By Geethanjali Nataraj*

After a long delay, the government has finally announced the much awaited new foreign trade policy (FTP) 2015-2020. The thrust of the new policy is on export promotion, reducing trade transactions costs, e-commerce, services exports and ease of doing business. This policy is in sync with the government’s key initiatives of Make in India and other big ideas like Digital India. But the real test would be to bring about a real change on the ground in terms of quick and seamless implementation which would clearly signal that the economic reforms are back on track and working.

The new foreign trade policy is undoubtedly a novel attempt to boost India’s external sector and increase its share in world exports to 3.5 per cent by 2020 from 2 per cent in 2013-14. It also aims to increase India’s exports to $900 billion by 2020 from $312 billion in 2013-14. Another key feature of the policy is that it will not be revisited annually and will be reviewed only after two and half years to provide a stable policy framework for exporters. Thus, the new foreign trade policy not only provides the much-needed boost to Indian exporters but also re-affirms the fact that trade policy reforms constitutes the core of the country’s economic reforms.

The economic policy in India is increasingly driven by trade policy reforms which, over the last decade, have provided an export-friendly environment with simplified procedures conducive to enhancing export performance. The focus of these reforms has been on liberalisation, transparency and globalisation. Taking this further over the years, every successive government has made efforts to strengthen the export production base, remove procedural irritants and facilitate input availability. In this context, a few key features of the new foreign trade policy that are expected to a give a major boost to the external sector are as follows.

A key highlight of the new trade policy is that the government has done away with the plethora of schemes that existed for export promotion and announced a simplified policy. The policy collapses five earlier schemes for goods exports into one single scheme and has announced another programme for promotion of services exports. The scheme for merchandise goods exports has been named the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) and services programme is called the Service Exports from India Scheme (SEIS). These schemes are expected to give a major boost to forward shipments and boost services sectors like medical tourism and accountancy. It is expected that the exporters will gain much more from these two schemes which are different from the export promotion sops that existed in the earlier policy.

With the objective of giving a serious push to the Make in India initiative, the government has provided higher level of rewards under MIES exports with high domestic content and value addition. The government has also reduced the export obligation for capital goods purchased from Indian suppliers under the Export Promotion Capital Goods Scheme which will give a major boost to the domestic capital goods industry. This initiative will help exporters develop their productive capacities for both domestic and international consumption.

An important element of India’s Foreign Trade have been the special economic zones which were announced with a lot of fanfare in April 2000. This was done with a view to attract larger foreign investments as well as to overcome the shortcomings experienced on account of the multiplicity of controls and clearances; absence of world-class infrastructure, and an unstable fiscal regime. However, the recently released report of the CAG has critiqued SEZ policy pointing out that they have failed to perform their stated purpose of job creation, and have been reduced in many instances to fraudulent land deals. Therefore, in an effort to revive the floundering special economic zones, the government has extended the incentive schemes for both goods and services (MEIS and SEIS) to units in SEZs as well. This has been done with the hope that this measure will give the much needed impetus to the development and growth of SEZs in the country.

Furthermore, the new policy, apart from focusing on rationalizing tariff structures to enable India to be a part of the mega regionals like Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), has also emphasized on reviving the multilateral system led by the WTO. Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman emphasized that the WTO rules envisage the eventual phasing out of all export subsidies. That is why the new policy is intending to reduce the number of export promotion schemes. This would finally help India phase out the export subsidies. This is considered to be essential to make Indian exports and services internationally competitive. Another area where India’s foreign trade suffers is its poor image because of the quality of its products. The Made in India brand is not well established outside. The new FTP has talked of focusing on quality and standards and make India brand zero defect products. However, the policy does not spell out specific measures to ensure and enhance quality.

Other positive features of the policy include an attempt to achieve greater policy coherence and mainstreaming of all export incentive schemes by the department of commerce. The department will now urge State governments to prepare their own export strategies based on the FTP to boost exports from States. Trade facilitation and ease of doing business by way of online filing of documents and emphasis on paperless trade is another good feature of the FTP.

Undoubtedly, the new foreign trade policy has made an earnest effort to boost India’s external sector and help prepare India to a rapidly changing global environment. In a developing country like India, services constitute one of the fastest growing sector, contributing to more than 50 percent of India’s GDP. Therefore, giving a boost to this sector is commendable. If China is considered to be the world’s manufacturing powerhouse, the same status is given to India in the service sector. Given this backdrop, the FTP has given a further leg-up to the service sector.

Now, the government should try to implement the new policy as quickly and efficiently as possible as it is time India started to make a mark on world markets. In this era of globalisation and marketisation, there is no substitute to export-led growth. Realising this, the new FTP has certainly given the right push and direction to India’s foreign trade. It is a welcome relief to see that economic reforms on the trade front are back on track and in full swing.

*The writer is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi

The post India’s New Foreign Trade Policy: Going For The Big Push – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

I MUST start with a shocking confession: I am not afraid of the Iranian nuclear bomb.

I know that this makes me an abnormal person, almost a freak.

But what can I do? I am unable to work up fear, like a real Israeli. Try as I may, the Iranian bomb does not make me hysterical.

MY FATHER once taught me how to withstand blackmail: imagine that the awful threat of the blackmailer has already come about. Then you can tell him: Go to hell.

I have tried many times to follow this advice and found it sound. So now I apply it to the Iranian bomb: I imagine that the worst has already happened: the awful ayatollahs have got the bombs that can eradicate little Israel in a minute.

So what?

According to foreign experts, Israel has several hundred nuclear bombs (assessments vary between 80-400. If Iran sends its bombs and obliterates most of Israel (myself included), Israeli submarines will obliterate Iran. Whatever I might think about Binyamin Netanyahu, I rely on him and our security chiefs to keep our “second strike” capability intact. Just last week we were informed that Germany had delivered another state-of-the-art submarine to our navy for this purpose.

Israeli idiots – and there are some around – respond: “Yes, but the Iranian leaders are not normal people. They are madmen. Religious fanatics. They will risk the total destruction of Iran just to destroy the Zionist state. Like exchanging queens in chess.”

Such convictions are the outcome of decades of demonizing. Iranians – or at least their leaders – are seen as subhuman miscreants.

Reality shows us that the leaders of Iran are very sober, very calculating politicians. Cautious merchants in the Iranian bazaar style. They don’t take unnecessary risks. The revolutionary fervor of the early Khomeini days is long past, and even Khomeini would not have dreamt of doing anything so close to national suicide.

ACCORDING TO the Bible, the great Persian king Cyrus allowed the captive Jews of Babylon to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple. At that time, Persia was already an ancient civilization – both cultural and political.

After the “return from Babylon”, the Jewish commonwealth around Jerusalem lived for 200 years under Persian suzerainty. I was taught in school that these were happy years for the Jews.

Since then, Persian culture and history has lived through another two and a half millennia. Persian civilization is one of the oldest in the world. It has created a great religion and influenced many others, including Judaism. Iranians are fiercely proud of that civilization.

To imagine that the present leaders of Iran would even contemplate risking the very existence of Persia out of hatred of Israel is both ridiculous and megalomaniac.

Moreover, throughout history, relations between Jews and Persians have almost always been excellent. When Israel was founded, Iran was considered a natural ally, part of David Ben-Gurion’s “strategy of the periphery” – an alliance with all the countries surrounding the Arab world.

The Shah, who was re-installed by the American and British secret services, was a very close ally. Teheran was full of Israeli businessmen and military advisers. It served as a base for the Israeli agents working with the rebellious Kurds in northern Iraq who were fighting against the regime of Saddam Hussein.

After the Islamic revolution, Israel still supported Iran against Iraq in their cruel 8-year war. The notorious Irangate affair, in which my friend Amiram Nir and Oliver North played such an important role, would not have been possible without the old Iranian-Israeli ties.

Even now, Iran and Israel are conducting amiable arbitration proceedings about an old venture: the Eilat-Ashkelon oil pipeline built jointly by the two countries.

If the worst comes to the worst, nuclear Israel and nuclear Iran will live in a Balance of Terror.

Highly unpleasant, indeed. But not an existential menace.

HOWEVER, FOR those who live in terror of the Iranian nuclear capabilities, I have a piece of advice: use the time we still have.

Under the American-Iranian deal, we have at least 10 years before Iran could start the final phase of producing the bomb.

Please use this time for making peace.

The Iranian hatred of the “Zionist Regime” – the State of Israel – derives from the fate of the Palestinian people. The feeling of solidarity for the helpless Palestinians is deeply ingrained in all Islamic peoples. It is part of the popular culture in all of them. It is quite real, even if the political regimes misuse, manipulate or ignore it.

Since there is no ground for a specific Iranian hatred of Israel, it is solely based on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No conflict, no enmity.

Logic tells us: if we have several years before we have to live in the shadow of an Iranian nuclear bomb, let’s use this time to eliminate the conflict. Once the Palestinians themselves declare that they consider the historic conflict with Israel settled, no Iranian leadership will be able to rouse its people against us.

FOR SEVERAL weeks now, Netanyahu has been priding himself publicly on a huge, indeed historic, achievement.

For the first time ever, Israel is practically part of an Arab alliance.

Throughout the region, the conflict between Muslim Sunnis and Muslim Shiites is raging. The Shiite camp, headed by Iran, includes the Shiites in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. (Netanyahu falsely – or out of ignorance – includes the Sunni Hamas in this camp.)

The opposite Sunni camp includes Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Gulf states. Netanyahu hints that Israel is now secretly accepted by them as a member.

It is a very untidy picture. Iran is fighting against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, which is a mortal enemy of Israel. Iran is supporting the Assad regime in Damascus, which is also supported by Hezbollah, which fights against the lslamic State, while the Saudis support other extreme Sunni Syrians who fight against Assad and the Islamic State. Turkey supports Iran and the Saudis while fighting against Assad. And so on.

I am not enamored with Arab military dictatorships and corrupt monarchies. Frankly, I detest them. But if Israel succeeds in becoming an official member of any Arab coalition, it would be a historic breakthrough, the first in 130 years of Zionist-Arab conflict.

However, all Israeli relations with Arab countries are secret, except those with Egypt and Jordan, and even with these two the contacts are cold and distant, relations between the regimes rather than between the peoples.

Let’s face facts: no Arab state will engage in open and close cooperation with Israel before the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is ended. Even kings and dictators cannot afford to do so. The solidarity of their peoples with the oppressed Palestinians is far too profound.

Real peace with the Arab countries is impossible without peace with the Palestinian people, as peace with the Palestinian people is impossible without peace with the Arab countries.

So if there is now a chance to establish official peace with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, and to turn the cold peace with Egypt into a real one, Netanyahu should jump at it. The terms of an agreement are already lying on the table: the Saudi peace plan, also called the Arab Initiative, which was adopted many years ago by the entire Arab League. It is based on the two-state solution of the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Netanyahu could amaze the whole world by “doing a de Gaulle” – making peace with the Sunni Arab world (as de Gaulle did with Algeria) which would compel the Shiites to follow suit.

Do I believe in this? I do not. But if God wills it, even a broomstick can shoot.

And on the day of the Jewish Pesach feast, commemorating the (imaginary) exodus from Egypt, we are reminding ourselves that miracles do happen.

The post Who’s Afraid Of Iran’s Big Bad Bomb? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

At approximately 5.30 AM on Thursday April 2, 2015, a group of heavily armed gunmen from the Somali al-Shabab militant organization invaded the eastern Kenyan campus of Garissa University College, shooting students sleeping in their dormitories and taking others hostage. According to witnesses, the militants specifically targeted Christian students.

The 15 hour siege ended when Kenyan security forces killed the gunmen. The attack on Garissa left at least 147 people dead, and at least 79 people injured. Garissa, which is 90 miles from the Kenyan border with Somalia, represents the latest bloody round in Kenya’s troubled relationship with its neighbour, and it also represents an increase in political risk for China’s continued economic engagement with Africa.

Al-Shabab had previously struck Kenya in September 2013, when an attack by its militants on Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall left 67 people dead. 312 people were killed by al-Shabab in Kenya between 2012-14, including the Westgate victims. The Garissa massacre was the second most deadly terrorist attack in Kenya since al-Qaeda’s 1998 bombing of the American embassy in Nairobi, which left 213 people dead. Terrorism experts fear Garissa marks a further escalation in al-Shabab’s campaign of violence.1

The Globalization of Terror

Al-Shabab, which is Arabic for “the youth,” first came to power as the youth wing of Somalia’s Union of Islamic Courts, a militant alliance which controlled Mogadishu in 2006, until it was ousted through Ethiopian military intervention. The Ethiopian troops left Mogadishu in 2009, and they were replaced by a regional African Union peacekeeping force, which included Kenyan and Ugandan troops. In 2010 al-Shabab conducted its first attack on foreign soil, staging suicide bombings in Uganda. Attacks in Kenya were met with further Kenyan military intervention in Somalia, and this was reciprocated with an escalation of al-Shabab violence in Kenya, including the Westgate and Garissa massacres.2

Al-Shabab has benefitted from the globalization of terrorism, with its ranks of local fighters strengthened with foreign jihadists, including some from the US and Europe.3 Its original leaders had forged ties with al-Qaeda and its regional branch al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. This alliance has shifted with the declaration in June 2014 of the establishment of a caliphate by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, with the emergence in al-Shabab of factions favoring an alliance with the Islamic State. This has been facilitated by US drone strikes that have assassinated al-Shabab leaders like Ahmed Godane and Adan Garaar, clearing the space for the rise of a new group of leaders.4 While the US War on Terror has managed to suppress the activities of al-Qaeda, the Islamic State has grown its caliphate in a remarkably short period of time.

The Islamic State’s carefully cultivated image of jihadist violence and military prowess has been vigorously propagated through social media, thereby capturing the imagination of jihadists around the world.5 (Interestingly the Islamic State could have learnt its propaganda strategy from Al-Shabab.6) The Islamic State’s successful establishment of a caliphate in particular has excited impatient jihadists who had grown weary of al-Qaeda’s admonishment that the task of jihad would take a century.7

With the weakening of al-Shabab’s original leadership, the organization is poised to be taken over by leaders who seek to replace their previous alliance with al-Qaeda with an alliance with the Islamic State. Indeed, the Islamic State itself seeks such an alliance, as this will expand its caliphate into the Horn of Africa.8

The Islamic State hence has officially called on Abu Ubaidah, the emir of al-Shabab in Somalia, to swear allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Caliph of the Islamic State. If al-Shabab does form an alliance with the Islamic State, this could lead to an influx of the Islamic State’s foreign fighters seeking to expand the caliphate’s East African territory, thereby escalating the jihadist violence in the region.9

Liu Xianfa, China’s ambassador to Kenya, has swiftly condemned the massacre at Garissa, and reiterated China’s staunch support for Kenya’s fight against terrorism.10 China has good reason to oppose Al-Shabab and the globalization of terrorism, as it has in recent years become the victim of global terror. Jihadist terror in China is centered in the northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where hundreds of disgruntled locals have reportedly crossed the mountainous southern borders of China to travel to the Islamic State to receive training and experience in jihadist warfare.

This has been exacerbated by condemnations from both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State for China’s harsh treatment of its Uyghur Muslim population, and the Islamic State’s inclusion of Xinjiang in its map of its vision of a global caliphate. The Chinese government has blamed the recent rash of domestic terrorist attacks, including the 2013 Tiananmen Square and 2014 Kunming train station attacks, on Uyghur Muslim militants, and used these to justify a deeper crackdown on the community.11

Ironically, in the case of al-Shabab, it appears that the growing Chinese market for ivory has contributed to the group’s expansion. An investigation into the group’s funding has discovered that the illegal trade in ivory is one of its key sources of funding, with al-Shabab earning between 200,000 to 600,000 USD each month from ivory.12 China is one of the top Asian markets for illegal raw ivory, and the product sells for between 1,500 to 2,865 USD per kilogram. Following the government’s recent crackdown on luxury gift-giving, ivory carvings have risen in popularity as relatively safer gifts for government officials to exchange.13 The threat posed by al-Shabab to Chinese interests in East Africa would offer an important justification for the government to crack down on this trade.

The Risks to China’s East African Interests

With its increased economic engagement in countries affected by terrorism, China has to weigh the risks facing its investments against the potential benefits. In the case of Somalia, despite its short-term dangers, China sees a partner for long-term economic engagement.

On October 12, 2014, China reopened its embassy in Mogadishu, which it had closed 23 years earlier in 1991 upon the outbreak of the Somali civil war.14 (The risk China has accepted with this reengagement is reflected in the car bombing that occurred in Mogadishu the very day China announced its plan to reopen its embassy.15) This diplomatic reengagement has been accompanied with a program of economic rehabilitation, including emergency cash aid as well as much-needed infrastructural development and the rebuilding of the country’s health and education systems.16

In contrast to Somalia, Kenya is of greater immediate economic importance for China, as is seen in its strategic location on China’s 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.17 Kenya’s importance to China is also reflected in its debt to China, which has recently surpassed 100 billion Kenyan shillings. (As of this time of writing, 1000 Kenyan shillings are worth 66 Chinese Renminbi.) This debt has been used to finance infrastructural projects, including the Chinese-built Mombasa-Nairobi standard gauge railway, and is expected to increase to 2.9 trillion Kenyan shillings in 2015.18 These infrastructural development projects are having a multiplier effect on the Kenyan economy.

In 2015 the Chinese steel company Sinosteel agreed to invest in a multibillion Kenyan shilling steel mill, to feed the growing demand for steel generated by infrastructural projects in Kenya and the region.19 Chinese investment in Kenya is not just at the level of infrastructural development. The Chinese government has just launched its fourth Confucius Institute in the country, at Moi University in Eldoret in western Kenya. This new Confucius Institute partners Donghua University in Shanghai, and while it offers the standard curriculum in Chinese language and culture, it also draws on Donghua University’s and Moi University’s strengths in textile science to accelerate cooperative ventures in fashion and textiles.20

While these projects face the threat of al-Shabab’s unpredictable violence, terrorism is not the only source of risk for Chinese investments in Kenya. In a recent incident, a Chinese restaurant inflamed anti-Chinese public sentiment by implementing a “no Africans after 5 PM” policy. Its public relations manager worsened the situation by explaining that this policy was implemented because the Chinese customers were afraid that an African patron could be an al-Shabab terrorist.21 The restaurant was promptly shut down and its Chinese owner arrested for not having a valid restaurant license.22 The Chinese embassy in Kenya had to repair the damage by issuing a public statement of regret and sternly warning other Chinese enterprises in the country against such misconduct. 23 However, public opinion in Kenya could turn against the Chinese again when the Venice Biennale opens in May 2015, as the artists presented at the Kenyan pavilion, including Qin Feng, Shi Jinsong, Li Zhanyang, Lan Zheng Hui, and Li Gang, are almost all Chinese artists who have never been to Africa nor refer to Africa in their artworks. The same happened at the previous Venice Biennale in 2013. This has already raised anger on Kenyan social media, and unhappy Kenyan artists are planning to stage protests at the exhibition when it opens.24

Potentially the most serious threat to Chinese investment in Kenya, outside of a terrorist attack, comes from Kenya’s anti-corruption police, who have recently detailed allegations of corruption against government officials. Some of these involve Chinese infrastructural projects including the Mombasa-Nairobi standard gauge railway. Five government ministers have already been asked to take a temporary leave of office, and the full fallout of the investigation is still to unfold.25 The Chinese government will have to keep track of these unfolding events as they could potentially have a significant impact on the progress of Chinese investment projects in the country.

About the author:
*Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim is a research fellow with the Longus Institute for Development and Strategy, and is the author of Cambodia and the Politics of Aesthetics (Routledge 2013). He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and has taught at Pannasastra University of Cambodia and the American University of Nigeria.

Email: alvinch@hawaii.edu

Web: https://manoa-hawaii.academia.edu/AlvinLim

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Hatcher, Jessica and Sieff, Kevin. “Al-Shabab attacks Kenyan university, killing at least 147.” The Washington Post, April 2, 2015. Accessed April 3, 2015. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/70-killed-hundreds-rescued-after-kenya-university-attack-by-al-shabab-militants/2015/04/02/0c554516-d951-11e4-ba28-f2a685dc7f89_story.html.

Hellyer, Caroline. “ISIL courts al-Shabab as al-Qaeda ties fade away.” Al Jazeera, March 23, 2015. Accessed April 3, 2015. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/03/isil-eyes-east-africa-foments-division-150322130940108.html.

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Seldin, Jeff. “IS Likely Trying to Add al-Shabab to Its Ranks.” VOA, March 26, 2015. Accessed April 3, 2015. http://www.voanews.com/content/islamic-state-likely-trying-to-add-al-shabab-to-its-ranks/2695501.html.

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Wahito, Margaret. “Chinese steel maker to open mega plant in Kenya.” Capital FM Kenya, March 30, 2015. Accessed April 3, 2015. http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/business/2015/03/chinese-steel-maker-to-open-mega-plant-in-kenya/.

Wangalwa, Elayne. “Kenya Owes China Billions.” CNBC Africa, March 31, 2015. Accessed April 3, 2015. http://www.cnbcafrica.com/news/east-africa/2015/03/31/kenya-china-debt/.

Warner, Gregory. “Why Are Chinese Artists Representing Kenya At The Venice Biennale?” NPR, March 30, 2015. Accessed April 3, 2015. http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2015/03/30/396391120/why-are-chinese-artists-representing-kenya-at-the-venice-biennale.

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Notes:
1. Jessica Hatcher and Kevin Sieff, “Al-Shabab attacks Kenyan university, killing at least 147,” The Washington Post, April 2, 2015, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/70-killed-hundreds-rescued-after-kenya-university-attack-by-al-shabab-militants/2015/04/02/0c554516-d951-11e4-ba28-f2a685dc7f89_story.html. Jon Schuppe, “How Somalia’s Al Shabab Grew Into a Global Terror Threat,” NBC News, April 2, 2015, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/how-somalias-al-shabab-grew-global-terror-threat-n334856.
2. Schuppe, “How Somalia’s Al Shabab.” “Who are Somalia’s al-Shabab?” BBC, April 2, 2015, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-15336689.
3. “Who are Somalia’s.”
4. Jeff Seldin, “IS Likely Trying to Add al-Shabab to Its Ranks,” VOA, March 26, 2015, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.voanews.com/content/islamic-state-likely-trying-to-add-al-shabab-to-its-ranks/2695501.html.
5. Natalie Andrews and Felicia Schwartz, “Islamic State Pushes Social-Media Battle With West,” Wall Street Journal, August 22, 2014, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/isis-pushes-social-media-battle-with-west-1408725614. “More than 25,000 foreign fighters joining groups like Nusra and IS: UN,” Middle East Eye, April 3, 2015, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/more-25000-foreign-fighters-joining-groups-nusra-and-un-2032312568.
6. Joyce Hackel, “Al-Shabab are masters of terror — and masters of the media,” Public Radio International, April 2, 2015, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-04-02/al-shabab-are-masters-terror-and-masters-media.
7. Harun Maruf, “Experts Say al-Shabab-Islamic State Linkup ‘Unlikely,’” VOA, March 18, 2015, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.voanews.com/content/experts-say-al-shabab-islamic-state-linkup-unlikely/2684247.html.
8. “Will Somalia’s Al Shabaab take similar steps of Boko Haram to join ISIS,” Horseed Media, March 12, 2015, accessed April 3, 2015, http://horseedmedia.net/2015/03/12/will-somalias-al-shabaab-take-similar-steps-of-boko-haram-to-join-is/.
9. Caroline Hellyer, “ISIL courts al-Shabab as al-Qaeda ties fade away,” Al Jazeera, March 23, 2015, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/03/isil-eyes-east-africa-foments-division-150322130940108.html. Sahra Abdi Ahmed, “Ex-Shabab Official Claims al-Qaida Ties Dissolved,” VOA, April 1, 2015, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.voanews.com/content/ex-shabab-official-claims-al-qaida-ties-dissolved/2702697.html. “Somalia: al-Shabaab leaders in squabble over joining IS,” Horseed Media, March 5, 2015, accessed April 3, 2015, http://horseedmedia.net/2015/03/05/somalia-al-shabaab-leaders-in-squabble-over-joining-is/.
10. Chinese ambassador condemns terrorist attack on Kenyan university,” Xinhua, April 3, 2015, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.ecns.cn/2015/04-03/160596.shtml.
11. Jack Moore, “Xinjiang’s Uighur Muslims Receiving ‘Terrorist Training’ From Isis Fighters for Attacks in China,” International Business Times, September 22, 2014, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/xinjiangs-uighur-muslims-receiving-terrorist-training-isis-fighters-attacks-china-1466594. Zachary Keck, “Al-Qaeda Declares War on China, Too,” The Diplomat, October 22, 2014, accessed April 3, 2015, http://thediplomat.com/2014/10/al-qaeda-declares-war-on-china-too/. Katie Hunt, “China executes Tiananmen Square attack ‘masterminds,’” CNN, August 25, 2014, accessed April 3, 2015, http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/24/world/asia/china-tiananmen-executions/. Katie Hunt, “China executes three for railway knife attack,” CNN, March 24, 2015, accessed April 3, 2015, http://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/24/asia/china-kunming-executions/.
12. Nir Kalron and Andrea Crosta, “Africa’s White Gold of Jihad: al-Shabaab and Conflict Ivory: An Undercover Investigation on Ivory and Terrorism,” Elephant Action League, 2011-12, accessed April 3, 2015, http://elephantleague.org/project/africas-white-gold-of-jihad-al-shabaab-and-conflict-ivory/.
13. Gwynn Guilford, “China’s lust for ivory isn’t just slaughtering elephants. It’s also destabilizing Africa,” Quartz, August 7, 2013, accessed April 3, 2015, http://qz.com/112789/chinas-lust-for-ivory-isnt-just-slaughtering-elephants-its-also-destabilizing-africa/. Laurel Neme, “Al Shabaab and the Human Toll of the Illegal Ivory Trade,” National Geographic, October 3, 2013, accessed April 3, 2015, http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/10/03/al-shabaab-and-the-human-toll-of-the-illegal-ivory-trade/.
14. “China reopens embassy in Mogadishu after 23 years hiatus,” Xinhua, October 13, 2014, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2014-10/13/content_18730261.htm.
15. Janise Elie, “Somalia car bomb rips through market as China unveils embassy plans,” The Guardian, June 30, 2014, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jun/30/car-bomb-somalia-mogadishu-china-embassy.
16. “China donates $13 million to Somalia,” Horseed Media, April 1, 2015, accessed April 3, 2015, http://horseedmedia.net/2015/04/01/china-donates-13-million-to-somalia/.
17. Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim, “Africa and China’s 21st Century Maritime Silk Road,” The Asia-Pacific Journal 13 (2015), accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.japanfocus.org/-Alvin_Cheng_Hin-Lim/4296.
18. Elayne Wangalwa, “Kenya Owes China Billions,” CNBC Africa, March 31, 2015, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.cnbcafrica.com/news/east-africa/2015/03/31/kenya-china-debt/.
19. Margaret Wahito, “Chinese steel maker to open mega plant in Kenya,” Capital FM Kenya, March 30, 2015, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/business/2015/03/chinese-steel-maker-to-open-mega-plant-in-kenya/.
20. “Confucius Institute to boost Kenya-China textile ties,” Fibre2fashion, April 1, 2015, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.fibre2fashion.com/news/textile-news/newsdetails.aspx?news_id=171510.
21. Njoki Chege, “Only ‘loyal’ African patrons are allowed in Chinese restaurant after sunset,” Daily Nation, March 23, 2015, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.nation.co.ke/counties/nairobi/Chinese-restaurant-no-African-after-5pm/-/1954174/2662642/-/svixtnz/-/index.html.
22. Murithi Mutiga, “‘No Africans’ Chinese restaurant owner arrested in Nairobi,” The Guardian, March 24, 2015, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/24/no-africans-restaurant-owner-arrested-nairobi-kenya?CMP=share_btn_tw.
23. “Spat over restaurant’s customer treatment not to affect Sino-Kenyan ties: embassy,” Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, March 30, 2015, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.focac.org/eng/zxxx/t1250452.htm.
24. Gregory Warner, “Why Are Chinese Artists Representing Kenya At The Venice Biennale?” NPR, March 30, 2015, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2015/03/30/396391120/why-are-chinese-artists-representing-kenya-at-the-venice-biennale.
25. “Kenya corruption watchdog implicates Chinese,” News24, March 31, 2015, accessed April 3, 2015, http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/Kenya-corruption-watchdog-implicates-Chinese-20150331.

The post Al-Shabab And The Garissa Massacre: Implications For China In East Africa – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

On 23rd June 2014 Andergachew Tsige was illegally detained at Sana’a airport in Yemen whilst travelling from Dubai to Eritrea on his British passport. He was swiftly handed over to the Ethiopian authorities, who had for years posted his name at the top of the regime’s most wanted list. Since then he has been detained incommunicado in a secret location inside Ethiopia. His ‘crime’ is the same as hundreds, perhaps thousands of other’s, publicly criticising the ruling party of Ethiopia, and their brutal form of governance.

Born in Ethiopia in 1955, Andergachew arrived in Britain aged 24, as a political refugee. He is a British citizen, a black working class British citizen with a wife and three children. Despite repeated efforts by his family and the wider Ethiopian community – including demonstrations, petitions and a legal challenge – the British government (which is the third biggest donor to Ethiopia, giving around £376 million a year in aid), have done little or nothing to secure this innocent man’s release, or ensure his safe treatment whilst in detention.

After nine months of official indifference, trust and faith in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is giving way to cynicism and anger amongst Tsige’s supporters. Is the FCO’s apathy due to his colour, his ‘type’ or ‘level’ of Britishness, is there a hierarchy of citizenship in Britain? If he had been born in England, to white, middle class parents, attended the right schools (educated privately as over half the British cabinet was) and forged the right social connections, would he be languishing in an Ethiopian prison, where he is almost certainly being tortured, abused and mistreated?

Consistently ignored

Tsige is the secretary general of Ginbot 7, a campaign group which fiercely opposes the policies of the Ethiopian party-state, controlled for 24 years by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). It highlights the regime’s many and varied human-rights violations and calls for adherence to liberal ideals of justice and freedom, as enshrined in the country’s constitution—a broadly democratic piece of fiction which is consistently ignored by the ruling party (even through the EPRDF wrote it).

Political dissent inside Ethiopia has been criminalised in all but name by the EPRDF. Freedom of assembly, of expression, and of the media, are all denied, so too affiliation to opposition parties. Aid that flows through the government is distributed on a partisan basis, so too employment opportunities and university places. The media is almost exclusively state owned, Internet access (which at 2% of the population is the lowest in Sub-Saharan Africa), is monitored and restricted; the government would criminalise thought if they could.
The population lives under suffocating repression and fear and the vast majority appear to despise the government. Human rights are ignored and acts of state violence– some of which, according to human rights groups, constitute crimes against humanity – are commonplace. Such is the reality of life inside the country for the vast majority. It is this stifling reality of daily suffering which drives Tsige and other members of Ginbot 7, forcing them to speak out—action that has cost him his liberty.

For challenging the EPRDF, in 2009 and 2012, he was charged under the notorious Anti-Terrorist Proclamation of 2009, tried in absentia and given the death penalty. The judiciary in Ethiopia is constitutionally and morally bound to independence, but in practice it operates as an unjust arm of the EPRDF. The judiciary in Ethiopia is constitutionally and morally bound to independence but in practice it operates as an unjust arm of the EPRDF. A trial where the defendant is not present violates the second principle of natural justice, audi alteram partem (hear the other party) – and is therefore illegitimate. Such legal niceties, however, mean nothing to the EPRDF, who have dutifully signed up to all manner of international covenants, but ignore them all. The regime likes trying its detractors who live overseas (activists, journalists, political opponents) in their absence and securing outrageous judgements against them, particularly the death penalty or life imprisonment. They rule, as all such groups do, by the cultivation of that ancient tool of control: fear.

British complicity

Given the nature of the EPRDF government, little in the way of justice, compassion and fairness can be expected, in relation to Tsige, or indeed anyone else in custody. Self-deluding and immune to criticism, the EPRDF distorts the truth and justifies violent acts of repression and false imprisonment as safeguarding their country from ‘terrorism’. The only form of terrorism rampaging through Ethiopia is State terrorism, perpetrated by the EPRDF and their vicious thugs, in and out of uniform.

Andergachew Tsige is a UK citizen and the UK government has a constitutional and moral responsibility to act energetically and forcefully on his behalf; to their shame, so far the FCO and the coalition government more broadly, have been consistently woeful in their efforts. In February a delegation of parliamentarians, led by Jeremy Corbyn, his local MP, was due to visit Ethiopia in an effort to secure his release. But the trip was abandoned after a meeting with the Ethiopian ambassador. A member of the team, Lord Dholakia, vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Ethiopia, said it was made clear that they would not be welcome: the ambassador reportedly told them “that there was no need for them to go to Ethiopia as the case is being properly handled by the courts”.

Again – nonsense: Andergachew is yet to be formally charged, has been denied contact with his British solicitors, as well as consular support, and has received only one brief visit from the British ambassador, in August; a meeting controlled fully by the Ethiopians. The FCO have said they “remain deeply concerned about Ethiopia’s refusal to allow regular consular visits to Mr. Tsege and his lack of access to a lawyer, and are concerned that others seeking to visit him have also been refused access.” So why are you not acting, using your ‘special’ position to secure this innocent man’s release: do something, is the cry of the family, the community and all right minded people.

At what point, does neglect in the face of injustice and abuse become complicity? If a Government allows illegal detention and the violation of international justice to take place and says and acts not, are they not guilty in aiding and abetting such actions? If Governments give funds to a ruling party – the EPRDF – that is killing, raping, imprisoning and torturing its own citizens, and they do and say nothing – as the British, the American’s, and the European Union do, even though they know what’s happening – they are, it is clear, complicit in the crimes being committed.

The post Ethiopian Brutality, British Apathy – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

(EurActiv) — EU envoys to Macedonia blamed the Gruevski government for leading the country towards catastrophe, urging those in power, and the opposition, to agree on a roadmap that would prevent the Balkan state from exploding. However, they recognise that such a dialogue is hardly possible.

Two high-level personalities who regularly contribute to EU decision-making regarding Macedonia made statements Thursday (2 April) in front of a small audience. They asked not to be identified, so that they could express themselves freely.

‘Incredible mistrust’

One of the officials described as “incredible” the level of mistrust in the small Balkan country since leaked wiretapped conversations revealed gross cronyism, corruption, vote rigging and autocratic practices.

Macedonian political parties will probably not find a way to engage in constructive dialogue, or in any kind of dialogue, he said, referring to the ruling VMRO-DPMNE of Prime Minister Grievski, and the Socialist opposition, led by Zoran Zaev.

The EU should be engaged in facilitation of such dialogue, he added, explaining that an attempt would be made in two weeks’ time to see if the parties are ready to shape “their contribution to the compromise”.

It is unacceptable to delay further the start of negotiations. It is not moral. It is extremely stupid, he said.

The differences are very deep, the distrust is incredible, the animosity is very strong and there are all kinds of threats, the speaker added, hinting that the EU role in trying to find a political solution was not going to be easy.

Macedonia has already been through a very dramatic period, he said, referring to armed conflict between the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army and Macedonian security forces, which was stopped by the Western-brokered Ohrid Agreement of 2001.

He warned that in a certain situation, when there would be no tangible European prospect, this interethnic relation could explode in a very serious manner.

The official also said that it was likely that this time the European Commission would not propose the start of accession negotiations. In its ‘Progress Reports’ in 2013 and 2014, the Commission recommended that such negotiations be opened, but this recommendation was not followed by the Council, where member states sit, because of the ‘name dispute’ with Greece.

The official said that the country’s political elite should be aware that Macedonia could suffer such setback. Reports are normally due in the autumn.

Gruevski government under fire

A second official was even blunter and more critical towards the ruling party, which in his words “ignores the importance of political dialogue”.

He blamed the Gruevski government for the crackdown on media freedom, stating that according to the Media Freedom Index of Reporters without Borders, Macedonia has gone down from 34th place to 134th place, just above Angola.

Similarly, he deplored the violence in the country on 24 December 2012, when all the opposition MPs were expelled from the Parliament, together with journalists.

For many in the EU, this had been a red line in terms of the democratic process, he said, adding that a mission by the then-Enlargement commissioner Štefan Füle was dispatched and produced a report, which he said had been completely ignored by the governing party.

The official said he didn’t hold up much hope for this mediation, but said it was worth giving it a try.

Lack of political culture

The official spoke of a “lack of political culture” and “lack of maturity” which he said was extremely serious given the interethnic dimension. He referred to a very recent Macedonian law authorising police to use rubber bullets against protestors, which even Northern Ireland excluded during the so-called “Troubles” between 1968 and 1998.

A new draft law was directly directed against the Albanian minority, he said, calling it “another knife in the back of interethnic relations”. He explained that it had not been passed because the junior coalition partner had refused to accept it.

“But this is another example of the lack of sensitivity of the ruling party towards the interethnic issues and toward the broader situation,” the official said.

Regarding the wiretapping scandal, the official said that in any normal society, the government would have resigned. “But this is not a normal democratic society,” he added.

He said that Gruevski’s government continues to deny the revelations of the wiretaps, saying that this was the work of foreign intelligence services.

The official said that nobody in the international community believed one word of that assertion, and explaining that it was standard practice for Gruevski to invoke foreign intelligence, including when he arrested over 15 people, including the head of cabinet of the Parliament’s speaker, for alleged espionage.

He explained that this was the way for the government to divert attention from the content, before turning to the content of the leaked wiretaps.

He called the wiretaps, translations of which already exist, “absolutely appalling”. He said that the language that was used, the “racist tone”, the “bigoted tone”, whether talking about Roma voters, the way the Minister of Interior refers to Roma voters talking to the head of security who is the cousin of the Prime Minister, “is nothing short of racist”.

Among the other examples he provided were the “dirty tricks of vote rigging that wouldn’t be out of place in Chicago in the 1930s”, as well as the revelations of kickbacks from tendering, the most blatant being with Chinese companies, referred to by Gruevski as “the yellow people”.

“He [Gruevski] talks about 15 million kickbacks for each of the contracts, and now the latest revelations refer to the kickbacks the head of the security received from the Israeli intelligence,” he said, referring to the wiretapping equipment which was sold to Macedonia by Israel.

The official said there were also references of judicial appointments. “You name it – it’s all in there,” he said, adding that all voices were highly identifiable and that none of those wiretapped had refuted their authenticity.

Diplomats told EurActiv that what the EU would try to press upon Gruevski is that he accepts a one-year transitional government to be put in place, to prepare for fair elections.

British Ambassdor Charles Garrett was even quoted on record saying something similar. Another idea is that an EU special envoy is appointed until a new democratically elected government takes over.

The post EU Envoys Warn Macedonia ‘Can Explode’ appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Abdulrazaq Magaji*

Appeasement! Hypocrisy! Patronising! These are three unrelated words but which, by some curious happenstance, permeate the conduct of politicians. Undesired as they are, especially in their usage to describe individuals, the three words constitute the essential commodities needed to make mouth-watering and eye-popping political sauce. Many politicians would resist being called hypocritical even when, at the end of the day, hypocrisy is at the heart of the game. As well as being hypocritical, ‘good’ politicians are deft at appeasement just as they could be patronising.

Your thoughts are valid: How does General Muhammadu Buhari fit in since he is believed to be decent and incorruptible? Your fears too are valid: Would the General, at 72, be able to restrain people around him from turning themselves into vultures? The answer to the posers lies in the name of the person we talking about. If the name Muhammadu Buhari is not reassuring enough, nothing else would! The much we know of the incoming vice president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, especially his austere lifestyle, inspires hope!

What does not inspire hope is the level of hypocrisy, appeasement and the desire to be patronising that characterised the outcome of the recently concluded presidential election. This arises from the way outgoing Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, is being portrayed as a gentleman, a patriot, a democrat and a man of peace all rolled in one. Some even cast him, wrongly if truth be told, in the mould of an agenda-setting national hero! The misplaced portrayal of Mr. Jonathan as the best thing to happen to Nigeria’s democracy flowed from his reluctant decision to congratulate incoming president, General Muhammadu Buhari.

Reluctant decision to concede defeat because the trashy speech he made on Tuesday alluded to ‘certain misgivings’ over the outcome of an election in which he was roundly thrashed. Of course, his handpicked agent at the collation centre, Mr. Peter Godsday Orubebe, a failed governorship aspirant in Delta state gave the world an inkling of the alleged misgivings when he sought to disrupt the collation exercise. Mr. Orubebe was one of the prominent and favoured members of Mr. Jonathan’s cabinet who got the president’s nod to run for office in their respective states. Certainly, Mr. Orubebe was not playing out his own script.

As if to confirm that Mr. Orubebe’s voice was his master’s, no statement came from the presidency to denounce what was clearly an invitation to anarchy. And when the semblance of a statement came, it was in the form of a presidential speech that lamely sought to justify Mr. Orubebe’s foolish act. Let’s put this straight: those who commend Mr. Jonathan for conceding forget, may be conveniently, that Mr. Jonathan had no option, anyway! Truth is, he had twenty four hours to avoid becoming an unwilling guest of ICC prosecutors at The Hague in the event of any election-violence. It is a secret of the market place that hate campaigns by Mr. Jonathan and some of his close confidants, among them his endowed wife, Patience, and Mr. Orubebe, have placed them on the radar of the ICC!

Mr. Jonathan may not look and sound sharp but, when it matters most, he is sharp enough to know what to do to save his skin. He knows that his conduct and that of his close confidants, including his wife, within the past month or so make it imperative for Mr. Jonathan to ensure a smooth handover. For most part of his better-forgotten years in office, Mr. Jonathan looked the other way as his handlers threatened war if he was not re-elected. Not even a whimper in the form of condemnation came from the out-going president when brigands from the Niger delta area, at the behest of supposed elders, held the nation by its jugular. The man who now fraudulently wishes to be identified as a democrat saw nothing wrong when his wife waddled round the country to preach her hate sermons.

It should surprise sane men that Mr. Jonathan had a sound sleep by the side of his wife the day she told the world that the story of the kidnapped schoolgirls in Chibok was stage-managed by opponents of the administration. A president who hit the road barely twenty four hours after a bomb blast killed dozens in Nyanya, a suburb of Nigeria’s federal capital city must have the heart of stone! Certainly, it is wrong for Nigerians to make a hero out of a villain who sought to score cheap political points from an insurgency that claimed more than thirteen thousand lives, injured many more thousands and virtually destroyed the fabric that held north eastern Nigeria.

If he has any moments of reflection, outgoing president, Goodluck Jonathan, would by now have realized that he dug his political grave by over indulging some people around him. Of course, Mr. Jonathan is weak in every sense of the world. In the six years he wasted the time of Nigerians, Mr. Jonathan projected himself as a man who was incapable of taking decisions. And, if truth be told, heroes are not made out of men who cannot rein-in over-bearing spouses!

It is not for fun that Mrs. Jonathan should accept the dishonour of sending her husband into premature political retirement. From her characteristic waddle to her unclassified okrika grammar, Mrs. Jonathan represented yet another classic example of how Nigeria became a stage for barely literate and unserious actors and actresses to play out their funny acts. While it lasted, Nigerians had good laugh at the antics of their clowning first lady but deep down, even those who ate from the crumbs off her table knew Mrs. Jonathan was incapable of any good.

That Mr. Jonathan retained his wife as a major plank of his campaign organisation after several public gaffes characterised by hate speech is a pointer to the kind of commander in chief Mr. Jonathan was. Who knows? May be the president did not even see his wife’s gaffes as anything serious! May be he even thought his wife was always right and Nigerians who cautioned her were always wrong! Whatever it was, the president’s failure to caution his wife or collapse her damaging campaigns, especially after she ordered opposition politicians to be stoned confirms the saying that birds of a plume flock together.

It has been suggested that the encomiums going the way of Mr. Jonathan is aimed at forcing a rethink on the part of misguided militants of Niger delta extraction who threatened war if Nigerians failed to re-elect their man. If it is true, then the commendations going the way of Mr. Jonathan are half-hearted and too patronising. It looks like we are all too desperate to hypocritically sound patronising in an effort to appease bandits in the Niger delta who threatened war in the event of a Jonathan defeat. It is important to pause to remind ourselves that it was this urge to appease the Niger delta that led to the emergence of the most incompetent leader to ever mount the political saddle in Nigeria.

We should be sincere enough to look Mr. Jonathan in the face and frankly tell him that he was a disaster as president. It is deceitful to refer to him as a hero and statesman when we all know the contrary is the truth. Mr. Jonathan is no one’s hero! He is no one’s statesman! Certainly, Mr. Jonathan is not my hero!

*Abdulrazaq Magaji lives in Abuja and can be reached at magaji777@yahoo.com

The post Not My Hero – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By D. S. Rajan*

China’s unresolved land and maritime border disputes with its neighbors continue to be a negative factor in bilateral relations among them; undeniably they also complicate the regional situation. What are the root causes of China’s territorial positions? Why certain disputes remain unsettled? Can such situation lead to future conflicts? Has China begun to work towards implementing an economic interests based foreign policy and if so, how that may impact on the country’s so far adopted core-interest based foreign policy resulting in its territorial assertiveness? These are some of the questions the following study attempts to address.

China, like India, has five thousand years of civilization and history; in both the countries, the roots of the present can always be traced to the past; a prominent instance in the case of China is the influence of China’s founding Emperor Qin Shihuang, on the thinking of the country’s architect, Mao Zedong.[1] Similar is the linkage seen between China’s traditional ‘’ Tian Xia” (Under the Heaven) concept and its current stand on ‘territorial sovereignty’. The concept considers that all the people and areas where they lived belong to the Chinese Emperor, the Son of God, who is in possession of mandate of heaven; regarding areas which are not under the control of the Emperor, their rulers derived their power from the Emperor. [2] It holds that the biggest political unit for the Chinese is the framework of ‘world/society’, not the ‘country or nation state’.[3]

2. One can clearly see the connection of the Tian Xia concept with the current sense of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on borders ; China has been ‘’grading all other states at various levels of tributaries based on their approximation to Chinese cultural and political forms and treating the borders between it and surrounding peoples as not so much political and territorial demarcations, but as cultural differentiations”.[4] Reflecting Chinese sense of territories, quite different from those of other civilizations, are authoritative maps published by the PRC in end eighties and in first decade of the current century which, while defining China’s modern borders as that existed during the Qing Dynasty period (1644-1911), described the extent of the country’s “historically lost” territories; they encompassed vast areas belonging to neighboring countries, including parts of India’s Northeast and Andamans. At the same time, clarifications that the PRC has no claims to these territories in a contemporary sense, accompanied the maps (The Historical Atlas of China, 1982-1987 and History of China’s Modern Borders, vol. 1, 2007). Worth mentioning in the context of historical boundaries, is also Mao’s description of Tibet as China’s “palm” and of Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, NEFA and Ladakh as China’s “five fingers”.

3. China’s penchant to compare its modern borders with those existed prior to the perceived ‘historical losses’ of territories is significant to understanding of the PRC’s current boundary issues. An authoritative article [5] (in Chinese language), noticed in 2005 is a case in point. It reiterated what the Historical Atlas of China mentioned above said about China’s modern borders as that existed during the Qing Dynasty period (1644-1911) and affirmed that borders of contemporary China must be seen as a continuity and succession from historic borders of the country. It further stated that the evolution of the country’s land and sea border areas was due to a multiplicity of factors like politics, military, geography, history, economy and culture. “Unless a composite view based on all factors, is taken, it may not be possible to correctly comprehend the nature of China’s borders”, it asserted. Notable also is the article’s contention that the central government had exercised absolute control over certain border territories though they had enjoyed political autonomy some times and that the border areas are of strategic importance to China, especially to counter military threat or armed aggression from abroad; this may go to justify China’s current stand on Tibet and Xinjiang, which were not formally a part of imperial China at times. With respect to sea boundaries, the article recognized the existence now of differing viewpoints internationally, but argued that it is necessary for the concerned nations to recognize China’s historical sea boundary in the background of its traditionally advanced coastal areas; this position may have a meaning with respect to China’s continuing claims over islands under dispute in South China Sea and East China Sea.

4. The PRC shares 22000 km land borders with 13 neighboring nations – the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam ( India’s contention is that China and Pakistan have no common border; China’s border is with a part of India’s Kashmir which is occupied by Pakistan). In this background, deserving focus are the following four key questions – why China is still unable to resolve land border issues with two of its neighbors- India and Bhutan (the PRC is not making the border with the DPRK an issue which needs to be understood in the context of special but complex ties existing between the two communist states), while it has been successful in settling disputes with others? Which of the contending neighbors gave border concessions to China during negotiations and why they did so? What are the cases when China had to yield to territorial demands from others during talks and what was its motivation in doing so? Lastly, why China has, in recent years, chosen a line of assertiveness towards its territorial claims and how that line is impacting on the regional security?

5. To examine why China still has unresolved territorial issues- three land borders with respect to India, Bhutan and the DPRK and the fourth one concerning sovereignty claims relating to maritime borders in East China Sea and South China Sea , a comprehension of relevant data would be necessary. Taking the Sino-Indian boundary problem first, a comparison of the positions of India and the PRC would be in order. India’s official stand is as under: “In the Eastern Sector, China claims approximately 90,000 square kilometers of Indian Territory in the State of Arunachal Pradesh. Indian Territory under the occupation of China in Jammu & Kashmir is approximately 38,000 sq. kms. In addition, under the so-called China-Pakistan Boundary Agreement signed between China and Pakistan on 2 March 1963, Pakistan illegally ceded 5,180 sq. kms. of Indian territory in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir to China. India and China are engaged in discussions to arrive at a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution to the boundary question at an early date”.[6] India holds that “there is no commonly delineated Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India and China. There are areas along the border where India and China have differing perceptions of the LAC. Due to both sides undertaking patrolling as per their respective perceptions of the LAC, transgressions do occur. The Indian government regularly takes up any transgression with the Chinese side through established mechanisms.[7]

6. China’s official border position [8] is as follows: “The China-India border has never been demarcated and that the Chinese government does not recognize the illegal 1914 Simla Convention agreement over McMahon line, reached by the British, Indian and the local Tibetan representatives behind the back of the Chinese government. Following independence, India inherited the British colonial legacy and in 1950s, advanced its border line with China to the McMahon line. In 1959, India also put forward its territorial claim on the Akssai Chin region of China’s Xinjiang, in the Western part of China-India border. After the China-India border war in 1962, the two countries formed the current line of control in their respective borders. The total length of China-India border is about 2000 kms. The border falls into three sectors- Eastern, Middle and Western. The total area of the region disputed by the two sides is about 125,000 sq.kms; about 90,000 sq.kms in the Eastern sector, about 2000 sq.kms in the Middle sector and about 33,000 sq.kms in the Western sector. In February 1987, India established the so called Arunachal Pradesh state largely on the three areas south of the so called McMahon line of China’s Tibet- Monyul, Loyul and Lower Tsayul , which are currently under Indian illegal occupation. These three areas located between the illegal McMahon line and the traditional customary boundary between China and India,, have always been Chinese territories. The Chinese side many times made solemn and just statements that it absolutely does not recognize the illegal McMahon line and the so-called Arunachal Pradesh state”. China also points [9] to the “consensus reached with India for a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution of the border issue through negotiation as well as to the two sides making up the principle of resolving the problem eventually as a package rather than step by step”.

7. One can easily see in what has been said above the deep positional differences between India and China on the border issue. They are the main reason for the issue remaining alive with no immediate prospects for a solution. Admittedly, negotiations held so far between the two sides could lead to some progress; important bilateral agreements signed by them include those on “Maintenance of Peace and Tranquility along the Line of Actual Control in the India-China Border Areas (1993), , “ Agreement on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for Settling Border Question (2005), “ Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs” (2012) and “Border Defence Cooperation Agreement” ( 2013). The two sides have agreed on a three-step strategy for border settlement – making the guiding principle, then setting up a frame work agreement to implement the guiding principle and lastly, solving the border issue. Regarding the first, they have already reached the 2005 agreement mentioned above. There is still no consensus on the second. There have so far been eighteen meetings of Special Representatives of the two countries to discuss the disputed border – last one in New Delhi in March 2015.

8. In general, deserving recognition are the efforts being taken by India and China to diffuse the border tension; they need to be understood in the context of an apparent China-India understanding that the boundary problem is complicated, requiring a long time to solve and that in the meanwhile, bilateral ties should be promoted in other fields, particularly in the economic front. Tibet issue is indirectly related to India-China boundary issue. If China is able to effectively deal with the question of the Dalai Lama, who is in exile in India with a large Tibetan ethnic refugee population, the atmosphere can perhaps ultimately become conducive to a resolution of China-India border issue; that looks difficult at this stage.

9. The unresolved China –Bhutan border issue, also requires attention. The two nations have no diplomatic ties, but bilateral negotiations to settle the nearly 470 km border shared by them are in progress since the 1980s, under the guidance of the agreed Guiding Principles of 1988 and the Agreement on the Maintenance of Peace and Tranquility in the Bhutan-China border of 1998. The last 22nd round of negotiations was held in Beijing in July 2014. Between China and Bhutan, there are three territorial areas of dispute[10] – The Jakarlung and Pasamlung valleys,in the north-central border, and the Doklam plateau in Eastern Bhutan. While the two territories to the north are of interest to China due to their proximity to Tibet, as well as what it perceives as its “historic claims” to the areas, the Doklam Plateau is important to it strategically.

10. If China establishes control over Doklam plateau, it can challenge India[11] as that region lies immediately east of Indian defences in Sikkim. This piece of dominating ground not only has a commanding view of the Chumbi Valley but also overlooks the Silguri Corridor further to the east.” Reports[12] suggest that China has proposed to Bhutan to cede to it the area close to Chumbi valley, a tri-junction abutting Bhutan, Tibet and the Indian state of Sikkim in lieu of which Beijing would give up its claim over Bhutan’s central areas. Chumbi valley is of geostrategic importance to China because of its shared borders with Tibet and Sikkim. The North-Western areas of Bhutan which China wants in exchange for the Central areas lie next to the Chumbi Valley tri-junction. If Bhutan cedes areas to China as mentioned above, there will be strategic implications for India’s defence of its Siliguri corridor—the chicken neck which connects India to North East India and Nepal.

11. The PRC visualizes occurrence of ‘local wars under informatisation conditions’. The belief is that such wars can be short and happen in China’s periphery, enabling China to realize limited political objectives. Can China use force to settle borders with India? The answer is affirmative considering that China’s ‘Active Defence’ strategy does not rule out the military resorting to ‘offensive operational postures’. Forceful recovery of ‘Southern Tibet’ (as China calls Arunachal) and fighting a ‘partial war’ with India were topics in the Chinese blogs not very long ago. China’s use of force to turn territorial conditions in its favour has precedence. Beijing launched ‘counter attacks in self-defence’ against Vietnam, India and former Soviet Union in 1979, 1962 and 1969 respectively. In the current period, China is indulging in a show of force in East and South China seas.

12. China’s third unresolved border is with the DPRK; for reasons quoted in Para 3 above, the two sides are not making it a bilateral issue. Their disputes concern the area surrounding Mount Paektu (referred to as Changbai Mountain in China), islands and rights of navigation in Yalu and Tumen rivers, and access to the East Sea or Sea of Japan[13]. This is so despite their agreement to split the land surrounding Paektu in 1962 and current sharing of administration over the mountain and the lake surrounding it. In recent years, China has been rapidly developing the area including building an airport and ski resort; some believe that these steps of China are aimed at bolstering its claims of sovereignty over the area. The PRC created further controversy in 2008 when it applied for the region to be considered a UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site. There are other reports on the DPRK’s bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics on the contested Paektu area[14].

13. The unsolved maritime border issues are most serious for China as against competing claims of several littoral nations and the emerging regional order. Conditions in this regard put China against 8 littoral parties – Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia, as well as Taiwan. The PRC shares maritime borders with four countries, Japan and South Korea in the East China Sea and with the Philippines and Vietnam in the South China Sea.

14. In the East China Sea (1,249,000 sq-km), China is currently in disputes with Japan over Senkakus chain of islands (called Diao Yu by the Chinese) and with South Korea (Socotra rock, a submerged rock in the Yellow Sea). The disputes are over the extent of their respective exclusive economic zones, each resorting to different parts of the UN Conventions on the Law of the Sea. The eight uninhabited islands and rocks in the Senkakus chain have a total area of about 7 sq km and lie north-east of Taiwan, east of the Chinese mainland and south-west of Japan’s southern-most prefecture, Okinawa. They, controlled by Japan, provide rich fishing grounds and lie near potential oil and gas reserves. The islands are also in a strategically significant position, amid rising competition between the US and China for military primacy in the Asia-Pacific region. China’s creation of a new air-defence identification zone (ADIZ) in November 2013, which would require any aircraft in the zone – which covers the Senkakus chain of islands – to comply with rules laid down by Beijing, assumes significance in this context. The move is being seen as one meant for China’s assertion of sovereignty over the Senkakus chain.

15. In the South China Sea (3,500,000 sq-km), one of the world’s busiest waterways with huge potential oil and gas fields to be exploited, China claims most of the water ‘based on historical facts and international law’ and shows them in its maps within its ‘nine dotted’ imaginary line. All littoral nations – Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia have officially challenged the Chinese South China Sea claims including on the Paracel Islands, known as Xisha in Chinese and Hoàng Sa in Vietnamese, Spratly islands ( Nansha in Chinese, Truongsa in Vietnamese) and the Macclesfield Bank (Zhongsha islands in Chinese). The ASEAN has attempted to resolve the disputes through multi-lateral talks but China prefers to deal with each country on a bilateral basis. China has expressed concern at the US Asia-Pivot policy and questions the latter’s intentions behind its call for freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. China has constructed an island with room for an airstrip at Fiery Cross Reef, West of Spratlys. There is a belief that the proposed air strip is symbolic of China’s plan to create an ADIZ in South China Sea also.

16. Conclusions that can be drawn from what has been said above on China’s land and sea boundary disputes, are given below:

• The total number of countries/ territory with which China has territorial disputes as of now is 11 (India, Bhutan and the DPRK through land; Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia, as well as Taiwan through sea).
  China in recent years has not resorted to wars to settle disputes; its last wars were with India in 1962 and with Vietnam in 1979. Beijing’s ongoing assertive land actions (intrusions into Indian border) and sea skirmishes do not come under the category of wars.
• Ethnic issues are indirectly involved in China’s border problems relating to Tibet and Xinjiang. But China’s handling of such issues has been different in each of these cases. On Tibet ethnic issue, China considers it as an internal matter, not related to Sino-Indian border question as India recognizes Tibet as part of the PRC. It has established full control over Tibet and does not find the exiled Tibetan community in India as a threat to its sovereignty over Tibet. Its only demand to India is on not allowing any anti-Chinese activities of exiled Tibetans. Coming to the ethnic issue concerning Xinjiang Uighurs, it also does not have a direct role in the PRC’s settlement of borders with Central Asian nations. China however seems to consider the ethnic separatism factor in Xinjiang serious unlike the case in Tibet; this is because of its finding that Xinjiang independence activists are getting support from bases across the borders. This has motivated China in seeking support from the concerned governments for combating the perceived security threat to Xinjiang coming from the exiled Uighur separatist groups abroad; in return, China either made territorial concessions or provided economic benefits to its Central Asian neighbors.
• China had other motives for realizing settlement of border issues. They include the need for the PRC to gain access to Central Asia energy resources. For this purpose, China realized the importance of offering a quid pro quo to the concerned regional governments. For e.g., it dropped its claim over 80% of the disputed land with Kazakhstan, invested in the 3000 km long gas pipeline project across Kazakhstan and gave up claims over 70% and around 95% respectively of the disputed territories with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. On the reverse, Tajikistan ceded 386 sq kms of Pamir mountain range to China.
• With their own strategic interests in mind, nations like Russia offered border concessions to China. Russia reached an agreement with China in July 2008 after about 40 years of border talks. Earlier, it returned to China (2004) two territories stretching 174 sq kms, located at the confluence of the rivers, Ussuri in Russia and Heilong in China, under Russian occupation since 1929; the two were Tarabarov island, called Yinlong by the Chinese and half of Bolshoy Ussuriysky island, called Heixiazi by the Chinese. (Chinese scholars 15 feel that the issue of ‘Southern Tibet’, called Arunachal by India, can be solved through a “Heixiazi’-type formula which settled the Sino-Russian border).

17. A new dimension to unresolved land and sea territorial disputes is being noticed ever since national security interests began to dominate China’s external line in 2008; the demands on China imposed by this ‘core interest’-based foreign policy course for making no compromises on all issues concerning the country’s territorial sovereignty, have resulted in the PRC’s territorial assertiveness which is giving rise to fears among the neighboring nations about the intentions of the former. In this regard, what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping has said (Speech delivered at a party Politburo Study session convened on 28 January 2013) are important in this connection. He declared that “China will never pursue its development at the cost of sacrificing interests of other countries …. We will never give up our legitimate rights and will never sacrifice our national core interests. No country should presume that we will engage in trade involving our core interests or that we will swallow the ‘bitter fruit’ of harming our sovereignty, security or development interests”.

18. The 18th CCP Congress document echoed the same spirit. It proclaimed that China’s ‘banner is to forge a win-win international cooperation’; at the same time it laid emphasis on making ‘no compromises’ on issues concerning ‘national sovereignty and security of core interests’. Most significant has been the document’s clarification that “the two aspects are pillars of Chinese diplomacy and do not conflict with each other” (People’s Daily, 16 November 2013); the mention in the document that China “will never yield to outside pressure” and “will protect legitimate rights and interests overseas’, has been noticed for the first time in a CCP congress material. On his part, the Chinese Foreign Minister explained his country’s new foreign policy direction by saying (Beijing, 8.3.2014) that the PRC “will play the international role of a responsible, big country”. This signaled a firm shift in the direction so far existed of the PRC’s external course – ‘hiding one’s capacities and biding one’s time’ (veteran leader Deng Xiaoping’s famous 24-character maxim of tao guang yang hui).

19. The post-2008 assertive international behavior of China can be attributed to a variety of factors. The change seems to have come about mainly due to (i) China’s confidence gained through its ability to achieve a sustained growth leading to a build-up of the country’s ‘comprehensive national strength’, (ii) China’s feeling that an opportunity has arisen for itself to increase its influence globally as the world balance of power shifts from the West to East and a multi-polar world gradually emerges, (iii) the PRC’s growing need to protect land and sea trade routes in the interest of the much needed import of resources from abroad and (iv) deepening Chinese fears concerning sovereignty over Tibet and Xinjiang and (v) rising suspicions on the purpose of the US Asia-Pacific strategy.

20. China’s introduction of certain new foreign policy formulations at this juncture, looks significant diplomatically as they seem to symbolize some efforts on its part to correct the existing unfavorable image for the country internationally, which obviously resulted from an assertive external approach.

21. The first new formulation is now known as “New Type of Great Power Relations’. It was promoted by the PRC President Xi Jinping in his meetings with US counterpart Barack Obama in June 2013, July 2014 and November 2014, primarily addresses Sino-US ties. It had three points – major powers should have no conflict or confrontation, should emphasize dialogue and should treat each other’s strategic intentions objectively; they should have mutual respect, including for each other’s core interests and major concerns; and they should conduct mutually beneficial cooperation, abandon the zero-sum game mentality and advance areas of mutual interest.[16] The US is reluctant to endorse the proposal; because it feels that such endorsement would imply its recognition to China’s ‘core interests’, which case will not be in its strategic interests.

22. The second is the “Community of Shared Destiny” concept, which figured in the address of the CCP chief Xi Jinping at the aforesaid Foreign Affairs Work conference . The concept, providing for realizing Asia’s economic potential and durable security, stipulated that community of destiny will be based on deep economic integration, but going beyond trade. It will be a vision of a political and security community in which economically integrated countries in the region support and defend one another from outside threats and intruders, as well as manage internal threats together through collaborative and cooperative mechanisms. . Echoing the vision in the concept are China’s two mega proposals for establishing regional connectivity – the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) that would be established along the Eurasian land corridor from the Pacific coast to the Baltic Sea, and the 21st century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) connecting Asia and Europe through sea route.

23. The outside world watched with lot of interest the elevation in status by China of its relations with neighbors during the Conference on Foreign Relations, mentioned above. Ties with periphery, was brought to No.1 position, followed by those with Great Powers and Developing countries ranking No.2 and No.3 respectively. The priority shift reflected Beijing’s assessment that relations with Asian nations and with rising powers are becoming more and more important to it, than ties with the developed countries. Confirming the new Chinese thinking is Xi Jinping’s declaration that “Asians have the capacity to manage security in Asia by themselves”[17]. Experts[18] assess that the first priority to periphery reflect the Chinese perceived long-term economic and geo-political trends. Beijing has come to recognize that the periphery is becoming increasingly vital to China’s future. China’s Vice Foreign Minister stated in April 2014 that the country’s trade with East and Southeast Asia totaled “$1.4 trillion, more than China’s trade with the United States and European Union combined.” He noted “half of China’s top ten trade partners are in Asia.” Moreover, China realizes it must secure its geostrategic flanks to prepare the country’s ascent into the upper echelons of global power.

24. Xi Jinping’s new foreign policy formulations, new Silk Road initiative and priority to China’s ties with neighbors, taken together, could be indicators that China has begun to accord primacy to economic interests in its foreign policy; this may mean emerging intention on the part of China to make adjustments to its hitherto adopted assertive core-interest based foreign policy approach. One has however to wait further for a full picture in this regard.

*The writer, D.S.Rajan, is Distinguished Fellow, Chennai Centre for China Studies- C3S , Chennai, India. This formed the basis for the writer’s presentation on the subject , delivered at the C3S – Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Joint Seminar on “Understanding China: Indian Perspectives”, held at Kottayam, Kerala, India, on 27-28 February 2015. Email: dsrajan@gmail.com

[1] Henry Kissinger, “ On China”, Penguin Press, 2011

[2] Sow Keat Tok, “Sovereignty in Hongkong and Taiwan”, Palgrave Macmillan, 30.4.13

[3] Tingyang Zhao, “Rethinking Empire from a Chinese concept All Under Heaven”, Cambridge University Press. 7.8.2012

[4] As in 1 above ( page 16, preface)

[5] ‘ Defining China’s Borders’, China Borderland History Research Centre of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences website, (Chinese language), 31.3.2005

[6] India’s External Affairs Minister Ms Sushma Swaraj, at Rajya Sabha, New Delhi, 18.12.2014

[7] Indo-China Border Defence Cooperation Agreement 2013

[8] Chinese Foreign Ministry website, Chinese language edition, 7 August 2009, as covered in the article by D. S. Rajan, on “ Position Paper on Sino-Indian Border Dispute ”, C3S Paper No 802 dated 4.6.2011, http://www.c3sindia.org/india/2366 Also, Wu Zhaoli, “Complex Issue, Hopeful Prospects”, Beijing Review, 12.9.2013, http www.bjreview.com.cn/Cover_Stories_2013/2013-09/09… Chinese Foreign Ministry statement to Xinhua, 20.2.2015, as reported by Ananth Krishnan, “China Says PM Modi’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh Not Conducive to Resolve Border Dispute”, India Today

[9] Wu Zhaoli, No.8

[10] Medha Bisht, “Sino-Bhutan Boundary Negotiations”, IDSA Comment, 19.1.2010, http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/Sino-BhutanBoundaryNegotiations_mbisht_1…

[11] http://the diplomat.com/2014/08/Bhutan-and-the-great-power-tussle, 2.8.2014

[12] Rajeev Sharma, “The Bhutan-China-India Triangle-Analysis”, South Asia Analysis Group, 31.8.2012

[13] “China and its neighbors: Troubled Relationship”, www.eu-asiacentre.eu/pub_details.php?_id=46
[14] J.Berkshire Miller, “China’s Other Territorial Dispute: Paektu Mountain”, the Diplomat, 23.12.2012

[15] Professor Zhou Shixin and Professor Wang Weihua of the Shanghai Institute of International Studies, (China broadcasting net, Chinese, 10 July 2009) as reported in an article on “ Solving the Sino-Indian Boundary Problem: Heixiazi Border Agreement Could be a Model, feel Chinese scholars”,
D.S.Rajan, C3S Paper No.285 dated June 11, 2009 http://www.c3sindia.org/india/572

[16] Chinese Enthusiasm and American Cynicism Over the ‘New Type of Great Power Relations ., Cheng Li and Lucy Xu, 16.12.2014 , the Brookings Institute, www.huffingtonpost.com/cheng-li-and-lucy-xu/china-new-power-relations_b_…

[17] Xinhua , May 21,2013

[18] Timothy Heath, “China’s big diplomacy shift”, the Diplomat, 22.12.2014

The post China’s Unsolved Territorial Disputes: Implications For Its Relations With Neighbors – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Bahraini authorities arrested the prominent human rights activist Nabeel Rajab on April 2, 2015, apparently over his allegations on social media of torture in a Bahraini prison. Authorities should release him immediately and drop all charges that violate his right to free expression.

A video seen by Human Rights Watch shows Rajab reading aloud from the arrest warrant presented to him during his arrest. In the video, he says that the warrant is related to his tweets about Jaw Prison and his accusation that prison authorities tortured prisoners. The Interior Ministry announced on Twitter on April 2 that Rajab had been arrested for “publishing information that would harm the civil peace and insulting a statutory body.” This is the second time in six months that authorities have arrested Rajab for criticizing the government.

“Bahraini authorities should be investigating these allegations of torture in Jaw Prison, not arresting people who raise concerns about it,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director. “Bahrain’s allies, especially the United States and the United Kingdom, should call for Rajab’s release without delay.”

Rajab’s son Adam, 17, videotaped the arrest at their home in the village of Bani Jamra at about 5 p.m. The video shows Rajab reading a 2-page arrest warrant given to him by a plain-clothes police officer. He tells his son he is being taken to the cybercrimes unit of the Criminal Investigations Directorate. Rajab is faced by eight police officers, three of whom also videotaped the arrest. In the video, another nine officers are standing across the street, four in riot gear, one of whom is holding what appears to be a rifle.

Rajab has also alleged that security forces used excessive force to quell unrest at Jaw Prison on March 10. In an opinion piece in the Huffington Post on March 27 he wrote:

The police broke through the barricades and flushed the inmates out with teargas. They marched the inmates out into the courtyards, where every one of them was beaten and humiliated by the police. The forces took shifts terrorising the inmates, passing the baton between Bahraini police and Jordanian units. The inmates were shot at with shotguns and sound grenades, aimed at their bodies. Inmates were forced to address the officers as ‘master’, beaten if they asked to be taken to the toilet (where they were given 30 seconds to relieve themselves), beaten during meals, and forced to insult their families or face more beatings.

According to credible local sources, at least 80 inmates have still made no contact with their families since the unrest on March 10. Human Rights Watch viewed images circulating on social media purporting to show security forces using teargas inside the prison, along with injured prisoners. Human Rights Watch is unable to verify the provenance of the videos. The authorities should investigate the alleged excessive use of force, Human Rights Watch said.

Rajab posted numerous tweets about the violence in Jaw Prison. On March 17, Rajab tweeted that he had met with a recently released inmate. The photographs accompanying the tweet “will tell you how they were treated,” he wrote. They show abrasions and contusions on the man’s back and injuries to his right arm.

Bahrain authorities have previously prosecuted Rajab on politically motivated charges. On October 1, 2014, authorities arrested and charged Rajab with “offending national institutions” after he criticized the government on social media for using counterterrorism laws to prosecute human rights defenders and said that Bahraini security forces foster violent beliefs akin to those of the extremist group Islamic State (also known as ISIS). He was sentenced to six months in prison on January 20, 2015, but had been out on bail pending an appeal.

Authorities earlier held Rajab from May 5 to May 28, 2012, for Twitter remarks criticizing the Interior Ministry for failing to investigate attacks by what Rajab alleged were pro-government gangs against Shia residents.

Authorities detained Rajab a few weeks later, on June 6, 2012, for another Twitter remark calling for Prime Minister Khalifa bin Salman al Khalifa to step down. On July 9, 2012, a criminal court convicted and sentenced him to three months in prison on that charge. A court of appeal overturned that verdict, but in a separate case a criminal court sentenced him to three years in prison for organizing and participating in three demonstrations between January and March 2012. The authorities presented no evidence that Rajab advocated or engaged in violence. Rajab was released on May 24, 2014, after two years in prison.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee, the body of independent experts that monitors state compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Bahrain has ratified, issued an authoritative interpretation on the scope of the right to freedom of expression and opinion. In its General Comment 34, the committee stated that “In circumstances of public debate concerning public figures in the political domain and public institutions, the value placed by the Covenant upon uninhibited expression is particularly high.” It also stated that “states parties should not prohibit criticism of institutions, such as the army or the administration.”

The post Call For Bahrain To Free Rights Activist Held For Tweets appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Peru’s President Ollanta Humala named Defense Minister Pedro Cateriano as the new prime minister in place of Ana Jara, who was thrown out of office in a no-confidence vote by Congress.

Cateriano, a lawyer specializing in constitutional law, served as deputy minister of Justice between 2001 and 2002, and as Peruvian representative to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2012. He is replaced in the Defence ministry by the current Resources minister.

Jara was accused by the opposition of ordering spying into activities of top officials, magistrates, journalists and police officers by the National Intelligence Directorate, or DINI, whose activities were suspended.

Based on a media inquiry, in 2011 the DINI carried out thousands of interceptions. According to the ‘Fujimorists’ – the political wing linked to former president Alberto Fujimori, in prison for human rights violations – “instead of disclosing the names of those responsible, Jara minimized the case in parliament”.

Humala criticized the ousting of the premier, saying it “destabilizes the country, creating political chaos and jeopardizing investment”.

The post Peru: Humala Names New Prime Minister appeared first on Eurasia Review.

A second agreement in Minsk on 12 February produced a ceasefire that for now is mostly holding and measures to de-escalate the conflict. Many officials locally and in Kyiv, Moscow and the West, nevertheless, believe war could resume in Ukraine’s east within weeks. If it does, much will depend on the quality of top commanders on both sides. Ukraine’s army is enmeshed in a command crisis the country’s leaders seem unwilling to admit or address. For the separatist rebels, the command and control Moscow provides could give them the advantage in any new fighting.

Meanwhile, President Petro Poroshenko faces criticism from his Western allies about the slow pace of reform, opposition from the political establishment as he tries to pass legislation required by the Minsk agreement and a steady stream of complaints from Donetsk and Moscow that the measures do not go far enough.

A briefing from the International Crisis Group (PDF) focuses on the negotiations leading to that agreement, the military balance and appetites for further confrontation on all sides, as well as likely scenarios for the immediate future. Crisis Group’s analysis of and policy recommendations on the strategic questions the crisis poses for European stability can be found in a simultaneously published statement.

The most recent separatist offensive began around 18 January and petered out within a month. It was bloody and destructive but demonstrated little more than that neither side has a decisive battlefield advantage. The post-ceasefire defeat of the Ukrainian army in Debaltseve, a railway hub that is strategic because it links the separatist Donetsk and Luhansk territories in the Donbas region, was a traumatic political and military blow to Poroshenko. However, while it allowed the separatists to claim victory, they suffered heavy casualties and did not achieve their stated objectives, notably the seizure of the whole of Donetsk oblast.

The offensive further exposed the deepening malaise within the Ukrainian armed forces, whose incompetent, sometimes corrupt senior commanders are incapable of designing effective combat operations or unwilling to lead them, leaving junior officers on their own, under serious pressure. Mid-level professional officers are speaking openly against their high command, and the government is not responding. Reports from both sides of the battlefield make clear that the Ukrainian forces are determined but lack competent leadership.

Russian training of the separatist forces is bearing fruit. These forces have many problems, particularly a much smaller recruitment pool than Kyiv, a serious lack of experienced commanders and deep factional divisions within their political and military leadership that sometimes explode into violence. Organised crime creates difficulties, and some units still operate semi-autonomously. The state they are fighting for has few political or administrative structures, no money and no economy. Nevertheless, they are moving steadily – with substantial, probably growing, Russian command input – toward creation of a functional army.

The main change Minsk II effected is a ceasefire that has sharply reduced casualties. Both sides claim to have pulled back heavy weapons, as it prescribes; they accuse each other, however, of returning the weapons once observers have left. Most other points of the agreement are also in dispute. The Russians’ successful insistence during the negotiation to retain part of the border with Ukraine in effect under their control indicates they are keeping their military options open.

An early separatist offensive – for example to extend control to the whole of Donetsk oblast – cannot succeed without Russian military aid, advice and, probably, once again substantial numbers of regular Russian troops. Moscow will have to decide whether it wants to commit to this at the risk of more U.S. and EU sanctions. This is problematic for a country looking at 20 per cent inflation, a possible banking crisis and unprecedented capital flight.

Research for this briefing was undertaken in Kyiv and Brussels; it builds on prior reporting on eastern Ukraine and Ukraine’s domestic political situation.

The post The Ukraine Crisis: Risks Of Renewed Military Conflict After Minsk II appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Currently, it appears that the Wahabbis have the upper hand over the “Sabahis” in the middle east. But the war for the hearts and minds of a people as gifted as the Arabs, is far from over.

By M.D. Nalapat*

More than a decade ago, this writer pointed to Kuwait and its ruling house of Al Sabah as being the ideological challenger to Saudi Arabia and the Al Sauds, who from the start of their rule have embraced the principles and practices of Abdel Wahab, the founder of the Wahabbi ideology.

Even the merest glance at the Holy Quran shows it to be suffused with moderation, compassion and benevolence. As with other religious texts, there are certainly elements of warfare within the prose, but the constantly repeated injunction is to identify the three qualities listed above as being at the core of Islam, the faith born out of the revelation of the Holy Quran fifteen centuries ago.

However, a significant boost was given to Wahabbi teachings by the Al Saud’s panic reaction to the happenings of 1979 (the coming to power in Iran of Ayatollah Khomenei and the attempted takeover of the mosque at Mecca by followers of a deluded youth believing himself to be the Mahdi).

Since the dawn of the 20th century, Wahabbi ideology has been given support by countries such as the U.S the UK—as a means of weaning away Arab communities from the Turkish caliphate in the early years of the last century, which backed a much less restrictive interpretation of Islam than was popular among Wahabbi preachers.

During the 1950s and beyond, Wahabbism came in handy for the former colonial powers of Europe and their newfound champion in the underdeveloped world – the U.S. – in rolling back the Gamal Abdel Nasser tide of Arab nationalism. At its core, the Nasser nationalism sought a cutback in the dominant position that the former colonial powers and their North American partner still had within the Arab world.

In the 1980s, this toxic creed once again proved its value to U.S. geopolitical interests, when it was fanned to unprecedented levels in order to motivate hundreds of thousands of young Wahabbi Muslims into taking up weapons in order to confront the USSR in Afghanistan. There was an alternative to such a mobilisation of this extremist creed, and that would have been to train, fund and arm Pashtun nationalists rather than radicalise a hitherto moderate people through Wahabbi preachers and accompanying audio, video and printed material.

Universities in the U.S. were given contracts by their government to design and publish textbooks and other material for West Asia, which would steer young Arab minds towards the Wahabbi ideology, setting aside the qualities of mercy, compassion and benevolence that are imprinted in every sura of the Holy Quran.

The reason why the Pashtun fanatics won over the moderates was the fact that the nationalists within that ethnic group were hostile to Pakistan, a state in occupation of vast tracts of Pashtun land leased for 99 years to the British but due back to Afghanistan since the period of the lease expired in 1992. As has been a habit with policymakers in Washington, the interests of the Pakistan military were given precedence over those of U.S. citizens, who would have been much better off were the radicalisation and empowerment (into violence) of Wahabbi youth not so sharply accelerated during the Brzezinski-Casey period and beyond.

Even after 9/11,the Saudi establishment and its ideological followers across the globe, have been funding and expanding what may be termed as Wahabbi International, a network of institutions and individuals with the aim of convincing the followers of Islam that the teachings of Abdel Wahab are in fact the “purest” version of the world’s fastest-growing faith rather than its antithesis

In the Arab world, what has kept Wahabbism ascendant is the support given to it by the Al Sauds of Saudi Arabia, and since the 1990s, by the Al Thanis of Qatar. The latter saw in Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, a possible precursor to the invasion of their own country by the Al Sauds. Judging by what happened next,it would appear that the Al Thanis decided that the best way to neutralise the Saudi “threat” would be to be acknowledged as even more determined followers of Abdel Wahab than the Al Sauds.

From that time onwards, the Royal House of Qatar began to compete with their counterparts in Riyadh, by funding and supporting Wahabbi missionaries worldwide. From the start of the present century, the rulers of Qatar added a fresh layer of protection by becoming a military auxiliary of the U.S. as well as becoming at least as big a demonstrator of soft power as the Saudi royals – the latter chiefly through a quantum jump in support given to Al Jazeera, which is today the predominant Wahabbi news channel worldwide, edging out its Saudi competitors with ease.

The rivalry between the Al Sauds and the Al Thanis have benefitted Wahabbi International. Doha has emerged as a haven for Wahabbi missionaries, and Qatar has become a financial backer of Wahabbi International objectives, such as the removal of the Assad family from power in Damascus and its replacement with a dispensation that owes fealty to Wahabbism. Indeed while Saudi Arabia under King Abdullah sought to move away from Wahabbism, Qatar filled the resulting vacuum in support – although since then King Salman appears to have returned Riyadh to the traditional Sudairi clan policy of a westernised personal lifestyle coexisting with a strictly Wahabbi dispensation within the theological institutions of a country which has within its borders the two most holy sites of Islam.

Judging by his initial months in office, King Salman seems determined to ensure that only members of the Sudairi clan will become his successors. In effect, this confines the Saudi monarchy to a single clan within it that has wielded power for much of the period since the 1939-45 war, even going to the extent of seeking to marginalise family members of his predecessor, King Abdullah, who was born of a non-Sudairi mother with roots among the common people

The Al Sabahs of Kuwait have been the outliers within the ruling families of the Gulf Cooperation Council states, introducing a written constitution more than five decades ago. More recently, the Emir of Kuwait, Sabah Al Sabah, not only continued the system of free elections but extended the franchise to women, in spite of opposition from elements seeking to bring into Kuwait more elements of the Wahabbi (and Salafi) ideology – the same practiced in Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Qatar and in parts of Yemen, and which for the past decade has been steadily advancing in Turkey.

Those seeking a return of West Asian society to the Sufi ethos of the Turkish caliphate would have preferred “Sabahism” to prevail over Wahabbism. In this, the other GCC states would copy the policies followed by the Al Sabahs and introduce democratic practices into their own dispensations, besides ensuring a level playing field between Shia and Sunni, the way it is in Kuwait, Oman and to a considerable extent in the UAE, although not in Qatar, Bahrain, or Saudi Arabia. In the latter pair, Shia are subject to severe discrimination and are routinely abused as being “puppets of Iran”, an allegation that is as untrue as is the other fiction of the Shia in Iraq being under the control of the mullahs of Teheran, or the Al Assad family in Damascus being as hostile to the Sunnis (including the Wahabbi element) as the rulers of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are towards the Shia.

In fact, several of the Assad clan have Sunni spouses, including Bashar Assad himself, while the government in Damascus has nearly seven of every ten ministers hailing from within the Sunnis, although none of this would be obvious to those tuning in to Wahabbi-boosting commentators such as Christiane Amanpour of CNN, who adopts the orthodox Wahabbi position on disputes within the region.

Rather than “Sabahism” prevailing over Wahabbism within the GCC, it is the former that is being threatened by a rising number of supporters of the latter in Kuwait. Unlike in the past, when the population of Kuwait remained a haven of theological moderation within the Arab world, an increasing number of citizens are adopting the Wahabbi mindsets common among those resident in Saudi Arabia.

Fewer and fewer Kuwaiti women, for example, are daring to go out in public without at least a headscarf, if not the full-length abaya. Those wearing western-style clothes are subjected to disapproving stares from the increasing number of Kuwaitis who back Wahabbi (and Salafi) ideology.

Indeed, not only are citizens of the State of Kuwait appearing with regularity together with other ISIS volunteers on the fields of war in Syria, Libya and Iraq, but Kuwait-based donors are playing a role in the funding of ISIS affiliates and proxies, although not yet to the extent to which backers in Qatar and Saudi Arabia do.

What has weakened the opposition to Wahabbism within the GCC has been the shock defection of Turkey from what may be termed the Sufi stream. President Recip Teyyip Erdogan used his “European” credentials to ensure the neutering of the Turkish military (the strongest Kemalist force within the country) but shed the same affiliations as he went about changing the chemistry of governance in Turkey into a direction that is openly Wahabbi— although as yet co-existing with Sufi elements rather than overwhelming them.

Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmed Al Jaber Al Sabah, the present Emir of Kuwait, has fought with success to retain at least some of his country’s moderate traditions. However, he has had to keep a watch on the sensibilities of Wahabbi elements, refusing for instance, to follow the example of the UAE and Bahrain and permit the sale and consumption of alcohol within the country. Kuwait Airlines is alcohol-free, thereby giving a competitive advantage to UAE carriers such as Emirates and Eithad, which have refused to be cowed by Wahabbi diktats in the matter.

Were Kuwait to have followed the more liberal policies of the UAE, the country could have emerged as a global business hub like Singapore. But the influence of conservative theology has thus far prevented such a transformation, despite freedom of choice being the essence of democracy.

These days, in newspapers in Kuwait there are more and more reports about how the Emir is patronising events such as the handing over of the (sixth) “Holy Quran International Recitation and Memorization Award” – given to this year’s winner on March 30 by Prime Minister Jaber Al-Sabah. Funding to the “Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Matters” is being substantially increased, even though as yet Kuwaiti authorities have refused to adopt the Saudi practice of banning, even in cities such as Riyadh, Dammam and Jeddah, any house of worship other than those approved by Wahabbi clerics.

The moderate traditions of the Al Sabahs have ensured that Kuwait is a country where official hostility to faiths other than that followed by the majority is absent, and where there is an atmosphere free of intimidation and disapproval for those practising faiths such as Christianity or even Hinduism. It had been expected that King Salman would follow the moderating policies of his predecessor, King Abdullah the Wise. Instead, he appears to be returning to the hard-line practices of his Sudairi predecessors, and has even gone ahead with a military intervention in Yemen certain to inflame sectarian passions throughout the region, including within his own country.

Still – not all the portents are dispiriting. “Sabahis” are still in a majority within the people of Kuwait, with women and the young especially being firm in defending their freedoms and their rights. In Kuwait, women, a group which faces discrimination in several other parts of the region, have been at the forefront of the struggle against restrictive ideologies, making Kuwait the only country within the GCC where citizens belonging to the fair sex can reject codes designed for them by Wahabbi preachers without the displeasure of their families and indeed their husbands.

The expansion of democratic choice in Kuwait has ensured a strengthening of the defences against the creeping expansion of the boundaries of Wahabbism seen in Erdogan’s Turkey, which till his consolidation of power six years ago was the societal role model for moderates throughout the region.

During a taxi ride to the Embassy of India in Kuwait city, this writer was surprised that the Bedouin driver (Ali) spoke English with effortless ease, despite a lack of formal education. Across Kuwait, the desire to connect to the 21st century is resisting the influx of Wahabbi thought and keeping alive the prospect that rather than become a clone of Saudi Arabia, it is that latter country which will learn from Kuwait and bestow the freedoms of democracy to its populace.

At present, it would appear that the Wahabbis have the upper hand over the “Sabahis”, even in some elements of local society in Kuwait. But the war for the hearts and minds of a people as gifted as the Arabs, is far from over.

*M.D. Nalapat is Director of the School of Geopolitics at Manipal University, and a regular contributor to Gateway House. This feature was written for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations.

The post An Upsurge Of Wahabbis Confront The ‘Sabahis’ – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The announcement that major European powers will join the AIIB as founding members means the bank is now clearly accepted as a tangible game changer in the multilateral financial architecture. The formidable intentions of AIIB and the new transnational corridors project are both a challenge and an opportunity for India.

By Akshay Mathur*

The announcement by Britain, France, Germany, Australia and Brazil to join the China-promoted Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has taken the world by surprise. AIIB, dismissed just a few months ago by western countries as another flamboyant plan by China, is now clearly accepted as a tangible game-changing development in the multilateral financial architecture.

What really reveals the scope and potential of AIIB, however, is Beijing’s brilliant and calibrated March 29 vision document for transnational economic corridors for Asia, where the world is invited to participate in this ambitious web of cross-border physical, financial and business connectivity[1].

A China-influenced global financing architecture is set to emerge. India, along with 45 other countries including Indonesia and Singapore, is a founder member of the AIIB. AIIB’s voting structure may be based on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) and GDP. If that happens, India, a founder member of AIIB, will become the second largest shareholder, and if it moves smart, it will have a real chance to influence the formation and functioning of these institutions[2].

China’s intended role for AIIB is not so different from the existing lending institutions, which have configured the system to suit their needs. In AIIB, China has replicated the formation and functioning of the Bretton Woods institutions.

In formation, there are three similarities:

1. The IMF and WB were post-war efforts by the US to capitalise on a fiscally-weak Britain and extend control over the Sterling Area[3].  AIIB is a post-recession effort by China to capitalise on a fiscally-weak US and EU, and limit US economic influence in Asia. The IMF and WB did that by internationalising trade rules (e.g. reduction of tariffs) and foreign exchange rules (e.g. no devaluation) while financing post-war economic growth[4]. AIIB hopes to achieve that by internationalising infrastructure development. Infrastructure is to China in the 21^st century, what trade was to the US in 20^th century.
2. The AIIB focus on infrastructure is a masterstroke. Infrastructure is, after all, China’s competency, which it has been successfully building globally. The China Development Bank (CDB) already has 16% committed abroad. [5]. By some estimates, CDB and China’s EXIM Bank, together provide more aid to Asia than the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, combined[6].  Also, in 2014, G20 leaders pledged to advance global GDP by 2% by using infrastructure as a key instrument and the World Bank has created the Global Infrastructure Facility for private investors to participate. But World Bank efforts will now be overshadowed by the AIIB.
3. As the US did with the World Bank and IMF, China wants to keep majority shareholding, so it can influence AIIB’s course – an opportunity it did not get with the World Bank and IMF (both under 5%) or the BRICS’ New Development Bank (NDB), given the equal 20% shareholding amongst the five members. China is rumoured to be seeking a 50% voting share[7] of AIIB’s initial subscribed capital is $50 billion[8].

China is leveraging off legitimate concerns. Developing countries are frustrated with the unfair governance standards and ineffective aid policies of the IMF and World Bank, and their interference in local policy making. The pressure on South Korea and Indonesia to open specific domestic industries to foreign investments in return for financial assistance during the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 has not been forgotten.

There’s also China’s strategic interest looking for multilateral legitimacy and funding. Global participation in China-led projects, it hopes, will dilute China’s reputation in parts of Africa and Asia (e.g. Myanmar), of being abrasive on development and for demanding market access and natural resources in return.

In functioning, three similarities can be expected:

1. The AIIB and China’s vision transnational infrastructure projects like the Maritime Silk Road, Silk Road Economic Belt, and Pakistan-China Economic Corridor, coincide.  This is exactly how the US uses IMF multilateral funding for projects in Ukraine, Iraq and Afghanistan.  Naturally, most of the Asian infrastructure projects will be awarded to Chinese companies and financial institutions. China Development Bank already has a program called “Go Global” to support Chinese’s companies in foreign ventures[9].
2. The World Bank and IMF co-opted countries. China will go beyond, to co-opt pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and insurance companies – all long-term financial investors eager to invest their $50 trillion capital in infrastructure.  China will also invest its own $3 trillion reserves in projects with higher returns than the US Treasury Bills it is currently bound to. The US has done that successfully for decades by recycling petro dollars into developing countries[10].
3. AIIB will be a platform for Renminbi internationalisation, just as the IMF and World Bank were for dollar internationalisation. It can then raise and extend loans in Renminbi on a large scale, an experiment that China Development Bank has already undertaken[11].

Thus, like its Bretton Woods counter parts did with trade a century ago, China seeks to do with infrastructure globally but with greater multilateral legitimacy, on commercial terms, for strategic interests, with global capital.

The formidable intentions of the AIIB and the new transnational corridors project are both a caution and an opportunity for India.

If AIIB takes equity stakes in transnational infrastructure projects, becoming part owners, then it has geopolitical implications. Equity ownership is a high-risk, high-reward form of financing but a worthy option nevertheless for developing Greenfield infrastructure in developing countries when bank financing is not available[12]. When Islamabad awarded management control of the Gwadar Port in Pakistan to China Overseas Port Holdings Limited in 2013, it created a stir in India and the West[13]. Imagine the clout China will have within India when it owns or manages India-located projects like the Bangladesh-China-Myanmar-India (BCIM) corridor, and the many internal industrial corridors that Prime Minister Modi has planned with foreign funding.

Also, government-driven infrastructure projects can result in over-investment and under-utilisation since they are not bound by market supply and demand. There are indications that this is now happening with China’s real estate sector, and AIIB may be saddled with non-performing assets if it takes the same approach.

The opportunity for India then, is to influence and partner both the AIIB and the nascent BRICS bank on favourable terms. Infrastructure is the focus of BRICS Bank too, but so is sustainable development.  Developing countries, including India, can seek financing for climate change technologies, environment protection, affordable drugs and other technology-based public service delivery solutions. This will leverage India’s IT prowess and Brazil’s sustainable development experience. The first President of the BRICS bank from India should set this course.

As with AIIB, the BRICS Bank also has a provision for lending in RMB and taking equity stakes in infrastructure projects[14]. Yet, unlike the AIIB, the push by all five countries will most likely result in a multi-currency architecture that also includes Rupees, instead of just Renminbi. Similarly, diversified ownership should also make equity ownership less threatening. That is why equal shareholding is important and India should staunchly defend it.

The role of the BRICS Bank could have been bigger than that of the AIIB. The BRICS bank was conceived in an atmosphere of dissatisfaction with the existing western financial frameworks, and the lack of alternatives that left developing and non-NATO-leaning countries exposed to western biases. That is what happened with the unilateral economic sanctions imposed by the west on Iran and Russia in 2011 and 2014. With BRICS, Russia was able to rely on the $100 billion BRICS currency reserve arrangement in case its economy tanked sharply due to the economic sanctions – without a quid pro quo. Now, however, it seems that the BRICS Bank will also be overshadowed by the AIIB.

India is at a critical juncture. It is one of the largest recipients of World Bank aid, loans which can be cannibalised as these new institutions emerge, so it must capitalise on its early placement in the new multilateral financial architecture. Else, as the experience with UNSC, ASEAN, APEC and SCO, has shown, a missed opportunity in the beginning will take years to make up – if ever.

*Akshay Mathur is the Head of Research and Geoeconomics Fellow at Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations, Mumbai. Source: Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations.

A shorter version of this originally appeared on Business Standard, here

Notes:
[1] “Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road.” Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China. March 28, 2015. Accessed March 30, 2015. http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/t1249618.shtml.

[2] “India, China Form Asian Infra Investment Bank.” India in Business. http://indiainbusiness.nic.in/newdesign/index.php?param=newsdetail/9605.

[3] Steil, Benn. The Battle of Bretton Woods. 2013. 115.

[4] Steil, Benn. The Battle of Bretton Woods. 2013. 134

[5] “Annual Report 2013 Financial Summary.” China Development Bank. Accessed March 27, 2015. http://www.cdb.com.cn/english/NewsInfo.asp?NewsId=5266.

[6] “Obama Abandon’s Allies on China’s Marshall Plan.” Boston University – Centre for Finance, Law and Policy. Accessed March 27, 2015. http://www.bu.edu/bucflp/2015/03/21/obama-abandons-allies-on-Chinas-marshall-plan/.

[7] Jong-Wha, Lee. “China’s New World Order.” Project Syndicate. Accessed March 27, 2015. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/China-global-governance-by-lee-jong-wha-2014-11#DTXkz7ji6rULJyiz.99.

[8] “21 Asian Countries Sign MOU on Establishing Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.” Xinhuanet. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/business/2014-10/24/c_133740149.htm.

[9] “Annual Report 2013 – Business Operations (3).” China Development Bank. Accessed March 27, 2015. http://www.cdb.com.cn/english/NewsInfo.asp?NewsId=5275.

[10] Steil, Benn. The Battle of Bretton Woods. 2013. 12

[11] As of the end of 2013, the Bank had outstanding foreign currency loans of USD 250.5 billion and an offshore yuan-denominated loan balance of RMB 63 billion. “Annual Report 2013 – Business Operations (3).” China Development Bank. Accessed March 27, 2015. http://www.cdb.com.cn/english/NewsInfo.asp?NewsId=5275

[12] “Pooling of Institutional Investors Capital – Selected Case Studies in Unlisted Equity Infrastructure.” OECD. Accessed March 27, 2015. http://www.oecd.org/finance/OECD-Pooling-Institutional-Investors-Capital-Unlisted-Equity-Infrastructure.pdf.

[13] “Chinese Company Will Run Strategic Pakistani Port.” New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/world/asia/chinese-firm-will-run-strategic-pakistani-port-at-gwadar.html?_r=1.

[14] “Agreement on the New Development Bank (Article 1 and 24).” Ministry of External Affairs, Brazil. Accessed March 27, 2015. http://brics6.itamaraty.gov.br/media2/press-releases/219-agreement-on-the-new-development-bank-fortaleza-july-15.

The post The New Multilateral Financial Architecture – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The Middle East has turned itself into a battlefield in which the age-old fault-line within Islam – the unbridgeable divide between the Shi’ite and Sunni traditions – is being made manifest in bloodshed and terror. The main protagonists, all professing profound allegiance to the Islamic faith, have engaged themselves in a life-and-death struggle with opponents not only outside their own camp, but sometimes within it.

The Islamic Republic of Iran, proclaiming itself the leader of Shia Islam, declares that its ultimate objective is to become the dominant religious force within the Muslim faith and the dominant political force in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, which contains within its borders the two great bastions of the faith, Mecca and Medina, is acknowledged as the custodian of the Sunni tradition of Islam.

Challenging Saudi Arabia for Sunni dominance is the Johnny-come-lately, self-styled Islamic State (IS), which claims to be on a mission to create a new caliphate to embrace first the Middle East and eventually the whole world. It demands the allegiance of every Muslim, Sunni or not.

The Saudis have been on a collision course with Iran, their powerful Shia neighbor, ever since it was revealed, more than a decade ago, that the Ayatollahs were working on a clandestine program to develop nuclear weapons. Acquiring an atom bomb would allow Iran to become the region’s undisputed superpower and facilitate the spread of its Shia principles. So Iran’s nuclear ambitions have been consistently opposed by Saudi Arabia, and the two countries are now engaged in fighting a proxy war for supremacy throughout the Arab world.

Nowhere is this bitter dispute more keenly felt than in Yemen, the chunk of territory lying at the base of Saudi Arabia and bordering the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. In 2009 Yemen became the seat of AQAP (al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula), an off-shoot of Osama bin Laden’s terror movement. AQAP set about provoking ethnic, tribal and social tensions until it brought the country to a state of open civil war. Meanwhile the Quds force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were smuggling weapons to the Houthi rebels, the Shia minority in the north of the country, as well as providing expert military training. The result? The Shia Houthi militia finally succeeded in seizing control of Yemen’s capital city, Sana’a. Its fall sent shock waves across countries on the Red Sea, fearful of Yemen becoming an Iranian hub. The time for action by Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Sunni world had arrived. So in mid-March, in a move that took the world by surprise, Saudi Arabia launched a series of air strikes against Houthi rebel positions in Yemen.

The situation is not without its irony. As Saudi opposition to Iran explodes into open warfare, the US is heading a coalition in support of Iranian-backed Shia militias in Iraq, as they attempt to recapture the strategically important city of Tikrit from IS.

Nor is this all. In addition to co-operating with Iran on the battlefield, the Obama administration seems intent on fostering close relations in other ways. For many years both Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah, have featured on Washington’s annual National Intelligence Estimate, which lists the numerous threats America faces around the globe. This year they do not appear. Obama has turned a blind eye to the fact that Iran has been boosting Hezbollah’s arsenal of missiles and rockets in preparation for its next assault on Israel, to say nothing of Iran’s direct logistical support of the Houthi rebels in Yemen. No doubt he was aiming not to upset the final stage of Iran’s delicate negotiations with the US and other world powers about its nuclear program.

Placating Iran is a profoundly short-sighted, not to say skewed, policy. As veteran foreign correspondent Con Coughlin observes, no matter how much the Obama administration would like to put its relations with Iran on a more even footing, Iranian objectives in the Middle East are in direct conflict with those of the West. It is only by the merest chance that in Iraq their interests happen, for the moment, to coincide.

The fact is that Iran pursues its own political and religious agenda, and will not be deflected from it. In Iraq, for example, it is fighting IS because it wants to cultivate the large Shi’ite stronghold in the south of the country, which it views as its natural sphere of interest. This area strategically controls the gateway to the Persian Gulf, and contains about half of Iraq’s oil reserves. In short, Iranian intervention in Iraq represents one aspect of its broader strategy to achieve dominance in the region. In Syria it is fighting IS because it wants to preserve Assad in power as a key element in its Shi’ite axis.

Saudi Arabia and the Sunni Muslim world are not fooled. The new Saudi ruler, King Salman, a man apparently with backbone, quickly took the lead. Putting aside differences that had previously vitiated attempts at coordinated Sunni action, such as Qatar’s and Turkey’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, he initiated a summit meeting of the Arab League to endorse his air strikes, and to formulate a concerted plan of action.

At a summit meeting of the Arab League on March 29, Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby said that Yemen had been “on the brink of the abyss”, and that the Saudi air strikes had been the only option left “to end the Houthi coup”. He said that not only would the Saudi-led bombing raids continue until the Shia rebels withdraw and surrender, but that a joint military task force was being created to tackle the threat from Iran and from IS jihadists across the region. Egyptian officials said the planned reaction force would be made up of 40,000 elite troops, backed by jets, warships and tanks.

And indeed IS has taken advantage of the chaos in Yemen to continue its expansion across the Middle East. A group calling itself the Yemeni Representative of the Islamic State has appeared on the scene. On March 20 it claimed responsibility for attacks on two Shia mosques in Sana’a, killing at least 160 people in an act of sectarian violence unprecedented in the country.

If the armed coalition of Arab states that Saudi’s King Salman has masterminded is successful in Yemen, he – unlike the pusillanimous Obama administration and the West – will have dealt a blow to the expansionist ambitions of Iran’s Islamic Republic, to say nothing of the self-proclaimed Islamic State. King Salman is emerging as the resolute leader of the Sunni world, and perhaps of the moderate Muslim world as a whole.

The post Islam’s Civil War – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Brandon Friedman*

In a provocative sliver of a book, The Politics of Chaos in the Middle East, which was published before the “Arab Spring” upheavals, French scholar Olivier Ròy argues that three “traumas” mark the contemporary history of the Arab Middle East between Suez and Iran.^[1] The first trauma was the European-designed post-World War I state system that ended Sharif Husayn’s vision of one independent Arab-Muslim kingdom from Arabia to the western border of Iran. The second trauma was the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, and the repeated defeats suffered at its hands. The third trauma, Ròy argues, is still unfolding and is the destruction of Sunni Arab political supremacy east of Suez. Ròy argues that this trauma took place in two stages: the first stage was the 1978-1979 Iranian Revolution, which resulted in the establishment of the revolutionary Islamic Republic of Iran. The second stage were the chain of events set in motion by 2003 U.S.- led invasion of Iraq, which led to Shi‘i domination of the Iraqi state. The Iranian nuclear negotiation should be viewed in the context of this third trauma. The world justifiably sees the Iranian nuclear negotiations in the global context of upholding nuclear non-proliferation and preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, which surely it is. But in the Middle East, the nuclear negotiations are viewed as being inextricably linked to the broader struggle for the legitimate stewardship of the region, as well as to the regional balance of power.

Nuclear Negotiations and Regional Issues

The International Crisis Group, in an important May 2014 report, “Iran and the P5+1: Solving the Nuclear Rubik’s Cube,” argued that isolating the nuclear negotiation with Iran from the broader regional context (the civil war in Syria, as well as Iran’s involvement in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen) was a necessary precondition for the negotiation’s success and perhaps even for Iran’s participation, asserting  “Success is possible only with political will to isolate the deal – at least for now – from its complex regional context.”^[2]  In reality, the nuclear negotiation was never isolated or delinked from the participants’ perceptions of the regional balance of power. Yet by agreeing to place regional issues outside the scope of the nuclear negotiations in 2013, the EU3+3 created a situation where any potential outcome to the negotiation would be viewed by Iran’s rivals as tilting the regional balance of power in Iran’s favor.  Therefore, this newly announced nuclear deal with Iran is likely to intensify the regional security competition rather than temper it.

In Iran, as Henry Kissinger points out, “the nuclear issue was treated as one aspect of a general struggle over regional order and ideological supremacy, fought in a range of arenas and territories with methods spanning the spectrum of war and peace – military and paramilitary operations, diplomacy, formal negotiation propaganda and political subversion – in fluid and reinforcing combination.”^[3] In a 2014 interview with David Remnick of the New Yorker, President Obama outlined a U.S. vision for regional order based on creating an equilibrium between the Sunni states of the region and Iran:  “And although it would not solve the entire problem, if we were able to get Iran to operate in a responsible fashion – not funding terrorist organizations, not trying to stir up sectarian discontent in other countries, and not developing a nuclear weapon – you could see an equilibrium developing between Sunni, or predominantly Sunni, Gulf states and Iran in which there’s competition, perhaps suspicion, but not an active or proxy warfare.”^[4] In other words, the U.S. President envisioned a short-term process of socializing Iran that would have a transformative effect on the regional order.

In the coming days and weeks, the public will be evaluating the details of the newly announced nuclear deal with Iran. The arguments will address the number of Iranian centrifuges (the issue driving the formula for evaluating Iran’s potential “breakout” time), the amount of Low-Enriched Uranium (LEU) it will retain and in what form, the inspections mechanism, the expiration date of a the agreement, and the structure of sanctions relief. The purpose of these debates will be to evaluate the strengths (and weaknesses) of the deal. This discussion, important to be sure, will overshadow many broader aspects of the nuclear negotiation with Iran – missing the forest for the trees.

The nuclear negotiation between the EU3+3^[5] and Iran is inextricably linked to the conflicts engulfing the Middle East today. Yet when negotiations were renewed in 2013 following Hassan Rouhani’s June election in Iran, the November 2013 Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) did not include a plan for addressing Iran’s role in the conflicts across the region.^[6]

The EU3+3 walled off regional issues from the nuclear negotiations with Iran, choosing to accommodate the claim from Iran’s negotiators that they had no mandate to address Iran’s regional activity within the framework of the nuclear negotiations.^[7] This was a large concession the EU3+3 made to Iran without receiving anything commensurate in return.

This unreciprocated concession would seem to support the thrust of Michael Doran’s argument in his February 2015 essay, “Obama’s Secret Iran Strategy.”^[8] Doran argues that the U.S. is pursuing a “secret” long-term strategy that aims to integrate Iran into the international diplomatic and economic system as a means to moderating its political system and regional behavior. Prior to Doran’s report, in January 2015, the Center for New American Security (CNAS) published a report titled, “Slow Thaw: Testing Possibilities for Cooperation with Iran After a Nuclear Deal,” in which the authors explain what they perceive as the effect of a nuclear deal on Iran’s foreign policy:

On the one hand, if a final nuclear deal results in Iran’s diplomatic reintegration into the international community and a significant improvement in the country’s economy, this could provide President Hassan Rouhani and his pragmatic backers with substantial political momentum. Khamenei might, as a result, give Rouhani greater influence in areas of Iranian foreign policy beyond the nuclear program…A win on the “nuclear file” might enable Rouhani and Zarif to convince Khamenei to give them greater autonomy and to begin to claw back additional aspects of Iranian foreign policy from the Revolutionary Guards.”^[9]

It is hard to say, definitively, whether the Obama administration intentionally excluded regional interests from the nuclear negotiations with the ultimate aim of using a nuclear deal as a springboard into broader regional coordination with Iran, as outlined in detail in the CNAS report, and explained by Michael Doran. Whatever the case may be, Iran has been able to use its influence and activity in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen as implicit bargaining leverage during the nuclear negotiation. In other words, by excluding its regional behavior from the nuclear negotiation, Iran has been able to use its regional influence as both a carrot and stick during the nuclear negotiation.

Iran dangles the prospect of altering its regional behavior as a carrot to the EU3+3. Iran can tacitly link a satisfactory resolution to the nuclear crisis to the prospect of a more cooperative and less confrontational regional posture. However, because regional issues are not part of the negotiation, Iran will be under no obligation to change its behavior. In the aftermath of the announced deal, the economic constraints on Iran’s ability to project power in the region will be removed. Conversely, had there been no nuclear deal Iran would have been in a position to stoke regional conflict, using its influence in Arab affairs as a stick, while at the same time more aggressively move its nuclear program forward.

For Iran’s Rahbar (Supreme Leader), ‘Ali Khamenei, the Iranian carrot is an illusion. Iran has no intention of discussing regional issues with the U.S. He would like to exchange limited nuclear concessions for sanctions relief. In his March 21, 2015, NoRuz speech, he put it in stark terms:

The second point about ongoing negotiations with European governments and America on the nuclear issue is that we only negotiate with America on the nuclear issue, not on any other issue. Everyone should know this. We do not negotiate with America on regional issues. America’s goals in the region are the exact opposite of our goals. We want security and peace in the region. We want the rule of peoples over their countries. America’s policy in the region is to create insecurity. Take a look at Egypt, Libya, and Syria. Arrogant governments – headed by America – have begun a counterattack against Islamic Awakening, which was created by nations. This counterattack is continuing in the present time and it is gradually creating a disastrous situation for nations. This is their goal, which is the exact opposite of ours. We do not at all negotiate with America, neither on regional issues, nor on domestic issues, or [sic] nor on the issue of weapons.  Our negotiations with the Americans are confined to the nuclear issue and on how we can reach an agreement through diplomacy.

Khamenei would like to see Iran make a deal with EU3+3 that protects Iran’s nuclear freedom of action but relieves some of the painful consequences that sanctions have inflicted on the Iranian economy. Iran’s regional rivals interpret Khamenei’s message as an expression of Iran’s aim to oppose all American influence in the region, even in the aftermath of a nuclear deal, and fulfill its ambition of becoming the hegemonic regional power, which Iran believes is its natural role in the region.

In a wide-ranging interview in February, Iran’s Foreign Minister and lead nuclear negotiator, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said, “some of our regional friends believe that with the resolution of the nuclear issue Iran’s role in the region will increase. However, it must be noted that Iran’s position as a powerful and influential regional country is a fact, and the Islamic Republic of Iran’s influence is fully evident in spite of the media publicity that has been created by the Zionist regime and several other regional countries.” Zarif further claimed that Iran’s policies in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq were beyond question. Rouhani and Zarif share Khamenei’s vision for Iran as the dominant regional power, they simply market that vision much better than Khamenei. Zarif claimed that the nuclear issue had created a number of obstacles for Iran in realizing “its true role in the region,” but that when the nuclear issue was resolved those obstacles would be removed. Zarif argues that Iran is an extremely powerful and influential country, but it uses its power not to inflict blows on other countries’ interests but to advance peace, cooperation, and friendship. Zarif reiterated that “it will be beneficial to all regional countries and our neighbors in the Persian Gulf if Iran were to play a role in the region and it will not be detrimental to anyone’s interests.”^[10]

The Big Bet

Iran’s desire to remove obstacles on its path to regional leadership in the Middle East does not converge with Barack Obama’s vision for a U.S.-orchestrated equilibrium between Sunni Arab states (plus Israel) and Iran. For the Sunni Arab states, even if the U.S. succeeds in constraining Iran’s nuclear program for 10-15 years, and succeeds in acting as the balancer to Iran’s regional power (as mentioned in the Remnick interview cited earlier), when a prospective nuclear deal expires Iran will be free to obtain nuclear weapons if it chooses, limiting the U.S. ability to manage a regional equilibrium. At that point, Iran will be an unconstrained regional nuclear power.

The Obama administration appears to be betting that by that time Iran will have been socialized and transformed from a threatening and revolutionary spoiler into a moderate and constructive international partner. In other words, the U.S. may be gambling that Iran’s social and political transformation outpaces Iran’s nuclear development. In this scenario, Iran’s regional behavior would be expected to change because it would calculate that the benefits it receives as a full international stakeholder outweigh the costs of pursuing a revolutionary (revisionist) foreign policy.

The Obama bet may be underestimating the strength of Iran’s revolutionary national identity, which has been forged over the course of the past 36 years. Suggesting that Iran’s foreign policy behavior can be socialized and transformed presumes that its behavior is based exclusively on a calculation of incentives rather than a mix of incentives and identity. Khamenei rejects the formula that calls not for a change to the Islamic Republic but for a change in its behavior. He views this posture as promoting “soft-revolution” within Iran, and as a backdoor attack on Iran’s Islamic system.  In a March 12, 2015 speech to Iran’s Assembly of Experts, which will ultimately choose Khamenei’s successor when he dies, Khamenei argued, “When they say that we should change our behavior, it means we should abandon and forget about the main elements of our movement and that we should make no effort to preserve them. This is the meaning of a change of behavior. This is what is referred to – in some writings and speeches – as the religion of minimums. It means decreasing one’s ideals and this means the destruction of the inner aspect of Islam. This religion of minimums means the complete elimination of religion.” These are not just the words of Iran’s Supreme Leader; they represent a particular worldview upon which the institutions of government and state in Iran have been erected since 1979. The revolutionary Shi‘i values that are an integral part of Iran’s national identity make the aim of socializing and transforming its behavior a steep challenge and a risky bet.

This bet also appears to be unacceptable for the U.S.’s historical regional allies on two levels. First, it assumes that a future Iran, after it has been socialized, transformed, and perhaps armed with nuclear weapons at the expiration of a deal, will not be threatening to its regional neighbors. This assumption ignores that an unconstrained nuclear Iran, moderate or not, will alter the regional balance of power. It also discounts the reality that the Iranian elites across the political spectrum, hard-line and reformist alike view Iran’s “true role in the region” in terms of regional leadership, which is considered illegitimate by Sunni Arab States and Israel. Second, and perhaps more important, the Obama’s plan appears to be placing a long-term bet with a distant and uncertain payoff, using its regional allies’ short-term security as its ante.

Tilting the Balance of Power

In a January 2015 interview, Hussein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for African and Arab Affairs, acknowledged that “some countries” are concerned that a nuclear agreement with Iran will create new capabilities that may lead to a “new arrangement” in the region. Amir-Abdollahian also acknowledged that some in the Arab world believe that conducting nuclear talks with Iran without addressing regional issues are of no benefit.^[11]

The Saudis and others feel that in the wake of the deal Iran will quickly be reintegrated into the international diplomatic and economic system, reviving its economy and providing tacit American backing for Iran to entrench its influence in the Arab world. By the time a prospective deal expires, Iran’s regional influence would be legitimized by time and tacit American backing, and Iran would be free to pursue its nuclear ambitions. In other words, Iran’s rivals believe that this deal will help Iran increase its relative power in the region.

The nuclear negotiations with Iran, structured under the November 2013 JPOA, have not explicitly addressed regional issues, but it is the regional context that has driven how the parties have approached the negotiations. In the fifteen months since the negotiations have restarted, Iran’s presence and influence have grown in three capitals: Baghdad, Damascus, and San‘a, and remained deeply entrenched in a fourth, Beirut. Writing in the late 1970s, Fouad Ajami succinctly noted that where there is excessive power, it will engender resistance.

Iran has managed to extend its influence throughout the Arab world, despite the sharp decline in the price of oil, which accounts for approximately 70 percent of Iranian government revenues, and the web of international sanctions that the international community has imposed on Iran. Iran has taken advantage of the instability in the Arab world following the uprisings in 2010 and 2011, which its leaders refer to as the “Islamic Awakening.”  Iran has also demonstrated its resolve and credibility by sustaining its heavy investments in its Arab Shi‘i allies. Between 2011 and 2014, it is believed that Iran spent between $15 and $19 billion on direct support to the Assad regime in Syria.^[12] Iran’s current fiscal year budget is $296 billion (based on $72 per barrel of oil, when oil has been hovering in the mid-$50s) and it is expecting zero economic growth for the year. Nevertheless Iran has increased defense spending by 33 percent from the previous year.^[13] In other words, despite facing strong material incentives to scale back its defense spending and support for its regional allies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Lebanon, it has continued to invest in projecting its influence throughout the region, including providing material support for the Houthi (Za‘idi Shi‘is) takeover in Yemen, which has unfolded in parallel to the ongoing nuclear negotiations.

Iran believes its interests in neighboring Arab states are legitimate. Their national interests are shaped by unique combination of pragmatism and revolutionary Shi‘i ideology. Iran has organized, trained, advised, and armed the Shi‘i militias in Iraq that have been at the forefront of pushing back the June 2014 Islamic State (IS) invasion into Iraq.  The Islamic State embraces a revolutionary Sunni identity that is virulently anti-Shi‘i, and Iran views protecting holy Shi‘i shrines in Iraq as a vital national interest. Protecting and promoting revolutionary Shi‘i identity is the principle upon which Iran projects its influence throughout the Arab world. Nevertheless, Iran also believes maintaining influence in Iraq, to ensure the Iraqi government and military forces are dependent on Iran, is also viewed as a vital interest for a nation that fought an eight-year war with Iraq. Like Iraq, Iran has framed its involvement in Syria and Lebanon and protecting Shi‘i holy sites and/or Shi‘i populations. However, it is also clear that Iran sustains Assad in Syria and Hizballah in Lebanon as a means of communicating to regional and international actors that regional problems can be escalated or contained depending on how they serve Iranian interests.

The Sunni Arab States, and in particular Saudi Arabia, view Iran’s interference in the Arab world as illegitimate. It is, perhaps, no coincidence that just as an expected political framework for a nuclear deal with Iran was expected at the end of March, Saudi Arabia’s launched its “Storm of Resolve” military operation in order to roll back the Houthi takeover of Yemen. The conservative Iranian daily newspaper Jomhuri-ye Eslami has characterized the post-Arab Spring security competition between Iran and Saudi Arabia as “intense, extensive, fundamental, and strategic.”^[14] Echoing Ajami, the surest sign of the intensifying regional security competition has been the Saudi’s success in creating a unified group of Sunni states in support of its military operation to roll back Houthi gains in Yemen and limit Iranian support to the group and its allies. The Saudi force projection in Yemen during the past week is an unprecedented shift in Saudi strategic behavior.

Of Equilibrium and Legitimacy

The Iranians want to see American influence minimized and ultimately removed from the region, because they see the U.S. as the historical obstacle to fulfilling their “true” role as a regional power. They also want rehabilitate their economy and retain the maximum amount of freedom of action with respect to their nuclear activities and their regional influence. They are not seeking a regional balance. The Saudis and others are still trying to reconcile themselves to the changes ushered in by the Arab Spring upheavals and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. They would like to see Iranian influence in Arab affairs minimized and ultimately withdrawn. They would like Iran’s nuclear program to be transparent. The Obama administration would like to engineer an equilibrium between rivals, and believes the nuclear deal is the most important step in beginning to effect this change, provided it convincingly prevents Iran’s path to nuclear weapons.

Iran’s regional rivals are already actively resisting efforts to recalibrate the regional balance of power and accommodate a more expansive role for Iran. This process is just beginning and will probably be characterized by rapid military build-ups, increased indirect conflict (per Yemen and elsewhere), volatile brinksmanship, and reciprocal political subversion and military sabotage, involving repressed religious and ethnic minority groups. The violent Arab unrest in Iran’s Khuzestan province during a soccer match in Ahvaz between an Iranian and Saudi club may be a preview of worse things to come. The U.S. has placed a big bet and now it remains to be seen whether it will pay off or whether it will lose its ante.

About the author:
Brandon Friedman, a Senior Fellow in FPRI’s Program on the Middle East, is a Research Fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle East and African Studies at Tel Aviv University.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

Notes:
[1] Oliver Ròy, The Politics of Chaos in the Middle East (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), translated from the French by Ros Schwartz.

[2] International Crisis Group, “Iran and the P5+1: Solving the Nuclear Rubik’s Cube,” Middle East Report No. 152, May 9, 2014, p. i.

[3] Henry Kissinger, World Order (New York: Penguin Press), p. 163.

[4] David Remnick, “Going the Distance,” The New Yorker, January 27, 2014.

[5] Also known as the P5+1, includes France, Germany, the United Kingdom, as well as China, Russia, and the United States.

[6] International Crisis Group, “Iran and the P5+1: Solving the Nuclear Rubik’s Cube,” Middle East Report No. 152, May 9, 2014, p. 3.

[7] See: Laura Rozen, “Iran FM Zarif, meeting Kerry, says not authorized to discuss Syria,” Al Monitor, February 2, 2014.

[8] Michael Doran, “Obama’s Secret Iran Strategy, Mosaic Magazine, February 2, 2015.

[9] Ilan Goldenberg, Jacob Stokes, Nicholas A. Heras, “Slow Thaw: Testing Possibilities for Cooperation with Iran After a Nuclear Deal,” CNAS Policy Brief, January 2015, pp. 3-4.

[10] Sa‘ideh-Sadat Fahri, Donya-ye Eqtesad, February 7, 2015 – as published and translated by BBC Worldwide Monitoring, February 9, 2015.

[11] Zeynab Esmaʿili, “Problematic kiss on Hashemi-Rafsanjani’s forehead: Interview with Hossein Amir-Abdollahian,” Shargh, January 14, 2015 – as published and translated by BBC World Monitoring, January 15, 2015.

[12] Emile Hokayem, “Iran, the Gulf States, and the Syrian Civil War,” Survival: Global Politics and Strategy 56:6 (2014), 59-86, here 74, footnote 12.

[13] Hooshang Amirahmadi, “Iran’s Neo-liberal Austerity-Security Budget,” Payvand News, February 16, 2015.

[14] Jomhuri-ye Eslami, January 12, 2015 – published and translated by BBC Worldwide Monitoring, January 17, 2015.

The post The Geopolitics Of The Nuclear Negotiations With Iran – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Iran’s President Hassan Rohani says the Islamic Republic will observe its obligations as per the recent joint statement agreed upon with the P5+1 countries in Switzerland, provided that the other side abides by its obligations as well.

“The world should know that we are not deceptive and are not liars and any promises we give will be within the framework of our national interests and we will live up to our promises provided that the opposite side abides by its promises as well,” Rohani said.

He added that if some day the P5+1 countries decided to choose a new path, the way would be open to the Iranian nation to make a proportionate decision as well.

The Iranian president said the nuclear negotiations are the first step toward “constructive interaction” with the world.

“We will have interaction will all those countries that want to respect the Iranian nation and work with the people of Iran within the framework of mutual interests,” he pointed out.

The Iranian chief executive also noted, “There is no doubt that cooperation and interaction will benefit all.”

He said Iran seeks to improve relations with friendly countries while seeking an end to possible tensions with other states.

Rohani added that Iran presently needs economic prosperity, employment for youth and higher non-oil exports and called on all economic activists to take action for the country to achieve these goals.

Based on the general agreement reached in Lausanne, “the P5+1 accepted that Iran should be able to conduct [uranium] enrichment within its own territory,” he said.

Rohani added that the West claimed that enrichment activities in Iran pose a threat to the Middle East region and the entire world “but now everyone has accepted that enrichment in Iran is not a threat to anyone.”

“I explicitly announce that enrichment and all our nuclear technology only aims to develop Iran. Enrichment and [nuclear] technology will not be against any countries in the region and across the world,” the Iranian president said.

He noted that Arak heavy water reactor would be equipped with state-of-the-art technology and Fordow enrichment site would remain open forever.

Over 1,000 centrifuges would be installed at Fordow where nuclear and physical activities would be conducted, he said.

The Iranian president has also called on regional governments, particularly Iraq, to press for an end to the ongoing aggression by Saudi Arabia against Yemen.

In a message to the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, Rohani emphasized the need for an immediate stop to the Saudi-led war on Yemen, adding that a dialogue between political factions should be resumed in the Arab country.

There is an urgent need for sending relief aid to the people of the impoverished country, said the Iranian president.

Iran’s First Deputy Foreign Minister Morteza Sarmadi, who submitted the message in a meeting with Abadi, congratulated the Iraqi premier on the Iraqi government’s recent victories against Takfiri militants.

The Iranian official said the recent liberation of the strategic northern city of Tikrit enables the Iraqi government to fully purge its soil of extremist terrorists.

The post Rohani: Iran To Observe Its Promises If P5+1 Abides By Its Obligations appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Asaad Al-Saleh for Syria Comment*

When writing my new book, Voices of the Arab Spring, I did not feature the testimonials of children. Though the book surveys participants from various backgrounds, differing in age, politics, and education, it doesn’t address the Arab Spring from the perspective of children, even though they are also actors in it. I chose not to cover their stories because they are being used and abused to promote propaganda in Syria. The immoral exposure of children to the war is heightened by the disturbing fact that they have been used repeatedly throughout the conflict to endorse various political positions. During the bloodiest confrontations of the Arab Spring, those between the Syrian regime and the hundreds of factions fighting it, children have become victims of the violence resulting from both the uprising and the subsequent civil war. Despite this tragedy, children are still used in the rhetoric of revolt, war, and jihad.

Reports and studies marking the fourth anniversary of the uprising and civil war in Syria show that more than 4 million people are refugees outside the country and 7.6 million are internally displaced. Almost half of these are children whose need for assistance (such as shelter and education) is only partially being met. Of the 200,000 killed in the 4-year span of the conflict, over 10,000 were children, some of whom died as a result of torture. Citing the international standard that the percentage of civilians targeted in war should not exceed 2%, reports on Syria point out that the percentage of targeted children and women reached 4.5%. On the same occasion, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) raised awareness about the emotional trauma affecting Syrian children, some of whom are suffering the effects of rape and the loss of parents. Labeling them the “lost generation,” UNICEF also reported that more than 20% of Syrian schools have been either destroyed or rendered effectively unusable because they are currently used for shelter by displaced families.

As if this tragic plight were not enough, images of children are used in Syria as a propaganda tool by many sides. For the regime of Bashar al-Assad, a rhetoric of defending children has been employed to portray its enemies as abusers of children and the regime as their protector. In September 2013, the regime aired on television the testimony of a 16-year-old girl named Rawan Qadah, who gave details about the alleged “jihad sex” she was asked to perform at the request of her father. The opposition immediately responded by stating that Rawan had been kidnapped, forced to tell the same lies the regime was spreading about its opponents, and appeared too young to be a reliable witness in regards to verifying the regime’s claims. Rawan’s story demonstrates how children can be easily used for political agendas in the context of war. For some revolutionaries, or those who revolted peacefully in Syria four years ago, it was likewise customary to use children while calling for regime change and to attract the world’s attention to al-Assad’s crimes. This position comes from the assumption that children are “part of the revolution” and that their role must therefore be presented. The world cares about children, and the situation in Syria has been exceedingly desperate. Thus, children are used to provoke emotions and elicit more attention, political pressure, and eventually humanitarian or military intervention to “help” or “save” the children. The regime’s behavior is highly unethical concerning Syrian children considering the widespread displacement and death that occurs for the sake of al-Assad’s staying in power.

As for rebel groups that use terrorism in Syria, children are considered the future of Islam—as it is envisioned by al-Qaeda or ISIS. Their participation in the terrorists’ programs, most of which are symbolic but are sometimes extremely graphic, is done without the least attention to legal, moral, or psychological considerations. One of the early instances of the use of children’s images was performed by Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda affiliate. In June 2013, a video of a child about 5-years-old was circulated by al-Nusra to promote their dogma. The child, who was carried on a man’s shoulder, was chanting a song full of bigotry and terrorist rhetoric:

Our leader is Bin Laden … O you who terrorized America

We destroyed America … With a civilian airplane

The [World] Trade Center became a heap of sand

O you Nusayri Police … Wait for us O Alawites

We are coming to slaughter you … Unheeding any Convention

[The child is then handed a knife to pretend that he is killing someone, before continuing:]

They say I am a terrorist … “It is my honor,” I replied

Our terrorism is highly praised … It is a divine call.

Children often play games imagining themselves as heroes with guns to fight the bad guys. But in Syria they are being dragged into a real war zone, even as instigators. The image industry in Syria uses journalistic and political outlets to make children represent a cause that is not theirs. It circulates hundreds of images of children carrying conventional weapons or dressed in military costumes, and more recently playing with slaughtered heads as part of ISIS propaganda. Such visibility is hardly the outcome of genuine consent of the child since he or she is not cognizant of the meaning or the consequences of participating in such functions. These children are growing up in one of the ugliest war zones in the world. One day, they will tell stories full of bad guys, including those who let this war drag on and on.

The regime, the opposition, and the jihadis in Syria are all responsible for such unethical manipulation of children and their images. These players need to grow up and leave children alone.

*Asaad Al-Saleh is Assistant Professor of Arabic Literature and Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Utah and author of the new book Voices of the Arab Spring: Personal Stories from the Arab Revolutions

The post The Children Of Syria: A War And Image Industry – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Phyllis Bennis*

Negotiators in Lausanne, Switzerland won a huge victory for diplomacy over war.

The hard-fought first-stage negotiations resulted in the outlines of an agreement that will significantly limit Iran’s nuclear program in return for significant relief from crippling economic sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations.

Both sides made major concessions, though it appears Iran’s are far greater.

Tehran accepted that U.S. and EU sanctions will not be lifted until after the UN’s watchdog agency verifies that Iran has fully implemented its new nuclear obligations — which could be years down the line. It agreed to severe cuts in its nuclear infrastructure, including the reduction of its current 19,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium to just over 6,000.

Tehran also consented to rebuild its heavy water reactor at Arak so that it will have no reprocessing capacity and thus cannot produce plutonium. Its spent fuel will be exported. The Fordow nuclear plant, moreover, will be turned into a technology research center without fissile material. And crucially, the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency will be allowed to conduct unannounced inspections.

In return, the United States and its partners — the UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China — agreed that the UN resolution imposing international sanctions on Iran would be replaced by a new resolution that would end those sanctions but maintain some restrictions.

The framework didn’t specify whether the new resolution would be enforceable by military force, but it did reject an earlier demand by the United States and some of the Europeans for a “snap-back” trigger that would automatically re-impose sanctions if they claimed Iran wasn’t keeping its part of the bargain. Without that, a new Security Council decision — one subject to potential vetoes by at least Russia or China — will have to be voted on.

Additionally, while it didn’t explicitly reaffirm Iran’s explicit rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to pursue “nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination,” the agreement did acknowledge Iran’s “peaceful nuclear program” and sought to limit, not to end, Iran’s enrichment capacity.

Most importantly for skeptics of the talks, there’s no question that the broad parameters announced in Lausanne would qualitatively prevent any future Iranian decision — which all U.S. intelligence agencies still agree Iran hasn’t ever made — to try to build a nuclear bomb.

The restrictions impose a year-long “break-out” period, meaning it would take at least that long for Iran to even theoretically enrich enough uranium to build a bomb. And, as my colleague Stephen Myles at Win Without War reminds us, “The Iranians would still have to, ya know, build a bomb, figure out a way to hide it all from the inspectors all over their country, and convince the international community to sit idly by without responding while they broke the terms of a deal for one whole year.”

Reshaping the Middle East

Hardliners in both the United States and Iran opposed the agreement, but so far it appears that the pro-war faction in the U.S. Congress (mainly though not only Republicans) poses a far greater threat to the survival of the accord than the hawkish factions in Iran — especially since Ayatollah Ali Khameini, Iran’s Supreme Leader, has continued to support the nuclear negotiators.

For some of the U.S. opponents, the issue is purely partisan. They want President Obama to fail, and they’ll oppose anything he supports.

For many others, military intervention and regime change remain the first choice towards Iran — Senator John McCain already urged Israel to “go rogue” and attack Iran. Republicans in the Senate, following their 47-strong letter to Iran threatening to undermine any agreement signed by Obama, continue to lead efforts to impose new sanctions and to demand a congressional vote to accept or reject the agreement.

But the global potential for this agreement is far more important than the partisan posturing of right-wing militarists and neoconservative ideologues. If it holds — and if the final agreement, with all its technical annexes, can be completed as scheduled in three months — Lausanne can set the stage for an entirely new set of diplomatic relationships and alliances in the Middle East.

Indeed, the region could be significantly transformed by an end to the decades of U.S.-Iran hostility. With Washington and Tehran maintaining normal if not chummy diplomatic relations, joint efforts to end the fighting in Iraq, stop the catastrophic escalation underway in Yemen, and create a real international diplomatic campaign to end the Syrian civil war all become possible. A U.S. diplomatic posture that recognizes Iran as a major regional power would make a whole set of current challenges much easier to resolve.

Defending Progress

Regardless of whether that kind of grand bargain in the Middle East becomes possible, the current diplomatic initiative must be defended.

Efforts to undermine the Lausanne agreement are already underway.

Senate Republicans are hoping to win over enough Democrats to override Obama’s certain veto of a bill that would let Congress vote to reject the agreement. Fortunately, Democratic opposition to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s blatant campaign to undermine the Iran negotiations has made that Republican effort more difficult. Defense of President Obama’s diplomacy by the Black Caucus and Progressive Caucus of Congress has pulled more Democrats away from the anti-negotiations, pro-war position.

But at the end of the day it will be public opinion that matters. A Washington Post poll in the last days before the agreement found 59-percent support for a negotiated settlement — with 70 percent of liberals, two-thirds of Democrats, and at least 60 percent of independents and self-described “moderates” all supporting a deal. Even Republicans — divided more or less evenly — are far more supportive than their party’s war-boostering representatives in Congress.

What’s required now is mobilizing that public support. That means strengthening the backbone of uncertain or wavering members of Congress, challenging extremist anti-diplomacy positions in the media, and most of all reminding everyone of the consequences of failure.

In Lausanne we saw a crucial victory of diplomacy over war. Now we’ve got to protect it.

*Phyllis Bennis directs the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies.

The post Iran Deal: A Game-Changer For The Middle East – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Six men face execution in Egypt after being convicted by a military court, despite evidence that some were in detention at the time of the crimes. Egyptian authorities should stay the executions and send the men’s case for retrial before a civilian court, Human Rights Watch said.

The six men are part of a group of nine convicted in a single trial of participating in attacks on security forces and killing two armed forces officers in a shootout in 2014. Two of the nine men were sentenced to life in prison. Another man was tried and convicted in his absence and sentenced to death. Defense Minister Sedki Sobhi confirmed all seven death sentences on March 24, 2015, following the rejection of a legally required appeal from prosecutors, putting the six men in custody at risk of execution at any time.

“Egypt’s courts have routinely abandoned due process, but if these executions go ahead it will represent an egregious new low,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director. “Civilians should never face trial before military courts or face execution as a result.”

Military prosecutors accused the nine men of belonging to the Egyptian insurgent group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, or Partisans of Jerusalem, and of participating in attacks on security forces, including a gunfight on March 19, 2014, in Arab Sharkas, a village north of Cairo, which killed an armed forces brigadier general and colonel. The Arab Sharkas gun battle occurred when police, military, and special forces raided a timber workshop in the village, in the Qalyubiya governorate, which they believed the jihadist group used, the Associated Press reported at the time.

After the raid, the Interior Ministry claimed that its forces had killed six militants and arrested eight others – the men who later stood trial.

Three of the men now facing execution could not have participated in any of the attacks for which they were sentenced to death because authorities arrested them months earlier and were still holding them in detention at the time, said their relatives and Ahmed Helmy, their lawyer.

Authorities arrested Mohamed Bakry, Hani Amer, and Mohamed Afifi in late 2013, Helmy said, and their families hired him in January 2014 to find out where they were detained. He said authorities arrested Afifi and Bakry, both Cairo residents, in November 2013. They also detained but later released Bakry’s wife and children. Men in civilian clothes arrested Amer, an Ismailia resident, in December 2013 while he was at a government office seeking a permit for his information technology company, Helmy said.

Helmy told Human Rights Watch that he believed the authorities sent all three men after their arrests to Azouli Prison, an unregistered detention facility inside Al Galaa army base in Ismailia, a city on the Suez Canal.

Amer’s brother told Human Rights Watch in November 2014 that Amer said he had been held in Azouli, and the Guardian newspaper reported in March 2015 that other Azouli prisoners in a separate case had identified Amer as having been held there.

Human Rights Watch obtained copies of telegrams that Amer and Bakry’s families sent to local prosecutors in December 2013 requesting information about the two men. In February 2014, Helmy sent a complaint to local prosecutors following up on his request for information about Amer. Prosecutors never responded. Amer’s brother said that Amer told him he had been transferred from Azouli to Tora Prison in Cairo on March 20, 2014, a day after the fatal clash at Arab Sharkas.

Despite urging from many of their relatives, the men declined to pursue their own appeal after a military court sitting at the Hikestep military base outside Cairo convicted them in August 2014. They told Helmy and their families that they do not recognize the legitimacy of the military court and believe that their case has been politicized and that their sentences were pre-ordained by the authorities.

In February 2014, interim President Adly Mansour issued a law establishing a military appeals court for serious crimes and requiring that death sentences be approved by Egypt’s highest Muslim religious figure, the grand mufti, as occurs in civilian cases.

According to prosecutors, some of the eight defendants initially confessed to membership in Ansar Beit al-Maqdis and the crimes for which they are accused. But all have since renounced their confessions, saying they were obtained under torture, Helmy said.

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis pledged allegiance to the extremist group Islamic State (also known as ISIS) in November 2014 and now refers to itself as the Sinai Province.

The father of Khaled Farag, another of the six facing execution, told Human Rights Watch that his son told him he was arrested at another location on the day of the March 19 raid, was blindfolded and tortured by his interrogators after his arrest, and suffered a broken left thigh and a serious fracture of his left knee. His surgery required plates and screws in his thigh and wiring in his knee, wrote Hossam Bahgat, the former director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights who attended one of the trial sessions, on the Mada Masr news website. Farag attended the trial in a wheelchair.

Helmy was not allowed to visit his clients in private, he said, and the only witness against them is an officer from the Interior Ministry’s National Security Agency.

All eight men are currently held in the Scorpion section of Tora Prison, the highest security facility in Egypt. Some of the men’s families have not been allowed to visit their relatives for months. Farag’s father told Human Rights Watch that he hasn’t seen his son in three months, and Amer’s brother said he has not been allowed to see Amer since February, which was only the second time he had visited his brother. He also said Amer’s family has not been allowed to deliver food or medicine.

The men face additional charges in an ordinary civilian court, where they are among 200 people accused of belonging to Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, but Helmy said the civilian court proceedings will not prevent the death sentences from being carried out. The execution process is secretive. Families are supposed to receive a warning a day in advance, but that is not always respected in practice.

If the six are executed, it would be the second time Egyptian authorities have carried out a death sentence for alleged political violence since the military removed President Mohamed Morsy in July 2013. Hundreds of people, the majority Morsy supporters or members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood, have been sentenced to death since then.

Egypt’s military courts, whose judges are serving military officers, are neither independent nor impartial, but in October 2014 President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi increased their powers to try civilians by expanding their jurisdiction over any crimes that occur on state or public property. Since then, nearly 2,000 civilians have been referred to military courts.

The use of military courts to try civilians violates the 1981 African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which Egypt’s parliament ratified in 1984. The African Human Rights Commission Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Fair Trial and Legal Assistance explicitly forbid military trials of civilians in all circumstances.

Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances because of its inherent cruelty. In 2013, following similar past resolutions, the United Nations General Assembly called on countries to establish a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, progressively restrict the practice, and reduce the offenses for which it might be imposed, with the view toward its eventual abolition.

“It is outrageous that these six men face execution in Egypt after such a flawed judicial process,” Whitson said.

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By Ann Schneible

Both Pope Francis’ Good Friday service at the Vatican and the Stations of the Cross held at the Colosseum later in the day zeroed-in on the plight of persecuted Christians around the world.

“In you, Divine Love, we see again today our persecuted brethren: beheaded, crucified, for their faith in you, beneath our eyes, or often with our complicit silence,” he said in a brief reflection April 3 following the Way of the Cross.

The Pope’s remarks come one day after the massacre of 147 students – mostly Christian, separated from their Muslim colleagues at the start of the attack – at Kenya’s Garissa University College at the hands of Somalian Al Shebaab gunmen.

Earlier today, Pope Francis condemned “this act of senseless brutality,” in a letter of condolence to the Kenyan Bishop’s conference, praying “for a change of heart among its perpetrators.”

According to the letter which was signed by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy Father called on authorities to increase their efforts in bringing an end to violence, promoting justice and peace.

Earlier in the day, during celebrations for the Passion of Our Lord in Saint Peter’s Basilica, papal preacher Father Raniero Cantalamessa also touched on the Kenya massacre, and other recent examples of Christian persecution.

Speaking also of the 21 Coptic Christians killed by ISIS last February, Fr. Cantalamessa said Christ gave them “the strength to die whispering the name of Jesus.”

Pope Francis has spoken out repeatedly on Christian martyrs of today. He has stressed that there are more persecuted Christians throughout the world now than there were in the early centuries of Christianity.

At the conclusion of the Way of the Cross – or Via Crucis – Pope Francis reflected on the suffering which Christ endured during His Passion.

“In the cruelty of your Passion, we see the cruelty in our heart, and of our actions,” he said.

“Oh Victorious Christ Crucified, your Way of the Cross is the synthesis of your life, the icon of your obedience to the will of the Father, and the realization of your infinite love for us, who are sinners.”

Pope Francis also spoke of those who, like Christ during his passion, feel abandoned, “disfigured by our negligence, and our indifference.”

The pontiff concluded his address by asking God to “teach us that the Cross is the Way toward the Resurrection,” and that “Good Friday is the path toward the Easter of Light.”

“Teach us that God never forgets any of his children, and never tires of forgiving us and embracing us with his infinite mercy. But also teach us to never be tired of asking for forgiveness, and believing in mercy, without limit, from the Father.”

The post For Pope Francis Good Friday Shrouded In Grief Over Persecuted Christians appeared first on Eurasia Review.

State prosecutors in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin have indicted former security czar Zhou Yongkang on charges of “bribery, abuse of power and intentional disclosure of state secrets,” official media reported on Friday.

The indictment was issued by the state prosecutor linked to the Tianjin No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, China’s top state prosecution agency, said in a statement.

Former state security chief Zhou, 73, “took advantage of his posts to offer interests to others and illegally accepted a huge amount of money and property,” the official news agency Xinhua quoted the indictment as saying.

Such abuse of power resulted in “grave losses of public property” and harmed the interests of the country and the people, it said.

Zhou’s actions were “particularly bad,” and the social consequences were bad,” Xinhua reported.

However, there was no reference to earlier accusations by China’s Supreme People’s Court that Zhou was involved in “unofficial political activities” with jailed former Chongqing party boss Bo Xilai, which observers saw as a reference to unconfirmed rumors that the pair had tried to stage a coup in March 2012.

Zhou, who served as public security minister from 2002 before being promoted to the all-powerful Politburo standing committee from 2007-2012, was formally arrested and expelled from the party last year.

Zhou’s control over the domestic security regime, multiple business interests in state-run mining and petroleum giants, and political power base in southwestern Sichuan province had given him huge power before he stepped down from the Politburo standing committee in November 2012.

The post of domestic security chief has since been downgraded to report to the committee.

The inclusion of “intentional disclosure of state secrets” on the charge sheet could indicate that Zhou’s trial, which now looks set to be held in Tianjin, will be at least partially behind closed doors, analysts said.

“Once they say that state secrets are involved, they can decide to hold the trial behind closed doors,” Beijing-based political commentator Zha Jianguo said.

“The legal side of [the statement] isn’t very detailed, however, and it will be for the court to decide what does and doesn’t constitute a state secret,” Zha said.

‘Bigger than the Bo Xilai case’

Yang Jisheng, deputy editor of political magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu, agreed.

“The way things are at the moment, this case is going to be even bigger than the Bo Xilai case,” Yang said.

“It’s hard to say how it will turn out, but right now I don’t think there’s much hope that the trial will be very open at all,” he said.

According to Jin Zhong, editor-in-chief of Hong Kong’s Kaifang magazine, the lack of reference to political activities suggests that the administration of President Xi Jinping is trying to distance itself from any political motivation in Zhou’s case.

“They will get more public sympathy, understanding and support that way,” Jin said. “There have been some painful historical lessons learned from the political approach, from the purges of all those anti-party cabals and counterrevolutionaries of the Mao era.”

“Ultimately, the whole thing came tumbling down,” he said, adding: “Political movements are inherently unstable.”

Jin said Xi and his allies are hoping to avoid reminding people of the political trials of recent Chinese history.

“Political attacks … ultimately don’t lead to long-term stability and the concentration of power in one place,” he said.

“Mao Zedong brought down countless high-ranking officials within the party, but the moment he died, all his ideas and policies were replaced,” Jin said.

Tigers and flies

And Xi’s anti-corruption campaign against high-ranking “tigers” and low-ranking “flies,” launched when he took power in November 2012, has already had the effect of consolidating the president’s hold on power, according to Zha Jianguo.

“I think we can say that Xi Jinping has managed to get the whole of China under his control in a stable manner,” Zha said.

“Legally speaking, they already have a lot of evidence [against Zhou], and they don’t have to worry about any political threats,” he said.

“They’ve pretty much destroyed Zhou’s ability to fight back.”

Guangxi-based rights activist Yang Zaixin said the reference to the “particularly bad” effects of Zhou’s alleged crimes suggests he may face a suspended death sentence, or even a full death penalty.

Acquittals are unusual in the Chinese judicial system, particularly in high profile political cases.

“A community leader in Guangxi was executed for corruption worth some 70 million yuan,” Yang said. “How much did Zhou make from corruption? At the very least, he’ll get a suspended death sentence.”

Yang said there would likely be an open portion of the trial for the economic aspects of Zhou’s alleged offenses, and a closed portion to deal with the state secrets charge.

He said the location of the trial further suggests a bid by the government to manage proceedings carefully.

“The fact that it’s being held in neutral territory means that they’ll be able to prevent any interference from powerful or well-connected people,” Yang said.

Former Chongqing party secretary Bo Xilai was jailed for life for corruption and abuse of power in September 2013, a month after his wife Gu Kailai was handed a suspended death sentence for the murder of a British businessman in the biggest political scandal to rock the party in decades.

Bo’s ouster from office on March 15, 2012, came soon after an embarrassing Feb. 6 visit to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu by his former police chief and right-hand man Wang Lijun.

Bo’s sudden departure also sparked online rumors of an alleged coup plot between him and Zhou, prompting the country’s Internet censors to shut down comments on many social media sites.

Reported by Xin Lin for RFA’s Mandarin Service and by Wen Yuqing for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

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