China's redefining role in the world

Shortly after Dambisa Moyo published The Dead Aid, I was more than happy to read it and review it on the blog. I highly appreciated the direct way of documenting the naked truth of the obvious wrong policies of resources in Africa. 

Her newest book - that I did not read it - deals with one of the big questions of the civilizations: China. Yesterday, I visited a big bookstore and was impressed by the impressive number of books dedicated to the mysterious China and the permanent questioning, without too much answering, about the reasons and explanations of the survival of the social and political systems and the success of the Chinese economy in the new global economic order. 

As part of the launching tour of her book - Winner Take All: China's Race for Resources and What it Means for Us, she gave an interesting lecture yesterday at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. According to her interpretation, China moved wisely by attracting neglected trade partners of the West - as Brazil and other Latin American countries as well as African countries, rich in various natural resources. What is very challenging in this approach, an aspect outlined by Moyo, is that China's interests in those countries are purely economic, without any 'colonization' tendencies. A lesson to be analysed further by sociologists and anthropologists as well soon.

Today seems to be for me China's day and I continued the lecture with a fresh new released report by The European Council on Foreign Relations exploring the grassroots social and political changes .

At least from my point of view, I am very far away from a global and coherent understanding of China, even though I am passionate about this country for a long time. The history and culture could bring some light, but it is only the beginning of the understanding process. 

Kurile's heel

What's the interest of Russia to have tensed relations with Japan, following the latest visit of Russian president to the controversial Kurile Islands? Russia never played one single card and the situation from the Asian continent, confronted with uncertain future in the Korean Peninsula, a China ready to conquer the world and the next visit of president Obama in India, an important piece of the puzzle during the Cold War.

Who's afraid of China?

The last week announcement of the Chinese winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Liu Xiabo, might have the potential of opening a new discussion regarding the need for a change in the area of human rights in China.

On the other side, given the high economic potential between China and its Western partners, and the permanent ties with the government of Beijing, despite the problematic situation of meeting the democratic standards, it is highly improbable that a radical change will occur in the next period of time. It is not the first time when the "business as usual" type of mentality prevails. Among other things going on after the nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize went public, Liu Xiabo's wife is said to be missing, or at least in home isolation and the Chinese authorities warned Norway about an inevitable deterioration of the bilateral relations.

The systemic problems of China are not new or special. It is almost the same kind of issues countries from Central and Eastern Europe faced and, in some cases, are still facing. It is about the consequences of the high level of centralization of the decision making processes, the personalization of politics and the widespread corruption. On the other side, the demography and geography of China, plus the specific history of the political system - very different of what we are used with in Europe - are making the Chinese case a very special and different one.

Does the social media have a potential of change? As in any other cases, the answer is "not only". When thinking about China we have to think about the tight control of the state over the Internet. A fact impossible without the tacit acceptance from the point of view of big Internet companies, even, at least in the case of Google, the situation went, probably, beyond the accepted professional limits. Hence, the various harassment, the most recent being the news that Google warned about a possible hacking attempt originating from China. In the mainland China - but not in Hong Kong, Twitter is blocked, and Facebook and Google from time to time. As a compensation, Chinese authorities created their own micro-blogging platform Sina Weibo. In these conditions, what potential for change and how these changes might look like?

Is Taiwan closer to China?

The death penaly was applied again in Taiwan.

India, China and the global ambitions

India and China represent for both US and Europe the big challenges. Markets with huge potential and unpredictable but enormous influence, Brussels and Washington are doing their best to win the charms of these two giants.

The latest initiative, supported by UK and Sweden is pledging for an increased diplomatic presence of the EU, as a first step to get a better understanding of the particular contexts of these two countries.

But, if in the case of India, the exposure to the Western institutional system is offering the possibility of a common lecture, in the case of China, the basic understandings of the concepts of power and the military and diplomatic doctrines are still unknown and do not offer an easy key of understanding.

A cross lecture of some considerations of Chinese authors writing about the Chinese-Indian relations, published at the end of the last year by the European Council on Foreign Relations are offering a puzzling image of the bilateral relations between the two countries and the intricate and spontaneous directions these relationships could follow in the near future.

The practical alliances - as it was the case during the WTO negotiations or the joint memorandum on climate change - are surpassed by historical conflicts and different orientations generated during the Cold War. Even at the level of both countries it is felt the need of a relaunch of the trade relations, the strategical interests of the two countries are rather competitive than complementary. The imbalance is reflected as well in the structure of the alliances enforced by both countries - India, for a strategic partnership with US, or China, with a close dialogue with Pakistan. These partnerships are derived by practical reasons as well, both parts being able to have a strict observance of the main agenda.

The end of the two-blocks competitive politics was replaced by a very pragmatical reshaping of the international global strategies. In the case of the countries with such a huge economic and strategic potential, as it is the case of India and China, the question is rather how to understand the necessity of the pragmatic alliances and to be able to predict the outcome and the next steps. The home politics considerations are permanently important and do not help as too much in being accurate in our predictions. And, for our limited Western understanding, China is the big riddle. To be solved - hopefully - in a century or two time.

The North Korea's Gulag

The Long Road Home. Testimony of a North Korean Camp Survivor, by Kim Jong is the account of life in a labor camp in North Korea. Although the existence of those camps on the North Korean territory is known, little information is available about their organisation and conduct, since prisoners rarely escape both camps and the country alive. This book shares the story of one such survival, a former lieutenant in the North Korean National Security Agency and a career military officer earning foreign currency. He was suddenly sent to a labor camp in 1993. Accused of treason, he was condemned to gulag no. 14 in Hamkyeong province. As a condemned prisoner - after a life enjoying priviledges, as driving an imported car and free travel across the country, and various contacts with corrupt party officials and business trade partners from overseas, mainly from Japan - he worked in a coal mine 2.400 feet underground and becoming intimately acquainted with political prisoners, subhuman camp guards and the famine that already killed millions. He succeeded to flee the camp and found refuge in China and since 2003 he came to the US.

Untold stories

of China and Taiwan.

Fighting against violence and lies and mystification with the power of the testimonies. A weapon of social dissent present in the works of many artists and writers from China.

N Korea talks

the emergency call.

Obama's Foreign Policy: The End of the Beginning

George Friedman
Stratfor
August 24

As August draws to a close, so does the first phase of the Obama presidency. The first months of any U.S. presidency are spent filling key positions and learning the levers of foreign and national security policy. There are also the first rounds of visits with foreign leaders and the first tentative forays into foreign policy. The first summer sees the leaders of the Northern Hemisphere take their annual vacations, and barring a crisis or war, little happens in the foreign policy arena. Then September comes and the world gets back in motion, and the first phase of the president’s foreign policy ends. The president is no longer thinking about what sort of foreign policy he will have; he now has a foreign policy that he is carrying out.
We therefore are at a good point to stop and consider not what U.S. President Barack Obama will do in the realm of foreign policy, but what he has done and is doing. As we have mentioned before, the single most remarkable thing about Obama’s foreign policy is how consistent it is with the policies of former President George W. Bush. This is not surprising. Presidents operate in the world of constraints; their options are limited. Still, it is worth pausing to note how little Obama has deviated from the Bush foreign policy.
During the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, particularly in its early stages, Obama ran against the Iraq war. The centerpiece of his early position was that the war was a mistake, and that he would end it. Obama argued that Bush’s policies — and more important, his style — alienated U.S. allies. He charged Bush with pursuing a unilateral foreign policy, alienating allies by failing to act in concert with them. In doing so, he maintained that the war in Iraq destroyed the international coalition the United States needs to execute any war successfully. Obama further argued that Iraq was a distraction and that the major effort should be in Afghanistan. He added that the United States would need its NATO allies’ support in Afghanistan. He said an Obama administration would reach out to the Europeans, rebuild U.S. ties there and win greater support from them.
Though around 40 countries cooperated with the United States in Iraq, albeit many with only symbolic contributions, the major continental European powers — particularly France and Germany — refused to participate. When Obama spoke of alienating allies, he clearly meant these two countries, as well as smaller European powers that had belonged to the U.S. Cold War coalition but were unwilling to participate in Iraq and were now actively hostile to U.S. policy.

A European Rebuff

Early in his administration, Obama made two strategic decisions. First, instead of ordering an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, he adopted the Bush administration’s policy of a staged withdrawal keyed to political stabilization and the development of Iraqi security forces. While he tweaked the timeline on the withdrawal, the basic strategy remained intact. Indeed, he retained Bush’s defense secretary, Robert Gates, to oversee the withdrawal.
Second, he increased the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The Bush administration had committed itself to Afghanistan from 9/11 onward. But it had remained in a defensive posture in the belief that given the forces available, enemy capabilities and the historic record, that was the best that could be done, especially as the Pentagon was almost immediately reoriented and refocused on the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. Toward the end, the Bush administration began exploring — under the influence of Gen. David Petraeus, who designed the strategy in Iraq — the possibility of some sort of political accommodation in Afghanistan.
Obama has shifted his strategy in Afghanistan to this extent: He has moved from a purely defensive posture to a mixed posture of selective offense and defense, and has placed more forces into Afghanistan (although the United States still has nowhere near the number of troops the Soviets had when they lost their Afghan war). Therefore, the core structure of Obama’s policy remains the same as Bush’s except for the introduction of limited offensives. In a major shift since Obama took office, the Pakistanis have taken a more aggressive stance (or at least want to appear more aggressive) toward the Taliban and al Qaeda, at least within their own borders. But even so, Obama’s basic strategy remains the same as Bush’s: hold in Afghanistan until the political situation evolves to the point that a political settlement is possible.
Most interesting is how little success Obama has had with the French and the Germans. Bush had given up asking for assistance in Afghanistan, but Obama tried again. He received the same answer Bush did: no. Except for some minor, short-term assistance, the French and Germans were unwilling to commit forces to Obama’s major foreign policy effort, something that stands out.
Given the degree to which the Europeans disliked Bush and were eager to have a president who would revert the U.S.-European relationship to what it once was (at least in their view), one would have thought the French and Germans would be eager to make some substantial gesture rewarding the United States for selecting a pro-European president. Certainly, it was in their interest to strengthen Obama. That they proved unwilling to make that gesture suggests that the French and German relationship with the United States is much less important to Paris and Berlin than it would appear. Obama, a pro-European president, was emphasizing a war France and Germany approved of over a war they disapproved of and asked for their help, but virtually none was forthcoming.

The Russian Non-Reset

Obama’s desire to reset European relations was matched by his desire to reset U.S.-Russian relations. Ever since the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine in late 2004 and early 2005, U.S.-Russian relations had deteriorated dramatically, with Moscow charging Washington with interfering in the internal affairs of former Soviet republics with the aim of weakening Russia. This culminated in the Russo-Georgian war last August. The Obama administration has since suggested a “reset” in relations, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton actually carrying a box labeled “reset button” to her spring meeting with the Russians.
The problem, of course, was that the last thing the Russians wanted was to reset relations with the United States. They did not want to go back to the period after the Orange Revolution, nor did they want to go back to the period between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Orange Revolution. The Obama administration’s call for a reset showed the distance between the Russians and the Americans: The Russians regard the latter period as an economic and geopolitical disaster, while the Americans regard it as quite satisfactory. Both views are completely understandable.
The Obama administration was signaling that it intends to continue the Bush administration’s Russia policy. That policy was that Russia had no legitimate right to claim priority in the former Soviet Union, and that the United States had the right to develop bilateral relations with any country and expand NATO as it wished. But the Bush administration saw the Russian leadership as unwilling to follow the basic architecture of relations that had developed after 1991, and as unreasonably redefining what the Americans thought of as a stable and desirable relationship. The Russian response was that an entirely new relationship was needed between the two countries, or the Russians would pursue an independent foreign policy matching U.S. hostility with Russian hostility. Highlighting the continuity in U.S.-Russian relations, plans for the prospective ballistic missile defense installation in Poland, a symbol of antagonistic U.S.-Russian relations, remain unchanged.
The underlying problem is that the Cold War generation of U.S. Russian experts has been supplanted by the post-Cold War generation, now grown to maturity and authority. If the Cold warriors were forged in the 1960s, the post-Cold warriors are forever caught in the 1990s. They believed that the 1990s represented a stable platform from which to reform Russia, and that the grumbling of Russians plunged into poverty and international irrelevancy at that time is simply part of the post-Cold War order. They believe that without economic power, Russia cannot hope to be an important player on the international stage. That Russia has never been an economic power even at the height of its influence but has frequently been a military power doesn’t register. Therefore, they are constantly expecting Russia to revert to its 1990s patterns, and believe that if Moscow doesn’t, it will collapse — which explains U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s interview in The Wall Street Journal where he discussed Russia’s decline in terms of its economic and demographic challenges. Obama’s key advisers come from the Clinton administration, and their view of Russia — like that of the Bush administration — was forged in the 1990s.

Foreign Policy Continuity Elsewhere

When we look at U.S.-China policy, we see very similar patterns with the Bush administration. The United States under Obama has the same interest in maintaining economic ties and avoiding political complications as the Bush administration did. Indeed, Hillary Clinton explicitly refused to involve herself in human rights issues during her visit to China. Campaign talk of engaging China on human rights issues is gone. Given the interests of both countries, this makes sense, but it is also noteworthy given the ample opportunity to speak to China on this front (and fulfill campaign promises) that has arisen since Obama took office (such as the Uighur riots).
Of great interest, of course, were the three great openings of the early Obama administration, to Cuba, to Iran, and to the Islamic world in general through his Cairo speech. The Cubans and Iranians rebuffed his opening, whereas the net result of the speech to the Islamic world remains unclear. With Iran we see the most important continuity. Obama continues to demand an end to Tehran’s nuclear program, and has promised further sanctions unless Iran agrees to enter into serious talks by late September.
On Israel, the United States has merely shifted the atmospherics. Both the Bush and Obama administrations demanded that the Israelis halt settlements, as have many other administrations. The Israelis have usually responded by agreeing to something small while ignoring the larger issue. The Obama administration seemed ready to make a major issue of this, but instead continued to maintain security collaboration with the Israelis on Iran and Lebanon (and we assume intelligence collaboration). Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration has not allowed the settlements to get in the way of fundamental strategic interests.
This is not a criticism of Obama. Presidents — all presidents — run on a platform that will win. If they are good presidents, they will leave behind these promises to govern as they must. This is what Obama has done. He ran for president as the antithesis of Bush. He has conducted his foreign policy as if he were Bush. This is because Bush’s foreign policy was shaped by necessity, and Obama’s foreign policy is shaped by the same necessity. Presidents who believe they can govern independent of reality are failures. Obama doesn’t intend to fail.

Japan, ready for the elections

to be held August 30, for the lower house of the parliament.

Factobox (Reuters) - policy challenges faced by the new government

Japan announced the beginning of this week, the end of the recession period.

China to contest WTO trade ruling

Beijing's authorities will ask the end of restrictions to imports US film and music products.

Russia, Ahmadinejad and Iran Reconsidered

George Friedman

Stratfor

July 20

At Friday prayers July 17 at Tehran University, the influential cleric and former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani gave his first sermon since Iran’s disputed presidential election and the subsequent demonstrations. The crowd listening to Rafsanjani inside the mosque was filled with Ahmadinejad supporters who chanted, among other things, “Death to America” and “Death to China.” Outside the university common grounds, anti-Ahmadinejad elements — many of whom were blocked by Basij militiamen and police from entering the mosque — persistently chanted “Death to Russia.” Death to America is an old staple in Iran. Death to China had to do with the demonstrations in Xinjiang and the death of Uighurs at the hands of the Chinese. Death to Russia, however, stood out. Clearly, its use was planned before the protesters took to the streets. The meaning of this must be uncovered. To begin to do that, we must consider the political configuration in Iran at the moment.

The Iranian Political Configuration

There are two factions claiming to speak for the people. Rafsanjani represents the first faction. During his sermon, he spoke for the tradition of the founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who took power during the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Rafjsanjani argued that Khomeini wanted an Islamic republic faithful to the will of the people, albeit within the confines of Islamic law. Rafsanjani argued that he was the true heir to the Islamic revolution. He added that Khomeini’s successor — the current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — had violated the principles of the revolution when he accepted that Rafsanjani’s archenemy, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had won Iran’s recent presidential election. (There is enormous irony in foreigners describing Rafsanjani as a moderate reformer who supports greater liberalization. Though he has long cultivated this image in the West, in 30 years of public political life it is hard to see a time when has supported Western-style liberal democracy.) The other faction is led by Ahmadinejad, who takes the position that Rafsanjani in particular — along with the generation of leaders who ascended to power during the first phase of the Islamic republic — has betrayed the Iranian people. Rather than serving the people, Ahmadinejad claims they have used their positions to become so wealthy that they dominate the Iranian economy and have made the reforms needed to revitalize the Iranian economy impossible. According to Ahmadinejad’s charges, these elements now blame Ahmadinejad for Iran’s economic failings when the root of these failings is their own corruption. Ahmadinejad claims that the recent presidential election represents a national rejection of the status quo. He adds that claims of fraud represent attempts by Rafsanjani — who he portrays as defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi’s sponsor — and his ilk to protect their positions from Ahmadinejad. Iran is therefore experiencing a generational dispute, with each side claiming to speak both for the people and for the Khomeini tradition. There is the older generation — symbolized by Rafsanjani — that has prospered during the last 30 years. Having worked with Khomeini, this generation sees itself as his true heir. Then, there is the younger generation. Known as “students” during the revolution, this group did the demonstrating and bore the brunt of the shah’s security force counterattacks. It argues that Khomeini would be appalled at what Rafsanjani and his generation have done to Iran. This debate is, of course, more complex than this. Khamenei, a key associate of Khomeini, appears to support Ahmadinejad’s position. And Ahmadinejad hardly speaks for all of the poor as he would like to claim. The lines of political disputes are never drawn as neatly as we would like. Ultimately, Rafsanjani’s opposition to the recent election did not have as much to do with concerns (valid or not) over voter fraud. It had everything to do with the fact that the outcome threatened his personal position. Which brings us back to the question of why Rafsanjani’s followers were chanting “Death to Russia?”

Examining the Anomalous Chant

For months prior to the election, Ahmadinejad’s allies warned that the United States was planning a “color” revolution. Color revolutions, like the one in Ukraine, occurred widely in the former Soviet Union after its collapse, and these revolutions followed certain steps. An opposition political party was organized to mount an electoral challenge the establishment. Then, an election occurred that was either fraudulent or claimed by the opposition as having been fraudulent. Next, widespread peaceful protests against the regime (all using a national color as the symbol of the revolution) took place, followed by the collapse of the government through a variety of paths. Ultimately, the opposition — which was invariably pro-Western and particularly pro-American — took power. Moscow openly claimed that Western intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA, organized and funded the 2004-2005 Orange Revolution in Ukraine. These agencies allegedly used nongovernmental organizations (human rights groups, pro-democracy groups, etc.) to delegitimize the existing regime, repudiate the outcome of election regardless of its validity and impose what the Russians regarded as a pro-American puppet regime. The Russians saw Ukraine’s Orange Revolution as the breakpoint in their relationship with the West, with the creation of a pro-American, pro-NATO regime in Ukraine representing a direct attack on Russian national security. The Americans argued that to the contrary, they had done nothing but facilitate a democratic movement that opposed the existing regime for its own reasons, demanding that rigged elections be repudiated. In warning that the United States was planning a color revolution in Iran, Ahmadinejad took the Russian position. Namely, he was arguing that behind the cover of national self-determination, human rights and commitment to democratic institutions, the United States was funding an Iranian opposition movement on the order of those active in the former Soviet Union. Regardless of whether the opposition actually had more votes, this opposition movement would immediately regard an Ahmadinejad win as the result of fraud. Large demonstrations would ensue, and if left unopposed, the Islamic republic would come under threat. In doing this, Ahmadinejad’s faction positioned itself against the actuality that such a rising would occur. If it did, Ahmadinejad could claim that the demonstrators were — wittingly or not — operating on behalf of the United States, thus delegitimizing the demonstrators. In so doing, he could discredit supporters of the demonstrators as not tough enough on the United States, a useful charge against Rafsanjani, whom the West long has held up as an Iranian moderate.

Interestingly, while demonstrations were at their height, Ahmadinejad chose to attend — albeit a day late — a multinational Shanghai Cooperation Organization conference in Moscow on the Tuesday after the election. It was very odd that he would leave Iran at the time of the greatest unrest; we assumed that he had decided to demonstrate to Iranians that he didn’t take the demonstrations seriously. The charge that seems to be emerging on the Rafsanjani side is that Ahmadinejad’s fears of a color revolution were not simply political, but were encouraged by the Russians. It was the Russians who had been talking to Ahmadinejad and his lieutenants on a host of issues, who warned him about the possibility of a color revolution. More important, the Russians helped prepare Ahmadinejad for the unrest that would come — and given the Russian experience, how to manage it.

Though we speculate here, if this theory is correct, it could explain some of the efficiency with which Ahmadinejad shut down cell phone and other communications during the postelection unrest, as he may have had Russian advisers. Rafsanjani’s followers were not shouting “Death to Russia” without a reason, at least in their own minds. They are certainly charging that Ahmadinejad took advice from the Russians, and went to Russia in the midst of political unrest for consultations. Rafsanjani’s charge may or may not be true. Either way, there is no question that Ahmadinejad did claim that the United States was planning a color revolution in Iran. If he believed that charge, it would have been irrational not to reach out to the Russians. But whether or not the CIA was involved, the Russians might well have provided Ahmadinejad with intelligence of such a plot and helped shape his response, and thereby may have created a closer relationship with him.

How Iran’s internal struggle will work itself out remains unclear. But one dimension is shaping up: Ahmadinejad is trying to position Rafsanjani as leading a pro-American faction intent on a color revolution, while Rafsanjani is trying to position Ahmadinejad as part of a pro-Russian faction. In this argument, the claim that Ahmadinejad had some degree of advice or collaboration with the Russians is credible, just as the claim that Rafsanjani maintained some channels with the Americans is credible. And this makes an internal dispute geopolitically significant.

The Iranian Struggle in Geopolitical Context

At the moment, Ahmadinejad appears to have the upper hand. Khamenei has certified his re-election. The crowds have dissipated; nothing even close to the numbers of the first few days have since materialized. For Ahmadinejad to lose, Rafsanjani would have to mobilize much of the clergy — many of whom are seemingly content to let Rafsanjani be the brunt of Ahmadinejad’s attacks — in return for leaving their own interests and fortunes intact. There are things that could bring Ahmadinejad down and put Rafsanjani in control, but all of them would require Khamenei to endorse social and political instability, which he will not do.

If the Russians have in fact have intervened in Iran to the extent of providing intelligence to Ahmadinejad and advice to him during his visit on how to handle the postelection unrest (as the chants suggest), then Russian influence in Iran is not surging — it has surged. In some measure, Ahmadinejad would owe his position to Russian warnings and advice. There is little gratitude in the world of international affairs, but Ahmadinejad has enemies, and the Russians would have proven their utility in helping contain those enemies. From the Russian point of view, Ahmadinejad would be a superb asset — even if not truly under their control. His very existence focuses American attention on Iran, not on Russia. It follows, then, that Russia would have made a strategic decision to involve itself in the postelection unrest, and that for the purposes of its own negotiations with Washington, Moscow will follow through to protect the Iranian state to the extent possible. The Russians have already denied U.S. requests for assistance on Iran. But if Moscow has intervened in Iran to help safeguard Ahmadinejad’s position, then the potential increases for Russia to provide Iran with the S-300 strategic air defense systems that it has been dangling in front of Tehran for more than a decade.

If the United States perceives an entente between Moscow and Tehran emerging, then the entire dynamic of the region shifts and the United States must change its game. The threat to Washington’s interests becomes more intense as the potential of a Russian S-300 sale to Iran increases, and the need to disrupt the Russian-Iranian entente would become all the more important. U.S. influence in Iran already has declined substantially, and Ahmadinejad is more distrustful and hostile than ever of the United States after having to deal with the postelection unrest. If a Russian-Iranian entente emerges out of all this — which at the moment is merely a possibility, not an imminent reality — then the United States would have some serious strategic problems on its hands.

Revisiting Assumptions on Iran

For the past few years, STRATFOR has assumed that a U.S. or Israeli strike on Iran was unlikely. Iran was not as advanced in its nuclear program as some claimed, and the complexities of any attack were greater than assumed. The threat of an attack was thus a U.S. bargaining chip, much as Iran’s nuclear program itself was an Iranian bargaining chip for use in achieving Tehran’s objectives in Iraq and the wider region. To this point, our net assessment has been accurate. At this point, however, we need to stop and reconsider. If Iran and Russia begin serious cooperation, Washington’s existing dilemma with Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its ongoing standoff with the Russians would fuse to become a single, integrated problem. This is something the United States would find difficult to manage. Washington’s primary goal would become preventing this from happening. Ahmadinejad has long argued that the United States was never about to attack Iran, and that charges by Rafsanjani and others that he has pursued a reckless foreign policy were groundless. But with the “Death to Russia” chants and signaling of increased Russian support for Iran, the United States may begin to reconsider its approach to the region. Iran’s clerical elite does not want to go to war. They therefore can only view with alarm the recent ostentatious transiting of the Suez Canal into the Red Sea by Israeli submarines and corvettes.

This transiting did not happen without U.S. approval. Moreover, in spite of U.S. opposition to expanded Israeli settlements and Israeli refusals to comply with this opposition, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will be visiting Israel in two weeks. The Israelis have said that there must be a deadline on negotiations with Iran over the nuclear program when the next G-8 meeting takes place in September; a deadline that the G-8 has already approved. The consequences if Iran ignores the deadline were left open-ended. All of this can fit into our old model of psychological warfare, as representing a bid to manipulate Iranian politics by making Ahmadinejad’s leadership look too risky. It could also be the United States signaling the Russians that stakes in the region are rising. It is not clear that the United States has reconsidered its strategy on Iran in the wake of the postelection demonstrations. But if Rafsanjani’s claim of Russian support for Ahmadinejad is true, a massive re-evaluation of U.S. policy could ensue, assuming one hasn’t already started — prompting a reconsideration of the military option.

All of this assumes that there is substance behind a mob chanting “Death to Russia.” There appears to be, but of course, Ahmadinejad’s enemies would want to magnify that substance to its limits and beyond. This is why we are not ready to simply abandon our previous net assessment of Iran, even though it is definitely time to rethink it.

Recent confrontations between Uighurs and Chinese police

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/07/uighur-protest-urumqi-china

Foreign journalists arrived at Urumqi, in an attempt of the authorities to play the transparency game.

The meeting of the "emerging giants"

it's about to start in Yekaterinenburg, Russia. BRIC is made of Brazil, Russia, India and China and are aiming to be recognized as big player in the economic and political international stage.

New pictures from Tiananmen

revealed to The Guardian by an anonimous witness.

Never forget June 4

Tiananmen Square 20 years ago. The events were marked under the repression of the Chinese authorities.

Washington Post

The Guardian

BBC

AFP

FT

NPR

The Geography of Recession

Peter Zeihan
Stratfor.com
June 2



Related Link
Special Series: The Recession Revisited
Special Series: The Financial Crisis

The global recession is the biggest development in the global system in the year to date. In the United States, it has become almost dogma that the recession is the worst since the Great Depression. But this is only one of a wealth of misperceptions about whom the downturn is hurting most, and why.
Let’s begin with some simple numbers.
As one can see in the chart, the U.S. recession at this point is only the worst since 1982, not the 1930s, and it pales in comparison to what is occurring in the rest of the world. (Figures for China have not been included, in part because of the unreliability of Chinese statistics, but also because the country’s financial system is so radically different from the rest of the world as to make such comparisons misleading. For more, read the China section below.)
But didn’t the recession begin in the United States? That it did, but the American system is far more stable, durable and flexible than most of the other global economies, in large part thanks to the country’s geography. To understand how place shapes economics, we need to take a giant step back from the gloom and doom of the current moment and examine the long-term picture of why different regions follow different economic paths.
The United States and the Free Market
The most important aspect of the United States is not simply its sheer size, but the size of its usable land. Russia and China may both be similar-sized in absolute terms, but the vast majority of Russian and Chinese land is useless for agriculture, habitation or development. In contrast, courtesy of the Midwest, the United States boasts the world’s largest contiguous mass of arable land — and that mass does not include the hardly inconsequential chunks of usable territory on both the West and East coasts.
Second is the American maritime transport system. The Mississippi River, linked as it is to the Red, Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee rivers, comprises the largest interconnected network of navigable rivers in the world. In the San Francisco Bay, Chesapeake Bay and Long Island Sound/New York Bay, the United States has three of the world’s largest and best natural harbors. The series of barrier islands a few miles off the shores of Texas and the East Coast form a water-based highway — an Intercoastal Waterway — that shields American coastal shipping from all but the worst that the elements can throw at ships and ports.
The real beauty is that the two overlap with near perfect symmetry. The Intercoastal Waterway and most of the bays link up with agricultural regions and their own local river systems (such as the series of rivers that descend from the Appalachians to the East Coast), while the Greater Mississippi river network is the circulatory system of the Midwest. Even without the addition of canals, it is possible for ships to reach nearly any part of the Midwest from nearly any part of the Gulf or East coasts. The result is not just a massive ability to grow a massive amount of crops — and not just the ability to easily and cheaply move the crops to local, regional and global markets — but also the ability to use that same transport network for any other economic purpose without having to worry about food supplies.
The implications of such a confluence are deep and sustained. Where most countries need to scrape together capital to build roads and rail to establish the very foundation of an economy, transport capability, geography granted the United States a near-perfect system at no cost. That frees up U.S. capital for other pursuits and almost condemns the United States to be capital-rich. Any additional infrastructure the United States constructs is icing on the cake. (The cake itself is free — and, incidentally, the United States had so much free capital that it was able to go on to build one of the best road-and-rail networks anyway, resulting in even greater economic advantages over competitors.)
Third, geography has also ensured that the United States has very little local competition. To the north, Canada is both much colder and much more mountainous than the United States. Canada’s only navigable maritime network — the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway —is shared with the United States, and most of its usable land is hard by the American border. Often this makes it more economically advantageous for Canadian provinces to integrate with their neighbor to the south than with their co-nationals to the east and west.
Similarly, Mexico has only small chunks of land, separated by deserts and mountains, that are useful for much more than subsistence agriculture; most of Mexican territory is either too dry, too tropical or too mountainous. And Mexico completely lacks any meaningful river system for maritime transport. Add in a largely desert border, and Mexico as a country is not a meaningful threat to American security (which hardly means that there are not serious and ongoing concerns in the American-Mexican relationship).
With geography empowering the United States and hindering Canada and Mexico, the United States does not need to maintain a large standing military force to counter either. The Canadian border is almost completely unguarded, and the Mexican border is no more than a fence in most locations — a far cry from the sort of military standoffs that have marked more adversarial borders in human history. Not only are Canada and Mexico not major threats, but the U.S. transport network allows the United States the luxury of being able to quickly move a smaller force to deal with occasional problems rather than requiring it to station large static forces on its borders.
Like the transport network, this also helps the U.S. focus its resources on other things.
Taken together, the integrated transport network, large tracts of usable land and lack of a need for a standing military have one critical implication: The U.S. government tends to take a hands-off approach to economic management, because geography has not cursed the United States with any endemic problems. This may mean that the United States — and especially its government — comes across as disorganized, but it shifts massive amounts of labor and capital to the private sector, which for the most part allows resources to flow to wherever they will achieve the most efficient and productive results.
Laissez-faire capitalism has its flaws. Inequality and social stress are just two of many less-than-desirable side effects. The side effects most relevant to the current situation are, of course, the speculative bubbles that cause recessions when they pop. But in terms of long-term economic efficiency and growth, a free capital system is unrivaled. For the United States, the end result has proved clear: The United States has exited each decade since post-Civil War Reconstruction more powerful than it was when it entered it. While there are many forces in the modern world that threaten various aspects of U.S. economic standing, there is not one that actually threatens the U.S. base geographic advantages.
Is the United States in recession? Of course. Will it be forever? Of course not. So long as U.S. geographic advantages remain intact, it takes no small amount of paranoia and pessimism to envision anything but long-term economic expansion for such a chunk of territory. In fact, there are a number of factors hinting that the United States may even be on the cusp of recovery.
Russia and the State
If in economic terms the United States has everything going for it geographically, then Russia is just the opposite. The Russian steppe lies deep in the interior of the Eurasian landmass, and as such is subject to climatic conditions much more hostile to human habitation and agriculture than is the American Midwest. Even in those blessed good years when crops are abundant in Russia, it has no river network to allow for easy transport of products.
Russia has no good warm-water ports to facilitate international trade (and has spent much of its history seeking access to one). Russia does have long rivers, but they are not interconnected as the Mississippi is with its tributaries, instead flowing north to the Arctic Ocean, which can support no more than a token population. The one exception is the Volga, which is critical to Western Russian commerce but flows to the Caspian, a storm-wracked and landlocked sea whose delta freezes in the winter (along with the entire Volga itself). Developing such unforgiving lands requires a massive outlay of funds simply to build the road and rail networks necessary to achieve the most basic of economic development. The cost is so extreme that Russia’s first ever intercontinental road was not completed until the 21st century, and it is little more than a two-lane path for much of its length. Between the lack of ports and the relatively low population densities, little of Russia’s transport system beyond the St. Petersburg/Moscow corridor approaches anything that hints of economic rationality.
Russia also has no meaningful external borders. It sits on the eastern end of the North European Plain, which stretches all the way to Normandy, France, and Russia’s connections to the Asian steppe flow deep into China. Because Russia lacks a decent internal transport network that can rapidly move armies from place to place, geography forces Russia to defend itself following two strategies. First, it requires massive standing armies on all of its borders. Second, it dictates that Russia continually push its boundaries outward to buffer its core against external threats.
Both strategies compromise Russian economic development even further. The large standing armies are a continual drain on state coffers and the country’s labor pool; their cost was a critical economic factor in the Soviet fall. The expansionist strategy not only absorbs large populations that do not wish to be part of the Russian state and so must constantly be policed — the core rationale for Russia’s robust security services — but also inflates Russia’s infrastructure development costs by increasing the amount of relatively useless territory Moscow is responsible for.
Russia’s labor and capital resources are woefully inadequate to overcome the state’s needs and vulnerabilities, which are legion. These endemic problems force Russia toward central planning; the full harnessing of all economic resources available is required if Russia is to achieve even a modicum of security and stability. One of the many results of this is severe economic inefficiency and a general dearth of an internal consumer market. Because capital and other resources can be flung forcefully at problems, however, active management can achieve specific national goals more readily than a hands-off, American-style model. This often gives the impression of significant progress in areas the Kremlin chooses to highlight.
But such achievements are largely limited to wherever the state happens to be directing its attention. In all other sectors, the lack of attention results in atrophy or criminalization. This is particularly true in modern Russia, where the ruling elite comprises just a handful of people, starkly limiting the amount of planning and oversight possible. And unless management is perfect in perception and execution, any mistakes are quickly magnified into national catastrophes. It is therefore no surprise to STRATFOR that the Russian economy has now fallen the furthest of any major economy during the current recession.
China and Separatism
China also faces significant hurdles, albeit none as daunting as Russia’s challenges. China’s core is the farmland of the Yellow River basin in the north of the country, a river that is not readily navigable and is remarkably flood prone. Simply avoiding periodic starvation requires a high level of state planning and coordination. (Wrestling a large river is not the easiest thing one can do.) Additionally, the southern half of the country has a subtropical climate, riddling it with diseases that the southerners are resistant to but the northerners are not. This compromises the north’s political control of the south.
Central control is also threatened by China’s maritime geography. China boasts two other rivers, but they do not link to each other or the Yellow naturally. And China’s best ports are at the mouths of these two rivers: Shanghai at the mouth of the Yangtze and Hong Kong/Macau/Guangzhou at the mouth of the Pearl. The Yellow boasts no significant ocean port. The end result is that other regional centers can and do develop economic means independent of Beijing.

(click image to enlarge)

With geography complicating northern rule and supporting southern economic independence, Beijing’s age-old problem has been trying to keep China in one piece. Beijing has to underwrite massive (and expensive) development programs to stitch the country together with a common infrastructure, the most visible of which is the Grand Canal that links the Yellow and Yangtze rivers. The cost of such linkages instantly guarantees that while China may have a shot at being unified, it will always be capital-poor.
Beijing also has to provide its autonomy-minded regions with an economic incentive to remain part of Greater China, and “simple” infrastructure will not cut it. Modern China has turned to a state-centered finance model for this. Under the model, all of the scarce capital that is available is funneled to the state, which divvies it out via a handful of large state banks. These state banks then grant loans to various firms and local governments at below the cost of raising the capital. This provides a powerful economic stimulus that achieves maximum employment and growth — think of what you could do with a near-endless supply of loans at below 0 percent interest — but comes at the cost of encouraging projects that are loss-making, as no one is ever called to account for failures. (They can just get a new loan.) The resultant growth is rapid, but it is also unsustainable. It is no wonder, then, that the central government has chosen to keep its $2 trillion of currency reserves in dollar-based assets; the rate of return is greater, the value holds over a long period, and Beijing doesn’t have to worry about the United States seceding.
Because the domestic market is considerably limited by the poor-capital nature of the country, most producers choose to tap export markets to generate income. In times of plenty this works fairly well, but when Chinese goods are not needed, the entire Chinese system can seize up. Lack of exports reduces capital availability, which constrains loan availability. This in turn not only damages the ability of firms to employ China’s legions of citizens, but it also removes the primary reason the disparate Chinese regions pay homage to Beijing. China’s geography hardwires in a series of economic challenges that weaken the coherence of the state and make China dependent upon uninterrupted access to foreign markets to maintain state unity. As a result, China has not been a unified entity for the vast majority of its history, but instead a cauldron of competing regions that cleave along many different fault lines: coastal versus interior, Han versus minority, north versus south.
China’s survival technique for the current recession is simple. Because exports, which account for roughly half of China’s economic activity, have sunk by half, Beijing is throwing the equivalent of the financial kitchen sink at the problem. China has force-fed more loans through the banks in the first four months of 2009 than it did in the entirety of 2008. The long-term result could well bury China beneath a mountain of bad loans — a similar strategy resulted in Japan’s 1991 crash, from which Tokyo has yet to recover. But for now it is holding the country together. The bottom line remains, however: China’s recovery is completely dependent upon external demand for its production, and the most it can do on its own is tread water.
Discordant Europe
Europe faces an imbroglio somewhat similar to China’s.
Europe has a number of rivers that are easily navigable, providing a wealth of trade and development opportunities. But none of them interlinks with the others, retarding political unification. Europe has even more good harbors than the United States, but they are not evenly spread throughout the Continent, making some states capital-rich and others capital-poor. Europe boasts one huge piece of arable land on the North European Plain, but it is long and thin, and so occupied by no fewer than seven distinct ethnic groups.
These groups have constantly struggled — as have the various groups up and down Europe’s seemingly endless list of river valleys — but none has been able to emerge dominant, due to the webwork of mountains and peninsulas that make it nigh impossible to fully root out any particular group. And Europe’s wealth of islands close to the Continent, with Great Britain being only the most obvious, guarantee constant intervention to ensure that mainland Europe never unifies under a single power.
Every part of Europe has a radically different geography than the other parts, and thus the economic models the Europeans have adopted have little in common. The United Kingdom, with few immediate security threats and decent rivers and ports, has an almost American-style laissez-faire system. France, with three unconnected rivers lying wholly in its own territory, is a somewhat self-contained world, making economic nationalism its credo. Not only do the rivers in Germany not connect, but Berlin has to share them with other states. The Jutland Peninsula interrupts the coastline of Germany, which finds its sea access limited by the Danes, the Swedes and the British. Germany must plan in great detail to maximize its resource use to build an infrastructure that can compensate for its geographic deficiencies and link together its good — but disparate — geographic blessings. The result is a state that somewhat favors free enterprise, but within the limits framed by national needs.
And the list of differences goes on: Spain has long coasts and is arid; Austria is landlocked and quite wet; most of Greece is almost too mountainous to build on; it doesn’t get flatter than the Netherlands; tiny Estonia faces frozen seas in the winter; mammoth Italy has never even seen an icebreaker. Even if there were a supranational authority in Europe that could tax or regulate the banking sector or plan transnational responses, the propriety of any singular policy would be questionable at best.
Such stark regional differences give rise to such variant policies that many European states have a severe (and understandable) trust deficit when it comes to any hint of anything supranational. We are not simply taking about the European Union here, but rather a general distrust of anything cross-border in nature. One of the many outcomes of this is a preference for using local banks rather than stock exchanges for raising capital. After all, local banks tend to use local capital and are subject to local regulations, while stock exchanges tend to be internationalized in all respects. Spain, Italy, Sweden, Greece and Austria get more than 90 percent of their financing from banks, the United Kingdom 84 percent and Germany 76 percent — while for the United States it is only 40 percent.
And this has proved unfortunate in the extreme for today’s Europe. The current recession has its roots in a financial crisis that has most dramatically impacted banks, and European banks have proved far from immune. Until Europe’s banks recover, Europe will remain mired in recession. And since there cannot be a Pan-European solution, Europe’s recession could well prove to be the worst of all this time around.

ECFR "China treats EU with diplomatic contempt"

European Council on Foreign Relations

April 17

China is exploiting the EU's divisions and treating the 27-state bloc with "diplomatic contempt" on issues ranging from trade to the Dalai Lama, according to a new policy report by the European Council on Foreign Relations, a leading pan-European think-tank, in close cooperation with Asia Centre at Science Po. Even though China is the EU's second largest trading partner, EU policy still has roots in a time when China was a developing country rather than a diplomatic competitor. Following the failure of the EU to put united demands to China at the G20, it is essential that the EU strikes tougher bargains with Beijing and uses the levers at its disposal- otherwise it will be outmanoeuvred at next month's EU-China summit in Prague.

This analysis comes in the Power Audit of EU-China Relations, the first ever pan-European study of EU-China relations. It is written by John Fox, ECFR Senior Policy Fellow; and Francois Godement, ECFR Senior Policy Fellow, Professor and Director of the Asia Centre at Sciences Po, based on extensive fieldwork and interviews in all twenty-seven member states.

Fox and Godement argue that a policy of "unconditional engagement", in which the EU grants China economic benefits in the hope that this will lead to democratic reform, has failed to achieve advances since it was introduced in the mid-eighties. And jostling for influence in Beijing between member states - especially France, Germany and the UK- means that they have refused to support each other on contentious issues such as meeting the Dalai Lama.

This division and outdated strategy are leading to failure across the domestic and foreign policy agenda:

Economics:

The EU's trade deficit with China has now surpassed the US's to become the largest in the world. Despite enjoying open access in European markets, Beijing has not provided equal access to European companies in China. Chinese markets continue to be protected by a maze of industrial policies, restricted access, and opaque procedures. Access to China' s property market and service sector has been limited, and the Chinese have failed to invest in European public bonds or in private capital markets.

Human Rights:

The EU's 24 formal dialogues with China on human rights have been turned by Beijing into "inconclusive talking shops". Despite twenty years of EU pressure, there is no evidence that European lobbying on human rights such as use of the death penalty and religious freedom have achieved anything.

Foreign Policy:

China has been willing to undermine European efforts to improve the behaviour of regimes in Burma and Darfur, while EU efforts to persuade China to isolate Zimbabwe have had "no impact whatsoever". Despite much-heralded European progress on getting China signed up to sanctions against Iran, they remain so weak that there is every chance they will never prevent Iran becoming a nuclear state.

John Fox and Francois Godement say:

"China has learned to exploit the divisions among EU Member States. It treats its relationship with the EU as a game of chess, with 27 opponents crowding the other side of the board and squabbling about which piece to move."

"Whenever China has shifted its position as a result of European pressure, as on Darfur or nuclear proliferation, it has reacted to a coordinated effort from the most influential member states."

The analysis of the 27 member states conducted in this Power Audit allowed the authors to characterise them on the basis of their relations with China into four groups:

Ideological free traders. Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. Mostly ready to pressure China on politics and mostly opposed to restricting its trade. Their aversion to any form of trade management means that they are unwilling to use trade as a bargaining chip when they are dealing with China's centralised and aggressive trade policy.

Accommodating mercantilists. Bulgaria, Cyprus, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. Share assumption that good political relations with China will lead to commercial benefit. See anti-dumping measures as a useful tool and oppose awarding China Market Economy Status. Compensate for readiness to resort to protectionist measures by shunning confrontation with China on political questions. But they add to European divisions by refusing to bring pressure to bear on Beijing on human rights and other non-trade issues.

Assertive Industrialists. Czech Republic, Germany and Poland. Only group willing to stand up to China vigorously on both political and economic issues. Ready to pressure China with specific demands for a given sector, to support anti-dumping measures, or to threaten other trade actions. They contribute towards European divisions because some, including Germany, have doubts about an integrated EU approach and still prefer to compete with other member states for Beijing's ear.

European followers. Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg and Lithuania. Most European-spirited group and follow, rather than lead. Many do not consider a relationship with China to be central to their foreign policy. Their strategy adds to EU weakness by feeding the perception that China is not a key European priority - even as they rely on EU support to protect them from pressure on issues like Taiwan or Tibet.

RECOMMENDATIONS

• The EU should abandon its policy of "no strings attached" engagement and strike tougher bargains with Beijing. It should offer to lift its embargo on arms sales to China in return for a Chinese commitment to push for stronger sanctions against Iran. Similarly, China could be offered market economy status under WTO rules in exchange for the removal of trade barriers and improved intellectual property-right protection.
  
• EU leaders should declare publicly that they reject any restriction of their right to meet the Dalai Lama - so that individual members cannot be individually punished, as when China retaliated after President Sarkozy met the Dalai Lama by cancelling the EU-China summit in Lyon.
  
• The European Council should launch a major review of EU policy towards China. Member States should "Europeanise" their national cooperation programmes and key dialogues with China: coordination between national governments in the EU has been no effective substitute for a single, focused dialogue or programme with China.

In addition, the EU should:

• Establish a permanent "open troika" system for engaging China on priority topics. The troika-which would comprise the current and next presidencies and the Commission-should also be open to Member States that would demonstrably contribute on the issue; producing a study of a relevant topic or funding for a project could serve as entry requirements. This open troika format should extend to representation at EU-China summits.
• Press Beijing to grant EU officials increased access to Chinese government machinery - and explain that access to officials in Europe may be limited for Chinese officials if this is not forthcoming.
• Protect European intellectual property by buying partial ownership of the key technologies and patents it helps develop, so as to improve control of technology transfers to China and fend off pressure that Chinese government partners now exert on Europeans to share their knowhow.
• Offer security cooperation with African governments to protect Chinese activities and investments against security threats. This commitment should be traded for greater Chinese support for peacekeeping operations in Africa.
• Offer China a technology transfer package of key energy-efficient and renewable technologies, including EU funding and knowhow transfer. In return, China should commit to a global stabilization goal and to specific domestic targets on emissions in post-2012 negotiations.
• Facilitate Chinese investment in transport infrastructure, energy distribution and telecoms, in exchange for China opening up its infrastructure projects to foreign firms and removing ownership restrictions on Chinese firms.

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. "Power Audit of EU-China Relations" was written by John Fox, Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations; and Francois Godement, Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, Professor and Director of the Asia Centre at Sciences Po.

2. This report, like all ECFR publications, represents the views of its authors, not the collective position of ECFR or its Council Members.

3. Power Audit of EU-China Relations assigned scores to Member States' individual policies and actions towards China. The main policies actions scored were: position on Taiwan, position on Tibet/willingness to meet the Dalai Lama, prominence of human rights issues, willingness to raise global issues with China (Iran, Sudan etc.), voting on anti-dumping issues, position on trade deficit, attitude towards Chinese investment in Europe, and more broadly the nature of political statements on China. Member States were scored for actions that were respectively more supportive or critical of China, and to the top or bottom for actions that were more free-trade or protectionist.

4. Mr. Fox can be reached for comment at john.fox@ecfr.eu or on +44 7796 938 268. Mr. Godement can be reached for comment at francois.godement@ecfr.eu or on +33 1 75 43 63 20.

5. For all media enquiries please email press@ecfr.eu or telephone +44 20 7031 1623

6. Launched in October 2007, the European Council on Foreign Relations is a pan-European think tank and advocacy group, co-chaired by Martti Ahtisaari, Joschka Fischer and Mabel van Oranje. European Council on Foreign Relations - www.ecfr.eu

7. Founded in 2005, Asia Centre conducts research and organizes debates on international relations and strategic issues, as well as on the political and economic transformations of the Asia-Pacific, and promotes cooperation and second track dialogue with partners in Asia, Europe and elsewhere in the world. Asia Centre is based at SciencesPo., the Institute of political science of Paris www.centreasia.org

ASEAN leaders 'understand' summit's end

UPI
April 11

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao says Association of Southeast Asian Nations leaders understand the Thai government's decision to cancel this weekend's summit.

Wen spoke by telephone Saturday to his Thai counterpart, Abhisit Vejjajiva, who extended to China, Japan and South Korea the government's "profound apology" for canceling the summit. Abhisit made the move after red-shirted anti-government protesters broke into the hotel in Pattaya, Thailand, where the ASEAN summit was being held, the state-run Chinese news agency Xinhua reported.

Wen said China, which holds the group's rotating presidency, will "strive to strengthen its friendly and mutually beneficial cooperation with the ASEAN and support its integration process."

Thai media reported that ASEAN leaders will meet again in Bangkok in August to sign free-trade agreements with China and India in the wake of the canceled summit, Xinhua said.

Red Alert: Redefining the Global System

Stratfor

April 1

From Europe to Turkey, world leaders are coming together this week for a slew of global summits. There is much for these world leaders to discuss: the global financial infrastructure is now up for debate, the jihadist war continues to rage in South Asia, the Russians are locked into intractable negotiations with the Americans over the boundaries of the former Soviet sphere of influence, and the Turks are returning to their great power past.

These summits are not just about photo-ops and handshakes. Taken together, this array of diplomatic meetings constitute the greatest density of decision points in the modern world since the summits that brought about the end of the Cold War. This is a time when the true colors of nation-states come out, as each fights for their political, economic and security interests behind a thin veneer of global cooperation.

With geopolitical boundaries being redrawn across the world, STRATFOR has a responsibility to penetrate the media glitz and read through the lines of diluted joint statements and press conferences to explain to our readers the core issues at stake for each player involved. Through our extensive coverage in this week’s Global Summit series, our intent has been to do just that.

Midway through the bilateral summits, we have yet to see any major surprises deviating from our assessments. In the lead-up to the G-20 summit in London, the Americans and the Germans will be at the core of the debate over how to restructure the global financial system. The Americans, the British and the Japanese believe stimulus is the way to go to put the global economy back on track, while Germany, the economic heavyweight of Europe, prefers instead to export its way out of the recession. This is not a debate that will be resolved by the end of this summit (if at all), leaving G-20 members and the struggling economies watching from the outside with the impression that they have little choice but to fend for themselves in this severe economic environment.

The Americans do not just disagree with the Europeans on economics — in spite of Europe’s enthusiasm for U.S. President Barack Obama, the EU members at the summit made clear their unwillingness to make any meaningful contributions to the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan beyond a few aid packages. With the Western coalition in Afghanistan looking more and more like a one-man show, the Americans are branching out of their post-World War II system of alliance in search of new strategic partners. The United States has found one such partner in Turkey, where Obama will be wrapping up his visit on April 6-7. This will demonstrate to allies and adversaries alike that Washington embraces a greater Turkish role in global affairs that stretch from the Islamic World to the Russian periphery.

The summits thus far have given the Russians plenty to chew on. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev came to the G-20 ready to negotiate with Obama on a slew of issues that revolve around a core Russian imperative of consolidating power in the former Soviet periphery. A look at the joint statement and press conferences from the Obama-Medvedev meetings might leave one with the impression that the Americans and the Russians are ready to cooperate, but in reality, all they could really boast about was a commitment to restart talks on nuclear disarmament, leaving a host of outstanding critical issues in limbo. It is quite apparent that the United States has its hands full, but Obama still let the Russians know that he does not intend sit back and allow Moscow to have its way with Eurasia. The Russians now have a better idea of Obama’s boundaries in these negotiations, but their priorities have not changed; Moscow still has ways of grabbing Washington’s attention.

It has been a roller coaster ride thus far, with still more to come. Before Obama makes his way to Turkey, he still has to touch base with his NATO allies in Prague. With the Russians ready to play hardball and the balance of the Eurasian landmass still in flux, these meetings will be anything but bland. Meanwhile, STRATFOR’s team of expert analysts will be working to provide their members with the analytical context to find significant meaning from these summits. A redefinition of global systems is taking place that will carry well into the future, and STRATFOR is here to provide the historical and analytical record.