The interview that caused a war of words

SUDHISH KAMATH

January 8,2015

The HinduTROJAN HORSE: “Security experts have woken up to the possibility that the hacking of Sony could have been an inside job.” Picture shows James Franco and Seth Rogen in a still from ‘The Interview’. Photo: Special Arrangement

With reports that hackers had demanded money, the possibility of North Korea really being responsible for the hack of Sony Pictures seems increasingly preposterous

Who would have thought that a silly comedy with yet another outrageously ridiculous plot from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg — the makers of “Superbad” (about two high schoolers trying to score alcohol), “Pineapple Express” (about two stoners on the run with a stash of weed) and “This Is the End” (about coked-up Hollywood stars going to heaven after the world ends and dancing with the Backstreet Boys) — could instigate a war of words between two countries?

“The Interview” is about, well, two ecstasy-popping TV journalists this time, who are sent to assassinate the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. Last weekend, U.S. President Barack Obama officially imposed more sanctions on North Korea — sanctions that affect its intelligence agency, its main arms dealer and its military defence technology, including ten individuals associated with these operations — as the first instalment of retaliation for cyber attacks (allegedly been triggered by Sony’s decision to release “The Interview”) that are yet to be proven. This prompted North Korea to officially deny once again its role.

Threats and release

To recap, hackers identifying themselves as Guardians of Peace leaked some confidential and sensitive emails and also left a prankish message threatening more attacks, including some on the ground, if Sony released “The Interview.” They objected to its plot.

Cinema halls, because of the threats, refused to exhibit the film which has been directed by Rogen and Goldberg. Sony Pictures then decided to put the Christmas release on hold, only to be frowned upon by President Obama. After public pressure to not bow down to blackmailers mounted on Sony, it decided to go ahead with the release as planned (at a much smaller scale though) and opted to use the very medium that caused the problem: the Internet.

A lot of Americans went to watch “The Interview” to defy the North Korean threat, as a sign of their patriotism for the country that stood for liberty. Thousands of jingoistic Americans took to IMDB (Internet Movie Database) and rated the film 10 on 10 without even watching it, and doing so well before the scheduled release date.

“The film inadvertently showed us the potential of the Internet in fighting censorship”

But let’s rewind a little to examine the facts.

Ebola fight has coordination problem, says new UN mission chief

Jan 8, 2015

The Ebola crisis has claimed 8,235 lives over the past year, almost all of them in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

MONROVIA: The three west African countries worst hit by the Ebola epidemic should be leading the response against the killer virus, the UN's new mission chief on the disease said Wednesday, condemning "a problem of coordination" in the fightback. 

"The governments of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea are the ones who are driving... this is about their people, this is about the fate of their countries, we should acknowledge that national leadership," said Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the new head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER). 

"There is a problem of coordination," he said on his first visit to Monrovia, warning of "too many cooks in the kitchen" with good intentions. 

The Ebola crisis has claimed 8,235 lives over the past year, almost all of them in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. 

Liberia, long the hardest-hit country, has however seen a steep drop in new infections in recent weeks. 

But Ahmed warned "there is still a lot to be done in order to declare Liberia Ebola free". 

"It is always in this moment of optimism that you can see some degree of complacency," he said. 

In Sierra Leone, which has overtaken Liberia as the country with the most infections, authorities on Wednesday announced another door-to-door campaign in the west of the country to raise awareness of the haemorrhagic fever. 

The country's chief medical officer Brima Kargbo told AFP that a similar campaign over two weeks in December had been a success, leading to 266 new Ebola cases being discovered. 

In Guinea meanwhile, Nigerian President Mahamadou Issoufou and his counterpart from Benin, Thomas Yayi Boni, carried out a joint visit to show their "solidarity" with the nation where the outbreak began in December 2013.

AirAsia jet tail found underwater, black box may be close by

Jan 7, 2015

The tail was identified by divers after it was spotted by an underwater machine using a sonar scan, Soelistyo said. (AP photo)

JAKARTA/PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia: The tail of a crashed AirAsia jet has been found upturned on the sea bed about 30km from the plane's last known location, Indonesia's search and rescue agency said on Wednesday, indicating the crucial black box recorders may be nearby.

Flight QZ8501 vanished from radar screens over the northern Java Sea on Dec. 28, less than half-way into a two-hour flight from Indonesia's second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore. There were no survivors among the 162 people on board.

"We've found the tail that has been our main target," Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, head of the search and rescue agency, told a news conference in Jakarta.

The tail was identified by divers after it was spotted by an underwater machine using a sonar scan, Soelistyo said. He displayed underwater photographs showing partial lettering on the sunken object compared with a picture of an intact Airbus A320-200 in AirAsia livery.

"I can confirm that what we found was the tail part from the pictures," he said, adding that the team "now is still desperately trying to locate the black box".

Indonesia's Minister for Maritime Affairs, Indroyono Soesilo, told another news conference: "With the finding of the tail, six SAR (search and rescue) ships are already at the location to search within a radius of two nautical miles."

Forty bodies and debris from the plane have been plucked from the surface of the waters off Borneo, but strong winds and high waves have been hampering divers' efforts to reach larger pieces of suspected wreckage detected by sonar on the sea floor.

German insurer Allianz said it had begun making initial payments to the families of crash victims, although it declined to specify the amount.

"These payments are in no way final settlements," said a spokesman for Allianz, which is the lead reinsurer for the consortium of insurers covering claims in the case. "We will agree further compensation in due course in consultation with all involved parties."

Initial insurance payments to cover immediate financial hardship in similar cases have run at around $25,000 for the next of kin of each passenger, according to industry sources.

Finding the tail was priority:

Locating the tail of the plane has been a priority because the cockpit voice and flight data recorders that can provide vital clues on why it crashed are located in the rear section of the Airbus.

"I am led to believe the tail section has been found," AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes tweeted minutes after the announcement.

"If (it is the) right part of tail section, then the black box should be there ... We need to find all parts soon so we can find all our guests to ease the pain of our families. That still is our priority."

Somalia's Shebab militants 'execute informers'

Jan 7, 2015

MOGADISHU: Somalia's Shebab militants have executed four people accused of spying for the United States, Ethiopia and the country's internationally-backed government, officials and witnesses said. 

The executions by firing squad took place at a square in the town of Bardhere, a Shebab stronghold in Somalia's southwestern region of Gedo, late Tuesday, and came a week after the US said it had killed the al-Qaida-affiliated militants' intelligence chief in an air strike. 

"One of the spies worked with the CIA and facilitated the killing of an Al-Shebab commander," a Shebab judge in the town said before the four were shot dead. 

According to the judge, another one of those executed had been aiding US operations in Barawe, a port town and former Shebab stronghold that was captured last year by Somali and African Union forces, while the other two worked for Ethiopian intelligence and Somalia's security agency. 

"After hearing the charges against the four and their confession, the Islamic court sentenced them to the death penalty," the judge said. 

A local witness, Ali Ronow, said hundreds of local watched the execution. 

"The men were blindfolded and shot from the back by a team of hooded gunmen," he said. 

India Blocks China’s Attempt to Take Over South Asian Group

2 January 2015 

In late November, New Delhi blocked Beijing’s attempt to gain membership in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Maldives, and Afghanistan are the seven other full members of 

At the group’s 18th summit, held in the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu, Beijing allies Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka pushed for China’s upgrading from observer status to full membership. India sought to defeat the initiative because SAARC, as the organization is known, operates on consensus and New Delhi feared that China would block its initiatives in the future.

The last thing the group needs is more obstructionism. By all accounts, the Kathmandu meeting, whose motto was “Deeper Integration for Peace and Prosperity,” was not a success. That is not especially surprising because SAARC is itself considered a failure, with little to show since it was formed in 1985. “SAARC represents the EU approach to South Asia,” writes M. A. Niazi, an Indian journalist, but unfortunately South Asia is not Europe, where leaders are intent on integrating their economies and societies.

Yet, despite everything, the South Asian grouping is becoming an important platform for India, now intent on countering China’s attempts to dominate South Asia.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi signaled that SAARC would play a big role in his foreign policy from the very beginning. Creating a great deal of optimism at the time, he invited the leaders of the seven other nations—including Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif—to his inauguration in late May. Since then, not much has been accomplished in furthering SAARC’s objectives.

For one thing, Pakistan is unsure about integration within the group, especially since India, considered its primary adversary, is SAARC’s dominate member. Ultimately, Islamabad’s reluctance may not matter. Modi appears increasingly impatient with the Pakistanis. He and Sharif slighted each other in Kathmandu and then Modi indicated India was going to go ahead with his initiatives, with SAARC or without it. “The bonds will grow,” the Indian prime minister told the seven other leaders at the Kathmandu summit. “Through SAARC or outside it. Among us all or some of us.”

Yet Pakistani obstinance is not the only barrier to progress. Local Indian politics during Modi’s short tenure has hindered India playing its natural role as leader of the region. In 2014, he let opposition in the state of West Bengal halt links with Bangladesh, and let resistance in Tamil Nadu slow outreach to Sri Lanka.

Modi may think of India as the core of South Asia and the center of SAARC, but China is moving into the region fast, marginalizing New Delhi. Take Nepal, the host of the recent summit. At the end of December, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrived in Kathmandu for a three-day visit to deliver help to Nepal, especially assistance in generating electricity. Beijing will increase official annual aid more than five-fold, from $24 million to $128 million. Moreover, China will spend additional money to build a police academy for Nepal.

Who is killing India's nuclear scientists?

http://www.rediff.com/news/report/who-is-killing-indias-nuclear-scientists/20150106.htm

'Forensics experts say in all such unexplained deaths of scientists and engineers involved in the nuclear programme, fingerprints are absent, as also other clues that would assist the police in identifying the culprit(s).'

Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.comreports on a petition that demands a Special Investigation Team probe the mysterious deaths of India's nuclear scientists.

Based on the data compiled under the Right To Information Act by activist Chetan Kothari, about the deaths of various personnel working for India's nuclear establishment, over a four year period between 2010 and 2014, Kothari through his advocate Ashish Mehta has claimed in a Public Interest Litigation that 'Over the last few years, a number of India's nuclear scientists have been dying under mysterious circumstances and the police are classifying them either as 'unexplained' or suicides.'

The PIL -- a copy of which is available with Rediff.com -- appeals to the Bombay high court to constitute a Special Investigating Team to probe these deaths and find out if India's premier nuclear establishments have been following protocols and standard operating procedures when it comes to the safety of their employees.

"The data compiled by my client using the RTI Act clearly shows that the reasons for many deaths cited by the various respondents have been categorised as 'unexplained'. The number of deaths are not only shocking but there is lot of mystery surrounding these deaths," says Ashish Mehta, the advocate for the petitioner.

"The PIL appeals to the honourable high court to constitute a SIT, under the court's supervision, comprising of competent, high-ranking and experienced scientists and investigators so that the nation comes to know about the causes of these mysterious deaths," Mehta told Rediff.com

Citing a number of deaths of key nuclear engineers and scientists, the PIL states that the government and the defendants have not taken these deaths -- often under mysterious circumstances -- seriously and made no efforts to find out the truth behind them.

'It is very pertinent to note that there are parallels here with the numerous attacks on the Iranian nuclear scientist community', the petition notes, but 'the same cannot be said for the Indian government, as the Indian government is not making any noise about the whole thing.'

'Once the "unexplained" rubber stamp has been approved, government bodies don't tend to task the authorities with investigating further', the petition states.

Buttressing its claims the petition cites, among others, the mysterious deaths of two high-ranking engineers who worked on India's first nuclear-powered submarine, the INS Arihant, seen in image above.

The petition states:

Sanskrit is still important: Amartya Sen

SHIV SAHAY SINGH

January 6, 2015 

‘Distinction should be made between Sanskrit as a general vehicle of thoughts and specific religious ideas that may be expressed in the language.’

Emphasising that Sanskrit as a language is important in India today, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen said on Monday that a distinction should be made between Sanskrit as a great language and a general vehicle of thoughts on the one hand, and specific religious ideas that may be expressed in the language, on the other.

Speaking at an event where Infosys Prize, 2014 was awarded to six scientists, Professor Sen said the distinction was made clear to him from his early days as a student and that distinction is important even today.

“It is not only the language of priesthood and a language in which Hindu and many Buddhist texts came, it is also a vehicle among many other radical thoughts of comprehensive doubts about the supernatural… a medium in which questioning of class and legitimacy of power was expressed with profound eloquence by Sudraka in his play Mrichchhakatika,” he said.

Reflecting on the interconnections between different cultures and the ability to learn from one another in science, Prof. Sen cited the example of the three mathematical connections — Indian, Arabic and European mathematics, referring to Brahmagupta, Alberuni and Gherard.

“There is no shame in learning from others, and to put them to good use and then going on to create knowledge, new understanding and thrilling novel ideas and results,” he said.

A “Pending Issue”: Pakistani Balochs seeking shelter in Afghanistan

Monica Bernabe

31 December 2014 

Pakistani Balochs in southern Afghanistan. Photo: Karlos Zurutuza

While millions of Afghans have fled to Pakistan over the past four decades, now, Pakistanis are flocking to Afghanistan. There are not only those who flee Pakistani military operations in Waziristan, though, but also Pakistani Balochs who say that they flee from repression by the Pakistani government, linked to latest Baloch insurgency activities. In Afghanistan, they live in precarious conditions. The Afghan authorities seem to exert a hand-off approach, and the UN sees them as a marginal issue. Our guest author Mònica Bernabé, a Spanish newspaper correspondent who has lived in Afghanistan for the past seven years, reports from Kabul and Zaranj, the capital of Nimroz province in southwest Afghanistan (with contributions from Thomas Ruttig).

Abdul Waheed’s mutilated corpse was found on 1 December 2010, 20 kilometers from the town of Kalat, in Pakistan’s troubled Balochistan province, the largest, but least populated of the country. “He was my relative. He worked as a school teacher,” Jahangir Khan says. All that remains from him in Khan’s possession is the photo of a corpse with the face disfigured by acid on a newspaper clipping. “He was identified because he had a piece of paper with his name written in one of his pockets,” Khan’s newspaper article says.

“Abdul Waheed was arrested in May 2007, accused of having blown up an electricity pylon in Kalat,” Jahangir Khan says. He produces some documents issued by the judge of the special anti terrorism court in the Khudzar district of Balochistan. They conclude that Abdul Waheed was innocent due to a lack of evidence and even questioned whether the alleged terrorist act ever took place. “The Pakistani authorities opened false cases against many Baloch, but as the courts didn’t find them guilty and released them, they used another tactic: enforced disappearances and killings,” Jahangir Khan recalls. “That is what happened to Abdul Waheed,” he adds.

In 2007, Khan himself, too, was accused of being involved in terrorist attacks in Balochistan. He lost his job as an attorney in Quetta, the province’s capital. He also was proven innocent by the court.

The killing of his relative Abdul Waheed was the straw that broke the camel’s back and made Jahangir Khan gather his belongings to flee with his family across the border to Afghanistan in November 2012. Once in Kabul, he had to reinvent himself as a seller of phone cards in the streets until he managed to find work in a shop. Paradoxically, these Pakistani Balochs found themselves seeking shelter in a country which, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), ranked third in the world regarding asylum seekers in 2013.

Oil, gas and insurgencies

The Balochs – still mostly nomads – are spread over three countries, Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, in a territory the size of France. Balochistan is strategically important because of its natural resources wealth, including gas, copper and gold, untapped reserves of oil and uranium, as a transit area for oil and gas pipeline projects linking Iran and South Asia and because of its long coastline at the gates of the Persian Gulf. But it mainly consists of desert and allows for a living only migratory animal husbandry (and some smuggling).

Terror Outfits Build Presence in Gilgit-Baltistan

By Senge Sering

January 06, 2015

The Pakistani Taliban has named a native from the Himalayan region of Gilgit-Baltistan as its new spokesperson. 

Khalid Balti, a resident of Gilgit-Baltistan, has been chosen as the new spokesperson of Pakistan’s Taliban (TTP). He was selected to replace Shahidullah Shahid, who left to join the Pakistan based affiliates of the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIS). Naming a local is evidence of the Taliban’s growing interest in the strategically located Gilgit-Baltistan region.

Khalid Balti, who identifies himself as Mohammad Al-Khorasani, was born in Thogmus Village in the Gangche district in Gilgit-Baltistan. He left for Karachi in 1994 after studying at a local religious school, though his wife and four children continue to live in Baltistan. Balti is considered a religious scholar whose previous affiliations with several madrassas in Karachi include Jamiat-ul-Rasheed, Jamia Banoria, and Jamia Farooqia. His expertise in publishing and association with the Taliban’s Umer media led to his prominence and his appointment is a diplomatic move by the Taliban to use cultural competency to fortify their stronghold in adisputed region that is claimed by both India and Pakistan. Moving forward, it is expected that his understanding of local sectarian dynamics between Shia, Sunni, and Sufi Nurbakhshia will serve in recruitment efforts.

Defense and political analysts who are familiar with Gilgit-Baltistan’s connections with Afghan and Kashmir Jihad are not surprised by the Taliban’s attempt to put this region on the international terror map. Given the geopolitical dynamics and Gilgit-Baltistan’s shared borders with China’s Xinjiang Province, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and the Indian region of Ladakh, it was not a matter of if it was going to happen but how soon. In the last two years, the Taliban has been involved in sporadic attacks in Gilgit-Baltistan, killing dozens, including local minorities, military officials, and tourists. The group has also attacked and bombed local girls’ schools to show its opposition to female education.

Like the Taliban, ISIS also stands to gain in Gilgit-Baltistan, a potential point of convergence between affiliated militant groups from Central Asia, Afghanistan, Xinjiang, Kashmir, and Pakistan. The rugged mountainous terrain and sparse population of Gilgit-Baltistan is conducive to the staging of militant forays into India, which the plains of Punjab lack. Control over Gilgit-Baltistan also allows critical access to the minerals and precious gems of the region as well as trans-Asian trade between Pakistan, China, and Central Asia. This access to financing and leverage represents a game changer in the Taliban and ISIS’s mission to establish viable states.

Pakistan and Islamic Ideology

By Kunal Singh

January 06, 2015

To eliminate terror, Pakistan needs to go further than ending the good Taliban-bad Taliban distinction. 

The heartbreaking attack on Army Public School by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) was a brutal reminder to the Pakistani establishment of the repercussions of the treacherous policies they have been pursuing. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif immediately announced that no distinction would be made between “Good Taliban” and “Bad Taliban.” India’s demand is that Pakistan go beyond the Taliban and take on Punjab-based terror outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which make no secret of their designs for India.

The expectation that Pakistan will end its policy of differentiation between terror groups like TTP and “strategic assets” like LeT is a little naive. GHQ Rawalpindi and ISI continue to have a symbiotic relationship with groups like LeT and Haqqani Network. These strategic assets are considered, by many experts, to have derived from historical imperatives and geo-political constructs that embattled Pakistan. While partially true, the relationship that the Pakistani establishment has with “good terrorists” has essentially to do with what Pakistan deems itself to be – an Islamic nation with a missionary zeal that borders on and flirts with fanaticism.

Like many other states in West Asia, Pakistan has not been able to reconcile its Islamic ideology with the Westphalian construct of the world of which it is a part. The Westphalian model of sovereignty that evolved from the Peace of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48) created a multiplicity of states often founded on contradictory philosophies yet balancing each other. The birth of Pakistan necessitated a politico-religious project as a means to justify its existence as a nation distinct from India. Islam – which justified the creation of Pakistan – provided an identity for its sustenance and Pakistan embraced it immediately.

The institutions in Pakistan were deliberately and sometimes artificially coloured with Islamic ideology. The entire nation was on a mission to bolster its identity and ensure that it is devoid of any Indian influence. The impetus that this mission received waxed and waned through the history of independent Pakistan but a running thread of Islamic construct, quite at odds with the Westphalian model, has persisted. Its ambitions in Afghanistan and the desires to be the Islamic nuclear power, which it eventually did become, only reinforced the inherent tension between Islamic ideology and Westphalian world order.

Terror Outfits Build Presence in Gilgit-Baltistan

By Senge Sering

January 06, 2015

The Pakistani Taliban has named a native from the Himalayan region of Gilgit-Baltistan as its new spokesperson. 

Khalid Balti, a resident of Gilgit-Baltistan, has been chosen as the new spokesperson of Pakistan’s Taliban (TTP). He was selected toreplace Shahidullah Shahid, who left to join the Pakistan based affiliates of the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIS). Naming a local is evidence of the Taliban’s growing interest in the strategically located Gilgit-Baltistan region.

Khalid Balti, who identifies himself as Mohammad Al-Khorasani, was born in Thogmus Village in the Gangche district in Gilgit-Baltistan. He left for Karachi in 1994 after studying at a local religious school, though his wife and four children continue to live in Baltistan. Balti is considered a religious scholar whose previous affiliations with several madrassas in Karachi include Jamiat-ul-Rasheed, Jamia Banoria, and Jamia Farooqia. His expertise in publishing and association with the Taliban’s Umer media led to his prominence and his appointment is a diplomatic move by the Taliban to use cultural competency to fortify their stronghold in a disputed region that is claimed by both India and Pakistan. Moving forward, it is expected that his understanding of local sectarian dynamics between Shia, Sunni, and Sufi Nurbakhshia will serve in recruitment efforts.

Defense and political analysts who are familiar with Gilgit-Baltistan’s connections with Afghan and Kashmir Jihad are not surprised by the Taliban’s attempt to put this region on the international terror map. Given the geopolitical dynamics and Gilgit-Baltistan’s shared borders with China’s Xinjiang Province, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and the Indian region of Ladakh, it was not a matter of if it was going to happen but how soon. In the last two years, the Taliban has been involved in sporadic attacks in Gilgit-Baltistan, killing dozens, including local minorities, military officials, and tourists. The group has also attacked and bombed local girls’ schools to show its opposition to female education.

Like the Taliban, ISIS also stands to gain in Gilgit-Baltistan, a potential point of convergence between affiliated militant groups from Central Asia, Afghanistan, Xinjiang, Kashmir, and Pakistan. The rugged mountainous terrain and sparse population of Gilgit-Baltistan is conducive to the staging of militant forays into India, which the plains of Punjab lack. Control over Gilgit-Baltistan also allows critical access to the minerals and precious gems of the region as well as trans-Asian trade between Pakistan, China, and Central Asia. This access to financing and leverage represents a game changer in the Taliban and ISIS’s mission to establish viable states.

A Superpower Showdown: China vs. America in Asia

Ron Huisken

January 6, 2015

Source Link

Confidence in the capacity of the Asia-Pacific region to preserve a flexible but fundamentally robust security order weakened noticeably over the past year. Despite being clearly anticipated and exhaustively studied for some 25 years, the management of the Asia Pacific's strategic transformation is headed toward outcomes at the worst-case end of the spectrum.

A security order is a complex tapestry of norms, laws, conventions, deterrents, opportunities, mechanisms for conflict avoidance and resolution, and so on. Many commentators assess that the prevailing order is unravelling and some have even warned of a new Cold War, or argued that 2014 was beginning to look like an ominous echo of 1914. While these contentions have, on the whole, been disputed as analytically unsound and unduly alarmist, the president of the United States has signalled graphically that serious concern is no longer misplaced. Addressing the UN Security Council in September 2014, President Obama spoke of a "pervasive sense of unease" across the globe and of a world "at a crossroads between war and peace; between disorder and integration; between fear and hope."

In our region we have witnessed perceptions taking shape and judgments being made that the strategic aspirations of others could not be reconciled with "our" vital interests. The policy settings that have flowed from these perceptions and judgements have placed the foundations of the prevailing order under severe strain. East Asia today could be characterized as anticipating and trying to prepare for a prolonged phase of contestation. The core axis is between the two mega-states: US and China, although the China-Japan relationship is also critical and has experienced the sharpest deterioration in recent times.

Hopes that China's reemergence as an energetic great power would be paralleled by a partly natural, partly orchestrated gravitation toward a new and resilient geopolitical order have faded in favor of a search for new and stronger alignments as states seek to insulate themselves from intensifying geopolitical turbulence.

The Dragon’s Fire: Welcome to Chinese Nuclear Weapons 101

Kyle Mizokami

January 5, 2015 

Source Link

The People’s Republic of China’s nuclear arsenal is achieving greater notoriety, as Beijing’s growing economy funds an upgrade of its entire military. The development of mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and a new class of ballistic missile submarines are evidence that China’s nuclear arsenal is becoming increasingly sophisticated.

China’s nuclear force, while modernizing, is a modest one by the relative standards of nuclear powerhouses like the United States or Russia. Beijing has shown little interest in developing a large nuclear stockpile, as it does not view nuclear weapons in the same vein as larger nuclear powers—viewing such weapons within a strictly defensive context with much less operational use.

History and Rationale:

For decades, China placed the bulk of its defense policy in a concept known as “People’s War,” a strategically defensive/tactically offensive war plan that involved luring an invader deep into Chinese territory before destroying them with conventional armies and guerrilla forces. Within that context, against China’s nearly endless supply of manpower, nuclear weapons seem less appealing.

In fact, early on China had no interest in building a nuclear weapons arsenal; Mao described them as “paper tigers” that only appeared dangerous. Chinese opinion shifted in the mid-1950s, with a combination of the Korean War, Taiwan Strait Crisis—in which a nuclear-armed America protected Taiwan—and Soviet offers of nuclear assistance.

China tested its first nuclear weapon on October 16th, 1964. The test had a yield of 22 kilotons, or roughly 50 percent more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Three years it tested its first thermonuclear weapons, which produced a yield of 3,300 kilotons (3.3 megatons.)

For the most part, China developed nuclear weapons to achieve basic technological parity with the United States, Soviet Union, France and the United Kingdom. Although China built this arsenal, it never placed a high priority on constructing an effective nuclear weapons force capable of quick response.

At least for now, China appears to be content with this bare minimum nuclear deterrent: although it has not officially announced a moratorium (the only P5 country to not have done so), it is believed to have stopped production of fissile materials in the mid-1980s, leaving the country with enough to produce roughly 300 nuclear weapons.

China's Military Is NOT Going Rogue

Peter Mattis

January 6, 2015 

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/chinas-military-not-going-rogue-11976?page=show

There are a lot of things to worry about when it comes to geopolitics and national security. China's military going rogue is not one of them. 

China’s assertive behavior along its maritime periphery continues to raise troubling questions about Beijing’s policymaking apparatus and how much control Chinese leaders can exert over the different actors involved. A growing number of studies, including a recently-released report from the Lowy Institute in Canberra, suggest Beijing is incapable of exerting control because of the variety of Chinese foreign policy actors from the central ministries to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to provincial government elements. Nuanced examinations of Chinese security policy are welcome—in part because such nuance invites policymakers to think more clearly about how best to execute China policy—but the pendulum may have swung too far from the outdated perceptions of a monolithic China. Beijing still exerts control (at the very least) the PLA, and this conventional deterrence provided by the military creates space for other Chinese actors to push the envelope in disputed areas.

In the early years of the Cold War, China watchers often viewed Chinese policymaking as a monolithic structure, capable of readily translating intention into action with little internal, bureaucratic friction. That view probably persisted longer at senior levels of foreign governments—for example, U.S. officials’ immediate reaction that the J-20 test in 2011 was related to the U.S. defense secretary’s visit—while analysts and scholars swung toward subtler interpretations based on the mechanics of how leaders got things done coordinating among the different stakeholders in the party and the state.

In the maritime arena, the modern incarnation of the control school, best represented in the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) report entitled “Tailored Coercion: Competition and Risk in Maritime Asia," bears little resemblance to the old belief of a monolithic China acting in lockstep with leadership intentions, despite critics’ claims to the contrary. The central premise underpinning the CNAS report is that Beijing is capable of internal signaling that changes the permissiveness of the policy environment for different players to take action. The sensitivity of nationalist issues does not affect Beijing’s ability to do so. As Jessica Chen Weiss documented in her book, Powerful Patriots: Nationalist Protest in China’s Foreign Relations, Beijing is more than capable of signaling directly and indirectly to domestic players what behavior is allowable in spite of nationalist sentiment. Admittedly, protestors and police are different than the bureaucracies, but the willingness and capability of Chinese leaders to intervene where nationalist sensitivities are most acute indicates that the multitude of policy players do not have carte blanche to act without restraint.

Saying goodbye to steel production in China

BY ADAM MINTER

JAN 5, 2015

Source Link

SHANGHAI – These are not the best of times to be one of China’s massive, state-owned steel mills. The domestic economy is slowing, competition is increasing, and there’s widespread disgust and impatience with the smog pouring out of their stacks.

In short, their lucrative business model for the past three decades is slowly dying. So what’s a manager of a Chinese steel mill to do?

One surprisingly popular option is to bid China goodbye.

In November, Hebei Iron & Steel Co Ltd., a provincial-owned company and China’s largest steelmaker by production, announced that it was moving 5 million tons of its annual production — roughly 11 percent of the 45 million tons of steel it makes every year — to South Africa. According to press reports, it won’t be going abroad alone.

By 2023, Hebei Province — China’s most polluted province — plans to export 20 million tons of steel, 30 million tons of cement and 10 million weight boxes of glass capacity (a weight box equals roughly 50 kg) to points still not named.

At first glance, the export of excess industrial capacity wouldn’t appear to make much business sense.

As Bloomberg News noted last month, Hebei Iron & Steel’s South African mill will be “equivalent to two-thirds of that nation’s output last year, and a third of continental Africa’s.”

In other words, it’s not clear there’s much demand in these new locales for the Chinese steel giant’s plentiful wares. Why, then, are they doing it?

The officials in Hebei Province who oversee the company may have felt they had no choice:

First, they undoubtedly faced political pressure to reduce their environmental impact in China: Reducing production of steel, cement and glass — all highly polluting industries, especially in developing countries — will have a direct impact on Xi Jinping’s pollution goals. (Starting in Hebei will have the added benefit of cleaning up polluted, neighboring Beijing.)

Second, Hebei may simply be at a loss as to how to scale back businesses that they recognize have become massively bloated.

Officials in China’s construction-related industries clearly have too much capacity and too little demand.

Back in September, I attended a speech in Beijing where a vice president of the China Iron & Steel Association announced that Chinese steel production capacity had grown by 200 million tons since the end of 2012, to reach 1.1 billion tons total. Much of that capacity isn’t used — China was projected to manufacture around 750 million tons of steel last year.

The effect on domestic Chinese steel prices has been devastating. Consider the price in Shanghai for steel reinforcing bar (rebar), a key component to building everything from subways to residential high-rises: It fell 29 percent last year.

That drop was largely precipitated by China’s economic slowdown (and the slowest growth rate since 1990). So where is the steel going in the absence of a strong domestic market?

During the first 11 months of 2014, China exported 86 million tons of steel (almost equal to total U.S. production in 2013), up 47 percent over the same period in 2013.

But the export market is hardly a sustainable bet in the long-term, especially at a time when the United States and other importing countries are erecting anti-dumping duties on Chinese steel.

For a company looking for growth over the long term, and significant capitol to invest, that really leaves only one choice: Go global.

In fact, the Chinese government has had a “go global” policy since the 1990s, whereby companies are encouraged to set up subsidiaries abroad for extracting raw materials and energy and — to a lesser extent — manufacturing

But unlike in the past, when going global had served as a nice long-term goal, today’s “going global” strategy has taken on urgency.

Indeed, last Wednesday, China’s ruling State Council announced that China will further promote “going global” by Chinese firms, including with financial assistance. As described by the State Council, the goals are twofold:

First, China is keen to see its flagship firms become internationally competitive — so much so, that it’s obviously willing to encourage even quixotic forays abroad.

Second, bankrolling such overseas expansions is a signal that China wants better returns — in the form of profit and political influence — on its considerable foreign exchange reserves.

Though Hebei Iron & Steel announced its South African plans two months before the State Council’s announcement, it’s all but certain that it is benefiting from the promised subsidies.

Will it work?

4 Headaches for Chinese Diplomacy in 2015

By Dingding Chen

January 06, 2015

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As I mentioned in a previous post, China’s diplomacy was a big success in 2014. To continue its success will not be easy for China in 2015, especially when we consider the potential challenges facing the global economy and growing security concerns. Here are four potential challenges that China must handle with great patience and skill:

The first challenge will be the tensions over the South China Sea, which still remain strong. In particular, the arbitration case between the Philippines and China will receive lots of attention from the international community. The U.S. stepped in by releasing its own opinion paper, which challenged China’s nine-dash line claim. Also, Vietnam has reportedly submitted a request to the tribunal, thus complicating the situation even further. China’s worry, then, is that Vietnam and the Philippines will join forces in challenging China’s maritime rights, with the tacit support of the U.S. and even Japan. One piece of good news, however, might be that declining oil prices would make oil exploration in the South China Sea less profitable and thus reduce the likelihood of conflict between concerned countries in the short term.

A second potential headache — one that should not be underestimated — is the danger of a global economic slowdown or even crisis. Although the current low oil prices should benefit some economies, the global economic outlook in 2015 is far from a rosy one. TheEurozone’s growth rate is expected to be around 1 percent, thus continuing the trend of its gradual recovery (or the lack thereof) since 2009. Japan’s ‘Abenomics’ reforms have so far failed to increase domestic consumption, and analysts are now talking about what a possible fourth arrow would look like. America’s recovery seems to be doing better than the EU’s and Japan’s, but there are some worries such as stagnating incomes and the potential for deflation. In the meantime, China’s growth rate in 2015 will likely be between 6.5 percent and 7 percent, a low growth by Chinese standards but a very good one for an economy that is already the second largest one in the world. Still, China’s economy nowadays is deeply interconnected with the global economy; this means overseas problems could spread to China and cause economic and even social instability.

China, India and the Sri Lanka Elections

By Nitin A. Gokhale

January 05, 2015

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In less than a week, President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka will be facing the toughest political battle of his life as the country votes in the presidential elections on January 8. The Sinhala strongman, credited with ending a 30-year war against the separatist Tamil Tigers in 2009 was expected to have a cakewalk until one of his closest colleagues Maithripala Sirisena walked out of the ruling combine and mounted a credible challenge after the fragmented opposition rallied around him.

The outcome of the polls will be watched keenly in at least two foreign capitals – New Delhi and Beijing – since both have large stakes in the island nation. While India’s strategic interests in Sri Lanka are vital, it also has cultural and religious ties with the Sri Lankan society going back centuries. China, a relatively new presence on the island, on the other hand, has made large strategic and commercial investments in Sri Lanka over the last decade, thanks to a decidedly pro-China policy adopted by Rajapaksa.

As the contest between Sirisena and Rajpaksa tightens with each day, there must be some worried folks back in Beijing. The Chinese presence in vital sectors of Sri Lanka is huge, and the opposition, led by Sirisena and backed by former President Chandrika Kumaratunga and former Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe, is not exactly well-disposed towards Beijing.

Consider this: Between 2005 and 2012, China provided $4.8 billion as assistance to Sri Lanka. Of this only 2 percent has been in the form of outright grants; the remaining 98 percent took the form of soft loans. By contrast, a third of India’s 1.6 billion dollars in assistance to the island comprises outright grants.

There’s more. In the last two years (2012-14), China has committed in excess of 2.18 billion dollars, again mostly in the form of long-term loans. Most of these funds are destined for priority sectors like roads, expressways, ports, airports, power, irrigation, water supply and railways.

Rajapaksa’s supporters contend that all these projects are commercial ventures and Sri Lanka had no option but to depend on Chinese loans, given that the West has largely kept away, citing alleged human rights violations during the final phases of Eelam War IV. The argument is only partially true. The Chinese have cleverly played on Colombo’s fears of isolation and granted concessional loans. Critics of the Rajapaksa regime fear that the Sri Lankan government will be unable to repay such large loans in time, giving the Chinese an opportunity to turn part of the loan into equity, making them part owners of vital projects and installations.

The most glaring example cited by opponents of the Rajapaksas is the Hambantota Port Development Project. For the first phase, the Chinese provided almost 85 per cent of the total cost of $307 million. The second stage (signed in September 2012) will cost $810 million.

The interesting part is that the supply-operate-transfer agreement signed during Chinese President Xi Jingping’s September 2014 visit includes a 35-year lease of four out of seven container berths to a Chinese company. It is pertinent to note that the Hambantota project is just a few nautical miles from one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, with more than 4,000 oil tankers passing by each year.

LOCAL FLAVOR: WHAT ASIA’S HEDGING TREND TELLS US ABOUT ASIA, AND STRATEGY

Van Jackson

January 5, 2015

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When modern scholars and strategists discuss trends as a hook to some larger observation or policy argument, they typically do so with an eye to trends at the global level — the global diffusion of power, rise of non-state actors, urbanization, and climate change are typical examples. To the extent that regional trends are considered, they come in the form of how global trends particularize in a regional context, or of how localized phenomena constitute part of a global phenomenon. Often overlooked are organic trends occurring specifically at the regional or local level. A crucial basis for strategy inheres not simply in pattern recognition, but in separating strong or meaningful patterns from weak or irrelevant ones.

In a recent academic article, and in the most recent volume of the National Bureau of Asian Research’s Strategic Asia series, I argued that an important regional pattern has emerged in Asian international relations: a trend of strategic hedging. Increasingly, Asian governments are being driven to pursue hedging strategies in their approaches to foreign policy — by which I mean avoiding any new long-term security commitments while pursuing policies that, by design, do not reflect logically consistent geopolitical alignments.

There are multiple ways of explaining this trend. One is ambiguity about the prospect of a power transition between the United States and China. Another is a return to multipolarity in the neorealist sense — the so-called “rise of the rest.” The third is sheer issue complexity in the modern world, which makes it hard for states to make geopolitically consequential decisions that reflect consistent loyalties with international allies and partners. To put it another way, Asian policy elites make foreign policy decisions about issues infused with sometimes contradictory incentives — like when an economic logic pulls in China’s direction while a security logic may pull in the direction of the United States.

In fairness, I am not the first scholar to point out the rise of strategic hedging in Asia (examples here, here, and here). My contribution was to inquire about why, and what that explanation suggests for American strategy in Asia. There are two reasons why this pattern of strategic hedging matters.

First, if we are to deal with the world as it is, rather than as we would have it be, it makes sense to start with the most compelling observations we can find. In Asia, the strategic hedging trend is one such observation; one can debate why it is happening or how long it may endure, but there is little arguing against what everyone can see for themselves. For this reason, it needs to serve as a key assumption, or framing factor, in the development of Asia strategy — which does not seem to be the case today. Various statements from U.S. policymakers about the rebalance seem to account for the possibility of conflict and intra-regional shifts in power. But there is little evidence to suggest that the Obama administration has recognized the prevalence of hedging, whether by close allies or distant partners.

What Comes After the Islamic State Is Defeated?

JANUARY 6, 2015 

GOPAL.RATNAM 

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/06/what-comes-after-the-islamic-state-is-defeated/

Eleven years and billions of dollars later, American troops are once again in Iraq, after having withdrawn in 2011. This time, they better plan on staying for the long haul. 

BY GOPAL RATNAMGopal Ratnam is a senior staff writer at Foreign Policy, covering the White House, the Pentagon and broader national security issues. A native of India,Gopal has covered topics ranging from child-labor law violations and the automotive industry to the international arms trade, the politics of weapons purchases, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has reported from dozens of countries, including Iraq and Afghanistan. Most recently he was the Pentagon reporter for Bloomberg News. 

When American troops were about to invade Iraq in 2003 to dislodge Saddam Hussein from power, then-Maj. Gen. David Petraeus told a reporter: “Tell me how this ends.” Eleven years and hundreds of billions of dollars later, thousands of U.S. troops are once again in Iraq fighting a different foe. But the same question still resonates.

President Barack Obama’s withdrawal of American forces in 2011 after failing to win a security agreement with Iraq has already been undone by Obama ordering as many as 3,100 troops to help train the Iraqi military to take on the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. But even if U.S. and Iraqi forces defeat the militant group, preventing a disintegration of Iraq along sectarian and religious lines may require a long-term presence of U.S. forces, former American officials and defense analysts say.

“You cannot get the goal you want of a stable Iraq and a permanently defeated” Islamic State, “or a son of ISIS,” without a long-term American presence, said James Jeffrey, who served as U.S. ambassador to Iraq from 2010 to 2012. “Even if they’re promised the moon, only if we have a presence will the Kurds and Sunnis buy into a Baghdad that’s dominated by the Shiites and indirectly by Iran.”

Jeffrey said that moves to establish a peacekeeping or monitoring force should be led by the U.N. but backed by U.S. military power. That means a modest American force should plan on remaining in Iraq and eventually in Syria once the Islamic State is defeated, he said.

More than 2,000 American troops are helping retrain the Iraqi military to fight back against the Islamic State on the ground, even as U.S. drones and jet fighters have carried out hundreds of airstrikes, yielding some earlysuccesses by halting the militant group’s advances.

A major ground offensive against the militant group won’t be launched for several months. But experts say that in order to avoid a repeat of the American withdrawal in 2011, which allowed Iran to become a dominant power, thus marginalizing Sunnis and leading to the birth of the Islamic State, it’s time to plan for what comes after the militant group is defeated or sufficiently contained. One option gaining currency is an international force that can keep the region’s Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites at peace and prevent the breakup of Iraq along ethnic and religious lines.