The Malaysian government should withdraw the proposed counterterrorism law now with parliament and ensure future drafts protect fundamental rights, Human Rights Watch said Sunday. The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2015 would reintroduce indefinite detention without trial or judicial review, and violate due process rights in the name of preventing terrorism. Parliament is expected to vote on the bill before the session ends on April 9, 2015.

The draft law contains key elements of the notorious Internal Security Act (ISA), revoked in 2012, which was long used to detain government opponents, dissidents, and others in violation of their basic rights.

“The draft counterterrorism law is like a legal zombie returned from the grave of the discredited and abusive Internal Security Act,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director. “By proposing this legislation, the Malaysian government is signalling its willingness to return to Malaysia’s past policies of repression.”

The draft law would allow terrorist suspects to be detained for 21 days based solely on the word of a police inspector, extendable for an additional 38 days. During this period, the suspect is not permitted representation by counsel except when his own formal statement is being taken and recorded by the inquiry officer.

The results of the initial inquiry are not presented to a court for a full and fair hearing, but rather to a proposed “Prevention of Terrorism Board” appointed by the Malaysian sultan. If the board is satisfied, based on the Inquiry Officer’s report, that there are “reasonable grounds” for believing that the suspect has engaged in the commission or support of terrorist acts, it may order that the suspect be detained without trial for up to two years. The order can be extended by the board, in two-year increments, for an unlimited period of time. The draft law also expressly precludes judicial review of Prevention of Terrorism Board decisions other than on questions of compliance with procedural requirements.

The results of the initial inquiry are not presented to a court for a full and fair hearing, but rather to a proposed “Prevention of Terrorism Board” appointed by the Malaysian king, who by convention acts on the advice of the government. Members of the board can be dismissed at any time by the king. If the board is satisfied, based on the inquiry officer’s report, that there are “reasonable grounds” for believing that the suspect has engaged in the commission or support of terrorist acts involving a listed terrorist organization in a foreign country, it may order that the suspect be detained without trial for up to two years. The order can be extended by the board, in two-year increments, for an unlimited period of time. The draft law also expressly precludes judicial review of Prevention of Terrorism Board decisions other than on questions of compliance with procedural requirements.

“Permitting a government-appointed body to order indefinite detention without judicial review or trial is an open invitation to serious abuse,” Robertson said. “The draft law creates conditions conducive to torture, and denies suspects the right to challenge their detention or treatment.”

Under the proposed law, the Prevention of Terrorism Board is also authorized to issue restriction orders against terrorism suspects that violate the rights to freedom of expression, movement, association and privacy. The board can restrict, without trial or judicial review, a suspect’s place of residence, travel, access to communications facilities, and use of the Internet, for renewable periods of up to five years. It may also impose electronic monitoring.

The proposed law lists those subject to detention or restriction orders in a register. The authorities can charge them with a criminal offense for “consorting with” other persons on the register or even for “loitering in or about a public place” at night if they are unable to “satisfactorily account for” their presence. Any registered person who is convicted of any offense is subject to imprisonment for twice the maximum term that could otherwise have been imposed as well as to whipping, an inherently cruel punishment.

While the draft law purports to exclude political belief or activity from being considered terrorism, this exemption is limited by its reference to political parties registered under the Societies Act, as was true of the identical provision in the Security Offenses (Special Measures) Act of 2012 (SOSMA). Since the Registrar of Societies has the power to refuse or delay registration – a power that has been repeatedly used for political ends such as denying registration to a newly formed political party – the risk that the law will be used to restrict political opposition remains.

As part of the new legislative package, the Malaysian government has also proposed amendments to SOSMA that further erode citizens’ rights. These include permitting the introduction of any statement by the accused made at any time; the admission of all documents or other evidence “howsoever obtained whether before or after a person has been charged for a security offence”; and expanded admission of intercepted communications.

“These proposed laws reflect the continuing deterioration of human rights protection in Malaysia,” Robertson said. “To be effective, laws to counter terrorism should meet – not flout – international human rights standards.”

The post Call For Malaysia To Scrap Repressive Counterterrorism Bill appeared first on Eurasia Review.

What grounds have China broken in its economic diplomacy (defined here as promotion on trade and investment through diplomatic initiatives)? Out of Chinese pronouncements and actions by the new leadership formally installed in 2012, what can be discerned about future possibilities? Addressing these and related questions can be helpful in tackling the larger question of how China relates to the rest of the world economy. Let us begin with a sketch of official Chinese visions about the country in the world today.

By Zha Daojiong*

When China’s Foreign Ministry inaugurated a new Department of International Economic Affairs in October 2012, the country was one month away from the once-in-a-decade leadership transition. The 18th Party Congress formalised the entry of the fifth generation of Chinese leaders. Amidst expectations of continuity in foreign policy strategy, Xi Jinping, the new party secretary and president of the country, began to indicate innovations in foreign policy thinking, coined in the phrase “Chinese Dream”.

Since December 2012 when he delivered a speech at the “The Road to Revival” exhibition at the National Museum of History in Beijing, the “Chinese Dream” has become a standard reference in major policy discussions. The term is rather loosely defined but the leadership is obviously seeking to unify the people behind the party and government, as this catch-all phrase allows different groups within Chinese society to project their own ideas onto the new slogan.

The notion of “Chinese dream” can also be understood as a new principle guiding China’s own development and how China relates to the rest of the world. It builds on the twin concepts, “harmonious society” and “harmonious world”, which emerged at the 16th Party Congress in 2002 and marked the formal transition of an earlier generation of leadership. The concept of “harmony” was officially presented as a guiding principle for global politics at the summit held to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations in September 2005.2 It thus replaced China’s earlier concept of a “better world”, which had been articulated by the then Chinese head of state’s speech at the 50th anniversary meeting of the United Nations in 1995.3

Entry of the fifth generation of Chinese leadership came against the international context of uneven worldwide recoveries from the global financial crisis of 2008. On the one hand, what has not changed is China’s need for a stable international environment to develop its economy. As its economy is heavily dependent on the security of its supply chains, it must win the trust and support of the international community of states. On the other hand, what has changed is the size of the Chinese economy. It overtook Japan in nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to be the world’s second largest economy in 2010. China must address the question of how to exercise its wealth, power, and status. Cornerstones of the “Chinese Dream” are harmony, peace, stability as well as wealth creation. The phrase represents an open invitation for all nations to work together as each has a right to achieving its own dream of stability and prosperity.

At the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum held in Beijing in November 2014, President Xi observed that leaders of the region “are duty-bound to create and fulfill an Asia-Pacific dream for our people”. He further elaborated that the Asia Pacific dream is about staying ahead of global development and making greater contribution to the well-being of mankind. Through having higher levels of economic vibrancy, free trade and investment facilitation, better roads, and closer people-to-people exchanges, countries and peoples of the region can develop a better sense of shared destinies.4

Meanwhile, the idea of China offering to share its “dream” of wealth and power has yet to win the endorsements by those Western powers already in dominant positions of decision-making in global economic governance. A case in point is that by the end of 2014, the U.S. Congress failed to pass legislation to enable voting reform of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF reform package, which the U.S. administration signed off on in 2010, would double the fund’s resources and hand more IMF voting power to China, in addition to Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa. It would also revamp the IMF’s board to reduce dominance of Western Europe. Part of the reason is that the U.S. administration “[hasn’t] really put [its] shoulder into it, at all, in the last nine months”.5

As can be seen, China has not made much inroad in having itself included in the existent mechanisms of world economic governance. At the same time, the new leadership does not seem to be interested in acting out the script of responsibility from those states with more decision-making power, either. In the second half of 2012, the Chinese economy began to decelerate. Instead of making China an engine of growth lifting the rest of the global economy, the new leadership worked to shape external expectations.

Shaping Expectations: A “New Normal” of Growth

At the Beijing APEC summit, President Xi also sketched out a full picture of the Chinese economy’s “new normal”. What is new? First, the economy has shifted gear from the previous high speed to a medium-to-high speed growth. Second, the economic structure is constantly improved and upgraded. Third, the economy is increasingly driven by innovation instead of input and investment.

As a terminology, “new normal” is not an official Chinese creation. As a matter of fact, when the growth of Chinese GDP decelerated to 7.8 per cent in the first half of 2012 from 9.6 per cent a year earlier, it was a manifestation of the underlying view among officials that the growth downturn was as much structural in nature as cyclical. In November 2008, China implemented a 4-trillion Renminbi stimulus package. In the years thereafter, the government’s massive investment programmes were criticised for increasing financial and fiscal risks. Many government officials spoke regularly about the need to tolerate slow growth in order to improve growth sustainability. They emphasised the policy’s objective of stabilising, rather than boosting growth in the face of increasing downside risks to the economy. For China, the more “fundamental question” is whether it “can pass through middle- income to become a rich country. It is natural that an economy’s growth rate declines as it moves closer to the world technological frontier”.6

The term gained ground in China during President Xi’s inspection tour in Henan Province in May 2014. He described the need to adapt to a “new normal” and remain cool-headed. According to a year-end chronicle in the People’s Daily, he spoke of the “new normal” as a mode of economic governance on nine other occasions of the year.7

President Xi’s repeated reference to the phrase indicates a recognition that three decades of almost uninterrupted double-digit growth came at a high price, most visibly in the choking air pollution
country-wide. In addition, China’s past growth relied on exhaustive exploitation of natural resources, both domestically and abroad. The essence of the “new normal” is not just about speed. It is more relevant to seek an improved economic structure that relies more on the tertiary industry, consumption demand and innovation. Most importantly, the leadership seems to be shaping domestic and international expectations. Growth of the Chinese economy decelerated to 7.7 per cent in 2012 and 2013, and the figure was 7.4 per cent in the first three quarters of 2014. The society is told to be calm about the overall health of the country’s economy.

Very much like the “Chinese Dream”, implementing the idea of a “new normal” in the country’s economy is open for interpretation and debate. It is easy to win consensus that there is a need to bring about more balanced economic growth, through such measures as abstention from broad stimulus and fighting against graft and excesses. But it is more difficult for the leadership when it comes to lobbying – in the name of contribution towards prevention against serious disruptions of growth – by the country’s vested interests. The process is open-ended, with signposts of success constantly changing as well.

To be fair, this is not the first time China has had to adjust its familiar trajectory of development. Arguably, the most profound trigger in recent decades came when China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. The country’s performance has proved skeptics wrong, at least in terms of wealth creation for the country because China has become an engine of global economic growth.

Back then, the Chinese leadership used the argument of China linking to the international track in an effort to dissuade domestic resistance against reforms and reassure the rest of the world of China’s benign geo-economic intent.8 But today, a “new normal” does necessitate that China become more proactive in managing international economic governance.

In relating to the rest of the world economy, if the idea of a “Chinese Dream” is a promise of domestic and international inclusion in pursuit of wealth and power, and a “new normal” a means of managing expectations from the society and market, then China must still demonstrate through action that it is staying on top of new challenges domestic and external. Indeed, rather than waiting for a new set of international rules to be agreed upon, the central government initiated a trial of trade and investment liberalisation, as shall be described below.

A Trial of Further Liberalisation: Free Trade Zones

In August 2013, China’s State Council set up a pilot free trade zone (FTZ) in Shanghai.9 Though limited in geographical span (29 square kilometres), the creation of the zone is an effort on China’s part to unilaterally liberalise its trade and investment regime, against persistent absence of progress in the WTO’s Doha Round negotiations. The Shanghai FTZ is a bid to reduce administrative interventions, ease restrictions on investments, further open up China’s financial system, and internationalise its currency to boost shipping, logistics, and commerce.10

The word ‘pilot’ in the Shanghai FTZ gives away the scale of challenge in bringing about structural economic policy change in China. Different from a decade ago, when China began to implement WTO rules, economic governance in today’s China is too complex to make a unitary mandate by the central government a viable option. This explains why the municipal government of Shanghai was tasked to develop policy details from the start.

Among other major policy changes, the FTZ operates using the “negative list” model, i.e., the government publishes a list of business fields that are closed or conditionally open for investment, while leaving the rest for businesses to decide on their own. This brings Chinese practice closer in line with norms in developed economies. Domestic and foreign businesses registered in the zone have more freedom in conducting their operations.

But difficult reforms, such as Renminbi exchange rate, an interest rate-forming mechanism, and interest rates, require joint effort of different ministries. The municipal government of Shanghai approached rule-making in the zone by staying within its own power, without upsetting the preferences by central government ministries. Without intervention by the highest authorities of the central government, the Shanghai FTZ made a few gains while fighting against resistance from vested interests within the Chinese system.11

Toward the end of 2014, the central leadership decided to expand the Shanghai FTZ’s geographical scope to include the city’s commercial center where major multinational companies and Chinese banks have their headquarters. It also approved the creation of similar FTZs in three other provinces (Guangdong, Fujian, and Tianjin). The rationale behind the expansions is that some policy changes had passed the test of time. Provincial governments hosting the new zones are likewise allowed to propose more specific policies that address local conditions.

It needs to be noted that enthusiasm in hosting FTZs from other provincial governments, including the three that eventually got the nod from the central government, are seen as opportunities in promoting trade. They tend to downplay the FTZ’s reform role in finance and government. After all, Tianjin may wish to boost trade with South Korea and Japan, Guangdong is closer to Hong Kong and Macao, while Fujian is eager to increase trade with Taiwan and Southeast Asia. If the reshuffle of Shanghai FTZ administration twice within a year is an indicator, it is because the central government is getting impatient with its level of devotion to structural reforms.12

Assessment by international observers of the Shanghai FTZ experiment is also mixed. Some see “a significant milestone for the country’s economic reforms and its strategy of opening up its domestic markets for foreign investors”.13 Some foreign observers are less satisfied with progress in policy change. For example, the Obama administration’s treasury secretary Jack Lew is quoted as saying that as of July 2014, the reform “doesn’t appear to be [targeting] areas of major interest for US market access”.14

In any case, cross-national investment policymaking, on both the domestic and international fronts, now involve ideology-loaded issues such as national/ economic security, national treatment, dispute resolution, restrictions on technology transfer, and protection of intellectual property rights. There can be no easy consensus, as all governments struggle to strike at a balance between a multitude of ideals and interests.

For China, the true significance in policy innovation is that the fifth generation of leadership has broken some of the old norms in handling foreign investment, such as adoption of a ‘negative list’ to replace the traditional investment guidelines. This marks a significant departure from the habitual insistence on China being a developing country and justifying continued restrictions in the inflow of foreign direct investment. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, China’s guarantee of a market share for Chinese corporations regardless of market performance (especially to state-owned entities) fostered waste and corruption, and also deterred technology and management innovation.

Further Opening: Free Trade Agreements

For the past two decades, free trade agreements (FTAs) has been a popular instrument used by governments around the world to hedge against the slow (and stalled) multilateral trade liberalisation process. As of this writing, China has 12 FTAs in operation with 20 FTAs under negotiation.15

A noticeable feature in China’s FTAs is that they are done with small economies, which do not have either large trade volumes or materials critical for the Chinese economy (e.g. energy, industrial minerals, and food).16 This gives credibility to academic conclusion that China is exceptional to international norms when it comes to FTA activity. Seemingly, China demonstrates a “big country morality” by offering agreements to help smaller countries. This reflects the country’s relative weakening liberalising forces vis-à-vis protectionist ones after its WTO accession.

A case in point is the FTA that China has negotiated with ASEAN. By one account, the China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) covers the world’s largest free trade territory in terms of population and is the third largest in terms of nominal GDP after the European Union and the North American Free Trade area. Yet, CAFTA was signed in 2002 but came into effect only in 2010. Furthermore, the scheme aims to reduce tariffs on nearly 8,000 product categories, or 90 per cent of imported goods, to zero, between China and original ASEAN members (Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand). Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam are scheduled to implement these terms in 2015.17 While the CAFTA endorses the customary Southeast Asian (and Chinese) preference for handling trade liberalisation on a voluntary basis, its efficacy as a legal instrument for trade promotion and market reform remains weak.

As a matter of fact, ASEAN as a group has designated 2015 as the year to launch an economic community of its own. Some of the ASEAN members, most notably Singapore, have been active in negotiating high quality bilateral and multilateral FTAs. In 2005, Singapore signed a Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership together with Brunei, Chile and New Zealand, which became a template for the United States to push for its version of a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement.18 The TPP has generated heated discussions about China’s foreign economic policy, especially with the United States. We shall treat it in a separate section later in the paper.

In November 2014, the Chinese government did surprise a good many skeptics by signing a declaration of intent on a bilateral FTA with Australia. This means the two have practically concluded bilateral negotiations, with only technical details to be worked out. The China-Australia FTA deal came after more than 20 rounds of negotiations over the past nine years.

China’s FTA with Australia, in comparison with the majority of those already in operation, is more comprehensive and of a higher level of trade and investment liberalisation. The agreement with Australia is unique as it covers more than 10 areas, including trade in goods and services, investment and trade rules, e-commerce and government procurement.19 Beijing and Seoul also announced the conclusion of their substantive FTA talks in November. With these announcements, China begun upgrading its economic ties with major economies in the Asia Pacific region.

A significant FTA under negotiation for China is that with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).20 Formal launching of the China-GCC FTA dates back to 2004. The two parties have held five rounds of talks and have reached agreements on the majority of issues concerning goods trade. Negotiations on service trade are also on- going. By the end of 2014, Chinese trade officials were quoted as committed to accelerating the conclusion of those negotiations.21

For China, FTAs with Australia and the GCC economies can be understood as a major shift in resource security governance. Resources – oil, gas, iron ore and other industrial minerals (from Australia), grain, dairy and other agricultural products – have long been viewed as strategic by corporate and government sectors in China. Translated into trade policy preference, the notion of a commodity being ‘strategic’ usually implies resistance against instruments like FTA. This means that China’s own corporations, especially the state-owned ones, must learn to adjust to increasing competition from corporations of supplier countries. In a sense, for Chinese FTAs with Australia and the GCC economies to materialise implies a greater level of acceptance of the notions of ‘virtual water’ and ‘virtual land’. China can address its stresses in water supply and loss of arable land (together with land degradation) through increasing imports of water- and land- intensive products from abroad.22

Gaps to Narrow: The TPP and FTAAP

The most representative of the geostrategic nature among various multilateral FTA schemes in the Asia Pacific region is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). More pointedly, after 2008, the U.S. administration expressed interest in joining the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (P4), which was until then little noticed but open to new participants. The same year saw Australia, Vietnam and Peru joining the P4 negotiations as well. By March 2013, with Japan becoming the 12th negotiating party, TPP was fast becoming the most powerful trade bloc of the entire Asia Pacific region. Many observers point to the TPP membership as a manifestation of post-Cold War’s U.S. grand strategy in East Asia. China is the most notable exclusion from the negotiation process.23

A change of diplomatic atmosphere came at the end of May 2013. The spokesman of China’s Ministry of Commerce remarked that China was going to “analyze the advantages, disadvantages and the possibility of joining the TPP, based on careful research and principles of equality and mutual benefit”.24 This change in position might as well be a response to earlier comments by U.S. trade negotiators, so long as China is “capable of meeting the high standards that we’re negotiating”, the United States leaves its options about the eventual TPP membership open.25

Over the TPP, little else since then has materialised between Beijing and Washington. But the two sides did agree at their bilateral Strategic and Economic Dialogue in July 2013 to re-start negotiations towards a bilateral investment treaty (BIT). The China-U.S. BIT is envisioned to include all stages of investment and all sectors. U.S. treasury secretary Jack Lew considered it “a significant breakthrough, and the first time China has agreed to do so with another country”.26 By end 2014, Chinese and American negotiators were reported to be finalising text checks on the BIT, with a pending formal exchange of negative lists in 2015. The reported aim is to complete negotiation within the term of the Obama presidency.27

Ostensibly, contents in the bilateral China-U.S. BIT are the same as those in the investment chapter of the TPP. Why has China not taken the step of formally joining the TPP negotiation process? The short answer is that neither Beijing nor Washington was ever supportive of sharing the negotiation room with the rest of the TPP negotiators. Geopolitical considerations certainly play a role. As American analysts argue, the TPP is as much about leadership competition as it is about trade and investment.28

Inclusion of Japan in the TPP reinforces suspicion in China about a return of a U.S.-led containment or a roll-back of China’s rise. Political relations between Beijing and Tokyo went on a definite downward spiral, most notably after 2012, when Tokyo moved to ‘nationalise’ the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku islands in the East China Sea. Commentators in China have also argued that Japan has dragged its feet in the China–South Korea–Japan FTA negotiations to curtail China’s increasing economic role in the region. Japan and the U.S. are seen as supporters of the ‘status quo’ in the region and blocking China’s economic interests. Last but not least, since assuming prime ministership for the second time in 2012, Shinzo Abe made a point of strengthening economic and security ties with ASEAN countries, in an effort to reinforce regional temptation to deal with an alleged China threat.29

On the part of Beijing, both President Xi and Premier Li visited Southeast Asia in 2013. These trips underscore the importance of the region in Beijing’s current approach to international affairs. Beijing’s approach entails an ‘upgrading’ of the China– ASEAN FTA, the promotion of a new ‘diamond decade’, and a broader diplomatic offensive in which the Confucian philosophy of ‘seeking harmony but not uniformity’ has been invoked as a guiding principle in China-ASEAN relations. The U.S. approach, on the contrary, is rules-based.

Taking advantage of hosting the 2014 APEC economic leaders’ meeting in Beijing, China chose the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP) as its landmark initiative for the annual gathering. This built on President Xi’s call at the 2013 APEC summit in Bali, Indonesia, for ‘open and inclusive’ trade agreements with APEC playing a ‘leading role’. The U.S. description of TPP being ‘non-exclusionary’ refers to the fact that all sectors are included in the negotiations; China’s charge of ‘exclusion’ is based on the fact that not all countries in the region are included in the TPP.

China’s endorsement of FTAAP can be seen as a geostrategic statement. No lines will be drawn in the middle of the Pacific, in contrast with the U.S. insistence on prioritising association with its ‘like-minded’ countries. But also in Beijing, the United States effectively eliminated any reference to a specific timeline for FTAAP conclusion, but China managed to secure the launch of a collective strategic study on issues pertaining to FTAAP’s realisation. It remains to be seen whether this compromise will hold in the long run.

Reconnecting with History: AIIB, Road, Belt

Arguably, the bolder Chinese attempt at leadership in economic diplomacy came in two proposals unveiled in 2014. The creation of an Asian Infrastructure Development Bank (AIIB), promotion of deepening Chinese trade and investment with economies dubbed along a ‘New Silk Road’ and a ‘Twenty First Century Maritime Silk Road’. On 21 October 2014, China secured twenty other countries as founding members of the AIIB.30 Initiated by China and to be headquartered in Beijing, the AIIB has an authorised capital of US$100 billion and is scheduled to start functioning in late 2015.

According to studies by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), investments required in the Asian developing countries during 2010-2020 for national infrastructure alone amounted to US$8 trillion or US$800 billion per year. The ADB lends only about 1.5 per cent of this amount.31 The need for an additional investment-pooling mechanism is only too obvious.

For China, the idea of the bank is, in reality, taking a page from how the World Bank and ADB supported infrastructure development as a key element of poverty reduction, especially before the Chinese economy began to take off in the mid-2000s.32 The extent of faith in exporting a purportedly ‘Chinese model’ of poverty reduction and economic growth is a topic of interpretation and beyond the scope of this paper.

Today China can choose to invest part of its foreign reserves of US$3.9 trillion on commercial terms rather than putting them in U.S. treasuries where the real value is shrinking. Second, the AIIB will
contribute to the internationalisation of the Chinese currency. Third, the bank will help secure contracts for Chinese firms to boost employment opportunities at home. Fourth, China has in recent years funded numerous infrastructure projects all over the world through China Development Bank and Ex-Im Bank despite local resentment. Through a multilateral institution, China stands a better chance of reducing malpractices by its own corporations and shouldering less of the communal acrimony against perceived Chinese economic intrusion.

As for the Road and Belt conceptualisations, indeed, on the side of the 2014 APEC, President Xi pledged US$40 billion to a new Silk Road fund for investing in infrastructure, resources and industrial and financial cooperation across Asia. This is without doubt a demonstration of leadership resolve both domestically and internationally. But the real test down the road is whether the initiative turn out to be a spending spree without due considerations of project feasibility in terms of either business or social feasibility.

Against this background, it is incumbent for China to take the lead to prove the critics and skeptics wrong. A “no-questions-asked” approach in project selection and implementation would indeed be disastrous for China, fellow members of the AIIB and the host governments as well. These new investments do not have to copy the politics/ ideology-driven conditions attached to existent institutional investments. But they just have to be creative in broad (particularly societal) recognition of “win-win” cooperation.

Concluding Observations

This paper included some of the highlights of Chinese economic diplomacy in recent years. While topics like China’s interactions with Africa, Europe, and Latin America are beyond the scope of this paper, the economic geography of the Asia Pacific region offers bright prospects for Chinese approaches to managing cross-border economic affairs and also will eventually serve as the testing ground.

Four broad observations can be made from the previous stock-taking of China’s initiatives in economic diplomacy since 2012. First, as the Sino- Thai interactions over the railway project reminds us, China must learn to adapt to a different kind of “new normal” (i.e., in relating to its trade and investment partners), because goodwill or emphasis on complementarity in economic fundamentals can hardly be sufficient in making cooperation possible. China needs to stay the course in handling competition abroad. China can also expect other countries to support its project and ideational preferences only when it can demonstrate comparable success in the domestic realm.

Second, the purported gaps between China and the United States and its security allies ― often said to be vying for mutually exclusive regional (and even global) leadership ― needs to be put in proper context. Any appeal to the morality of Beijing and Washington in pursuing harmony has its limits. Differences between the two are likely going to be the norm rather than exception. Other countries do not have to choose between China from the United States as the party to collaborate with. All parties, in the end, cooperate on those issue areas where they can share the lowest common denominator of interests.

Third, the fifth generation of the Chinese leadership is clearly demonstrating that China too, can be innovative in handling multilateral trade and investment initiatives and further liberalising China’s own trade and investment regimes, continued domestic resistance, notwithstanding. The true challenge for the leadership is to deliver on the promise of quality growth, especially through innovation rather than government-driven investment. Also, China needs to prevail in the regional competition for attraction both as a destination for and source of foreign direct investment.

Last but not least, China is still in a process of domestic reform and opening to the rest of the world. Changes in the past two years, both in domestic economic governance and in foreign economic policy, should be seen as a continuation of the same orientation that has guided the country for the past three decades. References to “the Chinese Dream” and a “new normal” of the Chinese economy are in reality recognition of limits of action. It is true that China is beginning to take some bolder steps – particularly structural ones – to pursue new opportunities in the world. But, China is not in a position to save the world economy. Nor does it seek to rewrite the rules of world governance.

About the author:
*Zha Daojiong is Professor of International Political Economy in the School of International Studies, Peking University. He specialises in researching non-traditional security challenges in China’s international relations, with a particular focus on the energy-food-water nexus. His latest publication is Chinese Investment Overseas: case studies on environmental and social risks (co-edited, in Chinese, Peking University Press, 2014).

Source:
This article was published by RSIS as Policy Report March 2015 (PDF).

Notes:
1. UN ESCAP, Intergovernmental Agreement on the Trans-Asian Railway Network, archived at http://www.unescap.org/resources/intergovernmental-agreement-trans-asian-railway-network
2. Hu, Jintao, “Nuli jianshe chijiu heping gongtong fanrong de hexie shijie (Strive to construct a harmonious world of long-lasting peace and common prosperity)”, September 15, 2005. http://www.china.com.cn/chinese/news/971778.htm
3. Jiang, Zemin, “Rang women gongtong dizao yi ge geng meihao de shijie (Let us work together for a better world)”, October 24, 1995. http://news.xinhuanet.com/ziliao/2005_03/15/content_2700416.htm
4. Xinhua, “Chinese president proposes Asia-Pacific dream,” http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-11/09/c_133775812_2.htm
5. Reuters, “U.S. Congress closes out year without passing IMF reforms”, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/11/usa-congress-imf- idUSL1N0TU2QC20141211
6. Huang Yiping, “The ‘new normal’ of Chinese growth”, http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2012/10/14/the-new-normal-of-chinese-growth/
7. Tian Junrong and Wu Qiuyu, “Xinchangtai Dianliang Zhongguo Jingji (New Normal lights the path of China’s Economy)”, The People’s Daily, December 25, 2014, p. 17
8. Wang Hongying, “‘Linking up with the International Track’: what’s in a slogan”, The China Quarterly, 189 (March 2007), pp. 1-23
9. See the official website of the Shanghai FTZ at http://www.ftz-shanghai.com/
10. Wan Zheng, Zhang Yang, Wang Xuefeng, Chen Jihong, “Policy and politics behind Shanghai’s Free Trade Zone Program,” Journal of Transport Geography, Volume 34, 2014, pp. 1-6
11. Yang Li, “Assessing FTZ after First Year”, China Daily, November 28, 2014, p. 6
12. Yang Li, ibid
13. Gladie Lui, “Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone: Shaping of China’s Future Foreign Investment Environment,” International Tax Journal, Volume 40, Issue 4(July/August 2014), pp. 31-43
14. Anonymous, “Lew Says China Update of Shanghai FTZ List Contains No Major U.S. Benefits,” Inside US-China Trade, Volume 24, Issue 27 (July 2, 2014). Archived in ProQuest database
15. For official information about China’s FTAs, see “China’s FTA Network” site of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce official website at http:// fta.mofcom.gov.cn/english/index.shtml
16. The 12 FTAs China has in operation are done with Association of Southeast Asian nations (ASEAN), Pakistan, Chile, New Zealand, Singapore, Peru, Costa Rica, Iceland, Switzerland, in addition to closer economic and partnership arrangements with Hong Kong and Macau (each with its separate status as an economic area under the WTO)
17. Gregory Chin and Richard Stubbs, “China, regional institution-building and the China—ASEAN Free Trade Area”, Review of International Political Economy, Volume 18, Number 3 (August 2011), pp. 277-298
18. Deborah Elms, “From the P4 Agreement to the Trans-Pacific Partnership: Explaining Expansion Interests in the Asia-Pacific Region,” in Simon Evenett, Mia Mikic, Ravi Ratnayake (eds.), Trade-Led Growth: A Sound Strategy for Asia, United Nations/ESCAP, 2011, http://www.unescap.org/ sites/default/files/11-PAR~1.PDF
19.See a description of the China-Australia FTA at http://dfat.gov.au/fta/chafta/
20. Member economies of the GCC are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
21. Zhong Nan, “FTA Talks Reach across the Gulf”, China Daily, December 30, 2014. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2014-12/30/ content_19198206.htm
22. Literature on Chinese management of resource security in international trade is voluminous. For a recent study on food, see, for example, Zha Daojiong and Zhang Hongzhou, ‘Food in China’s International Relations”, The Pacific Review, Volume 26, Number 5 (December 2013), August 2014, pp. 455-479
23. Benedict E. DeDominics, “US Post Cold War Grand Strategy and Multilateral National Integration in Europe and East Asia”, Review of Business and Finance Studies, Volume 6, Number 1 (2015), pp. 57-80
24. Anonymous, “China to study possibility of joining TPP: MOC,” http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-05/30/c_132420541.htm
25. Joseph Boris in Washington and Li Jiabao, “Door to TPP is open for China, says US,” http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2013-03/22/ content_16332085.htm
26. Reuters, “U.S., China Agree to Investment Treaty Talks,” http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/12/us-usa-china-dialogue-trade- idUSBRE96A0ZD20130712
27. Xinhua, “Sino-US Investment Treaty Sees Major Progress”, http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2014-12/17/content_19104951.htm
28. Mireya Solis, “The Trans-Pacific Partnership: can the United States lead the way in Asia-Pacific integration? Pacific Focus, Volume 27, Number 2 (December 2012), pp. 319-341
29. Maya Kaneko, “Abe bolsters Southeast Asia ties in bid to counter China’s rising threat,” Japan Times, January 20, 2013, http://www.japantimes. co.jp/news/2013/01/20/national/abe-bolsters-southeast-asia-ties-in-bid-to-counter-chinas-rising-threat/
30. The initial round of founding members are, in addition to China, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, India, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Vietnam
31. ADB Institute, Infrastructure for a Seamless Asia, http://www.adbi.org/book/2009/09/15/3322.infrastructure.seamless.asia/
32. See, for example, Gene Marvin Tidrick, China: an evaluation of World Bank assistance, Washington DC: the World Bank, 2005. The Asian Development Bank, Effectiveness of ADB Approaches and Assistance to Poverty Reduction, Manila: ADB, 2000

The post Chinese Economic Diplomacy: New Initiatives – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Ümit Nazmi Hazır*

The Ambassadors of Ankara to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus attended the Eurasian Economic Union meeting held in Ankara in mid-January, hosted by Russia’s Ambassador to Turkey, Andrey Karlov. During the meeting, positive messages were given regarding Turkey’s membership to the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). [1]

One of the leading figures within the Eurasian Union, President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbyev, has stressed that Turkey should be a member of the community several times before now. During the meeting, the Ambassador of Belarus also responded positively regarding the membership of Turkey. Even further, the spokesperson for Russian President Putin, Sergey Markov, stated that Turkey should be a member of the Eurasian Union rather than European Union as a way of gaining influence. [2]

In order to answer the question of whether or not Turkey should become a member of the EAEU and how it would contribute to the community in the event of membership, it is wise to consider this question from multiple viewpoints. This means that one should consider both positive and negative perspectives regarding Turkey’s entrance into the EAEU. First of all, let’s speculate about one specific question: Why is the membership of Turkey important for the Eurasian Economic Union, and what are the negative aspects of Turkey’s membership?

There are geopolitical, economical, political and even sociological aspects surrounding Turkey’s possible membership to the EAEU. Together with Turkey’s membership, new geopolitical and commercial opportunities will be created for economical integration. The membership of Turkey means the Eurasian Economic Union would reach the Middle East and Mediterranean region. Also, Russia would get the chance to address Turkistan and the far east through Kazakhstan and Eastern Europe through Belarus. Turkey would also provide another way to reach southern regions. In other words, Turkey’s membership means new trade routes. The most important of those routes is the Black Sea region as it is the only area through which the community can reach open seas. In this way, the Black Sea region could be a free zone for inbound goods. Secondly, following Turkey’s membership, the paranoia of a Soviet Reunion would cease to exist.

No matter how much the Eurasian Economic Union exists for economical integration, there is always speculation as to whether or not it could turn into a political system resembling the European Union, or even a Russian hegemony. The membership of Turkey would directly undermine such speculations. This is also one of the reasons why Nazarbayev supports Turkey’s membership. At the same time, it is also plausible that Nazarbayev might be thinking that, together with Turkey’s membership, Russia could be negated. Turkey’s membership may also positively alter the point of view of other Turkic Nations, such as Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.

Further, there is a sociological aspect of Turkey’s membership with the Eurasian Economic Union. There is a Eurasian identity Turkey recently has forgotten about. Turkey’s ethnic, religious and cultural intimacy with other Turkic nations strengthens Turkey’s Eurasian identity. In this matter, Turkey has a closer relation with the Eurasian nations than with the nations of the European continent. Turkey also has some common ground with Russia, like its modernization and imperial culture. Russians and Turks are also a Eurasian community sharing similar concerns in finding their places between the west and the east, as well as answering the question of “who are we?” These are the elements that bring the two communities together.

Regarding commercial production, EAEU nations are the primary natural gas producers in the world. The EAEU nations have a population of 170 million people and an economic capacity of 2.7 trillion dollars. Turkey would be an important country in supplying this population of 170 million with the economic resources they require. It is also a country that would contribute to the market economy of the EAEU. Turkey could reach Turkistan through the Caucasus and, in this way, goods from Kazakhstan could be imported more easily.

On the other hand, there are also negative aspects of Turkey’s membership to EAEU: The current total population of the Eurasian Economic Union nations is 170 million. It’s not possible to immediately include Turkey, with a population of 75 million, to the community. Turkey could directly alter the population rates in the community, and Russia might think that this alteration could diminish its influence; the membership of Turkey will result in a decrease regarding the rate of population established by Russian and Belarusian people against the Turkish population.

However, the Eurasian Economic Union has no perspective regarding Turkey’s membership. At the same time, Turkey neither has a perspective nor vision regarding this membership and there is no process in progress as of now.

The answer to the question of whether or not Turkey and Russia, who have a retrospective rivalry in the Caucasus and Central Asia, could transition into a permanent cooperative state is still uncertain. Both countries have natural boundaries to their relationship that are not easy to cross. The Eurasian Economic Union stands right in the middle of this problem. Turkey and Russia, with positive bilateral relations, hold the same position in several regional problems, such as the Syrian crisis.

The most important part in Turkey’s EAEU membership is its relations with the Trans-Atlantic. Turkey and Russia rely on one another, instead of the western World, from time to time. In such times, they can send the western world a message: It should be forgotten that Turkey still is a member of NATO. Due to this, it’s not possible for Turkey to break its bonds with the west. Nations of the European Union make up 50% of Turkey’s trading volume. Not to mention, there is the agreement between Turkey and the Customs Unions. This agreement also obstructs Turkey’s membership to the EAEU; however, it should be noted that this agreement is more to Europe’s advantage and it hurts the Turkish economy because Turkey is directly affected by EU’s accords with third parties. At the same time, Turkey’s chance of full membership to the EU does not look promising. Turkey has no intention of waiting at the threshold of the EU and is, thus, willing to evaluate several other alternatives. In this aspect, the Eurasian Economic Union is important for Turkey’s future vision.

Turkey’s membership in the short term is not possible unless some important questions are answered first. For example, what kind of a structure will the Eurasian Economic Union embody, and will it turn into a political integration or not? However, a chain of negotiations might be initiated and, if this happens, Turkey could earn observer status.

Turkey’s membership to the EAEU will also determine if the Eurasian Economic Union will leave the status of a geopolitical union and become more of a union with multiple identities and a broader global affect. What Turkey should do is, rather than considering the EAEU as a balancing factor against the western world, create an independent and central position between the west and Russia. Thus, Turkey is potentially able to play a crucial role in the solution of current problems between the west and Russia.

* Ümit Nazmi Hazır is a researcher at the Caucasus Strategic Researches Center (Kafkassam), a think tank based in Ankara. Hazır conducts research on Turkish and Russian foreign policy in the Caucasus and Central Asia and has been to most of the countries in Eurasia in order to undertake field studies.

1. Ambassador Andrei Savinykh participates in joint press conference on Eurasian Economic Union, 23.01.15, http://mfa.gov.by/en/press/news_mfa/bd81e7feef572914.html (accessed 25 March 2015)
2. ‘’We have to negotiate with Turkey on its joining the Eurasian Union’’ 14.10.2012
http://vestnikkavkaza.net/analysis/politics/33679.html (accessed 24 March 2015)

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By Michael Lelyveld

Ten months after agreeing to build a natural gas pipeline to eastern China, Russia is reportedly trying to shift deliveries to a cheaper western route.

Last May, Russian monopoly Gazprom signed a 30-year contract with state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) to build a major pipeline and supply gas from new fields under development in East Siberia.

The entire deal has been valued at U.S. $400 billion (2.4 trillion yuan).

But on March 18, Reuters quoted industry and banking sources as saying that Gazprom could postpone the U.S. $55-billion (341-billion yuan) “Power of Siberia” pipeline project, preferring to pump gas from existing fields through a shorter pipeline to Xinjiang instead.

Moscow has been pressing China to accept the western route through Russia’s remote Altai region to Xinjiang for nearly a decade, but Beijing has held out for an eastern project as a priority to bring gas to smoggy industrial areas and coastal cities that rely on coal-fired power.

Russia has not provided recent cost estimates for the mountainous Altai route, but last April, Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Ivanov argued it would be “less capital intensive,” since it would tap Siberian infrastructure and gas fields that are already developed.

Erica Downs, a senior analyst at the New York-based Eurasia Group, told Dow Jones Newswires in November that the Altai project could cost as little as U.S. $10 billion (61 billion yuan).

The 2,600-kilometer (1,615-mile) western route would be shorter for Russia but longer for China, which would have to build another 4,000-kilometer (2,485-mile) West-East line from Xinjiang to reach coastal markets.

The eastern Power of Siberia project includes some 4,000 kilometers of new pipeline on Russian territory, according to Gazprom. The vast region in East Siberia and Russia’s Far East has new resources but little infrastructure or development now.

Two years ago during a visit from President Xi Jinping, Russia bowed to China’s priority by pledging in a framework agreement to build the eastern route first for supplies of 38 billion cubic meters (1.3 trillion cubic feet) per year.

The contract signed last year called for gas to start flowing by 2019.

In November, Gazprom and CNPC also reached a preliminary accord for the Altai line, but without specifying a date for the project, despite a statement by President Vladimir Putin in September that it could be built faster than the eastern line to supply gas to China first.

Set in stone?

The report suggesting a postponement of the eastern project and a shift back to Russia’s preference for the western route has raised doubts about whether any of the plans are set in stone.

“Didn’t they agree on this in March 2013 during Xi Jinping’s first trip to Moscow as president?” asked Edward Chow, senior fellow for energy and national security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “So, did we just lose two years?”

“It was always clear that the Chinese would prefer the eastern route and the Russians preferred the western route,” said Chow. “Did all the progress they made in the last two years just evaporate and are they going back to square one?”

In response to the Reuters report, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller issued a statement giving assurances that plans for the Power of Siberia project and “pre-development” of the 1.2-trillion cubic meter (42-trillion cubic foot) Chayandinskoye gas field remain on track.

“Operations at Chayanda and Power of Siberia are in full swing and will be completed right on time,” Miller said.

Gazprom hopes to sign a contract with China for deliveries from the western route on May 9, when President Xi is expected in Moscow for ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.

But sales terms have yet to be settled for the supplies of 30 billion cubic meters (1 trillion cubic feet) of gas per year through the Altai line.

Russian officials have been hedging their bets on whether the May target for a contract will be met.

“As a rule, the signing of contracts is not adapted to a specific date,” said Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the Russian daily Vedomosti reported.

“Therefore if the contract terms are agreed upon, we cannot rule out its signing. If they are not, then talks will continue,” Peskov said.

If the Altai line is built, it would pump gas from the same arctic fields that supply Europe, furthering Russia’s long-term strategy to spur competition with Asia for its resources.

But while the western route would be shorter and cheaper for Russia, China has little need for a pipeline to Xinjiang, which is already a major gas producing region and a crossing point for supply lines from Central Asia.

Reason for uncertainty

Significant changes in both Russia and China since the $400-billion deal was signed give reason for uncertainty about both gas plans.

In Russia, the stakes for supplying gas to China have increased with financial pressures, brought on by the plunge in world oil prices and Western sanctions following the takeover of Crimea.

Government and central bank forecasts predict a 3-4 percent drop in Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) this year.

Russia’s average oil price in the first quarter was 45 percent below last year’s average and less than half the average price for 2013, according to Finance Ministry figures.

Due to a relatively warm winter in Europe and the conflict in Ukraine, Russian gas exports last year fell 6.7 percent, the Energy Ministry said.

Capital outflow in the first two months of this year reached U.S. $24 billion (149 billion yuan), adding to the U.S. $151.5 billion (941 billion yuan) that fled the country in 2014, Interfax reported.

Russia’s revised 2015 budget calls for a deficit of 3.7 percent of GDP despite cuts in most programs, as Putin persists in pushing a military buildup.

Last month, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov warned that this year’s spending would leave just 2.6 trillion rubles (U.S. $45 billion, 280 billion yuan) in the country’s “rainy day” Reserve Fund.

Chow also noted that Russia has lost easy access to international financing for big projects because of Western sanctions.

Although Moscow expected a U.S. $25-billion (155-billion yuan) prepayment from China as part of the $400-billion gas deal, those funds have not materialized.

Changing conditions in China

In China, conditions have also changed, in part because of the country’s “new normal” economic track after GDP growth of 7.4 percent in 2014 slipped to a 24-year low.

The government remains committed to replacing more coal with renewables and natural gas, but gas consumption last year rose 8.9 percent, the slowest pace in 10 years and far less than forecast, according to CNPC.

And thanks in part to the drop in oil prices, Russia’s prices for gas in Europe are now lower than the presumed price negotiated with China under the $400-billion deal.

Prices were already headed down because Gazprom adjusts its European gas rates to reflect changes in oil prices with a six-to-nine-month time lag.

But prices also took a sharp dip in early March, when Gazprom abruptly changed its policy toward European customers that supply gas “in reverse flow” to Ukraine.

For the previous six months, Gazprom restricted its flows to contract minimums for European countries, hoping to discourage them from selling gas back to Ukraine at below- Russian rates.

When it suddenly abandoned the strategy on March 6, daily pipeline volumes jumped 58 percent, driving prices down as low as U.S. $240 (1,489 yuan) per thousand cubic meters, Interfax reported.

That was some 30 percent below average Russian gas prices for Europe last year and nearly 32 percent less than the reported starting price for China of U.S. $350 (2,171 yuan) per thousand cubic meters under the $400-billion deal.

Chow said the disparity may encourage China to renegotiate its prices. The anticipation of price drops may be a reason why Russia has yet to receive the prepayment that it hoped to get last year.

Russia’s push for the pipeline

Russia’s continued push to prioritize the western pipeline despite China’s resistance may add new doubts about what was previously agreed.

“Now, the deal that we thought was the more solid of the two that was announced last year is maybe not as solid as we thought it was,” Chow said.

Russia has also moved slowly to approve an intergovernmental agreement signed with China last October that would validate the eastern route contract.

The government submitted the accord to parliamentary State Duma for ratification only on March 31, the ITAR-TASS news agency said.

Recent reports may also raise questions about the pace of progress on the Power of Siberia pipeline, which is due to be completed in 2018.

Construction was officially launched last Sept. 1 at an event in Russia’s Sakha (Yakutia) region attended by Putin and Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli.

In mid-February, Interfax said construction of the pipeline “is continuing” in a report citing Gazprom’s press service, although details suggested the work is in a preliminary stage.

The pipeline route was being cleared and sites for line operations bases were being prepared, the report said.

On March 27, the news agency quoted a Gazprom official as saying that Russia’s pipeline construction company Stroytransgaz would lay only the first 70-80 kilometers (43-49 miles) of the pipeline sometime in 2015.

“More intensive work is (planned) in the second half of 2015 and subsequent years,” Gazprom Transgaz Tomsk’s general director, Anatoly Titov, said.

While the huge project in East Siberia’s wilderness may move slowly, the western pipeline through the Altai region may also prove problematic.

The mountain crossing may include construction at altitudes of up to 2,600 meters (8,530 feet) in a nature preserve area designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, raising both engineering and environmental concerns.

The post Doubts Rise On Russia-China Gas Deal – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Last week the Justice Department announced it would not charge former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) official Lois Lerner with contempt of Congress. Some members of Congress requested that Lerner be charged with contempt after she refused to testify at a congressional hearing investigating her role in denying or delaying the applications for tax-exempt status of “tea party” and pro-limited government organizations.

Cynics might suggest it is not surprising that a former government official would avoid prosecution for refusing to tell Congress about how federal employees abused their power to help the incumbent administration. These cynics have a point, but the problem goes beyond mere partisanship. Government officials are rarely prosecuted for even the most blatant violations of our liberties. In contrast, federal prosecutors routinely pursue criminal charges against whistleblowers. For example, the only American prosecuted and imprisoned in relation to the government’s use of torture was whistleblower John Kiriakou!

While some officials like Lois Lerner who find themselves at the center of a high-profile scandal or partisan dispute can expect harsh treatment from Congress, this is the expectation, not the rule. Executive branch officials usually receive deferential treatment from members of Congress. I recall one hearing on government surveillance where a representative actually apologized to a government official because Congress had the gall to ask that official to testify about the government’s ongoing surveillance of the American people.

In contrast, private citizens called before Congress are harangued and even bullied. Congress should stop using the hearing process to intimidate private citizens and start using it to intimidate those government officials who are threatening our liberty. For example, Congress should continue to investigate the IRS’s ongoing attempts to silence organizations that work to advance free markets and individual liberty.

My Campaign for Liberty organization has had to battle an IRS demand that it hand over personal information regarding some of its top donors. The IRS is either ignoring, or ignorant of, the numerous precedents protecting the right of organizations like the Campaign for Liberty to protect their members’ privacy from government officials.

The IRS is drafting a new regulation that would empower the agency to revoke an organization’s tax-exempt status if that organization sends out a communication to its members or the general public mentioning a candidate for office by name sixty days before an election or thirty days before a primary. By preventing groups from telling their members where candidates stand on issues like Audit the Fed and repeal of the PATRIOT Act, this anti-First Amendment regulation benefits those politicians who wish to hide their beliefs from the voters.

Since the IRS’s power stems from the tax system, the only way to protect our liberty from this agency is to eliminate the tax code. Promising to end the IRS is a popular applause line for politicians wishing to appear as champions of liberty. This week, John Koskinen, the current IRS commissar, responded to these cries to end the IRS by pointing out that shutting down the IRS would deprive Congress of the revenue needed to fund the welfare-warfare state. Koskinen has a point. Congress cannot shut down the IRS until it enacts major reductions in all areas of government spending.

Politicians who vote for warfare abroad and welfare at home yet claim they want to shut down the IRS should not be taken seriously. Freeing the people from the IRS’s tyranny is one of the best reasons to end the welfare-warfare state and return the federal government to its constitutional limitations.

This article was published by the RonPaul Institute.

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By Elyas Vahedi*

It seemed in recent years that despite severe differences of opinion on the situation in Syria and some other regional issues, the two neighboring countries of Iran and Turkey are really interested in expanding bilateral relations. However, recent remarks made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the role of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Yemen and Iraq, just on the threshold of his expected visit to Iran, have stirred anger among Iranian political circles. Following the Turkish president, the country’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu issued warning about the consequences of “some countries’” policies in Yemen, without directly mentioning Iran by name. Of course, Turkish media moved fast to note that the main addressee of the prime minister’s remarks was Iran. In view of the two countries’ determination to expand and deepen relations, anti-Iran remarks made by some Turkish officials have been considered unacceptable and unfriendly by many Iranian officials, especially members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis).

Apart from the existing criticism that has been raised by certain media circles in Iran, a more accurate probe into Erdoğan’s critical remarks about Iran’s regional role may reveal Ankara’s effort to curry favor with Saudi Arabia as the most important reason behind those remarks. Let’s not forget that Saudi Arabia is currently Iran’s opposite front with regard to most regional issues. Following the enthronement of the new Saudi king, Turkey has been trying to mend fences with Saudi Arabia. The two countries’ relations were relatively tarnished after a military coup in Egypt. Therefore, Ankara is probably trying to use the influence of Riyadh in order to change the approach of the new Egyptian government and provide more breathing space for the country’s Muslim Brotherhood. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is the most powerful Arab ally of Turkey in the region and the social support base of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party has streaks of Muslim Brotherhood in it. On the other hand, the new Turkish government’s development drive is another reason, which has made Turkey try to get closer to this powerful Arab social and political current.

In addition to Erdoğan’s recent remarks, insistence of Turkish government for his forthcoming visit to Iran to take place on time is also of interest. On the one hand, the Turkish president has been trying to get closer to Saudi Arabia on Middle East issues by criticizing Iran’s stances on the situation in Syria, Yemen and Iraq. On the other hand, he is trying to pursue his proclaimed plan for doubling economic exchanges with the Islamic Republic. A recent agreement between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries reached in the Swiss city of Lausanne has further increased Turkey’s willingness to expand economic relations with Iran. Unlike Saudi Arabia and some other Arab countries, Turkey has never been concerned about a possible agreement between Iran and the West over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear issue and, on the contrary, has been a regular supporter of such agreement. This is true because the agreement will ensure Turkey’s strategic economic and security interests along its eastern border when Iran rejoins the international community and its nuclear program comes under international supervision. In the case of a war between Iran and the West, Turkey will be one of the main countries to find itself at loss.

In view of the above facts, it should be noted that unfriendly remarks by Turkish officials about Iran’s regional role may help Turkey get closer to Arab states. However, Ankara will earn this closeness in return for losing the benefits that it may reap through good neighborly relations with Iran. There is no doubt that such remarks will have a negative effect on the two countries’ efforts to expand relations and will also slow down implementation of plans they have made to this end.

* Elyas Vahedi
Expert on Turkey and Caucasus Affairs

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By Rashid Hassan

Saudi-led coalition forces are proactive in trying to achieve their set goal of restoring the legitimate government in Yemen, whereas Houthis just want to continue their reign of terror, according to a Saudi official.

This was stated by Brig. Gen. Ahmad Al-Assiri, a consultant at the defense minister’s office, during his daily press briefing in Riyadh on Sunday.

“The Houthis just want to spread chaos, but the coalition is not just committed to dislodging them but is firm on restoring the legitimate government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi,” he said.

“The situation was critical when the Kingdom, supported by its allies, decided to launch military strikes against the Houthi terrorists on the legitimate request of President Hadi,” he said.

“The Houthis are responsible for the chaotic situation; the allied forces are there to help the people of Yemen with the prime objective of re-establishing the legitimate government as soon as possible,” said Al-Assiri.

He reiterated that with complete air and maritime control, the Houthis are completely cut off.

“They are no longer able to secure arms and ammunition from abroad,” he said.

This will force them to surrender sooner rather than later, said the official.

He said that before Operation Decisive Storm, the terrorists took control of many areas and seized weapons, and stopped food, water and electricity supplies to create panic.

“They also harmed civilians by attacking them, but the timely military operation stopped them from further advancing with their nefarious plot,” he said.

The post Saudi-Led Coalition Firm On Restoring Yemen’s Hadi appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By N. Sathiya Moorthy*

Independent of the success or failure of the third round of bilateral fishermen association talks between India and Sri Lanka held in Chennai on March 24, 2015, it would be remembered for a few things. The joint statement issued by the fishers’ representatives at the end claims that the long hours of talks were held under “Puratchi Thalaivi Amma’s guidance”, a reference to former Tamil Nadu chief minister and ruling AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalithaa.

More importantly, the short but nuanced joint statement is pregnant with ideas that the talks were not as smooth or as conclusive, as a section of the Tamil Nadu media sought to make it out to be during the days after the conclusion of the talks. It may also be an indication that the fishermen on the two sides are acquiring diplomatic skills, in saying what they want to say, and not having to have the rest of the world hear what they did not want them hear.

It does not mean that the talks were a failure. It was the first round of talks between the two sides after new governments have taken over in the two countries. It’s more so in the case of Sri Lanka, where the change of government did eliminate an overbearing air of suspicion and suspense at the talks. It’s a good beginning for future talks. If however, this round itself did not produce any tangible results, it owes to the complexities of the issues involved, the solution available – and also the missed opportunities.

It was thus possibly that the Sri Lankan Tamil fishers’ representatives did not protest loudly to the one-sided references to Jayalalithaa, who does not hold any constitutional position in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, or to subsequent references to the state government and the Centre, without similar mention of either the elected provincial administrations in the North and the East of the nation, nor that of the central government in Colombo. It being a fishermen level talks, and not between the governments, such laxity did not come too much under the scanner, for words to be split and meanings to be read, when none might have existed in the first place.

Tamil Nadu government commitment

The four-paragraph joint statement is accompanied by a six-point set of demands put forth by the Indian fishers (from Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry, whose Karaikkal enclave lies closer to the Sri Lankan waters). The joint statement said that the Sri Lankan fishermen would take it up with their brethren back home, in Sri Lanka’s North and the East, and communicate their position before end-May.

The taste of the pudding is in the eating, and in this case, for the first time, the Indian fishers (including Puducherry fishers) have acknowledged the Tamil Nadu government’s initiatives, taken at every turn at the instance of ‘Manpu-mihu Puratchchi Thalaivi Amma’ (‘honb’le revolutionary leader’), to end their use of vessels and nets banned in Sri Lanka and which also harm fish population and fishermen’s livelihood on the other side of the Palk Strait. The demands’ note thus points out how the Indian fishers are committed to follow the state government’s directives in the matter, and recalls how it had extended a 50 percent grant not beyond IRs.3 million, for converting banned trawlers on to deep-sea vessels, capable of tuna fishing.

In this context, it also refers to Jayalalithaa’s request for the Centre to grant Rs.975 crore for such conversion, when she met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when she was still the chief minister. It is another matter that the Centre is yet to come out with its decision in the matter. If anything, some state leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the centre began speaking about it to the local media and elsewhere, but to no avail.

That the Indian fishers’ were serious about the entire process became equally clear when their proposals brought down to three years, their original demand of five, for conversion of their (destructive) bottom trawlers to deep-sea vessels and reiterated their earlier commitment not to fish within five nautical miles from the Sri Lankan coast, lest the boats and gears of fishers from that country should continue to suffer damage and destruction. In part thereof, the Indian fishermen also committed to reducing the number of fishing days in a year from 120 to 83, during three years.

Problems still galore

Left to themselves, the fishers on the two sides might not have a great problem accepting or adapting a version of the Indian side’s demands, with mutually agreement amendments and changes, if any. The problem might arise as and when officials from the two sides, as the ultimate enforcers of any fishers’ agreement, sit down to give finishing touches to any agreement of the kind. The current joint statement having said that the Tamil Nadu government would ‘examine’ all future decisions at the fishers’ level before implementation with the approval of the two national governments, it becomes inevitable that the governments got involved at the appropriate time and levels.

One of the possible implications flow from the Tamil Nadu government’s repeated assertions about ‘historic waters’ and ‘traditional fishing rights’ would make it that much more difficult for any government in Sri Lanka and equally so for an elected administration, such as the present one, in the island nation’s Tamil-majority Northern Province, to attest any fishermen association level agreement. While neighbourhood nations across the world have agreed to sharing of the sea wealth, particularly fish and other living marine produce for similar reasons, such agreements in the past have been without any specific and formal reference to ‘historic waters’ and ‘traditional rights’, etc. Significantly, there is no reference to such terminology in the fishers’ joint statement this time. In the past, the state government’s official releases notifying impending talks would assert such rights.

Mandated by their respective governments to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the respective nation, their navies and coast guards would be hard pressed to look the other way if they had suspicion or ‘intelligence’ that not all vessels crossing over to the other side were indulging in innocent fishing, with or without use of ‘right to innocent passage’. If the fishermen’s agreement implies that the Sri Lankan government would direct its navy not to stop or otherwise harass genuine Indian fishers, a similar situation would arise in the case of Sri Lanka’s mainly Sinhala fishers on tuna hunt in Indian waters, at times not very far away from strategic assets in the Andaman Sea and along the coast line of states like Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and (northern) Tamil Nadu.

The navy/coast guard duties are thus linked also to the international maritime border line (IMBL), over which Jayalalithaa in her political and personal capacity had moved the Supreme Court of India, challenging the ownership of Katchchativu islet, conferred on Sri Lanka by the twin bilateral agreements of 1974 and 1976. Domestic legal issues over the need for Indian parliamentary ratification apart, the agreements having been notified under UNCLOS (UN Convention on the Laws of the Seas) little purpose would be served by challenging the same in international fora other than vitiating the Palk Strait atmosphere more than already.

The present Tamil Nadu government is also a party to the Supreme Court case and has supported petitioner Jayalalithaa’s position in the Supreme Court. The deployment of Sri Lankan Navy thus could become problematic if the Katchchativu-linked IMBL issue is not resolved to mutual satisfaction. What was essentially considered as a part of the livelihood issue of Indian fishers has thus become a contentious and complicated ‘territorial problem’, with ‘national sentiments’ getting added on with greater effect. It may thus become necessary for the Indian stake-holders to view/review their known positions on the issue if the fishermen were to reach a meaningful and actionable agreement in good time.

While terms like ‘historic waters’ and ‘traditional fishing rights’ may – or, may not, if one were to hear the Sri Lankan side – apply to Palk Bay fishing, it cannot necessarily be extended to Indian fishers from Nagapattinam and surrounding localities, to miles on either side. Both Palk Bay and other fishermen from India are also reportedly caught far away from what might have been acknowledged as shared seas and fishing grounds. The fishers’ representatives might have to address these issues, too, as and when those relating to the present demands from the Indian side are satisfactorily addressed.

The role of the respective navies under the circumstances would also need to be considered by the governments concerned. For all the problems that it has left unsaid, what the fishers’ talks achieved this time is very substantial, in content than in form. It needs to be built upon, faster and quicker. The joint statement wholly reflects the seriousness with which the Tamil Nadu government in particular has approached the issue, and the kind of cooperation that the state and its fishermen expect from the other side, in the interim for most parts. That the talks did not suffer from prejudices or attempts at further procrastination, particularly after Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had made – and repeated – his controversial statements on the fishing dispute only weeks before the talks were being scheduled, should, for now, show that the stakeholders, particularly those on the Indian side, are genuine and serious about it all, from this time round on.

*N. Sathiya Moorthy is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation. He can be reached at sathiyam54@gmail.com

The post Sri Lanka-India: Fishermen Talks On Track, But Core Issues Remain – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Ranjit Gupta*

Soon after its formal establishment in 1932, Saudi Arabia invaded Yemen and absorbed the Yemeni provinces of Asir and Najran, in 1934. Since then, Saudi Arabia has tried to influence internal political dynamics by using a ‘carrots and sticks’ policy to ensure that unfriendly regimes did not come to power in Yemen, but with limited success. For these reasons Yemenis have not been well disposed towards Saudi Arabia.

Except for intermittent periods of relative ‘stability’, from 1962 onwards, Yemen has witnessed continual internal armed conflicts between regional and tribal groupings. Ali Abdullah Saleh, a Zaidi Shia himself, was president of North Yemen from 1978 to 1990 and of united Yemen till 2012. Major protests against his autocratic rule started in the mid-1990s. The most powerful amongst them was by the Ansar Allah, under the leadership of Hussein al Houthi, from the Saada region in the north, but there were no sectarian motives behind this. This led to a concerted military campaign against the Zaidi Shia grouping, during which Hussein al Houthi was killed in September 2004, even as Saleh was dubbed a puppet of the Americans and yet another ‘civil war’ in Yemen began.

Saleh’s inability to control the burgeoning mass demonstrations in Yemen, which were part of the so-called Arab Spring unrest, led to him being forced to step down by the GCC countries in 2012; adept at switching alliances, Saleh opportunistically allied with the Houthis in 2014 in an effort to recapture power. Having headed the army and the country for so long, Saleh enjoys a considerable support within the army (even though it is a predominantly Sunni army), and particularly amongst the powerful Republican Guard. This support has contributed particularly significantly to the Houthis taking control of most of the country including almost all its main cities and ports in just a few months. The president and his cabinet were arrested.

Having escaped, the President of Yemen, Abd Rabbu Mansour al Hadi, a southerner, and previously a vice president under Saleh, first fled to Aden and after the presidential palace came under attack there, fled to Saudi Arabia. Al Hadi has no support base in north Yemen and little real support even in southern Yemen, except in Aden. Meanwhile the former supporters of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (in Yemen) who have recently allied themselves with the Islamic State, have steadily been expanding its control of major areas of southern Yemen.

All this has led to Saudi Arabia abandoning its traditional cautious, deliberate, low key diplomacy and adopting a surprisingly muscular approach, apparently at the behest of the very young and completely inexperienced new Saudi Defence Minister, the youngest son of King Salman, Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud. Incredibly, in a matter of days, Saudi Arabia successfully forged a grand Sunni alliance and launched ‘Operation Decisive Storm’ involving extensive air strikes against Houthi and Saleh forces in and around Sana’a, Taiz, Hodeidah and even Aden in the past week, but has been unable to dent the Houthi/Saleh dominance.

A particularly notable feature is the large military commitments made by the members of this coalition, with Saudi Arabia contributing 100 fighter jets, 150,000 soldiers, and some naval units; Bahrain and Kuwait deploying 15 fighter jets each; Qatar contributing 10 jets; and Jordan contributing 6. Even Sudan has promised 3 jets. Egypt is deploying unspecified naval and air force units, and ground forces will be deployed “if necessary.” Concerted efforts to persuade Pakistan to join are being led by King Salman himself. Turkey is being strongly wooed too. This underscores Saudi Arabia’s alarm about developments in Yemen.

Frenetic Saudi rhetoric notwithstanding, there is little credible evidence of Iran having provided large enough consignments of weapons, to make a tangible difference, to the Houthis. But, Iran has now made very significant gains in Yemen: direct flights between Tehran and Sana’a started in March; with several ports now being under Houthi control, theoretical possibilities of Iranian weapons supplies to Yemen have opened up. This will inevitably happen if needed. Iran has already signed several agreements with the Houthi authorities to supply Iranian oil, help in construction of power plants, modernisation of strategic ports, etc.

Thus, Iran has acquired credible locus standii and will now inevitably be an active player in the processes to determine Yemen’s future, particularly now that the nuclear deal has been signed. The issue of the ‘lost provinces’ may well be reopened.

Clearly, the war cannot be won through air strikes alone. Given that Saudi troops had performed particularly poorly against the then much weaker and less organised Houthis in 2009-2010, and have no real combat experience, they are hardly likely to do any better this time, fighting against battle-hardened Yemenis in their own terrain. A military victory is unimaginable. A semblance of peace, the normal situation in Yemen, can only be re-established through negotiations mainly between the parties directly concerned – Iran and Saudi Arabia under US auspices sitting down with the Houthis.

There is very little prospect of a Saudi-friendly government emerging as the end result of such negotiations. Thus, the unfolding events in Yemen are likely to prove another and particularly major strategic setback for Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, Yemen is likely to remain embroiled in violent civil strife for some years to come.

* Ranjit Gupta
Distinguished Fellow, IPCS, former Indian Ambassador to Yemen and Oman, and former Member, National Security Advisory Board (NSAB), India

The post Yemen: Why The Current Strife Will Continue – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena, currently on a three-day state visit to Pakistan, presided over the signing ceremony of six Memorandums of understanding at the Pakistan Prime Minister’s House on Monday.

The memorandums of understanding (MoU) signed today are:

1) Cooperation between Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and Atomic Energy Authority of Sri Lanka

2) Agreement on cooperation against illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances

3) Academic cooperation agreement on exchange and collaboration between National Defence University of Pakistan and Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies of Sri Lanka

4) Collaboration in the field of Sports

5) Mutual cooperation in the shipping business between Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (PNSC) and the Ceylon Shipping Corporation Ltd (CSCL)

6) Cooperation on disaster management

In a joint news conference after holding talks with the President Maithripala Sirisena the Pakistan premier said that “We want a stable and peaceful relations with Sri Lanka.”

“Pakistan and Sri Lanka’s relations span over six decades and are characterized by mutual respect, understanding and cooperation, ” President Maithripala Sirisena added.

The post Sri Lanka, Pakistan Sign Agreements To Enhance Bilateral Cooperation appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Reeta Tremblay*

The timing of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Canada in mid-April could not be better for Canada’s Conservative government. The 42nd federal election is tentatively scheduled for October 19, 2015 and Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservatives hope to successfully woo ethnic communities, including Indo-Canadian voters, part of the more than one million Indian diaspora in Canada.

Building upon his successful US and Australia visits, three items will dominate Modi’s Canadian agenda: connecting with the Indian diaspora in Canada; bilateral trade and counter terrorism. Other matters for discussion might include transportation, natural resources and energy, and education. A public meeting is being planned in Toronto, the city with the largest number of Indo-Canadians.

More importantly for both countries, it is expected that Canada and India will most probably conclude the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), an agreement in the making since 2010. CEPA has gone through eight rounds of negotiations trying to find a balance between Canada’s broader agenda, which would include areas such as intellectual property and government procurement, and India’s desire to protect key areas like agriculture. For India, CEPA would be its first opportunity to obtain preferential access to a part of the North American market. For Canada, it would enhance its free trade agenda as India is one of Canada’s 13 priority markets. CEPA would allow Canada preferential access in the South Asian region, a market which is yet to be exploited.

With Modi’s electoral victory, there is a real sense of optimism in Canada for furthering and deepening India-Canada relations. After a multi-decade period of indifference, or, at the very least, neglect, Canada’s re-engagement with India began in 2001, followed by the 2005 Joint India-Canada Statement. It was during his 2012 visit to India that Prime Minister Harper’s candid assessment of a lacklustre India-Canada relationship moved the bilateral relations to a different level. The Harper government’s decision to actively improve economic relations with India did result in some important steps to strengthen the relationship.

The recent past witnessed the resumption of nuclear cooperation and a commitment to increase bilateral trade to $15 billion by 2015. It also opened space for the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC), the Canada-India Business Council (C-IBC) and the Canada-India Foundation (CIF) to lobby and exert some influence on Canadian foreign policy towards India.

Several high-level visits between the two countries have taken place in the past few years including at the PM levels: Manmohan Singh visited Canada in 2010; Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited India in 2009 and 2012; in addition Governor General David Johnston visited India in February/March 2014. The inaugural India-Canada Strategic Dialogue was held in September 2013, co-chaired by then Indian external affairs minister Salman Khurshid and Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird. The first India-Canada Ministerial Energy Dialogue was held in Ottawa in October 2013. In 2014, Canadian Minister of International Trade, Ed Fast, headed a three-city trade mission to India, comprising 14 Canadian companies, to bolster Canada-India trade and investment partnerships. In January 2015, a delegation of more than 150 Canadians participated in the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas and Vibrant Gujarat. Canada’s official delegation to Vibrant Gujarat was headed by the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration Chris Alexander and among others, included Minister of Labour and Minister of the Status of Women Kellie Leitch, Parliamentary Secretary Deepak Obhrai (a past recipient of the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman -Overseas Indian Award), and the newly appointed High Commissioner for Canada to India, Nadir Patel.

Yet the general consensus among observers of Canadian foreign policy is that India- Canada relations are not what they ought to be. The bilateral trade between India and Canada, while registering an increase of 7.7% from 2012 to 2013, amounts to a mere US$ 5.7 billion. Compare this to India’s trade with the United States which is US$ 82 billion. The cumulative Indian Foreign Direct Investment in Canada, particularly in the information technology, software and natural resources sectors, is more than Canadian FDI inflows into India. The 2013 figures are: Indian FDI in Canada US$3.8 billion, Canadian FDI in India is US$ 613 million.

In the education field, the once very successful Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute, founded in 1968 to promote academic exchanges mainly through funding research and linking academic institutions in the two countries, had to reinvent for itself a much reduced role when Canadian government sharply slashed its share of funding. The impact on the former vibrant Indian Studies programs in Canada was disastrous. Even though, in 2011, as part of its wider India engagement strategy, the Harper government was to invest $15 million over five years to create the Canada-India Research Centre of Excellence, it is India through the recent endeavour of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations that funded the establishment of Research Chairs and the Canada India Centre of Excellence at six Canadian universities.

At the present time, Canada perceives that there is a real possibility of creating new windows of opportunity for furthering its relationship with India by responding to Modi’s agenda of inclusive economic development, free trade and multi- level engagement globally. In addition to reinforcing shared values of democracy and pluralism, Canada’s expressed desire is to build on the expertise of Canadian companies in the areas of energy, food security, education, innovation and infrastructure, each of which is a priority under the new Modi government. It hopes that both Canadian multinational companies and small and medium-sized companies can take advantage of India’s new economic model of public-private partnership in sectors such as health care, agriculture, infrastructure and resources sectors

However, there are several potential irritants to Prime Minister Modi’s visit. First is the Canadian obsession with the exploitation of the Canadian Temporary Foreign Worker Program which is being blamed for pushing up unemployment. During the last two years, the Harper government has been trying to navigate between its focus on trade negotiations, with the objective of reducing Canada’s overwhelming economic dependence on the United States, and the domestic pressure of protecting employment for Canadians first.

Second, in the area of international security, both the Modi and Harper governments have already begun dialogue on collaboration on national security matters, including counter-terrorism. But the Harper government’s recent proposed security bill C-51 is facing societal opposition for the potential abuse of power by security agencies such as the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Another sore spot might be the militant Sikh diaspora. A Sikh group “Sikhs For Justice” has launched a petition urging Prime Minister Harper to raise with his Indian counterpart the demands of those Sikhs who are advocating for an independent country.

*Reeta Tremblay is Professor of Political Science at the University of Victoria in British Columbia and a specialist on Kashmir and India-Pakistan relations. She can be contacted at reeta@uvic.ca

The post Modi’s Visit To Canada: Building On Optimism – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Vyjayanti Raghavan*

After over a decade-long and torturous negotiation, Iran and the US reached an agreement over the former’s nuclear program. There has been some light applause from the international community but that is all. Only US President Barack Obama has been trumpeting its success.

The rest of the world’s muted response is for good reason: a previous such agreement that the US reached in 1994 with a country aspiring to achieve nuclear weapons – North Korea – came badly unstuck. In that agreement too, promises were made and broken by both sides in a cloud of acrimony.

There are two problems with such agreements. First, the nuclear weapons policy of the country wishing to build nuclear weapons is determined by its medium term threat perceptions. Second, such agreements are put in place by a strategy (on the part of the nuclear- aspirant country) to buy time while it wards off international pressure in the form of sanctions etc. This being so, there is an inbuilt structural flaw in such agreements that allows both parties to cry foul that the other side is reneging.

Countries can start finding faults over the smallest things if they do not want to stick to the agreement.

The Iran nuclear deal is therefore reminiscent of what happened when North Korea signed the Geneva Accord in 1994. The Iran deal could follow the same pattern unless great care is taken – and even then it could come unstuck.

The US-North Korea Deal

To recall, the US had entered into negotiations with North Korea only because it had threatened to withdraw from the NPT. According to the final agreement, North Korea agreed to remain in the NPT, to submit to regular IAEA inspections, and to give up its entire nuclear program.

In return, the US agreed to end the provocative Team Spirit military exercises that it carried out annually with South Korea, lift the economic sanctions, and provide North Korea with proliferation-resistant Light water Reactors.

There was an overall sense of relief and euphoria all around, just as now. But as it turned out, the agreement unravelled very quickly. This was essentially because it had been hurriedly entered into by both parties without much thought put into the details. In a sense, both parties were trying to buy time and seek a temporary solution.

The US had signed because it was convinced that it was only a matter of time before the Kim Jong-Il regime would collapse. It never occurred to Washington that it might not, which is what happened eventually. The US had not worked out either the details of the costing of the LWR or the incompatibility of the existing distribution infrastructure in North Korea for meeting its domestic energy requirements. More importantly, in the current context, the US’s approach all along had been to contain North Korea’s nuclear program and not to eradicate it, just as it is in Iran’s case.

Finally, when it came to implementing the agreement, other obstacles cropped up because not all of North Korea’s nuclear facilities had been covered and the US made that a major issue.

On North Korea’s side, its real motives were to only engage with the US in negotiations and get as much as possible out of it to help with its persistent electricity shortages. But it was determined to build nuclear weapons and was not going to give up so easily. It also feared a pre-emptive attack by the US, just as Iran fears one by Israel.

In the end, both sides began picking on minor infringements – such as very minor delays in doing things that had been agreed upon. The result? Within a few years, the agreement was a dead letter.

Deja Vu?

So, after a lot of finger-pointing by both sides about bad faith, in 2002, the agreement failed completely and North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 2003.

Will history repeat itself in the case of the Iran-US agreement?

The answer depends on its weakest points, and there already is one to begin with: domestic politics. Obama and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayotallah Khamenei both have to cater to hardliners at home. While Khamenei prefers the agreement to be vague, leaving Tehran room to work out the details with the hardliners before the deal is finally signed in June, US Secretary of State John Kerry is being forced to present the specifics to the Congress – which in effect means that this could result in differences right from the start.

The two countries have a few months to work things out and maybe everything will turn out well. But on the face of it – Saudi Arabia is already tapping Pakistan for a nuclear cover – it appears like it will be a difficult task.

* Vyjayanti Raghavan
Professor & Chairperson, Centre for Korean Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

The post Iran Nuclear Deal: Lessons From North Korea – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Jai Kumar Verma*

Israel is an important supplier of military hardware to India and the quantity and quality of this relationship is being further enhanced, as India is now the biggest purchaser of Israel’s defense industries. Besides armaments, the relationship is bolstered by the two countries cooperating on the question of cross-border terrorism. For both India and Israel, the concern of nuclear terrorism, or the sly patronage of state support to the proliferation of nuclear material to terrorist groups is also a common concern.

The much spoken about defence relationship between the two countries has its roots well beyond the establishment of formal diplomatic relations in 1992. For example, Israel supplied much needed armaments to India when China and Pakistan attacked India in 1962, 1965 and 1971. Unconfirmed, but widely cited accounts also suggest that Israel was assisting India to launch a pre-emptive attack on the Pakistani nuclear site in Kahuta, but this was abandoned after the American CIA intervened on the plan.

This previously clandestine relationship was given its widest reportage during the 1999 Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan. According to reports, the Israeli counter-terrorism agency Shabak is helping India in fighting terrorism in Kashmir. This cooperation may also relate to an unfortunate incident in 1991, when one Israeli tourist was killed during a botched hostage-taking scenario in Kashmir. At least six Israelis were abducted by a lesser known Islamist group, which threatened to kill them, but were overpowered by the hostages.

Despite robust military relations, ties between the two countries on civilian uses were limited, at least in public glare. However, it is now known that the relationship has diversified into various collaborative projects, including water desalination and conservation, nanotechnology, space technology, pharmaceuticals, solar energy and information technology.

Israel which has achieved great success in increasing agricultural products has opened 28 centres of excellence in India for research and development of agricultural technology. Bilateral trade between both the countries which was $200 million in 1992 became $4.4 billion in 2013.

There is strong collaboration between both the countries in space technology. Both countries have signed Memorandum of Understanding in the fields of science and technology including space. Israel cooperated in the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Chandrayaan mission, while India helped launch the TecSAR satellite for Israel. Scientists of ISRO and Israel also built RISAT-2 which was launched in 2009. This collaboration is particularly useful due to the advances for each country in specific technology which reduces costs.

Despite the advances made in the relationship, a political dialogue between the two countries remains mired in sensitivities, particularly on the Indian side. While then Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon paid a state visit to Delhi in 2003, there has not been a reciprocal visit by an Indian premier.

The highest level ranking politician to visit Israel in recent times has been Home Minister Rajnath Singh in November 2014. The highest the two countries have otherwise got in a dialogue was on the sidelines of the UN General assembly in September 2014, when both Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel had a brief conversation.

Modi also met Israeli President Reuven Rivlin in Singapore on the sidelines of the funeral services for Singapore’s first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew.

While it may appear to be a rosy relationship, the lack of political will, which is primarily based on India’s geo-strategic alliances with the Gulf states and its own Muslim minority, is starting to become a thorny issue.

As India plays a wider role in the International comity, its relationship with arch Israeli foes including Iran, would be a concern for both countries. Allegations that the Iranian secret service was behind a 2012 attack on an Israeli diplomat in New Delhi has not been given public closure. Furthermore, the traditional Indian position on the question of a Palestinian state is a factor which successive governments must face, especially in times of great humanitarian distresses caused by the conflicts in the region.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was hard pressed to defend Israel during Operation Protective Edge (the Israeli military operation launched in Gaza) in 2014. The dichotomy in how the government has to tread on the question of Israel’s military response can be gauged, through its blocking of a resolution which would condemn Israel in its own parliament, but backing a UN probe into Israel’s actions.

While India and Israel jointly face common threats from jihadists, and constituted a Joint Terror Commission in 2000; there is a level of difference in how the regional threats are viewed in the interests of both countries. For example, India has not included the Palestinian organization Hamas or Lebanon- based Hezbollah as proscribed organizations, however cosmetic the changes may imply in India. Such small measures could go a long way in bolstering confidence that the Indian agencies view Israeli concerns with equal interest.

India also has a well-documented list of concerns over its overly one-sided trade balance with the oil-rich Gulf states which have clandestinely supported several regional terrorist groups. As the current levels of sectarian violence between Shias and Sunnis further expands, it threatens India’s oil security. As a means of gaining energy independence, India, Israel and the United States should jointly work together in developing alternatives to the limited resource of oil, and work towards newer fuels particularly renewable energy.

As both countries work towards expanding their relationship into a number of diverse fields, the compatibility between the two can help work as a bridge for Indian access to key technology and influential lobbies in the Western world, while Israel can gain from a significant strategic partner and a bridge to Southeast Asia.

It is time India realigns its relationship with Israel to iron out the differences at the earliest and promote the tangible gains which this relationship has the potential to achieve.

*Jai Kumar Verma is a Delhi-based strategic analyst. He can be reached at jaikumar.verma909@gmail.com

The post India-Israel Ties: Time To Realign Relationship – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The late Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s legacy on Singapore –Malaysia relations will continue to have an impact on the diplomatic ties of these two countries. In particular his insights on the shared geography, history, culture, and the regional and geopolitical contexts for both Singapore and Malaysia will endure for many years to come.

By David Han Guo Xiong*

The passing of Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew marks the end of an era in the relations between Singapore and Malaysia. But his legacy will continue to shape the republic’s foreign policy towards its immediate neighbour, and his views will still be an important lens through which to understand their bilateral ties.

For Mr Lee, the shared realities of geography, history, culture, and the wider regional and geopolitical contexts would continue to underpin Singapore’s relations with Malaysia. Indeed, at the core of his view on Singapore’s policy towards Malaysia is the over-riding concern of the republic’s continued survival as a nation; the preservation of its territorial integrity; and economic prosperity, vis-à-vis its larger northern neighbour.

Fundamentals of Singapore–Malaysia relations

The story of Lee Kuan Yew’s political career is almost synonymous and inextricably tied with the history of Singapore–Malaysia relations. Right from the start, when he became the first prime minister of Singapore in 1959, he was already aware that Malaya – as Malaysia was then known – was a crucial hinterland for the economic survival of Singapore. By virtue of geographical proximity and shared colonial history, the economic, social and cultural dynamics of both countries were deeply intertwined. Mr Lee understood that for Singapore to survive economically, Singapore must merge with Malaya, which it did when Malaysia was formed in 1963.

However, the merger was short-lived and ended when Singapore separated from Malaysia on 9 August 1965. The key reason for the split was that Mr Lee’s vision for a “Malaysian Malaysia” which championed multiracialism was incompatible with the race-based policies and communal politics in Malaysia which favoured the bumiputras.

For the past 50 years, though the issue of race and ethnicity has surfaced on a few occasions, it has not severely damaged Singapore–Malaysia ties. Overall, both Singapore and Malaysia have exercised much restraint and sensitivity towards one another on the subject of race and ethnicity.

After separation, Singapore successfully overcame its economic woes and transformed itself into the prosperous city state it is today. Although Malaysia did not remain the hinterland for Singapore due to the separation, Mr Lee’s insight on the close economic interdependence of the two immediate neighbours is still valid. Singapore’s largest trading partner is Malaysia and good economic cooperation is vital to both countries. The ongoing Iskandar development project is a testament to the strong economic links of both countries. Singapore and Malaysia also cooperate widely in other areas such as tourism, education, environmental issues, culture, and so on.

Managing bilateral issues

To be sure there have been contentious disputes over the past five decades. These include the problem of water supply; the withdrawal of contributions of Malaysian workers from the Central Provident Fund (CPF); ownership of Malayan Railway (KTM) land and Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) issues; bridge replacement for the Causeway; and the question of sovereignty over Pedra Branca. Nevertheless, Mr Lee’s pragmatism, which is also shared by Malaysia, has been the key to overcoming the periodic tensions which arose in the past and may likely continue in the future.

The current excellent relations between Singapore and Malaysia under the leadership of Prime Ministers Lee Hsien Loong and Najib Razak is a clear indicator that cordial relations based on rationality and pragmatic interest will prevail over emotional and irrational attachment to narrow ethnic or communal agendas in the future.

As both Singapore and Malaysia are close neighbours, regional dynamics have been crucial factors for the foreign policies of both nations. For Mr Lee, a peaceful and stable Southeast Asia, characterised by cordial economic and diplomatic cooperation amongst Southeast Asian states without interfering in each other’s internal affairs, was vital for Singapore’s sovereignty and survival. Accordingly Mr Lee contributed significantly to the development of ASEAN so that ASEAN countries can work together towards regional goals in the ASEAN Way.

Singapore, Malaysia in the ASEAN context

Similarly, Malaysia has always recognised the importance of ASEAN for regional stability which would be conducive for advancing the national interests of Malaysia. It is also in the context of ASEAN that both Malaysia and Singapore can seek to improve their bilateral ties. Such similarities in viewpoint should continue to form a common ground for cooperation between Singapore and Malaysia, and for furthering the interests of ASEAN as a whole.

On broader geopolitical issues, Mr Lee saw that while competition between the United States and China is inevitable, conflict is not. He held the view that the US should help China to transit into the international community in the spirit of cooperation.

Indeed, peaceful and good ties between China and the US without major conflicts would benefit Singapore’s economic development and survival. Singapore has strong economic ties with China, while it also maintains close military and economic relations with the US. Singapore’s cooperative and hedging behaviour is motivated by its desire for both China and the US to maintain peaceful ties, and not for Singapore to be forced to choose sides.

Likewise, Malaysia also shares broadly similar strategic concerns with Singapore. Malaysia too has strong economic relations with China, and close military ties with the US. Good China-US ties would serve the interests of Malaysia as well. Given these overlaps, Singapore and Malaysia can work together, within the context of ASEAN, to engage both Beijing and Washington to enhance mutual understanding and peaceful cooperation in the Southeast Asian region.

Continued relevance of Lee’s views on bilateral ties

Lee Kuan Yew’s views of relations between Singapore and Malaysia would continue to be relevant though not the key factor that shapes relations between Singapore and Malaysia.

The leadership of both countries should be mindful that the shared geography, history, culture, and regional and geopolitical contexts would always be crucial components that shape Singapore–Malaysian relations. A pragmatic and realistic outlook should consistently undergird and drive peaceful and constructive relations of the two countries, and not allow issues coloured by historical baggage or narrow domestic interests to hinder the relations of the two close neighbours.

*David Han Guo Xiong is a research analyst with the Malaysia Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

The post Lee Kuan Yew’s Legacy: His Impact On Singapore–Malaysia Relations – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

A soccer pitch in the Iranian city of Ahvaz, home to Iran’s Arab minority, has emerged as a flashpoint of anti-government protest at a time of rising Arab-Iranian tensions over the status of Shiite Muslim minorities in the Arab world, the crisis in Yemen, and the outlines of a multilateral agreement that would curb Iran’s nuclear program and return the Islamic republic to the fold of the international community.

Soccer fans clashed with security forces last Friday after a match between state-owned Foolad FC and Teheran’s Esteghlal FC in Ahwaz, the capital of the Iranian province of Khuzestan for the second time is as many weeks, according to the National Council of Resistance in Iran, a coalition of opposition groups dominated by the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, a group that lost much of its credibility after it was expelled from France in 1986 and moved its operations to Iraq at a time that Iraq was at war with Iran.

The protest was sparked by mounting anger among ethnic Arabs in oil-rich but impoverished Khuzestan that constitutes part of Iran’s border with Iraq. Ethnic Arabs have long complained that the government has failed to reinvest profits to raise the region’s standards of living.

The World Health Organization (WHO) identified Ahwaz in 2013 as Iran’s most polluted city. Authorities distributed in February tens of thousands of surgical masks and more than 26,000 gallons of milk in Ahvaz, a city of more than 1 million, when it was hit by a severe sand storm that forced the closure of schools and offices, the cancellation of flights, and prompted scattered protests.

In a sign of where Iranian Arab loyalties lie, environmental activists blamed Iraq rather than the Iranian government for the degradation of Khuzestan that they said was a consequence of Iraq’s failure to prevent the loss of marshlands and the spread of desert terrain.

Iranian Arabs nevertheless charge that they are being discriminated against because of Iranian government suspicions that they are susceptible to foreign Arab influence. That suspicion is rooted in Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s bloody eight-year war against Iran that ended in 1988. Saddam falsely expected at the time that Iranian Arabs would welcome the opportunity to gain independence from Iran.

The Iranian Arab refusal to side with Saddam failed however to earn them the credit they deserved. They have since often framed their criticism of government policies in ethnic and nationalist terms that have served to strengthen government distrust amid multiple proxy wars between Saudi Arabia and Iran on the battlefields of Yemen, Syria and Iraq; Gulf accusations of meddling by Iran in their backyard by supporting the rebel Houthis in Yemen, fuelling protest in majority Shiite Bahrain and the oil-rich, predominantly Shiite Eastern Shiite militias in Iraq battling the Islamic State, the jihadist group that controls a swath of Syria and Iraq.

A policeman was killed and 30 protesters injured on Saturday when police allegedly attacked the Shiite village of Awamiyah in the Eastern Province amid reports of a planned demonstration against the Saudi military intervention in Yemen, according to the Saudi interior ministry and activists. Shiites, who assert that they suffer from discrimination in employment and education, account for up to 15 percent of the kingdom’s population. The government has repeatedly rejected allegations of discrimination and claimed that it was confronting an armed uprising in the Eastern Province.

In a recent article in the English-language Saudi newspaper, Arab News, UAE businessman Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor called for the liberation of the five million Arabs in Khuzestan which the writer described as Arabistan. Mr. Al Habtoor asserted that the Arabs were “struggling to survive under the Persian yoke in an Arab region bordering Iraq and the Arabian Gulf.”

He charged that “although Arabistan provides Iran with 80 percent of its oil requirements as well as half of its gas, its sons are exploited and oppressed; their human rights tramped upon, their very identity in danger of being obliterated. Iran’s policy of ethnic discrimination combined with its Persian resettlement endeavours has resulted in turning the Ahwazi Arabs into an economic and social underclass.

Numerous Arab villages are without schools and those ‘lucky’ enough to attend school are educated in Farsi. Some 80 percent of Ahwazi Arab women are illiterate as opposed to 50 percent of Ahwazi men. Over thirty percent of the under-30s are unemployed in this heavily industrialized region, primarily because Persians receive priority and jobs often advertised outside the governorate,” Mr. Al Habtoor said.

“Thousands are without access to drinking water, because rivers have been diverted to arid Persian provinces. Their streets open sewers; many are deprived of electricity and gas… It’s no wonder that Ahwazi Arabs are now driven to protest against such blatant discrimination,” he added.

Friday’s soccer protest followed a similar incident two weeks ago during an Asian championship League qualifier between Ahwaz’s Foolad FC and Al Hilal of Saudi Arabia. Fans defiantly expressed support for Al Hilal and burnt pictures of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the late spiritual leader who spearheaded the 1979 Iranian revolution that toppled the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Fans also sported banners emphasizing the Arab character of Ahvaz.

Unrest in Ahwaz has been long simmering. The popular revolts of the Arab world in 2011 that toppled the autocratic leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen reverberated in Khuzestan where protesters commemorated anti-government demonstrations in 2005. Activists who called in April 2011 for a ‘day of rage’ in Ahwaz were confronted by security forces who reportedly killed and wounded scores.

Habib Jaber Al-Ahvazi, a spokesman for the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA), a group that demands independence for Ahvaz and is believed to be responsible for a series of bomb attacks in the city in 2005, 2006 and 2013, last month told online Arab nationalist Ahvaz.tv that the soccer protests were part of an “ongoing confrontation between demonstrators and the forces of the Persian occupation.”

Iranian analysts suspect Saudi Arabia of instigating the soccer protests in Khuzestan as part of an effort to destabilize and dismember Iran. The analysts note that ASMLA operatives have maintained contacts with rebels fighting Syria’s Al Assad regime. ASMLA has also expressed support for insurgents in Iran’s Baluchi and Kurdish provinces whom the government in Tehran sees as part of US and Gulf Arab covert operations aimed at weakening it.

Iran’s Press TV appeared to counter reports of the soccer protest by reporting the same day that hundreds of protesters in Tehran, Ahwaz, Ardabil, Mashhad and Tabriz had demonstrated against the Saudi military campaign in Yemen.

The post Iranian Arab Soccer Pitch Emerges As Flashpoint In Saudi-Iranian Proxy War – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Sandip Kumar Mishra*

It is not an easy choice for South Korea to decide about participating in two initiatives, one spearheaded by the US and the other by China. The US insists on South Korea joining its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, which is said to be a missile defence system to protect South Korea against any military adventurism by North Korea. However, the THAAD may allegedly be used to spy on China and Russia, and so the latter forbid South Korea’s participation in any such system. In another move, China has been quite active in the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which has been seen as a serious challenge to the existing international and regional economic arrangements that are largely dominated by the West and Japan. China is being quite persuasive in getting South Korea on board by offering it a founding member status. However, the US is not happy with the AIIB initiative and would like South Korea to keep away from it.

The contest between the US and China for the Asia-Pacific has made it difficult for South Korea to choose between THAAD and AIIB purely on the basis of its self-defined national interests. South Korea, has been trying to emerge as a middle power in regional politics since 2009, and finds it regressive to go back to either/or choices between the US and China. Under the rubric of its middle power diplomacy and as part of its ‘New Asia initiative’, South Korea became active in providing Official Development Assistance (ODA) to some of the poorest countries in the world, participated more actively in the various international organisations, and more importantly, tried to inject new positive agendas in regional politics by supporting ‘green growth’ etc. The global presence of South Korean companies and the popularity of South Korean cultural products in neighbouring countries, known as as ‘Hallyu’, have provided further impetus to South Korea’s rising stature in the region. South Korea’s attempt to balance between the US and China also emanates from its desire to play a more autonomous and constructive role between them, and this is considered a sine qua non of its emergence as a middle power.

Pragmatic realities also demand that South Korea should avoid taking sides between the two countries in any disagreement between them. The US military presence in South Korea and its security commitment to Seoul has been an undeniable fact for decades. However, China is also emerging as an important partner for South Korea by being its number one trading partner, in addition to its key role in South Korea’s dealings with North Korea. South Korea would thus like to maintain good relations with both the US and China for these practical reasons as well.

However, the dilemma South Korea faces on the THAAD and AIIB front is a difficult one. The best option, which has been prescribed by many scholars and even policy-makers and politicians in South Korea, is that it should join both initiatives. By doing so, South Korea would not be seen as defying either the US or China, and will be a position acceptable to both. Already, the US has diluted its position on South Korea joining the AIIB from ‘being unacceptable’ one year ago to ‘South Korea could decide by its own’, and there are chances that China would also come to terms with South Korea joining the THAAD.

However, the AIIB with China and the THAAD with the US do not go well with South Korea’s behaviour as a middle power, which would suggest a relatively more autonomous space in its policy-making. The AIIB is an economic platform and network led by China with whom South Korea already has massive economic exchanges; joining the AIIB therefore would not bring any fundamental shift in its bilateral relations with China or the US. Already, many close friends of the US such as the UK have declared their participation in it, and it would not be a big issue if South Korea also decides to joins. However, THAAD is different. Many scholars disagree with the claim that it is aimed at North Korea – they claim that its real targets are China and Russia. The skeptics say that the THAAD would not be very effective in averting the North Korean threat as the geographical proximity between South and North Korea is very close. Moreover, it is also said that South Korea has been trying to develop its own indigenous Korean Anti-Missile Defense (KAMD) system. For all these reasons, at the beginning, South Korea said that it was not interested in the THAAD. Furthermore, joining the THAAD would strain South Korea’s relations with both China and Russia and thus would hamper South Korea’s middle power diplomacy.

So, a rational choice for middle power South Korea would be to join the AIIB but to refuse the THAAD. But the choice for South Korea as an American ally would be to join the THAAD and not the AIIB. South Korea announced its decision to join the AIIB on 26 March 2015 but is yet to make its position clear on the THAAD. It would interesting to see what choice South Korea makes, as it would determine South Korea’s approach to regional politics in the future as well as its own place in its emerging dynamics.

*Sandip Kumar Mishra
Assistant Professor, Department of East Asian Studies, Delhi University

The post South Korea: US THAAD Or Chinese AIIB? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

We will have just enough centrifuges to make carrot juice.” — Alireza Mataji, Twitter, Apr 3, 2015

It did finally arrive, though any chat about “framework” is bound to require a closer look at the fillings, strength of timber and assortment of various measures of quality. It did take upwards of eighteen months and the work of Tehran with the 5+1 Group (US, Britain, France, Russia China plus Germany), yielding the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Such a framework was always going to be problematic. Everything has to begin with a dominant premise, in this case that one nation state could not be allowed a nuclear weapon, while others, generally speaking, are allowed to continue their merry way modernising, refining and doing what is deemed necessary to keep a fictional deterrent alive. This fudging came with the issue that is so fundamental to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation slow dance: you do not get to use nuclear energy as long as you focus on peaceful uses. Doing so entails assistance, encouragement and inspection. Not doing so suggests usurpation and a brattish disposition.

In attempting to strangle the Iranian program, the use of sanctions was always going to be the beating incentive. Easing them, or lifting them altogether, was not so much an olive branch as a coated stick. The agreement ensures that EU sanctions on matters nuclear-related and financial will be terminated. The US guarantees to cease its secondary economic and financial sanctions of a nuclear related nature, linking it to International Atomic Energy Agency verification of Iran’s undertakings.

The framework agreement sees Iran agreeing to cut its centrifuge supply by two-thirds (19,000 to about 6,000). The reduction of the existing stockpile of enriched uranium by 97 percent is also in the deal, as is a promise to continue enrichment at levels far less than those required to make a nuclear weapon.

As the joint statement by the EU High Representative Federica Mogherini and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif outlined, “As Iran pursues a peaceful nuclear program, Iran’s enrichment capacity, enrichment level and stockpile will be limited for specific durations, and there will be no other enrichment facility than Natanz. Iran’s research and development on centrifuges will be carried out on a scope and schedule to be mutually agreed.”

There are specific outlines regarding the conversion of Fordow from an enrichment site to that of a “nuclear, physics and technology centre.” Fissile material will be prohibited at Fordow, while Iran will be assisted in “redesigning and rebuilding a modernised Heavy Water Research Reactor in Arak that will not produce weapons grade plutonium.” According to Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, “we have both maintenance of nuclear rights and removal of sanctions alongside constructive interaction with the world.”

The ultimate issue lurking in the background is persistent anxiety and terror. The nuclear weapon, horrifying as it is, is a grotesquery that has been normalised. The use of atomic weapons signalled normalisation – the distortion, rather, has come from the preventive measures of powers who have obtained treasures they would rather others did not have. The gap is supplied by a wilful cultural myopia: some are better to have it than others. The very existence of the nuclear weapon obliterates such distinctions – it is either possessed, or not.

The nuclear exception, however, makes it imperative that a state like Iran must give undertakings that “enrichment and all nuclear-related technologies are only aimed at Iran’s development and will not be used against any other countries” while other nuclear states, including those not within the NNPT regime, are entitled to ignore such otherwise pie-in-sky assertions. They know that once the weapon is obtained, it will not be relinquished.

The language of nuclear diplomacy is also constraining. Agreements may well be reached, but selling them like decent products with a viable historical warranty is something else. “This is very complicated,” claimed an unnamed senior Obama administration official to Politico.2 “A lot of this is hard to talk about to the American people.” There are senators in Congress in open opposition, promising every stonewalling trick in the book. There are lobby groups with deep pockets keen to see this deal collapse.

Senior Israeli journalist Ari Shavit has gotten on the cataclysmic bandwagon, viewing the deal as an error “as big” as George W. Bush’s disastrous gambit in Iraq. He sees the normalisation of Iran’s ambitions as triggering a potential “multi-player nuclear arena” in the Middle East. “If Iran goes nuclear, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and the Gulf states will go nuclear.”3

This form of calculation has a certain crude merit to it, though it allows Israel to remain the default nuclear state in a sea of Muslim state contenders, the grand non-Muslim balancing act against other perceived fanaticisms. The nub of the matter here is one that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists upon with fanatical consistency: you can’t let the Mullahs get the bomb. For Shavit, “Does an agreement that allows Iran to keep 6,100 spinning centrifuges really lock under 1,000 locks and bolt behind 1,000 bolts the Iranian nuclear project?” The deal, in short, is hardly punitive enough.

The Iranian establishment will also have to be doing their local sell, convincing citizens that their government hasn’t been doing just that little bit of a sell-out. The hard-liners, quiet through the negotiations, may see a chance to strengthen their hold. On the surface, this remains a “nuclear program”.

In practice, it is also a concession to the dictating agendas of other powers – the dangerous game being played in the powder keg playground of the world. “No matter how we try to sugar coat it,” argues economist Saeed Laylaz, who has ties with the Rouhani government, “this means we no longer will have an industrial-scale enrichment program. This is the price we have to pay for earlier mistakes.”4 Nuclear weapons remain forms of sovereignty, even if they are absurdly dangerous.

The post Doing The Nuclear Dance – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Mahendra Ved*

Pakistan is all set to join the conflict in Yemen on the side of the Saudi Arabia-led Arab combine. As has happened during its past military ventures abroad, the political leadership under Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the military establishment appear to be on the same page on this issue.

The government is going through the motions of consultations with the military brass and seeking to evolve a consensus on the role Pakistan should play. One of the measures is convening of parliament’s joint session. A delegation led by the defence minister visited Riyadh and Nawaz Sharif paid a quick visit to Turkey for consultations before that.

But the speed and alacrity with which the prime minister publicly announced ‘cooperation’, including military help, to the Saudis has left little doubt of the intentions.

This has led to a strong perception that Pakistan has already committed to making a military contribution to the Saudi-led coalition presently bombing the Houthis in Yemen that may be followed by a land invasion. It is apprehended that both, Pakistan Air Force and later, to secure a decisive military victory, the land forces may be committed. Of the entire coalition that is emerging against the Houthis, the Zaidy Shia rebels, Pakistan and Egypt are the only two that can provide foot soldiers.

However, the public opinion remains opposed to any direct intervention, going by the English language media. As events evolve, the story could be different when it comes to the conservative classes who subscribe to Urdu and Punjabi media. They are likely to be supportive of a move that helps Saudi Arabia, the religious and spiritual home of Islam.

As fast as Nawaz Sharif was his arch critic and opposition leader Imran Khan, who said that Pakistan should be a ‘facilitator’ and should not be a ‘participant’ in the conflict. After the initial warning, however, he is likely to decide the course of action from the way the military establishment looks at the issue.

Needless to say, the Islamist parties and Sharif’s own Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) will be supportive of the country’s military involvement. They are essentially Sunni and the Yemen conflict situation is seen as a Sunni-Shia dispute.

How the Pakistan Army will view the issue is still not clear. The Yemen crisis comes when the Pakistan Army under Gen. Raheel Sharif is deeply involved in Zarb-e-Azb, fighting the Pushtun rebels in the tribal no-man’s land bordering Afghanistan for the past nine months, with no end in sight. It has been an expensive campaign. It has lost personnel, committed there in large numbers. It is also engaged in the safety, if not rehabilitation, of the large number of families displaced by this operation.

One way of looking at the army would be that it is already stretched fully and may not want to add more to the plate. But, going to Yemen is an opportunity to flex its muscles internationally, as it has done in the past.

Pakistan has always taken such opportunities and has got committed militarily at Saudi Arabia’s behest. Gen. Ziaul Haq had sent 20,000 army combatants to Saudi Arabia after there was an attack on the holy shrines in the 1980s. Saudi political support and funds played a big role in Pakistan getting involved in Afghanistan to fight the Moscow-backed government in Kabul during that decade.

The Yemen conflict comes when the US-led forces are withdrawing from Afghanistan and the Pakistan Army has to decide its strategy towards a relatively more vulnerable Kabul, and commit forces along the volatile border.

The two Sharifs are bound to work in tandem and together because the political and military interests converge in playing a role in the Yemen conflict.

Nawaz Sharif has been very close to the Saudi royalty that helped him out of Pakistan after he was removed by Gen. Pervez Musharraf. He and his family were hosted for eight years and his return home was also facilitated by Riyadh. The Saudi kingdom has helped with money grants since Nawaz took office in 2013. Personally, he may think this is his pay-back time. His political interest lies in giving the best he can to Riyadh.

Riyadh has economically bolstered each regime in Pakistan and drawn benefit from it, since Pakistan is the biggest among the Muslim nations. Riyadh has also always played a role in Pakistan’s internal affairs, choosing its favourites among the political and military leaders. Critics say Nawaz is badly compromised with the Saudis who have succeeded in getting Islamabad to toe its line on West Asia, in dealing with Syria in particular.

This is a unique conflict for Saudi Arabia and that is one reason why it needs Pakistan. This is the first military campaign in which Riyadh is involved directly in its own territory. All past involvements have been through proxies and in terms of money. The Houthis, living in mountainous terrain, are known to be good fighters.

Riyadh has got to be seen as winning decisively – else it could lose credibility and clout among the Arab nations, and generally among Muslim nations where it has an overwhelming presence.

Its claim that Iran is supporting the Houthis has been debunked by Tehran. Actually the Houthis Shias have little in common with the Shias of Iran. On the other hand, Iran has scored a major point with the international community by striking a deal with the US and the major powers over its nuclear programme. This is a deal that the two US allies in the region, Saudi Arabia, as also Israel, have severely opposed.

Much as Nawaz may wish and the army may want, it is not an easy decision for Pakistan. For one, it could exacerbate the internal situation. The biggest threat is sectarian Sunni-Shia violence. If the country gets committed militarily in Yemen fighting the Shias, the Sunni militants like Sipah-e-Sahaba and many others are bound to find justification in attacking the Shias. Already the country has witnessed attacks on Shia places of worship, the imambargahs in Peshawar, Shikarpur and other places. This is likely to increase.

The Yemen conflict and the Saudi ‘request’ for cooperation have come when there is already some criticism of Saudis because of their larger-than-life involvement in Pakistan’s internal affairs.

Madrassas funded by Saudi government and charity organizations are seen as the breeding ground for militants that Pakistan uses against India and Afghanistan, and even for ‘exports’ to Al Qaida and now ISIS operations.

Following public criticism by two federal ministers, the Saudi embassy in Islamabad, in an unprecedented denial, insisted that it funded madrassas only through the Pakistani government and its official channels. This got contradicted as the Pakistan Foreign Office has no role in madrassa funding. As for the interior ministry, the report of Saudi money into madrassa funding has come from the police chiefs of the provinces.

The sentiment among sections of the intelligentsia is that Yemen is “not our war”. But Pakistan’s record of military involvement tells a different story.

*Mahendra Ved is a New Delhi-based writer and columnist. He can be reached at contributions@spsindia.in

The post Pakistan In The Yemen Conflict: Fraught With Consequences – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Wasbir Hussain*

Signals emanating from Myanmar indicate the country’s semi-civilian government is pursuing democracy with the brakes on. The brutal crackdown of a student protest by the authorities in early March has once again brought the spotlight back on a nation that was under military rule for 49 years until 2011. Apart from sowing seeds of doubt among the citizens about the possibility of actually experiencing a democratic free spirit in the days ahead, Naypyidaw’s decision to put down the student movement against the National Education Bill has upset donor countries and human rights groups across the world.

The student protestors, led primarily by the All Burma Federation of Students’ Unions (ABSFU), have a set of 11 main demands that include the right to establish student unions at their institutions, freedom to study the country’s ethnic languages and greater funding for education. The National Education Bill passed by Parliament in September 2014 prohibits student politics by not allowing the formation of students unions. On 10 March, the police used brutal force to break a protest by students and monks in the city of Letpadan, some 140 km north of Yangon, Myanmar’s commercial hub.

The government’s action on the students may have been disheartening for Western countries that have supported Myanmar’s rather reluctant march to democracy, but many would think four years on the slippery road to a democratic form of governance is a bit too early to give a verdict on the intentions of the people at the helm of affairs, which includes the military. The biggest irony in the whole story is the near silence of the country’s best-known symbol of democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD). The NLD had in fact backed the controversial educational bill last year.

If Ms Suu Kyi has refrained from demonstrating her sympathy for the students’ protest, except for urging all sides to keep away from violence, she has also not bothered to lend her voice against human rights violations by the country’s government. It is not difficult to see through Ms Suu Kyi’s game-plan as she and her party is seeking the support of the government in revising Myanmar’s constitution which currently bars her from running for president. The military-drafted constitution has a clause preventing anyone with a spouse or children of foreign citizenship from becoming president. The daughter of independence hero General Aung San, Ms Suu Kyi’s sons are British nationals. She and her sons, of course, have a huge following in Myanmar.

Despite the ban on Ms Suu Kyi from becoming president, the NLD is planning to contest the national elections later this year. If this is the case, backing the students in their genuine demand for more freedom in matters relating to affairs at educational institutions would have been a good strategy for Ms Suu Kyi and the NLD to adopt. After all, the role of students as a moral and political force is rooted in the 1920s and 1930s when Ms Suu Kyi’s father General Aung San was at the forefront of a movement that sought autonomy for universities and the right to set up student unions. The democracy movement that Myanmar witnessed subsequently has its roots in this students’ stir.

Ms Suu Kyi’s silence on the students’ protest may have anguished her supporters as of now, but they know she is Myanmar’s best bet to usher in true democracy, and are expected to rally around her in any case. The NLD, too, is aware of this fact and have therefore taken the decision to contest the elections. Ms Suu Kyi and her colleagues seem to be convinced that if the NLD were to win the polls, it would give them greater power and authority in parliament to bring about further amendments to the junta-drafted constitution and do away with the controversial clause that bars her from becoming president.

The current semi-civilian establishment in Naypyidaw, too, would obviously want the opposition NLD to contest the national elections later this year because without that the polls would look like a sham electoral exercise in the eyes of the international community. That may hurt Myanmar’s interest in view of the liberal aid now pouring in for the country’s development after years of sanction against the brutal military regime. Moreover, this would be the first election under the country’s new democratic system, and as such is very significant. In March, therefore, Myanmar President Thein Sein met Ms Suu Kyi for the fifth time since the Nobel laureate’s release from house arrest in 2010. Presidential spokesman and information minister Ye Htut said, “It was a one-on-one meeting and they discussed matters concerning constitutional amendments and holding a free and fair general election.”

The latest crackdown on the students reminded everyone of the 1988 student uprising in the country that was quashed by the government, with hundreds killed and imprisoned. The crisis drew international attention on Myanmar’s struggle for democracy and freedom from a brutal military-led dictatorship. That was supposed to have been history when in 2011 Myanmar’s generals stepped down, and the government began a process of reforms, with the backing of the US. The impact of this transition has been felt on the economy that is fast evolving, but the country’s road to democracy has been rocky to say the least.

The US has built its case for extending liberal aid to Myanmar keeping in view the aspirations of the Burmese people. The US has been saying it is providing assistance to deepen and accelerate Myanmar’s political, economic, and social transition; promote and strengthen respect for human rights; deliver the benefits of reform to the country’s people; and support the development of a stable society that reflects the diversity of its people. Total US assistance to Myanmar between 2012 and mid-2014 is estimated at US$ 202,185,000. But, contrary to expectations, national reconciliation is not happening and the road has been thorny. There has been fighting recently between ethnic Kokang rebels and the Myanmar army in north eastern Shan state that sent thousands of refugees fleeing across the border into China.

India’s stakes in Myanmar, too, are heavy. As the world’s largest democracy, India is expected to aid Myanmar in consolidating its transformation into a true democracy. If it succeeds in doing so, New Delhi will not only have a democratic neighbour, but will have managed to wean Myanmar away considerably from the grip of the Chinese. The attempt by the Narendra Modi government to raise the bar on India-Myanmar relations is a good effort in this direction. Myanmar is already showing signs that it could actually be against becoming a strategic pawn of China. New Delhi’s strength lies in the fact that while recognising and backing Ms Suu Kyi in her struggle for democracy, it maintained more than cordial relations with Myanmar’s military establishment. What is needed is consolidation of the ties, demonstrated by Prime Minister Modi’s November 2014 visit and talks with Myanmar’s leaders, and, of course, a continuous nudge not just to march along but value the true ideals of democracy.

*Wasbir Hussain
Executive Director, CDPS, Guwahati, and Visiting Fellow, IPCS

The post Myanmar: Democracy In Brakes – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The leader of the Czech Republc, Miloš Zeman, says he won’t let any ambassador of another nation intrude with advice over his foreign visits. This comes as the US Ambassador criticized Zeman’s plans to go to Moscow’s celebration of the WWII parade.

“I’m afraid, after this statement the doors of the Prague Castle are closed for Ambassador Schapiro,” Zeman told Parlamentni Listy webportal on Saturday. Prague Castle is the president’s official residence and office.

Earlier, the US ambassador to the Czech Republic, Andrew Schapiro, criticized Zeman’s decision to go to Russia for Victory Day celebrations in May. He called the plans “short-sighted”, as it would “be awkward” if the Czech president was the only statesman from an EU country on Red Square.

“I cannot imagine a Czech ambassador in Washington giving advice to the US president on where he should travel,” Zeman said. “I will not let any ambassador interfere with the program of my foreign trips.”

In the interview, the president also voiced his concern over the current Western attempts to isolate Russia.

“It is essential to maintain and develop relations with Russia not only on a commercial basis, but also, for instance, based on the strategic partnership in the fight against international terrorism,” he said.

Previously, Zeman said that his visit to Russia would be a “sign of gratitude for not having to speak German in this country.” He also intended to pay tribute to the memory of 150,000 Soviet soldiers who died liberating Czechoslovakia.

Washington is just panicking because it is apparently failing to isolate Russia, said the head of the State Duma Foreign Relations Committee Aleksey Pushkov.

“Judging by the hysteria of the US Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Washington is nervous about Western countries’ leaders traveling to Moscow on May 9. Scared that the isolation will not work,” Pushkov said on Twitter.

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