The Diplomat

Why Asia Wants America

diplomat_admin — Mon, 21 May 2012 22:26:57 +0000

I met this month with a business delegation from Malaysia, and one of them said to me: “Senator McCain, when we look at America these days, you seem totally dysfunctional. Your political system seems incapable of making the basic decisions to fix your fiscal problems and project resolve to the world.” And by the way, he said, “some in Asia are citing these failings to undermine the confidence that your friends still have in you.” I couldn’t disagree with him.

This is an enormous problem. And it raises doubts about our commitment in the Asia-Pacific region. While it’s wrong to speak of a “pivot” to Asia, the idea that we must rebalance U.S. foreign policy with an increasing emphasis on the Asia-Pacific region is undoubtedly correct. The core challenge we face is how to make this rebalancing effort meaningful, because at the moment, amid all of our political and fiscal problems, we run the risk of over-promising and under-delivering on our renewed commitment across the Pacific.

It’s difficult to overstate the gravity of the choices before us right now. We face immediate decisions that will determine the vector of American power in the Asia-Pacific region – diplomatically, economically, and militarily – for decades to come. We have to get our bearings right. If we fail, we’ll drift off course and fall behind. However, if we get these big decisions right, we can create the enduring conditions to expand the supply of American power, to strengthen American leadership, and to secure America’s national interests across the Pacific.

After all, while the context in Asia is changing, U.S. interests in Asia have not. We still seek the same objectives we always have: the ability to prevent, deter, and if necessary, prevail in a conflict; the defense of U.S. allies; the extension of free trade, free markets, free navigation, and free commons in air, sea, space, and now cyber. And above all, the maintenance of a balance of power that fosters the peaceful expansion of human rights, democracy, rule of law, and the many other values that we share with increasing numbers of Asian citizens.

None of these interests is directed against any other country, including China. The continued peaceful development of China is in our interest. We reject the notion that the United States wants to contain China or that we seek a new Cold War in Asia, where countries are forced to choose between the United States and China.

In short, the question we must answer is: Can we in the United States make the big strategic decisions right now that will position us for long-term success in Asia?

One of those big decisions pertains to trade. It’s often said that the business of Asia is business, but when it comes to trade, the United States has been sitting on the sidelines, and Asia is sprinting forward without us. After four years, this administration still hasn’t concluded or ratified a single free trade agreement of its own making. It took them until last year just to pass the FTAs with Korea, Colombia, and Panama that the Bush administration had concluded. Meanwhile, since 2003, China has secured nine FTAs in Asia and Latin America alone. It’s negotiating five more, and it has four others under consideration.

And it isn’t just China. The Japanese prime minister announced this month that he wants Japan to begin negotiations on a free trade area with China and South Korea. India is now negotiating an FTA with the European Union. And yet, we won’t even conclude a narrower Bilateral Investment Treaty with India, let alone a full FTA, as we should. As of last year, one report found that Asian countries had concluded or were negotiating nearly 300 trade agreements – none of which included the United States of America. The launch of the Trans-Pacific Partnership has brightened this picture a bit, but a deal may be years off – if it happens at all.

Instead, we should be moving forward with a bilateral trade agenda, starting with India and Taiwan. We should also move more aggressively on a multilateral track. The Trans-Pacific Partnership splits the ASEAN countries. We either need to bring all of the ASEAN countries into the Trans-Pacific Partnership or push for a formal U.S.-ASEAN free trade agreement. The bottom line is that U.S. long-term strategic and economic success requires an ambitious trade strategy in Asia.

A second decision with enormous implications is our regional force posture. We all share the same goals – strengthening the U.S.-Japan alliance, while maintaining our strategic commitments in the Asia-Pacific region through a robust presence of forward-deployed military forces. Like many of you, however, some of us on the Senate Armed Services Committee were critical of the previous plan to realign U.S. forces on Okinawa and Guam, which had become totally unaffordable. The costs of the Guam move alone had doubled in seven years to more than $20 billion.

Justice in the Philippines

diplomat_admin — Mon, 21 May 2012 16:59:07 +0000

A poster at the Paranaque city hall in Manila reads “Uphold Judicial Independence,” claiming that the rights of Chief Justice Renato Corona are being trampled by the Philippine government and suggesting that rule of law in the almost 100 million population, 7,000 island nation is at risk.

It sounds reasonable – after all, even hardened autocrats pay lip service to lofty abstractions like “rule-of-law.” But the chief justice in question is in the midst of an impeachment trial for abuse of office, and was a so-called midnight appointment by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, taking up his post two days before she stepped down and Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III won a May 2010 election, partly on a platform of rule-of-law reform and curbing graft.

When the Aquino government sought to stop Arroyo – who is herself accused of corruption and rigging elections – from traveling abroad for medical treatment for what she claims is a life-threatening bone illness, the courts intervened and sought to overrule the government travel ban on the former president, who is now a heavily bandaged congress representative for Pampanga in central Luzon.

That the Supreme Court decided to break up an Aquino family plantation called Hacienda Luisita, 60 miles north of Manila – and distribute almost 11,000 acres of land to more than 6,000 farm workers – only adds to the intrigue in a country where calls for land reform have long gone unheeded by powerful landed aristocrats.

But Aquino’s media team has been keen to dismiss any link to the impeachment, and media secretary Ricky Carandang said that “we were in favor of the redistribution and supported the decision,” during an interview on Thursday at Manila’s Malacanang Palace.

Similarly, when asked whether the case against Corona was merely part of a broader factional arm wrestle, presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said that “this is in fact about our commitment to hold all officials accountable, and is not about attacking the judiciary.”

If a trial enmeshed in dynastic intrigue and possible score settling wasn’t compelling enough, earlier this month, the defense had ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales testify in an attempt to clear Corona of allegations he held secret bank accounts. But that backfired spectacularly, when the ombudsman instead alleged that the chief justice had more than $28million dollars in 82 different accounts.

“We are giving them just enough rope to hang themselves,” said Edsal Tupaz, a lawyer working for the prosecution. He asserted that ombudsman Corona’s revelations were “a game changer.” But on Tuesday, the chief justice will testify, and his defense team said Friday that it has evidence to refute some of the allegations against Corona.

Journalist and academic Luis Teodoro cautions that the Philippine legal system has major weaknesses. “One of the problems in this country is that it’s difficult to prove a lot of things,” he says, a reminder perhaps that neither defense nor prosecution can take anything for granted in this case.

Back at the Paranaque city hall, a few doors down from the poster backing the chief justice, another hearing was taking place – this time for a murder case from one of Manila’s slums, a reminder of how the country’s legal system works for the tens of millions of Filipinos living on the breadline.

*Roger Buendia was 17 when the alleged crime took place, and though kept in a youth detention center, this was in the same building as adult criminals. “The place was filthy and when it rained the floor welled-up with water and we couldn’t sleep,” he says. That was the least of his worries, however.

NGO Preda assists minors in detention in the Philippines, helping them pass at least some of their sentences at Preda centers outside Manila – rather than in jails in Manila where sometimes they are kept with adults, or, in some cases, are locked up on trumped up or false charges by corrupt cops seeking to boost their promotion chances by scoring a certain number of arrests.

Francis Bermido Jr., a Preda social worker, took up the story. “Some of the older prisoners downstairs were threatening Roger because of the murder charge – some said they knew the man he’s accused of killing.” Preda secured a court order allowing Roger to stay with the organization, for his own safety.

Mother of the accused Selena wipes away tears while talking at the cramped but neat family apartment in the barangay Don Bosco slum, a couple miles from the city hall. She sells halo-halo for a living, and handing me one of these ice cold Filipino desserts, she says she has mixed feelings about her son staying at Preda.

“Preda is so far away and I can’t take that much time to visit because I need to make ends meet here,” she sighs. ”But it’s better than the jail, where they treat the prisoners worse than dogs.”

*pseudonym used to protect the accused’s identity

Simon Roughneen is a Southeast Asia-based writer. His work has appeared in the Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, South China Morning Post and Asia Times, among other publications.

China’s Small Stick Diplomacy

James R. Holmes — Sun, 20 May 2012 15:32:25 +0000

It seems everything old is new again. My (online) colleague Jens Kastner published an important article in Asia Times this week, detailing how Beijing enlists fishermen as an arm of its maritime strategy. His story will strike a familiar chord with any U.S. Navy sailor of a certain age. During the Cold War it was hard for an American task force of any consequence to leave port without a Soviet “AGI” in trail. These souped-up fishing trawlers would shadow U.S. task forces, joining up just outside U.S. territorial waters. So ubiquitous were they that naval officers joked about assigning the AGI a station in the formation, letting it follow along – as it would anyway – without obstructing fleet operations.

AGIs were configured not just to cast nets, but to track ship movements, gather electronic intelligence, and observe the tactics, techniques, and procedures by which American fleets transact business in great waters. Few seafaring nations use nonmilitary assets that way. Wielded deftly, though, they can play a vital part in sea power, broadly construed as encompassing not only government but commercial shipping, and not only navy personnel but private mariners. Maritime strategy is about more than navies. It’s about using all implements available to governments – sea- and land-based, public and private – to shape events at sea.

AGIs were mainly passive platforms sent to watch, listen, and report. While intelligence collection is part of Chinese fishing vessels’ job description as well, Beijing entrusts more active duties to these small craft. They can discharge combat missions. Some of them can lay or clear sea mines, for example. Or, as Naval War College professor Peter Dutton put it in another context, the fishing fleet is an unofficial maritime auxiliary that Beijing can deploy to stoke “managed confrontation” with neighbors whose seaborne interests contradict China’s. Kastner portrays it as a stick with which the Chinese government can stir up maritime Asia at opportune moments, whether to solidify its claims to contested islands and seas, appease a restive populace at home, or support a cross-strait offensive against Taiwan.

Japan, the Philippines, and other claimants to waters and soil China considers its historic patrimony constitute special targets for managed confrontation. Fishing boats have been in the thick of such scuffles as the war of words that ensued in 2010 after the Japan Coast Guard apprehended a Chinese fishing boat near the Senkaku/Diaoyutai islets. Fishermen have been at the vanguard of Chinese policy in the ongoing impasse with the Philippines at Scarborough Shoal, an atoll west of Luzon. Does Beijing control the whereabouts and actions of fishing boats directly? It’s not entirely clear, and Chinese diplomats aren’t saying. There must be some mix between conscious action and opportunism. While they may or may not exercise operational command over a given boat, Chinese officials can certainly encourage its skipper to ply his trade in disputed water – and respond if he runs into trouble.

If a foreign coast guard or navy tries to shoo Chinese boats away, Beijing gains plausible grounds to act. It can intervene diplomatically on Chinese nationals’ behalf, as in the Senkakus in late 2010. Or nonmilitary maritime services like China Maritime Surveillance can dispatch assets to protect the fishermen, as at Scarborough Shoal. Call it gunboat diplomacy without the guns – or at least without an open display of guns. The People’s Liberation Army is the unseen adjunct to Chinese nautical diplomacy. Military power held in reserve represents an enormous Chinese advantage, especially when the opponent is as completely outmatched as the Philippines.

Air Power Key to U.S. Asia Goals

diplomat_admin — Sat, 19 May 2012 14:37:40 +0000

The United States has refocused its strategic priorities in an oft-talked about “Pivot to Asia” and has made a deliberate decision in new defense strategic guidance not to size the military for large scale counter-insurgency operations, but instead to posture to deter conflict in Asia where there is a clear anti-access, area-denial threat. Such a shift has implications and raises questions about the appropriateness of retaining force structure and concepts developed for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan across all the military services.

Since fiscal reality dictates that the United States must downsize its military and focus on a more limited set of priorities, is it appropriate for the United States Air Force to create and sustain an institutional irregular warfare capability?

If the key strategic pre-occupation of the United States in the forthcoming decades is maintaining a force posture credible to defeating aggression on the high-end of the spectrum in Asia, what is the place of irregular warfare?

And what are the changes required to make the fundamental components of Air Force irregular warfare – air advising, air diplomacy and aviation enterprise development – more aligned with larger U.S. strategies?

An institutional Air Force irregular warfare capability directly supports U.S. foreign policy objectives in the Asia-Pacific and represents an asymmetric strength the envy of our competitors. Institutionalization of USAF irregular warfare capability is important, because it supplies exactly the sort of “low-cost, innovative” strategies called for in the defense strategic guidance and provides a tool to address the larger deeper problem: shaping the conditions for continued advantage.

America’s problem in Asia is more than just maintaining a favorable balance of military power. Such a balance is certainly critical to regional stability and global security. Asia is, after all, the heart of the global economic engine of growth, and it is U.S. military strength that ensures customary freedom of navigation in the global commons and deters newly powerful states from using force to settle conflicting claims. Asian states appreciate the positive historic role the United States has played over the past 50 years, but some hand wring about the ability of the U.S. to continue to play that role. While the importance of maintaining military balance is undeniable, the larger challenge is a competition for leadership, legitimacy and influence. Legitimacy is dependent on the actions available to the U.S. to continue to be perceived as present, committed and the security partner of choice.

The great military theorist Carl von Clausewitz enjoined that “war is politics by other means.” But the strategic competition in Asia, if well managed, is likely to be one of posture and deterrence rather than war. Rather, the United States might instead consider the rejoinder of China’s first premier, Zhou Enlai, that “All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means,” and realize that the strategic competition between great powers takes place against a backdrop where competing interests struggle for influence and legitimacy within their own states; the realm of irregular warfare.

According to Joint Publication 1, Doctrine of the Armed Forces of the United States, irregular warfare is a “struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant population(s). IW favors indirect and asymmetric approaches, though it may employ the full range of military and other capacities in order to erode an adversary’s power, influence, and will.”

And Asia – Southeast Asia, South Asia, North Asia, and Central Asia – all feature non-state actors who seek to erode the legitimacy of various states. Each of those should be considered dangers and opportunities to U.S. and global security. Any such conflict could flare into a crisis, triggering instability that undermines the global economic system or presenting the threat of a failed state with all its attendant costs to blood and treasure. Such internal conflicts can be used by one power against another to distract, entangle and undermine the stability of their partners. Each internal conflict creates an opportunity for a “preferred security partner” to fill a vacuum, and provide critical opportunities that build sympathy and lay the groundwork for access.

All the great powers seem to understand that the game in Asia is about more than just deterrence, but influence. Take for example the recent piece by Yan Xuetong titled “How China Can Defeat America” where he the author states:

“To shape a friendly international environment for its rise, Beijing needs to develop more high-quality diplomatic and military relationships than Washington. No leading power is able to have friendly relations with every country in the world, thus the core of competition between China and the United States will be to see who has more high-quality friends. And in order to achieve that goal, China has to provide higher-quality moral leadership than the United States. China must also recognize that it is a rising power and assume the responsibilities that come with that status. For example, when it comes to providing protection for weaker powers, as the United States has done in Europe and the Persian Gulf, China needs to create additional regional security arrangements.”

South Korea’s Bumpy Election Year

diplomat_admin — Fri, 18 May 2012 18:53:07 +0000

South Korea’s National Assembly elections last month were supposed to shape the landscape for December’s presidential contest. Instead, the parliamentary outcome seems to have muddied the waters.

The unanticipated victory of the ruling Saenuri Party has put Park Geun-hye back in the driver’s seat as the front runner candidate in the latest opinion polls, but the presidential election is still seven months away, an eternity in South Korean politics.

The Asan Institute’s Woo Jung-yeop has analyzed the parliamentary vote in a Council on Foreign Relations Other Report, in which he concludes that the opposition Democratic Unification Party (DUP) was hurt by its decision to form a grand coalition, which pulled its campaign strategy to the left. The DUP’s decision to run an anti-President Lee Myung-bak campaign failed as a result of internal discipline problems, especially the decision by anti-Lee podcaster and comedian Kim Young-min not to step down days before the election, despite widespread public criticism for past foul-mouthed and politically inappropriate remarks. Moreover, the DUP’s effort to ride a wave of anti-American sentiment by campaigning against the KORUS FTA and construction of a naval base at Jeju Island foundered, in part, on the flip-flopping of DUP leaders who had initiated both projects when they were in power during the Roh Moo-hyun administration.

Although Park Geun-hye was hailed as an “election queen” following her party’s surprise win, the results provide considerable cautionary information regarding whether her campaign for president this December can be successful. The Saenuri Party lost in Seoul and Kyonggi Province, which comprise almost half of South Korea’s population, and the total number of votes for Saenuri Party candidates was less than for candidates from a combined opposition party. Despite her apparent advantage, Park has drawn a surprising number of competitors in the ruling party primary, including five-time incumbent lawmaker and Hyundai heir Chong Mong-joon, Gyeonggi Provincial Gov. Kim Moon-soo, and Lee Myung-bak confidant and political strategist Lee Jae-Oh, and several other candidates.

The opposition side had been riding high following the strong performance of Park Won-soon in the by-elections for Seoul mayor, but was badly shaken by the National Assembly loss. The election results appear to have weakened former Roh Moo-hyun chief-of-staff Moon Jae-in, opening the way for others including former opposition leader Sohn Hak-kyu or relative newcomer Gyongsang Provincial Gov. Kim Doo-gwan to climb back into the race. It appears that the winner of any DUP primary contest would still face a run-off with popular SNU professor and IT entrepreneur Ahn Chul-soo, if he finally decides to run for the presidency. A divided opposition candidacy would provide the easiest path to the presidency for Park Geun-hye, who appears to have a solid plurality of support from her longstanding base of support in Kyeongsang Province.

The day after the parliamentary elections last month, the Korea Economic Institute sponsored a discussion of the election result with Victor Cha, Bruce Klingner, and myself, at which we identified two factors likely to shape the presidential election: an issues agenda primarily focused on social welfare policies and efforts to capture the middle ground versus simply mobilizing evenly-divided political bases. It was also argued that the United States is likely to be eager to work with South Korea’s next president regardless of who wins the December election.

Although South Korea’s presidential campaign process is mercifully compressed compared to the U.S. process, past election seasons have proven to be highly volatile, depending on the issues and mood, or “wind” that may arise as dominant influences on Korean voters in any particular election season.

The parliamentary outcome underscores that conservatives and progressives in South Korea’s political landscape are relatively evenly-divided; for this reason, the traditional rule of thumb in analyzing Korean presidential electoral maneuvering is to expect the unexpected.

Scott A. Snyder is senior fellow for Korea studies and director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was previously a senior associate in the international relations program of The Asia Foundation and Pacific Forum CSIS. He blogs at Asia Unbound, where this piece originally appeared.

Japan’s Persistent “Ameriphobia”

diplomat_admin — Thu, 17 May 2012 21:50:31 +0000

Earlier this week, Okinawa Prefecture marked the 40th anniversary of its reversion to Japanese sovereignty following U.S. occupation. Yet four decades on, and the future of Japan’s southernmost prefecture remains uncertain, with slow progress on key issues. For Okinawans, the harsh reality is that they are still living on occupied territory.

Despite the 1972 transfer, U.S. military bases still occupy almost a fifth of the main Okinawa island, while 75 percent of all U.S. bases in Japan are concentrated in Okinawa.

For the central government and the U.S. at least, progress seemed to have been made last month on the question of the future of U.S. forces in Japan. Under a new agreement, the U.S. and Japanese governments decided to stick to an existing plan to relocate the controversial U.S. Marine Corps Air Station in Futenma to Henoko, Nago, in northern Okinawa by constructing a new sea-based replacement facility off Camp Schwab.

But the deal, which includes the transfer of about 9,000 troops and their dependents to U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, has left many Okinawans cold.For a start the United States is reportedly planning to deploy the MV-22 Osprey vertical take-off and landing transport aircraft to Futenma, in what is an already built-up area, in July. In addition to longstanding concerns over crime, locals also point to concerns over safety and noise pollution from aircraft. Such concerns have only been compounded by a series of accidents involving the Osprey during its development. Indeed, only last month, a Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey crashed in Morocco, sparking further safety concerns.

Today’s problems are rooted in a deal reached during the U.S. occupation following Japan’s defeat in World War II, when Emperor Hirohito suggested to U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, then the post-surrender potentate in Tokyo and protector of the Japanese monarchy, that the U.S. continue occupying Okinawa and other islands in the Ryukyu chain in exchange for keeping the imperial system intact.

MacArthur saw limited Japanese opposition to the U.S. retaining Okinawa because “the Okinawans are not Japanese.” Hirohito's Okinawa message, and MacArthur's willingness to retain Okinawa, underscored the reality that the islands were being sacrificed for the purpose of defending the traditional national polity.

But since Hirohito’s death in 1989, his thinking on Okinawa has remained deeply embedded in the minds of mainstream conservative political elites, bureaucrats and politicians in Tokyo, including in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is often criticized as being subservient to U.S. diplomacy.

Russia’s Asia Play Mustn’t be Ignored

Richard Weitz — Thu, 17 May 2012 03:29:03 +0000

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to skip both the G-8 and the NATO summits this month suggests he plans to delegate relations with the West as much as possible to his deputy, Dmitri Medvedev, while he concentrates his diplomatic efforts in the former Soviet republics of Eurasia and the emerging economic powerhouses of East Asia.

Putin is a leading advocate among Russian leaders of deepening Russia’s Asian connections, and the Pentagon and the White House need to orient their Asian pivot properly to address Moscow’s new Asian orientation. With this in mind, trying to influence Russia’s relationship with China, particularly in the nuclear realm, is especially important, since Putin and other Russians see China as both an opportunity and a challenge. Some clever trilateral diplomacy on the part of the United States could exploit these differences to induce both countries to pursue more benign security policies in Asia and elsewhere.

Russia and China have the world’s two most powerful militaries after that of the United States. China is undertaking perhaps the most comprehensive military modernization program in the world today, while Russia still has approximately the nuclear weapons capacity as the United States. Although trilateral security cooperation has been strong in some cases (such as securing renewal of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty), it has been inadequate in other instances, such as regarding Iran and North Korea, even when none of the three countries want to see the further spread of nuclear weapons.

In confrontation with Washington, Moscow and Beijing could impede realization of important U.S. goals in Asia. Both countries can, for example, veto actions of the U.N. Security Council, a point underscored when they recently collaborated to prevent the Council from adopting more stringent sanctions against Iran and North Korea for its illegal nuclear activities.

In contrast, when they cooperate, the Chinese, Russian and U.S. governments can reinforce global nonproliferation regimes under strain. They also better constrain the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea as well as discourage other national nuclear weapons programs. At the recent P-5 meeting in Vienna, as during earlier P-5 sessions, the three countries joined with Britain and France to call on Iran and North Korea to respect nonproliferation norms. China, Russia, and the United States also have the greatest ability to secure dangerous nuclear material, prevent the transit of nuclear-related items, and influence the deliberations of international and regional institutions that address nuclear arms control and nonproliferation.

This is all occurring against the backdrop of the relationship between the Russian and Chinese governments being perhaps the best it has ever been. They’ve largely resolved their longstanding border disputes, as well as contained their rivalries in Central Asia, the Korean Peninsula, and other regions. The 2001 Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship establishes a basis for extensive bilateral security and defense collaboration. Their leaders engage in numerous high-level exchanges, make many mutually supportive security statements, and cooperate in other ways in support of what both governments refer to as their developing strategic partnership. Their growing two-way commerce and investment has made China the number one foreign trade partner of Russia, and they recently completed an unprecedented joint naval exercise in the Yellow Sea.

Yet, China and Russia continue to differ on certain key issues. For a start, they’ve proven unable to resolve their differences over the price China should pay for natural gas imported from Russia. They also differ in their assessment of Pakistan. Whereas Russian government officials and analysts express concern that Islamist extremists might gain control of dangerous nuclear material from Pakistan or even seize political power themselves, China has strongly backed Pakistan diplomatically and provided its nuclear programs with assistance, helping to augment Pakistan’s potential to balance India, a country that has friendly relations with Russia but not China.

Will Reform Bring Burma Peace?

diplomat_admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:16:20 +0000

Burma’s flurry of reform measures, coupled with the breezy spirit of openness prevailing in the former capital of Yangon, has created genuine hope that Burma’s underlying fault line – its ethnic divisions – can now finally be resolved.

Yet the ongoing conflict in the northern state of Kachin looks like it could remain an intractable blot on the landscape as Burma attempts to shake off a 40-year legacy of rule by a brutal military junta.

“The president called for a ceasefire in March. But more troops were sent,” says Ja Seng Khawn, daughter of former Kachin Independence Organization Chairman Brang Seng. “The conflict has intensified. Government troops burnt down villages, and 65,000 civilians have fled from their homes.”

Earlier this month, government troops moved closer to Laiza, the largest town inside the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) liberated zone. And, despite calls for peace talks, the fighting is continuing.

Karen, Kachin, Chin, Shan and other dissident ethnic forces have been demanding equal rights and local autonomy for more than forty years, and their repression at hands of the military has thwarted any attempt to create a genuine Union of Burma based on its myriad cultures and diversity.

Prospects appeared to be brightening with the apparently reform minded President Thein Sein reaching out to non-Burmans, and efforts to bring a halt to the fighting have enjoyed better results in the case of the Karen National Union and its armed wing. A draft agreement for a ceasefire has already been signed.

After decades of bitter conflict with the central government, the dissident Karen forces never dreamed that one day the president would invite their banned organization to peace talks in the capital. However, on April 12,Thein Sein hosted seven KNU leaders in Naypyidaw after another round of peace talks was successfully concluded in Yangon.

Various sets of talks have taken place with other small ethnic armies, including the Karenni, Chin, Shan and others, but it’s primarily the resource rich Kachin state that finds itself excluded from the friendly embrace of the government’s charm offensive.

Indeed, there’s been very little charm exuded by the government peace panel responsible for the talks. The panel is led by Aung Thaung, a former industry minister described in leaked U.S. diplomatic cables as a “notorious hard-liner.” It has met a KIO Kachin delegation in China on three occasions, but without any success in reducing hostilities.

“Wecalled for military operations launched since June 2011 to stop, in order to achieve a ceasefire,” says Ja Seng Khawn, now based in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin state, after years of working with the KIO leadership. “They didn’t listen to us. There’s no trust between the two sides.”

How China’s Economy Must Change

diplomat_admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 19:30:15 +0000

Mao Zedong, China’s “Great Helmsman,” was a keen student of history. It was for this reason, perhaps, that he was able at times to prognosticate with uncanny accuracy. He once predicted that “the natural forces of capitalism are about to stir among China’s farmers. If these forces go unchecked, society will become polarized. In the end, both the poor and the newly rich will become discontent.”

Mao was speaking, of course, about an economic dynamic transferring from one class to another, for capitalism was then, as it is now, nothing new to China. It has been part and parcel of Chinese culture for centuries, carrying the Celestial Empire through the cycles of production and consumption over several dynasties. It continued into the Communist era with only a relatively short, but very turbulent, interruption.

After Mao’s attempts to curtail private, for-profit ownership turned disastrous, his successor, Deng Xiaoping, set about to revive it under the equivocal epithet “Socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Deng allegedly proclaimed that “to get rich was glorious.” He felt that a socialist state could safely harness the benefits of capitalism, and that communism might work if everyone first got wealthy together. But what he failed to realize – and what Mao understood – was that unchecked capitalism produces social division.

After decades of headlong growth inaugurated by Deng’s reforms, a question once thought consigned to the pages of history after the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution has come back to haunt China’s communist leadership. Are capitalism and socialism really compatible, especially in a country with a colossal population and comparatively few resources? The answer seems to be emerging with alarming clarity as the gulf between China’s “classes” grows wider and more pronounced.

The most recent global financial crisis hasn’t helped. Throughout it, China has played a stabilizing role in the global economic system, thanks to the concerted effort of a centralized government willing to stay a pragmatic course. While some economists boldly predict that China’s growth engine will pick up and continue as before, there are signs that it may be running out of steam. If it does, the Chinese “economic miracle,” and those carried by it, including millions of poor migrant workers from China’s countryside who rely on factory jobs for income, are about to drift into uncharted waters.

For decades, China has built its economic strategy based on four pillars: exports, foreign direct investment (FDI), fixed-asset investment and domestic consumption. Of these, exports are central. They draw in FDI and support investment in fixed assets and domestic consumption. But exports have slowed dramatically and there’s mounting evidence that a fundamental change is under way.

China has long been inclined to regard itself as self-sufficient. This attitude frustrated British merchants when, in the 18th century, they made early attempts to establish trade and diplomatic relations with Beijing on an equal footing. The Qing court liked to believe that Western nations had little, if anything, to offer that China needed; it held the view that it granted trading rights only as a mark of favor to tributaries. China today has comparatively limited natural resources to support a population of its size. Foreign trade on a large scale, once regarded with distain by Qing mandarins, has become vital to China’s well-being, if only to sustain its massive importation of food, energy and raw materials.

To keep exports moving to its biggest customers – North America and Western Europe – China knows that two basic conditions have to be in place. First, Chinese goods must be cheap. Second, Western consumers must have disposable wealth to buy them.

Bush and Cheney on Trial

Luke Hunt — Mon, 14 May 2012 20:48:19 +0000

For decades, critics have politely pointed to Malaysia as a country of parallel universes. Laws separate race and religion, and people who live and work side by side are forced to coexist within different worlds as defined by successive UMNO coalitions and at times enforced by the courts, civilian and Islamic.

Prime Minister Najib Razak has attempted to change this. He has announced a series of political and economic reforms that he and the reformers in his United Malays National Organization (UMNO) hope will make Malaysia a fairer and more competitive place.

The initiatives, however, haven’t stopped protestors like the Bersih movement from campaigning for free and fair elections. They also fear Malaysia won’t change, and will instead slip back to its autocratic ways, which found real traction under Najib’s predecessors, in particular former premier Mahathir Mohamad. His style of autocracy has never been far from the surface of Malaysian political life and was again on display in Kuala Lumpur in recent weeks when political mischief went on show in the guise of putting Western leaders in the dock through a court with no jurisdiction or legitimacy other than it being backed by Mahathir, who attended the hearings.

As an eye witness to war in Afghanistan and Iraq and the wanton destruction caused elsewhere by the War on Terror, I can testify to the sheer ferocity of the conflicts. There’s little doubt that a legal case against Western leaders for their behavior throughout the first decade of this century could be made. But the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal (KLWCT) is certainly not the answer.

In its final round of hearings, the KLWCT has found former U.S. President George W. Bush along with another seven associates guilty of crimes of torture.

It said the eight accused – Bush; former Vice President Dick Cheney; former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; former counsel to Bush, Alberto Gonzales; former general counsel to the vice president, David Addington; former general counsel to the defense secretary, William Haynes II; former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee and former Deputy Assistant General John Yoo – had engaged in a web of instruction and directives leading to a common plan, purpose and conspiracy to commit crimes of torture and war crimes in relation to the War on Terror as conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Among the evidence provided, Abbas Abid testified his fingernails had been pulled out with a pair of pliers. Moazzam Begg told how he was kept in a hood, beat and locked away in solitary confinement.

The tribunal says Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were aware that the U.S. had violated the 1984 Torture Convention and the Geneva Conventions but they had failed to intervene. This came after legal opinions asserted in their defense that the Geneva Conventions didn’t apply to suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees and that as such there was no torture occurring within the meaning of the Torture Convention. As a result, interrogation techniques which included cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, were actually allowed.

Unanimously, under KLWCT President Lamin Mohammad Yunus, a bench of five judges ruled the prosecution had proved beyond reasonable doubt charges of crimes of torture in accordance with Article 6 of the Nuremberg Charter. The court says it was following the Nuremberg model.

People inside the court also like to compare the KLWCT with the Russell Tribunal, established by the British philosopher Bertrand Russell and his French counterpart Jean-Paul Sartre to evaluate American foreign policy in North and South Vietnam after the defeat of French forces at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

The KLWCT wouldn’t be described as a kangaroo court if it had any form of legitimacy. It does not.

But when following the proceedings in the mainstream press or through the national wires one could be forgiven for thinking that this tribunal ranks alongside the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia or similar international courts established to try those responsible for tragedies in Rwanda, Lebanon and the former Yugoslavia.

Indeed, the coverage has been unquestioning and has found friends elsewhere. The Tehran Times, for example, trumpeted the Malaysian verdict as: “It’s official – George W. Bush is a war criminal.”

It was a second KLWCT conviction for Bush. He and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair were last November found guilty in absentia of committing “crimes against peace” during the Iraq war after a four day hearing. It then said: “Unlawful use of force threatens the world to return to a state of lawlessness. The acts of the accused were unlawful.”