potential rivals and replace the existing global order. Thus the foreign investment strategies, including in energy sectors, are part of Beijing’s “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) strategy – now known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – as well as its long-term geopolitical and geo-economic interests.

Accordingly, those expanding investments are not restricted to renewables and other “green technologies”. China is also the world’s largest investor in coal mining and coal power projects. Currently, it is financing and building around 85 coal-powered plants worldwide. It is even doing so in Europe (in Serbia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina), raising concerns in the European Union that these newly-built coal power plants will not comply with EU’s Industrial Emissions Directive (IED).

A China-led Asian “Supergrid”?

China’s proposal to build an Asian “supergrid” would also allow it to export coal-fired power to nearby countries as part of OBOR. While these investments move emissions out of China, helping the country to reduce its national CO2-emissions and decrease its air pollution, they might add even more emissions on a global scale as the environmental standards in most of its poorer neighbouring countries are lower than those in China.

Beijing’s overseas coal investments serve its domestic energy policies and economic growth concept as well as its strategic and foreign policy objectives. Its industrial overcapacity and economic transformation, as well as the reduction of its coal consumption domestically, have increased the pressure for China’s coal industry to further expand its overseas investments in coal power plant and coal mining projects.

Even its coal policies for its domestic market are much more ambivalent than often portrayed. In January, Beijing halted more than 100 coal-fired projects (even some that were already under construction) with a combined installed capacity of more than 100 GW. However, that decision was made primarily to curb overcapacity. Another reason was to increase the coal industry’s efficiency as well as to decrease air pollution rather than to strengthen its commitments in light of the Paris Agreement and for the sake of worldwide climate protection.

International Climate Obligations or Political Stability?

In contrast to previous years, China’s coal imports have increased since the beginning of 2016, making it the world’s largest importer of the fuel. Again, Beijing appears rather to favour a strategy of exporting emissions to other countries (also known as “carbon leakage”).

Given China’s slowing GDP increase and mounting economic problems, it remains to be seen whether Beijing will really sacrifice economic growth or its overall political stability to meet international climate obligations. In contrast to its efforts to fight its air pollution, China’s global obligations for reducing CO2 are not a topic of wide public concern domestically.

As long as China is not willing to sacrifice national interests for global public goods and interests, it remains questionable whether a Chinese leadership role replacing the US and Europe in global climate protection policies is really in the long-term strategic interest of the rest of the world.

*Frank Umbach PhD was recently a Visiting Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He is Research Director at the European Centre for Energy and Resource Security (EUCERS), King’s College, London (www.eucers.eu) and Senior Associate at the Centre for European Security Strategies (CESS GmbH), Munich (www.cess-net.eu). He was previously also a Co-Chair of CSCAP-Europe.

China’s reliance on selective historical details & Tianxia may not reassure its neighbors.

By Suisheng Zhao*

One of the oft-repeated exhortation in China is “use the past to serve the present.” There is now an avalanche of Chinese history to justify China’s current assertive, some might say expansionist policy. But selective use of history may serve political purpose, not scholarship.

Historical memories are a powerful force that not only bind the Chinese people together and form their national identity but also motivate Chinese leaders to find what they regard as China’s rightful place in the world. Some leaders, though, selectively use historical memories to serve political and strategic objectives.

For more than half a century after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Chinese leaders focused on commemorating the century of humiliation to help build regime legitimacy based on the nationalist credential of driving imperialist powers out of China. Their attitude toward imperial China was ambivalent because the empire, like others in the world, expanded vast territories along its frontiers and left complicated legacies. China’s reemergence in the 21^st century led to a new attitude on empires. Chinese leaders are more willing to celebrate the imperial glories to boost national pride and redefine China’s position in the world. What they celebrate is an imperial China reconstructed as the benevolent center of East Asia so as to advance the agenda of China’s rise as a return to the harmonious state and to reassure neighbors who worry about the nation’s rising threat. The leaders insist that a powerful China can be peaceful.

Divergent themes emerge from research into China’s history.

The Reconstruction: Following President Hu Jintao’s concept of the harmonious world derived from traditional Chinese philosophy, President Xi Jinping has become obsessed with using history to present China’s domestic and external policies. He famously said that “the genes’ order” and “inherited national spirit” determine that “the Chinese nation is a peace-loving nation.” He goes on to suggest that the pursuit of peace and harmony is deeply rooted in the spirt and blood of the Chinese people, although millennia of violent history tell another story.

In the meantime, Chinese scholars have reconstructed a benevolent Chinese empire Tianxia, all-under-heaven, based on the royal ethics, or wangdao. This has emerged as a popular way to convey the “Chinese normative principle of international relations in contrast with the principles of sovereignty and the structure of international anarchy which form the core of the contemporary international system,” suggests Allen Carlson in the Journal of Contemporary China. Zhao Tingyang describes Tianxia as a universal system inherited from the Zhou dynasty about 3,000 years ago. The system, maintained by cultural attraction and ruling by virtue, is embodied in the Chinese ideal of perpetual peace.

The scholars maintain that royal ethics is a key factor behind creating and maintaining the perpetual peace. Yan Xuetong’s study determined that ancient Chinese thinkers advised rulers to rely on ethics and morality to win the world, and take a defensive posture using benevolent government to rule the world. Yan distinguishes three types of ethics in ancient China: Royal ethics focused on peaceful means to win the hearts and minds of people at home and abroad. Tyranny, based on military force, inevitably created enemies. Hegemonic ethics lay in between – frequently indifferent to moral concerns, it often involved violence against non-allies, but did not cheat people at home or allies abroad. Royal ethics was preferred over hegemony or tyranny.

In comparison with Western countries that used coercive power to build colonies, the Chinese world order was more civil, attracting admiration from tributary states without use of force. Emphasizing benevolent governance, etiquette, peace and denying the imperialistic nature, imperial China and its relations with surrounding regions were far more advanced than the colonialism of western countries. Some Chinese scholars have gone so far as to argue that the root of all troubles in Chinese diplomacy today is China’s lost opportunities for expansion by being pedantic and caring too much about morality and principles. “The surrounding countries should be grateful for China’s benevolent governance, and that the imperial order should be re-established, yet they don’t like moderation and self-restraint as part of the imperial tradition,” maintains Haiyang Yu.

Historical Facts: Recent scholarship in the West, suggests that imperial China, like its counterparts, was not uniquely benevolent or uniquely violent. Odd Arne Westad’s study reveals, “The dramatic Qing penetration of Central Asia is a story of intense conflict and, eventually, of genocide.” After defeating Zungharia in battle, the Qianlong emperor ordered his army to kill Zunghar elite. “Then he incorporated most of eastern Zungharia and the minor Khanates to its south into China, creating one region that Qianlong, triumphantly, referred to as China’s new frontier (Xinjiang).”

Warfare was constant in imperial China, with regions often in disunion or under foreign invasion. Prior to the Qin Dynasty, China was divided into many small warring kingdoms fighting wars to balance power. After the establishment of the first Chinese dynasty by the Qin emperor, the geographical scope and military power of the Chinese empire expanded immensely. China’s ruler during the Yuan dynasty, Kublai Khan, expanded the empire by military expedition, stretching across Central Asia, Burma and Vietnam. The last Chinese dynasty, Qing, expanded to unprecedented size, nearly doubling land holdings from the previous Ming dynasty mostly through military force.

From this perspective, Peter Perdue argues that the techniques used by the Ming and Qing dynasties to legitimize their rule over subjects and claim superiority over rivals were not radically different from those of other empires. Citing comparative history studies that point to substantial similarities of the Ming and Qing to the Russian, Mughal and Ottoman imperial formations, or even to early modern France, Perdue suggested that the concept of “colonialism” could be usefully employed to describe certain aspects of Qing practice.

Imperial China had to use military force to defend and expand the empire because its territorial domain, defined loosely by cultural principles, was not always accepted by its neighbors. Following the policy of fusion and expansion, whenever imperial China was powerful, it tried to expand frontiers by claiming suzerainty over smaller neighbors. The expansion, however, often met with resistance. The Chinese empire was not shy about military conquest.

In addition, the Chinese empire deployed various instruments of persuasion and coercion, including the art of statecrafts or using one neighbor against another, awarding the obedient and chastising the defiant. Such practices worked when the empire was unified and strong. When the empire was weak and divided, the neighbors in turn conquered it. Sun Tzu’s Art of War was thus written during a time when, as Kevin Rudd said, war was a permanent condition: “The bulk of Sun Tzu’s work is how to prevail in a conflict against another state or states by either non-military or military means. Taken in insolation, it can be interpreted as meaning that conflict and war represented the natural and inevitable condition of humankind.”

There is nothing wrong looking to China’s past to help understand China’s future. But Chinese intellectuals and political leaders are engaging in selective remembering, often reconstructed history, to advance the government’s political agenda and justify its concept of justice and view of China’s rightful place in the world.

Historical discourse has, therefore, become extremely politicized in China. Chinese elites, therefore, often draw contradictory policy agendas from the study of history. On the one hand, Chinese leaders present an idealized version of imperial China to support the claims of China’s peaceful rise and, on the other, take the lesson that imperial China’s collapse was because its strength was not enough to defend its existence, Chinese elites have called for China to follow the law of survival, with the weakest eliminated, to become the strongest again.

Reconstruction of China’s imperial past to advance the contemporary agenda of its peaceful rise has, ironically, set a 19^th century agenda for 21^st century China – intended to restore the regional hierarchy and maximize security by expanding influence and control over its neighborhoods.

*Suisheng Zhao is professor and director of the Center for China-US Cooperation at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, and the editor of the Journal of Contemporary China.

By Philip Gater-Smith*

What some have called the Middle East’s most severe diplomatic crisis in years recently shook the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, and several other Sunni Muslim-majority countries cut off diplomatic and economic ties with Qatar. The three GCC states taking action against Doha shut off their land, maritime, and air links with the emirate and told their nationals in Qatar that they had two weeks to depart the targeted country.

The reasons for this dramatic step against Qatar are rooted mainly in Doha’s support for Sunni Islamist movements and prominent figures in the Middle East; the emirate’s ownership of al-Jazeera and other media platforms which numerous Arab governments perceive as propaganda networks seeking to stir up unrest; and Qatar’s cordial relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran, with which the Arab Gulf country shares the world’s largest natural gas reserve. These pillars of Qatari foreign policy have long left the Bahrainis, Egyptians, Emiratis, and Saudis with the belief that Doha’s actions have fueled extremism and terrorism across the Arab world.

The Trump administration’s relationship with Saudi Arabia and the UAE is key. The move against Qatar came two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump’s state visit to the Kingdom, during which he called for a grand alliance against Islamist terrorism and its alleged supporters, most prominently Iran. The Deputy Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Commander of the UAE Armed Forces Mohammed bin Zayed visited the White House days before Trump’s trip to Riyadh, and Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman paid a visit to Washington in March. Feeling emboldened and empowered by the new American leadership, the Saudis and Emiratis are now acting more assertively against their enemies and rivals.

Media pundits have been discussing the reasons behind this move and its broader political and economic consequences for Qatar. Given that the Arab Gulf country depends on food imports, fuel exports, and regional and global flight connections, Qatar is in a serious squeeze. How long this abrupt and thorough isolation of Qatar will last is unclear. Yet even if the GCC members and their U.S. protector reach an agreement and things return to normal, it will not be business as usual for Qatar moving forward.

China has particularly high stakes in the outcome of the Qatar crisis. Officials in Beijing are focused on how this rift within the Sunni Arab world will impact their country’s geo-economic development with regard to China’s “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) initiative. China’s ambitious plan is to connect various regions, including the Middle East, through economic corridors stretching from China to the Mediterranean. Given the geo-economic shift from West to East, connectivity to these New Silk Roads is crucial for the Gulf states’ enduring productivity and even survival.

The New Silk Roads Connecting China to the Gulf

Sino-GCC trade has grown rapidly since China became a net-oil importer (1993) and joined the World Trade Organization (2001). Energy has dominated Sino-GCC trade, as well as trade between China and Iran (and to a lesser extent China and Iraq). China’s oil imports from the Gulf constitute approximately half of its total. Exports of Chinese manufactured goods to the region have strengthened interdependence between China (and other Asian countries) and the Gulf.

Bi-directional investment flows have also risen. Chinese energy and construction companies have won numerous contracts in all GCC states. Chinese banks in the Gulf have followed in the wake of these growing financial ties. Conversely, Gulf energy and petrochemical companies have invested in China. More diverse capital flows and joint ventures are mushrooming in sectors such as aviation, Islamic finance, and real estate. The GCC states’ highly liquid sovereign wealth funds are also underpinning these growing business ties.

The New Silk Road has been a popular label for several years now to characterize these “South-South” economic networks. Yet it was Chinese President Xi Xinping’s multi-dimensional OBOR initiative that boosted its use. The project, which aims to re-connect countries and economies across the Eurasian landmass by investing in roads, railways, and pipelines, also has a crucial maritime component. The large bulk of China’s trade with Europe, Africa, Southern Asia, and the Middle East, including its energy imports, is shipped across the Indian Ocean. The Gulf states were quick to join China’s newly founded investment vehicles for this giant ambition – The Silk Road Fund and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

Qatar itself is an eager participant. Rich in vast hydrocarbon resources, the emirate is China’s number one foreign source of natural gas, enjoying a 20 percent share in that particular Chinese market. Qatar also imports a large number of Chinese consumer goods. Sino-Qatari ties have deepened also in financial and monetary terms, with Doha having set up a clearinghouse for the Chinese renminbi in 2015. Qatar is unquestionably competing with other GCC members to establish a future status as a regional business hub, eager to attract Chinese, Asian, and global trade, investment, and tourism.

Enduring Political Risk in Qatar

What are the implications of the Qatar crisis for China’s plans vis-à-vis OBOR and Sino-GCC relations? It is certainly too early to predict Qatar and the GCC’s next moves, let alone medium- to long-term developments. The only forecasting possible at this stage is to prepare for Qatar making no swift change to its foreign policy, along with the Bahrainis, Egyptians, Emiratis, and Saudis remaining consistent with their demands for Doha. If such a stalemate scenario persists for a few months, the prospects for Qatar establishing itself as the Gulf’s dominant business location will suffer. But even if this cut-off policy is lifted tomorrow, the damage has already been done. All of Qatar’s important diplomatic and economic partners will remain highly wary of what from now on constitutes an enduring political risk in trading with, or investing in, Qatar.

In other words, even if Qatar’s ties with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt are re-established, Qatar’s credibility in its regional standing as a business partner and its reputation as a diplomatic partner have taken a huge and lasting hit. Whether or not Qatar is to blame for this escalation and possible future situation is, for now, irrelevant in terms of the consequences.

In terms of China’s OBOR project, there are three big consequences of the Qatar crisis.

No Regional Business Hub in Qatar

Qatar is now highly unlikely to develop into a leading Gulf business hub. The UAE has a substantial head-start in that respect anyway and currently enjoys hub status due to its advanced infrastructure, its business-friendly regulatory environment, its diversified economy, its vast international human resource pool, and its level of touristic attraction. The Chinese have long realized this, which is why most of their exports to the GCC, wider West Asia, and even Africa and Europe, go through the UAE.

Qatar’s odds of catching up have now been diminished. Without this prospect, Qatar will certainly not be able to rival the UAE (or even Saudi Arabia or Oman) as the “red dot” on Beijing’s West Asian Maritime Silk Road map. With its sudden diplomatic isolation from its direct neighbors and supposedly close GCC allies, and with land, sea, and air barriers in place, Qatar cannot possibly hope to be of regional economic centrality.

Despite the ongoing GCC diplomatic row and its inevitable aftershocks, China is likely to continue, and probably further advance, its bilateral trade and investment with Qatar. Beijing is successfully walking other far more dramatic tightropes in the Gulf. If it is possible to maintain equally strong diplomatic and economic relations with the region’s main antagonists, Saudi Arabia and Iran, then surely this approach would easily apply to China’s foreign policy regarding Qatar. Nevertheless, the Qatar crisis will certainly impact the emirate’s regional trade prospects.

No Immediate China-GCC Free Trade Agreement

The second major economic impact will be felt by the entire GCC. The long-held and recently revitalized plan to negotiate a China-GCC free trade agreement will encounter more problems unless Qatar is ejected from that club. Finding a GCC-wide consensus as long as diplomatic and economic ties remain strained, let alone fully cut off, seems impossible. In that respect, Qatar’s only hope lies with the strong mutual interests the other GCC members share in signing trade deals in general, but especially, in the New Silk Road age, with China, the world’s second largest economy. In other words, it is important to underline that Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Manama have accepted to pay a hefty price, since their move will harm the GCC’s overall economic interests.

No Enhanced Gulf Role for China

The third major consequence of the Qatar crisis for Sino-GCC relations is not economic, but geopolitical. Since the end of the Mao era, China’s foreign policy, up until now, has largely shied away from promoting assertive political agendas in foreign countries. Its “sovereignty max” approach, by which Beijing detaches itself from other countries’ domestic politics, or indeed from hard security matters overseas, applies globally. This policy vis-à-vis the Gulf has been of particular importance to Beijing. Given the Middle East’s geopolitical and ideological volatility and security crises, China has consciously refrained from following the path of the diplomatically and militarily engaged and overstretched Western powers. Its “freeriding” on the American security umbrella in the Gulf has directly benefited China’s OBOR plans by saving the Chinese large amounts of money and possibly blood, and by ensuring friendly diplomatic relations and lucrative economic ties with all regional countries.

Given the GCC’s overwhelming security dependence on the U.S. as the Council members’ energy exports to America rapidly decline, the Arab Gulf states have increasingly, yet unsuccessfully, sought to diversify their political and even military alliances. While looking east to China and India, the GCC states have expressed interest in both Asian powers playing a more pronounced role in the Gulf’s security environment. Yet up until now, Beijing has largely resisted this due to its sheer lack of both necessary military capability and political will in China. Now, with longstanding tensions among GCC members reaching unprecedented heights – which raise the possibility of a military confrontation among Arab Gulf states – China is unlikely to change its mind soon.

About the author:
*Philip Gater-Smith is a U.K.-based Middle East analyst who focuses on China’s economic relations with the GCC and Iran.

Source:
Gulf State Analytics originally published this article.

Saudi Arabia, in a first move to pressure mostly Muslim states to join its campaign against Qatar, has persuaded six sub-Saharan African nations with threats of reduced financial aid and restricted quotas for the haj, the annual pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca, to follow its lead in taking punitive steps against Qatar.

The Saudi effort in Africa suggests that the kingdom is seeking to tighten the screws on Qatar more than a week into a Saudi and UAE-led diplomatic and economic boycott that has failed to persuade the tiny Gulf state to bow to demands that it halt its support for Islamists and militants and curb, if not shutter, Qatar-funded media outlets, including Al Jazeera.

Saudi efforts, however,, despite the actions of the six countries — Senegal, Chad, Niger, Comoros, Mauritius, and Djibouti – are proving to be only partially successful. Of the six states, only Mauritius severed its diplomatic ties with Qatar. Senegal, Chad, Niger and the Comoros restricted themselves to recalling their ambassadors from Doha while Djibouti, like Jordan, simply reduced the level of its diplomatic relations.

The six countries joined six other economically dependent nations, including Bahrain, Egypt, the Maldives, Mauritania, and the Saudi-UAE backed internationally recognized government of Libya that controls only part of the country, who had already followed the Saudi-UAE lead in breaking off diplomatic relations with Qatar.

Most Muslim states hope to avoid being sucked into the Gulf crisis. Countries like Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Sudan and Somalia have so far rejected Saudi overtures and instead called for dialogue between Qatar and its detractors. Similarly, Nigeria, the black African nation with the largest Muslim population has so far remained silent on the crisis.

Elsewhere in the Muslim world, Pakistan insisted that it remained neutral in the dispute. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif accompanied by senior ministers and military commanders, joined on a visit to Riyadh the chorus of calls for a quick resolution to the crisis that have so far fallen on deaf ears.

Somalia, a strategically located, war-torn nation in the Horn of Africa, has emerged amid the mixed response to the Saudi and UAE effort as something of a mystery. Somalia has maintained neutrality despite the fact that Dubai-owned P&O Ports signed in April a $336 million, 30-year agreement to develop and manage a multi-purpose port in Bosaso in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland. The self-declared republic of Somaliland agreed weeks later to allow the UAE to establish a military base in the port of Berbera and signed a $442 million deal with P&O to turn the port into a world-class training hub.

Somali media moreover reported that President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed had rejected a Saudi offer of $80 million in return for his government breaking off diplomatic relations with Qatar. Somali planning, investment and economic development minister Jamal Mohamed Hassan announced nonetheless this week that Saudi Arabia had agreed to increase Somalia’s haj quota by 25 percent. Somalia’s strategic importance to the Gulf in commercial as well as military terms would seem to be the only logical explanation for it being rewarded despite refusing to join the Saudi-UAE campaign.

The mixed response to the Saudi effort to rally the Muslim world raises questions about the degree to which the kingdom can call in chips on the back of four decades of massive global investment in religious, educational, and political activities. Saudi difficulty in leveraging its soft power investments was evident already in 2015 when the Pakistani parliament rejected a request by the kingdom for troops to be sent to Yemen in support of its ill-fated military invasion of that country.

Nonetheless, Saudi Arabia’s use of its management of the haj, one of the five pillars of Islam, could have significant consequences for the Muslim world, particularly Asian countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia that are home to the world’s largest Muslim populations and have large migrant labour communities in the kingdom.

Curtailing the number of nationals allowed to make the pilgrimage risks sparking a domestic backlash, particularly among more conservative segments of society. A threat to expel migrant workers as the kingdom did in the past when it disagreed with Yemeni policies could have serious economic consequences.

In a twist of irony, however, alleged machinations of the kingdom’s closest ally, the United Arab Emirates, to thwart any expression of political Islam, may have created in Turkey the potentially greatest obstacle to the two Gulf states’ ploy to impose their will on Qatar.

Turkey, which has backed Qatar in its dispute with Saudi Arabia and the UAE and is sending up to 3,000 troops to the Gulf state, has suggested that the UAE funded last year’s failed coup aimed at overthrowing Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a watershed event in modern Turkish history.

Mr. Erdogan on Tuesday denounced the isolation of Qatar as “inhumane and against Islamic values”, and said the methods used against the Gulf state were unacceptable, and analogous to a “death penalty.”

Daily Sabah, a, a newspaper with close ties to the government of Mr. Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), as well as anonymous Turkish foreign ministry sources accused the UAE of having pumped $3 billion into the failed coup that the president blames on Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish imam who lives in exile in the United States.

Yeni Safak columnist Mehmet Acet quoted Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu as saying in a recent speech that “we know that a country provided $3 billion in financial support for the coup attempt in Turkey and exerted efforts to topple the government in illegal ways. On top of that, it is a Muslim country.” Mr. Acet said the minister identified the country as the UAE in a subsequent conversation.

Mr. Erdogan has, in the wake of the coup, arrested tens of thousands of his critics; dismissed up to 140,000 people from jobs in the judiciary, the military, law enforcement, civil service and education sector; declared a pro-longed state of emergency; and used the failed takeover to introduce a presidential system of government in which he has far-reaching powers.

Qatar-backed Middle East Eye reported barely two weeks after the failed coup that the UAE had used Mohammed Dahlan, a UAE-supported former Palestinian security chief with ambitions to succeed Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas, to funnel funds to Mr. Gulen.

While there is no independent confirmation of the allegations against the UAE, what is clear is that Mr. Gulen with his projection of a liberal and tolerant interpretation of Islam would fit the country’s efforts to create an alternative, anti-Salafi, anti-Islamist and anti-Muslim Brotherhood religious authority.

President Donald Trump announced that the gunman suspected of shooting Republican Congressman Stephen Scalise and several other federal representatives Wednesday outside Washington has died from injuries sustained in a shootout with law enforcement officers.

“The assailant has now died from his injuries,” the president told reporters at news conference at the White House just hours after Scalise was shot in Alexandria, Virginia, just south of Washington, while he and other Republican congressional lawmakers and aides were practicing for an annual charity baseball game.

The president confirmed that the 51-year-old lawmaker is in stable condition at a Washington hospital after being shot in the hip.

“He is a friend and he is a patriot who will recover,” Trump said.

Trump said the shootings are a reminder for all citizens to overcome the political polarization that has gripped Washington and the rest of the nation.

“We may have our differences, but we do well, in times like these, to remember that everyone who serves in our nation’s capital is here because, above all, they love our country.”

Gunman identified

The shooter has been identified as 66-year-old James T. Hodgkinson of Belleville, Illinois, according to government officials. The Washington Post reports Hodgkinson owned a home- inspection business and was charged in April 2006 with battery, a charge that was dismissed.

Two Facebook profiles allegedly belonging to Hodgkinson were filled with passionate and sometimes angry political posts critical of President Trump.

In addition to Scalise, two Capitol Police were wounded in Wednesday’s shooting, as were a congressional aide and a lobbyist.

Republican Congressman Jeff Duncan of South Carolina said he was leaving the practice early when he encountered the man he now believes was Hodgkinson.

“He asked me if the team practicing was Democrat or Republican,” Duncan said. “I told him,” and he said ‘thank you’ and left.”

About Scalise

Scalise is Majority Whip in the House of Representatives, a leadership position that ensures discipline and rallies votes within the majority Republican party. As the third highest ranking member in the House, Scalise is accompanied by Capitol Police at all times.

“Many lives would have been lost if not for the historic actions of the two Capitol Police officers who took down the gunman despite sustaining gunshot wounds during a very, very brutal assault,” President Trump said.

Fellow Republican Congressman Mo Brooks, who also was on the scene, told CNN the security detail “exhibited great, great courage” in returning fire at the gunman, who did not say anything before shooting.

Brooks said Scalise “was not able to move on his own power” and was “dragging his body from the second base infield to the outfield to get away from the shooter while all this firing was going on.”

Brooks said the gunman, standing behind a fence on the third base side of the field, “fired 10 or 20 shots” with a rifle “before I heard anything coming from our side,” where a security detail that had accompanied the House members to the field were positioned.

Brooks said the security detail “exhibited great, great courage” in returning fire at the gunman, who did not say anything before shooting.

When he heard the gunfire, Brooks said he “ran around the batting cage” to obscure himself from the gunman’s line of sight and was not hit.

Brooks said Scalise was near second base when Scalise was hit. A congressional aide was shot in the calf, Brooks said, and a congressman who is a doctor quickly applied a tourniquet to the aide to stanch the bleeding.

The physician is Republican Congressman Brad Wenstrup, a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, who served in Iraq in 2005-2006 as a combat surgeon.

Senator Flake saw shooting

Republican Senator Jeff Flake saw the incident unfold and said “at least 10 minutes” passed before the gunman was shot. Flake said one security officer who himself had been shot “ran around quite a while with a wound” while firing at the gunman.

The gunman “had a lot of ammo,” Flake said, and “initially he was right out in the open” continuing to fire from behind a dugout on the field.

Flake told VOA the gunfire forced people “to get down” while Scalise “was lying motionless on the field.” Flake added, “I wanted to get to him, but as long as there was gunfire overhead, we couldn’t.”

Police investigation

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has taken control of the investigation into the shootings, which occurred only about 11 kilometers from the White House.

The congressional baseball game that was scheduled for Thursday is a long-standing summer tradition in Washington, with teams of Republican and Democratic lawmakers competing on the ball field, even in present times, when fractious political debates are the norm.

VOA’s White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman and Victoria Macchi contributed to this report.

In late 2016, the difference between U.S. average retail prices for premium and regular gasoline reached 50 cents per gallon. This price spread has been generally expanding since 2000, and the rate at which the spread has grown has accelerated over the past three years (Figure 1). Many factors on both the supply and demand sides are likely influencing this trend.

On the demand side, since 2013, the premium gasoline share of total motor gasoline sales has steadily increased, reaching a near 13-year high of 11.9% in August 2016. While lower gasoline prices may be supporting demand for premium gasoline, the upward trend in sales is more likely driven by changes in fuel requirements for light-duty vehicles in response to increasing fuel economy standards. To meet these standards, more car manufacturers are producing models with turbocharged engines that may require or recommend the use of high octane gasoline.

This long-running trend has occurred at the same time as significant changes in the costs to produce and supply octane for gasoline. Environmental regulations have eliminated some historical octane sources such as tetraethyl lead and methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE), which were banned in 1996 and 2006, respectively. Other policies, including the federal Renewable Fuel Standard, promoted the widespread blending of fuel ethanol. Ethanol blended into gasoline has an average octane rating of 115, significantly higher than the gasoline octane rating at retail stations for regular (87 octane) and premium (91-93 octane) gasoline. However, there is relatively limited demand for, and challenges associated with, blending ethanol into gasoline in concentrations greater than 10%. Fuel ethanol’s share of the total gasoline pool grew rapidly over the 2000 to 2012 period to reach about 10%, but share growth has slowed down since that time. This situation has limited the further contribution of incremental ethanol blending as a source of additional octane in recent years, at the same time as changes in U.S. gasoline demand patterns and supply patterns were tending to raise the need for high-octane blendstocks.

Since 2013, U.S. gasoline demand has been increasing at an annual average of 1.8% and in 2016 surpassed the previous high it had reached in 2007. The combination of increasing overall gasoline demand, increasing demand for premium gasoline, and the difficulty of increasing ethanol blending beyond the 10% level appear to have contributed to an octane shortage that required refiners and blenders to acquire more expensive sources of octane, causing the price differential between premium and regular gasoline to increase rapidly beginning in 2014 (Figure 2).

Supply factors have likely also contributed to the increasing price spreads as light crude oils from expanding U.S. production of light-tight crude oil were increasingly integrated into U.S. refineries’ crude slates. While many of these light crude oils yield large quantities of naphtha, the light distillate liquid hydrocarbon from which gasoline is made, these volumes contain higher average levels of paraffins that depress the octane level of the stream. There is also additional octane loss resulting from more intensive hydro-treating needed to meet new gasoline specifications set in January 2017. In refineries, naphtha is processed into several products, including gasoline and petrochemical feedstocks, depending on its chemical characteristics. As a gasoline blendstock, naphtha has a low octane rating, limiting how much can be blended into gasoline.

As the processing of growing volumes of domestic light crude oil at U.S. refineries served to increase average yields of naphtha, refiners have moved from a naphtha deficit to a naphtha surplus, i.e., from having net inputs of naphtha to having net outputs (Figure 3). The increased supply of low-octane naphtha available to blend into gasoline may have resulted in lower production costs for low-octane gasoline such as regular grade gasoline relative to higher-octane gasoline such as premium.

For refiners, the cost of octane depends largely on reforming operations in a refinery unit that processes naphtha into the high-octane blendstock reformate. With surplus naphtha at U.S. refineries, reformer runs recorded consecutive year-over-year increases from November 2014 to July 2016 (Figure 4).

However, reformer operations involve a tradeoff between higher volume (i.e., more reformate produced but with lower octane) and octane (i.e., less reformate produced but with higher octane). Therefore, running reformers at higher volume levels favors production of lower-octane reformate, likely requiring other costlier additional sources of octane and increasing the costs of producing high-octane gasoline.

As U.S. gasoline demand continues to increase and U.S. refineries have expanded their distillation capacity to process crude oil, there has not been a corresponding increase in the capacity of refinery units that produce high-octane blending components. In addition to reformers, isomerization and alkylation units are other sources of high-octane blendstocks within refineries. Since 2007, U.S. refineries have typically seen reductions in, or slower expansions of, octane production capacity, specifically reformers, relative to atmospheric crude distillation capacity (Figure 5).

An additional factor affecting markets for naphtha has been the increasing competition between hydrocarbon gas liquids (HGL) and refinery-produced naphtha as a petrochemical feedstock. Increased HGL production has lowered HGL prices and increased their competitiveness versus naphtha in the petrochemical feedstock market. As more petrochemical feedstock demand has switched to HGL, the surplus of naphtha has increased further.

HGL feedstock competition with naphtha is not unique to the United States. Recent increases in U.S. propane, butanes, and, more recently, ethane exports to the rest of the world have contributed to naphtha displacement overseas.

Regulatory changes have likely also influenced the growing spread between regular and premium gasoline. In January 2017, Tier 3 gasoline sulfur regulations went into effect, limiting the sulfur content of gasoline. Removing sulfur from gasoline results in a slight loss of octane.

Other regulations to limit or remove other substances such as benzene from gasoline may also have indirect consequences for octane, as reformate has a high benzene content. Meanwhile, newly implemented and planned regulations on gasoline specifications and emissions in China, India, Indonesia, and Africa will likely increase the demand for high-octane gasoline and higher octane blendstocks globally.

To date in 2017, the growth in the price spread between premium and regular gasoline has stalled, holding near 50 cents per gallon. Possible reasons include a slightly lower share of premium gasoline sales recently and the influence of higher retail gasoline prices. However, considering the combination of factors influencing demand and supply of octane, EIA expects price spread increases to resume in the future.

These issues will be discussed at the 2017 EIA Energy Conference in the panel session “Gasoline Fuel Quality: The looming octane shortage.”

U.S. average regular gasoline and diesel retail prices fall

The U.S. average regular gasoline retail price fell nearly five cents from the previous week to $2.37 per gallon on June 12, down 3 cents from the same time last year. The Midwest price fell seven cents to $2.25 per gallon, the West Coast price fell five cents to $2.89 per gallon, the East Coast price fell four cents to $2.31 per gallon, the Gulf Coast price fell three cents to $2.14 per gallon, and the Rocky Mountain price fell one cent to $2.42 per gallon.

The U.S. average diesel fuel price fell four cents to $2.52 per gallon on June 12, 9 cents higher than a year ago. The Midwest price fell over five cents to $2.45 per gallon, the Gulf Coast price fell five cents to $2.37 per gallon, the West Coast and the East Coast prices each fell three cents to $2.81 per gallon and $2.57 per gallon, respectively, and the Rocky Mountain price fell two cents to $2.64 per gallon.

Propane inventories gain

U.S. propane stocks increased by 2.4 million barrels last week to 52.8 million barrels as of June 9, 2017, 25.6 million barrels (32.6%) lower than a year ago. Midwest, Gulf Coast, and Rocky Mountain/West Coast inventories increased by 1.3 million barrels, 1.0 million barrels, and 0.2 million barrels, respectively, while East Coast inventories decreased by 0.2 million barrels. Propylene non-fuel-use inventories represented 5.3% of total propane inventories.

Ihor Pavliouk, a distinguished writer and global poet, in his choice of poems, published in French with the title “Magma polésien”, meaning in English “Polesian Magma”, has enabled and shown to many readers the author’s sentiment to the world, which is a great piece of art.

In fact, the writer is a special gift from nature, but to me reading Pavliouk’s verses is also a kind of art, because it tries to go deep inside the imagination of the author. This bright Ukrainian author is a writer who measures everything in his verses and obviously thinks three times; to give the possibility to himself to craft special verses.

Pavliouk’s poems are translated from Ukrainian to French by Thanase Vantchev de Thracy and Dmytro Tchystiak, both are excellent translators who have emboldened this distinguished Ukrainian writer to express his life story in a country like France, where literature is at the apex of a multifaceted cultural lifestyle.

When I read Pavliouk’s translated verses, I have the impression that I am reading a poetry volume written in its original language. Moreover, reading the verses of “Polesian Magma” of Mr. Pavliouk, it is clear that as a distinguished Ukrainian poet, he comes from a region and writes only about local subjects, but is easily recognizable that his imagination is determinant, well-articulated and certainly shaped by an elevated standard of writing. Over the years, Mr. Pavliouk has shown through his verses that Ukrainian literature has advanced tremendously while embracing a centuries old poetry tradition that emerged in western Europe.

Furthermore, Mr. Pavliouk is not even a national writer, his works of poetry – promoted by the two stellar translators – Thanase Vantchev de Thracy and Dmytro Tchystiak – has reached an admirable reputation at the international stage and is great figure with whom the nation of Ukraine can feel represented and be proud.

On the other hand, Mr. Pavliouk continues to engage his imagination and play with the figures, characters and subject matters that he designs through his verses.

At first site, his poems are modern, however the reader finds a great length of pleasure when reading them attentively, his verses are lyrical, borderless and infused with a culture of Eastern European Tradition that ought to receive more attention in the West. The substance of narrative in Mr. Ihor Pavliouk’s poetry is a model of sentiments towards opening a page in the world’s history that is dedicated to the life style, history, blunders and beauty of his country.

CHRIST

Underground a windy tunnel smell,
Looks like condemned suls will fly forever.
Christ came as he briefly passed in the desert
They have not crucified him,
They laughed at him,
Now they sit
And eat.

In general, Mr. Pavliouk’s poetry is something exceptional, but he writes modern poetry and the way on how to integrate his conscience within his verses is really magnificent, a style that overrules the standards of communication and it becomes a great form of art. As they used to say in ancient Greece, to write poetry is a gift from God, but to read poetry – I mean to read it deeply – should also be a kind of art.

As a passionate reader of Poetry, I have read two times the verses of Ukrainian modern poet Ihor Pavliouk and I saw that in my second round of reading, many new elements appeared and convinced me that his world of writing is unique, thrilling and engaging. What do I mean? To me Mr. Pavliouk’s poetry has given me the pleasure of reading poems of high quality, where a variety of spectrums and shadows surface every time you embark on a new reading venture of his verses. Indeed, you clearly see a national culture and a sophisticated literary tradition that embodies Mr. Pavliouk’s art of writing and his vision on how to shape the future of literature.

It is not my objective to analyse, in a specific way, any book of poetry, I am not an expert on literary critic; however, as a professional writer and a slow reader who loves poetry, I am confident that Mr. Pavliouk’s verses are top notch. Themes unravelled in his poetry are wide and large, but this doesn’t mean scarifying that superior quality that he cherishes.

There is a lengthy experience reflected in his verses and it is truly a delight to immerse on this book of poetry. Generally, I have had the opportunity to read a number of Ukrainian poets and I love Ukrainian modern poetry, but Mr. Pavliouk is a great poet and it is magnificent to know that his verses can be read in popular languages like this volume in French. On this occasion, I would like to congratulate the two translators: Mr. de Thracy and Mr. Tchystiak, who have introduced to the world a well-respected writer of Ukraine.

It would be a great contribution to have Mr. Pavliouk’s book to be published in other major languages, for the world to became of aware of Ukraine and its impressive culture and modern literature actors.

To conclude, I am thrilled to have been introduced to Mr. Pavliouk’s poems and am hopeful to translate very soon his poems in Albanian language, and offer my countrymen a taste of Ukrainian modern verses.

By Jeremias Kettner*

Within a week of Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and other governments of Arab/African countries severing/downgrading relations with Qatar, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel warned that “this dispute could lead to war”, referring to the Sunni governments’ “dramatic” harshness regarding Doha. Germany’s top diplomat stated that he had conferred with officials in Qatar, as well as in Kuwait, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, with the aim of defusing the beleaguered Middle East’s latest crisis. After Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani traveled to Germany to meet with him on June 9, Gabriel called for “solutions, especially lifting the sea and air blockades.” The Foreign Minister’s defense of Qatar during the ongoing Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) diplomatic crisis speaks volumes about the European country’s relations with the Arab Gulf emirate, a rapport long ignored by foreign policy analysts.

Germany developed diplomatic relations with Doha in 1973. Unlike Great Britain and France, Germany had no colonial past in the Middle East that would have created enduring political, economic, energy or security ties. Nonetheless, bilateral relations have developed steadily since the beginning of the 21st century. This analysis examines that growth, beginning in 1999, when a Qatari monarch made his first visit to Germany, and explores the trends and important characteristics of the present-day Berlin-Doha relationship.

From the establishment of the GCC in 1981 until 2001, the six Arab Gulf states played somewhat insignificant roles in Germany’s economic and foreign policy. In fact, in 1999, the German Foreign office had plans to shut down certain diplomatic missions in the GCC, including its consulate in Jeddah. In Doha, the mission had not been functioning effectively for a long-time due to inadequate resources.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, however, prompted Berlin to step up investment in its Gulf state diplomatic missions. During that period, visits of high-ranking German politicians to the region began to increase. In 2001, German president Johannes Rau travelled to Qatar, followed a year later by then-Prime Minister of Lower Saxony Sigmar Gabriel. In 2005, Gerhard Schröder, accompanied by a comprehensive business delegation, became the first German chancellor to visit Doha. An ensuing security agreement, albeit largely symbolic, led to a German federal police official serving in Doha as a document and visa consultant. In addition, Germany provided Qatari coastal guards with training to protect the emirate’s coastal waters. Cooperation in counter-terrorism and intelligence spheres, and coordination of regional policy initiatives, continues today.

That said, stronger German-Qatari military cooperation created controversy within Germany’s parliament shortly after the public learned that Doha had purchased 62 Leopold II tanks from Germany. Regulations on arms deliveries to so-called “areas of tension” require the approval of the national security council. The Qataris argued that deeper military cooperation would enhance bilateral relations overall, yet scores of German politicians had difficulty justifying their country’s sale of weapons to the Arab Gulf state, due to sensitivities surrounding human rights allegations.

Today the German Foreign Ministry website states: “Qatar’s strong engagement in foreign policy….makes it an important partner for Germany on different regional political issues.” The two countries’ shared interests include the promotion of peace and stability in the Middle East, the stabilization of world energy prices, and the fight against international terrorism with the aim of securing international shipping routes and free trade. Germany and Qatar take a mutual interest in each other’s views of regional developments. For example, both countries work closely together within the Friends of Syria Group. Germany initially improved relations with Qatar in search of partners in the region other than Saudi Arabia. Qatar became a promising candidate after its 2005 announcement of internal political reforms, a development that Berlin regarded positively. Another factor was Qatar’s relations with Israel – the security of Israel is part of Germanys “raison d’état” – and its pragmatic relations with Iran.

Qatar considers Germany an exceedingly important actor in the West. Despite Berlin’s reluctance to pursue a more aggressive Middle East foreign policy, its economic clout in the region has grown in recent years. Berlin is set to pursue a more active foreign policy vis à vis the Arab world and Iran. Germany, together with other European countries, can help Qatar become less dependent on the U.S., although there is no perception of Berlin having the means, or the interest, to replace Washington as Qatar’s security guarantor. Qatar’s interest in becoming further embedded in German security and intelligence networks is indicative of Doha’s strategic pivot to Berlin and other capitals such as Moscow, Tehran, and Ankara to diversify its security and political partnerships.

An important issue for Qatar and other GCC members is Germany’s role within the P5+1 group. The six world powers negotiated the watershed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly referred to as the Iranian nuclear deal, which Germany, Iran and the UN Security Council’s five permanent members passed in mid-2015. Whereas some GCC states confirmed their official support (lukewarm at best) for the JCPOA, Doha sincerely supported the historic accord’s passage, having long called for a peaceful and diplomatic settlement to the standoff over Tehran’s nuclear program. The emirate shares the world’s largest offshore gas field with Iran, and promoting a stable Gulf region and decreasing tension in GCC-Tehran relations are foreign policy objectives for the leadership in Doha.

German-Qatari relations have certainly improved in recent years and diplomatic visits on political levels have become routine. Yet since Angela Merkel became Chancellor of Germany 11 years ago, she has visited Qatar only once. German authorities find it difficult to maintain a close working relationship with their Qatari counterparts, as most government decisions in Qatar come top-down. Hence, a traditionally strong hierarchy in Qatar constitutes an obstacle to follow-up activities on agreements arranged by top officials.

Economic Relations

Throughout the GCC, Germany’s high-quality products and services have contributed to its positive image. Knowledge transfers through joint ventures between Qatari and German companies can help achieve the Qatari National Vision 2030 goal of building a strong private sector based on a knowledge-based economy and society.

Until 2000, bilateral trade and investment figures had been marginal. This changed rapidly when Qatar began investing massively in its local infrastructure. (By 2022 Qatar expects to invest about USD 200 billion in infrastructure.) In 2002, a German Business Council was established in Qatar and, around the same time, an office of the German Industry and Commerce Office was opened in Doha. Since 1999, an Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement as well as an Air Transport Agreement have been in force. A German-Qatari joint economic commission was founded in 2007, and met for the fifth time in 2016.

Negotiations over a double taxation agreement, however, have not yet been finalized. Officials in Doha maintain that this issue hinders their willingness to invest more in Germany while also lamenting the small proportion of German foreign direct investments in Qatar. Their counterparts in Berlin, on the other hand, are not willing to agree to a tax-free repatriation of Qatari investments in Germany.

Against this backdrop, Germany has been able to attract Qatari investments in recent years valued at more than USD 18 billion. Qatar holds stakes in Volkswagen, Hochtief, Siemens, Deutsche Bank and others. The German government has welcomed Qatari investments, particularly during the financial crises of 2008/09, when the Qatari sovereign wealth fund, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), bought stakes in many European banks, including Barclays, Santander, UBS, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank. On the occasion of the 2013 Business and Investment in Qatar Forum in Berlin, attended by then-Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, as well as Chancellor Merkel and other dignities and businessmen from both sides, the QIA announced its decision to further invest in Germany.

Bilateral trade is constantly on the rise, having reached a record high of USD 2.87 billion in 2015. Approximately 1,700 German citizens lived and worked in Qatar in 2013 (but only 25 percent of the number of German nationals in Dubai). Sixty-four German companies are present in Doha, most of which are active in the construction and service sectors, amounting to a major increase since 1999, when there were only two.

Politicians from both countries regularly stress the potential opportunities that increased bilateral trade and investment could provide. Yet there are many factors thwarting a strengthening of economic ties.

It is important to differentiate between internal and external factors. External factors include a somewhat inefficient Qatari jurisdiction, a highly competitive market, and the huge scope of Qatari projects, especially in the infrastructure sector. Moreover, the lack of access for most foreign companies to local financing is a problem. Eighty percent of the Qatari economy is completely, or partially, state-owned. Major projects are tendered by procurement offices and are often bound to political guarantees. Foreign companies must pay not only tender bonds but in many cases performance bonds. Without local financing opportunities, most German companies cannot survive in the Qatari market. This is especially true for small and medium size businesses (SME), which comprise 90 percent of all German businesses. For this reason, with a few exceptions, German companies work mainly as sub-contractors in Qatar.

The main internal factors are relatively high cost structures within German companies, a conservative risk allocation, as well as almost no representation inside local Qatari companies, let alone Qatari government institutions. The latter is important since the Qatari business culture is based on trust and characterized by personal relationships. Therefore, national consultants can act as “door openers”.

In addition, most German companies deliver products or services. With the exception of Siemens, Thyssen-Krupp, and a few others, there are no Qatari-German joint ventures. This is especially true in the oil and gas sector, including downstream businesses such as petrochemicals. Wintershall, which left the market in 2010, was the only German company to be heavily invested in the Qatari energy sector. Even though the situation has changed today – especially since the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Germany is more willing to reduce its strong dependency on Russian gas and look for alternative sources – there are almost no capacities left for the German market. The problem is that the Qatari LNG output is linked to long-term contracts with Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea and China.

Culture, Education, Science, Sports, and Technology

A German International School that stresses cultural competence was established in Doha in 2008. In the medical sector, there is cooperation between the Hamad Medical Corporation and the University Hospital of the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-University Frankfurt. Leading German museums and The Dresden State Art Collections are collaborating with Qatar Museums (QM). Germany and Qatar have also developed closer relations in the sports sector, as highlighted by the summer camp for FC Bayern Munich in Qatar and the many German employees who helped build the Aspire Sports Academy. Currently, a bilateral cultural year is in place.

Both countries are willing to invest in the education and science sectors, with a focus on research and development in the field of new technologies such as renewables. In her 2010 speech at the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Chancellor Merkel stressed that Germany and Qatar are “global front runners” in this area.

Conclusion

Bilateral relations between Qatar and Germany have steadily improved since 2005. One obstacle to the relations from a strategic point of view is a lack of security and energy cooperation. Whereas commercial interests on both sides had been the main driver of German-Qatari relations until 2011, Qatar’s rise as a political player in the Middle East and its active role in the “Arab Spring” made the emirate a key political partner for Germany and the rest of the EU. Yet the accusation by the German development aid minister that Qatar was financing Daesh (“Islamic State”), as well as the negative German press coverage of labor conditions for expatriates in Qatar, have represented challenges for the Berlin-Doha relationship. Nonetheless, Merkel has called Doha a “strategic partner” and claimed that she has no reason to mistrust the Emir of Qatar’s reassurance that the Qatari government has never been behind the financing of terrorism.

Germany’s participation in the P5+1 talks, as well as Chancellor Merkel’s historic decision to welcome more than one million Syrian refugees, clearly indicate a more active German foreign policy in the Gulf and the greater Middle East. One could argue that both countries have experienced an emancipation within their regions (EU, GCC). Germany is now Europe´s economic powerhouse and has played a major role in stabilizing European markets during the aftermath of the 2008/2009 financial crisis. Qatar has developed a more active foreign policy and in 2011 became one of the Arab world’s major players amid political openings caused by numerous anti-regime revolts and rebellions. Moreover, the emirate has helped stabilize European banks and is heavily invested in European companies. This factor makes Doha essentially a natural partner in many regards for the future.

Ultimately, Qatar needs Germany as part of its strategy to maintain good relations with key Western countries. Germany, in turn, sees Qatar as an important “piece of a puzzle” in an extremely complicated and volatile region. The leadership in Berlin values Qatar as a bridge between the Islamic and the western worlds, which can help to secure German and other European countries’ interests in the Middle East and beyond. According to diplomatic sources, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim is scheduled to visit Merkel in Germany after Ramadan. That meeting should provide a better indication of possible increased momentum in German-Qatari relations at a time when Doha requires additional support from major players in the global arena.

*Jeremias Kettner (@KettnerJeremias) is an analyst at Gulf State Analytics with a background in business and government relations across Europe and the Middle East.

Gulf State Analytics originally published this article

US Ambassador to Qatar Dana Shell Smith says she is stepping down amid a deepening rift among Washington’s Persian Gulf Arab allies.

“This month, I end my 3 years as US Ambassador to #Qatar. It has been the greatest honor of my life and I’ll miss this great country,” Smith tweeted on Tuesday.

The US ambassador did not explain why she was resigning, who would replace her and if she was staying within the diplomatic service. US ambassadorships typically last three years.

A source close to Smith told CNN that she will also conclude her 25-year career in the foreign service once her post in Doha ends.

Smith was appointed as the US envoy to Qatar in 2014 by then president, Barack Obama.

She made headlines in May by expressing her dissatisfaction with political events back home under the administration of President Donald Trump.

The ambassador’s departure comes days after Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates cut their diplomatic and transport ties with Qatar, accusing Doha of destabilizing the region with its support for terrorism, an allegation rejected by the Qatari government.

Doha believes it is targeted by an orchestrated smear campaign over its independent foreign policy.

Trump recently sided with the Saudi-led bloc and accused Qatar of funding terrorism at a “very high level,” noting that “the time had come to call on Qatar to end its funding, they have to end that funding and its extremist ideology.”

Riyadh rejects Qatar ‘blockade’

As concerns grow about a humanitarian crisis in Qatar due to its Riyadh-led isolation, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, who is on a visit to Washington, claimed that the measures against the monarchy were reasonable.

“There is no blockade of Qatar. Qatar is free to go,” Jubeir said alongside US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday.

“The ports …, airports … [and] seaports of Qatar are open. There is no blockade on them. Qatar can move goods in and out whenever they want. They just cannot use our territorial waters,” he said. “The limitation on the use of Saudi airspace is only limited to Qatari airways or Qatari-owned aircraft, not anybody else.”

On Tuesday, Amnesty International criticized the punitive measures taken by Saudi Arabia and its allies against Qatar, saying the restrictions violate the human rights of the Qatari people.

Bahrain targets pro-Qatar lawyer

Separately on Tuesday, a prominent Bahraini human rights lawyer was taken into custody after launching a lawsuit against the government for taking “arbitrary” measures against Qatar.

Issa Faraj Arhama al-Burshaid had filed a case with the Supreme Administrative Court in Manama against the Bahraini cabinet, Interior and Foreign Ministries concerning the Qatar dispute.

“This siege has broken up family ties and hurt all Bahraini families. The decision to cut diplomatic relations violates Bahrain’s constitution and laws,” he said.

Last week, Bahrain declared it a crime – punishable by imprisonment of up to five years and a fine – to show “sympathy or favoritism” to Qatar or to oppose the decision to break off relations with it.

Diplomatic efforts

This is while efforts are underway on the diplomatic stage to settle the worst crisis to hit the Persian Gulf region in years.

Doha has welcomed mediation, but insists no one can dictate its foreign policy.

On Wednesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu is set to meet his Qatari counterpart, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in Doha.

If possible, the top Turkish diplomat will travel to Saudi Arabia in a diplomatic push to help end the regional dispute, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement late on Tuesday.

Turkey, which has sided with Qatar in the diplomatic spat, has slammed the pressure by the Saudi-led bloc of countries against Doha, saying isolating a nation in all areas is inhumane and against Islamic values.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to take a leading role in resolving the diplomatic rift in the region.

“Qatar along with Turkey is a country that took the most determined stand against the terrorist organization, Daesh,” he said.

Putin makes phone calls over Qatar row

In another development on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin talked with the Saudi king over the phone about the Qatar crisis.

The two officials “touched on the aggravated situation around Qatar, which unfortunately does not help consolidate joint efforts in resolving the conflict in Syria and fighting the terrorist threat,” the Kremlin said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s state news agency reported that Putin and King Salman had discussed bilateral relations and counterterrorism efforts.

The Russian leader further held another phone conversation with the Abdu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

They discussed the Qatar issue and “expressed a mutual interest in searching for ways to settle the crisis,” the Kremlin said, warning that the current tensions around Qatar “exacerbate the difficult situation in the entire Middle East region.”

Original source

By Ana Maria Touma

In a bizarre political twist, Romania’s ruling Social Democrat Party, PSD, on Wednesday has moved to bring down the government led by Sorin Grindeanu – who comes from the same party.

It is the first time in a decade that a ruling party has attempted to oust its own government, and raises fresh concerns about political stability.

Grindeanu refused four times in five days to resign, despite pressure to do so from PSD leader Liviu Dragnea and other party leaders. But after a five-hour-long meeting on Wednesday night, the PSD Executive Committee decided to withdraw support for the Cabinet. Ministers were asked to resign, or face exclusion from the party.

The junior ruling coalition ally Alliance of Liberal and Democrats also decided to stop supporting Grindeanu’s government.

Analysts said the crisis had less to do with the cabinet’s performance in its first six months, and basically concerned Dragnea’s drive to reassert his control over the party.

In fact, PM Grindeanu asked for Dragnea to step down on Wednesday and stormed out of the PSD meeting, refusing to hand in his own resignation.

“The real reason Dragnea wants to change the Prime Minister and several ministers has been the same since February. The PSD leader and several party barons have justice issues, but Grindeanu is refusing to help them after Decree 13 [a decree designed to pardon corruption related offences and was later withdrawn] led to the largest protests in Romania since 1989,” Tan Tapalaga, who writes for Hotnews, said on Wednesday.

“Justice Minister Tudorel Toader has slowed down the revision of justice legislation and the government has refused to simply pass the decree for thugs,” he added, referring to the same ill-fated decree, withdrawn on February 7.

The government crisis follows a weeks-long power struggle inside the PSD, with Dragnea, several loyal ministers and other members of the leadership accusing Grindeanu of not complying with the party manifesto advertised in the election campaign.

Dragnea last Friday said that all ministers, including the Prime Minister, were to be evaluated and that the party’s National Executive Council on Wednesday, based on this evaluation, would then decide who should leave or stay in the cabinet.

He also noted that all members of the cabinet, including Grindeanu, had handed in their resignations the same day they were appointed in January, in a gesture that was designed to leave Dragnea with the ultimate power over key decisions.

However, Grindeanu replied on Friday that the resignation of the cabinet would create political instability in a country that recently was deemed the fastest growing economy in the Balkans.

On Wednesday, hours before the PSD leadership meeting, after the ruling Social Democrat Party National Executive Bureau convenes, Grindeanu also told journalists that he had no intention of handing in his resignation, because he had not been asked for it directly, although he said he also expected to be “publicly executed.”

PSD sources told the media on Monday that two candidates were considered suitable to succeed to Grindeanu, Bucharest Mayor Gabriela Firea and Interior Minister Carmen Dan.

But Firea on Monday confirmed that she had refused the post, while Dan said she only found out about the posibility of her promotion on television.

Several senior PSD members, including Firea, have criticized Grindeanu for his lack of communication with the party leadership, raising concerns about a cold relationship between the Prime Minister and Dragnea.

The government’s efficacy also came into question after Labour Minister, Olguta Vasilescu, was forced to postpone generous public-sector wage hikes that the PSD promised in the electoral campaign.

Although the party had promised to implement the wage hike on July 1, 2017, the wages will now not increase for some categories of public employees until January 1, 2018 and for others until March 1, 2018.

The raises will also be lower than promised, only 25 per cent, as opposed to doubling some salaries for disadvantaged categories such as healthcare and education employees, because the government could not find muster the funds in time.

The amount needed for the hikes surpassed the 32 billion lei [7 billion euros] that the Minister of Labour had calculated.

With the Prime Minister determined to stay on, the PSD leadership has two alternatives to get rid of his cabinet.

One is to withdraw political backing and so force the majority of ministers to resign – in which case the Prime Minister will be forced to leave office. The other is to submit an impeachment motion in parliament.

Although several ministers have stated that they are willing to quit, some PSD members fear the crisis will badly tarnish the party’s image.

Former Prime Minister Victor Ponta has criticized the current party leader for not handling misunderstandings better. “You cannot ask a PM for his resignation just because he’s not obedient,” he wrote in a six-page open letter posted on Facebook.

Ponta said that most PSD members disagreed with Dragnea’s methods, but lacked the courage to tell him so and vote against his decisions at party meetings.

The leader of the main opposition National Liberal Party meanwhile told journalists that the whole affair shows the PSD is in crisis.

“After six months of PSD members trying to intoxicate public opinion with the idea that this government was a great success, today the party cannot come up with a reasonable and coherent argument to justify why they’re asking for the government to resign.

“Grindeanu has brought the PSD to a historic moment, a unique moment of ridicule in Romania’s post-1989 history – to initiate an impeachment motion for its own government,” PNL leader Raluca Turcan said.

Political commentator Florin Negrutiu warned in an editorial on Wednesday that making a hero out of Grindeanu just for standing up to Dragnea would be wrong.

“All he did was to drag out things. The stranger the boss’s demands became, the more the PM shrugged his shoulders and blinked,” he wrote

“Decree 13 withdrawn, justice legislation dragged out, all the economic fantasies of [Labour Minister] Olguta [Vasilescu] blocked, one by one. This made Dragnea really angry: he had sent Grindeanu to head the cabinet to serve him, not to blink. ‘I’m the one who made you, I’m the one who kills you,’ is what Dragnea’s message is now,” he pointed out.

The same analyst also said that by attacking his own government, the PSD leader was killing off the so-called “myth of competence” of his own party.

By Jim Garamone

US President Donald J. Trump has delegated authority to manage the number of U.S. troops sent to Afghanistan to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

The secretary spoke about this delegation in his opening statement during a budget hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee this morning.

“The American military effort in Afghanistan must be viewed as part of a larger regional context in South Asia,” Mattis told the senators. “Our primary national interest and the international interest in Afghanistan is ensuring it does not become an ungoverned space from which attacks can be launched against the United States, other nations or the Afghan people,” he said.

Partnered Operations, Training Afghan Forces

To meet this national interest, U.S. forces are conducting partnered counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan, while other U.S. forces are working with NATO’s Resolute Support mission to train Afghan security forces to shoulder their country’s security mission.

“At noon yesterday, President Trump delegated to me the authority to manage troop numbers in Afghanistan,” Mattis said. “The delegation of this authority – consistent with the authority President Trump granted me two months ago for Iraq and Syria – does not, at this time, change the troop numbers for Afghanistan.”

Interagency Partners

Mattis promised to work with interagency partners to define the way ahead. “I will set the U.S. military commitment, consistent with the commander in chief’s strategic direction and the foreign policy as dictated by Secretary of State [Rex] Tillerson,” he said.

The fight in Afghanistan remains important, the secretary said, noting that Afghanistan was the staging ground for the al-Qaida terrorists who attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001.

“I would say that the reason we have not been attacked over many years from where the 9/11 attack originated is heavily due to the sacrifices that we have made over years as we have kept the enemy on the back foot,” Mattis said. “It’s hard for them to conduct external operations out of that former stronghold when they are just trying to hang onto their own lives and avoid us.”

Part of the reason for a resurgence of violence in Afghanistan was that international support was reduced too soon, he said. “We pulled out our forces, at a time … when the violence was lower,” he said. “But we pulled them out on a timeline, rather than consistent with the maturation of the government and the security forces.”

U.S. and coalition forces are working the support mission, and Afghan forces will receive the air support that was in short supply, the secretary said.

About 13,000 U.S and coalition troops are currently in Afghanistan.

By Nijeesh N.*

Shangwang Shangyung Khaplang widely known as S.S. Khaplang, the ‘chairman’ of the Khaplang faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-K) died in the evening of June 9, 2017, after a prolonged illness in a hospital at Taga in the Sagaing Division of Myanmar. Confirming his death, Indian intelligence sources disclosed that Khaplang, who belonged to the Hemi Naga tribe, had lately moved to Taga, the NSCN-K’s headquarters, from his native village Waktham, east of the Pangsau Pass on the Arunachal Pradesh-Myanmar border. According to reports, Khaplang is likely to be buried near the ‘NSCN-K Council Headquarters’ in Taga in Myanmar on June 12, 2017. Athong Makury from the ‘Council of Naga Affairs (CNA), the apex body of Naga people in Myanmar, announced on June 11 that the funeral would take place in the presence of “revolutionary parties of WESEA Region and civil representatives from all the Naga inhabited areas.”

Media reports citing ‘sources within’ NSCN-K meanwhile stated that the ‘vice-chairman’ of the outfit, Khango Konyak, would replace Khaplang as the new ‘chairman’. Khango Konyak was elected as ‘vice-chairman’ of the outfit on May 20, 2011 and Khaplang had earlier issued a statement declaring, “Konyak stood steadfast for the rights of the Naga people through thick and thin.” Nevertheless, a power struggle remains a possibility, with reports also indicating that ‘brigadier’ Peyong Konyak, and senior leader Akhio Konyak were also contenders for the next NSCN-K ‘chairman’.

Unlike Khaplang who was a Hemi Naga from Myanmar, Khango Konyak is a Konyak Naga from the Mon District of Nagaland. As one of the senior cadres in the outfit, Khango Konyak was known as Khaplang’s ‘most trusted man’. Khaplang, who has not been keeping well for some time had entrusted all administration and public affairs of the outfit to Khango Konyak. Most visiting delegations to NSCN­K’s base camp at Taga had been meeting with Khango Konyak. Though the Indian nationality of Khango Konyak is an advantage for New Delhi to reach out to him in order to get NSCN-K back into ceasefire mode, his defiant stand in the past will be a major hurdle, as he has expressed reservations on the ceasefire process with India.

Khaplang’s death will certainly hamper the ‘peace talks’ between the Government and NSCN-K, which began recently. Nagaland Chief Minister Shurhozelie Liezietsu disclosed, in his condolence message, that the State Government had recently sent delegations to meet the NSCN-K leadership in Myanmar to convince the group to re-enter into the peace process with the Government of India to find an early solution to the Naga political problem: “And it was encouraging to learn that Mr Khaplang had, a few months back, conveyed his willingness to have dialogue with the Government provided ‘issues of substance’ were discussed.”

Khaplang is believed to have exercised huge influence over the Myanmarese authorities. On April 9, 2012, NSCN-K signed a ceasefire agreement with the Myanmar Government, as a result of which NSCN-K members were given freedom to move ‘unarmed’ across the country. Khaplang exercised near untrammelled authority over vast ungoverned spaces along the Indo-Myanmar border, and a tacit agreement that preserved this influence had been in place with Myanmar’s military junta at least since 2001. Not only had Khaplang established long-standing military bases in the Sagaing region, he was able to provide safe haven and camps to a number of other militant formations operating in India’s Northeast. On January 10, 2017, Additional Director-General of Police (ADGP), Assam, L.R. Bishnoi observed, “Taking into account at least ten North-eastern rebel groups having their bases and hideouts in Myanmar, there should be close to 2,500 militants from the region in that country. Of them NSCN-K alone has a little over 1,000 men, followed by around 260 of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), 230 of the United National Liberation Front (UNLF) and a little over 200 of the Independent faction of United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA-I).” Significantly, on July 16, 2016, during the first India-Myanmar Joint Consultative Commission (JCC) Meeting held in New Delhi, India reportedly asked Myanmar to hand over four top NSCN-K leaders, including S.S. Khaplang, ‘military commander’, ‘military advisor’ Niki Sumi, ‘brigadier’ Kurichu Pochury, and ‘kilonser’ Y. Asang.

The top leadership of the NSCN-K remains inside Myanmar. It is to be seen what impact Khaplang’s death will have on their relationship with the Myanmar Government. NSCN-K’s operational capabilities in India’s Northeast depend heavily on their presence and safe havens in Myanmar.

NSCN-K, along with the Isak-Muivah faction of National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM), was formed on April 30, 1988, when the principal split within the parent National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) took place. Clannish divisions among the Nagas (Konyak and Tangkhul) were the primary reason for the fracture. The Konyak and Pangmei (Naga tribes largely found in Myanmar) dominated NSCN-K under the leadership of Khole Konyak and ‘Chairman’ S.S. Khaplang. NSCN-IM constituted the mainly Tangkhul faction, and was led by ‘president’ Isak Chisi Swu and T. Muivah. Other prominent leaders of the undivided NSCN-K were ‘general secretary’ N. Kitovi Zhimomi and ‘publicity secretary’ Akaho Asumi. On November 23, 2007, several NSCN-IM cadres led by its one-time ‘home minister’ Azheto Chopey broke away from the group and formed a new outfit called the NSCN – Unification (NSCN-U) also known as Neokpao–Khitovi faction of NSCN (NSCN-NK). The NSCN-K split further in 2011 when two senior founding leaders of the outfit N. Kitovi Zhimoni, the Ato Kilonser (Prime Minister) and Khole Konyak, broke away to form a new group called Khole-Kitovi faction of NSCN (NSCN-KK).

On April 28, 2001, NSCN-K signed a ceasefire agreement with the Government of India (GoI). The splinter NSCN-KK signed a ceasefire agreement with GoI on April 27, 2012, and these were extended annually. Meanwhile, NSCN-IM signed a ceasefire agreement for an indefinite period as well as an historic “framework agreement” with GoI on August 3, 2015.

Crucially, however, on March 27, 2015, NSCN-K unilaterally exited the ceasefire, declaring that “any ‘meaningful peace and political interaction’ between the two entities (NSCN-K and GoI) should be premised on the concept that Nagas were sovereign people”. Soon after, the Reformation faction of NSCN (NSCN-R) was formed on April 6, 2015, by two senior ‘kilonsers’ (ministers), Wangtin Konyak, also known as Y. Wangtin Naga, and T. Tikhak. The duo had attended the ceasefire supervisory board (CFSB) meeting at Chumukedima (Dimapur) on March 27, 2015, defying S.S. Khaplang’s diktat and were consequently ‘expelled’. A ceasefire agreement with NSCN-R was signed on April 27, 2015. The GoI recently renewed the ceasefire agreement with NSCN-R and NSCN-U, for a further period of one year with effect from April 28, 2017.

After the unilateral withdrawal from ceasefire agreement and a series of attacks on Security Forces (SFs), including the killing of 18 Army persons at Chandel in Manipur on June 4, 2015, by NSCN-K, GoI banned NSCN-K for five years, on September 16, 2015, under the Unlawful Activities [Prevention] Act (UAPA), 1967. Subsequently, on November 16, 2015, the Central Government declared NSCN-K a terrorist organization.

The ceasefire with NSCN-K, which was only enforceable within Nagaland, had hardly been peaceful. According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), the outfit was involved in at least 282 fatalities (25 civilian, eight SF personnel and 249 militants) between April 28, 2001, (the date of signing of the ceasefire agreement) and March 27, 2015, (the date of abrogation of the ceasefire) in Nagaland, Assam, Manipur, and Arunachal Pradesh. The large number of militant fatalities are at least partially an index of the turf wars between extremist formations, particularly including various factions of NSCN. After the abrogation of the ceasefire, NSCN-K has been found involved in several militant attacks in three Northeastern States – Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland. According to partial data compiled by SATP, NSCN-K was linked to a total of 79 fatalities (seven civilians and 32 SFs personnel, and 40 NSCN-K militants) in the three States since March 27, 2015 (all data till June 10, 2017). During the same period, these three States had recorded a total of 208 fatalities (53 civilians and 56 SF personnel and 99 militants). NSCN-K was linked to 37.98 per cent of fatalities (12.5 per cent of civilian fatalities, 57 per cent of the SF fatalities and 40.4 per cent of the militant fatalities) among the at least 19 currently active groups in these three States.

Unsurprisingly, SFs had intensified their offensive against NSCN-K soon after the June 4, 2015, Chandel attack. At least 40 NSCN-K militants have since been killed. Among those neutralized were ‘captain’ Wangchuk and ‘2nd lieutenant’ Tokihe Yepthomi. SFs also arrested 128 NSCN-K militants, including ‘health minister-cum-political advisor’ Ngamsinlung Panmei and ‘captain’ Atoka aka Kughahoto Sema.

SFs have, indeed, succeeded in minimizing the immediate threat originating from NSCN-K. Khaplang’s death is likely to provide them further relief, at least till the leadership issue is clearly settled. Khaplang’s death will also open up leadership issues in the United National Liberation Front of West East South Asia (UNLFWESA) . Significantly, after suffering losses at the hands of the SFs in the region, various northeast militants groups, including ULFA-I, the IK Songbijit faction of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB-IKS); and Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), had joined hands to work under the banner of the umbrella UNLFWESA, which was formed on April 17, 2015, in Myanmar, and mostly concentrated its increasing terror activities in the Indo-Myanmar border Districts. The Front, headed by S.S. Khaplang, was formed with the aim to set up a ‘northeast government-in-exile’, reportedly to be based in Myanmar.

Despite speculative assessments of a diminution of capabilities – even if transient – the NSCN-K capacities and threat remain formidable. Since the organisation’s principal infrastructure and cadre base lies in safe havens in Myanmar and is under no urgent threat – notwithstanding the showcasing of the June 9, 2015, operation ‘inside Myanmar’, a few kilometers beyond a notional border – the incentive to intensify the spiral of violence certainly remains.

Indeed, in the Northeast Security Review meeting, chaired by Union Home Minister (UHM) Rajnath Singh, held at New Delhi on May 16, 2017 it was emphasized that five contiguous Districts of Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland along the Indo-Myanmar border (Tirap, Changlang and Longding Districts of Arunachal; and Mon and Tuensang Districts of Nagaland) had emerged as the hub of the ‘last remaining militants’ in the Northeast. Significantly, on June 6, 2017, Major David Manlun of the Army’s 1st Naga Regiment, who was on deputation to the 164th Territorial Army, a civilian and three militants were killed during an encounter in an area between Lapa Lempong and Oting villages near the Tizit Subdivision of Mon District in Nagaland, along the India-Myanmar border. Three troopers were also critically injured in the encounter. Following information about the presence of militants belonging to the ULFA-I and NSCN-K in the area, SFs launched an operation, during which they were targeted. Army sources disclosed that the militants had sneaked in from Myanmar into Mon District to carry out attacks against Army personnel. Two AK-56 rifles, an AK-47 rifle, nine magazines, 277 rounds of ammunition, two hand grenades, four mobile handsets, medicines, blankets, sharp weapons and other warlike stores were recovered from the encounter site.

More worryingly, activities like extortion and illegal ‘tax collection’, which provide the oxygen for the survival for these militant formations remain widespread. On April 26, 2017, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested three senior officials of the Nagaland Government for their alleged role in large-scale extortion and illegal ‘tax collection’ on behalf of the NSCN-K from various Government Departments. On August 1, 2016, NIA registered a case following the arrest of an NSCN-K militant, S. Khetoshe Sumi, from Dimapur on July 31, 2016. The subsequent probe revealed that at least 12 Government departments in the State regularly paid huge amounts of money to members of NSCN-K and other militant organizations, including NSCN-IM, NSCN-R, Naga National Council (NNC), among others. Subsequently, on May 4, 2017, in a statement issued to the media, NSCN-K declared that it would not tolerate any departmental authorities collaborating with NIA and threatened ‘punitive actions’ against those ‘conniving’ with the agency. NSCN-K also asserted that it would continue to levy ‘reasonable and affordable taxes’ on the people for the sustenance of their ‘national struggle’.

There can be no ambiguity in the Government’s strategy to deal with NSCN-K. Any attempt to enter into formal talks with the outfit must be preceded by an unequivocal assurance from the group that it will not engage in armed violence, and any agreement to this effect would need to be implemented in toto on the ground.

* Nijeesh N.
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

By Dr. Courtney Freer*

Vision 2030, at first glance, appears to be yet another major Saudi effort to lessen the Kingdom’s dependence on hydrocarbon resources – by reducing government spending on public sector employment and ramping up development in new economic sectors. Although similar visions date back to the 1970s, this plan is unique in that it will expand the government’s remit into something of a hyper-rentier arrangement.

Not only is the government meant to provide health, education, employment, and housing to its citizenry; it is also meant to actively manage the diversification process, while expanding entertainment options and enriching the social life of its citizens. For the younger generation of Saudis who have grown up with rentier benefits, such developments, especially at the hands of the young Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, hold appeal and could potentially open up the Kingdom socially. The rentier arrangement advocated by the Vision also, notably, involves hordes of Western consultants, who have become extensions of the ministries for which they work and thus comprise another budget line for spending on public sector employment. Year-on-year spending for consultants in Saudi Arabia rose a staggering 14.8 percent between 2015 and 2016.

That the government released a document as expansive as Vision 2030 is evidence of the large role it envisions for itself, even if dependence on hydrocarbon wealth will be diminished. Such a central role for government is logical, considering that two-thirds of the workforce is employed by the public sector. Nonetheless, Vision 2030 sets up the government, with the funds from the IPO of Saudi Aramco, as the primary developer of the new diversified economy, while also citing the need to “cut tedious bureaucracy”.

Furthermore, the Public Investment Fund (the state’s sovereign wealth fund) announced in April its plans to construct an entertainment city, roughly the size of the Las Vegas strip, south of Riyadh. It is slated to include a theme park and a safari park, and aims to promote tourism as well as to aid citizens in their efforts to “achieve a healthy and harmonious life, and provide more entertainment, joy and fun.” These new government-funded social ventures, though historically more common in the religious field, are new in the secular portion of Saudi entertainment – and this new government-styled and -funded sector is only likely to grow.

The Entertainment Authority, a new government entity established through the Vision, has taken the lead in organizing a series of concerts, comedy shows, and other performances of a type never before seen in the Kingdom. These restrictions have been largely due to the government’s centuries-old alliance with religious scholars (ulama) of the Wahhabi strand. The relationship requires Al Saud ruling family to respect a highly conservative and textualist understanding of Islam in order to maintain religious legitimacy as guardians of the two holy mosques. Wahhabi authorities focus their efforts on both cleansing Islam of what they consider incorrect religious practices (namely the ratification of innovations – from cemeteries to cinemas) as well as preserving a literal interpretation of the Qurʾan. In an effort to reconcile a wider variety of secular entertainment options with this alliance, the chairman of the Entertainment Authority, Ahmed al-Khateeb, assures that “[w]e have rejected more than 150 activities that we considered to be violating Islamic tenets [….] We will never abandon this line and will never do anything that may be against the Kingdom’s consistent policies.”

Some members of the ulama have made public complaints on Twitter, placing the blame primarily on performers themselves or on the Entertainment Authority, rather than on members of the ruling family or the government, for allowing this immoral and inappropriate entertainment. Gender mixing during Comic-Con in Jeddah, to which an estimated 7,000 Saudi-based fans flocked in February, fueled more complaints about unseemly behavior. A 2016 decision further shifted the balance of power away from the ulama, stripping them of their authority to arrest and urging them to act “kindly and gently” in their enforcement of appropriate, Wahhabi-defined, public behavior.

The increasing centralization of government authority and the government’s taking on of new social responsibilities could also alter social life more broadly by changing the position of women. For instance, the Vision states the ambitious goal of increasing the percentage of women in the workforce from 22 to 30 by 2030. Furthermore, in February, the first licenses for women’s gyms were granted, with plans to establish them in all major neighborhoods. Women’s gyms were previously marketed as expensive and exclusive health centers, and, though the new facilities will not allow competitive sports, their existence does grant women more choice in terms of entertainment options. Nonetheless, the major question of allowing women to drive remains. Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the main government backer of the Vision, did state, however, that the issue is cultural, rather than religious, and that Saudi society “is not convinced about women driving.”

With subsidies being stripped and with value-added taxation (VAT) to be imposed in January 2018, some women who previously hired drivers may be less able to afford them, and the government may be forced to deal with the issue head-on. The precedent has been set in the Gulf for social liberalization to come from the top, even when it is not necessarily popularly supported. This occurred in Kuwait, when the amir decreed the right of women to vote in 2005 after it had been voted down in parliament. It remains to be seen, however, just how committed the Saudi government is to using the Vision to change the role of women in economic and social life.

Government advisers say the Vision’s budget is likely to be slashed by around 30 to 40 percent, and it will be telling which portions are maintained. The expansion of the social sphere could well be used as a hook for investment or it could ultimately be dropped due to complaints by the religious authorities. The success of the Saudi government’s venture into the entertainment sector hinges primarily on the decisions taken by Mohammed bin Salman– as well as the degree to which disapproval from the Wahhabi ulama is taken into consideration. What does seem likely, though, is that the Vision will continue to enjoy political support from primary members of the ruling family, with a recent cabinet reshuffle confirming the primacy of King Salman’s branch of the family.

The only part of the Vision on which the government has so far changed course, interestingly, is the one that seemed most straightforwardly linked to its economic goal, the reduction of allowances for public sector employees. These were reinstated in April because King Salman, as he explained, is “keen to provide comfort to the Saudi citizens.” They were also restored in the face of mounting online resistance, expressed through the hashtag “April 21 Movement”. Tweets associated with this hashtag demanded a stop to the IPO of Aramco, the restoration of benefits, the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, and the restoration of the full power of the religious police. Though it is nearly impossible to know the popularity of this sentiment, a government-sponsored poll insists that 77 percent of the population is in favor of the Vision.

What we may be seeing in the Kingdom is a wide generational shift. With some 70 percent of the population under 30, the style of 31-year-old Mohammed bin Salman, in addition to his support for more entertainment options in Saudi Arabia, holds appeal for this demographic, even though their parents may consider it socially harmful. The ruling bargain with the Wahhabi ulama may simply become less sustainable, at least in the way it has been arranged in the past, with an increasingly younger population hungry for change and a young ruler eager to provide it, at least in the social sphere. In the meantime, the goal of changing the social contract and altering rentier benefits may be fading – or at least considered unattainable.

About the author:
*Dr. Courtney Freer (@CourtneyFreer) is an advisor at Gulf State Analytics and a Research Officer at the Kuwait Programme at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her work focuses on the domestic politics of the Arab Gulf states with a particular focus on Islamism and tribalism.

Source:
Gulf State Analytics originally published this article

By Ajit Kumar Singh*

In a scathing commentary on Pakistan’s direct role in Afghanistan’s continuing misery, Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani declared that Afghanistan could not “figure out” Pakistan’s intention.

Delivering a speech at the first meeting of the Kabul Process for Peace and Security Cooperation on June 6, 2017, Ghani stated,

… We want to be able to trust Pakistan. And we want the chance for friendly, cooperative relationships that will reduce poverty and promote growth on both sides of the Durand line. Our problem, our challenge, is that we cannot figure out what is it that Pakistan wants. What will it take to convince Pakistan that a stable Afghanistan helps them and helps our region? We continue to make an unconstrained offer for a state-to-state peace dialogue. But we cannot – nor can any signatory to the UN Counter-Terrorism Convention – accept that the global consensus against terrorism is not acted upon. So we again call on the Government of Pakistan to propose its agenda and a mechanism for that dialogue which can lead to peace and prosperity…

The meeting was attended by representatives of 24 countries and three international entities, the European Union (EU), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations (UN). Explaining the Kabul Process, the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs website says “while multiple fora have been held to help with peace and security in Afghanistan and the region over the past few years… the purpose of the Kabul conference is to place the Afghan Government as the key driving force for achieving peace, with the earnest support of regional and international partners.”

Meanwhile, in the most recent assertion of Pakistan’s direct role in terror activities inside Afghanistan, Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security in a statement released on May 31, 2017, noted, “The plan for today’s [Wednesday’s] attack was drawn up by the Haqqani network with direct coordination and cooperation from Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).” The statement referred to the May 31, 2017, suicide attack in Kabul, referred to as one of the deadliest attacks in Kabul since 2001, in which at least 150 people were killed and over 400 other injured. Most of the victims were civilians.

The explosion went off near Zanbaq Square in the Wazir Akbar Khan area, where most of the foreign embassies located. Though no fatalities among the foreign embassy people were reported, there were reports of damages to the buildings of some foreign embassies, including that of Germany, India, and Turkey. Reiterating Pakistan’s direct role in the attack, the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB), declared,

By killing innocent and destitute people today, the enemies of Afghanistan’s peace and stability showed that they are not worthy of friendship and will not change their stance against Afghans. In light of findings of security services and calls by the Afghan people, the ACB hereby cancels all kinds of cricket matches and mutual relationship agreement with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). No agreement of friendly matches and mutual relationship agreement is valid with a country where terrorists are housed and provided safe havens.

Indeed, the surge in violence against civilians across Afghanistan remains unabated. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) in its latest quarterly report released on April 25, 2017, disclosed that, in the first quarter of 2017 (January 1 – March 31), it documented 2,181 civilian casualties (715 dead and 1,466 injured). During the corresponding period of 2016, according to the report released on April 17, 2016, UNAMA had documented 1,943 civilian casualties (600 deaths and 1,343 injured). UNAMA reports which categorize civilian casualties by “party to the conflict”, i.e., civilian fatalities by Anti-Government Elements (AGEs), Pro-Government Forces (PGFs), jointly by the AGEs and PGFs, and Unattributed Explosive Remnants of War, states that while AGEs were responsible for 60 per cent of the total casualties in the first quarter of 2016, their involvement increased to 62 per cent in 2017. According to partial data compiled by the Institute for Conflict Management (ICM), at least another 240 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan since April 1, 2017 (data till June 9).

Fatalities among Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) also continue to remain alarmingly high. According to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s (SIGAR) quarterly report released on April 30, 2017, from January 1, 2017, through February 24, 2017, at least 807 ANDSF personnel were killed and 1,328 were wounded. SIGAR’s quarterly report released on April 30, 2016, had stated that in the first two months of 2016, at least 820 ANDSF personnel were killed in action and 1,389 were wounded.

Worryingly casualties among civilians and SF personnel have been constantly rising. According to UNAMA, civilian fatalities have increased, on year on year basis, since January 1, 2009, when UNAMA began systematically documenting civilian casualties in Afghanistan, with an exception of 2012 when they declined marginally from 7,842 in 2011 to 7,590 in 2012. Also, according to the SIGAR report, at least 6,637 ANDSF personnel were killed and 12,471 wounded in 2015. The number of ANDSF personnel fatalities increased to 6,785 the period between January 1, 2016, and November 12, 2016. At least 11,777 personnel were wounded.

Though there is no authoritative data on the number of terrorists/insurgents killed in Afghanistan, according to partial data compiled by the ICM, this figure is also increasing, on year on year basis, since 2015. At least 6,030 militants were killed in 2014, rising to 10, 628 in 2015, and further to 11,469 in 2016. The current year has already seen at least 4,318 insurgent fatalities. Most of the militants killed belonged to the Taliban though, according to President Ghani, there are at least 20 international terrorist groups operating inside the country.

The emergence of Islamic State and the resultant turf war between the Taliban and the Islamic State has further worsened the security situation. According to the SIGAR quarterly report, as of February 20, 2017, insurgents controlled or influenced around 11 per cent of Afghanistan’s total territory. Significantly, insurgents were controlling or had influence over just six per cent of total territory in January 2016. Moreover, the Afghan Government, which controlled or had influence over 71 per cent of territory in January 2016, now controls or has influence over just 60 per cent of the territory. The ‘contested areas’ increased from 23 per cent in January 2016 to 29 per cent in February 2017.

Pakistan for long has been held responsible for Afghanistan’s prolonged torments by almost all who are in the know of developments in the region. Most recently, on April 17, 2017, US National Security Advisor Gen H.R. McMaster, stated,

As all of us have hoped for many, many years, we have hoped that Pakistani leaders will understand that it is in their interest to go after (militant) groups less selectively than they have in the past and the best way to pursue their interest in Afghanistan and elsewhere is through diplomacy and not through the use of proxies that engage in violence.

Thus far, however, Pakistan has evaded any meaningful penalty for sustaining its reprehensible strategies to rule Afghanistan through its proxies (Taliban). Indeed, Islamabad continues to receive funds for purportedly ‘waging war against terror’ and is also ceded a pivotal role in the Afghan peace process.

There are, nevertheless, some early signs of changes. The Kabul Process seeks to confer on Afghanistan the pivotal role in peace talks. Almost all the earlier initiatives, including the Qatar Process and the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) process had provided prominence to Pakistan. This was done primarily because Pakistan had deceived a willfully gullible international community into believing that peace could only be achieved by making the Taliban the principal stake holder in the talks process.

Ironically, and despite the significant losses US and coalition Forces have suffered as a result of proxies operating from Pakistani soil, Washington has remained one of Pakistan’s principal backers, and forged its Af-Pak policy on the assumption of centrality of Islamabad’s role and of bringing Taliban to the negotiating table. However, as SAIR has noted earlier, a US revaluation of its Af-Pak policy has been under consideration since Donald Trump assumed the Presidency. Indeed, during a press conference in Canberra, Australia, US Secretary of Defence James Mattis stated on June 5, 2017,

As far as Afghanistan goes, as Secretary Tillerson [US Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson] said, the policy is under review, but at the same time we’re up against an enemy that knows that they cannot win at the ballot box, and you think – we have to sometimes remind ourselves of that reality. That’s why they use bombs, because ballots would ensure they never had a role to play, and based upon that foundation, that they cannot win the support, the affection, the respect of the Afghan people… But the bottom line is we’re not going to surrender civilization to people who cannot win at the ballot box.

Tillersons’s statement originally noted,

As to the Afghanistan policy which is still under development and review, so there is no conclusion… I think clearly, though, what we do understand is we can never allow Afghanistan to become a platform for terrorism to operate from. And so our commitment to Afghanistan is to ensure that it never becomes a safe haven for terrorists to launch attacks against the civilized world or against any other part of the world or any of their neighbors. And so this is really a question of what is the end state and how do we reach that end state, and that’s part of the policy review that is still under development so I don’t want to go further than I would say the thinking currently in the administration is, but other than to say we are committed to ensuring Afghanistan does not become that platform from which terrorist activities can be launched… [sic]

While the persisting incoherence of US policy is apparent in this statement, there are indications that the US may deny Taliban and Islamabad centrality in any process to secure a ‘political solution’ in Afghanistan. This would constitute a major shift in US policy, and a sustained commitment to such a posture would help Afghanistan emerge stronger. It would also help isolate Pakistan further. The critical question would then no longer be “What does Pakistan want?” Rather, Afghanistan would be helped to secure progressive control over its own destiny.

*Ajit Kumar Singh
Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management

The Trump administration is now apparently so afraid of being denounced as Russian agents that it declines to even congratulate the Russians on their holidays:

The United States did not send congratulatory messages on the occasion of Russia Day for the first time, Russian Embassy in the United States Press Secretary Nikolai Lakhonin told Russian media on Wednesday.

“We can confirm that we did not receive any greetings from the American side on the occasion of Russia Day.

This happens for the first time as far as we remember. Make your own conclusions,” Lakhonin said.

Earlier, two sources in the diplomatic mission told Sputnik that the embassy received no congratulatory messages from the United States for the first time in 25 years.

The Trump administration is now the first not to send greetings for “Russia Day” ever since the holiday was established 25 years ago.

Even Hillary Clinton, in her time, on this occasion sent regards to the Russians on behalf of the Obama administration:

U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton has congratulated Russia on its national holiday – Russia Day.

“On behalf of President Obama and the people of the United States, I am delighted to send best wishes to the people of Russia as you celebrate your National Day this June 12th,” Clinton said in a press statement on Monday.

For the record, the holiday is not controversial from the western point of view in the least.

The turmoil inside the Trump White House is much more intense than the media is reporting. Palaces of intrigue, under perceived siege by political and law enforcement adversaries, tend to boil inward before they burst outward.

One of the most perilous decisions for Trump is how far will he go in firing prosecutors looking into his murky dealings past and present. Already he has fired former FBI Director, James Comey, who just testified before the Senate flanked by several of his loyal FBI agents in the front seats of the hearing room.

Earlier, after then President-Elect Trump assured the influential US attorney in New York City, Preet Bharara, that he could keep his job, President Trump abruptly fired him in March. It seems Mr. Trump got wind of an investigation pertaining to various ill-defined, at least publicly, inquiries, tried to contact him to find out what was going on (a clear breach of ethics) and, not receiving a response, dispatched Bharara. The US attorney had reported Trump’s phone call to the chief of staff of Attorney General Jeff Sessions which probably led to his undoing.

New presidents often replace US attorneys, who are known to harbor political ambitions within the political party that appointed them to this powerful prosecutorial position. But President Trump had an additional personal motive behind his worry about Bharara.

Now Mr. Trump’s White House friends are leaking a trial balloon, or shall we call it the ‘nuclear option.’ Can you imagine that President Trump even is considering firing Robert S. Mueller III, who is the special counsel chosen by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to lead the investigation of possible connections between Trump’s electoral campaign and Russian operatives.

Mueller, a highly respected former director of the FBI, is starting to hire staff for this important inquiry – one paralleled by similar probes under the Republican controlled Senate and House Intelligence Committees.

One can discern this possibility is more than a slip of the tongue by someone eager for publicity. Already, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, often a mouthpiece for Trump’s ‘thinking,’ has tweeted that “Republicans are delusional if they think the special counsel is going to be fair,” even after praising Mueller’s integrity a few weeks earlier. The signal to fire Mueller is being trumpeted by conservative talk show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin and other lucrative right wing beneficiaries of our free and public airwaves.

While this latest drama of Trump’s panic unfolds, there is speculation within their ranks that Trump may fire dozens of inspectors general who investigate waste, fraud and abuse by federal agencies to which they are attached. This would be unprecedented. Inspectors General (IGs) are non-partisan, independent civil servants with traditional bi-partisan support. They return $14 to the taxpayer for every $1.00 they spend on their investigations.

Trump looks askance on such independence and what might be found under his cabinet and agency heads. Thus far, he is not replacing open IG positions and intends to cut IG budgets. In another brazen move, the White House has insisted that Executive Branch agencies don’t have to respond to Congressional inquiries. A bizarre narcissism is taking hold in the White House. Get rid of anyone who can hold you to the rule of law. Have cabinet members bow and scrape the floor with their obeisance at a White House meeting as they surrender giving their independent judgement to a firing-prone president.

Overseas, we have names for bosses of nations who expect such orchestrated ooze. What’s next, statues and giant pictures of Trump looking down on his subjects around the country?

Trump would do well to study what happened when another president, Richard Nixon, hunkered down in 1973 and fired Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor appointed to investigate the Watergate scandal. Nixon’s attorney general, Elliot Richardson, refused to fire Cox and resigned in protest, followed by the protest resignation of Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus.

It is possible that Trump may not want to wait as long as did Nixon, who acted after he received a subpoena from Cox requesting copies of taped conversations recorded in the Oval Office?

Nixon’s firing of Cox generated a public firestorm of protests with millions of telegrams and calls pouring into Congress from the American people. The momentum to impeach Nixon accelerated. He quit just before the House of Representatives was to vote. Already, so early in the unfolding of Trump’s reactions, 43 percent of the people believe that Congress should begin impeachment proceedings to remove President Trump from office, with 45 percent of them opposed (according to a Quinnipiac poll).

Firing a special counsel before he even gets underway, much less starts issuing subpoenas, would not sit well with even more Americans and increasing numbers of Republicans in Congress who would have preferred Mr. Pence by a large margin over Mr. Trump. Trump could quit in a fit of rage. Impeaching Trump in the House and convicting him in the Senate would get the Republicans a more stable, very conservative, former congressional colleague. Could Mike Pence, a recent governor of Indiana, be our next president?

Fasten your seatbelts, the wild card in the White House is sure to get wilder and seriously test our nation’s rule of law.