Asia Pacific Research

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The tiny Southeast Asian city-state of Singapore serves as a sort of bellwether for a multitude of trends from economics to geopolitics. The Singaporean government is able to quickly and flexibly adapt to changing trends, more so than anywhere else, because of its small size – an advantage that Singapore enjoys and which compensates for its many disadvantages as a small city-state of only 5.7 million people.

The most recent example of Singapore’s role as an economic and geopolitical bellwether was during US Vice President Kamala Harris’ tour of several Southeast Asian nations including Singapore. The visit itself, as well as how Western and Chinese media covered it, speaks volumes to the changes we are seeing in the Indo-Pacific region and how well or poorly America’s strategy of encircling and containing China is going.

Let’s first look at how the Western media covered Vice President Harris’ visit to Singapore.

AP in its article, “Harris meets with Singapore officials to begin Asia visit,” would begin by claiming:

The White House on Monday announced a series of new agreements with Singapore aimed at combating cyberthreats, tackling climate change, addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and alleviating supply chain issues. The announcements coincide with Vice President Kamala Harris’ visit to the region, as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to counter Chinese influence there.

The article spends several paragraphs describing otherwise ambiguous “partnerships” and “agreements” discussed, made, or deepened during the visit and then doubled down on emphasizing “countering China,” saying:

Harris’ Southeast Asian trip, which brings Harris to Singapore and then later to Vietnam this week, is aimed at broadening cooperation with both nations to offer a counterweight to China’s growing influence in the region.

The article notes that Singapore hosts a US naval presence but that it also seeks to maintain strong ties with China. This is not surprising as over 70% of Singapore’s population is Chinese and Chinese citizens have been coming to Singapore for years to study and work and more importantly, learn from Singapore’s technocratic and meritocratic style of governance.

Beijing’s non-interference approach to foreign policy and its business-first emphasis provides it an advantage over Washington’s insistence on injecting itself into everything from domestic politics under the guise of “human rights” advocacy, to pressuring nations in the region, including Singapore, to join it in transforming ordinary maritime disputes in the South China Sea into a regional or even international crisis.

Singapore’s small size means that it must bend with the geopolitical wind in terms of both strength and direction. During the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, Singapore’s policies reflected America’s still very strong grip on global pharmaceutical production and distribution.

In other fields, however, especially in terms of economics and geopolitics, the US is faltering, and as it does, Singapore’s stance has begun to increasingly reflect this. Buried deep within AP’s article, almost toward the bottom, it finally admits:

Indeed, Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said in a recent interview that Singapore will “be useful but we will not be made use of” in its relations with both countries, and the nation’s prime minister previously warned the US against pursuing an aggressive approach to China.

Southeast Asia counts China as its largest trade partner, investor, source of tourism, an increasingly important military and infrastructure partner, and – in general – the engine of growth and development for the entire region. Singapore is no exception, and thus does not seek nor desires America’s “counterweight” to what Singapore itself sees as constructive ties it will benefit from by expanding further.

Next, let’s take a look at how Chinese state media presented US Vice President Kamala Harris’ visit to Singapore and the notion of the US providing a “counterweight” to Singapore-Chinese ties.

The Global Times in its article, “Singapore draws line between ‘being useful’ and ‘being made use of’,” in title alone skips past the protocols and pleasantries AP attempted to focus on in its article, and gets directly to the heart of Washington’s true purpose in sending Vice President Harris to Southeast Asia – recruiting nations into its encirclement and containment policy versus China.

The article’s first paragraph says it all:

As a quasi-ally of the US, Singapore’s stance toward the US and China is telling. Singapore’s Channel News Asia released on Sunday an interview with Vivian Balakrishnan, the country’s foreign minister who said Singapore will “be useful but we will not be made use of” in its relations with both China and the US. He also said Singapore will not become “one or the other’s stalking horse to advance negative agendas.”

The article distills the matter further by stating:

The US has ratcheted up efforts to win over Southeast Asian countries, manifested by Harris’ visit to Singapore and Vietnam and other senior US officials’ tours to the region in the past two months. Yet it will only enable Southeast Asian countries to see that the US is taking advantage of the situation and only focusing on its own interests. Washington does not view them as real partners, but as tools it can exploit to serve its strategies. The US debacle in Afghanistan is the very example that when the US finds it not cost-effective, it will only abandon its allies or partners without hesitation.

And it is very difficult to argue against this very important point.

The US spent two-decades occupying and running Afghanistan. After twenty years, what the US “built” in terms of “reconstruction” collapsed almost overnight and those it had promised to back as American allies found themselves clinging to US aircraft attempting to escape a country the US used, abused, and is now in the process of discarding.

Worse still for Washington’s reputation as a “reliable partner,” China has already begun real reconstruction in Afghanistan – even before the US has completed its withdrawal. Roads, rail, and factories are already in use and standing-by for a greater commitment and expansion from Beijing and Chinese enterprises both state and private after the US fully withdraws.

The difference between US contractors and Chinese enterprises is that US contractors came to Afghanistan to fulfill specific projects and would then leave to spend their money back home. Little concern was given to whether or not these projects succeeded – and in reality – if they failed it would only mean more lucrative contracts in the future to try again.

For Chinese enterprises, the idea is to do business in Afghanistan. Peace, stability, and well-developed infrastructure, and a well-developed, prosperous market among Afghans are the keys to their success.

Thus we see a perfect example of how the outcomes of partnerships with either the US or China are designed into the actual processes involved in these partnerships. The US pursues a purely exploitative model which could not even really be accurately described as a “partnership.” China, on the other hand, depends on actual partnership – on win-win outcomes between China and its partners to facilitate profits and progress for its own interests.

One of these models over the past twenty years has revealed itself an absolute failure. The other has helped highlight this failure and provides an alternative for nations faced with picking the former.

There is no reason to believe US foreign policy changes at its core when its focus moves from Central Asia to Southeast Asia. In fact, it is very obvious that it hasn’t. The exact same “development” mechanisms used to loot and abuse Afghans are presented to ASEAN as a “counterweight” to China in the Indo-Pacific region. These include an overemphasis on military alliances, dependence on USAID, and interference in and even the commandeering of regional and national internal political affairs, all the unsolicited hallmarks of US foreign policy and “partnership” regardless of geography.

While over-dependence on any particular country is not desirable – and a balance in international relations is desirable – just as one seeks to balance their own diet. And just like when balancing a diet, adding poison is not an option. The United States as “the nation” represents attractive markets, a large pool of talent and hard working people – but as long as Washington is there to spike any nation’s interaction with US “the nation” with its toxic foreign policy objectives – it remains unpalatable, so much so that even tiny city-states like Singapore have begun expressing as much publicly.

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Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Featured image is from NEO

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Refugees and asylum seekers provide rich pickings for demagogues and political opportunists.  The Australian approach politicises their plight by arguing that they are illegitimate depending on the way they arrive, namely, by boat.  The twentieth anniversary of the MV Tampa’s attempt to dock at Christmas Island with over 400 such individuals inaugurated a particularly vicious regime.  Intercepted by Australia’s SAS forces in August 2001, it presented the Howard government with a stupendously cruel chance to garner votes.  And my, did that government garner them with gusto.

Various European countries have also adopted an approach akin to this: naval arrivals from the Middle East and Africa are to be contained, detained, and preferably processed in third countries through a range of agreements.  The common theme to all: firm border controls and deterrence.

Belarus has added another option to the armoury of refugee use and abuse.  The country, under Alexander Lukashenko, has hit upon a shoddy plan to harry countries sympathetic to his opponents and responsible for imposing sanctions upon his regime: swamp them.  First: entice refugees and migrants from a number of countries – Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria and Cameroon – to arrive on tourist visas.  Mobilise said people to move across the Polish, Lithuanian and Latvian borders.

Descriptions have been offered for the strategy.  Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis considered the acts on the part of Belarus as a “hybrid war operation” that threatened, he claimed with dramatic effect, “the entire European Union”.  In July, he told Deutsche Welle that the refugees concerned were being used as “human shields” and a type of “hybrid weapon”.   Lithuanian Deputy Interior Minister Arnoldas Abramavičius resented his country’s border guards “acting as a kind of hotel reception for the migrants for a long time. That had to stop.”

Member states have been sharing experiences on how best to deal with the surge in these Lukashenko arrivals.  In a meeting between Landsbergis and his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias in June, much solidarity was felt in discussing how to combat a common threat.  Human rights proved to be less important than territorial integrity and European defence.  As the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry stated, both ministers “underscored the importance of European solidarity and the need to pay attention to the processes in the EU neighbourhood, as well as to be ready to respond to dangerous threats emerging from the EU’s neighbourhood.”

Guards along the Lithuanian border had, up till August, intercepted approximately 4,100 refugees and asylum seekers this year alone.  Last year, that number was a mere 81.  The numbers prompted the Baltic state to declare a state of emergency in July.  The resources of Frontex, that less than transparent body otherwise known as the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, deployed personnel with haste that same month to aid policing the border with Lithuania and Latvia.

According to Frontex, the initial support would involve “border surveillance and other border management functions.  The operation will start with the deployment of 10 officers with patrol cars, and their numbers will be gradually increased.” 

The agency’s executive director Fabrice Leggeri was brimming with praise for the organisation’s military-styled prowess, suggesting aid in the face of threatening barbarians at the frontier of Europe.  “The quick deployment in support of Lithuania and Latvia highlights the value of the Frontex standing troops, which allows the Agency to quickly react to unexpected challenges, bringing European solidarity to support Member States at the external borders.” 

Humanitarianism is the last thing on Leggeri’s mind as he speaks about the role of “additional border guards and patrol guards by Frontex” as they “work side-by-side with their Latvian and Lithuanian colleagues” to “protect our external borders” in common cause.

Earlier this month Poland joined Lithuania with alarmist fervour, declaring a state of emergency.  It served the purpose of needlessly militarising the situation even as it appealed to the inner jingo.  Tellingly, it is the first such order since the country’s communist era, proscribing mass gatherings and limiting people’s movements within a 3 km strip of land along the frontier for 30 days.  Marta Anna Kurzyniec, resident of the Polish border town of Krynki, described an atmosphere that was “generally violent”.  There were “uniformed, armed servicemen everywhere … it reminds me of war.”

To the use of troops can be added such inhospitable barriers as the construction of a 508 km razor-wire fence by the Lithuanian authorities.  Lithuania’s Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte considered it an essential part of her country’s strategy of repelling unwanted arrivals. “The physical barrier is vital to repel this hybrid attack, which the Belarus regime is undertaking against Lithuania.”

Political figures such as Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Lithuania’s Landsbergis have also encouraged disseminating stern messages of disapproval to those trying to enter their countries.  “We need to inform the people that they are being lied to,” huffed Landsbergis.  “They are being promised an easy passage to Europe, a very free life in Europe.  This is not going to happen.”  Morawiecki, despite claiming some sympathy for “the migrants who have been in an extremely difficult situation” felt that “it should be clearly stated that they are a political instrument.”

The situation has also seen the European Court of Human Rights make a much needed appearance in its request that both Poland and Latvia “provide all the applicants with food, water, clothing, adequate medical care and, if possible, temporary shelter.”  The Court, however, wanted it known “that this measure should not be understood as requiring that Poland or Latvia let the applicants enter their territories.”  

The Polish government, for its part, insists that their hearts have not hardened, dabbling in its own bit of dissembling for the press.  As a spokeswoman for the interior ministry claimed, “These people are on the Belarusian side of the border.”

The manipulation of such human traffic created its fair share of bestial realities ignoring the fundamentals of the UN Refugee Convention and an assortment of international instruments, including the Geneva Convention.  This is particularly so regarding a number of Afghan refugees who find themselves stuck at Usnarz Gorny, 55 km east of Bialystok.  “They’re the victims of the political game between countries,” came the accurate assessment from Amnesty International Poland’s Aleksandra Fertlinska.  “But what is the most important is that it doesn’t matter what is the source of this political game.  They are refugees, and they are protected by [the] Geneva Convention what we need to do is accept them.” 

One Iraqi refugee by the name of Slemen, finding himself in the drenched environs of Rūdninki, some 38 kilometres from the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, offers his own relevant observation.  “Just because we came through Belarus doesn’t make us bad people,” he explained to Der Spiegel. But bad he, and his fellow travellers, are being made out to be by states who overlook the compassion of processing claims in favour of an instinctive politics stressing deluge and threat rather than salvation and hope

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image: Australian refugees detained at the Kangaroo Point Central Hotel, Brisbane | CNN

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The land Down Under appears to be reverting back to its original status as a penal colony as government officials, looking more like prison wardens than any servants of the people, clamp down on demonstrators weary of more Covid lockdowns.

A heavy police presence in the major Australian cities on the weekend didn’t stopped thousands of protesters from taking to the streets in what many saw as a last-ditch effort to protect their severely threatened liberties and freedoms.

The protests came after New South Wales announced its second extended lockdown, which puts Sydney’s 5 million residents under strict curfew conditions until mid-September. The wait will seem all the more excruciating, however, as rumors are flying that the shelter in place orders may be extended all the way until January.

I'm really depressed. I see no end to this nightmarish tyranny.

I just want to leave Australia and never come back.

— Geronimo 🇦🇺 (@NototyrannyNOW) August 20, 2021

Meanwhile in Melbourne, Australia’s second largest city behind Sydney, citizens face similar restrictions, which mean that – aside from going shopping within a designated radius from their homes, exercising for an hour a day outdoors, and going to work so long as they are engaged in “essential employment” – have essentially become prisoners inside of their own homes.

At this point in Australia’s history, the only thing that remains certain is the uncertainty, which makes the lockdowns all the more unbearable.

Images from Australia’s two major cities on Saturday showed powder keg conditions as demonstrators squared off against police, who responded with batons, pepper spray and mass arrests (It will interesting to see if Big Media describes the police actions against the lockdown protesters in the same compassionate way it described the actions taken against Australia’s very own Black Lives Matter protests around the same time last year. As the Guardian sympathetically reported: “At least 20,000 attended the Sydney [BLM] march which passed off peacefully, except for ugly scenes when police officers used pepper spray on protesters who had flowed into Central station after the rally finished.” It will be advisable not to hold your breath). In live footage obtained by Facebook user ‘Real Rukshan,’ large groups of police are seen confronting individual citizens, seemingly guilty of nothing else aside from just being there.

In one scene (at the 2:10 marker), an elderly man who appears to be leaving a Starbuck’s coffee shop is surrounded by no less than five police officers, who proceed to handcuff the man and, presumably, take him to prison. In another scene (at the 0:30 mark), two men are seen standing in front of the Bank of Melbourne confronted by six officers. In front of them on the street are four mounted officers astride anxious horses. The feeling conjured up in these incidences is the same: authoritarian police-state overkill.

Given the massive police presence amid the steady deterioration of basic human rights a person might get the impression that Australia is really dealing with an existential crisis. While that may be true with regards to obesity, drug abuse and homelessness, it seems to be a real exaggeration when it comes to Covid-19. After all, while evidence of the above mentioned scourges is visible everywhere in the country, the only place the coronavirus seems to exist in Australia is on the nightly news channels (which, by the way, have done a very poor job of keeping their audiences up to date on latest developments. Sources in New Zealand, for example, have informed that the media there has largely ignored the story of anti-lockdown protests happening just across the Tasman Sea).

For example, New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian, in an effort to portray the pandemic as enemy number one, expressed from the boob tube her “deepest, deepest sympathies” to the families of three people who died overnight from/with the coronavirus. Who were these fatalities? The public was not informed of their identities, but Berejiklian described them as “a man in his 80s, and a man in his 90s, and a female in her 90s.”

It’s just a hunch, but could the comorbidity in each of those “tragic” cases have been that silent killer popularly known as ripe old age? Yes, every life is precious and worth saving, but is Australian officialdom secretly shooting for absolute immortality among the population and not just prevention? That would certainly be the height of irony if true considering that the effort is killing just about everyone. In fact, it seems that the real pandemic attacking the Australian people is government-sponsored fear.

Meanwhile, Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews added insult to injury when he commanded from his bully pulpit that citizens, now deprived of their favorite drinking holes to while away the jobless hours, were forbidden from removing their masks to drink alcohol in the great outdoors. As to whether the consumption of a non-alcoholic beverage outdoors would also fall within the tight confines of the mask regime, dear leader did not say. However, the answer seems pretty clear since the state is actually using police helicopters to shoo away sunbathers from the nation’s many famous beaches.

People are letting off flares now on Lonsdale Street in the CBD for the anti-lockdown protest, choppers are overhead. @theage pic.twitter.com/xbkNbeuPIS

— Cassie Morgan (@cassieemorgan) August 21, 2021

All of this insanity has befallen the people Down Under after the continent has witnessed the barest uptick of Covid cases. In the state of New South Wales, for example, where Sydney is located, there were just 825 acquired infections reported on Saturday, an increase from the 644 the day prior. In the state of Victoria, home to Melbourne, the situation appears even less worrying, with just 61 cases reported as of Saturday. These low infection rates, taken together with a high level of public skepticism with regards to the safety of the Covid vaccines, translates into just 29 percent of the population opting to be jabbed to date.

.@ScottMorrisonMP has presided over the biggest Big State government that Australia has ever seen.

And don't try to tell me #covid19 is an extraordinary circumstance.

We've had two World Wars, Spanish Flu and the Great Depression and NEVER has the government behaved this badly.

— Alexandra Marshall (@ellymelly) August 22, 2021

So as the petty tyrants Down Under seem more concerned with getting every single Australian citizen the Big Pharma jab – together with the lifetime of booster shots and lockdowns that will certainly follow – the populace is more concerned about how to save their collective health, sanity and jobs. That’s no easy task when the police give a hard time even to people who are found to be walking their dogs without a face mask on. These days even man’s best friend seems to have it better than the people struggling to survive Down Under.

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Robert Bridge is an American writer and journalist.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.

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As tensions continue to mount between Washington and Beijing, examples continue to abound comparing and contrasting the approaches used by both global powers regarding foreign policy.

Another recent example on stark display is the US and China’s respective approaches to Vietnam – a nation both countries have had rocky and even hostile relations with in the past. Both nations waged armed conflict on Vietnam last century. The nearly 20 year-long US war with Vietnam was decidedly much more catastrophic than the month-long failed invasion launched by China.

The US only normalized its relations with Vietnam in 1997, China having done so a few years earlier in 1991.

Since then Vietnam’s main benefits from both nations have been economic.

Follow the Money, Follow the Trade 

In 1997, according to Harvard University’s Atlas of Economic Complexity, Japan stood as Vietnam’s largest export market accounting for 24.22% of all exports from Vietnam, with the US and China accounting for 4.15% and 4.48% respectively (Hong Kong accounting for an additional 3.23% in China’s favor).

Also in 1997, 9.5% of Vietnam’s imports came from China versus 2.45% from the United States. In 2019, the numbers told a very different story. China is now Vietnam’s largest export market standing at 21.45% versus the United States at 19.26%. China is also Vietnam’s largest source of imports at 36.36% versus the US at 4.07%.

Between 1997 and 2019 Europe has slipped from Vietnam’s second largest regional export market to third, behind Asia and North America (primarily the US).

Trade with China is vastly important to Vietnam’s economy. Access to additional markets is also a priority for Vietnam. Considering this very important fact, what is it that Beijing and Washington bring to the table to address this primary concern and how will this play out in the near and long-term regarding current US-China tensions?

What Did Kamala Harris Bring to the Table During Her Recent Visit to Vietnam?

AP News in its August 2021 article, “Harris urges Vietnam to join US in opposing China ‘bullying,’” lays out the bleak proposition offered to Hanoi by Washington – to join the US in a growing conflict against Vietnam’s largest trading partner.

The article notes:

“We need to find ways to pressure and raise the pressure, frankly, on Beijing to abide by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and to challenge its bullying and excessive maritime claims,” she said in remarks at the opening of a meeting with Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

Obviously, by joining the US in “pressuring” China regarding the South China Sea, Vietnam would endanger its diplomatic and economic ties with China. It could also potentially trigger a security crisis with China – a nation it shares a 1,297 km long border with.

It should be noted that despite Washington’s oversimplification and exaggeration of the South China Sea situation, the reality is much more complicated and much less a threat to regional or global stability. Disputes are between not only Southeast Asian nations and China, but also among Southeast Asian states themselves.

For example Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia all have overlapping claims within the South China Sea with each other in addition to with China, resulting in minor incidents that are often resolved quickly and bilaterally. The US has deliberately injected itself into these disputes in an attempt to transform them into a regional or even international crisis it can leverage against China.

In essence, the US is trying to recruit Vietnam into an imaginary and absolutely needless conflict that would ensnare Hanoi in a security alliance with the US at the expense of constructive ties with China. It would also risk destabilizing the region in which Vietnam resides – endangering political and economic stability required for its peace and prosperity.

Then there is what the US offers in return – aid – with AP noting:

The new US aid to Vietnam includes investments to help the country transition to cleaner energy systems and expand the use of electric vehicles, and millions in aid to clear unexploded weapons left over from the Vietnam War.

Regarding “cleaner energy,” this may refer to US pressure on Vietnam to avoid construction of cheaper coal-fired power plants built in cooperation with China in favor of more expensive liquid natural gas (LNG) plants built through US financing and fired with US-delivered LNG. US LNG will also be more expensive and can only be “competitive” through a constant and ever-expanding regime of sanctions and conflicts used to make cheaper alternatives inaccessible.

Also noted was the US elevating its diplomatic relationship with Vietnam from a “comprehensive partnership” to a “strategic partnership,” although this is clearly being done as a means for Washington to use Vietnam amid its current regional confrontation – even as it provides token “investments” to clean up unexploded ordnance (UXO) from its last confrontation in the region – with Vietnam itself.

In essence, the US promise to Vietnam is to enlist it as a pawn in a Washington-engineered confrontation with Vietnam’s geographical neighbor and its largest trading partner. Little was indicated by Washington as to what Vietnam would gain from “signing up” beyond the token “investments” offered in areas like pharmaceuticals and UXO removal or its coercive “cleaner energy” plans involving overpriced US-delivered LNG.

China Skips Promises, Puts Beijing-Hanoi Ties into Practice

Compare US Vice President Kamala Harris’ trip to Vietnam and the token aid and promises of ensnaring conflict offered by Washington to recent news regarding Vietnam-China relations.

Xinhua reported the first China-Europe freight train connection between Hanoi, Vietnam-Zhengzhou, China-Liege, Belgium.

Vietnam’s inclusion into China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) through the “New Silk Road” has been long in the making with several rail routes explored to connect Vietnam more readily with China and then to extend Vietnam’s reach into international markets through China’s China-Europe railway. With the first Vietnamese goods now reaching Belgium, the tangible economic benefits of good ties with China are demonstrated rather than pontificated.

Viet Nam News in its article, “Vietnam Railways launches freight train service to Belgium,” would report:

Vietnam Railways (VNR) on July 20 added a new rail freight link from Việt Nam to Belgium, with the first train departing from Yên Viên station, Hà Nội, and expected to arrive at Liege City in Belgium.

It would also note:

VNR said the train carried 23 containers with such goods as textile, leather and footwear.  During its journey, the train will stop at Zhenzhou City of China’s Henan Province and connect to the Asia-Europe train to reach its destination.

As the service gains popularity with companies both in Europe and in Vietnam and as China continues expanding the capacity of its New Silk Road rail lines in between, this trade will only further expand, competing with maritime shipping in terms of economics and shipping time, as well as in terms of circumventing maritime security threats and bottlenecks.

Vietnam will have the opportunity to expand its trade with Europe by diversifying its exports thanks to new options available to ship them. The New Silk Road also passes through Russia and Central Asia with new routes being planned. Vietnamese exports and thus the Vietnamese economy stands to gain thanks to China and the access it provides Vietnam through the BRI – the BRI the US is committed to not only “countering” through proposed “alternatives,” but also and perhaps primarily through physically cutting it off using state-sponsored terrorism as observed in Baluchistan, Pakistan and across Myanmar currently.

Vietnam, like many nations in Southeast Asia seeks to diversify its diplomatic and economic relations to avoid overdependence. While this presents a huge opportunity for the US, Washington lacks the tools to properly exploit it. Instead, it uses the smokescreen of providing an alternative to the BRI to continue doing what it has always done, seek political and economic control over other nations, impeding their growth to both deny them as prosperous partners for adversaires like Russia and China, but to also prevent them from independently competing against US interests in the region and around the globe.

Ultimately and regardless of Beijing and Washington’s past relations with Vietnam, the question must be asked; today, who stands most to benefit from a prosperous Vietnam and why? For Beijing, it stands to benefit from Vietnam as a potential market for its goods as well as from the growth of Vietnamese exports flowing over its New Silk Road.

For Washington, it benefits only as far as it can use Vietnam to encircle and contain China – a proposition that benefits the peace and prosperity neither of Vietnam nor the region it resides in.

China is offering Vietnam continued opportunities to expand trade and economic prosperity. The US seems to be offering the very opposite – courses of action aimed at restraining or even endangering trade and prosperity.

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Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Featured image is from NEO

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Australia’s new spy bill amendment, which was rushed through parliament in less than 24 hours, gives authorities powers to modify, add, copy or delete data on people’s phones or social media accounts.

The legislation is being described as ‘absolutely disgusting’ and in ‘contempt of democracy’ by some senators. 

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Abstract: When taking up the unlearned lessons of Fukushima, one of the biggest may have been the need for more robust oversight of the nuclear industry. In Japan, the failure of the major national news media to scrutinize the industry and hold it accountable was particularly glaring. Despite their own claims to serve as watchdogs on officialdom, the major media have instead covered Japan’s powerful nuclear industry with a mix of silent complicity and outright boosterism. This is true both before and after the Fukushima disaster. In the decades after World War II, when the nuclear industry was established, media played an active role in overcoming public resistance to atomic energy and winning at least passive acceptance of it as a science-based means for Japan to secure energy autonomy.

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During the Fukushima disaster, the media served government objectives such as preservation of social order by playing down the size of the accident and severity of radiological releases, resulting in widely divergent coverage from serious overseas media. While a short-lived proliferation of more critical and independent coverage followed the disaster, the old patterns returned with a vengeance after the installment of the pro-nuclear administration of Abe Shinzō. This article will examine the roots of the Japanese media’s failure to challenge or scrutinize the nuclear industry, and how this complicity has played out in the post-Fukushima era. It will use a historical analysis to look at how the current patterns of media coverage were actually established in the immediate postwar period, and the formation of public support for civilian nuclear power.

During my 15 years as a foreign correspondent in Tokyo, including a six-year stint as Tokyo bureau chief of The New York Times (2009-2015), I often covered the same news events as Japanese journalists, standing shoulder-to-shoulder at more press conferences than we’d care to count. While I admire many Japanese colleagues individually as journalists, I was frequently struck by the shortcomings of Japan’s big domestic media and Japanese journalism as an institution.

But never did I feel these structural weaknesses as keenly as I did in the tense weeks that followed the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

In Minami-soma, a city 25 kilometers north of the stricken plant, where some 20,000 remaining residents were cut off from supplies of food, fuel and medicines, I discovered that journalists from major Japanese media were nowhere to be seen. They had withdrawn from Minami-soma, forbidden by their editors in Tokyo from approaching within 30 or 40 kilometers of Fukushima Daiichi.

By doing so, they had essentially abandoned the already isolated residents. But you would never know that from the media’s stories, which made no mention of their own pull out or the perceived risks that had prompted this retreat. Instead, the main newspaper articles uniformly repeated official reassurances that there was no cause for alarm because the radiation posed “no immediate danger to human health,” as the chief cabinet secretary at the time, Edano Yukio, so famously put it.¹

The mismatch between word and deed—between what the newspapers were telling their audiences and what they were actually doing to protect their own journalists—was glaring. It turned out that this was only the first of several instances during the Fukushima disaster where I witnessed Japan’s major media adhering to the official narrative regardless of the facts on the ground. I refer to this phenomenon as “media capture,” borrowing from the more widely used term “regulatory capture,” which is used to describe a similar failure of government oversight of the nuclear industry.

Over the months and years that followed the meltdowns, I saw numerous instances of national media refusing to take a critical or distanced stance in their coverage of the nuclear industry and its government regulators. Instead, they repeatedly chose to internalize the official narratives and even adhere to the government-approved language. We saw this is the widely diverging narratives that started appearing in the serious foreign press versus the major domestic media as the accident worsened.

To cite a straightforward example, we started using the word “meltdown” within hours of the first reactor building explosion at the plant, reflecting the almost unanimous view of outside experts that a melting fuel core was the only realistic source of the hydrogen that caused the blast. However, the domestic national dailies and NHK avoided the word “meltdown” (in Japanese, merutodaun) for months, following the insistence of the Ministry of Economics, Trade and Industry (METI), the powerful government agency that both promoted and regulated Japan’s nuclear industry, that a meltdown had not been confirmed. The big Japanese media used other official euphemisms as well, including “explosion-like event” to describe the massive blast at the Unit 3 reactor building, which blew chunks of concrete hundreds of feet into the air.

In fact, I even had Japanese journalists calling me to berate me and my newspaper for using the M-word without METI’s permission. Readers of the Japanese national dailies didn’t see the M-word until mid-May, when METI and the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. or TEPCO, conceded in public that Fukushima Daiichi had indeed suffered a meltdown in mid-March—three meltdowns, in fact.

In the chapter that I wrote for Legacies of Fukushima: 3.11 in Context, I tried to explain some of the reasons why the civilian nuclear power industry could have such a peculiarly strong grip on the media and their narratives. The nuclear industry was a national project that was promoted by the powerful central ministries as a silver bullet for resource-poor Japan’s dependence on imported energy. This gave it an elevated status as the elite bureaucrats guided Japan’s postwar recovery and economic take-off.

I looked at the media’s dependence on Tokyo’s powerful central ministries, which takes its most visible form in the so-called kisha kurabu, or “press clubs.” These are arrangements that allow national media to station their journalists inside the ministries and agencies, where they are given their own room and exclusive access to officials. Much of the reporting by the major Japanese media starts in the kisha kurabu, where journalists gather to wait for the next press conference or off-record briefing from officials. The kisha kurabu system fosters a passive form of journalism, in which reporters become dependent on the ministry within which they are embedded. In pursuit of a scoop that can make or break a career, the journalists compete for handouts from ministry officials. All too often, they enter a Faustian bargain in which the journalists swap narrative control in exchange for exclusive access to information. The result is a passive form of access journalism that ends up repeating spoon-fed official narratives.

I also looked to the past at the emergence of newspapers like the Asahi Shimbun during the early to mid-Meiji era, when the national priority was to protect autonomy by finding a way to catch the industrialized West. I argued that this history baked into the mindset of Japanese journalists a feeling of responsibility for the fate of their nation, including its vital energy needs. It also led to an identification with the government, and particularly the elite officialdom, as protectors of Japan and its people from predatory foreign powers. This inclination to side with the state has continued in the postwar period, when journalists have clearly seen themselves as members of a national elite attached to a broader bureaucratic-led system.

One point that I wanted to underscore was that this media capture was not something so simple or venal as corruption. This is how it is often portrayed by critical Japanese writers, usually freelancers and book authors, who focus on the so-called Nuclear Village, a nexus of business, government, labor unions, academia and news media linked by the cash flowing out of the highly profitable nuclear plants. While money doubtlessly plays a role in many of these relationships, including perhaps the for-profit commercial TV broadcasters, I see no direct evidence that it sways the coverage of the national newspapers. These are privately held companies for whom advertising is a much less important revenue source than subscriptions (or the rent from their valuable real estate holdings in central Tokyo and Osaka).

Regardless of the cause, the result has been generations of postwar journalists who have consistently failed to serve as watchdogs on one of the nation’s most politically powerful industries.² Starting in the 1990s, public scandals started plaguing the industry, and TEPCO in particular. In 2002, government inspectors announced that TEPCO had been routinely falsifying safety reports to hide minor incidents and equipment problems at reactors including several at Fukushima Daiichi. TEPCO eventually admitted to more than 200 such violations stretching back to 1977. Five years later, TEPCO revealed even more cover-ups of safety issues, which the company had failed to report in the previous inquiry.

Despite what was clearly a chronic and systemic failure of both internal compliance and government oversight, no one was arrested or charged, and the existing regulatory framework left unchanged. The media could have played a role of holding the regulators’ feet to the fire by exposing the structural problems behind this abysmal record of obfuscation and cover-ups. Instead, the watchdogs chose to remain largely silent, reporting on the government’s revelations, but making few efforts at independent investigative reporting.

Of course, such criticisms enjoy the benefits of hindsight, with the accident in 2011 making it easier to see these failures as part of a broader narrative that leads inevitably to Fukushima. But how about after 2011, when the severity of the disaster led to numerous calls for reform? During that time, the national media have also been held up to uncomfortable scrutiny by a jaded and distrustful public, who felt betrayed by their early coverage of the accident.

Unfortunately, ten years later, nothing seems to have changed.

This was apparent in mid-April of 2021, when the Japanese government announced a decision to release into the Pacific Ocean more than 1.2 million tons of radioactive water that has been building up in hundreds of huge metal tanks on the grounds of the Fukushima Daiichi plant. (The accumulation of contaminated water has plagued the plant from the early days of the disaster. TEPCO has resorted to some high-tech solutions with mixed results, including a mile-long “ice wall” of frozen dirt that failed to fully block the water, much of which flows into the plant from underground.)

The water stored in these tanks contains tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that is best known for its military use as the fuel for thermonuclear warheads (hence the term “hydrogen bomb”). On the spectrum of radioactive substances, tritium emits relatively low levels of radiation in form of beta particles. But it is a radioactive substance nonetheless, a fact that major media played down or even omitted by choosing, once again, to adopt the industry and government’s language to describe the dump. The main news stories in the major national newspapers and TV broadcasts used the official term for this water, which is shorisui, or “treated water.”

While technically correct, this term euphemistically glosses over the fact that this is not the same as, say, treated sewage water. Nor does treated water convey the fact that this water still contains a radionuclide that emits beta radiation.

One result was an interesting battle of words that pitted the mainstream media, which used the approved “treated water,” against journalists who were outside the press club’s inner circle. These publications and web sites chose to use clearer terms such as osensui, or “contaminated water.” The leftist daily Tokyo Shimbun, a smaller regional newspaper that has stood out for its more critical coverage of the nuclear disaster, compromised by calling the water osenshorisui, or “contaminated treated water.”³

More eye-opening was the fact that there were actually efforts to enforce use of the officially approved term. As many journalists discovered, there was an army of social media trolls at ready to pile onto anyone with the temerity to use more critical terminology, and particularly “contaminated water.” TEPCO and the government mobilized university experts and PR professionals to police the public sphere for use of words that were deemed “unscientific” and “ideological.”

Of course, the choice of the word “treated” is itself also highly political. It buttressed the larger message put forth by the government and the plant’s operator that the release of this water was no cause for alarm, but something very common and normal that nuclear plants around the world do all the time. By accepting the official terminology, the media were implicitly adopting this framing of the issue, which focused on the claim that the water could be diluted to the point of being harmless when dumped into the Pacific.

Scientifically, this is a valid claim. My point here is not to take sides. Rather, I am criticizing the large domestic media for failing to do the same: i.e., not take sides. By adopting the official narrative, the media were complicit in the government’s and TEPCO’s exclusion of other, also valid counterarguments. One of the biggest is the fact that this release is anything but normal. No nuclear plant has ever conducted an orchestrated release of such a huge quantity of tritium-laden water. (At the time of writing, the amount, 1.2 million tons, is enough to fill almost 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools.) Worse, the release is to be carried out in the same closed, opaque manner as the rest of Japan’s decade-long response to the disaster. Unless TEPCO and METI break with past precedent to allow full international oversight to verify that the water is as clean as they claim it is, we are left once again to trust actors who have consistently violated public faith.

Just as importantly, there are valid reasons to at least question whether the water is as clean as TEPCO says it is. The company has been telling us for years that it has installed state-of-the-art treatment and filtration technologies that scrub the water of every radioactive particle except tritium. However, in 2018, the plant operator suddenly revealed that 75% of the treated water at the plant still contained excessive amounts of other, more radioactive substances including strontium 90, a dangerous isotope that can embed itself in the living tissue of human bones.⁴

To be fair, TEPCO may be right in its assessment of the water’s safety. Even so, it is the job of conscientious journalists to take a skeptical attitude toward such claims until they can be independently verified. The media also need to remind why this is necessary, given the company’s and the industry’s history of cover-ups. My goal here is to fault the major domestic media for once again failing to do this, despite the bitter lessons of 2011. Adopting the language of METI and TEPCO privileges the official perspective over others. It shows that the journalists are internalizing the official framing of the event and how it should be discussed and understood.

Officialdom is thus allowed to set the boundaries of public debate, excluding more critical perspectives as “political,” “unscientific” or even “foreign.” The last characterization reflects the fact that the Chinese and South Korean governments raised some of the loudest objections to the release. The media have tended to frame these as the latest in a litany of self-serving complaints by Asian rivals that like to accuse Japan of failing to apologize for World War II-era atrocities. While Beijing and Seoul may have political motives for seizing on the water issue, this shouldn’t be a reason for journalists to avoid taking up more substantive criticisms about the release. Opposition has appeared in many other countries and reflects the failure of Japan to consult with other nations that share the Pacific Ocean, which will be the site of the mass water dump.

This is a failure by media, once again, to inform their readers of the existence of alternative narratives that take a dimmer view of the actions taken by Japan’s officialdom, or that point out where government interests diverge from those of Japan’s public. This is also a failure of a different sort: of media to protect their own intellectual independence. By uncritically adopting the official narratives, the journalists are relinquishing the right to frame in their issues. This surrendering of agency is the central fact of the media capture that I described above.

To be clear, Japan is not unique in suffering from the problem of media capture. The press in other democratic countries face similar challenges. In the United States, we use the term “access journalism” to describe the pitfalls of journalists, often in Washington, who trade autonomy for exclusive access to official sources. However, Japan’s version of access journalism is more extreme, producing a uniformly monolithic coverage closer to that in non-democratic societies. The most apt American equivalent may be the period of extreme patriotic fervor between the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, when U.S. media failed to adequately challenge the erroneous claims of the Bush administration that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction.

In Japan’s ongoing Fukushima disaster, this lack of agency manifests itself as a failure to not only set the narrative, but even to decide what is newsworthy. Most of the coverage is essentially an act of regurgitating the information that was distributed at the ministry’s kisha kurabu. Since the news reports are based on information received from ministry officials, not surprisingly they usually showcase the actions of those officials. Both the pages of Japan’s national dailies and the evening news broadcasts of NHK are filled with stories of Japanese officialdom in action, solving some problem or punishing some wrongdoer. Most news reports are mini-dramas in which officials play the starring role. As such, they serve as demonstrations that agency lies in the elite bureaucracies at the center of the postwar Japanese state, and not the major media, which seems to serve as an appendage.

Even when critical stories appear, they are rarely the work of enterprising reporters unearthing facts that the powerful would rather keep covered. Rather, the revelations tend to come from official actors when they have decided to take action against malfeasance. One example was TEPCO’s cover-ups, mentioned earlier, which were exposed by nuclear regulators, not investigative reporters. A more recent example is revelations that started to become public in March 2021 of years of security lapses at the huge Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata, facing the Sea of Japan. Over the next two months, news stories dribbled out about workers who were able to access the sensitive areas around the plant’s nuclear reactors without proper ID. In one case in 2015, a man entered the reactor area using the ID of his father, who also worked at the plant. Once again, there lapses were not exposed by intrepid reporters but regulators themselves, who leaked them to prepare the public for their decision to reject TEPCO’s request to restart the plant.⁵

The lack of media agency is all the more glaring because there have been very notable exceptions. Japan’s journalists have shown that they are capable of true investigative reporting that can define and drive the public narrative. For a brief window of time during the early years of the Fukushima disaster, some major Japanese media experimented with more autonomous journalism. This began in the late summer of 2011, as public disillusionment in the domestic press’s compliant coverage grew. This prompted some media to try to re-engage readers with more hard-hitting reports that challenged the official claims.

The most notable of these efforts was launched by the Asahi Shimbun, Japan’s second-largest daily, which beefed up a new reporting group dedicated to investigative journalism. (By investigative journalism, I mean journalists taking the initiative to pry out hidden truths and assemble these into original, factual narratives that challenge the versions of reality put forth by the powerful.) The Asahi’s investigative division got off to a strong start by winning Japan’s most prestigious press award two years in a row. It scored what it trumpeted as its biggest coup in May 2014, when two of its reporters wrote a front-page story that exposed the dangerously poor crisis management at the plant as it teetered on the brink of catastrophe. The story revealed that the government had hidden testimony by the Fukushima Daiichi plant’s manager during the accident, Yoshida Masao, who later died of cancer. It also recounted what it said was the most explosive revelation of this secret testimony: that hundreds of workers and staff had fled the crippled plant at the most dangerous point in the disaster, despite the fact that Yoshida never gave them the order to leave.

However, the Asahi erred by giving the story a misleading headline, which left readers with the impression that the workers had fled in defiance of Yoshida’s order to stay. (In fact, Yoshida himself says in the testimony that his order didn’t reach these workers—a stunning breakdown in command and control that was lost in the subsequent blow up over the article.) This misstep gave critics the opening that they needed to try to discredit the entire story, and by extension the newspaper’s proactive coverage of the disaster. A host of critics, including the prime minister himself and the rest of the mainstream media, set upon the Asahi with unusual ferocity. After weeks of withering attacks, which essentially accused the newspaper of lacking patriotism and of belittling the heroic plant workers, the Asahi’s president made a dramatic surrender in September 2014, retracting the entire article, gutting the investigative team and resigning his own job to take responsibility for the fiasco.⁶

Thus marked the end of the Asahi’s short-lived foray into investigative journalism, which I have described in more detail in this journal.⁷ Suffice it to say here that when forced to make a choice, the Asahi, the nation’s leading liberal voice favored by the intelligentsia, chose to remain on the boat. To preserve the privileged insider status as a member of the kisha kurabu media, the newspaper chose to sacrifice not only its biggest reporting accomplishment of the disaster, but also the journalists who produced it, who were sent into humiliating internal exile. For years afterward, the newspaper shunned proactive reporting on Fukushima, staying within safe confines of the official storyline.

The Asahi’s biggest mistake was its failure to stand behind its journalists. Investigative reporting is by nature a highly risky undertaking, and one that pits a handful of underpaid journalists against some of the most powerful members of society. By not only failing to stand up for its investigative reporters but trying to scapegoat them by punishing them for the mistakes in coverage, the Asahi sent a chilling message to all mainstream journalists: Newspapers don’t have your back. In such an environment, what journalists in their right mind would want to challenge the powers that be?

Admirably, some of the Asahi’s investigative reporters did stand their ground even at the cost of their careers at the newspaper. Soon after the debacle, two of the investigative group’s top reporters quit to launch Japan’s first NGO dedicated to investigative journalism, which in 2021 was renamed Tokyo Investigative Newsroom Tansa.⁸ Another resigned to join Facta, a Japanese magazine dedicated to investigative coverage (and offering stories that cannot be found in the large national newspapers). These decisions to place principle over company and career underscore my broader point: The sources of Japan’s media capture are bigger than the individual reporters and embedded in the structure of media institutions and the practice in Japan of journalism itself.

The Asahi’s capitulation in 2014 marked the end of not just the Asahi’s but all the mainstream media’s efforts to create new, more critical narratives of the Fukushima disaster. These days, most reporting tends to fall into one of a few prepackaged, safely uncontroversial storylines. There is the Fukushima 50 narrative of successfully overcoming Japan’s biggest trial since World War II. Another is the “baseless rumors” (fuhyō higai) narrative, which casts fears of radiation as over-exaggerated, and usually the creation of women, leftists and foreigners.

Journalists have told me that the Asahi’s surrender created a powerful prohibition on critical coverage. Having seen what happened to Japan’s leading liberal newspaper, and the star reporters there who lost their careers, few journalists have the stomach to challenge the status quo. The result is a grim new conformity.

Adding to the pressure to toe the line has been the appearance post-Fukushima of another new, problem-plagued national project: the Tokyo Summer Olympics, originally scheduled for 2020. Coverage of the Olympics has again tended to adhere to official narratives, even as public misgivings grew in Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide’s decision to go forward with the Games a year later, in 2021, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

From the start, the government has used the Olympics to divert attention from Fukushima while proclaiming that the disaster is now in the past. While there has been critical coverage, it has been the exception and not the rule. Indeed, the media’s silence was deafening when the previous prime minister, Abe Shinzō, told the International Olympic Committee in Buenos Aires in September 2013 that the plant’s “situation was under control,” even as contaminated water was then still bleeding into the Pacific.

By failing to take the initiative in Fukushima, the media have ended up supporting official efforts to use the Games to put the lid back on the nuclear disaster. The Olympics have become yet one more means for Japan’s elites to regain control of the public sphere, or at least the part of it controlled by the big legacy media. (They have had less success asserting control over the much more anarchic and anonymous world of social media.)

The media’s reluctance to challenge the government has also been apparent during the Covid-19 pandemic. I’m still waiting for the investigative articles that expose the truth behind Tokyo’s biggest failures during the pandemic. The major media emitted barely a peep in response to the government’s blatantly discriminatory decision during the first six months of the pandemic to close Japan’s borders to all foreign nationals, including long-term residents, while allowing Japanese nationals to come and go. More importantly, I would be the first in line to read an investigative exposé into what delayed the roll out of vaccines in Japan.

All too often, coverage of COVID-19 ended up repeating the pattern that we saw in Fukushima. The media once again surrendered their biggest public asset: their power to challenge the official narrative and expose the facts that officials don’t want us to know. Instead, the major domestic media once again show themselves more interested in preserving their privileged insider status. By doing so, they once again do a disservice of their readers.

The need to serve their readers by finding an independent and critical voice should have been the media’s biggest takeaway from Fukushima. Instead, they appear to be merely repeating the mistakes of a decade ago.

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Martin Fackler has been a journalist in Asia for two decades, working most recently as Assistant Asia Editor at The New York Times managing the paper’s coverage of China. He is currently an Adjunct Fellow at Temple University’s Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies at its Japan campus in Tokyo. Fackler is author or co-author of 11 books in Japanese, including the bestseller Credibility Lost: The Crisis in Japanese Newspaper Journalism after Fukushima(2012).

Sources

Brown, A. and Darby, I. (2021) ‘Plan to discharge Fukushima plant water into sea sets a dangerous precedent’, The Japan Times, April 25 [Online]. Accessed: June 25, 2021.

Fackler, M. (2016) ‘Sinking a bold foray into watchdog journalism in Japan’, Columbia Journalism Review[Online]. Accessed: June 25, 2021.

Fackler, M. (2016) ‘The Asahi Shimbun’s failed foray into watchdog journalism’, The Asia Pacific Journal Japan Focus, 14(24) [Online]. Accessed: June 25, 2021.

Jomaru, Y. (2012) Genpatsu to media shinbun jānarizumu ni dome no haiboku [Nuclear Power and the Media: The Second Defeat of Newspaper Journalism]. Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun Shuppan.

Kyodo. (2021) ‘Another security breach at Tepco nuclear plant uncovered’, The Japan Times, May 9 [Online]. Accessed: June 25, 2021.

Ogawa, S. (2021) ‘Fukushima dai ichi genpatsu no osen shorisui, seifu ga kaiyō hōshutsu no hōshin o kettei e 1 3 nichi ni mo kanei kakuryō kaigi [Government Moving Toward Decision to Release the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant’s Contaminated Treated Water in the Ocean], Tokyo Shimbun, April 9 [Online]. Accessed: June 25, 2021.

Tansa. (2021) Tokyo investigative newsroom Tansa [Online]. Accessed: June 4, 2021.

Notes

¹ SankeiNews (2011). “Edano kanbōchō kankaiken No1 ‘Tadachi ni kenkō shigai wa denai…’” [Chief Cabinet Secretary Press Conference Edano No1 ‘No Immediate Health Damage’]) [Online Video]. Accessed: August 23, 2011.

² Jomaru, 2012.

³ Ogawa, 2021.

⁴ Brown and Darby, 2021.

⁵ Kyodo, 2021.

⁶ Fackler, 2016.

⁷ Fackler, 2016.

⁸ Tansa, 2021.

Featured image: Yuji Onuma had come up with the slogan for the gate that orginally hung above the entrance to his home village of Futaba, north of the reactors at Fukushima. It said, “Atomic Power: Energy for a bright future.” After the disaster, he went back, with a new, handwritten correction in red, “Atomic Power: Energy for a DESTRUCTIVE future.” Image courtesy of Yuji Onuma

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China plans to plant 500 million mu (about 33.33 million hectares) of forests and grasslands in the next five years — 100 million mu per year — to help achieve its carbon emission reduction goals, according to the country’s forestry authorities.

The task includes planting 54 million mu of trees and 46 million mu of grass each year, said Zhang Wei, head of the ecological protection and restoration department of the National Forestry and Grassland Administration (NFGA).

The afforestation plan is part of China’s efforts to fulfill its commitment to peaking carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, as forests and grasslands are important carbon sinks that absorb and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

China aims to increase its forest coverage rate to 24.1 percent and its grassland vegetation coverage to 57 percent by 2025, as outlined in the country’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) on the protection and development of forests and grasslands.

The country also aims to raise its forest stock volume to 19 billion cubic meters by the end of 2025, an increase of 1.4 billion cubic meters from last year.

The carbon peak and carbon neutrality targets are a huge opportunity for the development of forests and grasslands, as the country eyes the expansion of forest coverage and the improvement of forest quality to facilitate attainment of the climate goals and contribute to global ecological security.

China’s forest carbon reserves have hit 9.2 billion tonnes, with an average annual increase of over 200 million tonnes over the past five years, which is equivalent to a carbon sink of 700 million to 800 million tonnes, according to NFGA data.

The country has created the world’s largest planted forests, raising its forest cover from 12 percent in the early 1980s to 23.04 percent in 2020, with its forest stock volume hitting 17.56 billion cubic meters.

As a result of sustained forest conservation and tree planting efforts, at least 25 percent of the global foliage expansion since the early 2000s came from China, according to a study published in the journal Nature Sustainability in 2019.

In addition to afforestation, Zhang said work will be carried out to improve the quality of forests and their ability to reserve carbon. He said work will be done to protect natural resources to reduce carbon pool loss, and forest bioenergy will be developed. Construction materials such as steel and cement will be replaced with bamboo and timber to cut emissions.

Over the next five years, China will also improve its measuring and monitoring of carbon sinks, promote carbon sink trading, and explore ways to build a platform for forest and grassland carbon sink trading, he said.

In Inner Mongolia, an important ecological barrier in north China, an average of 600,000 hectares of land have been afforested annually over the past five years, raising the region’s forest coverage rate to 22.1 percent.

Local forestry authorities in the region’s Greater Hinggan Mountains forest area have been piloting a carbon sink trading project since 2014, allowing companies that surpass their emission caps to purchase carbon sinks in the area to offset excess emissions.

By April this year, the transaction volume of the carbon sink trade in the area totaled 4.9 million yuan (about 756,114 U.S. dollars).

Zhang said that the participation of private capital in the carbon emissions reduction campaign will be encouraged, and the government is ready to help key regions, organizers of major events, enterprises and the public to achieve carbon neutrality with forest and grassland carbon sinks.

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Featured image: Aerial photo taken on July 17, 2021 shows a view of the grassland in Saibei management district of Zhangjiakou, north China’s Hebei province. [Photo/Xinhua]

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In a move that could have ramifications for the free passage of both military and commercial vessels in the South China Sea, Chinese authorities said on Sunday they will require a range of vessels “to report their information” when passing through what China sees as its “territorial waters”, starting from September 1.

Over $5 trillion trade passes through the South China Sea, and 55% of India’s trade pass through its waters and the Malacca Straits, according to estimates by India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). China claims under a so-called “nine dash line” on its maps most of the South China Sea’s waters, which are disputed by several other countries, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia.

While it remains unclear how, whether, and where China plans to enforce this new regulation starting Wednesday, the Maritime Safety Administration said in a notice “operators of submersibles, nuclear vessels, ships carrying radioactive materials and ships carrying bulk oil, chemicals, liquefied gas and other toxic and harmful substances are required to report their detailed information upon their visits to Chinese territorial waters,” the Communist Party-run Global Times reported.

The newspaper quoted observers as saying “such a rollout of maritime regulations are a sign of stepped-up efforts to safeguard China’s national security at sea by implementing strict rules to boost maritime identification capability.”

The notice said in addition to those vessels, any vessel deemed to “endanger the maritime traffic safety of China” will also be required to report its information, which would include their name, call sign, current position next port of call, and estimated time of arrival. The vessels will also have to submit information on the nature of goods and cargo dead weight. “After entering the Chinese territorial sea, a follow-up report is not required if the vessel’s automatic identification system is in good condition. But if the automatic identification system does not work properly, the vessel should report every two hours until it leaves the territorial sea,” the notice said.

The Global Times noted the Maritime Safety Administration “has the power to dispel or reject a vessel’s entry to Chinese waters if the vessel is found to pose threat to China’s national security.”

How China will enforce these rules remains to be seen, and in which waters of the sea. Indian commercial vessels as well as ships of the Indian Navy regularly traverse the waters of the South China Sea, through which pass key international sea lanes. While China claims most of its waters, marked by the “nine dash line” on its maps, Indian officials say Beijing has generally only sought to enforce its claims in response to the passage of foreign military vessels not in the entire sea but in the territorial waters around the islands, reefs and other features, some artificially constructed, that China claims.

‘Nine dash line’

The “nine dash line” is deemed by most countries as being inconsistent with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which only gives states the right to establish a territorial sea up to 12 nautical miles. The requirements of the latest notice will also be seen as being inconsistent with UNCLOS, which states that ships of all countries “enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea”.

The MEA told Parliament in 2017 in response to a question on India’s trade in the South China Sea that over US$ 5 trillion global trade passes through its sea lanes and “over 55% of India’s trade passes through South China Sea and Malacca Straits.” “Peace and stability in the region is of great significance to India. India undertakes various activities, including cooperation in oil and gas sector, with littoral states of South China Sea,” the MEA said.

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Featured image: PETTY OFFICER 3RD CLASS JASON TARLETON

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The stakes are much higher this time, but Aussies are hoping that a planned trucker blockade that is beginning Monday, August 30th, demanding “a guarantee from federal and state governments that there will be no mandated vaccine, and that no person, company or business can force anyone to get a vaccine to work, or go about their daily life in general,” will be as successful as the 1979 Truckie Blockade where truckers demanded an end to high road taxes.

First published in The Sun-Herald on April 8, 1979:

Truckies blockading Sydney and other major cities last night said they would “stay put” – despite State Government plans to drop road maintenance taxes from July 1.

From Razorback Mountain outside Sydney, spokesman for the blockading truckies Ted Stevens said the blockades would continue until all drivers’ demands were met.

This could mean that Sydney will face serious food shortages this week. Industries could be brought to a standstill as tens of thousands of workers are stood down.

Supermarkets warned that fresh fruit and vegetables are likely to be in scarce supply and that many stores might have to start closing down by the middle of the week.

The ‘revolutionary truckies” of Razorback Mountain are expecting crowds of sightseers to drift into their makeshift camp today.

Some of the visitors, they hope, will take food and money, which the blockading truck-drivers need.

But most will go to gape at the massive rigs blocking the Hume Highway, and to gaze at the blue singlet and T-shirt brigade who have sparked the spontaneous and spectacular grievance protest which now threatens to strangle the nation.

And what a sight it is.

A jumble of Kenworths, Mercedes, Macks, Whites, Scanias, Louisville Fords and other Kings of the Road litter the highway. The trucks and the goods they contain are worth more than $75 million.

No alcohol

Having seized a vulnerable part of Australia’s busiest highway, the truckies are acting with near-puritanical restraint.

Alcohol is forbidden in the camp, by common agreement, so their cause will not he tarnished by misbehaviour.

You see tough men, bursting with muscles and broad bellies, licking ice creams and drinking cans of soft drink to combat the sweltering heat.

Volunteers wander around picking up scraps of rubbish so that the site — with its maze of bullbars, towering prime movers and disembodied trailers — is unusually clean.

The police, hovering on the outskirts, are treated with respect. It is they who will be forced to act if the Government decides on harsh measures. And it is their blood, if any, which will he spilled if such orders are given.

Although the occupancy is gentle, the mood is tough and implacable. “If they tried to move the trucks, they wouldn’t be able to get near us,” one driver told me. “There’d be a hundred blokes down on top of them.”

In the end, the government backed down and met all the truckers’ demands. They became a legend in Australia for standing up against the government, and songs were even composed about them.

Many truck drivers have gone on social media to talk about the blockade to take back Australia from medical tyranny over COVID and mandatory COVID vaccines that are about to be launched as this article is being published.

A video report I put together last week has already been viewed by over a quarter of a million people on the Health Impact News network.

Earlier today popular truckie Tony Fulton, co-creator of trucking app Truckwiz and the Facebook page Tones Truckin’ Stories, also made a statement, announcing that he was joining the protest.

And apparently it is not only truckers who will be joining the protest. Police officers, doctors, politicians and “high ranking barristers” are reportedly going to join as well.

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In recent weeks, several debates have been held about Afghanistan. The security crisis, the rise of the Taliban and the defeat of the US are issues that have caught the attention of experts. However, some aspects have been ignored, such as the effects of the Afghan crisis in other parts of the Asian continent. In New Delhi, the government has been increasingly concerned about the possibility of escalating violence and tensions in the Kashmir region, considering that the Taliban and Pakistan could act together against Indian interests in the disputed territories.

The Indian government has significantly strengthened its security apparatus since the takeover of Kabul. Surveillance of activities in Kashmir has also increased. The existence of local militants with an ideology similar to that advocated by the Taliban raises fears about the possibility of an insurrection encouraged and even militarily supported by the new de facto Afghan government. Such a scenario would be tragic for Indian interests, as New Delhi could hardly contain its enemies without the use of force, which could result in a new armed conflict.

Commenting on this topic, Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar said:

“At this point of time, we are looking at the evolving situation in Kabul… the Taliban and its representatives have come to Kabul and I think we need to take it from there (…) At the moment we are, like everybody else, very carefully following developments in Afghanistan. I think our focus is on ensuring the security in Afghanistan and the safe return of Indian nationals who are there”.

In an attitude different from that of its biggest geopolitical enemies, Pakistan and China, India has taken a posture of open opposition to the Taliban. The country did not try to establish diplomatic dialogues to find a peaceful solution to the conflict, but it evacuated its embassy and all its official representatives. There are many reasons to explain the Indian position, but undoubtedly what the Indian government wants is to avoid the formation of a scenario similar to that of the 1990s, when thousands of Afghan fighters, after the end of the war against Soviet troops, entered the Kashmir and incited a violent conflict, which persists to this day – albeit on a much smaller scale.

Ties between the Taliban and Pakistan are extremely worrying for New Delhi. Pakistanis have always supported the Afghan jihadists and this alliance tends to grow more and more. Indeed, in Islamabad, the Taliban’s victory was seen as a great triumph for the country’s international interests. Some local political leaders have publicly stated that the Taliban will help Pakistan to conquer Kashmir. Neelam Irshad Sheikh, the senior leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), the PM Imran Khan’s Political Party, said he has information from the Taliban that there will be direct support for Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. Although information about such pronouncements is not yet entirely clear, there is reason enough for India to be concerned.

The Chinese factor cannot be ignored either. For Beijing, negotiating with the Taliban is interesting, as Chinese intentions are only pragmatic. The best government for Beijing is one that can bring enough stability to pursue the Belt and Rode Initiative’s cooperation projects, which is currently only possible with the Taliban. However, if the Taliban poses a possibility of encircling India, there will be more direct interest from Beijing in consolidating the new Afghan government. The Chinese will not get involved militarily in a possible jihadist-Pakistani maneuver against India, but they will be able to use several methods to cooperate in a non-military way.

For these reasons, India has been seeking for support from its international allies in the QUAD group, mainly in intelligence operations. Chief of Defense Staff General Bipin Rawat said recently: “Any support forthcoming from Quad nations in getting some intelligence inputs to fighting the Global War on terror… I think that would be welcome.” However, Washington is taking a long time to respond satisfactorily in this regard. This is due to a central point: QUAD is a “NATO against China”, not for Pakistan or the Taliban.

In fact, relying on a US-led group to deal with the Afghan issue is a mistake on the part of India. Indian officials apparently forgot that Washington negotiated publicly with the Taliban and that it made no resistance to the takeover of Kabul. There is simply no American interest in that region anymore, and as far as India is concerned, the interest is only in opposing China. The US government wants Indian troops as allies in a strategy to encircle Beijing, but it doesn’t want to help New Delhi in its ambitions in Kashmir.

In this scenario, it is possible for the Indian government to see the mistake of engaging in US-led strategies. Washington acts in Asia as a foreign power, not concerned with regional problems. For the US government, it does not matter whether or not there will be violence in Kashmir, as long as there is a siege against China. Indeed, India is alone in this issue.

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Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

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The regional tour of Southeast Asia by the US Vice-President Kamala Harris got inundated with the tsunami of criticism over the United States’ frantic efforts to complete the evacuation out of Kabul Airport by the month-end. Again, Israel being a hugely attractive topic in US news cycles, Harris’ visit to Singapore and Vietnam may get marginalised with the arrival of the new Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in Washington later today.

However, Harris’ tour is far more substantive, since the elephant in the room is China. Harris’ articulation on China, its content and cadence alike, is keenly noted in the region and its perceptions about the rocky tense US-China rivalry are critical, since it is also a region of “swing states.” 

This is the first sampling — rather, the second, if the G7 Leaders meeting on Tuesday on Afghanistan is also to be counted — of the US’ standing as global leader. The G7 didn’t go too well for the Biden Administration with Washington stonewalling the European allies’ demand to extend the deadline beyond August 31 for the evacuation at Kabul Airport. It left a lot of bad taste in the mouth. 

The acerbic remark by the European Council president Charles Michel following the G7 meeting on the lesson to be drawn out of the events relating to Afghanistan was that “These events show that developing our strategic autonomy, while keeping our alliances as strong as ever, is of the utmost importance, for the future of Europe. In due time, I will propose a discussion on this question to my fellow leaders of the European Council.” read more

A day after the G7 meeting, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Berlin that Germany is in favour of negotiations with the Taliban, as they are “now a reality in Afghanistan… The developments of the last few days are terrible, they are bitter.” Germany since began discussing a new road map directly with the Taliban officials in Kabul regarding evacuation beyond August 31. 

How can the mood in Southeast Asia be any different? There is going to be extreme wariness in the region about the US’ anti-China rallying cry. This is “Saigon moment”. Memories of the US’ departure from Saigon 47 years ago are creeping up from the attic of the region’s collective consciousness. Abandonment of allies dents the credibility of a superpower.

The region may not always resort to plain speaking. Thus, on Tuesday, just before Harris’a arrival in Hanoi, the Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh received the Chinese Ambassador to Vietnam Xiong Bo. 

According to the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi, Chinh underscored during that meeting the importance of the strategic communication between Hanoi and Beijing and cooperation in inter-Party, foreign affairs, national defence, and public security, and voiced the need to guard against the “peaceful evolution” of hostile forces and attempts to sow discord between Vietnam and China. 

The symbolism is profound. Harris is the second high-level US dignitary to visit Hanoi in 2 months — after Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin’s July visit. Hanoi has signalled to Beijing that while it is to Vietnam’s advantage to keep the US on its side, Vietnam-China relations are also stable and Hanoi’s special relationship with Beijing — being socialist countries and neighbours — and the flourishing bilateral economic and trade relations are virtually in a special category by itself. 

Harris’ remarks at Singapore from a public forum on the Indo-Pacific region hinted at a need post-Afghanistan for the US to reposition itself in the Asia Pacific while engaging the broader region’s perceptions of the US’ global priorities and strategic intentions. Significantly, this was also the public advice given to Harris by Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. 

Lee said at a joint press conference with Harris, “we are watching what is happening in Afghanistan on the TV screens today. But what will influence perceptions of US resolve and commitment to the region will be what the US does going forward – how it repositions itself in the region; how it engages its broad range of friends and partners and allies in the region; and how it continues the fight against terrorism. 

“Countries make calculations and take positions, and they have to make recalculations and adjust their positions from time to time. Sometimes it can be done smoothly; sometimes there are hiccups; sometimes things go awry and take time to put right. But countries remain with long-term interests, with long-term partners, and it is a mark of a country which can succeed that it takes these interests and partners seriously and in a dispassionate way, and maintains them over the long term. And the US has been in the region since the war, which is more than 70 years ago.

“There have been ups and downs; there have been difficult moments; there have also been, over decades, dramatic transformations in Asia, wrought by the benign and constructive influence of the United States, as a regional guarantor of security and support of prosperity. Singapore hopes and works on the basis that the US will continue to play that role, and continues to engage the region for many more years to come.” read more

At any rate, Harris’ remarks Tuesday on Indo-Pacific had none of that strident aggressive anti-China rhetoric, characteristic of US officials. Harris took one single swing at China, saying, “we know Beijing continues to coerce, to intimidate, and to make claims (in South China Sea)… And Beijing’s actions continue to undermine the rules-based order and threaten the sovereignty of nations.” 

But her signal tune was that the US engagement in Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific is “not against any one country, nor is it designed to make anyone choose between countries.  Instead, our engagement is about advancing an optimistic vision that we have for our participation and partnership in this region.  And our economic vision is a critical part of that.” 

Her remarks were peppered with such conciliatory sentiments — about a “more interconnected and interdependent world”; the need to “take on challenges together and create opportunities together”; the recognition that “our common interests are not zero-sum”; and how in an interconnected world, collective vision and collective action are a must. 

Harris did not accuse Beijing of condoning “the campaign of violent repression” in Myanmar. Nor did she mention Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet, et al. Interestingly, Harris bracketed the Quad and the US-Mekong Partnership in the same league as “new results-oriented groups.” read more 

While Harris is still in the region, word comes from Washington that Biden’s climate envoy John Kerry is heading for China next month for a second time since April. And reports appeared also that the Biden Administration has approved the sale of some vehicle chips to Chinese leading technology company Huawei, and more such sale licenses may be in the offing, effectively reversing the Trump administration’s moves to block sales. 

The southeast Asian business community must be clued in on the tidings from Washington that pressure is building on the Biden administration to eliminate tariffs on imports from China both to stimulate trade (which is buoyant as it is despite political tensions) as well as to curb inflation in the US economy. On August 5, more than thirty major business organisations in the US spoke with one voice suggesting that a deal on cutting tariffs with China might already be underway. 

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Featured image: US Vice-President Kamala Harris (L) being presented with a spray of orchids named after her, as Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (R) looks on, Singapore, August 23, 2021  (Source: Indian Punchline)

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Carved out of the of the narrow isthmus that connects the Malay Peninsula to the rest of mainland Southeast Asia, Myanmar’s southern Tanintharyi region rises from the Andaman Sea in the west to the forested Tenasserim Hills that border Thailand in the east.

While much of Tanintharyi’s coastal low-lying land has been converted for human use, intact forest landscapes remain in the mountainous interior, where globally threatened species, such as endangered tigers (Panthera tigris), Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) and Malayan tapirs (Tapirus indicus), and critically endangered helmeted hornbills (Buceros vigil), Sunda pangolins (Manis javanica) and Gurney’s pittas (Hydrornis gurneyi) cling to existence.

Nonetheless, these once-remote forests are gradually eroding under intense pressure from commercial oil palm and rubber plantations, small-scale agriculture, and infrastructure development.

Now, amid the political turmoil following the Feb. 1 military coup, it appears that deforestation is ramping up in Tanintharyi, echoing wider patterns across Myanmar. New satellite data from the University of Maryland, visualized on Global Forest Watch (GFW), show a wave of forest loss in northern Dawei district, where a large portion of the land is designated as Tanintharyi Nature Reserve.

Forest clearing escalates

According to a 2020 study published in The European Journal of Development Research, most of the remaining intact natural forest in Dawei district is within the nature reserve. However, GFW data indicate that 2020 saw the second-highest level of primary forest loss within the reserve since measurements began in 2002. Over those 18 years, 60 square kilometers (23 square miles) of forest was leveled, representing a loss of 4.5% of its primary forest cover. While preliminary data for 2021 indicate deforestation in the reserve is down overall so far this year, forest loss is still expanding along existing fronts as well as in areas that were previously undisturbed.

Satellite data show expanding areas of tree cover loss in Tanintharyi Nature Reserve between Jan 2020 and July 2021.

Satellite images show forest clearings expanding inside the southern boundary of Tanintharyi Nature Reserve.

Most of the recent deforestation is taking place just inside the southern boundary of the reserve, where forest loss patterns are consistent with the expansion of clearings that were burned during the first quarter of 2021. Satellite imagery also shows new incursions into primary forest along a road that connects Tanintharyi Nature Reserve to the township of Kameik. Furthermore, deeper within the reserve, satellite imagery shows earthworks proliferating along a pipeline access road and river, where clearings encroach on previously intact areas of primary forest.

Tanintharyi Nature Reserve

Tanintharyi Nature Reserve spans 1,700 km2 (660 mi2) in Dawei district. It was established by the Myanmar government, but funded by oil and gas companies Total, PTT and Petronas as part of a corporate social responsibility program to offset impacts of the controversial Yadana gas pipeline that bisects Tanintharyi from the Andaman Sea coast to the Thai border.

A large portion of the reserve overlaps with land under the management of the Karen National Union (KNU), the main political body for the Karen ethnic group, and encompasses multiple Indigenous Karen and Mon villages. Although the reserve was founded in 2005, it could not be officially implemented until the signing of a cease-fire agreement between the KNU and the central government in 2012.

The nature reserve has been criticized by local groups for failing to respect the rights of Indigenous peoples to their land, resources and livelihoods. According to a report by community-based Karen organizations in Tanintharyi region, the reserve’s protections also hinder the rights of people displaced by war to return to their ancestral lands.

Experts suggest that the nature reserve was promoted by the prevailing government more to secure territorial control of the wider pipeline area from ethnic groups than to conserve biodiversity. “Basically, large-scale conservation rezoning is a crucial territorial strategy to create state administered and patrolled territory in opposition to ethnic armed organization-controlled jurisdictions,” Kevin Woods, a senior policy analyst for U.S.-based nonprofit Forest Trends, told Mongabay.

Recently cleared forest in Tanintharyi, where major drivers of deforestation include expansion of commercial oil palm, rubber and betel nut plantations alongside smallholder cultivation. Image courtesy of FFI-Myanmar

Plantation boom

The establishment of Tanintharyi Nature Reserve was part of a region-wide shift away from subsistence agriculture toward a landscape dominated by protected areas and commercial oil palm and rubber plantations.

Myanmar’s transition to a quasi-civilian government in 2011 and the cease-fire agreement of 2012 created an amenable business environment, further aided by eased international economic sanctions and a slew of business-friendly land reforms. In Tanintharyi, former war zones in borderland forests with weak land tenure were suddenly opened up for business, and a glut of forest clearing ensued, mainly to establish commercial plantations.

A study published in Applied Geography in early 2021 reported that deforestation across Tanintharyi between 2002 and 2016 was driven by the expansion of commercial oil palm, rubber and betel nut plantations alongside smallholder cultivation. The study suggests that the expansion of smallholder agriculture could be due to new commercial oil palm plantations in Tanintharyi encroaching on villagers’ agricultural land. As a result of losing access to their land, many farmers are displaced and left with little choice but to reestablish their crops in the forest.

Such knock-on deforestation is often unnecessary because plantation concessions are rarely fully planted in Tanintharyi. Concessions may not even be intended to grow crops at all, according to researchers and activists who say that companies are clearing forest under the guise of agriculture in order to legally extract commercially valuable timber for trade. A 2015 Forest Trends report found less than one-fifth of the total area demarcated as oil palm concessions in Tanintharyi had actually been planted.

Critical wildlife habitat

Image on the right: Forest habitat for the critically endangered Gurney’s pitta (Hydrornis gurneyi) is in decline. Three main stronghold areas are being eroded by multiple factors. Image by Michael Gillam via Creative Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Sources say infrastructure development for the Dawei Special Economic Zone (SEZ), a central government plan to link up a new deepwater port on the Andaman Sea coast with the Thai border to boost trade and investment, is also exacerbating land scarcity and consequential pressures on the region’s remaining intact forests.

As part of the SEZ, a 138-km (86-mi) highway is under construction between Dawei and southwest Thailand. Conservationists say they’re concerned that the road severs the forested wildlife corridor that links well-protected reserves in Thailand to intact forests in Tanintharyi. Construction firms are also upgrading old logging roads throughout the region to facilitate better trade with neighboring Thailand.

The spate of road construction is driving habitat destruction, according to Saw Soe Aung, who works for Fauna & Flora International in cooperation with local communities to survey forests in southern Tanintharyi for tigers. He said he has witnessed an increase in deforestation along newly constructed roads during 2021, affecting the forest’s capacity to support tigers. “We only recorded one individual of tiger in our survey area this year,” he said. “Before road construction, we recorded four or five individuals.”

Critical habitat for other rare species is also being lost. The entire global population of the Gurney’s pitta, a diminutive but colorful bird that depends on mature forest understory, is found only in the lowland forests of Kawthaung, Tanintharyi’s southernmost district, where more than one-tenth of primary forest has been razed, ostensibly for oil palm.

A recent study led by researchers at King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Thailand, found that 8% of suitable habitat for the Gurney’s pitta was lost between 2017 and 2020. Of the remaining habitat, more than 10% is fragmented into patches that are too small to guarantee long-term survival. The study, published in Oryx, estimates that all remaining habitat for the bird will disappear by 2080 unless conservation action is taken.

“Because there is no legal protection, only government forest reserves, there are a lot of land encroachment and land grabbing issues in the southern part of Tanintharyi,” study co-author Nay Myo Shwe told Mongabay.

Forests are particularly vulnerable along newly upgraded roads, which create a “fishbone effect” in newly accessible frontiers and could also “exacerbate existing threats” by facilitating cross-border trade in illicit forest products, including the Gurney’s pittas themselves for the pet market, according to the study.

Image below: Sunda pangolins (Manis javanica) are critically endangered. Forest loss in Tanintharyi fragments their primary habitat. Image by budak via via Flickr/Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Progress in peril

While the period of peace and economic liberalization was accompanied by rapid development in Myanmar, the resurgence of conflict following the ousting of the civilian government in February 2021 has cast uncertainty across the country. Experts are warning of new bouts of deforestation facilitated by weakened governance systems, reduced surveillance, and a lack of accountability.

Meanwhile, villagers, local leaders and civil society organizations say they fear violence and arrests over their environmental activism. As a result, grassroots activism and long-running community-led conservation programs have shut down, said Esther Wah, an Indigenous Karen activist whose fight for customary land rights predates the current regime. The situation threatens to undo much of the progress made in land rights and environmental conservation over the past decade, she said.

“There are a lot of community protected areas in Tanintharyi region, but after the coup, everything stopped and everybody needs to be careful about their security,” Wah said. “If something happened on the ground before, like a development project, we could notice right away which company it was and how many acres were affected — we knew it. But now, we don’t know anything.”

Indigenous activists were working with civil society organizations to have their own approach to conservation recognized in national law. Community conserved areas and Indigenous community conserved areas that focus on both biodiversity and human rights present an alternative to top-down approaches, such as the Tanintharyi Nature Reserve. However, the coup and military crackdowns have brought policy-level negotiations to an abrupt halt.

The turmoil since the coup has so far internally displaced 40,000 people in southeastern Myanmar, according to a U.N. Refugee Agency report. In March and April 2021, 5,000 refugees fled to northern Thailand to escape violent clashes in border regions, most of whom have since been able to return. Over the short-term, at least, there is a risk that displaced people will be forced to eke out a living by farming in Myanmar’s forests. Although fighting has not yet escalated in Tanintharyi and large-scale displacements have not been reported, there is no guarantee that tensions will not rise, Wah said.

“Anything can happen, anything at any time,” she said. “We don’t want any fighting, because if that happens then everything becomes worse. We lose our land, we lose our territory, we lose our livelihoods and our lives will be very difficult.”

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Sources

Schneider, F., Feurer, M., Lundsgaard-Hansen, L. M., Win Myint, Cing Don Nuam, Nydegger, K., … Messerli, P. (2020). Sustainable development under competing claims on land: Three pathways between land-use changes, ecosystem services and human well-being. The European Journal of Development Research, 32(2), 316-337. doi:10.1057/s41287-020-00268-x

Woods, K. M. (2019). Green territoriality: Conservation as state territorialization in a resource frontier. Human Ecology, 47(2), 217-232. doi:10.1007/s10745-019-0063-x

Schmid, M., Heinimann, A., & Zaehringer, J. G. (2021). Patterns of land system change in a Southeast Asian biodiversity hotspot. Applied Geography, 126, 102380. doi:10.1016/j.apgeog.2020.102380

Savini, T., Shwe, N. M., & Sukumal, N. (2021). Ongoing decline of suitable habitat for the critically endangered gurney’s pitta Hydrornis gurneyi. Oryx, 1-7. doi:10.1017/s0030605320001258

Featured image: A juvenile Malayan tapir , one of many threatened mammal species reportedly present in Tanintharyi’s forests. Image by seth m via Flickr/Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

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Pakistan is changing direction on China’s Belt and Road in an apparent bid to assuage Beijing amid rising security risks to its in-country nationals, interests and investments.

In a surprise and still unexplained move, Prime Minister Imran Khan announced last week that businessman Khalid Mansoor would be the nation’s new point person for the Beijing-backed US$62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) infrastructure-building program.

The announcement said Lieutenant General Asim Saleem Bajwa will step down as head of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Authority (CPECA), ending the military’s de facto two-year control over a scheme that has been riddled with delays and wobbled by militant attacks.

Khan’s statement came soon after the July 16 bomb attack on a bus that killed nine Chinese nationals including engineers working on a CPEC-related hydropower dam project. Pakistani officials have since indicated it was the dirty work of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a Uighur militant group bent on targeting Chinese interests both in Xinjiang and abroad, and other militant groups.

The lethal attack came at an especially delicate, if not strategic, juncture as China tries to lobby Afghanistan’s Taliban into clamping down on its aligned militant and terror groups in quid pro quo exchange for infrastructure investments that would link the country with the CPEC and further afield into Central Asia if and when, as widely anticipated, the militant group seizes power in Kabul.

It’s not immediately clear if Bajwa’s removal as the CPECA’s chairperson only halfway through his four-year appointment was directly related to the security lapse. Prime Minister’s Khan announcement fell short of stating any specific reason for his removal, though the military’s outsized role in steering the scheme was aimed in large part to guarantee project security in a region riddled with militants.

Significantly, too, the announcement did not name a replacement for the CPECA’s top post. Instead, Mansoor, a corporate executive who has worked in top positions with a CPEC-related China-Pakistan coal-mining syndicate in Sindh province and who has a history of liaising with Chinese companies and financial institutions, was named as Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on CPEC affairs.

The role has no mandatory power under Pakistan’s constitution and may not attend government cabinet meetings without special invitations. Significantly, Mansoor was not and will not clearly in future be appointed as the CPECA’s chairman, a statutory position under the CPEC Authority Act of 2019 that now sits vacant.

Bajwa’s removal could have been influenced by recent scandals. In August 2020, journalist Ahmed Noorani published an investigative story online claiming that Bajwa had abused his military authority to establish various offshore businesses in the name of his wife, sons and brothers – alleged sprawling commercial interests that became known as his “pizza empire” in recognition of his investments in the US.

A few weeks after the bombshell story was published, Bajwa rubbished the allegations and claimed to possess all the relevant documents about his family’s assets and that their interests were all above board.

But opposition parties remained adamant in their calls for a judicial inquiry into his family’s offshore assets and his resignation as Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting, which he finally did in October 2020. However, Bajwa retained his position as CPECA chairperson despite unanswered questions about his personal wealth, which some suspect was derived in part from the CPEC.

Now, some observers believe Bajwa was likely removed at Beijing’s behest. They note China had already recently expressed concerns about the slow execution of CPEC projects in recent months. The bus attack, they suggest, was likely the straw that broke the camel’s back, as the top brass general couldn’t even guarantee the security of CPEC projects from rising militant attacks.

Significantly, Bajwa’s removal came just days after Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) chief Lieutenant-General Faiz Hameed flew to Beijing to reassure their Chinese hosts that the military would provide full security cover to CPEC and non-CPEC projects.

Still, there is widespread speculation on social media that Khan’s decision not to immediately appoint a new CPECA head is a signal that Beijing intends to take more control over CPEC projects and related personnel decisions. They believe Mansoor’s appointment as special assistant to the premier was likely requested by Beijing.

Either way, the CPEC’s power dynamics are discernably shifting.

Last year’s promulgation of the CPEC Authority Act (2020), aimed to expedite the scheme’s many stalled projects, gave the newly established CPECA near-absolute power to plan, facilitate, coordinate, enforce, monitor and evaluate CPEC-related activities. That gave Bajwa unrivaled authority over the multi-billion dollar scheme, allowing him to sideline parliament and the planning ministry in the process.

Ahsan Iqbal, a former federal minister for planning and secretary-general of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party, told Asia Times that he had earlier taken strong exception to the formation of the CPECA and its carte blanche authority during a Standing Committee on Planning, Development and Special Initiatives meeting.

“It requires a technopolitical person with the full backing of the parliament to efficiently run CPEC affairs. During my tenure as planning minister, more than $29 billion investment was channelized by the planning ministry without any authority or a superfluous overhead structure. The same model, which worked successfully in the past, should have continued,” Ahsan said.

He claims that Khan’s government undermined the momentum and initiative of line ministries by imposing an unnecessary command structure that ultimately complicated the CPEC’s implementation. The CPEC is now moving at a snail’s pace due to the Covid-19 pandemic, administrative red tape and a deteriorating security situation, witnessed most recently in last month’s bomb attack.

The CPEC has also been slowed by Islambad’s now twice-made request to Beijing for debt relief on loans and take-or-pay contracts coming due. To date, China has declined to engage in any debt rescheduling discussions, according to local sources familiar with the situation.

The CPEC’s official website shows that over a dozen energy, communication and road projects have recently missed their completion deadlines. Five CPEC power projects with a cumulative generation capacity of 3,600 megawatts have not started commercial operation by the prescribed deadlines.

Chinese and Pakistani technicians at the Chinese-financed Qasim Power Plant near Karachi. Photo: Facebook

These include the 884MW Suki Kinari hydropower project, the 720MW Karot hydropower project, the 330MW Thar Block-II, the 330MW Thal Nova Thar Block-II and 1,320 MW Thar Block-I.

Similarly, a $6.8 billion railway project designed to connect the cities of Peshawar and Karachi has not been finalized due to inordinate delays in the crucial 10th meeting of the Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) of the CPEC. The railway-revamping project will thus most likely remain in limbo throughout 2021.

The CPEC was first launched in 2015 as a part of Beijing’s ambitious BRI designed to connect China’s strategic northwestern Xinjiang province to Pakistan’s southern Gwadar port through a network of roads, railways and pipelines to transport cargo, oil and gas from the Middle East onward to to Central Asia via Pakistan.

It has taken on greater strategic importance in recent months as Beijing seeks to leverage the project to make strategic inroads and mitigate militants risks in Afghanistan that are now clearly rising as the country edges towards full-scale civil war.

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The Indian Bar Association (IBA) sued WHO Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan on May 25, accusing her in a 71-point brief of causing the deaths of Indian citizens by misleading them about Ivermectin. 

Point 56 states,

“That your misleading tweet on May 10, 2021, against the use of Ivermectin had the effect of the State of Tamil Nadu withdrawing Ivermectin from the protocol on May 11, 2021, just a day after the Tamil Nadu government had indicated the same for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.”

Advocate Dipali Ojha, lead attorney for the Indian Bar Association, threatened criminal prosecution against Dr.  Swaminathan “for each death” caused by her acts of commission and omission. The brief accused Swaminathan of misconduct by using her position as a health authority to further the agenda of special interests to maintain an EUA for the lucrative vaccine industry.

Specific charges included the running of a disinformation campaign against Ivermectin and issuing statements in social and mainstream media to wrongfully influence the public against the use of Ivermectin despite the existence of large amounts of clinical data showing its profound effectiveness in both prevention and treatment of COVID-19.

In particular, the Indian Bar brief referenced the peer-reviewed publications and evidence compiled by the ten-member Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) group and the 65-member British Ivermectin Recommendation Development (BIRD) panel headed by WHO consultant and meta-analysis expert Dr. Tess Lawrie.

The brief cited US Attorney Ralph C. Lorigo’s hospital cases in New York where court orders were required for dying COVID patients to receive the Ivermectin. In multiple instances of such comatose patients, following the court-ordered Ivermectin, the patients recovered. In addition, the Indian Bar Association cited previous articles published in this forum, The Desert Review.

Advocate Ojha accused the WHO and Dr. Swaminathan in Points 60 and 61 as having misled and misguided the Indian people throughout the pandemic from mask wear to exonerating China as to the virus’s origins.

“The world is gradually waking up to your absurd, arbitrary and fallacious approach in presenting concocted facts as ‘scientific approach.’ While the WHO flaunts itself like a ‘know it all,’ it is akin to the vain Emperor in new clothes while the entire world has realized by now, the Emperor has no clothes at all.”

The brief accused the WHO of being complicit in a vast disinformation campaign. Point 61 states, “The FLCCC and the BIRD have shown exemplary courage in building a formidable force to tackle the challenge of disinformation, resistance, and rebuke from pharma lobbies and powerful health interests like WHO, NIH, CDC, and regulators like the US FDA.”

Dr. Swaminathan was called out for her malfeasance in discrediting Ivermectin to preserve the EUA for the vaccine and pharmaceutical industry. Point 52 reads,  “It seems you have deliberately opted for deaths of people to achieve your ulterior goals, and this is sufficient grounds for criminal prosecution against you.”

The Indian Bar Association posted an update on their website June 5, 2021, noting that Dr. Swaminathan had deleted her now-infamous tweet. They wrote, “However, deleting the tweet will not save Dr. Soumya Swaminathan and her associates from the criminal prosecution which is to be launched by the citizens with active support from the Indian Bar Association.”

In this update, Advocate Dipali Ojha clarified the nature of the planned action,

“The Indian Bar Association has warned action under section 302 etc. of the Indian Penal Code against Dr. Soumya Swaminathan and others, for murder of each person dying due to obstruction in treatment of COVID-19 patient effectively by Ivermectin. Punishment under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code is death penalty or life imprisonment.”

He further wrote,

“After receiving the said notice, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan went on the back foot and deleted her tweet. This has proved the hollowness of the WHO’s recommendation against Ivermectin for COVID-19. The dishonesty of  WHO and the act of Dr. Soumya Swaminathan in deleting her contentious tweet was witnessed by citizens across the world, as the news got a wide coverage on social media. By deleting the tweet, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan has proved her mala fide intentions.”

The entire world witnessed the effectiveness of Ivermectin against India’s deadly second surge as the locations that adopted it saw their outbreaks quickly extinguished in stark contrast to those states that did not.

Among the most prominent examples include the Ivermectin areas of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Goa where cases dropped 98%, 97%, 94%, and 86%, respectively. By contrast, Tamil Nadu opted out of Ivermectin. As a result, their cases skyrocketed and rose to the highest in India. Tamil Nadu deaths increased ten-fold.

Tamil Nadu publicly relied upon Dr. Swaminathan’s advice in revoking their initial choice of Ivermectin the day after she recommended against it in her May 10 tweet on social media. As a direct result, Tamil Nadu experienced a surge in COVID death and sickness that continues to this day.

The Indian Bar Association dared to initiate a landmark court case against a Public Health Authority (PHA) to call out corruption and to save lives. As the courts in the United States proved to be the life-saving force to ensure a patient’s right to receive Ivermectin, a court in India is now doing the same.

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Twenty years ago, Taiwan counted the United States as its biggest export market, with Hong Kong and Japan in second and third place. Japan and the US also accounted for Taiwan’s largest import partners.

Twenty years later, the numbers tell a different tale. China by far is now Taiwan’s largest import and export trade partner, and counting it together with a much more integrated Hong Kong, its trade nearly dwarfs all other trade Taiwan has with the entire West.

If money is power, the flow of trade between Taiwan and the mainland represents an increasing amount of power to shake Washington’s grip on the island territory.

In this context, headlines like, “US government clears $750 million artillery sale to Taiwan,” from Defense News look less like Washington making headway and more like a futile attempt by Washington to instead play “catch-up.” It is catching up in the only way the US appears able to, through a series of manufactured threats and the promise of protection through arms sales to defend against them.

The defense capabilities offered to Taiwan through this most recent deal would make little difference “if” a war ever broke out between the Chinese mainland and its Taiwan territory. But that’s only “if.” In reality, the economic integration of Taiwan with the mainland is long underway and Washington’s brand of geopolitics, playing arsonist and firefighter, can only delay this inevitability.

The Defense News article notes:

The US State Department has cleared the sale of self-propelled howitzers and GPS-guided kits for artillery shells to Taiwan, marking the first such approval for the country’s self-ruling by the Biden administration.

The Defense Security and Cooperation Agency, or DSCA, announced the approval on Wednesday afternoon for Taiwan to acquire 40 M-109A6 Paladin 155mm self-propelled howitzers with associated equipment and support. The estimated cost of the potential sale is $750 million.

Large expenditures on “defence” against Taiwan’s largest trade partner is obviously illogical and wasteful. It is the sort of policy one could expect Taiwan’s politicians to pursue in support of US foreign policy objectives, rather than in support of Taiwan’s actual own best interests.

The arms deal has only created pressure between both Washington and Beijing, and the Chinese mainland with its Taiwan territory.

Even the US Doesn’t Recognize Taiwan as a Country

Officially, Taiwan is not a country. Not even Washington recognizes it as one. To illustrate this, for example, the US does not have an embassy in Taiwan. Instead it has what it calls the “American Institute in Taiwan.” This game of officially recognising the “One China” policy where Taiwan is recognised as part of a single China, while “unofficially” undermining the policy through de facto embassies, arms deals and America’s latest tip-toeing toward diplomatic relations with and recognition of Taiwan’s politicians, reveals the true source of tensions between Taiwan and the mainland.

Talks publicly available through the National Committee on US-China Relations feature US policymakers and politicians openly boasting about this two-faced approach to Beijing and the undermining of mainland-Taiwan relations.

Thus the “Taiwan question” is a pawn used by Washington for advancing US foreign policy objectives and in particular regard to encircling and containing China. Little to no regard at all is given to what is actually best for Taiwan.

This is why US policy toward Taiwan continues to focus on undermining positive communication between Taiwan and its largest most important source of economic prosperity, mainland China, as well as giving Taiwan weapons to point at its most important source of economic prosperity.

The diligent work of the US to make political dialogue between Teipei and Beijing reflect the ongoing economic integration of the island territory is at best a delaying tactic meant to complicate reunification and possibly provide a potential flashpoint to derail it altogether. Of course, in either scenario Taiwan loses.

What’s Next? 

Washington continues to push the narrative of an impending invasion from the mainland. The obvious goal of US foreign policy is to continue pushing, no matter how artificially and contrary to Taiwan’s best interests, toward a declaration of independence by Taiwan’s political administrators no matter how detached from reality such a declaration would be.

It is a repeat of US attempts to maintain Western influence over Hong Kong before US-backed protests finally petered out and the National Security Law effectively ended them for good.

The notion of Hong Kong becoming an “independent” territory was absurd. Yet the US managed to convince thousands of mostly young Hong Kong residents to fight in the streets against police, destroying their city, attacking their neighbours and damaging the economy in the process. In the end, many ended up in jail, paying the consequences of playing a role on behalf of Washington who used then discarded the opposition.

The same process is happening in Taipei regarding pro-independence politicians. The island is much larger than Hong Kong, possessing many of its own institutions including a military regardless of how outmatched its is by its mainland counterparts, and thus possesses the capacity to draw out Washington’s Hong Kong-style strategy much longer and prolong the setbacks Taiwan will suffer in the process.

But time is on Beijing’s side. Even a “declaration of independence” would not necessitate an “invasion” from the mainland. China can simply wait until Taiwan’s people feel the pain of US-induced “independence” and the stark contrast between political fantasies and both legal and economic realities.

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Joseph Thomas is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

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Congress is currently weighing multiple bills aimed at bolstering US tech and science resources in an effort to counter investments the Chinese government is making in both areas.

These bills would pour billions into research and development in the coming years, while also pushing for more accountability on human rights abuses in China. They haven’t passed both chambers yet, but they’re expected to in the coming months — and they’re indicative of a renewed focus in Congress on confronting the Chinese government more directly.

Combating the Chinese government’s economic, scientific, and technological inroads has long been a focus of both political parties. But the way lawmakers have framed the importance of checking the Chinese government — from proposing sweeping legislation aimed at blocking Chinese students from studying STEM fields in the US to remarks casting the country as an “existential threat” to America — has raised concerns from activists and foreign policy experts who worry that the rhetoric and tone of such efforts will further stoke already high anti-Asian sentiment.

While there’s overwhelming agreement that a more robust focus on American scientific and technological development is needed to ensure a strong economic future for the US — and that it’s vital to hold the Chinese government accountable, especially on human rights issues like the mass internment of the Uyghur minority — lawmakers need to be extremely careful when talking about competition with China so that they don’t fuel xenophobia.

Such xenophobia, stoked in part by the anti-China rhetoric of former President Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers at the beginning of the pandemic, has already caused a lot of harm. For example, Trump’s repeated decision to use terms such as the “China virus” has been linked to increasing anti-Asian sentiment over the last year.

Since spring 2020, the organization Stop AAPI Hate has received more than 6,600 reports of anti-Asian incidents ranging from verbal abuse to physical attacks, according to its website. The spike once again makes clear how tension between the US government and Asian countries can lead to hostility toward Asian American people. That trend was apparent in past conflicts as well, including when Chinatowns were attacked during the Korean War in the 1950s and when Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps during World War II solely on the basis of their ethnicity.

“Anti-China rhetoric reinforces yellow peril fears of Asians in the US and results in exclusionary policies and racial attacks,” said Russell Jeung, a professor of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University. “Orientalist perspective, the east is foreign, difficult, dangerous — that shapes both our foreign policy and shapes how we are treated domestically.”

Given the circumstances, it’s important for lawmakers to call out the Chinese government and bolster US resources while being sensitive to concerns about fueling racist sentiment. US attempts to spur growth should not hurt Asian American people in the process.

“It’s a fine balance that you have to play in both holding China and its policies accountable and not vilifying the people, and also be concerned about US-China relations and domestic race relations,” Jeung said.

Democrats and Republicans are both focused on “competition with China”

Addressing competition with the Chinese government is among the few areas that has garnered bipartisan consensus in recent months.

This past spring, the Innovation and Competition Act — one of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s top priorities — overwhelmingly passed the Senate and was praised by President Joe Biden, who touted the “generational investments” it made.

The measure focuses on how the US can maintain a competitive edge in general, while citing the importance of countering the technological progress and rise of China in particular. It contains more than $200 billion in funding, including money for research and development in areas such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and robotics.

While the focus on research and development isn’t troubling in itself, the repeated framing of pro-innovation measures like this as “anti-China” bills has prompted concerns — including among some Asian American lawmakers — that such rhetoric taps into the same xenophobia that phrases like “China virus” previously did.

“[Lawmakers] calling it the China Bill is disturbing to me,” said Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA), the head of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC). “That to me is Cold War rhetoric … and it is portraying China as the sole and key enemy.”

Both parties’ sweeping remarks about the legislation risk amplifying existing anti-Asian sentiments.

“If [Biden] decides to step up — he and his administration — and is really hard on China moving forward, I look forward to working with him on making sure that we out-innovate, out-compete and out-grow the Chinese and also starve them of the capital that they need to continue to build their slaveholder state and their blue-water navy,” Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) has previously said. “I have watched China take advantage of us in ways legal and illegal over the years,” Schumer (D-NY) said in a Washington Post interview about the Innovation and Competition Act.

Such statements echo a longstanding trend of how lawmakers have spoken about China in the past. Often, the threat facing the US is described as “China” or “the Chinese,” in an extremely broad sense, conflating the Chinese government with the Chinese people. Such rhetoric makes it seem like all Chinese people — and sometimes even members of the diaspora — should be considered threats to Americans, rather than the Chinese government.

As a report by Justice is Global, a project by the advocacy group People’s Action, detailed, some of the narratives used to frame critiques of the China government can rapidly translate to anti-Asian sentiment domestically. Inflammatory comments about China as an economic threat, for instance, can spur anti-Asian sentiments that blame Asian Americans for an individual’s loss of employment.

Congressional bills are only the latest measures to prompt scrutiny.

“When you see China, these are fierce people in terms of negotiation. They want to take your throat out, they want to cut you apart,” Trump previously said on Good Morning America in 2015. Biden, too, has been criticized in the past for describing Trump as someone who “rolled over for the Chinese,” in a campaign ad. Activists have also flagged prior comments made by FBI Director Christopher Wray, who has said that the challenges posed by China are a “whole of society” problem, a statement that seemed to imply that Chinese people overall were broadly to blame for national security threats.

Wow ⁦@JoeBiden⁩. Already trying to out-Trump Trump. This kind of fearmongering is causing violent attacks on Asian Americans. If you are trying to reform your past history of racist policymaking, like your 1994 crime bill, you had better do some homework. This ain’t it. pic.twitter.com/ePHiVGQFf3

— Cecillia Wang 王德棻 (@WangCecillia) April 19, 2020

“If we constantly evoke ‘China’ instead of specific parties, issues, or actions, then we are setting up a monolithic enemy,” said Aryani Ong, co-founder of the Asian American Federal Employees for Nondiscrimination. “What I’m concerned about is the harm to Asian Americans who are swept up by a negative public reaction to anything related to China. We saw this play out during Covid with the spike in hate and violence toward Asian Americans.”

In government and in the press, leaders’ policies are sometimes referred to by the country they represent. But in the case of China, there is a history of violence and disenfranchisement against Asian Americans and Asian immigrants, and the known pattern of associating US-Asia conflict with Asian Americans. Because of the pervasiveness of the “forever foreigner” stereotype — the idea that the loyalties of all Asian people in the US lie elsewhere — anti-China sentiment can very quickly spur xenophobia domestically.

In guidance that the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus has released to lawmakers regarding the rhetoric about bills addressing competition, the group pointed this problem out explicitly. “While it is common to refer to the actions of a government by the name of the country, in the context of rising anti-Asian hate, doing so can stoke xenophobia and hate,” they write. “This can be construed as implying that the Chinese people and Chinese Americans are enemies of the United States who seek to harm us.” To avoid this, CAPAC recommends specificity: for example, using terms like “Chinese government,” or “Beijing,” in lieu of “China.”

Michael Swaine, the director of the East Asia program at the think tank the Quincy Institute, says it’s an issue experts in the field have been discussing. He adds that he’s been concerned about how often lawmakers use phrases including “existential threat” as broad descriptors for China, which can set up an “us versus them” mentality.

“Quite a few China specialists are concerned about it,” he told Vox. “They see the incidents of anti-Asian attacks and that sort of thing in the US as being stimulated or triggered by certain things being said by US officials.”

Beyond being potentially dangerous, it seems that this broad rhetoric is just unnecessary. As Vox’s Jerusalem Demsas has previously reported, such framing isn’t needed to garner public support for policies like the Innovation and Competition Act. As Demsas noted, portraying the legislation as investments to compete with China did little to change how much the public ultimately backed it in a survey fielded by Data for Progress earlier this year.

Conflict or competition with Asian countries has historically fueled xenophobia

Historically, there have been numerous instances of either conflict or competition with Asian countries spurring xenophobia or anti-Asian sentiment in the US.

In 1982, as manufacturing competition with Japan ramped up, two Detroit autoworkers beat and killed 27-year-old draftsman Vincent Chin, a Chinese American man, accusing him of taking their jobs. During the Korean War, when China aligned itself with North Korea, vandals went after businesses near Chinatowns across the US. During World War II, in the wake of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans were put into internment camps by the US government. And following the September 11 terrorist attacks, South Asian Americans were among those targeted for the way they looked.

Most recently, during the pandemic, there’s been a sharp uptick of reported anti-Asian incidents tied to rhetoric used by President Trump and other Republicans who deployed phrases like “China virus,” and “Kung Flu,” which effectively scapegoated Asian Americans for the spread of the coronavirus.

“When officials express fears over China or other Asian countries, Americans immediately turn to a timeworn racial script that questions the loyalty, allegiance and belonging of 20 million Asian Americans,” University of Maryland political science professor Janelle Wong and writer Viet Thanh Nguyen previously argued in a Washington Post op-ed. “Most Americans are not skilled at distinguishing between people of different Asian origins or ancestries, and the result is that whenever China is attacked, so are Asian Americans as a whole.”

This conflation is a direct result of the belief that Asian Americans are perpetual foreigners, and feeds off tropes that treat all Asian people as homogenous.

“We become collateral damage every time there’s US-Asia conflict,” said Ong.

Concerns about such profiling have emerged following accusations faced by Chinese American scientists in recent decades as STEM competition between the two countries has grown. In 1999, Chinese American scientist Wen Ho Lee was arrested by the US government, only to be released once he pleaded guilty to mishandling data, and it became clear there was not sufficient evidence to support other allegations. In 2014, hydrologist Sherry Chen was apprehended for similar reasons and also saw the charges subsequently dropped. It’s a reminder that it isn’t just individual citizens, but the US government itself that still makes negative assumptions about many people of Asian descent.

“Our country … has a long and sordid history of discrimination against Chinese Americans, of targeting Chinese Americans, and this dates back to the late 19th century, when there were multiple massacres of Chinese Americans and multiple discriminatory anti-immigration laws passed that targeted the Chinese community,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said at a recent roundtable reviewing the pattern of anti-Asian discrimination. “The legacy of that history is still alive today and the latest chapter is unfortunately in the alleged targeting and scrutiny of Chinese American scientists.”

Lawmakers — and many other Americans — should reframe how they talk about China

As both recent and more distant history has made evident, the ways that lawmakers talk about China has huge effects. Broadly labeling China an enemy can lead to needless marginalization, violence, and even death.

“I think the biggest advice is to not have anything that was sweeping. We’re asking folks to watch their tone, tenor, and nuance in their approach to China,” said chief of staff for the Foreign Policy for America’s NextGen initiative Caroline Chang. Staying away from broad terms and talking about the government or specific leaders, such as President Xi Jinping, is a start.

The CAPAC promotes this idea of precision in its guidelines.

CAPAC has published guidance for other lawmakers regarding rhetoric.Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus

A source familiar with Schumer’s office said staffers have been careful about the rhetoric used around this bill and have been focused on flagging anything that raises concerns in drafts of news releases and speeches. The office has also been working to encourage reporters and media not to call the legislation the “China bill.”

Some activists and progressive lawmakers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), have also noted that the larger framing of America’s relationship as part of a zero-sum competition with China creates a stark and troubling binary that doesn’t reflect the cooperation that’s currently needed to address climate change and other pressing global problems.

“If the U.S. government doesn’t change course quickly, this dangerous bipartisan push for a new Cold War with China risks empowering hardliners in both countries, fueling more violence against Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, and failing to confront the truly existential shared threats we face this century,” a group of activists wrote in a letter this past spring.

Whether lawmakers adopt CAPAC’s recommendations — and change their approach to describing competition with the Chinese government — remains to be seen, but confronting this problem as these bills make their way through Congress will be extremely important to ensure that US leaders aren’t continuing to feed xenophobia.

“I continue to be nervous because it’s going to continue to be a challenge for the US, and we as a country need to figure out a way to talk about China,” Chang said.

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Update: On Aug. 10, the village governments of Naboay and Malay publicly released resolutions opposing the hydroelectric project, citing concerns about the project’s potential impacts on the Northwest Panay Peninsula Natural Park, municipal and agricultural water supplies, and the area’s indigenous Ati communities.

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Activists and local government officials in the central Philippines have lashed out at a recently announced plan to build a hydroelectric plant overlapping with a national park that’s home to rare and threatened species.

Strategic Power Development Corporation (SPDC), a subsidiary of Philippine mega conglomerate San Miguel Corporation, announced on July 13 its intention to build the $500 million, 300-megawatt pump-storage hydro facility in Malay municipality on the island of Panay. The project would include the construction of two dams and reservoirs, 9.6 kilometers (6 miles) of new roads, and the upgrade of 1.8 km (1.1 mi) of existing roads.

According to SPDC, the planned project near the confluence of the Nabaoy and Imbaroto rivers would consist of a 70-meter (230-foot) lower dam on the Naboay, with a 10.2-million-cubic-meter (2.7-billion-gallon) reservoir; and a 74 m (243 ft) upper dam with a 4.55-million-m3 (1.2-billion-gallon) reservoir extending to the Imbaroto. The company says the plant will provide energy to the regional grid to meet current and future peak demand, will support the local economy, and is part of President Rodrigo Duterte’s 2017-2040 Philippine Energy Plan.

Overall, the company says the complex would cover 122.7 hectares (303.2 acres), including 97.9 hectares (241.9 acres) of forest, of which 24.9 hectares (61.5 acres) are nominally protected land within Northwest Panay Peninsula Natural Park.

Significant biodiversity hotspot

Northwest Panay Peninsula Natural Park, which spans 12,009 hectares (29,676 acres) in the provinces of Aklan and Antique, was established in 2002 via a presidential proclamation. Home to critically endangered Visayan warty pigs (Sus cebifrons) and writhed-billed hornbills (Rhabdotorrhinus waldeni), as well as endangered Visayan hornbills (Penelopides panini), it has been locally recognized as a significant biodiversity hotspot since the 1990s.

The park holds some of the last remaining stands of primary lowland rainforest in the central Philippines, and serves as a key watershed providing potable water to Panay and neighboring islands.

Activists say the hydropower project puts water supplies for local communities at risk.

“The Nabaoy River is the lone source of potable water to nearby Boracay Island and to the residents of Malay,” said Ritchel Cahilig of the Aklan Trekkers Group. Boracay Island, separated from the park by a narrow strait, is a prime beach destination, recording 2 million tourist arrivals in 2019.

“I wonder how will they supply water to the residents especially during construction phase. During construction phase, for sure, large vehicles will be damaging the forest and the company seems do not have a clear alternative on how to restore what has been damaged,” Cahilig said.

The natural park is also home to a community of Indigenous Malay Ati people, who fish in the Nabaoy River and rely on the forests for sustenance.

Activists have also questioned the need for additional electrical capacity in the area. Citing reports from the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines, Melvin Purzuelo of the Green Forum-Western Visayas noted that from July 20-26, Panay Island’s average daily electricity consumption ranged from 345-364 MW, against existing capacity of 480 MW.

“It is clear now that a huge power supply is not needed at this time especially that the world is going through the COVID-19 pandemic,” Purzuelo said during a recent webinar.

The Naboay River, site of a proposed dam, is the primary source of potable water for the resort island of Boracay as well as the residents of Malay, Aklan. Image courtesy of Richard Cahilig/Aklan Trekkers.

Loss of local government support

SPDC’s proposal still requires approval from local governments and the Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

“The Malay [municipal government] have set a coordination meeting with the SPDC supposedly last August 2 to clarify issues involving the project but [the meeting] has been cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Purzuelo said.

Local officials have distanced themselves from endorsing the proposal. In a phone interview, acting Malay Mayor Floribar Bautista said the SPDC had not approached him to discuss the details of the project since he assumed his post in July 2018.

“What I know is the project was endorsed by the previous administration. When I checked the documents, it’s lacking. It seems the project may have [been] railroaded. I could not endorse the project at this time since I do not know how the project would affect our town. All they have to do is to convince me if the hydro dam project is worth it,” he said.

The village of Nabaoy is also reportedly set to cancel its previous endorsement of the project, activists say. No official cancellation had been issued as of the time this article was published; but just as in the case of the Malay municipal government, the previous leadership of Nabaoy village had endorsed the project in the early months of 2018.

Without approval from the current local governments, the project can only push through with special permission from the DENR.

Rebecca Tandug, of the Philippine Initiative for Environmental Conservation (Philincon), said her organization will maintain its opposition to the project and attempt to engage with SPDC. Eventually, she said, she hopes the company will decide to cancel the proposed plant.

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Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Tuesday warned the United States against aggressively challenging China, saying Washington’s increasingly hard-line views could be “very dangerous.”

He said the United States had moved from an approach of healthy competition with China to the view that America “must win, one way or another.”

“There is (US) bipartisan consensus today on one thing, which is relations with China,” he told the Aspen Security Forum.

“But their stance is to take a hard line. And I’m not sure that is the right consensus,” the Singaporean leader said.

“I don’t know whether Americans realise what a formidable adversary they would be taking on if they decide that China is an enemy.

“In this situation, I would say to both, pause, think carefully before you fast-forward, it’s very dangerous,” he said.

“It’s vital for the US and China to strive to engage each other to head off a clash, which would be disastrous for both sides, and the world.”

Lee, who is seen as someone with insights into the leadership of both countries, said Washington’s tough views of China are increasingly matched by Chinese belief that the United States can’t be trusted and wants to block its emergence.

He criticized the Biden administration’s show of toughness in its first high-level bilateral meeting with the Chinese in Anchorage, Alaska in March.

“The reality is neither side can put the other one down,” he said.

But Lee cheered the Biden administration’s return to a “more conventional” foreign policy after the disruptive approach of his predecessor Donald Trump.

“Countries are looking for long term strategic consistency from the US,” he said, and policy that is “reliable and predictable.”

He said Taiwan is a particular potential flashpoint.

“I don’t think they want to make a unilateral move” like invading Taiwan, he said of Beijing.

“But I think there is a danger, and the danger is of mass miscalculation.”

He expressed appreciation for US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s comments in Singapore last week, warning against any change in the status quo of the Taiwan situation.

“I think if that careful position is clearly and consistently maintained, then we are able to maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” Lee said.

At any rate, he added, “you’re in for a quite difficult period.”

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Now that the five-ringed Olympic circus has left town, Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party confronts the real contest of maintaining power in an election that must be held by October.

All along, the game plan had Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s party riding post-Olympics euphoria to an easy victory. Yet count the ways things have gone sideways.

Suga’s approval rating is, at best, in the low 30s as a fourth Covid-19 wave upends the nation. Growth is slowing anew as the sugar high from last year’s US$2 trillion of public stimulus wears off.

And this is all 11-plus months under Suga proved even less productive in reforming the economy than his predecessor Shinzo Abe.

Put these narratives together and it’s an open question whether Suga can hang on to power – although the odds are that his LDP will.

The ruling coalition’s one saving grace is that major opposition parties that weren’t much of a threat pre-Covid seem no more emboldened today. At least that is how matters look now – though ongoing pandemic fallout could, feasibly, create an opening for the LDP to lose power, as it did briefly in 2009.

Tokyo 2020 blowback

Suga’s own hold on power could prove tenuous if the Tokyo Olympics turns out to be the super-spreader event many health experts feared. During the Games, Tokyo’s average daily infection rates spiked to record highs. The question now is whether the Delta variant turns Japan into a pathogen hot zone.

“With the resurgence in infections, initial hopes of a clear economic rebound in July-September have faded,” says economist Yoshiki Shinke at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute.

That would mean considerable blowback for Suga’s fragile government, for as Japan’s 126 million people experience their fourth state of emergency, Covid fatigue is setting in.

And so are economic headwinds, which are sure to crimp household spending and business investment. They’re also sure to depress wages and make for even less generous bonus seasons than in 2020.

The financial hangover from the Olympics is beginning to set in, too. Officially, Japan claims to have spent $15 billion on Tokyo 2020. Private estimates put the figure closer to $30 billion, a ballooning of costs partly due to holding a largely spectator-free event after a year of delays with extreme health protocols.

Economist Takahide Kiuchi at Nomura Research Institute reckons that the absence of spectators in the stands at Tokyo 2020 alone cost the government more than $1.3 billion.

The price tag is sure to get increased scrutiny in the months ahead and result in higher tax burdens, the last thing Suga’s party needs heading into an election.

At the very least it creates an opening for Suga’s LDP rivals to become prime minister in an intra-party election to be held in September.

Suga’s sweetness running low

Suga seems to grasp that he has a popularity problem. In July, he decided not to stump for LDP candidates for a Tokyo metropolitan assembly election, a rare move by the party head.

Other party leaders seemed emboldened by Suga’s absence. In their own public appearances, Natsuo Yamaguchi, head of the Komeito Party, Yukio Edano of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and Kazuo Shii of the Japanese Communist Party all made note of Suga staying out of the fray.

Internally, LDP rivals also may see an opening.

Taro Kono, for example, is a perennial Suga understudy who gets considerable attention from political wags. The 58-year-old is a fluent English speaker, a real rarity for top LDP officials. His past appointments as minister of foreign affairs and defense make Kono, on paper, seem a viable successor.

Yet Kono’s more recent stint as minister of administrative and regulatory reform has impressed few. His initial moves to reduce red tape had epic pushback from bureaucrats.

A case in point was their stubborn championing of fax machines. Efforts to digitalize Japan’s ministries called for the mass phasing out of these 20th-century relics, but Kono did not manage it. And attempts to curtail the use of old-school Hanko stamps on documents is a work in progress, at best.

Nor has Kono’s role since January in spearheading Japan’s Covid-19 vaccination processwon him many kudos. Though Japan has greatly increased vaccination rates, supply constraints and vaccine hesitancy among the masses make Japan easy prey for the Delta variant.

Sanae Takaichi’s name is making the rounds in Tokyo. The former minister of home affairs has expressed interest in throwing her hat in the ring to become the LDP’s first female leader. The same with Seiko Noda, who serves as LDP deputy general secretary. She, too, has hinted at becoming Japan’s first female prime minister.

Other politicians to watch include Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and Fumio Kishida, a former holder of the same job. Shigeru Ishiba, a foreign policy hawk, also appears to be angling for a stint as prime minister.

But even if the LDP hangs on to power, it’s likely to have a tenuous public mandate. That augurs poorly for reform prospects.

The LDP’s challenges

Here, the Shinzo Abe years are being viewed more and more as a cautionary tale in lost leadership opportunities.

From December 2012 to September 2020, Suga was there every step of the way as Abe’s chief cabinet secretary. Abe took office with a bold plan to end deflation by curbing bureaucracy, loosening labor markets, increasing innovation and productivity, empowering women and attracting more foreign talent.

Importantly, Abe had three attributes no other Japanese leader did before: majorities in both houses of parliament; high approval ratings early on; and plenty of time in office to implement a revival scheme that had strong public support.

But Abe largely trod water, fobbing off said economic matters to the Bank of Japan. And his failure to use nearly eight years in power to good effect left Japan highly vulnerable to Covid-19 fallout.

This explains why Japan is struggling to keep consumer prices out of the red while the rest of the globe faces an inflation surge.

With the Olympics in the rearview mirror, “there’s the risk that the Suga government gets stuck with this image of having failed to control the pandemic,” notes analyst Tomoichiro Kubota at Matsui Securities Co.

If Abe achieved so little with such a strong mandate, what can Suga – or another LDP successor – be expected to accomplish with what looks likely to be a far weaker one?

Economists also find it troubling that the LDP seems more inclined to talk about defending Taiwan than a domestic economy losing altitude.

Even Abe has pivoted back to the spotlight to join the growing chorus of LDP officials voicing support for the democratic island as China trolls Taipei’s government.

Most pundits see it as a way of diverting attention away from domestic concerns. Some, though, can’t help but wonder if Abe is angling for a third shot at the premiership.

Is Suga the man?

As the election looms, Suga seems to be forgetting that in the digital age, a vibrant and innovative economy churning out tech “unicorns” is the real measure of strength and leadership – not sailing bigger naval vessels through the South China Sea.

Whatever the LDP is considering spending on its next warship, it should instead put toward semiconductor research and development.

Suga’s best chance at re-election is to spell out how he plans to reinvigorate economic reforms.

He must convince both party officials and voters that he has a strategy to rejuvenate Japan Inc’s innovative mojo, make government ministries more effective and meritocratic, narrow the gender pay gap and catalyze a renewable energy revolution that creates millions of high-paying jobs.

And there are even bigger problems on more distant horizons.

Any responsible Japanese government must articulate a plan to balance the conflicting tensions of a shrinking population and the biggest national debt burden among developed nations.

Given the breadth and depth of these challenges, dynamism is surely called for. Yet Suga’s far-from-charismatic turn at the helm thus far hardly inspires.

“The colorless approach he’s taken so far isn’t going to work,” warns economist Mari Iwashita at Daiwa Securities.

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Indonesia’s plan to phase out coal is a mere rebranding of an existing timeline to decommission aging plants, with no meaningful shift toward actually quitting the fossil fuel, a new report says.

State-owned utility PLN announced in May that it would start shutting down coal-fired power plants and phasing them all out by 2055, amounting to 50 gigawatts of capacity, with a view to net-zero carbon emissions by 2060.

But on closer scrutiny, there’s no early retirement of coal plants in sight and more than 40 new plants are still expected to be built, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), a Jakarta-based think tank.

A review of the announced numbers and the existing data and planning documents show that the plant retirement and net-zero emissions plans, though sounding “very promising” and looking like “a real breakthrough,” are “simply putting a new face on old plans,” the IEEFA says in a report.

This sends a mixed signal to the world and to investors, which subsequently could deter investment in clean energy, something the country badly needs in order to transition away from dirty coal to renewable energy, experts warn.

“It looked like the net-zero [emissions] policy is progressive, but if you dissect it, the content doesn’t give a strong enough signal that this is a very progressive policy,” said Andri Prasetiyo, a researcher at Trend Asia, an NGO that focuses on clean energy transition.

Mongabay reached out to PLN for comment but did not receive a response.

Coal-fired power plant in Indramayu, West Java, Indonesia. Image by Bkusmono/Wikimedia Commons.

No early retirements

For one thing, PLN’s announcement that it would retire all coal-fired power plants by 2055 gives the impression that some plants would be decommissioned earlier than their expected end of life. But the retirement plan simply highlights existing plans for an orderly decommissioning of sub-scale and antiquated coal facilities, in line with diminishing returns from these plants.

In other words, the coal plants that have been cited for retirement are those that are on track to be decommissioned anyway due to their old age.

“So this is not early retirement,” IEEFA energy finance analyst Elrika Hamdi said during a webinar. “All steam power plants will be retired in accordance with their respective ages and their contracts. So this is not something new.”

The first four plants to be retired, in 2030, will have been in service for 50 to 60 years by then; by industry standards, their decommissioning will have been long overdue.

“Planning to retire 50- to 60-year-old units is far from being ambitious, even within a purely competitive electricity market,” the IEEFA said in its report.

Elrika said PLN should be retiring those four plants well before 2030.

With no early retirement in sight, all coal plants are still on track to operate for their projected economic or contractual life, with PLN saying that both existing plants and those expected to come online will operate for their “natural economic life.”

Since most of Indonesia’s coal plants are still relatively new, this means the country’s power grid will still be dominated by coal for the foreseeable future, with coal plants typically operating for 25 to 30 years.

In its report, the IEEFA asked what would happen with these plants after they are retired and whether the decommissioning would include remediation of environmental impacts that the plants have caused during their operation. The IEEFA also questioned whether PLN, which has a monopoly on the national grid, has the technical or financial resources to decommission the plants in line with international standards.

“What steps have been taken by PLN to prepare for the decommissioning [of the plants]?” Elrika said. “Because we don’t know if PLN has experience in decommissioning or not. Because it’s not only about retiring coal power plants, but also about environmental remediation.”

Eddy Soeparno, deputy chair of the national parliament’s oversight committee for energy, said PLN is carrying out a study on how to monetize retired coal plants, one option being to relocate plants from the islands of Java and Sumatra to other parts of the country. The two islands have an oversupply of electricity, given the rush to build new coal plants in recent years.

“But [we] have to think about this [option] looking ahead because coal [consumption] has been limited and [planned to be] reduced to zero,” Eddy said as quoted by local media. “How far can PLN benefit from coal plant assets? Because they’re related to financial responsibility.”

Worker holding up a piece of coal in front of a coal firing power plant in the Netherlands. Image by Adrem68/Wikimedia Commons.

New coal capacity

Then there’s also the fact that PLN still plans to build new coal plants.

In touting its carbon neutrality goals earlier this year, the government announced a plan to stop building new coal plants after an ongoing program to add 35 GW to the national grid — powered mostly by coal — is completed. The government said only coal plants that are under construction or for which financing has been secured would be built, as instructed by President Joko Widodo.

This prompted speculation that the government was finally reevaluating the controversial 35 GW program, according to the IEEFA report.

However, PLN deputy CEO Darmawan Prasodjo said 21 GW of coal capacity will still come online, which includes planned plants for which financing has been finalized. Analysis by the IEEFA, meanwhile, suggests there are at least 44 coal plants with a total capacity of nearly 16 GW in the pipeline between 2021 and 2030, with the biggest ones planned for Java and Sumatra.

“This is a warning because there has been overcapacity [of electricity] in the Java-Bali and Sumatra grids in the past few years,” Elrika said. “We have to be critical. When we’re adding more plants in already congested [grids], this uses subsidy and compensation money [from the government], and that’s our tax money.”

Andri of Trend Asia called the moratorium on new coal plants a “half-hearted” commitment to fighting climate change, given that these new coal plants will still be churning out 107 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year for decades to come.

From the 44 coal plants already in the pipeline, there was around 4.1 GW of capacity that was still in the financing phase as of the end of 2020, according to IEEFA. This means that unless there’s been progress in the first six months of 2021, these plants have not achieved financial closure and may be cancelled.

Two of the projects — Tanjung Jati and Indramayu — haven’t secured financing in the more than a decade since they were included in the government’s power planning program in 2010.

Elrika said these projects should be scrapped per the president’s instruction, especially projects that have been in the pipeline for more than five years but still haven’t secured financial backing. This, at least, would be a starting point, she said.

She added independent power producers — private sector developers that build plants and sell the electricity to PLN — must realize that it’s getting increasingly difficult to secure financing for coal plants. More than 160 financial institutions around the world have adopted stricter investment policies to steer clear of coal, whether mining or power generation.

“When these financial institutions are already out [of the coal business], who wants to fund” these plant projects that are still in the pipeline, Elrika asked.

Paiton coal-fired power plant in East Java, Indonesia. Image courtesy of Pinerineks/Wikimedia Commons.

Cancellation, though not really

Even when unfeasible projects are cancelled, that’s not necessarily a mark of progress in the move away from coal, observers say. The Indonesian government recently announced the cancellation of 12 coal plants, which the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources said weren’t making any progress.

However, the IEEFA pointed out that 10 of the 12 plants were actually cancelled two years ago in PLN’s electricity procurement plan. And since these plants, with combined capacity of 177 megawatts, are small in scale — with poor operating efficiencies and high emissions — their cancellation has limited impact on overall carbon emissions targets.

“If PLN is serious [about achieving carbon neutrality], then give [us] the list of big coal plants [that will be cancelled],” Andri said. “We need to know which ones will be cancelled, especially the big ones.”

The IEEFA said there are indications the government will cancel 6.8 GW of new coal power based on the draft of this year’s procurement plan.

These projects “have either been modified and changed to renewable baseload or shifted to other sources of generation or postponed until further notice,” the IEEFA said in its report.

Elrika questioned why PLN and the government haven’t played up the potential cancellation of the 6.8 GW of coal power.

“This is something that should be celebrated, but it’s not being put into the spotlight,” she said. “Instead, [the government] focuses on small things, like the cancellation of problematic little plants of 177 MW.”

Villagers playing volleyball in the Suralaya village with the Suralaya coal power plant in the background in Cilegon city, Banten Province, Indonesia. Image by Ulet Ifansasti / Greenpeace.

Public health threat

Isabella Suarez, Southeast Asia analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), said an example of a big project that would have a significant impact on the country’s emissions is the Java 9 and 10 coal plants.

The $3.5 billion project, funded mainly by South Korean public financing agencies, is an expansion of the Suralaya coal-fired power plant complex, located in Banten province, Java.

With eight units already in operation, the industrial complex is the largest and most polluting in all of Southeast Asia. The two new plants will provide an additional 2 GW of installed electricity capacity in Indonesia, dwarfing other coal projects in the pipeline.

The project has been mired in controversy and faced opposition from local communities and environmentalists since its inception. They question the need to build more polluting plants in a region that already has a surplus of electricity.

The power plants are located approximately 120 kilometers (75 miles) northwest of Jakarta, in a region that already hosts 22 coal-fired power plants. Banten province as a whole has 52 coal power projects.

Critics have also voiced concerns over the environmental and health impacts of the new plants, with residents complaining that existing units have already caused problems for public health, agriculture and water.

Proponents of the project say the two plants will be built using ultra-supercritical technology, which uses less coal to generate a unit of electricity, and hence emits less carbon and other pollutants than older plants.

Once they’re up and running, the two plants will emit levels of nitrous oxides, sulfur oxides and dust lower than Indonesian standards. But they’ll still be nearly 10 times as high as the similar Gangneung Eco coal-fired plant being built in South Korea, the country underwriting and building the Java 9 and 10 plants.

Modeling done by Greenpeace in 2019 on the health impacts of the project show the two plants will cause 4,700 premature deaths over their lifetime if they stay within the Indonesian government’s emission limits. And even if they were built to comply with South Korean standards, they would still cost 500 to 1,500 lives over their 30-year lifetime.

“I guess those two plants are ultra-supercritical plants, but if you look at their EIAs [environmental impact assessments], that’s not going to help with the emissions that they’re going to have in the area,” CREA’s Suarez said.

She said a more ambitious coal phaseout policy and drastic policy reform in Indonesia will send a clear signal to investors that the country is ready and eager to quit its coal addiction and develop clean renewable energy.

“PLN’s ambition is an important indicator of how much Indonesia is taking their net zero goal seriously,” Suarez said. “So I agree a more ambitious PLN plan is needed to really firm up what Indonesia wants to do moving forward.”

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Indian External Affairs Minister Jaishankar’s visit to Tehran to attend Iranian President Raisi’s inauguration saw the Islamic Republic’s new leader praise India’s role in establishing security in Afghanistan, which might signal that those two are considering allying with Kabul against the Taliban to an as-yet undefined extent.

Indian-Iranian relations have seen their fair share of ups and downs over the past few years, especially after New Delhi loyally abided by its new Washington ally’s unilateral sanctions regime against Tehran, but their ties might soon improve judging by Iranian President Raisi’s latest remarks about the role that they can both play in establishing security in Afghanistan. The Islamic Republic’s new leader met with Indian External Affairs Minister Jaishankar who traveled to the Tehran to attend his inauguration. According to the English-language version of the official Twitter account of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran:

“[President Raisi] stressed the importance of close cooperation and coordination between the two countries in developing peace and stability in the region, and said, ‘#Iran and India can play a constructive and useful role in ensuring security in the region, especially Afghanistan, and Tehran welcomes the New Delhi’s role in establishment of security in #Afghanistan. The fate of Afghanistan must be decided by the Afghans themselves, and we believe that if the Americans do not sabotage the situation, this issue will be resolved quickly.’”

It’s noteworthy that India and Iran are voluntarily excluded from the Extended Troika on Afghanistan consisting of Russia, Pakistan, China, and the US due to the former’s unwillingness to publicly talk to the Taliban (which Moscow requires as a precondition for participating) and the latter’s well-known ideological and political disagreements with the US. This places them in a similar strategic situation with respect to the Afghan peace process and thus sets the stage for them to work more closely together in advancing their shared interests in this conflict so long as Tehran has the political will to do so.

It’s unlikely that they’d be able to pull a page from the 1990s-era playbook by arming anti-Taliban groups since that organization controls a significant share of Afghanistan’s borders. Even so, President Raisi’s praise of India’s “constructive and useful role in ensuring security in the region, especially Afghanistan” hints that his principalist (“conservative”) government might surprisingly allow Indian overflights through Iranian airspace in order to continue militarily supplying Kabul and its anti-Taliban allies despite Tehran previously hosting the Taliban as recently as last month for peace talks.

After all, that’s the only relevant role that India is playing “in (the) establishment of security in Afghanistan.” At the same time, however, President Raisi also predicted that “if the Americans do not sabotage the situation, this issue will be resolved quickly.” What’s so curious about his second remark is that it can also be interpreted as suggesting that Iran might not allow Indian overflights through its airspace for that purpose since the internationally recognized Afghan government is also officially an American ally. In other words, that exact scenario might arguably contribute to US efforts to “sabotage the situation” and thus prove counterproductive.

In other words, Iran is employing its stereotypical strategic ambiguity honed from millennia of diplomatic practice in order to confuse its target audience, which in this case consists of the US & India on one side and Russia & Pakistan on the other. The message intended for the first pair is that Iran is flexible with its foreign policy and wouldn’t mind indirectly aiding their anti-Taliban efforts in exchange for a much-needed pressure valve from Washington’s unilateral sanctions regime. In practice, this could take the form of the US lifting some of those restrictions in parallel with India investing more in the North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC).

As for second targeted pair of countries, Iran intends for them to receive this message as well so that they compete with the first pair in offering the Islamic Republic the most enticing incentives to abstain from that course of action. It shouldn’t be forgotten that although Iran recently hosted the Taliban, Tehran still deeply distrusts the group after it murdered nearly a dozen of its diplomats in 1998 and is accused of abusing Afghanistan’s majority-Shiite Hazara minority. Whereas the US and India can offer Iran economic incentives, Russia and Pakistan can perhaps counter with political and security ones connected to that conflict’s outcome.

The stance of Iran’s new 25-year Chinese strategic partners doesn’t seem to have been factored into the country’s deliberately ambiguous messaging regarding this scenario. The People’s Republic is against any perpetuation of the Afghan Civil War, especially that which is externally driven such as what India and Iran might be contemplating with a wink from the US, but it’s also unable to stop Tehran if it commits to doing this. China would prefer to most directly connect with Iran via the “Persian Corridor” through Tajikistan and Afghanistan, but this route could just be replaced with W-CPEC+ if made unviable in that scenario.

Of course, China could also informally dangle certain investment incentives to encourage Iran to move away from that scenario such as promising to accelerate the start of certain projects in exchange for ignoring India’s presumably US-approved Afghan-directed security outreaches, but it’s unclear whether that’ll happen. For this reason, it’s difficult at this moment to predict exactly what Iran’s new government will do since there are pros and cons to each course of action. Ideally, Russia and Pakistan would ensure Iran’s political and security interests in post-war Afghanistan, the US would lift the sanctions, and India would invest more in the NSTC.

That’s unrealistic to expect, though, so Iran will likely have to commit to one of those two scenarios. It can either facilitate India’s presumably US-approved “establishment of security in Afghanistan” by approving New Delhi’s overflights through its airspace to militarily supply Kabul and its anti-Taliban allies, or it can ensure that this doesn’t happen (or scale back and ultimately stop if it it’s already going on like some suspect). The second course of action is arguably the best for regional stability but Iran’s economy is really struggling right now so its new principalist (“conservative”) government might be tempted to seriously consider India’s speculative plan.

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Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Protests have spread from Hong Kong, to Thailand, and now to Myanmar and Malaysia. They began long before the COVID-19 crisis began, but the driving forces behind them are cynically taking advantage of the current crisis to draw more people out into what were otherwise unpopular, artificial opposition movements.

The protest leaders in each respective nation openly reference what they call an “ASEAN Spring” or “Asian Spring,” and have adopted symbols and slogans common across the regional protests. Protest leaders refer to this collective, regional movement as the “Milk Tea Alliance,” propped up by several common pillars.

The BBC in its article, “Milk Tea Alliance: Twitter creates emoji for pro-democracy activists,” would claim:

The alliance has brought together anti-Beijing protesters in Hong Kong and Taiwan with pro-democracy campaigners in Thailand and Myanmar.

“Anti-Beijing” is the key takeaway.

There are also several common threads between these movements that were deliberately unmentioned by the BBC including US government funding behind each and every opposition movement. It is no secret the US seeks to encircle and contain Chian – sponsoring “anti-Beijing” movements across Asia obviously fits into that strategy.

The fact that a US-based social media corporation – Twitter – has as a matter of company policy decided to endorse and promote the movement should raise immediate concern. Twitter, along with other US-based tech giants like Facebook and Google (which owns YouTube) have openly worked with the US State Department in helping to advance US foreign policy objectives for over a decade now.

The 2011 “Arab Spring” provided a stark example of not only US interference and even military intervention ushered in by engineered uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), but also an example of US-based tech giants’ role in helping.

The New York Times in its article, “U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings,” would note the role of US government funding in building up and unleashing opposition movements across MENA.

The article reported:

A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington, according to interviews in recent weeks and American diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks.

The New York Times would also mention the role of US-based tech giants in helping train, organize, and unleash unrest across MENA, stating:

Some Egyptian youth leaders attended a 2008 technology meeting in New York, where they were taught to use social networking and mobile technologies to promote democracy. Among those sponsoring the meeting were Facebook, Google, MTV, Columbia Law School and the State Department.

Then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would address the “technology meetings” in prerecorded messages played in front of participants. In one address, recorded in 2009, Clinton would claim:

You are the vanguard of a rising generation of citizen activists who are using the latest technological tools to catalyze change, build movements, and transform lives and I hope this conference provides an opportunity for you to learn from each other and discover the tools and techniques that will open new doors for activism and empowerment when you return home all over the world.

Of course, upon returning home to MENA – and amid regional economic turmoil – these US-funded, trained, and equipped opposition groups drew dissatisfied people into the streets to serve as cover for US-sponsored regime change across the region.

A portent of just how far the US sought to take its “Arab Spring” was revealed by late US Senator John McCain. In The Atlantic’s 2011 article, “The Arab Spring: ‘A Virus That Will Attack Moscow and Beijing’,” McCain would be quoted as saying:

A year ago, Ben-Ali and Gaddafi were not in power.  Assad won’t be in power this time next year.  This Arab Spring is a virus that will attack Moscow and Beijing.

Had Russia not intervened in Syria in 2015, the nation may have fallen. The US’ proxy militant force would have moved onward to Iran and then to southern Russia and into western China where US efforts were already long underway to spark violent separatism in both regions.

The blunting of Washington’s “Arab Spring” campaign meant that attempts to light additional regions on fire – Eastern Europe to Russia’s west and along China’s periphery in Southeast Asia – were slow-going. Attempts to install client regimes in Malaysia, Myanmar, and Thailand were blunted over the years by a combination of short-term political concessions and domestic military intervention.

Today, however, like before the “Arab Spring” transformed into regional war, economic crisis looms over the region and dissatisfaction among the population driven by a crisis ASEAN governments were not responsible for and have little ability to control is being eagerly exploited by US-backed opposition groups.

ASEAN governments and policies of lockdowns have caused dissatisfaction. But this would not be enough to create dangerous destabilization. It is instead ASEAN’s failure on the information battlefield that risks making the crisis worse.

ASEAN has failed to secure its information space. Each individual ASEAN member save for Cambodia and Vietnam, have had their information space entirely monopolized by US-backed media platforms and US-based social media networks.

Facebook and Twitter have openly involved themselves in the internal political affairs of both Thailand and Myanmar in recent months in support of US-backed protests. After Myanmar’s military took power in February, Twitter and Facebook swiftly moved to remove the accounts of the new central government.

Facebook for example would exclaim:

Today, we are banning the remaining Myanmar military (“Tatmadaw”) and military-controlled state and media entities from Facebook and Instagram, as well as ads from military-linked commercial entities.

In Thailand, Twitter in an official announcement would claim:

Our investigation uncovered a network of accounts partaking in information operations that we can reliably link to the Royal Thai Army (RTA). These accounts were engaging in amplifying pro-RTA and pro-government content, as well as engaging in behavior targeting prominent political opposition figures.

The use of the term “reliably link” means Twitter had no evidence. In reality, it was simply purging accounts retweeting and liking posts made by official Thai military accounts. Meanwhile, Twitter not only allows the open abuse of its platform by the US-backed opposition to carry out actual coordinated inauthentic behavior, it also openly encourages Thai Twitter users to break Thai criminal defamation laws.

In an announcement made in May 2021, Twitter would tell Thai users that its regulations did not recognize Thai defamation laws and would even provide a special hotline to link those charged under Thai law with organizations providing free legal aid. These included US government-funded “Thai Lawyers for Human Rights” and “iLaw.” The goal is to undermine both Thai law and the social stability Thai law seeks to maintain.

While US-based social media networks have been quick to suspend accounts questioning Western COVID-19 policies or Western pharmaceutical corporations and their vaccines – these same networks allow disinformation to spread like wildfire across ASEAN especially in regards to claims involving China’s Sinovac vaccine and disinformation aimed at inflating the health and economic impact of the crisis.

The goal is to fan the flames of fear, hysteria, and more importantly, anger, to help boost attendance at wavering street protests backed by the US and to redirect national energy from overcoming the current crisis toward destabilizing the region further.

Partly because of COVID-19, the opportunity for an otherwise unlikely US gambit of destabilizing ASEAN and encircling China with either hostile US client regimes, or destabilized failed states now exists. But it is also partly – and perhaps mainly – because ASEAN has utterly failed to secure its information space. A war is now raging on a battlefield ASEAN governments have no soldiers on, and it is losing.

ASEAN nations have increasingly turned to Russia and China to meet more traditional national security threats, purchasing military equipment like tanks, warplanes, helicopters, and naval vessels. However, Russia and China – who have successfully defended their own respective information spaces – have the human and technical resources to potentially “export” the means for ASEAN states to defend their information space as well – not only in the form of “information warfare,” but also in the form of helping build local social media alternatives to US-based corporations – breaking the monopoly these foreign corporations hold over ASEAN’s information space, and giving the power to governor and protect it back to the region itself.

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Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.  

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In 2003, when several lawyers, including myself, visited North Korea to learn more about socialism there, we were shown US Army documents captured in 1950 by the communist forces when they seized control of Seoul and overran the American Army headquarters. The documents confirmed that it was the US and its puppets in South Korea that invaded the north, not the other way round, with the objective of crushing the local communist forces and then attacking China. Their plan failed and ended in an American rout. But what did surprise me was the evidence in the documents that the Americans also had the help and advice of Japanese Army officers who had remained in Korea at the end of the war between the US and Japan that ended in 1945. Two growing empires went to war in the Pacific against each other but in the end the defeated and occupied Japanese soon joined the growing American empire in its drive for world domination and Korea was the first proof of their fealty to the US, a fealty tolerated not only because of their defeat but also because American capital and Japanese capital have the same interest; the subjugation and exploitation of China.

On July 6 the Japanese Deputy Prime Minister stated at a Liberal Democratic Party function, that if China acted to take control of Taiwan, as is its right to do since it is an integral part of China, then Japan would defend Taiwan, because such an action by China would represent an “existential threat to Japan.”

“If a major incident happened, it’s safe to say it would be related to a situation threatening the survival of Japan. If that is the case, Japan and the US must defend Taiwan together.” 

Why it would be an “existential threat to Japan” he did not explain.

That he spoke for the leadership of Japan is clear. That any interference in China’s actions in Taiwan would be an aggression against China and in violation of the Japanese Constitution that prohibits Japanese Self-Defence Forces from taking any offensive actions and a violation of the UN Charter is also clear.

In response China has stated time and again that it is prepared to defeat both the US and Japan if they try to interfere when China retakes control of Taiwan, which every action by the Americans and Taiwanese is provoking them to do. The Americans recognise that they do not have enough strength in the region to interfere alone and so have lured Britain, France, and Germany, as well as the ever-eager Australians, to send in naval forces to the South China Sea to support the American and Japanese plans. It is more than ironic to see four nations that were bitter enemies of Imperial Japan in World War II, now colluding with Japan to once again attack China and that Germany, an ally of Japan in the Second World War, once again is attempting to throw its weight around in the world. The Chinese have a long and bitter memory of the Japanese invasion and occupation of their lands in the 1930s and 40’s just as the Koreans have the same bitter memories of Japanese occupation.

But we realise now that the defeat of the fascists and militarists in Germany and Japan in 1945 was not their final defeat, for the governments who fought those two nations also had fascist elements within who hoped that the Nazis would crush communism in the USSR and the Japanese would do the same in China. Instead, the elements of world capital that supported or tolerated fascism and relied on imperialism to increase their profits quickly reorganised and, led by the far right in Washington, created the NATO military alliance to continue the assault on the USSR and now on Russia, China and other independent nations. They wear different clothes now, but use the same lies and techniques of propaganda as the Nazis and Japanese militarists as they prepare for another war against China and Russia.

On July 30 the Chinese government had to warn the British government and its naval task force, led by the new British aircraft carrier, Queen Elizabeth, to keep away from its territorial waters or face the consequences. Yet, at the same time the US and France conducted military exercise with dozens of US F22s and French Rafale aircraft near Hawaii as the French beef up their forces in Tahiti, while the Americans have dispersed their fleet of bombers and fighters including F35s from their big base on Guam, which the Chinese can destroy quickly, to smaller bases, making it more difficult for China to destroy those aircraft. This type of dispersal is usually seen in war settings, when war is on going or imminent.

At the same time the Germans announced that they will be sending a frigate to the South China Sea in support of the Americans and Japanese, while the Americans sent more ships into the Taiwan Strait this week. Some may see all this as sabre rattling. But that is a lot of sabres, and they are doing a lot more than just rattling them.

As Hans Rudiger Minow stated in German Foreign Policy,

“The intensification of western manoeuvres and their growing focus on combat missions, which are highly realistic under current circumstances, coincide with prognoses by high-ranking US military officials, predicting that a war between the United States and China is probable in the near future. For example, recently NATO’s former Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), Ret. Adm. James G. Stavridis, was quoted with the prognosis that “our technology, network of allies and bases in the region, still overmatch China” – for now. However, “by the end of the decade – if not sooner” the People’s Republic “will be in a position” to “challenge the US” at least “in the South China Sea.” Recently Stavridis published a novel in which he depicted a fictional war erupting between the USA and China in 2034. In the meantime, he considers “we may not have until 2034 to prepare for this battle – it may come much sooner.” Some of his colleagues in the military are predicting that “it is not about 2034,” the Big War could come earlier – possibly even “2024 or 2026.”

But it is not China that is seeking a war. So who is pushing this insanity? The propaganda machines in the west, all part of the military-industrial complex, are legion. But one of the worst is the Hudson Institute, founded in 1961 by Herman Khan, formerly of the Rand Institute, who was famous for playing nuclear war games and theorising on the possibilities of using nuclear weapons in war. Its current leadership and membership include fascists like Mike Pompeo, Seth Cropsey and many others who served in various US government regimes or the US military establishment.

Seth Cropsey’s bio states,

“Cropsey began his career in government at the US Department of Defense as assistant to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and subsequently served as deputy undersecretary of the Navy in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, where he was responsible for the Navy’s position on efforts to reorganize DoD, development of the maritime strategy, the Navy’s academic institutions, naval special operations, and burden-sharing with NATO allies. In the Bush administration, Cropsey moved to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) to become acting assistant secretary, and then principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict. Cropsey served as a naval officer from 1985 to 2004.

“From 1982 to 1984, Cropsey directed the editorial policy of the Voice of America (VOA) on the solidarity movement in Poland, Soviet treatment of dissidents, and other issues. Returning to public diplomacy in 2002 as director of the US government’s International Broadcasting Bureau, Cropsey supervised the agency as successful efforts were undertaken to increase radio and television broadcasting to the Muslim world.”

In other words he is a long time anti-socialist propagandist and war criminal.

Cropsey penned a recent article published in The Hill, a US right wing journal covering events in Washington entitled ,“Japan Signals An Opening for US in Countering China” in which he praised the statement by Taro Aso that Japan will support Taiwan in case of China acting to take control of its island, claimed that China seeks “world dominance” and predicted a war with the USA in the near future.

He further states that the Japanese have now made a “decisive shift” in foreign and military policy, dismisses the Japanese constitutional prohibition on Japanese offensive actions and calls for Japan to increase it military forces and support to “counter” China.

He wrote:

“Defending Taiwan is a difficult proposition. The PLA is at its strongest within the First Island Chain, particularly around Taiwan, given Beijing’s concentration of naval, air, and missile forces. To defend the island, the US and its allies would have to operate squarely within China’s missile range, jeopardizing the high-value capital assets upon which American combat power depends.

“However, Japan and the US both field significant submarine fleets — Japan’s small but quiet battery-powered boats are an effective counterpart to America’s larger nuclear-powered attack submarines. Submarines are immune to the missiles upon which the PLA would rely to gain sea and air control over Taiwan. If supported by a sufficient fast-boat mining effort, and a robust enough network of mobile ground-launched anti-ship and anti-air missiles, a Japanese-American submarine surge could defeat a PLA invasion of Taiwan, or at minimum prevent the fait accompli for which China hopes.

Given this strategic reality.”

He calls for more military exercises with the US and Japan, France, and Britain and their other allies to “prepare for war.” He then adds the lie that “preparing for war is essential to deterring it” when what he really means is that America is preparing for war in order to wage war.

The forces of peace and reason in the world must denounce these war preparations as a danger to the entire world for a war on China will bring in Russia and others, will lead to world war, to nuclear war and the end of humanity. We must denounce these criminals and demand the International Criminal Court prosecutor take action to warn the Americans, and indict the leaders of the US allies over which it has jurisdiction, their propagandists like Seth Cropsey, and all the rest who are conspiring to commit aggression, the supreme war crime, the final act of insanity, because it seems to me that is what war with China will be, the final act in the human drama. We wont have to wait for abrupt climate change to finish us off.

But the ICC says nothing about all this and the UN Security Council is rendered impotent. So who then is left to object, to say enough is enough, to hell with the criminals and their wars, except us, the people, But what can we the people do? Yes, protest, petition, write, shout, cry, join peace groups like the one I belong to, the Canadian Peace Congress, do anything you can but get up, stand up, as Bob Marley called for us to do, and as John Lennon demanded, Give Peace A Chance.

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Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”. 

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A recent video post on The New Atlas discussing US-backed protests in Malaysia exposed Malaysia-based media organization, “Malaysiakini,” as funded by the US government and convicted financial criminal George Soros’ Open Society Foundation.

Viewers responded with surprise that Malaysiakini was funded by the US government, apparently unaware of the media platform’s foreign backing.

Here is a video that goes deeper into Malaysiakini’s funding, what it means regarding its claims of being “independent media,” and the danger of media and opposition groups hijacking legitimate concerns among the Malaysian people in the same way the US-engineered “Arab Spring” did across the Middle East and North Africa in 2011.

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US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J Austin has said the United States is pursuing an “integrated deterrence” strategy in the Asia-Pacific region that will rely on stronger defence co-operation and enhanced co-ordination with allies and partners to better meet a range of regional challenges, including “the spectre of coercion from rising powers”.

In a speech given on 27 July in Singapore as part of a tour of Southeast Asian countries including Vietnam and the Philippines, Lloyd described ‘integrated deterrence’ as Washington’s “new, 21st-century vision” for the region.

He said that while deterrence remains the cornerstone of US security, emerging threats and cutting-edge technologies are changing the face and the pace of warfare. In this context the ‘integrated deterrence’ strategy is designed to use “every military and non-military tool in our toolbox, in lock-step with our allies and partners”.

“Integrated deterrence is about using existing capabilities, and building new ones, and deploying them all in new and networked ways … all tailored to a region’s security landscape, and in growing partnership with our friends.

“We’re aiming to co-ordinate better, to network tighter, and to innovate faster, and we’re working to ensure that our allies and partners have the capabilities, the capacities, and the information that they need,” said Austin during the 40th IISS Fullerton Lecture, which was organised by the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS).

“With our friends we are stepping up our deterrence, resilience, and teamwork, including in the cyber and space domains,” said the secretary, who also gave number of examples of how the new strategy is being implemented.

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August memories

August in Japan is a time of remembrance—of family dead (honoured in the festival of Obon) and of war dead (those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in particular). Seventy-five years after the end of the war, the ranks of those who remember it have grown thin, but in August 2020 one story caught my eye. It was the story of Yi (or Lee) Hak-nae, born in the then Japanese colony of Chosen (Korea) in 1925 and known during the war and during his trials by his Japanese name, Hiromura Kakurai. Now aged in his nineties, Yi is the last survivor of 148 Koreans convicted of war crimes in the Allied trials that followed the East Asian and Pacific wars and continued to 1947. His story, published by Reuters in 2020, was headed ‘The Survivor: Last Korean War Criminal in Japan Wants Recognition’.¹

Yi, tried by an Australian court in Singapore, was first found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to death. Similarly convicted, twenty-three others were in due course executed. Yi’s sentence, however, was commuted to twenty years’ imprisonment. He was transferred in 1951 from Singapore’s Changi prison to Tokyo’s Sugamo, and eventually released in 1956, after ten years in prison. The guilty verdict cast a shadow over his subsequent life.

Following the Reuters account on 5 August, the story was retold in Japanese two days later, introduced by Yi himself on the NHK Morning show to a nationwide television audience, there focusing not so much on the ‘war crimes’ and the allegations of brutality as on the injustice of the discriminatory treatment afforded to ‘non-Japanese’ former convicted ‘war criminals’ (senpan) after the war.² On 14 August the daily Tokyo shimbun carried a further story focusing on that problem and on the movement Yi had long spearheaded demanding of the Japanese government equal treatment for non-Japanese (Korean) and Japanese ex-prisoners.³ At around the same time, Japan’s monthly journal Sekai published an interview with Yi and an article addressing his case by a leading scholar in the field of war and treatment of prisoners.⁴

I researched and wrote about the Burma–Thailand railway and the Yi Hak-nae case almost thirty years ago,⁵ so these stories in this August month of remembering, seventy-five years since the war’s end, drove me to reflect once again: what was the Burma–Thailand railway? Why was a Korean, Yi Hak-nae, working there as a POW camp guard? How had he been punished and on what grounds? What ‘recognition’ does he seek, and with what right? In pondering these questions, I also felt that it was time to pay some attention to the recent work of Australian military historians on the Australian war-crimes trials, notably resulting in the 2016 publication of a substantial tome on the subject.⁶

Building the railway

During the crucial war years of 1942–43, Japan’s Imperial Army command attached high priority to the construction of a railway linking Thailand to Burma (as Myanmar was then known). The ‘Burma–Thailand Railway’, crossing 414.9 kilometres of jungle and mountain terrain between Ban Pong in Thailand (about 88 kilometres from Bangkok) and Thanbyuzayat in Burma, was designed to open a secure overland route for the transport of troops and supplies to Burma for the war against British India.

It was Japan’s first large-scale, multinational engineering and construction project. A massive labour force was organised. Two regiments of the Imperial Japanese Army, some 10,000 men, were assigned around 55,000 Allied POWs from the roughly 250,000 who had fallen into Japanese hands since war began in December 1941, plus 70,000 or so locally recruited civilian Southeast Asian (Tamil Indian, Burmese, Thai, Malay) romusha (labourers), and even a squad of 300 elephants, for work in the jungle.⁷ To guard the prisoners Japan recruited some 3000 Koreans from Chosen. Work commenced in November 1942.

The task was hard enough, given the jungle and mountain conditions, but it was made even harder by the early and unusually severe onset of the monsoon and the afflictions that ravaged the workforce (cholera, malaria, dysentery, beriberi, ulcers). In February 1943 the projected construction time was cut from twelve months to eight and a ‘speedo’ campaign was launched that forced prisoners to work longer days with less rest. As the pace was stepped up, more than 12,000 Allied prisoners died, including 2646 of about 13,000 Australians, and a much greater but unknown number of romusha. They died of starvation, exhaustion, illness (cholera in particular) and general ill-treatment. There was said to have been one death for every sleeper laid for the line. At Hintok construction camp (adjacent to the infamous Hellfire Pass and about 150 kilometres from Banpong), where Yi was one of six Korean civilian camp guards, about 100 of 800 prisoners died. On the camp’s worst days in mid-1943, that meant up to six each day.

No sooner was the line opened, in October 1943, than it was smashed by Allied bombing. Few trains ever ran on the line, and those that did carried defeated, wounded and sick Japanese troops back after the Battle of Imphal in India (which commenced in March 1944).

In Australia in particular, once the war ended and POWs returned home, war-crime trials, with their stories of forced heavy labour, beatings, general ill-treatment, hunger and disease, fed bitter, lasting negative images of Japan. In 1991, my Australian National University (ANU) colleague Hank Nelson, a specialist on the war experience in Australia, and I, a modern Japanese historian, together with Utsumi Aiko, a Japanese academic specialist on the war and Japan’s relations with its Asian neighbours, convened a conference in Canberra that sought to bring together as many survivors as possible, i.e. including formerly hostile parties, to reflect on the episode across the gulf of half a century.

Notable former Australian POWs included Edward (‘Weary’) Dunlop (1907–93), Tom Uren (1921–2015) and Hugh Clarke (1919–96). Dunlop was already a distinguished surgeon and widely revered national figure, Uren a prominent politician and former deputy prime minister, and Clarke a highly regarded novelist. From the ‘other’ side just the Korean, ‘civilian auxiliary’ or gunzoku,Yi Hak-nae, confronted and sought forgiveness from and reconciliation with his former charges. The book of this conference was published in English in 1993 and in Japanese in 1994.

The trials

In 1946–47, Australia conducted twenty-three war-crimes trials in Singapore, with sixty-two defendants. It found eighteen guilty and sentenced them to death, acquitted eleven, and sentenced an additional thirty-three to varying prison terms. Yi was tried on 18 and 20 March 1947. The charges were that during part of the period March to August 1943 Yi had ‘occupied the position of Camp Commandant’ and during that period:

The prisoners of war lived under the most appalling conditions, shelter and accommodation were totally inadequate and most primitive. They were also denied sufficient food, medical supplies, clothing and footwear… [while being] forced to perform heavy manual labour on the railway line for which they were totally unfit by reason of their physical and medical condition… As a result of this treatment sickness and disease among the prisoners of war became rife and by the end of April 43.2% of the camp strength were in hospital…out of 800 Australian prisoners of war who went into the camp over 100 of them died there, and that the accused was responsible for their death.⁸

Found guilty of having ‘inhumanely [sic] treated prisoners of war’—in effect, guilty of mass murder—Yi was sentenced to death. His defence counsel petitioned the court and in October his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

Yi’s trial was marked by multiple irregularities, but the overwhelming one was the assumption that he had been ‘Camp Commandant’, himself responsible for the ‘appalling conditions’. It was a major mistake that should have been corrected at the outset. Because guards such as Yi were the principal point of contact between prisoners and camp authorities they tended to be seen as responsible, but they had zero control over the conditions of the camp, their status was lower than a private and they were themselves subjected to multiple abuses and discrimination from the Japanese military. Tasked with forcing POWs to work on the line construction, and under tremendous pressure from the Japanese army camp command to meet daily prisoner work norms, Yi had to maximize the labour force, while Dunlop, then a 36-year-old Australian army surgeon and the senior prisoner commander, had to minimize it, doing what he could to prevent prisoners who were ill or enfeebled from starvation or disease from being allocated to work detachments.

For some weeks in March-April 1943, in the absence or illness of regular Japanese authorities, Yi did indeed serve as acting camp commandant, but he was obliged to implement policy, not determine it. Though Yi was charged over matters to do with his having ‘occupied the position of Camp Superintendent’, a status that continued until August, in his account (discussed below) Colonel Dunlop made no such claim. He referred only to the very different charge, that in April-May 1943 ‘while in charge of works parade arrangements (italics added) [Yi was] forcing doctors to discharge patients from hospital to work’. He was clear and specific as to time, and made no reference to any beatings or brutality, or to any act of Yi’s causing death. He added the names of two other prisoners from whom details could be sought.⁹ Since no statement from either appears in the file it would seem either that they were not asked or that they declined to answer.

Yi’s account to the court confirmed Dunlop’s statement. His spell as acting commander of the camp was indeed brief (March-April 1943). ‘After May’, he told the court (which did not dispute the fact), ‘I was ordered to assist in the orderly room so I did not have any connection whatever with the work parade’. Dunlop’s own diary, not published until much later but meticulous in its detail, makes clear his hatred for Yi as ‘a proper little bastard’ (17 March 1943), ‘a terrible thorn in the side’ (6 April 1943), who ‘against all medical judgment, forced more sick men out to work’ (12 April 1943), but he made no reference to ever having been beaten or personally ill-treated by him.¹⁰ He also confirms that Yi’s spell as acting camp commandant ended in April. The indictment was therefore fundamentally flawed by falsely charging Yi with overall responsibility for camp conditions continuing to August.

Much later, to the Canberra conference of 1991 and as if to settle the matter, Dunlop said:

I was bashed by others…but [Hiromura/Yi] he wasn’t a basher. I didn’t regard him as a major criminal. I regarded him as a pawn. His powers were very limited. Most of my real fights were with the Japanese engineers.¹¹

Not only that but, far from being camp commandant at the time he was accused of committing the offences, Yi was an 18-year-old boy (born 1925), a fact that Colonel Dunlop and other former prisoners in the camp were shocked to learn when they re-met him in Canberra in 1991.

Perhaps even more remarkable, when Yi was arrested and put on trial in 1947 it was on the same charges—ill-treatment of prisoners—over which he had been arrested and imprisoned, but then released, the previous year. On 17 October 1946, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert C. Smith, commander of 1st War Crimes section, Singapore, had minuted the Yi file: ‘Case not serious enough to warrant trial. Close file’. He then wrote to headquarters, Singapore district, to say: ‘It is now advised that the case against the above-named has been dropped as it is only of a minor nature’.

That should have been the end of the matter. Charges against him dismissed, Yi was duly released on 10 December 1946. Boarding a repatriation vessel, he got only as far as Hong Kong before being removed from the ship, re-arrested, and subjected to the same charges as those Lieutenant-Colonel Smith a year earlier had thought ‘minor’. The major difference in charges was the addition of the following words: ‘…out of 800 Australian prisoners of war who went into the camp over 100 of them died there, and that the accused was responsible for their death’. In short, with Yi being found guilty in 1947 of the charge of mass murder that had been dismissed in 1946, the trial offended against the fundamental legal principle of autrefois acquit. Astonishingly, the court in 1947 was unaware of those 1946 proceedings until they were brought to its attention by Yi’s counsel after the 1947 judgment and sentence.

The proceedings were brief, even summary in character, no small matter when the accused is facing a capital charge. There were no witnesses to be called or cross-examined, and just eight pieces of written testimony—seven sworn affidavits and one unsworn ‘Q’ form, discussed below. Yi estimates (and the transcript suggests that the figure is about right) that he confronted the tribunal for about forty minutes. Yi understood little of the proceedings save the three heavy words with which they concluded: ‘death by hanging’.

The evidence was thin. Of the 600 or so former prisoners from Hintok camp, just seven (two majors, two captains, one lieutenant, one sergeant-major and one private) submitted sworn affidavits. Three in particular made serious allegations against Yi. Captain Cecil George Brettingham-Moore referred to ‘one classic occasion’ sometime between 25 May and 14 July, when conditions at Hintok were at their worst, on which Yi had beaten Dunlop with a bamboo stick after the latter had interceded to try to prevent sick men from being assigned to work brigades. Sergeant-Major Austen Adam Fyfe testified that Yi had often beaten him and he had witnessed one occasion in around July 1943 on which he had seen Yi bashing Colonel Dunlop severely across the head and body. Major Hector George Greiner referred in particular to an incident some days after Dunlop’s arrival in the camp (i.e. April 1943) in which Yi had attacked and beaten him. He also referred to Yi as having been ‘in charge’, and described him as ‘one of the most brutal guards I had experiences with’, the very phrase that in 2020 Reuters stretched into a general prisoner consensus: ‘Trial records reviewed by Reuters show prisoners [sic] remembered Lee (Yi/Hiromura), known as the Lizard, as one of the most brutal guards on the railway’. Although the Greiner charge was plausible, the problem with the Fyfe and Brettingham-Moore testimony is that it refers to a July bashing (Fyfe), and a ‘classic occasion’ between late May and July that Brettingham-Moore remembered, neither of which could have occurred on Yi’s watch.

Three other former prisoners made some mention of Yi. Major John Chauncy Champion de Crespigny said that Colonel Dunlop suffered abuse, slapping and humiliation at Yi’s hands practically daily but had no recollection of any ‘severe’ beating. Captain Richard Hastings Allen described Yi as ‘no worse than most of the camp staff where beating of PW was a daily occurrence’. Lieutenant Reginald Gilbert Houston referred to Dunlop having been frequently ‘ill-treated’ by Hiromura/Yi, but he mentioned no specific incident. One further ex-prisoner was Private Harry Ashley Hugal. Though present at the camp throughout the period in question, and the only ordinary soldier to lay any complaint over his treatment there, Hugal made no mention of Yi at all in his affidavit.

The evidence was thus far from decisive, and Dunlop’s testimony, as senior officer in the camp and himself the subject of alleged beatings at Yi’s hands, was plainly crucial to the prosecution case. Yet there was no sworn statement from him but simply a pencilled ‘Q’ form (‘a piece of unsworn paper’, as defence counsel put it). The fact of his declining (or refusing) to submit any sworn accusation or to give direct evidence amounted, in this capital trial, to pointed silence. The only explanation for why the trial’s ‘Exhibit One’ was being presented in such an unsworn format would seem to be that the war was over and Dunlop had no interest in retribution.¹² The court likewise gave no explanation as to why the ‘Q’ forms of other prisoners were not before it.¹³

In an affidavit dated 27 June 1946, Dunlop referred to a Lieutenant Hirota [Eiji], a young engineer attached to the railway corps who had been responsible for work parties, ‘enjoyed a reputation for ruthlessness’, and was ‘directly responsible for many deaths’.¹⁴ Brettingham-Moore and Hugal also mention Hirota in their depositions, and at one point in Brettingham-Moore’s deposition the letters ‘ta’ (of Hirota) have been crossed out and replaced by ‘mura’ (of Hiromura), so the possibility of mistaken identity in the judicial process, the confusion of Hiromura and Hirota, is real. Hirota, tried in September 1946 on charges of ill-treatment of prisoners, was found guilty, and executed on 21 January 1947.¹⁵

After the 1947 tribunal returned its guilty verdict (‘inhumane treatment of prisoners, causing death of more than one hundred’) and sentence against Yi, however, both in Singapore and in Canberra doubt seems to have persisted. The case lacked a decisive piece of evidence. Exhibit One, Dunlop’s Q form, was a remarkably thin basis upon which to warrant a death penalty. When the tribunal referred the file to the judge advocate-general in Canberra, L. B. Simpson, for advice, Simpson on 2 June wrote an initial opinion in which he saw ‘no reason in the proceedings why the finding and sentence should not be legally confirmed’ but then went on to add, almost as an afterthought, the following, contradictory, comment: ‘In comparison with the other cases, this is not a particularly bad one, and I strongly urge the confirming authority to mitigate the sentence to imprisonment for a long period’.

Had Dunlop in 1947 added his voice to make serious accusations against Yi, either by a sworn deposition or by an appearance in person before the tribunal in Singapore, the death sentence would almost certainly have been confirmed and carried out. On the other hand, had he appeared in person and made clear—in either format—that Yi had been an underling rather than camp commandant and that several of the affidavits were problematic, it is conceivable that Yi might have been found not guilty, or guilty of some lesser charges. At least Dunlop’s non-cooperation meant a reprieve for Yi. On 7 November 1947, after almost eight months on death row, he was advised that his sentence had been commuted to twenty years. In due course he served ten before release.

The aftermath

The Japan into which Yi and other Koreans emerged after his release in 1956 was a country that they had never known, where they had no family or friends. Since in Korea they were thought of as Japanese ‘collaborating’ war criminals, and since the peninsula had been devastated by the Korean War while they were in prison, they could not go home.

By a bizarre irony, very soon after Yi emerged from Tokyo’s Sugamo prison Japan came to be headed by a former A-class (major war crimes) prisoner, Kishi Nobusuke (1896–1987). Where B- and C-class Koreans at the lowest level of the Japanese military system, regularly bashed and beaten themselves, with zero power or authority to delay or block orders, were required to serve out their sentences until 1956, Kishi, an undisputed member of Japan’s militarist elite as architect of colonial policy and signatory to the declaration of war on the West in 1941, together with other A-class prisoners, was released in December 1948. Escaping the gallows and being suddenly freed on the very day that seven others of the A group were executed, Kishi went on to become prime minister in 1957, an invaluable US asset as occupation policy shifted from punishment to recovery and incorporation of Japan into the Cold War system.

Once freed, Yi organised a group of around seventy former Korean B- and C-class senpan into a mutual welfare society, setting up and running a taxi company in Tokyo. Yi became leader of the movement to secure compensation for the Koreans equivalent to that enjoyed by regular Japanese ex-soldier senpan (beginning in 1954 and in today’s terms around $41,000 a year), but since Japan’s claims to Korea and Taiwan had been extinguished with the San Francisco Treaty of 1951, Koreans and Taiwanese, suddenly ‘non-Japanese’, were excluded from compensation. Today Yi is the last representative of those Koreans who were first mobilised and then punished as ‘Japanese’ but then involuntarily stripped of their ‘Japaneseness’ upon dissolution of the Japanese empire. He has been seeking recognition for more than sixty years since then.

In 1991, in an unforgettable scene, meeting for the first time in over fifty years on the campus of the Australian National University, Yi proffered, and Dunlop graciously accepted, an apology:

From the bottom of my heart I wanted to apologise profoundly, as one of the aggressor side, to Colonel Dunlop and all the former POWs, for the bitterness and pain of the loss of so many of their comrades under such harsh circumstances. Before you all, I apologise from my heart.¹⁶

Two things in retrospect are notable about the Yi apology. First, he was clear and unambiguous about his share of responsibility for the pain and suffering caused to Allied prisoners. Second, he sought their understanding for the plight of the Korean senpan, powerless to influence the oppressive, violent nature of the war system, of which they, like the Australians, were victims. He asked them to understand that he, too, as a POW of the Allied forces, especially in Singapore, had been treated cruelly. Former POWs listening to Yi’s talk to the 1991 conference were left surprised and uncomfortable by his insistence on the second of these points.

Yi was so overwhelmed by the 1991 meeting that he made one further trip to Australia a year later, visiting Dunlop at his Melbourne home to present him with a gold watch inscribed ‘No More Hintok, No More War’.¹⁷ Dunlop died shortly afterwards.

‘The Apology’, Australian National University, August 1991 (Yi Hak-nae, Edward (‘Weary’) Dunlop, Tom Uren, and author Gavan McCormack as interpreter. Photograph courtesy Utsumi Aiko.

Seeking recognition

In November 1991, months after the Canberra conference, a group of seven compatriot senpan, including Yi, launched a suit in the Tokyo district court seeking compensation from the government of Japan equivalent to the emoluments they would have been entitled to had they been Japanese. Their suit was rejected in successive actions, but the Tokyo High Court in July 1998 added to its judgment a rider to the effect that it was up to ‘those in charge of political affairs’ to strive for an early and proper legislative resolution of the Korean claims. In December 1999 the Supreme Court again rejected their claim, but, while leaving it to the legislature, expressed understanding of their discontent at the lack of any legislative measures to resolve their grievances.

In 2008, responding to the urgings of the courts and the United Nations Human Rights Commission, the (opposition) Democratic Party of Japan framed a bill for the economic relief of the Korean senpan, prescribing a payment of three million yen each (about $28,000).¹⁸ However, it failed to persuade the then governing Liberal-Democratic Party and was dropped without debate. Another bill, setting a slightly lower figure of 2.6 million yen per head, was proposed by the Japan-South Korea Parliamentarians League but got nowhere. Yi Hak-Nae, the last survivor, continues to press the B- and C-groups’ case and the legislature continues to drag its feet.¹⁹ ‘Not a day passes’, said Yi in 2020, ‘without my thinking of the pitiable fate of those B- and C-class senpan who have already passed away. I insist that Japan respond properly to our claims’.

Guilt and reconciliation

Shortly before he died in 1993, Dunlop took me aside during a function at the Australian War Memorial to ask about Yi. Whenever he looked at the gold watch Yi had presented to him, he said, he felt a certain ‘guilt’. Surprised at his use of the word guilt, I put it to him that, given what he and other prisoners had been through at the hands of their captors, it was surely not for him to feel guilty. He gently demurred. Leading me to a nearby chair, he sat me down and told me the following story. It is one that, it seems, he had not told before, and one that many might find shocking, as did I.

I quote here from the Sydney Morning Herald of 10 July 1993 (though I am the source of this story):²⁰

Sir Edward Dunlop died with guilt in a corner of his heart. ‘Weary’, the Australian hero who knew there was no future in hatred, revealed a few months before he died…that he had once hated a man so intensely that he had planned to kill him. On the Burma–Thailand railway 50 years ago, the Australian surgeon had fashioned a club to kill the Korean guard known as the Lizard, whom Dunlop called in his diaries ‘a proper little bastard’. Dunlop planned to ambush the Lizard and ‘beat his brains out’. The moment Dunlop planned to go to the ambush site, however, he was summoned to attend to business in the prisoner-of-war camp.

It was an astonishing revelation. It should be corrected now in just one detail. As I recall the conversation, Dunlop had actually taken up a position to carry out his plan, hiding behind a rock or a tree near the camp entrance to await Yi’s return, when he was suddenly called to the camp office. Dunlop would have known very well that the act he contemplated would, had he carried it out, have attracted savage retaliation, not just on himself but on all POWs. Yet he was, he implied, so boiling with rage and hatred as to be temporarily blind to such consequences. The moment passed, but it left a weight on his conscience.

Worlds apart in culture, status and life experience, Dunlop and Yi were linked by fate and shared humanity, each touched by the encounter with the other. Meeting Yi first at Hintok in early 1943, Dunlop conceived of a hatred for him that he could only barely contain. Four years later, by choosing not to cooperate with the Singapore tribunal, he ‘spared’ (or, it could be said, re-spared) Yi, his non-cooperation mute testimony to his disquiet. Eventually, in 1991, the two were reconciled, with an apology offered by Yi and accepted by Dunlop. The reconciliation was sealed the following year by the gold watch.

On learning of Dunlop’s death, Yi sent a message of condolence:

…I owe you my life…you were gracious enough to accept those apologies…and you showed understanding of the position of Koreans under Japanese imperialism. After speaking together of the unhappiness of war, you shook hands with me and the warmth of your large hand still remains with me. From my heart I thank you, and I pray that you may rest in peace.²¹

The history

Yi is one of a tiny minority in Japan to apologise for his role in the war and to seek out those towards whom he feels particular guilt, even though his responsibility for what happened in the camp, including the deaths of ‘over 100’ Australians, was at least attenuated by the fact that he was at the time an 18-year-old discriminated-against menial at the lowest level of the Japanese military machine. That he was non-Japanese should also have been taken into consideration. For the Koreans, Japan’s defeat in war spelt liberation and liquidation of Japan’s colonial empire. Yi’s defence counsel at the 1947 trial attempted to make the defence that as an allied national he should not be tried as a Japanese (enemy) subject,²² but the court briskly dismissed that objection. It was no more interested in the oppressive, colonial nature of the Japanese–Korean relationship than it was in Yi’s being a juvenile.

Today, Weary’s statue stands in front of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. Seeing his image, recollecting his grasp of history, his personal warmth and his sense of justice, I bow in respect and remembrance. In 1995 the government of Australia conferred upon him the extraordinary honour of minting 16 million 50-cent coins with Queen Elizabeth on one side and Weary on the other. I recall him speaking to the Canberra gathering in 1991, saying:

I personally felt that the Japanese had an excuse for getting involved in the last war. I think the Americans put them down as a tinpot economy and really screwed them down as a minor power. [But] As one who was quite prepared to forgive the Japanese and get on with business with them in the world, one thing has just irritated me a little: they do not seem to me to really teach history.²³

Edward (‘Weary’) Dunlop, statue by Peter Corlett, 1995, Australian War Memorial, Canberra. Photograph: Gavan McCormack, March 2021

On 23 April 1993, the book of the 1991 conference was launched at the Australian National University by Prime Minister Paul Keating, who spoke memorably and movingly to the assembled former POWs of his own family’s experience of wartime loss, his uncle having been a casualty of the Sandakan Death Marches in the Philippines in early 1945. Only long after the expiry of his allocated time could his minders detach the prime minister from his intimate conversations and shared family stories with the former soldiers. These were years in which Hellfire Pass was gradually taking its place alongside Gallipoli and Kokoda as a key site in the formation of the modern Australian identity.

In the years since that 1991 conference and the 1993 book publication, one by one the participants, especially the old soldiers, have passed away. The last survivor, Yi Hak-nae, cannot be far behind. Since the publication of the 1991 conference proceedings, at least two major books have been published; one was subsequently turned into a film and the other, Richard Flanagan’s Narrow Road to the Deep North, won the Booker Prize.²⁴

The most substantial (865-page) tome, however, has been the 2016 publication of Australia’s War Crimes Trials 1945–1951. Enjoying the financial backing of the Australian War Memorial, the Australian Research Council and the Australian Department of Defence’s Legal Division, it might be seen as the considered opinion of official Australia on the Singapore trials, a comprehensive ‘not guilty’ (to any suggestion of impropriety by Australia) verdict. However, while one might reasonably have expected that important cases such as that of Yi would be given thorough analysis, that is not the case. The trial is briefly outlined, but no mention is made of the fact that Yi was convicted in 1947 on charges that had been dismissed in 1946, or of the contradictions and flimsy, hearsay character of the evidence. Other surely significant cases pass without analysis, including the ‘F’ Force trials over matters arising from the camps on the Burma side of the railway, which recorded the highest of all prisoner death rates (29 per cent, or 1060 deaths among 3600 prisoners),²⁵ in which four death sentences were handed down (although all were later commuted). Another large trial, of Lieutenant-Colonel Nagatomo Yoshitada and others, led to the execution of three Japanese, including Nagatomo, and three Koreans, one of whom, Cho Mun-san (Japanese name: Hirahara Moritsune), was the subject of a documentary film by the national broadcaster, NHK, in August 1991.²⁶ It too escapes mention.

Three Korean Guards, Hiromura/Yi on left, Thailand, 1943

Posing the question ‘Were the Australian trials fair?’, two of the editors of this volume offer their own answer, saying: ‘en masse, the Australian trials were as fair as might be expected given the particular circumstances of the immediate postwar period and in comparison to other Allied military practices’²⁷and ‘There is a certain satisfaction, as we come to the end of our project on the Australian war crimes trials, in attaining our conviction that no systematic abuse occurred in these trials’.²⁸

Such a conclusion can only be reconciled with the Yi case (and the F Force, Nagatomo and other cases) by putting heavy weight on the words ‘en masse’, ‘as might be expected’, and ‘systematic’. It is a formula for forgiving abuses that were somehow less than en masse or ‘systematic’, while the phrase ‘as might be expected’ is too conveniently exculpatory and too readily allows Australian responsibility to be diminished. For what is clearly intended to be the ‘official history’, such equivocation is not good enough. The conclusion of this volume that the trials were basically fair hangs as a heavily begged question over the promised ‘comprehensive law report for each of the 300 trials conducted by Australia’ yet to come.

I formed the view in 1991, after reading the available documents and talking with survivors, that the trial of Yi (and others, especially other Koreans) was a travesty. Now, thirty years later, and contrary to the 2016 Australian volume, I see nothing to make me change my mind. Furthermore, reflecting on Yi Hak-nae’s long struggle to gain recognition and compensation from the government of Japan, I have a further, troubling concern: should he not also have a claim of some sort against the government of Australia over the deeply flawed judicial hearings to which it subjected him more than seventy years ago?

Note: As this article was being revised for publication in March 2021, Yi Hak-nae died in Tokyo, aged 96, after a short illness. A slightly earlier version of this paper, without notes, was published in the Autumn 2021 issue of the Melbourne journal, Arena, pp. 72-78. A Japanese version, translated by Yoshinaga Fusako, was published in the July 2021 issue of Sekai, No 946, pp. 227-238.

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Gavan McCormack is an emeritus professor of Australian National University (ANU). A graduate of the University of Melbourne (arts and law, MA in history) and SOAS University of London (PhD 1974), he taught at the Universities of Leeds, La Trobe and Adelaide before joining ANU. He is also an editor of the web journal Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus and the author of many books and articles on aspects of modern East Asian, mostly Japanese, history, many of them published also in Japanese, Korean and Chinese translation.

Notes

¹ Ju-min Park, ‘The Survivor: Last Korean War Criminal in Japan Wants Recognition’, Thomson Reuters, 5 August 2020.

² ‘Moto BC-kyu senpan no gaikokujin 95-sai kokunai saigo no shogensha’, ‘Ohayo Nippon’, NHK 7 August 2020. NHK published the same story in English a month later: ‘Seeking Answers to Clarify Wartime Chaos’, NHK World, 14 September 2020.

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On July 29, Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte decided to cancel his plans to end the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) – an important defense treaty with the United States. He said that the legal conditions for the temporary U.S. military presence in the Philippines has existed since 1998, on which the two sides conducted joint exercises on land, air and sea. Duterte informed Washington of his intention to cancel the agreement in February 2020, but withdrew the decision at a meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in the Filipino capital of Manila on Friday. 

“There is no request to terminate the VFA pending and we are back on track,” Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told reporters.

The head of the Pentagon welcomed Duterte’s decision, which as he said, would help strengthen defense ties between the two countries. Austin said that it gives confidence in the future of their bilateral relations, especially now that the U.S. can make long-term plans for the Asia-Pacific region and conduct a variety of training activities aimed at containing China.

Several other defense agreements between the Philippines and the U.S. are contingent on the VFA. For Washington, the VFA agreement is strategically important because it provides the legal framework for the movement of thousands of American troops to the Philippines as part of their pressure campaign against China in the region.

Amidst rising tensions with China over the Taiwan issue, it was important for the U.S. to uphold the deal with the Philippines, an archipelago of 7,640 islands. The Philippines is all the more crucial for U.S. strategic planning as it is located just south of Taiwan, an island that Beijing considers a rebel province. If Washington loses leverage over Taiwan to exert military pressure, it means that they will fail in their pursuit to dominate the Asia-Pacific region. Washington wants to enlist the support of the Philippines and other partners in the region to maintain and strengthen its ability to confront China, the U.S.’ main economic adversary in the 21st century.

Almost all of the top generals in the Filipino military have trained in the U.S. The Filipino military is focused on developing their relations with the U.S., which is one of the most important conditions for consolidating the military’s power and influence in civil society. Therefore, Duterte’s decision is a compromise with the military’s elite ahead of the 2022 presidential election.

According to the Philippine constitution, a person who is elected president cannot be re-elected after the end of their 6-year term. The current president cannot be re-elected in 2022, but most local observers point out that his daughter, Sara Duterte, is a leading candidate to succeed him.

Interestingly however, the day Duterte held talks with the U.S. Secretary of Defense, he attended the inauguration ceremony of a bridge project connecting Makati and Mandaluyong cities. The bridge, built with Chinese financial support, is expected to reduce congestion on major highways in Greater Manila and should contribute to the economic development of the metropolitan area.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that the bridge opening ceremony coincided with the meeting between the Philippine President and Austin. Manila could be showing that despite continuing with VFA, it wants to maintain a balance with Washington and Beijing.

The U.S. traditionally forces its partners in the region to make a choice – the U.S. or China. This vector was particularly pursued under the previous Trump administration. President Joe Biden still implements this policy, although not as openly or publicly aggressive compared to his predecessor.

Southeast Asian countries generally want to have independent policies that do not force them into the American or Chinese orbits. However, historical animosities are in fact pushing some countries, such as Vietnam, to lean more towards the U.S. rather than China. However, even Vietnam cannot completely divorce from China as it is an irreplaceable export-import partner. Vietnamese exports to China were worth $48.88 billion in 2020 and Filipino exports to China were worth $9.81 Billion in 2019.

In the midst of a global health crisis, breaking or damaging relationships with an important economic partner is unwise, just as Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro had to learn the hard way. Therefore, it is very likely that by taking this step, Duterte wants to show that the Philippines has its own interest in ensuring security and developing the country’s economy with the support of China, but without breaking military ties with the U.S.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the bridge, the Philippine President thanked the Chinese leadership for funding the construction and called the project a demonstration of the goodwill of the Chinese people and government.

Under this context, it appears that Duterte is not prepared to make his military truly independent from Washington. At the same time, the Philippines acknowledges that its development is hinged on its economic cooperation with China. Manila is now trying to find a balance without being consumed by either major power.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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Shamefully, Australia has one of the highest extinction rates in the world. And the number one threat to our species is invasive or “alien” plants and animals.

But invasive species don’t just cause extinctions and biodiversity loss – they also create a serious economic burden. Our research, published today, reveals invasive species have cost the Australian economy at least A$390 billion in the last 60 years alone.

Our paper – the most detailed assessment of its type ever published in this country – also reveals feral cats are the worst invasive species in terms of total costs, followed by rabbits and fire ants.

Without urgent action, Australia will continue to lose billions of dollars every year on invasive species.

Huge economic burden

Invasive species are those not native to a particular ecosystem. They are introduced either by accident or on purpose and become pests.

Some costs involve direct damage to agriculture, such as insects or fungi destroying fruit. Other examples include measures to control invasive species like feral cats and cane toads, such as paying field staff and buying fuel, ammunition, traps and poisons.

Our previous research put the global cost of invasive species at A$1.7 trillion. But this is most certainly a gross underestimate because so many data are missing.

As a wealthy nation, Australia has accumulated more reliable cost data than most other regions. These costs have increased exponentially over time – up to sixfold each decade since the 1970s.

We found invasive species now cost Australia around A$24.5 billion a year, or an average 1.26% of the nation’s gross domestic product. The costs total at least A$390 billion in the past 60 years.

Increase in annual costs of invasive species in Australia from 1960 to 2020. The predicted range for 2020 is shown in the upper left quadrant. Note the logarithmic scale of the vertical axis. CJA Bradshaw

Worst of the worst

Our analysis found feral cats have been the most economically costly species since 1960. Their A$18.7 billion bill is mainly associated with attempts to control their abundance and access, such as fencing, trapping, baiting and shooting.

Feral cats are a main driver of extinctions in Australia, and so perhaps investment to limit their damage is worth the price tag.

As a group, the management and control of invasive plants proved the worst of all, collectively costing about A$200 billion. Of these, annual ryegrass, parthenium and ragwort were the costliest culprits because of the great effort needed to eradicate them from croplands.

Invasive mammals were the next biggest burdens, costing Australia A$63 billion.

The 10 costliest invasive species in Australia. CJA Bradshaw

Variation across regions

For costs that can be attributed to particular states or territories, New South Wales had the highest costs, followed by Western Australia then Victoria.

Red imported fire ants are the costliest species in Queensland, and ragwort is the economic bane of Tasmania.

The common heliotrope is the costliest species in both South Australia and Victoria, and annual ryegrass tops the list in WA.

In the Northern Territory, the dothideomycete fungus that causes banana freckle disease brings the greatest economic burden, whereas cats and foxes are the costliest species in the ACT and NSW.

The three costliest species by Australian state/territory. CJA Bradshaw

Better assessments needed

Our study is one of 19 region-specific analyses released today. Because the message about invasive species must get out to as many people as possible, our article’s abstract was translated into 24 languages.

This includes Pitjantjatjara, a widely spoken Indigenous language.

Even the massive costs we reported are an underestimate. This is because of we haven’t yet surveyed all the places these species occur, and there is a lack of standardised reporting by management authorities and other agencies.

For example, our database lists several fungal plant pathogens. But no cost data exist for some of the worst offenders, such as the widespread Phytophthora cinnamomi pathogen that causes major crop losses and damage to biodiversity.

Developing better methods to estimate the environmental impacts of invasive species, and the benefit of management actions, will allow us to use limited resources more efficiently.

Phytophthora cinnamomi, a widespread, but largely uncosted, fungal pathogen. Adobe Stock/272252666

A constant threat

Many species damaging to agriculture and the environment are yet to make it to our shores.

The recent arrival in Australia of fall armyworm, a major agriculture pest, reminds us how invasive species will continue their spread here and elsewhere.

As well as the economic damage, invasive species also bring intangible costs we have yet to measure adequately. These include the true extent of ecological damage, human health consequences, erosion of ecosystem services and the loss of cultural values.

Without better data, increased investment, a stronger biosecurity system and interventions such as animal culls, invasive species will continue to wreak havoc across Australia.

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Corey J. A. Bradshaw is Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University

Andrew Hoskins is Research scientist CSIRO Health and Biosecurity, CSIRO

Featured image: Feral cats are Australia’s costliest invasive species. Adobe Stock/240188862

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China’s growing capabilities and ambitions have alarmed all the states which border with this giant. However, among these countries, there are those with which the PRC has a particularly complicated relationship. For example, Japan is one of them. On the one hand, China and Japan, as the two most economically developed states in Asia, cannot help but cooperate. On the other hand, there is competition between the countries, territorial issues, and a heavy memory of the events of World War II, dubbed the Nanjing Massacre when the Japanese military seized part of the Chinese territory and showed incredible cruelty to the civilian population there.

Nevertheless, cooperation between the countries is ongoing and very active. For example, in 2019, before the economic crisis associated with the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the world, Sino-Japanese trade was about $280 billion. Despite all contradictions, the PRC is currently Japan’s second trading partner after its main ally, the United States.

Today’s primary role in all of Beijing’s economic policy is played by One Belt, One Road Initiative (OBOR), which aims to connect China with as many countries as possible through a single transport infrastructure. This will allow Beijing to maximize its commodity flows worldwide and bring its global economic influence to unprecedented heights. That is why the PRC is now particularly eager to cooperate with other countries in the transport sector. Around the world, the Celestial Empire supports the construction of roads, ports, and the development of international routes to incorporate them into the OBOR system. China also has joint transportation projects with Japan.

For example, a new water route between the two states began operating in 2019. After reaching the east coast of China, cargo ships from Japan sail up China’s largest river, the Yangtze, until they reach the city of Wuhan in Hubei Province, PRC, which is a major river port and one of the most important transport hubs in Central China. In the first five months of 2021 alone, 36 flights were made, and 2,799 containers were delivered from Japan to Wuhan.

At the end of June 2021, another cargo ship sailed from the Port of Nagoya in Japan to Wuhan. He brought a shipment of cars in his containers for onward shipment to Mongolia. At the same time, another ship was dispatched from Japan with the same cargo, also for shipment to Mongolia, but in a much larger volume.

Soon Chinese media reported on the launch of a new cargo route to connect Japan and Mongolia via PRC territory. The route with a total length of more than 5,000 km includes the above-described water route from Japan along the Yangtze to Wuhan. Wuhan will begin the overland railroad section of the route, ending in the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar.

The cars from both ships are expected to arrive at their destination in the second half of July 2021. At this point, the Japan-Wuhan-Mongolia route can be considered fully operational. Thanks to it, the delivery time from Japan to Mongolia will now be only 20 days.

From a purely economic point of view, the new route seems convenient and profitable for all three countries united by it. However, it should be remembered that the underlying differences between Japan and China and general tensions throughout the region have not gone away. As mentioned above, there is a territorial dispute between the Land of the Rising Sun and the PRC. The subject of the dispute is the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. Both sides believe that these eight small islands are worth fighting for because they are considered to have oil and gas reserves in their area.

While politicians in Beijing think about territory and resources, the memory of the Nanjing Massacre and its tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of innocent victims (the exact number of victims is still unknown) is still alive among ordinary Chinese. Although no serious conflict between China and Japan has yet been portended, if it does occur, the Chinese people and the Chinese army, which already rivals the US armed forces in size and equipment, may perceive such development with great enthusiasm. In turn, Japan is trying to remove references to Nanjing from its history textbooks. Japanese ruling circles are increasingly raising the question of repealing Article Nine of the Japanese Constitution, which prohibits the country from having a full-fledged army and navy, limiting its military potential to self-defense forces. In addition, Japan continues to cling to its military alliance with the United States and has not removed American military bases from its territory, despite years of discussions about this step. The USA, which is also one of China’s main competitors, is also doing everything to secure Japan’s place in the anti-China axis that Washington is trying to build with India and Australia.

Thus, despite the enormous mutual benefits that Japan and the PRC derive from their economic cooperation, the long-term prospects of their relationship remain unclear.

In addition, it should be noted that China’s relations with Mongolia are also ambiguous. On the one hand, Mongolia is greatly influenced by China, to the extent that even many essential positions in the country are held by ethnic Chinese. On the other hand, there are also forces in Mongolia that want more independence from the PRC.

It should be recalled that Mongolia was dependent on the Chinese Empire until the beginning of the twentieth century. The Mongolian Revolution occurred in 1911, due to which Mongolia tried to become an independent state. This was only partially successful: most of the population in the southern part of the country were ethnic Chinese who wished to remain part of China. As a result, Mongolia split into two parts: southern Inner Mongolia and northern Outer Mongolia. Outer Mongolia became the independent state of Mongolia, while Inner Mongolia remained part of the Chinese Empire, later becoming part of the PRC. In 1949, the PRC and Mongolia officially recognized each other. However, there were people on both sides of the border who were dissatisfied with the situation. Some Chinese believe that Mongolia should be part of the PRC, and some Mongolians feel that Chinese Inner Mongolia should be reunited with Mongolia. Thus, the ground for a Sino-Mongolian conflict exists. Whether it is destined to develop depends on the socio-economic situation in the two countries, politicians’ interests, and the international climate.

Of course, all well-meaning forces in the region are in favor of maintaining good-neighborly relations. However, conducting mutually beneficial cooperation, states should keep in mind the differences mentioned above and be prepared for various surprises.

The Japan-China-Mongolia route is convenient and vital for these countries, but it will instantly stop working in case of discord. Mongolia, which is landlocked and sandwiched between two neighbors: China and Russia, could be particularly affected. In principle, Japan is also a somewhat isolated country, from which it is relatively easy to reach China, Korea, and Russia by water or air. At the same time, the other parts of the world are not short trips across the ocean. Both Japan and Mongolia need overland connections to Eurasia, and if they lose the ability to do so through China, then the most logical option is the Russian territory.

Japan understands this, and for several years has been gradually mastering the Russian Trans-Siberian railroad, which connects the Russian Far East to the western part of the country, where it connects to the railroads going to Europe. In May 2019, a ceremony was held in the Japanese port city of Yokohama to mark the start of shipments to Europe via Russia: having crossed the sea leg between Japan and Russia, goods from the Land of the Rising Sun are heading west along the Trans-Siberian Railway.

As for Russian-Mongolian relations, news about their development has so far rarely appeared in the media. However, due to Mongolia’s geographic location and the growing power of the PRC, the conclusion can be drawn that strengthening cooperation with Russia is the only way for the country to balance China’s influence.

Thus, even though China’s global adversary is the United States and its regional rivals are Japan, India, and others, Russia, which has good relations with China, should play the role of mediator and maintain the balance of power in Central and East Asia.

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Petr Konovalov is a political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Featured image is from NEO

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The overnight visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to New Delhi has been an eye-opener in many ways. It highlighted how much India has changed through the searing pain and suffering it underwent in the past one-year period and how that tumultuous period also led to a reset in the government’s calculus. 

A rethink in the foreign policies became inevitable. The ‘body language’ of the joint press conference by Blinken and his Indian host External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Wednesday testifies to it. 

The US-Indian relationship remains fundamentally strong insofar it enjoys bipartisan support in both countries that it is a consequential relationship. But beneath that threshold, fault lines have appeared. 

First and foremost, the Biden administration’s neoconservative ideology obliges it to adopt intrusive policies on issues of democracy, human rights and rule of law, which grates on the Modi government’s sensitivities. 

Paradoxically, some of the most pro-American sections of Indian opinion also happen to be the harshest critics of the Modi government today. Their alienation is so deep that they won’t even mind joining hands with the Indian left in berating the Modi government. 

Blinken’s move  to hold a ‘civil society roundtable’ discussion with a group of Indians conveyed a powerful message to the Modi Government that things may not be as bad as in Belarus or Myanmar, but India is being perceived by the Biden Administration more or less the same way as Recep Erdogan’s Turkey — an ally who is straying toward post-modern authoritarianism. An AFP dispatch from Delhi reported that at the discussion, Blinken “issued a veiled warning… about Indian democracy backsliding.” read more

No amount of wordplay by Blinken could cover up the reality that he had no word of praise for the Modi Government. Nor did Jaishankar appear particularly perturbed by that. 

Estimating correctly that the Biden Administration is unlikely to easily abandon the goals it has been pursuing, Jaishankar was in no mood to apologise, either. 

And at one point, he interjected at the press conference to defiantly point out that “the quest for a more perfect union applies as much to the Indian democracy as it does to the American one.” Jaishankar asserted that “it is the moral obligation of all polities to right wrongs when they have been done, including historically. And many of the decisions and policies you’ve seen in the last few years fall in that category.” 

He held the ground that “freedoms are important, we value them, but never equate freedom with non-governance or lack of governance or poor governance. They are two completely different things.” It is difficult to recall an Indian minister in modern times pushing back at the US publicly. read more

The press conference also highlighted the deep disillusionment in Delhi over the irresponsible manner in which the US cut loose and exited Afghanistan, leaving that country in shambles and jeopardising regional security — and stability and billions of dollars worth Indian investment in that country, both in financial support and technical assistance and in engineering projects. 

Jaishankar noted bitterly that outcomes are being decided in the battlefield in Afghanistan and alluded to continuing Pakistani interference. He didn’t take Blinken’s easy route to put the blame on the Taliban and instead underscored the “broad consensus, deep consensus” among most of the neighbours of Afghanistan that there should be a political settlement. 

Certainly, Washington’s clumsy rearguard action to create another QUAD (Quadrilateral Diplomatic Platform) comprising the US, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan with a view to remaining embedded in the region even after the humiliating defeat in the 20-year war would have come as a nasty surprise to Delhi and prompted it to slam the door shut on any form of bandwagoning with America in the Hindu Kush. The dryness in Jaishankar’s tone had a tinge of contempt.   

As regards the all-important Covid-19 vaccines, Blinken didn’t say a word about TRIPS waiver, which was an Indian initiative. Quite obviously, Biden who initially supported the initiative since quietly backtracked under pressure from the powerful Pharma companies and their political lobby and is now accepting their argument that the real solution lies in quickly relieving the global COVID-19 vaccine imbalance by pushing a package of interventions, including limiting export restrictions, improving vaccine manufacturing in the global south, and issuing voluntary licenses that would allow specific manufacturers to avoid intellectual property restrictions, but without instituting a universal waiver. 

So, at the end of the day, Blinken made a grand announcement that US will supply 25 million doses of vaccine to India! From past experience, India is unsure whether even this paltry donation isn’t another empty promise. Jaishankar didn’t react.  

Blinken also avoided making any assurances to give India full access to the raw materials for vaccine production. Did Blinken make any trade concessions to ease India’s post-pandemic economy recovery? Will the US help us to avoid another apocalyptic scenario when the 3rd Wave arrives? Did he promise to invest in India to create jobs? Did he have any advice how Indian Army can resume patrolling on Depsang Plains? No, none of that. 

Blinken’s real mission was without doubt to stop India from drifting away from the US-led anti-China coalition. The Biden Administration is worried that without India, the QUAD would unravel and the containment strategy against China wouldn’t gain traction in Asia. 

Thus, in the typical American way to hustle difficult partners, Blinken began with a bang by meeting Tibetan representatives — the first of its kind in India or in a third country by US officials — which was a calculated move to create misleading optics that would queer the pitch of India-China tensions. 

This is no way to treat a hospitable friend — undercutting his standing while enjoying his hospitality at his home. It only shows how testy the Blinken administration is nowadays when it comes to China.  

But Blinken underestimated the fault lines in the US-Indian relationship and the widening chasm between the two countries over the range of issues concerning Afghanistan, vaccine distribution and human rights issues. This was a rare India-US high-level exchange where there was hardly any rhetoric directed against China. 

Having said that, the strong likelihood is that India may take part in the face-to-face meet to discuss QUAD, which President Biden plans to convene. That will be a defining moment, as the US intention is to create a regional mechanism to strategically contain and exert pressure on China — simply put, to institutionalise the QUAD, where all four countries have their own reasons to address the perceived pressures and challenges posed by China’s rise. 

The Quad’s record so far is dismal — be it on Covid vaccines, supply chains on rare earths or as counter to China’s Belt and Road. Yet, the way forward in US-China relations is expected to be rocky and the Biden Administration hopes to suppress China. 

Indeed, the strategic contradictions are self-evident insofar as all the QUAD countries, including the US, also have need for bilateral economic cooperation and even regional cooperation with China. When the top dog in the QUAD slyly keeps the door open for cooperation, the choice for the three subalterns couldn’t be clearer.

India needs to continue to walk the fine line both to avoid collateral damage from the Biden administration’s zigzagging policies on China as well as to keep its own autonomy to negotiate with China bilaterally. Biden is a highly experienced politician and if he gets to realise the futility of trying to suppress China, a pattern of co-existence may well emerge. 

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Featured image: Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar (R) welcomes the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, New Delhi, July 28, 2021. (Source: Indian External Affairs Ministry / ANADOLU AGENCY / Anadolu Agency via AFP)

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***

When Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso said on July 5 that Tokyo would come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a Chinese invasion, Beijing’s sharp response was predictable.

“We will never allow anyone to meddle in the Taiwan question in any way,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the day after Aso made his surprise remark.

“No one should underestimate the resolve, the will, and the ability of the Chinese people to defend their national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

But Aso’s statement was no slip of the tongue. A week later, on July 13, Japan released its annual defense report, which for the first time mentioned the importance of maintaining “stability” around Taiwan because it “is important for Japan’s security.”

China’s response, again, was sharp and immediate. The Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece Global Times ran an op-ed stating that “Japan will ‘lose badly’ if it defends Taiwan secessionists.”

The piece quoted an anonymous Beijing-based military analyst as saying, “Even the US could not defeat China militarily in the West Pacific region now, so what makes Japan believe it’s able to challenge China with force?”

While the motivations behind Tokyo’s recent statements are unclear, Japan and Taiwan are openly on the same side in Asia’s intensifying new Cold War, where an increasingly assertive and militarily powerful China is the obvious but usually unspoken adversary.

Japan and Taiwan do not share official diplomatic relations — Tokyo recognizes Beijing as the sole legitimate government of China — but the two sides are known to share intelligence through back channels.

In May last year, as Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen began her second term in office, then-chief Cabinet secretary, now prime minister, Yoshihide Suga said that Japan is eager to develop its ties with Taiwan.

Japan’s annual foreign policy report, known as the Diplomatic Bluebook, describes Taiwan in its latest edition released on April 27 this year as an “important partner and friend.” It also said Japan backs Taiwan’s campaign to attend the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO).

The Bluebook stated diplomatically that Taiwan had been successful in fighting the Covid-19 virus and “there should be no blank spaces on the world map.” China, which considers Taiwan a renegade province that should be “reunited” with the mainland, strongly opposes Taiwan’s participation in any international bodies.

The Bluebook also said that Japan would cooperate with “more countries” to promote freedom of navigation and the rule of law in the Asia-Pacific region. In matters of geostrategic importance, Japan already works closely with the US, India and Australia under the so-called “Quad.”

Taiwan could be seen as a silent partner, or at least an ally, to the strategic grouping because it is a vital link in the China-focused island chain of defense which stretches from Japan’s main islands to Okinawa, Taiwan, the Philippines and the Malaysian part of Borneo.

However, the bigger question remains: what exactly would Japan be prepared to do if China did try to invade Taiwan? Whatever the anonymous military analyst quoted in the Global Times might think, Japan certainly has the means to challenge China militarily.

On December 21, 2020, the Japanese government approved the ninth consecutive rise in military spending, marking a historic record of 5.34 trillion yen (US$51.7 billion.)

Japan’s Self-Defense Forces (JSDF), as they are formally known, are comprised of nearly 250,000 active personnel and another 50,000 in reserve, and are equipped with the latest weaponry and technology procured mainly from the US.

The Japanese Navy is believed by military analysts to be the strongest in the region after America’s and thus superior to China’s still underdeveloped but steadily growing naval forces. China now has two combat-ready aircraft carriers.

According to the Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic & International Studies, Beijing has made substantial progress in the construction of a third known as Type 003, which is “slated to become the largest surface combatant in the Chinese People’s Army Navy (PLAN) and significantly upgrade China’s naval capabilities.”

But the crux of the strategic matter is that Article 9 of Japan’s supposedly pacifist, post-World War II constitution outlaws war as a means to settle international disputes and its JSDF are therefore legally only allowed to defend the country if it comes under attack.

But Aso has argued that Taiwan is situated only 112 kilometers from some islands that are part of Okinawa prefecture and therefore a Chinese invasion could represent an “existential threat” to Japan’s security.

In that direction, the Japanese navy’s first aircraft carrier since World War II is nearly ready to deploy. It is designed to carry up to 28 light or 14 larger aircraft.

Jeffrey Hornung, a political scientist at the US-based Rand Corporation, wrote in a May 10 paper that Japan would not need to get directly involved in a military conflict over Taiwan.

But, he suggests, if Washington sought to defend the democratic, self-ruled island, “at a minimum, the United States would require access to its bases in Japan, which would execute combat operations in, over and around Taiwan.”

The JSDF would in that way “act as a force multiplier for any US-led operation. That means US requests for Japanese involvement would be almost certain.” In other words, Japan’s involvement would be limited to “non-combatant, rear-area support roles” in fields such as “supply, maintenance, transportation, engineering and medical services,” Hornung writes.

Okinawa is proximal to Taiwan and the US base there would be at the front of any military action against China.

If China decided to attack Okinawa, or for argument’s sake any base on Japanese territory, such an attack could be interpreted as an act of aggression and Japan would have the right to act in self-defense.

But that scenario also raises another important question: would the US be prepared to intervene and defend Taiwan? The US and Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, shared a defense treaty before Washington established diplomatic relations with China on January 1, 1979.

On that day, the US withdrew its recognition of the Republic of China and terminated the 1955 “Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty between the United States and the Republic of China.” Because either party had to notify the other about the termination a year in advance, the treaty remained in place – at least nominally – until January 1, 1980.

The now null-and-void 1955 treaty, which stipulated that if one country came under attack the other would provide military support, was in certain aspects replaced by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act.

Under the Act, the US was no longer be obliged to defend Taiwan, the US embassy in Taiwan was closed and relations were maintained through a non-profit corporation registered in the District of Columbia known as the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), which functions as a de facto embassy.

The ambiguity of the relationship is evident in a Taiwan Relations Act clause that says that “the United States will make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain sufficient self-defense capabilities.”

The Act’s intention appears to be to dissuade Taiwan from declaring independence from China, while at the same time discouraging China from invading Taiwan. But that all came into force when Jimmy Carter was America’s president and China was still a fairly poor country, not the regional superpower it has become today.

As Beijing celebrated the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party on July 1, President Xi Jinping reiterated his pledge to incorporate Taiwan into the mainland.

Chinese President Xi Jinping reviews a military display of Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy in the South China Sea on April 12, 2018. Photo: Xinhua

“Solving the Taiwan question and realizing the complete reunification of the motherland are the unswerving historical tasks of the Chinese Communist Party and the common aspiration of all Chinese people,” Xi said in a speech.

Every Chinese must work together, “resolutely smashing any ‘Taiwan independence plots,’” the Chinese leader added. China has recently flexed its muscles in that direction with air force jets and bombers making frequent incursions into Taiwan’s airspace.

In this new geopolitical environment, it would be impossible for the US to stay idle if Xi turned his tough rhetoric into military action and actually sent forces to invade Taiwan.

In that scenario, Japan could and would not stay neutral.

To be sure, Deputy Defense Minister Aso is known for his public gaffes, which are often corrected or denied by the government after being uttered.

But as Corey Wallace, a foreign policy expert at Kanagawa University in Yokohama was quoted saying in the July 12 issue of Foreign Policy, the slip this time may have been deliberate and reflect what Japanese officials have long believed privately.

Either way, Xi is playing with certain fire by talking about Taiwan’s “reunification” with the mainland. Even with China’s recent military and naval build-up, Beijing still faces formidable odds in invading Taiwan, which would almost inevitably result in a wider conflict – one Japan would inevitably play a crucial, military role.

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The present government’s aggressive push for privatisation, corporatisation and automation – deviously dubbed ‘economic reforms’ – is undoing the gains made backward communities in recent decades, and must be resisted at all costs.

‘Economic reforms’ – it’s a catchphrase that India’s media pundits have repeated for three decades like a mantra, a sleight of hand meant to suggest that these are but the economic equivalent of ‘social reforms,’ the celebrated transformative efforts led by the towering figures of modern India, from Jotiba Phule to Sree Narayana Guru.

In reality, they stand for a socially and environmentally disastrous policy package (consisting of Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation) that was implemented top-down in many countries in the fourth quarter of the 20^th century, and in India in early 1990s. This dubious set of policies – dubbed neo-liberalism by critics – has a singular purpose: to facilitate the unrestricted entry of big corporations into every sphere of life, with the state acting as private capital’s protector and agent of dispossession. In fact, India’s ‘economic reforms’ may even have undone some of the hard-won gains achieved by its social reformers, our recent research suggests.

Our research study, undertaken on behalf of our organisation Swadeshi Andolan, found that not a single SC or ST person is present on the board of directors of India’s top 25 private corporations, while only six from OBC communities are present. Of the total of 270 executives on the boards of directors of these companies, 86 (31%) are Brahmin, 52 are Bania (19%) while other savarnas like Khatris and Kayasthas (12%), middle castes like Patels and Reddys (5%), and a handful of minorities like Jains, Parsis and Muslims make up the rest. (Another notable factor is the relatively high number (38) of foreign citizens, who form 14% of the total; while women number 37, some of whom are foreign citizens.)

According to the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) 61st Rounds (2004–05) survey, forward castes account for about 31% of the population based on Schedule 10 of available data. However, our findings reveal an overwhelming savarna dominance of Indian business, who account for more than 90% of these roles if you leave the foreign citizens out. Interestingly, while business in India is widely perceived to be the stronghold of the bania communities, the numbers show that Brahmins dominate the top decision-making roles in the country’s leading corporations.

Further, the boards of the top 25 corporations are chaired overwhelmingly by savarnas; Brahmins and Banias occupy nine each of these positions, while Khatris occupy four. Of the remaining three positions, two are shared respectively by a Shia Muslim (Wipro), and a foreign citizen (Nayara Energy), while Shiva Nadar of HCL Technologies is the only non-savarna on this list.

Growing disparity

Study after study has confirmed the deeply discriminatory nature of the Indian business and industry, and particularly the world of big corporations. They have also revealed the role of ‘economic reforms’ in worsening economic inequality and in creating new forms of disparity. One such study, titled Wealth Ownership and Inequality in India: A Socio-religious Analysis, was jointly conducted by the Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU), Jawaharlal Nehru University and Indian Institute of Dalit Studies from 2015 to 2017, and is based on NSSO data from 1.10 lakh households across various states.

According to this study, the savarnas – dubbed ‘Hindu High Castes’ or HHCs – boast four times more wealth than those classified as Scheduled Castes (SCs). Moreover, HHCs hold 41% of the total wealth in the country, which is almost double their population size of 22.28%. The next biggest slice of the wealth pie is cornered by Hindu Other Backward Classes (HOBCs) at close to 31%, a little less than their population size (35.66%). Muslims own 8% of the country’s total assets while their share of households stands at nearly 12%. And, as expected, SCs and STs own a substantially less share of assets (11.3% combined) as compared to their population (over 27%).

Another comprehensive research study published in the Economic & Political Weekly in 2012 found that “The average board size of the top 1,000 companies in India was found to be nine members; nearly 88% of them were insiders and 12% were independent directors. The distribution of board members according to caste shows that nearly 93% were forward caste members; 46% Vaishya and 44% Brahmin. The OBCs and SCs /STs were a meagre 3.8% and 3.5% respectively.

These numbers are a stark illustration of the fact that highest echelons of corporate India lack even a semblance of diversity and equality, and is essentially a savarna club; indeed, a savarna men’s club at that. Our findings show that not only has very little has changed in the caste constitution of India’s economic hierarchy in the decade since. In fact, the higher you go up that hierarchy – the top 25 corporations as opposed to the top 1000 – the greater the concentration of corporate power in the hands of savarnas.

Given the fact that backward communities comprise the overwhelming majority of India’s population, this extremely skewed representation reveals a systematic bias in the corporate world, where the board of directors are the highest decision makers. Since reservation is mandatory only for government jobs, these findings are an indicator of the fate that awaits backward communities if they allow the Modi government to go ahead with its policy of privatising every sector.

Privatisation peril

The present government has announced a series of moves for privatisation of Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs). Given the excessively corporate-friendly attitude of this government – which has become obvious on many fronts – it’s safe to say that its privatisation drive is essentially a euphemism for the wholesale transfer of publicly owned assets to private hands for a pittance.

The PSUs have historically played a stellar role in nation building, and social and economic development of the country, but now more than 25 of them are in line for privatisation. These include such high profile firms as Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), Air India, Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML), the steel plants of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC), Indian Medicine & Pharmaceuticals Corporation Ltd. (IMPCL), Shipping Corporation of India (SCI), Container Corporation of India (CONCOR) and Neelachal Ispat Nigam Ltd (NINL), apart from the iconic Indian Railways. Not only companies, but essential services like water supply and health services too have been proposed to be privatised. The 2020-21 Union Budget has suggested private participation (PPP) even in district hospitals.

In a recent report to the UN general assembly, the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston stated that “Widespread privatisation of public goods is systematically eliminating human rights protections and further marginalising the interests of low income earners and those living in poverty.” Experiences of other countries show that left unchecked, privatisation eventually spreads to social protection and welfare services, school education, pension systems, parks and libraries, policing, criminal justice and the military sector, leading to extremely harmful consequences for the public, and especially for those already disadvantaged.

In India, privatisation holds serious implications for the future of SCs, STs and Other Backward Communities, who stand to lose most from such policies. Privatisation marginalises low income earners, the majority of whom in India are from backward communities. The reservation policies implemented by PSUs and public services played a big role in creating employment opportunities for the backward communities and facilitated their economical and social development. When these are privatised, these opportunities are lost permanently, undoing the progress made by these communities in recent decades. It also implies that the educated youth in these communities will permanently lose any opportunity to get high status and high income jobs that have helped their communities advance in recent times.

Corporatisation as exclusion

After Independence, backward communities got reservation in education and in government services, which also helped them start enterprises, especially in agriculture and retail trade, apart from small scale industries. Many OBCs and SCs started such ventures, and have demonstrated themselves capable of thriving in industry. And because they would often employ people from their own community in these firms, this helped their communities as a whole to progress.

Now that the Modi government has allowed FDI in every sector, it is leading to the corporatisation of each of these sectors. In tune with the WTO and Free Trade Agreements, India has reduced import duties across sectors, which has severely impacted small scale industries.  A.B. Vajpayee-led NDA government which de-reserved many small scale industries. These policies opened up these sectors for big corporations, most of who are run by savarnas, and which therefore invariably employ upper caste staff at higher salaries. In fact, these policies have already led to the closure of many small scale industries run by entrepreneurs from backward communities.

Another way government helps corporations is through external commercial borrowing (ECB), which is an instrument to facilitate extremely low interest loans for these big companies. When the corporations fail to repay such loans – mostly taken from public sector banks – it is termed ‘NPA’ (Non Performing Assets) which is often forfeited. The loss is adjusted by compensating the banks by injecting taxpayers’ money into them through a process called ‘bank recapitalisation’.

A report by leading financial firm Credit Suisse says that in the first five years of Modi government, it adjusted NPAs worth Rs 7,77,800 crore that was owned to public sector banks by corporations. But the same government failed to offer any relief to India’s struggling agriculture and small scale industries sectors where the majority of backward communities find employment. This, despite these sectors being already in bad shape due to ill-conceived policies such as GST and demonetisation, which hit small scale industries and retail traders the hardest. These were body blows delivered to backward communities, who are already victims of a lack of access to education, credit etc.

The three new farm laws are yet another attempt by Modi government to facilitate corporatisation in agriculture and retail trade.  If these sectors are corporatized, then most of the enterprises started by backward communities in these sectors will perish, severely impacting the members of these communities who derive their income and employment from them.

The threat of automation

As the data shows, the world of big corporations is almost exclusively controlled by the upper castes. The few backward community members who enter this world must be content with lower grade and blue collar jobs. To make matters worse, increasing levels of automation – a policy embraced by the present government on behalf of big corporations – is threatening to wipe out not just jobs, but whole industries. According to a World Bank research paper, “Automation threatens 69 per cent of the jobs in India, and 77 per cent in China”.

Automation threatens even those areas where backward communities have recently found employment, such as industrial manufacturing. As for those sectors where automation poses no significant threat, the government’s new labour code ensures that workers will be reduced to the status of slaves.

How to resist

For backward communities, these trends sound a clear warning. In simple terms, privatisation means more corporatisation, which leads to greater automation and destruction of small scale businesses and trades, which in turn means greater job loss.

After three decades of ‘economic reforms,’ it’s clear that who has gained from these policies and who has lost. The governments in power have consistently brought in tax regimes, fiscal measures and policies such as land acquisition laws designed to favour the savarna-dominated corporate world, while the backward communities are crushed under the weight of these policies, or are locked into desperate struggles to protect their land and livelihoods from being stolen by these polices. It is time those community organisations, various Left groups and Gandhian organisations like Ekta Parishad who lead these struggles take stock of these policies and their impacts, and join hands to effectively mobilise against them.

It may be recalled that Sree Narayana Guru of Kerala, the spiritual teacher who was also one of the most influential social reformers in the state’s and the nation’s history, took the initiative to collect funds from the community so that enterprising members of the backward communities could start their own ventures. This initiative helped tremendously in enabling the social and economic progress made by these communities in the state in the second half of the 20^th century.

It is time all backward communities come together pool their resources to start their own enterprises while simultaneously resisting these reforms which threaten their very existence. This resistance must be two-fold: on the one hand, they must push back against savarna-dominated corporatisation in favour of small scale industries where backward communities can once again find a footing; on the other, they must aim for nothing less than the elimination of the political parties which are championing such destructive ‘reforms.’

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K.V. Biju is All India Organising Secretary of Swadeshi Andolan.

Featured image is from Countercurrents

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In April a terrorist bombing targeted a hotel in Pakistan’s southwest Baluchistan province hosting China’s ambassador to Pakistan, Nong Rong. Ambassador Nong Rong was not at the hotel at the time of the bombing, but the attack still ended up killing 4 and wounding several more.

In July an explosion targeted a bus carrying Chinese engineers working on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), part of China’s wider Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This attack killed 13 including 9 of the Chinese engineers.

Such attacks are not new. They are merely the most recent acts of violence amid a long-standing effort by the US and armed militants it has openly supported for years to thwart China’s partnership with Pakistan and to sabotage the BRI.

While US President Joe Biden had unveiled his “Build Back Better World” (B3W) initiative at the February 2021 G7 meeting as America’s answer to China’s BRI, it was clearly a smokescreen behind which the US would continue a campaign of global destabilization and militancy aimed at nations cooperating with Beijing and hosting various BRI projects.

Pakistan is among many nations now facing America’s true answer to the BRI – state-sponsored terrorism, militancy, and political subversion. Joining Pakistan is also Southeast Asian nations like Thailand and Myanmar which have both suffered from US-sponsored anti-government protests in recent years – the latter of the two having protests transform into now ongoing armed conflict.

The US has also targeted China internally, focusing its efforts on radicalizing Uyghur separatists in China’s western Xinjiang region, then undermining Beijing’s efforts to contain the resulting terrorism. Xinjiang serves, without coincidence, as a critical juncture for several BRI routes.

More than Mere Speculation: America’s “Free Baluchistan” Campaign

Much of Washington’s efforts to “free Baluchistan” have been copied and pasted from both US efforts to carve up the Middle East through granting the region’s Kurds defacto autonomous territory, or the US-backed push for a “free East Turkestan” in China’s Xinjiang region. This latter effort is reflected on the US National Endowment for Democracy’s (NED) own official website which lists its programs for Xinjiang, China as “Xinjiang/East Turkestan (China),” deliberately including the name given to the region by separatists.

Beyond mere speculation, the US has openly supported armed separatists in Pakistan’s southwest Baluchistan province for years. This includes entire hearings within the US Congress discussing US support for a “free Baluchistan,” publicly published op-eds written by US-based corporate-funded policy think tanks, and Congressional bills specifically calling for an independent Baluchistan.

As early as 2011, The National Interest would publish a piece by Selig Harrison, director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy, titled, “Free Baluchistan.”

In it, Harrison would argue (emphasis added):

While doing less elsewhere in Pakistan, the United States should do more to support anti-Islamist forces along the southern Arabian Sea coast. First, it should support anti-Islamist Sindhi leaders of the Sufi variant of Islam with their network of 124,000 shrines. Most important, it should aid the 6 million Baluch insurgents fighting for independence from Pakistan in the face of growing ISI repression. Pakistan has given China a base at Gwadar in the heart of Baluch territory. So an independent Baluchistan would serve U.S. strategic interests in addition to the immediate goal of countering Islamist forces.

In reality, “supporting anti-Islamist forces” was (and still is) the pretext the US uses to maintain involvement not only in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, but also across North Africa and the Middle East. Often times the US is actually both sponsoring these extremist forces, while also posing as in support of those fighting them.

The real reason the US was and is interested in Baluchistan was stated in Harrison’s very last sentence, alluding to the fact that an independent Baluchistan would complicate or even entirely expel Chinese interests from the region.

Baluchistan’s Gwadar Port is a crucial checkpoint along China’s BRI. It serves as the terminal destination of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and allows China to ship energy and goods from China to the Arabian Sea, bypassing all of Southeast Asia for shipping to and from the Middle East, Africa, and beyond.

In 2012, the US House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Foreign Affairs would focus specifically on supporting an “independent Baluchistan.”

It would include a prepared statement from retired US Army Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters who would claim:

Baluchistan is occupied territory. It never willingly acceded to Pakistan, does not now wish to be part of Pakistan. If a plebiscite or referendum were held tomorrow, it would vote to leave Pakistan, as would every province and territory west of the Indus River.

He would then denounce US-Pakistan cooperation and compare Pakistan to “pirates,” claiming:

Two hundred years ago, one of our greatest Presidents faced a problem. The Barbary pirates refused to let our ships pass in peace, so we paid tribute money to let our goods pass. Thomas Jefferson put a stop to that. Today, we are paying tribute money again, this time to the Pakistani pirates to let our goods pass to Afghanistan. Mr. Chairman, I am looking for a Thomas Jefferson.

Peters’ statement would reveal a US desire to carve off most, if not all of Pakistan’s territory west of the Indus River – which without coincidence is also where the entirety of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor passes through. A successful bid for independence by US-backed separatists would effectively end CPEC indefinitely.

The establishment of Baluchistan as a US client regime would also mean both US-occupied Afghanistan and this bordering rump state would combine into a single US-controlled region in the heart of Central Asia with access to the sea, vastly enhancing Washington’s ability to project military power – both conventional and asymmetric – throughout the region.

Also in 2012, a US House of Representatives resolution titled unambiguously, “Expressing the sense of Congress that the people of Baluchistan, currently divided between Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan, have the right to self-determination and to their own sovereign country,” would be introduced. Even though it did not pass, it indicates the very open and ongoing support within certain circles of US power to promote an “independent Baluchistan.”

As the US has done with other ongoing separatist projects around the globe, it and its European allies cultivate a government in exile for the imagined nation of Baluchistan.

The favored leader of this imagined nation is the “Khan of Kalat,” Mir Suleman Dawood. In one event hosted by “Democracy Forum” at the UK House of Lords in 2017, Mir Suleman Dawood would claim China’s investments and development of Baluchistan would only heighten tensions.

One of the main complaints made by separatists in Baluchistan is perceived neglect by Islamabad. However, it is very clear that infrastructure development driven by CPEC would alleviate this, meaning opposition to CPEC is in actuality prolonging this neglect – even actively preventing it from being addressed.

During this talk in 2017 in London, it was even made clear that if CPEC projects continued toward completion, the prospect of an “independent Baluchistan” would only become more remote. While it was never stated directly why during the discussion, it is clear that a developed and more prosperous Baluchistan would undermine and overcome separatist extremism in precisely the same way development in China’s Tibet and Xinjiang regions did.

Realistic or Not, US Will Continue Supporting Militancy

While these circles of US and European power promote independence for Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, they also admit the separatist groups themselves are unlikely to achieve independence and would – if ever achieving it – likely devolve into a fractured failed state.

Ralph Peters himself was included in a 2012 Huffington Post article titled, “Serious Internal Issues Undermining Baloch Insurgency And Independence Movement,” where he depicted the independence movement in less than optimistic terms.

The article would note:

According to Peters, one of the most serious issues with the Baloch independence movement is “deeply troubling” infighting. In fact, he is emphatic in his condemnation of such bickering; going so far as to assert: “they are quickly becoming their own worst enemies.”

In his view, individual Baloch simply don’t understand that their personal feuding undermines the larger movement: “Certain Baloch fail to understand that their only hope in gaining independence is if they put their own egos and vanity aside and work together. This is the cold hard fact. They are already outgunned and outmanned. Pakistan will continue to to exploit their differences until they realize this.”

So long as the Baloch continue to engage in “petty infighting,” including “savaging each other in emails,” Peters is pessimistic they can garner widespread support in the West. In fact, he warns that such infighting could eventually put off even their staunchest supporters.

Ultimately, however, whether or not the US can achieve their primary objective of carving off Pakistani territory and outright stopping CPEC, the US will continue supporting militancy in Baluchistan and elsewhere west of the Indus River.

Just as we’ve seen this year with attacks targeting Chinese engineers working on CPEC or an assassination attempt on the Chinese ambassador to Pakistan himself – the militancy will still serve as a significant obstacle in both finishing CPEC and utilizing it to its maximum potential.

President Biden’s B3W proposal was, at face value, an empty proposition lacking even the most basic details – because just like a screen of smoke – it is not meant to do anything except obfuscate. In this case, B3W is obfuscating a campaign of state-sponsored terrorism used by the West as its actual answer to China’s BRI – using armed militants to block or destroy BRI projects rather than present to the world a compelling and constructive alternative to these projects.

What Does the Future Hold for CPEC?

China has demonstrated a significantly compelling solution to US-sponsored separatism in both Tibet and Xinjiang where Chinese security measures coupled with infrastructure projects, job programs, and other means of addressing the root causes of extremism effectively smothered the long-burning fires lit by Washington.

A similar plan for addressing security, poverty, and perceived neglect in Baluchistan would stand the best chance of succeeding there as well.

We can anticipate any security operation or economic program implemented by Pakistan with China’s help will be met by the West’s industrialized “human rights” complex and Western media campaigns to depict it in the same nefarious manner China’s efforts in Tibet and Xinjiang have been depicted – as “genocide.”

The foundations have already been laid, with US NED programs focused specifically on Baluchistan province for years to build up fronts posing as human rights monitoring groups apt at fabricating reports regarding Islamabad’s “abuses” in the region. This localized propaganda campaign could – just as it was in Xinjiang – be internationalized if and when the conditions are deemed right.

It will be a race between Beijing and Islamabad’s ability to develop Baluchistan faster than the US and its allies can undermine and destabilize it, but it is a race that has already clearly begun, and a race that is both dangerous and deadly.

The US “withdrawal” from Afghanistan means that covert operations can be run out of Afghanistan’s territory by US contractors or special operations forces with a better sense of plausible deniability. The UK has also recently vowed to use its special forces for “higher risk” tasks against “big state adversaries” – clearly meaning China (as well as Russia).

Whether or not US and British operators will be plucked by local security forces from covert activities in western Pakistan remains to be seen, but the long-standing support by the West of armed extremists in this region is well established – support that still benefits and fulfills Western foreign policy objectives – so support that will undoubtedly continue well into the foreseeable future.

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Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

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A South China Morning Post (SCMP) article citing US corporate and government institution “associates” inadvertently gave away the entire game unfolding in Southeast Asia’s Myanmar.

 It is a conflict where US-backed armed opposition groups (previously depicted by the Western media as “peaceful” “pro-democracy” activists) are fighting Myanmar’s central government, police and military for control of the country.

The conflict clearly threatens both existing Chinese investments and the future of further investment and development projects. The resulting violence benefits neither China nor Myanmar, but most certainly benefits China’s chief rival, the United States.

Background of Myanmar’s Current Crisis 

In February of this year Myanmar’s military ousted the government of Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) political party. While the West depicts this as a coup against a democratically elected government, Aung San Suu Kyi and her NLD were created by and for Western special interests with virtually every aspect of the party funded and supported by US and British government money and with Suu Kyi herself maintaining an entourage of foreign advisors.

The purpose of installing a US client regime in power in Myanmar was part of a much wider long-standing effort to encircle and contain China. Myanmar shares a border with China and counts China as its largest and most important trade partner. For Beijing, Myanmar is a crucial partner in extending its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with pipelines, ports, and roads all aready in use or under construction.

With the US client regime ousted from power, a secondary objective of burning the nation to the ground, thus blocking China’s BRI and leaving a failed state on China’s border to contend with has taken precedence.

Armed ethnic groups, originally part of the British Empire’s colonial army in then Burma, armed and trained by both the US and UK during World War 2 and ever since maintained to destabilise Myanmar since achieving independence from Britain in 1948, have stepped up hostilities against Myanmar’s current government, police and military.

These ethnic groups are also allegedly providing arms and training to “pro-democracy activists” who have since transformed into what are being called “people’s defence forces” (PDF).

PDF militants are not only attacking military positions but are also carrying out a campaign of terrorism, attacking schools, electricity offices and court buildings, according to even opposition media outlets like US government-funded Myanmar Now.

Death Squads Seek to Derail Myanmar-China Relations

With this all in mind, SCMP’s article, “As the West leaves a void in Myanmar, China ignores its own advice to invest,” ultimately reveals US ambitions in fanning the flames of armed conflict in Myanmar are designed to block Chinese investments, cripple Myanmar’s economy and ultimately derail indefinitely China’s BRI ambitions in the country.

The article cites associates from the United States Institute of Peace, the Wilson Centre and the Stimson Centre, each either directly tied to the US government, or funded by Western corporate-financier interests including arms manufacturers, energy giants, banks and industrial conglomerates.

Their collective narrative is one where China risks investing in a destabilised nation with escalating violence, a narrative well suited for Washington and is encirclement/containment policy toward China.

Little treatment or insight is given to who is fuelling this violence. Weapons do not spring from the ground nor grow on trees. They are manufactured and shipped to the battlefield.

With many militants sporting what are clearly US-manufactured M-16 assault rifles and Eastern Bloc weapons, questions about how they ended up in Myanamr’s jungles and on the streets of its towns and cities remain unasked by the Western media.

The US has been revealed to have shipped weapons around the globe to support militancy elsewhere (most notably in Syria). There, Eastern Bloc weapons were procured by the US Central Intelligence Agency and then airlifted to militants operating along and within Syria’s borders.

The New York Times in an article titled, “Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With Aid From CIA,” noted:

From offices at secret locations, American intelligence officers have helped the Arab governments shop for weapons, including a large procurement from Croatia, and have vetted rebel commanders and groups to determine who should receive the weapons as they arrive, according to American officials speaking on the condition of anonymity.

There are also US-linked groups operating inside Myanmar’s borders including the “Free Burma Rangers” led by former US special operations soldier David Eubank. US diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks reveal that David Eubank and his “Free Burma Rangers” are in regular contact with the US Embassy in Myanmar as well as the US Consulate in neighbouring Chiang Mai, Thailand.

The “Free Burma Rangers” openly provide military training and non-lethal logistical support to ethnic armed groups across Myanmar, according to Small Wars Journal. Videos freely available online show Westerners participating in armed patrols inside of Myanmar suggesting that weapons are also being brought in through these supposed “aid” groups. The participation of “Free Burma Rangers” in Iraq and Syria makes it even clearer that it serves as a front working adjacent to or fully within US foreign policy objectives.

Since February, many of these US-backed armed ethnic groups have taken what was a low-intensity conflict with the central government to a campaign of armed terrorism including within Myanmar’s urban centres.

Myanmar Now has daily headlines of murders carried out by PDF militants against local administrators as well as civilians “suspected” of collaborating with the government.

A recent article from July 5, 2021 titled, “Resistance fighters in Bago kill man accused of helping military crush protest stronghold,” would admit:

Local resistance fighters have claimed responsibility for the killing of a man accused of helping the military carry out its deadly assault against a protest stronghold in Bago in April.

The same article also admitted:

Shortly before the assassination, the Bago branch of the People’s Defense Force (PDF) also set off bombs at the Hantharwaddy Township administration office and the township electricity office in Nyaung Wine.

Western “human rights” groups used to politically undermine Myanmar’s current government and military have at the same time been deafeningly silent over the campaign of concerted terrorism used by US-backed opposition groups in their attempt at paralysing Myanmar on a local level.

This violence will make control over the country difficult and in turn, make it difficult to implement joint projects with China or even protect existing Chinese-built infrastructure and investments.

While China is depicted by the West as a growing threat to global peace and stability, it was China that was building bridges connecting the divided people of Myanmar together and building dams to power cities like Mandalay, driving development, opening markets and creating opportunities.

Washington’s contribution to the region will be deliberately rendering Myanmar a failed state at the heart of Asia, presenting a security threat to its neighbours and a blackhole where once there were economic opportunities and the promise of development.

The SCMP article would note the quandary Washington was presenting Beijing:

Arguing that the situation was now at a crossroads, [Jason] Tower from the US Institute Peace said Beijing could either work with the international community to find a political solution or move forward with economic corridor projects in the face of increasingly militarised opposition.

When we realise “political solution” equates to reinstalling the US-backed client regime to power and continuing a policy of pivoting toward Western “liberalisation” and the replacement of real development with IMF and World Bank predatory capital, and that the “increasingly militarised opposition” is a product of a US proxy war with both Myanmar’s government and ultimately Chinese interests in the region, we then fully realise this is the US demanding it gets its way with Myanmar, or there will be no Myanmar.

*

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Joseph Thomas is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

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***

Abstract

The Navy ship containing nuclear bombs that a junior officer saw anchored off Iwakuni Marine Corps Air Station in 1959 was only the most notorious of many U.S. violations of Japan’s official policy banning nuclear weapons. The Japanese government has a long history of secretly agreeing to their deployments, and feigning ignorance when they were revealed. The outrage that erupted in the press and in the Diet when former American Ambassador to Japan, Edwin Reischauer, spoke publicly in 1981 about nuclear-armed warships in Japan’s ports came close to bringing down an LDP government. In Okinawa local residents protested the large numbers and types of nuclear weapons based there during the U.S. military occupation (1945-72). Breaking its promise that they be permanently removed, the Japanese government concluded a secret nuclear understanding as part of the 1969 Okinawa Reversion Agreement that the U.S. government could bring them back whenever it decided there was “a great emergency.” In 2009 a high Japanese government official advocated their return to Okinawa in testimony before a U.S. Congressional Commission.

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Stewart Engel was a Navy junior officer in late 1959 when his assigned ship, USS Carpenter, made a port call at Iwakuni Marine Corps Air Station in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan.

Off our beam, moored or anchored, was an LST [“Landing Ship, Tank” or tank landing ship]. It was by far the worst rust bucket I saw in my three years of active duty. Any C.O. [commanding officer] would have been mightily embarrassed to command it. Its condition convinced me that it had not been to sea with a Navy crew for a while.

During our entire stay at Iwakuni I never saw a sailor on the ship. I did always see two Marines, one forward and one aft. Sometimes Marines are used as decorative base gate guards in their pressed uniforms with perhaps a sidearm. These were not. They were dressed for combat and heavily armed accordingly.

The peculiar arrangement caused me to inquire about the LST’s purpose and I was told it was to repair electronics. That made no sense. Anybody with equipment to repair would have carried it to a dock and scheduled a boat to go out to the LST. In addition, I saw no accommodation ladder on the side of the LST.

Clearly there was some hanky-panky going on. At the time I speculated on what it might be. My first choice was that it was actually a brig for really, really bad military personnel. A distant second choice was that it was being used to house victims of extraordinary rendition, a floating precursor to Gitmo. Both choices meant that the guards were there to keep people from escaping from the LST. Regardless of the LST’s actual function, the foolishness of the cover story seemed to ensure that Iwakuni would draw more than its fair share of attention from Soviet or Chinese spies. I learned later that the hold was full of amtracs [armored tracked vehicles] packed with nuclear bombs. 

In 1981 former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Edwin Reischauer, revealed publicly that the U.S. had been bringing nuclear weapons into Japanese ports for decades contrary to the government’s stated policies and public understanding.¹

In fact, Reischauer had negotiated an agreement with Foreign Minister Ōhira Masayoshi in April, 1963, to accept the transit of nuclear armed warships in Japanese waters which only formalized what had been going on already. “I’ve long suspected,” wrote Stewart Engel,” that Japanese officials approved these nukes but needed ‘plausible deniability’ for domestic political reasons.”

Japan’s “Atomic Energy Basic Law,” enacted by the Diet in 1955, states that “atomic energy shall be limited to peaceful purposes, aimed at ensuring safety . . . and under democratic management.” Its “Three Non-Nuclear Principles” resolution, passed by the Diet in 1971, states that “Japan shall neither possess nor manufacture nuclear weapons, nor shall it permit their introduction into Japanese territory.”

In his book The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner (Bloomsbury, 2017), Daniel Ellsberg writes that “in early 1960 I was told in great secrecy by a nuclear control officer in the Pacific that one small Marine airbase at Iwakuni in Japan had a secret arrangement whereby its handful of planes with general war missions would get their nuclear weapons very quickly in the event of a general war alert.” Ellsberg goes on to explain how they would be deployed.

Because of the special relation of the Marines to the Navy, there was a flat-bottomed ship for landing tanks on the beach (LST, for Landing Ship, Tank), anchored just offshore Iwakuni with nuclear weapons aboard, loaded onto amphibious tractors, just for the small group of planes on this base.

Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni with port and airfield.

U.S. Navy LST

The LST, the USS San Joaquin County, had a cover mission as an electronics repair ship. It was permanently stationed not just inside the three-mile limit of Japanese territorial waters but anchored a couple of hundred yards from the beach, in the tidal waters. By any standards it was stationed within the territory of Japan. So were its nuclear weapons.

In a nuclear emergency. The San Joaquin County would operate as it was designed to do in an amphibious landing. It would haul anchor and come straight ashore. The front of the ship would open up like a clam-shell, and amphibious tractors loaded with nuclear weapons would come down a ramp into the water or directly onto the beach, then head on land straight to the airstrip where the weapons would be loaded onto the Marine planes.

[In 1966] Edwin Reischauer, our ambassador to Japan, learned of [the San Joaquin County’s] presence—through a leak to his office—and demanded that it be removed. He threatened to resign if it wasn’t. In 1967 it finally moved back to Okinawa.²

Ellsberg later wrote, “There were major interviews in Japan after Reischauer’s revelations, in one of which I was paired with a retired general who had been in one of the highest positions in the Japanese defense establishment.”

Like other official spokespersons at the time, he maintained that the U.S. had assured the Japanese government they would inform the government of any intention or practice of introducing nuclear weapons into Japanese territory. This was in reference to nuclear weapons even aboard U.S. ships in Japanese ports, let alone permanently in Japanese territorial waters like the LST at Iwakuni. Since the U.S. had not made any such announcement to the government, the government assumed that no such introduction had ever occurred.

Every US sailor in a Japanese port knew that was untrue. Virtually every U.S. ship in a Japanese port had nuclear weapons aboard. But did the Japanese government know it? Yes, said former ambassador Reischauer. Moreover, he said, they knew about the LST, and accepted it, so long as the U.S. kept it secret and denied it. On the ports, the US always said “We neither confirm nor deny the location of any US nuclear weapons.” This declaration was largely to allow the Japanese government, in particular, to deny their knowledge and to lie about it.³

In an article headlined “Japan reels under Reischauer’s nuclear ‘bombshell’” (Christian Science Monitor,May 19, 1981), reporter Geoffrey Murray wrote,

Why did he choose now to make a statement like that? It’s incredible, beyond belief.” The anguish in the voice of the senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official was obvious. He was referring to claims by Edwin Reischauer, a highly respected former US ambassador to Tokyo and now a Harvard professor, that American warships carrying nuclear weapons had frequently entered Japanese ports or passed through territorial waters.

Repeatedly over the years, however, the Japanese people have been assured by their government that visiting U.S. vessels have been “clean” in compliance with this country’s three nonnuclear principles — not to manufacture, possess, or allow introduction of nuclear weapons.

In fact, Japanese government officials have a long history of approving U.S. nuclear weapons deployments going back to 1954 when the crew of a Japanese fishing boat suffered severe radiation poisoning from the test of a hydrogen bomb in the South Pacific. The March, 1954 “Bravo Shot” H-bomb explosion dumped radioactive debris on the Marshall Islands, U.S. servicemen aboard Navy ships, and the crew of the Japanese fishing boat Lucky Dragon No. 5. The multi-megaton blast infected Marshall Islanders with radiation sickness and caused cancers in the years that followed. Their contaminated home on Bikini Atoll remains uninhabitable to this day. U.S. servicemen who had been purposely transported into the blast zone have suffered from multiple cancers from radiation exposure. For years their claims were denied by the Veterans Administration. It took an act of Congress in 1990 to provide compensation for them and their children with birth defects. One crew member of Lucky Dragon No. 5, Kuboyama Aikichi (age 40), died while in treatment with the others for radiation exposure.⁴

“Bravo Shot” H-bomb test, Bikini, March 1, 1954

Japanese scientists examine the hull of contaminated Lucky Dragon No. 5  at Yaizu City port,  Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan.

With the Diet in an uproar over the H-bomb tests and the resulting poisoned fishermen, opposition parties demanded that the Japanese government bring the case to the International Court of Justice. On March 17, 1954, Representative Kawasaki Hideji of the Progressive Party argued that “world opinion would be deeply sympathetic to a nation that has now been victimized three times by nuclear explosions. Our foreign policy must be courageous enough to petition the International Court.” Foreign Minister Okazaki Katsuo responded that “I am confident we can resolve the issue without going to the Court.”

On April 9, 1954, Foreign Minister Okazaki explained his decision not to pursue America’s legal responsibility at a party in Tokyo given by the America-Japan Society. “We recognize that nuclear tests are indispensable to the security not only of America, but of Japan and other democratic nations. Thus, we join the other democratic nations in helping to make sure the atomic tests are successful.”⁵

For his thoroughly researched article “Japan under the US nuclear umbrella,” Hans Kristensen drew on historical records and recently declassified documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act that listed U.S. nuclear weapons deployments in Japan during the Cold War.⁶

There was in fact no such understanding. In a secret letter on July 17, 1955, the foreign minister was officially informed by the Embassy that the ambassador “made no commitments … regarding the storage of atomic weapons in Japan” and that “the U.S. government does not consider itself committed to any particular course of action.”

In March of 1955, one year after the crew of Lucky Dragon No. 5 had suffered radiation poisoning from the Bikini H-bomb test, Prime Minister Hatoyama Ichirō was asked at a press conference if he would permit U.S. nuclear weapons in Japan. He responded much like Foreign Minister Okazaki Katsuo had the previous year. “If we are to sanction the present ‘peace sustained by force’ as justifiable, then I would have to allow such stockpiling.” To calm the furor that ensued, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) insisted that Japan had an “understanding” with the U.S. that it would be consulted before such deployment took place. Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Mamoru told the Diet in June, 1955, that there would be “prior consultation” with the U.S. if nuclear weapons were ever deployed in Japan. But in a classified internal report in 1957 the U.S. State Department refuted this claim.

Meanwhile, only one week after he told the Diet the U.S. would not bring nuclear weapons into Japan without asking first, Foreign Minister Shigemitsu sent a letter to the American ambassador John M. Allison assuring him that “nothing in the discussions in the Diet commits the U.S. to any particular course of action.” As noted by Hans Kristensen, “This double standard policy of secretly relieving the U.S. from any obligations before bringing nuclear weapons in, while at the same time assuring the public that specific limitations existed, would become a trademark of Japanese governments for the next four decades.”⁷

On July 29, 1955, only eleven days after the State Department’s letter, the Associated Press reported a U.S. Army announcement that it was sending nuclear missiles and Honest John artillery rockets to Japan. The report cited a “heretofore secret agreement” between the U.S. and Japanese governments permitting their deployment, but that “the Diet had not been informed.” The report made headlines in Japan. The next day Prime Minister Hatoyama, testifying in the Diet, denied any knowledge of the planned deployment and claimed there was no secret agreement. Without mentioning an agreement, U.S. Ambassador Allison released a statement that the missiles and rockets would be sent to Japan minus their nuclear warheads. In fact, the “secret agreement” between the two governments allowed for the positioning of the weapons and their crews in Japan with the understanding that nuclear warheads would be brought in if both governments agreed that the international situation required them.⁸

However, no such subterfuge was necessary when it came to Okinawa. A prefecture of Japan until the spring of 1945, Okinawa was seized by the U.S. during the Battle of Okinawa and ruled under U.S. military occupation until 1972. This allowed American forces “freedom of operations” unfettered even by the easily circumvented laws in “sovereign” mainland Japan. The same day, July 29, 1955, that the Associated Press reported the U.S. dispatch of nuclear weapons to Japan, the Chicago Tribune reported that atomic cannons and nuclear-armed Honest John rockets were being deployed to Okinawa.

Although the subsequent presence of nuclear weapons in Okinawa was supposed to be highly classified information, anti-nuclear protests that greeted the arrival of Honest John rockets showed that they were hardly a secret to Okinawans. How could local residents not be suspicious of the extremely high security at the Army’s ordnance storage base at Henoko where squads of armed soldiers with German Shepherd sentry dogs patrolled its perimeter 24/7, where signs along the main road passing it ordered “no stopping,” and where a large area of close-cropped grass surrounded by high-wire fencing contained several oblong, sod-covered concrete bunkers with steel doors? They could easily find out that the base’s “SW” designation on the sign at its entrance gate stood for “special weapons”–nuclear, chemical and biological. Among Okinawans inclined to do some research into nuclear issues, a book published in mainland Japan about the U.S. military in Okinawa noted that an unclassified Army manual describing the base’s organization listed a “nuclear ordnance platoon.”⁹

Nuclear-capable Honest John rocket on its truck-transported launcher.

Storage “igloos” at the Army ordnance company in Okinawa that stored nuclear  weapons until 1972. (Photos by the author, 2014)

In the 1956 edition of the college student magazine Ryūdai Bungaku, its founder Arakawa Akira published his poem “The Colored Race,” protesting deployment of the Honest John rockets and calling for black soldiers to join Okinawans in resisting the U.S. military occupation. Occupation officials promptly shut down the magazine for one year, confiscated issues already printed, and expelled Arakawa and his co-editor Kawamitsu Shin’ich from University of the Ryukyus. One stanza reads,

The whites,

The flabby, hairy whites

Bring the Honest John to our island,

Strut around arrogantly,

And act like our masters,

Calling us yellow.¹⁰

There could have been any number of reasons for this crack-down on a small student publication, but nuclear weapons in Okinawa were supposed to be a military secret. According to a November, 1999 article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, nuclear weapons had first come to Okinawa in 1954.

Deployment of complete weapons and components coincided with the U.S.-China crisis over the Taiwan straits in 1954–55. The Eisenhower administration, worried that Chinese forces might attack the offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu or even Taiwan itself, made nuclear threats and developed contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons against China. Complete nuclear weapons were deployed to Okinawa in December 1954. That same month, the nuclear-armed aircraft carrier U.S.S. Midway deployed to Taiwanese waters. . . .

At the end of the Eisenhower administration, U.S. nuclear deployments on shore in the Pacific—at Okinawa, Guam, the Philippines, Korea, and Taiwan (but not Hawaii)—totaled approximately 1,700 weapons. There were about a dozen weapons on Taiwan, 60 in the Philippines, 225 on Guam, and 600 in Korea. The lion’s share—nearly 800 weapons—were located at Kadena airbase, Okinawa, the location of SAC’s strategic bombers. New dispersals to the Pacific region began with the Kennedy administration. By the beginning of 1963, on-shore deployments—to Guam, Okinawa, the Philippines, and Taiwan—grew to about 2,400, a 66 percent increase from 1961 levels. The on-shore stockpile in the Pacific peaked in mid-1967 at about 3,200 weapons, 2,600 of which were in Korea and Okinawa.¹¹

Stored with the Honest John rockets at the Army’s ordnance base in Henoko were Nike-Hercules surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles with nuclear warheads. They were deployed on hilltops and at airfields in Okinawa. In 1959 one of the Nike-Hercules missiles at Naha Airbase fired accidentally killing two Army crewmen and injuring one. The warhead bounced out and rolled on the ground, but did not detonate. Soldiers in Okinawa worried about the Nike Hercules. Although it was capable of destroying a squadron of Soviet MiGs, a nuclear explosion in the air would release radiation endangering everyone on the ground.

Nike-Hercules warhead, conventional version. Nuclear version was white.

Along with the nuclear strategic bombers at Kadena airbase, nuclear-armed Mace-B surface-to-surface missiles arrived in 1961 with a range capable of attacking all of China and the Soviet Far East. An erroneous launch order issued to Mace-B crews during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October, 1962, came close to starting a nuclear war.¹²

Mace-B surface-to-surface guided missile.

Along with growing outrage in Okinawa and mainland Japan over the presence of nuclear weapons, NATO nations in Europe demanded in 1957 that they had to be deployed “in agreement” with the host country. In response, a meeting of officials from the U.S. military and the Atomic Energy Commission in January, 1958, produced the “Neither Confirm nor Deny” (NCND) policy that remains in effect today.¹³

[I]t is the policy of the United States Government . . . neither to confirm nor deny the presence of the nuclear component of nuclear-capable weapons in any another country, and that this policy would be followed in the event that U.S. officials are queried with respect to any statement made by an official of a foreign country or by any other source.

The United States refused to agree to treaty language committing it to seek Japan’s approval for nuclear weapons deployments on land. In April, 1963 it secured the aforementioned agreement from Foreign Minister Ōhira Masayoshi, with an exchange of formal letters, to accept the transit of nuclear armed warships through Japanese ports and territorial waters. (Kristensen) This directly contradicted Japan’s 1955 “Atomic Energy Basic Law” that restricted nuclear energy to “peaceful purposes;” and its “Three Non-Nuclear Principles” resolution passed by the Diet in 1971 specifying that “Japan shall neither possess nor manufacture nuclear weapons, nor shall it permit their introduction into Japanese territory.” Not limited to transit by ship, Navy records from 1963 and the 1972 interview of a former U.S. serviceman, published in the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper, indicate that nuclear weapons were delivered by air to U.S. bases in Japan. “On a number of occasions over three years beginning in 1960 we carried B-43 small nuclear bombs and others from McCord [Air] Base in Tacoma, Washington to four bases in Japan: Yokota, Misawa, Johnson (Iruma), and Kadena [in Okinawa].” ¹⁴

In March of 1961 with tensions rising in Southeast Asia over anti-government insurgencies, the U.S. Navy declared a DEFCON 2 alert, the condition immediately below the outbreak of war. Nuclear-strike aircraft carriers USS Midway, docked at Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan, and USS Lexington at Okinawa, were ordered to the South China Sea. The Japanese government was already well aware of U.S. carriers’ nuclear capability. One month earlier, in February of 1961, the Chief of Staff of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Forces (JMSDF) observed a demonstration of “special weapons delivery” by U.S. Navy aircraft from nuclear strike carriers on a three-day cruise to Okinawa. By this time Navy warships were routinely bringing both tactical and strategic nuclear weapons into Japanese ports well before the 1963 formal agreement from the Japanese government.¹⁵

U.S.S. Midway underway in the Pacific

In December, 1965, a jet fighter carrying a hydrogen bomb accidentally rolled off the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Ticonderoga returning to Yokosuka Navy Base in Kanagawa Prefecture, one hour west of Tokyo. Hans Kristensen describes the accident:

While steaming 80 miles off Okinawa on December 5 enroute to Yokosuka, a nuclear weapon loading exercise was conducted onboard. An A-4 strike aircraft was loaded with a B43 hydrogen bomb and rolled onto one of the ship’s elevators to be brought up to the flight deck. For reasons that remain unclear, the brakes failed and the aircraft, with the pilot still strapped in his seat, rolled overboard and sank in 16,000 feet of water with its nuclear armament. Neither the pilot, the aircraft, nor the bomb was ever recovered. The carrier’s remaining nuclear weapons were still onboard when the USS Ticonderoga arrived at Yokosuka only two days after the accident. Japan was not informed of the accident at the time.¹⁶

By the mid-1960’s protests in Okinawa against the U.S. occupation and its nuclear-armed bases were beginning to interfere with the functioning of the American military mission. Mass demonstrations, including sit-ins at base gates and occupation headquarters, demanded a return of Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty, reduction of the U.S. military presence, and the removal of nuclear weapons. Beginning in 1967, negotiations led to the “Okinawa Reversion Agreement” between U.S. President Richard Nixon and Japan’s Prime Minister Satō Eisaku, concluded in November, 1969.

Prime Minister Satō and President Nixon at the White House in November, 1969  

The Japanese government had publicly pledged an Okinawa reversion with bases reduced to mainland levels (hondo nami) and without nuclear weapons (kaku nuki). Thus the actual agreement, which left the U.S. military presence intact and mentioned nothing about nuclear weapons, sparked outrage and more protests in Okinawa. Officially named in Japanese Okinawa Henkan Kyōtei (Okinawa Reversion Agreement), it came to be known among Okinawans as Okinawa Henken Kyōtei (Okinawa Discriminatory Agreement).Prime Minister Satō, who reaped enormous political benefits from the agreement in mainland Japan and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974, was later revealed as the ultimate betrayer.

Accompanying the Reversion Agreement, Sato and Nixon secretly signed what was officially called an “agreed minute,” drafted by Henry Kissinger, later known in Japan as a “secret nuclear understanding” (kaku mitsu-yaku). Confirming widespread suspicions of its existence, the “secret” was uncovered in 1972, the year of the reversion, by Mainichi Daily reporter Nishiyama Takichi. Two decades later Wakaizumi Kei, special envoy and interpreter, published a draft of the “agreed minute” in his book Tasaku Nakarishi o Shinzamuto Hossu (I Want to Believe There Were No Other Options), Bungei Shunjū, 1994. The existence of this document has never been officially recognized by the Japanese or U.S. governments, but in 2009 Satō’s son Shinji discovered it, signed by his late father and President Nixon, inside a drawer at a former family residence in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo.. The English text of the agreement reads,

Agreed Minute to Joint Communique of United States President Nixon and Japanese Prime Minister Sato (Draft)

21st November, 1969

United States President:

As stated in our Joint Communique, it is the intention of the United States Government to remove all the nuclear weapons from Okinawa by the time of actual reversion of the administrative rights to Japan; and thereafter the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security and its related arrangements will apply to Okinawa, as described in the Joint Communique. However, in order to discharge effectively the international obligations assumed by the United States for the defense of countries in the Far East including Japan, in time of great emergency the United States Government will require the re-entry of nuclear weapons and transit rights in Okinawa with prior consultation with the Government of Japan. The United States Government would anticipate a favorable response. The United States Government also requires the standby retention and activation in time of great emergency of existing nuclear storage locations in Okinawa: Kadena, Naha, Henoko and Nike Hercules units.

Japanese Prime Minister:

The Government of Japan, appreciating the United States Government’s requirements in time of great emergency stated above by the President, will meet these requirements without delay when such prior consultation takes place.

The President and the Prime Minister agreed that this Minute, in duplicate, be kept each only in the offices of the President and the Prime Minister and be treated in the strictest confidence between only the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Japan. [emphasis added]

Washington, D.C., November 21, 1969

Despite the stated desire to keep the agreement in “strictest confidence,” its subsequent revelation showed that Prime Minister Satō had not only broken his oft-stated promise of a post-reversion Okinawa without nuclear weapons (kaku-nuki), but he had violated his own proclamation for the 1971 Diet resolution of Japan’s “Three Non-Nuclear Principles” (non-production, non-possession, and non-introduction), which was cited as a major reason for awarding him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974.

With Okinawa’s return to Japan in May, 1972, it became the nation’s only prefecture where the Japanese government explicitly approved the re-deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons on its land, in its surrounding waters or airspace during any U.S.-determined “emergency.” The “secret understanding” became headlines and sparked outrage in Japan when it was first revealed publicly by a Mainichi Daily reporter in 1972 and when Satō’s interpreter published the text in 1994. Subsequently, Akiba Takeo, a senior Foreign Ministry official, testified before a U.S. Congressional Commission in 2009 that re-deploying nuclear weapons to Okinawa “sounds persuasive to me.”

Akiba’s statement to the Commission, obtained by the Union of Concerned Scientists, ignited a predictable firestorm in Japan. Gregory Kulacki, UCS Senior Analyst, explained, “[A] reason for redeploying US nuclear weapons in Okinawa that might sound persuasive to Mr Akiba is that US and Japanese officials can use ambiguities in the language of the Nixon-Sato agreement, and tight controls on the dissemination of information about related bilateral discussions, to obscure the process that would be followed if the United States decided to make Okinawa nuclear again.” Kulacki explains how the “secret understanding” makes redeployment easy in Okinawa.

[P]ermission [of the Japanese government] need not be explicit, or public. It may not even be necessary. The language of the Nixon-Sato agreement is intentionally vague and suggests simple notification at a relatively low level of the bureaucracy might be enough. This kind of low level agreement would give the prime minister and other LDP officials the same kind of plausible deniability they used to avoid discussing the Sato-Nixon agreement on redeploying nuclear weapons in Okinawa for more than 50 years.

The potential presence of US nuclear weapons in Okinawa would be further obscured from public view by the US government’s non-confirm, non-deny policy on military deployments. . . . In the absence of an external inquiry, US nuclear weapons could be put back in Okinawa quietly, without public knowledge or debate.

[Another] reason Okinawa might sound persuasive to Mr. Akiba is that the United States is building a new military base in the Okinawan village of Henoko. The project includes significant upgrades to a munitions storage depot, adjacent to the new base, where US nuclear weapons were stored in the past. Henoko is specifically mentioned in the 1969 Nixon-Sato agreement as a mutually acceptable location for the possible redeployment of US nuclear weapons in Japan.¹⁷

Thanks to the Tokyo government’s betrayal in the 1969 Okinawa Reversion Agreement, this small island prefecture still bears 70% of the U.S. military presence in all of Japan on 0.2% of the nation’s land area with 1% of its population. Construction of the new base in Henoko, with offshore runways for planes and helicopters, has been delayed more than twenty years by daily protests at the construction site and opposition by the local prefectural government which has filed lawsuits on jurisdictional and environmental grounds. Joining a protest rally at the site on March 3, 2016, Gregory Kulacki urged Okinawans to continue opposing its construction. The protests continue in 2021.

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Stewart Engel served in the U.S. Navy from July,1958 to July, 1961 as Lieutenant Junior Grade. He trained at Watch Officers School in San Diego and was aboard the U.S.S. Carpenter in the Western Pacific when it entered port at the Marine Corps Air Station, Iwakuni, Japan in late 1959. He has worked as a computer programmer, systems analyst, and engineer for companies in New York, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, California and Virginia where he currently resides in Fredericksburg.

Steve Rabson was stationed as a U.S. Army draftee at the 137th Ordnance Company (SW) in Henoko, Okinawa from July, 1967 to June, 1968. He is professor emeritus of East Asian studies at Brown University and has published books and articles about Okinawa, and translations of Okinawan literature. His articles about nuclear weapons in Okinawa and Japan are listed below.

Notes

¹ Geoffrey Murray, “Japan reels under Reischauer’s nuclear ‘bombshell’,” Christian Science Monitor, May 19, 1981.

² Ellsberg, Doomsday Machine, 118.

³ From email communication with Daniel Ellsberg in May, 2021.

⁴ Okuaki Satoru, “How Japanese scientists confronted the U.S. and Japanese governments to reveal the effects of Bikini H-bomb tests,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, September 1, 2019, Volume 27, Issue 17, Number 2. From the introduction by Steve Rabson.

⁵ Okuaki.

⁶ Hans Kristensen, “Japan under the US nuclear umbrella, supporting documents global problem-solving nuke policy,” Nautilus Institute, July 21, 1999.

⁷ Kristensen, “Nuclear umbrella.”

⁸ Kristensen, “Nuclear umbrella.”

⁹ Okinawa Beigun kichi (U.S. bases in Okinawa), Shin-Nihon Shppan-sha, 1972. Includes Henoko ammunition storage area map.

¹⁰ Translated in Steve Rabson, Righteous Cause or Tragic Folly: Changing Views of War in Modern Japanese Poetry, Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 1998, 227. Also see Michael S. Molasky, The American Occupation of Japan and Okinawa: Literature and Memory, Routledge, 1999, 93-102.

¹¹ Robert S. Norris, William M. Arkin, William Burr, “Where they were,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists,November 1, 1999.

¹² Ota Masakatsu and Steve Rabson, “U.S. veterans reveal 1962 nuclear close call dodged in Okinawa,” Asia-Pacific Journal, Volume 13, Issue 13, Number 3, March 30, 2015.

¹³ Kristensen, “Nuclear umbrella.”

¹⁴ Quoted in Kristensen.

¹⁵ Kristensen, “Nuclear Umbrella.”

¹⁶ Kristensen, “Nuclear Umbrella.”

¹⁷ Gregory Kulacki with a comment by Steve Rabson, “Nuclear hawks in Tokyo call for stronger nuclear posture in Japan and Okinawa,” Asia-Pacific Journal, Volume 16, Issue 11, Number 1, June 1, 2018.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting on Friday included a four-point proposal for APEC cooperation, based on the themes of strengthening international cooperation over COVID-19, deepening regional economic integration, pursuing inclusive and sustainable development, and seizing opportunities for scientific and technological innovation. We can examine each of these in this article.

COVID-19 and the Health Silk Road

Xi said China has so far provided more than 500 million doses of vaccine to other developing countries and “will provide another US$3 billion in international aid over the next three years to support the COVID-19 response and economic and social recovery in other developing countries”.

China is currently involved in developing some 35 COVID-19 vaccines and has made significant strides in the development of its BioPharm industry, raising considerable sums of money on the Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Shanghai bourses to raise development capital. Some US$90 billion was raised among 28 companies listed on these exchanges last year, with China ramping up vaccine production to reach an estimated 3.2 billion doses in 2021 and 5.3 in 2022.

As of July 3, this year, China has provided nearly 500 million doses of vaccine overseas. (Source: Henry Tillman, China Investment Research from the Dezan Shira & Associates GBA webinar event from 34:30 viewable here). These vaccines are being distributed largely among Belt & Road Initiative countries, comprising some 35 percent of the global population, viewed as very important” for lower- and middle-income countries, many of them in Asia and in Africa.

Xi also stated that China will provide another US$3 billion in international aid over the next three years to support COVID-19 response and economic and social recovery in other developing countries. China supports waiving intellectual property rights on COVID-19 vaccines and will work with other parties to push for an early decision by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and other international institutions.

China will take an active part in cooperation initiatives to keep vaccine supply chains stable and safe and support the movement of essential goods, and take effective measures to ensure healthy, safe, and orderly people-to-people exchanges and restore normal business cooperation in our region at an early date. China has financed the founding of a Sub-Fund on APEC Cooperation on Combating COVID-19 and Economic Recovery, which will help APEC economies win an early victory over COVID-19 and achieve economic recovery.

Regional economic integration

Xi stated that “We need to deepen regional economic integration. Opening-up and integration is the prevailing trend. It is important that we promote the liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment and uphold the multilateral trading system with the WTO at its core. We must remove barriers, not erect walls. We must open, not close off. We must seek integration, not decoupling. This is the way to make economic globalization more open, inclusive, balanced, and beneficial for all.

We need to step up macroeconomic policy coordination, minimize negative spillovers, and fully implement the APEC Connectivity Blueprint to promote cooperation on digital connectivity. We need to advance regional economic integration, with a view to establishing a high-standard Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific at an early date. China is among the first to ratify the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement. We look forward to its entry into force this year.”

Comment: This section reveals how China sees itself as part of East Asia – RCEP – and APEC, together with links to Central Asia, Africa, Europe and later, South America. The Belt & Road Initiative, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and other institutions complete this picture and will further integrate through a high yielding mechanized agricultural and focused innovative approach of China, ASEAN, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand and the rising new vast Asia, including Central Asia, Africa, and South America. The rising Chinese domestic market will sit at the center of the new East Asian Free Trade Area. The other areas of Asia will link in gradually as they mature – the world’s leading industries will focus on East Asia for new markets, capital, and profitability. Eventually Asia will be the continent of the world, and its central economy.

Xi’s comments echo those made on a more regional basis by China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who delivered a more regionally focused speech in Tashkent last week at the ‘Central and South Asia: Regional Connectivity, Challenges, and Opportunities’ inter-governmental conference hosted by Uzbekistan. That also contained a four-point plan and dealt more with the regional dynamics of connecting Central with South Asia. Our analysis of that, complete with planned Eurasian interconnectivity maps can be viewed here.

Inclusive and sustainable development

Xi stated that “We need to pursue inclusive and sustainable development. Planet Earth is the only home for humanity. We must follow a people-centered approach, foster a sound environment to buttress sustainable economic and social development worldwide, and achieve green growth. China attaches great importance to addressing climate change. We will strive to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.

China supports APEC in advancing cooperation on sustainable development, improving the List of Environmental Goods, and making energy more efficient, clean, and diverse. We need to enhance economic and technological cooperation, promote inclusive trade and investment, support the development of small- and medium-sized enterprises, scale up support for women and other vulnerable groups, share experience on eliminating absolute poverty and strive to deliver the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”

Scientific and technological innovation

Xi commented “We need to seize opportunities from scientific and technological innovation. The digital economy is an important area for the future growth of the world economy. The global digital economy is an open and close-knit entity. Win-win cooperation is the only right way forward, while a closed-door policy, exclusion, confrontation, and division would only lead to a dead end. We need to ensure full and balanced implementation of the APEC Internet and Digital Economy Roadmap, further develop digital infrastructure, facilitate the dissemination and application of new technologies, and work for a digital business environment that is open, fair, and non-discriminatory.

China has concluded several cooperation initiatives, including those on using digital technologies for the prevention and control of COVID-19 and on smart cities. We will host a workshop on digital capacity building and take forward such initiatives as bolstering the recovery of the tourism sector with digital tools, as part of our efforts to contribute more to Asia-Pacific cooperation on digital economy.

China has embarked on a new journey toward fully building a modern socialist country. As China enters a new development stage, we will follow a new development philosophy and foster a new development paradigm. We will build a new system of open economy of higher standards, create a more attractive business environment, and advance high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. We hope to work with countries in the Asia-Pacific and beyond to achieve higher-standard mutual benefit and win-win cooperation.”

Comment: Xi’s statements, and especially those made by Wang Yi as concerns Central Asia, herald the arrival of Asia as an Asian managed region. This has arrived as an on-going process of infrastructure building, urbanization and wealth creation and has ultimately resulted in the complete withdrawal of both NATO and US troops from Afghanistan. The Central and South Asian region, and increasingly the Middle East and Africa are undergoing a new influential course and geopolitical dynamics.

Asia, centered on East Asia, will not a federal state. It will be a continent of nations, but with a Free Trade Area – a combination of ASEAN, RCEP, the Eurasian Economic Union, and agreements with the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, the Gulf Cooperation Council and South America’s Mercosur bloc. (Source, Dezan Shira & Associates GBA webinar, Regional Free Trade from 1:48.40 viewable here).

What we see happening is the coordination by the regions national leaders to build continental and intercontinental infrastructure and mechanisms to develop living standards and care for society and the environment. Their central banks will coordinate as they have done since 2002 through the Chiang Mai Accords, while their economies will trade in currencies that are not capable of being sanctioned but are more available as digital and easily transferable and convertible.

China is ushering in a new emerging world and has been making long term plans to do so. Frictions have arisen because the United States and Europe have neglected at present significant long-term plans – as can be seen from the somewhat ‘knee-jerk’ response to initiatives such as the G7’s ‘Build Back Better World’ and the EU’s ‘Globally Connecting Europe’ plans which lack any tangible structural or address the financial planning requirements.

China in Asia and beyond has very clear objectives and is openly discussing these in international forums such as APEC. The United States and EU in comparison need to clearly see this and listen to these plans with an eye of global development instead of concentrating purely on their internal priorities. If this does not occur, and a re-engagement with Beijing materialize, it will be China, Asia, and its trading partners alone that will govern and influence global trade.  

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Another method rich countries are using to downplay the severity of climate change is to ignore its consequences, or try and pass them off as “natural” events.

Climate change is already leading to rising sea levels, threatening island and coastal communities and devastating food security and access to fresh water. Long-term drought and changes in weather patterns are causing hunger and destroying farming land.

By the middle of the century, it is estimated that as many as 200 million people worldwide may be displaced as a result.

Yet, rich countries have responded to this humanitarian disaster with lock-down and lock-up measures to try and stop vulnerable people trying to flee.

The poorest nations with the least resources — which have had the least to do with the climate emergency — are being left to deal with humanitarian problems.

Climate-related displacement is still not considered to be an important global issue. The United Nations (UN) Charter still does not recognise climate refugees — those who cross international borders to find safety — let alone internally displaced persons due to changes in the climate.

The UN Human Rights Committee handed down a landmark decision last January, after a 2015 case was brought by Ioane Teitiota from the small Pacific island nation of Kiribati seeking protection in Aotearoa/New Zealand as a climate refugee. His claim was denied by the NZ government.

The UNHRC eventually upheld the NZ government’s decision on the grounds that the situation in Kiribati was not yet dire enough that Teitiota and his family faced an imminent risk to their lives.

However, it added a disclaimer, saying that “without robust national and international efforts”, the effects of climate change may expose people to life-threatening risks or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and countries could not lawfully send people back to these conditions.

Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) islands, including coral atolls, are experiencing saltwater inundation, leading to shortages of safe drinking water and threats to food security.

This is compounded by the legacy of colonial occupation and theft of resources by former colonial powers. Today, neo-colonialism continues in the form of foreign company land grabs for logging and mining (including deep sea mining). In addition, there is a lack of transparency and corruption in government and business sectors.

These people also face the impacts of onshore mining. Gold mining produces tailings that flow down rivers causing mass fish kills (due to cyanide poisoning) and bring sediment downstream to clog rivers and impact ocean ecosystems.

The loss of control by local land owners over the land and resources means they are more vulnerable to underhand land grabs for logging. Policies and laws around sustainable land use either do not exist or benefit foreign interests.

Traditional knowledge, passed down through generations, about land and resource management has not been codified or given proper status.

Islands washing away

Mualim Island, located in the Duke of York Islands in PNG is gradually being engulfed by the sea on its northern and southern tips. The lack of arable land and fresh drinking water means people paddle their canoes to other islands to tend food gardens, collect firewood and fresh water.

Nukumanu (Tasman) islanders are forced to travel hundreds of kilometres by dinghies, risking their lives, to the island of Buka to buy rations, especially rice.

The impact of climate change on PNG’s coral atolls is that most islands experience almost half a year of drought. This means islanders have a limited water supply which often leads to poor sanitation.

According to the Coral Sea Foundation, Potaminam Island is likely to disappear in another few decades due to rising sea levels.

The beach is shrinking and coconut palms are falling into the water. Potaminam is located more than 260 kilometres from the nearest significant high ground.

Rising sea levels mean the people of the Carteret Islands in PNG are now on the brink of starvation: they cannot grow food and crops due to high salt content in the soil.

While the PNG government wants technological solutions to mitigate the impacts of climate change — building sea walls and regrowing corals — the islanders want a response now. They are so worried, they find it hard to sleep.

Ten Carteret Island-displaced families are now living on Bougainville, on land provided by the Catholic Church in the Tinputz region. Another 10 families are due to be relocated there soon.

Those remaining on the islands (about 2400 people) live precariously. Their diet consists of coconut and fish, but coconuts are not maturing and arable land is becoming scarce and unsuitable for gardening.

The island is slowly being washed away. It could take 50–60 years, or it could happen sooner, advocates say. A humanitarian and immediate disaster response is needed now.

Activists are discussing voluntary migration with communities to what they call a “safe second home” where islanders would have full rights and the right of return to their island if they want to.

Carteret Islands’ community representatives have raised concerns over the use of the term “climate change refugees” as they are internally displaced. They want their human rights, dignity and respect to be guaranteed before they are forced to move.

Organising for survival

Fala Haulangi is a campaigns organiser with E tū union in Aotearoa/NZ. Haulangi is originally from the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, where the sea level is rising by nearly twice the global average.

Haulangi told a web forum hosted on July 3 by the Global Ecosocialist Network that climate change and sea-level rise are “everyday challenges” her people are faced with.

“I have been living here in Aotearoa/NZ for about 30 years now, but I am deeply connected to my land — Tuvalu. So, when we talk about climate change, we talk about the survival of my people.

“Continuous rising of sea levels, the increase of salt water [in the soil], means our people are not able to plant their own root crops. The increasing [intensity] of cyclones and drought — they are new things that our people are experiencing nowadays.

“It’s such a shame — we are a small island [with] only 10 square kilometers of land mass. We are only about 4 metres above sea level. The population is about 11,000. But the impact of climate change is a reality to my people.

“One of the wise men in our Tuvaluan community here always says: ‘When we talk about the land — Tuvalu — we are connected to that land. It is about our art, our language, our values and Indigenous culture.

“All this will die because of climate change. When culture dies, our stories die. Our connections and identity dies. When our identity dies, we will be truly lost people. When the land disappears, we will all disappear.”

Haulangi said that despite being “resilient” people, Tuvaluans “live with fear everyday because of climate change”.

E tū union has been campaigning for the rights of Pasifika (Pacific islands peoples) living and working in Aotearoa/NZ.

“Our union has been quite proactive, because E tū union has quite a lot of members who are Pasifika migrants,” Haulangi said.

Just transitions

E tū has adopted programs and policies that support the migration of people from the Pacific to Aotearoa/NZ due to the impact of climate change, which are also endorsed by the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions.

The union has also developed a Just Transitions Plan, that aims to deal with “rapid changes” to industries and economic sectors as they restructure in response to government and international commitments to combat climate change.

“Recognition of obligations to Pacific peoples affected by rising sea levels” is included in the plan, she said. “We are trying to make sure that this government recognises that the people of the land should be at the centre of all these discussions of planning [for a just transition].”

“It is very important to us that tangata whenua [those with traditional authority over the land] unions and workers are part of this discussion [with government] from the word go.”

Haulangi said her union wants the government to be “more lenient when it comes to immigration from Tuvalu and islands of the Pacific to Aotearoa/NZ”.

Aotearoa/NZ has a history of racism towards workers from the Pacific islands, who were welcomed in the 1960s to help fill labour shortages and grow the economy, only to be told to “go back where they came from” when things had improved.

Haulangi said a petition before the NZ government now is calling for pathways to permanent residency.

“Our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, was supposed to deliver an apology to our Pasifika people … for how they were dealt with in the dawn [immigration] raids in the 1970s.”

During those early-morning raids in the 1970s and ‘80s, authorities demanded families show their papers to prove they were “legal”. Many have suffered ongoing trauma as a result.

Haulangi said the apology had to be postponed because of COVID-19, but that they were not simply looking for an apology.

“We don’t want the PM to just say sorry … we want to make sure that the government will look at all the over-stayers here … not just Pasifika but any other ethnic groups … to make sure that the government grants them permanent residency.”

This would be a small step for a rich country in a climate emergency.

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When the whole world is lamenting that the US is quitting Afghanistan in ignominy, the Biden Administration is snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. What an audacity of hope!

The agreement reached in principle in Tashkent on Friday between the representatives of the United States, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan “to establish a new quadrilateral diplomatic platform focused on enhancing regional connectivity” is a watershed event in regional politics marking the overnight transition in the US regional strategy from the hurly-burly of battles to geoeconomics. It is breath-taking. 

This QUAD idea stems from the Biden administration’s realisation that “peace and regional connectivity are mutually reinforcing” — something that China had discovered almost a decade ago.  

The joint statement issued at Tashkent says that the four countries recognise a “historic opportunity to open flourishing international trade routes, [and] the parties intend to cooperate to expand trade, build transit links and strengthen business-to-business ties.” 

The parties agreed to meet in the coming months to determine the modalities of this cooperation with mutual consensus. 

This major development underscores that Washington intends to remain involved in Afghanistan’s stability. That augurs well for the intra-Afghan dialogue. 

The US is intensely conscious that its prestige in the region is at its nadir today and it stands isolated, as the reported cheeky Russian offer volunteering to be America’s gatekeeper shows. 

Evidently, Washington is reluctant to accept the Russian offer, which can turn out to be an Albatross. That explains to an extent its thoughtful move to create a regional axis of friendly states who are manifestly keen to foster ties and willing to work with the US in the region. Potentially, Washington may have use for the US-Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan as a “counterweight” to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation which is dominated by China and Russia.  

Despite their friendly relations with China (and Russia), both Uzbekistan and Pakistan are eager to deepen relations with the US. And they are the two biggest countries in the Greater Middle Eastern arc stretching from Persian Gulf to Central Asia’s border with China. 

Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan are also Muslim countries and they provide a market of around 300 million people. No doubt, the US did its homework. This QUAD has viability unlike its insipid namesake in the “Indo-Pacific.”

In the recent years, the US has been paying extra attention to cultivate friendly ties with Uzbekistan, which is not only the biggest country in Central Asia but a relative success story regionally in political stability and overall developmental trajectory. 

Tashkent has been receptive to Washington’s overtures, as strong ties with America help it to balance Russia and will strengthen its strategic autonomy. 

The new Quad signals the US’ receptiveness to Pakistan’s persisting demand for a bilateral relationship that goes beyond Afghan issues. There are fault lines in the China-Pakistan relationship, which are no more possible to conceal, and in Washington’s judgment, Pakistani elites, civilian and military, have remained as western-oriented as ever despite their alienation in the recent decade. 

To be sure, with the curtain coming down on the Afghan war, the time has come for establishing rail/road links connecting Central Asia with Karachi/Gwadar ports. The expected improvement in the security situation allows mega projects to be implemented. Conceivably, the Taliban would have no reservations over the QUAD. The Pakistani ports are ideally placed to connect the resource-rich Central Asian region and Afghanistan with the world market.  

There are seamless possibilities ahead. The recent G7 summit in Cornwall had agreed on a new initiative to support global infrastructure investment. A recent paper by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC saw this new global infrastructure initiative as a counter to China’s Belt and Road Initiative [BRI] with emphasis on catalysing private capital to invest in global infrastructure. read more 

The German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday after talks with President Biden at the White House that when Germany’s turn comes next year to chair the G7, Berlin intends to implement the Cornwall Summit’s decision. Will G7 join the US’ QUAD initiative in Central Asia? 

Clearly, by having both the CPEC and the QUAD on its platter, Pakistan is tasing success in its foreign-policy shift toward geoeconomics. Pakistan’s geography makes it a turf for competition between China and the West in infrastructure development. Simply put, the new QUAD will impact regional politics. 

Indeed, the US hopes to wean Pakistan away from its heavy dependence  on China. The new QUAD will make India look an outlier drifting aimlessly without a sense of direction. India turned its back on China’s BRI but Pakistan secured the $60 billion CPEC and is now looking forward to the US-led QUAD. 

India’s relations with China are in deep chill and its traditional friendly ties with Russia have become listless, whereas, Pakistan not only enriched its ties with China but is successfully exploring the multipolarity in the world order. 

On July 16, Pakistan and Russia signed a mega deal for a 1100 km gas pipeline project costing between $2.5 – $3 billion connecting Karachi and Lahore which will transport imported LNG (for which it has separately signed a deal with Qatar whereby 200 mmcfd of gas will initially reach Karachi’s LNG terminal in the beginning of next year that would be enhanced to 400 mmcfd in the coming years.) Whereas, India’s gas pipeline project with Iran has been languishing as pipe dream. read more

Pakistan is anxious to have President Putin inaugurate the groundbreaking of the gas pipeline project, which is expected to be held later this year or in early 2022. Delhi should seriously introspect whether its passionate embrace of the US bandwagon through the past decade under successive governments, brought any significant dividends.

Pakistan is once again becoming a frontline state in big-power rivalry. But this time around, Pakistan stands to gain out of its geography and hopes to create equity for its development. 

Conceivably, the new Quad is the brainchild of Zalmay Khalilzad, US special representative on Afghanistan, who has for long advocated that the best way of stabilising Afghanistan is by encouraging the reset in the Pakistani calculus away from militancy and extremism to peace and development. 

Pakistan’s epochal journey is bound to be painful and will face uncertainties, as the past week’s events in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and Islamabad remind us. The US can help cement it as an irreversible shift by offering a meaningful partnership to Pakistan. 

In all likelihood, China will only welcome the US initiative as it is in the overall interests of regional security and stability from which Beijing also stands to gain. China has huge stakes in Pakistan’s and Afghanistan’s security and development, and in this respect, a congruence of interests between Beijing and Washington is entirely conceivable.

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Featured image: Nine Chinese citizens were killed after a bus carrying them plunged into a ravine following an explosion in Pakistan’s far north Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, July 14, 2021. (Source: Indian Punchline)

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New evidence has surfaced that China may be expanding its nuclear arsenal – much more, and much faster than previously assumed.

Experts from the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation obtained satellite images showing work underway on the construction of more than 100 new missile silos near Yumen.

The evidence, which dropped June 30, has since focused the minds of US national security experts – as might have been expected given Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s description of China as America’s “pacing challenge.”

The discussion is still fluid, but two interpretations are emerging. One offers that China is reacting to US actions and that Washington should pursue arms control with Beijing – negotiate to get both sides to limit their forces and avoid an arms race.

The other interpretation holds that the new discovery means that there is a nuclear dimension to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s promise that China will have “the dominant position” in the world by 2049, and that Washington should double down on deterrence, including by fully modernizing its nuclear arsenal and more.

Yet neither negotiating arms control nor strengthening deterrence is a straightforward solution – nor are the two necessarily mutually exclusive. The Chinese nuclear arsenal, like other facets of Chinese power, is going to be an enduring problem for the United States.

As Admiral John Aquilino, the new Commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, put itduring his confirmation hearing earlier this year: “China is a long-term challenge that must be ‘managed’ rather than ‘solved.’”

The arms control response

Anyone with a cursory knowledge of US-China strategic relations is aware that the United States is a major driver of China’s nuclear modernization program. Beijing is concerned by Washington’s nuclear superiority and its improved ability to find and destroy Chinese forces, or to intercept them with missile defenses.

China, plainly, fears that the United States might become capable of putting it in checkmate, achieving what Chinese diplomats call “absolute security.”

To solve that problem, Beijing has been expanding and perfecting its arsenal. In addition to building more nuclear weapons, it is investing in road-mobile missiles and sea-based platforms because these systems make it more difficult for Washington to target its forces, and it is adding multiple independent re-entry vehicles to its missiles to penetrate US missile defenses.

Of late, Beijing also seems to have embraced tactical nuclear use and nuclear warfighting options. In unofficial dialogs, Chinese strategists make clear that China’s modernization program is directed at the United States and, by extension, its allies.

Countering the United States and its allies is not the sole driver, however. In private discussions, Chinese strategists confess that Beijing is increasingly motivated by nuclear developments in India. As one such strategist explained: “Beijing now regards India as a deterrence problem, not as a proliferation problem.”

Chinese strategists are less forthcoming when asked whether Beijing considers Russia when it does defense planning, but some admit it is a factor.

While it is unclear if North Korea impacts Chinese calculations, it would be foolish to assume that defense planners in Beijing do not also contemplate conflict with their nuclear-armed neighbor given their complicated relationship.

Finally, analysts have explained that domestic and organizational factors are driving the Chinese modernization program as well.

The idea that a US push for arms control with China could solve the problem, then, is not obvious.

It’s also not as if the United States had never tried. Since the 2000s, Washington sought to jump-start bilateral nuclear dialogue with Beijing for that purpose. Yet neither Washington’s initial “patient” approach nor, from the mid-2010s, its more confrontational stance, has yielded results. Beijing has declined to engage.

The United States could try harder. Chinese strategists have long insisted that a US statement recognizing that the United States and China are in a situation of mutual vulnerability would help establish a foundation upon which US-China strategic stability can be built, despite the asymmetry of forces between the two countries.

Put differently, a US “vulnerability acknowledgment” could entice Beijing to engage in dialogue and arms control.

Research currently conducted by this author, however, suggests that it is not a given and that, in any case, an agreement would not emerge quickly. So deterrence will play an important – and possibly growing – role in US-China relations regardless of whether there is movement on arms control.

The deterrence response

The deterrers, unlike the arms controllers, think that engaging China is pointless. They believe that the latest news makes clear that China seeks nuclear parity with, perhaps even dominance over, the United States, and they argue that Washington should counter with a major nuclear update.

Without minimizing the problem, maintaining perspective about China’s nuclear build-up is essential. The US Department of Defense estimates that China’s stockpile is in the low hundreds – a fraction of the US and Russian stockpiles, which are in the low thousands.

So, neither a doubling, tripling or even quadrupling of China’s stockpile would come close to US and Russian stockpile levels.

It is also unclear whether China seeks nuclear parity or dominance. Some analysts have the opinion that the latest evidence may show Beijing playing a shell game – moving a small number of missiles across a big matrix of silos to prevent its adversaries from locating the missiles.

It is a possibility worth considering, especially given that the United States has systematically over-predicted the future size of the Chinese arsenal.

More problematically, focusing on the quantitative growth of China’s arsenal risks underestimating its qualitative improvement – which is where Beijing has made the most progress.

A formation of Dongfeng-17 missiles takes part in a military parade during the celebrations marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China at Tian’anmen Square in Beijing. Photo: Xinhua / Mao Siqian

Beijing has not only strengthened the survivability of its forces. It also seems to have developed new missions. With its new intermediate-range, dual-capable missiles, Beijing is now able to conduct limited nuclear counterforce use.

Beijing is also improving the readiness of its force, including by mating warheads with missiles (a first for China), and possibly moving towards a launch-on-warning posture.

Moreover, Beijing has been increasing its cyber and space power, and it is developing an integrated deterrence posture, notably through its Strategic Support Force.

This overview suggests that China poses little risk of nuclear aggression against the United States and that this will remain unchanged in the foreseeable future.

The danger was high in the US-Soviet context during the Cold War, and it has not disappeared in US-Russia relations today.

It is low in the US-China context because the Chinese arsenal is and will remain limited in comparison to the US arsenal. China will simply not have a first-user advantage against the United States.

What is present, however, is a risk of nuclear escalation in a conflict. With a more sophisticated arsenal, Beijing may become more aggressive at the conventional level, which could lead to wars and nuclear use.

One pathway to such use is a situation in which China is losing a war – for instance over Taiwan – and launches limited nuclear strikes to force the United States to give up the fight.

Another is a situation in which, again during a war, the United States hits Chinese nuclear forces with conventional weapons, prompting Beijing to go nuclear with its remaining forces. This is not far-fetched given the increasing entanglement between Chinese nuclear and conventional forces.

To be sure, the open-ended nature of China’s nuclear build-up raises legitimate questions for the United States about nuclear policy, strategy and force planning, especially given that Washington, for the first time, faces two major nuclear-armed adversaries – Russia and China – that are growing their forces and deepening their strategic cooperation.

Russian and Chinese soldiers take aim in a 2018 joint military exercise. Image: Twitter

US nuclear deterrence is also important because it provides an essential backstop to out-of-control escalation.

But doubling down on nuclear deterrence will do little to address the rising risk of conflict and limited nuclear escalation with China. This problem is best solved with stronger conventional deterrence and tighter alliance relationships – to deter Chinese adventurism below the nuclear threshold – and, if there is a conflict, good crisis management with Beijing to prevent nuclear escalation, at least inadvertent escalation.

So, even from a deterrence perspective, there is a role for engagement with China. This is important, and it’s worth noting that the 1963 US-Soviet hotline agreement – a crisis management mechanism – was a prelude to arms control.

Just over 20 years ago, a few analysts lamented that China was a “forgotten nuclear power.” Today, Russia is still the United States’ primary nuclear problem, but China is taking center stage.

Addressing nuclear China will be challenging, and neither arms control nor deterrence will, alone, be enough. The United States needs a more sophisticated approach, one for which it can – and should – lay down markers in the next US Nuclear Posture Review.

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David Santoro ([email protected]) is the President and CEO of the Pacific Forum in Honolulu. He is the editor of a new volume, US-China Nuclear Relations: The Impact of Strategic Triangles (Lynne Rienner, May 2021). Follow him on Twitter @DavidSantoro1. This article was originally published by Pacific Forum and is republished here with permission.

Featured image: China’s nuclear stockpile has been growing rapidly. Image: Pacific Forum / iStock

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On 6 June three U.S. Senators arrived in Taiwan to “meet with senior Taiwan leaders to discuss U.S.-Taiwan relations, regional security, and other significant issues of mutual interest.” It was stated they were also there to announce donation of 750,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses, but their main purpose, their over-riding objective, was simply to be there to annoy the Beijing government which, the BBC notes, regards Taiwan — formerly Formosa, and the refuge of a few hundred thousand fleeing mainlanders in 1949 when civil war resulted in defeat of the Kuomintang political party — as remaining an integral part of China, which it had been since the 17^th century.

Two of the senators are members of the Armed Forces Committee, and one of them, Dan Sullivan, is even more rabidly anti-Chinese than his colleagues and in March this year declared in an interview that “I spent one of my first deployments as a U.S. Marine in the Taiwan Strait defending America’s interest, but also defending the interests of an ally. That island is free and democratic because of the sacrifice of American citizens, of American military, of American taxpayer money.” We all know where we stand, as regards the U.S. Congress and China, because confrontation is one of the very few things about which a majority of the Senate can agree, as when on June 8 they voted 68-32 to “to approve a sweeping package of legislation intended to boost the country’s ability to compete with Chinese technology.” The bill will also promote the Taiwan “independence” status by allowing “diplomats and Taiwanese military to display their flag and wear their uniforms while in the United States on official businesses.” Never at a loss to display the utmost pettiness it also bans U.S. officials from attending the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, while Senator Todd Young announced that “Today we declare our intention to win this century, and those that follow it as well.”

This performance was staged two days before the Pentagon, as represented by its Secretary, retired general Lloyd Austin (until January on the board of major weapons’ contractor Raytheon), decided “to sharpen focus on China, which the United States has tagged as its top strategic rival.”

The Pentagon directive is classified, but Austin declared that “The initiatives I am putting forward today are nested inside the larger U.S. government approach to China and will help inform the development of the national defence strategy we are working on” which is fair warning that all the stops are being pulled out in the growing determination of Washington to confront China over every aspect of its policy and posture.

What wasn’t mentioned by anyone in Congress or by the U.S. mainstream media is that in 2020 the value of Taiwan’s exports to China and Hong Kong totalled 151.45 billion U.S. dollars, which was the highest annual amount — so far. Statista.com notes that “Mainland China is Taiwan’s largest export partner” and it is also recorded that “The European Union and China are two of the biggest traders in the world. China is now the EU’s second-biggest trading partner behind the United States and the EU is China’s biggest trading partner.”

Another piece of non-news (as regarded by the U.S. media and Congress), is that the land route linking China and Europe is thriving and trade flow is expanding vastly in both directions as part of the Belt and Road Initiative. The Financial Times reported that “More than 2,000 freight trains ran from China to Europe in the first two months of 2021, double the rate a year earlier when the coronavirus first hit. Over the whole of 2020, the total number of train journeys rose 50 per cent”, and on the day that the U.S. Senate voted to penalise China in every way they could think of, a Xinhua news release indicated that “a new China-Europe freight-train route linking the city of Jinhua in east China’s Zhejiang Province with Budapest in Hungary was launched on Monday… The new China-Europe freight-train service offers a new efficient and convenient route for the Yangtze River Delta and even eastern Chinese coastal cities to export goods to Europe… In the January-May period, a total of 286 China-Europe freight trains departed or arrived in the city of Jinhua, carrying 23,700 TFE [twenty-foot equivalent] of goods, with the two figures up 565 percent and 566 percent year on year, respectively.”

China’s export-import trade with Taiwan, Europe, Africa, and Asia is thriving, and it is apparent from official figures that while the overall “U.S. trade gap narrowed to $68.9 billion in April of 2021 from a record high $75 billion gap in March” the “deficit with China decreased $7.1 billion to $32.4 billion as exports were up and imports declined.”

This is all part of globalism, and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, for example, has noted that “the outlook for Chinese exports is positive” — and although Beijing has suspended economic dialogue because of Canberra’s aggressive support of the U.S.’ anti-China policy, “Chinese imports from Australia rose 49% in April to $14.87 billion, while exports rose 20% to $5.25 billion, and exports to the EU rose 24% to $39.92 billion, while imports climbed 43% to $26.79 billion.”

So what is Washington’s problem?

Quite simply, it is feared that, in the words of Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, a principal director of the anti-China surge, “If we do nothing, our days as the dominant superpower may be ending. We don’t mean to let those days end on our watch. We don’t mean to see America become a middling nation in this century.” But he’s going to have to face reality, because in the not-too-distant future the United States is going to be overtaken by China, economically, and its reign as “dominant superpower” is indeed coming to an end. This is inevitable — and it isn’t going to be a disaster for the American people or for the rest of humanity. Why should it be?

It would be better for the United States and for the world if the Biden administration realised that engagement is preferable to estrangement and that straight, lawful competition is entirely consistent with western capitalism. The foreign ministers of China and the ten countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations, Asean, had a meeting in China on June 7 and their joint statement included notification that Asean “connectivity” would continue in synchrony with the Belt and Road Initiative and that they would all “work to enhance linkages in the region to enhance conducive business environment and to fuel sustainable and inclusive economic growth.” They are looking forward to increased cooperation and prosperity, benefitting all their citizens. Let us hope that the G-7 and other countries will reflect on the positive results of economic collaboration rather than the nationalistic drum-bashing confrontation advocated by such as Chuck Schumer. Of course people should be proud of their country. But one of the best ways to encourage pride is to maintain peace and encourage prosperity.

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Brian Cloughley is a British and Australian armies’ veteran, former deputy head of the UN military mission in Kashmir and Australian defense attaché in Pakistan.

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China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) reaches out in all directions, across Central Asia into Europe, up into Russia, through the seas and oceans of Asia, out to Africa and of course, deep into Southeast Asia.

The Southeast Asian leg of BRI consists primarily of a now-under-construction high-speed rail (HSR) line connecting China’s Yunnan Province with Laos, Thailand and perhaps eventually Malaysia and Singapore.

A large number of adjacent projects also are in the making and will complement other infrastructure projects recently constructed over the past decade or under construction now.

This includes various expressways, particularly through mountainous Laos which have already cut trips by road from days to just a day from China’s border with Laos in the north to the nation’s capital of Vientiane near the Laotian-Thai border. Additional expressways are under construction to facilitate more traffic within and through Laos.

Another expressway is currently proposed that will connect northern Thailand to southern China via Laos, cutting travel time between the two nations to just 2 hours.

Bangkok Post’s article, “Laos surveys new expressway linking Thailand, China,” would note:

The new road will connect with Chiang Khong district of Chiang Rai via the existing bridge over the Mekong River.

The 180-kilometre highway would allow vehicles to travel at 80 kilometres per hour and a drive from Thailand to China through Laos would take less than two hours.

The HSR line itself will include both passenger and freight services and across Laos, a network of “landports” to facilitate regional logistical operations.

The entire network is already under construction with Bangkok’s new Bang Sue Grand Station completed and ready to open this year, hosting Thailand’s high-speed trains in coming years, and the Laotian leg nearing completion with train services possibly coming online by the end of 2021 or early 2022.

Western Derision & Hopes to Undermine

Criticism for the network of transportation projects stretching into Southeast Asia, like criticism of the BRI itself, stem mainly from Western ambitions to prevent the rise of China and with it, the rise of the rest of Asia.

US media sources like the US State Department’s Voice of America repeatedly floats accusations of Beijing employing “debt-trap diplomacy” while also admitting that Laos, until these projects began, was landlocked, isolating it from regional markets and preventing economic growth.

It’s obvious that Laos’ current economy is not well-suited for paying off massive infrastructure projects, but the infrastructure projects will expand its economy up to and beyond levels needed to do so, which is the fundamental principle behind investing in infrastructure in the first place.

Other cart-before-horse analysis includes claims that there is no market for HSR services across Southeast Asia and specifically in Laos or Thailand. The same flawed arguments were made by bitter Western analysts in a bid to deride China’s own domestic HSR development.

Analysis attempting to conclude low-income passengers wouldn’t’ be able or willing to pay for tickets to ride China’s HSR services missed the crucial fact that the building of infrastructure accelerates more than just passengers down a set of rails. It connects cities and rural regions, expands economic activity for a larger number of people and if extensive enough (as China’s HSR network is) it moves whole sections of society up the socioeconomic ladder.

Initially low ridership was seized upon by Western pundits claiming China’s HSR ambitions were too big and the entire project was “in trouble,” as one Business Insider op-ed did in 2011. Now in 2021, Western pundits, despite China State Railway overseeing the nation’s HSR network regularly turning an annual profit, still lecture China over HSR after over a decade of predicting failure that never materialised.

Today, China’s HSR network moves between 2 billion and 3 billion passengers a year and reaches into the most remote areas of the nation (with a leg completed in Tibet just this June) bringing with it tourists, investors, businesspeople and opportunities hitherto out of reach especially for rural regions.

Infrastructure comes first, prosperity follows. Attempting to claim infrastructure is ill-conceived because it won’t immediately profit demonstrates the exceedingly shortsighted nature of many Western observers versus the long-term thinking of China’s government and apparently also of its partners in Laos and Thailand.

Obviously rural regions in Laos or in northeast Thailand will not find HSR services immediately appealing during the first years of operation. But as economic activity flows through these regions made accessible to many more people both within Laos and Thailand and also from China, economic conditions will improve, and ridership will increase, just as it did in China. With the prospect of this regional HSR network also moving freight, new markets will also be made available for businesses and farmers in these regions.

For the West, a tangible jealousy is manifesting itself as China builds infrastructure out of reach of even the richest Western nations. To see nations like Laos and Thailand share in China’s rise seems to pain many in the West even more, many in the West who see their culture and system as superior, yet find it increasingly difficult to explain why Asia as a whole appears to be surpassing the West by a growing number of metrics.

Beyond derision across the Western media, Western governments have mobilised opposition groups in Thailand in a bid to oust the current government primarily because of its close and growing ties with China.

We can expect in the next several years for this opposition to intensify and for both them and their Western sponsors to resort to increasingly desperate tactics as these projects near completion.

If China’s regional ambitions are realised, this opposition along with Western condemnation will become irrelevant as the vast majority of people in the region will see with their own eyes the tangible benefits these projects afford them in their daily lives, rendering moot the well-funded propaganda campaign well underway trying to convince them otherwise.

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Joseph Thomas is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Featured image is from NEO

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The untimely remarks by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on the situation in Afghanistan during a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov at Moscow on Friday does no good for his reputation as a scholar-diplomat with integrity or for India’s standing on the global stage as a responsible regional power. 

The Indian newspapers have quoted Jaishankar as saying,

“Of course we are concerned at the direction of events in Afghanistan. The point right now we stress is that we must see a reduction in violence. Violence cannot be the solution for the situation in Afghanistan. At the end of the day, who governs Afghanistan has a legitimacy aspect. I think that is something which we cannot and should not be ignored.” 

If Jaishankar’s ageing government plane had chosen Bahrain instead of Georgia for refuelling on his return journey from Moscow, would he have been flustered by the “legitimacy aspect” of his hosts? Bahrain is an old-fashioned brutal autocracy which refuses to empower the majority Shia nation. Yet, India has wonderful relations with it. It is a very violent regime which puts down even mild traces of dissent — and thanks to Abraham Accords, may now become more bestial with the access to Israeli expertise. Does that bother India? 

It doesn’t — and it shouldn’t. Because, there is a flourishing Indian community living in Bahrain, and even though it has no oil to give India, the remittances are important. It also hosts an American base where at one time India wanted to depute a naval officer to liaise with the US’ Sixth Fleet within the framework of the Indo-Pacific strategy to contain China. 

Since when is it that India started losing sleep over the “legitimacy aspect” of other regimes? The “legitimacy aspect” is not even an issue in Afghanistan where the state withered away a long time ago. Jaishankar probably doesn’t know why Afghanistan has so many “acting” ministers. Because, President Ghani keeps changing his ministers every now then according to to his whims and fancies and dares not seek parliamentary approval for his new picks, which the constitution mandates. 

In fact, the current parliament, which is housed in a new building inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015, itself has outlasted its term aeons ago — and in any case, no one misses legislative work in Afghanistan where power flows through the barrel of the gun. 

Take the “legitimacy aspect” of Ghani himself. The voter turnout in the 2019 election was roughly 1 million (in a country of 40 million.)  At best, Ghani can claim he got somewhere around 5 lakhs votes in that rigged election, which was fiercely disputed by his opponent Abdullah who felt embittered — rightly so — that he was cheated out of victory. 

Finally, all the King’s men and all the King’s horses from Washington and other NATO capitals managed to reconcile the two Afghan politicians with vaulting ambition but improbable popular base with a compromise formula that was supposed to be an interim arrangement for creating the post of a prime minister for Abdullah, which Ghani coolly ignored. 

This is, in a nutshell, the chronicle of Afghanistan’s current regime. The international community looked away since it really didn’t matter who ruled as president in Kabul, since the real power vested in the hands of the American military commanders and some of Ghani’s closest deputies too were their creations, who plucked them out of thin air, trained them in intelligence work and catapulted them to the nerve centres of Afghanistan’s fearsome spy agencies. 

It was a cosy arrangement as the gravy train puffing its way through the valleys and mountain slopes of the Hindu Kush was carrying tens of billions of dollars. Simply put, the Afghan ruling elite have had a whale of a time. The interest groups on the American side also stood to gain out of nefarious activities ranging from prostitution to drug trafficking. Russia has repeatedly alleged that the US military personnel were directly involved in drug trafficking. 

Of course, the Afghan elite prospered like nobody’s business and almost everyone has stashed away the loot in foreign countries — in Dubai or wherever. In the bargain, corruption spread like cancer eating into the vitals of the state and the country has become notorious as the most corrupt on the whole planet. 

The Pentagon’s inspector who audits the war and reports to the Congress has thrown up his hands in despair and admitted he cannot possibly account for vast sums of expenditure in this 20-year war. Hundreds of millions of American dollars just vanished into thin air! Perhaps, such venality is endemic to all armies and spy agencies fighting protracted wars and insurgencies far away from public view and are not held accountable. 

Now, this is the Ghani regime for you. Jaishankar had no reason to have got emotional about the violence in Afghanistan. It is a documented fact that the unofficial militia groups trained by the CIA and operating under Ghani’s security tsars and spy agencies have perpetrated such horrific crimes on the Afghan civilian population that words cannot possibly describe. read more 

And the curious part is that India has had no qualms about bonding with those Afghan tsars with blood on their hands. Suffice to say, Delhi either didn’t know what has been really happening in Afghanistan all these years and where the rivers of blood originated from — or more likely, it simply looked away because of some unspeakable congruence of interests. 

Indeed, violence has been a part of Afghan way of life for centuries. As President Biden noted last week, the country itself has never been a unified state. Amazing, isn’t, that an American president would know Afghan history that an Indian foreign minister next door doesn’t seem to know?

The crux of the matter is that it is not because of the graph of violence or the “legitimacy aspect” that Ghani refuses to give way to an interim government but the lure of power and the perks and privileges that goes with it. (By the way, Jaishankar’s argument about this “legitimacy aspect” is plucked from Ghani’s lips.) Unfortunately, some Pentagon commanders deployed to Afghanistan encouraged Ghani to be recalcitrant as their vested interests dovetailed with his and his circle’s. 

The cabal in Kabul managed to hoodwink Barack Obama and Donald Trump. But to its bad luck, Biden knows this war like the back of his hands and had once done his best to prevent the catastrophic “surge” in 2009, even visiting Obama on a Sunday to dissuade him from that path. Biden is sensitive to the public opinion, which decidedly approves of his decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. read more 

Afghanistan’s salvation lies in a quick transition to an interim government that includes the Taliban, as envisaged under the Doha pact, so that this brutal, senseless bloodshed can be stopped and negotiations can begin in right earnest for a peace settlement and the drafting of a new constitution to address the “legitimacy aspect”. 

In such a process, the regional states can help Afghans to navigate the tough journey ahead to peace and the recovery of their sovereignty. Hopefully, India will stop acting like a dog in the manger as the SCO foreign ministers meet in Dushanbe next week. China is taking the historic initiative to open an SCO pathway leading to Kabul. read more

Clearly, a civil war is not inevitable in Afghanistan. To make that doubly sure, New Delhi should resist any temptation to act as spoiler and instead should cooperate sincerely with its SCO partners in reaching a regional consensus behind the formation of an interim government in Kabul. 

Jaishankar probably does not understand it yet, but the SCO is precisely the diplomatic vehicle that suits India as a responsible regional player meaningfully contributing to regional security and stability rather than meander aimlessly as an outlier or lone ranger. 

There are hidden charms too, as a splendid opportunity becomes available to harmonise with Pakistan. India should have the self-confidence that it is uniquely placed to help Afghanistan recover from the trauma of death and destruction it went through in the past half century since the overthrow of King Zahir Shah. 

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Featured image: Amidst reports that Taliban fighters have entered Kandahar City, Afghan forces guarding a road, Afghanistan, July 9, 2021 (Source: Indian Punchline)

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***

Declaring its firm intent to respect and protect each other’s “state sovereignty” and “territorial integrity,” the historical Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance (July 11, 1961) between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has been the foundation of the relationship between these two states. As one of the main alliances in Northeast Asia—along with the US alliances with Korea and Japan—their partnership has become a permanent fixture in the geopolitical landscape of the region. China’s emergence as a great power and North Korea’s accelerated buildup of its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities has, however, made the alliance more significant as well as more complicated.

As the date for the treaty’s renewal draws close, how will this partnership evolve? What will the treaty’s extension mean for the future of the Northeast Asian peace and security architecture? Both countries may not entirely agree on clauses related to their mutual obligations, and Beijing will seek to redraw those provisions in its favor. While the value of the treaty is too important to both parties to let their differences significantly weaken it, this time around, the alliance is likely to face enormous challenges going forward.

How Relevant Is the Treaty of Friendship Today?

The critical axis between Northeast Asia, China and North Korea has undergone a turbulent period in bilateral relations over the past two decades. Tensions have appeared in the relationship from time to time—with debate on whether the treaty is “outdated” having emerged in Chinese media and strategic circles—as the two worked to manage changing geopolitical circumstances and deteriorating ties with the United States. Nonetheless, on May 27, 2021, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met North Korea’s new ambassador to China to reaffirm their “traditional friendship,” continued “high-level strategic communication,” and joint cause of promoting socialism, as both states gear up to celebrate the 60th anniversary of their alliance.

Critically, Article II of the treaty codifies a China-DPRK collective defense commitment, explicitly obligating both states to take all measures (including military assistance) to prevent any “armed attack” by a state or an alliance of states. To this end, Article III restricts both countries from participating in a bloc or action directed against the other; simultaneously, the first clause of the treaty stipulates that the two countries will strive to “safeguard the peace of Asia and the world and the security of all peoples.”

Under the current circumstances, these clauses have become inherently contradictory. For instance, to ensure peace in Asia and the security of all peoples (Article I), Beijing has been forced to participate in actions against Pyongyang—such as imposing sanctions on the North through the United Nations (UN) Security Council. Chinese diplomatic and military analysts have, over time, also contended that Beijing is “not obliged” to help shield Pyongyang in the event of conflict, as its development of nuclear weapons has put Beijing’s national security in jeopardy, thus breaching the common defense commitment.

Since its last renewal, North Korea’s nuclear ambitions have tested the relationship over and over again. A key turning point in China-DPRK relations was October 2006, when the North tested its first nuclear weapon. This compelled China to sponsor UN Security Council Resolution 1718, which imposed sanctions on North Korea for this action. This resolution signaled a change in Beijing’s tone towards North Korea—from discreet political aid and diplomatic humanitarian aid to one of restraint. As Pyongyang continued to develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technologies, further rifts have emerged. This was especially evident in 2017, when the DPRK’s aggressive nuclear and missile testing coincided with key Chinese events like the inauguration of Xi Jinping’s flagship Belt and Road Forum in May 2017, the Xi-Trump Mar-a-Lago Summit in July 2017 and the September 2017 Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) Summit in Xiamen. This was a particularly strained time in China-DPRK relations, and these actions pushed them closer to a “tipping point.”

However, despite such tensions, the importance of strengthening the China-DPRK alliance has become secondary to their existing pragmatic economic and security ties. Nevertheless, the legacy of their shared roots in “Marxism-Leninism” and the principle of “proletarian internationalism” have continued to underpin their interactions, as the two countries promoted inter-party relations alongside inter-state ties. Moreover, both states have deepened their commitment to regular consultations on matters of mutual interest under Article IV of the treaty. Both formal and informal China-DPRK meetings at various diplomatic levels have strengthened the narrative that despite differences, the two sides are focused on “carrying forward [their] traditional friendship.” While the 2018 informal summit between Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping highlighted Beijing’s wish to play a “constructive role” in the future of the Korean Peninsula, the 2019 state visit by Xi to North Korea reassured Pyongyang of the “eternal friendship” the two states share.

Furthermore, shared tensions with the US have tended to drive continued engagement between China and North Korea despite bilateral frictions. Their shared worldview—primarily opposition to US efforts at regime change and promotion of human rights and democracy—have been critical aspects of China-DPRK friendship, validating the relevance of the treaty in the years ahead. The American strategy to influence the geopolitics of Northeast Asia through the security landscape and its dominant position in strategic institutions also encourages China and North Korea to stay united and achieve the goals of their partnership. For instance, the May 2021 reaffirmation of their bilateral ties came after the US decision to lift a 42-year-old ban on South Korea’s development of ballistic missiles that can reach beyond the Korean Peninsula, which poses security challenges to both China and the DPRK.

For China, the treaty remains indispensable as an instrument enabling Beijing to sustain its engagement with North Korea and play an influential role in the affairs of the Korean Peninsula. China believes that South Korea and the US expect to dominate the politics and (perhaps] unification processes of the Korean Peninsula, excluding Chinese participation. Under such conditions, the treaty’s Article VI notably provides a legal avenue for China’s involvement in devising a solution to the Korean question by committing both states to a Korean unification solution “along peaceful and democratic lines,” in “national interests of the Korean people,” and that sustains “peace in the Far East.”

The Treaty in US-China Rivalry

With its delicate security balance, Northeast Asia is a critical region of interest to both China (as its backyard) and the US (as home to its Indo-Pacific Command and its alliances with Japan and South Korea.) The China-DPRK treaty has been a long-standing pillar of such regional dynamics, and its importance to China emerges from Beijing’s interest in maintaining its influence in this crucial region.

The historic meeting between South Korea’s Moon Jae-in and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in April 2018 and the signing of the Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Unification of the Korean Peninsula provided a diplomatic win in advance of US-DPRK talks but left China out in the cold. The declaration itself only mentioned China in passing in a quadrilateral format and focused instead on trilateral ROK-DPRK-US arrangements to shape the Korean Peninsula’s future, making it a matter of strategic concern for China. A subsequent historic meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un in June 2018 further solidified the Chinese belief that the inter-Korean peace process would unfold with the US at the helm, reducing China’s long-held and well-established political power in Northeast Asia.

Under US President Joseph Biden, Washington has deepened its engagement with Seoul. By settling the military cost-sharing issue, ending restrictions on Republic of Korea (ROK) ballistic missile development and holding a successful Biden-Moon summit, the Biden administration has worked to repair damage inflicted on the alliance by the Trump administration, reset the bilateral relationship and shift the focus to bolster the alliance to confront challenges posed by China and North Korea. The US has also completed its North Korea policy review and announced a new “calibrated, practical approach” to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, with an openness to diplomacy with North Korea. It also made a surprise appointment of veteran diplomat Sung Kim as a new special representative for the DPRK at the Biden-Moon summit despite early indications the post would remain vacant for the near future.

In this political climate, with the renewed US focus on alliances in the region, the China-DPRK treaty becomes fundamentally vital for China to maintain its influence and regional stability. As long as the US-ROK alliance remains strong, and the US continues its presence on the peninsula, the treaty will act as a counterweight to US and ROK influence in the region—making its renewal a foregone conclusion.

Challenges to the China-DPRK Treaty

In evaluating how the treaty has held up since its last renewal in 2001, it is evident that, while the agreement is critical for both states, its renewal will present challenges. For instance, in the context of Article II on military assistance, it remains to be seen whether China is willing to commit itself to the defense of North Korea, based on the conclusion that the North’s nuclear development has rendered the clause invalid. Moreover, according to the terms of the treaty, China is only obligated to come to North Korea’s aid if Pyongyang is attacked first; thus, Kim Jong Un could find himself without Chinese military assistance should he repeat the events of the Korean War when the North was the aggressor. It is unlikely, however, that North Korea would support the treaty’s renewal without the military protection clause.

Beijing considers stability on the Korean Peninsula an essential interest. Its support to North Korea guarantees a buffer between China, the South and US forces on the peninsula. Hence, even though the Chinese are inclined towards a North Korea without nuclear weapons, their biggest fear remains a collapse of the Kim regime, which raises serious concerns over the potential unification of the Korean Peninsula under South Korean control, the security of the North’s nuclear weapons stockpile, and a massive influx of refugees across the border (China is already the first destination for North Korean refugees).

Therefore, peace on the Korean Peninsula (and, by extension, East Asia) has become central to Xi’s Korea policy. A war emanating from the region could pit the US and China directly against each other. While China has a rapidly expanding and modernizing military, it currently remains far behind the US in terms of both capabilities and, crucially, experience. Beijing’s foremost priority would thus be to avoid an unwanted full-scale war and may seek to amend or nullify Article II accordingly. Beijing has reportedly sought to revoke this clause to no avail, and has conveyed to Pyongyang not to count on Chinese military aid.

For North Korea, the treaty’s importance is based not only on China’s position as its largest trade partner—accounting for 95 percent of the North’s total merchandise trade—but also as a source of leverage in its negotiations with South Korea and the US. In recalibrating the language in the treaty, North Korea’s aim will be to reaffirm its currently asymmetric relationship with China as the Biden administration amps up coordinated efforts with allies on North Korea.

Conclusion

For both China and the DPRK, their Treaty of Friendship remains vital as a tool for engaging with the US and ROK on more favorable terms, and its renewal is inevitable. While it is unlikely for significant changes to emerge from this year’s renewal, it will likely face major challenges over the next 20 years owing to changed political realities, opening the door to its amendment. Although China will not allow outside pressure to destabilize the regime in North Korea, it is an increasingly reluctant ally to the DPRK. Moving forward, Beijing will seek to redraw the treaty in its favor. How the alliance evolves under this agreement over the next two decades will be critical for both Xi and Kim’s leadership.

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Featured image: Zhou Enlai and Kim Il Sung, signing the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, July 11, 1961. (Wikimedia)

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Australia, like other island states, has had spells of isolationist fancy and hermit dispositions.  Protected by geography, distant and vast, the country’s first bit of legislation in 1901 was the Immigration Restriction Act.  This nasty little statute came to be colloquially known as the White Australia Policy.  Doors would remain open to Europeans and preferably those of Western stock. 

Fortress Australia has also had a few modern manifestations.  Refugees and asylum seekers who dare make their perilous journey to Australia via sea are rapidly whisked away into a privatised, Pacific concentration camp system.  They are solemnly promised never to be settled on the Australian mainland.

Now, against another sort of traveller, far less tangible and distinctly invisible, Fortress Australia is again finding its shaky form.  But the novel coronavirus cares little for such shuttering approaches.  It specialises in spread and mutation, skirting around barriers, leaping over obstacles and coasting along aerosol transmission.  The virus’s devastating product – the disease of COVID-19 – is indifferent to the fortress. 

Since Australia’s borders closed in 2020 the fortress formula has become an article of faith.  International travel was halted.  Caps were placed on returning Australians and permanent residents.  Arrivals were placed in quarantine for fortnightly periods in ill-fitted hotels. 

For a time, the Hermit Nation strategy worked, if creakily.  Quarantine breaches did take place with telling consequences – Melbourne suffered in June 2020 and endured a lockdown lasting 112 impoverishing days.  But for the most part, breaches could be contained.  Contact tracing and surveillance was sharpened.  A sense of hubris developed: the virus could be outwitted.  The country could bask in the isolation of “COVID Zero”.

While Australia was fashioning its suppression and elimination strategy, its politicians became bullish and complacent.  The vaccine strategy, the crucial counterpart to containment, was neglected and left to wither.  In August 2020, Morrison boasted that “Australians will be one of the first in the world to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, if it proves successful, through an agreement between the Australian Government and UK-based drug company AstraZeneca.”  That agreement, at least initially, was merely a letter of intent.

The government then thought it sensible to focus on acquiring the AstraZeneca vaccine over all others.  Alternatives were treated as distant contenders.  Fictional numbers and targets were generated.   

Countries which spectacularly failed in containing COVID-19 – the United States and UK foremost among them – showed greater prudence on the vaccine front.  Contracts with pharmaceutical giants were drawn up to develop and manufacture a range of vaccines.  Supply chains were guaranteed and mass rollout strategies scripted.  From the rooftops of morgues, President Donald Trump and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson could celebrate and distract.  The needle and the jab could take over from death and catastrophe, working alongside a range of other containment measures. 

In the meantime, Australia was left behind.  Health Minister Greg Hunt called the quest to vaccinate the Australian populace “a marathon not a sprint.”  Morrison similarly informed the press that this was neither a race nor a competition.  The vaccination rollout, correctly seen as a “strollout”, only began on February 22; the UK, US and European states had begun around Christmas, if not earlier. 

There was also inadequate supply to meet demand.  Hunt’s March 22 announcement that people should make a friendly call to their GP to organise a vaccination was farcical and wishful thinking.  GPs had little idea when or how many doses they would receive.  It did not occur to the federal government that mass vaccination centres should also be set up as a priority.

The pace of this “boutique” program was also affected by the bad press surrounding AstraZeneca’s vaccine.  While it does cause rare blood clotting, the risk of death remains one in a million.  But the communications strategy of the federal government was woeful and disunited. 

As the health advice changed to prioritise older groups, the Morrison government realised it needed to consider other vaccine options.  The problem was not vaccine hesitancy but hesitancy to AZ.  Other options, notably Pfizer, were needed.    

While the vaccine rollout crawled, COVID-19 did not.  Cases of community transmission began to soil the COVID Zero record.  A number of snap lockdowns were imposed in Western Australia and Queensland. Victoria, yet again, added its name to the list.  Now, stubborn, resistant New South Wales has become another member of the lockdown family, with Sydney facing the Delta strain. 

The Australian government’s response to this latest debacle?  An advertising campaign crass in nature, ill-conceived and inaccurate.  Designed to terrify people into vaccination, its amateurish clumsiness misfires in puns and insensitivity. 

More practical approaches have come from outside government circles.  Former Prime Ministers have shown Morrison up.  The ever connected Kevin Rudd made his own intervention in lobbying Pfizer’s chairman Albert Bourla.  This effort was bitchily dismissed by Hunt and watered down by the Morrison government.  Rudd’s response was a snarl.  He would “definitely not seek to associate himself with the Australian Government’s comprehensively botched vaccine procurement program.” 

The Australian model, if it can be called that, has pricked international attention.  John LaMattina, former president of Pfizer Global Research and Development, was all understatement about it in an interview on Australian television: “If I was an Australian, and I was seeing the rest of the world getting all these vaccine doses, and my country … was late to the party, I’d be a little disappointed to say the least.  And it isn’t as if they were blindsided.”

The Financial Review was less reserved.  Australia may well have developed “an enviable test and tracing system” that helped keep the COVID-19 death toll to less than a thousand.  But it had “squandered its early victory over the virus, despite being one of the world’s wealthiest countries”. It now faced “a costly round of restrictions as it struggles to protect a largely unimmunised population from outbreaks of the highly contagious Delta variant.”

The country stood as “a warning to other nations, not least neighbouring New Zealand, that a fortress approach to the virus cannot succeed in the absence of an effective vaccine program.”  The hermit approach is not only looking foolish but dangerous.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

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***

“Dear customers, if you are standing there reading this sign you are part of the problem. STAY THE FUCK HOME! Best, Sydney.” Note on store front, Sydney, Twitter, July 10, 2021

It is proving to be an unfolding nightmare. For a government that had been beaming with pride at their COVID contract tracing for months, insisting that people could live, consume and move about with freedom as health professionals wrapped themselves round the virus, the tune has changed.  The Delta variant of the disease has proved viciously wily in Sydney, New South Wales.  Admissions to intensive care units are growing.  The first death has just been reported. The number of infections recorded on July 10: 50; the number the next day: 77. 

Of concern are the numbers of people who were moving in the community during all or part of their infectious phase.  Of the 50 reported cases on Saturday, 37 of those qualified.  “That is the number we need to get down to as close as zero as possible,” statedan alarmed Premier Gladys Berejiklian.  “The only conclusion we can draw from this is that things are going to get worse before they get better.”

The 11am press conferences are proving grim affairs tinged by panic.  The questions asked are the same as those in other states in Australia where outbreaks took place.  What are essential shopping items?  How many people are permitted in your home?  On each successive occasion, the Premier seemed panicked, even shrill.  “Zero means zero!” she has stated at various points.  “No visits!”

The most telling element behind the surge of cases is the blithe approach taken to the health orders by the citizenry of Australia’s largest city.  This is understandable, given the erratic changes in Berejiklian’s approach to communicating health orders.  With an almost manic insistence on keeping areas of the city open, she has confused rather than clarified, hoping that the virus might be contained within various local government areas (LGAs).  Erin O’Leary, manager of a café in Newtown, noted in late June the distinct irony of having the front of her store in lockdown, and the back, not.  Andrea Chapman, owner of a design store, had a few words of wisdom that might well be ringing in the ears of the Premier.  “Sometimes you’ve just got to hit everyone hard and everyone sucks it up, then we can move on.” 

The Premier has been the victim of her own success, telling Sydney residents and those in New South Wales that the state was that different from the rest of Australia.  They were the “gold standard” to be emulated by all in terms of containing the pandemic.  On June 1, the often fawning Herald Sun from the Murdoch press stable praised the Berejiklian government for getting everything right where its Victorian counterpart had failed.  “One state is NSW, led by a competent woman who has displayed a sense of proportionality throughout the Covid crisis and has kept people safe while ensuring their livelihoods and liberties are not needlessly destroyed, the other is Victoria.”   

Through that same month, as the Delta variant was starting to show heft, there was no reason to worry: sagacious Gladys had things under control, as did everybody else.  Those in Sydney could use their highly attuned “common sense” and “make individual decisions based on their own circumstances.”  On June 18, she cautioned against mass gatherings.  “Unless you absolutely have to, our strong preference is that you do not engage in any activity.”  Business owners were left to decide on how best to operate in the changing circumstances.

Even as the virus had harnessed itself and trotted through the city, the Premier resisted any reference to the “lockdown” term, opting for the softer, milder “stay-at-home” order.  Lacking the necessary gravity to be persuaded, individuals moved about with liberty, dropping off children before heading to work, or continuing visits to family members.    

Sounding at points comically maternal, Berejiklian has been telling those in Sydney to be honest about where they have been for reasons of contact tracing.  Some accounts supplied to the tracers have been inaccurate.  Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant has admitted “having difficulty getting ahead of [transmission] chains”.  “We haven’t got time to waste unpicking stories, going back, cross-checking and verifying.”  Her advice: “It’s critical that [people] tell the truth the first time.”

Parties and gatherings are being held and a number of infringement notices have been handed out by police (167 of them on Friday alone).  On social media, the hashtag “SydneyMockdown” is trending.  The man behind Australia’s punchy response to combating the HIV/AIDS pandemic, Bill Bowtell, has been regular in his scathing assessments.  “Nothing like lockdown lite.  No outdoor mask mandate, retailing open and no kilometre radius restriction.  Neither short nor sharp as in [Western Australia] or [Queensland].”

The haphazard approach to public health policy is also to be found in the government’s response to shopping and trading practices.  The decision to keep non-essential shopping outlets open, including large retail centres ripe for transmission opportunities, has meant free movement of both people and the virus.  Berejiklian “thinks people understand what is required”; a stricter enforcement of orders would produce unintentional “suffering” to those who “can’t access something they really need”.   Simon Chapman, professor emeritus in public health at the University of Sydney, could only express his bemusement.  “It’s not rocket science to show that a place with large numbers of people in it is going to be far more of a superspreading environment than a place with small numbers of people.” 

Within the New South Wales cabinet are the business-as-usual types such as Treasurer Dominic Perrottet, who argued with colleagues that the lockdown should not be extended to July 16.  He now concedes that the already extended lockdown may well have to move beyond this coming Friday.

Looking wistfully at vaccination rates in the United Kingdom and the United States, Perrottet has this message for those in his state: “We’ve got to get to a point where those who want to have a vaccine, get access to one.  And at that point, we’ve got to open up our society, and have the freedoms that we had operating prior to the pandemic.”  Few would demur from this; the problem lies in the former remark: access to vaccines.  On that score, Australians continue to dream, supply continues to be short, and the federal government continues to bungle.  Gold standards have, in the meantime, turned into rusted metal.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image is from https://www.vperemen.com

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***

Sex on the screen and on the page has often incurred the wrath of Australian censors.  Over the years, the opaquely functioning Office of Film and Literature Classification has been guarding Australians like the children of Eden, fearful that their sensibilities might be corrupted.  But Australian politicians and various advocacy groups have broadened their interest over the years to focus on the Internet and how best to regulate both posted content and access to it. 

Pornography features highly in this effort.  In April former opposition leader and shadow minister for government services Bill Shorten remarked to the National Press Club that, “Children have too easy access to pornography in this country online … I think a lot of parents are oblivious.”  While not claiming to be a censor, he still insisted that children “shouldn’t be getting their sex education from hardcore pornography.”

The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs is also exercised about the subject, having tabled a report in February 2020 asking the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA), working with the Australian Cybersecurity Centre, to develop a regime for online verification that would limit access to such services as online wagering and pornography.  “These standards will help to ensure that online age verification is accurate and effective, and that the process for legitimate consumers is easy, safe, and secure.” 

The report’s title is suggestive of a broader moral mission: Protecting the Age of Innocence.  Much material is marshalled against pornography.  The average age of a child first exposed to porn was somewhere between eight or 10 years of age.  Its consumption led to harm, be it in terms of education, health, relationships and wellbeing. 

The committee was firm in suggesting that the eSafety Commissioner steer the “development of a roadmap for implementation of a regime of mandatory age verification for online pornographic material”.  This would be “part of a broader, holistic approach to address the risks and harms associated with online pornography.”

The government response to the report was made last month, supporting age restrictions on accessing such material “in principle”.  “The government is committed to protecting young people while safeguarding the privacy and security of people of all ages in an increasingly digital environment.” 

An acknowledgment was made that technology could only be “part of the solution.”  The response notes that parental engagement and education should also constitute a “multifaceted approach” in reducing “the adverse effects of online pornography and other harmful content.”  But there is agreement “that the Digital Transformation Agency is well placed to explore extending the digital identity program.”  The government’s initial focus “will be to complete work underway that explores the potential for changes to the policy and accreditation framework … Depending upon the findings of this work, further technical interventions may be required.”

The DTA has been enthusiastic about the merits of its Trusted Digital Identity Framework.  In its submission to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs in 2019, it claims that, “Digital identity does not involve a unique identifier, nor does it allow tracking of online activities.  Instead, it provides a means for a person to authenticate their identity online.”

The eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant is now engaged in exploring various means of age verification, and promises results in this crusade to shield children from pornography.  “The last thing anyone wants is for this material, which is becoming increasingly violent and degrading towards women, or the less dominant intimate partner, becoming the de facto sex education tool for a generation of children.”

The use of digital ID for reasons of verifying age is a subject of concern for the cyber fraternity.    Matt Warren of RMIT University wonders if such policies might well encourage children to explore other realms of the digital frontier such as the dark web.  “Society norms wouldn’t apply there because they’re not regulated or policed.” The problem would not only remain unaddressed but could be worsened.

Cyber expert Susan McLean, while not necessarily convinced that children would plunge into the world of dark web pursuits, suggests old fashioned parental guidance and restraint.  Age verification measures, were they to be used, had to be more than mere box ticking.  “On its own, it’s not going to work.”  It needed to be supplemented by education.  “We need support for parents, we need education for parents.”

This firm push for regulating Internet content and access should also be read alongside the Online Safety Bill, which is directed at improving online safety through enlarging the cyber-bullying scheme to remove material harmful to children found on services other than social media; establish a adult cyber-abuse scheme, where material seriously harmful to adults may be removed; and create an image-based abuse scheme, where intimate images shared without consent may be scrubbed. 

While the spirit of the scheme may be laudable, its effects are unlikely to be.  Such regimes tend to encourage the deletion of links relevant to sex education while restricting access to what are otherwise deemed legitimate services (dating apps, escort advertising platforms).  Digital Rights Watch warns that such activities as watching porn, visiting kinky websites or maintaining subscriptions to adult content will fall within the remit of the eSafety Commissioner “to tell you what you can and cannot see.” 

As with most measures tinged by moral outrage and paternalistic indignation, the outcomes of these policies may well prove not only self-defeating but even more pernicious than the ills they seek to address.  Be wary of the law of unintended consequences.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

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***

Background

In 2017, hundreds of small-scale farmers and farm workers were poisoned – and over 20 died – in just a few weeks whilst spraying pesticides on cotton fields in the district of Yavatmal.  A key product involved was the insecticide Polo, manufactured by Syngenta.

The use of Polo’s active ingredient diafenthiuron is long banned in Switzerland and the European Union but Syngenta keeps selling it in countries where regulations are weaker and less strictly enforced. In 2017, Syngenta exported 75 tonnes of diafenthiuron from Switzerland to India. A Special Investigation Team (SIT) investigated the poisoning in Yavatmal, identified several policy measures and recommended to ban multiple product formulations that were responsible for most of the deaths, including diafenthiuron. Although temporary bans were adopted, today all products are again available on the Indian market.

In September 2020, Public Eye, ECCHR, PAN India and MAPPP filed a “specific instance” with the Swiss national contact point for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, on behalf of a group of 51 affected farmers, to demand that Syngenta provides remedy and changes its sales practices in India. At the same time, a claim for compensation was filed in the court of Basel, by the law firm Schadensanwälte on behalf of the families of two victims who died and a farmer who was severely injured due to the exposure to the pesticide Polo.

In October 2020, Switzerland decided to prohibit the export of five highly hazardous pesticides including diafenthiuron. Just a few weeks later, the Responsible Business initiative, which proposed to introduce mandatory human rights due diligence requirements for Swiss companies like Syngenta, was narrowly rejected.

Quest for Justice

An international webinar titled ‘Pesticides Poisonings in India webinar on implications for business accountability and regulatory reform’ was organised organised on 24^thJune, 2021, discussed the quest for justice and accountability of a group of Indian farmers who were poisoned by a pesticide marketed by the Swiss agrochemical giant, Syngenta, and shed light on the way forward for regulating pesticides use both in India and Europe.

The webinar was organised jointly by the Maharashtra Association of Pesticide Poisoned Persons (MAPPP), the Pesticides Action Network (PAN India) and PAN Asia Pacific together with Public Eye and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR).  The webinar discussed various aspects of the unfortunate incidents of occupational poisonings of farmers and farm workers in Yavatmal district in Maharashtra India.

Sri. Dewanand Pawar, convenor of MAPPP, highlighted the sufferings of the farming community who were poisoned by the pesticide Polo in Yavatmal in 2017. Farmers and farm labour suffered a lot, due to the harmful impact of pesticides, even as the District hospital was overwhelmed by the sudden influx, impacting treatment. In addition to the regular patients, number of pesticide poisoned patients swelled to more than 700. These persons were accommodated in the corridors and in the nook and corner of the hospital. Inadequate number of staff, stunted with lack of knowledge in treating poisoned patients added to the misery of those days.

Mr. Dileep Kumar of PAN India shared details and evidences of harm caused by the pesticide polo from the agrochemical giant Syngenta in Yavatmal based on pesticide poisoning assessment that PAN India conducted in the region. During 2018 and 2019 PAN India team, connected with many of the victims of pesticide poisoning and gathered details such as medical records and police records, container of the pesticides and purchase bills. Citing the police record, exclusively accessed police record showed 94 incidents of polo poisonings. PAN India’s assessment revealed conclusive evidences of polo usage and consequent poisoning among 54 victims including two deaths. Chronic patients continued to be ill, carrying injuries.

Acute effects of the poisoning included eye problems, nausea, neurological and muscular complaints, breathing problems as well as swellings and skin reactions. Poisoned Persons were hospitalised, most of whom for between one day and two weeks, and one person even spent 31 days in hospital. Many reported temporary blindness, while some of these and others were unconscious for between several hours to several days. Most were unable to work for long periods, a few for up to a year. These people reported ongoing health problems, including neurological and muscular problems. For many families, the poisoning caused their already low household income to fall dramatically while the burden on female family members increased – in addition to looking after the children, women had to care for their sick husbands and work as day labourers in the fields, for which they receive significantly lower wages than men do. Their social lives have also been impacted. Many victims of poisoning are no longer able to walk longer distances and, due to recurring skin and eye irritations, can no longer withstand the sun.

Christian Schliemann (Senior Legal Advisor, from the ECCHR) discussed the quest for justice and accountability in Switzerland with regard to the poisoning happened in Yavatmal India[1]. He stressed the need of making multinational companies accountable when their products contribute to harm and human rights. He also spoke about the so-called product liability law, which in a nutshell that makes the manufacturer of a product responsible for the harm that users suffer due to defects in the product. He mentioned that a complaint was filed on 17^th September, 2020, in Swiss National Contact Point of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation Development against Syngenta for violating the OECD guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. He added that two women who lost their husbands due to pesticides poisonings and one farmer who suffered severe health consequences after spraying Polo have filed a lawsuit in civil court in Switzerland demanding compensation for the harm suffered, in 2020.

Polo is an insecticide with the active ingredient diafenthiuron, which was banned in the EU in 2002. In Switzerland, Polo was taken off the market in 2009. In March 2017, diafenthiuron was added to the European list of substances that are banned because of their effects on health and the environment. Nevertheless, Syngenta continues to market the pesticide Polo in the Global South, such as India.

The Yavatmal case shows once again that pesticides can only be sold in Europe under strict conditions. This is quite different when international agrochemical companies sell their products in the Global South: farmers often use pesticides without protective equipment and are not informed about the possible dangers. Companies like Bayer and Syngenta know this. Nevertheless, they continue to export these products to maximize profit, accepting negative effects on their customers’ health as part of the cost of doing business.

Ms. Anina Dalbert (legal advisor of Public Eye) highlighted the need for an export ban of hazardous pesticides and mandatory human rights due diligence to be followed by the multinational companies such as Syngenta[2]. An export ban for pesticides banned in Switzerland has entered into force at the beginning of this year. Anina stated that they “will keep working towards mandatory human rights due diligence in Switzerland to prevent such human rights violations as well as to hold Swiss based multinationals accountable”

Dr. Narasimha Reddy of PAN India (Honorary director of PAN India, & Policy Expert) spoke about the regulatory lacunae in India. Because of this, agrochemical companies are able to escape from product liability and corporate accountability. He highlighted several directions for improving the pesticide regulatory regime. Pesticide management should be decentralised with powers to State governments, so that the regulatory response is quicker and practical. Comprehensive and strong pesticide legislation and monitoring is required to eliminate the harms caused by toxic pesticides.

Ms Sarojeni Rengam (Executive Director of PAN AP) who was moderating the session concluded by saying “we need justice for the farmers and agricultural workers who were poisoned by pesticides in Yavatmal produced and marketed by Syngenta. Pesticide companies have to be made accountable for their business products.  The burden of proof should not be on farmers who are poisoned, but the companies that introduce toxics.”

This webinar highlighted the need for better and comprehensive regulation of pesticides taking into account the corporate accountability and liability, so that potential poisonings and harms caused by pesticides can be prevented.

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Dr. Narasimha Reddy Donthi has been a passionate campaigner on environmental and development issues. He has contributed to public discourse and policy changes in electricity, seed, rice, cotton, sugarcane, sericulture, handloom and textiles, land, water and other related areas. He built campaigns, advocacy programmes and policy change projects. He is an author, writing on different subjects in regional, national and international publications. He also guides students in their Ph.D and other research activities.

Notes

[1] https://www.ecchr.eu/en/case/vergiftungswelle-yavatmal-pestizid-konzern-syngenta/

[2] https://www.publiceye.ch/en/topics/pesticides/yavatmal-poisonings-syngentas-pesticide-far-more-heavily-involved

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***

As China celebrated 100 years of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) it was also celebrating the nation’s rise from a humiliated colony subjugated by Western imperialism to a global power.

In just the last 21 years of the 21st century, China has transformed from a developing nation, to rivaling the United States, to now being poised to surpass the US and the West in general.

China’s rise has also meant the rise of Asia and beyond as it builds an alternative to the so-called “rules-based international order” created by and exclusively for the US and its Western allies.

Chinese President Xii Jinping’s speech commemorating the 100 year anniversary of the CPC was devoid of self-proclaimed “global leadership” and instead focused on strengthening China internally while constructively contributing to the world abroad, mentioning its massive infrastructure building spree – the One Belt, One Road – by name.

President Xi Jinping also noted China’s transformation from, “a highly centralized planned economy to a socialist market economy.”

Indeed, China today is not the China of Mao Zedong, nor the China of 100 years ago, though the Western media has worked hard to convince global audiences otherwise – attempting to reinforce not only the most negative prejudices held toward China, but also the most inaccurate ones.

China’s Rise, A Difficult Pill for Western Hegemons to Swallow

President Xi Jinping’s speech and related activities to the 100 year anniversary of the CPC covered a wide range of topics. Celebrations and performances noted China’s progress in everything from manufacturing, energy production, and infrastructure, to space exploration, poverty reduction, and the development of China’s armed forces.

Indeed, China has accomplished for its 1.4 billion citizens as well as for its friends and allies abroad feats in the realm of development, peace, and stability unrivaled by the West.

Yet Western media coverage appeared fixated on a single sentence taken from an over 5,000 word speech.

The BBC in its article, “CCP 100: Xi warns China will not be ‘oppressed’ in anniversary speech,” would begin by stating:

China’s President Xi Jinping has warned that foreign powers will “get their heads bashed” if they attempt to bully or influence the country.

The quote was meant to provoke Western audiences, many of whom are guided by their respective media outlets of choice to adopt a sense of superiority and to feel threatened by China’s successes. It was also meant to couple with a massive disinformation campaign depicting China as a threat to global peace and stability, leading audiences to see the quote as threatening to “bash” the heads of anyone who now tries to hold China accountable.

Deliberately omitted by the BBC was any context related to President Xi Jinping’s or China’s well-founded concerns regarding foreign powers who at one point in China’s recent history, colonized sections of its territory with Hong Kong being handed back over to China by the British only as recently as 1997 and with Taiwan still maintained as a Western foothold in Chinese territory to this day.

In fact, the only mention of Hong Kong and Taiwan by the BBC related to claims of Beijing’s “crackdown” on Hong Kong and tensions surrounding Taiwan’s reunification with mainland China – two points of contention created deliberately by the West as a means to pressure Beijing and to contain the rise of China.

China’s humiliation by the West lasted nearly a century and in many ways still continues – albeit in an ever diminishing capacity.

The arrest of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou in 2018 by Canadian police at the direction of the US government over alleged violations of illegal US sanctions against Iran serves as a pertinent example of this continued campaign by the West to exercise “domination” over China and to humiliate it and its people at every juncture.

The BBC in its article also claimed that China “has repeatedly accused the US of trying to curb its growth,” as if to suggest Beijing is imagining this rather than it being a central theme of US foreign policy toward China and Asia in general.

US documents such as the declassified “UЫ Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific,” released as part of the Trump White House archives, explicitly state that US objectives in Asia include maintaining “US strategic primacy in the Indo-Pacific region,” and to “promote a liberal economic order while preventing China from establishing new, illiberal spheres of influence.”

In reality, US President Donald Trump’s desire to maintain primacy over Asia (including China) was carried over from the Obama Administration – who in turn was pursuing an agenda that has been ongoing for decades – articulated as early as the 1960’s in the “Pentagon Papers.”

And it is a policy that continues today. Current US President Joe Biden in his “remarks on America’s place in the world,” would claim that “American leadership” must meet “advancing authoritarianism, including the growing ambitions of China to rival the United States.”

How else would either Trump’s or Biden’s stated objectives be met besides “curbing China’s growth?”

And that is exactly what US sanctions, kidnapping industry leaders, destabilizing Chinese allies, and its growing propaganda war against China itself all aim to achieve – curbing China’s growth. The US along with its G7 allies now find themselves not only being surpassed by China, but engaged in a campaign of geopolitical bullying with a nation increasingly able to fight back.

The West’s Inevitable Reckoning?

China understands that “the West” is not merely Wall Street, Washington, London, and Brussels. It is a region including hundreds of millions of people who otherwise could be potential partners in building a new multipolar world order where national sovereignty – not a self-appointed international arbiter composed of elite special interests – holds primacy.

Toward that end, China has exercised patience. China’s rise beyond the reach of these fading special interests is inevitable.

China has a population 4-5 times larger than the US. It’s population is hardworking and well-educated. China produces millions more graduates in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics than the US does – every year. These are graduates that will directly contribute to research and development, technological innovation, improved manufacturing and the overall expansion of China’s already massive industrial capacity, as well as the construction of essential infrastructure both at home and abroad as part of the OBOR initiative.

China is already counted by the nations of Asia as a leading trade partner and investor. Even nations like Australia and New Zealand find themselves pivoting eastward, placing economic development ahead of traditional political alliances. Australia’s leadership is attempting to ignore the changing tides of geopolitics and has thus self-inflicted economic hardship on its population. New Zealand has performed a much more graceful balancing act to its own benefit while setting a precedent for others to follow, including for Western nations.

China’s naval forces are already larger than the United States’ – with the rest of its armed forces more than capable of defending against any Western aggression against it in its own territory.

And while the Western media continues to cite the threat of China using military force to “take” Taiwan, Taiwan has – like nations in the region – found itself tied economically to the mainland’s rise. Taiwan is additionally a territory of China and the people of Taiwan share a common fate with the mainland. It is China’s rise that propels Taiwan’s economy, not trade with the West. This is a trend that will only continue well into the foreseeable future.

Looking at these fundamentals, what can the US and its partners do to “maintain primacy” over the “Indo-Pacific region” and by implication over China? While the US attempts to use sanctions, political subversion – both within and along China’s borders – and even military aggression by proxy or directly – US leadership appears not to have considered whether or not the premise of maintaining primacy over a nation with a larger population and soon to have a larger economy was ever sound to begin with.

The celebration of the CPC’s 100 year anniversary and all that China’s government and people have achieved in the past century is a story that does not sit well for a West determined to deride these accomplishments and to add fuel to a propaganda war being used to undo these accomplishments.

The story of China’s rise will not only be about how it went an impoverished, humiliated colony of Western powers to a global superpower, and perhaps even the premier global superpower – but also a story about how it has and will continue to navigate the dangerous, irrational policies of the West in its increasingly desperate bid to contain this rise. It will also be a story about whether China has learned from the West’s mistaken pursuit of unsustainable hegemony once its rise is complete.

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Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

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***

Sales of Chinese passenger vehicles totaled 1.6 million units for June, which was down 5.3% from June 2020, according to figures released Thursday. Passenger vehicles include sedan, MPV, SUV and minivans, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).

Despite the dip in the numbers, retail new energy passenger vehicle sales rocketed higher in June, totaling 223,000 units. This marks an increase of 169.9% from June 2020, which was in the midst of China’s full blown response to the coronavirus.

Wholesale volume of new energy passenger vehicles rose by 165.7% year over year to 227,000 units, according to Xinhua. Automakers exceeding 10,000 units of NEV vehicles last month included BYD, Shanghai General Motors Wuling, Tesla China and GAC Aion.

Tesla sold 33,155 China-made vehicles during the month of June, according to the CPCA, Reuters noted on Thursday. In the month of June, the company sold 28,138 China-made vehicles and exported 5,017 vehicles. This total is down from the 33,463 vehicles that the company sold in May.

For comparison, BYD sold 40,532 NEVs for the month. General Motors’ JV with SAIC sold 30,479 vehicles.

Tesla also introduced a lower priced version of its Model Y to the Chinese market this week, starting at ¥291,840 before incentives, which reduced the model’s base price to ¥276,000, or roughly $42,600, according to The Street.

$TSLA Model 3 sales in China are tanking, which is why they exported 31K of them during Q2.

Given the 52% QoQ decline in Model 3 sales, it's clear Chinese demand for it is weak.

Once it's made in Germany, expect capacity utilization in China to drop significantly. $TSLAQ pic.twitter.com/ifYXit7Whw

— Motörhead (@BradMunchen) July 8, 2021

On Wednesday, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas published a note highlighting concerns about Tesla doing business in China after recent scrutiny of ride-sharing app Didi.

“From our discussions with clients, there is a growing consensus that Tesla will likely face increased scrutiny in the Chinese market over time,” Jonas wrote.

He continued:

“According to our China Autos & Shared Mobility team, China cyberspace regulators have already indicated that they will require OEMs to locally store the data from vehicle cameras/vehicle sensors that is needed for autonomous driving. The regulations around autonomous driving in China should get stricter over time and may present some increasing challenges to foreign auto makers in the years ahead.”

Of course, these concerns didn’t stop Jonas from reiterating his buy on the name and slapping Tesla with a $900 price target, based on…well…this:

With 1.13B diluted $TSLA shares:

Bucket shop $MS values its:

NON-EXISTENT "mobility" business @ $83.6B.

NON-EXISTENT powertrain supply business @ $109B

NEGATIVE GM energy business@ $81B

BARELY-EXISTENT insurance business@ $41B

NON-EXISTENT "network services" business@ $278B pic.twitter.com/tBLbKwY3c6

— Stanphyl Capital (@StanphylCap) July 6, 2021

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***

Something very dangerous happened a few weeks ago when the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) held its meeting in Brussels. In its communique after the meeting on June 14, it identified China as a “systemic challenge” to areas “relevant to Alliance security”.

The implicit message was clear: Nato would like to expand its tentacles beyond the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. All of us who live close to the Pacific Ocean, especially in East Asia, should be deeply concerned. If Nato comes to the Pacific, it only means trouble for us. Why? Three reasons.

First, Nato is not a geopolitically wise organisation. It did a brilliant job in the Cold War, deterring Soviet expansion into Europe. During the Cold War, it was careful and restrained, building up military capabilities and avoiding direct military conflicts.

The Cold War ended 30 years ago. In theory, after “mission accomplished”, Nato should have shut down. In practice, it desperately looked for new missions. In the process, it destabilised Europe.

It bears remembering that relations between Russia and Nato used to be much better, so much so that in 1994, Russia officially signed up to the Partnership for Peace, a programme aimed at building trust between Nato and other European and former Soviet countries. But things fell apart because Nato rejected Russia’s repeated requests to refuse to accept new members in its “backyard”. Then, in April 2008, Nato pushed things further, opening the door to membership for Georgia and Ukraine at the Bucharest summit.

As US commentator Tom Friedman noted:

“There is one thing future historians will surely remark upon, and that is the utter poverty of imagination that characterised US foreign policy in the late 1990s. They will note that one of the seminal events of this century took place between 1989 and 1992 – the collapse of the Soviet Empire… Thanks to Western resolve and the courage of Russian democrats, that Soviet empire collapsed without a shot, spawning a democratic Russia, setting free the former Soviet republics and leading to unprecedented arms control agreements with the US. And what was America’s response? It was to expand the Nato Cold-War alliance against Russia and bring it closer to Russia’s borders.”

The result was inevitable. Russia had tried to be a friend of the Nato countries after the Cold War ended. Instead, it was slapped in the face with Nato expansion. Many Western media reports portray Russia as a “belligerent, aggressive actor”. They fail to mention that Nato actions generated this response.

A truly dangerous moment surfaced in 2014 when it looked as if Nato was about to encroach into Ukraine with the ouster of its pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych by Western-supported demonstrators. For President Vladimir Putin, that was the last straw, and soon after came the seizure of Crimea, which the Russians consider part of their cultural heartland.

The dangers of Western expansion into Ukraine were well known. Dr Henry Kissinger had pointed out that the Ukrainians “live in a country with a complex history and a polyglot composition. The Western part was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1939, when Stalin and Hitler divided up the spoils. Crimea, 60 per cent of whose population is Russian, became part of Ukraine only in 1954, when Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian by birth, awarded it as part of the 300th-year celebration of a Russian agreement with the Cossacks. The west is largely Catholic; the east largely Russian Orthodox. The west speaks Ukrainian; the east speaks mostly Russian. Any attempt by one wing of Ukraine to dominate the other – as has been the pattern – would lead eventually to civil war or break-up. To treat Ukraine as part of an East-West confrontation would scuttle for decades any prospect to bring Russia and the West – especially Russia and Europe – into a cooperative international system”.

Sadly, since 2014, Ukraine has become a divided country. If Nato had shown greater geopolitical restraint, these problems could have been avoided.

The second major weakness of post-Cold War Nato is that its behaviour reflects the old adage: If you are a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Curiously, during the Cold War, Nato dropped very few bombs on foreign countries. Since the end of the Cold War, Nato has dropped a massive amount of bombs on many countries. Between March and June 1999, Nato bombing campaigns were estimated to have killed 500 civilians in the former Yugoslavia. Nato also dropped several thousand cluster bombs there, despite their use being illegal under the 2010 Convention on Cluster Munitions Treaty.

Nato air strikes in Libya in 2011 resulted in 7,700 bombs dropped, and killed an estimated 70 civilians.

Many of the bombing missions were illegal under international law. I vividly remember having dinner at the home of a former Canadian diplomat in Ottawa when Nato decided to bomb Yugoslav forces in 1999. This Canadian diplomat was deeply worried. Since this military campaign was neither an act of self-defence nor authorised by the United Nations Security Council, it was clearly and technically illegal under international law.

Indeed, Ms Carla Del Ponte, a former special prosecutor in the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, tried to investigate whether Nato committed war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. Even though most Nato countries believe in the sanctity of international law, they applied so much political pressure that Ms Del Ponte could not carry out her investigations.

Even worse, Nato has often started a military campaign and then walked away from the disastrous consequences of its intervention. Libya is a classic example of this. The Nato countries were exultant when Muammar Gaddafi was removed from Libya. However, after the country split apart and became caught up in a civil war, Nato just walked away. Many years ago, a wise former US secretary of state, Mr Colin Powell, warned against such military interventions by citing a common statement in crystal shops: “If you break it, you own it.” Nato failed to own the wreckage it left behind.

This leads to the third danger: East Asia has developed, with the assistance of Asean, a very cautious and pragmatic geopolitical culture. In the 30 years since the end of the Cold War, Nato has dropped several thousand bombs on many countries. By contrast, in the same period, no bombs have been dropped anywhere in East Asia.

This is therefore the biggest danger we face in Nato expanding its tentacles from the Atlantic to the Pacific: It could end up exporting its disastrous militaristic culture to the relatively peaceful environment we have developed in East Asia.

Indeed, if Nato was a wise, thinking and learning organisation, it should actually be studying the East Asian record – especially the Asean record of preserving peace – and learning lessons from it. Instead, it is doing the opposite, thereby creating real dangers for our region.

In view of the risks to East Asia through the potential expansion of Nato culture, all of East Asia should speak with one voice and say no to Nato.

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Kishore Mahbubani is a distinguished fellow at the Asia Research Institute at National University of Singapore, and the author of Has The West Lost It? and Has China Won?

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Abstract

Mitsui’s Miike Coal Mine is World Heritage listed by UNESCO as one of Japan’s “Sites of the Industrial Revolution.” The Japanese government, however, has failed to tell the full story of this mine, instead promoting bland tourism. In World War II, Miike was Japan’s largest coal mine, but also the location of the largest Allied POW camp in Japan. Korean and Chinese forced laborers also were used by Mitsui in the mine. The use of prisoners was nothing new, as Mitsui and other Japanese companies used Japanese convicts as workers in the early decades of the Meiji era. The role of Australian POWs in particular reveals that there was resistance inside Miike even at the height of abuse by Japanese wartime authorities. Japan has a responsibility under its UNESCO World Heritage agreement to tell the full history of this and other “Meiji Industrial Revolution” sites.

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“As we passed through the gates [on January 16, 1945] we saw a few Japanese soldiers grouped about a charcoal brazier in the open porch of a small building. … It seemed that this was the largest prisoner-of-war camp in Kyushu, if not in Japan. … The camp held four nationalities: English, American, Dutch and Australian. … We were warned that our existence in and out of camp was governed by a multitude of rules and regulations. … Whenever we met one of the Australians who had been in the camp before our arrival and worked in the mine, we asked the same questions but could never get an accurate picture of what the mine was like down below. We only learnt we’d ‘work like slaves’.” – Private Roy Whitecross, 8th Division, Australian Army¹

In July 2021, Japan’s public presentation of its “Sites of the Meiji Industrial Revolution” at the UNESCO World Heritage Committee annual meeting may be challenged. Among the sites possibly under question are two undersea coal mines that have been closed for decades: Mitsubishi’s former Hashima Coal Mine, popularly known as “Battleship Island” (Gunkanjima in Japanese) off the coast of Nagasaki; and Mitsui’s former Miike Coal Mine in Omuta, some fifty kilometers from Nagasaki city, or about an hour by car around the Ariake Sea in Kyushu.

Japan has succeeded in making Gunkanjima a huge tourist attraction, with over a quarter of a million visitors in 2015, the year it was inscribed as a World Heritage site.

The 2012 James Bond movie Skyfall featured a cameo scene of Gunkanjima, the villain’s secret island headquarters. A major South Korean history action film followed in which

Korean forced laborers destroyed the Japanese authorities in a fantasy liberation of the island in wartime.²In contrast, Miike Coal Mine and its Omuta harbor connection have thus far failed as a tourist draw, accounting for very low visitor numbers. Local online publicity that highlights smiling Japanese Miike miners traveling underground to the coal face lacks the popular drama of the huge island ghost city of Gunkanjima. But the true history of miners at the Miike Coal Mine over the century of its operation (1870s to 1997 closure) is just as dramatic as that of the Gunkanjima mine. Unfortunately the Japanese government omits most of this history at the Miike Mine.

Omuta local tourist website. The photo of these Japanese miners was probably taken in the late 1950s, before the 1960 strike – Japan’s largest strike in the postwar era. There are no tours underground.

Tourists arrive at Gunkanjima / Battleship Island, Mitsubishi’s former undersea coal mine – one of the World Heritage listed “Japan’s Sites of the Meiji Industrial Revolution”. Almost all buildings in these photos were built after Meiji, during the 1920s and 1930s. Photos by David Palmer.

The irony is that if the Japanese government told the true story of the Miike Mine itr could substantially reverse this tourism failure, as this coal mine was not only the largest in Japan in World War II, essential to its wartime economy, but also had the largest Allied POW camp in Japan – Fukuoka 17 – along with thousands of Korean and Chinese forced laborers, making it the largest “prisoner of war” operation within Japan.

What drives the distorted narrative of the Japanese government is its prioritizing tourism that focuses on machinery combined with a nationalism that portrays Japanese workers who enjoy their jobs, but without any mention of substantial forced labor. For decades tourism has been a major part of Japan’s economy, and World Heritage site listings are an important part of the government’s economic strategy to expand tourism, especially international tourism. In 2019, the year before the pandemic closed most tourism in Japan except to Japanese, World Economic Forum ranked Japan fourth globally in travel and tourism competitiveness.³ Japan’s tourism that year constituted 7.5 percent share of the country’s GDP, a total of $49 billion (US). For 2018, Japan ranked ninth among the top global tourism earners, and came in second in percentage change of earnings, at 19 percent growth, beaten out only by first ranked China.⁴ Tourism in Japan is big business. The World Heritage listings of Japan, now numbering a collection of 23 (many of these are multiple sites),⁵ have been a core part of this business. Think Mount Fuji, the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Dome, Himeji Castle, the temples of Kyoto and Nara – all are part of the World Heritage listings. The plan is to expand these further, with Kyushu a major target as it is further from Tokyo and Kyoto where a majority of the “Meiji Industrial Revolution” sites are located.

Two narratives: Japan’s patriotic fantasy and the reality of industrial exploitation

The history of industrial revolutions in all countries around the world has involved the introduction of modern technology. But industrial revolutions also require new forms of labor to operate these new technologies. The story of industrial revolutions as only the rise of new machines is a fantasy long dismissed by historians. Industrial revolutions have occurred because those organizing new enterprises have found alternative ways for harnessing the labor of workers in new settings, whether in the mills of Manchester or the mass production lines of Henry Ford or hull construction at the Nagasaki Shipyard.⁶ 

But somehow, according to the Japanese government narrative, new machines (what the government narrative simplistically calls “technology”) were introduced into Japan from the West between 1850 and 1900. The Meiji Restoration began in 1868, but the sites push the beginning date back to late Tokugawa, allowing a convenient “half century” for Japan’s “industrial revolution.” Japan developed its own versions of these machines (“technology”) combining Western and Japanese know-how, and by 1910 (just two years before the death of Emperor Meiji and the end of the Meiji Era) the whole process was “established.” This remarkable event is unmatched in history in terms of its precise completion point. Everything after 1910 is then presented as just a continuation of this “development.” This compartmentalized view of history was put forward by Japan in its statement to the World Heritage Committee in 2015, again eliding any mention of how labor contributed to shaping industrial innovation:

“After 1910 … Japanese industrial development continued to grow, relying more and more on imported raw materials, but its concentrated period of technological innovation associated with the blending of western and Japanese technologies had come to an end: the Japanese industrial system was established.”⁷

The official Japanese government website for “Japan’s Sites of the Meiji Industrial Revolution” describes – in Japanese – Mitsui’s purchase of the mine from the Meiji government in 1889; its development by the company’s president Dan Tokuma; introduction of new technology, including some brought in from England; and abolition of convicts and women working in the mine by 1930. The historical description then leaps from 1930 to 1997 when the mine closed – leaving a gap of 67 years. The English language version of the historical description only gives you the technology information, with Dan Tokuma and scant mention of convict labor.

Omission and failure to consult with all those affected by the site – Australia, the United States, Britain, South Korea, China, the Netherlands, and Southeast Asian countries – is unfortunately the Japanese government’s style for promoting its history through UNESCO and elsewhere, which is the major criticism that will be brought up at the July UNESCO meeting.⁸ Why weren’t these other countries consulted, given that a number of the World Heritage listed sites used forced and slave labor from these countries at these sites during World War II? The coal mines at Mitsubishi’s Gunkanjima (Hashima) and Mitsui’s Miike are the most egregious disregard for this requirement World Heritage listings oversight.

If you go to the local website for the Miike Coal Mine, promoted by the Omuta local government and different than the national government website, you are greeted with a banner photo of cheerful Japanese miners riding underground to the coal face no doubt taken in the 1950s. The historical chronology of the mine’s history is entirely in Japanese. It notes that in one year during World War II coal production reached a new high. In another year, we learn that the mine was hit by bombing, but no mention is made of the constant incendiary bombings by American planes in 1945. No English is provided on the site, nor is Korean or Chinese, the three main languages of foreign visitors to Japan. It is at the local level that the historical documentation is the most distorted, and designed almost entirely for Japanese tourists.

Were all Miike coal miners Japanese from 1939 to 1945? The Omuta website would lead you to this conclusion. Here is the reality for those years – World War II.

Mitsui Miike Coal Mine Workforce – 1940-1945:

• Total workforce (all employees) by early 1945: 15,160
• Japanese (all employees): 11,000 / probably less than 10,000 miners
• Total non-Japanese: 4,160
• Korean (all employees): 1,683 (50 deaths)
• Chinese (all forced laborers): 564 (47 deaths)
• Allied POWs: 1,913 (139 deaths)
• American POWs: 829 (59 deaths)
• Australian POWs: 440 (20 deaths)
• British POWs: 268 (18 deaths)
• Dutch POWs: 355 (41 deaths)
• Other Nationality POWs: 21 (1 death)

Death rates in this group would confirm the abusive treatment and extreme death rates of these non-Japanese workers consistent with slave labor.⁹ 

Japanese listed in the table above include all employees (surface, underground supervisors, guards, and actual miners), averaged over the seven year period. Women are not included in the sources for these statistics, but there is no evidence of their presence underground during the war, in contrast to smaller mines to the north in Kyushu’s Chikuhō region. Koreans include all employees, the vast majority forced laborers, in addition to a small number of guards serving as collaborators for the Japanese. Chinese were all forced laborers, the majority most likely farmers taken by force in China, while a minority were prisoners-of-war who had been fighting against Japanese troops in Northern China. Allied prisoners-of-war arrived at different times, with Americans, Dutch, and British arriving earlier. Australians arrived later, suffering more than these earlier arrivals from their previous POW camp locations – the vast majority coming from the Thai-Burma “death” railway construction. The estimated total forced labor numbers, with some deduction for Korean guards, was probably over 4,000. For Japanese underground supervisors, there generally was one for each group of five to six miners, reducing Japanese employees from 11,000 to about 10,200, and then below 10,000 for guards, and reduced even further if administrators are subtracted. Many POWs worked in the Mitsui foundry adjacent to the mine, but foundry employment numbers were small compared to the mine. A handful worked on the surface in various service capacities. With these other POW positions taken into account, probably a third of Miike miners of all nationalities were forced – or more accurately, slave – laborers.

This system of prisoners used as workers became widespread in the first decades of the Meiji Era, introduced in Miike in 1873 when the coal mine was bought from local owners by the new Meiji government. When Mitsui took over the Miike mine from the government in 1889, the company continued using convict labor through contracts with the government.¹⁰

The exact type of punishment used against some Allied POWs in World War II at the Miike Mine was introduced during Meiji, as this painting from the Tagawa Coal Museum in the Chikuhō region of northern Kyushu illustrates. This particular disciplinary practice used on coal miners was known as yama no miseshime – using the mountain to warn others – by forcing the worker to kneel on wooden slats and then placing heavy weight on his thighs, increased as time went by to make the pain worse, along with beatings.¹¹

Painting by Yamamoto Sakubei, Yamamoto Sakubei to tankō no kiroku, p. 26.

Japan’s industrial revolution: The alternative history of energy technology’s introduction

A fundamental rationale for the World Heritage listing of “Japan’s Sites of the Meiji Industrial Revolution” is the central role of heavy industry in this process, focusing on three key industries: iron and steel; shipbuilding; and coal mining. The scope of the industrial revolution, the Japanese government claims, covered the years from 1850 to 1910, spanning the end of Tokugawa and all of Meiji except the last two years.¹² The endpoint of this periodization for historians is simplistic when applied to steel (Yahata works) and shipbuilding (Nagasaki shipyard), but does have some evidence for support. Coal mining, however, is not a valid example if underground mining technology is a factor. The way to understand “industrialization” is in how production processes occur, which involves the transition from exclusively manual labor to mechanized labor incorporating new machines and technology. Mitsui’s Miike Coal Mine is generally considered to have been the first “advanced” coal mining operation in Japan, but underground its operations remained primitive until the early 1920s when minimal mechanization was introduced in some mine pits. This is a decade after the “1910” designation. Japan generally lagged behind Western technological advancements in underground mining until after World War II. The way to track this lag is through the history of changes in Mitsui’s workforce from the 1890s through 1945 and how its changing workforce was utilized.

Coal fueled industrialization in modern Japan. Japan’s coal fields contained bituminous coal, but not anthracite, the type used for coke in the production of steel. Japan’s coal was used entirely for energy. Meiji certainly was an era when the origin of Japan’s industrial revolution occurred in terms of large scale extraction of coal and introduction of surface mechanization (hoists, water pumps) that allowed expansion of coal mines. Rail expansion used coal for engines. Modern manufacturing required new sources of energy, and these were either from hydro-electric or coal-fired plants. Electrification of Japan’s cities drew from these plants, but especially utilizing coal as the source.¹³

Important developments in coal mining centered on the rise of the two most important private business combines in late nineteenth century Japan: Mitsubishi and Mitsui. By the 1880s, these two zaibatsucontrolled the two largest coal mines in the country, both based in Kyushu: Takashima (two islands, one being Gunkanjima on Hashima) off the Nagasaki coast, bought by Mitsubishi from the Meiji government; and Miike Coal Mine at Omuta (Fukuoka prefecture, bordering Kumamoto prefecture), bought by Mitsui. During this period, the largest coal fields being developed in Japan were in Kyushu (Takashima’s islands, Miike at Omuta, and the Chikuhō region in northern inland Kyushu between Kitakyushu and Fukuoka city). Large scale development of the huge Hokkaido coal reserves occurred later and did not rest on major technological innovations of the industry between the 1880s and 1920s.

Mitsui relied substantially on contracting convict laborers from the Meiji government from the 1880s until 1900 at the Miike Coal Mine. Following the 1899 Prison Law restricting convict use, a national cap of 400 on the number of convicts allowed in coal mining shifted the Miike workforce from predominantly convict to a rise in husband-wife teams, known as sakiyama / atoyama (hewer / helper), drawn from farming areas around Omuta, with men extracting the ore and women collecting it hauling it to the surface.¹⁴ Chikuhō mines, even those of Mitsubishi and Mitsui, had less capitalization and came to rely on cheaper

Inoue Tamejiro, artist. Portraying women miners in the Miike Coal Mine, “Meiji jidai no tankō fūzoku” [Meiji Era coal mine customs], in Sakubei, pp. 59, 60. This system may have increased during the 1900s with the reduction of convicts used in both hewing and gathering coal.

Korean labor brought in after Japan’s colonization of Korea in 1910. Productivity above ground may have driven this dynamic as well, with Mitsui’s Miike Coal Mine efficiency due to shorter transport links between mine pits and harbor at Omuta, compared to Chikuhō mines further inland that had to send coal by rail to ports at a considerable distance to the north. Dan Tokuma became head of the Miike Coal Mine in the 1890s and introduced a number of administrative reforms at the turn of the century. The shift away from convict labor also involved an end to using contractors for non-convict Japanese miners, with the aim of eliminating turnover while seeking to gain local loyalty of workers, what historian Tanaka Naoki has described as “a familial approach to business management.”¹⁵

The following table documents the radical shift from convict to non-convict labor at Miike from 1894 to 1900, and then the sharp rise in women workers afterward, finally ending after 1930 when all women were excluded from underground work at Miike.

Hoists and air shafts were introduced during late Meiji (1890s to 1900s), but more advanced mining technologies for underground mining only arrived in the following decades – after Meiji. These were technologies developed first in the West, but only introduced later in Japan. According to Donald Smith, “Mitsubishi and other major mines began another spurt of mechanization in the latter half of the 1920s, building on the changes in mining practice in the early 1920s.” This shift was from sole use of mining tunnels – the room and pillar system, zanchūshiki saitan – to long wall extraction, chōhekishiki saitan, combined with room-and-pillar. “Mines installed boring machines and rock drills, eliminating the necessity of drilling holes by hand for dynamite. From 1927 or 1928, they installed coal cutters [undercutters essential for long wall mining] … mechanical picks [and] face conveyors, which sped the coal on the first stage of its journey out of the mine.”¹⁶ This technological transformation in the 1920s resulted from Mitsubishi’s and Mitsui’s ready access to capital through their zaibatsu internal banks and other divisions, resources not available on the same scale for smaller companies.¹⁷ 

Photos from 1926 Mitsui Miike yearbook, in Sakubei, p. 74. Examples of continuing primitive conditions underground at Miike in the 1920s. The loin cloth miner’s dress is exactly the same attire that Allied POWs wore in the mine during World War II, what Australian POWs described as a “G string.”

Specific mechanization developments crucial to modern coal mining were only introduced into Japan in the 1920s at the most advanced mines, including Miike Coal Mine. By contrast, many mining equipment innovations outside Japan occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but were not introduced into Japan until the change to longwall mining. Priscilla Long provides one of the best descriptions of the longwall system:

“Longwall mining can easily be understood if one thinks of a bed of coal as an underground field extending for hundreds or thousands of acres. When coal is reached by shaft or slope, a main entry is driven. … Then two parallel tunnels are driven off to one side, four hundred to six hundred feet apart. … Between the tunnels, made permanent with timber and other construction material, the longwall mining is done. The miners (a whole gang rather than just two or three in a work space) work at the face under a set of movable pillars, which they move forward (one at a time) as the face recedes.”¹⁸

American coal miners resisted the longwall system until the 1920s because skilled miners viewed it as eroding their control over the work process they had with the room-and-pillar system. Implementation of the longwall system changed the work environment from one that was more artisan-based to one similar to a factory environment, with teams and direct supervision, and new machinery required to extract and load coal. The Japanese coal mines also had individual “artisan” miners, but they were the dual system of husband-and-wife miners in contrast to the American all-male underground setting. American miners in some locales had a strong union movement by the early part of the twentieth century that led to resistance to mechanization, whereas Japanese miners had no substantial labor organization until World War I. The change to teams and longwall mining appear to have been driven by Mitsui’s management introduction of new technology among miners. Japan’s first labor union, the general membership Yuaikai, had a coal mining membership base, and in 1912 Mitsui coal miners went on strike for five months, Japan’s largest prior to World War I, but were defeated by the company.¹⁹ Trade union organization among coal miners revived under a different industrial union formation during the 1920s, but could not be sustained under the impact of the Great Depression by the 1930s.²⁰ In contrast, the United Mine Workers of America became the backbone of the industrial union organizing movement in the United States by the 1930s with a membership of over 800,000 by the early 1930s.

The lag in the rate of mechanization in Japan’s coal mining related to over-reliance on labor intensive production, a dynamic that did not substantially change underground until the 1920s. Below are examples of coal mining equipment innovations internationally. These were not introduced into Japan, including the Miike mine, the country’s most advanced, until after the end of the Meiji Era.

Innovations in coal mining – international introduction:

• Coal cutter – 1876 in U.S. (Lechner)
• Punch / pick machine – 1877 in U.S. (J.W. Harrison patent)
• Rock drilling tools – 1882 in U.S. (Brunner and Lay)
• Mechanical drive systems – 1883 in Switzerland (ABB)
• Undercutting chain machine – 1913 in U.S. (Sullivan Machinery Co.)
• Loaders, continuous miners – 1919 in U.S. (Joy Mining)
• Excavators, haulage trucks – 1917 in Japan (Komatsu)
• Mining & loading machines – 1925 in U.S. (McKinley; Jeffrey-Morgan)
• Pit car loader – 1925 in U.S. (Hamilton)
• Coal loading shovel – 1925 in U.S. (Jones Coloder, others)
• Scraper loaders – 1925 in U.S. (Goodman)

Japan did introduce some innovations, as the Komatsu example indicates, but this was after Meiji, and this innovation did not change the crude underground system of industrial relations heavily reliant on manual labor. Coal loaders, marketed by 1918 by a number of American companies, appear to have been absent at Miike, which was still using horses in the 1920s for pulling coal cars along tracks where they could then be brought to the surface.²¹

Limited mechanization took off in the large mines in Japan after the First World War, driven by major shifts in the labor structure within mines. Takeshima (Hashima / Gunkanjima) and Miike mines led the way, leading to increased miners’ wages while maintaining relatively primitive labor practices underground. Mechanization in the 1920s at Miike coincided with introduction of longwall mining and teams to remove coal, which reduced the use of women to collect the ore. Mine work now utilized teams that loaded huge volumes of coal that could be shoveled into coal cars and then hauled to the surface via lifts. Smith states that this process was possible once coal cutters were installed with face conveyors, but this change appears to have been confined to major mines in Chikuhō and not all the pits in Miike.²² 

By 1930, the Miike Coal Mine in Omuta completely eliminated both convict labor and women workers underground. The company claimed that removal of females from underground work was in line with Japan’s agreeing to the ILO stand of 1928 for the elimination of women from underground coal mines, but Smith believes that the company’s decision was a consequence of technological change. Women continued as surface workers sorting coal. The practice of using women miners underground continued informally in smaller mines of the Chikuhō region, despite the national government prohibiting the practice by 1933. Japanese women returned to underground work at the end of World War II, but there is no indication they did so at the Miike Coal Mine.

Histories of Japanese coal mining on women published in English have tended to focus on the Chikuhō region of northern Kyushu, where there was a wide diversity of small, medium-sized, as well as some large mines operated by Mitsui and Mitsubishi. In that region women continued to work illegally in the medium and smaller mines after 1930. These are significant studies, but only reveal part of the larger picture of Japan’s coal mining history, particularly during the Pacific War.²³ The Miike mine was located in an entirely different coal field, where Mitsui employed quite different labor practices. Distinctions in regional coal fields of Japan are crucial to understanding the contrasts between mines where women miners were employed and those where they were eventually pushed out of underground mining after 1930. The map below, from Arents and Tsuneishi (p. 126), shows the distinct geography of these separate regions that was an aspect of these two quite different coal mining environments.

Japan’s wartime empire and slave labor at the Miike Coal Mine

The history of Japan’s “Meiji Industrial Revolution” World Heritage sites is directly linked to Japan’s war and pursuit of empire in the Asia Pacific. During the Meiji Era (1868 to 1912) Japan colonized Taiwan, the Ryukyus (Okinawa), and Korea, and gained footholds in Manchuria and ports in China. This expansion of empire required a modern navy and army, with steel, ships, munitions, and coal as the economic foundation for Japan’s competition with the West. Mitsui advanced into East Asia after the first Sino-Japanese War, initially establishing operations in Taiwan, Korea, Manchuria and China from 1896 to 1907.²⁴By the advent of the Pacific War in the 1930s, Mitsui was the largest Japanese company to invest in China and Japan as supplier of military and civilian imports.²⁵ With Mitsubishi, Mitsui laid the foundation for Japan’s economic and military dominance of East Asia and the western Pacific.

In 1938, with Japan’s massive escalation of its invasion of North China, tonnage of coal extracted from the Miike Mine accelerated, peaking by 1944 at over 4 million tons. But in 1945 production collapsed along with the rest of Japan’s productive capacity and infrastructure, and its empire, the euphemistically dubbed “East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere,” vanished. This term is nowhere to be seen in historical presentations – in English – at the World Heritage sites where “history” has become clean, technological, and a patriotic celebration of national achievement.

Japan’s model of war production was exemplified by Mitsubishi’s Nagasaki Shipyard, the largest shipbuilding complex in East Asia during the Second World War. During the Pacific War (1937 to 1945) the Nagasaki Shipyard built 72 warships and 15,000 torpedoes. Mitsubishi turned the entire metropolitan region around Nagasaki city into a military-industrial complex with over 24 industrial and technical facilities, using thousands of Korean forced laborers and Allied POWs as slave laborers, including Australian POWs who produced materials for the Nagasaki Shipyard at Mitsubishi’s nearby foundry in the Urakami District.²⁶ Mitsui had returned to its labor system using prisoners, but a new type that combined waged Japanese workers with foreign slave labor that had its origins during the early years of Meiji of convicts.

POWs at Fukuoka 17 – Japan’s system of slave labor from Burma to Omuta²⁷

The Australian POW experience is particularly important for understanding how the major zaibatsu, particularly Mitsubishi and Mitsui, were instrumental to Japan’s war production and brutal occupation of East and Southeast Asia. Mitsubishi supplied the merchant ships, known by POWs as “hell ships”, that transported POWs from camps on the Thai-Burma railway construction (known as “The Line”), via Singapore, to Japan. Mitsubishi also supplied cross ties for the Thai-Burma rail construction.²⁸ Australian POWs on “The Line” – in terms of percentage of the Australian population – far outnumbered the British, even though more British soldiers were POWs there.²⁹ By 1945, the Australians outnumbered the British at Fukuoka 17 POW camp in Omuta, working in the Miike Coal Mine. Most POWs underground at Miike were Australians and Americans. The Australians also appear to have led the resistance inside the mine.

Mitsui’s Miike Coal Mine was a larger complex spreading across Omuta, with a rail, foundry, and port built by Mitsui. When Australian Private Roy Whitecross arrived at Moji port in northern Kyushu prior to the journey to Omuta, after years in Changi prison and on the Thai-Burma Railway construction with others from the AIF 8th Division³⁰, he wondered if conditions would be better as a prisoner-of-war in Japan. But encountered conditions more deadly than Changi and in many respects on a par with the “Railroad of Death” in Burma. He learned from the other Australian POWs, at Fukuoka 17 for a year, that they’d work ‘like slaves’ in Mitsui’s coal mine.³¹

AIF Private David Runge found the “huts” at Fukuoka 17 far better than what he and thousands of others had experienced while working on the Thai-Burma Railway. Each POW had their own “mat” (tatami), blanket, … straw pillow. Overall he found the dorm room clean. The tatami were a perfect accommodation for lice, of course, but compared to the torrid tropics the sleeping quarters were “very good.” But there was no heat, and winter snow at Omuta could reach over a foot, making the cold a serious health hazard. The problem with the non-work environment centered on two issues: first, the food, which was meager and at times inedible; and second, the constant harassment, regimentation, and beatings by Japanese guards.

Photos: Australian War Memorial: Entrance (post-surrender) to Fukuoka 17 POW Camp, Omuta, next to Mitsui Miike Coal Mine. Photo on right: Center for Research – Allied POWs under the Japanese, website: overview of POW barracks.

AAMC³² Captain Ian Duncan was one of the camp doctors. Like Runge and hundreds of other Australians at Fukuoka 17, he had been stationed along the Thai-Burma Rail construction. He had been beaten almost daily by Japanese guards while serving on “The Line” because he was the one who had to tell the Japanese who was too sick to go to work. He got the blame, as they assumed he was lying, thinking that only visible injuries qualified for time off. Malaria. beriberi, and dysentery didn’t count. Conditions for medical staff were considerably better at Fukuoka 17, including better hospital facilities, but medical supplies were virtually non-existent. Health conditions were equally horrendous for those working in the mines. Malnutrition was so bad that men talked only about food, and they showed no interest in the Japanese women digging gun emplacements near the camp working with no tops during the hot summer.

The Red Cross sent food supplies to the camp, but these were secretly stockpiled by the Japanese and not distributed to POWs. They were discovered only after the surrender in August 1945. Runge describes what rations were like at the camp mess hall:

“The rations consisted of a bowl of rice…like a small pudding dole, very small, and … a couple of these pickles, like cucumbers … or seaweed. That was to take down the mine. But we used to eat it before we went down the mine. … Back in camp they’d have dog soup. I never ate dogs. … Back in camp, everybody traded. … You’d get somebody didn’t feel too well and they’d sing out ‘I’ve got rice for rice and soup on Wednesday night.’ And somebody who’s hungry’d sing out, ‘I’ll give you rice and soup on Wednesday night for that rice now.’”

It was like a market, and those who traded but didn’t come through with their promised rations would pile up “debts,” eventually declared “bankrupt” by the other men, losing all their rations each day. A Dutch “padre” (chaplain) helped the “bankrupts” by providing them with minimal rations so they wouldn’t starve.

The “cook house” (as Runge called it) was run by U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Edward Little, a man who routinely harassed POWs for what he considered poor behavior. The Japanese camp heads put Little in charge, and as a result he received special privileges, including withholding Red Cross food supplies from the POWs that he accessed himself. He was detested by the Americans and Australians, and after the war was court martialed for having reported U.S. Marine Corps Corporal James G. Pavlakos to the Japanese authorities for selling a bowl of rice to James O. Wise in exchange for two packs of cigarettes. Pavlakos was punished and beaten for nearly 30 days by the Japanese until he died. Three other American POWs died under similar circumstances – Little reporting them for small “infractions,” followed by beatings and death.³³

Photos by George Weller, from George Weller, ed. by Anthony Weller, First into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan and Its Prisoners of War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006)

The Miike Mine had eight levels and ran two miles under the sea from entrances at Omuta. Fukuoka 17 was actually built on land fill from mine slag. Temperatures underground ranged from freezing at upper levels to virtually boiling at the lowest level. The miners often had to work with their legs submerged in water. Runge described how they routinely put on their “G string” before descending down the shafts. This practice of wearing only a loin cloth went back to the early years of Meiji when the mine first opened and continued through the 1920s and 1930s. Miners’ clothing of this type reveals how inadequate the ventilation systems were at Miike, even during World War II. But the tunnels where the POWs worked were often ones Mitsui had abandoned in previous decades, with timber pillars rotting and cave-ins frequent. American journalist George Weller, the first non-Japanese outsider to reach Fukuoka 17, on September 10, 1945, learned that “[b]oth those Mitsui mines worked by Americans and those worked by Chinese are defective, ‘stripped’ mines, dangerous to operate because their tunnels’ underpinnings have been removed to obtain the last vestiges of coal.”³⁴ David Runge and the other Australian POWs were also working in those mines.

Men worked in tunnels but also in longer underground stretches – the long wall mining that began in the 1920s when technology made this possible. Miners dug out the coal, usually with hand picks after dynamiting a section, and other times with pneumatic jackhammers. Roy Whitecross recalled “twenty American prisoners … working a ‘long wall’ [with] the roar of machinery and the clank of the scraper chain [making] speech all but impossible.”³⁵ This was the undercutting machinery brought into the mine during the 1920s, one of the best indicators of “modernization” for any coal mine. The coal was then loaded into coal cars (skips), and winding gear pulled the cars up to areas where the coal could then be loaded onto hoists that would take it to the surface. The winding gear cables would sway back and forth across the low, narrow tunnels, forcing men to negotiate past the skips and tracks for the coal cars and tracking. Dr. Ian Duncan found that many injuries were caused by these cables hitting limbs of the miners walking through these tunnels.

David Runge’s interview of 1983 reveals the POWs confusion about how the shift system operated. American POW Stanley Kyler, from Dekalb, Illinois, told George Weller, “I’ve been working twenty-two months for Baron Mitsui. Four months was driving hard rock, and eighteen months was shoveling coal, twelve to fourteen hours a day.”³⁶ Runge recalled that the POWs worked 12 hour shifts, but that these constantly rotated, giving the men just enough time to eat and then sleep. Whitecross explained how the rotating three shifts system operated:

“The first shift left camp at 4 a.m. and returned at four o’clock in the afternoon. The second left camp at noon and returned at midnight, while the third, or night shift, went out at 8 p.m. and returned at 8 a.m. the following day. In addition to these shifts, a permanent day shift carried out maintenance work at the mine. Apart from a small number of men who worked in welding shops and other engineering plants, all shifts worked below ground in two sections, one working the actual coal and the other carrying out work incidental to the coal hewing, such as drilling tunnels, laying railway lines, shifting rock, and a dozen-and-one miscellaneous tasks.”³⁷

The POWs had no free time, using every spare minute to try to sleep before returning to the mine, often on a different shift. It appears that the work week based on constant rotating shifts – with no time off except every month or so – amounted to approximately 80 or so hours. Ian Duncan said that the men working in the mine had to walk about a mile from the POW camp to the mine entrance for each shift, adding to the workday. The exhaustion resulting was so severe that some men deliberately had other POWs break their foot, leg, or arm so that they no longer had to return to the mine depths.

A zinc foundry was connected to the Miike complex. According to former Australian POW Tom Uren, he and the other POWs took a tram to the foundry, something the POW miners could not do on their trek to the mine pit. Working conditions at the foundry were far better than down in the mine, with Dutch POWs the main group.³⁸ The better jobs generally were held by POWs who had arrived earlier, particularly the Dutch. British POWs apparently were concentrated at the port loading coal onto ships. Uren got a foundry job most likely because he arrived only months before the end of the war, having earlier worked at the copper smelting works of Nippon Steel Works (which owned Yahata Steel Works in Kokura, another “Meiji Industrial Revolution” World Heritage site). He too had previously been a slave laborer on the Thai-Burma Railway, like his other Australian compatriots at Omuta.

There seem to have been few deliberate executions at Fukuoka 17 (such as beheadings or bayonetting), in contrast to POW camps outside Japan, especially in the Pacific islands and Southeast Asia. Deaths occurred from a combination of constant and severe beatings by guards and supervisors, disease from the terrible conditions and freezing weather in winter, and malnutrition that prevented recovery from disease and beating injuries. Infections were common, with medical supplies lacking. The Red Cross supplied surgical instruments, sulfur drugs, aspirin tablets, plaster of paris, and other medical equipment and medications, but the Japanese prevented access to these, confining them to their secret storehouses. Dr. Duncan believed that had these supplies been released, many lives could have been saved.

AIF Private David Runge’s story – from rural Murwillumbah to warzone Omuta

Too often the POWs’ experiences in Japan have been treated only as those of “victims.” But the Chinese forced labor response to Japanese authority in the Hanaoka Coal Mine uprising, escape, and subsequent massacre by the Japanese in Akita prefecture, northern Honshu, indicates a broader pattern of resistance to Imperial fascism within Japan, focused particularly in the coal mines run by Japanese companies.³⁹Australian Private David Runge’s account as a POW at the Mitsui Miike Coal Mine opens a new perspective on this resistance.

His background growing up in rural, agricultural Australia helped prepared him for the ordeals as a prisoner-of-war. He was born in 1922 in Murwillumbah, New South Wales, a small town near the Queensland border ten kilometers from the Pacific Ocean coast. He grew up in the town’s Solomon Row community, with its mix of South Sea Islander, Aboriginal, and South Asian residents of color. His father, Albert Ernest David Runge, was born in Denmark in 1898. After coming to Australia, Albert married Florence Silva, who was born in Queensland a year before her husband. Florence’s’ father, David Silva, was born in Ceylon in 1846, and arrived in Australia in 1881, before the “White Australia Policy” excluded Asian migrants from entering the country. The ancestry of Florence’s mother, Emma, is not known. These details reveal the multicultural character of David Runge’s family heritage. His mother died in 1931 when he was only eight, and his father seems to have vanished from his life at that point, leaving him in the care of his older sister May, who he listed as next-of-kin when he enlisted in the Australian Army in 1940 as “Dave Runge.”⁴⁰

He went to work after finishing primary school, and as a teenager became a driver at a local banana plantation. South Sea Islanders were a regular part of the agricultural workforce in the banana and pineapple plantations of northern New South Wales and Queensland. In his 1983 interview, Runge told of how he enjoyed growing up in this community and how he identified as Australian. He never made any mention of race or color in talking about his Australian upbringing, even though discrimination against anyone of color during those years would have been comparable in many ways to racial segregation in the United States, but not the extremes of the South. After he entered the Army, lying about his age as he only was 17, he seems to have found a new family and community, feeling a strong connection to his “mates” and a sense of responsibility as a soldier. Above all, his story from childhood to the many experiences as a POW in Southeast Asia and then Japan, is one of survival and relying on those few he felt he could trust.

Photos: “Attestation” (enlistment) papers for David Runge, National Archives of Australia

David Runge’s view of the Japanese, in terms of their racism toward other Asians, was a revelation when he became a POW in Singapore, where he was put in Changi Prison. It was a world apart from his roots in the multiracial Solomons Row community of Murwillumbah.

“I always thought Japanese were like us, when we fought ‘em. … Like their attitude – Japanese soldier and us. But I seen enough in Singapore when they cut off people’s heads, and I seen a bunch of five or six Chinese women with their lips sowed up and dragged along the street by string, and these sorts of tortures that went on around the place. Well, you get a different attitude toward the Japanese then, don’t you. The Asians thought that when the Japanese came down that [the Japanese were] ‘Asia for Asians.’ But it was ‘Japanese for Japanese.’ The Asians that spat at us and threw stones at us when we got taken prisoner, in the end they become to realize where their bread and butter was buttered, they kept waving flags secretly and putting up their thumbs in the ‘Hello Joe’ sign. Then they realized that the Japanese weren’t ‘Asians for Asians.’”

Photos from National Archives of Australia: David Runge’s Fukuoka Camp 17 POW card – reverse side lists previous POW camp on Thai-Burma railway construction and arrival in Japan by sea.

By the time he reached Fukuoka 17, Omuta, and the Mitsui Miike Coal Mine on June 18, 1944 he was determined to continue the fight. “My attitude was to do everything in my power to cripple that coal mine.” He acted on his own to sabotage production. “I took emery dust down the coal mine and put [it] in the motors and chewed up the chain conveyor motors … when we was working in the laterals [and] digging.”

He also had a small group around him that worked secretly with other POWs who were American.

“My particular group was to look for coal, and when we found the coal we’d drill a long tunnel through the seam of coal and then the coal extractors would come and take all that seam out and that’s what they call a long wall, in Australia. The jackhammer used to weigh about 60 pounds, and the length of those drills is 13 feet. The Jap ‘Mito Man’ [foreman with a nickname for “dynamite man” because he used so much of it] that was in charge of us, he’d be drilling in like that and since he went in the depth he wanted in the face where we’re drillin’ – instead of us saying with his hands ‘ok, move back’ he’d grab hold of the drill and pull it back, and we’d go falling back over rocks and everything. He’d grab hold of it and pull it forward again, and we’d go slamming, trippin’ over everything again. So what I used to do, and what others did, was put a pick in the ceiling and pull the ceiling down on him, and bung him off, and then tell the ‘buntai jo’ – that’s the Japanese foreman – that the ceiling came down on him, which was ‘tenja cabina’ – the word for cave-in, and we’d beat the Jap out.”

Runge continued the sabotage in other ways when he managed to stay on the surface for a short time.

“One time I put on a crook [injured] back, back in camp. They put us to work topside in the mine workshops. My job was to sharpen the diamond drills. You had to put them in water or something like that to harden them, which I didn’t do. And of course they’d go down the coal mine and in five seconds they be turned to butter. At times I find I’d be repairing the motors I’d put emery dust in.”

Secrecy was essential to conduct this sabotage, because the two main American officers the Japanese had put in charge of the camp, Little and Bennett, were known to collaborate with the Japanese. Some POWs also tried to gain favor with the authorities and could not be trusted. Runge did not even tell his closest Australian mates, including Roy Whitecross, and the man whose mat was next to his, John Towers.

“Down the coal mine I had a very bad name with the Japanese because whenever I worked in a group, say there’s five or six, my number in Japanese was ‘go-haku-go-jyu’, that’s five-fifty [550], and [they] used to say ‘go-haku-go-jyu dunny door’, that’s ‘no good.’ Because every time I went to work something happened to them, or something went wrong. Me and a couple of Americans who were in on this sort of thing, of sabotaging the coal mine, we done it secretly because we didn’t want to reveal what we were doing, because there were people that were lovey dovey with the Japs and you didn’t know if they’d turn you in or not.”

Runge felt that Americans had the most in common with Australians among the POWs. For him it came from an innate sense of connection based on common experience, what he called “race” but actually was about class. “Generally, apart from them two [US officers Bennett and Little, viewed as collaborators with the Japanese], the Americans were … the same as Australians. Like the Japanese would call it ‘onaji,’ means ‘the same.’”

He felt the Australians were very different from the English. “The Australians and English don’t get along anyhow, anytime.” His view may have been influenced by the relative absence of English and Scots in the mines, a group based mainly in the foundry, along with the Dutch. These were the better jobs. But the major differences seem to have been cultural. “Like our humor is entirely different to English, Dutch, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, anything. Our way of life, our humor is entirely different. … But the Americans and the Australians, the humor – as the Jap would say – ‘onaji,’ the same. That sort of attitude with one another, we could sling off at one another and it was a joke.” Some of this related back to growing up poor and getting by in the years before the war. “Australians and Americans, at that particular time come from pioneering families. Like the Depression, everybody came out of that Depression. A lot of people can remember that we had corned beef and damper⁴¹ and … syrup on the table back home. And so did the American boys. They called their damper ‘corn bread’ or something like that. We were so alike in their upbringing. So therefore we got on well together.”

The Allied POWs were kept separate from the Korean and Chinese forced laborers. The Chinese were treated the worst of any group and experienced the highest death rates. But in the mine this separation could not always be enforced. Roy Whitecross recalled a chance encounter, clearly against company rules, with a Korean miner. Korean forced laborers and Allied POWs would be severely punished if caught fraternizing.⁴²

“One night I was sent to the main tunnel to collect dargo, long, sausage-like pieces of hard clay used for tamping the dynamite in the holes drilled in the rock or coal face. At the truck of dargo I found a Korean on a similar errand. He looked carefully at me, then up and down the tunnel. It was deserted.

‘Goshu, Korea,’ he said. ‘Onaji.’

Apparently he had not been long in Japan either. His Japanese was halting and slow, and I understood him. I indicated that I did not understand his remark that Australians and Koreans were the same.

He answered: ‘All prisoners. Work all the time.’

Keeping a furtive look out for any approaching miners, he unburdened his heavy heart. ‘Nippon, no good. Very little food. Korea, plenty food. Australia?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Australia plenty, plenty food.’ …

He shook his head dolefully, and reaffirmed his belief that Nippon was definitely ‘no good.’ In the distance along the main tunnel a miner’s lamp appeared. Hastily assuring me that Koreans and Australians were the same and that they were ‘friends’ he grabbed his sack of dargo and hurried into the inky blackness of hatchiroash tunnel.”⁴³

One act of sabotage Runge and his group carried out involved a character they called “Pinto Rice.” From his 1983 interview it is probable that ‘Pinto’ was Japanese. ‘Pinto Rice’ could have been a play on ‘Binto box’, Runge’s way of saying bento box, used by the Japanese for the POWs’ rice ration. Or it could simply have been taken from ‘pint-a-rice’, the standard small ration, and perhaps this man was small in stature and Asian in appearance. Runge’s Japanese foreman this one day told him that if his group loaded extra skips full of coal that they could have a shushin – quick nap. Runge’s team followed through, but then the foreman refused and wanted more skips loaded. Runge got into an argument with him, to no avail. His team then loaded more extra skips, but the system of moving the coal cars along the track incline required stopping at a certain point.

“[This Japanese foreman] used to stand on the front of these full cars. And as he went down that tunnel, and as he went past – there’s a button on the wall – he’d hit that and … the red light’d flash up where this ‘Pinto Rice’ [worker] was at the top, and [Pinto would] put on the brake and stop it. The [foreman] would connect the other full cars and they’d pull them up into the main line. So [the foreman] would ride in the front. And as they went down the cable … he’d hit that, the red light’d go on and Pinto would put on the brake.

“When [the foreman] went away [after the argument], I raced up to this ‘Pinto Rice’, and I said, ‘Now when he goes down with those two full cars and he hits that button, don’t stop it. Because he’d be ridin’ in the front, see.’ So Pinto said ‘ok.’ So when he come and he hooked on these two full cars, took ‘em out and changed the points, and then he had to go down the slope, down underneath. We seen the red light glow through the tunnel when he hit the thing. Pinto didn’t stop it, and that drove him clear into the coal face.

“We had to go down there, and … we dug him out of the coal, and he’s still alive. His pelvis and everything was crushed. So we dug him out, and the Jap [Pinto – as the foreman was unable to talk after his injury] told us to take him up topside. So he [presumably Pinto] said, look, we got to kill this bugger before we get him up topside, otherwise he’s going to squeal, you know. He’s going to tell. So we threw him [the foreman] over tops of coal trucks, down there. Fell down on the other side. Dropped him. We done everything. He wouldn’t just die.”

Another foreman ranked higher than the injured man arrived and organized the men to take him up to the surface and then to the hospital. Runge and the POWs feared that the injured foreman would tell what actually happened, that the accident was deliberate. But the foreman was unable to speak and eventually died, saving Runge and the POW rebels – and Pinto – from brutal punishment.

David Runge’s ordeal – torture and survival

On February 12, 1945 Runge’s luck ran out. The Japanese in charge that day made him a leader of a team of Australian POWs who had just arrived at the camp. They were inexperienced compared to Runge and the others who had been there a year, and they were the type of POWs Runge did not trust, men he differentiated as “new” versus his “old” crowd that he felt he could rely on. To help these new Australian POWs, he told them not to work too hard. But there had been coal car derailments that day, making the Japanese foremen angry. Runge and his team had been clearing rocks rather than loading coal, and the foreman was dissatisfied with their rate of work as well.

Two of the new Australians were pulled aside, and they revealed to the foreman that Runge advised them not to go too fast. But more was involved than just Runge’s go-slow advice, as he had secretly been carrying out a particular form of sabotage.

“There was a couple of Americans and me. … We sabotaged the mine as much as we could sabotage it, and destroy everything that we could destroy, to knock down their production. This particular time I told these guys that was with me – and they were new Australians, I was the senior guy. When we used to load these rock cars, the coal cars, I used to get all the rocks and stand them up perpendicular … so it looked like a full car.

“Anyhow one of these flamin’ coots [actually two, according to Runge’s affidavit for War Crimes trials] went and told the Jap. And of course when we got into topside they called me out. It was snowing, really snowing, and they got me and this American. They hit the American fair across the mouth, and he went down, which I shoulda went down. Because once … the American … went down they let him alone. They got hold of me, they put me up on a box, and tied me thumbs up on a rope, kicked the box from underneath me and wacked me with sticks and god knows what.”

The guards then marched him through deep snow and took him to the prison cell, known as the aeso to the POWs. He was forced to kneel on bamboo slats placed on the cold concrete floor.

“This [guard] used to come and stand on me thighs and squash me legs into the bamboo. If you can realize the bamboo was about four inches in diameter. I had to kneel. There’s one [bamboo piece] forward, and the other [bamboo piece] was near me shin, and I was suspended on that above the ground in the kneeling position. The Sailor [Takeda Sadamu] used to come and stand on me thighs to push that into me shins. I’d be kneeling down and they’d say ‘Stand up!’ And I’d stand up. With the soreness you’d start to get cold again. They’d say ‘Kneel down again!’ And they’d kneel me in again. At night time they’d stick us in the cell, and in the morning they’d come along and kick us in the ribs, get us up again, and straight back onto the bamboos. In the end I couldn’t stand up.”

This torture continued for five days, the first two without food or water, and with only thin clothes in the bitter cold of the prison room. Finally two POW orderlies took Runge to the camp hospital. Dr. Ian Duncan found Runge’s legs were frozen solid. After several days gangrene set in, and Doctors Hewlett and Duncan had to amputate his legs, but could only do it with a common saw. Fortunately Runge was given a spinal injection that made everything from his waist down numb, but he could still hear the saw cutting through his legs.

Even as he recovered from this horrendous torture the drama was not yet over. An American POW, orderly Bill Zumar, took Runge to a separate room in the hospital a few days after the operation. Zumar was from the town of Comanche, Oklahoma, which had been part of the Chickasaw land grant after Indian removal from the Southeast before the Civil War. Whether Zumar was Chickasaw, Cherokee (the largest Oklahoma tribe), or not, he talked to Runge like a Native American who knew when one had to fight to survive.

“He said ‘Dave, do you know why they put you in here?’ None of us ever told lies to one another. No prisoner lies to one another. … [I said] ‘No.’ ‘Because the Japs are going to come in and bandage you … I brought you this piece of iron. Now when the Jap makes a swing at you, goes with the bayonet, knock it aside real quick and hit him over the head, and take his rifle and you might be able to shoot a couple of them before they kill you.’ Well you can imagine you’d be in that situation, you got no legs, you know you really and truly got to sit there and take it. …

“One particular day I could hear these boots coming up this passageway. … They had rifles and fixed bayonets. I thought, well this is it. I took a solid grip on this iron bar behind me back. There was Dr. Hewlett and Dr. Duncan standing there. And I thought to me self, they’re going to bayonet me and these doctors are going to pronounce me dead.

“They had bayonetted an American between the huts. They gave him a cigarette and so they bayonetted him in the back. [That] killing was before we got there. This Japanese captain [Isao Fukuhara] said … to Dr. Duncan and Hewlett, ‘You giving this man extra rations?’ – in Japanese. They said yes. He said, ‘Well you give him food, make him strong.’ They said ok – and they all turned around and went out of the thing, and I was moved back into the ward. That was a hairy experience, I tell you.”

The presence of Duncan and Hewett probably prevented further harm to Runge, as they were witnesses, and they too would have had to be killed to hide Runge’s murder. Captain Fukuhara, who ran the camp, had authorized Runge’s torture. He was tried after the war and executed, along with three other guards who were at Fukuoka 17 and the Miike Coal Mine, including his main torturer, ‘The Sailor’ (Takeda).

Fukuoka 17 was finally liberated in September 1945, over a month after the official surrender. The Nagasaki atomic bombing, visible from Omuta, had made harbor access difficult for the hospital ship needed to accommodate the prisoners-of-war, delaying access to POW camps beyond the city. All the POWs who saw Nagasaki on their return were shocked at the devastation, but no one knew anything about the dangers of radiation at that time. The full impact of the atomic bombing was not understood by any of the POWs, who believed that the destruction of Nagasaki contributed to their liberation. Some at Fukuoka 17 later learned about what atomic warfare meant and the terrible loss of civilian life it caused. Tom Uren, a Fukuoka 17 POW from Australia, was one, and as a result of what he saw firsthand in Nagasaki became an activist for peace later in life, and a leader in the Australian Labor Party as an elected MP and by the mid-1970s the deputy leader of the ALP.

David Runge returned to Australia, and in the following years was fitted with prosthetic legs by Dr. Duncan, who had served with him at the Mitsui Miike Coal Mine POW camp. He moved to Auburn, a suburb of Sydney, and found a new job and a new community. But as Duncan related in 1983, all the Australian POWs he knew from that time, including David Runge, suffered severe stress – what we now know as PTSD. But David Runge, even in 1983, still had a spirit of rebellion and sense of connection to his Army mates from those hard years.

Photo on left from Australia War Memorial: David Runge carried on the back of a sailor on return to Australia, with his best mate John Towers at the front, on crutches from injury resulting from torture at Fukuoka 17. Photo on right: Runge, Sydney Sunday Telegraph, Oct. 14, 1945.

Conclusion – Will Japan tell the full story of the Mitsui Miike Coal Mine?

The Japanese representative at the World Heritage Committee session of July 2015, bidding for international support for World Heritage designation, agreed that “Japan will sincerely respond to the recommendation that the strategy allows ‘an understanding of the full history of each site.’ .. [and] is prepared to take measures that allow an understanding that there were a large number of Koreans and others who were brought against their will and forced to work under harsh conditions in the 1940s at some sites, and that during World War II, the Government of Japan also implemented its policy of requisition. Japan is prepared to incorporate measures into the interpretive strategy to remember the victims such as the establishment of an information center.”⁴⁴

At the Omuta Mitsui sites – World Heritage listed – Japan has failed to honor the workers who were prisoners at the Miike Coal Mine, and has failed to consult fully with representatives from South Korea, Australia, the United States, the Netherlands, Great Britain, China and other countries whose people worked at the mine during the war. The Japanese government needs to begin to tell the full history of this mine, consistent with its legal obligations agreed to under the World Heritage Committee’s requirements.

The Japanese government’s omission of this disturbing history from its “Meiji Industrial Revolution” sites is a disservice to the Japanese people and their own history, as it was Japanese convicts, Japanese miners – men and women – who suffered in earlier decades before the forced slave labor of Koreans, Chinese, and Allied POWs. The ‘smiling miners’ propaganda on the Omuta tourist website also fails to acknowledge the largest strike in Japan’s history – the coal miners’ strike of 1959-60 that was defeated – by Mitsui, with the support of the Japanese government.

Photos of the Miike 1959-60 strike by Japanese workers, supported by the Omuta community. Clash with police in left photo; miners’ wives in right photo. Source: Unknown autßhor – Japanese book “Album: The 25 Years of the Postwar Era” published by Asahi Shimbun Company.

Japan’s historical misrepresentation at the Miike Coal Mine stands in stark contrast to how Germany and Austria have openly acknowledged their past treatment of forced laborers, including POWs, under the Third Reich. The Japanese people can benefit from knowing their country’s history and acknowledging the crimes of the past, while finding ways to honestly build new relations internationally with countries victimized by that past, as Germany and Austria have sought to do.

South Korea raised concerns in 2020 about Japanese government failure to abide by the agreement reached in 2015, Decision 39 COM 8B.14 of the World Heritage Committee regarding full consultation with all affected parties related to the “Sites of Japan’s Industrial Revolution,” which included Mitsui’s Miike Coal Mine.⁴⁵ It is imperative that the Australian government, which has a representative on the World Heritage Committee in 2021, support these concerns. History should not be reduced to bland, falsified tourist nostalgia. Public history requires accuracy, honesty, and compassion for those who paid with their lives for a country that waged a brutal war in the Asia Pacific.

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David Palmer is Associate in History at The University of Melbourne. He is the author of Organizing the Shipyards: Union Strategy in Three Northeast Shipyards (Cornell UP); “Foreign Forced Labor at Mitsubishi’s Nagasaki and Hiroshima Shipyards: Big Business, Militarized Government, and the Absence of Shipbuilding Workers’ Rights in World War II Japan,” in van der Linden and Rodríguez García, eds, On Coerced Labor: Work and Compulsion after Chattel Slavery (Brill); and other publications on the labor history of the U.S. and Japan. [email protected] 

Notes

¹ Roy Whitecross, Slaves of the Son of Heaven: A Personal Account of an Australian POW, 1942-1945 (East Roseville, NSW: Kangaroo Press, 2000 – originally published in 1951), pp. 180-182.

² David Palmer, “Gunkanjima / Battleship Island, Nagasaki: World Heritage Site or Urban Ruins Tourist Attraction?” The Asia-Pacific Journal – Japan Focus, vol. 16, issue 1, number 4, Jan. 1, 2018. 

³ Anna Bruce-Lockhart, “These are the top countries for travel and tourism in 2019,” World Economic Forum, Sept. 4, 2019.

⁴ “International Tourism,” The World Bank. 

⁵ UNESCO, World Heritage Committee, “Japan: Properties Inscribed in the World Heritage List.”

⁶ Even conservative historians of the industrial revolution highlight the centrality of the shift from artisan and manual labor to collective (factory) and mechanized labor for the industrial revolution in Europe and the United States. See David S. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present (Cambridge U.P, 1969); Alfred D. Chandler, The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Harvard U.P., 1977).

⁷ Japanese document cited in “Follow-up Measures concerning the Inscription of the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution on the World Heritage List,” Non-paper addressed to World Heritage Committee Member States, Republic of Korea, June 26, 2020.

⁸ “Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution” – Japanese website version, Meiji Nihon no sangyo kakumei isan. 

⁹ Tanaka Satoko, “Rodosha no gisei ni miru senzen no Miike Tankō okeru romuseisaku no hensen to rōdōsha teikō ni kansuru kosatsu,” Bukkyo University Bulletin, Shakai fukushi gaku kenkyū rishū (Social welfare research university documents), no. 7, March 2009, p. 46; Takeuchi Yasuto, Korean Forced Labor Investigation: Coal Mines Volume (Chōsa: Chōsenjin kyōsei rōdō – Tankō shu), Tokyo, 2013, p. 132; Takeuchi Yasuto, Wartime Korean Forced Labor: Investigation Documents (Senji chōsenjin kyōsei rōdō chōsa shiryō shu), p. 211.; Tanaka Hiroshi, Record of Chinese Forced Labor: Documents (Chūgojin kyōsei renkō no kiroku: Shiryō) (Tokyo, 1990), pp. 541, 542; “Fukuoka POW Camp #17 Omuta” spreadsheet, Center for Research: Allied POWs under the Japanese – http://www.mansell.com/pow_resources/camplists/fukuoka/fuku_17/fukuoka17.htm . The Korean death count is almost certainly higher than this figure. Takeuchi had to rely on two government reports (issued in 1946) and a company report on the mine. His figures for conscript numbers cover 1942-1945. Figures for Japanese employees are averaged from Tanaka’s numbers over the full six years. Australian numbers begin in 1944, American, British and Dutch numbers earlier. Aside from POW numbers, which are verifiable through multiple government documents, these figures are approximations using available sources. The Japanese numbers are the most problematic. This issue can only be resolved when Mitsui makes public its company records for this period.

¹⁰ Miyamoto Takashi, “Convict Labor and Its Commemoration: The Mitsui Miike Coal Mine Experience,” The Asia-Pacific Journal – Japan Focus, vol. 15, issue 1, no. 3, Jan. 1, 2017. 

¹¹ Yamamoto Sakubei to tankō no kiroku (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 2014).

¹² Japan’s claim to these sites having “outstanding universal value,” a crucial criterion for World Heritage listing, includes this statement: “The technological ensemble of key industrial sites of iron and steel, shipbuilding and coal mining is testimony to Japan’s unique achievement in world history as the first non-Western country to successfully industrialize. Viewed as an Asian cultural response to Western industrial values, the ensemble is an outstanding technological display of industrial sites that reflected the rapid and distinctive industrialisation of Japan based on local innovation and adaptation of Western technology.” Japan’s assessment of cultural value apparently does not include its treatment of coal miners, notably its use of convict, forced, and slave labor at Miike prior to the end of World War II. “Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution: Iron and Steel, Shipbuilding and Coal Mining,” UNESCO website.  

¹³ Richard J. Samuels, The Business of the Japanese State: Energy Markets in Comparative and Historical Perspective (Cornell U.P., 1987), pp. 68-167.

¹⁴ William Donald Smith, III, “Ethnicity, Class and Gender in the Mines: Korean Workers in Japan’s Chikuhō Coal Fields, 1917-1945,” Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1999, pp. 466, 473; Tom Arents, Norihiko Tsuneishi, “The Uneven Recruitment of Korean Miners in Japan in the 1910s and 1920s: Employment Strategies of the Miike and Chikuhō Coalmining Companies,” International Review of Social History, 60, Special Issue, 2015, pp. 129-131.

¹⁵ Summary of Tanaka Naoki, Kindai Nihon tanko rōdōshi kenkyu (A Study of Coal Mining Labor History in Modern Japan), by Hatakeyama Hideki, in Japanese Yearbook on Business History, trans. Stephen W. McCallion, 1998, pp. 200-203.

¹⁶ Smith, “Ethnicity, Class and Gender in the Mines,” pp. 115, 116.

¹⁷ Arents and Norihiko, “The Uneven Recruitment of Korean Miners in Japan,” pp. 121-143. 

¹⁸ Priscilla Long, Where the Sun Never Shines: A History of America’s Bloody Coal Industry (New York: Paragon House, 1991), p. 41.

¹⁹ William R. Nester, Japanese Industrial Targeting: The Neomercantalist Path to Economic Superpower (Palgrave Macmillan, 1991), p. 127. 

²⁰ Ta Chen, “Labor Conditions in Japan,” Monthly Labor Review, Nov. 1925, pp. 8-19.

²¹ Michael Coulson, History of Mining: The Events, Technology and People Involved in the Industry in the Modern World, (Harriman House Publishing, 2012), pp. 226, 227; Keith Dix, What’s a Coal Miner to Do? The Mechanization of Coal Mining (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988), pp. 29-34.

²² Smith, “Ethnicity, Class and Gender,” pp. 92-138.

²³ See, for example, Regine Mathias, “Female Labour in the Japanese coal-mining industry,” in Janet Hunter, ed., Japanese Working Women (Routledge, 1993), pp. 98-121; Sachiko Sone, “Japanese Coal Mining: Women Discovered,” in Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt and Martha Macintyre, eds., Women Miners in Developing Countries (Ashgate, 2006), pp. 51-72; W. Donald Smith, “Digging through Layers of Class, Gender and Ethnicity: Korean Women Miners in Prewar Japan,” in Lahiri-Dutt, Macintyre, pp. 111-130; Matthew Allen, “Undermining the Occupation: Women Coal Miners in 1940s Japan,” Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, vol. 7, no. 2, July 2010. Mathias and Sone deal with Miike, but not beyond the 1920s. Developments in the 1930s through 1945 reveal how Japan’s coal mining industry not only stagnated, but went backward, with the exclusion of women from underground at the largest mines part of this process.

²⁴ Sakamoto Masako, Zaibatsu to teikoku shugi: Mitsui Bussan to Chūgoku (Tokyo: Minervashobo, 2004), pp. 42, 123.

²⁵ John G. Roberts, Mitsui: Three Centuries of Japanese Business (New York: Weatherhill, 1974), p. 351.

²⁶ Genbaku shibaku kiroku shashinshū (Photographic Collection of Atomic Bomb Photographs), Nagasaki City, 2001, p. 1 (map of Nagasaki City sites bombed); Takeuchi Yasuto, Wartime Korean Forced Labor: Investigation Documents (Senji chōsenjin kyōsei rōdō chōsa shiryō shu), Kobe, 2015, p. 115.

²⁷ Information on Fukuoka 17 and the Miike Coal Mine in sections that follow come from interviews with David Runge and Ian Duncan, as well as David Runge’s affidavit for postwar War Crimes trials, unless otherwise indicated. David Runge interview, with Margaret Evans, March 28, 1983, accession number SO2948, Australian War Memorial Archives; Ian Duncan interview, with Margaret Evans, May 13, 1982, accession number SO2986, Australian War Memorial Archives. and David Runge affidavit for War Crimes trial, Australian War Memorial Archives, series no. AWM 54, control symbol 1010/4/125, DPI: 300. Tim Bowden organized over one hundred interviews with former Australian prisoners-of-war through the Australian War Memorial, which were for Hank Nelson’s ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) radio series, produced by Bowden, “Prisoners of War: Australians under Nippon.” ABC published a book version by Nelson in 1985.

²⁸ Linda Goetz Holmes, Unjust Enrichment: How Japan’s Companies Built Postwar Fortunes using American POWs, (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2001), p. 84, quoted in William Underwood, “The Japanese Court, Mitsubishi and Corporate Responsibility to Chinese Forced Labor Redress,” Japan Focus, March 29, 2006.

²⁹  Frances Miley and Andrew Read, “In the Valley of the Shadow of Death: Accounting and Identity in Thai-Burma Railway Prison Camps 1942-1945,” paper presented at 14th World Congress of Accounting Historians, 2016, p. 5. In 1942, Australia’s population was over 7 million, while Great Britain’s was over 50 million, yet the number of Australian POWs in the Thai-Burma construction camps was 13,004, with 2,802 deaths, while British POWs numbered 30,131, with 6,904 deaths.

³⁰ Australian Infantry Force.

³¹ Whitecross, Slaves of the Son of Heaven, pp. x, 182. “Railroad of Death” is a memoir of the Thai-Burma railway construction by former Australian POW Lieutenant John Coast, quoted in the 1951 “Forward” to Whitecross’s book, written by Adrian Curlewis, District Court Judge and former POW in Changi and on the Thai-Burma railway.

³² Australian Army Medical Corps.

³³ William Green, “The General Courts Martial of Lieutenant Commander Edward N. Little,” The Text Message, National Archives (US), Nov. 13, 2018.

³⁴ George Weller, ed. by Anthony Weller, First into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan and Its Prisoners of War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006), p. 57.

³⁵ Whitecross, Slaves of the Son of Heaven, p. 196.

³⁶ Weller, First into Nagasaki, p. 51.

³⁷ Whitecross, Slaves of the Son of Heaven, p. 181.

³⁸ Tom Uren, Straight Left (New South Wales: Random House, 1995), pp. 46-53.

³⁹ Nozoe Kenji, Shirizu: Hanaoka jiken no hitotachi – Chūgokujin kyōsei renko kiroku (Tokyo: Shayo, 2007). 

⁴⁰ Email correspondence from Michael Bell, Australian War Memorial, and Felicity Perrers to Bell, July 13, 2021, citing government and family records, and newspaper obituaries; Attestation Form for Dave Runge, Australian Military Forces, July 18, 1940, National Archives of Australia, service number NX 65609.

⁴¹ Damper is unleavened soda bread of Aboriginal origin, common everywhere in Australia in modern times. It has never had any racial connotations in Australian popular culture but has always had strong links to working class culture.

⁴² Japanese civilian guard Takeda Sadamu, who was probably “The Sailor” who tortured Runge, was tried for war crimes. This accusation was one of a number used against him. He was convicted and sentenced to death. “Defendant: Takeda, Sadamu, Civilian Employee, Japanese Army, Fukuoka POW Branch Camp No. 17, Kyushu, Japan,” Docket No./ Date: 130/ Apr. 15 -25, 1947, Yokohama, Japan, summary on War Crimes Studies Center, U.C. Berkeley. 

⁴³ Whitecross, Slaves of the Son of Heaven, p. 231.

⁴⁴ “Follow-up Measures concerning the Inscription of the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution on the World Heritage List,” Non-paper addressed to World Heritage Committee Member States, Republic of Korea, June 26, 2020.

⁴⁵ “Follow-up Measures,” ROK.

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***

For many New Zealanders, He Puapua came shrouded in controversy from the moment it became public knowledge earlier this year.

Released only when opposition parties learned of its existence, the report on “realising” the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was labelled a “separatist” plan by National Party leader Judith Collins.

“Quite clearly there is a plan,” Collins said, “it is being implemented, and we are going to call it out.”

But He Puapua is not a plan and it’s not government policy. It’s a collection of ideas drafted by people who are not members of the government. To understand its real significance we need to examine how and why it was commissioned in the first place.

'It meant nothing': Collins denies UN indigenous rights pact signed by National in 2010 led to He Puapua https://t.co/AZefDQPCJx

— Newshub Politics (@NewshubPolitics) July 5, 2021

Self-determination for all

He Puapua’s origins can be traced back to 2007 when the UN adopted the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, confirming the human rights affirmed in all previous international declarations, covenants and agreements belonged to Indigenous peoples as much as anybody else.

It confirmed the right to self-determination belongs to everybody. Thus, in New Zealand, Pakeha have the right to self-determination, and so do Māori.

At the time, 143 UN member states voted for the declaration, including the major European colonial powers of Britain, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands.

There were 11 abstentions, but four states voted against — Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. They were especially concerned about the scope of Article 28(2) which deals with compensation for confiscated or other dishonestly acquired land:

Unless otherwise freely agreed upon by the peoples concerned, compensation shall take the form of lands, territories and resources equal in quality, size and legal status or of monetary compensation or other appropriate redress.

New Zealand was worried this article would justify returning much more Māori land than was already occurring under te Tiriti o Waitangi (Treaty of Waitangi) settlements.

'Helen Clark got it right': Seymour calls for Parliament to discard Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples https://t.co/Q9WopK9RNa

— Newshub Politics (@NewshubPolitics) July 4, 2021

Future aspirations

However, the phrase “other appropriate redress” is open to less restrictive interpretation. In 2010, the National-led government decided the declaration did not threaten freehold private property rights. Then-Prime Minister John Key argued:

While the declaration is non-binding, it both affirms accepted rights and establishes future aspirations. My objective is to build better relationships between Māori and the Crown, and I believe that supporting the declaration is a small but significant step in that direction.

Australia, Canada and the United States also changed their positions. In 2019, New Zealand’s Labour-led government established a working group to advise on developing a plan for achieving the aims of the UN declaration. These aims are not just concerned with land rights, but also with things like health, education, economic growth, broadcasting, criminal justice and political participation.

Not government policy

He Puapua, the group’s report, was provided to the government in 2019. However, the government didn’t accept a recommendation that the report be promptly released for public discussion. According to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, this was due to the risk it could be “misconstrued” as government policy.

Nevertheless, it has now been released and the government appears to have accepted the recommendation that Māori should be actively involved in drafting a plan.

Collins also objected to the report’s description of this involvement as “co-design”. What she can’t say, however, is that including people in policy making is separatist. Inclusion is an essential democratic practice.

He Puapua also uses co-design to describe Māori involvement in the delivery of social services and the protection of the natural environment. This involvement isn’t new, but He Puapua says it should be strengthened.

And while there may be arguments against this kind of inclusivity (for example, co-design is a weaker authority than the rangatiratanga affirmed in te Tiriti), calling it separatist is an error of fact.

Securing rangatiratanga

Rangatiratanga describes an independent political authority and is consistent with international human rights norms. It has gradually influenced public administration in New Zealand under successive governments over more than 40 years.

He Puapua says there are human rights arguments for strengthening and securing rangatiratanga.

In fact, the UN declaration may help clarify how independent authority might work in practice, especially in the context of the Crown’s right to govern — which the declaration also affirms.

It's time for the B.C. NDP to get serious about UNDRIP, Indigenous leaders say https://t.co/2qT98Qu9Ye

— CBC Indigenous (@CBCIndigenous) October 27, 2020

Separatism versus sameness

He Puapua’s potentially most controversial idea involves creating “a senate or upper house in Parliament that could scrutinise legislation for compliance with te Tiriti and/or the Declaration”.

There are reasons to think this won’t get far. The government has already rejected it, and the idea was raised in just one paragraph of a 106-page report. But its inclusive intent shows why “separatism versus sameness” is the wrong way to frame the debate.

What it means to ensure all, and not just some, people may exercise the right to self-determination requires deeper thought. In that sense, He Puapua might usefully be read in conjunction with British Columbia’s draft action plan on the UN declaration.

Released only last month for public consultation, the plan coincided with the Canadian federal parliament passing legislation committing to implement the declaration. The British Columbian plan addressed four themes:

• self-determination and inherent right of self-government
• title and rights of Indigenous peoples
• ending Indigenous-specific racism and discrimination
• social, cultural and economic well-being.

He Puapua in practice

Some of the plan’s specific measures are not relevant to New Zealand and some may be contested. But its important general principles draw out some of the basic attributes of liberal inclusivity.

Those include ensuring people can live according to their own values, manage their own resources, participate in public life free of racism and discrimination, and define for themselves what it means to enjoy social, cultural and economic well-being.

British Columbia’s far-reaching proposals can inform New Zealand’s debate about what He Puapua’s proposals might mean in practice.

As I try to show in my book ‘We Are All Here to Stay’: citizenship, sovereignty and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, there are ways state authority can be arranged to reject the colonial assumption that some people are less worthy of the right to self-determination than others.

This requires radical inclusivity.

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Dominic O’Sullivan is Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt University

Featured image: The flag flying alongside the Flag of New Zealand on the Auckland Harbour Bridge, Waitangi Day, 2012. (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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***

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, in the midst of a five-day US visit, is being accompanied by a delegation of corporate chieftains pledging up to $33.8 billion in United States investments.

Joining Moon on his five-day US tour are Samsung Electronics vice chairman Kim Ki-nam, SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won and LG Energy Solution CEO Kim Jong-hyun – global titans in electric vehicle (EV) battery and semiconductor production. Hyundai Motor Group president Kong Young-woon is also on the trip.

For the US, which is working to “Build Back Better” after the ravages of Covid-19, these are big names and numbers and are likely to inject real goodwill into Moon’s meetings with US leaders.

After meeting US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Congressional leaders on Thursday, Moon will wag chins with Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday morning, then summit with President Joe Biden in the afternoon.

As the world waits to see how Washington’s policy toward Beijing plays out, it is abundantly clear that firming up South Korea’s position in the US supply chain is a presidential priority for Moon and the blue-chip delegation accompanying him.

The Korean corporate bosses are reportedly set to greenlight US investments worth tens of billions of dollars – albeit, some of these projects have already been announced and uncertainty still hovers over a massive investment anticipated from Samsung.

Multiple media, citing documentation filed in the state of Texas earlier this year, say Samsung plans to construct an additional chip production facility next to its existing plant in Austin, and possibly another one elsewhere in the United States, worth some $17 billion.

That would synch very neatly with the policy of the new US administration.

With Biden seeking to rejuvenate America’s flagging position in semiconductor manufacturing with some $50 billion worth of incentives, Samsung was one of 19 global firms that joined a meeting with the US President in April.

Heavy hitters, big bucks

The Korean company is the number one fabricator of memory chips globally, and the number two producer in foundry – advanced, non-memory chips made to external clients’ designs.

However, the shutdown of Samsung’s Austin plan due to freak weather in February that killed much of Texas’ power generation – losing Samsung an estimated hundreds of millions of dollars in output – has raised uncertainties. Questions also hang over whether there is enough labor in the area to fill the company’s demand.

Market watchers will be hoping for some clarity in the days ahead.

LG Energy Solution and SK Innovation are both key players in lithium-ion batteries, a core component in EVs. For two years, the Korean rivals engaged in a US court dispute over intellectual property, which ended with a compromise last month.

That frees SK Innovation to finalize its $2.6 billion Atlanta, Georgia factory. Moon, along with SK’s Chay, will visit the site on Thursday, the last day of the presidential visit, a Blue House official confirmed to Asia Times.

The factory is expected to supply EV batteries to Ford and VW starting in 2022.

LG Energy, a subsidiary of LG Chem, announced in March that it would invest $4.5 billion through 2025 to increase its US output. The company runs a lithium-ion battery factory in Michigan and is constructing another plant in Ohio through its JV with General Motors, which is expected to be completed in 2022.

Moreover, the GM-LG joint venture, Ultium Cells, announced earlier this month a $2.3 billion investment plan for a second plant in Tennessee.

And it is not just supply chain.

Last week, Hyundai Motor Group’s North American arm announced that it would invest $7.4 billion in the US through 2025 to produce “future EVs, enhance production facilities and further its investments in smart mobility solutions.”

The products will be made by Hyundai Motor and affiliate Kia. “Hyundai Motor Group looks forward to working with the US government and other business partners to expand the US hydrogen energy ecosystem,” it said.

More details are expected during Kong’s stay in the US. Hyundai already operates a production plant in Georgia, and Kia in Alabama. The group also said it would set up a liaison office in Washington DC.

Spreading the investment, spreading the risk

Global supply chains were massively complicated by the trade and tech wars launched by the Donald Trump administration against China, and the Biden administration has kept up the pressure.

South Korea – like democratic neighbors and fellow manufacturing/export powerhouses Japan and Taiwan – faces a conundrum in this situation as its leading trade partner is China. However, Seoul – like Taipei and Tokyo – is politically aligned with Washington

Last year, information website Worlds Top Exports, found that Korean exports to China were worth $132.6 billion – or 25.8% of South Korea’s total overseas shipments. Exports to the US were just over half that, at $74.4 billion, or 14.5% of the total.

However, China is not a major investor in South Korea. In 2020, its direct investment totaled just $1.99 billion, compared with $5.3 billion from the US, according to website Business Korea, which cited Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy statistics.

When it comes to Korean overseas investments, in 2019 – the biggest year ever for outbound investment with $61.8 billion deployed overseas, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance – the US  took the largest share of $14.77 billion, 23.9% of the total. Korean FDI in China, by contrast, was $5.8 billion, or 9.4%.

These robust investment flows reflect solid Korea-US economic interchange.

However, the massive multiple investments planned by Korean firms in the US this year – if confirmed, they would dwarf those of the whole of 2019 – are also very likely a hedge against political risk.

“I always think economic diversity is very, very important and supply chains are more important than ever,” James Kim, CEO of the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea, told Asia Times. “Korea and the US can be partners to establish a more robust supply chain.”

“I would like Moon to know that the US is the most important partner to South Korea….even though China has a bigger share of the export pie,” Kim added.

But Kim, who represents US businesses in Korea, also hoped that Biden would make some demands of Moon.

He cited issues in the Korean regulatory environment that are problematic for US firms  – notably taxation, labor market flexibility and some standards that are unique to Korea, including in future-centric areas such as cloud computing,

He also urged the two countries to reach an agreement on vaccination recognition. Currently, visitors to Korea from overseas – even if they have been fully vaccinated – are subject to 10 days mandatory quarantine.

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***

All too predictably, the crisis in Myanmar has rapidly spiralled out of control with what we were told were “peaceful” “pro-democracy” protesters transforming into heavily armed militants fighting Myanmar’s central government, its police force and its armed forces with war weapons.

Of course, the protests were never peaceful. The Western media only claimed as much to then depict subsequent security operations against what were in fact very violent protests and a nascent militancy as “brutal repression” and as a means to justify more direct Western intervention in a political crisis already driven by decades of Western interference.

But just as was the case in similarly US-engineered conflicts in Libya and Syria in 2011, the ability to cover up the violence of the opposition, their use of war weapons and terrorism, as well as their carrying out of atrocities has become impossibe to conceal.

A June 2, 2021 Reuters article titled, “Boycott and bombings mar Myanmar’s new school year,” would note that growing armed attacks from the opposition prompted security forces to stand guard at schools and bring students “under armed escort from their homes.”

The article noted that teachers were also in fear for their safety, going to school in “normal clothing” and then changing into their government uniforms “only inside the school.”

Despite admitting to a “a series of bombings” targeting educational institutions across Myanmar, Reuters deliberately attempts to downplay the terrorism and add ambiguity when attributing who is carrying out the terrorism.

However, opposition media inside Myanmar including US government-funded ‘Myanmar Now,’ have quoted leaders of armed opposition groups admitting to their terror campaign against schools and other public facilities.

Myanmar Now’s June 3, 2021 article, “As spate of killings continues, anti-junta forces warn of more to come,” would claim (emphasis added):

While peaceful protests continue—albeit on a far smaller scale than in the early days of the movement—they have been increasingly overshadowed in recent weeks by almost daily reports of shootings and bombings. 

One of the most recent came on Tuesday afternoon, when a lone gunman shot at two soldiers stationed outside the No. 32 Basic Education High School in Mandalay’s Pyigyidagun Township, killing one and injuring the other. 

Unlike many such incidents, this one could be attributed to a particular group—the Mandalay People’s Defence Force (PDF), part of a nationwide network of local civilian resistance forces that aims to coalesce into a federal army. 

“Our PDF team has started carrying out guerrilla activities in Mandalay,” said Bo Nat Khat, one of the group’s leaders. He also claimed responsibility for a recent series of small explosions in five townships.

The Myanmar Now article would also report:

Speaking to Myanmar Now by phone, he also acknowledged that the shift to more confrontational tactics could make life more dangerous for ordinary citizens. 

“We don’t want people to go to crowded places such as the electricity office or the courts,” he warned. 

He insisted, however, that the only civilian targets would be officials and others who have collaborated with the regime in its bid to cement its hold on power. 

These so-called “People’s Defense Forces” are clearly not acting in self-defence but instead are openly admitting to carrying out violence to remove the current government from power and to seize control of the country for themselves and the so-called “National Unity Government” (NUG) chaired by the remnants of Aung San Suu Kyi’s US-backed National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

Thus, just as Reuters and many others did in 2011 regarding Libya and Syria, the Western media is deliberately ignoring admissions from among the opposition itself to the use of terrorism and instead, continuing to depict the crisis in Myanmar as a one-sided campaign of violence by the nation’s government and military.

While the United Nations and other supposed international institutions have continuously condemned and pressured Myanmar’s government and military in line with Washington’s foreign policy objectives, there have been recent admissions by even them regarding atrocities being carried out by armed opposition groups.

A June 17, 2021 press release from the UN in Myanmar would report:

The UN in Myanmar is alarmed at recent acts of violence that illustrate a sharp deterioration of the human rights environment across Myanmar.

One such case is the discovery of two mass graves in Myawaddy Township (Kayin State), containing the human remains of twenty-five people who had reportedly been detained on 31 May by the Karen National Defense Organization (KNDO).

The “Karen National Defense Organization” (KNDO) is among several ethnic armed groups propped up by the US and British governments for decades as part of an ongoing effort to divide Myanmar territorially and undermine the nation’s central government and military since it gained independence from Britain in 1948.

The US and British governments had openly armed and trained these groups during World War 2 and have since provided them with support through organisations like USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and through more clandestine and indirect forms of support, particularly in regards to providing arms and military training.

These ethnic armed groups now play a key role in training the so-called PDFs fighting government forces in Myanamr’s urban centres as well as funnelling war weapons to these armed groups.

Little if any mention is made of the atrocities carried out by these ethnic armed groups, atrocities that have been ongoing throughout the decades in their fight to divide Myanmar into a patchwork of Western-sponsored ethnic narco-terror fiefdoms. But these are atrocities now expanding as armed conflict spreads across the country, now under increased international scrutiny, making it increasingly difficult to hide.

The current conflict was easily predicted if we understand the foreign interests involved in engineering it. It is equally predictable that the Western media will continue spinning, downplaying or altogether attempting to cover up opposition terrorism and atrocities now being carried out inside Myanmar in a deliberate effort to assist US, British and European Union efforts to sell continued and escalating pressure on Myanmar’s government and military.

The end goal is collapsing the current government, dismantling Myanmar’s powerful and independent military and leaving Myanmar a divided and destroyed failed state unable to function as a constructive partner to its neighbours and main trade partners, namely China and Thailand.

China’s many ongoing projects within Myanmar including the extension of its One Belt, One Road initiative will be open to attack by militant groups the US will be able to more openly back and maneuver within Myanmar. This is essentially the entire objective of Anglo-American interference in Myanmar’s internal political affairs, the encirclement and containment of China by dismembering an important partner along Beijing’s periphery.

A concerted effort through alternative media and at the UN by Myanmar’s allies will be required to stave off the implementation by Western interests of the ‘Libya Model’ now playing out in Southeast Asia.

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Joseph Thomas is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”. 

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***

Up to 100 turtles and 20 dolphins have washed up dead on Sri Lanka’s beaches in the past month, as experts fear a link to the leak of toxic chemicals from a sunken freight ship.

“So far, around 176 dead turtles have got washed onto different beaches around Sri Lanka,” said Thushan Kapurusinghe, coordinator of the Turtle Conservation Project of Sri Lanka (TCP).

Marine turtles washing up dead on the Indian Ocean island are common around this time of year, which is when the peak of the monsoon turns the seas rough and leads to the turtles being fatally injured.

But this June, the waves have brought in an “abnormally high” number of turtle and even dolphin carcasses, Kapurusinghe told Mongabay.

Unusual increase

Five of the world’s seven marine turtle species nest along Sri Lanka’s southern and southeastern beaches. The April-May period marks the height of the nesting season, according to Lalith Ekanayake, chairman of the  Bio Conservation Society.

But this period has also been marked by what environmental activists and experts warn is the biggest maritime disaster unfolding in Sri Lanka’s history. In late May, the Singapore-flagged cargo ship MV X-Press Pearl caught fire off Colombo, on Sri Lanka’s western coast, and sank in early June. It was carrying a cargo of nitric acid and plastic pellets, among other items, and was loaded with 378 metric tons of bunker fuel. Modeling by researchers has shown that ocean currents would carry these pollutants south, right through the path of the turtles and toward their nesting sites, Ekanayake told Mongabay.

“The timing of the accident couldn’t have been worse than this as the number of turtles in our waters would be high during this time as April-May records the highest number of nesting occurrences, going by past research,” Ekanayaka said.

Satellite tracking data show that most migratory turtles nesting in Sri Lanka move along the west coast closer to shore up to the Gulf of Mannar in the north before moving out to their feeding grounds. This makes them more vulnerable to any pollution from the ship accident, Ekanayake told Mongabay.

Kapurusinghe highlighted what he said was a disturbing trend revealed by the turtle carcasses reported from various locations:  most of the dead turtles are juveniles. Immature turtles are more likely than nesting adults to stay close to shore, mainly to feed. That makes it “possible that these deaths are linked to some food contamination, probably due to pollution caused by the freighter,” Kapurusinghe said.

The carcasses have been sent to the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) for further analysis.

Migration of 10 satellite-tagged green turtles in this study from southeastern Sri Lanka show that most of them swim parallel to the island’s west coast and are being exposed to possible pollution from the wrecked ship. Image courtesy of Thushan Kapurusinghe.

Suhada Jayawardana, DWC’s veterinary surgeon who performed necropsies on the dead turtles found along the western and southeastern coasts, said it was difficult to identify a single reason for most of the deaths. He said there were a few with fin cuts, a telltale sign of entanglement in fishing gear. One turtle showed injuries that may have been by the explosion of the X-Press Pearl. Further laboratory tests are being conducted to get a conclusive answer.

According to Jayawardana, most of the dead turtles are olive ridleys (Lepidochelys olivacea), but there are also some green turtles (Chelonia mydas), hawksbills (Eretmochelys imbricata) and leatherbacks (Dermochelys coriacea).

Around 20 dolphins and 4 whales have also washed ashore during the past month. Most are dolphins, while there was also a juvenile blue whale. “I have been observing whale strandings and deaths for over 30 years and this is a clear increase of their deaths,” said Ranil Nanayakkara, co-founder of the NGO Biodiversity Education And Research (BEAR).

Nanayakkara added that, unlike sea turtles, marine mammals tend to sink to the seabed after dying, so only one in four may get washed ashore. This suggests that far more marine mammals have died than the number that have washed ashore.

During the first few days after the X-Press Pearl’s sinking, it was nearshore dolphin species such as humpbacks (Sousa chinensis) and spinners (Stenella longirostris) that were washing ashore. Later, there were other species, including the dwarf sperm whale (Kogia sima), spotted dolphin (Stenella attenuata), striped dolphin (Stenella coeruleoalba) and melon-headed whale (Peponocephala electra), indicating the impact of possible spreading of pollution, Nanayakkara said.

But some of these deaths may not be related to the ship accident, he added. A case in point is the juvenile blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) found in northern Sri Lanka, away from where the pollutants may have spread. Nanayakkara said it’s important to carry out a thorough analysis of each carcass to determine the cause of death.

A striped dolphin found washed ashore on June 19. Image courtesy of Supun Jayaweera.

Conflicting science  

There’s no consensus within Sri Lanka’s scientific community over whether the sinking of the X-Press Pearl and the high number of marine animal deaths are linked. The Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA) and other government agencies have appeared hesitant to put an end to the speculation, and several politicians have forwarded their own theories for the animal deaths.

Asha de Vos, a marine biologist with Oceanswell, said in a tweet that

“We have to be cautious about making assumptions without evidence.” She noted that “The truth is, animals die at sea. If currents flow shoreward (As they are doing on our southern and western coasts right now), the carcasses get pushed on the beach.”

She called for an end to speculation and theorizing, and for scientific reasoning to identify the cause of death. She also noted that the reporting of more carcasses than before could also be a result of “observer bias,” where people who previously didn’t pay attention to the issue were now more conscious of it as a result of the ship disaster.

“The main the issue here is the lack of baseline data to compare the environmental parameters and the number of marine creature stranding to quantify whether there is a widespread pollution due to the sinking of the ship and an increase of turtle and marine mammals deaths,” said Nishan Perera, co-founder of the Blue Resources Trust.

He said Sri Lanka urgently needs national-level, long-term monitoring of environmental parameters in the ocean using a standardized methodology. He said such data should be published transparently so that other researchers and volunteers can contribute to it. Such a program will assist in quantifying the true impacts of isolated incidents such as the X-Press Pearl sinking and would also assist in monitoring the status of various marine environment variables, Perera added.

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***

With a lamentable, even disgraceful vaccination rate, confusion over how best to deal with the AstraZeneca supply, vague promises about the arrival of other COVID-19 vaccines, and a degree of complacency, half of Australia found itself in lockdown conditions earlier this month. 

A good deal of this was occasioned by an outbreak in Australia’s largest city in June, which saw the state of New South Wales become the last bastion to yield to the lockdown formula.  For the duration of the pandemic, the state government saw the blunt approach as unnecessarily harsh to residents, preferring to rely on fabled common sense.  We, the argument went, were different.  Business and commerce could be left in peace, bar some tinkering on matters of social distancing. 

But common sense and wily viruses do not necessarily go hand in hand; and the Delta variant of COVID-19 is proving more than a match for public health authorities.  It began with an airport driver in Sydney, who caught the strain from flight crew from the US.  Infections ballooned, helped along by a gathering at a birthday party of around 40 people, one of whom had unknowingly crossed paths with the driver. Those not infected turned out to be the ones who were vaccinated.

While the critics have been, and will be noisy about the tardy reaction of the Berejiklian government in NSW, nothing can take away the dunce status accorded to the Commonwealth, whose primary responsibilities on quarantine and public health have been forfeited.  This monumental debacle, a product of smugness and contentment, was bound to unfold.  The building of specially adapted quarantine facilities to house arrivals from overseas was stubbornly resisted when Australia was essentially free of COVID-19.  Hotel-based quarantine, run by the State governments, was deemed more than suitable. 

There was also a diabolical lack of vision on purchasing a range of vaccines.  All that mattered was the AstraZeneca option, billed as saviour of the nation and intended to give Australia a sovereign capability. Manufacturing it on home soil was celebrated as something visionary.  But that was not to be.  The roll out has been stuttered, erratic and abysmal.  The blood clotting controversy, a risible communications strategy, and a worried public, has left the Morrison government floundering.  Other vaccines had to be selected, and supply of these remains woeful.   To date, just 7% of Australians are fully vaccinated.

Getting a sense about how profound this floundering could be gathered from the way the government approached the pharmaceutical giants to begin with.  What, exactly, was promised by either of the parties?  On that score, the Morrison government is keeping mum, as well it might.  Secrecy is often the first refuge of the incompetent, and there is much secrecy on the way the Commonwealth has been implementing its vaccine policies. 

For one, the entire vaccine supply agreement with AstraZeneca has been stubbornly withheld for reasons of national security, a laughably grim state of affairs.  The only thing we have to go on is the letter of intent between the government and the pharmaceutical giant, which was only released because it says nothing at all. 

The ABC’s 7.30 program, testing the country’s feeble Freedom of Information laws, sought access to the full agreement on April 12.  The answer from one Allison Jones, assistant secretary to the COVID-19 Vaccine Taskforce in the Department of Health, was a typically frail rebuke of the public interest.  In refusing access to the agreement, she considered there to be “real and substantial grounds for expecting that [its disclosure] would, or could reasonably be expected to, cause damage to the security of the Commonwealth.”  What follows is a dull regurgitation of various definitions of “security” and the “security of the Commonwealth” from various statutes, none of them vaguely applicable to discussing public health.   But this technique of irrelevant spray gives us an insight on bureaucratic thought processes: that health priorities fall within the realm of the clandestine.

Jones cites, for instance, the definition under the FOI legislation of “security of the commonwealth”, which is “taken to extend to: (a) matters relating to the detection, prevention or suppression of activities, whether within Australia or outside Australia, subversive of, or hostile to, the interests of the Commonwealth or any other country allied or associated with the Commonwealth”. 

The absurd, and irrelevant definition of “security” from the Australian Security and Intelligence Act 1979 (Cth) is also thrown in for good measure.  These include everything from espionage to “acts of foreign interference” and “the protection of Australia’s territorial and border integrity from serious threats”. 

Few clues were given as to what sort of damage could arise from making the agreement public, other than exposing the government to unalloyed embarrassment.  “I consider the particular damage to the security of the Commonwealth to be the fact that disclosure of the information could provide insight into the unique arrangements for the manufacture and supply of the COVID-19 vaccine.”  Releasing the details of the contract would signal “to other countries the terms agreed between the Commonwealth and AstraZeneca.” What a frightening prospect.

Bill Bowtell, the architect behind Australia’s response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, has made a spirited argument for transparency in this regard.  “Public health cannot be secret health,” he asserts.  “The advice, proceedings and participants of all AZ meetings should be published.” He makes the salient point that the deal has actually compromised national security.  And no government wishes their citizens to know that.    

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

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A police superintendent is dead in what may be the fastest death we’ve covered on this blog.

Mr. Malik Imtiaz Mahmood was the Superintendent of Police for the city of Khushab. He received his experimental injection against COVID-19 on or around June 13, according to the World Doctors Alliance. The organization shared a photo of Mr. Mahmood receiving the injection.

Details are sketchy as to what exactly happened next. But a disturbing video shows Mr. Mahmood clutch his heart and drop to the ground, apparently just minutes after receiving the shot.

Watch the video here.

The Namal reported that Mr. Mahmood died of a heart attack. It is unclear which injection he received. The China-made “inactivated virus” Sinopharm and Sinovac, Russia’s Sputnik V, AstraZeneca and the CanSino (China-made viral vector DNA) shots are all authorized for emergency use in Pakistan.

The country also ordered 13 million Pfizer doses late last month. Pakistan processes and packages the CanSino shots at its own labs. Most Pakistanis receive one of the China-made injections. But many Pakistanis travel abroad for work and need AstraZeneca or Pfizer to enter their host countries.

Further the Pakistani government punishes people for refusing the experimental injections. Some provinces cut off your cell phone service for refusing the shots. Others withhold paychecks until you show proof of vaccination. Pakistan suspended 70 military troops without pay for refusing the injections in January.

Remembering Tiffany Dover

One of the early cases that inspired the creation of this blog was Tiffany Pontes Dover. She was a nurse at CHI Memorial Hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee, but lived in a nearby Alabama town. Ms. Dover, 30, received the experimental Pfizer mRNA injection on live TV on December 17, 2020.

Less than 20 minutes later, she passed out, on live television.

Watch the video here.

The story was insulting to the intelligence of critical thinkers. Ms. Dover got on camera shortly thereafter and said she passes out all the time, specifically “six times in the last six weeks.” How can someone work as a critical care nurse and pass out so frequently? The subterfuges continued when the hospital staged some “Welcome back Tiffany” thing where the masked nurse clearly was not Tiffany Dover.

The truth is that she’s likely dead. But we’ll never hear that from mainstream media. What a disaster that would be for Pfizer and all these other companies if one of the first recipients of their poison died immediately on live television. Thus the story has been manipulated and suppressed. We knew our platform was necessary from that point forward.

More instant deaths

These instant deaths after experimental injections are not anomalies. The following video is from a vaccine clinic in Mexico. Watch the woman in the background fall out of her chair and have a seizure just minutes after receiving the injection.

What we know for certain now is that the viral RNA (spike proteins) in these shots spreads to every organ in your body. We also know that the spike proteins cause blood clots. Whether you die in minutes, days, weeks or months after the experimental shots, it’s likely going to happen within a year or two. Blood clots are inevitable after any of the experimental viral vector DNA or mRNA shots.

The only way to protect yourself is to avoid the injections. Stay vigilant and protect your friends and loved ones.

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***

In a major blow to Bharat Biotech’s plan to market Covaxin abroad, the Brazilian government on Tuesday suspended its contract to import 20 million doses of the vaccine in a $300-million deal with the Indian company. With the growing scandal around the contract closing in on Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian government is now in a complete damage-control mode to save the president’s skin in a multi-million-dollar case which is keeping this country fixated to TV news.

In a development on Tuesday evening that was not completely unexpected, Brazil’s minister of health Marcelo Queiroga announced that the government has “decided to suspend the contract on the recommendation of the federal comptroller general (CGU)”, which is investigating the alleged irregularities in the contract. After examining the entire contract, which may take 10 to 15 days, CGU will decide whether to terminate the contract or not. But in the views of senators leading the parliamentary commission of inquiry (CPI), the contract is as good as dead.

“I think they suspended the contract to buy some time and then cancel it. They will try to negotiate with the company and say that they have reached a limit because there is a great distrust among the Brazilian population and there is a very deep investigation by the CPI. There won’t be a contract in a few days, I’m sure of that. The plan is to get rid of this contract because the investigation into the Covaxin case is now reaching the president’s office,” said Senator Omar Aziz, president of the parliamentary commission, speaking on a channel on Tuesday night.

The contract between Brazil and Bharat Biotech, mediated and signed by a local company called Precisa Medicamentos, has been in the eye of a political storm for days as it became the main target of the parliamentary commission of inquiry (CPI) investigating the government’s handling of the pandemic. Last week, after a health ministry official, Ricardo Miranda, testified at the senate that he and his brother, federal deputy Luis Miranda, had informed the president about the serious irregularities in an invoice sent by Madison Biotech, an offshore company from Singapore, the CPI turned its focus towards Bolsonaro and Bharat Biotech, whose owner Dr Krishna Ella is also the founding director of the firm which operates from the ground floor of a two-story house in Singapore.

In a late-night report on Tuesday night, CNN Brasil revealed some parts of the CGU report which had forced the government to suspend the contract. In the 11-page official report, as per CNN Brasil, the focus of the investigation is the invoice from Madison Biotech. “Five points are listed to justify the suspension: Attempt to make advance payment, without contractual provision; possible payment through a company not a signatory to the contract; non-compliance with contractual deadlines; non-justification of price; and breach of contract by Bharat/Precisa as reported by ministry of health,” said the report, which largely seem to put the blame on Bharat Biotech, its offshore partner and its Brazilian representative.

The Indian company signed a pact with Precisa Medicamentos on January 12, 2021. Just 40 days later, on February 25, Precisa Medicamentos signed a contract with the Brazilian government for the sale of 20 million doses. At the time of signing of the contract, Covaxin had not been approved by Brazil’s National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA). Yet, its purchase price was agreed at $15 a dose, the highest paid by this country for any of the six vaccines contracted so far. Rejected by ANVISA on March 31 and then approved for limited import with strict conditions on June 4, the Indian vaccine has been mired in a controversy for months. Now, it is at the centre of a massive scandal that is rocking the Brazilian government and tearing apart Bharat Biotech’s reputation as pharmaceutical company.

Amid damaging revelations, the national capital has been abuzz for days with rumours that the government was considering cancelling the contract. According to sources in Brasilia, the people close to the presidential palace want to wash their hands of the deal. “The question is not if the government wants to terminate the contract, the question is when they will cancel it. It is taking time because the contract is under so many ongoing investigations,” said a senior official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Nobody wants anything to do with this vaccine anymore. It is toxic.”

For the Bolsonaro administration, which has been completely cornered by the CPI over the purchase of Covaxin and hydroxychloroquine – both from India, the scandal is now too hot to handle. But the suspension – or eventual termination – may not bring any closure as the senators leading the parliamentary probe are not in a mood to give up on their trail of money in the deal. On Tuesday, soon after the government’s announcement to suspend the deal, Senator Randolfe Rodrigues, the vice president of CPI, called it a “confession of guilt”. “If nothing was wrong (in the contract), why would they suspend it? There is only one word for it: Confession!” the senator wrote on Twitter.

The senate probe has gone too deep into the scandal surrounding the Indian vaccine to give it up now. Already dubbed CovaxinGate, it has captured the country’s imagination and is dominating the news cycle. Ricardo Miranda, the health official who exposed the request for $45 million advance payment sent by Madison Biotech of Singapore, is now being treated as a whistleblower by CPI; and the invoice he and his brother took to Bolsonaro with their complaint is the smoking gun on which rests the probe into corruption in the India-Brazil deal.

The senate probe will continue to dig deeper into the vaccine deal between Brazil and Bharat Biotech. Photo: Pedro França/Agência Senado

Four days have passed since the Miranda brothers testified at the senate, telling the country that the president was aware of corruption in the deal, told them the name of the person behind it and yet did nothing about it, but Bolsonaro has not denied the revelations in the bombshell testimony.

The government has, in fact, tied itself in knots, trying to tackle the extremely serious allegations against the president. When the invoice story was revealed last week, the government tried to accuse Ricardo Miranda of tampering with it, but it was soon proved that the document was in the ministry’s computer system and had not been forged. Then the government claimed that the president had forwarded the complaint to then minister of health, Eduardo Pazuello. The senators from CPI found this claim to be fragile because Pazuello was dismissed on March 23, just three days after the brothers meeting with Bolsonaro. On Tuesday, the government came out with the third version, claiming that Pazuello had forwarded the complaint to the executive secretary of the ministry, Élcio Franco, who would have done a “proper” check. It was immediately pointed out by senators that Franco was also dismissed just three days later and had no time to probe the matter.

On Ricardo Miranda’s testimony that he told the president about being under “extreme pressure” from his superiors to clear the invoice for advance payment from a company which is not part of the contract, Bolsonaro is standing on thin ice. As per Brazilian law, not reporting a wrongdoing by a public official is a crime of malfeasance – an impeachable offence. Three senators, including the CPI vice president, asked the Supreme Court on Saturday to open a criminal case against the president. On Monday, an apex court judge forwarded the application to the federal prosecutor-general’s (PGR) for action. On Tuesday, the PGR’s office requested the court to “wait till the senate probe is over”.

The senate investigation may be extended by a few weeks as has been demanded by CPI, during which the investigators plan to dig up more dirt on corruption, especially in the Covaxin deal, before they prepare their report which may shake up the country’s politics. At the heart of this probe is the invoice from Madison Biotech presented by Ricardo Miranda at his testimony. What could be giving sleepless nights to officials at the presidential palace is the announcement on Monday that Ricardo Miranda will be appearing again at the senate but this time in a closed-door session. There has been speculation, hinted strongly by Luis Miranda, that there is a recording of the brothers’ conversation with Bolsonaro where no other person was present.

Bolsonaro’s silence on the Miranda brothers’ testimony is a sign that he knows what is coming. In recent days, his allies have become shaky, rallies called by his supporters have been no-shows and anger against his government has grown. Nationwide protest rallies, scheduled for July 24, have been advanced to this Saturday (July 3), when hundreds of thousands, if not millions, may pack the streets across the country. To suspend a scandalous contract may be an attempt by the government to get out of the tight spot. But it may be too little and too late.

Suspension of the Covaxin contract is unlikely to put an end to this scandal. On Thursday, Francisco Maximiano, the head of Bharat Biotech’s representative in Brazil, is expected to appear at the senate hearing. Now just CPI investigators but the whole country is waiting to watch it live. It may bring out more scandalous details.

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Shobhan Saxena and Florencia Costa are independent journalists based in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Featured image is from Flickr

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***

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) centennial takes place this week at the heart of an incandescent geopolitical equation.

China, the emerging superpower, is back to the global prominence it enjoyed throughout centuries of recorded history, while the declining Hegemon is paralyzed by the “existential challenge” posed to its fleeting, unilateral dominance.

A mindset of full spectrum confrontation already sketched in the 2017 U.S. National Security Review is sliding fast into fear, loathing and relentless Sinophobia.

Add to it the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership graphically exposing the ultimate Mackinderian nightmare of Anglo-American elites jaded by “ruling the world” – for only two centuries at best.

The Little Helmsman Deng Xiaoping may have coined the ultimate formula for what many in the West defined as the Chinese miracle:

“To seek truth from facts, not from dogmas, whether from East or West”.

So this was never about divine intervention, but planning, hard work, and learning by trial and error.

The recent session of the National People’s Congress provides a stark example. Not only it approved a new Five-Year Plan, but in fact a full road map for China’s development up to 2035: three plans in one.

What the whole world saw, in practice, was the manifest efficiency of the Chinese governance system, capable of designing and implementing extremely complex geoeconomic strategies after plenty of local and regional debate on a vast range of policy initiatives.

Compare it to the endless bickering and gridlock in Western liberal democracies, which are incapable of planning for the next quarter, not to mention fifteen years.

The best and the brightest in China actually do their Deng; they couldn’t care less about the politicizing of governance systems. What matters is what they define as a very effective system to make SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound) development plans, and put them in practice.

The 85% popular vote

At the start of 2021, before the onset of the Year of the Metal Ox, President Xi Jinping emphasized that  “favorable social conditions” should be in place for the CCP centennial celebrations.

Oblivious to waves of demonization coming from the West, for Chinese public opinion what matters is whether the CCP delivered. And deliver it did (over 85% popular approval). China controlled Covid-19 in record time; economic growth is back; poverty alleviation was achieved; and the civilization-state became a “moderately prosperous society” – right on schedule for the CCP centennial.

Since 1949, the size of the Chinese economy soared by a whopping 189 times. Over the past two decades, China’s GDP grew 11-fold. Since 2010, it more than doubled, from $6 trillion to $15 trillion, and now accounts for 17% of global economic output.

No wonder Western grumbling is irrelevant. Shanghai Capital investment boss Eric Li succinctly describes the governance gap; in the U.S., government changes but not policy. In China, government doesn’t change; policy does.

This is the background for the next development stage – where the CCP will in fact double down on its unique hybrid model of “socialism with Chinese characteristics”.

The key point is that the Chinese leadership, via non-stop policy adjustments (trial and error, always) has evolved a model of “peaceful rise” – their own terminology – that essentially respects China’s immense historical and cultural experiences.

In this case, Chinese exceptionalism means respecting Confucianism – which privileges harmony and abhors conflict – as well as Daoism – which privileges balance – over the boisterous, warring, hegemonic Western model.

This is reflected in major policy adjustments such as the new “dual circulation” drive, which places greater emphasis on the domestic market compared to China as the “factory of the world”.

Past and future are totally intertwined in China; what was done in previous dynasties echoes in the future. The best contemporary example is the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – the overarching Chinese foreign policy concept for the foreseeable future.

As detailed by Renmin University Professor Wang Yiwei, BRI is about to reshape geopolitics, “bringing Eurasia back to its historical place at the center of human civilization.” Wang has shown how “the two great civilizations of the East and the West were linked until the rise of the Ottoman Empire cut off the Ancient Silk Road”.

Europe moving seaward led to “globalization through colonization”; the decline of the Silk Road; the world’s center shifting to the West; the rise of the U.S.; and the decline of Europe. Now, Wang argues, “Europe is faced with a historic opportunity to return to the world center through the revival of Eurasia.”

And that’s exactly what the Hegemon will go no holds barred to prevent.

Zhu and Xi

It’s fair to argue that Xi’s historical counterpart is the Hongwu emperor Zhu, the founder of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). The emperor was keen to present his dynasty as a Chinese renewal after Mongol domination via the Yuan dynasty.

Xi frames it as “Chinese rejuvenation”: “China used to be a world economic power. However, it missed its chance in the wake of the Industrial Revolution and the consequent dramatic changes, and was thus left behind and suffered humiliation under foreign invasion …we must not let this tragic history repeat itself.”

The difference is that 21^st century China under Xi will not retreat inward as it did under the Ming. The parallel for the near future would rather be with the Tang dynasty (618-907), which privileged trade and interactions with the world at large.

To comment on the torrent of Western misinterpretations of China is a waste of time. For the Chinese, the overwhelming majority of Asia, and for the Global South, much more relevant is to register how the American imperial narrative – “we are the liberators of Asia-Pacific” – has now been totally debunked.

In fact Chairman Mao may end up having the last laugh. As he wrote in 1957, “if the imperialists insist on launching a third world war, it is certain that several hundred million more will turn to socialism, and then there will not be much room left on earth for the imperialists; it is also likely that the whole structure of imperialism will utterly collapse.”

Martin Jacques, one of the very few Westerners who actually studied China in depth, correctly pointed out how “China has enjoyed five separate periods when it has enjoyed a position of pre-eminence – or shared pre-eminence – in the world: part of the Han, the Tang, arguably the Song, the early Ming, and the early Qing.”

So China, historically, does represent continuous renewal and “rejuvenation” (Xi). We’re right in the middle of another one of these phases – now conducted by a CCP dynasty that, incidentally, does not believe in miracles, but in hardcore planning. Western exceptionalists may continue to throw a fit 24/7 ad infinitum: that will not change the course of history.

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Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at Asia Times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture in Moscow. Since the mid-1980s he’s lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, Bangkok. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia to China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East. Pepe is the author of Globalistan – How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War; Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad during the Surge. He was contributing editor to The Empire and The Crescent and Tutto in Vendita in Italy. His last two books are Empire of Chaos and 2030. Pepe is also associated with the Paris-based European Academy of Geopolitics. When not on the road he lives between Paris and Bangkok.

He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: The 18th National Congress, convened in November 2012 (Public Domain)