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And Not To Provoke China
Image from scmp.com

The unusual news that Taiwan’s legislature passed a bipartisan bill asking the foreign ministry to seek formal relations with the US puts a clear point on the latest round of China-Taiwan tensions.  It also puts a distinct strain on the old US approach of “strategic ambiguity” around Taiwan.  Regardless of the outcome of the U.S. election, the next administration will need to craft a new approach.

The “we agree that it’s your territory but reject forcible reunification” stance begs the question of America’s interest in Taiwan’s status.  The U.S. could defend Taiwan as a matter of non-violence, to avoid economic disruption, to keep geopolitical stability – or to stand up for democracy.  At a time of deep-current shifts in world affairs, it is crucial that America’s stance carries our deepest values.

Ambiguity has shaped Taiwan policy and overall China policy alike.  One justification is that giving up ambiguity means risking some major interest.  In the wide range of interests at stake, policy makers have not wanted to hazard that risk.  But as a result, even we don’t know why we do what we do, or don’t do, vis a vis Taiwan, or China generally.   The problem is that China, the rest of the world, and we ourselves, don’t know what America’s first priority is.  The problem in that is that everyone is left to interpret our motives, and assess our character, on their own terms.

The Trump administration has confronted China on a range of issues, from trade to technology, security policy and human rights.  But undifferentiated confrontation with China leaves open the idea that “China bashing” is simply a Realpolitik move to contest global dominance.  It is not only the Chinese who might take this view.  In a way it carries the same problem as ambiguity, only in unfriendly terms.

America was founded in the name of unalienable rights, and government existing to secure them with consent of the governed.  We must display that as our baseline motivation, not merely as another tool to oppose China.  If our intentions, however bent by circumstance, do not carry that conviction at bottom, then the nation founded in 1776 is absent and the institutional edifice built in its name has no foundation.  On the other hand, if we follow our foundation, Americans see our own common purpose, and the world hears us voicing our own core convictions.

There is a concern that supporting Taiwan for the sake of our principles, opposing China’s forays for the same reason, could lead to a zero-sum Cold War.  The risk is that the loser ends up as a version of the Soviet Union in 1992.  Of course America can always choose to stake its existence on the power of its founding ethos.  We do every day, in one sense.  But we can also look for ways to avoid provoking a desperate existential resistance from China.

First, we must be crystal clear that we oppose China for its transgressions against freedom, for principle rather than for vested interest.  An Indo-Pacific coalition that includes Viet Nam would signal strategic interest taking priority over principle.  We also cannot “trade Taiwan” for trade or technology concessions, in any form.  On the other hand we should try to avoid irreconcilable fundamental hostility.  At least a long term possibility of some philosophical commonality must, and can be found.

What could that be?  Perhaps, as one very low-level compatibility, U.S. policy can note that the Chinese Communist Party is organized for the public interest, in contrast to clan or factional dictatorships.  The U.S. stance might then hope for the two sides to grow into further commonality in standards for government – from this very low level.  Perhaps Chinese doctrines could evolve: Chinese philosopher TongDong Bai, in his “Against Political Equality,” imagines a neo-Confucian governing scheme with a popularly elected lower legislative house.  If U.S. policy signals a relaxation of opposition as such forms might evolve, it defuses the zero-sum nature of the rivalry.  Even as far off as any such developments might be, they mark a path toward convergence and away from intransigent hostility.

Meanwhile we retain a rationale for defending Taiwan.  Of course we already do, and if we see a way, however remote, for some eventual conceptual compatibility with China, we can assert that that defense of freedom does not aim at subverting China.  Our aid to Taiwan essentially aims to make a Chinese invasion prohibitively costly rather than to attack China.  And against any pacifist’s citation  of John Quincy Adams’ injunction against going abroad seeking monsters to destroy, we are already defending Taiwan, and Adams in that same speech declared American would always be a friend to anyone pursuing liberty.  Abandoning an existing commitment would compromise that ethos.

In short, we are already committed to protect Taiwan, we can do it without professing existential hostility to China, and America’s own existential tenets demand our defense of that democracy.

Most countries in the world right now are trying to find a balance between having their citizens trust their Covid responses, manage the inevitable debt and deficits that arose and continue to rise with mass shutdowns of the economy, and responsibly manage that debt and deficit level so that when a time for a recovery commences, that the level of debt and manner in which it was taken does not drag down any future recovery. It has been difficult to achieve all three, but all three are necessary in order not to cause permanent damage to their economies.

There is a debate on the best method to reduce Covid transmissions, but much of the harm has come from putting politics before the approach. Political fights over Covid has dominated local politics, especially in the US where a united approach has be challenged between different levels of government while fighting a Covid era election. Whether or not reduced rates could have been achieved if it was not in an election year is indeterminable, but the trust in Federal or State governments have taken a hit while political rivals attempt to use the pandemic to their personal benefit in some cases. The reduced trust in their approach has developed a lack of trust in officials managing the pandemic, a problem that has occurred in many countries, albeit without the same political structure as the United States in an election year.

Some countries like Argentina and Canada have not fared well in managing their debt, and it could be the case that short term infusions of cash based on restricting currency exchange rates or outright printing too much money will harm their eventual recovery. Argentina has taken to making it more difficult and expensive to purchase US Dollars, a currency often used when there are signs of economic trouble brewing in Buenos Aires. This is done to prevent a run on the Argentine Peso by local investors, a rush by many holding their savings on Pesos made in the economic collapse in 2001. Canada has taken to not only printing money, and excusing cheap borrowing as an economic model (a model that has torn apart Argentina’s economy pre-2000), but also turned the support for existing profitable businesses towards new experimental industries. With formerly job rich healthy companies now suffering during the pandemic, Canada will focus on a “green” industries, while leaving those companies that paid taxes to them expecting help in an emergency to essentially stave out economically.

Trust in a country’s Covid response must be paramount, and any actions that give even the impression of taking advantage of people during this time will permanently hurt a country’s reputation. In one case, the same government also raised taxes among massive job losses while giving themselves a raise, was caught funneling money to family and friends via a children’s charity in the middle of the pandemic. Actions such as these when many governments have received excess powers during the Covid era does nothing but hurt citizens while enshrining corruption during the pandemic. Transparency and honest approaches can forgive mistakes in policy decisions in a difficult time, but ensuring some at the top benefit while the rest of us suffer should be dealt with promptly and assertively by all meaningful democratic actors and agencies within a society. This is the case because corruption hurts everyone in the long run, especially those who are further weakened because of Covid.

By Anatoliy Amelin, Andrian Prokip and Andreas Umland

Over the last several years, the future of the European energy supply has become an increasingly geopolitical topic. It has become more and more linked to the questions of security, competing gas transportation routes, and continuously tense Ukrainian-Russian relations. In late 2019, Kyiv concluded a new and beneficial transit agreement with Moscow for the transfer of Siberian gas to the EU, in part due to fresh US sanctions against Russia’s off-shore pipeline projects. This 5-year deal is currently securing the continued use of a part of Ukraine’s large gas transportation system, and as long as Gazprom’s Nord Stream II pipeline through the Baltic Sea does not go forward, the Ukrainian gas transportation system will have some prospect, use, and income.

These well-known confrontations and negotiations concerning different routes of Russian gas supply to the EU, however, diverted attention from the potential of Ukraine’s own gas and oil reserves, as well as the associated storage facilities. The considerable natural resources in Ukraine’s energy sphere remain underexplored and underused today despite the fact that their use could spur economic growth not only in the energy sector, but also in other industries of the country.

Untapped Potential

Excluding Russia’s gas reserves in Asia, Ukraine today holds the second biggest known gas reserves in Europe. As of late 2019, known Ukrainian reserves amounted to 1.09 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, second only to Norway’s known resources of 1.53 trillion cubic meters. Yet, these enormous reserves of energy remain largely untapped. Today, Ukraine has a low annual reserve usage rate of about 2 percent. Moreover, more active exploration may yield previously undiscovered gas fields, which would further increase the overall volume of Ukraine’s deposits.

In spite of this hopeful situation, Ukraine still depends substantially on gas imports. When the USSR started large-scale gas extraction in Western Siberia in the 1970s, much of the relevant expertise and capacity in the sector of Soviet gas exploration and production were transferred from the Ukrainian to the Russian Soviet republic and some other East European states. As a result of this outflow of expertise, Ukraine’s remaining gas resources have remained insufficiently developed, largely underused, and partly unexplored.

Until recently, Ukraine’s total average annual consumption amounted to approximately 29.8 billion cubic meters (bcm). Of this entire yearly need, approximately 14.3 bcm consists of imports. Thus, unlocking its unused reserves would provide for a revolutionary future for Ukraine’s gas sector and energy consumption.

Resolute development of the already explored and accessible Ukrainian resources could result in a substantial increase of Ukrainian gas production. The boost would not only enable the country to fully cover its domestic gas needs, but also make Ukraine largely self-sufficient from an energy perspective. In a best-case scenario, increased production could even allow Ukraine to start exporting gas to or via neighboring European states. This would be feasible because Ukraine’s substantial gas transportation system means that the necessary infrastructure is already in place to bring large amounts of gas to the EU.

According to some estimates, the EU will import around 90 percent of the gas it consumes by 2030. Thus, during the next decade, Brussels will be increasingly eager to diversify the origins and routes of the European gas supply. In this context, smaller or even prospective gas exporters like Ukraine become more attractive to policymakers in Brussels: such new participants in the European market would lower EU dependency on the large players in the field, thus strengthening the European negotiating position.

Despite the enormous potential of Ukraine’s energy reserves, there are non-trivial costs to developing Ukraine’s capabilities. According to an assessment study by the Ukrainian Institute for the Future, a transformation of Ukraine into a self-sufficient energy consumer and potential exporter would require a number of investments amounting to approximately US$19.5 billion. Of this amount, about US$3.5 billion are needed for developing gas fields and building pipelines, US$14 billion would have to be invested into oil extraction, and US$2 billion would go toward oil refining.

The overall size of the investment needed to achieve the goal of full energy independence constitutes a considerable amount compared to Ukraine’s relatively small state budget and GDP. Nevertheless, the sum only equals the approximate costs for current Ukrainian energy imports over the span of two to three years. Thus, the relatively high absolute cost would amortize itself quickly.

Moreover, financial investment in Ukraine’s energy sector is increasingly attractive. Over the last few years, Ukraine has (often under IMF pressure) gradually reduced distortive governmental interventions into the gas market. Kyiv has introduced market prices for households and no longer provides subsidies for all consumers indiscriminately. This relatively new domestic market should make financial engagement in Ukrainian gas production and exploration more attractive than it had been in the past, and the investment climate will improve once European energy markets recover in the aftermath of a likely global containment of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.

The Road Ahead

Ukraine’s gas transportation system will continue to play a key role for the future of Ukraine’s energy sector. Ukraine has one of the most well-developed and all-encompassing gas transportation infrastructures of any country in the world, in terms of both domestic deliveries and export facilities. The Ukrainian gas transit system constitutes a heritage of the Soviet energy expansion to Europe, as a partial result of the German Neue Ostpolitik (New Eastern Policy) of the 1970s. For a long time, Ukraine served as the main corridor for the transfer of Soviet and later Russian as well as Central Asian gas to numerous European states. The current usage of this capacity is much lower than a decade earlier due to the completion of the first Nord Stream pipeline in 2012, the growing introduction of renewable energy resources, and the current economic downturn; however, Ukraine’s pipelines and compressor stations are still ready to be used, and have significant capacity beyond merely delivering Russian or Turkmen gas to the EU.

A significant part of the multidimensional Ukrainian gas infrastructure is the huge underground gas storage facilities that the country controls. Only partially used, Ukrainian capacities to store natural gas amount to more than 31 bcm. If fully exploited, Ukraine could hypothetically add almost one third to the approximately 100 bcm of storage space that EU member states currently hold as a whole. Thus, it is no surprise that the energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie recently suggested that Ukraine holds the key to Europe’s gas current storage crunch. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, world gas prices plummeted, but the EU’s storage facilities do not have enough space to take full advantage of the situation. To ease foreign concerns about investing in Ukraine, the country adopted some amendments to relevant laws and directives in late 2019—regulatory modifications that should make it easier for foreign firms to use available storage capacity. In response, during the first nine months of 2020, foreign energy firms pumped 7.9 bcm of gas to Ukraine for storage, an amount several times higher than the volume of foreign gas stored in Ukraine during the entire year of 2019.

Hydrogen is another new horizon for Ukraine’s underdeveloped energy industry. Today, various gas distribution companies are examining Ukraine’s pipeline capacities with the hope of converting some of the existing infrastructure to deliver hydrogen to their customers in the future. The EU has identified Ukraine as a priority partner for future collaboration in the use of hydrogen to enhance the Union’s energy supply and security.

Yet another energy form of high potential in Ukraine is biogas. Currently, the country has sufficient capacity to produce circa 10 bcm of biogas annually, a volume that is roughly equivalent to the amount of natural gas that Ukraine imports every year. In view of Ukraine’s currently growing agricultural sector, its capacity to produce biogas may grow further. This capacity is quite future-proof: mixing biogas with hydrogen generates biomethane, an environmentally friendly form of energy that does not contain carbon dioxide.

Boosting Ukraine’s domestic production of natural gas, biogas, hydrogen and biomethane would not only lower or even abolish Ukrainian dependence on energy imports. It would also create a new and potent export-oriented branch in Ukraine’s economy, while also providing impulses for stronger growth in other sectors. At the same time, the EU would benefit from a diversification of its gas supply sources, and from obtaining a new major energy partner in its immediate vicinity. Moreover, such cooperation would strengthen Brussels’ economic ties with Kyiv, and lower the need for Western support for the Ukrainian state. A resolute development of Ukraine’s untapped reserves in the production, export and storage of energy would be in the interest of all sides involved.

Anatoliy Amelin is one of the co-founders of the Ukrainian Institute for the Future in Kyiv, and its Director of Economic Programs.

Andrian Prokip is an Energy Expert at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future in Kyiv, and Senior Associate of the Kennan Institute in Washington, DC.

Andreas Umland is a Senior Expert at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future in Kyiv, and Researcher with the Swedish Institute of International Affairs in Stockholm.

https://hir.harvard.edu/ukraine-energy-reserves/

Cover of the June 30, 2016 issue of ‘Excelsior’ carried an illustration of a Russian soldier on horseback with a refugee child in his arms. The picture was captioned, ‘The Symbol of Protection of the Armenians by Russians.’

Whether it be the conflict in Syria, skirmishes in Crimea, Ukraine and Chechnya or the recent outbreak of conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the old disputes that were never fully resolved have often broken out into armed conflict since the end of the Soviet Union. While the Soviet regime often created some detente between conflicting regions by applying overwhelming security in those regions, at times silently quashing conflicts behind the Iron Curtain, the modern iteration of those conflicts now are armed with weaponry that was once used by the Soviet Army themselves. These weapons were designed to fight a large scale Cold War with the US and NATO, and while being very advance for the era of the late 1970s into the 1980s, they were not designed to do anything but completely destroy their targets, along with the regions where the conflicts would take place.

Much of the modernisation of 1980s era Soviet weapons came from experiences in the field in Afghanistan along with anti-air systems used in Vietnam against the US Air Force. The defense of the Soviet Union from Germany in the Second World War created a focus on air defence and long range missile defence in order to deter an attack on the Soviet Union from the other end of Europe or the globe. With many of these systems now reaching the farthest parts of the world, a new and expansive military threat looms whenever a conflict erupts between regional rivals. With the old disputes in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh echoing conflict between Turkish backed forces and Russian backed forces during the First World War, the ability for Armenia or Azerbaijan to use a conventional ballistic missile to target the larger powers if they support the opposing side is a very real threat to the region. Soviet designed systems were very good for their day, and still are very effective on older aircraft that make up the bulk of systems in the region. An Iskander missile landing on Azeri troops in Turkey or an anti-aircraft missile shooting down a Russian transport plane is likely to escalate conflict between both powers in the region.

The use of conventional modern weapons in the field also is designed to completely destroy communities caught in the conflict. Later Soviet era equipment was very effective, and the costs to the lives of young solders escalates rapidly when used in urban combat. Experiences in Syria, and previously in the many conflicts in Chechnya showed the toll those ex-Soviet weapons could have, even on the modernised Russian Army. Weapons designed to quash rebellions in Prague and Warsaw, and to roll into the rest of Europe are devastating in regional conflicts. For the most part, both sides in those regions have equivalent systems, and both sides fight until everything is destroyed. With the traditional politics still lingering in the region and the proximity to one of the world’s largest oil reserves, the world community should quell any further conflict immediately, before it becomes worse…and in our generation’s disputes it has always become as bad as it can get.

As we speak, the world is plagued by the coronavirus, which has claimed more than one million lives worldwide.  While many commentators have noted that the pandemic has created the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, horrific mental health problems among a great segment of the population and great social unrest, not enough people have noticed that the pandemic has also led to the strengthening of Islamist extremism across the globe.  

According to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Research, a recent poll found that if elections were held today between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, Hamas would win: “The overwhelming majority of the Palestinians views the decision of the UAE to normalize relations with Israel as a betrayal or abandonment of the Palestinian cause, one that serves only the interests of Israel. A similar majority thinks that Saudi Arabia and Egypt, by endorsing that normalization, have in effect abandoned the Palestinian leadership.   But most Palestinians also place the blame on themselves because they are divided and have normalized relations with Israel long before others.”

If Hamas were to take over the West Bank, a Palestinian source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, noted that this would be detrimental for women. The Hamas daily Falistin encourages gender apartheid in the Gaza Strip by calling for limiting women’s participation in public life for they are the “fastest transmitters of epidemics.”  From age 9 onwards, all schools are gender segregated in Gaza by law, even if the schools are privately owned, Christian or run by the UN.  Furthermore, male teachers in Gaza are forbidden from having female students. Women in Gaza are also barred from riding motorcycles, smoking in public, learning to drive in the presence of a man, using a male hairdresser and even submitting complaints of incest.  On top of that, Gazan women are forbidden from going to the beach or a restaurant unless they are accompanied by a male chaperon.  In fact, even mannequins in women’s clothing stores are required to be dressed modestly.  The Hamas Morality Police are known to frequently harass women who do not wear the hijab or conduct themselves in accordance with their ideology.  All of this occurred way before the pandemic reached the coastal strip.   

The Palestinian source added that minorities fare no better under Hamas rule as well.  The Al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades, the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza, warned people against celebrating Christmas a couple of years ago in a flier, claiming one should “not to go the way of the Jews and the Christians, indeed God is not for the evil people.”  According to the Hamas authorities, the flier was aimed not only at Muslims but also Christians in the coastal strip.  It is apparent that if Hamas takes over the West Bank, such radical Islamist extremism would reign supreme there too.   

Further to the West, Turkey has been inciting against Israel and India at the UN.  Recently, Erdogan stated that the “filthy hands” of Israelis are “increasing their audacity at Jerusalem’s holy sites,” a remark which has an uncanny resemblance to Mahmoud Abbas’s anti-Semitic “dirty feet” speech.  He also took a jab at India’s Kashmir policy.  Shipan Kumer Basu, who heads the World Hindu Struggle Committee, called Erdogan’s remark about Kashmir and Israel at the UN “highly reprehensible.” 

Erdogan also has been threatening the UAE and other countries who seek to reconcile with the Jewish state.  This came after they transformed the Hagia Sophia into a mosque and submerged a UNESCO world heritage site under water, both acts that showed that religious extremism is dominating Turkish politics these days.  They also have been taking advantage of the pandemic to try and deport Iranian refugees.   Not too long ago, it was reported that Turkey tried to deport Iranian women’s rights activist Maryam Shariatmadari back to the Islamic Republic.  Although she was spared in the end, the Turkish authorities have now eyed the deportation of another refugee from Iran. 

Sirwan Mansouri, a Kurdish political and human rights activist, was captured and tortured several times in Iran before he was finally forced to flee to Turkey: “I was recognized as a refugee 5 years ago by UNHCR and I was interviewed for resettlement in 2016, but my case went on hold till 2019 for unknown reasons. Again in 2019 my wife and I were interviewed for resettlement in Ankara, but no result again and every time I contacted them, they told me I should be awaited.  I am a refugee rights activist and manage a refugee website named: HANARefugees.”

“I publish the latest news on websites for refugees.  I also have done a lot of talks and interviews about refugees in Kurdish, Persian and English languages,” he added.  “I wrote some articles about their terrible condition and the rights they are entitled to in Turkey. Two years ago we wrote a letter in a type of petition with more than 5400 signatures to UNHCR headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and complained about the process, but received no response. Again, this year, we wrote another letter to ECHR (European Court For Human Rights) and complained about both the UNHCR and immigration office of Turkey.”

“I am Kurdish and due to my race, bear more discrimination in comparison with other refugees. Besides all I am a journalist and work on the human rights and refugees rights field and because of my activities in social media, the Turkey government put more pressure on me directly and indirectly. In their recent act, they took my Identity card without any reason and  are trying to deport me and have wanted me to leave the Turkish territory, while I am a refugee and based on Geneva convention no one has the right to deport a refugee to his/her country of origin.  I know Turkey responsible for holding my case in the resettlement section for 5 years without any reason, while according to UNHCR staff, I am eligible to resettle in a third safe country.  Furthermore, I am sick and have some different diseases such as diabetes type 2 and have polyps in my intestines suspicious of cancer and have all medical documents.” 

And according to Mansouri, he is not the only one: “In late 2018, the UNHCR formally handed over the review of refugees’ cases to the Turkish Immigration Office. Since then, the Immigration Office has rejected most of the cases on an unprecedented scale, given many refugees expulsion notices for leaving Turkish territory, and in some cases has deported refugees. And this process is continuing. All this is happening while according to the Geneva Conventions, none of the refugees who have been accepted by the UNHCR and are under international protection should under any circumstances be returned to their countries of origin.”

This fact was confirmed by Mendi Safadi, who heads the Safadi Center for International Diplomacy, Research, Public Relations and Human Rights: “Turkey was a refuge for opponents of the Iranian regime and many Iranian opposition figures saw Turkey as a safe haven, but now Turkey has turned into a great danger for them, given that the Turkish government is cooperating with their Iranian counterparts.  Said Tamjadi and Muhammed Rajabbi were sentenced to death in Iran after they were betrayed by Turkey.  Other Iranian refugees who fled Turkey are awaiting deportation back to Iran, like Mansouri.   The Safadi Center operates in the international arena to prevent such deportations from happening, for Turkey is violating international law.”

However, the Palestinian Authority and Turkey are not the only ones that turned more Islamist since the pandemic erupted.   Basu claims that radical Islam has also only got stronger in Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan since the pandemic erupted, and that it poses a threat to the continued existence of Hindus in these three countries: “A Hindu school girl was hacked to death for refusing to marry a Muslim in Bangladesh.  In that same country, a Hindu girl was raped inside a police station.  A Hindu family in in Eidalpur village was recently assaulted.  A 14-year-old Hindu girl was forcefully converted to Islam in Pakistan.  In the same country, a Hindu doctor had his throat slit and a Hindu temple was destroyed during the coronavirus lockdown.  And these types of incidents just keep getting worse.”  

“Due to the silence of humanity, the simple-minded Hindus of Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan are gradually disappearing,” he added.  “Environmental activists always played an effective role in protecting endangered species in various countries.   But no one has stood up to help the oppressed Hindus of these three countries.  This is very tragic.  I think that humanity should wake up from its slumber or else Hindus will cease to exist in these countries.  And given their radical Islamist ideology, they will not even establish museums to preserve the vanquished Hindu culture in their nations.   I urge humanity to step up to the plate before it is too late.”

The existence of this global pandemic is causing many people to turn to religion as a remedy for their sorrows.   However, Islamist extremists are taking advantage of this normal human reaction in order to push forward their extremist agendas that oppress women and minorities, and one day, this will once again threaten the West, after the borders open up again.   After all, an increase in the number of people adhering to extremist ideology leads to more terror attacks and rogue regimes.  Therefore, it is of utmost importance for Western policy makers to formulate a strategy for dealing with Islamist extremism, so that we will be prepared for what happens the day there is a vaccine.  

By delpixart on Pixabay

Recent high-level diplomatic visits to Taiwan risk rupturing permanently the U.S.’ “One China” policy. This policy is the foundation of the U.S.-China peaceful relationship. As Taiwan is the most preeminent security issue in U.S.-China relations, a miscalculation from either side, leading to a military conflict cannot be entirely ruled out.

U.S.-China relations are currently quite abysmal and tensions run the full gamut of issues, including trade, technology, human rights, security, and now health due to COVID-19. Additionally, recent U.S. bans on TikTok and WeChat have made the results of U.S.-China tensions more readily visible to more Americans.

While there have been legitimate issues involving trade and human rights in China, from the U.S. perspective, the pace at which additional issues have been added to these original ones has become quite frenetic in current U.S. China policy. From the Chinese perspective, China has finally emerged from its “Century of Humiliation”. Because of historical reasons, territorial integrity is seen as a key component of this emergence. Any Chinese administration, not just the current one, would face an extreme test of its legitimacy from its own people if, after having regained Hong Kong and Macao, it failed to eventually do the same on the Taiwan question.

The current crisis in the Taiwan Strait mirrors other crises, from The Cold War and beyond. Both The Cuban Missile Crisis, as well as The Ukraine Crisis, clearly illustrate that great powers are not keen on other great powers intruding into their own perceived sphere of influence, or “near abroad”. Fortunately, The Cuban Missile Crisis ended with no military engagement between the U.S. and The Former Soviet Union. However, despite not getting as much news coverage as before, The Russo-Ukrainian War resulting from The Ukraine Crisis is still ongoing, with no end in sight.

At the beginning of the The Cold War, China was a revisionist power bent on exporting its ideology to its region, if not the world. Today’s battlefield is also a clash of ideologies, with China’s state-run capitalist model, the so-called “Beijing Consensus” facing off against the U.S.’ own market-driven capitalist model, the “Washington Consensus”. Both models are being evaluated globally in terms of their resiliency in the face of extraordinary circumstances, like financial and health crises, internal socio economic stability, as well as their effectiveness in bringing sustained economic benefits to the bulk of their respective populations. 

It is in this soft power front, affecting both trade and economic issues, that Washington faces a truly daunting adversary in today’s China, the most significant state challenge the U.S. has ever faced. No power the U.S. has ever confronted has had the same economic heft of today’s China. Even when China and the U.S. actually engaged each other militarily, during The Korean War, China was nothing like the global power it is today. Also it bears mentioning that, at the time of The Korean War, China did not yet possess nuclear weapons.

Because of this, from China’s perspective, Taiwan is seen as being a pawn on the chessboard of the increasing U.S.-China great power competition game. Taiwan provides the U.S. a convenient model for what China could possibly be, provided it made the necessary ideological changes to its current form of government.

As important as exceptionalism and ideology are however, China chose the avenue of pragmatism in 1972 when it accepted Nixon’s overtures. The Middle Kingdom did not do this out of an abiding love for democracy and free markets, but out of self-interest and self-preservation. Even then, it was not a full-fledged U.S. ally, but only a “strategic partner”. With the U.S. as this strategic partner, China was not as vulnerable when facing hostilities from its erstwhile ideological ally, The Former Soviet Union.

Nevertheless, only in time did China’s pragmatism allow it to re-engage with the West and reap the concordant economic benefits. However, no political reform was ever promised by China through this re-engagement. Perhaps not codified, but understood implicitly by the U.S., was that this new arrangement would have China following the U.S.’ lead in Asia in perpetuity. Now, it is abundantly clear that China never saw it that way. 

Deng’s Southern Tour inspired new modes of thinking in China such as “To get rich is glorious” and “It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches the mice”. The latter slogan was an admission that a state’s ideological orientation mattered less when it came to being able to pragmatically provide economic benefits for one’s own people. For sure, China saw the benefits of economic re-engagement with the West, which enabled it to lift more people up out of poverty than ever before in human history.

However, Deng and others also recognized that “If you leave the window up, some flies are bound to come inside”, meaning that more economic freedom always posed the risk of increased political freedom being demanded by the population, now exposed to external values. However, China was never going to change its mode of government and become a “like-minded partner” of the U.S., at least not in terms of values. By the late 1980s, China had seen the beginning of the unravelling of state power in The Former Soviet Union due to increased political freedom there and decided not to repeat this mistake. This was made abundantly clear at Tiananmen, the reaction to which Deng also spearheaded.

Though difficult, more tolerance and appreciation for different forms of government within the global system architecture will lead to overall system stability. Continued intolerance towards the full diversity of forms of government in today’s global ecosystem will only lead to further system instability. Further increasing system instability is the impact of global pandemics and irreversible environmental degradation. By working together, on the Covax initiative for example, both China and the U.S. would demonstrate to the world their commitment to keeping this system stable. COVID-19 and forest fires so huge that they are visible from space do not care about the ideology of their victims, and neither should we.

Corruption sours healthy economies, always places freedoms at risk and awards the worst of the worst for doing the most damage they can possibly imagine. Much of the slide from corruption into a full totalitarian regime comes from purging those who may limit the powers of elites who wish to dominate their fiefdom. In many cases, corruption gives more power to those at the top of it than possessed legally by King or Queens in those nations where they still exist. Constitutional powers limit the ability for a monarch to become an unelected dictator, with punishments ranging from fines to prison time. A corrupt leader seeks to infect all systems of government with corruption, so that even checks and balances via different branches of government are suppressed or outright eliminated. Different government structures operate in different ways, but when one person at the top can direct justice or jail for those they choose to oppose, the sickness of corruption in a democracy will take hold of it completely.

There are few resolutions to entrenched corruption, except for preventative measures to limit the powers of anyone who is given that degree of control and state wealth. Over 800 years of civilization created modern democratic systems as we see today. For this reason, once a democracy is injured or corrupted, it is extremely difficult to return to balance. Accounting for the most democratic systems currently, the British Parliamentary system, often referred to as Parliamentary Democracies as well as the systems that came out of the French Republic, a system based on a President limited by checks and balances seemed to have produced the most freedoms in modern times. To get to that point, many of those combating tyranny died fighting for it, from the streets of Napoleon’s France to the beaches of Normandy during the Second World War.

A key element of corrupt regimes is for that newly formed government to set upon their political enemies soon after taking power. This includes whistle blowers that seek to promote an openness in society, as an open and transparent society is harder to corrupt. Protests in Belarus are an example of a country that wishes to nip further corruption at the start of government regime taking power. As seen in Venezuela, a state that has fallen to a generation of corruption regularly places opposition leaders in jail or sequesters them using fear. Canada, a country now mired in its second corruption scandal in a two year period had a third major ongoing invisible scandal where a top Admiral was punished for exposing political ties to a shipping contract. The current Prime Minister used his power to go after him personally for being a whistler blower, apparently done in his first meeting of his new government. Corruption is almost impossible to eliminate, and it is why in Brazil, in a remarkable move by those in its judicial branches of government set out to purge the country of as much corruption as possible, even placing some ex-Presidents in jail for crimes against the nation.

Recently actions in Mexico has reflected elements of what has occurred in Brazil and Canada, but mainly due to an ex CEO of PEMEX being targeted by what he claims to be a corrupt system, including three ex-Presidents of Mexico. Emilio Lozoya, the ex-CEO and accused comes from an influential family, and has worked closely with Mexico’s government for many years. His personal crusade to clear his name may activate Mexico’s judiciary against former and current political leaders as evidence leaks out from Lozoya’s time working closely with Mexico’s elite. While there are questions regarding his political loyalties to various factions in government, the exposure of his case may shed some light on how corruption works in Mexico. It is up to Mexican citizens and the Judiciary to withstand pressure from elite leaders, a situation where even Canada was unable to prevent fully. Punishing a powerful individual may help average Mexicans in the process, if that process is able to remain visible.

Current military-civil administration in eastern Ukrainian frontline districts need to be kept in place and partially reformed. Should the Donets Basin return to Ukrainian control, they could provide institutional templates for a temporary special regime within the currently occupied territories.

On October 25th this year, Ukraine will hold its first nation-wide local and regional elections following the completion of the first stage of decentralisation reforms that began in April 2014. This year’s vote will thus have deeper political impact than similar elections in the past. This is especially true with regard to local parliamentarians and village elders elected in October as part of the newly amalgamated territorial communities (ATCs) who will be responsible for a whole new set of tasks. The upcoming local and regional elections constitute a significant step for Ukraine’s ongoing democratisation, reform and Europeanisation.

Elections are inconceivable, however, in the Russian occupied territories of the Donets Basin (Donbas). Contrary to plans in Moscow and also to the ideas of some unsuspecting Western politicians, Ukraine should not conduct elections in an area over which it currently does not have full sovereignty. After five years of intense discussion, one can still find interpretations of the 2014-2015 Minsk Agreements suggesting that Kyiv hold elections on territories not yet under its control. In the best case, such demands are naive. In the worst case, they betray their proponents’ limited commitment to such principles as national sovereignty, the rule of law and liberal democracy. The control of a territory by one (and only one!) national government comes before elections and decentralisation. Securing local democracy and self-government for Ukraine’s occupied territories can only become a matter of practical implementation after the question regarding sovereign state control has been comprehensively resolved.

The instrument of provisional military-civilian rule

Yet what about local elections in the government-controlled areas of the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts? What especially about those rayons, cities, and territorial communities that are in the immediate vicinity of the so-called “contact line”? Should elections be held along the artificial border created by the conflict?

Since 2015, the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, as well as most frontline settlements, have not been self-governed. Instead, they have been ruled by temporary so-called military-civil administration (MCAs). The key staff of the MCAs are directly appointed by Kyiv. They are subordinate to the Commander of Ukraine’s Joint Forces Operation (JFO) in the Donbas. Before officially enshrining MCAs in Ukrainian law, Petro Poroshenko argued in January 2015 that: “This will allow today to resolve the issue of the absence of power in the liberated territories from where in fact all the elected deputies of local councils who held separatist positions, committed crimes, and are hiding from justice have fled.”

Initially, the February 2015 Law “On Military-Civilian Administrations” was supposed to expire after one year. Yet, it has since been repeatedly prolonged and amended to meet changing circumstances. The number of municipal and sub-regional MCAs on the local and rayon levels has gradually increased. The MCAs hold all ordinary legislative and executive responsibilities, alongside some emergency powers, in the respective districts and settlements. Consequently, they have largely abolished local self-government and political life in these territories. The MCAs represent specific municipal or regional ‘hybrid regimes’, which merge the characteristics of ordinary centralised rule with elements of martial law. However, they do not yet constitute a full state of emergency.

The peculiar instrument of military-civil administration was and arguably still is a necessary intermediate solution to the immense problems in the territories. Classical local self-government is unsuitable in active or potential combat zones of low-intensity conflicts. Given the grave conditions of conflict-related political instability and economic deprivation in the area, the MCAs are an appropriate instrument to secure elementary order and to prevent Russian subversion across the contact line. Nevertheless, there is currently an intense debate within Ukraine regarding local elections in government-controlled areas of the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts that are situated close to the so-called contact line separating Ukrainian and Russian-led forces. This was caused by the decision of the Central Electoral Commission to not conduct elections in 18 of these communities and to leave military-civilian administration in place there.

The MCAs clearly contradict Ukraine’s far-reaching decentralisation reforms since 2014. As Konstantin Reutski and Ioulia Shukan noted in one of the first papers on this topic: “In the absence of an elected representative body, collective decision-making and separation of legislative and executive functions, checks and balances are weak. The MCA heads exercise personal control over their administrations (Article 6 [of the law ‘On MCAs’]): they hire and fire MCA employees, oversee the entire operation and are personally responsible for all areas of the MCA’s performance. In addition to this, they are the sole managers of the MCA’s budget. The law on military-civil administrations does not require any community boards to be established in association with the MCAs, and this lack of external supervision further increases the personal power vested in the MCA head and removes all barriers to autocratic governance.”

The necessity of continued military-civilian rule

Under peaceful conditions, the October 2020 local and regional elections would have been a key opportunity to replace the MCAs with properly elected councils, elders and mayors. This is all the more so given their enlarged responsibilities within the newly established ATCs. However, holding elections in the frontline districts seems, for three reasons, premature. First, meaningful elections are technically difficult to conduct in settlements close to the so-called contact line. Many of the inhabitants of these villages and towns have temporarily left their homes and moved to other parts of Ukraine out of fear or/and desperation. It would be difficult to involve such internally displaced persons within these elections concerning their native communities. Moreover, the physical, social and human infrastructure of the frontline regions has been deeply damaged by the war. These and other special circumstances make normal electoral campaigns and legitimate voting processes in the frontline settlements a considerable challenge. 

Second, the currently MCA-ruled regions and settlements are key targets for Russian infiltration and manipulation operations. Television and radio channels belonging to Russia and its two puppet states, the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics,” dominate mass media along the contact line. If Moscow has managed to interfere in voting process in France, Great Britain and the United States, then it is surely able and willing to try the same in Russian-speaking villages and towns located only a few miles away from its proxy troops and sattelite regimes in Donbas.

Thirdly and perhaps most importantly, questions still remain as to what newly elected bodies would be actually doing in many, if not most, of these towns and villages. Local self-government involves above all the collection and distribution of taxes and revenues within the community. Classical municipal administrations are also responsible for attracting domestic and foreign investment to their respective towns and territories. Yet, since spring 2014, these tasks have, as a result of the war, often become irrelevant to different degrees or even absent in settlements along the contact line. Normal economic, social, cultural and political life will likely remain greatly reduced in the frontline districts, for the time being.

Instead, the prevalent concerns along the contact line, from Stanytsa Luhanska in the north to Mariupol in the south, continue to involve issues of security and military affairs. Many of the frontline districts have checkpoints, whose functioning determines local economic life. Control over checkpoints is exercised by Kyiv, on the government-controlled side, and Russian proxy authorities in Luhansk and Donetsk on the occupied side. Local executives in frontline settlements are focused on how to best use scarce government subsidies to solve various competing infrastructure problems. These include the supply of electricity, water, heat and medicine, as well as the organisation of care for children, pensioners and the sick. There are also persisting issues with repairs to damaged residential houses and public buildings. In fact, some of these tasks have now been partially taken over by foreign organisations such as the International Red Cross, Norwegian Refugee Council, and “Doctors without Borders.” Under these circumstances, it is unclear what local self-government would actually mean along the frontline.

Instead of conducting risky and inconclusive local elections in the JFO area, Ukraine should maintain the MCAs as long as and where they are necessary. Kyiv should also introduce new legislation that would improve the functioning of these bodies. It may perhaps be even necessary to amend the Ukrainian constitution so as to legally embed these special intermediary local regimes. Currently, the MCAs are neither fully constitutional nor set up in a way so as to function over a longer period of time.

How to bring the MCAs closer to the people

Instead of conducting elections under uncertain circumstances, the current special regime has to be improved so as to set up alternative feedback mechanisms between the MCAs and local communities. MCA heads are often already in close contact with state-run institutions, such as hospitals and schools. Simultaneously, many also regularly interact with local NGOs, businesses, parties and media outlets. These relationships should be formalised through the creation of permanent advisory councils that are attached to the MCAs. The MCAs’ heads could be, by amending the law, forced to consider the opinion of these councils, which could be filled with NGO, business, party and media representatives. The authorities could be legally obliged to seek the advice of these councils in all decisions concerning municipal matters such as housing, transportation, education, public health, etc. (and less so with regard to security and military issues).

The Ukrainian government, civil society and their foreign partners should do more to support local conditions in Donbas, which have been weakened by the post-Euromaidan war and crisis more than any other region of Ukraine (except for Crimea). The improvement of administrative structures in the conflict-affected areas has a security-political dimension that goes beyond the usual demands of good governance. Particular attention needs to be paid to the development of new regional political and administrative elites. These groups could take over various leadership roles at municipal, rayon and regional levels in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, following their return to Ukrainian control.

Arguably, it may make sense to include local communities, in one way or another, in the process of choosing appropriate candidates for the staffing of the MCAs. It could be also useful to set up an official complaint procedure through which local civic organisations, business groups, media outlets and political parties could report any misconduct by MCA representatives to the JFO headquarters. These complaints may concern cases of bribe-taking, nepotism or arbitrariness by MCA heads and staff members. While such changes would still not represent properly democratic and decentralised rule, it may be the only way to establish a sustainable regime in the region as long as the war continues.

The MCAs as templates for transitional rule in the occupied territories

Last but not least, these hybrid regimes could provide a model for responding to other emergency situations in the future. Above all, the MCAs could provide a template for how to govern the currently occupied territories of Donbas during a potential transition period between their liberation from Russian occupation, and eventually full participation in Ukraine’s general decentralised rule of local communities. The MCAs as a provisional model will be especially useful should the occupied territories not be temporarily controlled by an international UN peacekeeping operation, following a possible Russian withdrawal.

In such a scenario, Kyiv will need to first create an emergency regime in the territories of the former so-called “People’s Republics” in order to properly and peacefully demilitarize them, and to re-ukrainianize these areas’ economies, polities and societies, with the help of MCAs. The amalgamation of small municipal communities and local elections to newly defined organs of self-government will only make sense after the territories’ full re-integration into Ukraine. At that point, the currently occupied territories will become full parts of the decentralised Ukrainian state.

Should Ukraine conduct local elections along the Donbas contact line?

The history and politics of post-Soviet Belarus and Ukraine are very different. The current Belarusian transformation could be leading to results similar to those of the 2018 Velvet Revolution in Armenia, rather than to those of the 2013–2014 Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine. Yet, Moscow’s pathological imperialism towards Russia’s Eastern Slavic “brother nations” may mean that the future of Belarus will be more similar to that of Ukraine than currently appears to be the case. First published on “Utrikesmagasinet.”

Ukraine and Belarus are two of the culturally closest nations of Europe. Their Eastern Slavic languages, major Christian-Orthodox сhurches, and locations between Russia on the one side, and the EU as well as NATO on the other, are comparable and intertwined. Both are, on one level, very close to the also largely Orthodox and Eastern Slavic Russians. Yet, the Ukrainians and Belarusians are, as post-colonial people, on another level, fundamentally different from post- and neo-imperial Russians whose international ambitions are partly more similar to those of today’s Turks and Chinese.

While some Ukrainian fringe groups harbor irredentist dreams towards southern Russia’s Kuban region, hegemonic transborder pretenses can be found neither in Ukrainian nor in Belarusian mainstream political discourses. Ukrainians and Belarusians are – unlike many Russians, Hungarians or Serbs – territorially saturated people. In spite of these and other substantive and structural resemblances between Belarus and Ukraine, most commentators – whether Western, Russian, Belarusian or Ukrainian – today emphasize the differences rather than similarities between the two brother nations. “Belarus is NOT Ukraine!” is the core message of many politicians and experts in recent comments on the ongoing electoral uprising in Minsk.

Differences between Belarus and Ukraine

Indeed, the Belarusians have a pre-Soviet, Soviet and post-Soviet history that is distinct from that of the Ukrainians. Belarusian nationalism during the Tsarist period was much weaker than Ukrainian liberationism and ethno-centrism – an important dissimilarity still relevant today. The Belarusian diaspora during the Cold War was less organized and active than the far more visible Ukrainian émigré communities of Western Europe and North America. Last but not least, the new Belarusian state has – unlike the Ukrainian one – participated in several of Russia’s various neo-imperial organizational schemes after 1991.

Above all, Belarus was a co-founder of the two principal organizations holding together Moscow’s hegemonic realm on the territory of the former Tsarist and Soviet empires today. Minsk stood at the roots of the so-called Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russia-dominated sort of “Warsaw Pact 2.0.” The CSTO was, hardly by accident, founded on Putin’s 50th birthday, in then Communist Party-ruled Moldova, on 7 October 2002.

Belarus was also a founding member of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) whose initial trilateral treaty was signed by Moscow, Minsk and Astana in the midst of the Kremlin’s escalation of its hybrid war against Ukraine, on 29 May 2014. A Moscow-directed pseudo-copy of the EU, the EEU has taken over considerable national prerogatives, in such fields as trade and production regulation, from its member states. The EEU is today the major vehicle for the Kremlin’s promotion of Russia as an independent global “pole” in a supposedly multi-polar world. Belarus is important for the Kremlin’s geopolitical mirage as it is the only country that provides the EEU with an, in terms of geography, exclusively European element (Armenia is culturally European, yet geographically Asian).    

Moreover, Belarus signed on 8 December 1999 – exactly eight years after conclusion of the Belovezh Accords that had dissolved the USSR – a Treaty on the Foundation of a Union State with Russia. Soon this historical document was fully ratified by both countries. Yet, the Union Treaty has paradoxically not led to the emergence of a new political union so far. In spite of the appearance of certain institutional trappings, the Russian-Belarusian Union State exists only on paper.

Nothing even remotely similar has ever been the official policy of Kyiv. Contrary to frequent misperception, Kyiv has been more or less pro-European under almost all of its leaders since 1991 – and not merely under its loudly pro-Western presidents Viktor Yushchenko (2005–2010) and Petro Poroshenko (2014–2019). With a presidential decree, Kyiv declared full EU membership as an official aim already in 1998. The Verkhovna Rada (Supreme Council), Ukraine’s unicameral parliament, wrote the aim of accession to the EU and NATO into Ukraine’s National Security Law in 2003, and into the Ukrainian Constitution in 2019. The conclusion of an Association Agreement with Brussels in 2014 is seen, in Kyiv, as a fundamentally insufficient arrangement. The Association Agreement is understood by many Ukrainians as being merely a step towards full membership in the EU.

These are some of the facets that mark Ukraine and Belarus as different geopolitical entities in Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, the closest post-Soviet equivalent to the Belarus case appears to be Armenia which looks similar in terms of its links to Russia and recent history. Like Belarus, Armenia is a member of the CSTO and EEU as well economically tied to Russia. While Minsk is Moscow’s closest partner in East-Central Europe, Armenia is the most pro-Russian country in the Southern Caucasus. Moreover, in 2018, Armenia experienced an electoral uprising that is not dissimilar to Belarus’s in 2020. Like the recent protests in Belarus, the Armenian Velvet Revolution had no geopolitical dimensions, and led merely to the replacement of an old-style politician with a new reformist leader. The ousted Armenian leader Serzh Sargsian and Aliaksandr Lukashenka were born only two months apart, in 1954. The new Armenian leadership under Nikol Pashinian has been following an internally reformist and externally conservative course.

Pashinian’s combination of domestic reforms with foreign continuity is similar to the current discourse in and around Belarus. Preserving close ties to Moscow while resetting a petrified political system is what is expected from, and intended by, the Coordination Council of the Belarus opposition. The relatively stable development in Armenia since the change of power in Yerevan in 2018 appears to be Belarus’s future to expect after Lukashenka’s departure. What many observers foresee, prefer and advise today with regard to Belarus is, in a way, a repetition of Armenia’s rather than Ukraine’s post-revolutionary path.

Why Belarus’s transition may become different from Armenia’s

Yet, things may be not as easy it seems, at first glance, for the future of the Belarusian regime change. Not only is the 2020 ouster of Lukashenka turning out to be far more challenging than the relatively quick and peaceful disposal of his age-mate Sargsian in 2018. The stance of Russian imperialism vis-à-vis Belarusian nationalism is more complicated than Moscow’s relatively simple hegemon-client relationship with Yerevan. Armenia could conduct a Velvet Revolution under slogans of national pride, dignity and freedom without stirring up larger emotions in Moscow, as long as Yerevan had no plans to leave the EEU and CSTO.

The 2020 use of ethno-national symbols and rhetoric in Belarus, in contrast, is more irritating for imperial nationalists in Russia than Armenians’ celebrations of their nationhood had been in 2018. Belarusian nationalism has a more pronounced European dimension and is geographically closer to the core of Europe than Armenian nationalism. A citizen of Belarus who identifies her- or himself as an ethnic or political Belarusian rather than in pan-national Eastern Slavic terms will tend to see the people of Belarus as, above all, belonging to Europe. That could, in principle, be unproblematic vis-à-vis Moscow as long as Russians too define themselves as first and foremost as Europeans.

Yet “Eurasia”, rather than merely Eastern Europe, is the name that Moscow chose in 2015 for the transnational realm that it claims to be the center of, and even for the continent it is located in. One wonders how much nationally awakened Belarusians will be willing to follow the Kremlin in this demarcation of a unique civilizational realm distinct from EU and the West. If the Russians insist on being Eurasians rather than Europeans, that could be unproblematic for some Armenians who, given their geographical location, may be willing to embrace such a mixed definition of their identity. Yet, a nationally aware Belarusian may have problems to accept belonging to a larger cultural “Eurasian” collective rather than the familiar European civilization.

Moreover, the geopolitical ambition of the Kremlin with regard to Eastern Slavic nations is different from that concerning Southern Caucasian people – a lesson that Ukrainians have bitterly learnt since 2014. Moscow is today satisfied with Yerevan’s continuance in the EEU and CSTO. Yet, with regard to Russia’s Western border, many in Moscow are still dreaming of a Belarusian-Russian political unification (as well as of various expansionist forays into Ukraine). To be sure, this pan-Slavic vision of Russian imperialists has also been surprisingly popular within Belarus, until recently. Yet, the current celebration of Belarusian nationhood, people’s power and individual freedom that the anti-Lukashenka protests have triggered are changing public perceptions of state-society relations in Belarus, by the day.

The liberationist pathos of the 2020 protests is posing a double conceptual problem for a future realization of the Belarusian-Russian union. One is on the structural level, as it is clear not least to Belarusians themselves that a Russian-Belarusian union will not be a merger of equals. The entire population of Belarus is only slightly larger than that of greater Moscow.

The protesters today insist on the popular sovereignty of the Belarusian political nation. One way they express this is with a national flag which is not the Belarusian state’s official banner. Today’s protesters in Belarus are thus, in some ways, more radical than the Ukrainian 2004 and 2013–2014 revolutionaries who used the official Ukrainian national flag (apart from numerous party banners) as the main non-partisan visual marker symbolizing their fight for popular sovereignty. Will Belarusians, after their exhausting protests, agree to belong to a union state with a different banner than the one they have used, and with its power center in Moscow rather than Minsk?

The second conceptual problem lies in the similarities of Lukashenka’s and Putin’s political regimes and economies. Many Belarusian may be happy, in principal, to enter a union with Russia. But a Russia that is ruled by another long-term president who is even older than the hated Lukashenka and that has a political system rather similar to Lukashenka’s may be unattractive also for Belarusian russophiles. That will be even more so if Russia’s economy remains hampered by deep structural problems and accumulating foreign sanctions.

Armenians may also have second thoughts about their economy’s integration with Russia’s. Yet Yerevan’s alliance with Moscow is more geopolitical than geoeconomic. Rather than economic interest, the prime kit holding the Armenian-Russian alliance together is Yerevan’s engagement in a risky territorial conflict with Baku over Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region. There is – at least, on the surface – no comparable geostrategic imperative making Minsk dependent on Moscow. Instead, the Belarusian economy’s orientation towards Russia’s markets and energy have been the prime movers of integration between the two countries. Yet, what happens if the Russian markets for Belarusian commodities continue to shrink, and if the world price for fossil energy resources remains low?

Conclusions

Certainly, Belarus is not Ukraine. But it is also not Armenia. Such assertions may sound trivial or even ridiculous. However, the practical implications of the latter claim have grave repercussions for the geopolitics of Eastern Europe. If Belarus cannot easily follow Armenia’s post-revolutionary conciliatory path: Which exact way is it going to go? If the modern Belarusian nation emerging from the protests is defining itself as European rather than Eurasian: What implications has this, for instance, for Belarus’s continuance in the Eurasian Economic Union?

If post-revolutionary Belarusian nationalism is unsuitable for submission to a Russian-Belarusian union state: What will the Kremlin’s opinion on, and way to deal with, such a problem be? The presumed real winner of the August 2020 Belarusian presidential elections Svetlana Tykhanovskaia confirmed in an interview that Crimea legally belongs to Ukraine. She thereby manifestly violated Putin’s 2020 Constitution that explicitly forbids any questioning of the integrity of Russia’s territory to which, according to the Russian Constitution, Crimea belongs. How will this and many other ideological differences between the modern outlook of the Belarusian opposition, on the one side, and the neo-imperial worldview of Russia’s current leadership, on the other, be reconciled? And what will Moscow decide to do, if it comes to the conclusion that these contradictions cannot be diplomatically resolved?

In the worst case, Belarus’s fate may become more similar to Ukraine’s than the two nations’ very different modern histories and international embeddedness suggest. As long as irredentism and revanchism remain major determinants of Russian foreign political behavior, the principal distinctions between Ukrainian and Belarusian national self-identification and foreign orientation may be too small to make a notable difference for Moscow. Post-revolutionary Belarus may, from the Kremlin’s viewpoint, have to submit to a Russia-dominated union state and to accept its belonging to Eurasia rather than Europe. If not, the greater moderation of Belarusian protesters in comparison to Ukrainian revolutionaries may be of little consequence for Moscow.

The continuing friendliness of today’s Belarusians towards Russia, during and after the protests, may be insufficient to compensate for their dangerously growing lack of submissiveness. Unless Russia itself and especially her foreign outlook changes soon and deeply, Russian-Belarusian may be heading for a showdown. Perhaps, the best chance for a post-Lukashenka Belarus to avoid a fate similar to that of post-Yanukovych Ukraine is a major political transition in Russia. Not merely would Putin have to be replaced, , but also the Putinist domestic regime and foreign doctrine. A principal international reorientation in Moscow and a Russian retreat from neo-imperialist projects could mean that Belarus will, after all, be similar to Ukraine. If allowed to follow the geopolitical path of Kyiv, Minsk will likely also turn towards the West rather than continue its traditional pro-Russian path.

The effects of Covid will likely been seen in the economic collapse of many businesses in the autumn. While most societies have organised themselves to some degree to handle any future waves of the virus, the commercial effect will likely start to show signs of a deteriorating economy over the fall and winter months. Smaller and medium sized businesses may bare the brunt of the losses as they often have less of a cushion, still are dedicated to cover the costs of rent and utilities towards governments that have surprisingly given little breaks to those companies and smaller property owners, and are often working using credit through their banks or other means. Since the 2008 economic crisis little had been done in the banking industry to ween smaller companies off lines of credit coming from banks and financial institutions, and when that dependency turns into an immediate recall of operating funds, many businesses folded in 2008. It will certainly occur again in 2020.

When asked, many people say that their first act after any lock-down will be to take a vacation. Many in country or regional trips have taken place as it is less risk to individuals healthwise and to their funds if a trip is cancelled due to an outbreak. Many who had trips planned before Covid have been unable to get their funds back from their airline, as consumer protection laws were rapidly adjusted so that airlines did not have to refund postponed or delayed flights. This left consumers who normally had protections on their payments without recourse, as when the governments adjusted the laws in favour of the companies, consumers suffered. The logic behind not having an airliner or other large business refund all of the customers at once is to keep those companies solvent to perhaps apply the service or refund at a later date, and preserve the company and the jobs of their employees.

While smaller businesses are often dependent on credit from banks in order to operate, larger companies often have the pull and can hire dedicated people to improve their financial standing in a country. While the travel industry is aching to return, the airliners themselves may hinder further growth. Airlines often operate with little profit margins, as leasing aircraft, changes in international fuel prices, insurance and little profit from the fare on each seat eats greatly into their industry’s gains. Like many smaller businesses, credit has been used extensively in the airline industry to keep them afloat. With the effects of Covid, the airline industry has really be put on a leash as losses very rapidly took over profits in a very short time. Due to the amount of credit depended upon and small profit margins, even national carriers are hanging by a thread. For years, each time I would enter the court house in my country, our national carrier was in bankruptcy hearings constantly, and this was the case on every occasion. This was the best case scenario, in the best of times. It is likely the case that the longer effects of Covid on the economy will open any cracks in our systems and it is important that time and money are not wasted if jobs will be available in the future. Most of these positions will not return if the opportunity is squandered.

-Protecting the rights of the most vulnerable ethnic minorities is the future of unified Korea’s inescapable fate-

“Korean Dream” stories of first-generation Vietnamese policewomen reveal that South Korea is indeed a mature democracy that cherishes multiculturalism and aims to protect the most vulnerable ethnic minorities. In South Korea, multiculturalism is not merely a symbolic recognition of the resource-abundant and high-status middle class immigrants’ bourgeois glory. Its “true guardians” defend it by realistically accounting for the blood, sweat, and tears of the most vulnerable ethnic minorities, thus transforming BTS’s fanciful teenage romanticism to a righteous pluralistic reality.

Across South Korea, there are currently seven first-generation Vietnamese policewomen on active duty to protect their community from domestic violence and school violence. The policewomen’s language and intercultural skills are indispensable community assets cementing the South Korea-Vietnam relations as the bridge between the community and new-comer ethnic compatriots, especially immigrant Vietnamese wives suffering the consequences of homicides committed by their Korean husbands. Immigrant Vietnamese wives are one of the truly vulnerable ethnic minority groups of the South Korean society; the language barrier and lack of knowledge in the South Korean legal system hinder them not only from protecting themselves from crimes but also from properly exercising their rights.

The Korean Dream story of Nguyen Hong Mihn, who now works for the Jangseong County Police Department in South Jeolla Province, showcases how the seven Vietnamese policewomen have walked an arduous life path to achieve their goals. After graduating from Chosun University with a degree in economics, Mihn started her career as a part-time court translator that inspired her to later apply for her current position. For a self-determined woman like Mihn, being a mother of three children was not an impediment to achieving the goal at all. She successfully persevered in the ten months of dieting and physical training by managing to lose 40 kg of her postpartum weight gain. Such perseverance enabled her to endure three months of fitness and technical knowledge tests, six months of professional training, and another two months of internship. “Most Vietnamese brides don’t know much about Korean language and culture. The husbands force their wives to study their native language and culture, but they themselves are not willing to learn the mother tongue and culture of their wives, so it leads to misunderstanding and then comes violence;” Minh identifies the mopish compulsions of the South Korean husbands as the root of intercultural conflict from her onsite mediation experience. The real-life insights of Mihn and other Vietnamese policewomen will turn South Korea’s multicultural future to a glorious direction.

Nowadays, multicultural skills in protecting the rights of vulnerable ethnic minorities, as described above, are increasingly in demand in South Korean public services. Over the last decade, the country’s foreign resident population has doubled to nearly two million (approximately 4% of the total) in 2019 from one million in 2008. Among various ethnic groups that have transformed South Korea’s multicultural landscape, the Vietnamese form the most strongly bonded family ties with South Korean people. This is largely because the Vietnamese brides in South Korea make up the largest ethnic group of foreign brides with an annual influx of approximately 6000 women. Despite their continuous contribution to strengthening the bond between South Korea and Vietnam, the human rights situation of the Vietnamese brides’ is rather gloomy. According to the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, nearly 40% of them have been exposed to sexual abuse, verbal abuse, and coercion by their husbands who are obsessed with the “you are not in Vietnam” mentality. Unfortunately, the victims’ communities have been lenient in terms of punishing the megalomaniac criminals, with arrests accounting for 13%, indictment, 8.5%, and prison sentence, only 0.9% of the reported cases. 

 

In recent weeks the confluence of many issues and events of different shades and dangers made Somalia’s political situation more complicated. This being the last year of the current administration, challenges of that nature are not entirely new, but the intensity and volatility of these developments are.

However, this piece is not an attempt to chronicle each one of said challenges and lay the blame on one political actor or another, but to illustrate how the dirty and notoriously impulsive local politics that dominate the discourse has been turning the attention away from Somalia’s national interest and international predators that are elbowing each other for zero-sum booty control.  

The most critical being the American guerilla diplomats’ covert coup against their British counterparts that has been protecting Soma Oil and Gas’ exclusive interests. These diplomats adhere to no international laws and often employ shady tactics that neither the U.K. Foreign Office nor the US State Department would be willing to acknowledge.

Who Didn’t Start The Fire?

On Saturday July 25, the Lower House of the Somali parliament has held an extraordinary session passed a vote of no-confidence motion to oust Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire amidst electoral rancor that kept the federal states drifting away from the center.

Interestingly, the ousting came only a few days after he successfully orchestrated Dhusamareeb Agreement signed by President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo and the federal states and when there was less than six months remaining from the current government’s term.

After the election related items on the agenda were discussed, the Speaker of the Parliament, Mursal Mohamed Abdurahman, literally rammed in a no-confidence motion that was not even part of the agenda, ignored the ‘point of order’ raised by some MPs, and continued the hand counting. Within an hour or so, the surgical removal was complete: 170 ‘yes’ & 8 ‘no’. After ensuing commotion by the objecting MPs, the Speaker gaveled out of the session. Mission accomplished.

 Cold War Beween Partners 

Despite the popular perception that this was solely driven by that all too familiar ‘xilligii kala guurka’ (time to part ways) politics, this was the last phase of the diplomatic cleansing of the U.K. influence- Khaire. He was Soma Oil and Gas’ East Africa man whose initial appointment this analyst has vehemently opposed.

It was the culmination of a systematic, delicately executed overthrow to end UK’s dominance of the Somalia affairs. It started with the recruitment of Qatar to directly counter-balance against UAE and bankroll Farmajo’s election. It was not a hard sell under since Qatar was under a long simmering UAE/Saudi Arabia led aggression since the Arab Spring. Moreover, it may be worth noting that Qatar already had on the ground a network of brokers who in the past provided dark money to former President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s administration for other projects.

Once Farmajo became the president, the systematic process to cut off all advisors, technocrats, security experts, and members of the Council of Ministers who were from or were associated with UK began. In a parallel process, the relationship with UAE had to be suspended. This was critical for mainly two reasons: One, it would get rid of UK’s cash cow of corruption. “Let me call our friends” was the notorious code of reassurance used by British diplomates that UAE embassy will be delivering the cash. This under the radar process kept their hands clean. Two—perhaps more important than the former—it would pull the plug off on the (UAE-funded) ICJ maritime case.

Though locally it is considered a patriotic initiative taken by former president Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud, this was a Soma Oil and Gas project. ICJ rule in favor of Somalia meant another corrupt giveaway to this shady company that illegally owns Somalia’s natural resources. Farmajo is on board with a behind the curtain deal to pull the case out of ICJ and settle for a ‘negotiated’ deal with Kenya that brings in new partners. This may explain why there were multiple postponements of public hearings- something that, contrary to the Somali government’s claim, could not have been unilaterally done by the court. Hence, an official announcement after the extension is secured should shock no one.

Prez Farmaajo & US Commander

Going back to the first major step; it was followed by the takeover of the command center- UNSOM. Merely two months into his new position, the former Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, Nicholas Haysom, was accused of interfering in a sovereign state’s internal affairs. Tough I was never a big fan of the dubious role that the British diplomatic team and their field commanders at UNSOM played before Haysom, I was critical of the persona non grata charade and I suspected it being a “a cover up”. So Ambassador Haysom was shortly replaced by an American, Ambassador James Swan.

This was followed by pressuring Qatar to drop Prime Minister Khaire from the recipients of the electoral facilitation cash that brought him and President Farmajo to power. Khaire and his network of predatory capitalists spent two weeks in and around Doha meeting with certain elements in the (useful) king-making business. The answer was simple: the game has changed and you are on your own, old partner.

As soon as it became clear to Khaire that he could neither be part of any extension that may be granted to his partner (Farmajo) nor could he expect cash-loads coming from Qatar, he had to resort to a political kamikaze operation labled as a peace process. He reached out to the federal-states, especially Puntland and Jubbaland that lost trust on the central government, as his most viable partners; hence the Dhusamareeb Conference.

Dominance and Its Risks

Farmajo went to participate in the Dhusamareeb conference with his own uncompromising agenda: grant me a term extension of two years so I could marshal the nation to ‘one-person-one-vote electoral system’.  After Dhusamareeb One and Two, the federal-states and the central government reached an agreement: Farmajo will get no extension and a technical committee made of all stakeholders would determine the kind of election and it would be unveiled and ratified at Dhusamareeb Three.     

On Aug 13, with Khaire out of the way and Farmajo seeming to have gained a momentum for his term-extension agenda, Ambassador Donald Yamamoto’s office tweeted this:

“@US2Somalia is eagerly waiting for #Dhusamareb 3 Mtg results. The need for wide spread consultations & genuine compromise is key. The election model needs broad based support from FGS, FMS, Parliament, & other stakeholders. Timely elections, no mandate extensions. #Somalia.”

And on Aug 20, as soon one-sided Dhusamareeb Three shenanigan to ensure the extension concluded, the same office tweeted:

“@US2SOMALIA has worked for inclusion of all views at the table in #Dhusamareb3, but can’t help those absent. Spoilers withholding participation sacrifice democracy for own ambitions. Parties will need to move forward with timely model agreed.”

Though these statements are reminiscent of a bygone era known as the ‘transitional period’ it supports my last article that Somalia is under a dysfunctional trusteeship, I venture say it was intended to serve, on the one hand, as a reassurance for UK and other donor nations that US is not supporting an extension; on the other hand, to put a thumb on the scale and coerce the federal-states to march behind Farmajo. It is the only way to harvest what was sowed a few years earlier. But, since the term extension appears to be like striking a matchstick over a pool of kerosene, it must be done through a legitimate process- the federal parliament.

Execution Express

Meanwhile, following Trump‘s patented method of appointing care-takers to a number key posts to avoid congressional scrutiny, Farmajo appoints a Care-taker Prime Minister with a free-hand to exercise full authority over the Council of Ministers. This flies in the face of the very constitution that Farmajo often references to underscore the power vested in the federal parliament. So exercise and expedite to the max is what the care-taker did.

Immediately upon assuming his new post, the care-taker Prime Minister, Mahdi Guled, dashed through the approval of a few international projects and appointed the Somali Petroleum Authority without any transparency, without capacity and integrity review of the members of this highly critical body of trustees. This same questionable authority is all of sudden set to make a critical decision that could haunt Somalia for generations. The method, the timing, and the haste should raise a red flag. 

 Who Owns It?

These controversial events of the past three plus years that shook the foundation of Somalia’s political structure confirm a looming danger that some analysts were warning against- a perfect storm emanating from resource curse, geographical curse, and clannism curse.

There are two things that one must keep in mind when conducting any political affairs or developing any strategies for domestic or international end:

One, there is no such thing as ‘spontaneous combustion’ because all things political are driven by an overt or a covert objective, or both. Two, if you are not interested or are not able to assess behavioral patterns or connect the dots, you are better off finding another career to pursue.

2021 is here and not much has changed since the last election. The political situation is in total disarray, drone attacks reached the danger zone and security continues to worsen, corruption still remains a skill in high demand, sovereignty still remains a pie in the sky, and many hands continue to operate inside the cookie jar of resources. So long as the dominant political discourse remains on clans, personality politics, and methods of transitioning power, expect the wheel of exploitation to gain more ground and the predators to get more emboldened.   

Somalia still remains a political prospect that is between a romantic ideal and corrosive reality; between conformity with clannism and the reformation toward statehood; between a living idea and a dying potential; between yearning for liberty and enabling the subjugators; between individual interest and collective benefit.

An enlightened intergenerational movement to reclaim Somalia is needed more than ever; also, leaders with vision and strategy that transcend the clan mentality in order to reimagine a new nation and put the common good and national interest before all others.

Source: ASEAN

ASEAN(Association of Southeast Asian Nations)’s long-term susceptibility to the multidimensional Thucydides Trap between Washington and Beijing has turned the region into a theater of (soft power) competition between the two superpowers. Reflecting the many-faceted volatility of the region’s geostrategic landscape, the fundamentals of the U.S.’ strategic approach to ASEAN should gravitate more towards cultural initiatives that comprehensively sustain liberal resiliency in the region. Realizing ASEAN’s potential as a (technologically) competitive hub of cultural pluralism would not only benefit the U.S. in weaving the universal notion of the “Pacific community” with ASEAN, it is also key to defining future liberal narratives of regional governance.

Strategic Importance of ASEAN to the U.S.

As the host of the Malacca Strait, the bottleneck of the South China Sea trade route, and the world’s second-busiest energy transport route, ASEAN has been geostrategically crucial to the political and economic interests of stakeholders worldwide. Such significance continues to render the region economically prosperous. Over the last five decades, ASEAN doubled its global GDP share from 3.2% in 1967 to 6.2% in 2017. With twice the population of the U.S., the ten natural resource-abundant ASEAN member states are projected to become the fourth-largest trading bloc in the world by 2050. For the U.S.–ASEAN relations, these rosy prospects precipitate a favorable economic climate between the two. ASEAN has become the number one investment destination in the region and the fourth-largest trading partner with a trade size of $263 billion, accounting for 5.2% of U.S. total exports. Like the ever-more prosperous economic relations, the U.S.–ASEAN cooperation has also reached its apex in its 40-year diplomatic history. The first ASEAN–U.S. Maritime Exercise kicked off last year as part of ASEAN’s four-year (2016–2020) plan of action. This year, the collective’s concerted support for U.S.-led freedom of navigation exercises was reaffirmed when Cobra Gold—the annual military drill the U.S. has held with its oldest Asian ally, Thailand, since 1982—was extended to 27 countries. Security experts see ASEAN’s increasing ties with the U.S. as the archipelagic power bloc (essentially, Indonesia and the Philippines) hedging efforts against Beijing-dominated expansionist endeavors in the South China Sea. Despite the emerging consensus on deploying a hedging strategy against China and on recognizing the U.S.’ indispensability in assuring regional security and prosperity, ASEAN chronically faces the dilemma of tight-roping between the U.S. and China to defend the value of ASEAN centrality.

U.S. Engagement in ASEAN

ASEAN’s high strategic importance to the U.S. over the last few decades has revamped the U.S.’ understanding of it beyond it being a mere subset of East Asian policy. The U.S. became the first nation to appoint an ambassador to ASEAN in 2011, two years after joining the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in 2009; the U.S.–ASEAN relationship was promoted to the level of strategic partnership in 2015.

The U.S.’ initiatives for earning the hearts of the ASEAN people have so far focused on boosting economic and policy connectivity that leverages Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)’s three-pillared agenda of trade liberalization, business facilitation, and technological transfer. Notably, the Obama Administration’s 2016 U.S.–ASEAN initiative takes a “whole of America” multi-stakeholder approach to strengthen U.S.–ASEAN connectivity in the fields of business, energy, innovation, and policy. Recent developments in the Trump administration, however, have created abysmal policy inconsistencies that have caused previous engagement efforts to deteriorate. Particularly, the Trump administration’s fiasco of withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in 2017 triggered a political and economic vacuum that left ASEAN with no choice but to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Pundits often view the RCEP as the relatively less stringent and less costly TPP alternative that functions as the software of China’s regional economic influence.

To cope with this woeful new normal, the U.S. now needs new and restructured ASEAN strategies. Fortunately, the future of the Trump administration’s three new ASEAN initiatives in cyber-connectivity networks, supply chain networks, and certification networks give an inkling about where these new and restructured strategies should stand.

First, the U.S.–ASEAN Smart Cities Partnership (UASCP) is an initiative that provides ASEAN with a $10 million investment in innovating smart city and cybersecurity solutions for the 26 member cities in the ASEAN Smart City Network (ASCN). In theory, UASCP should aim to technologically equip ASEAN citizens with tools to help them live sustainable, productive, and possibly liberal lifestyles, as well as with the democratic capability to free themselves from any repressive power constraints, such as the Orwellian “big brother” type of 5G censorship. Second, the Blue Dot Network (BDN), which is seen by many as a U.S. countermove against China’s Belt and Road Initiative, is a multi-stakeholder initiative to establish pan-Pacific certification schemes that voluntarily regulate sustainability standards in the region. Instead of dividing the Pacific region into “us” the liberals and “them” the commies (although anti-China rhetoric is often strategically necessary to consolidate “us” the liberals in saving the cost of performing our democratic rituals), BDN should focus on harnessing its comparative advantage in raising environmental and labor standards in the region. Third, the Economic Prosperity Network (EPN) governs pan-Pacific supply chain mechanisms by linking like-minded economies. In part, the EPN should function as a catalyst to boost ASEAN’s manufacturing advantage against China. UASCN, BDN, and EPN, though at the rudimentary phase of development, should set policy cornerstones for the future direction of the U.S.–ASEAN strategy.

However, discourses on policies integrating these cornerstones to define the liberal future of regional governance—which regulates manufacturing, product, and consumption standards—are missing. This policy rupture leads intellectuals like Amy Searight to stress the importance of architecting the universal notion of the “Pacific community,” which not only legitimatizes the institution but also establishes a fundamentally shared identity between ASEAN, the U.S., and the Pacific Islands.

Raising Standards in the Indo-Pacific: the CaliSEAN style

Unique cultural pluralism in ASEAN distinguishes the community’s identity from that of other Asian groups, particularly from the relatively homogenous East Asian identity. The U.S. needs theoretical grounds to co-innovate and co-transcend the pluralistic ASEAN identity, which seems to have some underlying commonalities with Californian cultural pluralism, into the communal Pacific identity that politically leverages ASEAN’s aspirations for democracy and good governance. In this way, ASEAN can better navigate their central “values-competition,” especially with China, which raises product, manufacturing, and consumption standards in the region and, in return, could invigorate U.S. liberal leadership in the region. The “California Effect”—a term first coined by American political scientist David Vogel to describe regulatory competition-based harmonization of environmental standards—could probably be the best starting point for designing a sustainable, resilient, and liberal Pacific community. For instance, the fallouts of the California Effect extend to the socio-cultural aspect of ASEAN governance (e.g., holographic promotion of the CaliSEAN-style AI pop artist/tourism among young generations and other out-of-the-box ideas).

It is now in the hands of the next generation of American internationalists to conceptualize pluralistic and competent CaliSEAN identity and values. When this centrality of cultural pluralism can indeed reassure America’s progressive leadership in the region, ASEAN and the U.S.’ Indo-Pacific allies will better hedge the governance risk arising from future cross-cultural inequalities.

There are few regions that share the same mix of familiar cultures, language, food and media like Spain and Latin America and separately so, the Middle East. While regions that share their heritage in the Anglo-sphere often dominate world culture and politics, the combined efforts and collective policy approaches of Spain and Latin America as well as the Middle East influence their neighbours, cousins and allies. Policy approaches, like those in tackling Covid or addressing larger international issues often come with a combined response. In this manner, groups of smaller nations can push for their own collective interests, even against larger and influential powers.

The ability to handle international topics to the benefit of their own regions may come from how countries in these regions had to respond to influence from abroad. A very recent example of Middle Eastern countries positioning themselves against regional and international foreign influence has come about this week with the peace agreement with the UAE and Israel, likely soon to be followed by other countries in the region. Latin America has created organised mechanisms like the OAS as well as MERCOSUR to name a few, in order to find a place for their region and neighbours in the larger international economy. While internal issues are always paramount, the flow of political and cultural movements within Latin America has had a great deal of push between countries and even in Spain.

A shared heritage in culture and language has also lead to a great deal of cross cultural influence in each region. While larger nations in the Russo-sphere and Scandinavia often dominate smaller nations, the large number of countries and power structures in places like Latin America and the Middle East make for a more interesting and less burdened dynamic when approaching policy or struggles between neighbours. More often than not, many families share relatives across borders and have done so for decades, so when there is strife in Beirut, it is felt by the same family is Damascus or Amman. When a conflict challenging narco-violence occurs in Mexico, often solutions and physical assistance comes from Colombia against the network of cartels in the greater region.

Nations without regional or cultural cousins often are weakened in their policy approaches towards larger powers. Forming bonds with treaties can often become just a function of interests, without any long term ties or application to policy, reducing the benefit of the nation acting as a lonely child on the world stage. The original concept of the EU, to form a type of family ties between European nations that have been at war for centuries, was based in a similar idea. Often Federated states were once a collection of smaller powers with similar heritage and interests, forming countries like the United States itself. With the economic and health crisis facing everyone in 2020, the future approaches of united countries may serve to maintain a stronger recovery than those countries working on their own.

Interfaces With The Global Commons

An odd policy problem arises out of the Covid pandemic, in the interface (pun noted) between private rights, i.e. not to wear a facemask, and public mandates to wear them.  The collision of particular rights with needs of the commons arises in many global issues.  Henry Kissinger points toward it in the international relations context, noting how “the pandemic has prompted an anachronism, a revival of the walled city in an age when prosperity depends on global trade and movement of people.”

The same collision occurs in issues of climate change, use of electromagnetic spectrum, open sea fisheries, and a host of other matters.  The question of particular rights versus commons raises a problem for America, and American leaders need to start crafting a durable approach.

The traditional Liberal approach to questions of commons rests on an extended idea of reciprocity.  If all benefit from some common need, then each party benefits individually, and a contractual process or protocol can be constructed.  Under the 1987 Montreal Protocol a consensus of nations agreed to limit ozone-depleting emissions, and appear to have plugged a hole in the atmosphere’s ozone layer.  In the old practice of eminent domain a duly ascertained public interest allows the taking of private property, with compensation.  This has worked to the point that it raises public controversy only in exceptional cases.

Under the World Trade Organization, countries voluntarily accept regulation of their sovereign power to tax and control imports and exports.  The common benefit is global growth, which for many countries took the form of normalized trade with the United States.  The payoff may have had a less-idealistic reality to it, and in practice the rules were relatively soft, which helped the Liberal approach work.

But such solutions haunt Liberal conscience, which needs to be assuaged by the elaborate due process protocols.  These processes require, at some level, a high degree of underlying consensus that the common good to be gained justifies the overriding of a person’s or country’s rights.  The instant that the community has its consensus shaken, the question of particular rights versus commons becomes a political battle.

The non-liberal approach to the commons says simply that common good comes first.  A number of socio-political doctrines support this approach.  It is the essence of socialism; it fits Confucian premises of harmony and order; and the anthropological concept of collective identity backs those doctrines.  This approach supports measures such as China’ one-child policy, high taxes in many social democratic states, and Soviet collectivization.  It was a norm in pre-modern times, when rights were privileges granted by rulers rather than unalienable attributes of all persons.  The last American traces of those times are found in the vestigial ‘common’ found at the center of many old New England towns.

The problem for America runs deep.  The nation created itself in a rejection of traditional government – not just of a British government perceived as abusive, but of the very idea that government could override a person’s rights.  No other definition of American nationality has been given; the nation is committed to the truths of unalienable rights, and government tasked to secure those rights.  Hence the pangs over practices like eminent domain.  Hence the defiance of those who will not wear face masks during the pandemic.  Hence, in part, opposition to greenhouse gas related regulations and to the environmental movement.  And now that these issues have become issues rather than matters of quiet consensus, any other matter that pits individual rights against needs of the commons will also become politicized.

How America engages the world on climate policy, pandemics, use of electro-magnetic spectrum, maritime boundaries and protocols, and standards in social media, will be subject to our ability to reconcile  the needs, however urgent, of the commons with the rights, baked into our national definition, to live by my own chosen lights. Only in national consensus will we make this reconciliation.  At home or in the world, American leaders cannot enforce the needs of the commons, we have to sell them, which requires national consensus on those benefits.  American consensus is also needed to inspire people to abridge their rights, as individuals or for the nation.  Only in consensus can we address the new age’s global issues.  And only in consensus can America fulfill its commitment to rights.

http://www.quiz-maker.com/QQZQ5FQVT

A new report by UN Women reveals that the COVID-19 crisis has intensified gender-based violence around the world: “The report observes that lockdowns and quarantine measures placed by many countries mean that millions of women are confined with their abusers, with limited options for seeking help and support.”   However, in the Muslim world, even before the pandemic, gender-based violence such as honor crimes, female gentile mutilation, rape and domestic violence was already an extremely big issue since it was extremely widespread.  Nevertheless, the coronavirus pandemic has transformed a giant issue into an epidemic of its own right, from Turkey and Iran to Bangladesh and Pakistan.  

Sadly, even though this is the situation, Turkey is considering pulling out of the Istanbul Agreement on women’s rights.  To add insult to injury, according to Ahval, Yeni Aki columnist Abdurrahman Dilipak called individuals that support the international conventions related to violence against women “prostitutes.” The AKP’s Women’s Branch reportedly filed an official complaint against Dilipak and he was also condemned by 26 different NGOs.   Turkish researcher Bartu Eken explained, “Abdurrahman Dilipak is a writer who is loved in Islamist circles in Turkey. But he is not particularly liked by the supporters of the Nationalist Movement Party, an unofficial ally of the Justice and Development Party.  He is also not liked by some Justice and Development Party supporters,”

“His discourses can sometimes be very harsh, and sometimes they are taken as absurd,” he added.  “CHP, which is the Kemalist party, is also positioned against Dilipak. The Peoples’ Democratic Party also approaches it antiphrastically.  I think Abdurrahman Dilipak has no direct impact on politics. Even sources close to the government do not agree with him.  Of course, the CHP and Turkish women reacted negatively to this rhetoric, but it is possible to say that he did not create much of an agenda.”   Nevertheless, former Israel Consul General Eli Shaked does believe the very fact that the Turkish government is mulling pulling out of the Istanbul Convention is a concern in itself, especially from a European perspective, even if the Turkish government does not agree with Dilipak: “This is another layer of conflict and tension and disagreement between Turkey and the rest of the developed world.  It seems that Erdogan does not take seriously what the world is saying about him or against him.”

However, women in Iran are not fairing much better amid the pandemic.  Iranian political theorist Reza Parchizadeh proclaimed, “Under the Islamist regime, the coronavirus pandemic has affected women in Iran in a special way.  The predefined social roles for women put them at higher risk for getting the coronavirus in Iran.”   Simultaneously, numerous media reports have confirmed that domestic violence and child abuse has risen in Iran amid the pandemic to epidemic proportions. 

At the same time, Iranian human rights activist Manel Msalmi proclaimed that the situation is even worse for Ahwaz and other minority women, especially if they happen to be political prisoners: “Several Ahwazi and Iranian women were detained recently in Sepidar prison and most of them were labor rights activists just like Sepideh Gholian, who was tortured and humiliated in prison.   The prison is overcrowded, so there is a high risk that the coronavirus will spread rapidly.  There were forced confessions and psychological pressure.   The human rights conditions during the pandemic are extremely inhumane.  The international community and women’s rights activists should act to support women in Iran, who are not only tortured in prison but who are also exposed to the coronavirus and threatened by the regime.”

“In light of the coronavirus, the suffering of Ahwazi women has increased immensely,” she proclaimed.  “Due to the existence of employment discrimination based upon their ethnicity, many Ahwazi women are forced to work in beauty salons, as sellers in the market and event halls for that is one of the few fields open to them.   However, after the implementation of the curfew, these shops and venues were forced to close down, but they are still obligated to pay all business expenses, including renting the stores and venues.  Ahwazi women are treated this way because they possess a female Arab identity that the regime wishes to eradicate.”   

During the last lockdown in the South Asian country, Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, a women’s rights group, reported that the plight of Bangladeshi women was getting worse by the day: “The lockdown has made women and children more vulnerable to domestic violence and abuse as many of them are confined to their homes with no outside support. Women were tortured physically, mentally, faced financial restrictions from their husbands, and there was increase in the number of marital rape incidents.”  Once the lockdown was eased, Shipan Kumer Basu, President of the World Hindu Struggle Committee, noted that domestic violence continued to rise unabetted and there was also an increase in the number of rapes.  He emphasized that Hindu women suffered the most torture in Bangladesh, for they faced not only repression at home but also from their Muslim neighbors: “Our women have no freedom in today’s Bangladesh and are tortured because they are Hindu.”\

Similarly, the United Nations reported: “In Pakistan, mental health professionals providing online therapy sessions also report that they have seen a rise in the cases of domestic abuse in the wake of the COVID 19 lockdown in Pakistan. ‘Domestic abuse has already been a haunting problem in Pakistan; more cases are surfacing in this time of anxiety and depression for all.’ A pandemic deepens economic and social stress coupled with restricted movement and social isolation measures, increasing gender-based violence exponentially. Evidence suggests that financial, domestic and health pressures during the lockdown increase domestic abuse and other forms of gender-based violence. Pakistan is no exception where incidents of domestic violence have been occurring at an alarming rate. ‘In a developing country like Pakistan with already very low indicators of socio- economic development, an epidemic is likely to further compound pre-existing gender inequalities.’” 

Although Pakistan has lifted their coronavirus lockdown, Basu noted that gender-based violence continues in the country at a high rate unabetted: “90 percent of Pakistani women have experienced some sort of domestic violence at home.  47% of married women in Pakistan have experienced sexual abuse, particularly marital rape.  One third of girls between age 15 and 19 are also exposed to physical abuse in Pakistan.  The conditions created by the pandemic only make this situation worse, given that these women and girls have even less support in an age of social distancing than they would have gotten before the pandemic.   In a country like Pakistan, such support was always minimal and most women and girls that are abused do not even bother reporting these incidents, yet the pandemic transformed these horrific conditions into something even worse.”          

The post Op-Ed: Repression of women increases in Muslim world amid the pandemic appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

 

The Covid-19 pandemic affected the world in a negative fashion and almost all countries incurred losses in their communities, often their beloved elderly parents and grandparents, neighbours, family and friends. Along with the loss of some in our communities, we also lost employment and security, and have been stapled to a generation of debt that will likely never disappear. What this pandemic has exacerbated however is how corruption can not only reduce the standard of living of average citizens, but also place them in a situation where they will lack critical health care and will be subject to situations where their lack of power in society can prevent them from having their lives saved.

The example in the Americas shows how inequality can lead to losses to society. Several countries in Latin America have been subject to scandals where PPE and other equipment was overpaid for, money was skimmed from the immediate actions to help the community during the pandemic, emergency hospital money was taken and hidden personally by government officials, N95 masks were purchased at inflated prices and aid money disappeared. The reality about corruption is that it always is a loss for average people. This is the case because average people do not have the power to steal eye watering amounts of money from the public, nor do they have the ability to have a proper legal defense when accused of wrongdoing by government officials.

It is likely the case that governments in other regions, even in North America and Europe, also operated in a corrupt fashion to some degree during the pandemic. While it is still too early to assess the damage, the financial numbers coming out on national finances of many countries are shocking, and this applies to most nations. Canada has even entered into its own Covid era scandal, while its Parliament has been closed and oversight on spending has been restricted. Canada’s government entered its third corruption scandal since 2015 over the last week, events are still unfolding daily.

What is not applicable to most nations are leaders, political or otherwise, taking advantage of a public that has lost this income, may have lost lives, and are living under a what is effectively a quarantine house arrest. To take money from a weakened public is reprehensible…and if this was done during or in connection with Covid aid spending there should be new criminal charges applied, even if the normal system of government prevents those in power from being subject to criminal charges. Those who commit such acts are essentially working against their own national interests, and to the point where people’s lives are lost because of it. When a politician barely understands the morale of the story of Robin Hood, they will always end their political career with a crime.

The post Losses, Pandemics and Stolen Taxes appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

How Will This Turn Out?

A speech by Secretary of State Pompeo on July 23 gave full official notice of the Trump administration’s China policy.  The speech finalized a process started by an NSC document published in May.  The administration now contests China’s actions across the board, on trade, technology theft, human rights, geopolitics, and a host of other matters.  A flurry of actions duly corroborated this adversarial stance, from a call to ban TikTok to the closing of consulates in late July. 

The administration sets a common direction across all issues, where U.S. efforts on various matters might have worked at cross purposes before.  U.S. priorities have flitted from interest to interest since the Cold War’s end, through administrations of both parties.  We have promoted trade and borrowed from China’s currency reserves.  After Tienanmen we denounced the regime and imposed sanctions, lifting the sanctions a few years later and then inviting China into the WTO.  We have remonstrated over Tibet and Xinjiang and most recently over Hong Kong, and sent carriers through the Taiwan Straits, but also initiated a “strategic and economic” dialogue.  Even the Trans Pacific Partnership, arguably a geopolitical coalition, was a trade pact – and was dropped by all candidates in the 2016 campaign. 

Still, strategist Giselle Donnelly points out that no one has defined “the nature of the contest (or) what victory looks like.”  As Politico commentator Gary Schmitt observes, Pompeo calls for unspecified change from China, and for U.S. engagement with the Chinese people.  Pompeo also objects to China’s Marxism-Leninism.  It is unclear whether the new policy demands some number of concessions on human rights issues, a renunciation of ideology – or regime change.    

America now has an opportunity to align all our policy stances to embody the tenets of our founding.  We can and should contest China’s bad actions, but to fulfill our own core nature, protecting and promoting freedom, and not simply to oppose China.  Donnelly’s article notes how the character of our regime must steer our course in any strategy.  A nation’s deepest national interest is its basis for existence.  For America, both trace back to the nation’s conceiving itself by a principle written down in 1776.  U.S. pursuit of all other national interests, of security, material well-being, rule of law, and international norms and influence, can and should align to that fundamental end. 

The new China stance follows Washington’s current strategic discourse of “great power competition.”  In that discourse too, RAND analyst Ali Wyne sees no clarity in what the competition is over.  In a recent discussion between Donnelly, China hand Derek Scissors, and other strategists, Scissors points out how anti-China rhetoric has not been followed by action, for instance reforms in government finance to support re-armament.  He sees confrontation with China reflecting only a shallow consensus.

China has learned how to play our inconsistency.  Confident that we revert to economic interests, they take our protests over human rights or democracy lightly.  They will buy more soybeans or otherwise show a collaborative face when mutual interest or passing American complaints demand it.  And they cite that face to complain that U.S. support of dissidents, support of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang, or opposition to their claims in the South China Sea, are “attempt(s) to obstruct China’s development” .  All, they say, unmasking our interest in “naked hegemony.”  The constant shifting of U.S. concerns has left us without credible counterarguments.

Chinese officials may be losing their skill at this game, growing more baldly irritating to other countries, notably in “wolf warrior” diplomats’ hectoring demands to respect Chinese claims.  American commentator Walter Russell Mead notes that Xi Jinping “has taken a wrong turn” toward his Leninist precepts,  Scissors notes that Xi is helping an American consensus to congeal.  Still, America needs to specify what we are competing over.  Absent that clarity, the current broad U.S. sense of grievance can revert to the old mix of shifting priorities.   

We should now announce that the U.S. will calibrate all aspects of U.S.-China relations, in all policy arenas, to America’s existential core, and that that principle will orient our policies globally.  Whatever past practice may suggest, we will not trade Hong Kong for soybeans, and we will defend democratic Taiwan against forcible takeover.  We will cement alliances with entrenched democracies starting with Japan, South Korea, and Australia.  We will encourage further democratic development, and tighten relations commensurately, with India, Indonesia, and the Philippines.  This strategy of alliance based on democratic norms will also apply worldwide.  To that end we will ramp up all our strategic capabilities.  The extent, depth, and make-up of those preparations as they affect China will mirror the level that China chooses, of compatibility with or opposition to our core national interest.

This moral re-basing of policy need not translate to implacable existential confrontation, as the containment of Soviet expansionism turned out to be.  We need not renounce other interests that we might share, though perforce we will be more constrained in our accommodations and less trusting of China’s cooperation.  And although the contest may be turning ideological, improvement in bilateral relations could be conceivable.  While Pompeo and others cite the Leninist doctrine of the Chinese Communist Party, as Mead says, “It’s unclear … how entrenched the country’s latest bout of authoritarianism actually is.”  A body of Chinese academic thought does say that “the survival of the state comes first, and constitutional law must serve this fundamental objective.”  But at least one Chinese scholar, Tongdong Bai envisions a system that, while not fully democratic, would include a Confucian form of consent of the governed.  Even Bai’s idea is extremely far from realization, but America and China are not doomed to intractable enmity. 

Meanwhile, the U.S. need not and must not use democracy as a tool against China.  We know not to reduce our founding principles to a tactical weapon.  Rather, preservation and natural spread of the unalienable rights is our bottom line.  The U.S. can enunciate this core discipline for U.S. priorities and let China decide how compatible they wish to be.  We can align global security arrangements to this end; the Atlantic Council’s Barry Pavel calls for an overall review of U.S. alliances, with a favorable eye on the British suggestion of a “D10” grouping of strong democracies.  A grouping aimed to set a secure ambience for rights need not threaten China as Containment threatened the USSR.  George Kennan foresaw in 1947 that the Soviets could not maintain their regime if adroitly contained.  A coalition of major democracies will be very powerful, but China need not collapse living alongside it.  The members of China’s elite, though, may grow to prefer life in a society ruled by law rather than faction, among people living openly by their choices rather than in furtive calculation of what they are allowed.    

This stance puts America on moral high ground.  Strategy, as attributed to strategist John Boyd, starts on high ground and, following a scheme inspired by Sun Tzu, should “pump up our resolve, drain away our adversary’s resolve, and attract the uncommitted.”  Sun Tzu aimed to undermine opponents’ will to fight.  U.S. diplomacy should take this approach, as our true character defuses anyone’s resolve even to be an opponent.  Claiming the high ground by stating this objective does put pressure on America.  We will have to marshal our resources to support our claim, as Scissors notes the need for financial reform to support rearmament.  But more broadly, our core interest in rights pushes Americans mostly to be better at being America.  Foreign policy would influence domestic practice, but good life at home will also enhance U.S influence abroad, in a virtuous cycle.  Living our best life is the best way to get China to change. 

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My country, like many others, are starting to produce apps for people’s phones to help provide data on any Covid outbreaks and specify to individuals if they are at increased risk. While such strategies had already been applied in some countries that were able to sufficiently manage their own outbreaks over the last year, there are many concerns as to whether or not such apps may violate individual privacy rights.

In my local case, the app was produced by regional and Federal governments, and external privacy experts have come out and given their stamp of approval on our local app. Much of this approval came from their former experience being staunch monitors of privacy in the community, and the availability of open code that shows if any misdirection has been committed in the promotion of that app beyond being purely for the public good. This likely would satisfy the concerns of many that the developers have acted in good faith with regards to privacy. These tools are useful in the fight against Covid, and honest policymakers are essential in the effectiveness of applying such measures on the already weakened public.

Another layer in applying these apps is the imposition of the GDPR, the EU’s very assertively enforced privacy rules within the EU, outside of the EU and affecting all EU citizens. Many countries outside of the EU while creating these apps may have not considered how they might influence their citizens who may be protected by EU privacy laws, even outside of Europe. While many countries, like my own, have their own privacy laws in place, they often are not as protective of individuals as is the GDPR, and the EU has made a point to enforce their laws if it affects the EU or its citizens abroad. Individuals may enjoy having the external protection of the EU, as it takes the most modern approach to data privacy anywhere in the world. With the EU Commission watching over dual nationals in many countries, it is mostly a benefit to those individuals, while a burden on local governments that may want to play with privacy data of individuals.

Data and personal information has value, quite a lot of value, especially for marketing purposes and political campaigns. What could be a death blow to a prospective app may not lie in the code or honesty of the developers, but could come from the impression of good faith held by the public over those who commissioned the app in the first place. For example, if a government advises using an app, but were also found to be abusing, selling or purchasing private data for a client list for a campaign in another instance, the violation of trust over privacy in one area may sour the public on using an app recommended by the same policymakers. This could ruin an otherwise great and useful tool, because of a loss of trust by the public over their leaders.

A great policy conundrum becomes a reality in the scenario when such violations affect EU dual nationals of the country in question. It would be an interesting legal and political dilemma as the political party that broke the law in using private data for their campaign may now be sanctioned by the EU Commission over the violation of the GDPR. While such actions would give some amount of justice to those individuals who had their private information abused for the sake of an organization or party, it would also put an international government on the opposing side of a political party during a local election. It would be fascinating, but to avoid it, the powers that be should principally respect the privacy rights of its own citizens, it makes for better laws, policies, and may actually save a few lives in the process of making society more democratic.

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