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Georgia: Speculation Rife After Tbilisi Shootout

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(Civil.Ge) — Key questions remain unanswered three days after the police confronted unidentified armed suspects in Tbilisi about 20 hours in a massive shootout.

The gunfire was first heard late on November 21. According to reports by the Georgian State Security Service (SSS), a group of individuals residing in an apartment in a Tbilisi district of Isani refused security forces’ demand to surrender and responded with gunfire and hand grenades, killing one and injuring four officers.

The scope and intensity of the operation widened early morning on November 22 and continued throughout the day. The police managed to overcome the suspects’ resistance by 17:00. Three suspects were killed during the operation and one was captured alive.

Briefing the press after the operation, at 19:00 on November 22, the State Security Service reported that for several weeks, “in the framework of the international counter-terrorism cooperation,” SSS conducted “relevant activities to identify the group members and their links to criminal networks.”

Earlier that day, the State Security Service released a brief statement saying that “according to preliminary information, these persons are not Georgian citizens and are members of a terrorist organization.”

Facts Scarce, Reasons Obscure

As of yet, officials decline to release information about the names or citizenship of the suspects. They also refuse to speculate about their potential affiliation. Speaking at 20:00 on November 22, the Head of the State Security Service, Vakhang Gomelauri, refused to confirm that they were members of a terrorist organization, casting doubts on the validity of the previous statement of his own agency. However, the Minister of Internal Affairs Giorgi Gakharia said on November 23 “we are dealing with a fact of international terrorism.”

Giving official credence to the version of terrorism, the Prosecutor’s Office charged the single detained suspect (named so far only by his initials – S.D.) with “membership of a foreign terrorist organization and support of its terrorist activities,” and with “illegal purchase, possession and carrying of firearms, munitions, explosive materials and explosive devices for terrorist purposes,” in accordance with articles 328 and 3231 of the Criminal Code of Georgia.

According to the prosecutors’ statement, the suspects kept in their apartment “large number of explosive materials, munitions, explosive devices and firearms for terrorist purposes.” The statement also specifies that the only surviving suspect was detained on November 21, before the firefight broke out between the other three suspects and the security forces. According to some media reports, he was detained outside the apartment building where three other suspects were holed up.

The detained suspect’s legal counsel told journalists he was a Russian citizen, also denying that he was a member of a terrorist organization. The defense lawyer refused to reveal his identity as well.

Was it Chatayev?

As the authorities remain tight-lipped, the speculation is rife regarding the identity and motives of the suspects. Several sources in Georgia have speculated the chief suspect was Akhmed Chatayev, protected by his three associates. They also claim Chatayev was killed. This explosive version was picked up by both Russian and Turkish news outlets.

Chatayev is no ordinary criminal. He is designated as ISIS member by both the United States and the United Nations. After the June 28, 2016 Istanbul airport bombings, Michael McCaul, chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security, said Chatayev was the one who directed the terrorist act, adding that his ties to jihadist activities were well-documented, and that he “became one of the top lieutenants for the minister of war for ISIS operations.” The U.S. Treasury had added Chatayev to the terrorist list back in 2015, saying he was planning attacks against unspecified U.S. and Turkish facilities.

After falling prisoner to the Russians during the Second Chechen War – where he lost an arm – and subsequent years of stay in Europe, Chatayev came to Georgia, where he was wounded (Chatayev lost a leg as a result) and arrested by the Georgian police following the Lopota gorge clash in late August 2012. He was reported to join a group of militants that fought against the Georgian security forces when it was reportedly trying to infiltrate Dagestan in the Russian Federation. As some have claimed, Chatayev was originally engaged by the Georgian security service to parlay with the militants, but switched sides.

Following the Lopota clash, Chatayev was charged with illegal purchase, possession and carrying of explosive device, on the basis of article 236 of the Georgian Criminal Code. But after the Georgian Dream coalition came to power following the October 1, 2012 parliamentary elections, Chatayev was released from jail. Georgian prosecutors dropped the case against him in January 2013, citing absence of evidence. Soon after his release, Chatayev left Georgia, saying he intended to go to Austria to rehabilitate from his wound. By 2015 he had moved to the ISIS-controlled areas in Syria and Iraq.

On November 24, 2017 Chatayev’s former Georgian lawyer Nino Andriashvili, who defended him after his 2012 arrest following the Lopota gorge clash, told Kviris Palitra newspaper that Chatayev had two families, with wives residing in Austria and Georgia’s Pankisi valley.

At the time, the Georgian authorities do not confirm whether Chatayev was involved or indeed killed in the clash. If confirmed, Chatayev’s involvement will raise a host of questions regarding his original release, as well as the ways he found his way back to the Georgian soil.


China Striving To Boost Energy Imports From Turkmenistan

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By Gary Sands*

China is expected to be a major presence at the 28th meeting of the Energy Charter Conference, scheduled to be held in the Turkmen capital Ashgabat on November 28-29. Chinese officials are looking to catalyze efforts to secure larger volumes of energy imports from Central Asian suppliers, especially Turkmenistan, and promote projects connected to the $1-trillion Belt and Road infrastructure development initiative.

The Energy Charter Treaty dates back to 1991 and was designed to provide a clear framework for all facets of cross-border energy development in Eurasia in the post-Soviet era, including investment and transit. Members are primarily European and post-Soviet states. China gained observer status in 2001.

Although Chinese economic growth has slowed, the country’s demand for energy remains strong. Oil consumption grew 3.3 percent in 2016, following average annual growth rates of 5.7 percent from 2005-2015, according to BP. Gas consumption rose at a 7.7 percent rate in 2016, down significantly from an average annual growth rate of about 15 percent from 2005-2015.

According to the International Energy Agency, China’s demand for gas is forecast to rise by 8.7 percent per year to 2022. China’s own energy reserves are insignificant, thus it needs to expand access to international suppliers. At the same time, Beijing is focusing on ramping up overland supplies in order to reduce its dependency on tanker-borne imports that pass through the Strait of Malacca, a maritime chokepoint that could be easily closed off in a time of potential conflict.

Chinese attention is naturally focusing on expanding natural gas supplies from Turkmenistan. Ashgabat reportedly controls the world’s fourth largest reserves of gas, and shipped roughly 30 billion cubic meters (bcm) of it to China in 2016. (Given the closed nature of Turkmenistan’s political system, no definitive figures are publicly available).

According to the June 2017 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, China imported about 38 bcm of gas from various countries via pipeline in 2016, while another 34.3 bcm of liquefied natural gas (LNG) also was imported. Of the natural gas imported via pipeline, Turkmenistan accounted for about 77 percent of China’s total imports in 2016 via the 3,666-kilometer (2,278-mile) Central Asia-China gas pipeline network. With exports to Iran and Russia having shriveled, China is now Ashgabat’s sole significant purchaser of gas, which is the critical source of revenue for President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s authoritarian regime.

China has already invested billions of dollars in trying to develop Turkmen gas fields. In 2009, Turkmenistan received an initial $3 billion loan from the Chinese Development Bank (CDB) for developing the Galkynysh (also known as the South Yolotan-Osman) gas field, and, two years later, obtained an additional $4.1 billion tranche.

Meanwhile, a consortium headed by the China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) gained a $10-billion production sharing agreement (PSA) for Galkynysh field in 2009, and CNPC also holds the PSA for Bagtyyarlyk, which covers several gas fields, including Saman-Depe and Altyn Asr.

Under the Galkynysh PSA, Turkmenistan is supposed to export 30 bcm per year to China for 30 years. But the two countries want to bring annual gas deliveries up to 65 bcm per annum — 30 bcm from Galkynysh, and the rest from the Bagtyyarlyk PSA and other Turkmen sources.

The major challenge to realizing this goal is Turkmenistan’s evident lack of sufficient export capacity. The existing export pipeline network to China is operating near capacity and a major expansion is on hold. Turkmenistan’s economy is also coming under great strain, due to a significant drop in export income brought on flat energy prices. Chinese officials are hoping the late November gathering in Ashgabat can help break the apparent log-jam on pipeline construction.

Chinese officials also will look for opportunities during the Ashgabat meeting to tout the Belt and Road initiative, which is envisioned as a means to expand Chinese exports to Europe and Eurasian states.

Chinese trade with Central Asian states these days tends to be a one-way street, with raw materials and natural resources flowing to China, and few high-value goods coming back in return. For example, Turkmenistan’s imports of Chinese goods accounts for about $815 million out of China’s total world exports of $2.3 trillion, or under 0.04 percent.

Chinese financial institutions are expected to support Chinese companies in expanding Turkmenistan’s rail infrastructure. A new railway connecting Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran opened last year, with the first trains making the 14-day journey from coastal Zhejiang Province in China to Tehran in February 2016. In addition, the China Railway Corporation (CRC) has proposed a 3,200-kilometer (nearly 2,000 mile) Silk Road high-speed railway connecting the western city of Urumqi in China with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and terminating in Tehran.

Trade is also expected to improve for China after the completion of the $2-billion, 635-kilometer Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan (TAT) railway. Turkmenistan completed its section of the railway with Afghanistan in November 2016.

*Gary Sands is a Senior Analyst at Wikistrat, a crowdsourced consultancy, and a Director at Highway West Capital Advisors, a venture capital, project finance and political risk advisory. He has contributed commentaries to US News and World Report, Newsweek, Washington Times, The Diplomat, The National Interest, International Policy Digest, Asia Times, Eurasia Review, Indo-Pacific Review, the South China Morning Post, Global Times and China Digital Times.

China Delays GDP Reform Until 2019 – Analysis

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By Michael Lelyveld

China’s government plans to introduce a new “unified” system of reporting economic data to eliminate falsification, three years after the process was previously expected to take effect.

On Oct. 30, the deputy head of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Li Xiaochao, said the agency will take control of data collection from local authorities to measure China’s gross domestic product, state media reported.

The unified process slated for 2019 will replace the current practice “in which national GDP and regional data are calculated separately by the NBS and regional offices,” the official Xinhua news agency said.

Over the years, the sum of local and regional GDP figures has frequently exceeded national estimates, raising credibility questions.

In one reported case from 2014, provincial-level GDP reports topped national estimates by more than 12 percent. In 2015, Xinhua reported that some counties in the industrialized northeast had claimed GDP higher than that of Hong Kong.

The new system will “narrow the gap between national and regional GDP data,” Li said.

The unified system is one of several reforms that the NBS has announced in recent years to improve the accuracy of economic reporting.

The problem with the latest announcement is that it is almost identical to one issued nearly three years ago.

In December 2014, the agency also said it was launching “a new unified system” for GDP calculations.

“The move is aimed at preventing inflated local figures contradicting central government calculations,” the official English-language China Daily reported, citing then-director of the NBS, Ma Jiantang.

The initiative was part of a crackdown on local data fraud, often perpetrated by officials seeking promotions by exaggerating claims of production and economic growth.

“The central government will have the sole right to evaluate the GDP and growth rates of every province and municipality,” Ma said in 2014.

The draft reform was expected to be approved by the cabinet-level State Council in the first half of 2015 for implementation in 2016 at the start of the 13th Five-Year Plan, China Daily reported at the time.

Years later, data fraud is still a problem.

“The government has promised zero tolerance for fabrication of economic data,” Xinhua said last month, without referring to the earlier schedule for the reform.

Widespread fabrication of data

The report noted that officials in China’s northeast Liaoning province had admitted falsifying economic data from 2011 to 2014. In 2015, Xinhua also cited widespread fabrication in the neighboring provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang.

The unified process is one of several reforms for data gathering that the NBS has either announced or attempted over the past decade.

In 2012, the agency instituted a direct reporting system for 700,000 enterprises to avoid local pressure on enterprises for pumped-up production results.

In 2014, the NBS said it would end all reliance on provincial and municipal estimates in calculating national GDP after a government investigation uncovered massive fraud.

Doubts about China’s GDP claims date back at least as far as 2007, when Premier Li Keqiang called the figures “manmade” and “for reference only,” according to a leaked memo quoting his comments when he was Communist Party secretary in Liaoning.

The latest report on the NBS reform offers no explanation for the three-year delay.

Derek Scissors, an Asia economist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said the slowdown is likely related to the investigation of the former NBS director Wang Baoan for “severe disciplinary violation,” first disclosed in January 2016.

“They said they were going to do this before, but they didn’t,” Scissors said. “I think they can effectively blame corruption.”

After taking over at the NBS in April 2015, Wang became one of the highest-profile casualties of President Xi Jinping’s anticorruption campaign.

Accused of being “morally bankrupt” and trading power and money for sex, he was removed from office and expelled from the Communist Party of China (CPC) in August 2016, according to state media. Wang was given a life sentence for accepting bribes in May 2017.

How much Wang’s downfall had to do with the delay and economic policy may never be known. But among other things, he was accused by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of making “speeches that went against the CPC Central Committee on key issues,” suggesting that his ouster was about more than the salacious details.

Whatever the causes, the unified system would have needed to go through a long and complicated process before implementation.

Scissors said that revisions of local accounting are more than simply a matter of going in and making major or sudden corrections to economic reports that have been inflated for years.

The process for each series of data is more likely to require “smoothing” or “convergence” of results to avoid exposing huge faults in reporting that both begin and end with charges of corruption.

One interpretation is that the delay of the unified system was caused by local officials with something to hide.

“This is not a trivial exercise,” said Scissors. “That has very big political implications. You don’t just do that,” he said, referring to the risk of abrupt revisions.

“You don’t want to go out to a major province and find out that things are a lot worse than the province said, because that’s a very awkward adjustment that has to take place,” Scissors said.

Wedded to a commitment

Political consequences may help explain why the new target for the unified system was quietly announced after the recent CPC 19th National Congress rather than during the session or before, and without any reference to the three-year delay.

The CPC remains wedded to its commitment to double both GDP and per capita GDP in the decade ending in 2020. Any adjustments to the numbers starting in 2019 would not interfere with those goals.

Even with the post-congress timing, the new announcement of the unified system is likely to raise doubts about the government’s claims that GDP has continued to grow at a 6.9-percent pace in the first three quarters of this year.

Although GDP figures in China remain highly politicized, they are likely to be less divergent from actual growth rates now than they were two years ago when the economy slumped.

Many economists believe that GDP growth may have slipped as low as 3 percent in 2015 while the NBS reported the rate as 6.9 percent.

This year with recovery, the gap between actual growth and the NBS third-quarter figure of 6.8 percent has probably narrowed.

“The 2017 numbers are much closer to being real because there was a bounce-back,” said Scissors, who estimated that growth now is somewhere in the five-percent range.

Thailand: Arrested Female Suspect In Deadly 2015 Erawan Bombing

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By Nontarat Phaicharoen and Mariyam Ahmad

A Thai female suspect in a bombing that killed 20 people at Bangkok’s Erawan Shrine in 2015 was arrested on Wednesday as she arrived in Thailand from Turkey, the deputy national police chief said.

Wanna Suansan, a native of Pang-nga province in southern Thailand, allegedly rented apartments in Bangkok suburbs for suspected militants to construct bombs.

Two Uyghurs who were arrested shortly after the attack on the Hindu shrine, a popular tourist destination in the Thai capital, are to return to a military court before year’s end for the resumption of their trial. They could face the death penalty, if convicted.

“We were informed by immigration officers that Wanna was coming to Thailand via Suvarnabhumi Airport, so we arrested her using the warrant. She is the third suspect captured,” Police Gen. Srivara Ransibrahmanakul told reporters at the national police headquarters.

Wanna and her Turkish husband, Emrah Davutoglu, fled to Turkey following the Aug. 17, 2015, deadly blast at the shrine in central Bangkok where more than 120 people were injured. They were accused of having roles in the terrorist plot.

Wanna, who faces five criminal charges including first-degree murder and possessing war weapons, was being held for questioning at headquarters, only 100 meters from the site of the bombing. Police said she was not traveling with her husband and she identified herself when presented with the warrant.

Following the blast and a small pipe-bomb attack on the Sathorn passenger pier in Bangkok the next day, police issued warrants for 17 suspects including Thais and foreigners.

Adem Karadag (also known as Bilal Mohammed) and Yusufu Mierali, who identified themselves as Uyghurs from Urumqi in China’s Xinjiang region, were arrested a few weeks after the bomb attack. Srivara said investigators are searching for the other 14 suspects.

Malaysia: Escapee captured

Meanwhile, Malaysian authorities arrested a Uyghur man in northern Kedah state who is believed to have crossed into Malaysia after escaping from a Thai immigration detention center on Monday morning, an official said.

Kedah Police Chief Asri Yusoff said the man, in his 30s, was found Wednesday near a military post in Bukit Tangga. He said the suspect was detained by citizens, who alerted soldiers at the post before police were called.

“It is believed that the suspect was walking alone when he was found about eight kilometers (five miles) from Sadao, and checks revealed that he did not have any travel documents,” Asri said.

Previously, Thai police Capt. Surasak Siripan told reporters that 20 Uyghurs who had been held for two years at a detention facility in the southern province of Songkhla, near the border with Malaysia, escaped from their cells at about 2 a.m. Monday.

Maj. Gen. Jessada Yaisoon, the chief of the Thai immigration police’s 6th Region based in Songkhla, told BenarNews police from both nations have cooperated in the search for the Uyghurs. Jessada identified the escapee as Abdul Kayum, 28.

“We joined with Malaysian police to recapture Abdul. We took him to Sadao police station,” Jessada told BenarNews by phone. “We are looking for the rest and we suspect they are still in rubber plantation on Thai soil, or crossed into Malaysia. We have warrants [for] all of them.”

Hareez Lee in Kuala Lumpur and Fairuz Mazlan in Alor Setar, Malaysia, contributed to this report.

Mediterranean Crossing Still World’s Deadliest For Migrants

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By Andreas Michalopoulos*

Crossing the Mediterranean to Europe is “by far the world’s deadliest” journey for migrants, with at least 33,761 reported to have died or gone missing between 2000 and 2017.

According to a report, released Friday from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), notes the highest number of fatalities, at 5,096, was recorded in 2016, when the short and relatively less dangerous route from Turkey to Greece was shut, following the European Union-Turkey deal.

“Shutting the shorter and less dangerous routes can open longer and more dangerous routes, thus increasing the likelihood of dying at sea,” said Professor Philippe Fargues of the European University Institute, who authored the report, Four Decades of Cross-Mediterranean Undocumented Migration to Europe.

The report reviews available evidence on trans-Mediterranean irregular migration to Europe along various routes going back to the 1970s, particularly on the magnitude of the flows, the evolution of sea routes to Southern Europe, the characteristics of migrants, the extent to which one can separate between economic and forced movements, and mortality during the sea journey.

More than 2.5 million migrants have crossed the Mediterranean in an unauthorized fashion since the 1970s.

Irregular sea journeys started rising in those years in response to the introduction, by Western States grappling with rising levels of unemployment during the 1973 oil crisis, of visa requirements for people who until then had been exempted – most of them temporary labour migrants from North Africa and Turkey.

These policies encouraged those who were already in Europe to stay, increased irregular migration of family members to join their relatives in Europe and gave way to the smuggling business, the report states.

The report also highlights differences between the modern pattern of migration from Africa to Italy, mostly via Libya, and that from the Middle East to Greece via Turkey.

Arrivals to Italy from North Africa largely originate across sub-Saharan Africa in response to deep migratory pressures – population growth coupled with limited livelihood opportunities, high unemployment and poor governance and political and economic instability.

Arrivals to Greece from Turkey since 2009 have been primarily of nationals from origin States affected by conflict and political instability, such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.

Noting the limitations of available data on irregular migration, the report says the numbers of deaths at sea may grossly underestimate the real number of people who die or go missing while crossing the Mediterranean, as they are based on numbers of bodies found and survivors’ testimonies.

About the author:
*Andreas Michalopoulos
is a journalist.

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy

Is Zimbabwe’s New President Up To The Task? – Analysis

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After a tumultuous two weeks of political brinkmanship, Emmerson Mnangagwa was sworn in today as Zimbabwe’s new president, replacing the ageing Robert Mugabe who has led the country since independence.

In his inauguration at a packed national stadium, Mnangagwa delivered a positive speech promising to “rebuild our great country”, to crack down on corruption, strengthen the “pillars of democracy”, attract foreign investment, and to hold elections as scheduled in 2018.

“He gave reassurances that he would re-engage international partners,” said political analyst Ibbo Mandaza. “That is all because the international community is insisting on that because it’s backing him.”

But how much change is really on the cards and what are the major challenges ahead?

Mnangagwa, 75, will lead a deeply divided party, seemingly bankrupt of fresh ideas, but with the weight of the country’s hopes for better times on his shoulders.

Mnangagwa served Mugabe for four decades as his enforcer and heir apparent, but after a spectacular falling out and dismissal as vice-president, he left for South Africa until a palace coup cleared the way this week for his return.

He arrived in Harare on Tuesday to rock star status as jubilant crowds cheered Mugabe’s resignation – but it was novel celebrity standing for a man more usually feared as a former spy chief and ruling party hardliner.

Mnangagwa himself seemed swept up in the moment. He told supporters at ZANU-PF party headquarters: “I appeal to all genuine, patriotic Zimbabweans to come together; we work together. No one is more important than the other. We are all Zimbabweans.”

Despite trying to cultivate a new, kinder image, the lawyer and former guerrilla leader repeated the same old revolutionary slogans at party headquarters, including “Pasi nemandu!” or “Death to the enemy!”

“Mnangagwa has a lot to prove,” said Kuda Hove, a Harare-based lawyer. “People are already sceptical, because it’s still ZANU-PF in form and deed.”

Mugabe’s exit “certainly represents the end of a painful era, but then it is also possible that Mnangagwa’s entry could usher in a new error”, he added.

National unity?

ZANU-PF looks set to govern alone. Mnangagwa has now spurned calls for the repeat of a coalition with the Movement for Democratic Change that led to a period of economic stability after deeply flawed elections in 2008.

The country’s trade union movement and the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, a 115-member civil society grouping, had both urged the creation of a broad-based transitional administration until fresh elections.

“It is time to open a new page,” said trade union secretary-general Japhet Moyo, and condemned what he fears will be the retention of “career ministers” by Mnangagwa, some of whom were well known “thieves and thugs”.

Will next year’s elections be free and fair?

“The military has helped steal elections before and there is no reason to suspect that it will not help [to do so] in future elections, whenever they are held,” noted Mandaza.

Opposition MDC spokesman Obert Gutu said political reforms are urgently needed to remove the “pillars of repression and oppression” put in place by Mugabe, but added that he was “cautiously optimistic” that this could be achieved.

University of Zimbabwe political science researcher Eldred Masunungure told IRIN that any changes, especially to the working of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, would need time to be “internalised and institutionalised”.

He said he feared Mnangagwa might “put big and heavy spanners in the reform works”.

Elections next year could not come at a worse time for the MDC. Veteran leader Morgan Tsvangirai is gravely ill, and the succession issue within his party is far from settled.

The economy

The biggest challenge for Mnangagwa is the state of the economy. Zimbabwe has been in crisis for close to two decades. Unemployment is sky-high (90 percent is the often-cited figure, although the data is disputed), and there are biting cash shortages and crumbling social services.

Between 2000 and 2008 Zimbabwe’s GDP nearly halved, the sharpest contraction of its kind in a peacetime economy, according to the International Monetary Fund. As a consequence, one in five Zimbabweans lives in “extreme poverty”.

Mnangagwa recognises the challenge. “We want jobs, jobs, jobs!” he told the crowd at ZANU-PF headquarters. “We need also the cooperation of our neighbours in [the regional development bloc] SADC, the cooperation of the continent of Africa; we need the cooperation of our friends outside the continent.”

The problem is that the structural reforms needed to attract foreign support will be painful.

The World Bank has called for a sharp reining in of public spending, including cuts to public sector salaries and moves to tackle Zimbabwe’s debt. The country owes $9 billion to foreign lenders and has been in default for nearly 20 years.

“It looks like workers’ woes might persist,” said Tafadzwa Choto, who heads the Zimbabwe Labour Centre, a pro-workers NGO. “There is need to reconfigure parastatals (state-linked companies) and remove cronyism and nepotism, but this will not be easy for [Mnangagwa] because he has too many people to accommodate in the new dispensation.”

Zimbabweans are expecting free – and improved – social services. Years of neglect have starved a once-proud health service, and left power and sanitation systems unable to cope with demand.

Rudo Gaidzanwa, a sociology professor, has a list of what she considers “essentials” for the government to spend its money on, and it’s long – from better transport to refuse collection.

“The new government must also be able to provide free medical care and schooling up to secondary school, in addition to [better] housing and other infrastructure,” she told IRIN.

Such high public spending would be diametrically opposed to the cost-cutting regimen the IMF and the World Bank has in mind.

Matabeleland massacre

The people of Matabeleland are a constituency Mnangagwa will struggle to win over. As minister of state security, he was responsible along with Mugabe and current Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi, for the killing of an estimated 20,000 Ndebele people between 1983 and 1987.

The campaign, known as Operation Gukurahundi (the rains that wash the chaff), was carried out by the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade made up of mainly Shona-speaking soldiers.

Whole villages were purged with incredible brutality for the merest suspicion of supporting a small dissident armed group backed by apartheid South Africa.

It still remains an emotive issue in Zimbabwe between the Shona and the minority Ndebele, who make up roughly 20 percent of the population.

“It is very important for the administration to acknowledge and address the issue of the Gukurahundi massacres as we have never felt a part of the nation since the genocide,” explained civil society campaigner Dumisani Nkomo.

Stability

If Mnangagwa is to make headway with this long list of challenges, he is going to the need political support. But ZANU-PF is badly divided. The succession issue pitted Grace Mugabe and her so-called Generation 40 supporters against Mnangagwa’s Team Lacoste. Key G40 members were on the military’s arrest list when they rolled their armoured vehicles onto the streets.

The split within the ZANU-PF is also along regional lines. It was Mnangagwa’s Masvingo and Midlands Karanga powerbase that challenged the continued rule of Mugabe’s Zezuru Mashonaland-based clan. The Karanga are the largest Shona clan.

There are also concerns that the military’s decision to step in to support Mnangagwa – despite their insistence (with one eye on the region and the other on Western donors) that it was not a coup – has reinforced its already influential position.

The hard truth emerging for many Zimbabweans is that they’re already seeing strong similarities between the Mnangagwa era ahead and the Mugabe era that just ended, or as Mandaza put it: “The securocrats will remain in charge of state systems and processes, and the politicians will serve at their pleasure, as has been the case for a long time.”

Source: This article was published by IRIN

The Politics Of The Redback: Chinese Economic Statecraft And Global Finance – Analysis

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An internationally accepted ‘redback’ and financial institutions under Beijing give China the requisite arsenal to project economic influence and craft the Belt & Road Initiative.

By Tuneer Mukherjee

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown” best characterises America’s position as the hegemon in global finance. The global financial system that we have today is the result of the combination of international monetary cooperation, diverse economic ideologies and collective financial innovation. The United States (US) for the last half a century has controlled the financial order via prudent macroeconomic management and shrewd statecraft. The relative political stability of the US and the way it designed the global economy in the post-war era makes American economic institutions best suited to handle global financial rubrics. Additionally, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which monitors trade flows, and the World Bank, which helps provide financing for developing nations, are both headquartered in Washington, effectively making United States the de facto leader of the global economy. The currency instrument that realises all of this is the US Dollar (USD) — the primus inter pares of the international monetary system.

The rise of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has initiated a change in this longstanding international monetary order. The absenteeism of the US in reorganising the existing system of global economic governance has compelled policymakers in Beijing to pursue their own strategies to achieve economic leverage. The objective of traditional economic statecraft is to shore up a country’s foreign policy objectives via the use of economic resources. China’s use of economic instruments to shore up its position as a global economic power is one that supplements the broader idea of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. The incentive for the PRC is the ability to wield power beyond its immediate shores. There are three comprehensive strategies that the Chinese have employed to this effect. The first and most visible amongst them is the internationalisation of the Renminbi (RMB). The second, is the establishment of Beijing based financial lending institutions for developmental funding. The third, is the advocacy of free trade, and positioning itself a leader of globalisation in the aftermath of the election of a protectionist leader in the US. These strategies provide Beijing a wide range of tools with which it can pursue economic statecraft and exercise power abroad. These measures might not change the fundamentals of global economics, but there is enough potential to institute a parallel system of monetary cooperation.

The issue of the ‘redback’ (an informal term for RMB) is central to China’s quest for global recognition. Zhou Xiaochuan’s paper for the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) titled ‘Reform the International Monetary System’, put forth a nuanced plan for the world to move away from the USD.  Xiaochuan demanded a more responsible US economic policy to protect the value of China’s dollar-denominated assets and proposed measures to encourage the use of the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a partial substitute to the ‘greenback’ (informal term for USD). In 2016, the PRC finally followed up on this and published its foreign reserves total in SDRs. David Marsh observed that this was a clear signal that the PRC was, “embarking, pragmatically but steadily, toward enshrining a multicurrency reserve system at the heart of the world’s financial order.” This move from the PRC was a natural follow-on from its plans to create a parallel financial lending system via the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the New Development Bank (NDB). These two tools — an internationally accepted ‘redback’ and financial institutions under Beijing, give it the requisite arsenal to project economic influence and craft China’s version of the crown — The Belt & Road Initiative (BRI).

In October 2016, China achieved a breakthrough in its attempts to internationalise the RMB when the IMF included the ‘redback’ in its basket of reserve currencies. The RMB joined the USD, the euro, the yen and the pound in the organisation’s SDR basket. The SDR essentially controls which currencies countries can receive as part of the loans granted by the IMF. The PBoC immediately released a statement, hailing the inclusion of the RMB as, “affirmation of the success of China’s economic development and results of the reform in its financial sector.” This measure came on the back of an extremely vocal campaign from one of the candidates of the US presidential election, wherein he formally announced that he would label China a ‘currency manipulator’ if he came to power. As things stood, China’s currency regime was under completely under state control, and therefore lacked the basic tenets required of an international reserve currency. Multiple restrictions on capital accounts in China limited investment options for foreign investors in the country and make it difficult for them to acquire financial assets inside China. As earlier attempts to internationalise the currency were only limited to establishment of off-shore financial markets, currency swap agreements with foreign central banks and the liberalisation of the current account,  policymakers reached a juncture where they had to make a crucial sacrifice if they wanted to internationalise the RMB.

Basic international economics is based on the principles of the Mundell-Fleming model, and provides policymakers the option to choose two out of three: free capital flows, a fixed exchange rate and monetary policy autonomy. This “impossible trinity” made it impossible for China to exert control over both domestic interest rates and the exchange rate of the RMB at a time when their capital account restrictions were getting porous. The PBoC announced a move away from fixing the value of the RMB to let it be decided, “in conjunction with demand and supply condition in the foreign exchange market and exchange rate movement of the major currencies.” This move was in direct contrast to earlier policies of controlling the value of the RMB to support the export oriented trade regime. This did however, give RMB the requisites for inclusion in the SDR, but resulted in a downward pressure on the currency. This led the PBoC to further reform the currency regime with the introduction of ‘counter-cyclical adjustment factor’ and tighten capital controls to address capital flight, as raising interest rates was considered too risky a move.

As mentioned, another reason for China’s proclivity to expedite the internationalisation process was the concern among Chinese policymakers over their dependence on US monetary policy. The centrality of the USD gives the US the ability to run skyrocketing trade deficits without any disciplinary constraints, as it can finance the difference through open market operations. The USD and T-bills are readily lapped by international investors, as they consider it to be the safest form of investment. As the 2007 financial crisis demonstrated, after multiple rounds of quantitative easing by the US Federal Reserve, capital flowed into US as investors sought protection from market volatility. The foreign exchange reserves of almost every country is denominated via the greenback. Consequently, these banks must also engage in open market operations to keep their currency values stable if the Federal Reserve changes its interest rates, effectuating a global dependence on US monetary policy. In this respect, China has accrued 3.08 trillion USD of central bank reserves, from balancing its massive trade surpluses in the current account. This phenomenon also labelled the ‘dollar trap’, forces China to accumulate or lose reserves to adjust the money supply of the RMB to match supply and demand in the market in which the RMB and USD are exchanged. The move to internationalise the RMB and denote its foreign exchange reserves in SDR, thus fulfills the desire of Beijing to move away from their dependence on the USD. American scholars like Krugman have seen Zhou’s article calling for a super-sovereign reserve currency to replace the dollar as a plea that someone rescue China from the consequences of its own investment mistakes.

Most importantly, a widely circulated RMB helps China achieve independence in its pursuit of economic statecraft. Policymakers in Beijing eventually want development banks backed by them to issue financial assets in local currency to international partners. The establishment of new multilateral financial institutions — the AIIB and the NDB, serve to project Beijing’s growing economic clout. As The Economist posited back in 2014, “China will use the new bank to expand its influence at the expense of America and Japan, Asia’s established powers. China’s decision to fund a new multilateral bank rather than give more to existing ones reflects its exasperation with the glacial pace of global economic governance reform.” These institutions carry with them the support of many western nations, and can be used to issue financial assets that will then provide the biggest avenue of RMB circulation in the international market. The success of dim sum bonds over the past decade is a testament to the growing demand for the currency.

The final stroke in Beijing’s grand plans for its currency is the Belt and Road Initiative, through which it’s sponsoring some 900 projects in 65 different countries. The China Development Bank has already earmarked 890 billion USD for this purpose. The economic strategy to spread the use of the RMB to the developing world through development assistance programmes and trade settlements will further enhance the role of the Chinese currency, subsequently raising China’s profile in the rest of the world. Then Beijing can efficiently deploy a range of economic instruments to further its foreign policy agenda. These instruments can be anything from limiting investments to imposing trade restrictions, freezing financial assets, or shifting foreign currency holdings. These further leads to enshrinement of Chinese influence in the domestic policies of these countries. The goal to global power seems less rocky when backed by the economic goodwill emanating from a strong, stable and widely used currency. The BRI also ensures the establishment of a Chinese led infrastructure network that will serve neighboring regions for a long time to come. Xi Jinping’s speech at the World Economic Forum made the world notice that the consequence of a protectionist US was the ascendance of China as the advocate of global trade. As the conversation in the US shifts to trader barriers, the trend in China is free-trade agreements. This paradox of political ideologies in sync with economic considerations has created an air of uncertainty that the Chinese are savoring. They will do their best to take advantage of this vacuum in global economic leadership to further their interests.

So far, China’s economic statecraft has been executed with remarkable proficiency. However, there are multiple roadblocks to the RMB’s acceptance as a global reserve currency leaving Beijing with limited avenues. China is yet to achieve the ‘indispensable’ status in global economics like the US, and has weaker financial fundamentals when compared to the current hegemon. The restrictions and controls on China’s economy means that it is unable to offer the liquidity required of a colossal financial system that transacts 5.1 trillion USD every day. The contentious nature with which it has operated controls on capital and fixed its exchange rate mechanism do not provide stability to the system. In a system that is tied to the idea of a free and open global economy, Beijing’s multiple territorial disputes, authoritarian regime and lack of government transparency pales in comparison to the American system of meritocracy and liberal democracy. Moreover, economic ties with Beijing has not always resulted in the best outcome for some countries. The terms and conditions associated with the BRI, and the lack of sustainable investment standards, cast doubt on a future global economy that revolves around China.

The day is not far off, when an alternative currency will be used for global transactions of oil and gold. The idea of a super sovereign currency is novel, whether it be IMF’s SDR or a new crypto-currency of the Information Age, as these currencies gain more traction, the world’s dependency on the dollar will decrease. Yet, as things stand, the USD is world’s negotiated currency, and if countries can acquire it in near-unlimited amounts, and the US can bear the brunt of an ever-widening fiscal deficit, the crown as heavy as it may seem, will firmly be with the United States.

How North Korea Was Armed – Analysis

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By Prabha Rao*

The enfant terrible of international politics, North Korean President Kim Jong-un, has a talent for generating war clouds and intercontinental nightmares. The Kim dynasty, which has tenaciously held on to power in the face of international condemnation, has two major foreign policy narratives — ‘Juche’ (self-reliance), and secure independence. These narratives have led the country into aggressive nuclear and missile sabre-rattling. Such sabre-rattling has intensified since Kim Jong-un assumed power in 2011. While North Korea carried out 15 missile tests under Kim Il-sung and 16 under Kim Jong-Il, it has, as of mid-September 2017, conducted 85 tests under Kim Jong-un.1

But the most significant development has been North Korea’s development of thermonuclear capability. On January 3, 2016, it carried out a hydrogen bomb test, its fourth nuclear test overall. It has been alleged that Pakistan had assisted North Korea in the development of this capability, which can be discerned from the similarities between the instrumentation bunkers at Punggye-ri and Pakistan’s RasKoh nuclear testing complex.2 This was followed by Kim Jong-un’s claim in March 2016 that his country has miniaturised nuclear warheads for fitting onto ballistic missiles. On September 10, 2016, North Korea detonated a nuclear warhead, which the South Korean Meteorological Administration estimated had a yield of 10 kilotons.

While alternately accusing the United States of driving the Korean peninsula towards a nuclear war and threatening a nuclear strike on the ‘heart of the US’, North Korea detonated an advanced, two-stage, hydrogen bomb on September 3, 2017 (the sixth nuclear test since 2006) with an yield of over 120 kilotons at a test site in Sungjibaegam, close to the previous testing site at Punggye-ri. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) warned that the test was of a multi-functional thermonuclear weapon which could be detonated at high altitudes to generate a potent Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) that would wipe out electrical grids from Japan to the US.3 The latest test has renewed fears about North Korea’s claimed cache of around 60 nuclear weapons and the considerable progress that it has made towards their miniaturization.

According to a database maintained by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, North Korea tested 26 missiles in 2016; 16 of those tests were successful and 10 were failures. There have been 19 tests in 2017 so far, with 13 successes.4 The 68 per cent success rate would be commendable in any country. The frequency of the tests suggests that North Korea is confident of its supply of missiles and has the necessary resources and capabilities to make them at will. Such an achievement is not just improbable, but impossible without sustained outside help, indicating thereby that UN sanctions and embargoes against Pyongyang have been violated in fact, spirit and intent.

Missile Programme on a Very Fast Track

North Korea’s missile programme has made unprecedented advances since Kim Jong-un’s ascendance to power. It has progressed from short-range missiles like the Nu-Dong (some of which were bought with hard cash by Pakistan according to former President Pervez Musharraf and were rechristened as the Ghauri missiles), to the intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM) Musudan (which repeatedly failed flight tests) and the Hwasong-12, and ultimately, the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Hwasong-14. The latter two missiles use a powerful liquid-propellant engine (LPE).5

On May 14, 2017, North Korea launched the Hwasong-12, which flew on a steep trajectory, reaching a peak altitude of over 2,000 kilometres. If the Hwasong-12 had used a normal flight path, it would have travelled between 4,000 and 4,500 kilometres, thus placing Guam (3,400 kilometres away) within range. On July 4, to coincide with the US Independence Day, the two-stage Hwasong-14 was launched, reaching an apogee of 2,700 kilometres. A second Hwasong-14 was tested on July 28 reaching an apogee of about 3,800 kilometres.6 Had these missiles been flown on trajectories, which privileged distance rather than height, they would have reached about 7,000 kilometres and 9,000 kilometres, respectively, well above the 5,500 kilometres minimum distance for a system to be categorised as an ICBM. At these distances, major US cities fall within range of these missiles.

On August 28, 2017, North Korea launched a second Hwasong 12 from close to the Sunan Airport in Pyongyang. The missile overflew Cape Erimo in Hokkaido, Japan, before impacting in the Pacific Ocean. Significantly, three different objects splashed down in the Pacific Ocean.7 A Hwasong 14 missile was test-fired on September 14, 2017, which again traversed Japanese airspace and caused multiple splashes in the Pacific. It was clear from the multiple splashes during these tests that the Hwasongs are capable of carrying multiple payloads, that is, they could carry multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs).

The Smuggling Network

How did Pyongyang get a LPE? There is no evidence to suggest indigenous production. A study of the missile’s structure, which has two stages with a lift-off mass of about 75 tonnes and special fuel — Kerosene and AK 27 (a mixture of Red Fuming Nitric Acid and Nitrogen Tetroxide)8 — has led to the conclusion that the Hwasong engines are a variant of the RD-250 turbo pump, which is manufactured at Russia’s Energomashconcern and Ukraine’s KB Yuzhnoye. The original RD-250 has a dual combustion chamber, which has been modified into a single chamber in the Hwasong. The needle of suspicion points towards KB Yuzhnoye as, according to witnesses, a single chamber RD-50 model was on display at KB Yuzhnoye in 2016.9

How was the RD 250 proto-type engines transported from Ukraine, when stringent international sanctions were in place? The answer lies with smuggling networks in China and Pakistan, which have with impunity violated non-proliferation rules and regimes. A total of 5233 Chinese companies have traded (including in dual-use technology) with North Korea between 2013 and 2016. One example of an actual smuggling initiative is the case of the Chinese company Dandong Dongyuan Industrial Co. Ltd., which exported US $28.5 million worth of material to North Korea during 2013-2016, including a shipment of $790,000 worth of ‘radio navigational aid apparatus’ in June 2016. According to experts at the James Martin Centre for Non-proliferation Studies, the goods probably included guidance devices for ballistic missiles. The Hong Kong business registry states that the firm’s owner is Sun Sidong, a Chinese national. A ship that was owned by Sun Sidong — Jie Shun — was seized last year by Egyptian authorities. It was carrying 30,000 North Korean-made rocket propelled grenades concealed under a cargo of iron ore.10 It was found that the ownership of the vessel had recently changed and the present registered owner was one Sun Sihong, who listed her residential address as an apartment in the same complex as Sun Sidong!

China has also supplied six transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) trucks, which are designed to move and fire ballistic missiles. Such a mobile system makes satellite surveillance difficult. The trucks were made by China’s Hubei Sanjiang Space Wanshan Special Vehicle Company, which is a subsidiary of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, a state-owned company that makes the Shenzhou rocket as well as missiles.11 When questioned about the sale, China mendaciously gave a written submission to the UN with a copy of the end-user certificate provided by North Korea that the vehicles had been imported for the purpose of transporting timber! This year, North Korea has used another Chinese truck model, made by Sinotruk, to tow a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM).12

North Korea-Pakistan Nexus

A cause for serious disquiet is that the bi-conic warhead design of the Hwasong missiles appears similar to the warhead on Pakistan’s Ababeel missile, which has MIRV compatibility. The warhead has reportedly been made with Chinese help, and designs or the warhead itself has been supplied to Pyongyang from Pakistan.13 Cooperation between Pakistan and North Korea is long standing, and there is evidence that Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister of Pakistan, visited Pyongyang in 1993 and procured several computer disks containing blueprints for the No-Dong missile, which she delivered to A.Q. Khan.14 This missile, which was smuggled to Iran, re-appeared as Shabab-3 and in Pakistan as Hatf-V. North Korean design features are also visible in the Hatf-IX missiles, which are being used by Pakistan as tactical weapons to be deployed along the Indian border (especially in Gujranwala).

Missile-related developments in Pakistan are especially worrying but not as worrying as the illicit nuclear network between Pyongyang and Islamabad, with Beijing serving as the pivot. Galaxy Corporation Pvt Ltd, a Pakistani front company affiliated with the Pakistan Energy Commission (PAEC), has supplied to North Korea two specialised nickel-alloy metals — Inconel and Monel – which are corrosion-resistant and have applications in uranium enrichment and chemical weapons production. Another questionable export is that of vacuum induction melting (VIM) furnaces used in forging uranium or plutonium metal into hemispheres for the fissile pit and is hence controlled by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) due to their utility for nuclear weapons manufacturing.

These had been procured from Suntech Technologies, a Beijing-based company, which is a primary producer of these items. A complaint lodged by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was officially received (June 2016) by the China Atomic Energy Authority (CAEA) on this matter. Galaxy Corporation’s imports from other Chinese companies include thyratrons (used as triggering devices in nuclear weapons) and radiation monitors with the end-user certificate being shown as PAEC. These items are an integral part of the hydrogen bomb test conducted by Pyongyang on September 3, 2017.15

Further, two North Korean diplomats, Kim Yong Choi and Jang Yong Son, posted in the North Korean Embassy in Tehran till 2016, and affiliated to Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID) — a UN Security Council-designated North Korean weapons trading firm – were frequent visitors to Pakistan between 2012 and 2015. They met with Pakistani officers involved in the country’s nuclear programme.16

According to international observers, the North Korea-Pakistan nexus is being sustained by transportation networks, using cargo ships in the ports of Dalian in China, Wonsan in North Korea and Qasim in Pakistan. Indian intelligence also has satellite imagery to show that the Karakoram Highway has been used to supply illicit nuclear material and dual-use items for missiles.

This brings us to India’s threat perceptions regarding Pakistan’s nuclear capability. Recently, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi claimed that his country has short-range nuclear weapons to counter the ‘Cold Start’ doctrine ‘adopted’ by the Indian Army. This would indicate that Rawalpindi has successfully miniaturized nuclear warheads. This needs to be assessed in tandem with Kim Jong–Un’s claims that North Korea has miniaturized nuclear warheads, and also has adequate knowledge of programming and controlling thermonuclear/hydrogen fission bombs. This is a matter for serious disquiet, given Pakistan’s long-standing nuclear and missile-related trade with North Korea.

Should Pyongyang be Worried?

North Korea has learnt to weather multilateral UNSC as well as unilateral US sanctions. President Trump has come out with a new set of sanctions with the objective of denying access to the US financial system to any country that trades with or finances trade with North Korea. China has promised both at the UN Security Council and General Assembly to give effect to the sanctions against North Korea. Beijing claims to have stopped the import of textiles and condensate hydrocarbons — measures which can pinch but certainly not cause the collapse of the Kim regime. Beijing has not as yet made any significant attempts to rein in Pyongyang, which would necessitate a clampdown on several Chinese nationals and entities engendering illicit trade.

China’s links with North Korea go beyond the standard parameters of global commerce. The most apposite illustration in this regard is the case of Dandong Hongxiang Industrial Development Co (DHID), which became a front for the Korea Kwangson Banking Corp, a North Korean financial institution sanctioned in 2009 for its role in financing North Korea’s weapons proliferation. DHID used layers of obfuscation with a complex network of front companies based in the British Virgin Islands, the Seychelles, England, Wales and Hong Kong, apart from mainland China, to establish an intricate shipping network involving over 147 ships, 167 individuals, and 248 corporate entities.17

To give an example, the ship, MV Light (IMO: 8415433) was formerly owned by a DHID subsidiary, Korea Buyon Shipping, a North Korea-based entity which had been designated under Executive Order 13722 by the US Department of the Treasury on March 16, 2016. The ship changed its name to Victory 3 after UNSC sanctions, though its IMO number remains the same. The USS McCampbell intercepted MV Light, moving from North Korea to Myanmar carrying missile components for alleged re-export to Pakistan. A Chinese company, Dalian Sea Glory Shipping, owned the above ship and, according to the UN Panel of Experts’ report of March 2016, the company’s directors were Chinese nationals Lu Tiehe, Fan Mintian and Dong Changqing. These individuals owned several shipping companies, including V Star Company based in Hong Kong. This company owned another ship ‘Chong Chon Gang’, which was seized in 2015 for smuggling weapons for a North Korean company, Ocean Maritime Management (OMM). Lu Tiehe is the sole shareholder and director of the Hong Kong-based company Sea Star Ship Co Ltd, which owns the ship Baoshan Rich (IMO: 9128843), which has been involved in smuggling weapons, and had come to adverse notice for sailing from Dalian (PRC) to DPRK to Iraq and UAE18 with weapons for Syria and Iraq.

The DHID came under the purview of US sanctions in October 2016, but its role has been seamlessly taken over by its subsidiary, the Liaoning Hongxiang trading conglomerate, which is headed by Chinese national Ma Xiaohong. This conglomerate is North Korea’s largest trading partner and claims to be a bridge between North Korea and the world. The conglomerate works out of Dandong, a small city in the north eastern province of Liaoning, and has a number of verticals, including trading houses, shipping lines, currency exchanges, etc.19 It is, however, yet to come under US sanctions. Unsurprisingly, the Liaoning Hongxiang Group inaugurated the newest China-North Korea shipping route, from Longkou to Nampo, in late September 2015. This route has seen significant traffic despite existing international sanctions against North Korea.

The Liaoning Haongxiang Group also has significant connections with Myanmar. The conglomerate’s vice president is a Myanmarese business tycoon TayZa, who has been designated by the US Treasury Department as “an arms and narcotics dealer”.20 He has extensive interests around Myanmar, especially in the areas of aviation, military equipment, and fuel. He also owns a football club, one of Myanmar’s largest banks, and a company responsible for cargo clearing in the country’s international airports. He is reported to have been instrumental in organizing nuclear contracts with Russia and North Korea.

Given the above backdrop, North Korea is expected to be able to withstand the sanctions, as help from China and Chinese conglomerates is unlikely to be shut down. North Korea has been and will be a strategic asset for China. The Chinese leadership has traditionally felt that a unified Korea with American troops in the Korean peninsula, close to the Chinese border, is a major security concern. The US, on its part, cannot afford to take an excessively belligerent stance with China, which could affect its US $ 650 billion trade with the country, notwithstanding Trump’s claim that “all options are on the table”.21

During a recent trip to China, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson claimed that Washington had “direct channels of communication” with North Korea, and was exploring the possibilities of a dialogue with Pyongyang. Despite Tillerson’s differences with Trump over dialogue with North Korea, it is likely that back channels have been activated.22 This would not be a surprising development as North Korea has demonstrated that it has in its arsenal nuclear-capable ICBMs. Hence, Washington, despite sending B-1B long range bombers and F-15 jets close to North Korea’s east coast, is unlikely to up the ante by initiating actual hostilities, given Pyongyang’s demonstrated nuclear prowess.

On his part, Ring Yo-ho, North Korea’s Foreign Minister, sounded suitably bellicose about US threats. Although he warned that US jets could be shot down, no action was taken when they actually overflew North Korean airspace.23 There is an uneasy equilibrium, which indicates that negotiations with Beijing over myriad issues are underway, including possibly the issue of the presence of theatre high altitude area defence (THAAD) missiles in South Korea. The burgeoning US-China rivalry will ensure that the current standoff in the Korean peninsula will not be resolved anytime soon. Kim Jong-Un will continue to exploit the current situation in the region to consolidate his regime’s political power.

While India is a bystander on this issue, it needs to be on the alert. Pakistan’s links with North Korea are evident, and nuclear shadow boxing by Islamabad is only to be expected. The potential and overwhelming danger it presents cannot be underestimated. Continued caution to prevent any adventurist attempt by the Pakistan military needs to be at the top of India’s agenda.

Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India.

About the author:
*Prabha Rao
is Senior Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi.

Source:
This article was published by IDSA.

Notes:


What Determines A Currency’s Rate Of Exchange? – Analysis

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By Frank Shostak*

Currency rates of exchange appear to be moving in response to so many factors that it makes it almost impossible to ascertain where the rate of exchange is likely to be headed. But rather than paying attention to the multitude of variables, it is more sensible to focus on the essential variable.

As far as the currency rate of exchange determination is concerned, this variable is the relative changes in the purchasing power of various monies. The relative purchasing power of various monies sets the underlying rate of exchange.

A price of a basket of goods is the amount of money paid for the basket. We can also say that the amount of money paid for a basket of goods is the purchasing power of money with respect to the basket of goods.

If in the US the price of a basket of goods is 1 dollar and in Europe an identical basket of goods is sold for 2 euros then the rate of exchange between the US dollar and the euro must be two euros per one dollar.

An important factor in setting the purchasing power of money is the supply of money. If over time the rate of growth in the US money supply exceeds the rate of growth of European money supply, all other things being equal, this will put pressure on the dollar.

Since a price of a good is the amount of money per good, this now means that the prices of goods in dollar terms will increase faster than prices in euro terms, all other things being equal.

As a result an identical basket of goods is priced now; let us say at 2 dollars, as against 2.5 euros. This would imply that the exchange rate between the dollar and the euro will be now 1.25 euros per one dollar.

Note the fact that changes in a local money supply affect its general purchasing power with a time lag means that changes in relative money supply affect the currency rate of exchange also with a time lag.

When money is injected into the economy it starts with a particular market before it goes to other markets — this is the reason for the lag.

When it enters a particular market it pushes the price of a good in this market higher — more money is spent on given goods than before.

This in turn means that past and present information about money supply can be employed in ascertaining likely future moves in the currency rate of exchange.

Another important factor in driving the purchasing power of money and the currency rate of exchange is the demand for money. For instance, with an increase in the production of goods the demand for money will follow suit.

The demand for the services of the medium of exchange will increase since more goods must now be exchanged.

As a result, for a given supply of money, the purchasing power of money will increase. Less money will be chasing more goods now.

Various factors, such as the interest rate differential, can cause a deviation of the currency rate of exchange from the level dictated by relative purchasing power. Such deviations, however, will set corrective forces in motion.

Let us say that the Fed raises its policy interest rate while the European central bank keeps its policy rate unchanged.

We have seen that if the price of a basket of goods in the US is one dollar and in Europe two euros, then according to the purchasing power framework the currency rate of exchange should be one dollar for two euros.

As a result of a widening in the interest rate differential between the US and the Euro-zone an increase in the demand for dollars pushes the exchange rate in the market toward one dollar for three euros.

This means that the dollar is now overvalued as depicted by the relative purchasing power of the dollar versus the euro.

In this situation it will pay to sell the basket of goods for dollars then exchange dollars for euros and then buy the basket of goods with euros — thus making a clear arbitrage gain.

For example, individuals will sell a basket of goods for one dollar, exchange the one dollar for three euros, and then exchange three euros for 1.5 basket, gaining 0.5 of a basket of goods.

The fact that the holder of dollars will increase his/her demand for euros in order to profit from the arbitrage will make euros more expensive in terms of dollars — pushing the exchange rate in the direction of one dollar for two euros.

An arbitrage will always be set in motion if the rate of exchange deviates, for whatever reasons, from the underlying rate of exchange.

About the author:
Frank Shostak’s consulting firm, Applied Austrian School Economics, provides in-depth assessments of financial markets and global economies. Contact: email.

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute

Study Opens New Avenue In Quest To Develop TB Vaccine

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A team of scientists led by the University of Southampton has taken an important step forward in research efforts that could one day lead to an effective vaccine against the world’s deadliest infectious disease.

Tuberculosis (TB) kills more people than any other infection, with an estimated 1.7 million people worldwide dying from it every year. The airborne disease is becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics, but despite 20 years of intense global efforts no effective vaccine has been developed.

Recent efforts have focused on the response of conventional human T cells (a type of white blood cell essential to fighting off infection) to protein fragments found in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the bacteria that causes TB.

Now researchers from the universities of Southampton and Bangor, in partnership with Public Health England (PHE) Porton, have shown that certain lipids (fatty substances essential to cell structure that are found in abundance in Mtb) could trigger an immune response from other, ‘unconventional’, types of T cells.

In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, the team showed that a group of lipids called mycolic acids – a major component of the Mtb cellular envelope – could be key to determining an immune response.

The study showed that the geometry, chemical make-up and movement of the mycolic acids’ long lipid ‘tails’ when they are embedded in a type of human protein called CD1b determines the response of the body’s unconventional T cells.

Lead author Dr Salah Mansour, of the University of Southampton, said: “This is an exciting discovery with potential therapeutic implications for TB patients. We have shown that synthetic lipids related to those in the cell wall of Mtb are selectively targeted by T-cells.

“Our findings could help drive advances in vaccine development through the intelligent design of the lipid components of future TB vaccines.”

The study combined cellular immunology with synthetic and computational chemistry, and used synthetic lipids developed at Bangor University’s School of Chemistry.

Dr Juma’a Al Dulayymi, of Bangor University, added: “This is a very exciting result of a collaboration between organic chemists and immunologists which could provide a real opportunity for improved protection against TB.”

The work is the fruit of a collaboration between a Southampton team consisting of immunologists, computational chemists and infection specialists, researchers from Bangor University led by Professor Mark Baird, and scientists from PHE Porton led by Dr Sally Sharpe.

The work was funded by Public Health England.

Sri Lanka: Arrests Made After Clash Between Buddhists And Muslims

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Police have arrested 19 people following a clash between members of Sri Lanka’s Buddhist and Muslim communities in which seven people were injured.

The government accused extremists of spreading rumors to stir strife.

Businesses, houses and vehicles belonging to both communities were damaged during the Nov. 17 unrest at Gintota in the far south of the country. A curfew was imposed Nov. 18.

The violence started between Buddhists and Muslims after a minor accident involving a Muslim woman and a motorbike driven by a Buddhist man.

There have already been several incidents this year reflecting communal schisms.

Hardline Buddhist groups have accused Muslims of forcing Buddhists to convert to Islam and vandalizing Buddhist archaeological sites.

There have also been claims of illegal forest clearing by some Muslims.

One Buddhist group attacked the presence at a United Nations safe house of 31 Muslim Rohingya refugees from Myanmar.

Jehan Perera, executive director of the National Peace Council, said communal problems continued despite the military crushing in 2009 of a long-running insurgency by ethnic Tamils.

While the problem over the traffic accident in Gintota was settled by those directly involved, others exploited the situation.

Perera noted that many of those arrested were outsiders.

There needed to be more programs by government, civil society and religious institutions to promote “inter-ethnic and inter-religious” understanding.

The government in particular should activate its network of district religious committees, Perera added.

Victim Mohammed Uvais said attackers threw acid at people’s homes.

“We left our house at night due to fear,” he related.

In 2014, three people were killed in clashes in the neighboring coastal town of Aluthgama.

More than 2,000 people were displaced and 17 mosques attacked.

The Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), a nationalist Buddhist organization based in the capital, Colombo, was accused of instigating the attacks, however nobody was punished.

BBS general secretary Gnanasara Thera this week asked the government to form a special committee to investigate the situation in Gintota.

Law and Order Minister Sagala Ratnayaka warned against the use of propaganda on social media to generate sectarian hatred.

Sinhalese Buddhists comprise about 75 percent of the Sri Lanka’s population while Muslims make up about 9 percent.

In Vitro Fertilization Linked With Increased Risk Of Congenital Heart Defects

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A new analysis of published studies found a 45% increased risk of congenital heart defects in newborns when women become pregnant via in vitro fertilization (IVF)/intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) than through spontaneous conception.

The Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology analysis included eight studies with 25,856 children obtained from IVF techniques and 287,995 children spontaneously conceived and a total of 2,289 congenital heart defects.

Congenital heart defects were found in 1.30% and 0.68% in the IVF/ICSI and spontaneous conception groups, respectively.

“We believe that IVF/ICSI pregnancies present an increased risk of CHDs as a consequence of early placental dysfunction; however this hypothesis should be demonstrated in future studies. We recommend fetal echocardiography in all pregnancies from IVF/ICSI,” said lead author Dr. Paolo Cavoretto, of the IRCCS San Raffaele Hospital, in Milan, Italy.

Climate Changes Triggered Immigration To America In 19th Century

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n the 19th century, over 5 million Germans moved to North America. It was not only a century of poverty, war and revolutions in what is now Germany, but also of variable climate. Starting at the tail end of the cold period known as the Little Ice Age, the century saw glacier advances in the Alps, and a number of chilly winters and cool summers, as well as other extreme weather events such as droughts and floods.

“Overall, we found that climate indirectly explains up to 20-30% of migration from Southwest Germany to North America in the 19th century,” says Rüdiger Glaser, a professor at the University of Freiburg, Germany, and lead-author of the Climate of the Past study.

The researchers could see a climate signature in most major migration waves from Southwest Germany during the 19th century. “The chain of effects is clearly visible: poor climate conditions lead to low crop yields, rising cereal prices and finally emigration,” says Glaser. “But it is only one piece of the puzzle.”

“Our results show that the influence of climate was marked differently during the different migration waves,” adds Iso Himmelsbach, another of the researchers at the University of Freiburg who took part in the study.

The team studied official migration statistics and population data from the 19th century, as well as weather data, harvest figures and cereal-price records. They focused on the region that is now the Baden-Württemberg state, where many of the migrants – such as Charles Pfizer of pharmaceutical fame – originated from. They started by identifying the major migration waves and then investigated to what extent climate played a role in driving people to North America during each of them.

The first wave followed the eruption of the Tambora volcano in Indonesia in 1815. The volcanic ash and gases spewed into the atmosphere caused temperatures to drop around the world for a few years after the eruption. The ‘year without summer’, 1816, was wet and cold causing widespread crop failures, famine and emigration.

“Another peak-migration year, 1846, had an extremely hot and dry summer leading to bad harvests and high food prices,” says Annette Bösmeier, a researcher at the University of Freiburg who also involved in the study. “These two years of high migration numbers appear to be quite strongly influenced by climate changes, while for other migration waves other circumstances appeared to be more important,” she adds.

Climate was a less significant factor in driving the largest emigration wave, from 1850 to 1855, the researchers found. While unfavourable weather affected crops resulting in low harvests during this time, other factors also drove up food prices. During the Crimean War (1853-1856), for example, France banned food exports, putting pressure on the German grain markets. At the time, the authorities of Baden also paid the poorest people to leave the country in an attempt to prevent uprisings and save on welfare. This, too, drove up emigration numbers.

“Migration in the 19th century was a complex process influenced by multiple factors. Lack of economic perspectives, social pressure, population development, religious and political disputes, warfare, family ties and the promotion of emigration from different sides influenced people’s decision to leave their home country,” concludes Glaser. “Nevertheless, we see clearly that climate was a major factor.”

In the past few years, climate has taken a central stage in migration discussions since future climate change is expected to lead to mass migration (‘climate refugees’), as sea levels rise and extreme weather events, such as floods, droughts and hurricanes, become more frequent. The team hope their study can shed some light on the various factors influencing migration and how important climate can be in triggering mass movements of people.

Robert Reich: Fools Or Knaves? – OpEd

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One of the most dangerous consequences of this awful period in American life is the denigration of the truth, and of institutions and people who tell it.

There are two kinds of liars – fools and knaves. Fools lie because they don’t know the truth. Knaves lie because they intend to mislead.

Trump is both, because he doesn’t even care enough about the truth to find out what it is. He’ll say whatever he thinks will get people to believe what he wants them to believe.

What about people like Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s point person on the Republican tax bills now making their way through Congress?

Mnuchin continues to insist that they put a higher tax burden on people earning more than $1 million a year, and reduce taxes on everyone else. “I can tell you that virtually everybody in the middle class will get a tax cut, and will get a significant tax cut,” Mnuchin says repeatedly.

But the prestigious Tax Policy Center concludes that by 2025, almost all of the benefits of both bills will have gone to the richest 1 percent, while upper-middle-class payers will pay higher taxes and those at the lower levels will receive only modest benefits.

So is Mnuchin a fool? His career before he became Treasury Secretary doesn’t suggest so. He graduated from Yale, and worked for seventeen years for investment bank Goldman Sachs.

Perhaps Mnuchin doesn’t find the Tax Policy Center credible. Maybe he agrees with Trump economic adviser Peter Navarro, who describes it as “a left-leaning center that produces analyses that favor Democratic tax-and-spend programs and disfavor Republican programs.”

In the age of Trump, even prestigious organizations once considered non-partisan are either “with us” or “against us.”

Problem is, virtually all other studies by every other source show the House and Senate tax bills overwhelmingly benefit the rich and, within a few years, harm the middle class.

Even Congress’s own Joint Committee on Taxation – the House and Senate’s official scorekeeper on tax issues – finds that the Senate’s version of the bill would increase taxes on all income groups making under $75,000 per year.

By 2027, it would give its biggest tax breaks to those making $1 million or more. The House bill would be even more generous to millionaires and billionaires.

Mnuchin’s response? He has none. He just keeps repeating the same lie.

Mnuchin also maintains that the Senate and House tax plans won’t cause the federal deficit to rise. “This isn’t about the deficit,” he said recently. “We’ll create economic growth to pay down the deficit.”

But even the Tax Foundation – a major proponent of the corporate tax cuts – estimates the House bill will cause a $1.08 trillion revenue loss over ten years and the Senate bill, a $516 billion loss.

Assuming Mnuchin isn’t a fool, he’s a knave. He intends to deceive the public.

By doing so he has abandoned his duty to the American people inherent in the oath of office taken by every cabinet official, in favor of advancing the goals of his boss and other Republicans in Washington who are desperate to pass their tax bill.

He has also sacrificed his credibility and integrity.

Why? Because he’s Secretary of the Treasury in an administration that has no integrity. Merely by joining Trump, he made a Faustian bargain and lost whatever integrity he might have had.

Recall that after Trump equated white supremacists with protesters in Charlottesville, and several hundred of Mnuchin’s Yale classmates urged him to resign in protest, Mnuchin found it “hard to believe I should have to defend myself on this, or the president.”

After Trump demanded that NFL owners deal harshly with black athletes protesting police brutality, Mnuchin said the athletes should “do free speech on their own time. This is about respect for the military and first responders in the country.”

Apparently Mnuchin will say anything to retain his power and influence in the Trump administration.

He knows he’ll never have anything close to this power again.

Mnuchin probably figures: So what if he lies about the true consequences of the tax bills? Trump lies about them, too. So does the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, and the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

He probably assumes most of the public will never know he lied. Even those who know will soon forget. In this era of Trumpian big lies, there are no consequences for lying.

But history may not be kind to Steve Mnuchin.

Over the last century, authoritarian and fascist regimes have intentionally and systematically denigrated the truth.

The knaves who helped them are remembered in ignominy.

Energy From Electric Cars Could Potentially Power Our Lives

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Power stored in electric cars could be sent back to the grid – thereby supporting the grid and acting as a potential storage for clean energy – but it will only be economically viable if we upgrade the system first. In a new paper in Energy Policy, two scientists show how their seemingly contradictory findings actually point to the same outcome and recommendations: that pumping energy back into the grid using today’s technology can damage car batteries, but with improvements in the system it has the potential to provide valuable clean energy – and improve battery life in the process.

Electric cars store excess energy when they are idle. Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology makes it possible to transfer that energy back to the grid when the car is not being used. This energy could help regulate the frequency of the electricity supply, reduce the amount of electricity purchased at peak times and increase the power output of the system.

Two recent studies, one by Dr. Kotub Uddin at the University of Warwick in the UK and the other by Dr. Matthieu Dubarry at the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, seem contradictory, with one suggesting that V2G degrades car batteries and the other that it improves battery life. But the two scientists worked together to look at how their studies overlap, showing that they actually come to the same conclusion.

“Although both our papers seem contradictory, they are actually complimentary,” said Dr. Dubarry. “V2G is not going to be easy, but, if done properly, it has a chance to make a difference for both utilities and electric vehicle owners. We need more research to understand the process better and benefit from the technology.”

The two authors agreed that in order to be economically viable, V2G has to be optimized between the requirements of the car owner, the utilities and the capability of the grid. In other words, the needs of the different people and systems involved have to be balanced. The question then became ‘can this technology be profitable?’

The previous studies had different approaches to answering this question: Dr. Dubarry showed that using today’s V2G technology can be detrimental to the car battery, while Dr. Uddin found a smarter grid would make the process economically viable, and even improve the battery. In the new paper, they critiqued each other’s work and found shared conclusions. With improvements to the system, V2G could actually improve electric car battery life and be profitable for everyone involved.

Measuring the impact of the technology on the battery is challenging. After two years of analyzing lithium-ion batteries, Dr. Uddin and his team developed an accurate battery degradation model that can predict the capacity and power fade in a battery over time under different conditions, such as temperature, state of charge and depth of discharge. That means the model can predict the impact of V2G on battery health. Using this model, they created a smart grid algorithm that shows how much charge a battery needs for daily use and how much can be taken away to optimize battery life.

Dr. Uddin says funding is needed to develop new testing standards and control strategies to guide policies that support V2G. One key element to improving the system, he says, will be the measurement of battery degradation.

“The metrics used to define battery degradation may also impact the optimization process,” he explained. “A critical component is who is responsible for estimating battery degradation? Utilities are currently taking the lead in the EU, but it might be more economical for the battery manufacturers or car manufacturers to do it. In this case, standards need to be written which define what we mean by ‘state of health’ when it comes to batteries, and the metrics that are used to determine it.”


Conflict Escalation: China And India’s Territorial Dispute In The Himalayas – Analysis

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By Felix K. Chang*

(FPRI) — During the summer of 2017, an unusually volatile territorial spat between China and India erupted in the Himalayan Mountains. For over two months, hundreds of Chinese and Indian troops were locked in an escalating standoff on the Doklam Plateau, a region disputed by China and Bhutan near the Indian border.

The fact that there was a standoff came as little surprise to most observers of China and India’s long-running territorial dispute. Other standoffs have periodically occurred along the two countries’ 4,057-km mostly disputed border—called the Line of Actual Control (LAC)—from the rocky peaks of Aksai Chin in the west to forested mountains of Arunachal Pradesh in the east. But this latest case was different in three respects: the parties involved, the strategic location, and the length and level of escalation.

Parties Involved

In the past, whenever such incidents took place, they occurred on parts of the LAC that China and India shared. This one did not; it transpired on land claimed by a third country, Bhutan. The incident began in June 2017 when Chinese troops and bulldozers moved onto the Doklam Plateau to build an all-weather road. With no ability to stop them, Bhutan appealed to India for assistance. Obligingly, New Delhi dispatched a military detachment to confront the Chinese, prompting the standoff.

Of course, China saw things differently. It accused India of sending troops into its territory and obstructing its road construction. China also intimated that India had exercised its historic influence over Bhutan’s foreign affairs to manufacture the Bhutanese request for help. But while one can debate the propriety of India’s intervention, what prompted China to attempt to build a road on land that it disputes with Bhutan in the first place remains unclear. Some speculated that Beijing may have been trying to gain a bargaining chip with which it could pry Bhutan away from India’s influence. If true, that would have been a long shot, given Bhutan’s economic dependence on India.

Strategic Location

While standoffs have developed in sensitive areas before, the most recent one occurred near a particularly strategic location for India. The Doklam Plateau sits near a part of India where its territory is squeezed between Bhutan, China, and Nepal to the north and Bangladesh to the south. That location, known as the Siliguri Corridor, is strategic because it connects India’s northeastern states with the rest of the country. The Indian military has long worried about a possible Chinese thrust through Sikkim that could sever the corridor and cut India in two.

China’s rapid infrastructure development and military modernization over the last two decades have only heightened those concerns. Indian strategists fear that China could use its new all-weather roads, high-speed railways, and airfields to quickly mass its military might on the border. Chinese military doctrine and exercises suggest that China is preparing to do just that. During its Stride 2009 exercise, the Chinese military mobilized and transported four divisions across China in record time. Meanwhile, the Chinese military has been steadily acquiring new combat platforms suited for mountain warfare, from helicopters to light tanks able to operate at high altitudes. It also recently completed a major reorganization of its command structure to boost its joint war-fighting capability.

On the other side of the Himalayas, India has struggled to keep up with China. Already five years behind schedule, India has competed only 27 out of 73 roads that it had wanted built to improve its access to the LAC.[1] To compensate for that weakness, the Indian military has stationed sizable forces near the LAC so that it can quickly respond to any crisis there. But as the gap between Chinese and Indian military capabilities continues to widen, India has felt more pressure to strengthen its border defenses. In 2013, it began to raise a new two-division formation, the 17th Mountain Strike Corps, to be better prepared to repel a serious Chinese incursion. The Indian army is now outfitting the corps with some of its newest arms, including U.S.-designed M777 howitzers.

Length and Level of Escalation

Historically, when a standoff on the LAC has arisen, it is settled in a few weeks through a diplomatic resolution whereby both sides agree to a mutual and simultaneous withdrawal. Most observers expected that to happen in this latest case. Instead, whether by coincidence or design, China conducted a series of live-fire drills in nearby Tibet after the standoff began. Then, when India’s national security advisor travelled to Beijing in July, China rebuffed him. Rather than negotiating a resolution, China issued a lengthy position paper accusing India of wrongdoing and insisted on a unilateral Indian withdrawal.

In August, India upped the ante. It increased the combat readiness of its 50,000 troops along the eastern portion of the LAC, advancing the timetable for its annual exercise in the region and deploying its forces to their wartime positions. China’s state-owned Global Times warned that “China is more than capable of defeating India in potential military conflict” and had already mused that “perhaps it is time that [India] be taught a second lesson,” a reference to the 1962 Sino-Indian War.

The Next Standoff

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed by late August, and the two countries reached a settlement. India withdrew its troops, and China removed its road-construction equipment from the disputed region. Eventually, what drove the easing of tensions may have been Beijing’s desire for stability ahead of a Chinese-hosted BRICs summit (to which Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was invited) in September and China’s Communist Party Congress in October.

In any case, how Beijing handled the standoff on the Doklam Plateau seems to have marked an incremental shift in Chinese behavior. It demonstrated that China has become more willing to directly challenge the strategic interests of a large neighboring power and is less concerned over conflict escalation than it once was. If there is a lesson for India to learn from all that, it is to be better prepared for the next border standoff.

About the author:
*Felix K. Chang is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is also the Chief Strategy Officer of DecisionQ, a predictive analytics company in the national security and healthcare industries. He has worked with a number of digital, consumer services, and renewable energy entrepreneurs for years. He was previously a consultant in Booz Allen Hamilton’s Strategy and Organization practice; among his clients were the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of the Treasury, and other agencies. Earlier, he served as a senior planner and an intelligence officer in the U.S. Department of Defense and a business advisor at Mobil Oil Corporation, where he dealt with strategic planning for upstream and midstream investments throughout Asia and Africa.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

Notes:
[1] Rahul Bedi, “Deadline for construction of India–China border roads extended to 2022,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, Aug. 3, 2017.

The Three Little Oligarchs: Latvia’s Corruption Scandal – Analysis

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By Una Bergmane*

(FPRI) — “Screw the president,” “screw the government,” and “punch the prosecutor in the throat.” These are only three snippets of salacious conversations that took place between Latvian business and political figures. Transcripts of the conversations, which were released in June 2017 by the Latvian weekly magazine IR, continue to shake Latvian politics. The materials not only corroborate suspected corruption and abuse of power at the highest level of government, but they also shed light on plans to restrict press freedom, interfere with democratic processes, and take advantage of state institutions.

The respected Latvian journalists who published the transcripts did not disclose their sources. The conversations date from 2009-2011 and seem to have been recorded by the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (Korupcijas novēršanas un apkarošanas birojs, here after KNAB) while investigating a case related to the so-called Latvian oligarchs: former Minister of Transportation Ainārs Šlesers, the Mayor of Ventspils Aivars Lembergs, and former Prime Minister Andris Šķēle.

The recorded conversations took place in a hotel room rented by Šlesers, who is the most active participant in the discussions. He appears to be the person who invited various Latvian businessmen and politicians to discuss his own plans and projects. Lembergs participates in some of the conversations, while Šķēle is occasionally mentioned, but never partakes himself.

Who are the Three Oligarchs?

Aivars Lembergs has served as the Mayor of Ventspils since 1988. Despite being accused of bribery, money laundering, and abuse of office, and despite being temporarily arrested in 2007-2008, Lembergs remains to this day one of the wealthiest men in Latvia. He still exercises considerable influence over the Farmers and Greens, the leading party in Latvia.

His one-time rival, and later partner, Andris Šķēle was the prime minister of Latvia during 1995-1997 and 1999-2000 when Latvia sought to join the European Union and NATO. Amid political scandals and allegations of corruption, Šķēle left politics in 2003. Despite leaving politics, Šķēle still maintained influence over the People’s Party, which was the leading political force in Latvia until 2009. His attempted comeback in the 2010 elections failed, as his party won only 8 out of 100 seats in the Latvian parliament. Latvian media outlets have accused him of fraud, money laundering, corruption, and abuse of office, but no official charges have ever been filed.

The youngest of the three oligarchs, Ainārs Šlesers, has faced collapsing political influence since 2010-2011. He first emerged in Latvian politics in the late 1990s as a member of the New Christian Party and briefly became Minister of Economy. In the early 2000s, he founded the Latvia’s First Party, another force that positioned itself as a Christian voice in Latvian politics. Promises to defend Christian values were accompanied by homophobic rhetoric that helped the party win 10 seats out of 100 in the 2002 elections. That same year, Latvia’s First Party entered the government coalition, and Šlesers became the Deputy Prime Minister and later Minister of Transportation. Like Lembergs and Šķēle, he has been investigated by authorities for money laundering, abuse of office, and corruption over the years.

In 2009, KNAB launched an investigation, suspecting that the true owners of the Riga Commercial Port were Šlesers, Šķēle, and Lembergs. It seems that the published transcripts come from conversations secretly recorded by KNAB during this investigation.

The investigation lasted for years and was finally closed in 2016, with no charges filed. Yet, it had a deep impact on Latvia’s political life—even before the leak of the transcripts. In 2011, when the parliament refused to authorize a search in Šlesers house, then-President Valdis Zatlers used his constitutional right to dissolve the parliament. In the following snap elections, Šlesers’ party did not win a single seat. Since then, both Šlesers and Šķēle have distanced themselves from political life, but can be found in the shady corners of Latvian business life. Meanwhile, Farmers and Greens, the political party that for years has been sponsored by Aivars Lembergs, today leads the government and the country.

Lembergs and Šlesers say that the transcripts have been altered. Meanwhile, Jānis Urbanovičs, the leader of the Russian-speakers’ party Harmony, whose conversations also appeared in the transcripts, has apologized for the strong language used in the conversations, thus appearing to admit their veracity.

The following sections highlight key parts of the leaked transcripts and the oligarchs’ reach in Latvia.

Corruption Allegations

The recorded conversations provide a glimpse of Ainārs Šlesers’ continuous abuse of power in the pursuit of his business interests. Much of the discussion focuses on Šlesers’ attempts to officially declare his ownership of various companies that he has never declared as his property. His partners fear these moves are too risky. One of them points out that formally admitting that the property in question was his would-be political suicide because “Everybody will scream and shout that you took the decision for your own benefit while being a minister. They will scream and shout and you will have no chance to get reelected. Your weakest point . . . is that through politics you were making money for yourself.”

The transcripts suggest this is true. For example, Šlesers was recorded discussing how to use his and his colleagues’ influence over Riga city officials to gain approval to build the Riga Fertilizer Terminal project, in which he had hidden business interests. Other conversations suggest that the three oligarchs were the true owners of airBaltic. As IR journalist Indra Sprance notes, in the late 2000s, Šlesers devised a plan to secretly acquire a 47% stake in airBaltic—even though he was a minister at the time—while it was Šķēle who funded the project. Later, when airBaltic faced financial difficulties, Lembergs also got involved in the affair. In another episode, Šlesers and the current Minister of Agriculture Jānis Dūklavs discuss mutually beneficial deals: the latter promises to obtain the permission for Šlesers to cut down pine trees in his property, but asks Šlesers help to legalize a secret land property in the territory of the Riga Port.

Controlling Democratic Institutions

Other recorded conversations are devoted to schemes to gain control over government institutions. For example, Šlesers and a prominent member of the Farmers and Greens shared a laugh over Lembergs’ success in displaying his power after he managed to prevent the re-election of Jānis Maizītis as prosecutor general by the Latvian parliament. A few months later, Lembergs himself explained to Šlesers how crucial for him it is to have his man from Farmers and Greens to become the Minister of Justice.

The most challenging years for Latvia since 1991 were 2009 and 2011. Shattered by the 2008 financial crisis, the country was on the verge of bankruptcy. It received an emergency bailout from the EU and the IMF, and the government, led by Valdis Dombrovskis, had to implement a strict austerity program. This proved a golden opportunity for the oligarchs. Šlesers and Lembergs plotted to destabilize the government and discredit the prime minister, so Dombrovskis and his party (Unity) would lose the 2010 elections. The plan was simple: Lembergs would have his men in Farmers and Greens shatter the government from the inside, while Šlesers would do the same from the benches of the opposition. After the elections, a new government would be formed by Farmers and Greens, For a Good Latvia (Šlesers’ and Šķēles’ party), and Harmony. The plan failed when, against all odds, Dombrovskis’ party won the 2010 elections.

In 2011, in the light of the approaching presidential elections, the oligarchs sought again to influence politics. According to Latvia’s constitution, the parliament elects the president. Šlesers encouraged Lembergs to use his influence among the legislators to “appoint the president.” In their discussions, Lembergs mentioned that he had played a role in the election of President Valdis Zatlers, but felt betrayed by him. Meanwhile, Šlesers seemed to imply that the third oligarch Šķēle had bought votes for the election of President Guntis Ulmanis in the 1990s, and insisted that the former president of the Republic “should be kissing Šķēles’ hands.”

Controlling the Press

Even more worrisome than the oligarchs’ discussions about their influence over the presidential elections are their debates about how to control the free media. In 2009, Latvian daily newspaper Diena, until then owned by Swedish media group Bonnier, was bought by a foreign investor. Suspecting that the oligarchs were the real forces behind the foreign investors, several journalists resigned in protest and founded the weekly IR—the magazine that published the transcripts in question. The published material shows that the journalists were right. The oligarchs were indeed behind the purchase of Diena, and after acquiring the newspaper, they replaced critical-minded journalists with ones loyal to them.

According to Šlesers, in 2010, all of the largest Latvian private media had links with at least one of the Latvian oligarchs. Both Diena and the private TV channel Latvijas Neatkarīgā Televīzija were loyal to Šlesers and Šķēlē. Lembergs controlled the daily newspaper Neatkarīgā Rīta Avīze. The Russian-language First Baltic Chanel was sympathetic to both Šlesers and Šķēle and to Harmony. As for public TV, Šlesers was optimistic regarding the eventual cooperation of certain journalists. The only real problem in his eyes was public radio, which he seemed unable to control or influence.

The Russian Variable

The transcripts expose once again the close ties between the Latvian oligarchs and Harmony. The leader of Harmony, Jānis Urbanovičs, met with Šlesers to discuss forming a governing coalition between Harmony, For a Good Latvia, and Farmers and Greens. Indeed, Harmony seemed to be an active participant in the oligarchs’ schemes, especially in the Riga city government, where For a Good Latvia and Harmony formed a governing coalition. In this context, ethnic differences were completely irrelevant: Šlesers counted on strong cooperation with Harmony to unite ethnic Latvians and ethnic Russians to win both municipal and national elections.

The Russian Federation is rarely mentioned in the conversations, but when it is, the tone is positive. When Šlesers considered an alliance with Šķēle, he envisaged a joint party that “would be like United Russia,” referring to the ruling party of Vladimir Putin’s regime, which he said has “managed to bring order to Russia.” While discussing how oligarchs control state media, Vilis Krištopāns, who was Prime Minister of Latvia in the 1990s, encouraged Šlesers to create a vertical of power “like in Russia.” Another of his interlocutors casually mentioned that Ingūna Sudraba, the former auditor general, should become the prime minister because “Moscow thinks she would be a good candidate.”

The Aftermath

The publication of the transcripts raised an obvious question: why did the investigation of the oligarchs end without any charges? When asked by IR, the authorities explained that the investigation was obstructed by constant leaks. The leakers are alleged to be a KNAB officer and a member of the National Security Council. IR also reported that, according to the prosecutors, the conversations alone have not provided enough evidence to justify bringing charges against Šlesers. Investigators say they have not gathered additional evidence of wrongdoing. Not all Latvians have found these explanations convincing, and some have called for the prosecutor general to resign.

Spurred on by the release of the transcripts, two protests have taken place in Riga, and numerous public figures have condemned the corruption that the transcripts reveal. A crowd funding campaign has raised funds to send a hard copy of the transcripts to every public library in Latvia.

At the same time, as noted by IR, the media that Šlesers in 2010 described as being under the oligarchs’ control either declined to report the published transcripts or did so weeks after publication. The public television that Šlesers claimed to manipulate has rejected these claims and protested against the denigration of its journalists. President Raimonds Vējonis, who is member of Farmers and Greens, mentioned the transcripts only after facing public pressure. He stated only that these conversations were unacceptable. When a protest occurred in front of the presidential palace, the president tried to address the protesters, but was booed. Prime Minister Māris Kučinskis, a member of the same party, has avoided giving any substantial comments about the affair. A parliamentary investigatory committee has been formed, but Ingūna Sudraba, the very same woman who was mentioned as Moscow’s supported candidate for prime minister, is its chair.

What’s Next for Latvian Democracy?

Considering the inability or unwillingness of the authorities to prosecute the oligarchs, action against them is only possible in the voting booths. Šķēle, Šlesers, and the parties linked to them have already suffered spectacular losses in the 2010, 2011 and 2014 parliamentary elections. Given these losses, they will not run in the 2018 elections. Lembergs’ story is very different: Farmers and Greens is currently the leading party in Latvia. Some people claim that the younger generation of Farmers and Greens leaders are distancing themselves from Lembergs. For example, despite Lembergs’ anti-NATO rhetoricFarmers and Greens’ leaders are committed to Latvia’s pro-Western orientation.

The 2018 election will be the first that Farmers and Greens will face as the leading government party, and their record is far from compelling. They have failed to implement badly needed reforms in healthcare and education, and their tax reform has been widely criticized. The key question, however, is whether the published transcripts will affect the Farmers and Greens voters. The most likely answer is no: the party has a strong base in rural Latvia that is unlikely to be moved by yet another corruption scandal. Lembergs’ alleged crimes have been discussed for a decade, but judging by social media commentary, his voters dismiss them as George Soros-driven conspiracies.

Unity, the traditional challenger of the oligarchs, is on the verge of collapse because of internal conflicts between the conservative and the liberal wing of the party. But at least three new parties will run in 2018 elections, each promising to fight corruption: the New Conservative Party, which includes former KNAB officers; the liberal Par! that has emerged from the ruins of Unity; and the leftist Progresīvie that assembles various civil society activists. The New Conservative Party has a good chance to win votes from traditional supporters of the right wing National Alliance. For Par! and Progresīvie, the task will be more challenging as their support for an open and inclusive society will struggle to find supporters outside Riga’s urban elites. However, their willingness to reach out to the Russian-speaking electorate might enable them to win votes of those Russian speakers who are not happy about Harmony’s links with oligarchs and alleged corruption in the Harmony-led Riga city council.

Ultimately, Latvians must realize that corruption is not only an issue of law or economics, but also a question of national security. While nationalist politicians have often accused Latvian Russian speakers of being a fifth column, the published transcripts demonstrate that the real threat lies in those oligarchs who, in the pursuit of personal profit, try to hijack democracy and weaken state institutions. Many people fear that the Kremlin may destabilize Latvia by using Russian media to mobilize Russian speakers. The new transcripts, however, suggest that Russia could just as well manipulate greedy elites, who have proven more than willing to slowly dissemble the state.

About the author:
*Una Bergmane
is a Baltic Sea Fellow in the FPRI Eurasia Program.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

Should The Dalai Lama Give Up Demand For Independent Tibet? – OpEd

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Many Tibetans across the world, longing for an independent Tibet and their returning back to Tibet with dignity, would have been shocked to hear the remarks of the Dalai Lama once again that Tibet does not seek independence from China but only wants greater development. The Dalai Lama made similar remarks earlier, but many thought that he would change his stance after listening to the voice of Tibetans who love their mother land and want Tibet to be an independent country. Unfortunately, the Dalai Lama has chosen to persist with his counter productive stand of not insisting on independence for Tibet.

No one will be happy about such views of the Dalai Lama except the Chinese government and it’s aggressive leader Mr. Xi Jinping. Many even wonder now whether the Dalai Lama has chosen to echo the views of the Chinese government.

In the period around 1950, China aggressively invaded Tibet, mercilessly killed the freedom fighters in Tibet and drove the Dalai Lama and his followers out of Tibet. The Dalai Lama left for India seeking refugee status and all these years the Tibetans have been looking for a day when they would be able to return back to independent Tibet.

Ever since the Chinese occupied Tibet, China has been systematically and ruthlessly carrying out genocide in Tibet, destroying it’s culture and traditional practices. It has been trying to brainwash the Tibetans living in Tibet that Tibet is only part of China and not an independent country.

Unfortunately, all the countries in the world have chosen to ignore the atrocities committed by China in Tibet and such attitude of the other countries have emboldened China to tighten its grip over Tibet in all possible ways.

During the last few decades, China has been systematically opposing any country even allowing the visit by the Dalai Lama. USA also has succumbed to the pressure of China and have now virtually disowned the cause of Tibet.

While this is so, the voice of the Tibetans across the world have not been silenced. There are many people in different countries who understand that Tibetans have been wronged and think that they should get their motherland back, so that the sovereignty and the status of Tibet as an independent country would be restored. The spirit of independence for Tibet continues to remain vibrant.

In such circumstances, it is extremely disappointing to know that the Dalai Lama has been repeatedly stating that he does not want independence for Tibet. While advancing such view, it is unfortunate that the respected octogenarian monk does not realize that he is doing a grave historical mistake and he is disrespecting the spirit of Tibetans.

The philosophy of Buddhism certainly does not advocate hatred even against worst enemy. One would approve if the Dalai Lama would say that he loves Chinese people and respects them despite of all the wrongs and harm that China has done to Tibetans. But, simply succumbing to the atrocities of China in Tibet and sacrificing the dignity of Tibet as an independent country cannot be part of Buddhist culture and faith.

The Dalai Lama is certainly a much respected person and he would continue to remain so. However, for all the Tibetans across the world, the Dalai Lama has caused great anguish now that he has given up the demand for independent Tibet and wants to be part of China.

Even while respecting the Dalai Lama for all the great contribution that he has made for Tibetans and their culture in the past, Tibetans should politely tell the Dalai Lama that they would continue to have faith in the cause of independent Tibet and would strive for it, with great faith that good cause would always triumph over the evil.

Middle East In Perpetual Crisis: The Way Forward – OpEd

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The ongoing aggressive and violent quest for power and dominance in the Middle East between two regional rivals i.e. Saudi Arabia and Iran has rendered peace and stability into a utopian idea that evades the region. In addition, the continued meddling of foreign powers ostensibly to fight terrorism and extremism further aggravates the situation and has seemingly spawned more intractable problems than solutions to the existing humanitarian crisis. The Yemen crisis, described by UN as “the largest humanitarian crisis,” has the potential to affect the entire region. The troubling fact is that the flawed approach and myopia of policy makers and the disgusting apathy and inaction of human rights organizations remain the same.

Yemen, one of the poorest Arab countries, is going through “the largest humanitarian crises” as a result of a conflict between government forces and Houthi rebels that started back in 2011. The situation worsened when Saudi-led coalition entered the conflict in March 2015 to fight and crush Houthi rebels of a Shia faction, allegedly backed by Iran.

The indiscriminate air strikes and blockade imposed since then by Saudi-led coalition, backed by the US and UK has badly affected innocent Yemenites. With tens of thousands of people killed and the scarce economic-industrial infrastructure bombed by the warring groups, the war ravaged country is now facing an imminent famine as the situation sees no improving. The measures taken by the UN and other organizations in pursuit of resolving the crisis and mitigating its effects fall far short of what the gravity of situation demands. Ominously, the already precarious situation was exasperated when Saudi Arabia choked Yemen by imposing fresh blockade in retaliation to a recent missile attack on its air port allegedly carried out by Houthi rebels.

The ensuing war of words and blame game between Iran and Saudi Arabia has pushed the region towards further chaos and disaster. The protracted Saudi-Iran rivalry and proxy war, fuelled by foreign powers can engulf the hitherto relatively stable countries. For instance, the crisis in Lebanon after the sudden and apparently forced resignation of Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri can spiral out of control and turn Lebanon into yet another theatre of war between Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel etc., if major stake holders do not mend their ways. Given numerous incidents and vast evidences, it is but tantamount to state the obvious that complicity of major global powers has proved to be a setback to efforts of normalization by the UN.

For instance, the apparent complicity of states like the US and UK as indicated by Human Rights Watch (HRW) in its report Yemen Events 2016 is alarming to say the least. Despite indiscriminate air strikes and atrocities perpetrated by Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, various states including the US, Russia and UK continue to either sell weapons to Saudi Arabia or share targeting intelligence with it.

More recently, an investigation report by BBC titled “Raqqa’s Dirty Secret” exposes the tacit support of the US and UK-led coalition forces to the militant Islamic State group. The report reveals that some 250 IS fighters with 3,500 family members were covertly evacuated from Raqqa under a secret deal by the coalition that purports to fight the same terrorists. This underscores the dirty game being played by global powers against each other on the geopolitical chess board of Middle East. Thus, it is clear that major actors involved in the Middle East crisis tacitly support terrorists when it serves their skewed sense of national interest.

It is worth mentioning here that the current crisis in the Middle East has its roots in the flawed and misguided approach adopted by states in the wake of the Arab uprising. Unfortunately the same selfish and zero sum game mindset can be seen at function when we observe how major powers deal with the crisis in the Middle East.

To recapitulate, since the 2011 Arab uprising one country after another in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has witnessed destabilization and destruction. The initial euphoria that this indigenous uprising against dictatorial and authoritarian regimes would usher in an era of greater emancipation from the clutches of authoritarian regimes was however short lived. Hopes of democracy taking roots in the region was shattered due to ill intent and flawed policies of foreign powers which mishandled and exploited the situation to maximize selfish geopolitical objectives to the chagrin of common people.

The consequent hopeless situation provided fertile ground for extremist elements like Islamic State (IS) to thrive and spread its tentacles within and beyond the region. Now after much death and destruction, Islamic State stands at least militarily defeated as it has lost nearly all the territories under its control, the significant in line being its two de facto capitals Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq. However, if not more, it is equally important to counter the extremist ideology of such terror outfits.

Since people tend to take extreme steps like suicide when they lose hope of any betterment and that extremist organizations feed on hopelessness; it is therefore crucial that stake holders in the Middle East, rights organizations and activists should all take measures to replace fear of any further exploitation, death and destruction with hope of peace and stability in the Middle East. After all, to quote Martin Luther King “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”.

* Nisar Ahmed Khan, Research Affiliate at Strategic Vision Institute, Islamabad.

Cyber Securitization: Need Of The Hour For Pakistan – OpEd

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Security ensures survivability of a state. No state in history has survived without securing itself. However, what is security for a state is debatable.

But, mostly states consider they are secure, if their physical boundaries are intact. Nevertheless, invention of information technology and cyber space has considerably changed these previous notions of security by the states.

Development in Cyber Space has taken the world by storm because of its accessibility to the masses and it being relatively economical in comparison to the other technological revolutions. Today billions of people are using cyberspace worldwide as compared to 16 million users nearly twenty years ago. Hence it is important that a state must secure its virtual boundary along with its physical boarders.

Pakistan is a third world country; it is in a region that is prone to conflicts, war and terrorism. Since its independence, Pakistan has been facing many interstate and intrastate conflicts. However, largely throughout the history, Pakistan considers security from external aggression its main security concern.

But, the 21st century brought the biggest technological revolution in the form information technology. Like every other state, for the sake of globalization and to remain relevant in international system Pakistan adopted the information technology as well. Now, although, Pakistan is a developing state almost 10% of its population is using cyber space and 8.97 % is accessing the virtual world through mobile phones. Threats to Pakistan’s national security are growing as its dependency on cyber space is increasing. Moreover, these threats faced by Pakistan are multidimensional rather than one-dimensional.

If we are to analyze Pakistan’s cyber threat landscape, it is diverse and dynamic in nature. It includes not only a threat of external aggression but makes a country prone to cyber terrorism and cyber crimes as well. It is true that Pakistan is located in a region where good relations with neighbors are not practiced rather regional competition based upon historical grievances is considered as a normal practice.

So, under prevalent regional security practices in South Asia, the biggest threat to Pakistan’s cyber security is its counterpart’s continuous obsession with exploiting lower levels of threshold of strategic stability. India, with its vision of digitalization of whole nation, is achieving cyber capabilities rapidly. However, unlike Pakistan, India is aware of emerging potential threats with growing digitalization of society and is preparing itself to deter these threats by developing the policy of cyber offense in its military doctrines.

Recently, India presented its Joint Military Force Doctrine, in which India claims cyber security is achieving advantage against enemy while denying it the same. It is not just the threat of cyber attack but also of cyber skirmishes that should worry Pakistan. According to estimates 1600 websites were hacked by India from 1999 to 2008. In 2013 Norwegian based firm discovered a cyber attack known as “operation hangover” that originated from India. The purpose was to attack sensitive information and gather militant, government and corporate data.

However, threat from external aggression is not the only threat faced by Pakistan’s cyber space.

Terrorism has its paws in the country’s cyber space as well. It is the biggest tool of terrorist agencies for recruiting new members. But this is not the only purpose it is serving for the terrorists as they are utilizing the cyber space to spread their narrative also. Moreover, Pakistani government cannot ignore the threats posed by terrorist organizations to the critical infrastructure of the state. With growing digitalization of Pakistan’s society, threats originating from cyber space are becoming a reality. Now the society is vulnerable to not only external aggressor and terrorists but also criminals, who use cyber space domain to achieve their targets.

Thus, the presence of cyber security perils should not remain ignored by oblivious Pakistani policy makers.

It would be unfair to declare that Pakistan has done nothing to secure its cyber space. There have been some measures taken in this regard by the government. However, the point of concern in securing cyber space is politicization of the issue. So far the policy making institutions in Pakistan have failed miserably to project cyber insecurity as an issue of existential threat to Pakistan’s security. What is happening in Pakistan is politicization of the issue rather than its securitization. Government is sure that cyber security threats are emanating from the people engaged in raising their voices on social media. For this purpose laws have been made which eventually suppress the freedom of expression. But, what is required is the realization that cyber insecurity is the threat of national level and it should be securitized at the same level otherwise Pakistan’s national security would be at stake.

Therefore, it is important for the policy makers in Pakistan to understand the importance of securitizing cyber domain, as this is the technology that contributed 4 trillion in world’s economy in 2016 and is connecting billions of people around the world. In addition cyber domain has potential to inflict damages and changes to our finite world that we hold dear and is of great importance to us.

*Ahyousha Khan, Research Associate” at Islamabad Based think tank “Strategic Vision Institute”.

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