Asia Pacific Research

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The expected implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement next year will widen trade flows and consolidate the supply chain network in the Asia-Pacific region, economists and business leaders said.

Despite the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the region’s economic growth, the RCEP will help China mitigate the impact caused by an aging society and pave the way for both Chinese and global companies to export more products like fruits, aquatic goods, machinery and electric passenger vehicles to various markets within the region, said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at global research and information provider IHS Markit.

“Innovations in trade policies, products and practices will be the cornerstones of progress for China and its partners to persevere on the path of development,” said Lawrence Loh, director of the Centre for Governance and Sustainability at the National University of Singapore’s Business School.

Specifically, China can leverage much from its leadership in global collaborations such as the Belt and Road Initiative, participation in free trade agreements like the RCEP, and sound management of the domestic economy, he said.

The RCEP is a free trade agreement concluded in November between the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations－Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam－and five of its FTA partners, namely Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea.

Arthayudh Srisamoot, Thailand’s ambassador to China, said the RCEP will lay the foundation for more intraregional trade and GDP growth when it comes into force if the public looks at how the free trade agreement between ASEAN and China has boosted economic and trade ties between the two sides, or how a free trade deal between China and the Republic of Korea has contributed to bilateral trade.

“With the RCEP in force, it will attract more investments from outside the region, especially against the backdrop of the global pandemic, thus reducing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economies in the region,” he said, stressing the massive deal will not only be an economic recovery tool against the disease but also help ensure the opening of markets as well as uninterrupted supply chains.

Glenn G. Penaranda, commercial counselor of the Philippine embassy in China, said the pact will help achieve a high level of openness within the region.

“With regard to trade in goods, member countries will further open their markets to each other, as well as reinforce the collaboration of regional supply chain development to better prevent risks,” he added.

According to the common rule of origin established by the agreement, only 40 percent of regional content is required for goods to be considered of RCEP origin, much lower than the threshold of other free trade agreements.

Backed by sales and service networks and a large number of employees in Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia, OSell, one of China’s major cross-border e-commerce platforms, plans to build more warehouses and service centers to expand into ASEAN markets.

“The RCEP will support the growth of both regional and global trade, cross-border e-commerce and related industries, and create a more stable and open investment environment for global companies investing in the region,” said Feng Jianfeng, chairman of the Chongqing-based company.

Iris Pang, chief China economist at Dutch bank ING, said the major challenge for China’s long-term growth is (strengthening its) technological competitiveness in the international environment. This does not only mean producing top-notch technologies but also being able to export them to the rest of the world.

“The dual-circulation growth paradigm is always needed for a big economy like China. International trade offers both seller and buyer economies a better price for the same transaction than traded within their own economies,” she said, noting domestic circulation provides the backbone support for the economy when the external side is weak.

Proposed by the central leadership, the dual-circulation growth pattern has emerged as the overriding economic theme, with innovation, opening-up and the need to boost domestic demand identified as priorities during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25). It sees domestic circulation as the mainstay, with domestic and international circulation reinforcing each other.

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Source: China Daily

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The so-called “Uyghur Tribunal” is promoted across the Western media as an “independent” tribunal. AP claims that it seeks to lay out evidence that will “compel international action to tackle growing concerns about alleged abuses in Xinjiang.”

The tribunal – having no legal basis or enforcement mechanism – will clearly be used to help bolster calls for a boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic games and may serve to help pressure nations around the globe to roll back ties with China and aid the US in imposing additional sanctions and boycotts.

An “Independent” Tribunal Funded by the US Government

Media platforms like the US State Department’s Radio Free Asia in articles have claimed the tribunal has “no state backing.” The above mentioned AP article only claims the tribunal “does not have UK government backing.”

Yet the Uyghur Tribunal’s official website, under a section titled, “About,” admits (emphasis added):

In June 2020 Dolkun Isa, President of the World Uyghur Congress formally requested that Sir Geoffrey Nice QC establish and chair an independent people’s tribunal to investigate ‘ongoing atrocities and possible Genocide’ against the Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Turkic Muslim Populations.

It also claims on a second page about funding that:

A crowdfunder page has raised nearly £250 000, with an initial amount of around $115 000 dollars donated by the Uyghur diaspora through the World Uyghur Congress.

What isn’t mentioned is that the World Uyghur Congress, along with many of the supposed experts and witnesses providing statements during the supposed tribunal, are funded by the United States government through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

This includes the president of WUC himself, Dolkun Isa, who provided a statement on June 4, 2021. Other members of US NED-funded organizations participating in the so-called tribunal included Muetter Illiqud of the NED-funded Uyghur Transitional Justice Database (UTJD), Rushan Abbas and Julie Millsap of the NED-funded Campaign for Uyghurs, Bahram Sintash and Elise Anderson of the NED-funded Uyghur Human Rights Project and Laura Harth of Safeguard Defenders, formerly known as the NED-funded China Action organization.

WUC is listed by name along with the UHRP, Campaign for Uyghurs, and the Uyghur Refugee Relief Fund on the official US NED website under “Xinjiang/East Turkestan 2020.” On another NED page titled, “Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act Builds on Work of NED Grantees,” the Uyghur Transitional Justice Database Project is also listed as receiving money from the US funding arm.

Also participating in the supposed tribunal was Adrian Zenz of the US government-funded Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC), Shohret Hosur who works for the US State Department’s Radio Free Asia, Mihrigul Tursun who was awarded the NED-affiliated “Citizen Power Award in 2018, Sayragul Sauytbay who received the 2020 US State Department’s Women of Courage Award, and IPVM which is a video surveillance information service previously commissioned by the US government in regards to Chinese government surveillance programs in Xinjiang.

There was also Sean Robert who was a senior advisor to the USAID mission to Central Asia from 1998-2006  – the very region and time period Uyghur separatism was being organized from beyond China’s borders. Robert has been active in promoting US-funded propaganda regarding Xinjiang for years alongside other mainstays like Rushan Abbas and Louisa Greve.

Nearly every other “witness” brought before the so-called tribunal has a long-established history of participating in the US government-funded propaganda campaign aimed at China and its alleged abuses in Xinjiang. This includes Omir Bekali who was previously invited to testify in front of the US Congress in 2018, Asiye Abdulahed who claims to be the alleged source of the so-called “China Files,” Zumret Dawut whose allegations were used by former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in attacks aimed at China, and Tursunay Ziyawudun who spoke in front of Congress in 2021.

There were also Westerners representing corporate-funded think tanks long engaged in a propaganda war with China including Nathan Ruser of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), Darren Byler and Jessica Batke of “ChileFile” – a subsidiary of Asia Society funded by the Australian and Japanese governments as well as Open Society, and Charles Parton of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) funded by the US State Department, the EU, Canada, Qatar, the UK, Japan, Australia, as well as arms manufacturers like BAE, Airbus, Lockheed, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and General Dynamics.

Only a handful of participants appeared to be relatively new faces, perhaps drawn from lesser corners of the global Uyghur diaspora being cultivated by the US as a political weapon.

Tedious, Holes-Filled Testimony

The testimony itself was tedious and lengthy with a total of nearly 80 hours recorded and uploaded to the Uyghur Tribunal’s YouTube channel. However, spot checking any of the testimony reveals massive discrepancies.

For example, on the first day of hearings, Muetter Illiqud of the abovementioned US government-funded UTJD provided conflicting total numbers of Uyghurs allegedly interned as well as conflicting accounts regarding Chinese government restrictions on the number of children permitted in cities and in rural villages. Illiqud failed to explain the discrepancies and was invited by Geoffrey Nice, chair of the tribunal, to return in September with the discrepancies fixed.

Another alleged witness, Gulzire Alwuqanqizi who spoke with an NED-affiliated “ChinaAid” banner behind her, claimed in her written statement that she was forced to work in a factory for a month and a half (approximately 45 days) where she claims she made a total of 2,000 gloves. Yet in her spoken statement she claims she was never able to meet the daily quota of 20 gloves and instead made only 10-12. If that is true, she would have only produced at most 540 gloves. She was never asked to clarify this discrepancy.

Also in her written statement, she claims she was caught sending photos of the factory to her husband. She claims:

One day, I took a picture of the factory and sent it to him. From there it became public. Following this, I was interrogated, they asked the same questions they had always asked, all night long, but eventually they let me go.

Yet in her spoken statement, she claimed:

At the factory where we were producing the gloves, I sent a photo and as punishment I was put in something like a ditch, a 20 meter deep well. They threw some electric currents at me, they poured water on me, and kept me there for 24 hours.

No comment was made by the panel interviewing her regarding this glaring inconsistency either.

Another witness, Tursunay Ziyawudun, claimed in her written statement to have been detained upon entering China after living in Kazakhstan from 2011 to 2016.

She inferred that she was being asked questions about the US NED-funded World Uyghur Congress during an interrogation, and claimed:

I didn’t even know what World Uyghur Congresses were at that time. We don’t have access to this information in China.

Yet clearly, while living in Kazakhstan for 5 years prior to returning to China, she did have access to this information. It is yet another inconsistency left unchallenged by the so-called tribunal.

Out of about 80 hours of proceedings, there is always bound to be inconsistencies, yet when the panel observed these, it took no action at all, skipping past them, excusing them, or allowing witnesses to alter their claims at a later date to iron out obvious inconsistencies. All of this further calls into question the professionalism, objectivity, and integrity of the entire “tribunal.”

Of course, no one in the public will likely watch any of the testimony first hand, let alone cross examine the spoken statements with their written statements. The general public will instead rely on the Western media’s interpretations of the so-called tribunal consisting of cherry-picked highlights designed to prey on the public’s emotions.

The “Uyghur Tribunal” – a Bad Sequel to the “China Tribunal”

The so-called “Uyghur Tribunal” unfolds as a sort of sequel to the 2019 “China Tribunal.” The China Tribunal and the Uyghur Tribunal following it were both chaired by Geoffrey Nice and included Hamid Sabi, Nicholas Vetch, and Aarif Abraham as participants. Both were initiated and funded by US government-funded organizations.

While the WUC organized the Uyghur Tribunal, the so-called International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC) was the organization behind the “China Tribunal.” ETAC’s own webpage does not disclose its funding, but provides a list of names on its “international advisory committee.” They include Louisa Greve who was part of the NED’s senior leadership for 24 years before shifting over to the NED-funded Uyghur Human Rights Project. Ethan Gutmann is also listed. His book, “The Slaughter,” regarding alleged human organ harvesting in China, was launched at an NED event in Washington D.C. There is also Benedict Rogers, an advisor to the NED-funded World Uyghur Congress.

In other words, both tribunals were not tribunals at all, but instead an exhibition put on by a US government-funded troupe of activists deeply invested in maligning China and helping advance US foreign policy objectives versus Beijing.

It is merely a larger, more elaborate version of a literal exhibition funded by the US government and organized by the World Uyghur Congress in Geneva Switzerland also this year. A September 2021 Reuters article titled, “China accuses Washington of ‘low political tricks’ over Uyghur exhibit,” would note:

A US-backed Uyghur photo exhibit of dozens of people who are missing or alleged to be held in camps in Xinjiang, China, opened in Switzerland on Thursday, prompting Beijing to issue a furious statement accusing Washington of “low political tricks”.

The article also claimed:

The United States gave a financial grant for the exhibit, which will later travel to Brussels and Berlin, the World Uyghur Congress told Reuters. Earlier this week, the US mission in Geneva displayed it at a diplomatic reception, according to sources who attended.

“We are committed to placing human rights at the center of our China policy, and we will continue to highlight the grave human rights abuses we see the PRC committing across China, in Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, and elsewhere,” a US mission spokesperson said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

The US, guilty of the very worst crimes against humanity of the 21st century, only claims to put human rights at the center of its foreign policy when politically convenient. No mention is made of the US’ decades of supporting violent separatism in China including in Tibet and Xinjiang – creating the very real terrorism China’s security measures were put in place to combat.

No mention or note is made in articles about the “Uyghur Tribunal” regarding the constant use of the term “East Turkestan” instead of Xinjiang or the fact that most of the people speaking at the tribunal are separatists and at least partly responsible for the violence and instability that seized Xinjiang before Beijing intervened.

No mention is made about the constant presence of East Turkestan separatist flags in the backgrounds as witnesses provide testimony. At one point in the proceedings, pro-separatist Arslan Hidayat was seen interpreting for at least two witnesses. Hidayat has repeatedly called for Xinjiang to be ethnically cleansed of Han Chinese.

As China reacted to the violence the US fuelled – the US used accusations of human rights abuses to hamstring and undermine Chinese efforts to restore peace and stability. The US uses the sword of state-sponsored terrorism to strike at China, and the shield of feigned rights advocacy to defend US-sponsored separatists from justice.

The “Uyghur Tribunal” is merely the latest and perhaps grandest iteration of this strategy of striking and defending. The tribunal’s final “ruling” will be read in December 2021, just ahead of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and a concerted US-led media campaign to call for the world’s boycott of the games. Beyond that, further sanctions could be leveled against China – all in the wake of a clearly US-engineered show tribunal dishonestly presented to the public as “justice” and “human rights advocacy.”

The harsh irony is that the US seeks to blunt China’s rise specifically so it can continue acting on the global stage with impunity, and continue carrying out the verified, very real campaign of death, destruction, and genocide it has led since the turn of the century.

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

Featured image is from New Eastern Outlook

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Abstract: President Biden is continuing the disengagement policy toward China that began under Donald Trump, now with strong bipartisan support. The policy has all the elements of containment of China, including restrictions on technology, trade, investment, formation of the informal Quad (US-Japan-Australia-India) alliance, sale of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, continuation of high tariffs on Chinese exports, and increased official contacts with Taiwan in a period of growing China-Taiwan military tension.

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One element, which until recently had strong support across the US political spectrum, is educational and scientific exchanges with China. Approximately 370,000 students and scholars from China, by far the largest number of any country, are in the US, nearly a third engaged in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) research. But now, as relations with China have deteriorated, Democrats and Republicans alike view Chinese graduate students and researchers, especially those in science and technology, with suspicion and even hostility. Biden, like Trump, has made obtaining J-1 and F-1 visas very difficult for Chinese graduate students and researchers, denying them based not on individual cases but on any possible connection they may have to any Chinese “entity” doing “military-civil” research. Sadly, many Chinese students no longer feel welcome.

Following Trump’s lead, the Biden justice department and FBI are engaged in intense oversight of universities and laboratories that have agreements with Chinese entities. This so-called China Initiative is designed to catch not only Chinese nationals but American citizens, especially those of Chinese descent, who are suspected of engaging in theft or transfer of information that benefits Beijing. The scope of the Initiative is exceptionally wide, extending beyond theft of trade and intellectual property secrets to “potential threats to academic freedom,” surveillance of Chinese registered as foreign agents, prevention of threats to supply chains, and identification of possible corruption in Chinese companies that compete with US companies.

The China Initiative is deeply flawed in two respects: its built-in bias and its failure to recognize the many benefits of exchanges with China. The bias stems from a presumption of guilt and guilt by association, hallmarks of the McCarthyism era. That much is clear from the mindless attacks on Confucius Institutes, which are typically attached to US universities and provide free language and cultural instruction to nearby communities. From personal research as well as the research of others who have interviewed university officials and community members, I can say with confidence that charges against these institutes, in particular from Congress members, of being communist party organs and seeking to undermine academic freedom are spurious. Yet the charges persist, making no distinction between education and espionage or between Confucian Institutes abroad (where there have been cases of political interference) and those in the US. And the charges have been backed not just by tighter visa requirements but also by threats to universities to either eliminate their Confucius Institute or lose federal funding. The threats have worked, reducing the number of Cis from over 100 to fewer than 40. Among the universities that have closed their CIs under US government pressure are the University of Michigan, the University of Oregon, the University of Maryland, the University of South Carolina, and my own Portland State University.

The federal government’s bias also has a racial element. A large group of Stanford University faculty, in calling for termination of the China Initiative, wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland on September 9, 2021: “the China Initiative disproportionally targets researchers of Chinese origin. Publicly available information indicates that investigations are often triggered not by any evidence of wrongdoing, but just because of a researcher’s connections with China.” In response to complaints from Asian American and other academic groups, some Democratic congress members urged the justice department to investigate “the repeated, wrongful targeting of individuals of Asian descent for alleged espionage . . . ” Their letterreminded the department of America’s long history of anti-Asian prejudice and its contemporary consequences—the increased violence against people of Asian ethnicity on city streets. What they failed to call out was the hostility toward China stoked by the Trump and Biden administrations that had prompted the violence. Still, the letter gives voice to the view of Chinese researchers in the United States, including those with American citizenship, who believe they are being targeted for having any connection with China, however ordinary.

Scientists have also voiced their concerns. As one group put it, while the government has a legitimate need to tighten rules governing research security, “a response that chokes off legitimate scientific contacts only compounds the problem it seeks to solve.” Regarding the FBI arrests of Chinese and US researchers—the justice department report cited above contains a full listing—these scientists wrote that “many of those now accused are accomplished scientists engaged in university research in fundamental science, with close collaborations in China.” Putting Chinese science students under scrutiny, the group added, defied the facts and “could deprive our country of some of its most talented future scientists.”

Fact is, exchanges with China benefit the US as much as they benefit China. They bring language and cultural training to K-12 classrooms in small communities. Chinese graduate students staff laboratories and medical research facilities working, for example, on cancer. Their research produces patents valued in the billions of dollars. Their tuition and other costs of study are a major source of revenue for universities and colleges, measured in the billions of dollars. (“Every 1,000 Ph.D. students blocked in a year from U.S. universities costs an estimated $210 billion in the expected value of patents produced at universities over 10 years and nearly $1 billion in lost tuition over a decade, according to an analysis from the National Foundation for American Policy.” Their time spent in the US exposes Chinese to the virtues of free expression, cross-cultural awareness, independent research, and respect for human rights.

The overwhelming endorsement of these exchanges by everyone from university administrators to small-town teachers reflects a positive aspect of US engagement with China that should be honored. Failure to do so leads to reciprocal punitive action by China, as seen in crackdowns on US social media and journalists there, the closure of once-thriving joint educational programs, and refusal to cooperate on finding the origins of COVID-19.

The bottom line is that restricting scientific collaboration stifles innovation and undermines the very competitiveness that President Biden is depending on for US economic recovery. As Caroline Wagner, who specializes in exchange programs, writes:

The US government’s scrutiny of Chinese Americans and Chinese scholars runs up against the value of open scientific exchange. My research on international collaboration in science has shown that open nations have strong science. Nations that accept visitors and send researchers abroad, those that engage richly in cross-border collaborations and fund international projects produce better science and excel in innovation. Closing doors inhibits the very trait that makes the US innovation system the envy of the world.

The department of justice has prosecuted some Chinese and a few Americans who do indeed seem to have stepped over the line in their research. But some people have been released for lack of evidence and others have failed to report ties to China rather than committed economic or security espionage. Moreover, the numbers of accused are miniscule when placed beside the tens of thousands of Chinese and millions of Chinese Americans who abide by US law and have no political motive for being here. Those people should be considered an asset and treated with respect. As the Stanford faculty’s letter says, “Many of our most challenging global problems, including climate change & sustainability and current & future pandemics, require international engagement. Without an open and inclusive environment that attracts the best talents in all areas, the United States cannot retain its world leading position in science and technology.” In recent years, a substantial share of the best talent has come from China and the rest of Asia.

It is particularly disappointing that the Biden administration has taken Trump’s road, failing to distinguish China’s harmful behavior from its cooperative behavior. Our schools, our economy, and our society suffer the consequences.

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Mel Gurtov is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University and Senior Editor of Asian Perspective. His latest book is America in Retreat: Foreign Policy Under Donald Trump (Rowman & Littlefield). You can find out more about him in his blog, In the Human Interest. This is an expanded version of a text that appeared in the blog. A podcast is also available.

Featured image: Biden and Xi Jinping in more hopeful times (Source: APJJF)

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Morning listening on October 13. Australia’s Radio National.  Members of the Morrison government are doing their interview rounds with the host, Fran Kelly.  We enter a time warp, speeding away into another dimension where planet Earth, and Australia, look different.   

The first interview, with Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie, is filled with the sort of rejigged reality that is less mind expansion than contraction.   It is easy to forget that she is a member of the government.  She tells listeners that her constituents and the electorate she represented were not interested in climate change or its effects.  A bold, quixotic reading.  They were also the “most marginalised” and vulnerable in Australia.  This would be a fascinating take for those in the employ of Rio Tinto and other mining giants.

McKenzie (“Fran, Fran, Fran,” she implored with adolescent petulance) was all for those in rural areas, claiming that, “We have been able to avoid very bad outcomes for our country.”  Environmental catastrophe, imminent impoverishment of the farming sector due to climate change, are evidently palatable and digestible outcomes.  Interest, suggested McKenzie, should instead be shown for those workers who, in erecting solar panels, ended up mowing the grass underneath them.

Much of what the Senator said had already been given an airing in The Australian on October 10.  She lamented that the Business Council of Australia, National Farmers Federation and the Minerals of Council had wobbled on the issue of “net-zero emissions” and how embracing such a policy would “hit our regional export industries, and people living in the lowest socio-economic electorates in the country”.  She proudly admitted that her party had been “intransigent during this long debate”, making them unpopular as dinner-party guests.  “We have been doing our job for the people who sent us to Canberra.”

Praise was heaped upon the environmental vandal’s resume.  “We avoided a carbon tax; we have overseen record growth in mining and agricultural exports; and we have pushed for technology solutions, while remaining committed to being careful stewards of the Earth.”  With stewards like these, who needs genuine ecological criminals?

The second interview does little to steady listeners.  It is with a minister whose portfolio, at least in Australia, has been emptied of all meaning, let alone relevance.  A little time with Environment Minister Sussan Ley, and you can be reassured that the Great Barrier Reef is thriving, that the Morrison government is at the forefront of conservation efforts, and that Australia is the greenest of citizens.  Such views can be expressed alongside the fact that Australia has one of the highest extinction rates of species in the world.

These morning encounters with the climate change dinosaurs form the backdrop of whether Australia will even send its prime minister to COP26.  Going to Glasgow has become as fascinating for the press and pundits as the fact that a climate conference is taking place.  Morrison has even convinced the national broadcaster – he boastful of coal’s merits to the point of bringing in a lump to show fellow parliamentarians – that he has “signalled his own climate conversion”.  The evidence?  Remarks made in February 2020 at the National Press Club that “our goal is to reach net zero emissions as soon as possible, and preferably by 2050”.  Hardly a conversion.

A fairer portrayal of this is the fact that Morrison is finding himself being mugged by an increasingly unpleasant, even horrific reality.  He has tried to impress some of this upon his Coalition partners who function in the narrowest belt of reality but has found it mightily difficult. The Nationals remain proud of their efforts in killing off prime ministers and their plans, be it the emissions trading scheme, the National Energy Guarantee, or the carbon tax.  Environmental ideas, it has been known for a long time, go to the Nationals party room to die, along with their defenders.

To be convinced about the merits of “net zero”, party members will have to be bribed by the deep purse commonly known as the Treasury.  The price for one of them, Keith Pitt, current Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, is a AU$250 billion publicly funded “loan facility” for the mining sector.  For McKenzie, it is an undertaking that targets be suspended in the event regional areas were harmed.

Pitt’s suggestion, given a nudge along by Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce, is all the more remarkable for what it entails: a massive public subsidising of the fossil fuel sector to spite wicked banks who have withdrawn investment.  Senator Matt Canavan, has defended this version of fossil fuel socialism.  “Global banks that want to control who has a job in Australia should be locked out of our country.”  By all means, let Australians “pay higher interest rates but that would be worth it to protect our independence”.  This, despite his constant clamouring that “net zero means higher energy prices for all”.

There would also be a delicious irony to this, given that such a fund would benefit the business interests of Australia’s current bugbear of choice, the People’s Republic of China.  Even as the Australian government beds itself firmly down with the United States for any future conflict with Beijing, such a transfer of cash, as Michael West points out, would benefit gas pipelines operator Jemena and Alinta Energy, and Yancoal Australia and coalminer CITIC Australia.  And that’s just a small spread of potential beneficiaries.

As things stand, it is a wonder Prime Minister Scott Morrison is even bothering.  The Australian delegation in Glasgow is bound to be poorly briefed, confused and barely able.  The coalition government, still weighed down by fossil-fuel fantasists, will continue to be engaged in a battle of such stunning incoherence any undertakings on carbon neutrality and change can only be regarded as unreliable and disingenuous.  As McKenzie and a few of her lobotomised colleagues would have you believe, climate change is something that happens to other people.  In the meantime, fossil fuel socialists the world over, unite!

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

Featured image is from www.bridgetmckenzie.com.au

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The returns have not been impressive. For an app essentially anointed as a saviour for tracing purposes in the worst pandemic in a century, COVIDSafe is a lesson in exaggerated prowess and diminished performance.

It was billed as necessitous and supremely useful.  Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison was fashionably vulgar in linking the use of the app with an important goal: getting watering holes opened.  “If that isn’t an incentive for Australians to download COVIDSafe, I don’t know what is,” Morrison claimed in May last year.  The prime minister even equated the use of the app to protecting yourself before going outdoors.  “If you want to go outside when the sun is shining, you have got to put sunscreen on.  This is the same thing.”

Numerous organisations across Australia, private and public, jumped to the call in a concerted effort to embrace surveillance in order to suppress the virus. The National Waste and Recycling Industry Council, to name one enthusiastic participant, claimed that the COVIDSafe App, “together with good hygiene, safe work practices and social distancing will help protect the health of waste and recycling staff and our committee.”  Seven million people also seemed to agree in downloading the app.

But problems began to burgeon.  Identifying close contacts did not seem to be the app’s forte. There were issues about its performance on Apple devices.  The iOs version, for instance, had a habit of trying to link with each device a user’s phone had ever been connected to.  “Every time the Bluetooth controller disconnects from a device, such as when COVIDSafe successfully exchanges data with another app user, it will attempt to reconnect 15 seconds later,” wrote Stilgherrian in July last year.

New South Wales Health Minister Brad Hazzard had to concede in October 2020 that COVIDSafe had “obviously not worked as well as we had hoped”.  To this could be added that hovering cloud of privacy concerns and trust in government.

The review by consultants Abt Associates, commissioned by the federal government and delivered in March this year, did not make for pretty reading.  It took the persistence of The Canberra Times to obtain a more complete version of the report which had initially been released in severely redacted form.  (The redacted evaluation was rather more glowing in concluding that “the COVIDSafe app was the correct tool to employ.”)

The app, it was found, had added to the workloads of state tracing teams “without optimisation of benefits.” This included, for example, the presence of false close contacts among 205 individuals flagged by the app (some 61%) with 30% already identified through standard contact tracing. A mere 2 per cent of total close contacts in NSW between March and November had been detected by the app, with none in Victoria and Queensland.

By May 2021, costing as much as $100,000 a month to continue its operation, the Digital Transformation Agency chief Randall Brugeaud explained to Senates estimates that, “COVIDSafe has moved into what we call the business-as-usual state and so we apply very small amounts of maintenance.”  With a matter of fact telling that would have proved unbearable to the thrifty types, Brugeaud suggested that the amount could change to $200,000 a month “to allow us to make future changes.”  These were additional totals to the $6.7 million the app had already cost till that point, most of which had been swallowed by development outlays.

Such costs are far from draw dropping, given the number of partners this crowded venture has involved.  The Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform may well claim to have led the pack, but then came Delv, Boston Consulting Group and the Melbourne-based outfit Shine Solutions.  In November 2020, it was reported that the latter had received $350,000 in increased payments from the federal government, bringing the then total to $2 million for work on an app that had, as yet, to identify any new close contact anywhere other than the state of New South Wales.

Despite an entrenched stubbornness, the Department of Health would have to concede in July that a mere 779 people who tested positive for COVID-19 had availed themselves of the app.  “The relatively low number of cases in Australia and effectiveness of our contact tracing processes has created an environment in which it has rarely been necessary for public officials to use the app, except to confirm cases through manual processes.”

COVIDSafe keeps company with several similar apps on tracing that have been left in their wake by renewed infection waves and the discovery of vaccines.  But that does not mean that their advocates have not stopped their fires of conviction. A co-authored contribution in the Journal of Medical Ethics insists that we should not have too many hang-ups on overly centralised data in terms of what risks it poses to privacy. Decentralised systems, argue the authors, are also inefficient and risky. “When these points are understood, it becomes clear that we must rethink our approach to digital contact racing in our fight against COVID-19.”

Any identifiable moral here must lie in the risk posed by zeal.  COVIDSafe never replaced the sleuthing efforts of industrious human contact tracers and may have even inhibited them.  “The lure of automating the painstaking process of contact tracing is apparent,” a co-authored report from the Brookings Institute asserts.  “But to date, no one has demonstrated that it’s possible to do so reliably despite numerous concurrent attempts.”  The authors even go so far as to suggest that such apps can “serve as vehicles for abuse and disinformation, while providing a false sense of security to justify reopening local and national economies well before it is safe to do so.”

Even now, on its long feted deathbed, one keeping company with a range of other feats of government misspending, you can still go to the federal Health Ministry’s website to see the following: “The COVIDSafe app is a tool that helps identify people exposed to coronavirus (COVID-19).” In not distinguishing SARS-CoV-2 as the virus, with COVID-19 being the disease, we are already off to a rollicking start.  But the belief in the role of this tool remains steadfast. “This helps us support and protect you, your friends and family.”  The eyes, in the Morrison lingo, remain on the pub prize.

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

Featured image is from the Australian Government’s Twitter Account

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In September 2021, the President of the ROK visited the USA once again to participate in the 76th session of the UN General Assembly, where he made a speech separately addressing the issue of peace on the Korean Peninsula. The South Korean President speaking at the UN had previously proposed to declare an end to the Korean War, In 2018 and 2020. He added specifics, indicating that the ROK, the DPRK, the USA and China should participate in the process.

In addition, Moon Jae-in suggested resuming as soon as possible the program of meetings between separated families of the South and the North, and developing inter-Korean cooperation in the fields of health care and disaster control. However, he made no mention of the North’s recent missile launches, remaining cautious about resuming dialogue with Pyongyang.

On September 22, Moon Jae-in re-emphasized the need to formally end the Korean War during a joint ceremony to hand over military remains in Hawaii.

The US Department of Defense immediately noted that “we continue to seek engagement with the DPRK to address a variety of issues, and we are open to discussing the possibility of an end of war declaration.” At the same time, the Department of Defense spokesman, John Kirby, said the goal is still the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

The Minister of Unification, Lee In-young, also said that formally ending the Korean War could serve as a valuable and cost-effective measure to demonstrate the absence of hostility and the resumption of nuclear negotiations with North Korea.

The conservative and main opposition People Power Party has criticized Moon’s proposal, saying peace cannot be achieved through a declaration. As former North Korean diplomat and current lawmaker Tae Yong-ho has stressed, a declaration of an end to the war should only be considered after North Korea takes a meaningful step toward denuclearization. Meanwhile, the North continues to launch missiles and has reportedly begun operating its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon.  In this situation, “a declaration of cessation of war would only lead North Korea to incorrectly believe that it could see the withdrawal of US troops from the Korean Peninsula.”   Involving China in a quadrilateral declaration of cessation of war is also unlikely, given the intertwined rivalry between Washington and Beijing.

Much more interesting is the North Korean response. On September 23, Vice Foreign Minister Lee Tae-ho noted that the declaration of the war’s end is a political declaration officially proclaiming the end of the armistice on the Korean Peninsula, which has lasted for a long time so far. In this sense, it has symbolic value, but so far, the adoption of a declaration ending the war is “premature and cannot resolve existing differences.” Lee noted a range of US military preparations aimed at the DPRK, including lifting missile restrictions on the ROK or the Minuteman III ICBM launches in February and August of this year. And he concluded from this that “there is no guarantee that an end-of-war declaration, which is only a piece of paper, will lead to the abandonment of hostility toward us when the situation on the Korean Peninsula is fraught with explosion.”  In such a situation, the assurance of an end to the war “will not help stabilize the situation on the Korean Peninsula and can be used as a cover for US hostile policies”.

A few hours after that, Kim Yo-jong, vice department director of the Central Committee of Korea’s Workers’ Party, issued a slightly different press statement.  “An end-of-war declaration in the sense of physically ending the long-standing unsustainable ceasefire on the Korean Peninsula and abandoning hostility towards the vis-a-vis is an interesting proposal and a good idea.” However, now is not the time to discuss this idea – “in such an environment, when double standards, bias, hostile policies, hostile words and actions against our state continue, as it is now,” such a statement will lead to group photos at most, and all the problems will remain. “Proclaiming the end of the war requires mutual respect on both sides and, above all, biased view of the other side, brutal, hostile policies and unjust double standards must be abolished.” If South Korea breaks with past tactics, “always thinking of further words and actions and not acting in a hostile manner, we would be happy to maintain a close understanding between the North and the South again and have constructive discussions on the restoration of relations and their further development.”

As Blue House Senior Presidential Secretary for Public Affairs Park Soo-hyun said on September 24, Seoul perceives North Korea’s positive response to Moon Jae-in’s proposal as something very important and weighty. As for the two responses from the North on the same day, Park argued that he saw no inconsistency between the statements.

Against this backdrop, Kim Yo-jong again gave “good advice to South Korea” on September 25:

“We can see that the atmosphere of different stratas of South Korea to restore the frozen inter-Korean relations and achieve peaceful stability as soon as possible is strong to the extent that it cannot be obstructed, and we have no other desire either. Therefore, there is no need for the North and the South to pick on the other side, engage in rhetoric and waste valuable time.” If South Korea wants to restore and develop inter-Korean relations, it should not judge the North’s actions as “provocations” and engage in doublethink while developing its own military might as a “necessity to deter the North.” Therefore, the North is waiting for the South to take action “aimed at removing all sparks that fuel confrontation, including the unjust, hostile double-standard policy against the DPRK, as well as offensive rhetoric.” Only if “impartiality and respect for each other are maintained” can both the restoration of the North-South liaison office and the holding of an inter-Korean summit be discussed constructively. “The end of the war will also be proclaimed in due course.”

Kim noted that all of the above is her personal opinion and recalled that “we already gave advice last August that South Korea should make the right choice.”

On the other hand, the author uses the occasion to draw attention to some other issues. The Korean War of 1950-53 ended with an armistice, technically leaving the divided Koreas in a state of war to this day. At the same time, it was signed by the DPRK, UN troops, and “Chinese volunteers.”  The ROK representative refused to sign an armistice because Syngman Rhee wanted to fight until the end. As a result, the problem of finally ending the Korean War involved a series of complex legal procedures related to who should sign for whom and what.

It is clear that an agreement to end the conflict must be signed by its main parties, North Korea, South Korea, the USA, and China, but …

To begin with, formally, it was South Korea and the UN troops that came to its aid, the vast majority of whom were Americans, who fought against North Korea. However, they were not formally fighting on their own but under the UN flag. But since the North and South are now members of the UN, the UN cannot sign a truce with any of its member countries.

The second problem concerns the involvement of China, which also took part in the war, did so not officially, but in the form of the Chinese People’s Volunteers. This has helped avoid further escalation of conflicts but is now causing problems. Including setting a precedent that such an option, originally sent for unofficial participation, is nevertheless equated with official participation.

Another problem is that South Korea did not sign the ceasefire agreement.  It was then about Lee Seung-Man, but if one were to dig deeper, the declaration signed in multilateral format makes all participants equal parties and is an implicit recognition that there are two states on the Korean Peninsula after all, which is really unacceptable at least to the South, whose national security law interprets the North as an anti-state organization controlling part of the ROK territory.

The author would like to recall that when Lee Myung-bak thought of eliminating the Ministry of Unification and handing over the inter-Korean issue to the Foreign Ministry at the beginning of his administration, the project was canceled due to firm public condemnation, as such a move would recognize North Korea as an independent country rather than an illegally alienated part of the peninsula.

Again, what will be the format of the declaration? Unlike a peace treaty, which requires parliamentary approval, a declaration of cessation of war is a non-binding political statement and a more straightforward step for both Washington and Pyongyang. However, the question arises to what extent such a statement would be legally enforceable.

On the other hand, the war’s end will remove an essential status that justifies a lot. In war, many means unacceptable in peacetime are suitable, and wartime emergencies justify a lot in domestic politics.

North Korea has repeatedly put forward proposals to end the Korean War, but it seems to the author that the goal is not so much to end the conflict with the South as to end the war with America. This is why proposals to end the war were put forward by Pyongyang during the talks with the US, as a ceasefire agreement preserves the state of war, opposed to a final solution to the issue.

However, it is essential to Pyongyang that the signed document does not turn into a piece of paper with no relevance to the actual state of affairs. That’s why Kim Yo-jong’s response boiled down to the phrase, “we’ll come back to this issue when Seoul’s policy toward Pyongyang becomes less hostile and other than words you start to move towards it.” And the separation of words from deeds is an important matter because the author constantly draws attention to it: even though Moon can be taken as a supporter of dialogue according to the rhetoric, fundamental steps in this direction can be made only after the third strike of his fist on the table. But military spending and other preparations are growing in ways that conservatives have never dreamed of.

Then, even if all parties agree, it will take some time before Moon’s presidential term is up, and not every Democratic candidate will be as enthusiastic about the idea.  As the most leftist, Lee Jae-myung is likely to do so, but he needs to live to see the election.

Therefore, this proposal was considered and not rejected as a matter of principle but postponed until better times. And when those times come, judging by Kim Jong-un’s sister’s speech, it’s up to Seoul to decide.

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Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of the Far East at the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Featured image is from NEO

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In yet another move signaling the deepening US-Japan military relationship, two US stealth fighters practiced taking off and landing on Japan’s largest warship, the JS Izumo. The flights happened Sunday, with Japan’s Ministry of Defense releasing photos and video of the event early this week, hyping the major advance in its Maritime Self-Defense Force’s operations.

Crucially it marked the first time since World War II that fixed-wing aircraft operated from a Japanese warship. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger was earlier quoted as saying, “We’re not going to go on deployment but we’re actually going to fly U.S. Marine Corps F-35s off of a Japanese ship.”

3 OCT, the #JMSDF conducted verification of takeoff and landing of the USMC F-35B to JS #IZUMO.
The JMSDF continues to steadily carry out the necessary modifications to the IZUMO class to acquire the capability to operate the F-35Bs. pic.twitter.com/0gtPNzrxQC

— Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (@jmsdf_pao_eng) October 5, 2021

Japan’s military is working on adapting 24,000-ton Izumo class helicopter carriers for fixed-wing operations. The pair of US aircraft – Marine Corps F-35B Lighting II Joint Strike Fighters – conducted successful short takeoff, vertical landings from the mid-sized carrier’s deck.

The period of joint Japanese and Marine aircraft trials are set to continue aboard the Izumo through October 7. One aviation analysis monitoring site hailed in its headline that “Japan rejoins aircraft carrier club with USMC F-35B landing.”

Of course, China is sure to take note given also given no less than five total navies currently engaged in warship exercises off Japan, including the US and UK:

Two U.S. carrier strike groups drilled with the United Kingdom’s Carrier Strike Group 21 (CSG21) and a Japanese big-deck warship over the weekend in a major naval exercise in the waters off the southeast of Okinawa, Japan.

The exercise involved six different navies – the U.S Navy, the U.K. Royal Navy, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, the Royal Netherlands Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal New Zealand Navy – making up a total of 17 surface ships, which included four aircraft carriers.

The drills come after a tense weekend over contested skies near Taiwan, which saw China PLA jet incursions set multiple records in terms of number of aircraft breaching the self-ruled island’s defense identification zone – including 56 jets on Monday alone.

The Drive, meanwhile, further details Japan’s near-term carrier ambitions and cooperation with the US Marines as follows:

After the concept of fixed-wing operations is proven aboard the Izumo, that warship will then undergo more extensive revisions to better support F-35Bs during routine operations over sustained periods. So far, the vessel has received a heat-resistant flight deck to cope with the F-35B’s scorching exhaust, as well as changes to the lighting and deck markings.

VIDEO: Japan’s Largest Warship Launches U.S. Marine F-35s; First Fighters to Fly from Japanese Ship Since WWII – USNI Newshttps://t.co/zOS6Rc1WeI pic.twitter.com/HHeJ7MIv7W

— U.S. Naval Institute (@NavalInstitute) October 5, 2021

Amid the major joint exercises off Japan, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said to reporters on Monday, “We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pressure and coercion against Taiwan,” and added that the US will “continue to assist Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability.”

Notably, Japan has lately become more vocally and firmly in Washington’s corner of late on the Taiwan issue – also as Japan is engaged in its own small contested island dispute with China off its south – so Beijing is sure to see the latest warship and carrier exercises as aimed in its direction.

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The recent Quad leaders meeting in the White House on September 24 appears to have shifted focus away from its original framing as a security dialogue between four countries, the United States, India, Japan and Australia. Instead, the United States seems to be moving much closer to Australia as a strategic partner and providing it with nuclear submarines.

Supplying Australia with U.S. nuclear submarines that use bomb-grade uranium can violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) protocols. Considering that the United States wants Iran not to enrich uranium beyond 3.67 percent, this is blowing a big hole in its so-called rule-based international order—unless we all agree that the rule-based international order is essentially the United States and its allies making up all the rules.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had initiated the idea of the Quad in 2007 as a security dialogue. In the statement issued after the first formal meeting of the Quad countries dated March 12, 2021, “security” was used in the sense of strategic security. Before the recent meeting of the Quad, both the United States and the Indian sides denied that it was a military alliance, even though the Quad countries conduct joint naval exercises—the Malabar exercises—and have signed various military agreements. The September 24 Quad joint statement focuses more on other “security” issues: health security, supply chain and cybersecurity.

Has India decided that it still needs to retain strategic autonomy even if it has serious differences with China on its northern borders and therefore stepped away from the Quad as an Asian NATO? Or has the United States itself downgraded the Quad now that Australia has joined its geostrategic game of containing China?

Before the Quad meeting in Washington, the United States and the UK signed an agreement with Australia to supply eight nuclear submarines—the AUKUS agreement. Earlier, the United States had transferred nuclear submarine technology to the UK, and it may have some subcontracting role here. Nuclear submarines, unlike diesel-powered submarines, are not meant for defensive purposes. They are for force projection far away from home. Their ability to travel large distances and remain submerged for long periods makes them effective strike weapons against other countries.

The AUKUS agreement means that Australia is canceling its earlier French contract to supply 12 diesel-powered submarines. The French are livid that they, one of NATO’s lynchpins, have been treated this way with no consultation by the United States or Australia on the cancellation. The U.S. administration has followed it up with “discreet disclosures” to the media and U.S. think tanks that the agreement to supply nuclear submarines also includes Australia providing naval and air bases to the United States. In other words, Australia is joining the United States and the UK in a military alliance in the “Indo-Pacific.”

Earlier, President Macron had been fully on board with the U.S. policy of containing China and participated in Freedom of Navigation exercises in the South China Sea. France had even offered its Pacific Island colonies—and yes, France still has colonies—and its navy for the U.S. project of containing China in the Indo-Pacific. France has two sets of island chains in the Pacific Ocean that the United Nations terms as non-self-governing territories—read colonies—giving France a vast exclusive economic zone, larger even than that of the United States. The United States considers these islands less strategically valuable than Australia, which explains its willingness to face France’s anger. In the U.S. worldview, NATO and the Quad are both being downgraded for a new military strategy of a naval thrust against China.

Australia has very little manufacturing capacity. If the eight nuclear submarines are to be manufactured partially in Australia, the infrastructure required for manufacturing nuclear submarines and producing/handling of highly enriched uranium that the U.S. submarines use will probably require a minimum time of 20 years. That is the reason behind the talk of U.S. naval and air bases in Australia, with the United States providing the nuclear submarines and fighter-bomber aircraft either on lease, or simply locating them in Australia.

I have previously argued that the term Indo-Pacific may make sense to the United States, the UK or even Australia, which are essentially maritime nations. The optics of three maritime powers, two of which are settler-colonial, while the other, the erstwhile largest colonial power, talking about a rule-based international order do not appeal to most of the world. Oceans are important to maritime powers, who have used naval dominance to create colonies. This was the basis of the dominance of British, French and later U.S. imperial powers. That is why they all have large aircraft carriers: they are naval powers who believe that the gunboat diplomacy through which they built their empires still works. The United States has 700-800 military bases spread worldwide; Russia has about 10; and China has only one base in Djibouti, Africa.

Behind the rhetoric about the Indo-Pacific and open seas is the U.S. play in Southeast Asia. Here, the talk of the Indo-Pacific has little resonance for most people. Its main interest is in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which was spearheaded by the ASEAN countries. Even with the United States and India walking out of the RCEP negotiations, the 15-member trading bloc is the largest trading bloc in the world, with nearly 30 percent of the world’s GDP and population. Two of the Quad partners—Japan and Australia—are in the RCEP.

The U.S. strategic vision is to project its maritime power against China and contest for control over even Chinese waters and economic zones. This is the 2018 U.S. Pacific strategy doctrine that it has itself put forward, which it de-classified recently. The doctrine states that the U.S. naval strategy is to deny China sustained air and sea dominance even inside the first island chain and dominate all domains outside the first island chain. For those interested in how the U.S. views the Quad and India’s role in it, this document is a good education.

The United States wants to use the disputes that Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia have with China over the boundaries of their respective exclusive economic zones. While some of them may look to the United States for support against China, none of these Southeast Asian countries supports the U.S. interpretation of the Freedom of Navigation, under which it carries out its Freedom of Navigation Operations, or FONOPS. As India found to its cost in Lakshadweep, the U.S. definition of the freedom of navigation does not square with India’s either. For all its talk about rule-based world order, the United States has not signed the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) either. So when India and other partners of the United States sign on to Freedom of Navigation statements of the United States, they are signing on to the U.S. understanding of the freedom of navigation, which is at variance with theirs.

The 1973 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty created two classes of countries, ones who would be allowed to a set of technologies that could lead to bomb-grade uranium or plutonium, and others who would be denied these technologies. There was, however, a submarine loophole in the NPT and its complementary IAEA Safeguards for the peaceful use of atomic energy. Under the NPT, non-nuclear-weapon-state parties must place all nuclear materials under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, except nuclear materials for nonexplosive military purposes. No country until now has utilized this submarine loophole to withdraw weapon-grade uranium from safeguards. If this exception is utilized by Australia, how will the United States continue to argue against Iran’s right to enrich uranium, say for nuclear submarines, which is within its right to develop under the NPT?

India was never a signatory to the NPT, and therefore is a different case than that of Australia. If Australia, a signatory, is allowed to use the submarine loophole, what prevents other countries from doing so as well?

Australia did not have to travel this route if it wanted nuclear submarines. The French submarines that they were buying were originally nuclear submarines but using low-enriched uranium. It is retrofitting diesel engines that has created delays in their supplies to Australia. It appears that under the current Australian leadership of Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Australia wants to flex its muscles in the neighborhood, therefore tying up with Big Brother, the United States.

For the United States, if Southeast Asia is the terrain of struggle against China, Australia is a very useful springboard. It also substantiates what has been apparent for some time now—that the Indo-Pacific is only cover for a geostrategic competition between the United States and China over Southeast Asia. And unfortunately for the United States, East Asia and Southeast Asia have reciprocal economic interests that bring them closer to each other. And Australia, with its brutal settler-colonial past of genocide and neocolonial interventions in Southeast Asia, is not seen as a natural partner by countries there.

India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to have lost the plot completely. Does it want strategic autonomy, as was its policy post-independence? Or does it want to tie itself to a waning imperial power, the United States? The first gave it respect well beyond its economic or military clout. The current path seems more and more a path toward losing its stature as an independent player.

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This article was produced in partnership by Newsclick and Globetrotter.

Prabir Purkayastha is the founding editor of Newsclick.in, a digital media platform. He is an activist for science and the free software movement.

Featured image is from Countercurrents

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With its lush rainforests and long stretches of beaches, Waimon, a coastal village in Indonesia’s West Papua province, seems like an idyllic place.

But some residents consider it a hostile, almost inhospitable place due to its remoteness and the heavy rains that can make traveling by boat a deadly prospect.

“Living in Waimon is like  gambling with our lives,” says Hendrikus Malalu, a resident. “God still loves us — if he didn’t, we’d all have perished by now.”

The only way for the villagers to travel to other parts of the region is by sea; there’s no road access. The village also only has electricity at night, when the villagers turn on their diesel-powered generators.

Amid these restrictions, two of the three clans in the village welcomed a palm oil company that promised them a better life as the only way out.

And now that the permits of the company, PT Papua Lestari Abadi (PLA), have been revoked by the government of Sorong district, where the village is located, the Indigenous people there have been left questioning their future and afraid of the fallout of the revocation.

Waimon village in West Papua, Indonesia. Image by Hans Nicholas Jong/Mongabay.

Permits revoked

PLA was one of several palm oil companies that saw their permits revoked following a government audit in West Papua province, which is home to some of the largest swaths of intact forest left in Indonesia.

The audit itself was part of a moratorium by the central government to freeze the issuance of new palm oil licenses, in the wake of fires on oil palm concessions and years of uncontrolled deforestation associated with the industry.

The moratorium, which expired in September this year, also mandated a review of all existing licenses, in the same vein as a previous review of mining licenses that saw more than 2,000 permits cancelled based on irregularities that came to light.

Very few oil palm permits were revoked by the central government prior to the moratorium’s expiration. But in West Papua, the provincial government revoked the licenses of 14 companies after finding a litany of irregularities and violations.

The West Papua move, coming at the tail end of the moratorium, may serve as a test case for how government officials approach trying to cancel licenses held by potentially powerful companies. This may still be possible despite the moratorium having expired, since the government says Indonesia will use existing regulations to address sustainability issues in the palm oil industry.

Shortly after the provincial government rescinded the permits, PLA and another affected company, PT Sorong Agro Sawitindo (SAS), which held a concession in the village of Gisim, filed a legal challenge against Johny Kamuru, the Sorong district head.  The two companies are seeking to have a court annul the government’s decision and give them back their concessions. They argue the move to revoke their licenses has harmed them.

Benidiktus Hery Wijayanto, head of the West Papua provincial agriculture department, said the government had every reason to revoke the two companies’ concessions because they had violated the law by failing to fulfill their obligations. Among the unfilled obligations is obtaining a right-to-cultivate permit, or HGU, the last in a series of licenses that oil palm companies must obtain before being allowed to start planting.

The two companies also appeared to have done nothing since receiving their permits in 2009, Benidiktus added.

“They had no activities in Sorong at all,” he says. “They didn’t have offices. If you ask government officials in Sorong, there’s no single document either [about the two companies]. It’s only when we did the evaluation at provincial level that we got [the documents].”

Benidiktus said he eventually managed to track down a PLA employee, who told him that both PLA and SAS hadn’t started any activities on their concessions because they didn’t have any operational funds.

That means the companies’ concessions are technically abandoned, which is grounds for a permit revocation, according to Piter Ell, a lawyer for the Sorong district government.

The water of Waimon village in West Papua, Indonesia. Image by Hans Nicholas Jong/Mongabay.

The man behind the companies

Piter said PLA and SAS had also violated the anti-monopoly law by having the same person, Ronald Louis Sanuddin, as their chief executive. Both companies share the same address, which Piter said turned out to be the office of another company, called Papua Diving.

Benidiktus said the two companies didn’t have any offices in West Papua province, and that it was only when they filed a lawsuit against the Sorong district head that they set up an office in Sorong.

The similarities between the two companies don’t stop there.

According to the NGO Pusaka, which advocates for Indigenous rights, PLA and SAS are also owned by the same individual. The shares of both companies are owned by PT Pilar Sukses Sejahtera and PT Global Jaya Abadi Gemilang, two companies that are in turn owned by Paulus George Hung, a businessman from Malaysia. Hung also serves on the boards of both PLA and SAS, according to Pusaka.

Villagers in both Waimon and Gisim recalled Hung as having approached them. Daniel Kayaru, the head of the hamlet of Klajaring in Gisim, even referred to him as the “big boss,” while Demianus Yapen, the Waimon village secretary, called him “Mr. Ting,” a throwback to his old Malaysian name of Ting Ting Hong.

In 2006, Hung was among 50 individuals accused by the Indonesian government of illegal logging operations in the country. He was linked to a ship that was seized with 21,000 cubic meters (741,600 cubic feet) on board in West Papua waters. Despite that, Hung was able to get new forestry permits from the government, paving the way for him to keep doing business in Indonesia.

It’s common in Indonesia for businesspeople to operate in both the forestry sector and the plantation sector, as they can benefit from clearing forests and selling the timber before converting the land into plantations.

Piter said there are indications that many companies applying for oil palm licenses are doing so only to cut down trees and sell the wood for quick cash, with no intention of establishing an oil palm plantation.

PLA and SAS hadn’t started clearing their respective concessions because they didn’t have the requisite timber exploitation permits. Another company that had its permits revoked and that is also suing the Sorong district head, PT Inti Kebun Lestari (IKL), had already obtained a timber exploitation permit.

Benidiktus said when the local government surveyed IKL’s concession, they detected clearing. Photos from a document drafted by IKL’s logging operator, CV Aimas Jaya Mandiri, also show there had been some clearing, he added.

West Papua and Papua provinces hold some of the last remaining stands of commercially valuable hardwood species in Indonesia, including merbau, a prized target for illegal loggers and timber traffickers.

With many irregularities surrounding PLA and SAS, Piter said the court should reject the companies’ lawsuit and declare that their permits had been revoked in accordance with the law.

“Because before the concessions are revoked, it has gone through a process of multistage evaluation, starting from the central government, the anti-graft agency, KPK, the West Papua provincial government and the Sorong district government,” Piter said.

The villagers of Waimon in West Papua, Indonesia. Image by Hans Nicholas Jong/Mongabay.

Roads and electricity

Prior to filing the lawsuit, PLA approached the Indigenous communities whose areas overlap with its concession in Waimon. They offered money to one of the village’s three klans, the Kasilik, who accepted it.

Demianus, the village secretary, said the Kasilik asked for 300 million rupiah ($21,000), but settled for half that amount. The company paid the first installment, 50 million rupiah ($3,500), in April. The company also promised to give the clan two houses in Sorong and pay for the education of the Kasilik children through middle school, said Yunus Kasilik, a member of the clan.

Yunus said that amount of money could go a long way in improving the livelihoods of the Waimon villagers.

“I catch a lot of fish and shrimp. How can I sell them to Sorong since there’s no road?” he said. “I’m not defending palm oil. But can [the government] take care of [our] road access? Electricity?”

Some of the villagers, including Demianus and Yunus, said that if the government could guarantee access to road and electricity for the village, they would happily cancel their agreement with PLA.

“All I’m asking for is road and electricity, that’s all,” Yunus said.

The Sorong district government secretary, Cliff Agus Japsenang, questioned the timing of the company’s reappearance, suggesting it’s an attempt by PLA to gain support from the locals for its lawsuit.

“The companies arrived on the scene this April, May or June, after the permits were revoked,” he said. “But let’s not forget that they’ve had years [to fulfill all their legal obligations], where they were nowhere [to be seen].”

Johny, the Sorong district head, said the company’s sudden appearance after years of being absent is a sign that it doesn’t have the local community’s interest at heart.

In Indonesia, cash-strapped local governments often fail to build basic infrastructure, like in the case of Waimon. It’s not uncommon for agricultural or extractive companies to take on this role. But Johny said his government won’t abandon the villagers whose areas overlap with the rescinded concessions and who had been promised better lives by the companies.

“In this situation, the government took a decision [to revoke the permits] for the best interests of the people there,” he said in an interview at his house in Sorong. “There might be people who understood this, there might be those who don’t understand yet, thinking that this decision has harmed them.”

Johny said his government had actually planned to build a road to connect Waimon and other places in the region. Sections of the road have already been built by Petrogas, an oil and gas company operating in the region, but the project has been halted due to problems with land acquisition.

Johny said he would communicate with Petrogas again to discuss resuming the road construction.

Gisim villagers in West Papua, Indonesia. Image by Hans Nicholas Jong/Mongabay.

‘They promised we can be prosperous’

Waimon is not the only village that has fears over the potential repercussion of the permits revocation.

In Gisim, another coastal village in Sorong district, the Indigenous residents face a similar quandary with SAS, the other company suing the Sorong government for revoking its permit.

Residents there had granted the company the rights to 13,000 hectares (32,100 acres) of their forests. The company had promised to compensate them in the form of money, education and housing, according to hamlet chief Daniel.

“[They promised] that we can be prosperous with oil palm plantations,” he said. “So we accepted [SAS] so that we can change [our future]. We can be as prosperous as other places in Kalimantan [Indonesian Borneo] and Sulawesi.”

Up until 2010, SAS had paid the villagers 500 million rupiah ($35,100), which the community used for various purposes, such as holding Christmas celebrations, according to Daniel. But after that, the company disappeared, with the villagers unable to contact its representatives, he said.

In April, PLA arrived in the village and told residents that it had taken over SAS’s concession.

Daniel said the villagers refused to make any deal with PLA until SAS had settled things with them.

“For the first company [SAS], we deemed them to be just toying with us,” he said. “For the new company [PLA], they have to [operate] with new agreements.”

Like the concession in Waimon, the concession in Gisim was also revoked by the district government following the recent audit because it had been left unmanaged by SAS for more than a decade.

Daniel said the revocation has further complicated the situation, since it’s not clear where SAS has gone and whether the villagers will have to pay back the money they received from the company.

“We’re afraid of the company. Don’t let it sue us [for the money already paid],” he said. “We want to hear the district head say to us, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll pay off your debt.’ We haven’t met him so we’re not satisfied yet.”

Sorong district head Johny said he would protect the villagers

“It could be that the people didn’t know [better] and they were intimidated [to accepting the money],” he said. “Were they given an understanding and opportunities to think? The point is that the government will take responsibility.”

Daniel said that, looking back, he regretted the villagers’ decision to accept the palm oil company onto their land.

“We’re trapped. We didn’t understand [the impact of] palm oil. We just accepted it,” he said. “After that, we read and see the development in other villages, and we realize that the palm oil company has been trying to lure us with money and [promises of] prosperity.”

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Featured image: Indigenous Papuans travel by boat to Waimon village in West Papua province. Image by Hans Nicholas Jong/Mongabay.

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The statement from Taiwan’s defence minister comes after Taipei reported close to 150 Chinese air force aircraft entered its air defence zone over a four-day period beginning last Friday.

Military tensions with China are at their worst in more than 40 years, Taiwan’s defence minister said, days after record numbers of Chinese aircraft flew into the island’s air defence zone.

Tensions have hit a new high between Taipei and Beijing, which claims the democratic island as its own territory, and Chinese military aircraft have repeatedly flown through Taiwan’s air defence identification zone.

‘150 airspace violations’

Over a four-day period beginning last Friday, Taiwan reported close to 150 Chinese air force aircraft entered its air defence zone, part of a pattern of what Taipei calls Beijing’s continued harassment of the island.

Asked by a lawmaker on the current military tensions with China at the parliament, Defence Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said the situation was “the most serious” in more than 40 years since he joined the military, adding there was a risk of a “misfire” across the sensitive Taiwan Strait.

“For me as a military man, the urgency is right in front of me,” he told a parliamentary committee reviewing a special military spending of $8.6 billion for home-made weapons including missiles and warships.

‘Ability to invade Taiwan’

China says Taiwan should be taken by force if necessary. Taiwan says it is an independent country and will defend its freedoms and democracy, blaming China for the tensions.

Chiu said China already has the ability to invade Taiwan and it will be capable of mounting a “full scale” invasion by 2025.

“By 2025, China will bring the cost and attrition to its lowest. It has the capacity now, but it will not start a war easily, having to take many other things into consideration.”

‘Rock-solid’ commitment to Taiwan

The United States, Taiwan’s main military supplier, has confirmed its “rock-solid” commitment to Taiwan and also criticised China. Beijing blames Washington’s policies of supporting Taiwan with arms sales and sending warships through the Taiwan Strait for raising tensions.

Taiwan’s special military spending over the next five years will go mostly toward naval weapons including anti-ship weapons such as land-based missile systems.

Taiwan reported one Chinese air force air craft entered its air defence zone on Tuesday.

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Given the state of the Indian media today, it is difficult to cut through the Indian-American rhetoric from a distance of 10,000 kilometres and get a rounded view of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States and his meeting with President Biden. 

So much has changed since Modi last visited America two years ago. India has changed, America has changed and the world has changed. Modi himself has had a makeover. This is not the boisterous politician we saw who electrified the Madison Square Garden or went on a victory lap with Trump at Houston.

It has been a sobering two years. India’s economy crashed and it cannot be the magnet anymore for investors in Silicon Valley. ‘Make in India’ withered away. The current pitch for a spot in the global supply chain is unconvincing.    

Indians have gone through an unprecedented scale of suffering through the pandemic. The emblematic images of the castaway corpses on the banks of the Ganges tarnished the Indian narrative. 

America too witnessed cataclysmic events that shook the very foundations of its democratic superstructure and exposed the deep cracks in its society and polity. There is extreme polarisation. The trajectory of transition remains uncertain and might even return back to Trump by 2024 or someone of his ilk. 

Meanwhile, the world situation has transformed phenomenally. The overall trends accelerated thanks to the pandemic — principally, China’s rapid ascendance as superpower, America’s decline as world hegemon and the consequent shift in the world order. 

The ‘unipolar moment’ has become a footnote in current history and there is an extremely high degree of volatility in the international system due to the US’ reluctance to concede the inexorable shift in the global power dynamic.

It is against such a dramatic backdrop that Modi’s return to the US after an epochal gap of two years needs to be assessed. This has been a challenging visit for Modi. The most crucial aspect must have been the way Biden sized him up. 

Biden is a far more experienced statesman than Modi, and his diplomatic track record is manifold Modi’s —nearly half a century old. 

What made this occasion particularly challenging was that there was no scope for “hug diplomacy.” Aside the photo-ups, you could entrap the victim in a tight ring of bonhomie and mellow him somewhat before sitting down to hard talk. But coronavirus disallows wanton “huggery”. 

Which meant, diplomacy had to be conducted in the traditional way — patient listening, exchange of views, explanations and discussions, consensus-making and so on. The spin doctors in the Indian establishment claim that Modi-Biden ‘bilateral’ lasted for 90 minutes (which was, by the way, the exact duration of Biden’s phone conversation with Chinese President Xi Jining on September 9.)  

But Biden is at a point in his chequered political career where he will roll up sleeves and get down to the nitty-gritty with only two world leaders — Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. He must conserve energy at such age (79). Modi possibly couldn’t have had talking points to engage Biden’s attention span for 90 minutes. There’s hardly anything happening in the US-Indian relationship.  

According to RT, Biden expressly advised Modi against answering questions from American media, which he noted wryly, is not as cooperative and well-behaved as the Indian media. Therefore, all we’re left with is the document on the White House website titled U.S.-India Joint Leaders’ Statement: A Partnership for Global Good, which is neither quite a joint statement nor the stuff of media briefing, but more of a declaratory nature of the sort that world leaders resort to for projecting their “visionary” outlook when they have little to announce as concrete outcome of their parleys. 

So, we get more of the same — Covid-19, public health, vaccine, climate change, UN reform, NSG, cyber security, space, etc. The only point where Biden appears to have bestirred himself to say something was in regard of US-Indian defence ties. 

Biden “reaffirmed the strength of the defence relationship… and the unwavering commitment to India as a Major Defense Partner through close defence engagements in information sharing, sharing of logistics and military-to-military interactions, strengthening cooperation in advanced military technologies, and expanding engagements in a multilateral framework including with regional partners.” 

The reference to “expanding engagements in a multilateral framework” is worrisome. Biden can spring nasty surprises. French President Emmanuel Macron would know.  

The salience of the Joint Leaders’ Statement is, of course, that the US has brilliantly succeeded in fastening India to its cart apropos the Taliban government. It goes to the credit of Secretary of State Blinken that so soon after leaving Delhi in the lurch to write off its $3 billion investments in Afghanistan, he got EAM Jaishankar to sheepishly get back into the American cart. 

Basically, the two foreign ministers are desperately in need of each other’s company, facing stark isolation in the region. But this Afghan journey is risky and can land India in an even bigger mess, once the US shifts gear to deploy the geopolitical tools to destabilise Afghanistan’s neighbouring regions. Consumed with a zero-sum mindset via-a-vis Pakistan and China, Modi Govt has lost a sense of direction. 

Strangely, the Joint Statement has ignored the “value-based” India-US relationship. It says nothing about shared values or about India’s flourishing democracy. This is astounding, as Biden is world champion on human rights and democracy and should have had some nice words for Modi’s stewardship. 

But then, the Indian media quoted Biden as underlining to Modi that the US-Indian partnership is about “a shared responsibility to uphold democratic values” and the two countries’ “joint commitment to diversity.” Biden went on to recall that next week marks Gandhiji’s birth anniversary.

He underscored to Modi that the message of “non-violence, respect, tolerance matters today maybe more than ever.” Biden made sure the Indian audience would appreciate his empathy.

These remarks came after Vice-President Kamala Harris had spoken to Modi in public about the importance of democracy when she said, “it is imperative that we defend democratic principles and institutions within our respective countries.”

To be sure, this visit to the US has ended on a vastly different note in comparison with Modi’s previous visits during the two US administrations of presidents Barack Obama and Trump. Call it a rebuke, call it a censure, call it a distancing from Modi, the sharp message would have gone home.

The great irony is that all this while, the democratic values were supposed to be the cementing factor in the India-US relationship — and more important, that it was, in ideological terms, the raison d’être of the QUAD itself. Modi government wouldn’t have bargained that the Sword of Democracy is double-edged and can also come to haunt those who preach it cavalierly without themselves practising it.

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Featured image: Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) with the US President  Joe Biden at White House, Washington DC, USA, September 24, 2021. (Source: Indian Punchline)

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The US and its allies continue beating the drums of war in regards to China, but how serious is this? Will it really lead to war, or is it merely posturing meant to give the US the most favorable position on the other side of a fully ascendant China?

A critical inflection point identified by US war planners for years is approaching, where China’s economic and military might will irreversibly surpass the US and the center of global power will likewise irreversibly shift from West to East creating a global balance of power unseen for centuries. A closing window of opportunity estimated to close between 2025 and 2030 allows the US to carry out a limited war with China, resulting in a favorable outcome for Washington. Beyond that, the US will find itself outmatched and any attempt to curb China’s rise rendered futile.

The propaganda war, and the war itself this propaganda aims to justify and rally support for, is unmistakable, particularly for those who have witnessed similar buildups ahead of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, or US-led military interventions in nations like Libya and Syria from 2011 onward.

A recent 60 Minutes Australia segment titled, “War with China: Are we closer than we think?,” presented an amalgamation of this ongoing propaganda used to vilify the Chinese government, dehumanize the Chinese people, and create sufficient anger, fear, paranoia, distrust, and hatred in hearts and minds across the planet to justify what would be for the 21st century, an unprecedented war.

For the United States, a war with China would be the first of its kind, a war with a peer or near-peer competitor armed with nuclear weapons.

Yet US war planners are fairly confident that the conflict could be confined to East Asia, remain conventional, and see a favorable outcome for the US that would secure its primacy over Asia for decades to come.

A victory for the US would not be military in nature, but rather hinge on “nonmilitary factors,” and focus on disrupting and setting back China’s economy and thus the power propelling China past the United States at the moment.

The 2016 US War Plan Coming to Life

These conclusions were laid out in a 2016 RAND Corporation document titled, “War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable,” commissioned by the Office of the Undersecretary of the Army and carried out by the RAND Arroyo Center’s Strategy, Doctrine, and Resources Program. The report notes that the RAND Arroyo Center is part of the RAND Corporation and is a federally-funded research and development center sponsored by the United States Army.

The report notes that America’s military advantage is in decline vis-a-vis China, but also lays out several current realities that would favor the US should hostilities unfold.

It states on page 9 of the PDF document:

We postulate that a war would be regional and conventional. It would be waged mainly by ships on and beneath the sea, by aircraft and missiles of many sorts, and in space (against satellites) and cyberspace (against computer systems). We assume that fighting would start and remain in East Asia, where potential Sino-USflash points and nearly all Chinese forces are located.

The RAND document admits that China’s forces are concentrated in Chinese territory and that virtually all flash points that could trigger a conflict are likewise located in the region. This implies that US forces would need to be more or less right up to China’s shores and regional claims, and insist on interfering in regional disputes or intervene in matters between Taiwan and mainland China.

The Nuclear Question

Many assume any war between China and the United States would escalate into a nuclear exchange. However, this is unlikely except under the most extreme conditions.

Regarding nuclear and conventional warfare, the RAND document makes a compelling argument, stating:

It is unlikely that nuclear weapons would be used: Even in an intensely violent conventional conflict, neither side would regard its losses as so serious, its prospects so dire, or the stakes so vital that it would run the risk of devastating nuclear retaliation by using nuclear weapons first. We also assume that China would not attack the US homeland, except via cyberspace, given its minimal capability to do so with conventional weapons. In contrast, US nonnuclear attacks against military targets in China could be extensive.

The report studies a window of opportunity that began in 2015 and stretches to 2025. Current developments seem to indicate the US may see this window extend as far as 2030, including the recent announcement of the “AUKUS” alliance where US-UK-built Australian nuclear-powered submarines would be coming online and ready to participate in such a conflict around the early 2030’s.

US May Trade Heavy Military Losses for China’s Economic Ruination 

Under a section titled, “The Importance of Nonmilitary Factors,” the RAND report notes:

The prospect of a military standoff means that war could eventually be decided by nonmilitary factors. These should favor the United States now and in the future. Although war would harm both economies, damage to China’s could be catastrophic and lasting: on the order of a 25–35 percent reduction in Chinese gross domestic product (GDP) in a yearlong war, compared with a reduction in US GDP on the order of 5–10 percent. Even a mild conflict, unless ended promptly, could weaken China’s economy. A long and severe war could ravage China’s economy, stall its hard-earned development, and cause widespread hardship and dislocation.

Considering the current shape of US-Chinese relations, the emphasis on economics and trade, and the persistent, even desperate attempts by the US to not only inflict as much damage on China’s economy ahead of a potential conflict as possible, but also its attempts to “decouple” from China’s economy as fast as possible could be interpreted as tying off a limb before amputation.

Preparations Already Underway to Exploit China’s Economic Damage

The report notes the follow-on effects of the economic damage such a conflict would inflict on China. It would open the door for already on-going US machinations to undermine China’s social and political stability to expand and do tremendous damage, perhaps even threatening the cohesion of Chinese society.

It states specifically:

Such economic damage could in turn aggravate political turmoil and embolden separatists in China. Although the regime and its security forces presumably could withstand such challenges, doing so might necessitate increased oppressiveness, tax the capacity, and undermine the legitimacy of the Chinese regime in the midst of a very difficult war. In contrast, US domestic partisan skirmishing could handicap the war effort but not endanger societal stability, much less the survival of the state, no matter how long and harsh the conflict, so long as it remains conventional. Escalating cyberwarfare, while injurious to both sides, could worsen China’s economic problems and impede the government’s ability to control a restive population.

The mention of “separatists in China” is particularly important. These groups, often made up of armed extremists, are supported by an extensive international network funded by the US government itself.

Separatism in China’s Xinjiang and Tibetan regions is openly supported by the US government and has been sponsored by Washington for decades. The US National Endowment for Democracy’s official website lists its programs for Xinjiang, China as, “Xinjiang/East Turkestan,” “East Turkestan” being the separatist name for Xinjiang. The organizations listed, including the Uyghur Human Rights Project and the World Uyghur Congress openly admit on their respective websites that they view Xinjiang – contrary to international law – as “occupied” by China rather than a territory of China.

In a move that could very likely be a warning of just how close to a US-provoked conflict with China we may be, the US State Department de-listed the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) in 2020 claiming it had not been active for over a decade.

Yet by the US’ own admission US military forces struck ETIM targets in Afghanistan as recently as 2018, and just this year ETIM representatives gave an interview with US-based Newsweek magazine.

ETIM is still listed by a number of nations as well as the UN itself as a terrorist organization.

Economic turmoil, armed insurrection, and socio-political instability are factors the US has openly attempted to impose on China for decades and is still placing pieces on the gameboard toward this objective. If a conflict were to break out, those pieces would clearly already be in place to maximize Washington’s ability to exploit economic damage inflicted by the conflict.

Targeting China’s Trade Lanes at Sea

The RAND paper notes specifically the impact on Chinese trade a conventional conflict confined to East Asia would have. The report notes:

…while the United States has sophisticated sensors to distinguish military from nonmilitary targets, during war it will focus on finding and tracking the former; moreover, Chinese ISR is less sophisticated and discriminating, especially at a distance. This suggests very hazardous airspace and sea space, perhaps ranging from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea. Assuming that non-Chinese commercial enterprises would rather lose revenue than ships or planes, the United States would not need to use force to stop trade to and from China.16 China would lose a substantial amount of trade that would be required to transit the war zone. The United States expressly threatening commercial shipping would be provocative, hazardous, and largely unnecessary. So we posit no US blockade, as such.

Of course, the US has a variety of tools at its disposal that it regularly uses upon the international stage to impede free commerce. It is an irony since Washington often accuses Beijing of “threatening” such commerce in regions like the South China Sea while Washington is actually impeding it on a global scale.

NPR in its 2020 article, “US Seizes Iranian Fuel From 4 Tankers Bound For Venezuela,” would note:

According to The Associated Press, quoting unnamed USofficials, no military force was used in the seizure of the cargo, and none of the ships was physically impounded. Instead, US officials threatened ship owners, insurers and captains with sanctions to force them to hand over their cargo, the AP reported.

Because of America’s still formidable grip over international media, it would be extremely easy to sink vessels engaged in commerce and blame it on China or claim it was accidental. A total blockade would not be necessary to deter the majority of commerce in the region, only a few examples would be needed for the self-preservation of shipping companies to de facto cut off trade.

Another concerning warning sign was the Pentagon restructuring an entire branch of the US armed forces, the US Marine Corps, to specifically fight a single nation (China), in a very specific region (East Asia), with very specific tactics (shutting down straits used for commercial shipping).

Defense News in a 2020 article titled, “Here’s the US Marine Corps’ plan for sinking Chinese ships with drone missile launchers,” would claim:

The US Marine Corps is getting into the ship-killing business, and a new project in development is aimed at making their dreams of harrying the People’s Liberation Army Navy a reality.

The article also noted:

Marine Corps requirements and development chief Lt. Gen. Eric Smith told reporters last year during the Expeditionary Warfare Conference that the Marines want to fight on ground of their choosing and then maneuver before forces can concentrate against them.

“They are mobile and small, they are not looking to grab a piece of ground and sit on it,” Smith said of his Marine units. “I’m not looking to block a strait permanently. I’m looking to maneuver. The German concept is ‘Schwerpunkt,’ which is applying the appropriate amount of pressure and force at the time and place of your choosing to get maximum effect.”

The US Marine Corps has already decommissioned all of their main battle tanks as part of this restructuring which took less than a year – signifying the urgency of US preparations.

The US taking ships out in busy commerce straits and creating an environment that would cripple trade between China and the rest of the world would have a heavy impact on China’s economy.

On page 67 of the PDF document, RAND includes a graphic depiction of China’s projected GDP losses versus the US, giving us a compelling motive for the US to wage a war it knows it will suffer heavy military losses amidst, but emerge economically stronger than a China that will otherwise, barring such a conflict, surpass the US within this window of opportunity.

China Knows, But Can China Beat the Clock? 

It is very obvious that China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is an attempt for China to diversify away from Asia-Pacific trade routes the US is clearly making preparations to attack and disrupt.

Pipelines running through Pakistan as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and through Myanmar to Kunming in Yunnan Province would help move hydrocarbons bound for China from the Middle East without passing through waters the US could disrupt in the conflict it is clearly preparing for.

However, these alternative routes are already under attack.

US-sponsored separatists operating in Pakistan’s southwest province of Baluchistan regularly attack and kill Chinese engineers and the infrastructure itself.

Protests organized by US-sponsored opposition groups target Gwadar Port, CPEC’s terminal.

Just this year alone, France 24 would report in April a bombing targeting a hotel the Chinese ambassador to Pakistan was staying at but who luckily wasn’t at the hotel at the time of the bombing. In July, the BBC reported that 9 Chinese engineers working on CPEC projects were killed in a targeted attack. And according to Reuters, in August, 2 children were killed during a suicide bombing targeting Chinese engineers in Baluchistan.

US-backed opposition groups have been attacking Chinese investments in Myanmar since the military ousted the US client regime headed by Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NDL). CNN would report in March, just a month after the military took over, that the opposition was lighting Chinese factories ablaze.

US government-funded Myanmar opposition media outlet, The Irrawaddy, published an article in May titled, “Deadly Attack on Pipeline Station Spotlights China’s High Stakes in Myanmar,” claiming:

The importance of the project was highlighted in February when Chinese officials held an emergency meeting with Myanmar officials, at which they urged the military regime to tighten security measures for the pipelines. They said the project is a crucial part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Myanmar and insisted that “any damage to the pipelines would cause huge losses for both countries.” The request came amid growing anti-China sentiment in Myanmar, where protesters—angered by Beijing’s blocking of the UN Security Council (UNSC)’s efforts to take action against the coup leaders—have threatened to blow up the pipelines.

The article concludes by quoting a Swedish journalist claiming:

It would come as no surprise if attacks were carried out against, for instance, the pipelines, he said. “And attitudes will not change unless the Chinese government stops its support for the Myanmar military. That should be a real concern.”

Xinjiang, China, also serves as a critical juncture for China’s BRI and we can clearly see the US promoting separatism there. The recent “Uyghur Tribunal” organized by the abovementioned US-funded World Uyghur Congress aims at further undermining Beijing’s efforts to counter US-sponsored armed separatism in Xinjiang by placing additional international pressure on China for implementing necessary security measures to prevent it.

The continued US-sponsored attacks on China’s BRI, the US-led military build-up along China’s coasts, and the propaganda war the US is waging to control the narratives surrounding both, represents a race against time for both Washington and Beijing.

For Washington, it is attempting to create the conditions in which RAND predictions of China’s economic devastation following a conventional conflict confined to East Asia can be transformed into reality.

For Beijing, it is attempting to run out the clock and assume the economic, military, and political power it needs to fully deter any such conflict, and assume its position as the largest, most powerful economy on Earth.

All things being equal, China has the world’s largest population – a population that is hardworking and well-educated. China’s educational institutions are producing millions more science, technology, engineering, and mathematics graduates than the US per year. China’s massive trade networks ensure its economy has plenty of resources. It should become the largest economy. And only a war of aggression, chosen to be waged by Washington will stop this from coming to pass.

US foreign policy in the 21st century has demonstrated in action the true nature of its foreign policy versus what Washington’s politicians say with words from behind podiums or its media says in front of cameras about a “rules-based international order.” The only rule we can see demonstrably upheld is “might makes right.” Only time will tell whether or not the US “makes right” its smaller nation with its smaller economy clinging to primacy over China for decades to come before it no longer has the “might” to do so.

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

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In a secret deal with the UK and the US for nuclear-powered submarines, Australia has stabbed France in the back, and torn up a huge, underway deal for conventional French submarines. The nuclear terrorist Australia, UK and US  AUKUS  Alliance threatens  Australian security, sovereignty, coastal cities, and trade. It also threatens nuclear disarmament, the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), China, Australia’s South Pacific and Asian neighbours, and Humanity.

The scrapping of the A$90 billion contract for supply of French submarines, the agreement for Australia to get US-designed nuclear-powered submarines, and the  formation of the nuclear-armed Australia, UK and US  (AUKUS)  Alliance to dominate Asia and   the Indo-Pacific, were all massive decisions made in secret without public consultation or political debate in the 3 countries involved. Appallingly, these 3 dangerous  decisions were evidently secretly entered into by the extreme right-wing, war criminal,  climate criminal,  egregiously corrupt, dangerously incompetent, traitorous  and US lackey Coalition Australian Government for simple grubby political advantage in the forthcoming Federal elections.

Summarized below are the numerous key aspects of this disastrous affair set out in 3 areas, namely (A) AUKUS nuclear terrorism, (B) Genocidal AUKUS militarism, and  (C) AUKUS deal damages Australian values, sovereignty, independence, security, democracy, reputation, foreign relations, and trade.

(A). AUKUS nuclear terrorism  

(1). Nuclear terrorist AUKUS increases the  existential threat to  Australia, Humanity and the Biosphere from nuclear weapons. Humanity and the Biosphere are existentially threatened by nuclear weapons and climate change. A nuclear holocaust would be followed by a nuclear winter that would wipe out much of Humanity and the Biosphere. In the absence of requisite climate action, a worsening Climate Genocide is predicted to kill 10 billion people en route to a sustainable population in 2100 of only 1 billion [1]. Famed theoretical physicist Professor Stephen Hawking: “We see great peril if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change” [2]. Australia’s nuclear submarine and AUKUS deals both seriously increase the existential threat of nuclear weapons to Humanity and the Biosphere.

As with its evil involvement in  so many other areas relating to war crimes, human rights abuse and climate criminality, the extreme right-wing, anti-science and neoliberal Liberal Party-National Party Coalition Government of Australia is again instinctively doing the wrong thing by this long-term entrenching of AUKUS nuclear terrorism. Nuclear threat drawdown and total nuclear disarmament are technically possible and readily achievable with the “small” nuclear weapons states of the UK, France, North Korea and Apartheid Israel while being more difficult with the “big” nuclear weapons states of the US, Russia, China, India and Pakistan. Australia has been critically involved in UK and US nuclear terrorism for 75 years (supply of uranium, involvement in testing of UK weapons and missile delivery systems, hosting of nuclear weapons-carrying US warships, world-leading uranium enrichment technology, and  crucial involvement in US nuclear terrorism via the Pine Gap and North West Cape communications bases) [3]. In addition to this  evil complicity in US Alliance nuclear terrorism, Australia’s present move to the penultimate position  of  adoption of full-blown nuclear terrorism (nuclear-powered submarines with weapons-grade enriched uranium) is utterly unwarranted, in the wrong direction, endangers Humanity and the Biosphere, and warrants comprehensive global Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against an evil, war criminal,  omnicidal,  terracidal  and nuclear terrorist Australia.

(2). Violation of the spirit and letter of the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)  has been adopted and ratified by 191 states, the exceptions including Pakistan, India , North Korea and Apartheid Israel. The nuclear terrorism-based AUKUS deal  violates the spirit and the letter of the NPT [4]. While Australia technically does not have nuclear weapons, under the AUKUS deal  Australia illegally assists its nuclear terrorist associates, the UK and US, in the acquisition and deployment of nuclear weapons. Thus the deal  to purchase nuclear-powered submarines for Australia retrospectively and indeed prospectively makes such acquisition and deployment by the UK and US cheaper. NPT Article I  demands that each nuclear-weapons state (NWS) undertakes not to transfer, to any recipient, nuclear weapons, or other nuclear explosive devices, and not to assist any non-nuclear weapon state to manufacture or acquire such weapons or devices – however this is grossly violated by the AUKUS deal in that huge amounts of weapons-grade uranium will be given (albeit ostensibly only for submarine propulsion)  to Australia, a warmongering country  in which there is considerable public advocacy of a nuclear weapons capacity. NPT Article II demands that each non-NWS party undertakes not to receive, from any source, nuclear weapons, or other nuclear explosive devices; not to manufacture or acquire such weapons or devices; and not to receive any assistance in their manufacture – however this is grossly violated by the AUKUS deal in that huge amounts of weapons-grade uranium will be given to a nuclear terrorist Australia as part of the submarine nuclear power system. The deal  for conventionally-powered French submarines did not violate the NPT.

(3). Violation of the Labor Opposition-supported Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The Australian Labor Party (ALP) (presently in Opposition) has explicitly stated and confirmed that if it achieves power it will ratify the  Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). However through Australian receipt of weapons-grade uranium for the submarine reactors, the secret and unilateral AUKUS deal will grossly violate the TPNW that crucially lists the following prohibited activities: “Article 1 Prohibitions:

(1). Each State Party undertakes never under any circumstances to:

(a). Develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices;

(b). Transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly or indirectly;

(c). Receive the transfer of or control over nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices directly or indirectly;

(d). Use or threaten to use nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices;

(e). Assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Treaty;

(f). Seek or receive any assistance, in any way, from anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Treaty;

(g). Allow any stationing, installation or deployment of any nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices in its territory or at any place under its jurisdiction or control” [3, 5].

(4). Greatly increased nuclear threat to Australia from the AUKUS Alliance. The US- and Zionist-subverted Australian Mainstream journalist, editor, politician, academic and commentariat  presstitutes  are dangerously, evilly and absurdly talking about  “war with China”. However a moment’s reflection informs that there would be a hierarchy of targets  in any Chinese, Russian, North Korean or whoever response to a huge but limited initial attack by the US or AUKUS whether by accident tor design. Thus a nuclear  attack in response on a US city (or possibly a critical US base) would precipitate a massive US nuclear  response, and the end of the world. However after a retaliatory nuclear attack on a US-allied  Australian target (e.g. a small Australian city) the US  might sensibly decide to leave it there. US-allied Australia is already a nuclear target, and this new AUKUS Alliance, coupled with the anti-China Quad (Australia, the US, Japan and India), and absurd, jingoistic and  dangerous calls for war against China, increases the threat further.

(5). The AUKUS Alliance simply further locks a nuclear terrorist Australia into UK and US nuclear terrorism committed to mass murder of women and children. Australia, Japan and India have unwisely joined with the US in the anti-China Quad that makes them nuclear targets. Japan, South Korea and possibly Taiwan operate under the “protection” of a US “nuclear umbrella”. NATO countries associate themselves with US, UK and French nuclear terrorism and are nuclear targets. The US has about 700 military bases located in over 70 countries that have thus also avoidably made themselves nuclear targets. Costa Rica famously does not have an army but other Latin American, African and most Asian and Pacific countries, while having armies (“defence forces”),  are not allied with UK and US nuclear terrorism. US lackey Australia  does not and should not be associated militarily with the UK and the US, nuclear terrorist rogue states that are fervently committed to mass murder of women and children as a key military strategy.

(6). The AUKUS deal means Australia will be only 1 step  away from having nuclear weapons on nuclear-powered submarines. Nuclear terrorism-complicit Australia revels in the myth that its uranium exports are for peaceful purpose only, but the only difference between Australian barrels of uranium oxide for  peaceful or war purposes in a French warehouse is simply the labelling on the barrel. Similarly, a state of the art military gun is the same before it is loaded with either acceptable bullets or bullets forbidden by the Geneva Conventions. Australia’s nuclear powered submarines will potentially be covertly or overtly nuclear armed  simply on the basis of (US-directed) government fiat. Indeed non-nuclear armed but nuclear-powered Australian submarines will be indistinguishable from nuclear-armed UK and US vessels and thus critically enhance Anglo-American nuclear terrorism.

(7). Other countries may follow Australia’s despicable and threatening example. On the present basis, Australia will be the only non-NWS (non-Nuclear Weapons State) to have nuclear-powered submarines. Thus Apartheid Israel is closer to the US than Australia, and while Australia belongs to the exclusively Anglosphere 5-eyes intelligence-sharing club (the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand), the US shares bulk intelligence on Australians with Apartheid Israel [6]. Nuclear terrorist Apartheid Israel may well now be saying “me too” to the Americans over nuclear-powered submarines. Other countries may be attracted to the idea of having a conventionally or nuclear-armed “deterrent” on nuclear-powered submarines that have global reach, can hide at depth, and only have to surface to replenish food supplies.

(8). Nuclear industry, nuclear waste, radioactive contamination and “floating Chernobyls”  in Australian waters and ports. The leader of the Australian Greens Adam Bandt has declared that the AUKUS deal will put “floating Chernobyls” in every Australian port. This was immediately condemned by the US lackey Australian Mainstream as false and hysterical, citing the good safety record of nuclear power stations and nuclear submarines. However the rejoinder is that nuclear power stations and nuclear-powered submarines are only “safe” until they appallingly cease being so, as for example with Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima and  numerous US and Russian nuclear submarine disasters [7]. The AUKUS deal has renewed insistent calls for a  major  nuclear waste industry (e.g. to take UK and US nuclear waste) and a nuclear power industry in Australia. Conventional nuclear power is expensive, dirty, generates  horrendously long-term radioactive waste, is a massive security threat, and  is non-renewable – in our present carbon economy all steps of the nuclear cycle (excepting nuclear fission) involves massive generation of CO2 from mining, enriching uranium and building power stations to de-commissioning power stations and safe disposal of highly radioactive waste.

(9). AUKUS deceit trashes trust in Australia and “national security”; nuclear  mass  murder is an utterly unacceptable military strategy. The Americans might argue that they were compelled to develop nuclear weapons first out of fear that genocidally racist Nazi Germany would do so. Thence the Russians felt compelled to follow suit in response to the real  threat from the US, and then the  British, the French etc. However rational risk assessment says that non-NWS countries outside the 9 nuclear weapons states (NWS) should not adopt nuclear weapons nor enter into NWS alliances  that make them nuclear targets. White Australia was a fervent ally of the genocidally racist UK for over 150 years before it switched total allegiance to the US with the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in 1942. Post-WW2 Australia assisted UK acquisition of nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems but became intimately involved in US nuclear terrorism through the Pine Gap and North West Cape communications bases, the hosting of US warships, and participation in all post-1950 US Asian wars (atrocities associated with 40 million Asian deaths from violence or war-imposed deprivation). The morally bankrupt Australian  Coalition Government has now taken this moral degeneracy to one step away from having nuclear-armed as well as nuclear-powered submarines to existentially threaten the 4 billion people in the Indo-Pacific region.

Former Australian Coalition PM  Malcolm Fraser described Australia’s US lackey subservience as dangerous stupidity: “Slavish devotion to the US a foreign policy folly for Australia” [8].  Former Labor PM Paul Keating: commented thus on the AUKUS and nuclear submarine obscenity: “The notion that Australia is in a state of military apprehension about China, or needs to be, is a distortion and lie of the worst and most grievous proportions. By its propagation, Australia is determinedly casting China as an enemy – and in the doing of it, actually creating an enemy where none exists.… I have also said before, but worth repeating, that when it comes to major international conflagration, land beats water every time. Through this submarine purchase, Australia surrenders its naval forces to the command of the United States, while setting itself into a military position incapable of defeating Chinese land-based and sea denial forces. It takes a monster level of incompetence to forfeit military control of one’s own state, but this is what Scott Morrison and his government have managed to do” [9]. Former Coalition PM Malcolm Turnbull (betrayed and supplanted s PM by Scott “Scomo” Morrison aka Scum-o, Scam-o, Skim-o, Scam-o and Smirk-o): “The Australian government has treated the French Republic with contempt — it won’t be forgotten. Every time we seek to persuade another nation to trust us, somebody will be saying, ‘remember what you did to Macron?’ When you conduct yourself in such a deceitful manner internationally, it has a real impact on Australia” [10]. The UK Morning Star has reported:  “Delegates at the [2021 UK] Labour Party conference overwhelmingly backed a motion expressing solidarity with Palestine and condemning Israel’s apartheid policies today, delivering another grassroots rebuke to the party leadership. The passing of Young Labour’s historic motion, which marks the first time a major British political party has backed the United Nations’ definition of Israel as an apartheid state, came after shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy failed to mention the country’s occupation of Palestine in her keynote speech… Labour delegates also backed an emergency motion condemning the Aukus pact with the US and Australia against China, saying it was “a dangerous move that undermines world peace.” [Labour leader] Sir Keir [Starmer] has publicly welcomed the pact” [11].

Nuclear  mass  murder of women,  children and men is an utterly unacceptable military strategy. Australia should join over 120 other countries that have nothing to do with US nuclear terrorism and thus take Australia off the list of nuclear targets. Indeed a morally decent Australia would go further, sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), leave its alliance with the genocidally racist, and mother- and child-killing UK and US, and urge and implement comprehensive international Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against all NWS and non-NWS countries involved in nuclear terrorism.

(10). Australia is second only to the US as a supporter of serial war criminal and nuclear terrorist Apartheid Israel. Cowardly, racist and utterly unprincipled US lackey Australia imposes US- and Apartheid Israel-supported sanctions on non-NWS Iran for allegedly wanting to become a NWS. In reality Iran wants a nuclear-weapons free Middle East,  denies wanting nuclear weapons , and has not invaded another  country in about 1,400 years. In contrast Australia-, UK- and US-backed Apartheid Israel has attacked 13 countries, still occupies the territory of 4 countries, possesses 90 nuclear weapons plus submarine-based and other  and missile delivery systems,  and in addition to perpetrating the ongoing Palestinian Genocide (90% of Palestine ethnically cleansed of Indigenous inhabitants, and 2.2 million Palestinian deaths from violence, 0.1 million, and imposed deprivation, 2.1 million since 1914), played  a key role in the Cote D’Ivoire civil war, the  South Sudan Civil War, the Guatemalan Mayan Genocide, the Sri Lanka Tamil Genocide and the Myanmar Rohingyan Genocide. Nevertheless  mendacious, racist, war criminal  and Zionist-subverted Australia identifies with fellow settler-colonial state Apartheid Israel, and as a lackey of Zionist-subverted US Australia is second only to the US as a supporter of serial war criminal and nuclear terrorist Apartheid Israel.

(B). Genocidal AUKUS militarism

(1). The UK has  no legitimate reasons for a military presence in the Indo-Pacific region.The only territory still illegally occupied by the serial war criminal UK in the Indo-Pacific region is the completely ethnically cleansed Chagos Archipelago that is claimed by Mauritius (a case supported by the International Court of Justice, the UN General Assembly and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea). Ethnically cleansed Diego Garcia is a huge US and UK airbase used in war criminal and genocidal atrocities across the Indo-Pacific region [12]. While the AUKUS allies berate US-threatened China for making artificial islands out of uninhabited atolls in the South China Sea, the ethnic cleansing and militarization of the Chagos Archipelago is a genocidal crime by the serial war criminal UK and US.

(2). The Nazi Germany-style US atrocities mean the US has no legitimate reasons for a military presence in Asia. The US has been mass murdering Asians for over 120 years in the following countries (dates and deaths from violence and imposed deprivation in brackets): Philippines (1899-1913;  1 million), Japan (1941-1945; 3.1 million; 60 cities destroyed plus the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), Korea (1950-1953; 2 million), Vietnam (1960 – 1975; 16.9 million), Cambodia (1965-1998; 5.4 million), Laos (1964-1975; 1.1 million), Palestinian Genocide (1914-present; 2.2 million), Iraqi Genocide (1990-present; 4.6 million), Iranian Genocide (1978-present; 3 million), Afghan Genocide (2001-2021; 4 million ), and Yemeni Genocide (2011-present; 0.9 million). US lackey Australia has been complicit in all post-1950 US Asian wars (40 million Asian deaths from violence and war-imposed deprivation). In the post-WW2 era the US was  variously involved in installing, prompting  and backing military  dictatorships in the following Indo-Pacific region countries (1950-2005 excess deaths in brackets):  Egypt (19.8 million), Iraq (5.3 million), Iran (14.3 million), Afghanistan (16.6 million), Pakistan (49.7 million), North Korea (2.9 million), South Korea (5.0 million), Thailand (3.8 million), Cambodia (5.9 million), Vietnam (24.0 million), Laos (2.7 million), Philippines (9.1 million), Timor Leste (0.7 million) and Indonesia (71.5 million). The US-backed West Pakistan army killed 3 million Bengalis and raped 0.3 million women and girls (1950-2005 Bangladeshi excess deaths 51.2 million). The US-backed Indonesian military seized power in 1965,  massacred 1 million Indonesians (including many Chinese Indonesians) and with Australian, UK and US backing invaded Timor Leste (200,000 killed out of a population 600,000; 1950-2005 excess deaths 0.7 million) [13].

(3). Past and continuing Nazi Germany-style genocidal UK involvement in the Indo-Pacific region. The UK has had an appalling and continuing involvement in genocide in the Indo-Pacific region as summarized here, West to East (dates and deaths from violence and imposed deprivation in brackets): South African Genocide (brutal British rule 1795-1910 followed by UK-backed racist White rule 1910-1993; 1950-2005 excess deaths 13.5 million), Tanzanian Genocide (brutal British rule 1919-1961, 1950-2005 excess deaths 14.7 million), Kenyan Genocide (brutal British rule 1895-1960, 1950-2005 excess deaths 10.0 million; 1952-1960, 1.2 million killed); Somali Genocide(brutal British rule 1885-1960,  1950-2005 excess deaths 5.6 million; US Alliance re-invasion in 2007 and renewed Somali Genocide, post-2001 deaths 2.9 million),   Yemeni Genocide (brutal British occupation 1839-1967 and 1950-2005 excess deaths 6.8 million; renewed Yemeni Genocide 2011 onwards, 0.9 million deaths), Sudanese Genocide (brutal British rule 1896-1958, 1950-2005 excess deaths 13.5 million), Egyptian Genocide (brutal British rule, 1882-1923; UK, French and Apartheid Israel invasion, 1956; UK- and US-backed part Israeli occupation, 1967-1979; 1950-2005 excess deaths  19.8 million), Palestinian Genocide (brutal British rule, 1917-1948; UK- and US-backed Apartheid Israel rule 1948 onwards; WW1 and onwards excess deaths 2.1 million  and violent deaths 0.1 million; 1950-2005 excess deaths 0.7 million),  Iraqi Genocide (brutal British rule 1914-1948; Sanctions, Gulf War, invasion and occupation 1990-2011; 1950-2005 excess deaths  5.3 million; violent and excess deaths 9 million  (2014-2011), 1.9 million (1990-2003), 4.6 million (1990-2011), 2.7 million (2003-2011)), Chagos Archipelago part of Mauritius (completely ethnically cleansed by the perfidious British in 1967-1973 so the US could build  a base on Diego Garcia to bomb Asia),  Afghan Genocide (brutal partial British rule 1857- 1919, 1950-2005 excess deaths 16.6 million; UK and US Alliance occupation, 2001-2021, violent and excess deaths 4.0 million), Indian Holocaust and Indian Genocide (brutal British rule 1757-1947, 1,800 million excess deaths; 1942-1945 Bengali Holocaust (6-7 million excess deaths in Bengal, Assam, Bihar and Orissa from famine deliberately imposed for strategic reasons by the British with Australian complicity), Malaysia (British rule  1950-2005 excess deaths 2.3 million),  Myanmar Genocide (brutal British rule 1886-1948; 1950-2005 excess deaths 20.2 million), Pacific Islands Genocide (19th century British acquisition of Pacific islands, notably Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and Tonga, associated with decimation of the Indigenous  populations due to introduced disease associated with slavery and missionary activity e.g. in 1875 40,000 out of 150,000 Fijians died from introduced measles) [13].

(4). Australia, UK and US have invaded 85, 193 and 72 countries, respectively. The 3 serial war criminal countries of the AUKUS Alliance each have an appalling record of invading other countries. As a UK and thence US lackey Australia has invaded 85 countries as compared to the UK 193, the US 72 (52 after WW2), France 82, Germany 39, Japan 30, Russia 25, Canada 25, Apartheid Israel 12,  China 2, North Korea 0, and Iran (none for 1,400 years) [14]. War is the penultimate in racism and genocidal war is the ultimate in racism. Of Australia’s 85 invasions some 30 have been genocidal, ranging from the 233-year and ongoing Australian Aboriginal Genocide (2 million deaths from violence, deprivation and disease) [15] to the worsening Climate Genocide (10 billion to die this century in the absence of requisite action en route to a sustainable population in 2100 of only 1 billion) [16-18]. Enough is enough, and a cowardly and serial war criminal Australia should finally cease this genocidal war criminality and association with the genocidal and serial war criminal UK and US.

(5). 40 million Asian deaths in post-1950 US Asian Wars. Australia has been complicit in all post-1950 US Asian wars, atrocities in which Asian deaths from violence and war-imposed deprivation totalled about 40 million [13]. The serial war criminal and racist Australian Coalition supported all of these wars whereas Labor  supported all these atrocities except for the Vietnam War and the Iraq War. When I was doing my PhD in Australia during the Vietnam War  I drove a VW carrying a big sign in black on the back saying “NAZIS KILLED JEWS, WE KILL ASIANS”.  Half the victims in this Asian Holocaust were children. Thou shalt not kill children.

(6). US-imposed post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide, and the War on Muslim women and children.  About 34 million Muslims have been killed by violence (5 million) and imposed deprivation (27 million) in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance since the US Government’s 9/11 false flag atrocity that killed 3,000 [19-22]. About half of the dead in this US-imposed  carnage have been children. Australia and indeed all other countries  should dissociate themselves from a serial war criminal and child-killing America. Back in the Vietnam War days we used to chant “Hey, hey, USA, how many kids did you kill today?” As of 2020 about 7.5 million people die  avoidably each year from imposed deprivation on Spaceship Earth with a child-killing America in charge of the flight deck – about 50% of the 7.5 million avoidably dead are children and thus 7.5 million/2 = 3.75 million children die thus annually or 3.75 million/365.25 = 10,267 i.e. over  10,000 children die thus each day in the world  with serial war criminal, neoliberal and child-killing America being heavily responsible for this carnage [13, 14, 23].

(7). UK lackey and thence US lackey Australia was involved in 30 genocides. Of Australia’s 85 invasions as a UK lackey and thence a US lackey some 30 have been genocidal, ranging from the 233-year and ongoing Australian Aboriginal Genocide (0.1 million violent deaths and 2 million excess deaths from deprivation and introduced disease and destruction of all but 150 out of some 700 unique languages and dialects with all but 25 of the surviving languages endangered ) [15, 16] to the worsening Climate Genocide (Australia is among world leaders in 16 areas of climate criminality and thus is disproportionately contributing to a worsening Climate Genocide that in the absence of requisite action is set to kill 10 billion people en route to a sustainable human population in 2100 of only 1 billion) [16-18].

(8). Cold War and hot war on China. In a horrifying and worsening circumstance in Australia (population 25.8 million) right-wing Australian Mainstream journalist , editor , politician, academic and commentariat presstitutes talk of the “threat from China” and the need to arm Australia to meet the threat of war with China (population 1,400 million). Words fail to adequately describe this utter lunacy. Indeed this unthinkable lunacy is widespread in the US-dominated Anglosphere – Google the phrase “war with China” and one gets 10,900,000 results. John Pilger has warned of the US encirclement of China and the threat of war [24]. US lackey Australia has gone out of its way to show its blind loyalty to the US by publicly and repeatedly insulting China, Australia’s biggest trading partner. China has responded with “coincidental” trade restrictions that have so far cost Australia about $20 billion annually.  Lionel Barber in Nikkei Asia (2020): “Super-sensitive about charges of a COVID cover-up, Beijing has ratcheted up trade sanctions in various forms on Australian beef, barley, coal, timber and latterly the wine industry. Altogether, about $21 billion of Australia’s $147 billion in goods and services exports to China have been affected. Only iron ore — where China remains dependent on supplies to its mighty steel sector — has been spared” [25].

(9). More genocidally racist White Anglosphere “gun boat” domination of Asia. In 1750 the percentage of world GDP was about 25%.(India), 30% (China) and 23% Europe,  but European invasion and genocidal occupation meant that India’s share of world GDP plummeted to 4% by 1950. India’s share of global industrial output declined from 25% in 1750 to 2% in 1900. Similarly, European and thence Japanese invasion and devastation meant that China’s GDP in today’s dollars remained almost the same between 1820 and 1950. The British kept most of the Indian population close to the edge of starvation and governed with the help of well-fed Indian soldiers (sepoys). As a consequence there were regular disastrous famines and 1,800 million Indians died avoidably from egregious deprivation under the British while a stolen $45 trillion funded the British Industrial Revolution and the lavish lifestyles of the wealthy exploiters retiring from the India (the so-called nabobs, this term being a corruption of “nawab” or Bengali prince) [26-29]. The violation of China by the British and other Europeans in the 19th century and thence by the Japanese (by invasion in 1937-1945) and the US (by post-WW2 sanctions) killed hundreds of millions of  Chinese [13].

What upsets the endlessly greedy, racist and exceptionalist Americans is China’s economic progress that has seen China overcome centuries of violation with an extraordinary  economic miracle has taken 800 million people out of poverty and put China  on track to become the world’s biggest economy. Post-Independence India abolished the man-made famines that regularly devastated British-ruled India  but has been vastly less successful than China in abolishing endemic poverty. Thus per capita GDP (IMF) and population in millions, M) are presently as follows:  India ( $2,191, 1,396.9M ), China ($11,819, 1,439.3M), UK ($46,344, 68.3M), Japan ($42,928, 126.0M), Australia ($62,723, 25.9M), and the US ($68,309, 333.4M). Poverty kills and 2020 estimates for “annual avoidable deaths from deprivation”  and “annual avoidable deaths as a % of population” in these countries are as follows: India (1,213,300, 0.0879%), China (249,260, 0.0173%), Japan (2,570, 0.0020%), Australia (1,560, 0.0061%), UK (4,330, 0.0064%) and the US (38,930, 0.0185%). In terms of  “annual avoidable deaths as a % of population”  China is slightly better than the US but both are about 3 times worse than Australia and the UK that in turn are about 3 times worse than Japan (the world’s best). However “democratic” India is 5 times worse than China and the US, 14 times worse than Australia and the UK, and 44 times worse than Japan. One notes that “democracy” surely means  “expression of the fundamental wishes of the people” and these “fundamental wishes” are surely a long life for themselves and their children, good health services, good education, good governance, and economic and physical  security – things provided by One Party China but not for most people in ostensibly “democratic” India that is actually a One Percenter-dominated corporatocracy, plutocracy and kleptocracy.

It is obscene that 3 countries that were variously involved in  the horrendous and genocidal European suppression of China should now via the White Anglosphere AUKUS Alliance be seriously threatening China for so successfully overcoming centuries of foreign invasion and devastation by wiping out deadly poverty. It is even more obscene that while India once led the non-aligned world, a now neoliberal Modi India is blatantly ignoring history and ganging up with the Asia-devastating countries  of Australia, the US and Japan (the Quad) to seriously threaten China and its wonderful progress out of dire poverty.

(10). China isolationism versus genocidally racist and serial war criminal UK, US, Australian and Apartheid Israeli imperialism and exceptionalism. War is the penultimate in racism and genocide the worst in racism, noting that  according to Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” [30]. The 4 serial war criminal countries of the UK, US, Australia and Apartheid Israel belong to an Orwellian  mutual admiration society that denies the horrendous racist and indeed genocidal atrocities in which they have been involved. The Zionist-subverted UK, the Zionist-dominated US, Zionist-subverted and US lackey Australia and Apartheid Israel have invaded 193, 72, 85 and 13 countries, respectively, with many of these invasions being genocidal [13, 21].  By way of comparison, border spats and battles aside, China has only invaded and incorporated 2 major territories in the last 800 years, namely Tibet (Yuan dynasty control in the 13th century re-established by the Qing dynasty in the 18th century, this mirroring English conquest of Scotland in the same period) and Xinjiang (incorporated in the 18th century). Despite this appalling record,  the AUKUS countries falsely claim adherence to the “international rules based order” and endlessly support Apartheid Israeli war criminality and  egregious violation of 16 International laws and conventions [31, 32].  Thus the highly abusive and genocidal  54-year Apartheid Israeli Occupation of Occupied Palestine (present population 5.2 million) and the violent, 73-year exclusion from Palestine of  Exiled Palestinians (presently 8 million) are backed by the UK, US and Australia, while the Chinese construction of shipping-protecting man-made islands on uninhabited reefs in the South China Sea is described by egregiously exceptionalist  AUKUS as “aggression” that “threatens the world”. While the US has over 700 military bases in over 70 countries, China has but 1 (in Djibouti, together with other powers, and  to help protect the huge sea trade to and from Asia through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal).

(C). AUKUS deal damages Australian values, sovereignty, independence, security, democracy, reputation, foreign relations, and trade

(1). The AUKUS (Orcus) deal was deceptive, duplicitous and dishonourable in relation to France and exposes mendacious Australia as extremely untrustworthy. Indeed the French and their EU partners have described the AUKUS deal as duplicitous and a betrayal by Australia. Days before ripping up the A$90 billion French-Australian submarine contract and revealing the AUKUS deal, the Australia Government wrote to the French declaring that the French submarine program was progressing well. One notes that AUKUS is pronounced the same as “Orcus”, the Roman God  for punishing those who break oaths, lie and perjure themselves. As with Hades, the name of the god was also used for the underworld itself. The Romans sometimes conflated Orcus with other gods such as Pluto, Hades, and Dis Pater, god of the land of the dead. In Greek mythology, Horkos was the son of Eris (“Strife”), and  brother of Dysnomia (“Anarchy”), and Ate (“Ruin”). Like the Roman god Orcus, Horkos  punished anyone who swore a false oath or uttered  perjury. Horkus  was also the companion of the goddess Dike (Justice) [33, 34].

In horrible actuality a huge number of examples can be given of how look-the-other-way White Australia has an extraordinary culture of entrenched mendacity – the greater the reality, the more resolutely does Australia seek to hide it. Thus for just 1 example,  at the genocide complicity end of this mendacity spectrum, as a UK and thence US lackey, a cowardly and racist White Australia has invaded 85 countries  with 30 of these invasions being genocidal, but this appalling reality has been overwhelmingly white-washed away by monolithic Australian Mainstream mendacity [14-18].  At the “nice” end of the Australian mendacity spectrum, better educated  Mainstream Australian journalist, editor, politician, academic and commentariat  presstitutes earnestly demand “respectful conversation”  i.e. polite lying by omission over atrocities to avoid interlocutors being in any way “upset”, having “concerns” or having “issues” that might impact their “mental health”.  “Deceptive, duplicitous and dishonourable” as descriptives for the conservative  half  of White Australia barely get to first base –  other key descriptives are genocide complicit, holocaust complicit, genocide ignoring, holocaust ignoring, genocide denying, holocaust denying, anti-Arab anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, Sinophobic, anti-Asian, genocidally racist, anti-Jewish anti-Semitic (re anti-racist Jews), anti-science,  anti-environment, speciescidal, ecocidal, omnicidal, terracidal,  anti-human rights, anti-Indigenous, serial war criminal, Stupid, Ignorant and Egregiously Greedy (SIEG),  thieving, lying, mendacious, child abusing, mother abusing, cowardly, profoundly corrupt, fascoid (quasi-fascist) , and, of course,  endlessly self-deceiving.

(2). The AUKUS deal compromises French alliance in the Indo-Pacific and Australian sovereignty, independence, and security. Apart from US lackey Australia and the US, the only other non-Indigenous  European powers with a major military presence in the Indian Ocean or the South Pacific are nuclear-armed France and anti-nuclear  New Zealand. The bumbling incompetence and entrenched dishonesty of the US lackey Coalition  Australian Government has wrecked Australian relations between France and the EU, and further divided Australia’s relations with its sister country New Zealand that firmly supports a nuclear-free South Pacific as a core national position.  The circa A$100 billion plus submarine deal  uniquely gives top secret US and UK nuclear and submarine technology to a non-NWS ally but also locks Australia into US policy like a quasi 51st US state –  the US will effectively run and repair  these submarines, and any serious (if morally unexceptional) Australian departure from its craven US lackey position (e.g. like adopting New Zealand’s anti-nuclear position or sensibly and profitably adopting  greater friendliness with Australia’s  biggest trading partner, China) could make this hugely expensive and key defence asset a White Elephant. Accordingly a presently US lackey Australia will even more fervently support US interests  against Australian  interests. Thus, for example, if the US wants to attack or threaten China economically, diplomatically or militarily it will be able to use Australia as a surrogate to bear any initial “blow-back”, and indeed the exceptionalist, mendacious, nuclear terrorist, serial war criminal, and children mass murdering  US is already doing this, 20 years before delivery of the first nuclear-powered submarine to Australia.

(3). The secret AUKUS deal wedges cowardly Labor and further compromises repeatedly US-violated Australian parliamentary democracy. The sine qua non of Australian politics is fervent and blind support by a craven US lackey Australia for the US and US policies.  The outrageously routine  lying and other appalling misconduct of President Donald Trump acted as a safety valve  for the severely compromised moral and intellectual integrity of cowardly Australian Mainstream journalist, editor, politician, academic and commentariat presstitutes who for 4 years were “permitted” to  criticize Trump and Trump America if not the US per se.  Australia has been involved in all post-1950 US Asian wars, atrocities  in which 40 million Asians have been killed by violence and war-imposed deprivation – a massive crime against Humanity that quantitatively must be compared with (deaths from violence and deprivation in brackets in millions, M) the Black Death (75-200M), the Mongol invasions (40-60M), the European slave trade (20M), genocidal European colonialism in the Americas (100M), the 2-century British-imposed Indian Holocaust (1,800M) and Chinese Holocaust (100M), WW1 (40M), 1918-1919 influenza pandemic (50-100M), Stalinist crimes (20M), WW2 ( 80M)  including  the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6M),  the WW2 European Holocaust (30M), the WW2 Chinese Holocaust (35-40M), and the WW2 Bengali Holocaust  (6-7 M), 2001-2020 War on Terror (34M), and the Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust  (presently 7.5M per year and 1,500M  since 1950). The Australian Labor Party (presently in opposition) supported all post-1950 US Asian Wars except for the Vietnam War (17M) and the Iraq War (5M).

The neo-fascist Coalition (presently in power) supported all post-1950 US Asian Wars and is perceived  by the Stupid, Ignorant and Egregiously Greedy (SIEG as in the Nazi “Sieg Heil”) half of the adult Australian population as more loyal to America and “better” on “national security”. When “security matters” arise, and notably proposed security-based constraints on civil liberties, Labor  is “wedged” (trapped and politically unable to offer any opposition) and hastens  to blindly support the US alliance and civil liberties-violating measures. Cowardly and unprincipled Labor was similarly “wedged” over the disastrous AUKUS and submarine deals and supported both, albeit with disingenuous and cowardly grumbling. As US lackeys, both the Coalition and Labor  fervently support nuclear terrorist and genocidally racist Apartheid Israel, and Australia with 33 other countries (nearly all European and supporters of UK-US nuclear terrorism) is a member of the anti-Arab anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish anti-Semitic and holocaust-denying International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)  that is anti-Arab anti-Semitic (falsely defaming Palestinian, Arab and Muslim critics of Apartheid Israeli crimes) , anti-Jewish anti-Semitic (falsely defaming anti-racist Jewish critics of Apartheid Israeli crimes) and holocaust-denying (ignoring all WW2 holocausts other than the WW2 Jewish Holocaust and indeed ignoring and hence denying about 60 other horrendous genocides and holocausts).

The AUKUS deal is another example of gross  interference in Australia by the ruthless and exceptionalist  UK and US. Thus in 1932 the democratically-elected Labor premier of New South Wales, Jack Lang, was dismissed by the Governor at the behest of UK banks. In 1975 the UK and the US were variously involved in the Coup that removed the democratically-elected Gough Whitlam Labor Government from office. The cowardly and uninformed Australian electorate rejected Whitlam at the following election, and the wounded  Labor Party adopted the pragmatic, cowardly and unprincipled  policy of “All the way with the USA”. When Labor was returned to power in 1983 it was under a right-wing former union boss, Bob Hawke,  who was patently a “US asset” and who dishonestly delayed accession of his successor , Paul Keating, a patriotic Australian who was sensibly cautious about the Americans. In 2004 the US Ambassador critically intervened publicly during a Federal election when the right-wing Labor Leader of the Opposition, Mark Latham, promised to bring Australian troops back from Iraq “by Christmas” if elected  (he lost the election). In 2010 the popular Labor PM Kevin Rudd was removed in a US-approved, mining company-backed and pro-Zionist-led overnight Coup  (one of the key plotters was a “US asset” who was revealed by WikiLeaks to be secretly transmitting Labor Government Caucus deliberations to the US Ambassador). US lackey and Zionist-subverted Australian  Intelligence, the Coalition, Labor, and Mainstream media have mounted outrageous campaigns against Australian Muslim MPs polite to China, and most recently against the poor Palestinian Australians that threatens all Australians.

This gross foreign interference in Zionist-subverted, US lackey Australia continues with no public protest because 70% of the Australian daily newspaper readership is “owned” by the mendacious, right-wing, pro-Zionist, anti-science, climate criminal, effective climate change denialist  and pro-war US Murdoch media empire. Australian democracy has become a plutocracy,  kleptocracy, Murdochracy, corporatocracy, lobbyocracy, and dollarocracy  in which Big Money purchases people, politicians, parties, policies,  public perception of reality, votes, more political power and more wealth. This situation is so appalling that former Labor PM Kevin Rudd and former Coalition PM Malcolm Turnbull have demanded a public judicial inquiry into the mendacious Murdoch media monopoly [35]. For the same reason it is likely that an egregiously mendacious, incompetent, anti-science, pro-war, war criminal, climate criminal, corrupt, Zionist-subverted,  traitorous and US lackey Coalition Government is likely to be returned at the forthcoming Federal election by the  stupid,  ignorant and egregiously greedy (SIEG) and morally degenerate half of the Australian electorate.

(4). Dishonest anti-China AUKUS deal compromises  criminally subsidized and dumping-based Australian trade. Australian Mainstream journalist, politician, academic and commentariat presstitutes wax hysterically about asserted Chinese trade “payback” through imposed tariffs on a variety of goods  over US lackey Australia’s highly provocative  anti-China actions in 14 areas set out by the Chinese Embassy [36]. However unreported by Mainstream media, Australian trade is criminally subsidized and dumping-based. Thus Australia is among world leaders in climate criminality  in 16 areas, and by failing to put  proper price on carbon pollution [37] is heavily subsiding  the Australian economy and Australian exports in particular. Assuming a damage-related Carbon Price of $200 per tonne of CO2-equivalent means that Australia has an inescapable  Carbon Debt of $5 trillion that is increasing at $686 billion annually, and at $70,000 per head per year for under-30 year old Australians (USD). Accordingly Australia’s annual GDP of $1,393 billion should be inflated to $1,393 billion + $686 billion Carbon Debt  = $ 2,079 billion.  The ratio of Carbon Debt/GDP = $686 billion/  $1,393 billion = 0.49 i.e. for every $1.0 billion of goods and services generated by Australia each year (or exported to China each year), there is a deliberately hidden but inescapable  subsidy of about $0.5 billion to be paid by future generations [38]. Polya’s Second Law of Economics states that deceit over Cost of Production inevitably increases under ruthless neoliberalism [39]. Indeed the EU is presently moving to apply “carbon tariffs” to highly polluting countries like Australia. So far China has been too polite, diplomatic and strategic to point this out but will surely eventually do so as US lackey Australia ramps up its anti-China provocations, of which the latest are the anti-China AUKUS and nuclear-powered submarine deals.

(5). White Anglosphere AUKUS spotlights and reinforces entrenched Anglosphere and White Australian racism against non-Europeans, Asians and Chinese. War is the penultimate in racism and genocide the ultimate in racism. As elaborated in section B, the AUKUS countries have an appalling record of invading and devastating non-European countries that reached another appalling peak in the 21st century. Australia has been involved in 85 invasions with 30 of these being genocidal, these ranging from the 233 year and ongoing  Australian Aboriginal Genocide (2 million deaths from violence, deprivation and disease) and the 2 century Indian Holocaust  (1,800 million deaths from imposed deprivation) to the 21st century Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide (34 million deaths from violence and imposed deprivation) and the worsening Climate Genocide that is set to kill 10 billion people this century [15-22]. This racism was expressed domestically in hatred for Indigenous Australians, non-Europeans, Asians and Chinese  via racist opinions and racist legislation, notably in the maltreatment of Aborigines and Chinese, the White Australia Policy, the present horrendous maltreatment of refugees, Islamophobia, egregious anti-Semitism (against Muslims and anti-racist Jews) and  widespread  Sinophobia [40]. The White Anglosphere AUKUS alliance solidifies this Sinophobia and harks back to centuries of European bullying of China. Non-Europeans, Asians, Chinese and decent humanitarians will be offended by this racist reversion, and poor fellow my country, Australia, is already losing  out heavily in terms of trade and reputation. The US-promoted Australian xenophobia targets China but ignores huge UK, US and Apartheid Israeli subversion of Australia [31, 32, 40-42].

(6). US lackey Australia is suckered as the US picks up Australia’s lost China trade and the lost French submarine deal . While the incompetent, racist, mendacious, war criminal, climate criminal and US lackey Australian Coalition Government seeks to gain US and electoral support from its China-bashing, the Americans are quite realistic and are reported to be picking up the China trade squandered by Australia [43]. The US submarines will be far more expensive than the  French submarines, will involve less Australian input, lock Australia into the child-killing and nuclear terrorist US for decades, and will not be delivered until 2040.  Australia is one of the most corrupt countries on earth,  and no doubt,  as in the past,  Australian politicians will be rewarded with jobs within the US military industry. One is reminded of the royal motto of “Honi soit qui mal y pense” (“Evil be to those who  evil think”) and “Jedem das Seine” (the  German translation of the Latin phrase suum cuique, meaning “to each his own” or “to each what he deserves”, and displayed over  the entrance to the Buchenwald concentration camp by the Nazis in WW2).

(7). AUKUS betrayal of trust and France will at least delay any  Australia-EU Trade Deal.The AUKUS submarine deal betrayal has created French enmity  that is expected to at least delay an Australia-EU Trade Deal and it will be less advantageous for Australia. Business deals require trust, and the AUKUS deal has demonstrated blatant Australian deceit and untrustworthiness [44].

(8). AUKUS nuclear terrorism offends and threatens nuclear-free Asia and Pacific nations. There is a strong anti-nuclear sentiment in the West Pacific Island nations, South Pacific Island nations  and New Zealand that arose from UK, US and French nuclear tests in the Pacific. New Zealand continues its ban on nuclear-powered naval vessels in its waters and ports but has been “punished” by effective exclusion from the Australia, New Zealand and US (ANZUS) agreement. The principled demand for  a nuclear-free Pacific was advanced by the Dr Timoci Bavadra-led  Fiji Labor Government. However this  led to a US- , Australia- and Apartheid Israel-complicit coup in 1987. Apartheid Israel also supplied weapons to the Coup forces  in the 2000 Fiji Coup, noting that US lackey Australia is second only  to  Zionist-subverted America as a supporter of nuclear terrorist Apartheid Israel. Australia as a world leading climate criminal country (e.g. it is the world’s biggest coal and gas exporter and the very  worst in the Developed World for climate policy)  already threatens and deeply offends existentially climate change-threatened Island nations [44]),  and the AUKUS deal further entrenches nuclear terrorism in the Indo-Pacific.

(9). AUKUS climate criminality and nuclear perversion existentially threatens Australia, Humanity and Biosphere. As summarized in part A, nuclear weapons and climate change are the 2 key existential threats to Humanity and the Biosphere. The AUKUS deal includes 2 of the worst climate criminal nations in the world (Australia and the US) and 2 of the 9 nuclear weapons states (the UK and the US).  Australia played a key role in UK acquisition  of nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems,  and continues to play  a key role in US nuclear terrorism through the Australian Pine Gap and North West Cape communications bases. As nuclear terrorist middle powers, Australia and the UK will be  susceptible  to huge harm inflicted by an increasingly anti-nuclear world through Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).

(10). The AUKUS deal locks in a cowardly, unprincipled, US lackey Australia with nuclear terrorist states to seriously threaten its neighbours with advanced weapons and subversion. The only nations that historically sought to violently create empires in the Indo-Pacific  region from Africa to China,  Korea and the Pacific were Japan, the US  and Western European colonial  nations (the UK, Netherlands, France, Portugal and Spain). Japan and the European colonial powers have been defeated,  leaving only the US as an aggressive and nuclear-armed non-Indigenous interloper in the Pacific. Except for ethnically cleansed Diego Garcia, the nuclear terrorist and serial war criminal UK was  thankfully gone from the Indo-Pacific region but has now returned via AUKUS in a vile resurrection of its evil and murderous colonial past from Africa through Asia to the Pacific. The AUKUS deal locks in a cowardly, unprincipled, US lackey Australia with non-Indigenous nuclear terrorist states to seriously threaten its neighbours with advanced weapons. Indeed the joint Australian-US Pine Gap base in Central Australia targets illegal US drone strikes in a swathe of impoverished Indo-Pacific countries, namely Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Australia, the UK, NATO and  child-killing US have devastated  Afghanistan in gross violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention – there have been 4 million deaths from violence and war-imposed devotion and  2 million under-5 infant  deaths in the period 2001-2021 [13, 45]. The last American act  in leaving Afghanistan was to use a drone to destroy 10 innocent people including 7 children in Kabul (Australia may well have been involved in targeting this atrocity).

Nuclear terrorist AUKUS will likely trigger a horribly wasteful arms race in Australia’s neighbourhood. Thus, for example, non-aligned Indonesia (population 273.5 million) will be forced to react to actually and potentially nuclear–armed and nuclear-powered submarines secretly traversing its waters. This is a real threat because the UK and US have variously been involved in devastating  the Indo-Pacific region within living memory.  Trillions of dollars will be spent on deadly arms instead of on hospitals, schools, health, education, economic advance, and addressing climate change. Millions will ultimately die avoidably from AUKUS-imposed deprivation.

Further, US lackey Australia has had an appalling record of subverting neighbouring countries, in addition to involvement in illegal invasion and occupation of numerous countries by the US. Thus in circa 1960 Australia tried to get the US into war with Indonesia and was complicit in the US backing of Islamist rebels in Indonesia (the US finally successfully backed a military coup in 1965 in which about  1 million Indonesians, many of them progressive or Chinese, were killed). Australia looked after US interests in Cambodia after the US was expelled for dirty tricks, and in 1970 helped secure the overthrow of the Cambodian Sihanouk Government. The key Australian official involved in the Cambodian Coup then left for Chile where Australia also represented the US (expelled by Chile for dirty tricks) – Australian was complicit in the 1973 CIA-backed military coup that removed the democratically-elected Salvador Allende Government. In 1975 the Australian Government backed the Indonesian invasion of East Timor (200,000 out of 600,000 East Timorese were killed in the subsequent Timor Leste Genocide). Australia, the US and Apartheid Israel were involved in the 1987 and 2000 Coups in Fiji (Apartheid Israel supplied advanced weapons to the criminal rebels in both Coups) [13, 31, 32].

In the 21st century US-beholden Australian Intelligence was revealed to be involved in spying on the Indonesian president and his wife, and on spying on the Timor Leste cabinet for the benefit of powerful Australian oil interests. Those involved in revealing the Timor Leste outrage, Witness K and his lawyer Bernard Collaery, suffered egregious legal persecution in pre-police state Australia. Indeed anyone revealing such Australian misdeeds now faces up to 10 years in prison. Journalists have been raided and threatened for revealing Australian war crimes in Afghanistan [46]. US lackey Australian Intelligence is interfering in Australian politics and especially against Muslim politicians with a courteous attitude to China , specifically Labor Senator Sam Dastyari and NSW Labor MP Shaoquett Moselmane [47-49]. Presently the Zionist-subverted and US lackey Australian Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has been offered Australian Intelligence advice that it should declare the Palestinian liberation movement  Hamas – overwhelmingly  elected in 2006 Occupied Palestinian elections held under Apartheid Israeli guns –  a terrorist organization “in its entirety”  and thus making about 50% of 15 million Palestinians “terrorist supporters” and subject to draconian punishment of up to life imprisonment in pre-police state Australia [50].

Final comments and conclusions

The recently revealed AUKUS and nuclear-powered submarines deals between Australia, the UK and the US has serious implications for  the Indo-Pacific region  as set out above in 3 areas, specifically in relation to (A) AUKUS nuclear terrorism, (B) genocidal AUKUS militarism, and  (C) the AUKUS deal damaging Australian values, sovereignty, independence, security, democracy, reputation, foreign relations, and trade. Australia, the UK and the US have variously had a devastating impact on the region historically and in living memory, and this White Anglosphere AUKUS alliance is a dangerous anti-China escalation that is complemented by the evidently anti-China Quad arrangement involving Australia, the US, Japan and  India.

US lackey Australia is the weak link in this US-inspired  and anti-China escalation,  and is stupidly and gratuitously offending its biggest trading partner, China. The AUKUS and nuclear-powered submarines deals will prove to be very expensive for Australia, and lock Australia into US domination of its defence, economy  and foreign policy for decades. It will  also promote a regional  arms race that may  eventually divert trillions of dollars away from peaceful pursuits  and the betterment of Humanity.

A shocking aspect of this warmongering deal is that it appears to have been launched in secret to improve the electoral prospects of a grossly incompetent, corrupt, anti-science, war criminal and climate criminal  Australian Coalition Government  at the expense  of  a “wedged” , cowardly and unprincipled  Labor Opposition that has felt compelled to go along with this dangerous, expensive, jingoistic  and xenophobic plan. Hopefully enough decent Australians will see the sheer lunacy of this  warmongering  Anglosphere plan, and get rid of the evil Coalition by voting 1 Green and putting  the  Coalition last in the forthcoming  Federal election.

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Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia over 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, notably a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds”. He has also published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” and “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History”. He has recently published “US-imposed Post-9-11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide” (2020)  and “Climate Crisis, Climate Genocide & Solutions” (2021). For images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/.

Notes

[1]. “Nuclear weapons ban, end poverty and reverse climate change”:  https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/nuclear-weapons-ban 

[2]. Stephen Hawking, “Brief Answers to the Big Questions”, John Murray, 2018, Chapter 7

[3]. Gideon Polya, “Nuclear terrorism: US & Israeli lackey Australia to violate Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons”,  Countercurrents, 30 October 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/10/nuclear-terrorism-us-israeli-lackey-australia-to-violate-treaty-on-prohibition-of-nuclear-weapons/ 

[4]. “Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferation_of_Nuclear_Weapons 

[5]. United Nations Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, 7 July 2020: http://undocs.org/A/CONF.229/2017/8 

[6]. Philip Dorling, “US shares raw intelligence on Australian  with Israel”, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 September 2013: http://www.smh.com.au/national/us-shares-raw-intelligence-on-australians-with-israel-20130911-2tllm.html 

[7]. Daniel Keane, “Nuclear-powered submarines have “long history of accidents”, Adelaide environmentalist warns”, ABC News, 17 September 2021: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-17/nuclear-submarines-prompt-environmental-and-conflict-concern/100470362 

[8]. Malcolm Fraser, “Slavish devotion to the US a foreign policy folly for Australia”, Sydney Morning Herald,  14 December 2010: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/slavish-devotion-to-the-us-a-foreign-policy-folly-for-australia-20101213-18vec.html 

[9]. Paul Keating, “Morrison is making an enemy of China – and Labor is helping him”, Sydney Morning Herald, 22 September 2021:  https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/morrison-is-making-an-enemy-of-china-and-labor-is-helping-him-20210921-p58tek.html 

[10]. Henry Belot, “Turnbull accuses Morrison of damaging Australia’s national security”, ABC News, 29 September 2021: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-29/turnbull-french-submarine-deal-damaged-national-security/100500862 

[11]. “Labour members overwhelmingly back motion in solidarity with Palestine”, Morning Star, 27 September 2021: https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/labour-members-overwhelmingly-back-motion-in-solidarity-with-palestine 

[12]. “Chagos Archipelago”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagos_Archipelago 

[13]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, 2007 (containing an avoidable mortality-related history of every country and now available for free perusal here: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); an extensively revised and updated  2021 version is being prepared for publication

[14]. “Stop state terrorism”: https://sites.google.com/site/stopstateterrorism/ 

[15]. “Aboriginal Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/aboriginalgenocide/  

[16]. Gideon Polya,  “Review: “The Cambridge History Of Australia” Ignores  Australian Involvement In 30 Genocides”,  Countercurrents, 14 October 2013: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya141013.htm 

[17].  “Climate Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocid e /   

[18]. Gideon Polya, “Climate Crisis, Climate Genocide & Solutions”, Korsgaard Publishing, Germany 2021

[19]. Gideon Polya , “Paris Atrocity Context: 27 Million Muslim Avoidable  Deaths From Imposed Deprivation In 20 Countries Violated By US Alliance Since 9-11”, Countercurrents, 22 November 2015: https://countercurrents.org/polya221115.htm 

[20]. “Experts: US did 9/11”: https://sites.google.com/site/expertsusdid911/ 

[21]. Gideon Polya, “US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide” , 400 pages, Korsgaard Publishing, Germany, 2020 (see : https://www.amazon.com/US-Imposed-Post-9-Muslim-Holocaust-Genocide/dp/8793987056 )

[22]. Gideon Polya, “Racist Mainstream ignores “US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide”, Countercurrents, 17 July 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/07/racist-mainstream-ignores-us-imposed-post-9-11-muslim-holocaust-muslim-genocide/ 

[23]. “One Day in the Life of Barack Obama” (2010), Poems by Gideon Polya: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/poems 

[24]. John Pilger, “The coming war on China”, You-Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAfeYMONj9E 

[25]. Lionel Barber, “Australia pays a heavy economic price for its China criticism”, Nikkei Asia, 20 December 20201: https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Australia-pays-painful-economic-price-for-its-China-criticism 

[26]. Gideon Polya, “Review: “A History of the Global Economy” – Indian Holocaust & Genocide Ignored”, Countercurrents, 17 February 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/02/17/review-a-history-of-the-global-economy-indian-holocaust-genocide-ignored/ 

[27]. Gideon Polya, “Britain robbed India of $45 trillion & thence 1.8 billion Indians died from deprivation”, Countercurrents, 18 December 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/12/18/britain-robbed-india-of-45-trillion-thence-1-8-billion-indians-died-from-deprivation/ 

[28]. Gideon Polya, “Australia And Britain Killed 6-7 Million Indians In WW2 Bengal Famine”, Countercurrents, 29 September, 2011: https://countercurrents.org/polya290911.htm 

[29]. Gideon Polya, “Economist Mahima Khanna, Cambridge Stevenson Prize And Dire Indian Poverty”, Countercurrents, 20 November, 2011: https://countercurrents.org/polya201111.htm 

[30]. UN Genocide Convention: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html  

[31]. Gideon Polya, “Australia must stop Zionist subversion and join the World in comprehensive Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel and all its supporters”, Subversion of Australia, 15 April 2021: https://sites.google.com/site/subversionofaustralia/2021-04-15  

[32]. “Subversion of Australia”:  https://sites.google.com/site/subversionofaustralia/ 

[33]. “Orcus”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orcus 

[34]. “Horkos”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horkos 

[35]. “Boycott Murdoch media”: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottmurdochmedia/ 

[36]. Jonathan Kearsley, Eryk Bagshaw and Anthony Galloway, “”If you make China the enemy, China will be the enemy”: Beijing’s fresh threat to Australia”, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 November 2020: https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/if-you-make-china-the-enemy-china-will-be-the-enemy-beijing-s-fresh-threat-to-australia-20201118-p56fqs.html 

[37]. Gideon Polya, “Australia rejects IMF Carbon Tax & preventing 4 million pollution deaths by 2030”, Countercurrents,  15 October 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/10/australia-rejects-imf-carbon-tax-preventing-4-million-pollution-deaths-by-2030/ 

[38]. Gideon Polya, “Carbon Debt & dumping- climate criminal Australia hugely subsidizes meat, grain & wine exports to China”, Countercurrents, 31 August 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/08/carbon-debt-dumping-climate-criminal-australia-hugely-subsidizes-meat-grain-wine-exports-to-china/ 

[39].  Gideon Polya, “Polya’s 3 Laws Of Economics Expose Deadly, Dishonest  And Terminal Neoliberal Capitalism”, Countercurrents,  17 October, 2015: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya171015.htm 

[40]. Gideon Polya, “Review: “Silent Invasion. China’s influence in Australia” by Clive Hamilton – feeding Australian Sinophobia”, Countercurrents, 6 October 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/10/review-silent-invasion-chinas-influence-in-australia-by-clive-hamilton-feeding-australian-sinophobia/ 

[41]. Gideon Polya, “Racist Zionism and Israeli State Terrorism threats to Australia and Humanity”, Palestinian Genocide, 2010: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/racist-zionism-and-israeli 

[42]. Gideon Polya, “Australian xenophobia targets China but ignores huge Israeli subversion of Australia”, Countercurrents, 7 July 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/07/australian-xenophobia-targets-china-but-ignores-huge-israeli-subversion-of-australia/ 

[43]. Rod McGuirk and Dave Clark, “Australia-EU trade deal to be delayed due to submarines row, official says”, Wales Online, 21 September 2021: https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/world-news/australia-eu-trade-deal-delayed-21626945 

[43]. Su-Lin Tan, “US exports to China grow at “expense” of Australia after Beijing’s  trade ban”, South China Morning Post, 19 May 2021: https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3133952/us-exports-china-grow-expense-australia-after-beijings-trade 

[44]. Gideon Polya, “Climate criminal Australia sabotages Pacific Island Forum & threatens all Island Nations”, Countercurrents, 24 August 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/climate-criminal-australia-sabotages-pacific-islands-forum-threatens-all-island-nations/ 

[45]. Gideon Polya, “China’s Tibet health success versus  passive mass murder of Afghan women and children by US Alliance”, Global Research, 7 January 2018: https://www.globalresearch.ca/chinas-tibet-health-success-versus-passive-mass-murder-of-afghan-women-and-children-by-us-alliance/5625151 

[46]. Gideon Polya, “Redaction: mainstream media censorship & self-censorship in pre-police state Australia”, Countercurrents, 24 October 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/10/redaction-mainstream-media-censorship-self-censorship-in-pre-police-state-australia/ 

[47]. Gideon Polya, “US lackey Australia attacks free speech of Senator Dastyari, Muslims, Chinese, Journalists & truth-tellers”, Countercurrents, 10 December  2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/12/us-lackey-australia-attacks-free-speech-of-senator-dastyari-muslims-chinese-journalists-truth-tellers/ 

[48]. Anne Davies and Daniel Hurst, “Asio raids home of NSW state  MP Shaoquett Moselmane over alleged links with China ” , Guardian, 26 June 20210: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/26/asio-raids-home-nsw-labor-mp-shaoquett-moselmane-links-china 

[49]. Gideon Polya, “Australian Anti-Terror Laws Target Muslims, Media & Free Speech”, Countercurrents, 15 November, 2005: https://countercurrents.org/aus-polya151105.htm

[50]. Ellen Ransley, “Joint Committee hears Australia should classify Hamas “in its entirety” as a terrorist organization”, News.com, 1 October 2021 : https://www.news.com.au/world/joint-committee-hears-australia-should-classify-hamas-in-its-entirety-as-terrorist-organisation/news-story/89011758ddb9c212123eaa634d0e37a8

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Abstract

This essay provides insights into the circumstances and potential societal impact of more than 10 million evacuees who fled Japan’s firebombed cities during World War II. Informed by interviews conducted by the United States Strategic Bombing Survey with Japanese citizens immediately after surrender, this analysis establishes a new vantage point from which to understand the complex social circumstances of Japan in the final months of the war.

Introduction¹

Between February 1944 and August 1945 more than ten million Japanese citizens, one-seventh of the total population of Japan’s home islands, evacuated from the country’s cities. The population in rural Japan as a result rose from 42 million to 52.5 million in that timeframe.² Tokyo alone declined from 6.8 million to 2.8 million. Such a large-scale exodus across the country affected all levels of Japanese society.³ Primarily via an analysis of the testimonies of civilian evacuees from Japanese cities firebombed in the final months of the war, this article suggests that this wide-scale disruption of the urban population merits greater attention than it has received.⁴

USSBS interview with Japanese citizen.
United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division,
National Archives at College Park, Maryland, Microfilm Locator M1655, Roll 138.

In the fall of 1945, the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) surveyed several thousand evacuees in 57 cities. The first-hand accounts of evacuees detail the complicated reality of the wartime civilian experience, one shaped by ever-changing civil defense policies, air raids and their aftermath, and government efforts to shape refugees’ perceptions of the war through its policies and propaganda. The accounts reveal that a range of concerns permeated their lives during the war: anxieties over the impact of air raids; the logistics of evacuating; negative social situations in the rural areas to which they evacuated; and a lack of food, shelter, clothing, and medical supplies.⁵

Examined collectively, the accounts and other related sources also suggest that wartime evacuees became a source of potential societal unrest. The Morale Division of the USSBS described Japanese wartime evacuees in this way: “not only was their own morale affected by their experiences, but they also carried with them the germs of ‘dangerous thoughts’ with which to infect their hosts.”⁶

As evidenced by the postwar USSBS interviews, most evacuation in Japan occurred “outside the state’s disaster planning.”⁷ While it is possible to detail some commonalities among many evacuees, reasons for leaving, experiences, and interpretations of events by the evacuees varied wildly. In spite of this, the incredible degree of government incompetence in dealing with evacuees is a testament to the increasingly desperate state of Japanese society in the final stages of war.

Citizens, for example, were told to flee for their lives and then penalized for evacuating. They were forced from their homes in order to create firebreaks in anticipation of air raids, yet given nowhere to which to evacuate. They were lauded by the media for their patriotism and then berated by their hosts in the rural villages for being traitors. These contradictions led many evacuees to give voice to experiences – which the government sought to dismiss as rumors – that directly contradicted the official narrative on their situation.

Within this context, it is no surprise that many citizens came to their own conclusions about the actual state of the war and that evacuees turned into a potential force for unrest throughout the country—functioning, in the very least, as alternatives to Japan’s state-controlled news outlets. As one 17-year-old aviator from Yokosuka put it immediately after the war, “The radios and newspapers never reported [anything] accurately. They said [damage] was [‘minor’] when it was considerable. I knew this because I heard so much from people who knew—from evacuees.”⁸

It wasn’t until September 1943 that the government first acknowledged urban evacuation as a possible course of action. That December the Japanese Cabinet enacted its “Outline for Carrying out Urban Evacuation” (toshi sokai jisshi yōkō), which encouraged the evacuation of all people nonessential to industrial work.⁹ Suggestive of the significance of this policy reversal of course was the fact that these laws clashed with wartime regulations that “gave the state powerful legal weapons against those residents who fled their neighborhoods without permission,” including “up to one year in prison with heavy labor or a maximum fine of 1,000 yen.”¹⁰

The campaign of “de-housing” or “structure evacuation” (tatemono sokai), in which homes were destroyed en masse to create firebreaks in major cities, began in January 1944 and likewise reveals a lack of effective implementation of civil defense policies. Citizens who lived in houses near public transit lines and areas in which firebreaks were planned often had no more than a week to vacate their properties. As a result of this rashly implemented policy, around 614,000 houses (one-fifth of all housing destroyed over the course of the war) were demolished, forcefully evacuating more than 3.5 million people, many of whom were not provided alternative accommodations.¹¹

This defensive measure destroyed not just houses but the morale of many Japanese citizens. One evacuee, for example, in a letter to the editor of the Asahi Shimbun in the wake of Japan’s surrender, remembered that all the structures, including her own, had been destroyed to create firebreaks for 200 meters surrounding the Prime Minister’s residence. “We were suddenly told,” she recalled, “that a week later our house would be demolished by the military…. I was caring for a three-and-a-half-year-old child and a fourteen-month-old infant while my husband was away.” A series of tragic mishaps followed, and she lost all of her belongings as well as her home. She concluded: “Ordinary people were defeated by those on our own side rather than by the enemy. In order to protect the prime minister’s residence, we were dispersed without any recourse.”¹²

A teacher who evacuated from Tokyo to Shiga Prefecture received “no help whatsoever” from the government in moving and became “totally sick of war” after having his family forcefully separated by de-housing. And a worker at a war plant who also evacuated to Shiga prefecture said of his own de-housing experience: “I was very much against evacuating, but what could I do against an order?”¹³ The campaign of “de-housing” added to evacuees’ growing doubts about the government’s ability to manage the home front.

Prior to the large scale firebombing beginning in March 1945, government strategy for dealing with air raids involved four categories: “factory dispersal, creating firebreaks [de-housing], strengthening air defense activities in the neighborhoods, and evacuating as many people as possible to the countryside.”¹⁴ Evacuation measures tended to be encouraged rather than compulsory. This changed following the loss of the Mariana Islands, when in June 1944 the government published its “Outline for Encouraging the Evacuation of Schoolchildren,” the only compulsory evacuation measure enacted in the entire war.¹⁵

By March 1945, 446,200 urban schoolchildren (first through sixth grade) were evacuated with their classmates and teachers to the countryside. Another 800,000 were sent to live with relatives. One village in Nagano prefecture, for example, had a prewar population of 6,500. It was pushed to its limits when it received over 4,300 schoolchildren from various wards in Tokyo, and the memoirs of evacuated schoolchildren sent to Nagano reveal the large number of evacuating students, the lack of food and supplies, and resourcefulness demanded of the evacuees.¹⁶ In the countryside evacuees not only encountered, but seemingly compounded, the widespread material shortages affecting most of Japan in 1945.¹⁷ Some rural districts, already lacking sufficient housing, food, and the manpower necessary to accommodate their suddenly expanding populations, found a convenient scapegoat in the untimely arrival of evacuating citizens.

Daily life was heavily regimented for the schoolchildren in a fashion reminiscent of strict military training. Children woke at 5:30 A.M. and had their day strictly controlled until 8:00 P.M., with the largest segments of the day devoted to agricultural or “training work.”¹⁸

The written experiences of these evacuated schoolchildren emphasized homesickness, bullying, tensions between evacuee children and their hosts, agricultural work, and hunger above all else.¹⁹ One child remembered: “All we thought about was eating; all we talked about was what we ate in the past.”²⁰ These harsh conditions often led to dark circumstances, including instances of sexual assault and attempted suicide. And near the end of the war, teachers, directed by the state, had children rehearse mass suicide in the event of an Allied invasion.²¹

The Evacuee as Agent of Social Unrest

In the last year of the war, while the government strongly encouraged evacuation of the general public engaged in nonessential activities, it provided little financial assistance. One housewife who fled to Fukuoka prefecture noted:

I footed all the expenses myself. I had heard that the government would give us a subsidy, but it was so uncertain as to when we would receive it, and since we couldn’t wait, I took care of everything myself. I spent more than 2000 yen in evacuation expenses. We could not wait for ordinary means, so I paid everything according to black market prices. Finally, six months later, I received 200 yen from the government.”²²

Another, a bank clerk from Kobe, received compensation for her travel but, like most evacuees, received no help upon arriving in the countryside.

“The government paid our train fare and took care of our baggage. They made no arrangement for our living here.”²³

Tokyo station immediately after the war.
United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division,
National Archives at College Park, Maryland, Microfilm Locator M1655, Roll 138.

While some evacuation did occur prior to the Great Tokyo Air Raid of March 9-10, 1945—including the mandatory evacuation of elementary school children—the first major firebombing of Japan’s capital both increased the impetus to evacuate for the general populace and highlighted the disarray of official civil defense measures. As one official at the Police Affairs Bureau of the Home Ministry reflected, after the March 9-10 air raid on Tokyo “the government came to the conclusion—and it was the natural conclusion reached by the people too—that all raid preparations were hopeless and it was best to avoid injury and death by fleeing.”²⁴ Immediately after the first major firebombing of Tokyo, an emergency cabinet meeting concluded with the bleak official pronouncement that “every city must manage for itself.”²⁵

Official policy regarding evacuation from cities remained haphazard. Poet and novelist Itō Sei wrote in his diary in May 1945 that: “Until a few days ago I nearly decided to evacuate…then, in yesterday’s radio broadcast there was [another] revision to evacuation guidelines. It said we were no longer permitted to evacuate.”²⁶ In a postwar letter to the editor of the Asahi Shimbun, one evacuated woman remembered that she “devotedly believed in the country and the news” until her husband was sent away after the March 9-10 air raid on Tokyo destroyed his company’s building. That same evening, she was notified that her house was to be immediately demolished. The next morning a tank came and pulled down her house. “Day by day the destruction of war grew worse,” she wrote. “There’s nothing as miserable as the cruelty of war. It robbed me of my husband. It robbed me of my home. In a single moment I lost what little happiness I had left.”²⁷

In the absence of an effective or cohesive government approach to fire defense, the Japanese government transferred the burden of civil defense to ward authorities, who then handed off those responsibilities to neighborhood associations and local groups.²⁸ These local authorities—contradicting limited government measures to encourage evacuation—often discouraged evacuation as unpatriotic late into 1945 when air raids had greatly intensified.²⁹ Even as the state began to reverse course and encourage evacuation in the wake of the March 9-10 firebombing of Tokyo, some local associations maintained intense pressure on their citizens—especially those who attempted to flee.

The denial of food rations to evacuees was one of the most effective measures the neighborhood associations employed. In response to leaflets rained down from B-29s announcing an imminent attack on the city of Aomori, residents fled en masse, only to be coerced into returning by neighborhood associations refusing to grant them food rations until they did. (After most returned, Aomori was heavily bombed.)³⁰

One evacuee—a baker who fled early in January 1944—remembered being treated like a deserter by the police in the countryside, who said to him “Are you Japanese or not?” Evacuees were jeered by locals as “traitors” and “hangers-on” for even the slightest of offenses.³¹ One spoke about the tenuous connection with rural hosts:

Relations between the evacuees and the natives of the area to which they evacuated are not too good. Among the evacuees and sufferers from damage and the people who have not suffered… there is great discrimination.”³²

Ignoring increasing friction between evacuees and rural citizens in the countryside, the Japanese government issued propaganda claiming that mass evacuation was part of its plans. A March 1945 article in the Nippon Times, for instance, discussed government mobilization of evacuees to the countryside for the purpose of “convert[ing] the entire nation into a veritable fortress against which the invader will be smashed to his own destruction.” Yet the reality—with the exception of a few government measures beginning in mid-1945 such as specialized trains for evacuees, inconsistent federal assistance with relocation costs, and, above all, mandatory student relocation (gakudō sokai)—was that most wartime evacuation took place spontaneously and independent of the government.³³ That is not to say that the state had not been attempting to integrate evacuation into official narratives since earlier in the war. In December 1943, for example, the Cabinet Board of Information officially defined evacuation as follows:

Urban evacuation does not mean only fleeing and dispersion from the city, but rather that every citizen must take an active part in the war effort and that the evacuation must be made an element which strengthens our fighting power. Evacuation is not just a flight from the cities but is a positive contribution toward strengthening our fighting power.”³⁴

Newspapers portrayed evacuees as fleeing not of their own accord (and certainly not because Japan was losing the war), but in accord with government directives to aid wartime production. Even after the March 9-10 air raid in Tokyo as air raid destruction became glaringly irreconcilable with state narratives, newspaper articles detailed elaborate, government initiatives to put evacuees to work producing food in the countryside.³⁵ Others offered the evacuees as examplars of the Yamato Spirit:

The victims of the raids who have lost their homes and material belongings, instead of bemoaning their losses, invariably feel the stronger and freer to devote their services to the nation for having been relieved of the encumbrances and responsibilities engendered by material possessions. …. They discover an extraordinary elation in being able now to dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to the exclusive service of the State.³⁶

References to well-known people peppered such propaganda to lend it credibility. A June 1945 article titled “Well-Known Figures to Take up Rural Duties: Evacuees from Metropolis Shoulder the Hoe, Turn Efforts Towards Self Sufficiency” consisted simply of a long list of notable politicians and businessmen who had evacuated.³⁷ Often such lists were accompanied by testimonies from readily recognized figures. Former ambassador to the United States, Admiral Nomura Kichisaburo, for example, whose house was destroyed by incendiaries, commented:

The greatest lesson I have learned here is the sincere spirit of work—a spirit that can be fostered only by living in the country in close contact with Mother Nature. The true strength of Japan lies in that spirit, the spirit that will prevail in the end and assure final victory.”³⁸

Cracks, however, appeared in the government’s propaganda campaign of appropriating evacuees into its narrative of certain victory.³⁹

As city after city burned, discussion of evacuees became accusatory. One article bemoaned a “dark side” of the situation by describing the burden placed by evacuees on rural communities known for their “simplicity and sincerity.”⁴⁰

The challenge of newcomers was compounded by nation-wide shortages of food and commodities. One rikshaw driver in Akita city remembered immediately after the war, for example, that “when the evacuees came, the food problems worsened. Before the evacuees came, Akita was already short of commodities, so…they made the situation worse.”⁴¹ Even the Vice-Chief of the Cabinet Information Bureau in Tokyo reported in October of 1945 that “farm produce prices soared due to the high prices paid by evacuees.”⁴²

Unsurprisingly, evacuees found life in the countryside extremely difficult. Some evacuated families were forced to return to their ruined cities after abortive attempts to join distant relatives or find a place in the countryside. To others it increasingly appeared that they were not welcome anywhere.

The evacuees’ presence, in fact directly contradicted the government’s propaganda: The abandoning of the cities heralded Japan’s imminent defeat. One mechanic from a rural village summarized the view of many: “Before the evacuees came, I thought Japan was still holding out and had a chance of winning [the war], but when the evacuees came I realized that we were losing the war.”⁴³ Others, such as a 34-year-old school teacher in Wakayama, saw a direct correlation between the arrival of evacuees and their fear of air raids: “Before the evacuees came I didn’t think about the war so much, but after they came…I became afraid of the air raids.”⁴⁴ A 56-year-old farmer in Akita prefecture explained the transformation simply: “I didn’t worry about the war at all before the evacuees came.”⁴⁵ Imminent defeat was perhaps more obvious to the evacuees than to the rest of the population.

Spreading Rumors

By the spring of 1945 most able-bodied men were deployed overseas; the Japanese home front was overwhelmed by American airpower; and its vital imports severely curtailed by both aerial mining operations and naval blockades.⁴⁶ Though the exact number of casualties remains difficult—if not impossible—to precisely calculate, the air raids on over 60 Japanese cities, combined with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizens and rendered over a million homeless.⁴⁷

Central to the government’s response was its attempt to mobilize and control Japan’s remaining manpower—primarily women, the elderly, and children.⁴⁸ In the face of emphasis on control, as shown by Special Higher Police documents, reports of “anti-war” gossip and rumor-mongering increased dramatically near the end of the war, causing the Home Ministry to condemn the “hateful, unpatriotic act” of disseminating rumors as antithetical to victory.⁴⁹

Simultaneously, air raid defense measures such as curfews, blackouts, propaganda posters, air raid drills, and even “air defense” songs and board games attempted to normalize civil defense in the lives of civilians as the war situation deteriorated.⁵⁰ In mid-1945 the cabinet—facing the prospect of an impending Allied invasion—even organized and trained women and children to fight off invaders with bamboo spears as “home-front equivalents to the Kamikaze pilots.”⁵¹

Consequently, the futility of air raid defense and preparations became increasingly obvious to many. As one 25-year-old evacuee from Sendai recalled immediately after the war, “although they dug air raid shelters, set up cisterns of water, built fire breaks, and had air raid drills…I thought it was only a matter of [maintaining] outward appearance.”⁵² The idea of fighting off an Allied invasion with nothing but bamboo spears, in the face of incredible destruction was met with derision. One 64-year-old farmer from Shimonoseki, for example, recalled receiving “a command to drill with bamboo spears” in April of 1945 and although “everybody began to participate in the drills, I considered it a ridiculous exercise, useless in actual warfare.”⁵³ An evacuee in Kure called the whole exercise “useless,” and a 29-year-old clerk in the Finance Ministry—who recalled hearing rumors directly from evacuees—recalled:

As the war progressed, even some soldiers were unable to get their guns and other war equipment. We, too, drilled for the approaching battle for the homeland with bamboo spears. . .How can a man fight a mechanized army with bamboo spears? We were deceived by the army leaders who constantly told the people that Japan will emerge victorious in the end.”⁵⁴

With their firsthand experiences, the main culprits for the increased spreading of rumors, according to wartime reports by the Domei News Agency, were the evacuees themselves.⁵⁵ The agency categorized rumors spread by evacuees into several categories, such as “scope of damage,” “neighborhood associations,” “espionage activities,” “economic conspiracies,” and “disposal of the dead” (among others). For example:

• “When the alert sounds…most people flee to the mountains instead of taking refuge in their own undependable private shelters.”
• “Many student workers in Nagoya are dead. Although they attempted to seek cover, they were ordered to stay at their posts to guard the factory. Because of that they died.”
• “The enemy bombings are accurate. Might there not be some spies among the Japanese?”
• “Since Osaka is the black-market center, the enemy is attempting to foster it in order to undermine economic life. Consequently, the enemy employs discretion in his bombings against the city.”⁵⁶
  

The content of such rumors could be considered immaterial, however, when compared to the fact that evacuees were evidently vehicles for communication, information (accurate or not), and wartime anxiety for home front citizens. This uncontrolled spread of information heightened government concerns about evacuees.

Citizens living in tin huts in a bombed-out area.
United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division,
National Archives at College Park, Maryland, Microfilm Locator M1655, Roll 138.

While the range and variety of rumors was extensive, a prevalent theme involved criticizing the Japanese ruling class, which seemed to have no trouble “enjoying all the luxuries of living” while “hardships increased” for people like them.⁵⁷ The government’s drives to track and curtail so-called subversive behavior reveal a legitimate fear of societal unrest emerging from the millions of evacuees across the country.⁵⁸

This demarcates a pivotal moment in which the state’s view of evacuees – and that of elite circles – shifted. Kido Kōichi, one of the closest advisors to emperor Hirohito, noted that “conditions inside the country were indeed ‘quite grievous.’ … [T]here were even signs of anti-militar[y] sentiment.”⁵⁹ In one of the most powerful statements acknowledging the significance of social unrest among the people, former Prime Minister Yonai Mitsumasa noted:

I think the term is perhaps inappropriate, but the atomic bombs and the Soviet entry into the war are, in a sense, gifts from the gods [tenyu ‘heaven sent blessings’]. This way we don’t have to say that we surrendered because of domestic circumstances. I long held that the national crisis was neither fear of enemy attack nor because of the atomic bombs and the Soviet entry into the war. My main anxiety is over the domestic situation.⁶⁰

While a number of factors led to Japan’s decision to surrender, it is clear that fear of internal social upheaval was a considerable concern for officials. Millions of evacuees constituted a central aspect of such unrest. The evacuees—as a community—present an important picture of the devastating impact of the war, the challenges to the cohesiveness of the Japanese social order, the societal challenges faced by the Japanese government, and the shifting of public opinion as the war progressed. As such, greater attention to their experiences and voices might help to expand understanding of Japan’s rapidly changing domestic situation in the final months of World War II.

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Dylan J. Plung works at the National Bureau of Asian Research in Seattle, WA. He holds an MAIS from the Japan Studies Program at the University of Washington’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. 

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Iriye, Akira. Power and Culture: The Japanese-American War, 1941-1945. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981.

Itō, Sei. Taiheiyō sensō nikki. Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1983.

Johnson, Gregory Scott. “Mobilizing the Junior Nation: The Mass Evacuation of School Children in Wartime Japan.” PhD diss., Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Indiana University, 2011, UMI 3380088.

Karacas, Cary. “Tokyo From the Fire: War, Occupation, and the Remaking of a Metropolis,” PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2006.

Keene, Donald. So Lovely a Country Will Never Perish: Wartime Diaries of Japanese Writers. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.

Kerr, E. Bartlett. Flames Over Tokyo. New York: D.I. Fine, 1991.

Kiyoshi, Kiyosawa. A Diary of Darkness: The Wartime Diary of Kiyosawa Kiyoshi. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.

MacIsaac, David. Strategic Bombing in World War Two: The Story of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1976.

Mizushima, Asaho and Omae Osamu. Kenshō bōkūhō: kūshū-ka de kinjirareta hinan. Kyoto: Hōritsu Bunkasha, 2014.

Moore, Aaron William. Bombing the City: Civilian Accounts of the Air War in Britain and Japan, 1939-1945. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Morale Division, The United States Strategic Bombing Survey. The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japanese Morale. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947.

Morale Division, United States Strategic Bombing Survey. National Archives at College Park. Microfilm Locator M1655.

——Roll 77.

——Roll 97.

——Roll 98.

——Roll 105.

——Roll 106.

——Roll 107.

——Roll 108.

——Roll 109.

——Roll 115.

——Roll 121.

——Roll 122A.

——Roll 123.

——Roll 128.

——Roll 137.

——Roll 138.

——Roll 142.

Nippon Times.

—— “The Supreme Effort for Defense” (March 24, 1945).

—— “To Up Foodstuff Output” (March 31, 1945).

—— “Farmers Now Prepared to Begin Spring Sowing” (April 23, 1945).

—— “Results of the Enemy Raids” (April 28, 1945).

—— “U.S. Seen Eager to Break Japan’s Fighting Power” (August 10, 1945).

—— “Hokkaido Project Body Formally Inaugurated” (June 15, 1945).

—— “Well-Known Figures to Take up Rural Duties: Evacuees from Metropolis Shoulder the Hoe, Turn Efforts Towards Self Sufficiency” (June 29, 1945).

—— “Japan’s Real Strength Lies in Rural Workers” (August 9, 1945).

Omae, Osamu, ‘Nigeru na, hi wo kese!’ Senjika tondemo ‘bōkūhō.’ Tokyo: Gōdō Shuppan, 2016.

Plung, Dylan. “The Japanese Village at Dugway Proving Ground: An Unexamined Context to the Firebombing of Japan.” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, vol. 16, issue 8, no. 3 (April 15, 2018).

Pyle, Kenneth B. The Making of Modern Japan, 3^rd ed. Acton, MA: XanEdu, 2017.

—— Japan in the American Century. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2018.

Ralph, William W. “Improvised Destruction: Arnold, LeMay, and the Firebombing of Japan.” War in History, Vol. 13, No. 4 (October 2006).

Sasaki-Uemura, Wesley Makoto. Organizing the Spontaneous: Citizen Protest in Postwar Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001.

Schaffer, Ronald. Wings of Judgement: American Bombing in World War II. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Selden, Kyoko, and Akira Iriye. “A Childhood Memoir of Wartime Japan.” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, vol. 14, issue 15 (2016).

Sherry, Michael S. The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.

Shillony, Ben-Ami, Politics and Culture in Wartime Japan. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.

Takeyama, Michio. The Scars of War: Tokyo during World War II: Writings of Takeyama Michio, translated by Richard Minear. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.

Tamanoi, Mariko. Under the Shadow of Nationalism: Politics and Poetics of Rural Japanese Women. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1998.

United States Strategic Bombing Survey. Summary Report (Pacific War). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946.

Yamashita, Samuel Hideo. Daily Life in Wartime Japan, 1940-1945. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2015.

—— Leaves from an Autumn of Emergencies: Selections from the Wartime Diaries of Ordinary Japanese. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005.

Yellen, Jeremy A. “The Specter of Revolution: Reconsidering Japan’s Decision to Surrender.” The International History Review, Vol. 35, No. 1 (2012).

Yomiuri Shimbun. “Sokaisha ni senyō ressha: rōyō, tatemono sokai wa yūsen.” March 30, 1945.

Notes

¹ Special thanks are due to the University of Washington Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, Japan Studies Program for generously funding travel to the National Archives at College Park, Maryland to conduct this original research, as well as for funding travel expenses to present this research at Harvard University in early 2019. Additional major thanks are due to Professors Kenneth Pyle and Mark Metzler for their detailed guidance and support, as well as to Cary Karacas for his editorial assistance. Thanks are due to my father for being a constant source of inspiration and support, as well as to Victoria Rahbar for her initial feedback. Lastly, I wish to express my sincerest appreciation for Lillian and her constant patience, kindness, and partnership, without which none of this would have been possible.

² Thomas Havens, Valley of Darkness (Maryland: University Press of America, 1986), 167, 170.

³ Gregory Scott Johnson, “Mobilizing the Junior Nation: The Mass Evacuation of School Children in Wartime Japan,” PhD diss., Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Indiana University, 2011, UMI 3380088, 213-214.

⁴ This research draws on a wide variety of materials such as diaries, newspapers, editorials, various materials confiscated from official Japanese sources, and interviews with Japanese citizens conducted by the Morale Division of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS). The USSBS analyzed the overall impact of American strategic bombing in both the European and Pacific theaters. The Morale Division was a subset of this organization that concerned themselves with the evacuees.

⁵ Kerr, Flames Over Tokyo, 280-281.

⁶ United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japanese Morale, 73.

⁷ Havens, Valley of Darkness, 167.

⁸ United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, “Resident Interviews by City” (December 19, 1945), National Archives at College Park, Maryland, Microfilm Locator M1655, Rolls 122A-123.

⁹ Cary Karacas, “Tokyo From the Fire: War, Occupation, and the Remaking of a Metropolis,” PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2006, 70.

¹⁰ Garon, “Defending Civilians,” 9.

¹¹ Havens, Valley of Darkness, 158-159; United States Strategic Bombing Survey Civilian Defense Division, Final Report Covering Air-Raid Protection and Allied Subjects in Japan (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947), 172.

¹² Frank Gibney and Beth Cary, Senso: The Japanese Remember the Pacific War: Letters to the Editor of the ‘Asahi Shimbun’ (New York: Routledge, 2015), 173-174.

¹³ United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, “Resident Interviews by City” (1945), National Archives at College Park, Microfilm Locator M1655, Roll 109.

¹⁴ Havens, Valley of Darkness, 158.

¹⁵ Ibid., 162.

¹⁶ Johnson, “Mobilizing the Junior Nation,” 2-3, 224, 261; Kyoko Selden and Akira Iriye, “A Childhood Memoir of Wartime Japan,” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, vol. 14, issue 15 (2016), https://apjjf.org/2016/15/Selden-1.html.

¹⁷ For detailed analyses of Japan’s wartime food situation, see Bruce F. Johnston, Japanese Food Management in World War II (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1953) and Jerome B. Cohen, Japan’s Economy in War and Reconstruction (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1949).

¹⁸ Ibid., 261-263, 267.

¹⁹ Havens, Valley of Darkness, 162-163; Cook and Cook, Japan at War, 233.

²⁰ Samuel Hideo Yamashita, Daily Life in Wartime Japan, 1940-1945 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2015), 115-116.

²¹ Johnson, “Mobilizing the Junior Nation,” 254.

²² United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, “Resident Interviews by City” (December 5, 1945), National Archives at College Park, Microfilm Locator M1655, Roll 108.

²³ United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, “Resident Interviews by City” (December 21, 1945), National Archives at College Park, Microfilm Locator M1655, Roll 107.

²⁴ United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, The Effects of Strategic Bombing, 73.

²⁵ Hoito Edoin, The Night Tokyo Burned (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987), 158.

²⁶ Sei Itō, Taiheiyō sensō nikki (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1983), 305.

²⁷ Asahi Shinbunsha, Senjō taiken ‘koe’ ga kataritsugu rekishi (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 2003), 106-107.

²⁸ Havens, Valley of Darkness, 158-159; Karacas, “Tokyo from the Fire,” 52.

²⁹ Mizushima Asaho and Omae Osamu, Kenshō bōkūhō: kūshū-ka de kinjirareta hinan (Kyoto: Hōritsu Bunkasha, 2014), 12-15.

³⁰ Mizushima and Omae, Kenshō bōkūhō, 12-15; Garon, “Defending Civilians,” 9.

³¹ United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japanese Morale, 81; Yamashita, Daily Life in Wartime Japan, 122; Gibney and Cary, Senso, 172, 203-204.

³² United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, “Resident Interviews by City” (December 14, 1945), National Archives at College Park, Microfilm Locator M1655, Roll 108.

³³ “The Supreme Effort for Defense” (March 24, 1945), Nippon Times; “Sokaisha ni senyō ressha: rōyō, tatemono sokai wa yūsen” Yomiuri Shimbun (March 30, 1945); Havens, Valley of Darkness, 167.

³⁴ United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japanese Morale, 73.

³⁵ One article even went so far as to claim that the evacuees would be producing an unbelievable “2,750,000,000 kan of potatoes” (approximately 22 billion pounds). Many evacuees could barely sustain themselves. “To Up Foodstuff Output” (March 31, 1945), Nippon Times; “Farmers Now Prepared to Begin Spring Sowing” (April 23, 1945), Nippon Times; “Hokkaido Project Body Formally Inaugurated” (June 15, 1945), Nippon Times.

³⁶ “Results of the Enemy Raids” (April 28, 1945), Nippon Times.

³⁷ This list included a Chief of Military Affairs, barons, former Foreign Ministers, Commerce Ministers, Education Ministers, Ministers of Agriculture, members of the House of Peers, Cabinet Advisors, and prominent businessmen from Mitsui and Mitsubishi, among many others. “Well-Known Figures to Take up Rural Duties: Evacuees from Metropolis Shoulder the Hoe, Turn Efforts Towards Self Sufficiency” (June 29, 1945), Nippon Times.

³⁸ “Japan’s Real Strength Lies in Rural Workers” (August 9, 1945), Nippon Times.

³⁹ United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japanese Morale, 73.

⁴⁰ “U.S. Seen Eager to Break Japan’s Fighting Power” (August 10, 1945), Nippon Times.

⁴¹ United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, “Resident Interviews by City” (November 14, 1945), National Archives at College Park, Maryland, Microfilm Locator M1655, Roll 98.

⁴² United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, “Special Interviews by Locality” (October 24, 1945), National Archives at College Park, Maryland, Microfilm Locator M1655, Roll 128.

⁴³ United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, “Resident Interviews by City” (December 15, 1945), National Archives at College Park, Maryland, Microfilm Locator M1655, Roll 109.

⁴⁴ United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, “Resident Interviews by City” (December 6, 1945), National Archives at College Park, Maryland, Microfilm Locator M1655, Roll 121.

⁴⁵ United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, “Resident Interviews by City” (November 17, 1945), National Archives at College Park, Maryland, Microfilm Locator M1655, Roll 98.　

⁴⁶ Craven, Wesley Frank, and Cate, James Lea, The Army Air Forces in World War II. Volume V, The Pacific: Matterhorn to Nagasaki, June 1944 to August 1945 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948-1958), 666-670.

⁴⁷ For a discussion of varying estimates, see Richard B. Frank, Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2001), 331-348.

⁴⁸ See Cohen, Japan’s Economy, 271-352.

⁴⁹ Dower, Japan in War and Peace, 109-110, 129; Air Defense Bureau of the Home Ministry of Japan, Jikkyoku bōkū hikkei kaisetsu, compiled in the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (1943), National Archives at College Park, Maryland, Microfilm Locator M1655, Roll 77.

⁵⁰ Omae, Osamu, ‘Nigeru na, hi wo kese!’ Senjika tondemo ‘bōkūhō’ (Tokyo: Gōdō Shuppan, 2016), 10-46.

⁵¹ Havens, Valley of Darkness, 188-191.

⁵² United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, “Resident Interviews by City” (December 3, 1945), National Archives at College Park, Maryland, Microfilm Locator M1655, Roll 115.

⁵³ United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, “Resident Interviews by City” (December 14, 1945), National Archives at College Park, Maryland, Microfilm Locator M1655, Roll 115. 

⁵⁴ United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, “Resident Interviews by City” (December 1, 1945), National Archives at College Park, Maryland, Microfilm Locator M1655, Roll 105; United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, “Resident Interviews by City” (December 1, 1945), National Archives at College Park, Maryland, Microfilm Locator M1655, Roll 115. 

⁵⁵ United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japanese Morale, 86, 88; Domei News Agency, “Survey Data on Regional Conditions” translated by United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, National Archives at College Park, Maryland, Microfilm Locator M1655, Roll 137.

⁵⁶ Domei News Agency, “Survey Data on Regional Conditions” in National Archives at College Park, Microfilm Locator M1655, Roll 137.

⁵⁷ United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, “Resident Interviews by City” (December 15, 1945), National Archives at College Park, Maryland, Microfilm Locator M1655, Roll 109.

⁵⁸ United States Strategic Bombing Survey Morale Division, The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japanese Morale, 235-236.

⁵⁹ Akira Iriye, Power and Culture: The Japanese-American War, 1941-1945 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), 239.

⁶⁰ Bix, “Japan’s Delayed Surrender,” 217-218.

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Recent history of contamination

In 2020 the Futenma Marine Corps Command was forced to cancel the popular, annual Futenma Flightline Fair that had been scheduled for Saturday, March 14 and Sunday, March 15. These were the early days of the Covid pandemic and everyone looked forward the Flightline Fair and the displays of the F/A-18’s, F-35B’s and MV-22’s, with flyovers, a car show, and a spectacular barbecue.

Morale suffered, so the command gave the nod to hold a barbecue on April 10th near a large hangar for the esprit de corps of the Marines. Heat from the barbecue equipment triggered the hangar fire suppression system, releasing massive amounts of toxic firefighting foam containing Perfluoro octane sulfonic acid, (PFOS). It ruined the barbecue. Futenma Flightline Fair  –  Koji Kakazu Photography

Hundreds of mishaps like this have been documented at U.S. military bases worldwide since the early 1970’s when the carcinogens were first used in the firefighting foams.  Sometimes the overhead foam suppression systems are triggered accidentally during maintenance. Sometimes, they activate from incidental smoke and or heat. It’s a common occurrence.

When the suppression systems unleash their foams, the military may either send the foam into storm water sewers, sanitary sewers, or underground storage tanks. Sending the carcinogens into the storm water sewers causes the materials to run directly into the rivers. Discharging the foams into the sanitary sewer system means the toxins are sent to wastewater treatment facilities where they are eventually discharged, untreated, into the rivers.  Foams captured in underground storage tanks can be sent to either of the sewer systems or removed from the site to be dumped elsewhere or incinerated. Because the chemicals don’t burn and don’t break down, there is no way to properly dispose of them and they’re likely to find pathways to human consumption. The Okinawans are upset for this reason.

 ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam — Foam from a fire suppression system sprays from the walls and ceiling inside a newly built aircraft maintenance hangar during a test and evaluation exercise in 2015.  (U.S. Air Force photo)

During the April 10, 2020 barbecue incident, 227,100 liters of the foam were released, of which more than 143,800 liters leaked out of the base and, presumably, 83,300 liters were sent to underground storage tanks.

The foam covered a local river and cloud-like formations of foam floated more than a hundred feet above the ground, settling in residential playgrounds and neighborhoods.  David Steele, commander of Futenma Air Base, further alienated the Okinawan public when he said, “If it rains, it will subside.” Apparently, he was referring to the foamy bubbles, not the propensity of the foams to sicken people. A similar accident occurred on the same base in December of 2019 when the fire suppression system accidentally discharged the carcinogenic foam.

April 17, 2020 – U.S. Marine Corps Col. David Steele, commanding officer of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, meets with Okinawa Vice-Gov. Kiichiro Jahana where firefighting foam was captured in an underground storage tank. (U.S. Marine Corps photo)

In April, 2020, the foamy water flowed out of stormwater pipes (red x)  from the Marine Corps Air  Station Futenma. The runway is shown on the right. The Uchidomari River (in blue) carries the toxins to Makiminato on the East China Sea.

The commander of U.S. Forces in Japan, Lt. Gen. Kevin Schneider, released the following statement, on April 24, 2020, two weeks after the incident, “We regret this spill and are working hard to find out why it happened in order to ensure an event like this does not happen again. However, I am very pleased with the level of cooperation we have seen at the local and national levels as we clean this up and work to manage the global challenge presented by these substances,” said Schneider.

This is a boilerplate response used worldwide to placate the locals, whether they’re in Maryland, Germany, or Japan. The military knew immediately why it happened. They understand accidental releases will continue to occur and imperil human health.

The Americans rely on subservient host governments. For instance, a report by the Okinawa Defense Bureau, the local branch of the Japanese Ministry of Defense, said that the foam releases at Futenma “had almost no effect on humans.”  However, the Ryuko Shimpo newspaper sampled river water near the Futenma base and found  247.2 parts per trillion (ppt) of PFOS/PFOA in the Uchidomari River. Seawater from Makiminato fishing port contained 41.0 ng/l of the toxins. The river had 13 varieties of PFAS that are contained in the military’s aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF).  To put these numbers into perspective, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources says surface water levels that exceed 2 ppt pose a threat to human health. The PFOS in the foams wildly bioaccumulate in aquatic life. The primary way people consume these chemicals is by eating fish.

Okinawan Governor Denny Tamaki was outraged. He said, “I truly have no words,” when he learned that a barbecue was the cause of the release. In early 2021, the Okinawan government announced that groundwater in the area around the Marine Corps base contained a concentration of 2,000 ppt of PFAS.

In Okinawa, the public and the press are increasingly exasperated by the insolence of the U.S. military. The word is being passed around that the U.S. military is poisoning millions of people around the world and is intent on continuing to do so. More than 50,000 individuals in the U.S., who operate farms within a mile of military installations, are expected to receive notification from the Pentagon that their  groundwater is likely to be contaminated with PFAS. The potentially lethal underground plumes from the fire training areas on base may actually travel 20 miles.

These toxic releases and the wholesale poisoning of millions of Americans will top the Pentagon’s public relations fiascos of My Lai, Abu Ghraib, and the slaughter of 10 Afghan civilians we recently witnessed. About 56 percent of Americans surveyed earlier this year said they have “a great deal of trust and confidence” in the military, down from 70 percent in 2018. We’ll witness this trend accelerate while news outlets are forced to cover the military’s poisoning of America and the world. There’s a deep irony in all of this. The antiwar movement and mainstream environmental groups in the United States have generally been slow to embrace the issue. Instead, the insurgency will arise from farmers in middle America.

August 26, 2021

A new chapter of American imperial arrogance in Okinawa unfolded on August 26, 2021. Neither the U.S. nor the Japanese have developed standards regarding the levels of PFAS that may be released into sanitary sewer systems. It seems both nations are fixated on the drinking water while the science is clear and irrefutable that most of the PFAS consumed by humans is through the food we eat, especially seafood from contaminated waters.

The military command at Futenma met with Japanese central government and Okinawan prefectural officials on July 19, 2021 to collect samples of treated water from the base to conduct separate tests. A followup meeting was set for August 26th  to discuss plans to release the results of the three tests.

Instead, on the morning of August 26th, the Marines unilaterally and maliciously dumped 64,000 liters of the poisoned water into the municipal sewer system. The water came from the underground tanks that contained the spilled firefighting foam. The Marines still have approximately 360,000 liters of contaminated water remaining on base, according to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.

Okinawan officials say they received an email at 9:05 a.m. on Aug. 26 from the Marines saying water containing the toxins would be released at 9:30 a.m. The U.S. military said the water released contained 2.7 ppt of PFOS per liter of water. The U.S. military had expressed concern that the storage tanks could overflow due to heavy rain brought by typhoons, while the Japanese Ministry of Defense stated that the transfer of the water is “an emergency interim measure due to the typhoon problem.”

Ginowan city officials reacted immediately. Just two hours after the discharge began, the Ginowan Sewage Facility Division took wastewater samples from a manhole in the Isa area, where MCAS Futenma’s wastewater meets the public system.

The sample showed the following concentrations:

• PFOS          630 ppt
• PFOA          40 ppt
• PFHxS        69 ppt
• Total         739 ppt  

The U.S. Marines reported finding 2.7 ppt of PFAS in the sewer water. The Okinawans say they found 739 ppt. Although routine testing of PFAS in various media can detect 36 analytes, only the three above have been reported by the Okinawans. The Marines simply reported  “2.7 ppt of PFOS.” It is likely the overall totals of all PFAS concentrations would be twice the 739 ppt if the other varieties of PFAS had been tested.

The Okinawa prefectural (state) and Ginowan municipal governments immediately lodged protests with the U.S. military. “I feel strong outrage that the U.S. military unilaterally dumped the water even while they knew that discussions were proceeding between Japan and the United States on how to handle the contaminated water,” Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki said later that day. .

It is instructive to compare the responses of the Ginowan City Council, The Okinawan prefecture, the Marine Corps Installations Pacific, Okinawa, and the government of Japan.

On September 8th, the Ginowan City Council adopted a resolution saying it was ”furious” with the U.S. military for the disposal of the contaminated water. The city had previously asked the Marines not to dump the poisons into the sanitary sewer system. The resolution called on the U.S. military to switch to firefighting foams that do not contain PFAS and demanded the U.S. military incinerate the materials. The city’s resolution said the release of chemicals “shows a complete disregard for the people of this city.”  Ginowan Mayor Masanori Matsugawa said, “It is extremely regrettable because the release of the water lacked any consideration for local residents who still have not erased their concerns” from last year’s incident. Okinawa’s Governor, Denny Tamaki says he wants access to the Futenma base to conduct independent testing.

The U.S. military responded to the city council’s resolution the next day by circulating a misleading press release with the following headline:

Marine Corps Installations Pacific Removes
All Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF) on Okinawa

The text of the military propaganda piece says the Marine Corps has “completed the removal of all legacy Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF) from Marine Corps camps and installations on Okinawa.” The Marines explained that the foams containing PFOS and PFOA had been shipped to mainland Japan to be incinerated. The foams have been replaced “with a new foam which meets Department of Defense requirements and which still provides the same life-saving benefits in the event of a fire. This action significantly reduces the environmental risk posed by PFOS and PFOA on Okinawa and is another concrete demonstration of MCIPAC’s transparency and its strong commitment to environmental stewardship.”

The DOD removed firefighting foams containing PFOS and PFOA from its U.S. bases several years ago while they’re only doing so now, under pressure, in Okinawa. The new PFAS foams likely include the PFHxS found in Okinawa’s water, are also toxic. The DOD refuses to disclose exactly what PFAS chemicals are present in its firefighting foams, because “the chemicals are the proprietary information of the manufacturer.”

PFHxS is known to induce neuronal cell death and has been associated with early onset menopause and with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder in children.

The Okinawans are outraged; the Marines are lying, while the Japanese government is complacent. Yoshihide Suga, Prime Minister of Japan, said the Japanese government, carried out a thorough investigation of the incident. He said the government of Japan is urging U.S. forces to replace firefighting foams containing PFOS. Nothing more.

To recap, the Americans reported 2.7 ppt of PFAS in the sewage effluent while the Okinawans found 274 times that amount in the sewer water. The Okinawans are caught between a rock and a hard place.

Stars and Stripes reported on September 20th  that the Japanese government has agreed to take over “disposal” of Futenma’s contaminated wastewater.  The government has agreed to pay $825,000 to incinerate the materials. The U.S. military escapes justice.

Governor Tamaki called the development a step forward.

Incineration is not a step forward!  The Japanese government and Okinawan officials are apparently unaware of the dangers inherent in incinerating PFAS.  There is no scientific evidence that incineration destroys the deadly chemicals in the firefighting foam. Most incinerators are incapable of reaching the temperatures necessary to destroy the fluorine-carbon bond characteristic of PFAS. These are, after all, firefighting foams.

The EPA says  it’s not sure if PFAS is destroyed through incineration. The temperatures required to destroy the compounds exceed the temperatures reached by almost all incinerators.

On September 22nd the U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act that establishes a moratorium on the incineration of PFAS. The measure will be voted on by the Senate as it considers the massive funding package.

Governor Tamaki, you’ve been great on this!  Please correct the record. The incinerators will sprinkle a silent death over Japanese homes and farms.

Protesters in Okinawa play a crucial role in shaping the narrative. Unlike the states, the mainstream press seriously reports their message. They’re not dismissed as riff raff on the street. Rather, they’re recognized as a legitimate electric current that courses through the citizenry.

 In a protest letter to the Japanese Minister of Defense and the Okinawan Defense Bureau, Co-representatives Yoshiyasu Iha, Kunitoshi Sakurai, Hideko Tamanaha, and  Naomi Machida of the Liaison Committee to Protect Citizens’ Lives from Organic Fluorocarbon Contamination makes three demands:

1. An apology from the US military for its environmental crimes, particularly the deliberate release of water contaminated with PFAS into public sewers.

2. Prompt on-site investigations to determine the source of pollution.

3. All treatment and costs for detoxifying PFAS contaminated water from the Futenma base should be borne by the U.S. military.

 Contact:   Toshio Takahashi [email protected]

What we’re witnessing in Okinawa is occurring world-wide, although many are unaware of this pressing public health issue due to a general press embargo. This is starting to change.

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Featured image: U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma is located in densely populated Ginowan City, Okinawa.

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Largely overlooked in last week’s announcement of the U.S.–Australia nuclear-powered submarine deal is the fact that the U.S. government plans to build new U.S. military bases Down Under. In a September 16 press conference, Australia Defence Minister Peter Dutton announced plans to establish new facilities for naval, air, and ground forces with “combined logistics, sustainment, and capability for maintenance to support our enhanced activities, including…for our submarines and surface combatants” and “rotational deployments of all types of U.S. military aircraft to Australia.”

The U.S. military already has at least seven installations in Australia. While mainstream media outlets frequently raise fears of China’s “escalating military presence in the South China Sea,” the U.S. military has hundreds of bases throughout the Asia Pacific region, surrounding China’s borders. Worldwide, despite the recent withdrawal from Afghanistan, the U.S. government still maintains approximately 750 military bases abroad in 80 foreign countries and colonies, according to a new, exhaustive list of U.S. overseas military installations that I helped compile for the Quincy Institute and World BEYOND War.

That the Biden administration intends to expand the already massive collection of bases in Australia and elsewhere in the Pacific is deeply troubling. Across the political spectrum and even within the U.S. military there is growing recognition that the country has, as retired four-star U.S. Air Force General Roger Brady put it simply, “too many daggone bases” overseas. Think tank analysts, scholars, politicians, and other observers conclude that many bases abroad should have closed decades ago and are undermining U.S. and global security. “I think we have too much infrastructure overseas,” said the highest-ranking officer in the U.S. military, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Mark Milley, in December 2020.

Earlier this year President Biden announced a Global Posture Review to examine and ensure the deployment of U.S. military forces around the world is “appropriately aligned with our foreign policy and national security priorities.” While the administration hasn’t announced the results of the review, a military buildup Down Under would be a dangerous step in the wrong direction when base closures, not base construction, are what’s needed.

Since World War II, the United States has maintained hundreds upon hundreds of bases in foreign lands. More than 75 years after that war’s end, there are still 119 base sites in both Germany and Japan, according to the Pentagon. Located on every continent except Antarctica, U.S. bases range in size from city-sized “Little America” installations with tens of thousands of military personnel and family members to small surveillance facilities and drone airfields.

For decades most in the United States haven’t questioned the presence of these bases. Too many have assumed that if a base exists it must have a reason to be there. Too many have assumed that more bases mean more security. Unfortunately, the opposite has often been the case: more bases abroad has meant less security for the United States and the world.

Maintaining unnecessary foreign military infrastructure wastes tens of billions of tax dollars annually at a time when domestic infrastructure is crumbling, and trillions are urgently needed to respond to pandemics, global warming, and other pressing health, education, housing, and environmental needs. I conservatively estimate the annual cost of building, operating, and maintaining bases abroad at $55 billion — larger than the State Department’s entire budget.

Bases are the face of the United States globally far more than diplomats, reflecting the dangerous, longstanding militarization of foreign policy: the 750 bases abroad are nearly three times the number (276) of U.S. embassies, consulates, and missions worldwide. While a few other countries maintain foreign bases on other nations’ lands, the United States controls the vast majority. The United Kingdom, France, Russia, Turkey, and a few other countries likely have around 200 foreign bases combined. China has five foreign installations (plus bases in Tibet).

Bases abroad also raise geopolitical and military tensions, encouraging countries like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea to boost their own military spending (and foreign base construction) when encircled by U.S. bases. How would U.S. leaders respond if China or Russia were to build a single base near a U.S. border?

As our new QI report and bases list show, U.S. installations are blocking the spread of democracy in at least 38 non-democratic countries and colonies. Bases in the U.S. colonies (“territories”) of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have helped perpetuate their colonial relationship with the rest of the United States.

Bases abroad frequently cause significant environmental damage, harming and angering locals. Deadly accidents and crimes by U.S. military personnel, including rapes and murders, coupled with occupying other people’s lands also contribute to generating understandable protestand damaging the reputation of the United States. While the vast majority of protest is nonviolent, one of Osama bin Laden’s justifications for al Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks was the U.S. military presence in the Muslim holy land of Saudi Arabia.

Some will say the United States must maintain hundreds of bases overseas to keep the peace and make the United States and the world safer by deterring enemies. To that I say: Prove it. They can’t. There is no conclusive evidence showing that U.S. bases overseas are an effective and strategically useful deterrent. Meanwhile, the last 20 years of endless war show how foreign bases have made it easier for U.S. leaders to launch and wage disastrous wars of aggression, like those in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and 20 other countries where U.S. troops have deployed into combat.

The Biden administration can still reverse course to close bases abroad and abandon plans to build new ones in places like Australia. Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush closed hundreds of unnecessary bases in Europe and Asia in the 1990s and 2000s. Congress doesn’t need to be involved in overseas closures given the absence of a Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process abroad; however, members should support closing installations overseas to return thousands of military personnel and family members — and their paychecks — to their districts and states. There is considerable excess capacity for returning troops and families at domestic bases.

In contrast to former President Donald Trump’s hasty withdrawal of bases and troops from Syria, Biden can close bases carefully and responsibly, assuring allies, saving money, and building back the U.S. diplomatic presence worldwide. “Draw Down/Build Up” should be the mantra: Draw down the base posture abroad, bring troops and their families home, and build up the country’s diplomatic posture and alliances. Continuing to maintain 750 bases overseas and building new ones in Australia is a frighteningly irresponsible policy that, most frighteningly, is escalating military tensions with China, making what should be an unthinkable war with the nuclear-armed competitor more likely rather than less.

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Please hear the Prime Minister of Australia, Scott Morison telling the world how important human rights are and see how well they were respected in Australia last week.

The Premier of Victoria, Dan Andrews, has been becoming increasingly authoritarian over the past 20 months.  He has been using the police to repress political debate, including arresting a pregnant woman and old men for expressing their political views on social media.  Unchecked, he is now using the police to repress, punish and brutalise the people for expressing any dissenting political opinion.

Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton is not merely derelict in upholding his oath of office to serve and protect the people of Victoria, but has been inciting his force to violence against the people.  We now see police shooting people and using chemical weapons to terrorise people into silence.  We see a police force that is bereft of discipline and restraint, and their criminal behaviour is encouraged by the chief of police to protect the ego of the premier.

Last week, the Premier of Victoria and his Chief Commissioner of Police crossed a line.  They let their egos cloud any judgement of what constitutes good government.

A wise leader would recognise that the people need to express their disapproval at their government’s policies.  A wise chief of police would have his force directing traffic, making space for people to march peacefully and arresting the odd boofhead starting any trouble.  The people would have voiced their opinions, listened to a few speakers, got bored and gone home.  There would have been one demo on Saturday and that would be it.  This is the Australian way.

Instead, we’ve seen a week of escalating violence instigated by the police who are now intimidating everybody approaching downtown Melbourne in fear of another protest forming.

A wise leader would be reassuring the people that the government is in control of the situation and uniting the people in common cause.  Dan Andrews has been instilling irrational  fear in the people, is demonstrably out of control, is sowing the seeds of division with policies that intend to institute a discriminatory two-class society, and is using the police to wage war on the working class.

Depriving the rights of one Australian is to attack the rights of ALL Australians.

This is now far beyond the policies of lockdowns, masks, mandatory medication and vaccine passports being used to create first and second class citizens.  This is about a Premier who is out of control, ruling by decree and using the organs of State to brutally repress political debate and deprive the people of their rights to freely associate and express their political opinions.

It takes a lifetime to build a reputation and seconds to destroy it.  Last week, Daniel Andrews and Shane Patton destroyed Australia’s reputation as a free and fair society.

The only way we can retrieve it now is to remove these evil men from office and hold them to account before the Courts.  This action would demonstrate to all future governments in Australia and to the world at large, that when tyranny raises its ugly head in Australia that we have the means and the will to stop it in its tracks and to swiftly remove despots from public office.

The Parliament of Victoria must sack these men immediately for abusing their power, and if the Parliament fails to act, then the Governor of Victoria, The Honorable Linda Dessau must do her duty and act to protect the people of Victoria from a despotic government and a police force that is out of control.

Here’s the truth about the protest by construction workers  protesting their union leaders betraying them about mandatory vaccinations.

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Construction sites in and around Melbourne, Australia, have been shut down for two weeks after hundreds of construction workers and other protestors gathered Monday at the site of a union building, throwing bottles and damaging equipment.

They were protesting the Victorian government’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for construction workers that begins Thursday.

Riot police used rubber bullets and pepper spray to disperse crowds, the BBC reported, and the headquarters building for the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union was damaged. Several people were arrested.

The union released a statement saying it condemned the protests and the “mindless acts of violence” perpetrated by members of the crowd. The statement said that many protesters were not construction workers but members of neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist groups.

“It is clear that a minority of those who participated were actual union members,” it said.

Protests continued on Tuesday in Melbourne, with the crowd growing into the thousands and encompassing anti-vaccine activists and other types of workers.

Up to 2,000 protesters descended into the city’s central business district, according to The New York Times, which also reported that protesters threw bottles at the police and set off flares, while officers in riot gear fired rubber bullets and used pepper spray.

Worker protests began last week when “tea rooms” where tradespeople congregate during breaks were shut down amid the rising delta surge and the government banned workers from consuming food or drink indoors. That prompted construction workers to take their lunch breaks outside in protest.

They set up tables and plastic chairs in multiple intersections in central Melbourne, blocking roads and holding up traffic, according to NPR.

Public health measures

Following the protests, construction and state officials announced that jobsites in Melbourne and other areas in the region will be closed for at least two weeks beginning Tuesday. It cited Monday’s unrest and the increase in COVID-19 cases in the building and construction industry as the reasons.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said that multiple outbreaks — as high as 13% of all cases, according to local media reports — have been linked to construction sites.

Construction has been among the few industries that have largely stayed open throughout the pandemic in Victoria.

“Construction workers are a mobile workforce who may work across multiple sites and travel longer distances to work than other permitted workers,” Andrews said in a statement. “Concerns have also been raised, and remain, about the sector’s compliance with public health measures and directions.”

Minister for Industrial Relations Tim Pallas was even more forceful, saying that his office has seen widespread non-compliance across the industry.

“We’ve been clear: if you don’t follow the rules, we won’t hesitate to take action,” he said in the statement.

Workers will be required to show proof of at least one vaccine dose when sites reopen on Oct. 5, he added.

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The Australia, United Kingdom and United States nuclear submarine deal and their announced new AUKUS trilateral alliance have sent shockwaves across the Indo-Pacific and beyond as fears rise the move could spark an armed conflict with China.

While US allies in India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have all been mainly mute on the announcement, the strategic tremors of the nuclear deal will be most acutely felt in Southeast Asia and the South China Sea.

Already, the region appears to be splitting into pro and anti camps. Indonesia and Malaysia have openly criticized the deal, portraying it as a potentially destabilizing development that rekindles age-old resentment of Australia acting as America’s “deputy sheriff” in the region.

Singapore and Vietnam, two countries with rising concerns about Chinese expansionism, quietly welcomed the deal without issuing any formal statements. The Philippines, a US treaty ally, stood out by openly backing the deal as a necessary “enhancement of a near-abroad ally’s ability to project power.”

The AUKUS deal, which is purportedly consistent with regional principles on nuclear non-proliferation, is expected to be discussed in the forthcoming high-level meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), including a scheduled annual summit in November.

There are serious regional concerns about the strategic implications of US-made Australian nuclear submarines patrolling the hotly contested South China Sea, where the US is pressing to maintain freedom of navigation. In recent years, Chinese and US naval forces have almost come to blows in multiple “close encounters” in the disputed sea.

Some ASEAN members worry the involvement of more naval forces, especially nuclear-powered submarines, would likely further complicate the situation and raise the risk of armed confrontation.

A US Navy Carrier Battle Group with USS Ronald Reagan in the lead in the South China Sea. Image: US Navy/Handout

Eager to preserve its “centrality” in shaping a stable regional order, the Southeast Asian bloc has actively pushed over the decades for a reduction of foreign military forces in the strategic region, now a chief theater of rivalry between the US and China.

Malaysia, a staunchly “neutral” country, has been a major advocate of the principle of ZOPFAN (Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality in Southeast Asia).

As former Malaysian Prime Minister Abdul Razak Hussein argued in the 1970s, ASEAN should espouse “a policy of neutralization which will ensure that this region will no longer be a theater of conflict for the competing interests of the major powers.”

The ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC), which has been signed by all major Indo-Pacific powers, similarly calls upon member states as well as dialogue partners to contribute to a peaceful management of disputes and, accordingly, refrain from militarizing the region.

Of particular concern is the ASEAN’s Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (SEANWFZ Treaty) treaty, which expressly opposes the presence of nuclear weapons and other forms of weapons of mass destruction in the region.

Critics say the AUKUS deal could potentially violate some of these key ASEAN tenets, since any nuclear-powered submarine would rely on highly enriched uranium that could also be used for nuclear weapons production.

Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry thus immediately criticized the Australian submarine deal, making it clear that the de facto leader of ASEAN “is deeply concerned over the continuing arms race and power projection in the region.”

Sensing the potential for fallout, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison reached out to regional counterparts, including Indonesia and Malaysia, to assure the AUKUS deal is consistent with the country’s nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) obligations and that the subs would only act to enhance “strategic balance” in the region, in light of China’s rapidly expanding naval footprint in the area.

Australia’s ambassador to ASEAN, Will Nankervis, also issued a statement clarifying that the AUKUS “is not a defense alliance or pact” and that the nuclear submarine deal “does not change Australia’s commitment to ASEAN nor our ongoing support for the ASEAN-led regional architecture.”

“Australia remains staunch in our support for the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Australia will work closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure full compliance with our NPT obligations as a Non-Nuclear Weapon State,” the Australian envoy said in a statement addressed to the ASEAN headquarters in Jakarta.

“We remain committed to reinforcing international confidence in the integrity of the international non-proliferation regime, and to upholding our global leadership in this domain,” he added.

Malaysia’s newly installed Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, however, remained unconvinced, telling his Australian counterpart that that “AUKUS could potentially provoke other powers to act more aggressively, especially within the South China Sea region.”

Significantly, other key ASEAN states such as Vietnam and Singapore, which have welcomed greater strategic cooperation with the US, have not raised any objections. Experts and analysts believe that the two countries quietly welcome any external efforts to counter China’s muscle-flexing in the South China Sea.

Surprisingly, Beijing-friendly Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte bucked the reticent trend by openly backing the deal as an indispensable contribution to regional security.

Following phone conversations with his Australian counterpart Peter Dutton, Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana reiterated the country’s “neutrality” but didn’t openly criticize the AUKUS deal.

A week earlier, the Philippine defense chief welcomed expanded maritime security cooperation with the US during a visit to Washington to commemorate the 70^th anniversary of the Philippine-US Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) amid a recent rapid revival of the century-old alliance.

Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr, who also recently visited Washington, reflected Manila’s quiet return to its traditional alliances after years of strategic flirtation with China by defending the deal as consistent with regional principles and the NPT because the nuclear submarines will use enriched uranium but not carry nuclear weapons.

“The enhancement of a near-abroad ally’s [Australia] ability to project power should restore and keep the balance rather than destabilize it,” said the Philippine chief diplomat in an official statement.

He welcomed the submarine deal as crucial to “enhancing Australia’s [deterrence] ability, added to that of its main military ally, to achieve that calibration [against regional threats].”

Though not directly mentioning China, Locsin warned of the Asian superpower’s “threatening” behavior in the disputed waters, including the use of “maritime militia” vessels to intrude into Philippine-claimed waters.

“Proximity breeds brevity in response time; thereby enhancing an ASEAN’s near friend and ally’s military capacity to respond to a threat to the region or challenge the status quo,” Locsin added in a thinly veiled jab at China.

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Australia, the UK and the US announced the formation of “AUKUS,” an amalgamation of the three nation’s initials, as a tripartite “defense alliance.”

Despite claims that the alliance is aimed at no particular country (and no particular country was mentioned during its announcement), the Western media has not reported it as such, and China – the obvious target of this “AUKUS” alliance – doesn’t perceive it as such.

The Guardian in its article, “Alliance with Australia and US a ‘downpayment on global Britain’,” would explicitly state:

 Britain’s post-Brexit foreign policy is taking shape, and the early moves are hardly very surprising: a tripartite defence alliance with the US and Australia – handily compressed to Aukus – clearly designed to send a message to Beijing.

Chinese state media, Global Times, would make it abundantly clear that China understood this with a headline reading, “AUKUS another hostile signal to China, worsens Asia-Pacific security.”

AUKUS begins with the three nations announcing plans to design, develop, and deliver nuclear-powered attack submarines to Australia, which currently has 6 Collins-class diesel electric submarines delivered between the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.

The abovementioned Guardian article noted that Rolls Royce and BAE Systems would likely win contracts as part of this deal. Considering the 18 month period the Guardian reported would be used to plan this process and the several years it takes for BAE Systems to build and commission nuclear-powered submarines, Australia may put these new submarines into service around 2030.

The Price of this New Alliance

As an extra caveat, and perhaps warning to Australia, the new deal is likely to result in a French-Australian submarine deal falling through. Worth 65.6 billion US dollars, this will not be the first time US machinations have cost Paris dearly. In 2015 France was forced to reimburse Russia when it failed to deliver two Mistral-class amphibious assault ships after Paris was pressured to cancel the deal by Washington.

The adage, “no honor among thieves,” comes to mind. France, an eager accomplice in Washington’s various wars of aggression since the turn of the century now finds itself on the receiving end of American exceptionalism. France’s misfortunes today will almost certainly be Australia’s tomorrow as “AUKUS” runs its course.

In many ways, Australia has already begun paying its own price.

Australia’s largest trade partner in 2019 was China. Australian exports to China outmatched all Australian exports to North America and Europe combined. Prompted by the US to pressure China across a range of fabricated accusations, Chinese-Australian trade dropped significantly, with ABC Australia itself claiming by as much as 40%.

While Australia says it is working to compensate for these losses by expanding into alternative markets, such effort could have been used to double Australian trade rather than merely recover from politically-motivated and very much self-inflicted economic damage in its trade row with China.

A War Alliance Predicated on Lies

The “security challenges” AUKUS claims to be addressing include two obvious flashpoints, both the product of persistent US provocations.

The first is centered around Taiwan where the current, US-backed ruling government in Taipei continues to inch toward independence. It should be remembered that Taiwan is recognized by virtually all nations (including the United States) as part of China under the “One China” policy.

To illustrate this, the US itself does not have an official embassy in Taipei. But while the US officially recognizes Taiwan’s status under international law, it has unofficially and consistently undermined it by supporting pro-independence political groups in Taiwan.

The other flashpoint is in the South China Sea where the US accuses China of “bullying” other nations by making “excessive” maritime claims.

The US regularly conducts “Freedom of Navigation Operations” (FNOPs) throughout the region.

The official US Navy website in a statement titled, “7th Fleet conducts Freedom of Navigation Operation” (July 12, 2021), for example, would claim:

The United States challenges excessive maritime claims around the world regardless of the identity of the claimant. The international law of the sea as reflected in the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention provides for certain rights and freedoms and other lawful uses of the sea to all nations.

Not mentioned is the fact that the US itself is not actually a signatory of the 1982 Law of the Sea of Conventions and is in fact one of only a few nations not to sign it.

The US Navy also makes another telling admission when it claimed:

China, Taiwan, and Vietnam each claim sovereignty over the Paracel Islands.

This reveals that it is not China “bullying” nations in the region over the South China Sea, but instead a series of overlapping claims. Nations in the region have disputes not only with China, but also with each other.

This is revealed in headlines like the Wall Street Journal’s 2016 article, “Indonesia Blows Up 23 Foreign Fishing Boats to Send a Message,” in which the Indonesian government destroyed captured Malaysian and Vietnamese fishing boats.

Vietnamese news portal Binh Duong News’ article, “Malaysian Navy seizes Vietnamese fishing boats,” and Bangkok Post’s article, “3 Malaysian trawlers seized near Satun,” also help illustrate many nations in the region are engaged in heated maritime disputes with often theatrical results – but always avoid actual conflict and are eventually resolved bilaterally.

This is not unlike maritime disputes taking place anywhere else in the world, including in Europe, where just this year the New York Times reported on the mobilization of British and French naval vessels over contesting fishing waters near Jersey island. This row too was resolved peacefully.

The South China Sea’s various overlapping disputes have been exploited by the US. Washington has injected itself into the middle of what would be commonplace and long-standing maritime disputes to depict them as one-sided bullying by China to justify America’s large and growing naval presence in the region and to recruit nations into belligerent alliances precisely like AUKUS.

The US even went as far as initiating a tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at the Hague, the Netherlands in 2016 – allegedly on behalf of the Philippines. It was American lawyer Paul Reichler and the Western law firm Foley Hoag – not Filipino lawyers – who led the effort.

The non-binding politically-motivated ruling was not even used by the Philippines who instead opted for bilateral talks with Beijing to establish a mechanism to ease tensions in the South China Sea and even cooperate in contested waters, according to the Philippines’ own Department of Foreign Affairs website.

For added irony and to further illustrate how these disputes are not one-sided Chinese “bullying,” upon the conclusion of the PCA’s ruling, not only did Beijing reject it, Taiwan did too. According to a 2016 New York Times article, Taiwan also then sent a patrol ship to the contested waters.

Together, with the Taiwan issue, these two flashpoints are clearly artificial, kept in motion by a constant investment by Washington in terms of political pressure and propaganda as well as a steady stream of military provocations.

Toward War with China

These flashpoints are cultivated specifically to rally nations against China, to isolate and contain the rising nation, and to grant the US an extension to what it itself calls its “primacy” over Asia.

However, they may also serve as impetus for a limited US-initiated war with China, a war the US would prefer to fight sooner rather than later.

In a 2016 RAND Corporation paper (PDF) commissioned by the US Army and titled, “War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable,” a compelling argument is made for the preservation of American hegemony through a limited war predicted to remain conventional and confined to East Asia.

The paper notes:

We postulate that a war would be regional and conventional. It would be waged mainly by ships on and beneath the sea, by aircraft and missiles of many sorts, and in space (against satellites) and cyberspace (against computer systems). We assume that fighting would start and remain in East Asia, where potential Sino-US flash points and nearly all Chinese forces are located.

It’s worth emphasizing that US planners admit that China’s forces are confined to Chinese territory and that the only way a conflict would breakout would be if US forces were in close proximity to them and provoked into conflict where “potential Sino-US flash points” are located, e.g. the South China Sea, or Taiwan. The paper notes that the time frame studied stretched from 2015 to 2025.

The paper also describes the obvious benefits of, and thus motive for the US provoking such a conflict. It states:

The prospect of a military standoff means that war could eventually be decided by nonmilitary factors. These should favor the United States now and in the future. Although war would harm both economies, damage to China’s could be catastrophic and lasting: on the order of a 25–35 percent reduction in Chinese gross domestic product (GDP) in a yearlong war, compared with a reduction in US GDP on the order of 5–10 percent. Even a mild conflict, unless ended promptly, could weaken China’s economy. A long and severe war could ravage China’s economy, stall its hard-earned development, and cause widespread hardship and dislocation.

Such economic damage could in turn aggravate political turmoil and embolden separatists in China.

The US is clearly preparing the grounds for such a conflict, cultivating the very “separatists” the paper notes the conflict would “embolden,” while attacking and attempting to block China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which is currently diversifying away from China’s dependency on vulnerable Asia-Pacific maritime trade routes.

Through the creation of what are clearly military alliances like AUKUS, the US is ensuring it has the military muscle before, during, and after any such conflict to wage and win it, before then doubling down on a containment strategy to ensure Western hegemony over the Indo-Pacific region for decades to come.

The current status quo all but guarantees China’s economy (as well as military and political influence) will irreversibly surpass the US’ within a decade. The closing window of opportunity the US has to prevent China’s as well as Asia’s surpassing of the West in a transfer of primacy from West to East that has not occurred in centuries, almost certainly was the impetus behind “AUKUS.”

Only time will tell whether or not “AUKUS” will simply buy the US time before being surpassed by China, or if it is one of several final pieces being put in place before the hypothetical conflict RAND Corporation described in the pages of its 2016 paper is turned into a bloody reality.

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

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Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s surprise September 16 announcement that Australia was in a new security alliance with the United States, Britain and Australia — AUKUS — formalises its war drive against China.

The intensification of Australia’s long alliance with these two big imperialist powers cements its role as part of a US push to block China’s economic development, by force if necessary.

At a still unknown cost, Australia is to be given US and British technology to build nuclear-powered submarines in Adelaide. The two nuclear armed and powered countries will exploit a loophole in the international non-proliferation treaty: International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards allow for nuclear material to be used for “non-proscribed military activity”.

Australia is now setting a precedent for other non-nuclear weapons’ states to do the same.

We now know that discussions have been underway between the three governments for months, yet Morrison didn’t bother to inform the Australian public.

Thanks to the organising efforts of the anti-nuclear movement in the 1970s and early 1980s (a large part in Labor’s ranks), Labor held the line against uranium mining and nuclear weapons. Huge annual marches against nuclear weapons and nuclear ships visiting Australian ports also stopped the uranium industry from gaining a bigger foothold.

However, before taking office in 1983 Labor ditched its anti-uranium and anti-nuclear policies. Not surprisingly, Anthony Albanese said Labor “welcomes” the agreement to “maximise the interoperability of our defence and security arrangements”. He said a “calm and measured approach” is needed.

“A US alliance is our most important. And the UK, of course, is our old friend”, Albanese said. “So, it makes sense in terms of efficiency and in terms of maximising the positive output that we engage across our three nations to make sure that there is maximum interoperability available.”

Albanese said the conditions for Labor to support the nuclear-powered submarines were: no requirement for a domestic civil nuclear industry; no acquisition of nuclear weapons; and that the agreement would be compatible with the non-proliferation treaty.

However, as critics (and even some supporters) have said, the submarine deal is likely to become the launching pad for the pro-nuclear lobby to renew its push to open up uranium mining. After all, Australia has the third largest reserves of the mineral in the world.

Australia signed the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty in 1973 and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1998 when the anti-nuclear movement was still a force. The Morrison government has refused to sign the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which came into force in January and now has 55 signatories, although none with nuclear capability.

Australia is, however, a party to the South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone Treaty of Rarotonga, which established a nuclear weapon-free zone in the South Pacific. The new submarines will also not be welcome in New Zealand, which has maintained a ban on such potentially hazardous vessels entering its ports.

Even former submariner Rex Patrick, now an independent Senator who supports Australia acquiring submarines, expressed concern at the government’s secretive decision. He called for parliamentary scrutiny before the next election.

Given the secrecy surrounding this announcement, along with the anti-China red scare campaign, it is perhaps not too surprising that Roy Morgan’s snap poll on September 16 had 57% agreeing with the purchase of nuclear submarines.

Patrick agreed it would be “difficult” for Australia to have nuclear-powered submarines “without a domestic nuclear power capability”. “Acquiring, operating and maintaining a nuclear submarine fleet without a domestic nuclear power industry is a challenge that must not be underestimated.”

Dr Vince Scappatura, spokesperson for the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network, said AUKUS would “undermine Australia’s sovereign defence capabilities” and will contribute to the greater militarisation of the region.

Adam Bandt MP said the Greens would oppose the nuclear submarine deal, and called on the Labor Party to follow Paul Keating’s lead against “locking in” Australia’s military equipment “and thereby force” with those of the US.

Sam Wainwright, a national co-convenor of the Socialist Alliance, told Green Left the new military pact was about formalising an old alliance to put the heat on China.

“Australia may be a junior player in terms of scale, but it’s an energetic one”, he said. “Defence Minister Peter Dutton has been keen to go to war and he has decided to raise the stakes against China. He and Morrison went to Washington earlier this year and asked for help: they have long wanted a nuclear industry here to cash in on Australia’s big uranium reserves.”

Australia is the only G20 country with a ban on nuclear energy, leaving uranium as an export-only commodity. The value of uranium sales last year was estimated at $2.5 billion.

Meanwhile, the French government has withdrawn its ambassadors from the US and Australia over being “stabbed in the back”. “This is not just sour grapes over losing ‘the deal of the century’”, Wainwright said.

“It also reflects European powers’ unease over a post-Brexit tightening of the alliance between the Anglo-imperialist powers at their expense. France and Germany were already smarting over NATO’s hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan and amplifying calls for the formation of a European military forcethat can act independently of the US.”

Wainwright said Australia should not have signed up for either the French or the US submarines. Nor, he said, should Australia be a partner of US or European military interventions, “because their only purpose is to maintain the current violent, unjust and exploitative world order. Every cent allocated to the submarines is money that should be spent on projects that forge a more just and sustainable world for all.”

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***

Australia has just caused surprise among its friends, concern among its neighbours, and an overtly hostile reaction from the Chinese with its announcement that it was scrapping the submarine deal it had signed with France and replacing it with a scheme, cooked together with British and American allies, to buy 8 nuclear powered submarines.

The scheme as announced was extraordinarily short on details. There is apparently at least 18 months of negotiating ahead before the contract is even signed. After that there will be a lengthy delay, estimated being at least 10 years in length, before the first submarine is ever delivered. By that time, who knows what the state of the world’s geopolitical system will be. One can be assured that the Chinese, against whom the plan is obviously directed, will have taken multiple steps to ensure its own safety.

The Australian prime minister Scott Morrison was not short of hyperbole in announcing the deal. He described the relationship with the United States as the “forever partnership”. As the old joke goes, there are only two forever’s, death and taxes. Morrison’s words are reflective of an unfortunate tendency among Australian politicians. They are inclined not to look at the map when making grand geopolitical statements.

Australia is a thinly populated European nation that sits at the southern end of the Asian landmass. In keeping with its geography, the bulk of Australian foreign trade is conducted with those same Asian neighbours. Ironically, China is by far Australia’s largest trading partner, followed by Japan.

The British are yesterday’s men when it comes to Asia having finally been forced to give up its holding in Hong Kong that they took by force from China in the 19th century. The United States likes to project itself as an important figure in the Asian scheme of things. As the recent debacle in Afghanistan showed, however, American influence in the region is marked by one rebuttal after another.

With the possible exception of Japan, United States influence in the region is rapidly fading, notwithstanding its provocative sailings in the South China Sea and its overt support for the island of Taiwan. It is conveniently forgotten by Western commentators that from 1949 to 1972 the island of Taiwan held China’s seat on the United Nations Security Council. There was no suggestion then that Taiwan was a separate country. It could hardly have claimed to be, yet retaining China’s seat on the Security Council.

Now, Taiwan is making noises about becoming an independent country, something that the Beijing government has declared to be totally unacceptable, and which they will prevent by the use of force if necessary. It would be very unwise for the West to ignore the determination of the People’s Republic of China to recapture its rebellious neighbour. It would be equally unwise for the Americans to underestimate the Chinese level of determination and attempt to defend Taiwan from returning to the control of the mainland.

It is into this fraught situation that the Australian government is being inexorably drawn by its latest agreement with the Americans. Although the Australian media are almost completely silent on the point, one of the consequences of this new agreement with the Americans will be an increase in the number of United States military holdings in Australia. They already control the operation of the spy base at Pine Gap in the Northern Territory. It was former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam‘s intention to close the base that led to the coup against his government in November 1975.

The United States has operated a baleful influence upon Australian foreign policy ever since. There is absolutely nothing in the latest announcement of Australia buying United States designed nuclear powered ships that will do a single thing to reduce that influence. Quite the contrary.

The current posturing by the Australian Prime Minister will do nothing to alter that reality. Together with his defence minister, Peter Dutton, who has been a failure at each of his previous ministerial postings, they are both talking loudly about the wonderful future of Australia. They are either too vain or too stupid to see that this latest deal does more than any other single decision in recent years to entrap Australia in a subservient role to the United States.

As Scott Ritter writes in RT: “This is a story of geopolitically driven military procurement gone mad”,¹ pointing out that this deal “further exacerbates the existing geopolitical crisis with China by injecting a military dimension that will never see the light of day.”

Ritter goes on to seek answers to problems he sees as being associated with the announced purchase; for instance, first of all, how much will it cost?  Secondly, how will Australia operate advanced nuclear power systems when it has no indigenous nuclear experience to draw upon? And how does Australia plan to man a large nuclear submarine when it can barely field four crews for its existing Collins class fleet.

These are legitimate questions to ask, yet the timid Opposition Labor Party seems paralysed by them.

As Alan Gyngell points out², the United States’ expectations of Australia’s support in almost anything going, whether it involves China or not (although that is the greatest danger) will grow. It represents an application of responsibility to ensure the ongoing welfare of the Australian people. By the time the submarines are delivered, if at all, the present generation of political leaders will be long gone. The damage they are doing will last a lot longer.

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James O’Neill is a retired Barrister at Law and geopolitical analyst. He can be contacted at [email protected].

Notes

1. US-UK-Australia Submarine Deal is a Dangerous Joke, 18 September 2021.

2. “Australia Signs up for the Anglosphere“, September 19, 2021.

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***

It seems utterly beyond debate but acknowledging legal rights to clean hair has assumed the makings of a slow march over the years.  The 1956 Clean Air Act in Britain arose from the lethal effects of London’s 1952 killer smog, which is said to have taken some 12,000 lives.  The Act granted powers to establish smoke-free zones and subsidise householders to shift to the use of cleaner fuels (gas, electricity, smokeless solid fuel).

There is certainly no shortage of advocates for the self-evident point that clean air is vital.  Some of this has been reduced – at least historically – to an issue about the non-smoker’s wish not to have the air clouded by the selfish actions of a smoker.  But this is small beer when compared to the general levels of global pollution that keeps the Grim Reaper busy on an annual basis. According to the World Health Organization, air pollution kills 7 million or so people each year, with 9 out of 10 people breathing air “that exceeds WHO guideline limits containing high levels of pollutants, with low- and middle-income countries suffering from the highest exposures.”

In 2019, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment David R. Boyd noted approvingly that a majority of States had, be it through their constitutions, statutes and regional treaties, recognised the right to a healthy environment.  But recognition for such a right on a global level remained an unfulfilled object.  The UN General Assembly, for instance, may have adopted a range of resolutions on the right to clean water, but never on the right to clean air.  This is despite such a right being, according to Boyd, “implicit in a number of international human rights instruments, including the Universal Declaration to Human Rights (right to adequate standard of living), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (right to life) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (right to health).”

This month, a flutter of interest was caused by a ruling in the Central Jakarta District Court on a lawsuit lodged two years before accusing the Indonesian government of unlawfully permitting air pollution in the capital to exceed permissible, healthy limits.  Citizens such as Istu Prayogi, who had never so much as touched a cigarette in their lives, joined the suit after his lungs revealed the sort of lung damage that would arise from being a heroic, persistent smoker. 

The unanimous decision by the three-judge panel found that the seven officials concerned, including President Joko Widodo, three cabinet ministers and the governors of Jakarta, Banten and West Java were negligent in not upholding environmental standards.  As Duta Baskara, one of the panel members observed, “They have been negligent in fulfilling the rights of citizens to a good and healthy environment.”  The judges, however, dismissed the applicants’ submission claiming that the president had violated human rights.

The court directed that the seven officials take serious action to guarantee the rights of Jakarta’s residents by improving air-quality regulations and implementing measures to protect human health, the environment and ecosystems informed by science and technology.  Environmental laws would also have to be policed more rigorously, along with the imposition of sanctions for offenders.  

The scale of this effort is hard to exaggerate.  On June 4, 2019, Jakarta registered the worst air quality in the world, if one takes the readings of the air quality monitoring app AirVisual as accurate.  At 210 on the Air Quality Index (AQI), the city keeps ahead of the pack of other polluters such as New Delhi, Beijing and Dubai.

Rapporteur Boyd also offered his services to the 32 applicants, writing in his supporting brief that, “Protecting human rights from the harmful effects of air pollution is a constitutional and legislative obligation for governments in Indonesia, not an option.”  The director of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment, Nur Hidayati, affirmed this view to The Jakarta Post in early June that breathing “clean air is our right that the government has to fulfil.” 

These are not positions plucked out of some speculative realm of legal reasoning.  The right to clean air in Indonesia is guaranteed by such legal documents as the country’s 1945 Constitution and the 1999 Law on Environmental Protection and Management.  But the writ of law is not always a guarantee of its policing.

Before the September decision, Jakarta’s governor, Anies Baswedan, did not feel that a ruling against the authorities would cause much fuss.  As the governor’s climate change envoy Irvan Pulunga explained, “The governor doesn’t see this lawsuit as a disturbance to the government’s work but a vehicle for collaboration.”  Pulungan also insisted that improvements had been made to the city’s air quality over the course of two years.

This tune coming from the office of president has been somewhat different, more a case of fleeing rather than addressing a problem.  In part, this is understandable, given that Jakarta has become a city of nightmares for policy makers, urban planners and the authorities.  Few such concentrations of humanity on the planet are as plagued by environmental concerns.  To debilitating air pollution can be added flooding, regular seismic activity and gradual subsidence.  

Only a month after the lawsuit was filed, the president proposed relocating the capital to another spot to be built in East Kalimantan on the island of Borneo.  “The burden Jakarta is holding right now,” he claimed at the time, “is too heavy as the centre of governance, business, finance, trade and services.” Such moves promise to abandon one problem by creating another, given the risks posed to the environment of East Kalimantan.  

Showing a spirit not exactly collaborative in nature, an appeal against the ruling is expected by the government.  Jakarta’s governor, in particular, finds himself facing a range of orders from the court, including designing environmental “strategies” and policies to mitigate the air pollution” under the direction of the supervision of the Home Affairs Minister.

Modest as it is, the victory for the applicants in the Central Jakarta District Court shows, at the very least, that that courts remain an increasingly important forum to force the hand of legislatures in ensuring that something so elementarily vital is not just seen as a right but enforced as one.

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

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***

The Indo-Pacific’s Cold War is heating up as the region splits ever more decisively into opposed camps with a loose alliance of US-led democratic powers on one side and authoritarian China and its aligned satellites on the other.

And the first economic salvos of the contest launched by Donald Trump’s trade war are becoming more militarily provocative under Joe Biden.

The escalating contest took a game-changing turn last week when the US and Britain announced they will provide Australia with the technology and capability to develop and deploy nuclear-powered submarines in a new trilateral security arrangement that will put more pressure on China’s contested claims in the South China Sea and other maritime theaters.

The nuclear submarines will tilt the region’s strategic balance and potentially cause China to concentrate more of its security energies closer to home and less so on far-flung theaters. From that perspective, the submarine deal is part of a coordinated encirclement strategy that Beijing will certainly view as a threat to its plans to increase and strengthen its presence in the Indian Ocean region.

Meanwhile, the US and India signed a new agreement on July 30 to jointly develop Air-Launched Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (ALUAV). The deal is the latest under the Research, Development, Testing and Evaluation Memorandum Agreement between India’s Ministry of Defense and the US Defense Department first signed in 2006 and renewed in 2015.

A September 3 statement describes the deal as yet another step towards “deepening defense technology collaboration between the two nations through co-development of defense equipment.” Needless to say, the target of the deal is China.

Just as provocatively, US ally Japan is now staging its largest military drills since 1993, separately but hardly by coincidence at the same time Taiwan has launched a new major military exercise known as Han Kuang to strengthen combat readiness in the event of a Chinese attack.

China considers self-governing Taiwan a renegade province that must be “reunified” with the mainland, a seizure Chinese President Xi Jinping has indicated is a near-term priority. Taiwan’s incorporation into the mainland would undermine the US’ strategic advantage in the Indo-Pacific, making the island a strategic center point of the new Cold War.

China was not explicitly mentioned as a target in any of the recent deals, tie-ups and exercises. Indeed, Biden administration officials who briefed reporters after the nuclear sub announcement said specifically that the new trilateral partnership “was not aimed at countering Beijing.” The US-India deal was likewise announced without mentioning China.

But there is no mistaking that Biden is actualizing his vow to build alliances of so-called like-minded powers to tackle and confront China’s rise. That alliance-building will be underscored at Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, meeting at the White House in Washington on September 24.

The Quad, a strategic tie-up of the US, Australia, Japan and India, is in China’s crosshairs. The Global Times, a Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece, ran a September 15 editorial headlined “Quad summit will see limited concrete outcomes as US, Japan, India, Australia are ‘four ward mates with different illnesses’: experts.”

The commentary said, “the summit will make no big chance [SIC] in its hostility against China, though the statement released by the White House about the summit didn’t mention China.”

Lü Xiang, a specialist in US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and one of the Global Times’ cited “experts”, spoke to contradictions and weaknesses in the Quad: “The US hasty pull-out from Afghanistan caused huge loss to India; Australia refused to make promise on coal mining for the climate change issue; Japan is now facing a chaotic political situation, and is being unwisely provocative toward China due to the Taiwan question.”

The Global Times has it right from one perspective: “hostility against China” is rising precisely due to Beijing’s increasingly assertive moves in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, an outward thrust that the Biden administration and its allies are broadly countering in the name of maintaining a “free and open Indo-Pacific.”

The shift in US strategic perspective from fighting terrorism to countering China is open and clear. US Vice President Kamala Harris renewed that pledge during a visit to Singapore and Vietnam in late August literally coincident with America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, where she said the US “will pursue a free and open Indo-Pacific that promotes our interests and those of our partners and allies.”

Like the Global Times, Harris did not mince words when she said “In the South China Sea, we know that Beijing continues to coerce, to intimidate and to make claims to the vast majority of the South China Sea” [and] “Beijing’s actions continue to undermine the rules-based order and threaten the sovereignty of nations.”

After four years of what many viewed as four years of neglect, mixed messaging and miscues under former president Donald Trump, the US under Biden is making clear the US’ renewed commitment to the region.

US ally Britain is also back in the region in a muscular manner not seen in decades. A strike group led by aircraft carrier HMS Elizabeth sailed through the South China Sea in route to Japan in July, a freedom of navigation flex that elicited a strong response from China.

Britain “is still living in its colonial days”, fumed Global Times’ columnist Lin Lan on July 26 while taking shots at issues unrelated to the aircraft carrier’s voyage in China’s nearby waters.

“While Britain is trying to show off its strength, its own problems are acute. On July 14, a Covid-19 outbreak was reported on the HMS Queen Elizabeth and around 100 cases were confirmed…Besides, the UK’s economy has fallen into recession and about one-fifth of UK pensioners are living in poverty, according to an analysis of government figures in June.”

The Global Times also shot at Japan’s recent military exercise. Columnists Yang Sheng and Liu Xuanzun wrote on September 15: “Right-wing political forces in Japan have been lying to the Japanese public about the essence of the Diaoyu Islands issue [disputed islands in the East China Sea] and Taiwan question.

“Now the Japanese public holds unreasonable hostility and bias against China, and this is why the massive drills targeting China could win support for Japanese politicians.”

Their comments were punctuated with what could be construed as a veiled warning from Beijing: “But to what extent Japan would intervene militarily, the US has the final say … China is prepared for the worst-case scenario — the US and its allies, including Japan, launch an all-out military intervention to interrupt China’s national reunification.”

But China’s leadership has been doing more than printing provocative articles in their mouthpiece aimed at international audiences.

In a sign of China’s wider global ambitions, Beijing recently built a 330-meter-long pier large enough to accommodate an aircraft carrier at its naval base in Djibouti, China’s only foreign military base strategically located at the southern entrance of the Red Sea.

China’s first domestically made aircraft carrier, the Shandong, has completed regular testing and training missions at sea that focused on actual combat after serving in the People’s Liberation Army Navy for 10 months, China Central Television reported. Photo: Global Times

From there, China’s navy can readily monitor traffic to and from the Suez Canal — and collect vital intelligence from the entire region. At least 2,000 Chinese navy personnel are present at the Djibouti base, which has been expanded gradually since it was opened in August 2017.

To be sure, China’s move into the Indian Ocean makes strategic sense. Christopher Colley, a security analyst writing in the Washington-based War on the Rocks, recently noted:

“Roughly 80% of China’s imported oil transits through the Indian Ocean and Malacca Strait” and that “in addition, 95% of China’s trade with the Middle East, Africa, and Europe passes through the Indian Ocean. More importantly from Beijing’s perspective, this region is controlled by Chinese rivals: the United States and India.”

Japan and Australia, which also see less benign motives behind China’s interest in the Indian Ocean, could be added to that list.

Its newly established presence has unmistakably shifted the huge and strategically important ocean’s security dynamics to their mutual detriment, particularly as China projects power through two aircraft carriers, the Liaoning and Shandong, with a third under development.

China’s increasing assertiveness in the Indian Ocean has been seen in the growing presence of Chinese survey ships and submarines. In January, the Paris-based Naval News website reported that Chinese ships “have been carrying out a systematic mapping of the [Indian Ocean’s] seafloor. This may relate to submarine warfare.”

That echoes a 2020 US Department of Defense report that said the Chinese navy may have an Indian Ocean fleet “in the near future.”

Image on the right: The 16th installment of the China navy escort fleet conducts a two-ship alongside replenishment in the eastern waters of the Indian Ocean in a file photo. Photo: Twitter

The Chinese obviously want to protect their economic and therefore strategic interests in the Indian Ocean, not least their crucial fuel imports from the Middle East, but it is also clear that China has wider strategic ambitions to challenge the US as the world’s leading military superpower.

“Although China’s ultimate aims in the Indian Ocean remain somewhat ambiguous, it is clear that the Chinese leadership is actively pursuing capabilities that would allow it to undertake a range of military missions in the region,” said a Brookings Institution think tank report from last year.

The Australian nuclear submarine deal, US-India drone deal and rising Quad meetings and operations should all be viewed from the perspective of China’s perceived expanding threat, a multi-pronged strategy driven by multiple aligned actors to encircle and contain Beijing’s global ambitions.

While the US and its allies cloak many of these moves in euphemisms about “freedom”, “liberty” and “democracy”, the battle lines are being drawn and pieces positioned for what increasingly seems like an inevitable new Cold War conflict to come.

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Featured image: The USS John Warner, a nuclear-powered submarine of the type Australia will soon be developing. Source: US Navy

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***

The announcement of a new strategic alliance between Australia, the US and UK (AUKUS) has caught many by surprise. Besides France, which reacted with fury over Australia’s scrapping of a major submarine deal with a French company, few countries were as surprised as Australia’s neighbours to the north, the ASEAN members.

In particular, Indonesia and Malaysia have come out strongly against Australia’s plan to acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines with the help of the US and UK. Even Singapore, Australia’s most reliable ally in the region, has expressed concern.

The Afghanistan debacle has left a bad taste among many Indo-Pacific countries, and some are wondering if the timing of the AUKUS announcement was intended as a show of US power in the region to reassure jittery partners.

Fear of a nuclear arms race

To understand the deep anxiety in Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and other ASEAN capitals requires some context on where they are coming from.

First, many of them think there is no such thing as acquiring nuclear-powered submarines without the prospect of acquiring nuclear weapons in the future.

Australia has not joined the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which requires parties to agree not to develop, test, produce, acquire, possess, stockpile or threaten to use nuclear weapons.

The Morrison government says the treaty would be inconsistent with its alliance with the US, a nuclear weapon power.

However, Australia did ratify the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1973 and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1998. And Prime Minister Scott Morrison said last week Australia has “no plans” to pursue nuclear weapons.

Yet, some ASEAN countries are worried the AUKUS agreement is a clear signal the West will take a more aggressive stand towards China by admitting Australia to the nuclear club.

Both Indonesia (the unofficial leader of ASEAN) and Malaysia fear AUKUS will also lead to a major arms race in the wider Indo-Pacific region.

Little bit of news: On a private call with experts about AUKUS yesterday, a State Department official posted in Vienna said they had already started discussions with the IAEA about the safeguard issue raised by some https://t.co/Cfnpe8hLj7

— Alex Ward (@alexbward) September 16, 2021

The potential for conflict in South China Sea

The new agreement also signals that the US, Australia and UK view the South China Sea as a key venue for this contest against China.

The ASEAN nations have always preached maintaining southeast Asia as a “zone of peace, freedom and neutrality”, free from interference by any outside powers. In 1995, the member states also signed the Treaty of Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone, which committed to keep nuclear weapons out of the region. Not a single nuclear power has signed on to it.

Although everyone knows China, the US, Britain and France have ignored these protocols by manoeuvring armed warshipsthrough the South China Sea — not to mention China’s building of military bases on disputed islands there — ASEAN does not want to see this number grow.

Australian nuclear-powered submarines have the potential to change the dynamics in the South China Sea and make the Chinese much more nervous. There have already been plenty of “close encounter” incidents between the Chinese and US navies in the disputed waters, as well as the Chinese navy and ships belonging to ASEAN members. The region doesn’t need yet another potential “close encounter” to worry about.

The ASEAN states are already very worried about the China-US rivalry playing out in its backyard. And the new AUKUS agreement reinforces the idea that the opinions of the ASEAN members matter little when it comes to the superpowers and how they operate in the region.

The region has always insisted on the idea of “ASEAN centrality” in their relations with the world — that ASEAN members must decide what is best for Southeast Asia — but as AUKUS shows, nuclear nations play a different game.

Indonesia is especially unhappy with Australia given the new agreement will affect it directly, given their common maritime border.

Morrison had already been forced to cancel his upcoming trip to Jakarta after Prime Minister Joko Widodo said he would be unavailable to meet — a decision that was made before the AUKUS announcement. This will add another layer to the strained relationship.

"Experts note that middle power Australia has been known to take ASEAN's position for granted, and even tried to undermine or bypass ASEAN in its diplomatic initiatives." #AUKUS pic.twitter.com/1VGQn2a0T7

— Evan A. Laksmana (@EvanLaksmana) September 18, 2021

Is there anyone happy about the deal?

While in public, most southeast Asian governments have expressed uneasiness with AUKUS, there is a school of thought that says the more hawkish voices in the region will probably accept the agreement in the long term, as it will help keep China’s aggression in check.

For those in the “hawk” camp, the number one long-term threat to regional security is China. Many think the strategic balance of power has been tilting too much in Beijing’s favour in the past decade, especially after China started rushing to build military bases in the South China Sea and using its navy to protect Chinese fishing vessels in disputed waters.

So, they believe any moves to remind China it does not have a carte blanche to do what it wants in Southeast Asia is a good thing.

Japan and South Korea are clearly in this camp and their muted reaction to AUKUS suggests they are in favour of a “re-balancing” in the region. Taiwan and Vietnam are probably on this side, as well.

The only downside is that Australia may use its nuclear-powered submarines to bully ASEAN countries. If Canberra uses its nuclear submarines as a bargaining chip, it will simply turn public opinion in the region against Australia.

Japan-Australia foreign ministers' phone call: Motegi "welcomed the security cooperation between Australia and the United States and the launch of AUKUS, which both aim to strengthen their engagement in the Indo-Pacific region."https://t.co/ki2uScnajo pic.twitter.com/ysf6O42VuC

— Tom Corben (@CorbenTom) September 19, 2021

Implications for Australia-ASEAN relations

If anything, the AUKUS move reinforced the widely held perception that Australia’s mantra of being “part of the region” is, in fact, “empty talk”. Australia has firmly signalled its intentions to put its Anglo allies in the US and UK first.

AUKUS also reinforces the view that Australia cannot be accepted as a regional partner or player. This, of course, is nothing new. For years, the ASEAN bloc has seen Australia as “deputy sheriff” to the US, though this view would not necessarily be shared in public.

So, while AUKUS came as a surprise to many in the region, an alliance of this sort was probably bound to happen. It’s just that nobody expected it to happen so soon.

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James Chin is Professor of Asian Studies, University of Tasmania.

Featured image: INDONESIAN MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS/HANDOUT/EPA

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***

It does not get any messier or more chaotic than this.  Since 2009, when Australia’s Future Submarine Program (FSP) known as Project SEA 1000, began to take shape, strategists and policy makers have been keen to pursue the next big White Elephant of defence spending.  And few areas of an already wasteful area of public expenditure are more costly – often mindlessly so – than submarines.   

The Australian effort here is particularly impressive.  Pick a real winner by signing a contract for a yet to be designed attack class submarine, supposedly necessary in an increasingly dangerous region.  Ensure that this design is based on a nuclear model and remove that attribute, aptly described as “dumbing down a nuclear submarine by removing the whole basis of its superior capability, and then charging at least twice as much for a far less capable submarine.” 

Just to make things interesting, make sure the order is for 12 of these yet to be designed and built creatures.  Make sure, as well, that they are only ready sometime in the 2030s, by which time they risk being obsolete in a field of other contending submarines with superior capabilities. 

The dubious honour for this monumentally foolish contract, with an initial cost of AU$50 billion, fell to the French submarine company DCNS (now called Naval Group). It nudged out German and Japanese contenders with pre-existing designs.  “The decision,” a government announcement in April 2016 explained, “was driven by DCNS’s ability to best meet all of the Australian Government requirements.  These included superior sensor performance and stealth characteristics, as well as range and endurance similar to the Collins class submarine.  The Government’s considerations also included cost, schedule, program execution, through-life support and Australian industry involvement.”

The contract warmed the French military establishment.  It was praised as the “contract of the century”.  Le Parisien’s editorial lauded the prospect of thousands of jobs.  President François Hollande could say that he was also capable of pulling off a contract to aid the French military industrial complex, despite being a socialist.  A “50-year marriage”, claimed French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian with honeymoon exuberance, had begun.

The post-nuptials were not promising.  Rear Admiral Greg Sammut had to concede in an estimates hearing before Australian senators that another AU$50 billion would be required to sustain the submarines for the duration of their operating life.  “Many of the detailed costs of acquisition and sustainment will be determined during the design process through choices made but at this point early estimation of the sustainment costs for the fleet are of the order of up to $50 billion on a constant price basis.”

Tiffs and disagreements over distribution of labour and further costs started to bite.  How much of the work would actually be undertaken by labour based in Australia?  Would the French company be keeping the lion’s share?  With such problems, and the pace of development, another idea started to gain momentum in the halls of defence: a competing, cheaper design, based on a rejigged version of Australia’s existing Collins Class submarine, might be a suitable alternative.  In the meantime, perhaps a German alternative might also figure, namely the Type 214 diesel electric submarine developed by Howaldtswerker-Deutsche Werft GmbH (HDW). 

In May, Naval Group’s Transfer of Technology program manager Fabrice Leduc solemnly told his staff that the submarine project had been subjected to a “political timeline” following a change of minister in the Australian Defence portfolio.  The new occupant, Peter Dutton, was biding his time because “he wanted to have some strong warranties from the industry and especially Naval Group in terms of cost and schedule.”  The marriage had truly soured. 

On September 15, the press gallery in Canberra was awash with rumours that a divorce was being proposed.  In the early hours of the following day, the question as to whether Australia would be dissolving its union with Naval Group was answered. In place of that union would be a ménage à trois with the United States and United Kingdom, a security three-way with Australia as the subordinate partner.  The glue that will hold this union together is a common suspicion: China.  In place of the Attack Class submarine: a nuclear powered alternative with Anglo-American blessing, based on the US Virginia class or UK Astute class.

In their joint statement announcing the creation of AUKUS, a name deserving a place in a science fiction glossary, the joint leaders of the three countries “guided” by their “enduring ideals and shared commitment to the international rules-based order” had resolved “to deepen diplomatic, security, and defence cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, including by working with partners, to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.”  AUKUS would be a new “enhanced trilateral security partnership” to further such goals.

The agreement is nothing less than an announcement to powers in the region that the Anglophone bloc intends to police, oversee and, if necessary, punish.  The three countries will “promote deeper information and technology.”  Security, science relating to defence, technology, industrial bases and supply chains will be further integrated.  Deeper cooperation would take place “on a range of security and defence capabilities.”

The first initiative of the agreement stands out: “we commit to a shared ambition to support Australia in acquiring nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy.”  Expertise to “bring an Australian capability into service at the earliest achievable date” from the submarine programs of both the US and the UK would be drawn on.  AUKUS unmistakably ties the countries into the same security orbit, meshing them to principles of “interoperability, commonality, and mutual benefit.”

Australia’s submarine policy has previously eschewed nuclear propulsion. Now, as a dowry for receiving such largesse, Canberra is offering up Australia as a confirmed US asset in policing the Indo-Pacific. In any conflict situation, the wallahs of the antipodes are unlikely to say no to any request to do battle with the Middle Kingdom.  US Navy commanders will also be smacking their lips at maintaining attack vessels in Australia as part of the arrangement. 

In the meantime, neighbours will be troubled, despite assurances that the vessels will only have a conventional weapons capability.  Nearby Indonesia is unlikely to be glowing in admiration. 

The dissolution of the union with Naval Group will also be costly, with the defence company bound to push for a generous compensation package.  (AU$400 million is a suggested figure, though this is unlikely to satisfy either Naval Group or the Parisian overlords)  To this can be added AU$2 billion already spent. 

As the divorce costs are sorted, some Australian politicians have pledged to make dissenting noises, with the Greens leader Adam Bandt already warning that the decision promised to “put floating Chernobyls in the heart of Australia’s cities.”  Protests from anti-nuclear activists and advocates are in the offing.

Then arises that enduring problem of actually building these naval beasts.  US lawmakers will be rooting for the construction of the submarines on home soil, a situation which promises to mirror the headaches caused by the Naval Group contract.  Australia also lacks a shipyard able to build or maintain such vessels.

In playing its part in the creation of AUKUS, Canberra has exchanged one white elephant of the sea for another.  But in doing so, Australia has done so in manner more threatening, and more significant, than anything associated with the Naval Group Contract.  The small space Australian diplomats might have had in keeping Canberra out of any foolish conflict in the Indo-Pacific has become miniscule.  The war mongers will be dewily ecstatic.

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

Featured image is from breakingdefense.com

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***

North Korea’s recent demonstration of an indigenously developed cruise missile has provided another opportunity for the United States to perform its own demonstration, one of its inexhaustible hypocrisy upon the global stage. It is also another opportunity to examine the real reason the US continues to maintain nearly 30,000 troops on the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea has conducted its first missile test in about six months. The long-range cruise missile being tested could give Pyongyang another way to evade its neighbors’ missile defenses, say analysts.

The “newly-developed long-range cruise missiles” flew 1,500 kilometers over North Korean territory before successfully hitting their targets, North Korean state media reported Monday.

The article would also note Washington’s reaction, claiming:

In a statement, the US military said it was aware of the reported launches and is monitoring and consulting closely with its allies and partners.

“This activity highlights DPRK’s continuing focus on developing its military program and the threats that poses to its neighbors and the international community,” the statement read.

North Korea has not fought a war since hostilities ended during the Korean War. The United States, on the other hand, has since waged multiple wars of aggression including the highly destructive Vietnam War ravaging all of Indochina, and in the 21st Century, the illegal invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, the US-led military campaign against Libya, and multiple proxy wars the US has waged through its allies including the destructive, still ongoing conflict in Yemen all but fought by America itself through its Saudi allies.

Considering America’s track record, North Korea having 30,000 US troops sitting on its border with South Korea is clearly justification enough to pursue a wide scale defense program aimed at preventing Pyongyang from joining the long and always growing list of victims of US military aggression.

The US has no genuine concern regarding the “threat” North Korea poses to its neighbors or the “international community.”

Instead, the US itself has created a persistent threat against North Korea on its borders, then presents North Korea’s continued arms programs in reaction to this threat as a pretext to maintain a US military presence on the Korean Peninsula – not necessarily to invade and topple the North Korean government – although that is certainly a secondary objective – but instead to contribute toward Washington’s long-standing efforts to encircle and contain China.

According to the US State Department’s own Office of the Historian in a 1965 document titled, “Draft Memorandum From Secretary of Defense McNamara to President Johnson,” the Vietnam War at the time was viewed as necessary only if it was “in support of a long-run United States policy to contain Communist China.”

The document identified Korea specifically as part of one of three fronts along which the US would contain China:

There are three fronts to a long-run effort to contain China (realizing that the USSR “contains” China on the north and northwest): (a) the Japan-Korea front; (b) the India-Pakistan front; and (c) the Southeast Asia front.

More recently, the deployment of US-built Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems to South Korea was allegedly done to protect South Korea from North Korean missiles, but is quite clearly the continuation of Washington’s long-standing policy of containing China today.

North Korea has had the means of striking South Korea for decades including with ballistic missiles, yet never has. The sudden “need” for anti-missile systems to counter missiles that were unlikely to ever be launched in the first place was interpreted by governments and pundits in both Beijing and Washington’s orbits as ultimately cover for systems intended for conflict with China instead.

THAAD missiles are not intended to protect South Korea at all – they are intended to protect US forces stationed in South Korea in the event China launches retaliation strikes amid a US-provoked conflict in the Pacific.

Far from mere speculation, the scenario and obvious motives for the US provoking such a conflict with China sooner rather than later is laid out in precise detail in the 2016 RAND Corporation paper titled, “War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable.”

The paper looks at a hypothetical conflict fought anywhere between 2015 and 2025 noting that as more time goes by, the stronger China’s economic and military capabilities become, and the less likely the US will be able to wage and win a war against China. The obvious implication is that once a US victory over China of any sort becomes impossible, China will have irreversibly surpassed the United States and the “international order” it presumes leadership over.

A conflict fought sooner rather than later is expected to be limited and confined to conventional weapons, fought primarily in the Pacific with targets in Chinese territory attacked by US forces.

The paper notes that China’s military is concentrated in Chinese territory and that China lacks conventional weapon systems capable of striking the US homeland. The paper all but admits that any conflict between China and the United States would require the US military to be in close proximity to Chinese territory, thousands of miles from America’s own shores, and operating in a provocative manner.

Virtually every scenario presented by RAND authors regarding the triggering of such a conflict is rooted in ongoing tensions deliberately and continuously stoked by US interference everywhere from the South China Sea to the strait separating the Chinese mainland from Taiwan.

In such a conflict, the US fears most of all the targeting of its bases in both Japan and South Korea from where it would be launching military strikes against Chinese targets.

THAAD defense systems are there specifically to defend those bases and nothing else. Any collateral damage inflicted on either the Japanese or South Korean populations by a retaliatory attack by China on US bases in the region is admittedly part of a plan to drag at least one or both nations into the conflict alongside the US.

Regarding Japan specifically, the report notes:

Japan’s entry would be likely if the nation were party to the underlying dispute and almost certain if its territory (where US bases are) were attacked.

THAAD missiles and other defensive systems placed in either Japan or South Korea, predicated on the alleged threat North Korea poses to both nations, will be defensive systems in place just in time to fit into the RAND Corporation’s optimal timeframe for a successful US-led limited conflict with China.

The net result will of course be economic ruin for all of Asia, not just China.

The region will be set back decades by even a short conflict the RAND Corporation predicts will be “ intensely violent.” Even if the US “lost” such a conflict militarily, the economic damage would still present Washington with a strategic victory.

This would fulfill US foreign policy objectives of maintaining American primacy over the Indo-Pacific region for decades to come – not because it out-competed China, but because it knocked the entire region down faster than the US itself is declining, and knocked the entire region down lower than the current state of American social, political, economic, and military deterioration.

The ultimate irony is that American accusations against North Korea of being a regional and global threat are part of the US’s own attempts to continue preparing the battleground for a  sought-after limited conflict with China which will – in reality – jeopardize the entire region and the globe.

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

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***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The article’s first paragraph says it all:

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

The article distills the matter further by stating:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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***

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

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

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

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

I just want to leave Australia and never come back.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Cassie Morgan (@cassieemorgan) August 21, 2021

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

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

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

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

— Alexandra Marshall (@ellymelly) August 22, 2021

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

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Robert Bridge is an American writer and journalist.

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

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

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

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

Follow the Money, Follow the Trade 

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

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

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

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

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

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

The article notes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

China Skips Promises, Puts Beijing-Hanoi Ties into Practice

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

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

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

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

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

It would also note:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Featured image is from NEO

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

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

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Featured image is a screenshot from the video

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes

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

² Jomaru, 2012.

³ Ogawa, 2021.

⁴ Brown and Darby, 2021.

⁵ Kyodo, 2021.

⁶ Fackler, 2016.

⁷ Fackler, 2016.

⁸ Tansa, 2021.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Nine dash line’

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

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

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Featured image: PETTY OFFICER 3RD CLASS JASON TARLETON

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And what a sight it is.

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

No alcohol

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Featured image is from HIN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Forest clearing escalates

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

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

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

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

Tanintharyi Nature Reserve

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

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

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

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

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

Plantation boom

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

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

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

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

Critical wildlife habitat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Progress in peril

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Sources

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Featured image: The Karakoram Highway, also known as the China-Pakistan Friendship Highway, is part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Image: AFP Forum

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

Point 56 states,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He further wrote,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Defense News article notes:

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

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

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

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

Even the US Doesn’t Recognize Taiwan as a Country

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

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

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

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

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

What’s Next? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Congressional bills are only the latest measures to prompt scrutiny.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conflict or competition with Asian countries has historically fueled xenophobia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The CAPAC promotes this idea of precision in its guidelines.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Significant biodiversity hotspot

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Loss of local government support

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He said Taiwan is a particular potential flashpoint.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tokyo 2020 blowback

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Suga’s sweetness running low

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

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

Internally, LDP rivals also may see an opening.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The LDP’s challenges

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is Suga the man?

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

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

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

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

And there are even bigger problems on more distant horizons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No early retirements

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New coal capacity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cancellation, though not really

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Public health threat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

“Anti-Beijing” is the key takeaway.

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

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

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

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

The article reported:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Facebook for example would exclaim:

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

In Thailand, Twitter in an official announcement would claim:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As Hans Rudiger Minow stated in German Foreign Policy,

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

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

Seth Cropsey’s bio states,

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

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

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

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

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

He wrote:

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

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

Given this strategic reality.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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August memories

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

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

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

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

Building the railway

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

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

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

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

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

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

The trials

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The aftermath

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seeking recognition

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

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

Guilt and reconciliation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The history

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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

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

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

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

Huge economic burden

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

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

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

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

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

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

Worst of the worst

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

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

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

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

The 10 costliest invasive species in Australia. CJA Bradshaw

Variation across regions

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

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

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

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

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

Better assessments needed

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

This includes Pitjantjatjara, a widely spoken Indigenous language.

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

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

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

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

A constant threat

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

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

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

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

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

Andrew Hoskins is Research scientist CSIRO Health and Biosecurity, CSIRO

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Featured image is from NEO