Asia Pacific Research

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Right at the end of 2022 the first of China’s COMAC (Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China) C919 airliner jets was delivered to a domestic Chinese airline company, China Eastern Airlines.

Reuters in an article titled, “China Eastern takes delivery of the world’s first made-in-China C919 jet,” would report:

The world’s first C919, a Chinese-made narrowbody jet, was delivered to launch customer China Eastern Airlines (CEA) in Shanghai on Friday and took off for a 15-minute flight to mark the historic moment.

The plane, a rival to the Airbus (EADSY) A320neo and Boeing (BA) 737 MAX single-aisle jet families, is expected to make its maiden commercial flight next spring, according to state-owned Xinhua News Agency.

Between delivery and its first commercial flight, the first C919 will undergo up to 100 hours of flight tests, Simply Flying has reported. The test flights will include flying between multiple destinations. Meanwhile China Eastern has already trained a range of personnel to operate the aircraft including 9 pilots, 24 flight attendants, and 13 maintenance personnel.

The milestone is obviously a major achievement for COMAC, China Eastern, and the People’s Republic of China, but it is also a leap forward for multipolarism.

More than Airplanes at Stake

Together with Russia’s Irkut MC-21 airliner which is already certified to fly, and the prospect of both aircraft and the companies behind them fulfilling not only domestic but also international demand, the duopoly enjoyed by the West’s Boeing and Airbus corporations may be coming to an end.

Germany’s Deutsche Welle in an article titled, “New competition for Airbus and Boeing,” would note:

New aircraft are entering the highly lucrative main segment of the airliner market. And Airbus and Boeing need to take it seriously. The MC-21, in particular, could offer superior performance in some areas, compared to the common types of Airbus and Boeing now being sold. And it is no wonder as the giants from America and Europe have been resting on their laurels for many decades: The Boeing 737 traces its origins back to 1967, while the Airbus A320 premiered in 1987.

To prevent Russian and Chinese airliners from challenging Western monopolies, everything from national security to human rights have been cited particularly by the US government in a bid to place crippling sanctions on Russian and Chinese aerospace companies. Just as the US government has done in terms of Chinese telecommunication companies, these sanctions will seek to prevent Russian and Chinese aerospace companies from competing internationally, and if possible, eliminate these companies altogether.

However, China with a population larger than that of the G7 combined, has a potential air travel market that could boost COMAC and other Chinese aerospace companies regardless of its access to international markets. Russia and adjacent markets provide the MC-21 with similar prospects of being sold in large numbers, proving themselves and becoming appealing and accessible to a larger number of nations over time.

Acutely aware of the impact and intentions of US sanctions, both Russia and China are developing alternatives to components they once depended on the West for including engines and control systems.

Multipolarism Requires Multiple Alternatives 

Multipolarism is not merely a political declaration or desire for an alternative international order to the Western-led unipolar “rules-based” order that currently prevails. It is the physical creation of alternative systems of financing and trade but also of industry and production.

The power the West possesses stems from monopolies like Boeing and Airbus and the immense profits concentrated into the hands of their shareholders. Those profits translate into likewise concentrated power and influence. The creation of alternatives to these monopolies dilutes that concentration of profits and thus redistributes the resulting power and influence.

This is what makes the potential success of China’s C919 and Russia’s MC-21 particularly important. Their success will chip away at the concentrated power and influence of the West’s duopoly in an industry that is notoriously complex and difficult to enter. The success of the C919 and the MC-21 would provide a case study and an example for future success not only in China and Russia but in other emerging industrialized economies.

More than mere greed and the jealous protection of their duopoly, Boeing and Airbus and the circles of special interests around them realize that this is more than just selling airplanes, it is about either preserving or displacing Western hegemony.

China’s C919 together with other products from ever expanding Chinese companies across a wide and growing range of industries is what accounts for China’s rise on the global stage and the subsequent tensions between Beijing and a Washington who refuses to accept that rise.

Understanding the industrial and economic factors that underpin the political aspects of multipolarism help us understand the decisions being made in both Washington and Beijing in terms of sanctions the US seeks to impose and methods used by China to circumvent and rise above them. The continued development and expanding adaptation of the C919 and the MC-21 seem inevitable. Had the West recognized and respected these new players they would have shared in the prosperity these new airliners will produce. Both aircraft used Western parts including engines manufactured by Pratt & Whitney. Because of Washington’s determination to sabotage the development of these aircraft, both China and Russia either have or are in the process of developing indigenous alternatives. These engines will eventually be adopted domestically and once proven, enter into global markets and likely outcompete their Western counterparts.

Just as the US has isolated itself politically through its overdependence on sanctions, it is creating more problems than it is solving for its industry.

Only time will tell when and to what extent Chinese and Russia aerospace companies and their products begin competing for significant market shares with Boeing and Airbus, but when they do it will be more than just aerospace companies and profits at stake, it will also be the wealth, power, and influence that come with those profits up for grabs and a future decided either unilaterally in Washington or via multipolarism beginning in Beijing and Moscow.

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Brian Joseph Thomas Berletic, is an ex- US Marine Corps independent geopolitical researcher and writer based in Bangkok, writing under the pen name “ Tony Cartalucci ” along with several others.

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Next week’s virtual summit will secure the support of the Global South for India’s permanent UNSC seat while the conclusion of its G20 chairmanship in September will do the same with respect to the Golden Billion. Once the vast majority of the international community unites around this cause, India will then likely draft a UN General Assembly resolution on this issue in order to prove the overwhelming support that it has.

“EAM Jaishankar Made Some Solid Points About Why India Deserves A Permanent UNSC Seat” earlier this month, essentially arguing that the over three-quarter-century-old UN system is urgently in need of reform in order to accommodate for contemporary realities like the irreversible rise of the Global South. About that category of countries, India will bring over 120 of them together next week during the virtual Voice Of Global South Summit that it’s hosting to discuss their shared geo-economic interests.

“India’s Global South Summit Is The Most Important Multilateral Event In Decades” since, as the preceding hyperlinked analysis concluded, “The gathering of so many countries for apolitical and geo-economic purposes proves that the vast majority of humanity wants mutually beneficial development that unites the world instead of more geopolitical competition that’ll only tear it apart.” Furthermore, India is the only truly neutral and bonafide developing state with the credibility to unite its peers.

China can’t play this role since its unprecedented economic development of the last four decades reduces its credibility as a self-declared developing state while Russia is a leading player in the New Cold War between the US-led West’s Golden Billion and the jointly BRICS– & SCO-led Global South of which it’s a part so it can’t be credibly described as neutral. India, by respective contrast to both of them, is a bonafide developing state that’s truly neutral in this competition over the global systemic transition.

While India shares China and Russia’s desire to make International Relations more democratic, equal, just, and predictable, it’s not against the Golden Billion per se like they are since it has many more mutually beneficial relations with that de facto bloc, including military ones. Prime Minister Modi’s vision is one of gradual reforms instead of radical ones in order to avoid inadvertently contributing to any further instability, to which end India still works closely with the Golden Billion on shared interests.

This pragmatic approach of multi-aligning between major powers enabled India to maximize its sovereignty in the New Cold War, thus bestowing it with kingmaker status and proving that it’s indeed possible to benefit from principled neutrality. Comparatively smaller-sized and less geostrategically positioned states can’t realistically replicate this unique role, but they can indeed follow in its footsteps in order to carve out their own in ways that also maximize their sovereignty in the current uncertainty.

This explains why so many of them will participate in the upcoming Global South Summit since they hope to learn more from India’s successful example as well as share ideas with it that they expect their partner to promote during its chairmanship of the G20 in pursuit of their shared interests. This category of countries sincerely trusts India since they regard it as one of their own, unlikely much more economically developed China, and seek to emulate its masterful balancing act in the New Cold War.

Likewise, the Golden Billion also trusts India as a responsible member of the international community, ergo why White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre praised Prime Minister Modi for helping to formulate the careful wording of last November’s G20 joint statement. By successfully balancing between the Global South and the Golden Billion in the pragmatic manner that it has, India is expected to earn the vast majority of their members’ support for a permanent UNSC seat.

The challenge, however, remains China. The People’s Republic is reluctant to give its neighbor this privilege for geopolitical reasons related to its distrust of India stemming from their unresolved border disputes that once again led to a clash last month. This unofficial stance contradicts Beijing’s official claim of wanting to jointly build the Asian Century in equal partnership with Delhi, the rhetoric of which could ring hollow if it obstructs more serious moves by India to secure a permanent UNSC seat.

That might happen sooner than later too since India is expected to make a major move in this direction by the end of the year. Next week’s virtual summit will secure the support of the Global South for its permanent UNSC seat while the conclusion of its G20 chairmanship in September will do the same with respect to the Golden Billion. The first de facto New Cold War bloc regards India as the champion of their interests while the second considers its growing influence to be a peaceful counterweight to China.

Once the vast majority of the international community unites around the cause of India’s permanent UNSC seat, that South Asian state will then likely draft a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on this issue in order to prove the overwhelming support that it has. That’ll in turn put immense pressure on China to soften its stance lest it risks the negative optics of going against the democratic will of the global majority, which could cripple its carefully crafted soft power for years to come.

The modus operandi being proposed applies the insight obtained from former Indian Ambassador to China Vijay Gokhale, whose 2021 book about “The Long Game: How The Chinese Negotiate With India” (reviewed here and channeled in his latest paper here) is integral to understanding Chinese calculations. The relevance to the present piece is that he emphasizes how sensitive China is to global perceptions about it, which is why it’ll be loathe to cultivate a negative impression by going against the UNGA.

After all, if China truly considers itself to be a developing country like India and the rest of the Global South veritably are in spite of its indisputable economic asymmetry with its self-declared peers, then it naturally follows that it shouldn’t have a problem supporting India’s envisaged permanent UNSC seat. Moreover, China’s official claim of wanting to build the Asian Century in equal partnership with India would be put to the test upon being pressured to react to any UNGA vote in favor of Delhi’s dream.

Obstructing the democratic will of the international community as embodied in a successful UNGA resolution officially requesting a permanent UNSC seat for India would discredit China’s preceding claims upon which a lot of its contemporary soft power is built. It wouldn’t be regarded as a developing country that respects the UNGA’s politically non-binding resolutions and wants a multipolar Asia, but as an elitist country that ignores the Global Majority because it secretly wants a unipolar Asia.

Faced with the zero-sum choice of sacrificing its carefully crafted soft power in naked pursuit of its geopolitical interests or pragmatically accommodating this in response to the UNGA’s request to preserve that selfsame soft power despite its geopolitical misgivings, China is expected to do the latter. With these calculations in mind, it’s expected that India will build upon the success of next week’s Global South Summit to help make its dream of a permanent UNSC seat a reality by the end of the year.

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This article was originally published on Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

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.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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India may have taken steps to build a rocket force amid growing border tensions with China and possibly a failing strategic deterrent posture. 

Last week, Swarajya reported that India was building multi-purpose storage tunnels in border states to store short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) and might soon be acquiring the Pralay tactical ballistic missile.

The source notes that these tunnels would keep India’s missile arsenal safe from pre-emptive attack and allow it to mount a quick counterstrike. It also says the Pralay missile could be used against Chinese troop concentrations along the disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC) between the two countries.

Further, last week India Today reported that the Indian Ministry of Defense had approved the purchase of 120 Pralay missiles as part of building the Indian Rocket Force (IRF), with these missiles to be deployed in border states.

“The project to create a rocket force has received a boost as the proposal to buy around 120 Pralay ballistic missiles has been cleared by a high-level Defense Ministry meeting,” an unnamed government official was quoted as saying.

The Economic Times describes the Pralay as a solid-fuel quasi-ballistic surface-to-surface missile with a range of 150 to 500 kilometers, difficult to intercept, and able to change direction in midair. It says the Pralay can take out long-range enemy air defense systems, high-value targets, and weapons such as heavy artillery.

The source says the Pralay fills India’s tactical ballistic-missile gap, noting that China and Pakistan already have such weapons. It also mentions that Pralay was first developed in 2015 and was successfully tested on December 21 and 22, 2021.

In addition, The Times of India reported this month that India conducted night tests of its nuclear-capable Agni-V missile amid fresh border tensions with China. The source claims that the Agni-V is one of India’s most formidable missiles, sporting a 5,000-kilometer range capable of hitting the northernmost parts of China.

Clashes reported

These developments come after fresh border clashes between China and India in the Himalayas. Last week, The Indian Express reported that on December 9, 70 to 80 Indian troops repelled an incursion by 300 Chinese soldiers after a few hours of hand-to-hand fighting at Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh, at the LAC, with soldiers from both sides sustaining some injuries.

The source says such incursions show that China is unilaterally attempting to change the border status quo. It also mentions previous forays, such as the 2020 Galwan clashes, which left 20 Indian soldiers dead, and a similar incident in 2016 where 250 Chinese soldiers crossed the area, but no clashes were reported.

The idea of creating an Indian rocket force has been discussed in the country’s defense circles. However, in a November 2021 article in The Diplomat, Saurav Jha wrote that the military asymmetry between China and India was the primary driver for the latter to establish a rocket force.

Specifically, Jha cited former Indian Army chief of staff General Manoj Mukund Naravane, who said future military conflicts would follow a “reverse linearity” conduct of operations, with rear facilities such as command and control posts, logistics hubs, airfields, and communication nodes taking the first salvo from precision standoff weapons.

Naravane, as cited by Jha, then said the second salvo of autonomous drones would aim to overwhelm and destroy air defenses, artillery pieces, missile bases, and tank formations, while rocket and gun artillery attacks finished off troops at forward-deployed localities.

Naravane also mentioned lessons learned from the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, noting that concentrating forces increases vulnerability to long-range precision fires, thus the need to concentrate fire rather than platforms.

Given Naravane’s ideas, Jha wrote that the Indian Army might not be able to rely on air support in the opening phase of a future conflict and that precision standoff weapons would be vital to enabling offensive and defensive air operations.

He also said establishing the IRF would signal that the country’s use of surface-to-surface missiles with mass and precision in a limited war in “non-contact” warfare in a joint force environment.

Yet another reason for India’s plans to establish a rocket force is that its deterrence posture against China is failing.

In a Foreign Policy article this month, Sushant Singh wrote that India’s economic entanglement with China, lack of diplomatic reaction to China’s incursions in the Himalayas, participation in China-led multilateral summits, and participation in China-led military exercises may show India’s inability to act decisively against China.

Singh also said India’s desire to be part of the Global South and have a seat at the Global North’s table has constrained its freedom of maneuver to deal with its long-standing disputes with China. He said this foreign-policy prism has precluded India from committing to the US-led Quad alliance. Still, the recent border clashes with China may force India to take more decisive steps.

Regarding IRF requirements, a November 2021 article in India Defense Research Wing (IDRW) says it will require 50,000 to 70,000 personnel and three or four ballistic-missile brigades independently deployed in the country’s eastern and western regions.

File photo of the Prithvi missile. Photo: AFP / HO / Indian Ministry of Defense

However, the source also mentions that India has a low rate of ballistic-missile production, with the 1980s-vintage Prithvi SRBM being its mainstay and being designed to deliver nuclear warheads rather than for tactical use.

The source says India has yet to adopt road-mobile tactical ballistic missiles fully, with only limited Shaurya and Prahaar missiles. Establishing the IRF will require vast numbers of these missiles. It also says that while India has the Brahmos supersonic cruise and hypersonic missiles in the works, these weapons are too expensive to deploy in large numbers.

In addition, the jury is split when it comes to establishing an Indian rocket force.

In a 2020 article for the Center for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), Bimal Monga discusses the benefits and risks of establishing such a force.

In terms of benefits, Monga says a rocket force would deter China from threatening India using conventional missiles, provide India with an option to inflict severe damage on an adversary, increase the cost of aggression against India, suppress Chinese airbases and missile launch sites, enable engagement of time-sensitive targets, provide a quick-response counter-strike, and send a strong message to an adversary.

Monga also discusses the risks of establishing a ballistic-missile force.

He notes that India lacks a well-formulated policy regarding the use of conventional missiles, the difficulty of distinguishing a conventional from a nuclear missile attack, the inability to reassure potential adversaries that conventional missiles will not threaten their nuclear forces, lack of destructive power to be a credible strategic deterrent, huge expenses involved in building a missile arsenal, and the potential to spark a missile arms race with China and Pakistan.

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Featured image: India test-fires its Agni-V ICBM on January 18, 2018. Photo: The Times of India via Indian Defense Ministry

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While real-life carnage unfolds across Ukraine, the phony war continues predictably on, around and above the Korean peninsula.

The actions of recent days may hearten jingoes and depress peaceniks on both sides.

On December 14, the US announced that a Space Force command unit had stood up inside US forces based in South Korea. In Ukraine, the space domain has proven crucial, providing satellite data for Kiev’s network-centric precision munitions.

On the same day, North Korea tested a solid-fuel engine for its missiles and on December 16 test-fired two medium-range ballistic missiles. On December 18, it offered apparent proof – images of South Korean cities – of its nascent reconnaissance satellite capability.

On December 20, the US deployed B-52 strategic bombers and F-22 stealth fighters to the skies just south of the peninsula to drill with South Korean F-35 and F-15 fighters.

For headline writers in multiple media, these developments represent “rising tensions.” For cynics, they are signs that the peninsula’s status quo drags on. For South Koreans, they are business as usual.

And don’t expect any major change in the new year: There is more of the same to come.

Roll on 2023

On December 20, South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup said South Korea and the US will conduct 20 training exercises in 2023, including amphibious assault drills. The decision was taken to “expand the scale and types of combined field drills…in light of advancing North Korean nuclear and missile threats,” Lee said.

Seoul announced today that it is mulling major joint artillery drills in 2023 to mark 70 years of the bilateral alliance, which was signed as the smoke from the Korean War cleared in 1953. The last time such drills were held was in 2017.

Between 2018 and 2021, multiple training drills were put on hold under Seoul’s progressive Moon Jae-in administration. This happened, firstly, to enable diplomacy with North Korea, and, latterly, due to Covid-19 risks.

But under the conservative Yoon Suk-yeol administration, which took office in May, drills have restarted with a vengeance. While joint drills are essential to ensure military interoperabilities and overall credibility, they are a red rag to North Korea.

Pyongyang considers drills to be war preparations. The country has borrowed heavily from Soviet-Russian doctrine, and in February this year, Moscow did, indeed, use winter exercises to pre-deploy units for its Ukraine invasion.

Meanwhile, there are continued expectations among Pyongyangologists that North Korea will soon conduct what would be its seventh nuclear test – albeit, this alarm bell has been ringing constantly, and so far incorrectly, since the beginning of 2022.

At a time when differences between the authoritarian bloc and liberal democracies appear to be solidifying on the global chessboard, the peninsula’s status quo looks to be further cemented. Yet this dire outlook is not reflected in fear in South Korea.

All quiet on the Korean front

While generals, politicians and editors fret over “tensions,” nobody is digging bunkers behind South Korean apartment complexes, nor are shocks decimating South Korean capital markets.

“This is the unique nature of Korean society: We live right next to North Korea,” said Chun In-bum, a retired South Korean general. “It is like living next to a volcano, but if you don’t have the option to move, you just continue and hope for the best.”

“For the US, it is like a fire across the river – but that is different from your house burning,” Chun continued. “For South Koreans, it is such a nightmare that ignorance is bliss so we act as if nothing is wrong.”

Another Seoul resident agrees.

“There is proximity and geography and force deployed close together, with historical animosity – we live in the shadow of that,” said Dan Pinkston, an American international relations professor at Troy University.

But he added that he does not fear his home being hit by a missile: “It’s not so much tension, its clickbait,” he said.

In fact, one of North Korea’s recent developments might actually lessen tensions.

“If you look even at US analysts’ writings, they paradoxically say that North Korean spy satellites might make the situation more stable,” said Andrei Lankov, a Russian specialist in North Korea who teaches in Seoul’s Kookmin University.

“North Korea is afraid of attack as they don’t get reliable intelligence in real-time so rely on agents who are unreliable,” Lankov explained. “If they have real reliable information, they are less likely to worry over sudden attacks so the chance of confrontation goes down.”

Still, Lankov admits that Pyongyang’s apparent advances in solid fuel engines increase risk.

Liquid fuel missiles need to be fueled up before being launched, providing defenders with both a warning and a window of opportunity to pre-empt them. Solid fuels lessen the vulnerability of a missile that requires time to take on propellant at or near its launch site before being fired.

Cold War 2.0

Outside the peninsula, virtually all indications are that the gap between the authoritarian bloc and the liberal democracies is widening to a chasm.

Moscow’s assault upon Ukraine has unified the Global North, with prosperous democracies as far distant from the action as Australia, Japan and South Korea joining North America and Western Europe in funneling aid and arms to Kiev.

Iran is providing direct military aid to Russia, indications are increasing that North Korea is supplying munitions and missiles, and China is providing diplomatic backing, if not more.

Meanwhile, the US, constantly fretting over a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan, is upping its semiconductor embargo on Beijing. As part of that chip war, Washington is rail-roading its allies into a struggle that could end up costing their chip companies scores of billions of dollars.

And Japan, after two years of discussion since abandoning its Aegis Ashore missile defense system in 2020, last week formally announced plans to create a missile-based counterstrike force to balance potential Chinese, North Korean and Russian threats.

Given these various signs of global bifurcation, up-arming and technological weaponization, there seems little likelihood that the Korean Peninsula – which was from 1950-53 the site of a civil war that spiraled into a murderous Cold War hot war – will break free of the wider trend.

That is true even though Pyongyang might like to widen its economic dependence beyond Beijing.

“The North Koreans would be far more comfortable outside the Chinese sphere of influence,” Lankov said. “But none of their opposite numbers is willing to make concessions strong and attractive enough for them to engage in negotiations.”

Amid this big-picture backdrop, the Korean peninsula remains a pivot point of compressed big-power confrontation. And stakeholders have selfish interests: The Kim regime seeks to entrench its survival while arms manufacturers benefit from the threat that the up-arming regime represents.

All this argues for a continuance of rising-falling tensions as North Korea hones its weapons and military systems, and for continued deterrence efforts as South Korea and the US shore up their alliance.

“The Korean peninsula is a microcosm but what are the choices? Appease, acquiesce, sign a peace treaty and give them what they want – or prepare for the worst?” Pinkston said of the conundrum facing strategists. “If liberal democracies did nothing and just took it on the chin, that would be unusual.”

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Featured image: Seoul lies within artillery range of North Korea – but remains largely indifferent to the threat. Photo: Andrew Salmon / Asia Times

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Australia’s relations with China will take another major step forward this week with Foreign Minister Penny Wong travelling to Beijing for the resumption of the bilateral Foreign and Strategic Dialogue, which has been on hold since 2018.

The latest breakthrough follows the meeting between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit.

Wong’s Wednesday talks coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Whitlam government establishing diplomatic relations with China on December 21 1972 – an anniversary the Chinese government had been indicating it wanted to mark. They are also part of a round of meetings with foreign ministers that China is conducting.

Australian exporters will hope the meeting paves the way to China easing the trade restrictions it has imposed on Australia. The improved relations may also be positive for detained Australians Cheng Lei and Yang Hengjun.

In a statement Albanese and Wong said:

“In 1972, then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam took a bold decision, recognising the importance of engagement and cooperation between our two nations and peoples.

“In the decades since, China has grown to become one of the world’s largest economies and Australia’s largest trading partner.

“Trade between Australia and China, as well as strong people-to-people, cultural and business links have delivered significant benefits to both our countries.”

They said Wong was going to Beijing at the Chinese government’s invitation “to meet China’s State Councilor and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wang Yi, and hold the 6th Australia–China Foreign and Strategic Dialogue”.

Albanese and Wong said they welcomed the opportunity to mark the anniversary of diplomatic relations.

“Australia seeks a stable relationship with China; we will cooperate where we can, disagree where we must and engage in the national interest.”

Albanese flagged this latest breakthrough on Friday’s podcast with The Conversation, although he did not specify the form it would take.

He said:

“China is our major economic partner and I think in coming weeks you will see further measures and activities which indicate a much-improved relationship, which is in the interests of both of our countries, but importantly as well is in the interests of peace and security in the region.”

The thawing in relations, which began with overtures from China as soon as Labor was elected, came after the Chinese government had previously refused to even return the Morrison government’s phone calls.

China had been angered by the Coalition’s tough line on foreign interference and by its harsh rhetoric, for which then defence minister Peter Dutton was notable. Australia’s pressure for an inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 was a high-profile source of tension.

The Albanese government has been aware of the need for caution as it looks to stabilise the relationship, repeatedly making it clear Australia would not give any concession to get an improvement.

Shadow foreign minister Simon Birmingham said the Coalition welcomed Wong’s plans to visit.

“Engagement between governments is essential to advance areas of mutual interest and to manage differences,” he said, but added that “the ultimate test of any dialogue lies in the outcomes achieved”.

“Minister Wong’s visit will be judged on progress towards the removal of unwarranted tariffs and sanctions on Australian exports; achieving fair and transparent treatment of Australians currently detained in China; advancing regional security via respect for international law; and securing greater transparency on human rights issues of concern,” Birmingham said.

“Australia should also continue to appeal for China to use its influence on Russia to end the immoral and illegal invasion of Ukraine.”

Birmingham said the Wong visit would be the first by an Australian minister since his final visit as trade minister in November 2019.

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Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Featured image: Penny Wong (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Vice President Kamala Harris visited the Philippines last week in what can only be described as three days of warmongering, hypocrisy, and another huge provocation against China. Harris spent her time spouting empty platitudes of affirmation regarding U.S. defense commitments to the Philippines and underscoring U.S. commitment to upholding human rights, while simultaneously threatening war with China.

The Vice President’s visit was an attempt to make nice with an old U.S. ally after the tumultuous terms of both former U.S. President Donald Trump and former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. U.S.-Philippine relations were strained as Trump questioned the value of U.S. defense commitments to the archipelago and Duterte inched closer to China. The disastrous and deadly war on drugs, which killed thousands of mostly petty suspects, was just one among many human rights abuses by the Duterte regime.

Yet, little has changed since Duterte stepped down this summer. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr., ran a campaign that tried to erase the human rights abuses under his father’s regime. Further, Marcos Jr. has not stopped Duterte’s war on drugs, violence and threats against progressive activists and independent journalists continue, and government propaganda is ubiquitous. The human rights situation in the Philippines remains poor.

While Harris met with human rights activists to underscore the United States’ enduring commitment to human rights, democracy, and rule of law in the Philippines, protestors took to the streets of Manila displaying slogans like “stop funding state terrorism in the Philippines,” “stop U.S. military aid to the Philippines” and “US Imperialism #1 Terrorist.”

But none of that matters to the United States if it means risking its hegemony in the region.

During her trip, Harris told Marcos Jr. that “an armed attack on the Philippines armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft in the South China Sea would invoke U.S. mutual defense commitments.”

Harris made a point to give a special speech to members of the Philippine Coast Guard in Palawan, the province closest to the highly contested Spratly Islands. Palawan is also home to the Antonio Bautista Air Base, the center of Philippine military command responsible for patrolling and defending the Spratly Islands’ waters.

During her speech in Palawan, Harris reaffirmed that the United States “stands with the Philippines in the face of intimidation and coercion in the South China Sea,” all but naming China as the aggressor. In 2016, a tribunal in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines, stating China has no legal basis to claim historic rights to most of the South China Sea. The Philippines has complained of Chinese aggression around the Spratly Islands, to include overfishing and even harassment of its fishing and naval vessels. If the United States wanted to heighten tensions with China, choosing Palawan for Harris’ speech was certainly one way to achieve that goal.

This visit was really about expanding U.S. influence in the region under the Obama-era Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement of 2014, not assuring the Philippines that it will receive help from the United States over maritime disputes. Harris stated the United States is seeking additional locations under the agreement, which permits the United States to move troops into the Philippines for extended stays and to build and operate facilities on Philippine bases. The Vice President confirmed the United States will spend $66.5 million expanding its military presence under the pact. The United States is bulking up its military presence in Asia to balance against China, a dangerous strategy proven to lead to more coercive Chinese actions.

Consider the context of Harris’ visit against U.S. provocations toward China in the past few months. In August, then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, resulting in the expected: forceful and coercive Chinese military, economic, and diplomatic measures. In other words, Pelosi’s Taipei visit set off a Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis.

President Biden has publicly announced not once, but thrice, that the United States would aid Taiwan in the face of a Chinese attack, dangerously moving away from the thus far successful One China policy. After Biden’s 60 Minutes interview, in which he abandoned strategic ambiguity and admitted the United States would defend Taiwan in an unprecedented Chinese attack, a White House official said that is not formal U.S. policy. In recent meetings with Chinese President Xi, Biden backpedaled and said the United States remains committed to the status quo and the One China policy. So which is it? China is likely wondering who is calling the shots for the United States and which narrative it can trust. These recent events do not do anything to assure China that the United States is seeking peace or the status quo.

Under the guise of assuring an ally, Kamala Harris went to the Philippines to tout U.S. imperialism and reassert Uncle Sam as the true hegemon of Asia. The United States must stop cozying up to one brutal regime to oppose another, and undergo a serious reexamination of its current security guarantees in Asia.

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Nickie Deahl is a former intern at the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. She holds a master’s degree in International Security from George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. You can follow her on Twitter @NickieDeahl.

Featured image is from The Libertarian Institute

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Twisting truths cannot cover the fact that butchers 94th Infantry Battalion and 47th Infantry Battalion captured NDF Consultant Ericson Acosta and his companion, a peasant organizer, alive around 2:00 this morning, November 30, at Sitio Makilo, Barangay Camansi, Kanbankalan City, Negros Occidental, and, few hours after, tagged them as casualties of a fake encounter.

Ka Ericson was here in Negros, particularly in Kabankalan City, to consult on the situation of farm workers in the southern part of Negros Occidental and share developments regarding the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER). He was one of the NDF consultants working on the CASER.

NDF Negros, in the strongest terms, condemns the 94th IB, 47th IB and top dogs of the 3rd ID for the summary execution of Ka Ericson and his companion. The two were victims of the AFP’s despicable policy of “taking no prisoners” in their counter-insurgency campaign.

The entire revolutionary forces and the broad masses in Negros offer the highest tribute to Ka Ericson Acosta. Likewise, NDF Negros extends sympathies to Ka Ericson’s family, especially his son, and all those he has inspired.

Today, the Filipino people has lost a revolutionary, propagandist, poet, song writer, journalist, and thespian. His bloody murder is added fuel to the already seething social volcano in Negros and will bring forth an outpour of new blood to the national democratic revolution.

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Featured image: Officers of the 94th Infantry Battalion led by Lt. Col. Randy Pagunuran welcome Brig. Gen. Benedict Arevalo (left), commander of the Army’s 303rd Infantry Brigade based in Murcia, Negros Occidental, during the visit of the latter to the unit’s headquarters in Guihulngan City, Negros Oriental on Sunday (July 7, 2019). The 94IB was placed under the jurisdiction of the 303IBde on July 1, following the realignment of the military forces in Negros Island. (Photo courtesy of 303rd Infantry Brigade, Philippine Army)

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***

Malaysia’s new prime minister Anwar Ibrahim is the product of decades of US government backing, both himself a regular associate of Washington’s regime change front, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and part of a wider US NED-funded network.

Is Malaysia about to embark on self-destruction like so many other US proxies, or will this be the first time in US history that a proxy does not serve Washington at the expense of his own nation?

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You might be forgiven for thinking it’s Groundhog Day reading headlines about the Great Barrier Reef potentially being listed on the World Heritage “in danger” list. After all, there have been similar calls in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2017.

Successive federal governments have lobbied hard to keep the largest coral reef in the world off the high-profile list kept by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Only last year, former environment minister Sussan Ley jetted around the world in a successful effort to stave off the inevitable, pointing to hundreds of millions of dollars spent on issues such as water quality. The new minister, Tanya Plibersek, also wants to avoid having the reef “singled out” in this way.

The question is, what does in-danger mean? Everyone knows the reef is in trouble. An in-danger listing is not a sanction or punishment. Rather, it’s a call to the international community that a World Heritage property is under threat, requiring actions to protect it for future generations. In-danger listing is not permanent, nor does it mean the Reef will be permanently removed from the World Heritage list.

The reef faces a multitude of threats. The most significant threats are coral bleaching worsened by climate change, poor water quality from land-based runoff, and unsustainable fishing and coastal development. We already have regulations to tackle many of them – but we need more effective enforcement to ensure compliance.

What just happened?

The Great Barrier Reef has been World Heritage listed since 1981. This means it’s considered an area of outstanding value to humanity. Covering an area the size of Italy, this iconic area includes some 3,000 separate reefs, over 1,000 islands and a variety of other significant habitats.

The latest UN mission has just reported back, finding the reef’s condition is worsening and recommending it be listed as “in danger”. It also offered practical solutions.

Previous governments have fought to ensure the reef is not listed as in-danger despite their own five-yearly reviews demonstrating an obvious decline. In 2009, the reef’s condition was rated poor and declining. In 2014 it was poor and declining and in 2019, very poor and declining.

So the government knows the reef is in danger. We know, and the tourism industry knows. While some tourism operators worry about their business, the opposite appears to be true: more people go, thinking it might be their last chance to see it. And already, operators are adapting by taking tourists to areas still in good condition.

Federal governments just don’t want the reef on the list because of the hit to their international reputation – and to their domestic standing.

If the reef is officially listed as “in danger” next year, it will draw a much greater focus to the reef’s plight. And that may help galvanise effective national and global action.

Take the case of the famous coral reefs of Belize in Central America. When these reefs were listed, the government banned nearby oil exploration and protected mangroves. Belize’s reefs have now been taken off the in-danger list.

So what has to be done?

The mission’s report lays out what needs to be done for the major issues.

Australia already has a long-term plan aimed at ensuring the reef’s sustainability. There are regulations governing, say, sediment and water quality in run off from agriculture and towns. We have some targets too, particularly around water quality.

This 2019 photo shows two threats to the Great Barrier Reef: coal ships anchored near Abbot Point and a flood plume from the Burdekin River. These plumes can carry pollutants and debris to the reef. Matt Curnock, Author provided

The problem is delivery. There is a need to scale up efforts and improve compliance. Regulations mean very little if there’s ineffective enforcement. For example, while most farmers have taken on board the rules around fertiliser use, erosion and run-off, those flouting the rules get only a slap on the wrist. As the state government notes, enforcement is a “last resort”.

The UN mission has called on Australia to improve in four key areas:

1. Look after land and water

When native vegetation is cleared, it makes erosion more likely. Eroded soils are washed downstream and out to sea, where they can settle on coral and seagrass, smothering them. In Queensland, native vegetation is still being cleared at unsustainable levels.

2. Phase out gillnets

These long nets catch fish by their gills. But they also catch dugongs, dolphins and turtles, which then die. The UN mission made a very strong recommendation: phase out gillnets in the marine park.

3. More effective disposal of dredge spoil

Dredging shipping channels and ports produces a lot of silt and sand. If this is dumped in shallow areas, it can also spread to nearby corals and seagrass beds already under stress from climate change. A previous government policy ended the dumping of capital dredge spoil (dredging previously undisturbed areas). But maintenance dredge spoil is still being dumped at sea or used for reclamation, both causing adverse impacts.

4. Tackle climate change

This month, the northern reefs are sweltering in record water temperatures – raising the chance of further bleaching events. The UN report makes it clear that climate change is the biggest threat. Climate change heats up tropical waters, causing coral bleaching and potentially coral death. Australia, as one of the world’s top exporters of fossil fuels gas and coal, has long tried to go slow on climate action. The new government has moved to legislate a stronger 2030 emissions reduction target, but the UN report calls for even more ambition to keep warming under 1.5℃ as this is widely accepted as the critical threshold for reef survival.

The report doesn’t make reference to the impacts of shipping on nearby coral and seagrass areas, such as sediment churned up by propellers of large ships and tankers.

Death by a thousand cuts

If you dive the reef for the first time this year, you might wonder if there really is a problem. After all, there are still fish and coral. When I first dove on the reef more than 35 years ago, it was in much better condition. What you see now may seem okay – but it’s a pale shadow of what it could or should be. It’s death by a thousand cuts.

As reef expert Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg has said:

The reef is in dire trouble, but it’s decades away before it’s no longer worth visiting. That’s the truth. But unless we wake up and deal with climate change sincerely and deeply then we really will have a Great Barrier Reef not worth visiting.

We’re never going to restore the reef to its pre-European conditions. But unless we take real action, future generations will wonder how and why we failed them so badly. We don’t need to wait for the World Heritage Committee to make in-danger listing to know the reef is in real trouble.

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Jon C. Day, PSM, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University

Featured image is by Kristin Hoel/Unsplash, CC BY-SA

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We recently reported that the Federal Reserve plans to launch a 12-week pilot program in partnership with several large commercial banks to test the feasibility of a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The US isn’t alone in experimenting with digital currency. India is working on developing a digital rupee and recently announced the second phase of testing.

After successfully running a pilot program to test its digital currency at the wholesale level, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced it will test the digital rupee in a retail setting.

According to the RBI, the central bank digital currency “is a legal tender issued by a central bank in a digital form. It is the same as a fiat currency and is exchangeable one-to-one with the fiat currency. Only its form is different.”

Digital currencies are similar to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. They exist as virtual banknotes or coins held in a digital wallet on your computer or smartphone. The difference between a government digital currency and bitcoin is the value of the digital currency is backed and controlled by the state, just like traditional fiat currency.

As the RBI put it, “Unlike cryptocurrencies, a CBDC isn’t a commodity or claims on commodities or digital assets. Cryptocurrencies have no issuer. They are not money (certainly not currency) as the word has come to be understood historically.”

According to a report in the Economic Times of India, the National Payments Corporation of India will host the platform for the digital rupee payment system during the testing phase. The Reserve Bank of India wants each commercial bank in the pilot to test retail use of the digital rupee with 10,000 to 50,000 users.

State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank will participate in the pilot program. If the pilot is successful, the RBI will roll out the program to the entire Indian banking system.

“The e-rupee will be stored in a wallet, the denominations will be available as per the customer’s request, just like you request cash from an ATM. Banks are launching this only in select cities,” a person involved in the program told the Times.

In a concept note, the RBI touted the benefits of digital currency.

It is believed that retail CBDC can provide access to safe money for payment and settlement as it is a direct liability of the central bank. Wholesale CBDC has the potential to transform settlement systems for financial transactions and make them more efficient and secure. Going by the potential offered by each of them, there may be merit in introducing both CBDC-W and CBDC-R.”

Government-issued digital currencies are sold on the promise of providing a safe, convenient, and more secure alternative to physical cash. We’re also told it will help stop dangerous criminals who like the intractability of cash. But there is a darker side – the promise of control.

At the root of the move toward government digital currency is “the war on cash.” The elimination of cash creates the potential for the government to track and even control consumer spending, and it would make it even easier for central banks to engage in manipulative monetary policies such as negative interest rates.

Imagine if there was no cash. It would be impossible to hide even the smallest transaction from government eyes. Something as simple as your morning trip to Starbucks wouldn’t be a secret from government officials. As Bloomberg put it in an article published when China launched its digital yuan pilot program, digital currency “offers China’s authorities a degree of control never possible with physical money.”

The government could even “turn off” an individual’s ability to make purchases. Bloomberg described just how much control a digital currency could give Chinese officials.

The PBOC has also indicated that it could put limits on the sizes of some transactions, or even require an appointment to make large ones. Some observers wonder whether payments could be linked to the emerging social-credit system, wherein citizens with exemplary behavior are ‘whitelisted’ for privileges, while those with criminal and other infractions find themselves left out. ‘China’s goal is not to make payments more convenient but to replace cash, so it can keep closer tabs on people than it already does,’ argues Aaron Brown, a crypto investor who writes for Bloomberg Opinion.”

China launched its digital yuan pilot program last year. The Chinese government-backed digital currency got a boost when the country’s biggest online retailer announced the first virtual platform to accept the Chinese digital currency.

Economist Thorsten Polleit outlined the potential for Big Brother-like government control with the advent of a digital euro in an article published by the Mises Wire. As he put it, “the path to becoming a surveillance state regime will accelerate considerably” if and when a digital currency is issued.

Governments around the world have quietly waged a war on cash for years. Back in 2017, the IMF published a creepy paper offering governments suggestions on how to move toward a cashless society even in the face of strong public opposition.

As with most things the government does, you should be wary of the digital dollar. It has a dark side that you can be sure the mainstream will mostly ignore.

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***

The U.S. military will likely return to Subic Bay 30 years after relinquishing what was once their largest military base in Asia due to concerns over China’s increasing maritime assertiveness, a top official of the local body overseeing the free port zone said.

The former U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay, which faces the South China Sea, has become a bustling free port that employs about 150,000 locals, administered by the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority.

Manila and Washington have been in negotiations over setting up five more locations in the Asian country to build U.S. military facilities and preposition weapons under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement.

Rolen Paulino, chairman of the SBMA, told Kyodo News on Wednesday that he would be “very surprised” if Subic Bay does not become an EDCA site, as “during war, time is of the essence,” a day before the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Navy’s departure from the harbor that it had controlled for nearly 94 years.

A series of events were held Thursday at the free port to mark the 30th Founding Anniversary of the SBMA, including a public display of civilian airplanes and a Philippine Navy helicopter at the Subic airport which is now being repurposed for surveillance and aviation training.

Signed in 2014, the EDCA is likely to continue beyond its 10-year period, as indicated by the United States’ renewed interest in establishing new bases in the Philippines and fresh funding for upgrading existing EDCA sites.

Paulino said tensions over the Taiwan Strait and the growing animosity between the United States and China are causes for concern.

A former mayor of the adjacent Olongapo City, Paulino would prefer that his government maintains a defense alliance with the United States, adding that most Olongapo residents are “pro-Americans” given the very long time they have lived alongside U.S. servicemen.

On Nov. 9, U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Mary Kay Carlson visited Subic Bay and the shipyard that U.S. private firm Cerberus Capital Management LP acquired this year. The Philippine Navy has also begun occupying part of the shipyard as its new naval base.

Paulino believes Carlson’s visit amplifies the importance of Subic Bay to the United States. A senior Philippine official said two Chinese firms had wanted to take control of the shipyard, but the United States had stepped in.

The Philippines and China have overlapping claims in the South China Sea, a mineral-rich and vital shipping lane through which $3 trillion worth of trade passes annually.

As ordered by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Manila on Thursday wrote a note verbale to China, seeking “clarification” on the Nov. 20 encounter between the Philippine Navy and the Chinese Coast Guard near the Philippine-occupied island of Thitu, a maritime feature in the contested waters.

Philippine authorities have said the Chinese coast guard “forcefully” retrieved debris resembling a Chinese rocket launched in October.

A Chinese Coast Guard rigid hull inflatable boat approached a Philippine naval ship towing the debris to the island and twice attempted to block the vessel’s way before the Chinese boat’s crew cut the towing line and took the object.

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Featured image: Photo taken Nov. 24, 2022, shows a new naval base built at Subic Bay, Philippines. (Kyodo)

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In the past few weeks, ASEAN, G20, APEC, all these meetings featuring major economies, took place in Asian countries. China’s President Xi Jinping attended both the G20 Summit and APEC meeting and hold bilateral meetings with several world leaders including US President Joe Biden which caught the world’s attention.

As the relations between Asian countries are getting closer and stronger, several joined the Belt and Road Initiative and signed new deals with China during these meetings. What will happen next? Is Asia rising and kicking Western influence out? Will the bilateral meeting between China and the US change the current China-US relations?

I invited Bangkok-based geopolitical analyst Brian Berlectic to discuss this.

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Brian Joseph Thomas Berletic, is an ex- US Marine Corps independent geopolitical researcher and writer based in Bangkok, writing under the pen name “ Tony Cartalucci ” along with several others.

Featured image is from TheAltWorld, a screenshot from the video

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Abstract

In recent years, successive Australian governments, in coordination with the United States, have responded to the dramatic rise of China with military and economic policies that directly challenge the possibility of accommodation with China.

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In an arc of militarization across northern Australia, successive Australian governments, in close concert with the United States, have responded to the rise of a newly assertive China in terms that constitute an almost historically irrevocable opposition to any accommodation with China as a regional great power.

From the high-technology bases clustered along the length of North West Cape in Western Australia (including the newly built Space Surveillance Radar and the Space Surveillance Telescope supplying data on the position, behaviour, and character of adversary countries satellites), to the port and barracks and air base of Darwin, to the newly joint RAAF-US Air Force base of Tindal outside Katherine, to the deepening commitment to US global military operations, conventional and nuclear, of a rapidly expanding Pine Gap outside Alice Springs, Australia is joining the United States in preparation for war with China, most immediately over a war over Taiwan.

In part, this is nothing new. Post-1945 Australia, like some other liberal democracies allied to the United States, is a case of dependent, high-technology liberal militarization. This pattern is curiously hard for Australians to recognize – as always for states that valorize their liberal virtues, and especially so for those likely Australia founded on the untranscended, let alone fully recognized, mass violence of settler colonial conquest that is still unfolding.

Moreover, as this new phase of Australian militarization exemplifies, it reflects the character of American empire, one key part of which is the worldwide network of US and allied military bases and deployed military personnel, and most importantly, globally distributed elements of US-controlled but coalition-accessed space and terrestrial surveillance sensor systems, communications and computing systems – all tied to US and coalition military operations.

The material form of Australian high-technology alliance dependent militarization is manifest far from the population centres – socially and culturally out of sight, even when it is close-up, as in the small town of Alice Springs, next door to Pine Gap.

But the pace of militarisation, and the attendant loss of freedom of action for any independently minded Australian government, is quickening through preparations for the China target.

In the midst of this rush to join forces, in Canberra there is a profound lack of competent assessment within government and the wider alliance-dominated security policy community of whether or not Australia’s strategic interests and those of the US actually align over the Taiwan issue.

For Australia, the turmoil of structural and contingent disruptions in the world economy in the last few years are magnified by the implications of US security-directed economic and technological decoupling from China for an economy that I highly dependent on commodity exports to China – all against a background of historically constitutive racially-inflected ‘fear of China’.

US alliance structures are clearly changing shape. As has often been noted this year, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has revivified US dominance of NATO. Thus after two decades of Australian Defence Force high-tempo participation in NATO-auspiced coalition operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Indian Ocean, the Australian military has become habituated to a new alliance role as an Enhanced Strategic Partner of NATO.

Anthony Albanese (left), the then newly elected Australian Labor prime minister joined his Japanese, South Korean and New Zealand equivalents at the 2022 NATO Madrid summit.

The dark follies of the AUKUS agreement to build Australian nuclear-powered submarines apart, there can be little doubt of the ultimate goal for Washington in the construction of ‘an alliance of democracies’ with global reach.

In the ‘Indo-Pacific’, the half century of US-centred hub-and-spokes alliance structures are noticeably beginning to be reshaped, again under US direction through:

• the Quad, a lose security structure bringing together Japan, Australia, India and the United States;
• bilateral connections between second-level US allies in the form of security, logistics, and basing access agreements such as that between Australia and Japan; and,
• despite the diplomatically unhappy matter of the cancellation of a massive French submarine contract, bilateral cooperation and an expansion of existing basing and logistics agreements between Australia and France with its interest in power projection into the Indian Ocean and the Pacific based on its colonial territories in both regions.

Now, Canberra also seems increasingly drawn into a sense – increasingly prevalent amongst other US allies – that war over Taiwan, sometime soon, is ‘necessary’ and inevitable. The combination of Australian fear of China, the assertiveness of the current Chinese leadership, and the evidently successful US-led ideological construction of the binary identifications of ‘Russia = China, Putin = Xi Jinping, and Ukraine = Taiwan’ all combine with the hard-wiring of northern Australian military facilities into the US military force structure to drastically reduce the freedom of action of an independently-minded Australian government focused on the actual defence of Australia.

Pine Gap – Critical for Warfighting, Expanding, and Still a Priority Nuclear Target 

While nominally a joint Australian/US affair, the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap outside Alice Springs is the largest US intelligence facility outside the US, equipped with some 45 antennas, mostly in radomes, as the visible expression the base’s surveillance role as ground station for US giant signals intelligence satellites and infrared early warning satellites, in addition to hosting antennas that collect signals downlinked from foreign communications satellites on an industrial scale.

Pine Gap, already large and now growing more rapidly than ever before, will play an irreplaceable role in US military operations from Africa to the Pacific and everything in between, both conventional and nuclear. All three of its surveillance systems have critical roles in US planning for a war with China over Taiwan.

Australian governments have long known, though rarely even hinted publicly, that they have known for half a century that Pine Gap was – and is – a high priority Soviet/Russian nuclear target in the event of major conflict with the US. The base remains so today for China, with roughly the same number of priority targets as Russia, but less than a tenth the number of long-range nuclear missiles that would be up to the task.

B-52s come to RAAF Tindal to stay

B-52s have been landing at RAAF Darwin regularly since 2013 after the Gillard-Obama Darwin basing agreement, but expansion of Tindal to meet USAF requirements for B-52 deployments would make permanent presence possible.

Moreover, the Morrison government’s 2020 commitment of $1.1 bn for the United States Force Posture Initiative Airfield Works Project Elements at RAAF Base Tindal will have to be re-framed while Canberra adjusts to the Pentagon’s newest plans for a B-52 Bomber Task Force on permanent rotation from their home base in Barksdale AFB in Louisiana.

According to Pentagon tender documents released by the Australian Broadcasting Company’s Four Corners, the US is planning yet further development at Tindal – beyond that acknowledged by the Australian government – for a USAF B-52 bomber task force on permanent rotation including an ‘aircraft parking apron to accommodate six B-52s’, a USAF ‘squadron operations facility’, plus USAF maintenance centre, fuel dump, and ammunition depot. One key tender document for the Pentagon’s B-52 deployment to Tindal was dated as recently as 22 September 2022.

Source: The Drive

Tindal as Back Up for a Vulnerable Guam

For the Pentagon, a B-52 deployment to Tindal provides backup to the increasingly vulnerable Andersen AFB on tiny, heavily militarised Guam.

As former Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Dibb put it on Four Corners:

America has to take out an insurance policy because a lot of its forward military bases in places like the island of Guam near Japan and elsewhere in the region are coming much closer to Chinese military strike capabilities.

But beyond the Tindal fallback factor, the USAF is banking on the RAAF contributing critical assets to Tindal-based Bomber Task Force operations towards China in the form of the RAAF’s E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft, plus the RAAF’s long-range tanker capability, and F-35 multirole fighters.

While apparently unquestioned in Canberra, this unquestioned technical, doctrinal, and organizational integration of northern Australian military facility into US planning and preparation for an increasingly likely conflict with China has grave implications for Australian security.

B-52s, nuclear weapons, and a South Pacific Nuclear Weapons Free Zone

There is one further urgent task involving planning for six B-52 bombers to be based on permanent rotation at Tindal. B-52-H bombers, albeit heading for their 70s, have been upgraded this year yet again and remain a frontline US strategic nuclear weapons platform. According to the Federation of American Scientists’ authoritative study United States nuclear weapons, 2021, of the 87 B-52s currently deployed by the USAF, 46 are nuclear capable, with each capable of carrying up to 20 nuclear-armed air-launched cruise missiles.

At present, the language of the B-52 permanent rotational deployment is in terms of training, as was the Fraser government’s 1981 agreement to allow B-52s on navigation training exercises into Darwin.

Fraser’s agreement required explicit Australian government prior approval of use of that access for any other purpose. We know nothing of the implementing agreements under the Morrison and Albanese government’s allowing the Tindal deployment.

The issue of the constraints on the deployment under an implementing agreement will become critically important in the event f a crisis-driven US decision to bring the B-52s into war.

Pine Gap Satellite Surveillance Base, Australia, 2016 (courtesy of Felicity Ruby, available at Felicity Ruby images of Pine Gap, Australian Defence Facilities Pine Gap, Nautilus Institute.

The fabled doctrine of the Australian government controlling the uses to which the joint facilities can be put is phrased in legal agreements as our ‘Full Knowledge and Concurrence’ with American operational uses of Pine Gap, all the North West Cape cluster of bases, and now RAAF Tindal and more.

And yet, nuclear-capable B52 bombers at Tindal raise a fundamental issue for Australia which requires urgent clarification by the Albanese government: the prohibition under the Treaty of Raratongaestablishing the South Pacific Nuclear Weapon Free Zone, Article 5 of which begins, unambiguously:

‘1. Each Party undertakes to prevent in its territory the stationing of any nuclear explosive device.’

However, during the negotiations of that treaty Australia supported the position of the United States that any Pacific NWFZ must allow the transit of nuclear weapons on board visiting ships and aircraft, resulting in a second clause to Article 5:

‘2. Each Party in the exercise of its sovereign rights remains free to decide for itself whether to allow visits by foreign ships and aircraft to its ports and airfields, transit of its airspace by foreign aircraft, and navigation by foreign ships in its territorial sea or archipelagic waters in a manner not covered by the rights of innocent passage, archipelagic sea lane passage or transit passage of straits.’

The US – and Australian – intent was ‘No More New Zealands’, following the Langer Labor government’s banning of nuclear-armed or nuclear-powered warships in 1984.

While a normal interpretation of the meaning of ‘visits’ and ‘transit’ would not include something like permanent extensive rotation deployments, this second clause is now more deeply problematic than ever.

As a matter of urgency the Albanese government should declare that it accepts that under the South Pacific Nuclear Weapons Free Zone any deployments of nuclear weapons to Australia in any form or under any pretext will not be permitted.

The government must require the US to answer the key questions pertaining to its deployment of B-52s:

• Will US nuclear strategic weapons be brought to Australia in any form, for whatever duration, under any circumstances?
• On any occasion that a US nuclear-capable bomber deploys to Australia, is it carrying nuclear weapons?

Australian government acceptance of statements that the United States will ‘neither confirm nor deny’ the presence of nuclear weapons in any form in Australia would constitute an abandonment of sovereignty.

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Richard Tanter is Senior Research Associate at Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability and Director of the Nautilus Institute at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. An Asia-Pacific Journal contributing editor, he has written widely on Japanese security policy, including ‘With Eyes Wide Shut: Japan, Heisei Militarization and the Bush Doctrine’ in Melvin Gurtov and Peter Van Ness (eds.), Confronting the Bush Doctrine: Critical Views from the Asia-Pacific. He co-edited, with Gerry Van Klinken and Desmond Ball, Masters of Terror: Indonesia’s Military and Violence in East Timor.

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***

 

 

ICHRP supports the recommendations of the UN Human Rights Committee through the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), but is concerned by a general lack of support for action among UN member states.  

The United Nations Human Rights Committee is a treaty body composed of 18 experts, established through the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The Committee meets for three four-week sessions per year to consider the periodic reports submitted by the 173 state parties to the ICCPR on their compliance with the treaty.

The 2022 report of the Human Rights Committee highlights the ongoing failure of the Philippine government in ensuring that human rights are upheld. The recommendations take note of the issues and instruments that have contributed to a system of impunity and state-orchestrated terror, such as: the red-tagging of human rights defenders and attacks on journalists and lawyers; continued extra-judicial killings under the guise of the war on drugs; and the repressive provisions of the Anti-Terror Law which target the fundamental foundations of democracy, freedom of assembly, freedom of expression and the right to dissent.

The Committee’s recommendations are timely, given the continuing human rights violations under the new Marcos administration. The current administration must not ignore nor downplay these recommendations and instead find concrete ways of upholding its treaty obligations under the ICCPR.

There was a great deal of interest expressed among member states in the Philippines UPR here in Geneva. A total of 107 states intervened and about 40% took a critical stand and supported the Committee’s recommendations. There is a general reticence among the majority of member states to be critical towards the Philippines’ abysmal human rights record. Despite the UN’s ongoing documentation of the Philippine’s poor civil and political rights record which dramatically worsened under the Duterte administration, only a minority of states are willing to openly express concerns and even fewer were willing to make strong recommendations for action (specifically some European and Latin American States). We specifically laud the intervention of Sierra Leone who called for the abolition of the NTF-ELCAC (National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict) which has functioned as one of the main instruments of state terror against dissidents.

Several member states including Lichtenstein, Sierra Leone, Sweden, Romania, and the USA, called for an end to the practice of red-tagging, a process by which individuals and organizations are labelled as fronts for the Communist Party of the Philippines. The Philippine representative Jesus Crispin Remulla, Secretary of the Department of Justice, for his part angrily responded to the US criticism claiming, “there is no government policy of red-tagging, it is a term invented by the left”.  This was a complete turnabout from Remulla’s contention two weeks earlier that red tagging was a government right and a vibrant part of the democratic process.  This is an example of the Philippine government’s state of denial to the international community regarding its continuing war on dissent.

ICHRP Chairperson Peter Murphy expressed “profound appreciation to those member states who spoke out pressing for greater accountability from the Philippine government,” but he urged the international community to “press member states for concrete action on human rights from the Marcos administration”.  He further called for an immediate need for an end to the supply weapons to the Marcos government, noting that “the United States has recently extended $100 million in credit for weapons purchases, and supplied $1.14 billion [2015-21] in weapons to the Philippine government during the worst period of rights violations”.

The recommendations stem from a recognition of the dire human rights situation in the Philippines. The experts do not appear swayed by the claim that the justice system in the country is working for the victims of human rights violations. ICHRP Global Council Member, Rev. Patricia Lisson, indicated that “all evidence to date points to a failure of domestic measures with less than 15 prosecutions among the thousands of cases of rights violations. Given such weak evidence to the contrary, the experts and a number of member states are clearly not convinced that the human rights situation has greatly improved”.

ICHRP calls on UN member states to hold the Philippines accountable to act on the findings of the UPR, to take concrete action to support an end to impunity, and to support the struggle of the victims and their family for justice and to finally conduct an independent international investigation as a follow-up to the 2020 Bachelet report. In the interim, the most visible and effective measure will be a cessation of all arms trade with the Philippines.

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***

Thousands of workers from every corner of the country swarmed  to raise their voices in unison at the Ramlila Grounds in New Delhi, as part of Mazdoor Aakrosh Rally organized by Mazdoor Adhikar Sangharsh Abhiyan (MASA). We must salute the workers and organisations for braving all odds to do just what the doctor ordered, with the state of the economy and condition of working class aggravating at an unprecedented scale. The spirit of resistance shimmered sky high  with revolutionary slogans and demands representing workers from the vast sphere of industries and regions of the country in attendance at the march as the ground was transformed from a spark into a prairie fire, with thousands of red flags fluttering.

The program was the culmination of a sustained, qualitative four month long agitational campaign on six central demands, engulfing many regions of the country. The campaign was undertaken both jointly and independently by the constituent organizations of MASA at factory gates, labour lines, fields, mines and industrial areas across the country. Three regional conventions were held in Kolkata, Hyderabad and Delhi in build up to the march.

The march was a testimony of the growing discontent within the working class in India, being placed in dire straits with rising cost of living, wages falling and escalating unemployment and social insecurity. Slogans for working class unity confronting communal divisions, regional and sectoral differences were also raised. Such diverse sections of the country’s working class coming together as an organised force struck a bell in the ears of the central and state governments. The spirit of unity and camaraderie in the march is bound to instill renewed energy among all who participated in the demonstration, to organise the working class and counter the unchecked capitalist exploitation engulfing India and the entire globe.

The workers confronted heavy police deployment with Delhi police declaring section 144 and barricading despite having notified the administration months in advance of the program. The workers heroically overpowered two rounds of barricading to block the main Jawaharlal Nehru Marg towards New Delhi railway station. A delegation submitted the memorandum containing the six central demands to the President’s office. The rally was concluded with a resolve to consolidate and broaden the scope of the platform and relentlessly wage a continuous working class struggle to challenge the neoliberal policies of the government.

Workers demanded the withdrawal of the four new anti-worker labour codes passed by the Indian government; an end to the privatisation drive of public industries and assets; permanent and secure employment for all; Rs. 26,000 as minimum monthly wage; a monthly unemployment allowance of Rs 15,000; declaration of lay-offs, closures and retrenchments as illegal; abolition of the contract system and various kinds of temporary employment; recognition of domestic-gig-scheme workers under labour laws; job security, housing, healthcare, child care for all migrant and rural workers and universal PDS. Over five thousand workers, students and teachers from 18 states including Delhi NCR, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Rajasthan, Bihar, Bengal, Assam, Himachal, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra and Gujarat thronged into the capital for the protest.

The Rally was addressed by representatives from the sixteen constituent organisations of MASA, i.e. All India Workers Council, Grameen Mazdoor Union (Bihar), Indian Council of Trade Unions (ICTU), Indian Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), IFTU (Sarwahara), Inqlabi Mazdoor Kendra, Inqlabi Mazdoor Kendra Punjab, Jan Sangharsh Manch Haryana, Karnataka Shramika Shakthi, Lal Jhanda Mazdoor Union (Samanvay Samiti), Mazdoor Sahayata Samiti, Mazdoor Sahyog Kendra, New Democratic Labour Front-State Coordination Committee (NDLF SCC Tamilnadu), Socialist Workers Centre (Tamilnadu), Struggling Workers Coordination Centre (SWCC, West Bengal), Trade Union Centre of India (TUCI). Cultural performances by teams from Karnataka, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and West Bengal energised the rally with songs of struggle and transformation.

The spirit of resistance shimmered in the air with revolutionary slogans and demands representing workers from the vast sphere of industries and regions of the country in attendance at the march as the ground was transformed from a spark into a prairie fire, with thousands of red flags fluttering. The protest was joined by organised private sector workers from automobile, engineering, textile, garment and food processing industries including the struggling terminated workers of Maruti Suzuki, the Maruti Suzuki Workers’ Union, Belsonnica Employees Union and contract workers from Sunbeam and Hitachi in Haryana; Daikin Air Conditioner Workers’ Union and Daido Mazdoor Union from Neemrana, Rajasthan; Bhagwati Micromax, Nestle, Parle, Rocket Riddhi Siddhi, Kirolia Lighting, Voltas, Intrark and other unions from Uttarakhand; unions from Hindi Motors, Kanoria Jute Mill, Bauria Cotton Mills and other units from West Bengal and Steel and Molding Workers Union (Punjab); Workers from public sector enterprises including BHEL (Uttarakhand), BSNL (WB), Eastern Coalfeilds Limited (WB), Singareni Collieries Company Limited (Telangana) and Indian Railways (Easter UP); Tea Plantation workers from Jakai, Nahorkotia, Gotonga, Naginijan, Jaipur, Samuguri, Hautley, Furkating and Missamara Tea Estates in Assam and Margaret’s Hope, Dhotrey, Baghrakote, Phulbari and Peshok Tea Gardens from Darjeeling joined the rally in significant numbers. Unions of rural workers and urban unorganized sectors such as Anganwadi Workers and Helpers Union (Haryana), MGNREGA and Sarva Kamgar Union (Himachal Pradesh), Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha Mazdoor Karyakarta Samiti (Chhatisgarh), Rural Employees Union (Haryana), Nirman Mazdoor Sangharsh Union (Bihar) and others among MNREGA, Sanitation, Construction, Domestic work, Anganwadi, Mid-day meal, IT-ITES, gig workers, loading-unloading and private transport from different states gave a fitting boost to the  march. The mobilisation witnessed a strong presence of women workers.

The program was the culmination of a sustained, qualitative four month long agitational campaign on six central demands, engulfing many regions of the country. The campaign was undertaken both jointly and independently by the constituent organizations of MASA at factory gates, labour lines, fields, mines and industrial areas across the country. Three regional conventions were held in Kolkata, Hyderabad and Delhi in build up to the march.

The march was a testimony of the growing discontent within the working class in India, being placed in dire straits with rising cost of living, wages falling and escalating unemployment and social insecurity. Slogans for working class unity confronting communal divisions, regional and sectoral differences were also raised. Such diverse sections of the country’s working class coming together as an organised force struck a bell in the ears of the central and state governments. The spirit of unity and camaraderie in the march is bound to instill renewed energy among all who participated in the demonstration, to organise the working class and counter the unchecked capitalist exploitation engulfing India and the entire globe.

It is vital that the tempo does not subside to painstakingly educate the working class politically and consistently undertaking qualitative programmes.Economism has to be battled at the very root and demands of trade union movement must be linked with the movement against Hindutva proto-fascism. Workers must be prepared to counter the fascist threat to organising itself.

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Harsh Thakor is freelance journalist who has covered mass movements around the country.

Featured image is from Countercurrents

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***

You’ll find no freer democracy than the Republic of the Philippines under former President Rodrigo Duterte (2016-2022). Well, at least that’s what former National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) Spokesperson Lorraine Badoy said.

The Birth of NTF-ELCAC

Since the founding of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) in 1968 and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA) in 1969, the country has been rife with terrorist activities and armed insurgencies. With a view to ending “50 years of deceit, lies and atrocities committed by communist terrorists against the Filipino people,” former President Rodrigo Duterte signed Executive Order 70 (EO 70) in 2018. It institutionalized a whole-of-nation approach that subsequently created the NTF-ELCAC. This task-force is composed of 12 operational clusters, each consisting of relevant government agencies. It is headed by the President as commander and chairman; the National Security Adviser as vice-chairman; and an appointed executive director.

Established to dismantle local insurgencies and to spur the development of former guerilla fronts of the CPP-NPA, the NTF-ELCAC initiated the Barangay Development Program (BDP) which allocates funds for sustainable rehabilitation projects. Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity (OPAPRU), Secretary Carlito G. Galvez, Jr. commended the Localized Peace Engagements (LPE) cluster as the “most effective way of dealing with the communist insurgency” by “allowing local leaders to touch base with [community-level] insurgents who have expressed their willingness to lay down their arms and return to the folds of law”.

Everything sounds about right, doesn’t it? But there is more than meets the eye.

Relentless Red-tagging

The NTF-ELCAC, primarily designed as a democratic institution aimed towards lasting peace and inclusive development, is on the frontline of relentless red-tagging of human rights activists, journalists, political opposition, labor leaders, and religious groups as communists, terrorists or advocates of the communist cause.

Red-tagging, according to a Supreme Court justice, refers to the “’phenomenon of implicating progressive civil group leaders to heinous crime,’ or the ‘vilification, labelling… of,’ or ‘ascribing guilt by association’ to, organizations in which said individuals and organizations are depicted as communists or communist supporters, ‘making them easy targets of government military or paramilitary units’.” Targets — determined without substantial proof — are usually subject to harassment and even extrajudicial killing.

While red-tagging has a long history in Philippine democracy, it was during the Duterte administration, particularly upon the institutionalization of the NTF-ELCAC, where the undemocratic practice bore its legitimacy. Apart from official pronouncements, the inter-agency body regularly utilizes the social media to communicate individual names and groups — for public derision.

Domestic human rights defenders and state universities and their constituents are often the object of violence, arbitrary and unlawful killings.

Karapatan, an “alliance of human rights organizations and programs, human rights’ desks and committees of people’s organizations, and individual advocates committed to the defense of people’s rights and civil liberties,” has always been in the crosshairs of the NTF. Named members of the said group struggled through the ordeal of online threats and physical assault. The group also compiled records from 2020 of at least 78 people being killed “either from red-tagging or anti-terrorism police operations” and 136 arrests.

In another incident in December 2018, human rights lawyer Angelo Karlo Guillen had his face plastered around Iloilo City, accusing him of membership of the NPA. He was a legal representative of the Tumandok Indigenous People. In 2021, he survived multiple stab wounds but lost his “laptop and a few documents”.

In yet another case in December 2020, Dr. Mary Rose Sancelan, a red-tagged community doctor, and her husband were shot in Guihulngan City. She was reportedly linked to the NPA.

Journalists also join the list of red-tagged individuals. Frenchiemae Cumpio of Eastern Vista, a local independent news website, has been detained for alleged illegal possession of firearms and involvement with the NPA — both of which have been dismissed by her colleagues and advocacy groups as charges intended to silence her reporting on the military’s human rights abuses.

Only recently was a regional trial court judge publicly accused to be sleeping with the enemy for dismissing a government petition to tag the CPP-NPA (and the National Democratic Front) as terrorists. Judge Marlo Malagar and her husband, University of the Philippines-Cebu Chancellor Atty. Leo Malagar, received threats arising from a Facebook post by former NTF-ELCAC spokesperson Badoy.

Implications to Philippine Democracy: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

The implementation of the whole-of-nation approach spearheaded by the NTF-ELCAC is arguably a landmark decision in the Philippine history of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism. Executive Order 70 is constitutionally and legally binding. Its provisions adhere to democratic principles and processes. Simply put, EO 70 is an express measure to safeguard Philippine democracy.

However, as argued by Varol (2015) and Huq and Ginsburg (2018), democratic institutions — irrespective of quality — are easily susceptible to abuse by malicious political leaders who manipulate them for their anti-democratic practices. Against this premise, EO 70 through the NTF-ELCAC constitutes a means to an end.

The unsystematic practice of red-tagging is tantamount to crackdown on dissent. It has serious repercussion on civil liberties, particularly on freedom of expression and media freedom. By openly targeting progressive groups and individuals who are critical of the government and its programs, the Duterte administration through the NTF-ELCAC was pushing the nation towards a trajectory of “stealth authoritarianism”. Introduced by Varol, this modern concept of authoritarianism is reminiscent of a wolf in sheep’s clothing — using subtle mechanisms of authoritarian control that relies on the same legal rules that exist in regimes with favorable democratic credentials (p. 1678).

The Duterte administration used a façade of democratic institution to silence critics and oppositions. Such institution invites threats or self-censorship, with the latter only reinforcing an echo chamber that is bereft of objective reporting.

Further, Badoy’s attack against Judge Malagar oversteps the bounds of democracy by challenging autonomous judicial processes.

The red list is essentially a hit list, a death sentence of some sort. And this is not characteristic of a democracy.

The Philippines under the Duterte administration was never a free democracy, as opposed to Badoy’s remark; but a soft tyranny or stealth authoritarianism.

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Jezile Torculas has a bachelor’s degree in Political Science. She is an Assistant Editor at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Sources

Huq, Aziz and Tom Ginsburg. 2017. “How to Lose a Constitutional Democracy.” UCLA Law Review 65(78): pp. 80-169. Parts 1 and 4

Varol, Ozan. 2015. “Stealth Authoritarianism.” Iowa Law Review 100(4): pp. 1673-1742. Parts I, II and III.

Featured image: Protest in front of DILG, Quezon City against NTF-ELCAC on its second anniversary, December 4, 2020. (Photo by Ryomaandres, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

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***

When Nancy Pelosi travelled to Taiwan in August, it made front page news around the world and raised the spectre of all-out war between the US and China.

Early in October, the Biden administration made a far more decisive move against China – but it barely made the news in Australia.

Biden decided to unequivocally sever China’s access to high-end computer chips (aka semiconductors).

Don’t be deceived by the technical-sounding subject. More than any other policy decision by an American president since the end of the Cold War, this measure is intended to tilt the global balance of power in favour of the United States.

Why are semiconductors so important?

Semiconductors are small, ubiquitous, and underappreciated. They are the brains of every modern device.

Without semiconductors your phone, TV, and microwave would be transformed into bricks. Your car wouldn’t drive and planes wouldn’t fly. Weapons systems, the stock exchange, and telecommunications all depend upon semiconductors.

According to the US Semiconductor Industry Association, in 2021, China had 7% of the world’s market share in semiconductors. For comparison, the US had 46%, Korea 21%, Japan 9%, the EU 9% and Taiwan 8%.

China’s global market share is growing rapidly.

However, not all semiconductors are equal.

Advanced chips need US companies and tech

The new US controls are finely calibrated: they apply only to these most leading-edge chips, which China cannot manufacture itself.

Research from the US Centre for Security and Emerging Technology shows China “depends on companies headquartered in the United States and US allies for the leading-edge computer chips that power smartphones, supercomputers, and artificial intelligence systems”.

Further, every advanced semiconductor manufacturing facility in the world is “critically dependent on US technology”. This makes the new controls devastatingly comprehensive, especially when viewed in their multifaceted entirety.

First, they prohibit the export of the leading-edge chips to China.

Second, they limit the export of the software, equipment, and components China would need to establish a sovereign advanced semiconductor manufacturing capability.

Third, they restrict Americans with specialist skills from working with Chinese entities, limiting knowledge transfer.

Fourth, the US controls extend extraterritoriality to all advanced chip manufacturers outside the US. These manufacturers are all US allies, and if they do not comply with the controls they will lose access to essential US equipment.

The bigger picture: eroding China’s research base

In August, the US passed the CHIPS and Science Act which included a US$50 billion investment in America’s domestic semiconductor industry. Combined with the new controls, this amounts to what has been described as “a new US policy of actively strangling large segments of the Chinese technology industry – strangling with an intent to kill”. The implications of this are far reaching.

The stated objective of the new US controls is to limit China’s ability “to both purchase and manufacture certain high-end chips used in military applications”.

However, high-end chips are used for both military and civilian purposes. These controls will also curtail all Chinese research that depends on advanced computing.

As American international affairs scholar Jon Bateman writes:

this will hamstring the development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) throughout the country – hindering Chinese progress in e-commerce, autonomous vehicles, cybersecurity, medical imaging, drug discovery, climate modelling, and much else.

This policy is not just about maintaining US tech supremacy. It has the potential to degrade Chinese research across every discipline.

Can China innovate its way out?

It is unclear how immediate an impact the new controls will have. There has long been speculation that China has been stockpiling chips and equipment, and China will no doubt try to work around the controls.

The new US measures will inject fresh momentum into existing Chinese efforts to achieve semiconductor self-sufficiency, but this is no easy task.

Manufacturing semiconductors is incomprehensibly complex. It requires facilities so clean they make an operating theatre look dirty and equipment so precise its calibration is impacted by the rotation of the Earth. The more high-end the chip, the more intricate the manufacturing process.

Some chip manufacturers argue China will not be able to produce advanced semiconductors without US equipment and expertise. I’ll leave that debate to the technical experts, but China’s ability to innovate should not be underestimated.

A response is yet to come

To date, the direct official response from China has been muted: comparatively mild rebukes from the official Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson that the US seeks only to “maintain its sci-tech hegemony” and “wantonly block and hobble Chinese enterprises”.

More importantly, and aside from steps to address supply, the question of China’s broader response demands close consideration.

The world is already experiencing a global chip shortage, particularly of the kind of less sophisticated chips produced in China. China also dominates 80% of the global supply chain of the rare earth elements that are essential to most high-tech components.

China could seek to interrupt the supply of either or both of these, but that would be an uncharacteristically symmetrical response. It would also likely damage China as much as the US.

Undermining China’s ambition

In a speech to the Communist Party Congress a week after the US controls were announced, China’s President Xi reaffirmed, twice, his country’s goal to “join the ranks of the world’s most innovative countries, with great self-reliance and strength in science and technology” within five years.

A third of the way in, he reaffirms that among China’s goals for the next 5 years, it should: “join the ranks of the world’s most innovative countries, with great self-reliance and strength in science and technology.”

— Karen Hao 郝珂灵 (@_KarenHao) October 16, 2022

The controls announced by the Biden administration directly undermine Xi’s ambition for China. They seek to maintain US tech supremacy, while simultaneously eroding China’s ability to conduct fundamental research. Given this, a significant escalatory response from China should not be unexpected.

The ‘decoupling’ of the US and China

In an age when militaries, economies and our daily lives depend on technology it is astounding how many people continue to tune out when technology – and the policies that shape it – are discussed. If there ever was a time to tune in, it is now.

For several years, leaders and commentators the world over have speculated about the possibility of the US “decoupling” from China: reducing economic and technological entanglement with the rising Asian power.

Debates on the feasibility of economic decoupling will continue. However, historians will pinpoint Biden’s decision on 7 October 2022 as the moment at which US and Chinese technology decoupling became inevitable.

The US has now played its hand. The most consequential question remains: what will China do next?

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Professor Johanna Weaver is Director, Tech Policy Design Centre, Australian National University.

Featured image is by UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering – David Baillot (Copyright: CC 3.0 – Jacobs School of Engineering, UC San Diego)

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***

China has made a decision to seize Taiwan on a “much faster timeline” than previously thought, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday after China’s leader Xi Jinping reiterated his intent to take the island, by force if necessary.

“There has been a change in the approach from Beijing toward Taiwan in recent years,” Blinken said in an event at Stanford University in California, according to Bloomberg.

The remarks from Biden’s top diplomat on Monday come as China holds its twice-a-decade Communist party congress, and were in response to Xi Jinping’s widely-watched, nearly two-hour-long speech on Sunday to say the “wheels of history are rolling on towards China’s reunification” with Taiwan. While peaceful means were preferable, Xi added, “we reserve the option of taking all measures necessary.”

According to Blinken, China has made a “fundamental decision that the status quo was no longer acceptable, and that Beijing was determined to pursue reunification on a much faster timeline.” He didn’t elaborate on the timing or provide other details.

Responding to Blinken’s remarks on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin criticized the U.S. for selling billions in advanced weapons to Taiwan and accused the Biden administration of encouraging the island’s move toward formal independence.

“Resolving the Taiwan question is a matter for the Chinese, a matter that must be resolved by the Chinese,” Wang told reporters at a regular briefing. “We are ready to create vast space for peaceful reunification, but we will leave no room for separatist activities in any form.”

As Bloomberg notes, although Biden administration officials have regularly accused China of eroding the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait, comments about Beijing’s intentions with regard to an invasion are less common.

Observers are highly sensitive to any remarks that might provide insights into how senior officials in Beijing or Washington view the potential for war over Taiwan — an event that would have enormous geopolitical and economic consequences, particularly given President Joe Biden’s repeated pledges that the U.S. would help defend the island.

The State Department didn’t respond to questions on Monday whether Blinken’s comments reflected any formal assessment that China has moved up its agenda for taking Taiwan – they probably didn’t and the comment was merely an off the cuff comment by an administration that has lost all control and is alienating virtually every foreign power, from the Russia-China axis, to all of OPEC+. In March of last year, Admiral Philip Davidson, then commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that China wanted to take Taiwan “during this decade, in fact, in the next six years.”

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***

Heavy machinery has begun operating at a coal mining site on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao.

The concession is held by three subsidiaries of Philippine conglomerate San Miguel Corp., which estimates the mine will produce 180 million metric tons of coal and plans to build a mine-mouth power plant.

The project has been opposed by environment activists, the local Catholic Church and some tribal groups, who say it threatens the environment, food and water security and will displace Indigenous people in the area.

Opponents of the project also say that San Miguel’s plans to strip mine run afoul of a provincial ban on open-pit mining.

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In the remote mountain village of Ned, on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, the arrival of heavy machinery signals that development is underway on a controversial, long-planned coal mine.

Villager Jimmy Batilaran Jr. said that at least 40 earthmoving machines, including dump trucks and backhoes, have been deployed to the mine’s development site since July.

“They operate even in the dead of the night,” he says. “Their dump trucks have been hauling at 1 in the morning, disturbing the community with the noise.”

The mine is being developed by Philippine conglomerate San Miguel Corp., which in 2010 purchased three companies holding mining contracts in the area: Daguma Agro Minerals Inc., Sultan Energy Philippines Corp., and Bonanza Energy Resources Inc.

The company estimates the mine can yield 180 million metric tons of coal. But some tribal communities, environment groups and the local Catholic Church oppose the project, citing concerns over the environment, food security and displacement of Indigenous peoples in the area.

The arrival of heavy equipment in Ned comes after South Cotabato, the province where most of the deposits lie, endorsed the project in December 2021.

South Cotabato environment and natural resources officer Siegfred Flaviano described San Miguel’s current operations as being in the “pre-scraping” or clearing stage.

Tension cracks 

The combined mining areas of the three companies cover some 17,000 hectares (42,000 acres) in an area known to locals as the Daguma Mountain Range.

Most of the concession falls within Ned, a village of around 41,800 hectares (103,300 acres) that is currently home to corporate coffee plantations and other cash crops cultivated by tribal communities such as corn, peanut and sweet potato.

In endorsing the mining contracts, South Cotabato’s provincial board said the project “will foremost address the hazards caused by the persistent spontaneous combustion resulting to the activity called ‘burning ground’ that causes significant lung and health problems and ‘tension cracks’ that destroy roads and cause landslides.”

Tension cracks, which form when part of a slope shears off due to underlying instability, have long been an issue in the area, leading government geologists to push for relocation of homes and other infrastructure, and also to call for the extraction of impermeable layers of coal as potential solution.

However, campaigners say mining will cause more problems than it might solve. “The company will be mining ‘brown coal’ — the dirtiest kind of coal there is,” said Cerilo Casicas, a Catholic bishop who is among those leading the campaign to stop the coal mining project.

During the Oct. 5 launch of a petition against the mine, Casicas said the project “will critically impact the ecology and farming activities downstream.”

Casicas pointed out that the coal mining area lies within two areas of recognized significance for the region’s water security: the 116,451-hectare (287,757-acre) Kabulnan River Watershed and Forest Reserve, and the 102,350-ha (252,912 acre) Allah Valley Watershed Forest Reservation.

Any damage to these rivers, especially the Allah which is one of the island’s biggest river systems and a major source of irrigation, could affect “millions of people across Mindanao,” campaigners say.

The T’boli-Manobo S’daf Claimants Organization (TAMASCO), an Indigenous community based in the village of Ned, has opposed the proposed coal project in their ancestral domain for more than a decade.

“We disapprove of these coal projects for they contradict our indigenous worldview, which treats nature as a sacred source of life,” TAMASCO chief Datu Dande Danyan said in a press statement. “We do not need these projects, which only use up the natural resources which we should be taking care of.”

Tribal lives have already been lost in the struggle to protect their lands.

In December 2017, the Philippine armed forces killed tribal chieftain Datu Victor Danyan and six other tribal members in the village. The victims’ relatives said they were massacred, while the military said they were communist supporters and died during a legitimate tactical operation.

Apparently in recognition of the struggle of TAMASCO as well as the environmental impact of the coal mining project, the South Cotabato government specifically excluded the TAMASCO area and all other formally recognized watersheds from their endorsement, “unless all necessary documents are complied with.”

Lake Sebu near the village of Ned in Mindanao. Image by Peter V. Sanchez via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Land pricing

Batilaran, a non-tribal resident of Ned, whose family owns about 30 hectares (70 acres) of agricultural land affected by the coal mining operation, said San Miguel has been buying land at 80,000 pesos ($1,360) per hectare, or about $550 per acre — a price he said “many of the landowners have bitten since it appears that the coal mining operation is unstoppable.”

Batilaran said his family are among the few landowners standing in the way of the mining company, since the offer was “unfairly priced” and those who sell will permanently lose land rights. “Our family is willing to sell at 1 million pesos [$17,000] per hectare,” or $6,800 per acre, he said. “Landowners must dictate the price and not the buyer.”

Village official Lef Bantal said the company has raised the buying price to 120,000 pesos ($2,040) per hectare, or $825 per acre. She said many tribal residents of the hamlet of Aboy have already sold their land because of the cash offer and “the promise by the company that they would be prioritized in the hiring process.”

Most tribal members have little formal education, and would likely be hired for hard labor such as construction of facilities, observers say.

Notwithstanding the land pricing, Batilaran said his family would prefer that the coal mining project be halted because it sits within protected watershed areas, which, once destroyed, would have debilitating environmental and agricultural impacts, especially to small-scale farmers.

Activists and Indigenous people hold a protest in Koronadal, capital of South Cotabato province, against coal mining and other issues. Image by Bong S. Sarmiento.

Open pit?

Opponents of the project also say the mine should be blocked under a provincial ban on open-pit mining.

The ban, approved in 2010, has held back another major mining project in South Cotabato — that of Sagittarius Mines Inc., operator of the Tampakan project, the largest untapped copper and gold minefield in Southeast Asia.

Earlier this year, the South Cotabato provincial board lifted the ban on open-pit mining, but the provincial governor, Reynaldo Tamayo Jr,. vetoed the measure, keeping the ban in place.

In approving the San Miguel mining contracts, the South Cotabato provincial board said the operator will employ “strip mining with progressive rehabilitation,” not open-pit mining.

“Open-pit mining includes strip mining; you call them different names but they are the same,” Casicas said.

The province’s environmental code defines open-pit mining as “a method of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit or burrow,” noting the term is used “to differentiate this form of mining from extractive methods that require tunneling into the earth.”

During a deliberation over the project’s status in December 2021, San Miguel CEO Ramon S. Ang said the company’s plans to strip mine don’t run afoul of the open-pit mining ban.

“Coal cannot be mined using open-pit mining method because such mineral is soft,” he said. “You can’t operate from the top because it will collapse. You can only operate from the side, you strip it … Our coal mining operation will not be an open-pit operation.”

Ang said they plan to mine 100 hectares (247 acres) in the first five years of extraction.

The business tycoon also announced plans to build a mine-mouth coal power plant that would feed into the grid, helping lower the price of electricity in Mindanao. He said the tribal and non-tribal villagers displaced by the coal mining operation would be provided with land and a house in a relocation site, and would be hired as workers depending on their qualifications.

Once the mining has run its course, Ang said, the company will fill in the land with topsoil for agricultural applications. He suggested the possibility of establishing an oil palm plantation in the area.

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Featured image: In this September image, land clearing t for the development of San Miguel’s coal mining project can be seen on the upper slopes. The cleared area in the foreground is land tilled by Indigenous residents of Ned. Image by Bong S. Sarmiento.

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***

We express our respect for the tireless actions for peace you have undertaken as United Nations Secretary General. We also have deep respect for your repeated expression of your views as Secretary-General on the Ukraine war and your efforts to mediate a ceasefire over the more than 100 days since the Russian invasion.

Concerned over the war in the Ukraine and the resulting humanitarian crisis, we Japanese and Korean citizens and scholars have been appealing to Russian and Ukrainian forces to cease fighting at their present positions and to engage in serious ceasefire talks. Apart from the fierce fighting in the East of Ukraine, other districts have also been affected by the conflict and even now the loss of life day after day is staggering. We believe that, even at this juncture, the UN can take active steps towards a ceasefire so that the slaughter and destruction stops. First, since this is a cruel war of attrition in which soldiers are being slaughtered at the rate of more than 100 per day and civilians are being also killed, it seems to us that in the current situation both Russia and Ukraine can claim they have not been defeated
and both sides could justify a ceasefire.

Following the efforts at mediation by the government of Turkey, the Italian government drew up a concrete ceasefire plan and the government of France has shown a readiness to play a mediating role. Also, the government of the United States, having from the start been calling for Russia to be weakened, has recently shown some restraint over calls for the overthrow of the Putin government, and President Biden in his 31 May letter to the New York Times wrote that “ultimately this war will only definitively end through diplomacy”. Currently Russia is introducing more destructive weaponry and the Ukrainian side in response is being provided with more destructive weapons. If the war is not stopped now, slaughter and destruction will intensify and there will be no end to hatred and the desire for revenge. The possibility of Russia taking recourse to nuclear weapons or widening the conflict into a world war remains high. This war becomes the cause of global food shortages and serious hunger.

Needless to say, a ceasefire is not a peace settlement. For that, the countries concerned have to lay down their weapons, a demilitarized zone has to be agreed between them and the slaughter and destruction stopped. After the UN and global society first obtain such a ceasefire, consultation and negotiation can begin towards a formal settlement. At this point, it will be necessary for the UN and international society to stand between the two parties to work out fair conditions. An international observer force will presumably be necessary to maintain the ceasefire.

Mankind’s bitter history has been to resolve, whenever going to war, never to do so again, only to have that resolve fail and new war break out. After World War I the League of Nations was formed and an anti-war pact agreed, and after World War II the UN was founded. Even during the Cold War when faced with nuclear weapons, states agreed to nuclear control and disarmament measures, including the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and engaged in mutual trust-building measures. We think that mankind has advanced towards prevention and renunciation of war. We maintain hope even when such hope is repeatedly dashed by the reality of cruel war (the Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War, Afghanistan War). The concept of “human security” has emerged. The United Nations has been at the forefront of the struggle to keep alight the beacon of hope. We share the views of the Secretary-General and are encouraged by your efforts to mediate a ceasefire. We look forward to your next steps. Hopefully we will be able to shift public opinion in Japan and Korea towards increased support for a ceasefire.

July 2022

Okamoto, Atsushi Former editor-in-chief of Sekai Magazine, Former President of Iwanami Shoten Publishers
Nam, Ki Jeong Professor, Seoul National University
Wada, Haruki Chair, Group of Concerned Japanese Historians, Emeritus
Professor, University of Tokyo
Lee, Hae-Young Professor, Hanshin University, former Vice-president
Akashi, Yasushi Former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations
Isezaki, Kenji Professor, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
Haba, Kumiko Professor Emeritus, Aoyama Gakuin University, President,
International Studies Association (ISA), Asia Pacific
Ahn, Byongjin Professor, Kyung Hee University
Byun, Hak-moon Director, KyoReh-Hana Peace Research Center
Cheon, Jung-Hwan Professor, Sung Kyun Kwan University
Chiba, Shin Professor Emeritus, International Christian University (ICU)
Cho, Chansoo Professor, Kangnam University
Choi, Jinseok Chief-Editor, New Radical Review
Choi, Kab Soo Professor Emeritus, Seoul National University
Choi, Seung Hwan Professor Emeritus, Kyung Hee University
Desmond J. Molloy Professor, Paññāsāstra University, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Fujimoto, Wakio Professor Emeritus, Osaka University & Osaka University of Economics and Law
Gavan McCormack Professor Emeritus, Australian National University, Fellow of Australian Academy of Humanities
Hida, Tsuyoshi Journalist
Hoshino, Eiichi Professor Emeritus, University of the Ryukyus
Iizuka, Takuya Chairperson, National Christian Council in Japan Peace and
Reconciliation Committee on East Asia
Ishihara, Masaie Okinawa International University, Professor Emeritus
Ishizaka, Koichi Former Professor, Rikkyo University
Ito, Takayuki Professor Emeritus, Waseda University & Hokkaido University
Japan Catholic Council for Justice and Peace
Jang, Chang Jun Professor, Hanshin University
Japan Catholic Council for Justice and Peace
Japan International Volunteer Center (JVC)
Jung, Dae-Jin Professor, Professor, Halla University
Kajimura, Taichiro Journalist・Berlin
Kang, Myung Sook Professor, Pai Chai University
Kang, Nae-hui Former Professor, Chung-Ang University
Kang, Sangjung Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo
Kano, Tadashi Former Professor, Hosei University
Kato, Shiro Professor Emeritus, Aichi Prefectural University
Kim, Chang Hyun Representative, Cooperation for Peace and Prosperity of Korean Peninsula
Kim, Dae Won Professor, University of Seoul
Kim, Dong-Hyuck Professor, Inje University
Kim, Gwi-Ok Professor, Hansung University
Kim, Gyubeom Professor, Peking University
Kim, Han Taek Professor Emeritus, Kangwon National University
Kim, Jin Hyang Chairperson, Kaesong Industrial Complex
Kim, Jin Seok Professor, Seoul Women’s University
Kim, Joon Hyung Professor, Handong Global University, Former Director of Korea National Diplomatic Academy
Kim, Sungjae Rev./Dr. General Secretary of National Christian Council in Japan
Koo, Kab Woo Professor, University of North Korean studies
Koseki, Shoichi Dokkyo University, Professor Emeritus
Lee, Dong-Ki Professor, Kangwon National University
Lee, Heajeong Professor, Chung-Ang University
Lee, Moonyoung Associate Professor, Seoul National University
Lee, Yoochul Research Associate, Inha Center for International Studies, Inha University
Lee, Younghoon Research Fellow, SKRI
Maja Vodopivec PhD Assistant Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies Leiden University, The Netherlands
Mishima, Kenichi Professor Emeritus, Osaka University
Miyamoto, Kenichi Professor Emeritus of Osaka City university, Professor Emeritus of Shiga University
Miyauchi Katsusuke Writer
Mizushima, Asaho Professor, Faculty of Law, Waseda University
Molloy, Desmond J. Professor, Paññāsāstra University, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Moon, A-Young Representative, PEACEMOMO
Mori, Kazuko Professor Emeritus, Waseda University
Motohashi, Tetsuya Professor, Tokyo University of Economics
Na, Dongkyu Professor, Inha University
Nagayo, Susumu Professor Emeritus, Waseda University
Narita, Ryuichi Professor Emeritus, Japan Women’s University
Nishi, Masahiko Professor Emeritus, Ritsumeikan University
Nishihara, Renta Rt Revd. Dr, President, Rikkyo University
Bishop, Diocese of Chubu (Mid-Japan), NSKK
Chairperson, Association of Christian Schools in Japan
Nishitani, Osamu Professor Emeritus, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
Park, Cheon Jo Head of Kaesong Industrial Zone Support Foundation
Park, Sun Song Professor, Dongguk University
Park, Youngkyun Professor, Konkuk University
Saito, Junichi Senior Dean, Faculty of Political Science and Economics, Waseda University
Sakurai, Kunitoshi Professor Emeritus, Okinawa University
Sato, Manabu Professor, Okinawa International University
Seo, Dong-jin Professor, Hanshin University
Shimabukuro, Jun Professor, University of the Ryukyus
Song, Joomyung Professor, Hanshin University
Sonn, Hochul Professor Emeritus, Sogang University
Sun, Jae-Won Professor, Pyeongtaek University
Sung, Weon Yong Professor, Incheon National University
Suzuki, Kunio Co-Representative, Tokyo Network of Citizens and Opposition Parties
Tajima, Yasuhiko Former Professor of Media Law, Sophia University
Takamine, Tomokazu Former President of Ryukyu Shimpo
Tanaka, Hiroshi Professor Emeritus, Hitotsubashi University
Tanaka, Yuko Former President of Hosei University
Taniguchi, Makoto Former Ambassador of Japan to the United Nations, Former
Secretary-General of OECD, Former President of Iwate Prefectural University
Taniyama, Hiroshi Advisor, Japan International Volunteer Center (JVC)
Togo, Kazuhiko Visiting Professor, Global Center for Asian and Regional
Research, University of Shizuoka, Former Ambassador to the Netherlands
Tomita, Takeshi Professor Emeritus, Seikei University
Toyokawa, Koichi Professor, Meiji University
Uchida, Masatoshi Lawyer
Umebayashi, Hiromichi Special Advisor, Peace Depot
Utsumi, Aiko Professor Emeritus, Keisen Jogakuen University
Vodopivec, Maja PhD, Assistant Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, Leiden University, The Netherlands
Won, Dong Wook Professor, Dong-A University
Yamashiro, Hiroji Co-Representative, Team: No more Okinawan War- Life is a treasure
Yang, Moo-Jin Professor, University of North Korean Studies
Yano, Hideki Japanese Network for Non-Defended Localities.
Yi, Ki Ho Professor, Hanshin University
Yoshida, Hiroshi Associate Professor, Okayama University
Yoshioka, Shinobu Former President of Pen Club, Japan

Link to the original version.

*

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***

Abstract

Even South Korea’s President Roh Moo-Hyun had to obtain permission from the United Nations Command (UNC) in order to cross the dividing line between the two Koreas on his way to the summit with his counterpart Kim Jong-Il in Pyongyang. The UNC has used its authority to grant permission to cross the dividing line as a wedge in the inter-Korean Railway Projects, and the United States government, which commands the UNC, has been engaged in a tug-of-war to preserve the armistice regime and the Cold War order in Northeast Asia.

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The US government has been uncooperative on the project to connect railways and roads between North and South Korea. This was the case especially during Republican administrations, namely those of George W. Bush (2001–2008) and Donald W. Trump (2017–2020) although they are hardly the only ones. These administrations justified their stance in terms of their concern that progress in inter-Korean relations should align in pace with the North’s denuclearization. However, US refusal to cooperate has a more fundamental cause rooted in the Cold War order in Northeast Asia. The essence of the matter is a tug-of-war over whether the armistice regime should be maintained, keeping the United States in its position of overwhelming supremacy, or whether inter-Korean cooperation is hastened, opening up an opportunity for a transition from the armistice regime to a regime of permanent peace.

Inter-Korean Railways and Roads

Railways and roads connecting South and North Korea would inevitably have to pass through the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) and the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The MDL and the DMZ have their basis in the Korean Armistice Agreement of July 27, 1953, signed by the commander of the UN Forces, the supreme commander of the (North) Korean People’s Army, and the commanding officer of the People’s Volunteer Army of China. South Korea was not a signatory because Syngman Rhee, the South Korean president at the time, opposed a ceasefire, instead advocating that South Korea unify Korea by marching northwards.

Source: APJJF

The MDL, the official name of the ceasefire line, is a boundary line between South and North Korea that replaced that of the 38th parallel according to the Armistice Agreement. It spans 155 miles, from Ganghwa on the western coast to Ganseong on the eastern coast. There is no line drawn on the earth, but if you were to connect the dots of the 1,292 numbered military signposts that run from coast to coast, you would end up with the MDL. The DMZ covers two kilometers on either side to the north and south of the MDL. The Armistice Agreement created this area as a buffer zone, barring armed forces from being stationed there but, in reality, it is a heavily militarized zone, packed with soldiers and heavy weapons along the 100 or so guard posts on the South Korean side and roughly 280 on the North Korean side. Off limits to civilians, the DMZ accounts for about 0.5% of the Korean Peninsula’s total area of 221,487 square kilometers. Traveling west to east from Gyodong Island at the mouths of the Ryesong and Han rivers to the village of Myeongho in Goseong on the East Sea coast, it crosses six large rivers, one plain, and two mountain ranges, encircling a total of 70 villages.

Railways and highways connecting South and North Korea, therefore, represent a peace corridor, shaking open the MDL and DMZ areas that have remained sealed up and frozen in time for 70 years under the Armistice Agreement’s spell. The Sisyphean struggle to link up inter-Korean railways and roads succeeded in opening up two vital windpipes along the peninsula’s midsection: the Gyeongui (Seoul-Sinuiju) Line, measuring 250 meters in width, and the Donghae (East Sea) Line, measuring 100 meters widthwise. Even if their combined 350 meters of breadth represented only 0.14% of the 250 kilometers of the MDL, they opened the possibility thatthe 80 million people of the Korean Peninsula could continue traveling back and forth along those narrow passages. If they did without interruption, they could transform misunderstandings into understandings and antagonism into coexistence, generating warm spring winds of peace that would melt away the icy wall of the armistice regime.

Roadblocks to Inter-Korean Passages

It was a lofty dream broken by a bleak reality, however. At the moment, the 350 meters of hopeful passages have fallen into desuetude. No trains or cars move along them; no one uses them to visit the other side of the DMZ. To understand the reason, one must heed the saying that if you cannot see the road in front of you, look back at the road you have followed.

After South and North Korea agreed on plans for making the Gyeongui and Donghae railway lines and road linkage project a reality at the first inter-Korea summit, in June 2000, this meant that they would urgently need the cooperation of the United States. For the construction to go ahead, there had to be an agreement on transferring jurisdiction over the DMZ between the UN forces and the Korean People’s Army, two of the signatories to the Armistice Agreement. But Donald Rumsfeld, then Secretary of Defense for the Bush administration, was resolutely uncooperative. Using the US Forces Korea Command—that is, the UN Command—as his mouthpiece, he communicated a message of pressure to the South Korean minister of national defense, questioning the need to proceed with the inter-Korean railway and road linkage efforts at a time when there were suspicions about the North pursuing a highly enriched uranium program.

As the discussions between South Korea and the United States ran into difficulties, the inter-Korean military discussions stalled. In his memoirs “Peacemaker,” former Minister of Unification Lim Dong-won recalls that the Blue House finally took action itself, insisting that it was “going to proceed with the railways and road linkage project as agreed upon by the South and North.” Lim also writes that the Blue House “demanded that the United States hold general-level talks at Panmunjom without delay to take the necessary measures, while guaranteeing that the groundbreaking ceremony could take place on the agreed-upon date.” After all these twists and turns, the “Agreement for Establishing the Joint Administration Areas in the East Sea and West Sea Regions and Providing Military Guarantees for the Railway and Road Effort Connecting South and North” managed to go into effect on Sept. 17, 2002—a day before the groundbreaking ceremony date agreed upon by South and North Korea.

While the United States may have backed off a bit in the face of the Blue House’s resolute stance, it did not stop throwing wrenches into the works. In November 2002, efforts to remove landmines from the Gyeongui Line route in the joint administration area were in their final stages when the US demanded a mutual inspection, claiming that the North’s mine-clearing activities were “questionable.” After some back and forth, North Korea agreed to the inspection, providing the South with a list of the personnel who would be doing the testing. The US once again doused cold water on the activities, insisting that the UN Command’s dignity could not be besmirched, and that the North had to submit its information to receive approval directly from the UN Command.

The mine clearing initiative was held up for three weeks as a result. After Seoul and Pyongyang finally managed to sort things out, the UN Command’s deputy chief of staff at the time, US Air Force Lt. Gen. James Soligan—known to be one of USFK’s chief hawks—openly applied pressure in a conversation with the Ministry of National Defense press corps on Nov. 28, 2002. In his remarks, he stressed the need to receive the UN Command’s approval when crossing the MDL for purposes of overland tourism at Mt. Kumgang, adding that the South Korean military also had to comply with the Armistice Agreement. He also warned that inter-Korean exchange and cooperation efforts would not be able to proceed effectively if the Armistice Agreement was not observed. Soligan’s stalling tactics led to the postponement of assistance to North Korea in the form of materials for the railway linkage and land-based tourism at Mt. Kumgang.

Finally, the South resolved the differences with the North by including a provision in a supplementary inter-Korean agreement stipulating that the joint administration area was part of the DMZ, and that the Armistice Agreement would have to be followed in all matters concerning transit approval and safety. That, plus a presidential election in South Korea, led to the United States backing off a bit with its quibbling. Writing about the controversy at the time, the Hankyoreh noted, “While this may come across right now as a matter of transit over the Military Demarcation Line, it is a complex issue from a longer-term perspective that also includes matters concerning the replacement of the Armistice Agreement with a peace agreement.” In his memoir Peacemaker, Lim Dong-won writes, “If we were to bow to the pressure, inter-Korean relations might end up in ruins once again, and the Joint Declaration of June 15 [of 2000] might have been scrapped.”

The United States’ fixation on using the Armistice Agreement as a basis for maintaining jurisdiction over the DMZ remained unchanged even when the warm winds of peace started arriving on the peninsula around 2018, with three inter-Korean summits and the first North Korea-US summit in history. When the ninth Korea-Germany Unification Advisory Committee meeting was held in Pyeongchang on June 12–13, 2019, Gen. Robert Abrams, the commander of the USFK and UN Command, rejected the South Korean Ministry of Unification’s plan to show the German government delegation preserved Guard Post No. 829, located within the DMZ in Goseong, Gangwon Province, citing “safety” concerns. Then-South Korean Vice Minister of Unification Suh Ho went so far as to send Abrams a letter of protest, but the UN Command never explained exactly what the “safety reasons” were. No one could see, as a result, Guard Post No. 829 that is permanently preserved as a symbol of peacebuilding to commemorate the removal of all the other posts—evidence of the military confrontation in the DMZ—in the wake of the inter-Korean military agreement of Sept. 19, 2018.

In 2019, then-Minister of Unification Kim Yeon-chul made plans to visit Daeseong, the only civilian place of residence within the DMZ, while attending the Aug. 9 opening of the DMZ Peace Trail in Paju at Dorasan Station on the Gyeongui Line. The UN Command continued pouring cold water on Seoul’s efforts by barring him from traveling with members of the press, citing the “inconvenience to residents.” Does the UN Command—i.e., the USFK Command—get to decide that it “inconveniences residents” for a member of the South Korean Cabinet to visit a community where members of the South Korean public live? Even the cows there would get a good laugh out of that.

The Armistice of the Korean War and the UN Command

At issue in this controversy is the UN Command’s authority to grant or deny permission to cross the MDL and enter the DMZ—powers that are based on the Armistice Agreement. The agreement does not specify the scope or procedures for that authority, but the preamble does stipulate the agreement’s objective and validity. Its aim is to ensure “a complete cessation of hostilities and all acts of armed force in Korea until a final peaceful settlement is achieved” and its “conditions and terms are intended to be purely military in character.” With the agreement focusing on preventing war from erupting again, its drafters never envisioned a future when the South and North would be making use of the DMZ to build peace and crossing the MDL for purposes of reconciliation and cooperation.

The UN Command’s establishment was based on UN Security Council Resolution No. 84 (July 7, 1950), the first item of which states that its aim is to “furnish such assistance to the Republic of Korea as may be necessary to repel the armed attack and to restore international peace and security in the area.” That is the premise underlying the UN Command’s authority. The official letter sent by then-South Korean President Syngman Rhee on July 14, 1950, “delegating” operational control for the South Korean military to the UN Command, also limited this measure to the “period of the continuation of the present state of hostilities.” It therefore stands to reason that the UN Command’s authority to grant or deny permission should be limited to matters of a “military character” that are meant to prevent hostile and military actions.

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This article adapted for the Asia-Pacific Journal from one that originally appeared in Korean in Hankyoreh.

Lee Je-hun is a senior staff writer who has covered inter-Korean relations for the Hankyoreh since the 1990s. He is currently writing a series on the history of inter-Korean relations since 1991.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate This Article button below the author’s name.

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***

The US state department spokesman Ned Price has put External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on the mat as regards the latter’s remarks questioning the raison d’etre of the US-Pakistan relationship. 

Yet, some national dailies have rushed to eagerly attribute it to the US displeasure over India’s stance on the conflict in Ukraine. One daily rather churlishly advised the government, “As Delhi demonstrates “strategic autonomy” to engage with every side — Quad one week, and Russia and China the next at the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) in Samarkand — and work around Western sanctions to buy oil from Russia, and keep friends in all camps, it may have to come to terms that others in world play the same game.” 

In this unseemly hurry to link Ned’s remarks with India’s strategic autonomy, what these commentators overlook is that the US spokesman was speaking on a special day when the Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto was visiting the state department at the invitation of the Secretary of State Antony Blinken — and on top of it, the two countries were commemorating the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. 

Indeed, it is another matter that Jaishankar’s remarks were not only unwarranted — casting aspersions on the US-Pakistan relationship — but untimely, and perhaps, even provocative. The only charitable explanation could be that Jaishankar was grandstanding as a consummate politician before an audience of Indian-Americans, with an eye on his “core constituency” in India. The mitigating factor of course is that he has only given back to the Americans in their own coin, who consider it their prerogative to butt into other countries’ external relations with gratuitous comments — India’s with Russia, for instance. 

Ned Price’s remarks have all the elements of a policy statement. He said: “We don’t view our relationship with Pakistan, and … our relationship with India as in relation to one another. These are both partners of ours with different points of emphasis in each. We look at both as partners, because we do have in many cases shared values. We do have in many cases shared interests. And the relationship we have with India stands on its own. The relationship we have with Pakistan stands on its own. We also want to do everything we can to see to it that these neighbors have relations with one another that are as constructive as can be possible. And so that’s another point of emphasis.” 

What stands out at the most obvious level is that Price reiterated the US policy in the recent decades since the Cold War ended to “de-hyphenate” Washington’s relationships with India and Pakistan while also promoting a normal relationship between the two South Asian rivals who are not on talking terms. Price pointed out that the two relationships have “different points of emphasis in each.”   

Interestingly, Price equated India with Pakistan as partner countries with which the US has “in many cases shared values” and “in many cases shared interests.” This needs to be understood properly. Washington has taken note of Pakistan’s objection over the prioritisation of India in the US’ regional policies in South Asia in the past. 

This shift removes a major hurdle in the trajectory of US-Pakistan relationship and is necessitated by a variety of factors following the humiliating defeat that the US suffered in Afghanistan. Here, security considerations certainly constitute one key factor. 

The killing of the al-Qaeda chief Ayman Al-Zawahiri was only possible due to the help from Pakistan. Equally, Afghan situation remains dangerous and the US can not turn its back on what’s happening out there. The US’ dependence on Pakistani intelligence has only increased. 

Both Jaishankar and our media have been off the mark in judging that the F-16 fighters are of no use in counter-terrorist operations. Actually, F-16 fighter jets have been for decades the work horses of Turkish military’s operations against Kurdish terrorist groups. This is despite Turkey manufacturing advanced drones. The real question here is whether the Americans really think Pakistan is willing to do what Turkey does routinely in its neighbouring countries by sending the F-16 to bomb the terrorist bases. 

Price also pointed out that the military balance in the South Asian region has not been affected due to the upgrade of the F-16 jets in the Pakistani inventory. To my mind, it is not for India to opinionate on what Pakistan’s defence requirements ought to be. Do we allow Pakistan to have a say in the modernisation of our armed forces? 

This is where Jaishankar literally flew off the handle. It is none of India’s business to question the quotient of mutual benefit in the US-Pakistan relationship. It is a relationship that began a very long time ago, and it served the vital interests of the two countries. Remember how Kissinger took off from Pakistan on his pathbreaking visit to China. For a year before that, the Nixon administration and China sent messages back and forth via Pakistan. Suffice to say, in one of the most poignant chapters of Cold War history where the Americans turned the table on the Soviets conclusively, it was Pakistan that the US would count on as its indispensable ally. 

The revival of the US-Pakistani alliance should not annoy India. There is an inevitability about it, if the overthrow of Imran Khan and the regime change that followed in Pakistan is to be taken to its logical conclusion. The lovefest yesterday at the National Museum of American Diplomacy in the Harry S Truman Building in Washington was truly befitting. Bilawal Bhutto put it nicely when he said, “diplomacy is back both here at the State Department – (applause) – and in the foreign ministry of Pakistan.” 

Price’s remarks should be a reality check for those media analysts who wish that if only India rolls back its relationship with Russia and aligns with the US, goodies would follow. Life is real. Ask Turkey or Saudi Arabia and the UAE and Egypt what their experience has been as the allies of the US. 

It is sheer naïveté to imagine that the US’ normalisation with Pakistan is simply a way of punishing India for its “lukewarm” attitude toward sanctions against Russia. Make no mistake, the revival of the US’ partnership with Pakistan is a long-term strategy necessitated by profound geopolitical compulsions — ranging from the Taliban rule to China’s towering presence in Pakistan, the BRI, US’ adversarial relationships with Russia and Iran, NATO’s progression toward the Indo-Pacific and so on — apart from the compelling reality that Pakistan is an important regional power and American strategies in the region cannot be optimal without Islamabad’s cooperation and partnership.    

In the final analysis, the US acts only in its interests. Price admitted with candour that the US has “different points of interest each” in its relations with India and Pakistan. Plainly put, the US has different uses for Pakistan and India and they do not necessarily collide. That said, there must be some disappointment too that India is not performing optimally.

Look at how the US has led the European allies up the garden path as regards sanctions against Russia. In a speech in the Hungarian parliament on Monday, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said it is about time Europe discussed with Washington the removal of sanctions by the end of the year. By the way, Hungary is a NATO ally. Yet, Orban accused American oil companies of “war profiteering.” Orban now plans to hold a national referendum to ascertain whether his people want the sanctions to continue. Welcome to multipolarity. 

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Things are not getting better for Optus, a subsidiary of the Singapore-owned Singtel and Australia’s second largest telecommunications company.  Responsible for one of Australia’s largest data breaches, the beleaguered company is facing burning accusations and questions on various fronts.  It is also proving to be rather less than forthcoming about details as to what has been compromised in the leak.

First, for the claimed story, which has been, at points, vague.  On September 22, the telecommunications company revealed that details of up to 9.8 million customers had been stolen from their database.  Dating back to 2017, these include names, birthdates, phone numbers, email addresses and, in a number of cases, addresses, passport number or driver’s licenses.

Fittingly, and perversely, a study from the Australian Institute of Criminology that same year found that one in four Australians had been victims of identity crime or a general misuse of personal information.  A less than comforting observation from the authors was the remark that such rates were “comparable with the 27 percent reported by respondents to the identity fraud survey conducted in 2012 for the United Kingdom’s National Fraud Authority”.

In the case of Optus, the company claims that the breach arose from a “sophisticated cyberattack”.  The view from those outside Optus is somewhat different.  The attack seemed to have occurred when an application programming interface (API) was linked to an Optus customer database leaving it easily accessible.  In basic terms, an API permits the transfer of data.  Left naked and vulnerable, users can merrily pry their way into systems they would otherwise not have access to.

The almost tearful defence of the breach offered by Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin was decidedly unimpressive, despite some prattling in the press about “a courageous and correct call to get in front of the media in a video call that felt strangely intimate and completely open”.  During a streaky display, she claimed that “we are not the villains” and suggested that the API was not freely exposed.

Bayer Rosmarin, however, is defending a crumbling front, made almost absurdly stark by her unimpressively light burden of responsibilities.  Among them, making Australia’s recently retired tennis star, Ash Barty, the company’s Chief Inspiration Officer, and Australian Formula One racer Daniel Ricciardo Optus Chief Optimism Officer, have been foremost.

Less laughable is the general dislike for regulatory oversight in data security exhibited by a whole spectrum of Australian companies.  As Tom Burton from the Australian Financial Review sniffily remarks, “intense lobbying from financial, payment, telco, media and marketing interests” retarded reforms towards “a trusted, secure, reliable and efficient regulatory regime to manage the burgeoning digital economy and the data that fuels it.”  As a feature of this reluctance, Australian banks muttered and grumbled when asked to confirm bank account holder details linked to the account prior to making payments.

Those found wounded and floundering in terms of identity breaches have had little by way of remedial recourse.  Australians, almost uniquely in the Anglo family of smug self-praise, have no self-standing right to sue for the civil wrong of a breach in privacy.  The Australian common law remains perversely stubborn in articulating a clear tort on the subject, and legislators have been less than swift in moving matters into legislation.

The Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), given its numerous exemptions for small businesses, employee records, media bodies and political parties, is but a poor, shabby cover.  It certainly falls far short of its European cousin many times removed, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

In a 2019 report released by the Department of Home Affairs under Freedom of Information, David Lacey and Roger Wilkins, a former secretary of the Attorney-General’s Department, found that “overall, the response system [to data breaches] is either non-existent or performing poorly from a citizen’s perspective.”  The authors “observed significant deficiencies in response standards, formal reporting channels of Government, and meaningful protection for consumers.”

The condition was made egregiously worse by Australian legislation mandating the retention of customer data for up to two years, though there is no strict requirement not to keep such data after that period.  The Department of Home Affairs states that such a policy ensures “Australia’s law enforcement and security agencies are lawfully able to access data, subject to strict controls.”

The Telecommunications Consumer Protections Code, overseen by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, also permits telcos to hold personal data for billing information purposes “up to six years prior to the date the information is requested”. This does not, however, necessitate the retention of passport details, drivers’ licenses and Medicare numbers.

The implication of such provisions is unmistakable.  They have encouraged companies to engage in a course of conduct that has made security feeble and breaches likely.  They have become the shoddy handmaidens of government paranoia.

Entities such as Optus simply cannot be seen to be reliable in responding to such crises. The sombre assessment from digital rights advocate Lizzie O’Shea is dire. “My third law of IT is that every time there is a data breach, one of the first lines out of the spokesperson’s mouth is that they take security seriously – even if they have demonstrably proven they are not.”  While accepting the obvious point that Optus is not directly responsible for the conduct, she stingingly suggests that “you can’t complain that something’s been stolen when you haven’t locked the front door.”

The policy implications are vast.  Should such telcos be required to hold data as required under problematic data retention law that has been assailed in the EU?  (In September, Germany’s general data retention law was found by the European Court of Justice to violate EU law.)  Making such organisations holders of such information renders them rich targets.

Penalties have been proposed.  In the context of the European Union and California, stiff monetary sanctions apply, a point Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil has noted.  Current fines in the order of A$2.2 million for companies and A$440,000 for individuals are risible.  There are promises from Optus to fork out to replace compromised documents. But in terms of legislative protections, Australian policy makers continue to look at data protection through a lens fractured and dated.

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

Featured image: Optus’ Queensland head office, in Fortitude Valley (Photo by Kgbo, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

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***

Indigenous community members from the Tiwi Islands off the northern coast of Australia took Santos Limited to court, arguing that the company did not adequately consult traditional owners in its plans to drill in the Barossa offshore gas field.

A federal court threw out the approval granted by Australia’s offshore energy regulator, noting that all relevant stakeholders were not consulted.

The drilling to develop the $3.6 billion Barossa gas project could threaten the Tiwi peoples’ food sources, culture and way of life, opponents say.

If the Barossa project goes ahead, it could become one of Australia’s dirtiest gas projects emitting around 5.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide yearly, estimates from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis show.

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An Australian court has set aside the federal government’s approval for  major gas company Santos Limited’s drilling plans in the Timor Sea, north of the island nation, ruling in favor of Dennis Tipakalippa, an Indigenous leader from the Tiwi Islands.

Indigenous rights activists view it as an important precedent in court battles where Indigenous groups are fighting for their right to deny extractive projects impacting their territories.

Tipakalippa and other community members argued they were not properly consulted about the drilling plans for the $3.6 billion Barossa gas project. They say the extractive activities could threaten the Tiwi peoples’ food sources, culture and way of life.

“They think they can just go ahead with drilling our sea country without even talking to us,” Tipakalippa said in a statement.

Tiwi islanders protesting the Barossa gas project. Image courtesy of Rebecca Parker.

To be able to start drilling, Santos submitted an environmental plan for approval to the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA). The judge ruled that NOPSEMA should not have approved Santos’s plan to drill off the Tiwi Islands. This is because Santos’s environmental plans were developed without proper consultation with all the relevant stakeholders.

The Tiwi Islands lie about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of the Australian city of Darwin and are home to around 3,000, primarily Aboriginal people. The Barossa gas field lies further offshore, about 265 kilometers (165 miles) northwest of Darwin and 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of the Tiwi Islands.

“We spend a lot of time out in the water — hunting, fishing,” Tipakalippa said. “We only ever take what we can eat in a day, no more. We respect our homelands, our sea country, and it looks after us.”

According to Santos’s arguments in court, these traditional owners from the Tiwi Islands were not relevant stakeholders in the project.

“This is a disappointing outcome,” the company said in a prepared statement shared with Mongabay, adding that it had engaged with the Tiwi Land Council and the Northern Land Council about the proposed drilling activities.

The company did not respond to Mongabay’s queries about why it did not consult with Tipakalippa and his fellow community members.

The court noted that legal requirements stipulate that each and every relevant person should be consulted, an observation that could have far-reaching implications for environmental justice cases in Australia and abroad.

“It will be directly relevant for any offshore project, and there are offshore projects all around the country,” said Alina Leikin at the Environmental Defenders Office (EDO), an Australian nonprofit that represented Tipakalippa in court. “It will have implications for any potential approvals in those projects and whether the right consultation process has been followed.”

She noted that similar legal battles involving Indigenous communities are ongoing in countries like South Africa and Canada, which hinge on questions of free, prior and informed consent.

“It will become part of that broader move towards courts recognizing and upholding the interests of Indigenous people,” Leikin said.

Santos is one of Australia’s leading gas producers, and the Barossa project is the company’s largest undertaking. The Adelaide-headquartered company partnered with South Korean energy company SK E&S and Japan’s leading power producer, JERA, to develop the Barossa gas field.

The project is vital for the company, which currently supplies its liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Darwin with gas from the Bayu Undan field in Timor-Leste. Gas supply from this field in the territorial waters of Australia’s maritime neighbor is expected to run out later this year. Gas production at Santos’s Darwin LNG facility using Barossa gas was scheduled to start in the first half of 2025.

A representative image of a gas carrier. Image courtesy of Rebecca Parker.

However, the court victory for groups opposed to the drilling is likely to prompt delays. The court ordered Santos to stop drilling and gave the company until Oct. 6 to bring its drilling equipment back to port.

“It is a matter for Santos to consider what the decision means for the Barossa project,” Russell Yeo, a spokesperson for NOPSEMA, the regulatory agency responsible for approving environmental plants, said in a statement to Mongabay.

An even stricter environmental assessment awaits

Santos plans to appeal the decision and is considering submitting a new environment plan for approval, the company said in its statement. It did not respond to additional queries from Mongabay about how the new environmental plan will differ from the earlier one, whose approval was struck down by the court.

“Santos will need to submit a new drilling environmental plan — which does comply with the relevant consultation criteria,” said Samantha Hepburn, a professor at Deakin University specializing in environmental law. “In essence, consultation with all impacted traditional owners is required.”

There is a chance the new environmental plan could be subject to even greater scrutiny, Credit Suisse analyst Saul Kavonic told Reuters.

“There is a risk that the regulator might broaden any review to include other considerations, such as looking at emissions, since the country’s carbon emissions targets are tighter now than when the permit was approved,” he said.

A wind farm in southern Australia. Image by David Clarke via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

In June, a newly elected Labor government raised Australia’s Paris climate ambition and pledged to cut carbon emissions by 43% by 2030, up from 28%. It also set a deadline of 2050 to achieve net-zero emissions. Currently, the country is not on track to meet either goal.

The drilling activity will not directly contribute to carbon emissions, but Santos is yet to receive environmental approval for its actual gas production activities at the Barossa offshore site, which will have a substantial carbon footprint.

“If Barossa proceeds, it would be one of the dirtiest gas projects in Australian history,” Hepburn said, pointing to the high carbon dioxide content of Barossa gas. In the absence of mitigating measures, the Barossa project would emit roughly 5.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year, taking into account emissions from production and processing, according to estimates from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). That’s about 1.47 metric tons of carbon dioxide per metric ton of LNG.

Santos has proposed using the depleted Bayu Undan reservoir in Timor-Leste for carbon capture and storage (CCS) from the Barossa gas field. Even if CCS technologies work effectively, which is far from certain, they will curb emissions by less than 30%, the IEEFA analysis found.

Environmentalists say they fear that despite arguments that natural gas acts as a bridge fuel in the transition toward green energy sources, Barossa would lock the country into producing the polluting fuel for the next 20 years.

Hepburn said that with the rapid expansion of Australia’s renewables program, the importance of gas as a transition fuel is diminishing. This makes “huge carbon-intensive projects like Barossa fundamentally inconsistent with our climate objectives,” she said.

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Featured image: Dennis Tipakalippa, an Indigenous leader from the Tiwi Islands in Australia. Image courtesy of Rebecca Parker.

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***

Be careful who you praise and the degree of zeal you do it with.  The slain Shinzo Abe, shot dead in Nara on July 8, towered over Japanese politics.  In doing so, he cast a lengthy shadow.  In death, this shadow continues to grow ever more darkly.

The reaction from certain figures outside Japan left an impression of distorted admiration.  There was Hillary Clinton’s cloying tribute about Abe being “a champion of democracy and a firm believer that no economy, society, or country can achieve its full potential if women are left behind.”

The tribute was a classic reminder of how the late Japanese leader could mislead, in this case on the rights of women and the policy of “Womenomics”.  In her effusion, the US Secretary of State had ignored Abe’s problematic position on Japan’s use of “comfort women” or sex slaves during the Second World War.  Before the Japanese National Assembly, Abe claimed, despite having previously made some tokenistic apology, that, “There was no document found that the comfort women were forcibly taken away.”

Academic Alison Dudden provides a succinct distillation of that side of Abe.  His “great leader” credentials might be celebrated in some circles, “but his personal vision for rewriting Japanese history, of a glorious past, created a real problem in East Asia”.  It was a vision that proved divisive for countries in terms of how they approached Japan, and it also divided Japanese society in terms of its own wartime responsibility.

Of all those attending the state funeral, the Australians seem the oddest, resembling an Olympic delegation filled with previous and current medal holders.  There are no less than four leaders, three former and one current, who have decided to put in an appearance: the Coalition figures John Howard, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull, and Labor prime minister Anthony Albanese.  “Mr Abe was a remarkable leader, a catalyst for change in Japan and the region, a true friend of Australia,” remarkedAlbanese in a statement.

To understand the darker side of Abe requires placing such gushy remarks to one side.  Granting him a state funeral was itself a contentious point, given its historical associations with imperial power.  For prime ministers in the postwar era, there has only been one other: Shigeru Yoshida in 1967.

Several opposition politicians are also irate about the way the decision to hold a state funeral was reached.  Parliament was not consulted, with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida keeping it a Cabinet matter.  As Junichi Miyama of Chuo University put it, “A state funeral contradicts the spirit of democracy.”

A number of citizens even went so far as to argue against its legality, petitioning the Tokyo District Court to block the event.  The claimants in that case also argued that the measure would propagate a situation obligating the public to mourn Abe’s death.  The petition, comprising 576 individuals, was dismissed by Presiding Judge Yukito Okada, who declared that there was no law that could halt state budget implementation via petition.  The justice also dismissed the second claim on obligatory mourning.

In July, the national broadcaster, NHK, found that 38 percent of respondents were against the proposal.  By August, the number had grown to 57 percent, and not helped by the swelling bill, estimated to be 1.7 billion yen, a distinctly larger sum than the initial 250 million yen figure.

Kishida justified the decision on the basis of political longevity: Abe had proven to be Japan’s longest serving leader.  The funeral was also an occasion to show how “Japan will not give in to violence”.  Given that Abe had already received a more private funeral where his family, friends and admirers could pay tribute, the entire occasion reeks of self-interest; the dead, after all, can offer no protest at being used.

The decision has stirred a rash of demonstrations, even encouraging an attempt at self-immolation.  A number of themes feature in these reactions: the note of militarism Abe struck while in office; his historical stubbornness on the role of Japan during the Second World War, and, perhaps most notably, links to the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (the Unification Church).

The nexus between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the Unification Church, a South Korean outfit founded by Reverend Moon Sun-myung and colloquially known as the Moonies, was evident in plain sight.  Abe’s personal links stretch back to his grandmother and former leader Nobusuke Kishi, who aided the sect’s establishment in Japan.

When Moon paid a visit to Japan in the spring of 1992, he was initially denied entry by senior intelligence officials on account of having served time in a US prison for tax evasion.  It did not take long for the decision to be overturned, with Shin Kanemaru of the LDP intervening on the reverend’s behalf.

The special treatment offered this excommunicated Presbyterian minister was emblematic of the broader approach to religious groups in Japan.  The country’s postwar constitution guarantees freedom of religion but supposedly curbs political influence and state support.  Nor is the state permitted to engage in religious activity. The result is a stealthy connection between religious groups and political parties that has proven difficult for authorities to investigate.

Former senior official at the Public Security Intelligence Agency Mitsuhiro Suganuma attributes this to constitutional restraints. “Nobody was willing to investigate the Unification Church and the close ties with Japanese politicians because the constitution guarantees freedom of religion.”

The association between the LDP and the Unification Church also yielded another dividend: guaranteed support against communism.  This was not to say that Moon did not court his own idiosyncratic attitudes towards his Japanese admirers.  “The Japanese way,” he reasoned in a speech given in 1997, “is not heaven’s way.  When you go to the spirit world, you should speak Korean.”

The conduct of Tetsuya Yamagami initially commanded shock and grief but his reasons for the killing started to take hold.  These included the impoverishment of his family at the hands of the Moonies.  His mother, the claim went, had made crushingly large and ruinous donations to the sect, stripping the family fortune.  While few would endorse such retributive conduct, historical attempts to understand Abe will have to do better than any seen by the visiting dignitaries, equipped with their share of whitewash.

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

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***

A mere category 1 hurricane dumped so much water on Puerto Rico so quickly that one of its rivers has swollen to 25 feet above normal, even more than it rose during Hurricane Maria in 2017, which was a Category 5 hurricane. The island is beset by flash floods, and is getting 16-30 inches of rain. The usual average amount of rainfall received by Puerto Rico is 31 inches, so it is getting from six months’ to a year’s worth all at once in a single day. All power was knocked out, though the government is vowing to get it back on in days, not the months it took after Maria. Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, though it is a territory and not a state. President Biden declared a state of emergency.

I’ve been to Puerto Rico several times and really like the place, and have friends there. I’m worried about them, and about its future. The thing that struck me is how devastating this storm has been even though it is “only” a Category 1, with wind speeds of 85 miles and hour.

The ocean around Puerto Rico is much warmer than it used to be, as is the air above the ocean. That is a double whammy. Hot air can absorb more moisture. Hot water causes more moisture to evaporate into the air. So there is just more water in the sky to fall on places like Puerto Rico than there used to be. Global sea surface heating over the past century has been an extra 1.3 degrees F. The rate of heating in the northeast Caribbean, though, has doubled over the past two decades. This heating could eventually push clouds higher, causing less frequent precipitation, but when it does rain it could be torrential. Occasional heavy rain is not good for agriculture, since it just runs off or causes floods.

Warming oceans are producing disasters throughout the globe. A third of Pakistan is still underwater after a super-monsoon caused epochal flooding, with 33 million people affected. 80% of the livestock is dead. Water borne diseases are spreading among the displaced. And now 11 million people are food insecure.

New, unprecedented disasters are striking daily. Super-monsoon Nanmadol is headed for Japan, with the government ordering 8 million people to be evacuated. That is six percent of the country’s population. It would be like evacuating 20 million Americans, moving everyone out of Florida or New York state. A super-typhoon has winds of 150 miles an hour and would be like a category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic. Nothing like that has hit Japan for decades.Tens of thousands are already without power and public transportation has been suspended in Kyushu.

A recent study found that human-caused climate change has already spurred the formation of stronger typhoons in the Pacific. An examination of the period 1979-2017 found that the likelihood of the formation of a super-typhoon has already increased because of warmer Pacific waters and warmer air over the ocean. In recent decades, the likelihood of the formation of a super-typhoon in the Pacific has increased 8% a year.

Last week, Typhoon Muifa, with sustained winds of 96 miles to 125 miles an hour, struck the Chinese city of Shanghai, which has 20 million residents. Some 13,000 fishing boats had to head for shelter. Shanghai is the world’s biggest container port. There are reports of flooding and damage to buildings and infrastructure. It is the strongest storm to hit Shanghai in recorded history and forced 1.6 million people from their homes.

The oceans are being heated up by heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, spewed there by humans burning petroleum, coal and fossil gas. We are only at the beginning of the age of the super-hurricane and the super-typhoon.

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Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

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***

China has proposed a “one country, two systems” model for Taiwan, similar to the formula under which the former British colony of Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

China is willing to make the utmost effort to strive for a peaceful “reunification” with Taiwan, a Chinese government spokesperson has said, following weeks of military manoeuvres and war games by Beijing near the island.

Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, told a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday ahead of next month’s once-in-five-years Communist Party congress that China was willing to make the greatest efforts to achieve peaceful “reunification”.

“The motherland must be reunified and will inevitably be reunified,” Ma said. China’s determination to safeguard its territory is unwavering, he added.

China claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory. Taiwan’s government rejects China’s sovereignty claims and says only the island’s people can decide their future.

China has been carrying out drills near Taiwan since early last month, after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei, including firing missiles into waters near the island.

‘One country, two systems’

China has proposed a “one country, two systems” model for Taiwan, similar to the formula under which the former British colony of Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Ma said Taiwan could have a “social system different from the mainland” that ensured their way of life was respected, including religious freedoms, but that was “under the precondition of ensuring national sovereignty, security, and development interests”.

All mainstream Taiwanese political parties have rejected that proposal and it has almost no public support, according to opinion polls, especially after Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong in 2020 after the city was rocked by sometimes violent anti-government and anti-China protests.

China has also never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, and in 2005 passed a law giving the country the legal basis for military action against Taiwan if it secedes or seems about to.

US, Canadian warships sail through Taiwan Strait

Meanwhile, a US Navy warship and a Canadian frigate made a routine transit through the Taiwan Strait on Tuesday, the militaries of both nations said, at a time of heightened military tension between Beijing and Taipei.

The transit was the second in a month by a US Navy ship, and the second jointly by the United States and Canada in less than a year, since October 2021.

While China condemned the mission, saying its forces “warned” the ships, recent years have seen US warships, and occasionally those of allied nations such as Britain and Canada, routinely sail through the strait.

Canadian Defence Minister Anita Anand said that as a Pacific nation, her country was deeply committed to upholding global stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.

“Today’s routine Taiwan Strait transit demonstrates our commitment to a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific,” she said in a statement.

Taiwan’s foreign ministry welcomed the action.

“This operation though the Taiwan Strait is, even more, a concrete demonstration of the resolute opposition of democratic allies to China’s expansion attempts,” it said.

The Eastern Theatre Command of China’s People’s Liberation Army said its forces monitored the ships and “warned them”.

“Theatre forces are always on high alert, resolutely counter all threats and provocations, and resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” it said in a statement, employing its usual phrasing for such responses.

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When it was revealed that former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison had not only shown contempt for his own government in secretly appointing himself, via the Governor-General’s approval, to five portfolios, the depths of deception seemed to be boundless.   His tenure had already been marked by a spectacular, habitual tendency to conceal matters.  What else would come out?

The latest revelation in the Morrison Mendacity Roadshow came in a leaked document authored by a former Department of Defence deputy secretary, Kim Gillis, a key figure in submarine contract negotiations with the French Naval Group.  The contract to build twelve French-made diesel-powered Attack class submarines was spectacularly scuppered by the Morrison government with the announcement last September of the AUKUS security pact.  A key provision of that agreement between Canberra, Washington and London was that Australia would be acquiring nuclear-propulsion technology for submarines sourced from either the United Kingdom or the United States.

France was kept in the dark of both the AUKUS negotiations and the fact that their treasured, lucrative submarine contract would cease to exist after September.  It ruined, for a time, the relationship between Australia and France, and led President Emmanuel Macron to publicly accuse Morrison of lying.  “I don’t think,” he memorably responded to a journalist’s question when asked about the conduct of Australia’s prime minister, “I know.”

Morrison, in a poisonous spirit of retaliation, proceeded to leak the content of private text conversations conducted with the French president. The selective leaking purportedly showed Macron asking a mere two days before the AUKUS announcement whether he should “expect good or bad news for our joint submarines ambitions”.  As ever, Australia’s duplicitous leader was attempting to restore his own tattered credibility by claiming that Macron should have had an inkling that something was rotten in the submarine project.

The 10-page document by Gillies, designed as an explainer to staff, is something of a tell-all about a gross failure of planning and vision. He is understandably defensive about his pet project, insisting, from the outset, that the “cost and schedule blow outs” noted in the media were “wrong and devalues the achievements and the tremendous work by our teams in Australia and France”.  Estimates, for instance, that the submarine program would cost A$50 billion were deemed reasonable at the time, given inflation projects from the Department of Finance (2.5% to 3%).

Confusion on this point arose because of 2016 testimony given by Program Manager Rear Admiral Greg Sammut to Senate estimates, whose figure of $A50 billion was arrived at in constant dollars.  This was largely due to the fact that the production schedule had yet to be concretely ascertained, though the first class of submarine was intended to be delivered in 2032, and the last in the 2050s.  The larger sum of A$90 billion generated by the Department of Finance in 2017, because it incorporated inflation over the course of 35 years, was then misrepresented by both parliamentarians and the media as “cost blow out”.  This was, Gillis mockingly wrote, nothing more than a “factoid”, “an item of unreliable information that is reported and reported so often that it becomes accepted as fact”.

Despite scepticism about a nuclear submarine model being retooled and adjusted to conventional parameters, Gillis was all praise for a design that “would be the most advanced lethal conventionally powered submarine ever built.”  Even “my American submariner colleagues who assisted in the evaluation concluded that the new Attack class would provide capabilities in a range of operational environments that would exceed some of the capabilities of the US nuclear boats.”

The note also extols the merits of the Australian Defence Department’s own Project Team.  There is almost starstruck admiration for the ability of the Naval Group Australia section (NGA) “to develop the company, including all its policies, systems and processes, whilst executing one of the most complex and demanding programs in Australian Defence procurement history.”  There was little doubt, in the mind of this particularly dedicated public servant, that moves were being made to create “a truly sovereign capability to design, build and operate submarines” in Australia.

While Gillis may be straying from hard nosed reality into the realm of streaky hope, he is adamant that the behaviour of the Morrison government in ending the contract without the awareness of those intimately connected with the process was unpardonable.

Special reference is made to the sidelined role of the Commonwealth contract manager, who was, at the time, Admiral Sammut.  “I believe it is totally unacceptable when the Commonwealth contract manager is excluded from discussions regarding the termination of the contract for what now appears to be six or more months.”  Critically, “there was an alternate strategy being developed behind closed doors and outside the accepted contractual processes.”

On September 15, 2021, the day of the AUKUS announcement, the Naval Group Australia Board had received a letter from the Defence Project Office informing them that they “had met the final exit point to move on to the next phase of the project.”  There was no inkling on what would happen next.  Had it been otherwise, no agreements would have been reached to send staff to France the week prior to the “fateful decision”, nor enter into more subcontracts with new Australian companies.

The calamitous episode prompted Gillis to come up with his own assessment about bureaucratic machinations.  While not quite in the same league of tormented language as the “known unknowns” of the late former US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, the Naval Group submarine fiasco had given us a new argot: “[T]he phrase ‘I do not think I know’ will now become an integral part of the Australian vernacular.  It will relate to a lie or to a mistruth told by someone in high office.”

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

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***

The Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok is one of the indispensable annual milestones for keeping up not only with the complex development process of the Russian Far East but major plays for Eurasia integration.

Mirroring an immensely turbulent 2022, the current theme in Vladivostok is ‘On the Path to a Multipolar World.’ Russian President Vladimir Putin himself, in a short message to business and government participants from 68 nations, set the stage:

“The obsolete unipolar model is being replaced by a new world order based on the fundamental principles of justice and equality, as well as the recognition of the right of each state and people to their own sovereign path of development. Powerful political and economic centers are taking shape right here in the Asia-Pacific region, acting as a driving force in this irreversible process.”

In his speech to the EEF plenary session, Ukraine was barely mentioned. Putin’s response when asked about it: “Is this country part of Asia-Pacific?”

The speech was largely structured as a serious message to the collective west, as well as to what top analyst Sergey Karaganov calls the “global majority.” Among several takeaways, these may be the most relevant:

• Russia as a sovereign state will defend its interests.
• Western sanctions ‘fever’ is threatening the world – and economic crises are not going away after the pandemic.
• The entire system of international relations has changed. There is an attempt to maintain world order by changing the rules.
• Sanctions on Russia are closing down businesses in Europe. Russia is coping with economic and tech aggression from the west.
• Inflation is breaking records in developed countries. Russia is looking at around 12 percent.
• Russia has played its part in grain exports leaving Ukraine, but most shipments went to EU nations and not developing countries.
• The “welfare of the ‘Golden Billion’ is being ignored.”
• The west is in no position to dictate energy prices to Russia.
• Ruble and yuan will be used for gas payments.
• The role of Asia-Pacific has significantly increased.

In a nutshell: Asia is the new epicenter of technological progress and productivity.

No more an ‘object of colonization’ 

Taking place only two weeks before another essential annual gathering – the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Samarkand – it is no wonder some of the top discussions at the EEF revolve around the increasing economic interpolation between the SCO and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

This theme is as crucial as the development of the Russian Arctic: at 41 percent of total territory, that’s the largest resource base in the federation, spread out over nine regions, and encompassing the largest Special Economic Zone (SEZ) on the planet, linked to the free port of Vladivostok. The Arctic is being developed via several strategically important projects processing mineral, energy, water and biological natural resources.

So it’s perfectly fitting that Austria’s former foreign minister Karin Kneissel, self-described as “a passionate historian,” quipped about her fascination at how Russia and its Asian partners are tackling the development of the Northern Sea Route: “One of my favorite expressions is that airlines and pipelines are moving east. And I keep saying this for twenty years.”

Amidst a wealth of roundtables exploring everything from the power of territory, supply chains and global education to “the three whales” (science, nature, human), arguably the top discussion this Tuesday at the forum was centered on the role of the SCO.

Apart from the current full members – Russia, China, India, Pakistan, four Central Asians (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan), plus the recent accession of Iran – no less than 11 further nations want to join, from observer Afghanistan to dialogue partner Turkey.

Grigory Logvinov, the SCO’s deputy secretary general, stressed how the economic, political and scientific potential of players comprising “the center of gravity” for Asia – over a quarter of the world’s GDP, 50 percent of the world’s population – has not been fully harvested yet.

Kirill Barsky, from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, explained how the SCO is actually the model of multipolarity, according to its charter, compared to the backdrop of “destructive processes” launched by the west.

And that leads to the economic agenda in the Eurasian integration progress, with the Russian-led Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) configured as the SCO’s most important partner.

Barsky identifies the SCO as “the core Eurasian structure, forming the agenda of Greater Eurasia within a network of partnership organizations.” That’s where the importance of the cooperation with ASEAN comes in.

Barsky could not but evoke Mackinder, Spykman and Brzezinski – who regarded Eurasia “as an object to be acted upon the wishes of western states, confined within the continent, away from the ocean shores, so the western world could dominate in a global confrontation of land and sea. The SCO as it developed can triumph over these negative concepts.”

And here we hit a notion widely shared from Tehran to Vladivostok:

Eurasia no longer as “an object of colonization by ‘civilized Europe’ but again an agent of global policy.”

‘India wants a 21^st Asian century’

Sun Zuangnzhi from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) elaborated on China’s interest in the SCO. He focused on achievements: In the 21 years since its founding, a mechanism to establish security between China, Russia and Central Asian states evolved into “multi-tiered, multi-sector cooperation mechanisms.”

Instead of “turning into a political instrument,” the SCO should capitalize on its role of dialogue forum for states with a difficult history of conflicts – “interactions are sometimes difficult” – and focus on economic cooperation “on health, energy, food security, reduction of poverty.”

Rashid Alimov, a former SCO secretary general, now a professor at the Taihe Institute, stressed the “high expectations” from Central Asian nations, the core of the organization. The original idea remains – based on the indivisibility of security on a trans-regional level in Eurasia.

Well, we all know how the US and NATO reacted when Russia late last year proposed a serious dialogue on “indivisibility of security.”

As Central Asia does not have an outlet to the sea, it is inevitable, as Alimov stressed, that Uzbekistan’s foreign policy privileges involvement in accelerated intra-SCO trade. Russia and China may be the leading investors, and now “Iran also plays an important role. Over 1,200 Iranian companies are working in Central Asia.”

Connectivity, once again, must increase: “The World Bank rates Central Asia as one of the least connected economies in the world.”

Sergey Storchak of Russian bank VEB explained the workings of the “SCO interbank consortium.” Partners have used “a credit line from the Bank of China” and want to sign a deal with Uzbekistan. The SCO interbank consortium will be led by the Indians on a rotation basis – and they want to step up its game. At the upcoming summit in Samarkand, Storchak expects a road map for the transition towards the use of national currencies in regional trade.

Kumar Rajan from the School of International Studies of the Jawaharlal Nehru University articulated the Indian position. He went straight to the point: “India wants a 21^st Asian century. Close cooperation between India and China is necessary. They can make the Asian century happen.”

Rajan remarked how India does not see the SCO as an alliance, but committed to the development and political stability of Eurasia.

He made the crucial point about connectivity revolving around India “working with Russia and Central Asia with the INSTC” – the International North South Transportation Corridor, and one of its key hubs, the Chabahar port in Iran: “India does not have direct physical connectivity with Central Asia. The INSTC has the participation of an Iranian shipping line with 300 vessels, connecting to Mumbai. President Putin, in the [recent] Caspian meeting, referred directly to the INSTC.”

Crucially, India not only supports the Russian concept of Greater Eurasia Partnership but is engaged in setting up a free trade agreement with the EAEU: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, incidentally, came to the Vladivostok forum last year.

In all of the above nuanced interventions, some themes are constant. After the Afghanistan disaster and the end of the US occupation there, the stabilizing role of the SCO cannot be overstated enough. An ambitious road map for cooperation is a must – probably to be approved at the Samarkand summit. All players will be gradually changing to trade in bilateral currencies. And creation of transit corridors is leading to the progressive integration of national transit systems.

Let there be light

A key roundtable on the ‘Gateway to a Multipolar World’ expanded on the SCO role, outlining how most Asian nations are “friendly” or “benevolently neutral” when it comes to Russia after the start of the Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine.

So the possibilities for expanding cooperation across Eurasia remain practically unlimited. Complementarity of economies is the main factor. That would lead, among other developments, to the Russian Far East, as a multipolar hub, turning into “Russia’s gateway to Asia” by the 2030s.

Wang Wen from the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies stressed the need for Russia to rediscover China – finding “mutual trust in the middle level and elites level”. At the same time, there’s a sort of global rush to join BRICS, from Saudi Arabia and Iran to Afghanistan and Argentina:

“That means a new civilization model for emerging economies like China and Argentina because they want to rise up peacefully (…) I think we are in the new civilization age.”

B. K. Sharma from the United Service Institution of India got back to Spykman pigeonholing the nation as a rimland state. Not anymore: India now has multiple strategies, from connecting to Central Asia to the ‘Act East’ policy. Overall, it’s an outreach to Eurasia, as India “is not competitive and needs to diversify to get better access to Eurasia, with logistical help from Russia.“

Sharma stresses how India takes SCO, BRICS and RICs very seriously while seeing Russia playing “an important role in the Indian Ocean.” He nuances the Indo-Pacific outlook: India does not want Quad as a military alliance, privileging instead “interdependence and complementarity between India, Russia and China.”

All of these discussions interconnect with the two overarching themes in several Vladivostok roundtables: energy and the development of the Arctic’s natural resources.

Pavel Sorokin, Russian First Deputy Minister of Energy, dismissed the notion of a storm or typhoon in the energy markets: “It’s a far cry from a natural process. It’s a man-made situation.” The Russian economy, in contrast, is seen by most analysts as slowly but surely designing its Arctic/Asian cooperation future – including, for instance, the creation of a sophisticated trans-shipment infrastructure for Liquified Natural Gas (LNG).

Energy Minister Nikolay Shulginov made sure that Russia will actually increase its gas production, considering the rise of LNG deliveries and the construction of Power of Siberia-2 to China: “We will not merely scale up the pipeline capacity but we will also expand LNG production: it has mobility and excellent purchases on the global market.”

On the Northern Sea Route, the emphasis is on building a powerful, modern icebreaker fleet – including nuclear. Gadzhimagomed Guseynov, First Deputy Minister for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic, is adamant: “What Russia has to do is to make the Northern Sea Route a sustainable and important transit route.”

There is a long-term plan up to 2035 to create infrastructure for safe shipping navigation, following an ‘Arctic best practices’ of learning step by step. NOVATEK, according to its deputy chairman Evgeniy Ambrosov, has been conducting no less than a revolution in terms of Arctic navigation and shipbuilding in the last few years.

Kniessel, the former Austrian minister, recalled that she always missed the larger geopolitical picture in her discussions when she was active in European politics (she now lives in Lebanon): “I wrote about the passing of the torch from Atlanticism to the Pacific. Airlines, pipelines and waterways are moving East. The Far East is actually Pacific Russia.”

Whatever Atlanticists may think of it, the last word for the moment might belong to Vitaly Markelov, from the board of directors of Gazprom: Russia is ready for winter. There will be warmth and light everywhere.”

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The Ministry of External Affairs has done the right thing by explaining its taciturn press release on Thursday in a single sentence regarding the disengagement of troops in the area of Gogra-Hotsprings along the LAC in the Western Sector of India-China border areas. 

The Official Spokesman Arindam Bagchi shared on Friday more details. Broadly, a consensus reached at the 16th round of India-China Corps Commander Level Meeting on 17 July has since been fleshed out by the two sides, and the actual disengagement commenced on Thursday which will be completed on coming Monday. The following key elements draw attention: 

• Both sides will “cease forward deployments in this area in a phased, coordinated and verified manner, resulting in the return of the troops of both sides to their respective areas.” 
• All temporary structures and other allied infrastructure created in the area by both sides “will be dismantled and mutually verified.” 
• “The landforms in the area will be restored to pre-stand-off period by both sides.”  
• “The agreement ensures that the LAC in this area will be strictly observed and respected by both sides, and that there will be no unilateral change in status quo.” 
• Going forward, the sides will “take the talks forward and resolve the remaining issues along LAC and restore peace and tranquility in India-China border areas.” 

The last two elements — prohibiting “unilateral change in status quo”  and the commitment to resolve the remaining issues — are, quite obviously, inter-related. 

Simply put, there will be no attempts by either side to indulge in any “Mission Creep” to seize unilateral advantage of territory. This is hugely important, given the two vastly divergent narratives on what precipitated the standoff two years ago. How the “status quo” is to be understood is not yet in the public domain, but presumably, it is to mutual satisfaction.

A judicious admixture of firmness and realism (on both sides) has made this agreement possible. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar pointedly reminded the domestic public opinion about this on September 4 even as the announcement on the disengagement four days later was being drafted jointly with China.

Only four days prior to that, on August 30, when Jaishankar said much of Asia’s future depends on how the ties between the two countries develop in the foreseeable future, and for the ties to return to a positive trajectory, they must be based on mutual sensitivity, mutual respected and mutual interest, he was clearly addressing China.

Unfortunately, some Indian commentators have rushed to belittle what has unfolded in the recent months by linking it to a possible meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping next week at Samarkand. That said, if there is going to be a meeting at Samarkand, this disengagement indeed provides the setting for constructive discussion. Both governments have high stakes in maintaining peace and tranquility along the LAC in the present hugely transformative period in the world order. For China, issues of war and peace in the Taiwan Straits are a top priority. 

As for India, a crucial period of adjustment to new geopolitical conditions lies ahead which presents daunting challenges to its strategic autonomy and independent foreign policies, stemming from the West’s attempts to polarise the world community against Russia and China. 

Both India and China sense the high importance of pursuing their respective trajectories of economic growth and development optimally in a difficult and unfavourable climate internationally. Speaking of India, our analysts prefer — either due to ignorance or with deliberation — to sidestep the co-relation between a peaceful and tranquil border and the country’s overall economic situation. 

The Ukraine conflict is adding to global inflation by raising the cost of energy and other raw commodities while an increasingly hawkish US Fed is tightening its policies, and significantly reducing its balance sheet. There could be looming currency and foreign exchange worries. Time may have come to build up a clearing system among BRICS countries. India’s current foreign exchange reserves are at their lowest since October 2020. Persistent foreign outflows from India’s equity and debt markets have also weighed on the rupee.  

There is continuing Western interference in India-China relations and the fact that the government has sequestered the bilateral track with China is not going to be to the liking of the West. Fundamentally, the contradiction is that without India, there is no “Indo-Pacific Strategy” against China. 

In a recent interview with an Indian newspaper, the former Prime Minister of Australia and an acclaimed hawk on China, Kevin Rudd, posed the question that troubles the Western mind most: “What does India do ultimately, if China does unilaterally resolve the border, as Gorbachev did, with the Russian Federation within the Soviet Union in 1989?” 

Rudd repeated, “what would India then do in terms of China’s rise if the border was resolved, and India and China and Russia folded into one enormous market of mutual opportunity?” In such a scenario, Rudd could see only a binary choice for India: it should either “bandwagon” with China or “balance” China. 

Rudd must be a terribly disappointed man to see that there could be a Third Way. China is not really  expecting anyone to “bandwagon” with it. Its DNA is similar to India’s — pursuit of national interests while retaining strategic autonomy (even with regard to its partner Russia.) 

China takes satisfaction that India treasures its strategic autonomy. Its expectation is only that India should not align with the US to pursue  hostile policies. That is perfectly understandable, too. 

A consensus with China that neither party will try to gain territorial advantage is the maximum that can be expected today and the irreducible minimum required until such time as the Indian opinion  can accept a fair and just settlement of the boundary question in a spirit of compromise. 

Notably, Chinese commentators have appreciated EAM Jaishankar’s forceful remarks through March-April enunciating India’s oil purchases from Russia giving primacy to national interests. Conceivably, such assertion of India’s strategic autonomy created a favourable ambience in the ongoing talks at various levels with China, leading to the disengagement in Gogra-Hotsprings.  Again, the Chinese commentators were appreciative that Jaishankar brought in the tantalising concept of the Asian Century during the Q&A after his speech on “India’s Vision of the Indo-Pacific” in Thailand on August 16.

Significantly, the Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman reacted to the remark in positive terms three days later on August 19: “As a Chinese leader put it, “Unless China and India are developed, there will be no Asian century. No genuine Asia-Pacific century or Asian century can come until China, India and other neighbouring countries are developed.” China and India are two ancient civilizations, two major emerging economies and two neighboring countries. We have far more common interests than differences. Both sides have the wisdom and capability to help each other succeed instead of undercutting each other. We hope that the Indian side will work with China to act upon the important common understandings between our leaders, i.e. “China and India are not each other’s threats, but cooperation partners and development opportunities”, bring China-India relations back to the track of steady and sound development at an early date and safeguard the common interests of China, India and our fellow developing countries.”

China and India have many common interests in the emergent world order. Only three days ago, PM’s remarks at the Eastern Economic Forum plenary at Vladivostok signalled India’s interest to work with Russia in the Arctic (where China is also a participant) as also in the Northern Sea Route (where China too is a stakeholder).

By the way, the Russia-China Joint Statement on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development (February 4, 2022)speaks about the two countries “consistently intensifying practical cooperation for the sustainable development of the Arctic” as well as the “development and use of Arctic routes.”

There is no empirical evidence to show that China has blocked India’s pathway in the Arctic or the Russian Far East, Southeast Asia, Central Asia or West Asia. The disengagement in Ladakh gives hope that the bilateral relations can be restored, especially in the economic sphere. There is no question that India should be vigilant about its defence and national security. But to be paranoid about it or getting  entrapped in xenophobic attitudes will be wasteful and ultimately debilitating. 

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***

Few narratives spook Asia more than word of trouble in Thailand – even more so when foreign-exchange reserves are involved.

It was Bangkok’s devaluation in July 1997 that set in motion the Asian financial crisis. As foreign-exchange reserves ran out, the government and Bank of Thailand had no choice but to scrap the US dollar peg and drive the baht sharply lower.

Twenty-five years later, Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy isn’t quite cascading toward a repeat of that meltdown. Yet Bangkok is again ground zero of something getting increasing attention in world markets: the speed with which developing Asia’s central banks are depleting their currency reserves.

Thailand now displays the region’s biggest drop in reserves as a ratio to gross domestic product (GDP). Malaysia is next, followed by India.

Generally speaking, says economist Divya Devesh at Standard Chartered in Singapore, emerging Asian nations, excluding China, are sitting on their smallest piles of reserves since the 2008 Lehman Brothers crisis.

The bank’s focus is on how many months’ worth of imports each economy can finance with today’s foreign-exchange holdings.

In August 2020, the region averaged about 16 months. At the start of 2022, it was down to 10 months. Today, it’s in the neighborhood of seven months – not where most investors or government officials thought Asia might be.

Raising the stakes, the dollar is rising at the fastest pace versus the Japanese yen in 24 years, up nearly 26% this year. It’s up nearly 9.6% versus the Chinese yuan.

As the dollar surges, thanks largely to Federal Reserve rate hikes in Washington, Asian currencies are coming under heavy downward pressure. Fewer reserves mean less firepower to defend exchange rates.

That’s not to say China isn’t part of this conversation.

As the yuan gets near the psychologically important 7 to the dollar level, the People’s Bank of China “will be more concerned with slowing the pace of depreciation and keeping expectations stable than defending a specific level for the exchange rate,” says economist Lauren Gloudeman at Eurasia Group. “But if depreciation expectations coincide with robust capital outflows or depletion of reserves, its defense may strengthen.”

Gloudeman points to data out last week showing that “China’s FX reserves continued to slide to their lowest level in almost four years.” And, according to the Institute of International Finance, portfolio outflows persisted for a seventh straight month in August.

Economist Carlos Casanova at Union Bancaire Privée observes that the PBOC recently unveiled a cut in reserve requirement ratios for foreign exchange to 6%, down from 8%. It was the second RRR cut on foreign exchange in 2022, following a 100 basis-point reduction in April. During that period, the yuan depreciated to 6.5 to the dollar from 6.3.

The idea is to boost dollar liquidity and prod banks to convert a proportion of foreign-exchange reserves into yuan, boosting the Chinese currency.

But, Casanova concludes, that “move alone won’t entirely offset depreciatory pressures. This is a signal that the PBOC is not comfortable with one-way depreciatory expectations, even if they are comfortable with some yuan weakness.”

The yen’s drop, though, is shaking up Asia in unpredictable ways. The worry is that China, South Korea or other major economies might feel the need to weaken exchange rates, too, in race-to-the-bottom competitive devaluations to salvage exports.

At the same time, says economist Brad Setser at the Council on Foreign Relations, indications that either China or Japan are selling large blocks of currency “could be additional pressure on other Asian currencies.”

Yet now’s not the time to panic, says economist Louis Kuijs at S&P Global Ratings. “Levels of foreign reserves remain generally adequate. But global uncertainty and prospects for still higher global interest rates call for scrutiny of the underlying dynamics.”

Even so, the politics of the moment are raising the temperature in Tokyo, Beijing and elsewhere. In China, says economist Ting Lu at Nomura Holdings, the yuan’s weakness is hovering over the Communist Party’s once-in-a-decade leadership reshuffling process – and at a moment of elevated US-China tensions.

“Chinese leaders,” Lu says, “especially care about RMB’s bilateral exchange rate with the dollar because they believe RMB/USD somehow reflects relative economic and political strength. Second, a big depreciation of RMB/USD could dent domestic sentiment and speed up capital flight.”

Goldman Sachs analyst Maggie Wei says “we think the PBOC might have tolerance for further yuan depreciation against the dollar, especially as the broad dollar continues to strengthen, though they might want to avoid continued and too fast one-way depreciation if possible.”

Likewise, economist Julian Evans-Pritchard at Capital Economics thinks Beijing will be very careful not to let the yuan weaken past the 7.2 level that “we saw during the trade war.”

Yet, the dollar’s gains and the likelihood the US Fed will continue tightening are presenting Chinese officials with a big balancing challenge as economic growth slows. Last week, PBOC deputy governor Liu Guoqiang said that, in the short term, yuan exchange rates should fluctuate in two directions and people “should not bet on a specific point.”

Liu, however, is clearly focused on the bigger picture in stressing that “in the future, the world’s recognition of the yuan will continue to increase.”

Diana Choyleva at Enodo Economics says this tension between the next 20 weeks and the next 20 years is becoming increasingly difficult to pull off. “China,” she says, “has largely benefited from the dollar-led global financial] system. But Beijing now perceives its dependence on the dollar as a strategic vulnerability.”

On the one hand, Choyleva says, Xi’s team “wants to guard against the US deploying the dollar as a weapon against it.”

On the other, she adds, China “wants to use the yuan as a tool for consolidating an economic sphere of influence, thereby bolstering China’s economic security. And it wants the yuan to be a symbol of its great power status, to help bolster its claim to represent a viable alternative to the US-led international order.”

For now, though, the dollar’s zigs and zags are dominating Asia’s 2022 and odds are it will in the year ahead, too. Hence the focus on Asian foreign-exchange reserve levels as Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s team in Washington steps up the pace of tightening.

Hopes US inflation had peaked in July were dashed by news of a 0.1% increase in consumer prices in August. It means that, from a year earlier, prices are up 8.3%.

Last week, Powell said the Fed will act “forthrightly” to curb overheating risks. Some top Fed officials are hinting at another 75 basis-point rate hike next week.

The latest data mean “they’re definitely going 75” again, says economist Jay Bryson at Wells Fargo & Co. Tiffany Wilding, an economist at Pacific Investment Management Co, says the “scorching” nature of recent price data suggest the problem is “stickier and broader-based” than the conventional wisdom and means “the Fed has more work to do.”

So do Asian central banks as local currencies come under increased downward pressure. With average reserves falling “steeply,” says analyst Thomas Rookmaaker at Fitch Ratings, many economies “still have substantial reserve buffers, but for a small number, the fall is an indication of mounting external financing stress.”

Fitch calculates that Asia-Pacific region reserves declined by roughly $590 billion between the end of 2021 and July 31, 2022. “For many APAC sovereigns,” Rookmaaker says, “reserve buffers have fallen to pre-pandemic levels, after a significant rise over the past two years, partly driven by pandemic-related factors, including demand compression.”

The largest declines in value terms were seen in China, Singapore and Japan. But the depletion dynamic among developing nations is the real worry as the dollar rally accelerates.

“Should the regional decline in reserves be sustained, this would eventually put downward pressure on ratings for some APAC sovereigns,” Rookmaaker says.

This risk, he adds, “could be significant where reserves have been a rating strength that offsets other credit weaknesses, such as in the Philippines or where external finances have traditionally been weaker than peers, such as in Indonesia.”

In his own research, Devesh at Standard Chartered notes that when using reductions in reserves as proxies for currency intervention, New Delhi and Bangkok have been among the most assertive. Reserves declined by $81 billion and $32 billion, respectively, so far in 2022.

Meanwhile, stockpiles fell by about $27 billion in Seoul, $13 billion in Jakarta and $9 billion in Kuala Lumpur. By these metrics, Thailand, the Philippines, India, Indonesia and Malaysia warrant the greatest concern from a stability standpoint should the dollar continue surging.

In the case of Thailand, economist Chartchai Parasuk writes in the Bangkok Post, “the quickly depleting reserves raise concerns about the country’s economic stability.” The trend, he warns, “is unnatural and against economic theory.”

And for investors worried about an Asian Financial Crisis 2.0 trajectory for the region, it’s a sign of potential trouble to come.

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Featured image: Thailand’s central bank is spending big again to prop the baht. Image: Twitter

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What is it about Australian diplomacy that makes it so clumsy and dunderheaded?  Is it the harsh delivery, the tactless expression, or the inability to do things with subtle reflection?  On September 6, Australian diplomacy gave another display of such form with Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s remarks about the Solomon Islands elections.

Things have been testy for the government of Manasseh Sogavare, who has rolled out the red carpet to pestiferous officials of virtually all ranks from Beijing to Washington.  Most, if not all this interest, has been triggered by Sogavare’s signing of a security pact with the People’s Republic of China.  This, the government in Honaria duly found out, is not approved by the Anglophone powers on either side of the Pacific.

On its announcement, then Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called a potential Chinese naval base a “red line”, while US National Security Council official Kurt Campbell promised that Washington would “respond accordingly”.

Being in what is termed the Australian “backyard” by those who so happen to be in Australia, Wong made an offer that would irk any sovereign state, including her own: We, old friends of empire, are happy to bankroll your election.

The offer was floated largely because of two factors.  Sogavare is keen to hold elections after the Pacific Games, scheduled to be held in late 2023.  The Constitutional Amendment Bill 2022 placed before parliament will enable him to postpone the election to 2024.  The unconvincing argument made by the government is that forking out the cash for both the Games and the election in the same year would be prohibitively costly.

Instead of leaving this messy situation to Honiara to scrap it out with its detractors and opponents, Wong decided to open the wallet.  The Australian taxpayer, never asked in such matters, would happily cover the cost of the elections were they to be held next year.  “We have made an offer of assistance, and it’s a matter for Solomon Islands as to whether they respond and how they wish to respond,” she explained to RN Breakfast.

When asked whether this seemed to be a soothing response to the grievances of opposition politicians in the Solomon Islands, Wong could only be derivative.  “No, this is because Australia has historically supported democracy in Solomon Islands.”  Australia had “previously offered support and we are offering support again.”

After the bitter, condescending tenure of the Morrison government, which saw South Pacific states mocked for their climate change concerns, Canberra’s perceived paternalism is not welcome.  The statement that thundered Canberra’s way was one of stern disapproval.  “The timing of the public media announcement by the Australian government is in effect a strategy to influence how Members of Parliament will vote on this Bill during the second reading on Thursday 8^th September 2022.”

Using words that should appeal to Australia’s own politicians, the statement went on to claim that this was “an assault on our parliamentary democracy and is a direct foreign interference into our domestic affairs.”

Opposition MPs in Honiara have eagerly jumped at the promise of Wong’s statement.  Using Australian assistance as a political means to weaken the government has played to a conventional stereotype: find the wealthy patron, and use that patron wisely.  Australia’s offer, claimed MP Peter Kenilorea Jr of the Parliamentary Foreign Relations Committee, was “generous” rather than one of interference, and the fuming on Sogavare’s part was “unfortunate and extremely unhelpful.  It has exposed Sogavare and his government’s … selfish agenda to hold on to power.”

Opposition leader Matthew Wale is also of the view that Sogavare is desperate to entrench himself, using the amendment measure as a distraction.  “If we respect the people’s mandate and parliamentary democracy and processes, MPs should reject the Bill to postpone elections.  With Australian funding, there is now no need for the bill.”

The likes of Kenilorea have a point in noting how Sogavare had happily received cash from Canberra regarding funding for the Pacific Games itself.  “When Australia gave A$17 for the Pacific Games it was heartily welcomed with smiles.  But when an offer is made to support timely elections, it is seen differently.”  Perhaps it says much that MP Kenilorea sees no distinction between games that are sponsored, in part, by a foreign power, and the election process that returns parliamentary members.

Back in Australia, Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister, Simon Birmingham, did not disagree with the sentiment, but took issue with the execution.  The Albanese government, he remarked on RN Breakfast, should have done things in confidence and on the sly.  To have made it public was a “giant misstep”.

Nor was the electoral gambit enough for those voices who wish to see the South Pacific turned into an Anglo-Australian garrison ready to repel the Yellow Horde.  The apoplectic demagogues on Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News network rage that more should be done.  The blustery Andrew Bolt told his handful of viewers that the Albanese government had shown “weakness” in not trouncing the independent will of island savages and their drift towards the bosom of totalitarianism.  “It still refuses to say a word of criticism as the Solomon Islands, this island nation right on our border, as its leader pushes from democracy towards something looking increasingly like the Cuba of the Pacific.”

The only country risking the status of a “Cuba of the Pacific”, in so far as political isolation is concerned, is Australia.  “Australia’s strategic dilemma in the twenty-first century,” writes  former Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani “is simple: it can choose to be a bridge between East and the West in the Asian Century – or the tip of the spear projecting Western power into Asia.”  In choosing to be a spear of Western interference, tipped by an ignorance of regional conditions and historical realities, Canberra’s estrangement and exile is all but guaranteed.

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

Featured image: Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare (Licensed under CC BY 2.0)

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***

Today, September 7, the Philippine Inter-agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) has finally passed a recommendation on the voluntary use of face mask outdoors to the office of the President. The country awaits an executive order for its implementation.

While the President expresses optimism over the proposal, the Department of Health and other authorities demonstrate reluctance to lift this health protocol which comes from a flawed scientific reference on the effectiveness of face masks against viral transmission.

It should be recalled that since the onset of the pandemic, people have been religiously wearing the face mask (others even wore two or more at a time), but that did not prevent the rise in the so-called “COVID-19 confirmed cases”. Now, with a reported average of daily cases at 0.017% of the total population, what other evidence is necessary to justify the lifting of the use of face mask?

The Philippines is among the remaining countries to impose mandatory wearing of face mask in both indoor and outdoor areas.

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Jezile Torculas has a bachelor’s degree in Political Science. She is an Assistant Editor at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

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***

Japanese Prime Minister Kishida has expressed support for investigations that will probably lead to the first construction of new nuclear power plants in Japan in over a decade.

The obvious goal is to reduce reliance on imported fossil fuels and exposure to the wild vacillations of oil and gas prices. But also behind the move is the need to reactivate nuclear power plant construction before the manufacturing expertise that makes it possible is lost.

If the decision is ultimately taken, it would mark a fundamental shift in the policy to reduce Japan’s dependence on nuclear power that has prevailed since the Fukushima disaster in 2011.

Speaking to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s (METI) Green Transformation Project on August 24, Kishida said Japan should restart more of the nuclear power plants shut down after Fukushima, extend their operating lifetimes and make a political decision regarding the development and construction of new next-generation nuclear power plants.

Kishida told the Green Transformation Project’s executive council to present a report on its conclusions by year-end, of which METI is expected to fill in the details. The policy change appears to be coming just in time to avoid the loss of Japan’s technical expertise in generating nuclear power.

In July, the president of the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (JAIF), Shiro Arai, met with media representatives to talk about the organization’s “proposal on maintaining and strengthening [nuclear power] supply chains” and to convey the results of a survey of 154 suppliers conducted in the second half of 2021.

JAIF is an association made up of Japanese nuclear power companies, electric power companies, electronics manufacturers, construction companies, trading companies, banks, universities, research institutes, mass media and local governments.

Its stated purpose is “To contribute to the sound development of the national economy… by promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy.”

Compared with 2010, only 22% of survey respondents said that their nuclear power-related sales had been increasing, while 48% said they had been decreasing. Around 56% said that the suspension of nuclear power plant operations had made it difficult to maintain their technological capabilities.

The shadow of the 2011 nuclear disaster at Fukushima has long hung over Japan’s nuclear energy sector but new energy realities may be forcing a reset. Photo: Photo: TEPCO / JIJI Press

According to a JAIF statement, Arai himself noted that “resumed construction [of nuclear power plants] could not be carried out within budget and according to schedule… if construction… had been suspended for a decade….”

It went on: “…the longer the blank period becomes, the longer it would take to recover technological capabilities.”

Japan last put a nuclear power plant – the Tomari 3 reactor in Hokkaido – into commercial operation 13 years ago, in 2009. Since then, Japan’s nuclear power industry has survived on maintenance work and decommissioning.

According to JAIF, R&D spending has dropped by about half and more than 20 suppliers have exited the business. Senior engineers have retired, the number of young trainees has declined and none of them have gained experience from working on reactor construction projects.

Japan has three nuclear power plant general contractors: Toshiba, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and Hitachi.

Toshiba’s prolonged and difficult restructuring has dominated news about the company but it retains its nuclear technologies, which include design, construction, maintenance, decommissioning, fuel reprocessing, waste treatment and next-generation reactor R&D. It is working on a small mobile reactor for local utilities and a small sodium-cooled reactor.

In early June, Toshiba announced a collaboration with American engineering company Bechtel to supply turbines and generators for Poland’s first nuclear power plant.

MHI specializes in pressurized (light) water reactors, 24 of which have been built in Japan and which are reportedly favored in METI’s draft plans for future nuclear power plant construction. It is also exploring advanced technologies including fusion energy.

MHI has exported nuclear power plant components to the US, Brazil, Europe, Korea and China. An MHI-led nuclear power plant construction project in Turkey was canceled in 2018 due to cost overruns.

Hitachi has a long-term commitment to nuclear power that is reinforced by its joint ventures with General Electric, Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy in Japan and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) overseas. In addition to GE, Hitachi is working with Bill Gates’s Terra Power.

Like Toshiba and MHI, Hitachi has a wide range of nuclear power technologies, but its next-generation projects are more advanced.

A GE Hitachi blueprint model for a new generation small modular nuclear power plant in Ontario, Canada. Image: GE Hitachi

Hitachi was forced to abandon a nuclear power plant construction project in the UK in 2020 due to insufficient government and private sector financial support.

In addition, Japanese engineering company JGC and industrial machinery maker Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries (IHI) have invested in and are working with NuScale Power, the US designer of small modular nuclear reactors.

JGC will provide engineering, procurement and construction services for small modular reactors in cooperation with its long-standing American partner, Fluor Corporation, which is NuScale’s majority shareholder. IHI will provide containment structures for reactor cores and other components.

Japan also has a venture company spun out of Kyoto University that is dedicated to solving global warming through the development of nuclear fusion energy. Kyoto Fusioneering develops fusion reactor technologies including materials, components and power generation systems, and provides engineering and design support to customers in Japan and overseas.

Japan’s private sector is well ahead of its politicians with the technology and experience needed to revitalize and upgrade the nation’s nuclear power industry and is already playing a significant role in developing next-generation nuclear energy technologies.

It would be a shame if the Japanese government moves too slowly for this expertise to be put to full and efficient use.

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***

The government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has just reached 100 days, a time to assess its performance.

Looking at foreign policy, the question is whether there has been continuity or change from the policies of prior governments. The correct answer is usually both.

Commentators will rightly say there has been great continuity on international policy with no revolutionary change in direction. As Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong recently said,

I have made clear that our national interests, our strategic policy settings haven’t changed – but obviously the government has, and how the government approaches engaging with the world and articulating those interests has changed.

So where can we see this change?

Increased international engagement

The first change is in the simple volume of international engagement. The day after he was sworn in, Albanese was in Tokyo for the Quad Leaders’ Summit, quickly followed by his first bilateral visit to Indonesia.

Wong has made four separate trips to the Pacific (Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, New Zealand and Solomon Islands, as well as July’s Pacific Islands Forum Summit) and three to Southeast Asia (Vietnam and Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia twice).

Minister for Defence Richard Marles has visited Singapore, India, the United States and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Rwanda. And Minister for Trade Don Farrell was busy in Geneva with the WTO Ministerial Conference and bilateral meetings.

Some of this activity is due to the fortuitous timing of international meetings, but the rest is a conscious choice to prioritise international engagement. It suggests a certain amount of pent-up energy among new ministers with much on their agendas after so long in opposition.

The overall impression is of a government focused on international matters, which has perhaps adopted the mindset that external policy is as important as domestic policy. Albanese defended his trip to the NATO summit and Ukraine saying,

we can’t separate international events from their impact on Australia and Australians.

Resetting key relationships

The second change is a reset in some key relationships. Every new government should use the opportunity to get rid of barnacles that have attached themselves to the ship of state.

This was most notable in the reset in relations with France, still seething from the cancellation of its submarine construction deal in favour of AUKUS, the trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The diplomatic freeze with China was broken by the two ministers for defence meeting at the Shangri-La Dialogue and the ministers for foreign affairs meeting soon after. This was presented as “stabilising the relationship”, with the government stressing that there has been no change in policy position.

Changes in climate, Pacific and South-East Asia

Third, there has been a substantive policy change on climate action. This has had an impact on Australia’s international relations, particularly in the Pacific, where there had been no secret about Pacific leaders’ disappointment in Australia’s lack of climate ambition.

Only four days after being sworn in, Wong spoke to the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat to herald “a new era in Australian engagement in the Pacific” based on standing “shoulder to shoulder with our Pacific family” in response to the climate crisis.

Pacific leaders including the prime ministers of Samoa and Tonga welcomed this policy shift. While it won’t all be plain sailing ahead – with Australia likely to continue to face pressure around the speed of its transition away from fossil fuels – relations are much more positive.

Fourth, there has been a change in tone on some issues. For example, in South-east Asia former Prime Minister Morrison’s framing around an “arc of autocracies” was viewed as proposing a binary choice between democratic and authoritarian blocs. The Albanese government’s messaging emphasises “strategic equilibrium” where “countries are not forced to choose but can make their own sovereign choices, including about their alignments and partnerships”.

Increasing Australia’s international capability

Finally, the government is beginning the hard work of increasing Australia’s international capability across all tools of statecraft. It has announced a Defence Strategic Review and is updating its International Development Policy.

The government has also committed to building the capability of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade after decades of declining funding. Allan Gyngell, National President of the Australian Institute of International Affairs (AIIA), sees this as a significant change:

“After years of marginalisation, foreign policy has been restored to a more central part of Australian statecraft.”

Long-term goals

Overall, after the flurry of early visits, the Albanese government gives the impression of a government settling in for the long-term.

Looking back on nine years of the previous government – with three prime ministers creating a sense of constant campaign mode – domestic politics often seemed to dominate. The new government gives the impression it is building relationships for the long-term – three, six or more years.

In its first frenetic days, the Albanese government took the opportunity to reset some key relationships. Now it’s all about steadily building these relationships and the capability to enable Australia to pursue its national interests in the long-term.

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Melissa Conley Tyler, Honorary Fellow, Asia Institute, The University of Melbourne

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With the election of a new government in Australia in May, the begging bowls were being readied by administrators in the university sector.  Bloated, ungainly, ruthless and uneven in quality, the country’s universities, for the most part, had inadvertently made their case for more public funding harder.  Initially ravaged by poor investment decisions, notably in the Chinese market, COVID-19 had threatened to wipe the balance sheets of a good number of Australia’s academic institutions.  Despite initial shocks, the storm has been, apart from a few institutions, weathered.

The University of Sydney registered a A$1.04 billion operating surplus between 2020 and 2021, with an underlying surplus of A$454 million.  The University of New South Wales (UNSW) reported a A$306 million surplus in 2021, a considerable improvement from its A$19 million loss in 2020.  The University of Technology Sydney recorded revenue amounting to A$109 million, shading their $50 million loss from 2020 into oblivion.

Such surpluses would surely suggest the viability of pay rises for staff, an important point in pay negotiations with stingy university managements.  “There’s no excuse for university management to be hoarding money in such proportions,” reasons the National Tertiary Education Union branch president Nick Riemer.  “People at the university are crying out for much-needed reforms.  This shows they are affordable.”

NTEU New South Wales Secretary Damien Cahill has also added his view that a number of universities, notably University of Sydney, “can afford a fair pay rise for staff and to fix the problem of widespread job insecurity.”

The response from the non-teaching, non-research blotter jotters was characteristic.  Such ballooning amounts were seen as unusual, one-off cases, arrows out of the blue.  Around the corner, revenue stripping disasters await.  The pot of gold needed protection, not distribution.

University of Sydney’s Vice Chancellor Mark Scott led the pack with that ill-worn argument.  “While this is a strong result, it is also a one-off result,” he claimed in a statement.  “We are not immune from the continuing uncertain future of international higher education and the growing cost pressures currently affecting the global and Australian economies.”

The University’s own annual report notes how the surplus came about “mainly due to increases in overseas student enrolments, strong investment performance and non-recurring items including the Commonwealth Government’s A$95.1 million Research Support Program contribution and the net gains from the disposal of property assets.”

The picture is one of corporate brands raking in cash rather than educators providing a public service.  Some 38 of Australia’s universities, for instance, drew revenue from selling their shareholdings in IDP Education, considered one of the world’s largest international education companies.  Prior to the sale, Australian universities held a 40% stake in IDP Education, retained via Education Australia.

While operating surpluses have been registered aplenty, job losses have been unremitting.  Thousands of staff have been given the big heave-ho and sod off treatment even as managers have continued feathering their nests.  (All in all, 3,237 fewer permanent and fixed-term contract staff positions were noted in the latest federal government figures.)

The University of NSW topped the league tables in that regard, with 726 fewer full-time equivalent positions in 2021 than the previous year.  The University of Sydney shed 223 staff despite recording its best surplus in 172 years.  The measure served to reduce employee-related expenses by A$60 million.

To these job losses can be added those suffered by the invaluable, long suffering casual workforce.  In a shameful state of affairs, this precarious body of workers, with minimal labour protections and economic security, constitute the vast bulk of those delivering courses.  Prior to the pandemic, the number of casual employees working in Australia’s universities is estimated to have been in the order of 100,000.  Losses of 4,258 full-time equivalents in 2020 were registered, but other higher assessments abound.

Before this spectacle of inequity basks that species of lamentable administrator known as the Vice Chancellor.  The Australian variants of this office have persistently proven to be untrustworthy and unworthy.  For years, their obscene pay packages, their decisions to reduce able staff while still maintaining their own inflated salaries and the tribunate that surrounds them, deserved an anti-corruption inquiry.

The scope of such an inquiry would have to be oceanic and vast, from teasing out the grounds for ludicrous investment choices to rules stifling free speech and academic freedoms.  Along the way, the habitual resort to non-disclosure agreements, the use of codes of conduct as silencing bludgeons, and the almost total absence of solid anti-whistleblower provisions, could be looked at.

Instead of being interrogated by appropriate QCs and chased up with a sharp summons, these managers only grow in number, the mold of administrative disaster, undermining academic health at every turn and creating the next absurd brand they call a “university”.  With each semester, new positions are created with names disturbingly reminiscent of industrial cleaning products: DVCs, PVCs, Deputy PVCs and what not.  These fatuous appointments are subsidised, in turn, by the labours of ailing, overworked staff, contemplating ruination, dejection, and suicide.

The education system has been in sharp decline in inverse proportion to the financial returns being hailed.  Throwing public money at these beggars in surplus, an otherwise sensible proposition that could shield the sector from the ravages of impudent investment decisions, looks less appealing on closer inspection.  Without deep, remorselessly brave reform, one that directly decapitates the officialdom of university management, good money will be thrown after ill-gotten gains.

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

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***

August 27, Sydney.  The scale was jaw dropping and amusing.  There he was, the still fresh Labor Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, rendered pygmy-like by the enormity of one Shaquille O’Neal, popularly known as Shaq.  No degree of expert photography at this press conference could conceal the disparity in size between the two.

Albanese has made it his crowning ambition to campaign for the Voice.  By that, he means to put to Australian voters a question on constitutionally recognising Australia’s First Nations peoples (admirable and irrefutable) and enshrining a vague, as yet undetermined political forum that will represent them (problematic).  He hopes to get popular consent to alter the Constitution first without necessarily putting a model to the vote, a distinctly brave proposition.

Opponents and sceptics have been lingering in the bushes, but the appearance of Shaq provided grist to the mill.  While movie stars, tartlets and personalities find their mark in the politics of some countries (the Philippines comes to mind), Australia remains unaroused by the tinsel and bling.  Generally speaking, the celebrity factor duds when it comes to proposing substantive political change.

As much as Australians love their sports stars and, less significantly, their film stars, using them to promote an agenda that might result in votes reeks of shallowness and condescension.  When combined with finger pointing moral authority, the voter in question is bound to switch off and drop out.  This did not cross Albanese’s mind.  “Shaq is someone who is well known to younger people, and one of things that we have been doing is trying to mobilise support for the Voice to Parliament by talking with sporting figures.”

The antics of the Albanese-O’Neal show, however innocently done, served to emphasise political distance, not collective worth.  It suggested a deal in the making, one to be refined behind closed doors away from the curious mob.  “[I]f there is anything you need from me, let me know,” Shaq offered the Australian prime minister before the cameras.  This might well work for a certain demographic of green salad voter but unlikely to interest the pragmatically suspicious sort.

The event did not even feature anything profound from the titanic figure.  The focus was all about having him there.  “We know that Mr O’Neal does a lot of work in the United States about social justice and lifting people up who are marginalised, including through sporting organisations,” stated Albanese.

This is undoubtedly true as a statement, but the inference here is that local Australians involved in such projects simply don’t cut the mustard or, if they do, need something of a hand up.  Marvellous it may be that “Shaq has that record” and realises “that Australian history didn’t begin in 1788”, such celebrities can hardly be seen as high authorities of cerebration.  They could even come across as nosey meddlers.

The waft of condescension did not take long to find a number of keen and irate noses. “Anybody else uncomfortable that our PM needs to hall [sic] in an American basketball star to shill for the Voice?” wondered the cranky former Senator Derry Hynch.

Always happy to screech his agreement with the next contrarian spark, Barnaby Joyce MP of the Nationals also claimed that O’Neal had few, if any credentials, to talk about such matters.  “Why are we having a multi-millionaire American basketball star… over here to talk about how we run our Constitution?”

Presumably, the cynic might retort, because you don’t run it, the true locus of power lying with her Britannic majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, exercised via her representative, the Governor General.  The rest is left to the discretion of US power.  All is fair and mockery when you are a monarchical outpost and Washington’s bit of rough.

Harder to dispel was the question from Joyce as to whether something serious had unfolded.  “Are we selling McDonald’s here or are we changing the Constitution?”  It had to also come to a matter of size – or height.  “Why have you got an American basketball star standing at the podium about 10 feet taller than Anthony Albanese, I mean what’s this about?”

Had the grunts and grumbles remained confined to a few conservatives of pallid disposition, nothing more would have been said.  Albanese, for his part, could only see the value of the show.  Shaq “approached me and I think people should chill out a bit basically.”  The star’s appearance meant conversation about the Voice, “and that’s a good thing.”

But certain First Nations politicians refused to chill.  Victorian Senator Lidia Thorpe preferred boiling, launching her own salvo of dissatisfaction from the perspective of the First Nations who were seemingly placed in a runner-up position relative to a US sporting star.  “Labor met with an American celebrity before speaking with First Nations politicians from this Country.  Not once has Labor reached out to me to discuss the Voice. Still waiting, Labor.”

In an interview with Melbourne radio station 3AW, she kept the fusillades coming.  “He’s putting his nose into business that has nothing to do with him.”  Shaq, she suggested, did “not understand what is going on in this country and he should not be commenting”.  Thorpe continued to note that the basketball figure was “here for a speaking tour, good on him” while also promoting PointsBet “which is about gambling which is about destroying families.”

Of different political persuasion but also of First Nations sensibility, Country Liberal Party Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price found herself in furious agreement, a rare sight indeed.  “If the PM and the Minister for Indigenous Australians thinks Shaq’s experience with ‘lifting people up who are marginalised’ is the answer to winning Yes votes for the Voice then it demonstrates just how clueless and out of touch they both are with what the needs of Aboriginal Australians are.”

From this, an echo of the Republican campaign that failed so spectacularly in 1999 can be discerned.  Then, the papers, media outlets, pundits and lobbyists thought the Australian Republic in the bag.  In the final referendum outcome, it barely fitted.  A key, and failed figure then, was Malcolm Turnbull of the Australian Republican Movement.  In his company were the authorial-thespian-professional class who thought victory a foregone conclusion.  The Constitutional Monarchists, and the devious conservative Prime Minister at the time, John Howard, thought otherwise.

Since then, Turnbull entered parliament, became a victim of his own party’s malice, but not before arguing against the Voice.  The fact that he is now in favour of it should worry Albanese, given his past misreading of the Australian mood.  Down under, celebrity figures, actual and pretend, can kill worthwhile political causes.

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

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The world of trade is having interesting developments.

An AP report from Seoul said:

South Korea landed a 3 trillion won ($2.25 billion) contract with a Russian state-run nuclear energy company to provide components and construct a turbine building for Egypt’s first nuclear power plant, officials said Thursday.

The South Koreans hailed the deal as a triumph for their nuclear power industry, although it made for awkward optics as their American allies push an economic pressure campaign to isolate Russia over its war on Ukraine.

South Korean officials said the U.S. was consulted in advance about the deal and that the technologies being supplied by Seoul for the project would not clash with international sanctions against Russia.

According to South Korea’s presidential office and trade ministry, the contract between state-run Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power and ASE requires the South Koreans to provide certain materials and equipment and construct the turbine building of the plant being built in Dabaa. The Mediterranean coastal town is located about 130 kilometers (80 miles) northwest of Cairo.

ASE is a subsidiary of Rosatom, a state-owned Russian nuclear conglomerate.

A senior aide of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said the negotiations were slowed by “unexpected variables,” mainly Russia’s war on Ukraine and the U.S.-led sanctions campaign against Moscow over its aggression.

Choi Sang-mok, Yoon’s senior secretary for economic affairs, said South Korea provided an explanation to the United States in advance about its plans to participate in the Dabaa project and that the allies will maintain close consultation as the work proceeds. As part of U.S.-led sanctions against Moscow, South Korea has ended transactions with Russia’s central bank and sovereign wealth funds and banned exports of strategic materials to Russia.

Neither Choi nor officials from South Korea’s trade ministry elaborated on how the crisis in Ukraine and the sanctions on Moscow affected the negotiations between Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power and ASE, which has a contract with Egypt to build four 1,200 megawatt reactors.

Choi stressed that South Korea’s involvement in the project would not clash with international sanctions against Russia.

Yoon’s office expressed hope that South Korea’s participation in the Dabaa project would help the country gain a foothold in future nuclear projects across Africa and also improve its chances to export to countries such as the Czech Republic, Poland and Saudi Arabia.

Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power had been engaging in negotiations with ASE as the preferred bidder for the turbine-related project since December, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February.

Go Myong-hyun, a senior analyst at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said the deal would not have been possible without an export approval by the U.S. as the components provided by Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power likely include U.S.-originated technology.

Current sanctions against Moscow also do not include specific restrictions related to nuclear energy and the Biden administration would have no interest in disrupting a crucial project for Egypt, which it sees as a key partner in the region, Go said.

While South Korea’s involvement in the Dabaa project would not immediately be a problem between the allies if the Americans signed off on it, things could change depending on how Russia’s war on Ukraine goes and whether Washington expands export controls against Moscow, Go said.

Yoon’s office said the participation in the Dabaa project is the country’s biggest export of nuclear power technology since 2009, when a South Korean-led consortium won a $20 billion contract to build nuclear power reactors in the United Arab Emirates.

Yoon government has set a goal of exporting 10 nuclear power reactors by 2030.

U.S. Warns Of Sanctions Against Turkey Over Russia Ties

Another media report said:

Turkey’s top business association has confirmed receiving a letter from the U.S. Treasury warning of possible sanctions if it continues doing business with Russia.

Washington is growing increasingly alarmed that the Russian government and businesses are using Turkey to evade Western financial and trading restrictions imposed in response to the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine six months ago.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin agreed to step up economic cooperation at a summit in the Black Sea resort of Sochi earlier this month.

Official data show the value of Turkish exports to Russia between May and July growing by nearly 50 percent from last year’s figure.

Turkey’s imports of Russian oil are ballooning and the two sides have agreed to transition to ruble payments for the natural gas exported by the Kremlin-tied giant Gazprom.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo paid a rare visit to Ankara and Istanbul in June to express Washington’s worries that Russian oligarchs and big businesses were using Turkish entities to avoid Western sanctions.

NATO member Turkey — on good terms with both Moscow and Kyiv — has tried to stay neutral in the conflict and refused to join the international sanctions regime.

Adeyemo followed that up with a letter to Turkey’s TUSIAD business association and the American Chamber of Commerce in Turkey warning that companies and banks were in danger of being sanctioned themselves.

TUSIAD said in a statement on Tuesday that is has passed on the letter to Turkey’s foreign and finance ministries.

The letter’s contents were first reported by The Wall Street Journal this week.

“Any individuals or entities providing material support to US-designated persons are themselves at risk of US sanctions,” Adeyemo wrote.

“Turkish banks cannot expect to establish corresponding relationships with sanctioned Russian banks and retain their corresponding relationships with major global banks as well as access to the US dollar and other major currencies.”

The economic cooperation agreement sealed by Erdogan and Putin includes a deal for more Turkish banks to start processing Russia’s Mir payments system.

Turkish officials have not formally responded to Adeyemo’s letter.

Broader cooperation with Russia could help support Turkey’s ailing economy in the runup to next-year’s general election.

Erdogan has previously argued that Ankara cannot join Western sanctions on Moscow because of Turkey’s heavy dependence on Russian oil and natural gas imports.

“Our economy is such that imposing sanctions on Russia would harm Turkey the most,” Erdogan’s foreign policy adviser Ibrahim Kalin said in June.

Russia And Iran Move To Create Global Gas Cartel

Moscow and Tehran are taking serious steps toward forming an OPEC-style cartel for natural gas that would allow them to coordinate an ‘extraordinary’ proportion of reserves and control over prices, OilPrice reported on Tuesday.

“Occupying the number one and number two positions in the world’s largest gas reserves table, respectively – Russia with just under 48 trillion cubic meters (tcm) and Iran with nearly 34 tcm – the two countries are in an ideal position to do this,” the report stated.

It described the $40 billion memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed last month between Russia’s Gazprom and the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) as “a stepping stone to enabling Russia and Iran to implement their long-held plan to be the core participants in a global cartel for gas suppliers in the same mold as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) for oil suppliers.”

The chairman of Iran’s Oil, Gas, and Petrochemical Products Exporters’ Union, Hamid Hosseini, reportedly said after the MoU had been signed: “Now the Russians have come to the conclusion that the consumption of gas in the world will increase and the tendency towards consumption of LNG has increased and they alone are not able to meet the world’s demand, so there is no room left for gas competition.”

According to OilPrice, major global LNG supplier Qatar – which has the third-largest gas reserves of just under 24 tcm – could be a prime candidate to join the Russia-Iran gas cartel.

Together, Russia, Iran and Qatar account for just under 60% of the world’s gas reserves, the report pointed out. The three countries were instrumental in the founding of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), whose 11 members control over 71% of global gas reserves, 44% of its marketed production, 53% of its gas pipelines, and 57% of its LNG exports, it said.

China’s Spending On Russian Energy Imports Shoots Up To $35 Billion Since The Outbreak Of The Ukraine War

China’s spending on energy imports from Russia has hit $35 billion for the months since the Ukraine war started, as the Asian powerhouse turns to Moscow for fuel.

That outlay on Russian energy from March to July is a big jump on the $20 billion booked a year before, according to a Bloomberg report Monday.

In July alone, Chinese buyers laid out a combined $7.2 billion on imports of oil, natural gas and coal, according to customs data cited by Bloomberg. That’s a rise of 53% from the $4.7 billion booked in the same month in 2021.

Energy prices soared since the beginning of the Ukraine-Russia war, and that will have inflated China’s spending figures. But the country has also imported higher volumes of Russian crude oil, natural gas, and coal since the war began, according to China’s General Administration of Customs.

A Business insider report said:

China has stepped up its spending as western countries impose sanctions against Putin and Russia. The US has vowed to phase out Russian oil imports, while the EU will introduce an embargo on Russian crude in December.

Moscow has offered its oil exports at a discount to buyers in Asia, as it searches for customers in the face of Western sanctions.

China’s state and independent refineries have jumped on the opportunity to snap up cheap crude, with Russian Urals oil trading at a 22% discount to the global Brent benchmark.

Seaborne imports to China of liquefied natural gas have risen 20% over the past year, with Russia sending 410,000 tons by tanker in July, according to Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, imports of Russian coal surged 14% year-on-year to hit a new record high of 7.4 million tons in July. Russia has now overtaken Indonesia as China’s top source for the fuel imports.

China Forgives 23 Unpaid Loans to 17 African Nations, Readies $10 Billion in Credit

Another media report said:

Chinese Foreign Minister and State Councilor Wang Yi revealed recently that Beijing would forgive a substantial amount of debt owed to its financial institutions by African nations. China has been accused by Western powers of predatory lending to poorer nations and using their debts to compel them to adopt pro-Beijing positions.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on August 18 at the Coordinators’ Meeting on the Implementation of the Follow-up Actions of the Eighth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Beijing. Among other actions, it said that “China will waive 23 interest-free loans for 17 African countries that matured by the end of 2021.”

However, the announcement did not state the volume of debt that had been forgiven.

Debt forgiveness has been a regular feature of China’s financial relationship with Africa, and because it refuses to meddle in the political affairs of its lender nations, China is rapidly becoming the lender of choice on the continent.

“Over the past half a year, over $3 billion out of the $10 billion of credit facilities pledged to African financial institutions has been delivered, and nearly $2.5 billion of loans has been channeled to Africa’s priority programs,” said Wang, who chaired the FOCAC meeting. “More than $2 billion of the $10 billion of trade finance has been allocated, and China’s import of African goods in 7 months has reached $70.6 billion.”

“So far this year, China has signed with 12 African countries exchanges of letters on zero tariff for 98% of their export items to China. Chinese companies have invested [an] additional $2.17 billion in Africa. The Chinese side is prepared to re-channel, through the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust and Resilience and Sustainability Trust, $10 billion of its Special Drawing Rights to Africa, and will encourage the IMF to direct China’s contributions to Africa,” he added.

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What many in the West at first dismissed as a tantrum thrown by Beijing over the unauthorized visit of US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan appears instead to be a carefully thought-out strategy designed to incrementally reassert Chinese sovereignty over the island territory. Beijing’s ability to do this is underwritten by the nation’s growing military might.

Through a unique and powerful missile arsenal to a capable and growing air force, navy, and ground force, China has created the means through which to reverse decades of injustice, encroachment, and encirclement by the West against the Chinese people and their territory. Even Western analysts and military experts admit that China’s military capabilities have grown to world-class levels. These capabilities will be key to achieving and defending Chinese sovereignty now and into the future, through deterrence if possible, or through force if necessary.

The Long Sword: China’s Missile Force

Throughout human history weapons have been used to give a fighting force a greater reach than their adversaries. Be it sword, spear, or arrow, those with the longest and most effective reach often dominate the battlefield. On today’s battlefield, this reach is achieved through missiles.

China’s modern missile forces are the largest and most capable on Earth according to even Western analysts. Through a combination of long, medium, intermediate, and short range missiles as well as a variety of cruise missiles, China has the ability to hit targets near and far.

The US government and arms industry-funded Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) through its “China Power” project wrote a paper titled, “How Are China’s Land-based Conventional Missile Forces Evolving?,” which admitted:

Conventionally armed (non-nuclear) missiles have become an increasingly important component of military power. They can be employed to deter threats or project power hundreds or thousands of kilometers away. As part of sweeping efforts to modernize the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), China has developed one of the most powerful land-based conventional missile arsenals in the world.

The same paper would also admit:

According to the US Department of Defense (DoD), China’s missile forces in 2000 “were generally of short range and modest accuracy.” In the years since then, China has developed the world’s “largest and most diverse” arsenal of ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles.

The PLA Rocket Force, which maintains and operates China’s land-based conventional and nuclear missiles, has fielded multiple new missile systems over the last several years. Many of these missiles are capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear payloads.

The paper describes cruise missiles able to hit land targets anywhere on potential battlefields like Taiwan, carrier-killer missiles reportedly able to target and destroy US carrier groups, and hypersonic missiles that can penetrate the most advanced Western missile defense systems. Even without the ability to penetrate Western missile defenses, the sheer number of Chinese missiles could saturate and overwhelm them.

China’s missile forces have been built up specifically to keep the United States and its allies from building up military forces along its periphery and thus threaten Chinese territorial integrity. Together with Chinese air defenses and anti-ship systems, China has assembled formidable anti-access, area denial (A2AD) capabilities that would prevent US military forces from even reaching Chinese targets let alone engaging them.

It is also worth noting that China has developed significantly capable multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) in the form of its Type PCL191. It fires more rockets than its US counterparts, fires them further, and with at least as much accuracy guided by China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System.

A Business Insider article titled, “China’s new rocket launcher system is its most powerful ever, and it’s looming over the Taiwan Strait,” would note:

The system is capable of firing eight 370 mm rockets a distance of 350 km or two 750 mm ballistic missiles 500 km.

This means that China’s MLRS capabilities can reach any location in or around Taiwan from the mainland. In fact the bulk of any potential Chinese military operation regarding Taiwan and potential US intervention can be carried out from the mainland with China’s extensive and capable missile and rocket forces.

The Shield: Chinese A2AD

Russian military operations in Ukraine have been defined by Russia’s own long range fires as well as A2AD. It’s premier S-400 air defense system exists at the top of an ecosystem of other shorter range air defenses that when networked and layered make the air space they protect virtually impenetrable. Together with long range strike weapons like artillery and short-range ballistic missiles like the Iskander, there is nowhere for Ukrainian forces to hide and certainly no way for them to advance into Russia positions. By moving these capabilities forward, Russia has been incrementally securing territory from the regime in Kiev.

Not only has China emulated many tactics and strategies from Russia, it has also outright purchased the best the Russian Federation has to offer. Between 2018-2020 China purchased two regiments of Russia’s S-400 systems. China also produces a wide variety of its own air defense systems based on the Russian S-300, Russia’s Tor system, as well as systems incorporating certain aspects of the US Patriot missile system.

While Chinese air defenses have not been put to the test like their Russian counterparts, it stands to reason they would perform with similar efficiency and prevent US forces and other potential interlopers from entering Chinese airspace let alone cause damage within it.

The Dagger: Chinese Airpower

The People’s Liberation Army Airforce employs hundreds of modern warplanes including the Chengdu J-10, the Shenyang J-11 and J-16, as well as scores of its newest warplane, the Chengdu J-20.

As with Chinese air defenses, Chinese airpower has been heavily influenced by Russian military aviation. Over the years in addition to its own warplanes, China has purchased a number of advanced Russian warplanes including the SU-27, SU-30, and most recently, the SU-35 according to the Diplomat in its 2019 article, “Russia Offers China Another Batch of Su-35 Fighter Jets.”

While China’s airforce has not seen combat, the fact that it possesses a large number of Russian warplanes hints they will perform in a similar manner to Russian airpower as demonstrated in Syria from 2015 onward and now in military operations in Ukraine.

The warplanes themselves are merely platforms for advanced avionics and weapons, the latter of which is a central factor defining the success of any nation’s airforce. The US government and arms industry-funded International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in a paper titled, “Chinese and Russian air-launched weapons: a test for Western air dominance,” would note the advancements of Chinese air-to-air missiles (AAMs) stating:

The extent of Chinese progress in the air-to-air guided-weapons arena was apparent with the introduction of the PL-10 AAM. This weapon provided a marked improvement in performance over the previous generation of short-range missiles operated by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), and its development has placed China among the handful of nations with a defence-industrial base capable of producing such a weapon.

The paper would also note:

China is also developing a very-long-range AAM intended to be used to attack high-value targets such as tanker, airborne early-warning, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft. Furthermore, Beijing appears to be pursuing two or more configurations of rocket-ramjet AAMs.

By the early to mid-2020s, China will clearly have a broader – and far more capable – range of air-to-air weapons to complement the combat aircraft that are now in development. These will likely force the US and its regional allies to re-examine not only their tactics, techniques and procedures, but also the direction of their own combat-aerospace development programmes.

Chinese airpower when coupled together with its formidable A2AD capabilities creates a modern day sword and shield able to take on virtually any threat.

Other Critical Factors

One area in which the US still dominates is through its submarine fleet. While China possesses a large number of submarines with improving capabilities, the US is still thought to have an advantage in this field. US submarines could disrupt cross-strait shipping as well as threaten Chinese ground targets with submarine-launched cruise missiles.

US submarines would be one of the few platforms able to potentially breach Chinese A2AD capabilities. Because modern submarine warfare is rare, it is difficult to draw from recent examples to predict possible outcomes regarding submarine warfare between the US and China and is a critical factor that only time will fully reveal.

Chinese media, cyber and space-based military capabilities would also be critical in any potential conflict and are areas the US clearly understands parity is nearly reached with its own capabilities or has already been reached.

Other critical factors that would come into play during the most likely conflicts China faces would be the capabilities of its ground forces. Chinese tanks and armored vehicles have been developed through lessons learned from Russian platforms and are admittedly on par with their Western counterparts in terms of fire control, armor, and countermeasures against anti-tank missiles. Chinese artillery also follows the Russian model, a model proving itself deadly and effective in Ukraine.

Underwriting all of these capabilities is China’s massive industrial base. Western experts including those at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in a paper titled, “The Return of Industrial Warfare,” would note that the West has fallen behind Russia in this regard.

The paper claims:

This situation is especially critical because behind the Russian invasion stands the world’s manufacturing capital – China. As the US begins to expend more and more of its stockpiles to keep Ukraine in the war, China has yet to provide any meaningful military assistance to Russia. The West must assume that China will not allow Russia to be defeated, especially due to a lack of ammunition. If competition between autocracies and democracies has really entered a military phase, then the arsenal of democracy must first radically improve its approach to the production of materiel in wartime.

If it is true that the West lags behind Russia in terms of its military industrial production, it is many times more true in regards to China. While the RUSI paper admits this is a problem the West must rectify, it is unlikely able to. Whatever steps the West takes to improve its military industrial capacity, both Russia and China will not only match such steps but ensure they remain far ahead of them.

Even should US capabilities match those of China, the fact that it is provoking a conflict halfway around the world particularly in regards to Taiwan puts it at a disadvantage logistically. It is a fight the US holds multiple disadvantages in and a fight the US should not be picking in the first place.

China has carefully for decades cultivated its military capabilities to defend China from foreign aggression, subjugation, and the humiliation associated with it, all of which the Chinese people have suffered at the hands of Western powers in the past.

With the US military itself admitting Chinese military capabilities are in some ways reaching parity with US military capabilities and in other areas surpassing them, the notion of the US using military force with impunity in or around Chinese territory has significantly diminished. In fact, the desperate, reckless urgency that has taken hold of Washington in recent years in regards to China and Washington’s growing inability to “contain” it is at the center of US provocations like Pelosi’s recent visit to Taiwan.

It will now be a matter of Beijing managing additional and increasingly desperate provocations by the US against China to defend Chinese national security while avoiding a potentially destructive conflict with the United States. The most logical decision Washington could make is to adopt a multipolar mindset allowing it to peacefully coexist alongside China and other nations rather than its current continued attempts to assert itself above all other nations.

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Brian Joseph Thomas Berletic, is an ex- US Marine Corps independent geopolitical researcher and writer based in Bangkok, writing under the pen name “ Tony Cartalucci ” along with several others.

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Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was finally sent to jail on August 23, more than two years after he was convicted of criminal abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money laundering. He was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment and fined RM210 million (A$68 million).

This conviction was for just seven of 42 charges Najib faced as a result of a major corruption scandal around the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), Malaysia’s collapsed sovereign investment wealth fund. It relates to RM42 million (A$13.6 million) transferred into his personal account by SRC International, a company linked to 1MDB.

Najib’s wife, Rosmah Mansor, is also being tried for money laundering and tax evasion.

S Arutchelvan (“Arul”), deputy chairperson of Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM), told Green Leftthat most Malaysians are very happy that Najib is finally in jail.

“People thought that day might never come until the chief justice dismissed Najib’s final appeal.”

Right until the end, Najib tried all sorts of delaying tactics, including an attempt by his lawyer to discharge himself at the last minute, to prevent a decision being made on Najib’s appeal.

The Federal Court appeals division unanimously rejected this ploy and found that “it would have been a travesty of justice of the highest order if any reasonable tribunal, faced with such evidence staring it in the face, were to find that the appellant is not guilty of the seven charges preferred against him.”

These delaying tactics were “predictable and ridiculous”, said Arul.

“I think that they look more guilty now than ever because they did not make any serious attempt to fight the appeal,” Arul added after the court outlined the sloppy and contradictory arguments advanced in the appeal.

“This is huge because it is the first time an ex-PM has been jailed for corruption. Previously we have only had a chief minister [of a state government] jailed for corruption. So, for now, everyone is praising the judiciary for showing that politicians are not above the law.”

However, Arul added that there are many more corruption cases to be dealt with and some of the corrupt politicians may yet get away unpunished.

“Najib’s wife Rosmah and Zaid Hamidi, president of the former ruling party — the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) — are next in line. But another batch of UMNO politicians have escaped charges, and it seems this is because they shifted camp to the current government.”

Apart from the corruption scandals around the collapsed 1MDB sovereign investment fund there are ongoing investigations in several countries into corruption allegations around kickbacks to UMNO politicians from lucrative arms contracts entered into under Najib’s rule. These include a RM9.20 billion(A$3 billion) deal for 11 navy combat ships.

According to an August 22 article by John Berthelesen in the Asia Sentinel, UMNO politicians have been taking kickbacks from military contracts well before Najib became PM in 2009, including under the rule of former PM Mahathir Mohammad. These include a notorious US$1.2 billion deal for French Scorpene submarines — which could not operate in the shallow waters around Malaysia!

The political cover up of the Scorpene corruption scandal involved the murder of 28-year-old Mongolian woman, Altantuya Shaariibuu, who had served as a translator during the purchase of the vessels.

“Two of Najib’s bodyguards, who were convicted of the murder, signed statements saying Najib had ordered them to kill the woman because she was a spy,” according to Berthelesen.

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Featured image: Former Prime Minister Najib Razak is now behind bars. Graphic: Susan Price. Background image: Wikimedia Commons

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It has been reported that, during the pandemic, the then prime minister, Scott Morrison, swore himself in as a minister to several portfolios, including health, finance and resources.

Can this be done?

Uncertainty about the facts

First, there are inconsistent stories about what occurred. There has been reference to Morrison “swearing himself in” as a minister, when only the governor-general can appoint ministers.

It has also been said the attorney-general found a way for the governor-general to be cut out of the process by making changes by way of an administrative order. It is claimed the health minister knew about and supported such action, while the finance minister and the resources minister were unaware.

Another news story said the Commonwealth government has presented evidence to court that the prime minister was sworn in as minister for resources by the governor-general on April 15 2021.

It has since been confirmed the governor-general did appoint the prime minister to administer other ministerial portfolios, but no details have so far been provided. The details of exactly what happened therefore remain unclear.

Can ministers share the administration of legislation?

Because the titles and roles of ministers change all the time, statutes tend simply to confer power on “the minister”, without specifying which one. Section 19 of the Acts Interpretation Act says that to work this out you should look to the relevant “Administrative Arrangements Order”.

An Administrative Arrangements Order sets out the matters and legislation that fall within the responsibility of particular departments and their administering minister.

For example, during the pandemic, the Administrative Arrangements Orders said the Biosecurity Act was administered by the minister for health in relation to human health and the minister for agriculture in relation to animals and plants. They did not allocate the administration of this act to the prime minister.

The governor-general makes Administrative Arrangements Orders on the advice of the Federal Executive Council. The orders are published on the Federal Register of Legislation. No such order allocates the administration of the health, finance or resources legislation to the prime minister.

So the only way the prime minister could exercise powers granted by that legislation was if he was also appointed, or acting, as the minister for health, finance or resources.

The Cabinet could reach a collective decision about a policy issue, including how a minister’s power should be exercised in relation to it, and the minister would be bound by collective ministerial responsibility to act consistently with that decision. But the prime minister alone has no legal power to instruct a minister how to exercise powers conferred by statute on that minister.

Can a minister exercise the powers of another minister?

Ministers can be struck down sick, go on holidays or be out of the country on business, so there is always a need for another minister to be able to exercise their powers. This is recognised in section 19(4) of the Acts Interpretation Act, which says a reference to a minister in an Act can include a reference to another minister who is acting on behalf of the first minister.

But this is usually when the first minister is unavailable. It is therefore different from the scenario of the prime minister simultaneously having the same powers as the ministers for health, finance and resources.

Section 34AAB of the Acts Interpretation Act also says that a minister who administers an Act may authorise another minister to act on behalf of the first minister in exercising powers under the Act. The authorisation must be in writing.

It is possible this power was used if, for example, the health minister agreed to exercise it. But it would not cover cases where the first minister did not choose to grant such an authorisation and did not know about it.

Appointing a minister to administer a portfolio

It is the governor-general who appoints ministers to particular portfolios and swears them in. This happens under section 64 of the Constitution. It is ordinarily done publicly, when a new ministry is being sworn in. The ministerial changes are then published in the Commonwealth Gazette and on the Federal Register of Legislation.

For example, on February 6 2020, Keith Pitt was appointed as minister for resources, water and Northern Australia. But it does not seem any ministerial change announcement was made for the appointment of the prime minister to become minister for resources in April 2021 (or at least, I haven’t yet found it).

A spokesperson for the official secretary of the governor-general stated:

The Governor-General […] appointed former Prime Minister Morrison to administer portfolios other than the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

This was done by an administrative instrument on the advice of the prime minister. The spokesperson also stated the decision whether to publicise such appointment is a matter for the government of the day.

Secrecy and transparency

Is it appropriate for ministers to be secretly appointed to exercise statutory powers?

No, such matters should be notified to parliament and formally published so members of the public can know who is entitled to exercise particular powers. That is why we have Administrative Arrangements Orders and notifications of changes in ministerial responsibility that are recorded on the Federal Register of Legislation.

It is inappropriate for such matters to be kept secret – especially if it is kept secret from the Cabinet and from the minister who was formally allocated responsibility for a portfolio by the governor-general.

Such a lack of transparency is indicative of a lack of respect for the institutions of government and for the general public who have a right to know how power is allocated.

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Anne Twomey is Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Sydney.

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Sri Lankans had been protesting for months over the country’s economic crisis that has led to a severe shortage of many essential imported items like medicines, fuel and cooking gas. Wickremesinghe’s predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country after protesters stormed his official residence and occupied many key state buildings including the president’s office and prime minister’s office and official residence. Wickremesinghe was elected by Parliament to complete Rajapaksa’s term, which ends in 2024.

The untiring efforts of the peaceful protesters succeeded in forcing the resignation of three Rajapaksa brothers, first it was Mahinda Rajapaksa who resigned the post of Prime Minister on May 09, 2022. Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa on June 09, 2022. But the objective of the protesters was the removal of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Due to the siege of the President’s house he was forced to go on exile to Maldives and then secured a 14 day visa to Singapore.

Sri Lanka is the first country to succeed by the protests for a “Regime Change”, The country is riding the waves of revolutionary change for the first time in history. The mass protests irrespective of race, religion or social class, Sri Lankans, Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims collectively protesting against the growing hardships influenced by the economic crisis the country has faced since independence. The country is desperately struggling to meet the fuel, food and financial commitments.

An essential part of this struggle is peaceful assembly, freedom of expression and communication as well as the freedom of mobility. These rights and their use by an informed, youthful protest leadership was able to shake the foundations of the government pushing it to change the President, cabinet and important office holders in the government bureaucracy.

Since the takeover of Ranil Wickremesinghe, the Lankan government issues several “state of emergencies” to curtail anti-government uprisings on the island amid the crippling financial shortage. Shortly after the crisis-hit President Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigned on July 15, 2022.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) strongly condemned the repeated declaration of a state of emergency since April 2, 2022, to quell civil protests amid the stifling economic crisis in the country. The frequent ’emergencies’ hinder people from voicing their grievances amidst the economic collapse in the country, the statement said.

“We have raised our concerns to the Government on a number of occasions over the misuse of emergency measures, but to no avail. We condemn the recent and continued abuse of such measures to infringe on the legitimate exercise of the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and expression,” the experts said, as mentioned in the press release.

An international human rights group says Sri Lanka’s government is using emergency laws to harass and arbitrarily detain protesters who are seeking political reform and accountability amid the island country’s economic crisis.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement Wednesday that Sri Lanka’s military sought to curtail protests through intimidation, surveillance, and arbitrary arrests of demonstrators, activists, lawyers and journalists since President Ranil Wickremesinghe took office last month.

“The Sri Lankan government’s crackdown on peaceful dissent appears to be a misguided and unlawful attempt to divert attention from the need to address the country’s urgent economic crisis,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, Human Rights Watch’s South Asia director.

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Kumarathasan Rasingam – Secretary, Tamil Canadian Elders for Human Rights Org.

Featured image is from Countercurrents

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The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s visit to Myanmar on August 3 shows that the relationship is assuming a strategic character. The Foreign Ministry in a press release on August 2 highlighted that the relationship is “one of the priorities of foreign policy in the Asia–Pacific region, an important factor in ensuring peace, stability and sustainable development.” 

The foreign ministry noted that

“Myanmar partners at the official levels express their understanding of the reasons and validity of Russia’s actions in the framework of a special military operation in Ukraine. Naypyidaw does not recognise the legitimacy of Western anti-Russian sanctions. 

“At the UN and other multilateral platforms, Russia is pursuing a line to ensure a balanced and non-politicised discussion of the situation in Myanmar in connection with the state of emergency in force in this country since February 2021, and advocates the search for constructive forms of international assistance to this country without interference in its internal affairs. We assist Naypyidaw in rapprochement with integration associations and mechanisms of multilateral cooperation in Eurasia, including the EAEU and the SCO.” 

Indeed, Lavrov scheduled his talks in Myanmar before the ASEAN-Russia foreign ministers meet in Phnom Penh. The press release issued on August 3 after Lavrov’s talks with the Chairman of the State Administrative Council, Prime Minister of the Provisional Government, Min Aung Hlaing said they held “an in-depth discussion of the geopolitical situation that is emerging against the background of the unprecedented sanctions campaign unleashed by the collective West both against Russia and against Myanmar. He (Min Aung Hlaing) confirmed the need for coordinated steps to strengthen a multipolar world order…” 

Myanmar becomes the second country after Iran in the Indian Ocean region that has voiced unequivocal support for Russia. Conceivably, Lavrov may now have to visit Colombo too, once the new government is formed. 

Russia & Sri Lanka’s colour revolution 

It is difficult to assess whether the mayhem in Sri Lanka on July 9 had anything to do with the impending visit of a Sri Lankan government delegation’s weeklong trip to Moscow the next day (scheduled for July 10-16) to hold crucial talks with various Russian economic ministries on July 10-16 regarding Russia’s help to tide over the crisis. But it remains a reasonable assumption. 

The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson’s remarks on July 11 regarding the Sri Lankan situation pointedly mentioned,

“Notably, the day before the unrest began, some Western diplomatic mission heads openly urged the local police not to obstruct “peaceful protests.”

It added,

“We believe that the developments in Sri Lanka are its internal affair and the political process in that country, which we regard as friendly, will develop further in keeping with its constitution and effective laws. We expect a new government to be formed and are ready to cooperate with it. We believe the situation will return to normal before long and that the new Sri Lankan authorities will take the necessary measures to ride out the crisis in the national economy.”

Indeed, Ranil Wickremesinghe, then prime minister, also told Tass in an exclusive interview about the unprecedented nature of the political turmoil — that “the island nation’s politicians cannot yet find parallels to a similar crisis in this century or in the last century or the century before.” 

It appears that Moscow anticipated that the US-backed unrest in Sri Lanka would fail to produce a regime change that the “Collective West” wanted. Interestingly, President Vladimir Putin in his congratulatory message to Wickremesinghe on his election as president noted, “I am counting on your activities as Head of State to foster further development of constructive bilateral cooperation in various spheres for the benefit of our peoples and in the interest of strengthening regional stability and security.” 

A glance at the map of Indian Ocean would show why relations with Iran, Myanmar and Sri Lanka have become so consequential for Russia. The ports in Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Myanmar are vital to sustaining an effective Russian naval presence in the region. The strategic compulsions are amplified in Russia’s revised Naval Doctrine, which Putin decreed on July 30, reflecting the “change in the geopolitical and military-strategic situation in the world.” 

Russia & world’s oceans 

The 56-page document (in Russian) explicitly states that Russia’s national interests “as a great naval power extend to the entire world’s oceans and the Caspian Sea”. It acknowledges the lack of overseas naval re-supply points and bases, which are crucial for expanding the operational range of the Russian Navy, while spotlighting that “the strategic course of the US to dominate in the world oceans” poses “challenges and threats.” 

However, the doctrine envisions the creation of such a facility in the Red Sea. Besides, it also includes plans to construct a new shipbuilding facility in Russia’s Far East to build “large-capacity vessels” including ships suitable “for the development of the Arctic,” as well as “modern aircraft carriers for the Navy.” Currently, Russia has only one aircraft-carrying naval vessel, the Admiral Kuznetsov cruiser, which has been out of commission and undergoing repairs.

Meanwhile, the US has been steadily strengthening a maritime cooperation grid with Indian Ocean states. Recently, Washington unveiled a West Asian Quad under the ingenious rubric I2U2 (Israel-India, US-UAE). President Biden took its first summit meeting. (See here and here)

Delhi insists that I2U2 is a platform for regional economic partnerships but western strategists candidly discuss the geopolitics looming behind economics. Michel Gurfinkiel at the Middle East Forum wrote in Wall Street Journal, “Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, compared I2U2 to the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, the embryonic Indo-Pacific alliance of the US, Japan, Australia and India… US, Indian and Emirati media all see it as an extension of the 2019 Abraham Accords.” 

Indeed, the longer view is even more pertinent because beyond I2U2, the Quad and the Abraham Accords, one considers many analogous developments in international security — Ukraine conflict, NATO expansion, Eastern Mediterranean security alliance (France, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Israel and Egypt); Negev Summit architecture (Israel, Morocco, Egypt, UAE. and Bahrain); AUKUS (the born-again Anglo-Pacific defence community between Australia, US and UK); upgrade of US-Taiwan relationship; Japan’s militarisation (overcoming acrimonious history), etc.

Geopolitical cross-currents

In the above backdrop, India’s gravitation toward the US-led security alliance system is a contradiction. India’s strategic focus is China but the US’s includes Russia and Iran as well. India prioritises its strategic ties with Israel —the management of Haifa port (which the US Sixth Fleet frequents) has been awarded to an Indian company recently. Whereas, Israel’s and the US’ obsession is with Iran, which is friendly towards India. 

On the other hand, Iran is strengthening its ties with Russia and China. Perhaps, UAE and India are playing both ends. But they are also regimes lacking strategic culture and prone to whimsicality attuned to Washington’s  agenda.

Clearly, the confidence in the US’ reliability has been generally undermined in recent years in the swathe of land between the Levant and Malacca Straits. Biden’s recent initiative in Jeddah to promote a West Asian military alliance to counter Iran, Russia and China had no takers. 

Russian diplomacy has to navigate between these shoals. The great game in Indian Ocean region is wide open. Lavrov’s visit to Myanmar signals that Moscow will push back the US’ attempts to create “blocs” to dominate the Indian Ocean’s sea lanes. Access to the ports in Myanmar can be a game changer for Russian presence.

Interestingly, Min Aung Hlaing complained to Lavrov that Russian officials “rarely” visit Myanmar. Lavrov promised to make amends. Moscow intends to fulfil that promise, as Russia’s cooperation with Myanmar spreads wings — trade to investments in energy projects, nuclear cooperation, military-technical cooperation, space, education, etc.

Direct flights are being established. Mir payment cards are accepted in Myanmar, which also is also keen on settlement in local currencies. Moscow  plans to establish in Yangon a parish of the Patriarchal Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in Southeast Asia — and a temple. 

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The provocative visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan on August 2, 2022 has caused major uproar not just from China but even from other peace-loving states. Pelosi’s visit has breached America’s One-China Policy, which formally acknowledges only one Chinese government and maintains the position of Taiwan being a breakaway region of China. Even prior to Pelosi’s visit, recent developments surrounding Taiwan have already escalated tensions between the two major powers and further soured their diplomatic relations. The trip occurs against the backdrop of express military agreement between the US and Taiwan, thereby sending a wrong signal to mainland China.

By ignoring China’s strong objections to Pelosi’s Taiwan visit, the US egregiously imperils regional stability and peace, and endangers an imminent outbreak of war between Taiwan and mainland China.

What are its implications for the Philippines, a small state that is 719.4 miles south of Taiwan?

Map of the Philippines in relation to Taiwan and China (Source: The Diplomatic Envoy, Seton Hall University via The Maritime Review)

US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty

The southeast asian state pursued a flawed ‘independent foreign policy’ at the helm of former president Rodrigo Duterte, who threatened to abrogate the US-Philippines Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), a component of the US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT). The VFA is a mutual military agreement that allows US troops, under the provisions of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), “access to designated Philippine military facilities, the right to construct facilities, and preposition equipment, aircraft, and vessels, but rules out permanent basing.” The maverick leader flirted with the idea of cooperating with the Russian Armed Forces and China’s People’s Liberation Army, but reverted his decision and withdrew the termination of the VFA. This move came amid the increasing tension in the South China Sea, where the Philippines is a claimant state. 

Incumbent president Ferdinand Marcos Jr. vowed to continue Duterte’s foreign policy trajectory, iterating the slogan, “a friend to all, an enemy to none”. But it seems just another hot air as the country’s plans for US forces are back on track, including the building of facilities for US troops at five military bases — one in Palawan whose proximity to the South China Sea makes it conducive to conducting surveillance flights. Further, the Philippine navy begins to station at the Subic Bay Naval Base, which sits facing the South China Sea, with a view to “countering China’s increasing assertiveness in the contested waters“. The port authority head intimated the welcomed presence of the US navy as a balancing force against the formidable Chinese counterpart.

The crux of the US-Philippines joint military exercises and cooperation agreements is clear and definite: to counter China through the South China Sea crisis. Disaster relief, counterterrorism, etc. are just the tip of the iceberg. What is hidden from the Filipino public is the hegemon’s motive of encircling the emerging superpower — under the guise of a routine military exercise and training aimed at enriching military capabilities towards “maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region“.

The Philippines in the event of a Taiwan-China conflict

The Philippines engages in economic and trade relations with Taiwan but maintains diplomatic relations only with mainland China. Amid the rising tension in the Taiwan Strait, the Philippine government released a brief but straightforward message, claiming adherence to the One-China Policy and the importance of diplomacy and dialogue.

Analysts lambasted the press release as “tiptoeing” around a major economic partner by “refusing to give any more comments”. “Tiptoe” is a misnomer with the ongoing US-Philippines military exercises — aimed at countering China — in the background. Having US troops and military equipment in the Philippine soil, the southeast asian state will become heavily embroiled in the event of a war outbreak between Taiwan and China, given America’s expression of military support to Taipei.

The volatility of the security architecture in the Indo-Pacific region should prompt a more open and honest dialogue and military diplomacy among the concerned states. The Philippines should limit, if not repeal, the provisions of the Mutual Defense Treaty with the US if it is serious in its commitment to an independent foreign policy.

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Jezile Torculas has a bachelor’s degree in Political Science. She is an Assistant Editor at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

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***

Australia’s pledge to play its part in the United States’ drive to war in the Indo-Pacific means it is hardly a surprise for China to voice its concerns.

The Australia, United Kingdom and United States (AUKUS) agreement, alongside the anti-China Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) alliance of the US, India, Japan and Australia, can only be seen as a threat to China.

China is particularly critical of AUKUS’s commitments to new bases, long-range strike capability and especially the nuclear submarine deal for Australia. AUKUS opens the door for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to expand into the Indo-Pacific.

The China Arms Control and Disarmament Association (CACDA) and the China Institute of Nuclear Industry Strategy (CINIS), issued a joint report on July 22, titled The nuclear proliferation risk of the nuclear-powered submarines collaboration in the context of AUKUS.

It argues that the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine collaboration violates the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, as it contributes to the nuclear build-up in the region.

Canberra has rejected this argument, although it has also been put by a number of peace organisations, including the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, think tanks including the Lowy Institute, as well as anti-war organisations in Australia.

It is anticipated that, under AUKUS, the US and Britain will provide Australia with eight nuclear-powered submarines, involving the transfer of tonnes of weapons-grade nuclear materials.

Cathy Moloney writes in The Interpreter that “the naval reactor has long been seen as a loophole to the NPT and [International Atomic Energy Agency] IAEA safeguards, whereby a [non-nuclear weapons state] NNWS could divert materials from naval reactors and potentially use that material for weapons production”.

The Chinese report said the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine collaboration serves a military purpose, in violation of the IAEA.

AUKUS allows the US and Britain to provide Australia with long-range precision-strike capabilities, including Tomahawk cruise missiles, which can be nuclear-armed.

China’s criticism that AUKUS is provocative is valid, especially in light of the US’ broader military build-up in the region.

The US Indo-Pacific Command (also known as USINDOPACOM) has 200 naval ships, including 5 aircraft carrier strike groups, 1100 aircraft and 375,000 military personnel permanently stationed in the region. It has a string of bases and installations from Japan to Australia. Further arming the region can only lead to a regional arms race as part of the new cold war.

The ABC’s foreign affairs reporter Stephen Dziedzic cited “government sources” arguing that Australia has no intention of acquiring nuclear weapons. “Australia’s decision to acquire conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines is something we are pursuing openly and transparently,” the source told the ABC.

Former US National Security Chief Michael Rogers on a visit to Australia addressed the “threat” from Russia and China at the National Press Club on July 21 where he put the case for Australia’s on-going commitment to the US alliance.

The former admiral said that as both countries are members of the Quad and AUKUS, regardless of economic difficulties, global fuel prices or inflation worries, the Australia-US alliance would have to deal with challenges in a unified manner.

Rogers had no need to beat any drums: the frequent visits to Washington by the previous Coalition and now the Labor government make it clear the line is set.

Admiral John C Aquilino, Commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, made a special visit to Australia days before the federal election. He and Angus Campbell, Chief of the Australian Defence Force General, issued a joint statement afterwards speaking of “plans for enhanced air, maritime, land and logistics force posture cooperation” and how this “will strengthen our ability to operate as a combined force and to train and deploy with our partners in the region to advance collective security and integrated deterrence”.

Aquilino visited Amberly RAAF air base near Brisbane, describing to the Financial Times how the Northrop B-2 Spirit stealth bomber “had flown in from the US to demonstrate American long-range military power to potential adversaries”. It is nuclear capable.

Aquilino made no bones about how his Indo-Pacific Command was working closely with the US Strategic Command to provide “an integrated deterrence” to be used against China.

The ABC’s defence correspondent saw fit to accuse China of making “outlandish” claims about Australia’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. But nuclear-capable US aircraft, Tomahawk Cruise missiles on Australian vessels, nuclear submarines and the integration of NATO in to the Indo-Pacific all point in one direction.

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Featured image: A trident 11 D5 missile being launched from a US submarine. Photo: US Army/Wikipeadia

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In May, Indonesians breathed a sigh of relief when President Joko Widodo announced that masks were no longer required to be worn outdoors as a guard against COVID-19.

But for the 640 students of Marunda State Primary School in Jakarta’s northern port district, masks have remained a way of life.

The reason: not COVID-19, but coal dust from a nearby coal storage facility.

“The president already said that we don’t need to wear masks anymore. But here, we still have to wear masks because we have a problem,” the school’s vice principal, Inayatullah, told the assembled students during an outdoor flag ceremony on a recent Monday morning.

“Now tell me,” Inayatullah continued, “what is our problem?”

“COAL!” the students replied in unison.

Students listen to a teacher in their classroom at Marunda State Primary School, North Jakarta, in May. Image by Wienda Parwitasari for Mongabay.

Less than 500 meters, just over a quarter of a mile, from the school is an industrial site for unloading coal shipments owned by PT Karya Citra Nusantara (KCN), a company whose operation has been designated a national strategic project by the central government.

Marunda’s residents say they have been struggling with coal dust permeating the air since 2019, after KCN began to expand its operation, a key distribution point for coal headed to power plants in and around Jakarta.

The school’s principal, Purwatiningsih, says it has become impossible to ignore how quickly grime covers everything. Even breathing “feels weird,” she said.

She said she worries about her students: almost all of them, she said, live within a 10-minute walk of where KCN’s loading site can be seen from across the water in Jakarta Bay, meaning they’re constantly exposed to pollution both in and out of school.

“Even if we tell them to keep wearing masks at school, we don’t know their living conditions at home,” Purwatiningsih told Mongabay in her office at the school.

In April, the Jakarta Health Agency conducted a public screening in Marunda, bringing in eye, lung, skin and internal medicine specialists to assess local residents, according to Dr. Fify Mulyani, the head of the agency’s public health department.

Respiratory disorders, Fify told Mongabay, were reported by 18% of those surveyed, skin problems by 10%, and eye problems by 8%, suggesting that thousands of Marunda’s nearly 36,000 residents could be afflicted.

Fifi said further examinations would be necessary to definitively link the health problems to the coal dust. Still, many in the community already suspect that KCN’s operation is causing these problems, a view shared by some government officials, such as Retno Listyarti, a commissioner at the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI), and NGOs like the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute and Bersihkan Indonesia, a group that fights pollution.

The KPAI has identified three people, two of them children, who suffered from corneal ulcers caused by KCN’s coal dust, Retno told Mongabay.

“Coal dust particles are quite large,” Retno said. “They can damage the cornea.”

According to Dr. Elvioza, an ophthalmologist at the Jakarta Eye Center, a local hospital, coal dust exposure can damage the tear film, a thin fluid layer that covers the eye’s surface.

“Under normal circumstances, there are a lot of germs on the eye’s surface,” he told Mongabay. “Those germs do not cause infection because the tear film protects them.

“When the tear film is damaged due to external irritants such as dust, the germs enter and infect the eye. The worst impact that could arise from that problem would be a corneal ulcer which can lead to blindness.”

People exposed to coal dust may also develop breathing problems, ranging from respiratory infections in the short run to bronchitis, decreased lung function, or black lung in the long run, said Dr. Agus Dwi Susanto, chairman of the Indonesian Association of Pulmonologists.

“Ideally, a coal storage area would be located far from a residential area,” he told Mongabay.

Raihan, 9, one of the students of Marunda State Primary School, whose eyes were affected by coal dust. Image by Wienda Parwitasari for Mongabay.

‘The dust has gotten out of hand’

The greater Jakarta area, including its satellite cities, is home to some 30 million people. It routinely tops the list of major cities with the most polluted air. While many cities around the world saw their air quality improve during the coronavirus lockdowns, which drastically reduced traffic, the Indonesian capital, which is surrounded by coal-fired power plants, was a notable exception.

While Indonesia’s coal industry is one of the largest in the world, discussion around the pollution it causes typically centers on mines and power stations. But the controversy in Marunda has broadened the focus to include pollution from coal distribution facilities, which has prominently affected not only Jakarta but cities and regions like Cirebon, Jambi, North Konawe, and the Tidore Islands.

“The Marunda case is only one of many cases” in Indonesia, Melky Nahar, coordinator of the Mining Advocacy Network (Jatam), an NGO, said in an interview.

“It has happened many times, but our government is not serious about ensuring that companies operate according to legal procedures. So the government will start to evaluate after there are violations that happened. There is no mitigation effort.”

Because they tend to spend more time playing outside than adults, children bear the brunt of the impact from air pollution in Jakarta, according to UNICEF’s 2020 “Situation of Children in Indonesia” report, which listed air pollution as one of three main risk factors for child mortality in the country.

Children at a playground in a Marunda housing project. Image by Wienda Parwitasari for Mongabay.

Among those who have suffered health problems is Rami*, a child living in Marunda.

Rami suffered a chronic eye problem two years ago. At the time, he was playing in the playground near the school building when a cloud of dust hit his eye. Rami’s immediate reflex was to rub them out, but the sharp dust particles wounded his eyes even further.

“[By the time I opened my eyes], there was already pus coming out,” Rami, now 9 years old, told Mongabay in the school’s principal’s office. His wounds led to an infection, and he was diagnosed with corneal ulcer. He then had to undergo an operation to replace his damaged cornea.

Jeni, 30, a mother of four who lives in Marunda with her family, said that in 2019, two of her children began to suffer from respiratory infections.

At the time, she could not wrap her head around the root cause that led her children, then aged 2 and 1, to be afflicted with health problems. Back then, only one thing seemed certain: one of her sons, Ara*, today a 6-year-old who lives with mild autistic symptoms, would start to feel better once brought to a different place.

“Children with autism undergo routine therapy, but nutrition and environmental factors also need to be monitored so that his symptoms don’t get worse,” Jeni said. “But [the dust problem] here has gotten out of hand. Children playing outside become covered with it, and they come home dirty.”

Riza, his wife Jenni and their children have been living in a Marunda housing project since 2018. Two of the children suffer from acute respiratory infections. Image by Wienda Parwitasari for Mongabay.

Jeni and Rami are among hundreds of Marunda residents who moved to the coastal neighborhood from other parts of the city after the Jakarta provincial government evicted them to make way for infrastructure projects in Pluit, Ancol, Rawajati and other neighborhoods.

Both families live in the low-cost Marunda public housing project, or rusunawa, as it’s known in Indonesian, built by the government in 2008 to house Jakartans relocated from other areas.

The evictions were a key campaign issue against former Jakarta governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama in the 2017 election, ultimately contributing to his defeat by Anies Baswedan, the current governor, who promised a softer stance. But evictions have continued under Anies, including in Jeni’s former neighborhood, where residents were forced out to make way for a water pipe project.

The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on the Marunda Rusunawa Community Forum (F-MRM), which pointed it out in one of its press releases.

“Most of the residents of Marunda are residents who have experienced eviction, have been relocated, and have lived with the hope that their lives will be ‘better,’” the forum, which advocates on behalf of Marunda residents affected by the coal pollution, said in a statement. “But in fact, the residents of Marunda have to breathe dirty air due to coal dust until now.”

KCN’s activities as seen from one of the classrooms of Marunda State Primary School. Image by Wienda Parwitasari for Mongabay.

Right to clean air

Following demonstrations by the F-MRM, the Jakarta government carried out a screening and evaluation of KCN’s operation and legal documents.

The city’s environmental agency ultimately identified 32 violations, from overlooking administrative requirements to errors in the process of unloading coal. In March, it sanctioned the company, ordering it to resolve the issues by June 15. But after the company failed to do so, the city revoked its environmental permit and ordered it to stop operating until it had amended the issue, according to Asep Kuswanto, head of the environmental agency.

While KCN has offered to provide residents with free medical checkups, it has not acknowledged a link between its operation and residents’ health problems, and has called on observers to wait until further investigation can clarify the issue.

“KCN has formed an investigation team to follow up on all forms of reports and accusations that harm the company,” KCN spokesperson Maya Tunggagini told Mongabay. “For that, we ask all parties to respond to this objectively.”

The load and unload coal of PT Karya Citra Nusantara as seen from the rooftop of Rusunawa Marunda, on May 30, 2022. Image by Wienda Parwitasari for Mongabay.

Meanwhile, Jeni’s family still struggles with the pollution in Marunda. She said she hopes for KCN and the government to resolve Marunda’s air pollution crisis. She added she’s deeply worried about how long-term exposure to coal particles will affect the well-being of her four children.

“We have the right to a healthy air and living environment,” she said. “Our hope is for our air to be cleaner, and [as such] our health would also be assured, because indirectly we all must have taken in the dust, breathing it. Or the dust sticks to our food. It gets mixed up in our meals.”

*Names have been changed to protect the privacy of minors.

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Featured image: Adam, one of the residents of Rusunawa Marunda, North Jakarta, shows dust residue from KCN’s coal load and unloading activities which is located less than 500 meters from Rusunawa. Image by Wienda Parwitasari for Mongabay.

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Abstract

The success of the Meiji regime elite in placing Japan on the road to unprecedented rapid economic development is for all to see in the public history displayed within the port districts of Yokohama, Kobe and Nagasaki. Silence marks the history of how important these port-rail-communications developments were to the restoration of Japan’s own sovereignty and the simultaneous stripping away of others. This work explores the state and left-unstated reasoning behind Meiji Japan’s elevation to become the first non-western power utilising the authors photography of the public history of Japanese ports and their indispensable rail and communications connections.¹ 

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It has been observed that technological change is a political process, and while this certainly is often the case, in Meiji Japan, the inverse could be argued: political change was a technological process (Free, 2008: 40).

Introduction

Contemporary visitors, domestic and foreign, to Japanese ports such as Yokohama, Kobe, Nagasaki and others are able to spend several days exploring the public history of these gateways between Japan and the world. The focus of the public history, of these cities, centres primarily on their emergence during the Meiji period (1868-1912) of Japanese history. The story of Meiji Japan’s rise to modern governance and the establishment of the foundations for a modern national and global economy has been thoroughly explored by others and will not be retold in full here. As works by Najita (1974, 1993), Giffard (1994), Fallows (1995), Morris-Suzuki (1994), Samuels (1994), Beasley (1995), Sims (2001), Andressen (2002), Miyoshi (2005), Schuman (2009), Studwell (2013), Tang (2011, 2014), Kasza (2018) and others highlight, this technological revolution on Japanese soil required the upheaval of almost every aspect of society. Free (2008: 15) in his seminal study on Japanese railroad development states:

Henceforth, the transfer of western technology to Japan would become a notable aspect of Japan’s interaction with western civilization: small initially, but accelerating at an amazing pace during the Meiji period.

The accumulative effect of which would be to transform Japan under Emperor Mutsuhito’s reign (1868-1912). This work will examine, through both writing and a selection of photographs taken by the authors, the economic and international trade history of Meiji Japan as exercised in the port cities of Yokohama, Kobe and Nagasaki and now only partially reflected through public history.

This paper will show how this public history opens avenues for the exploration of in what ways the historic ports of Yokohama, Kobe and Nagasaki offer a means of understanding how the Meiji men of Japan learnt about the world they wished to catch up with, and, simultaneously drove seismic changes within Japan. More specifically, Japan’s advancements included: political, governance, agricultural reforms, infrastructure development; and the establishment of banking facilities to accommodate greater foreign trade, policy reforms in adherence with adoption of the global default ‘gold standard’, and the introduction of foreign human capital and others public policy initiatives (Hoshi & Kashyap, 2001; Plung, 2021). Ultimately, however, the ports and their development (including that of their essential partners in the form of rail and the telegraph), highlights the central driving force behind the Meiji Restoration: the elevation of Japan to full sovereign, strategic, economic and social equality with the very same international powers (Great Britain, continental European and the United States of America) that had denied Japan such status through the unequal treaty system imposed upon the nation from the 1850s onwards (Najita, 1974; Sukehiro, 1988; Auslin, 2004; Holcombe, 2011; Iokibe and Minohara, 2017).

The most significant expression of this national transformation through adoption, adaptation and development of a modern industrial nation’s systems took place in the form of an unprecedented (in both scale and scope) mission abroad, the Iwakura Embassy which took place from late-1871 to 1873 (Kume, 1871-1873; Miyoshi, 2005; Caprio, 2020). The Embassy fulfilled the fifth element of The Charter Oath (Gokajo no Goseimon) with outlined the core objectives of the Restoration of the Emperor: 5. Knowledge shall be sought throughout the world so as to invigorate the foundation of Imperial rule (Hane Mikiso as cited in Sims, 2001: 11). The Embassy, as with either a single individual Japanese person or a large collective of the ruling elite, then had one specific purpose: to accumulate knowledge that would strengthen the emperor’s rule not only domestically, but within any other territory acquired under his banner. Knowledge acquisition was to be on empirical studies with a high level of transferability that built the Japanese state that operated under the emperor. For any other purpose, personal aesthetics, pleasure or other, knowledge acquisition was for-all-intent-and-purposes a treasonable act. One of the two chroniclers of the Embassy, Kunitake Kume (1871-1873, Vol 1: 4) would come to recognize that the Embassy was both the product of and captured forces changing not only Japan’s trajectory, but the concert of nations:

When we consider what has happened, we realize that everything was related to changes in the trend of world affairs.

Whatever knowledge was beyond the shores of Japan that could position the emperor to consolidate his domestic rule and elevate him and his nation to new predominance amongst the league of nations, it was the duty of those sent abroad in whatever capacity to acquire it.

The Embassy would see current and future Meiji leaders travel across the United States of America, Great Britain and continental Europe. Initially, the mission held the aim of revisions to the unequal treaty system, and, to empirically examine and document the political, policy and developmental processes taking place in the advanced nations that would enable Japan to begin its ascendancy (Chang, 2002). However, the Iwakura men would come to conclude during their early-1872 time in Washington D.C. through extensive diplomatic dialogues (with U.S. Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, European diplomatic figures present in the national capital, and through communications with Meiji diplomats in London), that that unequal treaty revisions at this time were undesirable. Instead, the travellers moved concertedly and energetically to focus the purpose of the Embassy to extensively documenting the politics, governance, agrarian, financial, industrial, educational and socio-civic advantages that the western powers held over Japan (Kume, 1871-1873; Caprio, 2020). The Iwakura Embassy’s contemporary prominence in Japanese public memory is highlighted by the establishment of a park on the foreshore of Yokohama Port area that pays tribute to the execution of this extraordinary accomplishment.

Image 1. Iwakura Embassy Departure Image (author supplied) 

Image 2. Japanese and English language description of the Iwakura Mission “Departure point of modernization of Japan” (author supplied)

Early Meiji Period

Domestically the powerful merchant houses that had been established during the earlier Tokugawa Period (also known as the Edo Period 1600-1868), like the nation itself, had split in their support/opposition to the Meiji elite’s Restoration of the young Emperor Mutsuhito in 1868, and so, not surprisingly, the new rulers of the nation felt no universal obligation towards enhancing this classes’ advancement (Cohen, 2014). As it would prove the Tokugawa merchant class was either reluctant to, or simply incapable of, supplying the vast levels of finances and human capital required for the new industrial infrastructure projects (such as railways and port-harbour facilities). These investment demands rendered short-term returns unlikely and further accentuated the gap between the new regime’s nation building industrial requirements and the private sectors capabilities (Sims, 2001:6-7). As a result, the Ministry of Public Works was established by the Meiji regime in the year of its founding, 1868, to promote the introduction of western technology into Japan and a loan was floated in the City of London, Great Britain’s center of banking finance, for the building of Japan’s first railroad-telegraph line – from Yokohama to Tokyo (Free, 2008). At this time any dialogue on railways, ports, the telegraph and others, like so much of the Meiji regime policy agenda, was in fact a proxy for the deep political domestic divisions centered on differing visions of the nation’s future, inclusive of the importation of ‘the foreign’ to secure modernity (Free, 2008; Walthall, 2018). As a result, a highly secretive meeting on the question of Japan’s first rail line was held at the house of Prince Sanjo Sanemtomi (1837-1891), Minister of the Right and acting-Premier, on December 7, 1869 (Vlastos, 1995). It would be between the very top echelon of the Meiji ruling elite, including Iwakura Tomobi (1825-1883) who as a long-time confident of the Meiji Emperor and future head of the famous 1871-1873 Embassy in his name (Caprio, 2020), and the British Minister to Japan, Sir Harry Smith Parkes (1828-1885: formal title Her Majesty’s Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary and Consul General for the United Kingdom to the Empire of Japan from 1865-1883) to decide the route options between: Tokyo-Yokohama; Kobe-Kyoto and Tokyo-Kyoto. At this time, and until the first decades of the next century, Great Britain was by-far Japan’s most important economic and industrial partner, a position Parkes vehemently promoted at every opportunity and that left neither the Japanese, the Americans, nor the continental Europeans, in any doubt of their own relative status (Keene, 2002). In the end, the Tokyo-Yokohama route was selected due to the rise of Tokyo as the political center of Japan, its commercial predominance, and the critically the flat alluvial geography that favored rail development (Free, 2008 Ch 3; Tang, 2014).

Irrespective of the route chosen, there remained deep concern within the government over hostility to the recruitment of the many foreigners needed for their expertise in rail projects development and execution (Plung, 2021). Reactionary forces made no secret of the fact that their tolerance of the modern and the foreign was limited. The ports, and the essential rail and telegraph developments, would be the most visible physical expression of the national changes taking place under the new regime, and hence ripe for both verbal and physical attack upon them. A rail spike hammered, even more so than in the West, was in Japan an avowedly political act (Chang, 1996, 2002; Low and Gooday, 1998; Tang, 2011; Ferguson, 2017; Kasza, 2018). Whilst in the former ports, rail and ocean-going steam vessels represented superiority in the form of the industrial revolution taking place, in developing nations like Japan which had yet to initiate such advancements this state-of-affairs represented an inferiority of their very being as both a people and a nation (Chang, 2002). The very fact that the Meiji state was able to successfully achieve national industrialization, development, and colonialism both disproved Social Darwinist European thinking, and rhetoric, and enabled the Meiji regime to project Japanese racial superiority and these same limitations upon their Asiatic neighbors (Sukehiro, 1988; Iriye, 1995; Zohar, 2020). The Meiji men never possessed doubts that they as Japanese could achieve the developmental levels of the Western powers; the 1860 exploits of the Kanrin Maru under the leadership of Admiral Yoshitake Kimura and his first Japanese-only crew to cross the Pacific having been a significant act of self-reinforcement. The only real question challenge in their mind was how fast they could catch up, and in doing so dispense with the unequal treaty system, so as to be on a fully equal sovereign-developmental footing with the European industrial powers.

To oversee not only the development of rail, but also the ports, mines and agrarian developments to complete the supply chain, and to secure the foreign expertise needed, the new Meiji government established a Ministry of Industry in December 1870 with the increasingly powerful figure of Ito Hirobumi (1841-1909) becoming its vice-minister in 1871 (Yoshitake, 1986; Takii, 2014; Caprio). Ito who had already travelled overseas as a student in London (1863) and to the United States of America to study currency (1870) would serve as one of Iwakura’s deputies throughout the Embassy. Based on the experience of Ito and others, young members of the Embassy would remain in the United States of America and European nations it would visit to undertake continuing formal studies on a wide array of areas identified as essential to the advancement of their nation (at institutions such as Rutgers College and the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis). These individuals, or others who had made their way to the America and Europe as individuals or within smaller missions and also stayed on, often for years, to study, would return to Japan in time to take up leading roles within the Meiji regime (for example Tanaka Fujimaro who after the United States would spent time touring several European countries examining education reform before returning to Japan in March 1873 to execute the resulting reforms through the Ministry of Education). Despite the new Ministry of Industry’s technical assistance, easy credit, and subsidies, the Meiji regime’s initial private-sector development drive throughout the early 1870s was a failure. Japan at this time was in every sense of the word a severely underdeveloped agrarian state in relation to the western powers, with the industrial structures and manufactures being defined as basic and of poor quality (Sukehiro, 1988; Sugiyama, 1994; Andressen, 2002; Cameron, 2007; Ferguson, 2001, 2004, 2017; Green, 2017). Many private sector enterprises simply went bankrupt due to a lack of human capital, financial management skills and broader knowledge of international industry and trade requirements. This private-sector failure left the Meiji elite with little choice other than to take an increasingly state-interventionist approach, including dramatically increasing its technical transfer commitments (Morris-Suzuki, 1994; Schuman, 2009; Studwell, 2013).

Building upon the already considerable skills of the Tokugawa artisans, technology was acquired and learned by the Meiji regime members through numerous other study missions abroad. Eighteen sixty had seen the first official Japanese mission of the Tokogawa regime to the United States of America and in particular the national capital of Washington D.C. to ratify a treaty on May 22 (1860), but it had been sent in near total secrecy, consisted of only a few members, and had very little impact domestically or internationally. The Iwakura Embassy of 1871 to 1873, in stark contrast, consisted of 70 members of the new regime, many of whom were already or would become significant figures within the Meiji regime for decades to come. Envoy Extraordinary Ambassador Plenipotentiary and Prime Minister Iwakura Tomomi, who as stated was a long time confident of the young Mutsuhito, was supported by four vice-Ambassadors who would themselves become national figures: Ito Hirobumi (1841-1909), Kido Koin (also known as Kido Takayoshi (1833-1877)), Okubo Toshimichi (1830-1878); and Yamaguchi Naoyoshi (1839-1894) (Kume, 1871-1873; Gluck in Miyoshi, 2005; Takii, 2014; Caprio, 2020). Far from being a secret mission, the Iwakura Embassy’s departure from Yokohama Port was openly celebrated by the regime (and as evidenced by Images 1 and 2, is still acknowledged as a seminal event in Japanese public history) as reflecting the nation’s moves towards sovereign equality and modernity. Indeed, the mission’s size, scale and duration abroad, unlike the Satsuma and Chosun secret missions to England in 1865, made any hope of keeping it secret from the regime’s enemies fanciful.²

The Iwakura Embassy would quickly come to recognize in Washington D.C. in the early months of 1872 just how unprepared they themselves and their nation were for any substantive revisions to the unequal treaty system (Kume, 1871-73; Auslin, 2004). In relation to the latter, obtaining vast amounts of information and knowledge on questions of economic modernity, such as the development of modern internal improvement such as ports and rail, the mission was an undeniable success. Visitors to the port of Yokohama can learn of the Iwakura Embassy’s departure through a small public park with several information boards, but that in no way can tell the whole story. As is the nature of any port the full story encompasses both those who have left, either permanently or to return, and those foreigners who either entered and remained, or themselves would depart Japan for other shores (Plung, 2021).

The obtaining of foreign knowledge through the mission would be insufficient, as a lone measure, and the Meiji regime had to at a very heavy cost import foreign technicians as educationalists rather than permanent advisers. For example, by 1879 the Ministry of Mines employed 130 foreigners whose salaries accounted for three-fifths of the ministry’s expenditure (Reischauer and Craig, 1989: 146-148; Miyoshi 2005: 178). The emphasis placed on the foreign advisers as educationalists-trainers made clear the Meiji leadership’s intent: those Japanese benefitting from the education-training were to take over these foreigners’ roles as soon as practically possible to avoid dependency (as evidenced in Images 3, 4, and 5 the influence of foreigners was, and remains, quite clearly visible against the traditional Japanese architecture). Such a stand fell within the broader political economy context of the regime itself with Japan having lost substantial elements of its sovereignty under the unequal treaty system and the Meiji leadership’s extensive knowledge of European and American colonialism in broader Asia³ (Iriye, 1995; Auslin, 2004; Pilling, 2014; Green, 2017; Zohar, 2020).

The monumental cost of the foreign advisors and the pressing need to establish economic development as a counterweight to the loss of sovereignty did result in substantive national development progress. For example, through the establishment of Regional Development Boards, most notably the Hokkaido Development Board (Kaitakushi) in 1871, the Meiji State undertook agricultural, fisheries, timber and mineral developments. All required the development of a national network of rails, ports, all-weather-roads, and communications developments in the form of the telegraph across both land and seas to secure these gains.⁴

Image 3. Kobe Akarenga Souko Red Brick Port Warehouses (author supplied)

Image 4. Yokohama Akarenga Souko “Red Brick Warehouse” (author supplied)Image 5. First Foreign Settlement Site (Yokohama) (author supplied)

Image 5. First Foreign Settlement Site (Yokohama) (author supplied)

During this era of small government, the period of 1885-1889 saw investment in fixed capital increase above 15 percent of total government expenditure, and 1.7 percent of the GNP. By the end of the period, 1910 to 1914, with the Meiji reign coming to an end in 1912, investment in fixed capital would rapidly expand to 27.7 percent of total government expenditure and 4.5 percent of the GNP (Yasuba and Dhiravegin, 1985: 21-25). This change was not ideologically driven but instead a pragmatic response on the part of the Meiji government elite to both domestic and international political, strategic, and economic imperatives (Cameron, 1997; Bix, 2000; Pyle, 2007; Teramoto and Minohara, 2017).

The Meiji Governing Elite

Substantial studies of the contemporary Japanese elite bureaucracy acknowledge that its key characteristics were all formed in the Meiji period (Beasley, 1988; Beasley, 1995; Koh, 1989; Johnson, 1982, 1995). The Ministry of Finance (MoF), established in 1868, the year of the Restoration, and the Ministry of Industry, established in 1881, have been the most-thoroughly internationally documented.⁵ Having observed through the seminal Iwakura Embassy and a series of smaller missions of the British, American, and German administrative elite, and in particularly those responsible for the national budgetary process, the Meiji regime framed its substantive reforms within the context of embracing the Confucian tradition. The Meiji elite moved to institute national civil-service examination system in 1880. For the Meiji elite this selection into their ranks via rigorous examination legitimised public officials with moral authority as servants of the Emperor to promote the public good including the development of internal improvements, state enterprises and the harnessing of ‘private’ enterprises deemed central to securing the nation’s sovereignty and prosperity (Johnson, 1982, 1995; Muchlhoff, 2014).

Having removed the samurai as a class and abolished their daimyo provincial loyalties, the Meiji elite redirected loyalty ties to the central bureaucracy as separate fiefdoms in themselves (Miyoshi, 2005: 91). Traditional clan loyalty based on geographic locations was, over the duration of the Meiji Emperor’s reign, to be replaced with another form of clan loyalty; one based on educational attainment, and which transcended government and found its way across all the nation’s major corporations in state banking, finance, rail, ports, manufactures and others (Fingleton, March/April 1995: 77). The Meiji state requirement to build the internal improvements needed to secure Japan’s rise in international stature saw the bureaucracy almost double between 1880 and 1890. Further from 1890 to 1903 administrative expenditure grew from 31 million to 121 million and government employees grew from 79,000 to 144,000 (Sims, 2001: 65 & 91-92). The continuity of Japan’s bureaucratic structures can be traced accurately (Johnson, 1995).

Under the 1890 Constitution’s diffusion of power, the system by which every ministry jealously guards its nawabari (sphere of influence) and all ministry members develop nawabari ishiki (territorial consciousness) was formally instituted. The primary vehicle for this institutionalisation of bureaucratic divisions were (and remain) intense competition over the national budget. At the apex of this new clan loyalty was the Ministry of Finance (MoF), the guardian of the nation’s finances through its control of the state budget. The 1890 Constitution institutionalised this MoF bureaucratic elite predominance as it placed a decisive limitation upon the powers of the Diet, one borrowed from Berlin in that if it failed to pass the national budget the government could continue its operation based on the preceding year’s budget (Storry, 1978). The MoF, in practice, held the whip hand over the Diet and would maintain the 1890 budgetary constitution to control the Meiji government apparatus with all other bureaucratic institutions and agencies required to pass their own ministry budgets through MoF scrutiny. All nation building projects, including the development of ports, rail, the telegraph, all-weather roads, the establishment of trade financing and logistics entities, all were either driven from, or required, the explicit approval and financing of the MoF. Critically, though it is important to understand that whilst the MoF stood at the apex of the Meiji regime bureaucratic hierarchy, it was ultimately under the authority of the Emperor. Mutsuhito more than once would show a willingness to reign-in his senior governing elite, including those overseeing the MoF, when he felt the state revenue-expenditure balance had reached a precipitous. This was particularly so during the first decades of his reign (1870s-1890s) (Keen, 2002). The MoF, nevertheless, went further than mere mastery over the bureaucracy and established its grip over the national economy through embedding its alumni into the nation’s major state and ‘private’ corporations, inclusive of the banking and trade entities that drove Japan’s engagement with the world, as a continuation of their loyalty to their Emperor and by extension their MoF clan (Patrick, 1965; Hoshi and Kashyap, 2001).

The rise of the MoF was not ideological but strategically pragmatic as it was only utilised when it was deemed essential to the national interests, with the Meiji elite preferring to use the private sector where applicable and to engage in state intervention through the MoF and other Meiji agencies for the building of rail and ports only when the market proved itself incapable of delivering nation-building. A working model of private-driven rapid nation-building economic development, however, did not present itself. The MoF’s direct control over an economic base independent of the private sector, including the banking sector and a vast array of state-owned enterprises, provided the bureaucratic elite with strategic control over capital, materials, labour and national economic planning (Chu, 1994:118). Ex-officials from the MoF would come quickly to dominate the executive level within both public and ‘private’ financial, internal improvements, rail, ports, roads, the telegraph, and other institutions (institutions such as the Japan Development Bank (JDB); Export-Import Bank of Japan (EIBJ); Tokyo Stock Exchange; Bank of Tokyo; Yokohama Bank; and others). Japan’s action in fact mirrored those of London, Berlin and Washington D.C., in that they pragmatically evaluated their own contextual environment and circumstances and adopted, adapted and developed old and new policy and practice models and behaviors to achieve eventual success. As this study has detailed the Meiji men observed and extensively documented first-hand through the Iwakura Embassy and other smaller missions the development of the advanced western states public policy-financial-industrial-trading practices and institutions, and quickly came to conclude that far from being the product of Adam Smith’s invisible hand of the market, the international powers’ predominance in arms, finance and trade was in fact the product of the long-term concerted actions of the respective state-activist elites driving these respective nations (Kume, 1871-1873; Fukui, 1992; Iriye, 1995; Takii, 2014).

Ports, Shipping, Railways and Communication

In recognition of their military importance to Japan, the Meiji elite developed railways, shipping and communication services (domestic and international postal services/telegraph) through the use of both government-and-private enterprises to achieve projects of national significance. For example, Emperor Mutsuhito himself took a deep personal interest in every aspect of Japan’s development of a deep-water navy, with Japan’s first western battleship being purchased from the United States of America. This was hardly surprising when one considers that it was the naval power of the United States of America, Great Britain and other western powers that completely discredited the Tokugawa regime’s capacity to protect the nation and therefore its legitimacy to rule. Mutsuhito’s studies extended to undertaking extensive personal studies of both western powers’ battleship developments and the required internal improvement, such as corresponding deep-water ports and the rail networks needed to supply the coal, iron ore, timber and other resources, along with the construction and maintenance of these colossal state investments (Keene, 2002). In this, the Meiji Emperor and his leading men were systematic in following the actions of the United States, Britain and continental Europe, actions many themselves had witnessed first-hand through extensive study tours (Kume, 1871-1873). The Railway Construction Act of 1892 coordinated a national network which rose in the 1883 to 1903 period from 245 miles to 4,500 miles, with 70 percent being constructed by private-enterprise, and, in 1906, state ownership was secured through the Railway Nationalisation Bill (see Table).

Image 6. Cornerstone/foundation stone of the Port of Yokohama (author supplied) 

Along with this rapid development in internal improvement, a similar pattern of incentives and penalties was used in ports, rail, shipbuilding, communication, electrical industries, textiles, low-end tool manufactures, steam-machinery and later chemical, metal products, and machinery. Through the direct import and development of British technology, the textile sector (at first silk production and exportation), in particular, expanded to occupy nearly 30 percent of value-added manufactures throughout the 1890 to 1930 period, the next largest, at 16 percent, was food and drink (Beasley, 1995: 110; Reischauer and Craig, 1989: 149). Under the new Meiji policy-loan scheme the increase in the share of total manufacturing output in the GDP grew from 13.7 percent in 1873-1874 to 43.7 percent in 1930-1939. Furthermore, through sustained technological importation and innovation, manufacturing rose from 6 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) by 1900 to 30 percent by 1945. Fukui, 1992: 202.

Image 7. Public history of Yokohama’s original railway service between Yokohama and Shinagawa, displayed at Sakuragicho Station (author supplied)

Image 8. C11 292 steam locomotive outside Shimbashi Station, Minato (author supplied) 

Table: Meiji Infrastructure Development 1868-1912: Transportation (Rail, Ports and Steam Vessels) and the Communications Revolution (the Telegraph) takes shape Japan.

• National-Political: Rail, Ports and the Telegraph would tie the nation together and enabled the Meiji regime through a network of rail-telegraph to expand its reach into the most remote of villages. The Meiji elite coming from isolated regional provinces themselves fully understood the political importance of rapid and effective communication from the centre to the periphery, and vice versa to the permanency of their regime.
• The first railway link, from Tokyo to Yokohama, was solely government-funded under the Japan Railway Company (Nihon Tetsudo Kaisha) which itself was under the Ministry of Civil Affairs, with material-and-technical services provided by Great Britain. The budget was a truly astronomical £300,000 with British technology and expertise predominant, yet construction quality was often poor because of the inexperience of the Japanese workforce who would learn-by-doing. It would be an outright success with its first full year of operation 1873 (indecently 43 years after rails introduction in Britain): 1, 223,071 passengers: ¥395,988 in revenue with costs of ¥117,879. Frequency increased from 6 to 9 times daily: Freight was introduced in September 1873 (Free, 2008).
• The Tokyo-Yokohama would see travel and transportation times in Japan go from 20 miles a day to 20-35 miles an hour. Japan had moved from the human-horsepower era that had existed for millennia into a new era of steam. In contemporary terms it was the equivalent to the quantum advancements taking place in relation to private enterprise space travel. An American R. P. Bridgens would be the foreign specialist architect who designed the original Shimbashi and Yokohama stations (Free, 2008).
• The Kobe-Osaka-Kyoto line would be next and by December 1871 the survey line had been staked-out. In December 1873 authorization to begin construction of the line was given and involved extensive infrastructure development within the Kobe port itself and a series of through wrought iron river crossing bridges to be constructed. The Kobe-Osaka link was finalized in May 1874 and was extended further to Kyoto in September 1876.
• National-Strategic: The rail-ports-telegraph nexus would enable the movement of Imperial troops, arms and other military resources across the nation in the most efficient manner possible to crush any domestic uprisings. The Meiji men were more than aware through extensive studies of the decisive role rail had played in delivering the Union military victory over the Confederacy in the American Civil War (1861-1865) and the increasing role of rail in continental European conflicts, including Bismarck’s decisive use of rail in the Franco-German War of 1870.
• The critical role of rail-ports-telegraph in delivering strategic power would come to full fruition domestically when it proved decisive in crushing the Satsuma rebellion in 1877. The Meiji regime victory, and in particular the capacity of the Imperial Army and Navy to deliver unprecedented levels of men, arms and other resources to the battlefield through rail, ports and the telegraph, ended internal rebellion.
• The crushing of the Satsuma Rebellion was to be the logistical schooling the Meiji regime would utilise for Japan’s movement of troops and resources via the development and advancement of rail, ports, the telegraph and steam-powered ocean-going vessels to Taiwan, Korea, Southern Manchuria, and China in the coming decades (Chang and Myer, August 1963). The port-rail-telegraph developments that had taken place throughout the 1870s-1780s would be replicated by Meiji men in these new colonial territories for the advancement of their nation’s interests.
• In 1887, private capital was attracted by extending State assurances of capital return through railway-monopoly licenses, and re-nationalisation after twenty-five years.
• The Railway Construction Act of 1892 saw the national network rise from 245 miles (1883) to 4,500 miles (1903), with 70 percent being constructed by private enterprise.
• In 1906, state ownership was secured through the Railway Nationalisation Bill (Crawcour. 1988: 394).

The Telegraph

• Commodore William Perry on his second trip to Japan in 1854 (Iokibe and Minohara, 2017) presented the Tokugawa shogunate with an embossing Morse Telegraph transmitter:

“After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, government leaders quickly decided to make the establishment of a telegraph service one of their top priorities. Two years later, a telegraph service between Tokyo and Yokohama was provided for the general public. The telegraph service expanded rapidly, and a nation-wide network was completed by 1878. Members of the Embassy (1872) were eager to meet and honour Morse; to their deep regret, he was taken ill and died while they were in Washington” (Editors in Kume, 1871-1873 Vol. 1: 80).

• In mid-1872 a new telegraph line from Nagasaki to Shanghai to London to New York meant that news from Tokyo was quickly transmitted to Nagasaki and onto the rest of the world. An event in Tokyo could now be reported within a New York or Dutch newspaper 2 days later and vice versa. The Meiji Emperor and his inner circle were now able to be fully informed of events globally, most importantly strategic and military events amongst the great powers, like never before and would respond to these with new policies and initiatives reflective of the new speed of information.
• Between 1883-1913 post offices rose from 3,500 to 7,000; 2.7 million telegrams in 1882 rose to 40 million in 1913; telephones which were introduced in 1890 with 400 subscribers and only two exchanges, by 1913 reached 200,000 subscribers with 1,046 exchanges. The government backed Tokyo Electrical Company expanded from 21,000 lamps in 1890 to 5 million in 1913 (Sydney, 1988: 394).

Image 9. Plaque commemorating the centenary of the commencement of international postal service from Yokohama Port (author supplied); 5-3 Nihonodori, Naka Ward, Yokohama, Kanagawa 231-8799, Japan.

Meiji International Trade Policy

Japan’s international trade policy, as an extension of its national elite’s ideology of Kokutai and broader industrial policy, has enjoyed continuity. Japan’s Meiji leaders and their successors have been “well aware that the country’s power and prestige were hostage to its ability to promote foreign trade” (Duus, 1988: 25). Unless Japan could undertake expansion of its manufacturing industries and sell its goods in the world market, it could not acquire the armaments and materials needed to secure its hold on power, and in time its expanding empire. The Japanese elite pragmatically acknowledged that they operated in a mercantile international environment dominated by the trading powers of Great Britain, The United States of America and continental Europe (Young, 1877-1879). Following the precedent set by Prussian/German administrators, export credit secured primarily through special banks operating under the purview of the MoF was utilised by the Meiji elite to achieve rapid trade development. The Meiji regime instituted export associations, establishing the Yokohama Specie Bank (1892) to facilitate foreign exchange transactions, subsidise export industries, strengthen consular economic reporting and construct an ocean-going merchant marine.

The Meiji elite divided trade strategy and the world into two separate spheres: one for trade and one for conquest. From the industrial world (Britain, Europe and the United States), it sought to acquire manufacturing technology and semi-manufactured goods and, in return, export primary goods (silk and tea) and labour-intensive craft products (Chang 1996, 2002). To the non-industrial world, primarily their Northeast and Southeast Asian regional neighbours, the Meiji elite in the early years of the regime sought to export inexpensive light-industry products, such as cotton, textiles and other assorted manufactured goods, and, in return, purchase raw materials and foodstuffs. In time through its colonial actions against it near-neighbours this process would be one of forced distribution and acquisition (Chang, 1963; Duss, 1995; Zohar, 2020; Tinello, 2021). While introducing importation regulations that assured technological transfer in relation to value-added products, the Meiji state advocated the open importation of raw materials for manufacturing. This is hardly surprising, as, with its limited-resource base, Japan found it imperative to maintain an open raw-material trade/forced acquisition (Yoshitake, 1986; Iriye, 1995; Teramoto and Minohara, 2017). Images 10 and 11 represent enduring examples of the early infrastructure through which the Meiji trade strategy was made possible. The Meiji men would make full use of their predecessor’s connections with the Dutch trading empire, utilising this knowledge as a platform upon which to build relations with the British Empire, United States of America, and continental European powers (as Image 11 depicts).

Image 10. Pictograph along the Nakashima River of the Nagasaki Canal Trading and Warehouse system (author supplied); 8 Uonomachi, Nagasaki, 850-0874, Japan.

Image 11. Current construction HSBC, built 1904, Former site Dutch Trading Quarters Nagasaki Dutch Trading House (author supplied); 4-27 Matsugaemachi, Nagasaki, 850-0921, Japan　

Japanese shipping would begin regular trade throughout East and Southeast Asia in the 1880s and with it came the Keiretsu, state banks and consular offices, all supported by the State Japanese Associations (Nihonjinkai). The easy-credit terms Japanese banks extended to Chinese enterprises ensured that, unlike their western counterparts, Japanese enterprises secured the Chinese-business networks throughout Southeast Asia. At the same time (1880s-90) the international-trade climate saw the major developed countries, including the United States, Britain and Germany, turn their backs on the limited free trade regime in existence and instead engage in increasing levels of mercantile public policy. This macroenvironmental shift in global trading conditions in turn forced the Meiji regime to maintain state finance-trade intervention in the form of extending finance across state-owned port, rail, telegraph, merchant marine and other trade-oriented development (Hoshi, 1995; Bix, 2000).

Japan’s Meiji leaders, having come to power as a direct response to their Tokugawa predecessor’s failure to maintain trade sovereignty in the face of the western imposed unequal treaties (1854 onwards), were “well aware that the country’s power and prestige were hostage to its ability to promote foreign trade” (Duus, 1988: 25). The Meiji elite having been the subject of western superior naval arms understood that unless Japan could sell its goods in the world it could not acquire the arms (modern rifles, artillery and shipping) needed to protect itself, enact its own sovereignty, and when possible, establish a future East Asian empire designed to enable a mass expansion of manufacturing and heavy industries. Only a network of domestic and regional port-rail-telegraph and other internal improvement infrastructure could secure this, and so, they were deemed to be nation-building projects by the Meiji men who cared little if they were enacted under either state or private activism but cared entirely that they come to timely fruition.

Image 12. Pictograph of the second arrival of Commodore Perry to Yokohama, located outside of the ‘Yokohama Archives of History’ Building (author supplied)

The Meiji elite divided trade strategy and the world into two separate spheres. From the industrial world (Britain, the United States and continental Europe), it sought to acquire manufacturing technology and semi-manufactured goods and from the non-industrial world (primarily its Asian regional neighbours) it purchased raw materials and foodstuffs. Even before it established itself as colonial ruler of Taiwan in 1890, and later Korea in 1910, through state-financing Japanese shipping began regular trade throughout East Asia in the 1880s. Doing so through its forced acquisition of the Loo-Choo Islands (incorporated into the Okinawa Prefecture) in the late-1870s (Shuman, 2009; Studwell, 2013; Pilling, 2014; Ch’oe, 2015). With the Meiji-elite-driven expansion of East Asian shipping trade came further state-support for the Keiretsu trade enterprises via State banks, extensive consular offices and officials and a network supported through the State Japanese Associations (Nihonjinkai). The Japanese elite from 1868 until 1912 and onwards then pragmatically acknowledged the obvious; that they operated in a mercantile international environment dominated by the trading powers of Great Britain, the United States of America and an expansionary Germany, all of whom had either taken colonies or trade-concessions in the East Asian region (Tinello, 2021; Caprio, 2020; Zohar, 2020).

Conclusion: Meiji Japan’s Emergence as a World Economic Power

The images presented in this paper highlight and corroborate a public historical analysis enshrined in the enduring physical manifestations of the efforts of the Meiji government’s concerted nation building. These physical manifestations are critically important to understanding the history of Japan’s rise to developed nation status, but do not in of themselves tell the entire story of domestic political power struggles that themselves derived from the international powers’ dynamics, inclusive of being both subjected to and the executor of colonialism, occupation, and coercion, and eventually efforts toward full sovereignty. Contemporary Japanese society would not be possible without the efforts represented by the physical manifestations of Meiji history, which remain visible if even presented as a largely silent history to the citizens of Japan and its many visitors.

Japan, like all the other colonial powers, in extending its imperial ambitions defined its self-serving actions as very much within the ‘norm’ of international affairs (Ch’oe, 2015). Unlike the other colonial powers, however, it did so whilst it itself was the subject of colonialism in the form of the western state imposed unequal treaty system. Under such an international paradigm, the full restoration of national sovereignty stood at the apex of all state thinking and policy activity. The physical creation of import-export banks, ports, railways, postal and telegraph networks and vast internal improvements across the Japanese landscape being not an economic imperative in themselves but instead were the manifestation of the core national geo-political strategic directive: the restoration of the full sovereignty of the nation under the Emperor’s rule.

Even with Meiji-European powers treaty revisions in the first decade of the twentieth century, that restored much of the sovereignty Japan had long been denied, equality between the rising Asian power and the established international powers would prove elusive. The western powers, even after the Japanese Navies’ defeat of Russian forces in 1905, held firm on the belief that they held ascendancy within the international realm in perpetuity (Kowner, 2022). To do otherwise was to acknowledge that it was not their race and their belief in the inherent superiority, it bestowed upon them, that made colonialism a legitimate act of international public policy but simply their current position within the industrial revolution that delivered to them superior arms: and this the western powers simply could not do. Their entire domestic and international regimes, inclusive of political, economic and social structures, relied upon this self-perception of racial superiority. This race-developmental advancement nexus would be no less the case than with the Meiji men as they commenced Japan’s construction of its East Asian sphere of influence, and their successors drive towards war across Asia and ultimately unconditional defeat in 1945 (Chang and Myer, 1963; Duus, 1995).

The success of the Meiji regime elite in placing Japan on the road to unprecedented rapid economic development is for all to see in the public history displayed within the port districts of Yokohama, Kobe and Nagasaki. Silence marks the history of how important these port-rail-communications developments were to the restoration of Japan’s own sovereignty and the simultaneous stripping away of others. As stated above these developmental achievements were the product of the larger goal of national sovereignty and crucially were the product of the Meiji elite being left to its own domestic reform agenda. Whilst limited in key areas because of the western powers imposition of the unequal treaty system, the Meiji men were able to implement public policy that was ultimately pragmatic, quickly altering policies when they proved to be detrimental to state building and economic development and pursuing with vigour those deemed essential to national sovereignty and security (Kume, 1871-1873; Yoshitake, 1986). In the international realm the ports-rail-telegraph nexus would prove critical to enacting colonialism over Taiwan and Korea largely uninterrupted from western power interference, and further into Manchuria and China which in stark contrast met with fierce western powers resistance (Ch’oe, 2015; Teramoto and Minohara, 2017).

International events would be critical to the Meiji regime’s thinking, and as military men themselves they keenly observed success in this field, so they took particular interest in the European powers’ colonial actions towards China from the 1840s onwards, the Union victory over Southern secessionist during the American Civil War (1861-1865) and Bismarck’s Prussian army’s crushing of France (1870-1871). In fact, the lesson of western might and power came to these men on their own shores. Whilst the industrial superior Union was at war with its rebellious southern countrymen it also made time in 1864 to join a flotilla of western naval power consisting of Britain, France, the Netherlands and itself to comprehensively dismantle the defences of the Choshu domain through sheer superior arms. In the year prior (1863) the British Royal Navy alone had bought the Satsuma domain to a position of forced negotiation. It was no accident that it was from these two domains, Satsuma and Chosun, that the majority of the Meiji regime men heralded from. The clear and unequivocal message from the western naval submission of Satsuma and Chosun and international events such as China’s humiliation at the hands of the industrial western powers and the Lincoln-led industrial northern victory over the southern plantocracy was the same: to remain an agrarian society was for Japan to be in perpetuity a mere pawn to the western financial-industrial nation-states. Put simply they acknowledged that you either became a power within the international realm, or you became a vassal state: with no real space in-between (Yoshitake, 1986; Morris-Suzuki, 1994; Fallows, 1995; Caprio, 2020; Zohar, 2020; Tinello, 2021).

The Meiji regime, therefore, would forge a trading system of export-financing, port infrastructure, rail and postal services/the telegraph celebrated today in public memory, that itself relied on the development and the strengthening of the state institutional capacity (governance, public policy execution, financial institutions, legal structures, private incentive systems, human-capital development and others) to ensure that this fate did not befall the Japanese nation (Masuyama, 1999: 16). The Meiji men did not require any theoretical exploration as to the essential nature of infrastructure development to their nation and their regime’s future. They themselves had been subjected to the power that the western industrial states could extend globally through their development of ports, rail and the telegraph, whilst their massive near regional neighbor, China, was experiencing its nineteenth century fate of being picked apart by the European powers precisely because of the collective failure of that nation’s leadership to execute effective internal improvements that would have enabled a large modern Chinese army and navy and resources through rail, port and communications (telegraph and other) developments to strategically counter this foreign encroachment.

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Dr Ian Austin is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia. He is the author of four manuscripts and two co-authored works on East Asian public policy and economic development. He has worked extensively in Asia for two decades.

Alexander Best is a PhD student and Sessional Academic at the School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia. He holds a Bachelor of Event, Sport and Recreation Management (Hons), and a Diploma of Language Studies (majoring in Japanese), which he completed as an Australian Government-awarded New Colombo Plan Scholar (2016) based in Kyoto, Japan.

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Notes

¹ The authors of this work would like to thank Professor Mark E. Caprio of Rikkyo University, Japan, for his review of the paper which contributed to its improvement in every sense.

² Under the Tokugawa regime unauthorised travel abroad saw the death penalty applied to anyone who returned home. Even those who made no conscious decision to leave, like fishermen swept away from Japan by vicious storms found themselves having to reside on foreign soil, never able to return under fear of execution.

³ On July 29th, 1858 the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with the United States had been signed on the U.S. Frigate Powhatan in Edo Bay with the inequity in military power between the two actors being abundantly clear to all.

⁴ Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Kobe, Yokohama, Aomori, Hokkaido and other ports development, and Japan’s connection to the international trans-oceanic telegraph cable all proceeded apace under Meiji governance.

⁵ Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) and Ministry of Finance (MoF).

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Sri Lanka was braced for more unrest after newly appointed president Ranil Wickremesinghe vowed to crack down on the protests that toppled his predecessor, condemning them as “against the law”.

Speaking after being MPs picked him as successor to Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Wickremesinghe made it clear he would not tolerate those he perceived to be stirring up violence.

“If you try to topple the government, occupy the president’s office and the prime minister’s office, that is not democracy; it is against the law,” he said.

“We will deal with them firmly according to the law. We will not allow a minority of protesters to suppress the aspirations of the silent majority clamoring for a change in the political system.”

Wickremesinghe is expected to name the leader of the parliament and old schoolmate Dinesh Gunawardena as prime minister on Thursday. Gunawardena is known as a strong Rajapaksa loyalist, and served as a cabinet when Mahinda Rajapaksa was president, and then again when Gotabaya Rajapaksa was president.

In recent days, Wickremesinghe, who declared a state of emergency this week, had made statements calling protesters “fascists” and indicating he would not be afraid to crack down on the demonstrations.

Less than an hour after he was declared president on Wednesday, a court order was issued prohibiting anyone from congregating within a 50-metre radius of a statue that stands at Galle Face in Colombo, where protesters spurred by the country’s economic collapse have been camped out for months.

People Defy Order

However, people defied the order and dozens gathered on the steps of the president’s offices, which are still occupied by the protest movement, to shout rallying cries of “deal Ranil” – a reference to Wickremesinghe’s reputation as a scheming politician – as well as “Ranil bank robber”, referring to a bank bond scam he was implicated in. Hundreds of police and military stood on the periphery but did not interfere in the rally.

After being selected by MPs as president, Wickremesinghe called on the opposition parties for an “end to division” and said he wanted to “bring everyone together so that a national consensus is formed as to the way forward”.

But questions remain over whether Wickremesinghe would be able to put together a cross-party unity government acceptable to the people, after the major opposition parties had pledged their support for the presidential candidate he defeated.

Wickremesinghe has been prime minister six times and is close to the Rajapaksa family. Protesters fear that he will protect the Rajapaksas from being held accountable, as he has been accused of doing in the past, and would not instigate the constitutional change being demanded by the protest movement, including an end to the system of executive presidency.

Wickremesinghe is due to serve for the rest of Rajapaksa’s term, until November 2024.

Ranil Does Not Have Mandate

“Ranil will be chased away, he is a crook and he does not have a mandate,” said Anura Goonaratna, 53, a toy exporter. “This protest movement is going to get worse. There has to be an end to this and the only ending we will accept is throwing Ranil out, whatever it takes.”

China’s Loan

Analysts have disputed the China debt-trap narrative in Sri Lanka. China only accounts for 10% of Sri Lanka’s debts, most of which were concessionary loans and the repayments only accounted for less than 5% of the country’s annual foreign debt servicing.

US: High Interest Rate

A much greater drain on the country’s foreign exchange reserves were international sovereign bonds, much of which are from the US, which were borrowed by the country at high interest rates. It was these bond repayments – which were due to total over $1.5bn in 2022 – that drained Sri Lanka’s reserves and ultimately forced them to default in May, as the country was virtually bankrupt.

People Are Unhappy

Ranil Wickremesinghe’s election as President could again plunge Sri Lanka into another round of political unrest and instability.

Ranil has little credibility with the general public. In some places, protests called for Ranil Wickremesinghe to quit ahead of today’s elections but these were not mass rallies.

According to some analysts it may not be as easy to mobilize protests.

Anticipating possible demonstrations, the Colombo Port Magistrate’s Court issued an order Wednesday preventing anyone from reaching within a 50 meter radius of the S.W.R.D. Bandarnaike statute which is located at the protest site at the Galle face green in the capital.

Neither Ranil nor the members of parliament have credibility with the voters.

The fear is that this may lead to another round of street protests, calling for Ranil to quit.

Sri Lanka at the moment can ill afford another political turmoil when the President and the new government he appoints has to focus on getting the economy back on track. That won’t be an easy job. Much will depend on whether the protesters are back on the street and how the President tackles the fresh volley of unrest.

Rumor mills in Sri Lankans are now pointing fingers at New Delhi for ensuring Wickremesinghe’s victory.

Denying these charges, the Indian High Commission in Colombo tweeted : “We have seen baseless and purely speculative media reports about efforts at political level from India to influence political leaders in Sri Lanka regarding elections in the Sri Lankan Parliament to the post of the President of Sri Lanka.’’ And again “(We) categorically deny these media reports as completely false. They are clearly a figment of someone’s imagination.” Another tweet said that India   “does not interfere in internal affairs and democratic processes of another country”.

Numbers in Parliament Do not Depict True Composition On The Ground: Says AKD

Claiming that the composition of Parliament did not represent the true desire of the people, NPP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake reiterated that an opportunity should be given for a new mandate as there was no genuineness for any form of government established in the current Parliament.

He told Parliament that the composition which is shown through numbers in Parliament was not the real composition on the ground.

“There is a huge contradiction between the desire of the people outside and the Parliament,” he said. He said they always stood for an interim government for a short period of time headed by a President and a Prime Minister who had no future political agendas.

He said however, they failed to come to a consensus despite discussions with several political parties. Dissanayake alleged that MPs had been bought over this time also just as in the past.

“When I saw the number of parties extending support for Dullas Alahapperuma, I thought he would received more than 113 votes. It is now clear that the members in the political parties do not always stay with the policies of the parties. We have a past where MPs were sold for money. This situation has not changed,” he said.

Our Candidate Could not Win: Rajapaksa

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa said that his party’s candidate was unable to win the Presidential election in Parliament yesterday.

“We presented Dullas. We voted for him, but lost. Somebody has to win,” he told media in Parliament.

“He (Ranil) got more votes, so he became the President. That’s what has happened. We are waiting to see what will happen in the future. Whatever the government is, it must work for the people of the country,” he said.

“There are different opinions. Some say this is the opinion of the people. We say this is not the opinion of the people,” he also said.

Commenting about the protesters, the former President said “I think the struggle is over now. The youth who are engaged in the struggle at Galle Face must understand that now. They must now leave and get on with their work,” the former Premier said

Arson Attack On Ranil’s Private Residence: Four Suspects Remanded

Four suspects arrested over the incident of setting fire to Acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s private residence in Colombo were yesterday remanded till July 27 by Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court.

These four suspects are to be produced before an identification parade on  the next hearing date.

Defence Counsel appearing for the suspects alleged that police have failed to arrest the main suspect involved in the incident. In reply, the CID informed Colombo Fort Magistrate Thilina Gamage that an individual named Ivan Perera wanted for questioning over the incident has already fled the country and further said the airport authorities have been informed in this regard.

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“Quiet diplomacy”, a “soft approach”, a “loud approach” and “avoiding megaphone diplomacy” have all been floated as strategies to “bring to an end” the case against WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange. In situations like his, the best form of diplomacy is that which produces results most favourable to the citizen involved and at the same time keeps them safe and in good health.

But government documents obtained this week by Declassified Australia under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act from the Attorney-General’s Department, indicate the new Labor Government does certainly not rule out the physical extradition of Assange from the United Kingdom to the United States, nor does it give any hint about how it might deal with possible fallout from that.

On 15 May 2022, Senator Penny Wong told the National Press Club, “Certainly we would encourage, were we elected, the US Government to bring this matter to a close, but ultimately that is a matter for the Administration.” Daniel Hurst, journalist at the Guardian Australia, attempted to seek clarity on what ‘bring this matter to a close’ meant but the question went unanswered.

The FOI documents obtained include ‘Talking Points’ prepared for the Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus on 2 June 2022 titled, ‘Julian Assange – International Transfer of Prisoners process – talking points and background’. They point out that:

Prisoner transfers cannot be agreed between governments in advance of a person being a prisoner (after a criminal trial, conviction and sentencing) in a particular country, and require the consent of the prisoner;

International prisoner transfers to Australia are initiated by an application from a prisoner after the prisoner has been convicted and sentenced;

If surrendered, convicted and sentenced in the US, Assange could apply under the ITP scheme to serve his sentence in Australia;

After some redactions the document continues: However, the UK High Court’s judgment does note that the US has provided an assurance that they will consent to Mr Assange being transferred to Australia to serve any custodial sentence on him if he is convicted.

This document is a list of Talking Points and Background information on Julian Assange and the International Transfer of Prisoners Scheme, prepared for Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus. It outlines conditions for the potential transfer of Julian Assange from the US to Australia, following extradition from the UK, trial, conviction, and sentencing in the US. (Image: Document provided through FOI, Attorney-General’s Department)

The FOI documents also show that on 8 June 2022, the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, signed a ‘Ministerial Submission’ titled ‘Julian Assange – extradition request from the United States to the United Kingdom’ which recommended that the Attorney-General note the current status of the Julian Assange extradition proceedings in the UK, including that:

1. The matter is currently with the UK Secretary of State for the Home Department for a decision on the extradition by 20 June 2022 (that deadline can be extended on application to the Court).

2. The UK Supreme Court determined in March 2022 that Mr Assange is eligible for surrender to the US by refusing him leave to appeal against the High Court’s decision of December 2021.

3. If Mr Assange is extradited, convicted and sentenced in the US, he may apply for transfer to Australia under the International Transfer of Prisoner’s Scheme. This will require the consent of the US and Australian authorities.

4. The UK High Court’s judgment notes that the US has provided an assurance that it will consent to Mr Assange being transferred to Australia to serve any custodial sentence imposed on him if he is convicted.

Under the heading ‘Key Issues’ the document notes:

‘The UK Home Secretary is due to make a final decision on Mr Assange’s extradition to the US by 20 June. Mr Assange will have one final avenue of appeal with the leave of the High Court, otherwise he must be extradited within 28 days of the Secretary of State’s decision.’

This document is a Ministerial Submission on the International Transfer of Prisoners Scheme prepared for the Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, and signed by him on 8 June 2022. (Image: Document provided through FOI, Attorney-General’s Department)

Furthermore,

‘If Mr Assange is convicted and sentenced to imprisonment in the US, it will be possible for him to apply under the ITP scheme to serve the remainder of his sentence in Australia. A transfer would also require the consent of the US, the Australian Government (through you as Attorney-General), and the relevant minister in the state into whose prison Mr Assange would be transferring.

In making any such decision, the department would provide you with advice on factors such as the extent to which the transfer would assist the prisoner’s rehabilitation, sentence enforcement, community safety and any relevant humanitarian considerations, in addition to any conditions of transfer required by the US.’

Information under the headings ‘Government representations and consulate engagement’ and ‘Key risks and mitigation’ are heavily redacted so one cannot tell whether the Australian Government has specifically asked the United States to drop the case against Assange or taken into account things like Assange’s medical condition. A review by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has been sought to try to get access to the redacted information.

Presumably, one of the key risks that must be considered by the Australian Government is the risk of suicide.

In the judgment of presiding UK District Judge, Vanessa Baraitser, she outlines the evidence provided by Professor Michael Kopelman, emeritus professor of neuropsychiatry at King’s College London and until 31 May 2015, a consultant neuropsychiatrist at St Thomas’s Hospital, who carried out a comprehensive investigation of Assange’s psychiatric history.

He considered there to be an abundance of known risk factors indicating a very high risk of suicide including the intensity of Mr Assange’s suicidal preoccupation and the extent of his preparations. Importantly, he stated:

“I am as confident as a psychiatrist ever can be that, if extradition to the United States were to become imminent [emphasis added], Mr Assange will find a way of suiciding.”

It is worth noting that the District Judge, Vanessa Baraitser, accepted the medical opinion of Professor Kopelman and found him to be ‘impartial’ and ‘dispassionate’.

If the extradition in and of itself is a trigger for suicide, then any discussions about where Assange may be housed on US soil pre- and post-trial and under what restrictive measures becomes completely immaterial.

The presence of large redactions in the documents may suggest that, despite the medical evidence, the government has not ruled out the extradition of Assange to US soil.

The imprecise language of the Labor government statements on using “quiet diplomacy” to “bring the matter to a close”, rather than clearly saying what they are seeking, may be giving false hope to the Australian public. Without putting forward its “quiet diplomacy” in non-negotiable terms to the US, it may be that the dropping of charges will not even be considered.

On 17 June 2022 a Joint Statement of Foreign Minister, Senator Penny Wong, and Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, was released. It noted that:

We will continue to convey our expectations that Mr Assange is entitled to due process, humane and fair treatment, access to proper medical care, and access to his legal team.

The Australian Government has been clear in our view that Mr Assange’s case has dragged on for too long and that it should be brought to a close. We will continue to express this view to the governments of the United Kingdom and United States.

On 28 June 2022, the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, told ABC Radio National’s Law Report that:

The United States has long legislated in an extraterritorial way and I think that all other countries have understood that for a long time.

What we have in the case of Julian Assange is an Australian citizen, who is presently held in a British jail, who is subject to an extradition request made by the United States of America, which has an extradition treaty with the United Kingdom. It is not open to the Australian Government to directly interfere with either the jailing of Mr Assange in the United Kingdom, or the extradition request that’s been made by the United States to the United Kingdom.

What is available to an Australian Government, and the Prime Minister has made this very clear, and I’ve said this as well, we think that the case of Julian Assange has gone on for far too long. What is available to the Australian Government is making diplomatic representations.

But as the Prime Minister has said, those diplomatic representations are best done in private…. it’s about what we can put to the United States Government, which is the moving party here.

If extradited from the UK, and then tried and convicted in the US, Assange faces a cumulative total of up to 175 years imprisonment. His charges attract a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison on each count of violating the US’s Espionage Act of 1917and a maximum penalty of five years for the single count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.

The ‘International Transfer of Prisoners Statement of Policy’ states – among other things – that:

A parole eligibility date will be determined as part of the sentence enforcement in Australia. The earliest possible release date in the sentencing country will be enforced as the parole eligibility date. If an earliest possible release date has not been determined by the sentencing country, Australia will propose a non-parole period that is 66 per cent of the original sentence imposed by the foreign country.

However, if the original sentence imposed by the foreign country significantly exceeds the maximum head sentence that could be imposed in Australia for a similar offence, Australia will propose a non-parole period that equates to 66 per cent of the maximum sentence that could be imposed in Australia for a similar offence.

Release on parole will be discretionary in accordance with the relevant Australian processes and laws. Where possible, the parole eligibility date will be at least 12 months before the sentence expiry date.

Some draw parallels to the case of David Hicks, an Australian who had received militant training in Afghanistan before being detained by US forces in December 2001, and who was subsequently incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay detention camp from 2002 to 2007.

But they place no weight on the fact that Hicks did not want to plead guilty to any offence, in any plea deal to free him. In his book, Guantanamo: My Journey, Hicks wrote:

If I refused to sign these new extra documents the Australian government would not take me. The consular official threatened me with this himself and [lawyer Michael] Mori agreed and said I had no choice. I did not want to sign anything or have anything to do with the commissions or plea deals, but my fear of being left behind was great. Once again I was forced into doing something I did not want to do.

Julian Assange will no doubt take a similarly principled approach in any negotiations and may well refuse to agree to any plea deal.

One can see why a plea to an offence carrying a lower maximum term such as conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, with a non-parole period and sentence to be served in Australia, would be attractive to a new Government which wants to avoid offending an ally and says it is eager to ‘bring the matter to an end’ on negotiated terms without Government pronouncements.

But this requires the Australian Government to accept assurances contradicted by everything the United States has done to Assange for over a decade, and by its previous failure to comply with its own assurances in other cases, to ignore the medical opinion of Professor Kopelman and risk of Assange’s extradition-related suicide, to turn a blind eye to the fact that the US has not adopted or incorporated into its domestic law the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court against the ‘crime against humanity’ of ‘torture’, and to assume that Assange himself will co-operate in the process.

Moreover, Greg Barns SC, Adviser to the Australian Assange Campaign, makes a critical point. He told Declassified Australia that, “The Assange case is unique. One of the ways in which that is the case is the attempted extraterritorial use of the US Espionage Act. The US is seeking to establish a precedent where it could seek to extradite any journalist anywhere in the world for disclosure of US information.

“If Australia were to sanction a ‘deal’ whereby Assange pleaded guilty to a charge in exchange for an Australian served sentence, it would be endorsing that approach.”

At the end of the day, the Australian Government should come clean with the Australian people about what the representations made to the United States, or ‘quiet diplomacy’, actually involve.

Surely we are entitled to see that the Government has done as much for securing Assange’s freedom from our alleged ‘great ally’ as it did for other ‘political detainees’ of non-allied regimes, like Peter Greste jailed in Egypt, and Kylie Moore-Gilbert jailed in Iran.

“Quiet diplomacy” does not mean weak diplomacy.

Is Australia urging the United States in non-negotiable terms to give priority to human rights and press freedom over any intelligence service-based vendetta or US domestic political considerations, and drop the case against Assange completely?

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KELLIE TRANTER is a lawyer, researcher, and human rights advocate. She tweets from @KellieTranter View all posts by Kellie Tranter

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On July 12, Philippine Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte (daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte who employed a militaristic approach to combatting COVID-19) mandated a full resumption of face-to-face classes in all public and private schools in November 2022. To say that the last two years of pure distance learning (self-learning modules) is problematic and likely ineffective is reasonable, for without literate guardians, school-age children struggle in the process of individual learning. Therefore, the decision to transition to full face-to-face classes soon is only necessary for the development of well-rounded Filipino children.

Several critics lambasted the decision amidst the current surge in COVID-19 cases in the country. However, Dr. Mary Ann Bunyi, president of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society of the Philippines, said in 2021 that children who contracted COVID-19 accounted for “less than 10 percent of the country’s total cases.” She added that children have strong resistance to the coronavirus disease, where those infected only manifest mild symptoms. Against this scientific evidence, VP and EduSec Duterte maintained that pediatric vaccination is not mandatory and “co-mingling of vaccinated and unvaccinated learners will be allowed in the classrooms.”

In conjunction with the VP’s pronouncement, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. declared that overall mandatory vaccination is not necessary and that a law is not required, acknowledging the public’s right to self-determination. Nonetheless, he still advocates for vaccination and the benefits one gets from getting vaccinated, essentially turning a blind eye to cases of adverse events and deaths. His administration also plans for a massive vaccination campaign to be spearheaded by the Department of Health, Department of the Interior and Local Government, and the Department of Education.

The “mandatory vaccination” buzzword is often denied by the national administration but is de facto implemented in systemic levels, giving workers in both government agencies and private sector[1] two options: get vaccinated or get terminated. If President Marcos Jr. is straightforward in his non-mandatory vaccination strategy, he must shape a more rigorous policy that penalizes employers pursuing mandatory vaccination. After all, didn’t he say, “We don’t really need to pass it into a law because we can still choose what’s best for our own health”?

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Jezile Torculas has a bachelor’s degree in Political Science. She is an Assistant Editor at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Note

[1] Does not refer to the entire private sector

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On Thursday, the Sri Lanka government announced a curfew in the capital Colombo and its suburbs that would run until 5am on Friday. To stop demonstrators from accessing the Parliament on Thursday, the Sri Lankan Army stationed tanks close to the building. Troops in green military uniforms and camouflage vests arrived by armored personnel carriers on Thursday to reinforce barricades around the parliament.

Organizers of the protest fear a crackdown could be imminent after Prime Minister Wickremesinghe branded some protesters “fascists” in an address the previous evening.

The government has imposed a curfew in Colombo from noon on Thursday to early morning on Friday in a bid to prevent further unrest. Local media showed armored vehicles with soldiers atop patrolling the city’s streets.

The military said troops were empowered to use force to protect people and public property.

Protesters were withdrawing from the presidential palace after taking hold of it over the weekend.

Do Whatever Necessary, PM Tells Military

PM Wickremesinghe has told the military to do “whatever is necessary to restore order” after protesters stormed his office on Wednesday.

In a television address, Wickremesinghe called on protesters to leave his occupied office and other state buildings and co-operate with authorities.

Outside the president’s office armed soldiers stood by impassively watching the protesters celebrate inside the office.

Demonstrators earlier ignored the PM’s calls for the office to be emptied.

Wickremesinghe said he had formed a committee including the police and military chiefs to de-escalate the situation.

Rajapaksa Leaves the Maldives

Sri Lanka’s embattled President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has left the Maldives after fleeing his own country amid mass protests demanding he resign over his country’s economic collapse.

Rajapaksa boarded a Saudia flight on Thursday bound for Singapore.

Sri Lankans are in political uncertainty, anger and confusion on Thursday as they find president of the country is yet to resign although he fled the country.

Earlier, demonstrators clashed with security officers who fired tear gas into the air.

On Wednesday, even as Ranil Wickremesinghe took over as acting president, he faced protesters’ anger amid chants of ‘Go Ranil, Go!”, reports said.

The protesters have demanded that the planned interim government must only consist of politicians acceptable to them.

Politicians from other parties have been talking about forming a new unity government but there is no sign they are near agreement yet. It is also not clear if the public would accept what they come up with.

The crisis-hit island nation is in political flame over an economic meltdown leading to political chaos and confusion. Millions are struggling to buy food, medicine, fuel and essentials.

Political instability has intensified in the country facing the worst-ever economic challenge in seven decades.

President Rajapaksa and his wife fled to the Maldives on Wednesday aboard an air force jet. The absconding president made the PM acting president in his absence — a move that has further escalated the political crisis, angered the public, which has triggered a fresh wave of protests. The decision to leave him in charge sparked further protests demanding that the PM must also go. Many blame Wickremesinghe as part of the problem.

On Wednesday, protesters, undeterred by multiple rounds of tear gas, scaled the walls to enter the office of PM Wickremesinghe as the crowd outside cheered in support and tossed water bottles to them.

Protesters took turns posing at the PM’s desk or stood on a rooftop terrace waving the Sri Lankan flag after the latest in a series of takeovers of government buildings by the demonstrators — who see the political maneuvers as delaying their goal of a new government for a nation of 22 millions.

Late on Wednesday night, crowds also gathered outside the Parliament.

Resign, Yet To Be Materialized

Over the weekend, the president and the PM promised they would resign.

The protesters are furious both to the president and the PM. The protesters accuse the PM Wickremesinghe of protecting the president.

Wickremesinghe has said he will not leave until a new government is in place. He has urged the speaker of parliament to find a new PM acceptable to both the ruling and opposition parties.

On Wednesday the Parliament Speaker said that the President in a telephone conversation had informed that he would tender his letter of resignation during the day, before midnight.

Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena said that he informed the President to submit his letter of resignation as soon as possible, citing that he too is under pressure.

He said that since an Acting President has been appointed, the Office of the Speaker is exploring the legal provisions to consider the option of ‘have vacated his post’ if the President does not tender in his letter of resignation.

A Spokesperson from the Sri Lanka Parliament said that given that the President had not yet tendered his letter of resignation, it is uncertain if Parliament would be convened tomorrow, July 15.

The PM’s Media Division on Wednesday said that the Acting President has informed Speaker Abeywardena to nominate a Prime Minister who is acceptable to both the Government and Opposition.

Rajapaksa could send his resignation to the speaker of the Sri Lankan parliament after landing in Singapore.

Leadership In A Bankrupt Country

Last week, PM Wickremesinghe said Sri Lanka is now a bankrupt country.

The main opposition leader Sajith Premadasa told he would be tilting for the presidency. But he, like Wickremesinghe, lacks public support. There is also deep public suspicion of politicians in general.

The protest movement which has brought Sri Lanka to the brink of change also does not have an obvious contender for the country’s leadership.

It is unclear when that might happen since the opposition is deeply fractured. But assuming that Rajapaksa resigns as planned, Sri Lankan lawmakers have agreed to elect a new president on July 20 who will serve the remainder of Rajapaksa’s term, which ends in 2024. That person could potentially appoint a new prime minister, who would then have to be approved by Parliament.

As per Sri Lanka’s constitution, Rajapaksa’s resignation would only be considered official once the speaker of the parliament receives a letter stating it.

The political confusion continues threatening the bankrupt economy’s collapse since the absence of an alternative government could delay a hoped-for bailout from the International Monetary Fund. In the meantime, the country is relying on aid from neighboring India and from China.

Nominations for the top post will be presented before parliament starting July 19, then a vote will be taken to elect a new president a day later, according to the speaker.

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Jayantha Jayasuriya will then swear in the next president. The date of the swearing in is typically chosen by the new elected president.

Key Administrative Buildings Occupied

On Wednesday, for the second time in less than a week, protesters broke into a highly secure state building. This time it was the prime minister’s office.

The protesters continued to occupy the key administrative buildings they had seized since Saturday.

The protesting people in the PM’s office lounged on plush sofas snapping photos, while others stood on chairs and desks waving the Sri Lankan flag.

The protesters stressed that they would only hand over the properties to authorities after an interim government would be in place.

At the colonial-era PM’s office, people could be seen on the balcony, lighting firecrackers and waving the Sri Lankan flag.

Demonstrators outside demanded that neither the President nor the Prime Minister “be spared.”

As tensions ran high, the national broadcaster went off air after it was seized by agitators, according to a Bloomberg report.

In Colombo, a handful of protesters also entered the premises of state broadcaster Sri Lanka Rupavahini on Wednesday, negotiating a “deal” with broadcast staff to not give airtime to politicians such as Wickremesinghe. The broadcaster instead played history and culture programs.

1 Dead 84 Hospitalized

Media reports said one person died during clash with security forces.

At least 84 people were hospitalized when protesters clashed with the security forces at the PM’s office and at the main access junction to Parliament since mid-afternoon on Wednesday after Rajapaksa fled the country.

The police fired tear gas and water cannons at the mob who were trying to break barriers and enter the restricted zone.

A nurse at the hospital told CNN that many people were brought in due to tear gas inhalation, while others had cuts and bruises likely received when trying to jump over fences. The nurse did not confirm any gunshot injuries.

A police spokesman said protesters had grabbed a T56 firearm and 60 bullets from a Sri Lanka Army soldier.

Wednesday’s protests were more directed at Wickremesinghe. Calls for his resignation intensified after he was appointed the acting president.

Political party leaders are asking him to step down so that Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena can take control as acting president.

President Rajapaksa was likely to send his resignation letter only after reaching his final destination on Wednesday evening, Sri Lanka’s The Morning news portal reported.

General’s Call For Calm

With the country in disarray, Chief of Defense Staff Gen. Shavendra Silva called for calm and for cooperation with security forces.

Similar comments have rankled opposition lawmakers, who insisted that civilian leaders would be the ones to find a solution.

Buddhist Clergy Chiefs

The influential Buddhist clergy chiefs in a statement called for an end to violence. They said the country’s security was in grave danger and Parliament must be summoned immediately to work out a political solution.

Rajapaksa’s Family Members

After the president fled to the Maldives the whereabouts of other Rajapaksa family members who had served in the government were unclear.

Protesters accuse the president and his relatives of siphoning money from government coffers for years and Rajapaksa’s administration of hastening the country’s collapse by mismanaging the economy.

The family has denied the corruption allegations, but Rajapaksa acknowledged some of his policies contributed to the meltdown, which has left the country laden with debt and unable to pay for imports of basic necessities.

Negotiation On Escape

Rajapaksa’s escape to the Maldives was negotiated by the Maldivian Majlis (Parliament) Speaker and former president Mohamed Nasheed, sources in the Maldives capital Male said.

Gotabaya, his wife and two bodyguards were the four passengers aboard a military aircraft, news agency AFP reported, citing military sources.

Maldivian air traffic control refused the plane’s request to land until an intervention by Mohamed Nasheed. A spokesperson for Nasheed did not confirm or deny the intervention.

Sri Lanka’s Air Force on Wednesday confirmed Rajapaksa’s departure, saying in a statement: “Pursuant to the request of the government and in accordance with the powers vested in a President in the Constitution of Sri Lanka, the Sri Lanka air force provided a plane early today to fly the President, his wife and two security officials to the Maldives.”

Rajapaksa was previously blocked from departing Bandaranaike International Airport, on Monday after refusing to join a public immigration queue, a high-ranking military source told CNN.

Aides for Rajapaksa arrived at the airport in Colombo on Monday with 15 passports belonging to the President and members of his family — including First Lady Ioma Rajapaksa — who had booked seats on a Sri Lankan Airlines flight leaving for Dubai at 6:25 p.m. local time, according to the military source.

But immigration officers declined to process the passports given to them by presidential aides, as Rajapaksa and his family were not physically present for cross checks. Eventually, the flight departed without the President and his family on board, the source added.

Another attempt was made to get the family on an Etihad flight scheduled to leave Colombo for Abu Dhabi at 9:20 p.m. local, according to the source, however the same problem occurred, as the Rajapaksas refused to join the public immigration queue for the flight.

In both instances, the Rajapaksa family was in a nearby airport lounge, waiting for confirmation they could board without queuing among members of the public, the source said.

On Tuesday, a video released by a former police officer claimed that Rajapaksa was staying in a private house belonging to a top air force commander. The Sri Lanka Air Force has denied the claim, describing it as propaganda intended to tarnish the image of the corps and its chief.

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APR Editor’s Note

While the current energy and food crisis contributed greatly to Sri Lanka’s economic collapse, it must be emphasized that the COVID-19 pandemic has already crippled the global economy, resulting in the impoverishment of people worldwide.

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The people’s movement in Sri Lanka that converged in the last three months achieved its main objective on July 9 with President Nandasena Gotabhaya Rajapakse’s offer to resign.

On this historic day, about 100,000 people gathered in Colombo in a mass mobilisation. They engaged in non-violent direct action against a heavily-armed military and police force and occupied Rajapakse’s office, his official residence, as well as Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s official residence. This was an organised expression of popular frustration and anger, due to electricity cuts, fuel and gas shortages, and the rising costs of essential consumer goods.

The night before the main mobilisation, police enforced a curfew on Colombo and surrounding districts. The Bar Association of Sri Lanka immediately issued a statement claiming the curfew was “blatantly illegal and a violation of the fundamental rights of the people”. On the morning of the mobilisation, the station masters were ordered by the defence department — which sits under the president — to suspend train services. The railway unions, including the Station Masters’ Union opposed the suspension of services, but were duty bound. However, when crowds of protesters agitated at the stations, the station masters agreed to resume services.

Many people couldn’t travel to Colombo because of fuel shortages, which have paralysed public buses as well as rail transport. Some people held protests in their own towns. Many walked from different parts of the country and some used bicycles. Some started their journey the previous day from their towns. There were numerous walking caravans and rallies organised in the days leading up to the July 9 mass mobilisation.

This was a mobilisation of citizens emphasising diversity and solidarity, without the intervention of any political parties, and built by a range of dispersed protests that began nearly three months ago.

Convergence of spontaneous protests

The movement emerged in early March with people engaging in non-violent silent protests, holding placards and candles in the evening, as electricity cuts and other shortages were affecting their daily lives. In late March, a collective of activists occupied a struggle zone, known as the Gota Go Gama (Gota Go Village, GGG) in Galle Face, adjacent to the president’s office in the commercial and public administrative centre of Colombo. This followed a peaceful protest in front of the president’s private residence, during which the police used tear gas and water cannons, escalating the struggle.

The activists at GGG articulated the struggle as a non-violent, peaceful protest, independent of political parties. Among the activists were citizen journalists, social media activists, artists, students, religious leaders, lawyers, civil society activists and labour activists. These activists also overlapped with a range of feminists, environmentalists and human rights activists. Some activists were informed by the Arab Spring struggles against authoritarian regimes, global anti-austerity struggles since 2010, and the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement.

The concept of the GGG soon spread to other urban centres, mainly around Colombo, and the Western Province, the most densely populated part of the island. These were generally led by local youth protesting in a town, in some cases with permanent tents as a gathering point, with loose coordination with other GGGs.

The activists’ target was the president, who is accused of war crimes, assassinations of dissenters, theft and waste of public funds and fomenting patriarchal Sinhala Buddhist nationalism. Elected in 2019, Rajapakse’s three brothers and nephew joined him in the government formed after the 2020 parliamentary elections. Following the 2019 Easter Sunday Bombing, his promise to strengthen national security was a key strategy to gain political power. A former military officer, Rajapakse was also considered a “war hero”and commanded the respect and authority of his supporters.

However, within less than three years, this authoritarian kleptocrat has endured a humiliating defeat by an organised popular peaceful protest movement.

Patrimonial culture engaged in state capture

Rajapakse was the target because he represents a regime that has undermined access to basic goods and remained insensitive to the suffering of the masses. His regime represents an authoritarian patrimonial culture engaged in state capture, where private firms gain access to profit-making activities sold by public officials and politicians. With the pretence of representing the people, the regime fostered a patron-client culture that used public resources to gain the loyalty of bureaucrats, business owners, Buddhist monks, artists, social media users and civil society actors, as well as voters.

After coming to power, Rajapakse passed a constitutional amendment (the 20^th amendment) in October, 2020. This enabled him to appoint his allies in the military and business community into public institutions. He also reorganised a range of public institutions, bringing them under his authority.

Rather than direct privatisation, commercial activities were established within public services, including the military, with opportunities to profit from commissions. The president’s allies, with little experience or knowledge of the subject or field, were appointed to positions of power.

Although the regime was promoted as a system based on knowledge and professionalism, the regime directly undermined professions and the integrity of the public sector by restricting any dissent. It was strengthened through chauvinist Sinhala Buddhist ethno-nationalist tendencies that marginalised other ethnic and religious communities.

Rajapakse was a product of an authoritarian Sinhala-Buddhist military institutional setting. He joined the army in 1971, at the time of a youth insurrection. It was in response to this Sinhala youth insurrection and Tamil youth agitations in the North in the mid-1970s that the anti-democratic Prevention of Terrorism Act was introduced in 1979.

Nearly 35 years later — from 2005 to 2015, under the presidency of his elder brother, Mahinda — Rajapakse headed the Ministry of Defence and Urban Development. In 2009, he was involved in the military offensive that ended the anti-Tamil war in a blood bath, massacring 40,000–70,000 innocent Tamil civilians.

Rajapakse is directly accused of a range of crimes, including the assassination and disappearance of two journalists, Lasantha Wickrematunge and Pradeep Ekanaligoda. The images of the journalists, who were killed under Mahinda’s regime, are displayed in large posters at the GGG. Wickrematunge’s assassination is directly related to his reporting on a defence contract for fighter jets that involved the misappropriation of public funds for personal gain by Rajapakse.

Activism: Non-violence and democracy

The GGG activists maintained their non-violence strategy despite a range of violent and subversive strategies used by the regime. These included police shooting people protesting delayed petrol deliveries and fuel price hikes in April, which left one person dead and dozens injured. Police also arrested a range of activists in late May, claiming they were involved in retaliatory attacks on the private residences of parliamentarians, following the attack on the GGG on May 9 by supporters of the regime. There were also arrests of key activists in June, on false allegations of damaging public property during protests.

From the inception of the GGG, the mainstream media, as well as social media, sided with the regime, devaluing and belittling the protests as an apolitical carnival. Some critiques described the GGG as a potential plot by foreign actors to create unrest. There were dissenting views among the GGG activists, with some — mostly driven by individual self-interest — encouraging alliances with political parties or entering into negotiations with the regime.

The GGG activists were also committed to a democratic culture that avoided hierarchies. This horizontality enabled a broader participation with transparency and accountability. The GGG received support from a range of people within and outside the country. The GGG was also openly critical of those who tried to commercialise the event through various promotional gimmicks. They established a People’s Library, a People’s Cinema and conducted discussions on a range of issues. Attendance at these events varied, with crowds often dwindling towards the end of June. Nevertheless, the activism remained lively with discussions over strategy and how to enable more protests actions, especially in rural towns.

The GGG decided in early July to escalate the protest movement with a broad mobilisation into Colombo. The trade union movement, student movement and civil society organisations, along with Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) activists and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (Peoples Liberation Front, JVP), began engaging in a range of protest actions while promoting the mass mobilisation on July 9. They were also vocal about the regime’s attempts to infiltrate and create violence in order to delegitimise the movement.

Meanwhile, artists and social media activists engaged in maintaining momentum through Facebook, blogs and YouTube videos. Their interventions also created new cultural identities, as active citizens encouraging new democratic practices.

A key part of the GGG non-violent activism was to engage with the frontline security forces, mainly police and the army, in non-confrontational ways, emphasising shared interests. The protesters kept reminding the frontline security personnel that they were not the target of the protests and that the people they were protecting had stolen from the people and plunged them into collective suffering. They also reminded the security forces that those at the top would abandon them to take the fall, if they faced legal charges — an enduring trend to protect and preserve the ruling regime.

Despite tear gas and water cannon attacks by police, protesters refrained from retaliating with rocks and stones, which is the usual reaction.

Protesters committed to a non-violent creative language used to spread the word and contain others who were getting ready for violent reactions. There were numerous instances when the police and the military personnel in the frontlines did their duty without provoking protesters and the people recognised and applauded these actions. At the barricades, protesters continued to engage with the security personnel even when they were being attacked with tear gas and water cannons. At times, the protesters even helped members of the military and police who had been affected by tear gas.

This dynamic between the security forces and the protesters was possible because of the commitment to non-violence that was reiterated through multiple modes of communication. They openly communicated, avoiding any property damage, since the target was reclaiming public property. Containing an escalation of violence was also possible, because the shortages were affecting the lives of security workers, too. Their relatives, like others, were in queues for days. This enabled some of the security forces to empathise with the suffering of the people, particularly when the regime was incapable of doing so.

More than 100 people were critically injured in the protests and occupations and more than 40 are still in hospital. Others suffered multiple minor injuries. Tear gas and water cannons were used against the protesters many times. At the president’s residence, live ammunition was fired towards the crowd as well as into the air. The protesters would disperse, but then regroup after a few minutes. They kept demanding the security forces disengage from violence.

The people occupied the presidential secretariate, the president’s official residence — located next to the GGG — and the PM’s official residence nearby.

Just who was responsible for setting fire to parts of the PM’s private residence remains a mystery, although it is blamed on the protesters. This incident happened later in the evening, after dark. The security forces had beaten up a media crew and the crowds were relatively dispersed. The fire also coincided with a power cut that plunged the neighbourhood into darkness.

Thousands of protesters peacefully occupied public buildings, without engaging in any property damage — even returning a large sum of money found inside the president’s residence — so a small group engaging in this act of violence, under the cover of darkness, remains suspicious.

The GGG put out an Action Plan for the Future of Struggle on July 5 articulating a set of six demands. The main demand is the resignation of the president, followed by the PM and the government. Next is the demand for an interim government that “subscribes to the economic, social and political aims and aspirations of the janatha aragalya (peoples struggle)”. This demand includes several other concerns such as “a programme for the provision and distribution of essentials such as food, fuel, gas and the provision of facilities such as education, health, public transport and energy”. The next two demands focus on a new constitution that endorses people’s sovereignty to be established through a referendum and a timeframe for the implementation of the proposals. The final line of the statement notes that “Until such time as all the above are achieved, the janatha aragalaya will continue in new ways”.

The July 9 struggle in Sri Lanka was a historic, democratic people’s movement and a citizen’s movements to transform a militarised authoritarian regime.

The GGG activists transferred some of the books from the Peoples Library to the occupied Presidential Secretariat on July 10. The main aim was to encourage an informed educated citizenry, which can deepen democratic values in order to recognise and refuse authoritarian regimes. Given the president’s resignation will not take place until July 13, there is some apprehension among activists.

This democratic people’s movement emerged in response to the degeneration of representative politics (political parties and the electoral system) that have failed to respond to public demands. Along with the sheer size of the mass gathering, the commitment to non-violence, independence from political parties and a culture of internal organic democracy were the movement’s strengths. An organised people’s movement, built on dispersed spontaneous protests, was able to achieve its mission of removing an authoritarian leader on July 9.

The lessons learnt from this moment will remain significant for deepening democratic practice locally, regionally and globally.

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***

After Sakhalin-2, Moscow also plans to nationalise Sakhalin-1 oil and gas development project by ousting US and Japanese shareholders. But Moscow will make an exception for India so that OVL which holds 20% stake will remain & continue to work. Moscow grapevine is that while Rosneft will continue to hold controlling share, more Indian companies may be inducted to replace US & Japan and thereby also ensure a sales market in India. 

The Sakhalin-1 is located off the coast of Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East. It comprises three offshore fields — namely, Chayvo, Odoptu, and Arkutun-Dagi. Until recently, the Sakhalin-1 project was operated by a Russian subsidiary of the American major ExxonMobil known as Exxon Neftegaz, which owns 30% of the shares. In addition, 20% is owned by the Russian state, 30% by the Japanese company Sodeco, and 20% by the Indian ONGC Videsh. Whereas Sakhalin-2 specialises in the export of liquefied natural gas, Sakhalin-1 is in the export of Sokol oil.  

The capacity of Sakhalin-1 is quite impressive. There was a time before OPEC+ set limits on production level, when Russia extracted as much as 400,000 barrels per day, but the recent production level has been about 220,000 barrels per day. The abrupt departure of the Americans following the US sanctions against Russia has caused the  production to plummet to just 10,000 barrels. Russians hope that with the replacement by more Indian companies, the production level can be restored to the previous level. Indeed, the hope is that Indian ONGC Videsh will pull up the production level of Sakhalin-1 project relatively quickly by bringing in own technologies.

The overall trend of nationalising the holdings of American, British, Japanese and European capital in Russia’s strategic sectors of economy is crystallising as the new policy — the Russian version of India’s AatmaNirbhar Bharat (“Self-reliant India” campaign.) The cleansing of Russian economy, freed of Western capital, is expected to accelerate in the period ahead. India has seamless opportunities here to make investments and reap windfall profits. In strategic terms, India’s energy security will also be guaranteed for decades to come. 

Moscow was well aware of the predatory character of Western capital in Russia’s oil sector — a legacy of the Boris Yeltsin era — but had to live with the exploitation as it didn’t want to antagonise other potential western investors. But that is history now. The souring of relations with the West to almost breaking point rids Moscow of such archaic  inhibitions.  

Indeed, the new policy to replace western capital from the commanding heights of Russian economy is not without risks, but Moscow is confident that it is on the right track and must do what it takes. Also, the decrease in production in the Sakhalin-1, unless addressed soon, may negatively affect the very characteristics of the oil fields in the Russian Far East, if the oil recovery factor decreases over time and a lot of oil is left to remain in the reservoirs. 

The development of the fields had depended on Western equipment and technologies. Now Russia has lost both. On the other hand, the departure of the Americans will leave Russia with no easy route but to have its own technologies. 

On balance, however, Americans stand to lose heavily too, as the production sharing arrangements dating back to the Yeltsin era had been forced out of Russian government when it was in dire economic straits during the transition from the Soviet period and was in no position to negotiate optimal deals. Come to think of it, something like 262 such so-called production sharing agreements (PSAs) were squeezed out of the Russian government by western oil companies by the time Yeltsin retired. 

After coming to power in 1999, President Vladimir Putin set about the mammoth task of cleaning up the Aegean stables of Russia’s foreign collaboration in the oil sector. The “decolonisation” process was excruciatingly difficult, but Putin pulled it through and got rid of as many as 260 (out of 262) PSAs. In fact, Sakhalin-1 and Sakhalin-2 are the very last remaining two PSAs harking back to post-Soviet Russia’s decade of humiliation under Yeltsin. 

Any surprises why the Biden Administration hates Putin so much and wants him out of power in Moscow? 

Legend is that when the Soviet Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev paid his pathbreaking visit to India in 1955, then Prime Minister Nehru, amongst other “talking points”, referred to Soviet Union’s great reservoir of expertise in the oil sector, while complaining that the West refused help for anything in India’s state sector. 

The folklore is that Khrushchev instinctively reacted in positive terms to Nehru’s request for help and no sooner than his return to Moscow, deputed a famous Soviet expert / geologist to India to prospect for oil — whose fame was such that he could apparently smell oil lying untapped deep in the bowels of the earth! Thus was born the ONGC in 1956, which is now heading for Sakhalin Island on a similar mission!

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By pointing to dramatic footage of recent events in Sri Lanka and telling everyone that President Putin was personally responsible for provoking chaos in a far-away land, Blinken is scaremongering by getting Westerners to fear that their country might be the next to go bankrupt and subsequently descend into disorder unless they support all of their government’s efforts to preemptively “thwart this tyrant”.

US Secretary of State Blinken flipped reality on its head over the weekend by blaming Russia for Sri Lanka’s bankruptcy crisis. According to him, “We’re seeing the impact of this Russian aggression playing out everywhere. It may have contributed to the situation in Sri Lanka; we’re concerned about the implications around the world.” There’s no basis whatsoever to his claim, which is nothing more than a propagandistic talking point that’s intended to smear Russia’s regional reputation as it “Returns to South Asia”. This process is geo-economically driven and led by the energy assistance that Moscow’s extended to its partners in this part of the world, especially geostrategically positioned Sri Lanka.

Far from being responsible for that country’s crisis, which the author explained last week is actually attributable to a confluence of policymaking mistakes, Russia was recently asked by the Sri Lankan authorities to scale up the support that it’s been providing to alleviate it. This is proven by Prime Minister Wickremesinghe asking for that to happen earlier this month in an exclusive interview that he gave to TASS. It’s unbelievable that he’d have done this if he felt that Moscow was responsible for the mess that Sri Lanka’s found itself in over the past few months. To the contrary, its premier appreciates the support that Russia’s since extended to it and is eager for the Kremlin to do more to help his people.

Blinken knows this, yet he’s shamelessly lying through his teeth for reasons that will now be explained. There’s no way that he expects anyone in South Asia to listen to what he said since everyone is aware that it’s nothing but a blatant falsehood, which suggests that his targeted audience is actually the Western one. Without reliable access to Russian media due to its flagships either being officially censored there or put under such state pressure that they could no longer properly operate, most people in this part of the world only receive their information from the US-led Mainstream Media (MSM).

Everything that they’ve been told thus far is that Russia is supposedly holding the entire Global South hostage by depriving it of much-needed fertilizer and food. It should be mentioned that these same developing countries don’t believe that one bit and are aware of the artificially manufactured origins of this crisis, yet most Westerners don’t doubt that weaponized information warfare narrative for a second. In their mind, President Putin is either a “monster” or a “madman” who simply wants to kill as many people as possible just for the fun of it, especially non-Caucasians, since they’ve been indoctrinated into ridiculously imagining that he’s the reincarnation of Hitler.

The only reason why the Secretary of State would say something as bonkers as President Putin being responsible for Sri Lanka’s crisis when that second-mentioned country’s Prime Minister and even its recently resigned President both publicly requested Russia to scale up its support for their people is because he expects his targeted Western audience to believe it. This is all part of the US’ unprecedented propaganda campaign against that Eurasian Great Power, which in this context is intended to convince Westerners to back whatever means their governments say are required in order to “stop Russia and save the world.”

By pointing to dramatic footage of recent events in Sri Lanka and telling everyone that President Putin was personally responsible for provoking chaos in a far-away land, Blinken is scaremongering by getting Westerners to fear that their country might be the next to go bankrupt and subsequently descend into disorder unless they support all of their government’s efforts to preemptively “thwart this tyrant”. This isn’t just limited to restricting more civil liberties at home or plotting a provocative naval operation in the Black Sea under the false pretext of “protecting Ukrainian grain exports”, but can also be extended to further pressuring those South Asian states like India that continue closely cooperating with Russia.

In sum, Blinken blatantly lied about Russia’s alleged culpability in Sri Lanka’s bankruptcy crisis in order to manipulate Westerners, not anyone in South Asia who knows better than to believe this easily debunked falsehood. It’s an insult to everyone’s intellect that he’d say something that’s so obviously unbelievable, but that just goes to show how little he thinks about his own people’s intelligence that he didn’t even think that they’d google what he just claimed. Those that do so will learn that the Sri Lankan Prime Minister and President both publicly requested that Russia scale up the assistance it’s providing to alleviate their country’s crisis, which in turn exposes Blinken as a bald-faced liar.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

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.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

The Anglo-Australian legal system has much to answer for.  While robed lawyers and solemn justices proclaim an adherence to the rule of law, the rule remains a creature in state, more fetish than reality.  Had the farcical prosecution of former ACT Attorney General Bernard Collaery gone on, all suspicions about a legal system slanted in favour of the national security state would have been answered.

Collaery, a sagacious and well-practiced legal figure, has been the subject of interest under section 39 of the Australian Intelligence Services Act 2001 (Cth), which covers conspiracies to reveal classified information.  It all began when he was, in the natural order of things, consulted by former intelligence officer Witness K. Witness K has been convicted for revealing the existence of a 2004 spying operation conducted by the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) that led to the bugging of cabinet offices used by the Timor-Leste government.

The operation was instigated at the behest of Australia’s corporate interests.  At the time, Canberra was involved in treaty negotiations with Timor-Leste on the subject of accessing oil and gas reserves.  East Timor’s crushing poverty and salivating need for hard cash did not interest Australia’s own resource companies and the desk bureaucrats in Australia’s capital.

In 2013, both men lent their services to the East Timorese cause before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague.  Australia’s illegal operation was finally going to make it into international law proceedings, thereby invalidating the original agreement reached between Dili and Canberra.

Alarm bells sounded and raids in Canberra made, though the nothing stirred the prosecutors till 2018.  Wishing to stake his claim to protecting national security, Attorney General Christopher Porter, in contrast to his predecessor, thought it appropriate to commence legal proceedings against Collaery and Witness K.  As matters proceeded, Porter’s fascination, and obsession with secrecy, became evident.  Attempts were made to hold the trials in utter secrecy and out of the scrutinising mischief of the press. The Attorney General also imposed a national security order that prevented the parties from divulging details of the prosecution to the public or press.

With Witness K’s conviction, Collaery was left standing to counter five charges alleging that he communicated information to various ABC journalists prepared by or on behalf of ASIS and allegedly conspired with Witness K to communicate that same information to the Government of Timor-Leste.

The efforts against Collaery began to resemble those of a smug and doltish inquisition keen to draw out proceedings and fritter away accountability.  There were efforts made to restrict the accused from actually seeing the evidence that might be used against him in trial.  There were attempts to prevent the release of the full published reasons of the ACT appeals court, which found that various “identified matters” in the Commonwealth case against Collaery should be made available to the public.  Open justice can be such a nuisance.

Lawyers and observers covering the case noted how the proceedings against the barrister had descended into a charade.  Kieran Pender of the Human Rights Law Centre, attending the sessions with almost religious dedication, compared it a “lottery – would I be permitted into court today, or would the secrecy shrouding the case win out?”

With the election of the Albanese government, a change of approach was aired.  Australia’s new Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, decided to call an end to matters.  “I have had careful regard to our national security interest and the proper administration of justice,” he claimed in making the decision.  The “decision to discontinue the prosecution was informed by the government’s commitment to protecting Australia’s national interest, including our national security and Australia’s relationships with our close neighbours.”

Dreyfus did all he could to suggest that this case was not a sign of future leniency to whistleblowers.  It was “an exceptional case.  Governments must protect secrets and our government remains steadfast in our commitment to keep Australians safe by keeping secrets out of the wrong hands.”

Independent MPs who had protested against Collaery’s treatment expressed relief.  Rebekha Sharkie, in welcoming the decision, condemned the previous Attorney General for pursuing a “politically-motivated prosecution” which was “an embarrassment to the rule of law in Australia.”

East Timorese notables long enchanted by the good grace of Collaery and Witness K were relieved by the decision.  Xanana Gusmão, in a statement, commended the decision to discontinue the prosecution.  Collaery had been “prosecuted for alleged breaches of Australian national security laws by disclosing that the Australian intelligence services bugged Timor-Leste’s cabinet room during oil and gas negotiations.”  Such bugging for commercial purposes had been “illegal and unconscionable.”

The Dreyfus decision does not end the matter.  Prosecutions against whistleblowers in Australia, encouraged by weak and vague protections, remains current fare.  The whistleblower David McBride, who revealed the extent of alleged war crimes by Australian special forces in Afghanistan, still faces the prosecutor’s brief.  As does Richard Boyle, the Australian Tax Office whistleblower who revealed ill-doings at the tax office.

Pender suggests that these prosecutions should also be dropped.  For the sake of the rule of law, his arguments are hard to fault.  But the national security state clings and claws, preventing reforms.  Even Dreyfus finds it hard to escape its embrace.

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

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***

Most Australians welcomed the defeat by Labor of the mendacious, corrupt, incompetent, climate criminal, and racist Australian Coalition Government in the 21 May 2022 elections. However the Australian Albanese Labor Government, while vastly better than its predecessor, is egregiously neoliberal, cowardly, pro-Zionist, US-beholden and pro-fossil fuels, and has so far failed on nuclear weapons, poverty and climate change that are the 3 key existential threats to Humanity.

The website “Nuclear weapons ban, end poverty and reverse climate change” summarizes what Humanity needs to do in the present worsening crisis. A nuclear winter from nuclear war will decimate Humanity and the Biosphere. Poverty already kills about 7.4 million people each year, and worsening  famine in the global South due to the US-provoked but nevertheless war criminal Russian invasion of Ukraine surely demands urgent aid and systemic change from the rich global North to end deadly poverty in the global  South and the ongoing Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust. It is estimated that in the absence of requisite action on climate change, the Biosphere will be devastated, and about 10 billion people will die this century in a worsening Climate Genocide en route to a sustainable human population in 2100 of only about 1 billion people.

Professor Stephen Hawking: “We see great peril if governments and societies do not take action NOW [my emphasis]  to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change”. Summarized below is how after a mere 6 weeks in office the Australian Albanese Labor Government is already abjectly failing on the key existential threats to Humanity and the Biosphere of (1) nuclear weapons, (2) poverty, and (3) climate change.

(1) Labor is failing on nuclear weapons.

(i) Under Labor Australia blindly backs US nuclear terrorism through key communications bases crucial for US nuclear strategy (Pine Gap and Harold Holt), helping encircle China, hosting thousands of US military, and hosting nuclear-armed warships.  

(ii) Labor ignores continuing UK nuclear contamination of Australia (notably at Maralinga) that threatens both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

(iii) Labor supports anti-China Australian alliances with nuclear powers, namely the Australia-UK-US (AUKUS) Alliance and the Quad (Australian US, India and Japan).

(iv) The circa $200 billion Labor-supported Australia-UK-US (AUKUS) nuclear submarines deal locks Australia in with US militarism, threatens an arms, risks nuclear proliferation, and will subject millions of  Australians to deadly poverty.

(v) The US lackey Australian Labor Government  strongly backs US hostility to peaceful but nuclear-armed China. China is Australia’s biggest trading partner, but the Coalition Government insulted China in 14 areas, and Chinese investment has slumped. Despite China overtures, the new Labor Government  is following the counterproductive and insulting “megaphone diplomacy”  of its predecessor. Ignoring border spats with India, Russia and Vietnam,  China has invaded and occupied only 2 countries in the last millennium (Tibet in the 12th century and Xinjiang in the 18th century). In contrast, as UK or US lackeys, Australians have invaded 85 countries in 234 years (30 of the invasions being genocidal), and in the last 80 years Australians have violated all Indo-Pacific countries variously  through war, climate criminality, subversion, and covert US-backed regime change in Indonesia (1960-1965), Laos (1960), Cambodia (1970), Chile (1973),  Australia (1975, 2010) and Fiji (1987, 2000).

(vi) Australia is second only to the US in fervently supporting nuclear terrorist and serial war criminal Apartheid Israel that has 90 nuclear weapons with submarine-based and other missile delivery systems. Apartheid Israel has invaded the territory of 13 countries, has annexed the territory of 4 countries, and routinely bombs Syria, Iraq and the Gaza Concentration Camp. The WW1 onwards  Palestinian Genocide has been associated with 2.2 million Palestinians deaths from violence, 0.1 million, and deprivation, 2.1 million. Of 15 million Palestinians, 8 million are Exiled from Palestine, 5.2 million Occupied Palestinians have zero human rights under military rule and cannot vote for the government ruling them (apartheid), and about 2 million Israeli Palestinians can vote, albeit as Third Class citizens under 65 race-based discriminatory laws. Despite a century of genocide, 7.2 million Indigenous Palestinians represent 50% of the Subjects of Apartheid Israel (Jewish Israeli 47%). Pro-Apartheid Israel and hence pro-apartheid Labor  supports the all-European, anti-Arab anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish-anti-Semitic and holocaust-denying International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) of which Australia is a member, and which has been condemned  by over 40 anti-racist Jewish organizations.

(vii) Australia’s alliance with nuclear terrorist America  makes Australia a prime nuclear target. If the US uses nuclear weapons against another country, any nuclear response  on Americans would likely precipitate  all-out nuclear war (and the end of Humanity and the Biosphere). However  a graded nuclear  response would target Australia.  

(viii) Labor has yet to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). However US lackey Australia would violate the TPNW by continuing intimate involvement in US nuclear terrorism. It is therefore unlikely that  the US lackey Australian Labor Government will sign and ratify the TNMW.

(2) Labor is failing on poverty.

(i) Australia has an obscene role in the Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust (7.4 million deaths from poverty annually) through low development aid – 0.22% of GNI compared to 1.05% (Luxembourg), 1.02% (Norway), and 0.99% (Sweden).

(ii) Serial war criminal  Australia’s defence spending will be 15 times greater than development aid by 2030. Fourth Geneva Convention-violating Australia was involved in all post-1950 US Asian wars that resulted in 40 million Asian deaths from violence and deprivation.

(iii) Labor will tolerate massive domestic poverty – over 3 million people, including 1 million children, live in poverty in rich Australia in which the property-owning rich are getting vastly richer and the excluded poor (including the working poor) are getting poorer. 

(iv) Labor will ignore huge preventable deaths in Australia –  preventive measure inadequacies mean that 85,000 Australians die preventably each year due to “lifestyle choice” and “political choice” reasons ranging from adverse hospital events and smoking to suicide and homicide.

(3) Labor is failing on climate change.  

(i) Climate criminal Australia is among the worst in the world for climate policy and climate action (in 2022 it ranked worst for climate policy).

(ii) Australia has 0.3% of world’s population but is responsible for 5.4% of global greenhouse gas pollution (including Exported as well as Domestic pollution).

(iii) Under Labor 114 new coal and gas projects will start, but science, the International Energy Agency (IEA)  and the Greens demand no new fossil fuel projects for a global “net zero carbon pollution by 2050”.

(iv) Labor pledges only 43% off 2005 greenhouse gas pollution by 2030 and the Coalition 26-28%, but the Greens demand “net zero or net negative Australian greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 or sooner”.

(v) Like the Coalition Labor rejects  any true costing of pollution via a Carbon Tax based on a Carbon Price ($200 per tonne CO2-equivalent but a global applied average of only $2 per tonne CO2-equivalent). The World has an inescapable  Carbon Debt in USD of $200-250 trillion that is increasing at $16 trillion per year, and Australia has a Carbon Debt of $5 trillion that is increasing at $400 billion per year and at $40,000 per head per year for under-30 year old Australians.

(vi) Australia is committed to continue leading the world in coal and gas exports, and is among world leaders in 16 areas of climate criminality variously impacting Humanity, the Biosphere, and a worsening biodiversity loss.  

(vii) Coal-exporting Australia is complicit  in air pollution deaths totalling 75,000 overseas and 10,000 domestic. 9 million people die from ait pollution each year from burning carbon fuels.

(viii) Climate criminal Labor will be complicit in worsening  Climate Genocide. It is estimated that in the absence of required action on climate change, the Biosphere will continue to be devastated, and  about 10 billion people will die this century in a worsening Climate Genocide en route to a sustainable human population in 2100 of only about 1 billion people (see Gideon Polya, “Climate Crisis, Climate Genocide & Solutions”, and “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”).

Labor has already commenced a big diplomatic blitz from London to the South Pacific to falsely convince the world with spin that  it means business. However, small, cosmetic  improvements on the disastrous policies of the previous Coalition Government  are grossly insufficient. Labor spin will not alter the reality that a plus 2 degree Centigrade temperature rise is now effectively unavoidable, and that the world needs to urgently do everything it can  to make the future “less bad” for future generations.

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***

When will this nonsense on familial connection between Australia and the Pacific end?  In 2018, Australia’s then Pentecostal Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, drew upon a term that his predecessors had not.  On November 8 that year, he announced that Australia’s engagement with the region would be taken to another level, launching a “new chapter in relations with our Pacific family.”

In an address to Asialink prior to attending the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Osaka, Morrison was again found talking about the Indo-Pacific, which “embraces our Pacific family with whom we have special relationships and duties, our close neighbours, our major trading partners, our alliance partners and the world’s fastest growing economies.”

Such language had all the resonances of white European paternalism, ever watchful over the savage dark races who would only ever advance with the aid, and management, of civilised powers.  It was a sentiment reflected in the views of British explorer and anthropologist William Winwood Reade, who opined in his 1872 work The Martyrdom of Man that, “Children are ruled and schooled by force, and it is not an empty metaphor to say that savages are children.”  While he accepted slavery as “happily extinct”, he thought it wise for a European government “to introduce compulsory labour among the barbarous races that acknowledge its sovereignty and occupy its land.”

The language of the family imputes the existence of stern, guiding parents and wayward, mischievous children who might dare show some disobedience.  The parents, in the “Pacific family”, are never assumed to be any of the Pacific Island states, who are seen as merely squabbling siblings in need of control.

Morrison’s coining of the expression had the benefit of unmasking a Freudian truth.  Pacific Island states had long been considered charity cases and laggards in development, useful only as a labour source for Australian markets or security outposts.  Concerns about climate change had barely been acknowledged.  When needed, Australian police and military forces had also intervened to arrest any supposed sliding into instability.

The term became even more problematic in the wake of independent security decisions made by Pacific Island states with China.  A central premise of the charity-child relationship between Canberra and its smaller neighbours has been of one compliant behaviour.  We give you money and largesse from the aid budget; you stay loyal and consistent to Australian interests.  Of particular concern, even terror, was the Solomon Islands-China security pact which had, on the face of it, the potential to facilitate the establishment of a Chinese military base.

In his April visit to Honiara, Senator Zed Seselja, Australia’s Minister for International Development, proved unsparing in reiterating the familial script.  He told the Solomons Island Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare that, “the Pacific family” would “always meet the security needs of our region.”  He would be wise to “consult the Pacific family in the spirit of regional openness and transparency, consistent with our region’s security frameworks.”

The concern from Australian security wonks at Honiara’s willingness to go so far with Beijing caused an outburst of neo-imperial candour.  The parent should take full control of the situation and initiate an abusive, punitive invasion, ostensibly in the name of protecting the sovereignty of another state.  A rattled Solomon Islands Prime Minister rebuked such views in parliament, claiming that “we are treated as kindergarten students walking around with Colt .45s in our hands, and therefore need to be supervised.”

Australia’s then opposition Labor Party, vying for government in the May elections, quickly fell in with the language, extending it and bending it to suit.  In fact, it went so far as to scold the Coalition government for sending a junior minister to the Solomon Islands to argue against Honiara’s signing of a security pact with Beijing.  Instead of sending Seselja, Labor campaign spokesman Jason Clare argued, Foreign Minister Marise Payne should have been on that plane.  “What happened instead, the foreign minister went to a business function and some bloke called Zed got sent there.”  Then savages were simply not wooed.

Building on the theme of coaxing and pressuring Pacific neighbours to do the right thing by Australia’s security interests, Clare insisted on a more aggressive pose.  “You can’t sit back on the deck chair in the Pacific and just assume that everything’s going to be okay.”  The dark children, in other words, might play up.

The new Labor government of Anthony Albanese revelled in the same language of paternal condescension, letting Pacific Island states know that Canberra was keeping watch on any errant behaviour while still claiming to respect them.  Just prior to visiting Samoa and Tonga in early June, Foreign Minister Penny Wong boasted of embarking on her second visit to the Pacific since assuming her cabinet post.  “We want to make a uniquely Australian contribution to help build a stronger Pacific family – through social and economic opportunities including pandemic recovery, health development and infrastructure support, as well as through our Pacific labour programs and permanent migration.”

Pacific states were also assured that parent Australia had heard their concerns about climate change in a way that the previous parent had not.  “We will stand shoulder to shoulder with our Pacific family in addressing the existential threat of climate change.”

The persistent use of the term “Pacific family” has not gone unnoticed among some Australian critics.  Julie Hunt is unimpressed.  “If someone tries to inveigle themselves into our family, or continually tell us that we are part of their family, how would we feel?  Isn’t it a bit presumptuous?”  The utterance of such familial terminology brought with it a range of unpleasant neo-colonial connotations.  For Hunt, the term would remain meaningless till “we show by our actions that we understand their perspectives and respect them.  Dare I suggest that we wait until they return the feelings, and wait until they call us family?”  And a long wait that may prove to be.

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

Featured image: Australian troops, as part of the RAMSI peacekeeping mission, burn weapons confiscated from or surrendered by militias in 2003 (Licensed under CC BY 2.0)

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***

For all of the rhetoric, the underlying reason for Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s venture into world diplomacy was more about trying to save the G20 summit in Bali next November and address a growing world food crisis than any overly-ambitious mission to try and end the war in Ukraine.

It says a lot about Widodo that he would go to such lengths, but the summit has come to symbolize a major milestone in his presidency which he hopes will bring the added bonus of more foreign investment to an economy battered by the Covid-19 pandemic.

While nothing of genuine substance came from his two back-to-back meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, pulling off a peace-making miracle was hardly on the cards as the war rages on into its fifth month.

The president has shown little interest in foreign policy before now unless it pays economic dividends, but his efforts to salvage the G20 has seen Indonesia forced into playing a more constructive role on the world stage rather than acting as a mere bystander.

Widodo may have been stung by a comment from legislator Effendi Simbolon, a member of his ruling Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle (PDI-P), who told him last April he should be more proactive and not simply act as an “event organizer.”

Widodo renewed his invitation to Zelensky to attend the G20 meeting, which he may only do so remotely, and carried a message from the Ukrainian president to Putin, the contents of which were not disclosed.

His talks in Moscow mostly appeared to center around the invasion’s impact on energy and food prices, telling reporters that the new harvest in Ukraine would leave 77 million tonnes of wheat trapped in the embattled country’s storage facilities.

In that, Widodo may be able to claim at least some credit for helping push a United Nations-brokered effort to reopen a trade corridor through the Black Sea, currently sealed off by Russian navy vessels and Ukrainian defensive mines.

As Widodo flew to Moscow on June 30, Russia claimed it had ended its occupation of strategic Zmiinyi (Snake) island as a gesture of goodwill, but Putin has told the UN he will only allow the safe passage of Ukrainian grain if the West lifts its sanctions.

That was described by one US official as “extortion diplomacy” and there was no immediate sign the withdrawal from Zmiinyi will lead directly to an agreement. Ukrainian officials instead insisted their forces pushed the Russians off the island.

Captured by the Russians last February, the rocky outcrop guards the approaches to Odessa, Ukraine’s largest deep-sea port which normally handles 40 million tonnes of cargo a year, or 65% of its trade.

Widodo has a stake in freeing up wheat shipments. The longer the war drags on, the greater the danger that a shortage of flour will compel local firms to raise the politically-sensitive price of instant noodles, a hugely popular Indonesian staple.

Image on the right: Ukraine’s wheat crisis is having inflationary ripple effects in Indonesia. Image: Twitter

Widodo’s government has only recently faced protests over a war-related increase in the domestic price of palm oil, which led to a brief export ban on the commodity and the removal of trade minister Muhammad Lutfi in a June 16 Cabinet reshuffle.

Kremlin officials indicated the Moscow talks touched on the prospect of more Russian wheat exports to Indonesia, which last year amounted to only 2,955 tonnes, compared to the three million tonnes imported from Ukraine, partly to make up for an Australian shortfall.

Russia and Ukraine account for a third of the world’s wheat exports and Ukraine alone grows enough of the grain to feed 400 million people. But Moscow’s blockade means Kiev can only move two million tonnes a month, 60% less than usual.

Officials say a fifth of Ukraine’s grain elevators have either been damaged in the war or are now in Russian-occupied territory, while a backlog of 20 million tonnes of last season’s harvest remains trapped in storage just when farmers are bringing in the winter crop.

As an invited guest at the G7 summit in Germany’s Bavarian Alps, Widodo got a taste of what he might expect at the G20 – if it goes ahead – with US President Joe Biden and allied leaders focusing squarely on Ukraine and the impact of sanctions on Russia.

The Indonesian government has condemned the war, but in walking a fine diplomatic line it has refused to dissuade Putin from showing up for the Bali gathering, which in a worst-case scenario could lead to a boycott by a majority of the group’s pro-Western members.

Although Moscow was part of what was then the G8 when it was formed in 1997, it was suspended indefinitely following the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and ultimately announced its permanent withdrawal three years later. That is unlikely to happen with the G20.

Widodo feels the need to step carefully, not only because of Indonesia’s historic non-aligned status, but also because many conservative Muslims support Russia – a consequence of the West’s perceived hostile attitude towards the Islamic world.

But critics point to Jakarta’s initial response to the invasion, which avoided naming Russia as the invader and called on the parties to pursue a “peaceful resolution through diplomacy,” as if Ukraine was a willing participant in the war.

“A generous interpretation of the mission would define it as an exemplar of Indonesia’s cherished ‘independent and active foreign policy,’” wrote retired diplomat David Engel, head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Indonesia program.

“Jakarta has never tired of reprising the ‘independent’ or non-aligned part of this phrase from the moment Russian troops began their brutal rampage,” he said, pointing to the visit to the two warring capitals as corresponding to the “active” part of the doctrine.

Most analysts believe Putin will stay away from the summit and Zelensky has said he won’t attend if the war is still on. That rules out any chance of face-to-face peace negotiations in Bali, particularly when the Russian president’s ultimate objectives are still unknown.

According to news reports, Widodo told Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi during a meeting on the sidelines of the G7 that Putin would not be coming either. But Moscow said a decision had still not been made.

Diplomats are now more optimistic the summit will go ahead intact, with new Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reversing predecessor Scott Morrison’s position and saying he will go to Bali without any conditions attached.

Other G20 countries appear to have changed their stance as well, notably Germany, whose chancellor, Olaf Scholz, the host of this year’s G7, telling German television: “There is a common conviction … that we don’t want to torpedo the G20.”

The head of the 27-nation European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, even went further, saying she did not rule out sitting down with Putin. It was important, she said, “to tell him to his face what we think of him.”

Widodo was positioned front and center in the official G7 photograph, standing between Scholz and Biden, who at one point hugged the Indonesian leader in a gesture the Jakarta media saw as recognition of his new world stature.

Former Australian ambassador to Jakarta John McCarthy says if Putin does make an appearance in Bali, it will take considerable skill on the part of the Indonesians to ensure the meeting stays on track and doesn’t collapse into acrimony.

That may be put to the test on July 7-8 when the G20 foreign ministers, apparently including Russia’s Sergey Lavrov, gather in Bali’s heavily-guarded Nusa Dua tourist haven to lay the groundwork for the 17^th summit of the West’s economic powerhouses.

An Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman says it is still not clear whether Lavrov will be able to attend, but If other G20 preparatory meetings are any guide, many of the ministers will simply walk out when his turn comes to speak.

Putin’s flying visit to Turkmenistan on June 29 was his first overseas trip since the start of the war, but the prospect of walking into a near-empty room in Bali will not appeal to someone now widely labeled as a war criminal.

A Russian missile strike on a central Ukrainian shopping mall, which killed 18 people on the second day of the G7 meeting, is being seen as further evidence Moscow is deliberately targeting the civilian population in an effort to break its spirit.

Aside from his almost abnormal fear of catching Covid, there may be another important reason for Putin wanting to stay at home. As economic sanctions begin to bite, he may fear that any extended absence could lead to a palace coup.

Although he had little to show for his efforts at shuttle diplomacy, Widodo’s final call on the United Arab Emirates was aimed at extracting a renewed promise from President Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan to help finance the US$32 billion plan to move Indonesia’s capital from Jakarta to Kalimantan.

Maritime Coordinating Minister Luhut Panjaitan flew from Jakarta to Abu Dhabi to prepare for the visit, seen as yet another indication of Widodo’s determination to get the ambitious project off the ground before his second term ends in 2024.

The government has often claimed the UAE is ready to provide $20 billion in investments, which would be channeled through the Indonesia Sovereign Wealth Fund. It would fill a financing hole left by the withdrawal of Japan’s Softbank earlier this year.

More than the G20 summit, the new capital, to be known as Nusantara, is a potentially key part of Widodo’s legacy-building, cementing his place in the history books and serving to rebalance the archipelago’s development away from the dominant island of Java.

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Featured image: Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a recent official meeting. Image: Supplied

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Australia’s migration policy is abysmal on so many levels. While Green Left has focused on the abhorrent treatment of asylum seekers and refugees, another element is now coming to the fore.

The Coalition government under former Prime Minister Scott Morrison tightened Section 501 of the Migration Act that allows the cancellation of visas on “character grounds”. The 2014 change enables the minister to revoke a person’s visa if they have been sentenced to 12 months or more in prison. New Coalition leader Peter Dutton, not known for his compassion, famously referred to this policy as “taking the trash out” to make Australia a safer place.

The number of visa cancellations has risen nearly tenfold since then. The greatest impact has been on New Zealand nationals: about 2300 Kiwis have been deported since 2014.

In response, the advocacy group Route 501 was established in New Zealand in 2016. It seeks “to hold the Australian government accountable for human rights injustices concerning the treatment of Deportees & Detainees (and their children where applicable) who have fallen victim to Australia’s hard-line approach”. Indeed, Route 501 launched a class action in April last year.

Many of those deported have spent most of their lives in Australia, arriving with family when they were children. They have made the country their home, including attending school, gaining employment and establishing relationships and families.

It is worth looking at the stories of a couple of individuals to understand just how wrong this policy is.

Larice Rainnie moved to Australia in 1964 and spent the next 55 years here. She worked as a public servant and had never considered that she wasn’t a citizen. When Rainnie returned to Australia following a drug-related sentence in Finland, she was held in immigration detention for more than a year, without access to legal aid before being deported in 2019.

Rainnie was 70 at the time: she had no family in NZ and arrived with just a bag of clothes and $200 in her bank account. She described herself as “just existing”.

Tuala, 42, moved to Australia with his family as a 17-year-old. He was charged with attempted murder after he shot at a group of Hells Angels gang members. Despite being convicted of a lesser charge of excessive self-defence — his first offence — he was deported. Tuala left behind a wife and four children. The deportation meant he spent almost nine years in prison, including at Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation in Broadmeadows.

He arrived in NZ and spent the first 48 hours in custody. After that he was handed $120 and sent to a backpackers’ hostel where his first three nights in a dormitory were paid. After that, he was on his own. He had no phone, no bank account and no family in the city; he ended up sleeping in train carriages at the railway station.

Tuala’s wife and children moved from Melbourne to join him some time after. “They are the ones who paid the full price,” Tuala said. “I understand that I made the mistake and I went to prison, but my family went to prison and detention with me.”

Rachael Ngatai of the Prisoner’s Aid and Rehabilitation Society, which supports deportees arriving in NZ, said they see people who are “really anxious, really angry or really depressed”. Unsurprisingly, about one third of the 1865 people deported between January 2015 and August 2019 have been convicted of at least one offence since arriving in NZ.

How is setting people up to fail to anyone’s advantage?

In a majority of cases, those deported have lived in Australia for most of their lives. Surely their “character” is a product of their lives and experience here?

Why are people being punished not once but for eternity? It is not about rehabilitation. It is about continuing the punitive bipartisan migration policy. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has told the NZ government that he continues to support Section 501, but would take NZ’s concerns into consideration.

The real test of character is going to be whether the Labor government will review this cruel policy that sentences people to a life of isolation, poverty and, in some cases, almost guarantees reoffending.

Route 501 poses the foundational question: He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata or What is the most important thing in this world? It is people, it is people, it is people.

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Featured image is from Alex Bainbridge

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***

Only three weeks remain for the summit meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in Madrid, which is expected to unveil a new Strategic Concept aimed at redefining “the security challenges facing the Alliance and outline the political and military tasks that NATO will carry out to address them.”

The NATO and the European Union are in unison that the world has fundamentally changed in the past decade and strategic competition is rising, and security threats in Europe and Asia are now so deeply connected that the two continents become a “single operating system”. 

The past week saw some “finishing touches” to the new cold war agenda — the US President Joe Biden hosting Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand; three tiny NATO countries in the Balkans blocking their air space to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to visit Serbia; and, Japan hosting the NATO Military Committee chief Rob Bauer. 

The first one was about Washington stepping in to draw New Zealand, the reluctant Pacific partner standing in the shade, towards the Indo-Pacific centre stage. (Biden actually invoked memories of the landing of US troops in World War II in New Zealand.) The second was an unprecedented act of diplomatic taboo, like dogs marking territory — “Serbia belongs to the West.” And Japan and NATO have messaged a new level of cooperation. 

To be sure, in the US’ struggle with China and Russia, Japan is emerging as the anchor sheet of its strategy in Asia. An agreement was reached in Tokyo on Tuesday during Bauer’s visit that Japan and NATO will step up military cooperation and joint exercises. (In May, Japanese Military Chief of Staff Koji Yamazaki had joined a meeting of NATO counterparts in Belgium for the first time.) 

The Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said after meeting with Bauer that Japan welcomed NATO’s expanded involvement in the Indo-Pacific region. He said, “The security of Europe and Asia are closely intertwined, especially now with the international community facing serious challenges.” Bauer also spoke of “shared security challenges” for the NATO and Japan. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has been invited to the NATO summit in Madrid, which would make him the first Japanese leader to do so. 

Japan’s case is that Russia’s special operation in Ukraine distracts the US, which may embolden China to unify Taiwan with military force. In reality, though, the Biden Administration does not seem to share Japan’s paranoia. The defence ministers of the US and China are slated to meet in Singapore on the sidelines of the annual Shangri-La conference. The US defence secretary Lloyd Austin has expressed cautious optimism that his forthcoming meeting will contribute to regional stability. Reportedly, the US State Department changed its Fact Sheet over Taiwan this week, reinserting a line “We do not support Taiwan independence,” which had been removed a month earlier.  

Japan’s eagerness to play an important symbolic and practical role in the West’s struggle with Russia stems from a complex set of motives. The alacrity with which Japan became one of the most active countries in implementing strong sanctions against Russia in support of Ukraine is striking. Almost overnight, Prime Minister Kishida swung to an openly negative stance towards Russia. 

Within a fortnight of the Russian operation in Ukraine on February 24, Kishida stated that the “Northern Territories (Kuril Islands) are inherent territories of Japan” and on 8th March, Foreign Minister Hayashi followed up that the territories are “unlawfully occupied by Russia.” On 9th March, Kishida already referred Russia to the International Criminal Court. And on 16th March, Japan revoked Russia’s status as a “most-favoured trading nation”, froze Russian assets and excluded selected Russian banks from the SWIFT bank messaging system. Since the end of World War II, Japan had not sent military matériel to another country in the midst of fighting a war, but in in early March, the country’s Self-Defense Forces loaded up a Boeing KC-767 tanker aircraft with materials bound for the battlefields of Ukraine. 

In sum, Japan eagerly demonstrated its willingness to become a proactive partner in the US–Japanese alliance. Japan discarded the equity painstakingly garnered through the past four decades of negotiations to settle the territorial issue and negotiate a post-World War II peace treaty with Russia. In effect, Japan–Russia relationship has been turned into a potential flashpoint in Northeast Asia. 

The US-Japan mutual apprehension over the economic and military rise of China and North Korea’s increasingly capable missile and nuclear capabilities could be a motivating factor for both Washington and Tokyo, who no longer regard a split between Russia and China, as happened in the 1970s, to be a plausible near-term prospect. But, fundamentally, there is a shift in Japanese foreign policy.

Japan’s alliance with the US and the emergent coupling with the NATO go far beyond a focus merely on the country’s survival, but offers vistas for Japan to transform as a leader in the Indo-Pacific region. No doubt, the understanding with the US on the latter’s support in the long-standing dispute over Kuril has emboldened Japan. 

Suffice to say, the Ukraine crisis has revealed that Asian states have much more diverse interests than many had been prepared to recognise. Now, this would act as a breaking mechanism on the path of the new cold war proponents in Asia. While the US, Australia and Japan have been at the forefront of countries opposing Russia, others have more mixed views.

A large bloc of non-aligned countries in Asia, including India and Indonesia, insist that Ukraine is quintessentially a regional conflict, notwithstanding its fallouts exacerbating global energy and food supplies. Basically, the vision of the Asian countries is of regional integration and modernisation and only a handful agreed to impose sanctions against Russia, while several — indeed, the big majority — have either openly opposed the sanctions regime or have refrained from sanctioning Russia. 

The point is, Russia is a resident power in Asia and is a member of all the key bodies that constitute the region’s multilateral architecture — APEC, ASEAN Regional Forum, ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting,  East Asia Summit, etc., apart from being a Dialogue Partner of the ASEAN since 1996. Russia has had an uneven engagement with Asia’s institutions, but most of the region’s participants prioritise their relations with Moscow.  Unless Russia were to reduce its presence voluntarily, which is inconceivable, Asia’s multilateral architecture remains a hurdle for the US’ efforts to assemble a “coalition of democracies” to isolate Russia.

The Achilles heel of the US’ cold war strategy is that it lacks an inspiring economic agenda. The Biden administration dare not contemplate a return to free trade, given the entrenched protectionist sentiments  in the domestic politics. Even the tariff waivers issued by the Biden Administration on Monday on some solar panels for a 2-year period from four ASEAN countries — Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam — needed to be carefully couched as part of efforts to address “the urgent crisis of a changing climate… to ensure the US has access to a sufficient supply of solar modules to meet electricity generation needs while domestic manufacturing scales up.” Herein lies the contradiction: US’ cold war strategy is primarily in military terms, whereas, what impresses Asian countries is economic clout.

Meanwhile, while many in the West tend to see China as firmly in Russia’s corner, the reality is more nuanced. China has sought to position itself as neither critic nor supporter of Russia, which, arguably, in the given circumstances, favours Russia, and has shown no signs of shifting its position in the face of Western criticism. Without doubt, China finds itself in an advantageous geopolitical situation. 

That said, will China’s current stance hold the duration of the war in Ukraine which some predict could spill over to next year? The Russian military operation has not proceeded as successfully as Moscow would have wanted or expected. Yet, the military operation will not end without achieving the Russian objectives. And those objectives contain variables. On balance, Beijing would weigh in what the US’ international standing is going to be at the end of it all, which would, of course, have great bearing on China’s future position in the world. 

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Featured image: Military equipment given by Japan to Ukraine being loaded in an aircraft at Yokota US Air Force Base, Japan (File photo)